Operation Crypto Runner Targets Networks Laundering Money Stolen from Fraud Victims via Cryptocurrency #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Bitcoin #FTX

According to unsealed court documents, 21 individuals have been charged for their roles in transnational money laundering networks, including those that laundered millions of dollars stolen from United States fraud victims through romance scams, business email compromises, technical support schemes, and other fraud schemes.

U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston of the Eastern District of Texas, William Smarr, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s (USSS) Dallas Field Office, and Inspector in Charge Thomas Noyes of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced Operation Crypto Runner, an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) investigation into transnational cryptocurrency money laundering networks that facilitate the movement of fraud proceeds from victims in the United States to foreign criminal organizations.

“These defendants orchestrated highly organized and sophisticated schemes to launder fraud proceeds through cryptocurrency,” said U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston. “Today’s announcement sends a clear message that money laundering networks that service fraud schemes targeting American victims, especially the elderly, will not be tolerated, and those operating such networks will be held accountable. By acting as domestic money launderers for foreign co-conspirators, these defendants played indispensable roles that allowed foreign actors to reach from overseas to target victims in communities across the United States.”

“Today’s announcement demonstrates the investigative capabilities of the Secret Service and highlights the success of our collaborative efforts through Operation Crypto Runner to dismantle and disrupt transnational money laundering networks,” said William Smarr, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dallas Field Office. “These arrests are just the beginning. We are committed to bringing each of the remaining perpetrators to justice.”

“These cases stem from a multi-year operation initiated in the Eastern District of Texas by Postal Inspectors and the Secret Service,” said Thomas Noyes, Inspector in Charge of the Postal Inspection Service’s Fort Worth Division. “Cybercrime has become an all-too-common way for foreign criminal actors to prey on Americans. Interagency cooperation is essential to be effective in disrupting organized crime. I commend the exceptional work of our law enforcement partners and emphasize our agency’s ongoing commitment to combatting fraud and money laundering schemes.”

To date, the Operation has disrupted more than $300 million in annual money laundering transactions, seized and forfeited millions in cash and cryptocurrency, and identified thousands of victims.

Some of the schemes alleged in the indictments include the following:

• U.S. v. Zenobia Walker, 6:20-CR-91-JCB/KNM (11/19/2020)
  Zenobia Walker, 65, of Temple Hills, Maryland, pleaded guilty on January 6, 2022, to conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business and was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison on November 2, 2022. Walker was involved in a scheme in which she received cash by mail, money orders, wire transfers, and cashier’s checks obtained from victims of romance scams and from victims of other fraud schemes. The funds were deposited into Walker’s personal bank accounts and withdrawn and deposited into other bank accounts in order to exchange the funds for cryptocurrency. Between December 2019 and September 2020, Walker exchanged $308,800.00 for cryptocurrency on behalf of her foreign co-conspirators.
  
  
• U.S. v. Tulasidas Konda, 6:20-CR-31-JDK/JDL (4/23/2021)
  Tulasidas Konda, 57, of Amelia Court House, Virginia, pleaded guilty on May 5, 2021, to conspiracy to commit money laundering. Konda led and organized a multi-year money laundering conspiracy involving the laundering of criminal proceeds derived from various scams. Konda’s organization opened bank accounts and mailboxes that were used to receive and transact victim funds, received the victim funds, engaged in subsequent financial transactions, routinely structured in amounts under $10,000 in an effort to evade reporting requirements and to conceal the nature and source of the criminal proceeds, and moved the criminal proceeds to foreign co-conspirators. Konda’s organization routinely exchanged the criminal proceeds for cryptocurrency and directed the cryptocurrency to wallets under the control of their foreign co-conspirators. In the course of the operation, Konda was personally responsible for laundering $4,172,061.58 in criminal proceeds.
  
  
• U.S. v. Deependra Bhusal, 6:21-CR-32-JDK/JDL (4/23/2021)
  Deependra Bhusal, 46, of Irving, Texas, pleaded guilty on April 30, 2021, to conspiracy to commit money laundering and was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison on April 6, 2022. Bhusal was a key member of the Konda Organization. In the course of the operation, Bhusal was personally responsible for laundering $1,437,358.99 in criminal proceeds.
  
  
• U.S. v. Lois Boyd, et al., 6:21-CR-43-JDK/KNM (6/16/2021)
  Lois Boyd, 76, of Amelia Court House, Virginia, pleaded guilty on June 14, 2022, to a violation of the Travel Act. Boyd, also a member of the Konda Organization, is alleged to have conspired with others to receive victim money derived from a variety of fraud schemes and launder the proceeds through cryptocurrency. Boyd routinely structured deposits in order to avoid transaction reporting requirements and to conceal the nature and source of the criminal proceeds. Boyd and others in the Konda Organization exchanged the criminal proceeds for cryptocurrency and directed the cryptocurrency to wallets under the control of their foreign co-conspirators. In August 2020, Boyd and others traveled to Longview, Texas, where they attempted to exchange more than $450,000 for Bitcoin.
  
  
• U.S. v. John Khuu, 6:22-CR-62-JCB/JDL (5/18/2022)
  John Khuu, 27, of San Francisco, California was named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury charging him in a money laundering conspiracy. According to the indictment, Khuu is alleged to have conspired with others to launder the proceeds of his drug trafficking organization through cryptocurrency. The defendant allegedly distributed counterfeit pharmaceutical pills and other controlled substances on dark web markets to customers across the United States. Customers paid for their purchases by transferring cryptocurrency, usually Bitcoin, from their dark web market customer accounts to one of Khuu’s vendor accounts. Khuu and his co-conspirators traded the Bitcoin for U.S. currency and laundered the proceeds through hundreds of transactions and dozens of financial accounts. During the course of the conspiracy, Khuu and his co-conspirators allegedly laundered more than $5,350,000.00. On August 17, 2022, Khuu was also charged by a federal grand jury in the Northern District of California in a two-count indictment charging him with unlawful importation of a controlled substance.
  
  
• U.S. v. Randall V. Rule, et al., 6:22-CR-64-JDK/KNM (5/18/2022)
  Randall V. Rule, 71, of Reno, Nevada, and Gregory C. Nysewander, 64, formerly of Irmo, South Carolina, were named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury charging them with money laundering conspiracy, money laundering, and a conspiracy to violate the Bank Secrecy Act. According to the indictment, Rule and Nysewander are alleged to have conspired with others to launder the proceeds of wire fraud and mail fraud schemes through cryptocurrency. The defendants converted funds from romance scams, business email compromises, and real estate scams, and other fraudulent schemes into cryptocurrency and sent the cryptocurrency to accounts controlled by foreign and domestic co-conspirators. The defendants and their co-conspirators made false representations and concealed material facts, in order to avoid discovery of the fraudulent nature of deposits, wires, and transfers, such as providing instructions to co-conspirators and victims to label wire transfers as “loan repayments” and “advertising.” The defendants also made false representations and concealed material facts when completing account opening documents and when communicating with financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges. During the course of the conspiracy, Rule, Nysewander, and their co-conspirators allegedly laundered more than $2.4 million. Rule and Nysewander are also charged with willfully violating the money services business requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act.
  
  
• U.S. v. Sharena Seay, 6:22-CR-110-JDK/JDL (8/17/2022)
  Sharena Seay, 37, of Jacksonville, Florida, was named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury charging her with money laundering. According to the indictment, Seay is alleged to have laundered the proceeds of her drug trafficking operations through cryptocurrency. The defendant allegedly supplied alpha-Pyrrolidinopentiophenone (alpha-PVP), which is often called “flakka,” and similar synthetic cathinones, such as Eutylone or alpha-PiHP. Seay distributed alpha-PVP and other controlled substances to various customers across the United States. Customers who purchased controlled substances from Seay paid for their purchases with cash. Seay laundered the cash proceeds through cryptocurrency in order to purchase more controlled substances on the dark web and to conceal her criminal activity. During the course of the conspiracy, Seay allegedly laundered more than $1.2 million.
  
