http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/organizedcrime/ en-us Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:00:50 GMT Focus Forum 15 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410441/posts There is a feeling that permeates throughout the law enforcement community that organized crime gangs are getting a free ride during the Obama Administration. While most of the focus of federal law enforcement is on counterterrorism, counterintelligence and cyber crime, federal police agencies must still contend with more traditional anti-crime operations including emerging organized crime gangs. "I may sound cynical, but I believe because [President Barack Obama] is from Chicago -- a city noted for it's history of organized crime -- he may be used to what's known as 'the Chicago way' and the casual relationship between organized crime and... Examiner http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2410441/posts#comment Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:00:50 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407713/posts The letter extols Giovanni DeMaio’s "love and understanding," his efforts to raise money for a young girl with cancer, his propensity for treating others "as he treats his own children." The gushing note was one of more than 90 written on behalf of DeMaio, a reputed organized crime associate facing sentencing for possessing a trove of illegal weapons. What caught the attention of federal prosecutors, however, was the name signed at the bottom: John Pinzone, police chief in the Bergen County community of Fairview. Odder still, prosecutors say: Pinzone didn’t mention he was dating DeMaio’s daughter. That omission drew an... Star-Ledger http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2407713/posts#comment Tue, 15 Dec 2009 05:00:05 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398265/posts reginaldo writes to clue us that pirates in Somalia have opened up a cooperative in Haradheere, where investors can pay money or guns to help their favorite pirate crew for a share of the piracy profits. "'Four months ago, during the monsoon rains, we decided to set up this stock exchange. We started with 15 "maritime companies" and now we are hosting 72. Ten of them have so far been successful at hijacking,' Mohammed [a wealthy former pirate who took a Reuters reporter to the facility] said. ... Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others... Slashdot http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2398265/posts#comment Wed, 2 Dec 2009 08:45:35 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2397485/posts Is ACORN engaged in a massive money laundering scheme? Although evidence abounds that the radical left-wing advocacy group-cum-organized crime syndicate is recycling funds mafia-style, government investigators and the media have paid scant attention to ACORN's money trail. Red flags that appear to signal unlawful activities by ACORN are everywhere yet ACORN's collaborators in the White House, Justice Department, and House Judiciary Committee, smugly ignore them. If senior executives at a troubled publicly traded corporation were to provide completely different accounts of their company's financial standing, how long would it be before federal investigators stormed their offices? If federal authorities failed... The American Spectator http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2397485/posts#comment Tue, 1 Dec 2009 11:38:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395733/posts ...As reported, in part, at the NY Times: “WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has concluded that the Obama administration can lawfully pay the community group Acorn for services provided under contracts signed before Congress enacted a law banning the government from providing funds to the group. “The department’s conclusion, laid out in a recently disclosed five-page memorandum from David Barron, the acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, adds a new wrinkle to a sharp political debate over the antipoverty group’s activities and recent efforts to distance the government from it. “Mr. Barron said he had based... CFP http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2395733/posts#comment Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:54:26 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2377652/posts MEXICO CITY – A news reporter who wrote about violent drug crimes has been strangled in the northern Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Tuesday. El Tiempo de Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning, said Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. Authorities found his body that night in a vacant lot in the state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. State authorities are investigating the murder. Lopez would not specify whether they suspected connections with organized crime. But Antuna had told his colleagues at the newspaper that he had received multiple telephone... AP on Yahoo http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2377652/posts#comment Tue, 3 Nov 2009 20:25:16 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375144/posts Related Story: Australia 'must prepare for cyber attack' SNIPPET: "More evidence is emerging of sophisticated attacks by criminals and foreign governments on Australia's computer networks. Government officials from the spy organisation ASIO, as well as federal police and computer security experts, have joined forces with the top-secret Defence Signals Directorate since July. The Cyber Security Operations Centre has found attacks on company information, apparently conducted by organised crime, which turn out to have national security implications." ABC.net.au http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2375144/posts#comment Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:10:38 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368571/posts Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana was murdered with eight .45 caliber shots the night of Friday, May 15, in a residence to the northeast of El Paso, Texas. The 37 year old man was the presumed leader of the Juarez cartel and