  
• U.S. v. Fnu Ankush, et al., 6:22-CR-111-JCB/KNM (8/17/2022)
  Fnu Ankush, 35, of Fishers, Indiana, Jenisha Katuwal, 40, of Fishers, Indiana, Sukhwinder Sandhu, 44, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Inder Singh, 37, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Mukul Khanna, 37, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Satinder Singh, 36, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Ramneek Singh, 28, of Levittown, New York, Muninder Singh, 52, of Fairfax, Virginia, Sandeep Heir, 43, of Fresno, California, and Rachel Mullins, 36, of Jacksonville, Florida, were named in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury charging them in a wire and mail fraud conspiracy. According to the indictment, the defendants facilitated technical support schemes by creating a financial infrastructure in the United States that involved establishing shell companies with names intended to resemble names of legitimate companies. The defendants opened and controlled business bank accounts in the names of the shell companies in order to facilitate the computer tech scheme. The defendants also established websites for many of the shell companies in order to make the shell companies appear legitimate. Then, through false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and concealment of material facts, the defendants and their co-conspirators persuaded victims to deposit, wire, or transfer funds into designated bank accounts or to mail funds to designated addresses.

These efforts are part of Operation Crypto Runner, an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

In October 2017, the Elder Abuse Prevention and Prosecution Act (EAPPA) was signed into law. The EAPPA’s purpose is to increase the federal government’s focus on preventing elder abuse and exploitation. Subsequently, the Department of Justice launched the Elder Justice Initiative (EJI). Through the EJI, the Department has participated in hundreds of criminal and civil enforcement actions involving misconduct that targeted vulnerable seniors. The Department has conducted hundreds of trainings and outreach sessions across the country. The EJI website contains useful information, including educational resources about prevalent financial scams so you can guard against them.

In August 2020, the Eastern District of Texas announced its own initiative, in partnership with law enforcement and private financial institutions, to identify and prosecute transnational elder fraud. This EDTX initiative is designed to combat these criminal organizations, both foreign and domestic, as well their networks of associates and money mules who launder the stolen funds.

The investigations arising from the operation are being conducted by the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and are being led and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Nathaniel C. Kummerfeld and L. Frank Coan, Jr., with assistance from the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section and Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and the Department’s Office of International Affairs.

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Firearms Dealer Pleads Guilty to Supplying Guns from Georgia and Alabama to Multiple Gangs #FireArms #Georgia #Alabama #Gangs

Stephan Sanderson, also known as “Birdy” and “Beans, 24, of Covington, Georgia, pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Victor A. Bolden in Bridgeport to a firearms trafficking offense.

According to court documents and statements made in court, the FBI, ATF, DEA, U.S. Marshals Service and Bridgeport Police have been investigating multiple Bridgeport-based gangs whose members are involved in narcotics trafficking, murder and other acts of violence. From at least 2017 until his arrest on November 12, 2020, Sanderson, who formerly resided in Bridgeport, procured at least 25 firearms in Georgia and Alabama and distributed them to individuals he had reason to know would commit felonies with those firearms, including members of the “Greene Homes Boyz” (“GHB/Hotz”) and Original North End (“O.N.E.”) street gangs in Bridgeport. Some of the firearms he trafficked were capable of firing multiple bullets with the single pull of the trigger.

Sanderson pleaded guilty to one count of crossing state lines with the intent to engage in the unlicensed dealing of firearms, an offense that carries a maximum term of imprisonment of 10 years. A sentencing is not scheduled.

Sanderson has been detained since his arrest.

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The Year of Fear: Machine Gun Kelly and the Manhunt That Changed the Nation

It's 1933 and Prohibition has given rise to the American gangster--now infamous names like Bonnie and Clyde and John Dillinger. Bank robberies at gunpoint are commonplace and kidnapping for ransom is the scourge of a lawless nation. With local cops unauthorized to cross state lines in pursuit and no national police force, safety for kidnappers is just a short trip on back roads they know well from their bootlegging days.

Gangster George "Machine Gun" Kelly and his wife, Kathryn, are some of the most celebrated criminals of the Great Depression. With gin-running operations facing extinction and bank vaults with dwindling stores of cash, Kelly sets his sights on the easy-money racket of kidnapping. His target: rich oilman, Charles Urschel.

Enter J. Edgar Hoover, a desperate Justice Department bureaucrat who badly needs a successful prosecution to impress the new administration and save his job. Hoover's agents are given the sole authority to chase kidnappers across state lines and when Kelly bungles the snatch job, Hoover senses his big opportunity. What follows is a thrilling 20,000 mile chase over the back roads of Depression-era America, crossing 16 state lines, and generating headlines across America along the way--a historical mystery/thriller for the ages.

Joe Urschel's The Year of Fear is a thrilling true crime story of gangsters and lawmen and how an obscure federal bureaucrat used this now legendary kidnapping case to launch the FBI.

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8 Suspects Charged with Conspiracy for their Roles in Heroin, Fentanyl, and Crack Cocaine Scheme

Eight people were charged for their respective roles in a heroin, fentanyl, and crack cocaine distribution organization that sold large quantities of controlled substances in the area of Columbia Avenue and South Orange Avenue in Newark, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger announced.

Zacqual Lancaster, Maurice Lee, Felix Lesperance, Rodger Busby, Marcellus Allen, Jack Jean-Baptiste, Trevon Smith, and Natequah Polk, all of Newark, are each were charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute 100 grams or more of heroin, 40 grams or more of fentanyl, and 28 grams or more of crack cocaine. Seven of the defendants are in custody and are scheduled to have their initial appearances before U.S. Magistrate Judge André M. Espinosa in Newark federal court. Lancaster remains at large.

According to documents filed in this case and statements made in court:

Since January 2022, law enforcement conducted extensive surveillance of an open-air narcotics market in the area of Columbia Avenue and South Orange Avenue, conducted numerous controlled purchases of narcotics, and analyzed telephone records, all of which demonstrated the extensive interactions between and among the conspirators.

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American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper

Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great Depression, Cleveland had the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run.

On September 5th, 1934, a young beachcomber made a gruesome discovery on the shores of Cleveland’s Lake Erie: the lower half of a female torso, neatly severed at the waist. The victim, dubbed “The Lady of the Lake,” was only the first of a butcher’s dozen. Over the next four years, twelve more bodies would be scattered across the city. The bodies were dismembered with surgical precision and drained of blood. Some were beheaded while still alive.

Terror gripped the city. Amid the growing uproar, Cleveland’s besieged mayor turned to his newly-appointed director of public safety: Eliot Ness. Ness had come to Cleveland fresh from his headline-grabbing exploits in Chicago, where he and his band of “Untouchables” led the frontline assault on Al Capone’s bootlegging empire. Now he would confront a case that would redefine his storied career.

Award-winning author Daniel Stashower shines a fresh light on one of the most notorious puzzles in the annals of crime, and uncovers the gripping story of Ness’s hunt for a sadistic killer who was as brilliant as he was cool and composed, a mastermind who was able to hide in plain sight. American Demon: Eliot Ness and the Hunt for America's Jack the Ripper, reconstructs this ultimate battle of wits between a hero and a madman.

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Romance Novel Model Logan Barnhart Pleads Guilty to Assaulting Law Enforcement during the January 6th Capitol Insurrection by Dragging a Police Officer Down Steps into a Crazed Mob that Beat the Officer with Weapons

A Michigan man pleaded guilty today to assaulting law enforcement officers with a dangerous weapon during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. His actions and the actions of others disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress convened to ascertain and count the electoral votes related to the presidential election.

Logan James Barnhart, 41, of Holt, Michigan, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia.

According to court documents, on Jan. 6, 2021, Barnhart was part of a mob that confronted law enforcement officers at the Archway leading into the Capitol Building from the Lower West Terrace. During the violence, at approximately 4:27 p.m., another rioter - co-defendant Jack Wade Whitton - began striking at an officer with the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) with a crutch. As this was happening, Barnhart climbed over a banister and went up a set of steps leading to the Archway, towards the officer. Whitton grabbed the officer, first by his baton, then by the helmet and the neck of his ballistic vest. As he did this, Barnhart also grabbed the neck of the officer’s ballistic vest. He and Whitton, along with another rioter, then dragged the officer down the steps in a prone position and into the crowd, where other rioters beat the officer with weapons, including a flagpole and a baton. As a result of this attack, the officer sustained physical injuries, including bruising and abrasions.

Several minutes later, at approximately 4:32 p.m., Barnhart returned to the Archway, where other rioters were slamming riot shields into the line of police officers. Barnhart pushed other rioters from behind, supporting them and propelling them forward into the line of officers. He then approached the line of officers and struck at them with the base of a flagpole.

Barnhart was arrested in Lansing, Michigan on Aug. 17, 2021. He is to be sentenced on March 9, 2023. He faces a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison, as well as potential financial penalties. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Barnhart is among a group of defendants named in an indictment returned in the District of Columbia. Whitton, 32, of Locust Grove, Georgia, pleaded guilty on Sept. 13, 2022. Another defendant, Justin Jersey, 32, of Flint, Michigan, pleaded guilty on Sept. 7, 2022. Five others have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting further court proceedings.

In the 20 months since Jan. 6, 2021, more than 870 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the attack of the U.S. Capitol, including over 265 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The investigation remains ongoing.

Anyone with tips can call 1-800-CALL-FBI (800-225-5324) or visit tips.fbi.gov.

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How the Sinaloa and Jalisco Mexican Drug Cartels Came to Dominate America’s Fentanyl Supply

At a half-built house in a barrio, a longtime Sinaloa cartel employee used a shovel to mix chemicals in a simmering oil barrel.

His concoction was an illegal form of fentanyl, which Mexican criminal organizations are churning out at high volume in laboratories and smuggling across the border. In a six-day workweek, the cook said, he can make enough fentanyl for hundreds of thousands of doses.

With business savvy and growing power in Mexico, the Sinaloa and rival Jalisco cartels dominate the market for supplying fentanyl to the U.S. They cornered the market after China cracked down on fentanyl production several years ago and are now churning out bootleg versions of the highly potent synthetic opioid that, in its legal form, is used under prescription to treat severe pain.

Mexican Drug Cartels Dominate US Fentanyl Supply

Fentanyl’s inexpensive, easy-to-replicate formula has boosted its appeal to criminal networks. It is also fueling an overdose crisis that claimed more than 108,000 lives in the U.S. last year, a record.

“If it were an athlete, people would call it ‘The G.O.A.T.,’ ” said Jim Crotty, who served as deputy chief of staff at the Drug Enforcement Administration from 2019 to 2021. “It is in fact the most pernicious, the most devastating drug that we have ever seen.”

Like a factory worker at a multinational corporation, the 25-year-old fentanyl cook is part of a globe-spanning production line manufacturing the cartels’ highly profitable export. These crude labs—it is unknown how many there are—can be set up inexpensively and quickly, torn down and moved or abandoned to evade security forces.

The cook said he makes up to $2,500 a week running his one-man lab, where he dons a hazmat suit, dark glasses and a black cloth mask. If he gets queasy, he said, he drinks milk. Jugs line the roughly 10-by-10 foot lab, including one containing a clear liquid marked “Pure Acetone.” Others are marked “Fentanyl XXX,” and “Chinese Chemical.”

The two cartels are named for their respective strongholds in states on Mexico’s Pacific Coast. Sinaloa is a decades-old criminal organization deeply embedded in the economy, politics and culture of Mexico’s wild northwest, analysts and officials said. Jalisco, farther south, is a relative upstart, and has violently challenged Sinaloa for market share.

Fentanyl production is simpler than heroin, because it is entirely synthetic and doesn’t require cultivating the poppies needed for heroin. Busts of Mexican labs or large seizures at the border can be quickly offset by new batches without having to wait to harvest crops or pay farmers.

It is also less expensive to make. The plant-based opium needed to produce a kilogram of heroin can cost producers about $6,000, while the precursor chemicals to make a kilogram of fentanyl cost $200 or less, according to Bryce Pardo, associate director of the Rand Corp.’s Drug Policy Research Center, who helped lead a recent bipartisan report on synthetic opioids.

“Synthetic opioids offer economic and tactical advantages that allow criminals to vastly outpace enforcement efforts,” the report said. Illegal drug exports to the U.S. from Mexico are worth tens of billions of dollars annually, it estimates, with fentanyl a growing share of the business.

Heroin’s profile has been shrinking as fentanyl becomes more available. Some Mexican poppy farmers in the mountains of Sinaloa say they have lost income as cartels shift away from heroin, and have abandoned their fields.

The Sinaloa cartel is the market leader, said Renato Sales, Mexico’s former security chief. U.S. and Mexican officials likened it to how a company works, manufacturing and marketing an array of illegal drugs and cultivating links to suppliers in dozens of countries in Latin America, Europe and Asia. The cartel is believed to have different units handling jobs such as security, money laundering, transportation, production and the bribing of public officials.

The cartel dominates the economy and life of Culiacán, a semitropical city of luxury cars, gated neighborhoods and barrios. The downtown includes a shrine to Jesús Malverde, a bandit whom many of Sinaloa’s drug traffickers have adopted as a popular saint. A cemetery housing air-conditioned tombs three stories tall is a hallowed resting place for prominent drug lords, and their not-so prominent hit men, some of whose plots are bought in bulk by their bosses.

At the city’s airport gift shop, visitors can buy baseball caps emblazoned with the number 701, a reference to the ranking in the 2009 Forbes list of richest people of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the drug lord and Sinaloa native son serving a life sentence in a supermax prison in Colorado.

The U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego in June said 26 people were indicted following a two-year investigation into what law-enforcement officials described as a sprawling operation extending from Sinaloa. Drugs seized included methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin and nearly 500,000 fake pills laced with fentanyl, investigators said. The DEA identified alleged couriers, stash-house managers and people who smuggled proceeds back to Mexico.

A separate DEA operation in 2020 led to the arrest of more than 600 alleged Jalisco cartel members in the U.S. That cartel is Mexico’s fastest-growing and most violent. It is fighting with Sinaloa for control of seaports where fentanyl’s chemical ingredients arrive from China as well as routes through the country and border crossings into the U.S.

Illegal fentanyl production has flared in the past. A 2005 fentanyl surge in parts of the U.S., including the Midwest, led authorities to a single illegal lab in the city of Toluca, near Mexico City. Shutting it down helped stem the problem for a time.

Fentanyl metastasized into a broader crisis in the 2010s, as drugs flowed from China, sometimes through Mexico, and the cartels ramped up their own production. The eastern half of the U.S. was particularly hard-hit as powdered fentanyl was mixed into the heroin supply, sometimes catching users off guard and leading to an increase in fatal overdoses.

In May 2019, under pressure from the U.S., China put fentanyl-related drugs under a controlled regulatory regime. The next year, seizures of fentanyl from China in the U.S. dropped sharply, according to a Government Accountability Office report.

“As we all know, China is not a democracy,” said Jim Carroll, U.S. drug czar under former President Donald Trump. “They can take very quick adverse action against these producers.” Chinese chemical manufacturers continue to sell the ingredients for fentanyl, many of which have a range of legitimate uses.

Mexican cartels were primed to take advantage. They already had established trafficking networks built around drugs like cocaine, marijuana and heroin, said Uttam Dhillon, who served as acting DEA administrator under Mr. Trump. And they had relationships with Chinese chemical makers, and expertise running drugmaking labs, through their production of methamphetamine, another synthetic drug they are sending to the U.S., Mr. Dhillon said.

The DEA said the cartels are pushing their synthetic wares into more parts of the U.S. Methamphetamine is more present in some eastern states where that drug was once rare. And fentanyl is growing in the West. Its potency and the lack of quality control in the black market make it easy to cause overdoses—including when users don’t know that fentanyl is laced into or simply sold as other drugs.

The drug often arrives in the form of fake tablets made to look like prescription drugs, including pain pills, law-enforcement authorities said. The DEA believes these dupes—often stamped to look like real 30 milligram oxycodone pills—are aimed at driving prescription drug users toward an illicit, cartel-made product.

The cartels “don’t just fill a void, they create a market,” Mr. Dhillon said.

The pills are so ubiquitous that they have been falling in price, creating pressure on the cartels to roll out new products, according to a 27-year-old fentanyl producer who runs a clandestine lab in Culiacán. He said he and a partner are experimenting with a new version meant to be 30% more potent than the typical fake oxycodone tablets, known as M30s.

The new pills, colored pink, yellow and green, have the shape of a skull, an iconic Mexican folkloric image, and don’t try to mimic real medication. They are also made with butter flavoring so that, when melted on foil with a flame, the pills leave a golden trail and smell like caramel popcorn, telltale signs of quality, said the producer.

He said he has made as many as one million pills in a week. Another worker in his lab had to periodically stop one of their machines—a $4,000, Chinese-made pill press—to clear jams as it ran on a recent, humid day.

“The M30 is not working very well. Everybody is making them,” the producer said. The new pill, he said, “will generate a lot of demand.”

Fentanyl market dynamics have proven hard to disrupt. One problem is that many of the precursor chemicals made in China are also used in legitimate pharmaceuticals. Even when some are controlled, fentanyl makers can pick different inputs among an array of available chemicals, the recent U.S. bipartisan report said.