a DEA informant. The killer was identified by police as Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18 years old, a member of the 111th Air Artillery Defense Brigade of the United States Army. Apodaca was asked to kill him. A rival organization, known as La Compania [The Company] contracted him and two other subjects to square away a debt. Four months later,... eluniversal http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2368571/posts#comment Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:44:54 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2364480/posts Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and... US DOJ.gov/dag - Speech http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2364480/posts#comment Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:10:43 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2361249/posts Last week, Bertha Lewis, the chief-organizer at ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, cited Linda Tripp when she spoke about ACORN’s lawsuit against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and Breitbart.com at Washington’s National Press Club. ACORN’s lawsuit accuses O’Keefe and Giles, whose pimp and prostitute undercover operation captured ACORN workers, on video counseling them on how to cheat tax laws among other potential crimes, of violating Maryland law that requires two-party consent for electronic surveillance. Breitbart.com, the news website, is also named as a defendant for first posting the video. “It is illegal, as Linda Tripp will tell... Canada Free Press http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2361249/posts#comment Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:20:06 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2350592/posts With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation before we form any hard conclusions, it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. In fact, making use of what Erickson and Vadum have discovered about Gaspard, we can trace these links still further. There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late,... National Review http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2350592/posts#comment Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:40:15 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2349024/posts SNIPPET: "I guess it was inevitable. With the growth in SaaS (Software as a Service), it was only a matter of time before we saw CaaS - Crimeware as a Service. Criminal gangs are now offering services such as DDOS attacks, botnet rental, malware creation and electronic money laundering. And then there are the more exclusive, targeted services such as whaling to attack high net worth individuals and organisations. CaaS is one of the emerging threats associated with organised cybercrime, which is at the top of the latest Information Security Forum (ISF) Threat Horizon 2011 report." Permalink: http://www.infosecurityadviser.com/view_message?id=138 INFO SECURITY ADVISER.com - Howard Schmidt's blog http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2349024/posts#comment Sat, 26 Sep 2009 21:09:07 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2347250/posts The sun is beating down as Elizabeth Padilla is laid to rest in the Garden of Eternity cemetery. She lies under a pane of glass. Her pretty face has been made up one last time. "Open your eyes, my darling," her mother cries. "There is something I wanted to tell you." "Princess," her sister wails. "I'll never forget the way you danced and sang." "Why you?" her mother screams. "You were so good." Elizabeth Padilla was 29 and had been a policewoman for eight months when she died. She was killed one Wednesday just before 1:30pm while on her way... ABC News http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2347250/posts#comment Thu, 24 Sep 2009 14:54:08 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2345650/posts Mexico's violent drug gangs are increasingly kidnapping illegal migrants for ransom and forcing them to carry narcotics into the United States as they muscle into the lucrative trade of smuggling people across the border. Traffickers armed with automatic weapons are snatching weary Mexican and Central American migrants on both sides of the border and holding them in cramped houses with little water or food until families pay ransoms of up to $12,000. reuters http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2345650/posts#comment Tue, 22 Sep 2009 17:14:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2342842/posts The director of ACORN in Ohio says neither she nor other employees of the social-justice group have ever offered to help pimps or prostitutes ply their trade in the state. But the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and would-be clients in poor, black and Latino neighborhoods are paying a price nonetheless, said Amy Teitelman, the group's Ohio leader. ACORN, which says it has about 7,500 dues-paying members in Ohio and operates offices in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, has temporarily stopped offering help to clients in the wake of an undercover video shot by self-styled investigators. From conservative standard... The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2342842/posts#comment Fri, 18 Sep 2009 14:40:10 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2337954/posts A July 2009 congressional report -- titled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?” -- accused ACORN of massive fraud, money laundering, and racketeering directed from the highest levels of the organization's management. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2337954/posts#comment Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:07:02 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331406/posts Border Crackdown Makes Farming in U.S. Forests Attractive; Cartel Links Suspected Marijuana growers, many believed to be affiliated with Mexican drug cartels, are aggressively expanding their illegal farming operations in the U.S., clearing land to plant pot in dozens of national forests from coast to coast. Illicit cannabis farms on public land first sprang up in California more than a decade ago and remain a serious problem in that state. But in the past two years, the U.S. Forest Service has documented a rapid expansion of the practice. Authorities have discovered pot farms in 61 national forests across 16 states... WSJ http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2331406/posts#comment Thu, 3 Sep 2009 18:21:39 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2318701/posts Newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor has cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court, joining a dissent by three liberal justices to stop a pending execution in Ohio. The full court turned down the last-minute appeal from lawyers for Jason Getsy late Monday evening by a 5-4 vote. Getsy, 33 and a convicted hit man, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 8 a.m. Pacific time today. Los Angeles Times http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2318701/posts#comment Tue, 18 Aug 2009 15:33:21 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2311775/posts Senate Seeks FCC Approval To Jam Prison Cell Phones Legislation aims to stop organized-crime members from using smuggled cell phones to conduct criminal activities from prison. By W. David Gardner InformationWeek July 15, 2008 04:00 AM With strong bipartisan support to permit the jamming of cell phone signals in prisons, the issue will head to the Federal Communications Commission, which has had longtime jurisdiction over wireless jamming and interference measures. The debate has received widespread attention this week in hearings conducted by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. The Safe Prisons Communications Act, co-sponsored by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and... INFORMATION WEEK.com http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2311775/posts#comment Sun, 9 Aug 2009 05:43:51 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2305463/posts Situation Worsens Back Door Remains Open ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org The Real Face of Obama's Open Immigration Policies Something bad is taking place at the border."We're seeing a lot of MS-13,” says Agent Mike Scioli of the U.S. Border Patrol. "They're typically known to be guns for hire, they're known to smuggle narcotics and human traffic across the border illegally."MS-13 stands for Mara Salvatrucha, the most violent street gang in the western hemisphere.Last week Border Patrol agents arrested two MS-13 members: one in Tucson and one in Nogales. The Nogales arrestee was identified by his tattoos - - the... The Last Crusade http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2305463/posts#comment Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:46:25 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2301808/posts The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systematic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate. Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN... House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2301808/posts#comment Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:18:32 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2300092/posts "The election fraud factory known as ACORN should be stripped of its jealously guarded tax-exempt status because it illegally spends taxpayer dollars on partisan activities, commits "systemic fraud," and violates racketeering and election laws, according to a congressional report unveiled yesterday. Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that by "intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities." "Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal... The American Spectator http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2300092/posts#comment Fri, 24 Jul 2009 14:23:46 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2299579/posts A new congressional report accuses the radical activist group ACORN of organized criminal activities. I will have a full article here on the American Spectator website in the morning about it. The report, called "Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?" comes from minority staff on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The ranking member on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), is appearing on the "Glenn Beck Program" on Fox News today to discuss the report. The report, available here, contains information about the ACORN network's interlocking directorates, various unethical and possibly unlawful activities, and the shocking... American Spectator http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2299579/posts#comment Thu, 23 Jul 2009 22:27:01 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2298649/posts McALLEN – Three men already in federal custody have been linked to the kidnapping, torture and ransom of hundreds of Central American migrants in Reynosa, federal authorities said. Two Honduran nationals held on immigration charges in Willacy County recognized one of the suspected smugglers July 10 after he was booked into the county jail, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in their case. One of the detained immigrants told U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents that he had met Oscar Humberto Hilton Romero, 31, of Honduras, in Guatemala and then followed him to a Reynosa stash house, where he... The Monitor http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2298649/posts#comment Wed, 22 Jul 2009 22:30:19 GMT http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2297820/posts On July 11th, PFC James Gonzalez told his family he was heading to Laredo to hang out with friends before returning to the Ft Hood. But on July 13th Gonzalez' commander called looking for the private. "They've asked what our thoughts are about him going AWOL. It just doesn't add up with the phone..it goes straight to voice mail. If he would have done it he would have contacted somebody," said Jason Gonzalez, who is James' brother. The Gonzalez family says the FBI called them to say the Army had received a call saying the private had been kidnapped. The... KENS 5 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2297820/posts#comment Tue, 21 Jul 2009 23:31:37 GMT