Take the chemical 4-piperidone, which is a common fentanyl component that is also used for legitimate pharmaceutical research.

Some 160,000 companies in China produce chemicals used in drug assembly in batches as small as tens of metric tons, the State Department estimated in early 2021, although estimates vary widely.

Rahul Gupta, director of the Biden White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said the U.S. is asking China to enforce proper labeling of chemical shipments and to agree on which regulated chemicals can be used to make fentanyl so they can be tracked.

A 2021 report from two researchers at the Institute of Criminal Investigation of People’s Public Security University of China, the country’s highest police academy, pointed to weak training and unclear lines of command within China’s drug enforcement divisions. The researchers said those inspecting chemical plants often don’t have the means or know-how to identify fentanyl precursor chemicals.

The U.S. wants China to apply what are known as “know your customer procedures” to chemical makers so that manufacturers are accountable for where their products go, Dr. Gupta said.

China disputes the U.S. characterization of China’s role in the illicit fentanyl supply chain. A statement from the Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C., touted China’s efforts to control drug precursors and said it was untrue that these chemicals undergird the U.S. fentanyl problem. “The U.S. has itself to blame for the root cause of fentanyl abuse in the country,” it said.

A stiffer Chinese crackdown on precursors might not disrupt the market or slow the cartels because they could buy chemicals from other countries, including India. “There’s lots of places these same chemicals can come from,” said Rep. David Trone (D., Md.), who co-chairs a federal commission on synthetic opioid trafficking, which is behind this year’s bipartisan report, during a recent conference.

To try to stop fentanyl precursors from entering Mexico from Asia, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador put the country’s ports and its largest airport in Mexico City under the control of the Mexican navy.

The navy said in June it had seized around 320 tons of illicit-drug chemicals in the past six months. Mexican authorities have also destroyed about 1,000 labs, 90% of them in Sinaloa producing synthetic drugs, mostly methamphetamine, in the 3½ years since Mr. López Obrador took office, a senior Mexican navy officer said.

Since 2017, Mexico has dismantled some 22 fentanyl production sites, said Oscar Santiago Quintos, head of the criminal intelligence agency of the attorney general’s office. In a bust in July, Mexican soldiers captured 543 kilos of what they said was fentanyl, the single largest seizure in Mexican history.

U.S. seizures last year included 20.4 million fake pills, according to the DEA. Fentanyl and other drugs are often ferried across the southern border hidden in secret compartments of vehicles.

U.S. officials and analysts in both countries have criticized Mr. López Obrador for failing to curb the cartels’ growing power. The Mexican president has said he is focused on what he calls the economic roots of Mexico’s lawlessness and violence, rather than dismantling the cartels.

Cross-border cooperation over security matters has been strained since U.S. agents arrested a former Mexican defense minister on drug conspiracy charges in 2020. The U.S. dropped charges after Mexico threatened to curtail cooperation. Mexico passed legislation that U.S. officials said made it harder to work with their Mexican counterparts.

The Sinaloa cartel was forged from close-knit families in the mountains near Culiacán, who for generations grew marijuana and the opium poppies that provided the base for heroin. Alliances with Colombian cartels in the 1980s ramped up Sinaloa’s control of the flow of cocaine on routes to the U.S. In Culiacán, the cartel runs what amounts to a shadow government in a company town.

The fentanyl cook started with the cartel as a 14-year-old lookout. He measured by eye while cooking the fentanyl, holding two fingers against a bottle marked “chlorine” before pouring some into the oil-barrel mix. “We have our own formula,” he said. His efforts yielded a grayish-white, dough-like paste, which would be dried in the sun and packed as kilograms of powder for shipment across the border.

As he worked, an associate whispered that a car was coming to pick up cargo from the next room. Wrapped in plastic, the 16 kilograms, which represent about three days work, were marked with different codes—X30, Coco, PO8—identifying buyers. Each kilo could potentially yield tens of thousands of doses. “They are leaving tonight for the U.S.,” he said.

Thanks to Jon Kamp, José de Córdoba, and Julie Wernau.

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Full Details of the Plot by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) to Murder Former National Security Advisor John Bolton

An Iranian national and member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was charged by complaint, unsealed in the District of Columbia, with use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire and with providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot.

According to court documents, beginning in October 2021, Shahram Poursafi, aka Mehdi Rezayi, 45, of Tehran, Iran, attempted to arrange the murder of former National Security Advisor John Bolton, likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qasem Soleimani. Poursafi, working on behalf of the IRGC-QF, attempted to pay individuals in the United States $300,000 to carry out the murder in Washington, D.C. or Maryland.

“The Justice Department has the solemn duty to defend our citizens from hostile governments who seek to hurt or kill them,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “This is not the first time we have uncovered Iranian plots to exact revenge against individuals on U.S. soil and we will work tirelessly to expose and disrupt every one of these efforts.”

“Iran has a history of plotting to assassinate individuals in the U.S. it deems a threat, but the U.S. Government has a longer history of holding accountable those who threaten the safety of our citizens,” said Executive Assistant Director Larissa L. Knapp of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “Let there be no doubt: The FBI, the U.S. government, and our partners remain vigilant in the fight against such threats here in the U.S. and overseas.”

“Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, through the Defendant, tried to hatch a brazen plot: assassinate a former U.S. official on U.S. soil in retaliation for U.S. actions,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “Iran and other hostile governments should understand that the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners will do everything in our power to thwart their violent plots and bring those responsible to justice.”

“An attempted assassination of a former U.S. Government official on U.S. soil is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono of the FBI Washington Field Office. “The FBI will continue to identify and disrupt any efforts by Iran or any hostile government seeking to bring harm or death to U.S. persons at home or abroad. This should serve as a warning to any others attempting to do the same – the FBI will be relentless in our efforts to identify, stop, and bring to justice those who would threaten our people and violate our laws.”

According to court documents: 

• On Oct. 22, 2021, Poursafi asked Individual A, a U.S. resident whom Poursafi previously met online, to take photographs of the former National Security Advisor, claiming the photographs were for a book Poursafi was writing. Individual A told Poursafi that he/she could introduce Poursafi to another person who would take the pictures for $5,000-$10,000. Individual A later introduced Poursafi to an associate (referred to in court documents as the confidential human source or CHS).

• On Nov. 9, 2021, Poursafi contacted the CHS on an encrypted messaging application, and then directed the CHS to a second encrypted messaging application for further communications. Poursafi offered the CHS $250,000 to hire someone to “eliminate” the former National Security Advisor. This amount would later be negotiated up to $300,000. Poursafi added that he had an additional “job,” for which he would pay $1 million. Poursafi directed the CHS to open a cryptocurrency account to facilitate payment, but stipulated that the CHS would likely have to carry out the murder before he/she could be paid. He further explained to the CHS that if he/she was paid and the murder was not completed, Poursafi’s “group” would be angry. A later search of one of Poursafi’s online accounts revealed pictures of Poursafi wearing a uniform with an IRGC patch. During their communications, the CHS made several references to Poursafi being associated with IRGC-QF. Poursafi never denied his involvement with IRGC-QF.
  
  
• On Nov. 14, 2021, the CHS asked Poursafi for help locating the former National Security Advisor. Poursafi subsequently provided the CHS with the target’s work address in Washington, D.C. According to results from the search of one of Poursafi’s online accounts, on Nov. 25, 2021, Poursafi took screenshots of a map application showing a street view of the former National Security Advisor’s office. One screenshot noted that the address was “10,162 km away,” which is the approximate distance between Washington, D.C. and Tehran, Iran.
  
  
• On Nov. 19, 2021, Poursafi told the CHS that it did not matter how the murder was carried out, but his “group” would require video confirmation of the target’s death. The CHS asked Poursafi what would happen if the killing was attributed to Iran. Poursafi told the CHS not to worry and that Poursafi’s “group” would take care of it. Poursafi also advised the CHS to communicate about the plot in construction and building terms. For example, when the CHS asked Poursafi to specify how the murder was to be carried out, Poursafi told the CHS that he only asked the CHS to build a structure, but the method of construction was up to the CHS.
  
  
• On Dec. 22, 2021, Poursafi sent the CHS a photograph of two plastic bags, each of which appeared to contain bound stacks of U.S. currency and a handwritten note beneath them that said, “[CHS’s name] 22.12.2021”.
  
  
• On Dec. 29, 2021, Poursafi asked the CHS when the murder would be carried out and informed the CHS that his “group” wanted it done quickly.
  
  
• On Jan. 3, 2022, Poursafi noted he was under pressure from “his people” to complete the murder and that Poursafi had to report any delays. The CHS asked Poursafi how many people were involved. Poursafi told the CHS that he only had to report to one person, but that there was a chain of command to whom his superior reported. That same day, Poursafi expressed regret that the murder would not be conducted by the anniversary of Qasem Soleimani’s death. He stated he was concerned that if it was not carried out soon, the job would be taken from Poursafi and the CHS. Poursafi counseled the CHS that if he/she used a “small weapon,” he/she would have to get close to the target, but if he/she used a “larger weapon,” he/she could stay farther away.
  
  
• On Jan. 18, 2022, the CHS sent Poursafi publicly available information that suggested the former National Security Advisor might be travelling out of the Washington, D.C., area during the time Poursafi indicated he would like the CHS to carry out the murder. Poursafi told the CHS that he needed to “check something.” Within an hour, he told the CHS that the target was, in fact, not travelling. He then provided the CHS with specifics regarding the former National Security Advisor’s schedule that do not appear to have been publicly available.
  
  
• On Jan. 21, 2022, Poursafi told the CHS that after successful completion of the first “job,” he had a second “job” for the CHS and informed the CHS that surveillance of the second target was complete. Poursafi said the information was gathered “from the United States,” not “via Google,” indicating someone working on behalf of the IRGC-QF had already conducted pre-operational surveillance on the second target in the United States.
  
  
• On Feb. 1, 2022, Poursafi told the CHS that if he/she did not eliminate the target within two weeks, the job would be taken from the CHS. He also informed the CHS that someone checked the area around the former National Security Advisor’s home, and he believed there was not a security presence, so the CHS should be able to “finish the job.”
  
  
• On March 10, 2022, Poursafi told the CHS he had another assassination job for the CHS in the United States, but to “keep [the former National Security Advisor] in the back of your mind.” Approximately one month later, Poursafi encouraged the CHS to accept this offer, explaining that if it was done successfully, Poursafi would be able to ingratiate himself with his “group” and regain the tasking to murder the former National Security Advisor.
  
  
• On April 28, 2022, the CHS told Poursafi that he/she would not continue to work without being paid. Poursafi agreed to send the CHS $100 in cryptocurrency to a virtual wallet the CHS created earlier that day, to prove payment could be made. Later that day, the cryptocurrency wallet received two payments totaling $100.

If convicted, Poursafi faces up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder-for-hire, and up to 15 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot. Poursafi remains at large abroad.

The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir by John Bolton.

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DEADLY ASSOCIATES: A True Story of Murder, Survival, and Bringing Down the Chicago Mob

The book behind the 'DEADLY ASSOCIATES' docu-series on REELZChannel™!

Step into Chicago during the 1960s and ‘70s, where mobsters influence everyone from strip-club owners to Teamsters, aldermen, judges, and local police. It is a world where good men are corrupted by the irresistible lure of money and power, and families are shattered by lies, violence, and tragedy.

Danny Seifert, a street-smart and ambitious young man, follows his father’s example in his efforts to provide a good, comfortable life for his wife and children. Soon, however, his path leads him toward the dark heart of the Mob. His career choices eventually bring him to a point where he must choose between loyalty to the Mob and probable prison time, or coming clean to the FBI, testifying against Mob leaders and risking retaliation to himself and his family. He chooses the latter, which ultimately leads to his murder and decades of living in fear for his widow, Emma, and their children.

As they grow into men, Danny’s sons, Joe and Nick, take it upon themselves to find the man responsible for their father’s death and make him pay. In seeking retribution for Danny, will they also succumb to lives of crime, or will they follow the high road of law and justice all the way to the Family Secrets trial in 2007, one of the largest Mob trials in history?

Find out in DEADLY ASSOCIATES: A True Story of Murder, Survival, and Bringing Down the Chicago Mob, a meticulously researched and poignantly personal story of one family’s life inside and outside the Chicago Mob.

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Rumrunning in Suffolk County: Tales from Liquor Island #LongIsland #Books

Nicknamed "Liquor Island," Long Island was rumrunner's paradise during Prohibition.

Rumrunning in Suffolk County: Tales from Liquor Island.

With its proximity to major markets and coastal communities for easy transit, Suffolk County was awash in illegal hooch. Smugglers bringing cases of booze from offshore often secretly hid product temporarily in local garages and sheds, leaving a bottle as a thank-you.

Coded communication crisscrossed the county on shortwave radios arranging sales and logistics. Violence from criminal outfits disrupted previously quiet towns, as locals too often were swept up in dangerous unintentional engagements with bootleggers.

Pour one out and join author Amy Kasuga Folk as she recounts stories from Suffolk County's Prohibition era

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Details of Guilty Plea by Michael Stollery, CEO of TBIS, for Cryptocurrency Fraud #Crypto #Cryptocurrency #Cyber

The CEO of Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services Inc. (TBIS) pleaded guilty in the Central District of California for his role in a cryptocurrency fraud scheme involving TBIS’s initial coin offering (ICO) that raised approximately $21 million from investors in the United States and overseas.

Titanium Blockchain Infrastructure Services

According to court documents, Michael Alan Stollery, 54, of Reseda, California, was the CEO and founder of TBIS, a purported cryptocurrency investment platform, and touted TBIS as a cryptocurrency investment opportunity, luring investors to purchase “BARs,” the cryptocurrency token or coin offered by TBIS’s ICO, through a series of false and misleading statements. Although he was required to do so, Stollery did not register the ICO regarding TBIS’s cryptocurrency investment offering with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), nor did he have a valid exemption from the SEC’s registration requirements.

Stollery admitted that, to entice investors, he falsified aspects of TBIS’s white papers, which purportedly offered investors and prospective investors an explanation of the cryptocurrency investment offering, including the purpose and technology behind the offering, how the offering was different from other cryptocurrency opportunities, and the prospects for the offering’s profitability. Stollery also planted fake client testimonials on TBIS’s website and falsely claimed that he had business relationships with the Federal Reserve and dozens of prominent companies to create the false appearance of legitimacy. Stollery further admitted that he did not use the invested money as promised but instead commingled the ICO investors’ funds with his personal funds, using at least a portion of the offering proceeds for expenses unrelated to TBIS, such as credit card payments and the payment of bills for Stollery’s Hawaii condominium.

Stollery pleaded guilty to one count of securities fraud. He is scheduled to be sentenced on November 18 and faces up to 20 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

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Court Upholds Convictions of Nicky Scarfo Jr, Reputed Lucchese Crime Family Member, and Associate Salvatore Pelullo #Racketeering #Conspiracy #Fraud #MoneyLaundering

A member and associate of the Lucchese organized crime family, along with two Texas brothers, have had their convictions upheld for a criminal takeover that drained over $14 million from a Dallas mortgage firm in less than a year. The four claimed what they did was just "normal, run-of-the-mill" business practices, but it was more like typical Mafia practices.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced Nicodemo S. Scarfo, 57,

Nicky Scarfo Jr.

of Galloway, N.J., a member of the Lucchese organized crime family of La Cosa Nostra (LCN), and Salvatore Pelullo, 55, of Philadelphia, an associate of the Lucchese and Philadelphia LCN families, were convicted on July 13, 2014, of all counts against them. Two other defendants, William Maxwell, 63, of Houston, Texas, and his brother, John Maxwell, 70, of Irving, Texas, were also convicted.

The four defendants were convicted for their respective roles in the takeover and subsequent looting of FirstPlus Financial Group, a publicly held mortgage company based in Dallas. The defendants used extortionate threats to take control of the company, causing a loss of more than $14 million and leaving more than 1,000 shareholders with investments that had been rendered worthless. Scarfo and Pelullo were each sentenced to 30 years in prison; William Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison; and John Maxwell was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Originally, the four men, according to court filings, sought to legitimately invest in the company. There was just one problem. They didn’t have the money to do so.

Enter Jack Draper, a high-ranking employee at FirstPlus who had been fired. Draper had griped about his firing to Jack Roubinek — the two having become acquainted while employed at FirstPlus — and to William Maxwell. Roubinek was trying to put a group together to purchase FirstPlus.

Those three were joined by David Roberts, a mortgage broker from Staten Island, and Pelullo for a meeting in Dallas, where Draper, “bearing a grudge,” told the group he was willing to “divulge all” and falsely accuse the FirstPlus board and CEO Daniel Phillips of financial and personal improprieties (including a purported sexual assault and impregnation of a personal assistant who was paid off with company funds).

The threats had their intended effect. The appeals court decision said Phillips met with William Maxwell and Pelullo, who indicated the allegations would be dropped if Phillips and the FirstPlus board handed the business over to them.

“Evidently, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse,” the decision author quipped. “Phillips swiftly persuaded the entire board to give up their positions rather than try to engage in what would be a messy and expensive fight with Pelullo’s group.”

The four partners in crime then set about installing associates into key positions as executives and board members. FirstPlus was then used to buy companies tied to Pelullo and hire other companies as consultants for exorbitant fees. The appeals said the four viewed FirstPlus as their own personal retirement fund, but quickly blew through over $14 million.

The quartet’s greed came to light when Scarfo attempted to take over the Philadelphia branch of the Lucchese crime family. The FBI stumbled upon the FirstPlus scheme and seized the four men’s assets (including a yacht, Bentley, and private plane) in May 2008. They would be indicted in October 2011 and convicted in July 2014.

Scarfo’s, Pelullo’s, and William Maxwell’s defenses hinged on the proposition that they had simply been engaged in standard, run-of-the-mill business practices. John Maxwell, for his part, claimed he had been in the dark as to the others’ malfeasance, the appeals court decision said.

The government rebutted those narratives, telling jurors: “Is this how legitimate businessmen conduct themselves? The answer to that is overwhelmingly no. Legitimate businessmen don’t lie, they don’t cheat, they don’t steal.”

In a consolidated appeal, the defendants challenged almost every aspect of their prosecutions, including the investigation, the charges and evidence against them, the pretrial process, the government’s compliance with its disclosure obligations, the trial, the forfeiture proceedings, and their sentences.

The appellate court decision, written by Circuit Judge Kent A. Jordan and joined by Circuit Judges Thomas L. Ambro and Stephanos Bibas, affirmed the jury’s guilty verdicts on all of the underlying crimes, including participating in a Racketeering Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) conspiracy, conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and firearms offenses. It also affirmed the prison sentences.

Thanks to Keith Griffin.

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Tremayne Thompson of the Four Corner Hustlers Chicago Street Gang Sentenced to 35 Years in Federal Prison for Racketeering Conspiracy #WestSide #Chicago

A member of a violent Chicago street gang has been sentenced to more than 35 years in federal prison for engaging in a pattern of racketeering activity that included multiple murders, armed robberies, drug trafficking, and extortion.

Tremayne Thompson, 38, of Chicago, pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy charge. Thompson admitted in a plea agreement that he conspired with leadership of the Four Corner Hustlers street gang to engage in a pattern of racketeering activity that included using violence and intimidation to protect the gang’s drug dealing activities, primarily on the West Side of Chicago. Thompson admitted participating in the April 2003 murders of George King and Willie Woods. Thompson stated in his plea agreement that he shot the victims after receiving instructions to do so from a leader of the Four Corner Hustlers. In addition to the murders, Thompson sold heroin and crack cocaine and committed multiple armed robberies to further the gang’s interests.

U.S. District Judge Thomas M. Durkin imposed the 427-month prison sentence after a hearing on July 6, 2022, in federal court in Chicago.

The sentence was announced by John R. Lausch, Jr., United States Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois; Emmerson Buie, Jr., Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Office of the FBI; Kristen de Tineo, Special Agent-in-Charge of the Chicago Field Division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; and David Brown, Superintendent of the Chicago Police Department.

The investigation was led by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF). OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles drug traffickers, money launderers, and other criminal offenders that threaten the United States by using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach that leverages the strengths of federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies against criminal networks. Substantial assistance was provided by the Chicago FBI’s Safe Street Task Force, the Chicago High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Task Force (HIDTA), ATF’s Chicago Crime Gun Strike Force, and the Chicago Police Gang Investigations Division. Additional assistance was provided by the Illinois Secretary of State Police Department, U.S. Bureau of Prisons, Illinois Department of Corrections, and Illinois State Police.

“For nearly two decades, Tremayne Thompson terrorized the West Wide of Chicago as a member and enforcer for the Four Corner Hustlers street gang,” Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kavitha J. Babu and William Dunne argued in the government’s sentencing memorandum. “The defendant, along with other members of the gang, peddled heroin and crack cocaine, robbed people at gunpoint, extorted others, and murdered men as they stood on city sidewalks. Every year the defendant is incapacitated is a year that the people who live on the West Side of Chicago are safer.”

Thompson was indicted on the racketeering charge in 2017 along with eight other alleged members of the Four Corner Hustlers and two additional defendants. Seven co-defendants pleaded guilty and one went to trial and was convicted. Thompson is the fourth defendant to be sentenced.

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Organized Crime: A Cultural Introduction by Antonio Nicaso @AntonioNicaso and Marcel Danesi #OrganizedCrime

This book aims to describe and demystify what makes criminal gangs so culturally powerful. It examines their codes of conduct, initiation rites, secret communications methods, origin myths, symbols, and the like that imbue the gangsters with the pride and nonchalance that goes hand in hand with their criminal activities. Mobsters are everywhere in the movies, on television, and on websites. Contemporary societies are clearly fascinated by them. Why is this so? What feature and constituents of organized criminal gangs make them so emotionally powerful―to themselves and others? These are the questions that have guided the writing of this textbook, which is intended as an introduction to organized crime from the angle of cultural analysis. Key topics include:

• An historic overview of organized crime, including the social, economic, and cultural conditions that favour its development;
• A review of the type of people who make up organized gangs and the activities in which they engage;
• The symbols, rituals, codes and languages that characterize criminal institutions;
• The relationship between organized crime and cybercrime;
• The role of women in organized crime;
• Drugs and narco-terrorism;
• Media portrayals of organized crime.

Organized Crime: A Cultural Introduction, includes case studies and offers an accessible, interdisciplinary approach to the subject of organized crime. It is essential reading for students engaged with organized crime across criminology, sociology, anthropology and psychology.

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Florida Man is Among 3 Men Charged in $100 Million Cryptocurrency Fraud #Conspiracy #MoneyLaundering #Ponzi #Stuart

A federal grand jury indicted Emerson Pires, 33, and Flavio Goncalves, 33, both of Brazil, and Joshua David Nicholas, 28, of Stuart, Florida, in connection with a global cryptocurrency-based fraud that generated around $100 million in revenues from investors. The indictment charges all three defendants with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The indictment also charges Pires and Goncalves with conspiracy to commit international money laundering.

EmpiresX cryptocurrency charged as a reputed Ponzi Scheme

According to the indictment, Pires and Goncalves founded EmpiresX, a cryptocurrency investment platform and unregistered securities offering. Pires and Goncalves, along with Nicholas, the company’s so-called “Head Trader,” fraudulently promoted EmpiresX. They misled investors about, among other things, a purported proprietary trading “bot” that they claimed could generate guaranteed returns to investors in EmpiresX.

As alleged in the indictment, Pires and Goncalves then laundered investors’ funds through a foreign-based cryptocurrency exchange, and paid out early EmpiresX investors with money obtained from later investors in a Ponzi-style scheme.

Juan Antonio Gonzalez, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami Field Office, and Anthony Salisbury, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Miami Field Office, made the announcement.

“Our office is committed to protecting investors from sophisticated scammers seeking to capitalize on the relative novelty of digital currency,” said United States Attorney Gonzalez. “As with any emerging technology, those who invest in cryptocurrency must beware of profit-making opportunities that appear too good to be true.”

“The technology has changed, but the crime remains the same,” said George L. Piro, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Miami. “Unscrupulous fraudsters are nothing new to the investment world - what’s changing is they are now pushing their criminal activity into the cryptocurrency realm. Investors beware. Conduct your due diligence before investing. The FBI would like to commend Homeland Security Investigations for their close cooperation on this case.”

“This case should serve as a warning to any individuals who look to illegally capitalize on the perceived ambiguity of the crypto market to take advantage of innocent investors” said HSI Miami Special Agent in Charge Anthony Salisbury. “HSI will continue to work with our partners to pursue anyone who utilizes these types of schemes to victimize would be customers.”

FBI and HSI are investigating the case.

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Mexican Citizen Sentenced to Federal Prison for Acting as Russian Agent within the United States

Hector Alejandro Cabrera Fuentes, 36, a Mexican citizen who had resided in Singapore and spent significant time in Russia, was sentenced in the Southern District of Florida to four years and one day in prison for acting within the United States on behalf of a foreign government without notifying the Attorney General.

According to court documents, since 2019, Fuentes acted under the direction and control of someone he believed to be a Russian government official. Instructed by this Russian official, Fuentes arranged for an intermediary to lease a unit in a residential building in Miami-Dade County where a U.S. person, who had previously provided information about the Russian government to the U.S. government, resided.

Furthermore, at the direction of the same Russian official, Fuentes traveled to Miami in February 2020 to obtain the license plate number and parking location of the U.S. person’s car to provide to the Russian official upon his next trip to Russia.

Fuentes’s travel companion, at his request, took a photo of the U.S. person’s car. A WhatsApp message from Fuentes’s travel companion to Fuentes contained a close-up photograph of the specified U.S. person’s car. The manner in which Fuentes communicated with the Russian government official and his undertakings in this case are consistent with the tactics of the Russian intelligence services for spotting, assessing, recruiting and handling intelligence assets and sources.

Fuentes had not notified the U.S. Attorney General, as required by law, that he was acting in the United States as an agent of the Russian government.

Fuentes pleaded guilty in February 2022. U.S. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks for the Southern District of Florida imposed the sentence, which included an order that the defendant be removed from the United States to Mexico promptly upon his release from confinement.

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Criminology on Trump (Crimes of the Powerful) by @GreggBarak is Trending #1 in Government New Releases

Criminology on Trump, is a criminological investigation of the world's most successful outlaw, Donald J. Trump. Over the course of five decades, Donald Trump has been accused of sexual assault, tax evasion, money laundering, non-payment of employees, and the defrauding of tenants, customers, contractors, investors, bankers, and charities. Yet, he has continued to amass wealth and power. In this book, criminologist and social historian Gregg Barak asks why and how?

This book examines how the United States precariously maintains stability through conflict in which groups with competing interests and opposing visions struggle for power, negotiate rule breaking, and establish criminal justice. While primarily focused on Trump's developing character over three quarters of a century, it is also an inquiry into the changing cultural character and social structure of American society. It explores the ways in which both crime and crime control are socially constructed in relation to a changing political economy.

An accessible and compelling read, this book is essential for all those who seek a criminological understanding of Donald Trump's rise to power.

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Reputed Mafia Boss Bashkim Osmani Posts Bail #OperationCasino

Bashkim Osmani, the alleged mafia boss who was arrested in February this year, has been released from Palma prison having paid bail of 400,000 euros. On Tuesday, a court in Palma agreed to his release. His passport has been taken away and he must report to a court twice a month.

Bashkim Osmani

In February, there was a huge operation against money laundering and drugs trafficking. Operation Casino, which was centred on Mallorca, involved the Guardia Civil and National Police as well as a number of European police forces and the FBI.

Osmani's lawyer, Jaime Campaner, told the court that having had access to the file, which had remained secret for almost four years, "there was no evidence" against his client and so requested his release on bail.

Kosovar Bashkim Osmani came to Mallorca in 1999. He bought the Ritzi de Portals restaurant, which at that time had another name. He then bought an apartment in the area and later commissioned the building of a five million euro mansion in Camp de Mar. In 2018, the Guardia Civil opened a thorough investigation into Osmani and his alleged criminal organisation.

Some 600 police took part in Operation Casino. Osmani was traced to a hotel he owns in Croatia. He was arrested by Croatian police and extradited to Spain - to Mallorca, specifically, Investigators maintain that his network moved huge amounts of cocaine between South America and Europe and laundered the proceeds.

Thanks to Andrew Ede.

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Vincent “Chickie” DeMartino Released from Prison Early Due to Medical Problems

A Brooklyn judge sprang a violent mobster from prison because he said the federal Bureau of Prisons did a lousy job taking care of the wiseguy’s medical problems.

Federal Court Judge Raymond Dearie issued a scathing ruling Thursday, saying the feds weren’t competently treating made man Vincent “Chickie” DeMartino’s maladies. The goodfella had more than two years left of his 25-year sentence for an attempted hit on a fellow Colombo family member.

Vincent DeMartino AKA "Chickie"

“Mr. DeMartino’s age, the amount of time he has served in prison, his deteriorating health — in particular, complications with his right eye — and the Bureau of Prison’s cavalier attitude in addressing these conditions, present extraordinary and compelling circumstances,” Dearie wrote, ordering DeMartino be released from West Virginia prison FCC Hazelton to home confinement.

DeMartino, 66, was convicted of the 2001 botched hit of Joseph Campanella as he was packing a beach chair into his car in Coney Island. DeMartino fired at least four shots at the rival mobster, hitting him in the arm and foot, but leaving him alive and willing to testify against him.

It wasn’t DeMartino’s first run in with the law. He was convicted of threatening to murder a man in 1983 and breaking every window in the guy’s house with a baseball bat. He was also found guilty of a 1985 armed robbery of a Chase bank branch in Brooklyn.

DeMartino is also a publicly named — though never charged — suspect in the 1999 rubout of William “Wild Bill” Cutolo.

Since his conviction in the Campanella shooting in 2004, DeMartino’s list of medical conditions has grown, and the federal jailers responsible for taking care of his health have failed to do so, Judge Dearie said.

“Mr. DeMartino’s circumstances are made all the more extraordinary and compelling by the BOP’s lack of responsiveness and candor with respect to his medical conditions,” Dearie wrote.

The jurist noted DeMartino’s documented “high blood pressure, high choleterol, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cardiac arrhythmia, obesity, and knee problems,” but said that the “gravest threat” to the mobster’s health is his incredibly serious eye issues.

“The record reflects a consistent pattern on the part of the [Bureau of Prisons] of downplaying Mr. DeMartino’s conditions and delaying treatment. Despite the severity of his ocular conditions, it has been a herculean task for Mr. DeMartino to see an ophthalmologist,” Dearie wrote.

“The [Bureau of Prisons] is not a common jailor. Theirs is a far more challenging and vital responsibility. Human beings are entrusted to their care for decades on end. There is no excuse for inaction or dissembling and, in this Court’s view, no alternative to immediate release,” Dearie concluded.

The feds declined to comment.

“We are grateful to the court for acknowledging what the Federal Bureau of Prisons would not: that Mr. DeMartino suffers from serious health problems that require urgent and ongoing attention and treatment,” said DeMartino’s lawyer, Benjamin Yaster.

Thanks to Noah Goldberg.

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Lennon, the Mobster & the Lawyer: The Untold Story #TheBeatles #OrganizedCrime #NewReleases

Before John Lennon retreated peacefully into private life in 1975, he fought a major legal battle that went under the public radar.

Just as his Rock 'n' Roll oldies album hit the market, Morris Levy, the Mob-connected owner of Roulette Records, released Roots, an unauthorized version of the same record. Levy had used rough mixes of John's unfinished Rock 'n' Roll recordings-and claimed the former Beatle had verbally agreed to the arrangement. The clash led to a lawsuit and countersuit between Levy and Lennon.

Attorney Jay Bergen, a partner in a prestigious New York City law firm, represented John in this epic battle over the rights to his own recordings. Millions of dollars were at stake.

Jay tells the intimate story of how he worked closely with John to rebut Levy's outrageous claims. He also recounts how John explained his recording process in poetic, exacting terms before a judge who knew little about the Beatles and John's solo career.

Lennon, the Mobster & the Lawyer: The Untold Story, catches the high drama of the courtroom skirmishes in this previously untold story. It also paints a detailed personal picture of John and his world in 1975-76, when he was soon to have a new son and went into happy seclusion to be a husband and father.

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Federal Agent Felix Cisneros Convicted of taking Bribes from Organized Crime #HomelandSecurity

A former special agent with Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) was found guilty by a federal jury of dozens of criminal charges for accepting cash payments and other benefits to help an organized crime-linked person, including taking official action designed to help two foreign nationals gain entry into the United States.

Felix Cisneros Jr., 48, of Murrieta, was found guilty of 30 felonies: one count of conspiracy to commit bribery of a public official, one count of bribery, 26 counts of money laundering and two counts of subscribing to a false tax return. After the verdict was read, Cisneros was ordered immediately remanded into federal custody.

According to evidence presented at his five-day trial, over an 18-month period that started in September 2015, Cisneros accepted cash, checks, private jet travel, luxury hotel stays, meals and other items of value from a person identified in court documents as “Individual 1,” who was associated with a criminal organization. Cisneros received approximately $100,000 in checks and gifts from Individual 1 in 2015 and 2016.

Cisneros accepted the cash and other bribes while employed as a special agent with HSI, which is an agency within the United States Department of Homeland Security. In exchange for the bribes, Cisneros performed a series of official acts at the behest of Individual 1, including:

• Accessing a DHS database for information about a German national identified as W.R., and telling Individual 1 he removed a “hit” on W.R., “thus indicating derogatory information had been removed”;
• Placing an alert in a law enforcement database for an address associated with an illegal marijuana grow operation so Cisneros could learn of law enforcement interest and warn Individual 1;
• Obtaining an official DHS letter signed by an HSI assistant special agent in charge to allow the parole of Individual 1’s brother-in-law into the United States from Mexico, and later providing updates about the brother-in-law’s asylum application; and
• Collecting information on an associate of Individual 1 whose home had been searched by law enforcement and later providing Individual 1 with information about the investigation. 

Cisneros also underreported his total income on his federal income tax returns by at least $20,000 for the year 2015 and at least $73,404 for the year 2016.

Judge R. Gary Klausner has scheduled an August 1 sentencing hearing. The conspiracy charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison, the bribery count carries a sentence of up to 15 years, each money laundering charge carries a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment, and each tax count carries a statutory maximum sentence of three years in federal prison.

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Joel Tucker, White Supremacist Gang Member with Killer Kracker Pride and Affiliated with Ghost Face Gangster, Pleads Guilty in Project Safe Neighborhoods Case #Georgia

A documented member of a white supremacist organization that is sometimes affiliated with the Ghost Face Gangsters pleaded guilty to illegally possessing a firearm in a Project Safe Neighborhoods case.

Joel Nelson Tucker, 32, of Moultrie, Georgia, pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon before U.S. District Judge Louis Sands on Tuesday, April 19. Tucker faces a maximum ten years in prison to be followed by three years of supervised release and a maximum $250,000 fine. Sentencing is set for July 27, 2022, at 3:00 p.m. before Judge Sands. There is no parole in the federal system.

“Our region’s most violent and repeat offenders who continue to possess firearms illegally will be held accountable at the federal level,” said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. “Through the Project Safe Neighborhoods program, federal prosecutors are working with law enforcement agencies to concentrate enforcement efforts on violent career offenders in an effort to reduce crime and ultimately make our communities safer.”

“Gang members like Tucker continuously plague our communities even after being charged and convicted of multiple crimes,” said Philip Wislar, Acting Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta. “The FBI is proud to work with our law enforcement partners to enforce federal laws that can provide serious prison time for criminals who refuse to learn from their mistakes and continue to possess firearms and endanger others.”

According to court documents and other evidence, a Colquitt County Sheriff’s Office deputy responded to a citizen’s call about two individuals driving a truck on property behind his residence, which had been the target of several recent thefts. The deputy recognized the driver as Tucker, who had outstanding arrest warrants, was a known convicted felon and had led deputies on a high-speed pursuit in recent months. Tucker, who was wearing a shoulder holster while seated in the front seat, gave a false name to the deputy. The officer saw a gun resting inches away from Tucker’s right hand. When he asked the defendant to exit his vehicle, Tucker replied with an expletive and refused to get out of the truck. The deputy, who had called for law enforcement back-up, gave numerous commands for Tucker to exit the truck. Tucker failed to comply. Tucker moved his hand toward his holster and the deputy deployed his taser. Tucker was handcuffed by another responding deputy and was combative during the arrest.

Tucker, who is a convicted felon, was in illegal possession of a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 special revolver at the time of his arrest. Tucker was on probation at the time of the arrest and has multiple convictions in Colquitt County, Georgia, Superior Court, including for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon and burglary. Tucker is a known and validated member the KKP (Killer Kracker Pride), a hybrid gang that originated in the Colquitt County Jail. KKP is a white supremacy organization that is sometimes affiliated with the Ghost Face Gangster.

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Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath #Russia

Following his explosive New York Times bestseller Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice, Bill Browder returns with another gripping thriller chronicling how he became Vladimir Putin’s number one enemy by exposing Putin’s campaign to steal and launder hundreds of billions of dollars and kill anyone who stands in his way.


When Bill Browder’s young Russian lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was beaten to death in a Moscow jail, Browder made it his life’s mission to go after his killers and make sure they faced justice. The first step of that mission was to uncover who was behind the $230 million tax refund scheme that Magnitsky was killed over. As Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, they were shocked to discover that Vladimir Putin himself was a beneficiary of the crime.

As law enforcement agencies began freezing the money, Putin retaliated. He and his cronies set up honey traps, hired process servers to chase Browder through cities, murdered more of his Russian allies, and enlisted some of the top lawyers and politicians in America to bring him down. Putin will stop at nothing to protect his money. As Freezing Order reveals, it was Browder’s campaign to expose Putin’s corruption that prompted Russia’s intervention in the 2016 US presidential election.

At once a financial caper, an international adventure, and a passionate plea for justice, Freezing Order: A True Story of Money Laundering, Murder, and Surviving Vladimir Putin's Wrath, is a stirring morality tale about how one man can take on one of the most ruthless villains in the world—and win.

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King Bam of the Latin Kings Sentenced to Prison for Racketeering

A former leader of the Boston Chapter of the Massachusetts Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation (Latin Kings) was sentenced to prison on racketeering charges.

Angel Calderon, a/k/a “King Bam,” 29, was sentenced by U.S. Senior District Court Judge Rya W. Zobel to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release. On Aug. 5, 2021, Calderon pleaded guilty to conspiracy to conduct enterprise affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity, more commonly referred to as RICO conspiracy.

During the investigation, Calderon was identified as the Inca, or leader, of the Morton Street Bricks (MSB) Chapter of the Latin Kings. Named for the Morton Street housing project in Boston, the MSB Chapter included approximately half-a-dozen members. The MSB Chapter, in turn, reported to the Massachusetts State Leadership of the Latin Kings, providing information, structure, funds and other resources to further the Latin Kings goals and directives in the state. Additionally, Calderon conspired with members of the Latin Kings regarding the commission of criminal acts and discussed efforts to murder a rival gang member using poisoned narcotics, also known as a hotshot, in 2019. In June 2019, Calderon assaulted a woman at gunpoint and threatened to kill her and her family based upon the belief that she was providing information to law enforcement.

The Latin Kings are a violent criminal enterprise comprised of thousands of members across the United States. The Latin Kings adhere to a national manifesto, employ an internal judiciary and use a sophisticated system of communication to maintain the hierarchy of the organization. As alleged in court documents, the gang uses drug distribution to generate revenue, and engages in violence against witnesses and rival gangs to further its influence and to protect its turf.

In December 2019, a federal grand jury returned an indictment alleging racketeering conspiracy, drug conspiracy and firearms charges against 62 leaders, members and associates of the Latin Kings. Calderon is the 49th defendant to be sentenced in the case.


Latin Kings Pullover Hoodie

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National Lampoon's Insurrection Vacation Results in Guilty Plea by Griswold #CapitolRiot

A Florida man pleaded guilty to a felony charge related to his actions during the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which disrupted a joint session of the U.S. Congress that was in the process of ascertaining and counting the electoral votes related to the presidential election.

Andrew William Griswold, 33, of Niceville, Florida, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia to civil disorder. According to court documents, on Jan. 6, at approximately 2:35 p.m., Griswold was in a crowd of rioters who were illegally outside the Capitol’s East Rotunda Doors. U.S. Capitol Police officers stood inside and outside the doors, guarding them. At least one person in the crowd sprayed a chemical irritant at officers. Minutes later, rioters who were already inside the Capitol – some wielding flagpoles – shoved past the police and pushed the doors open. Those outside the Capitol began to push their way inside the building. Others fought police in the doorway.

A group outside the doors gathered together and, shouting “Heave! Ho!” pushed, surging toward the entrance to the building. Griswold joined this group, pushing on a rioter in front of him and advancing toward the open doors. He entered the Capitol at approximately 2:40 p.m. Once inside, he made his way to the Gallery of the Senate. Later, after leaving the building, while standing on the steps leading to the East Rotunda Doors, Griswold spoke with a member of the media, declaring, among other things, “We took the building. They couldn’t stop us,” and “Don’t mess with us. Back off. This is our country. We showed ‘em today. We took it. They ran. And hid.”

Griswold was arrested on March 5, 2021, in Pensacola, Florida. He is to be sentenced on July 13, 2022. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

In the 14 months since Jan. 6, more than 775 individuals have been arrested in nearly all 50 states for crimes related to the breach of the U.S. Capitol, including over 245 individuals charged with assaulting or impeding law enforcement. The investigation remains ongoing.

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