Hey Amb. Yovanovitch and Adam Schiff, Call Holding Line 3

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Remember the accusations during the Trump impeachment trial that Ukraine had cleaned up corruption? President Trump withheld aid for a couple of very legitimate reasons including corruption in the Ukraine military, corruption in the banking system and money-laundering. The Democrats continued to place guilt of dying Ukrainians because of the military conflict with Russia in the lap of President Trump. Then there was that pesky Internet Research Agency in St. Petersburg that spread propaganda across the world.

Ladies and gentlemen…it is still happening over there…where is the media? Where is Shifty Schiff and Nasty Nadler? Maria Yovanovitch is retired but gotta wonder what she knew.

Anyway read on….this is yet but only part of what continues to go on in Ukraine…Rudy Giuliani is working many other channels.

Hat tip to the REAL investigative reporters on the case…well done.

Image result for milton group kiev source

Luxury cars line the parking lot of the upscale Mandarin Plaza mall in Kyiv, while their well-heeled owners flaunt their wealth in its jewellery and designer clothes stores.

But hidden on its upper floors, protected by armed guards and under the constant surveillance of security cameras, a very different product is being sold.

Sitting elbow-to-elbow under fluorescent lights, a multi-lingual army of call center staff hawk get-rich-quick dreams across the world in the form of cryptocurrency and stock investments for a company called Milton Group.

Now, a cache of documents handed to the Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter by a whistleblower from inside the call center, and shared with OCCRP, exposes the inner workings of this type of fraud: an old-fashioned boiler-room scam that leverages the power of social media to operate on a global scale.

Armed with a list of over 1,000 people targeted by the call center, reporters from 21 countries and dozens of media outlets spoke to more than 180 victims, revealing a trail of ruined lives from Sweden’s Arctic Circle to the Ecuadorian Amazon, passing through small industrial towns in the Balkans and major world cities like London and Sydney.

The stories were strikingly similar. Many first came into contact with the scam through Facebook ads promising remarkable returns on investments. After entering their contact details to find out more, victims would be deluged with high-pressure sales calls. They would make a small “investment” that quickly yielded impressive — but fake — profits. But requests to withdraw the full funds were not honored.

Those worst affected were preyed upon by the call center’s “retention” desk, whose job was to conjure up new ways to extract more money, often through brutal psychological pressure. Some were harassed into taking out huge loans, threatened by forged letters from UK financial regulators demanding taxes, or contacted by fake lawyers offering to help get their money back — for yet another fee. In the most extreme cases, Milton Group’s retention specialists would convince victims to install software on their computers that allowed the scammers to control them remotely, and steal more money in the process. Some lost more than $200,000.

The victims, fooled by foreign names and addresses, and assurances of sky-high returns, believed they were on the phone with a legitimate investment business based in Western Europe. They had no inkling that the people on the other end of the line were largely young Ukrainians or Middle Eastern and African migrants in Kyiv.

Ukrainian Milton Group scheme source

Some tried to report their losses to police in their countries, but law enforcement largely failed to connect the dots. Cyber-crime units in multiple countries affected by the call center, including Spain and Italy, told OCCRP and its partners that they were aware of such cross-border frauds, but that they are hard to detect, often go unreported, and require cooperation between law enforcement bodies across many jurisdictions.

However, Swedish authorities have now opened an investigation based on the whistleblower’s extensive evidence, and have been in touch with Europol about the allegations.

“This company what they do, everything is fake,” said Alexey, the whistleblower. (His real name cannot be used to protect his safety.) “They just steal money from people.”

He said staff were told the Kyiv center took in a massive 65 million euros in sales in 2019. To celebrate, the company’s leaders threw a lavish New Year’s party themed around the novel “The Great Gatsby,” about a Jazz-Age bootlegger and con artist. Under neon lights, hundreds of Milton staffers watched contortionists and fire-dancers perform, and were awarded prizes, including cars, cash, and free lodging, for especially good salesmanship.

Milton is apparently tied to other call centers in Albania, Georgia, and North Macedonia employing hundreds more staff.

While it is impossible to determine whether every investment that passed through the Kyiv center was fraudulent, reporters from DN and across OCCRP’s network spoke to more than 180 victims listed in Milton’s client database who confirmed they had lost their money in investment scams. A few had been able to withdraw some funds, likely in an attempt to encourage further investments, or remained hopeful they would be able to cash out their “earnings” one day.

The supposed investments were made by transferring funds through Western Union, bank accounts, credit cards, and cryptocurrencies. Milton salespeople received a higher commission if they could convince their clients to pay in bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies, since they are harder to trace. Many of the bank-to-bank transfers were routed through the private accounts of individuals with a UK financial company, with clear instructions not to indicate the money was for investing.

In many cases identified by OCCRP, online credit-card payments were handled by a Cyprus-based company called Naspay, which bills itself as a “state-of-the-art payment gateway” and is owned by David Todua — the same Georgian-Israeli man the whistleblower identified to law enforcement as the person behind Milton Group. (Todua vigorously denies holding any “formal or informal position” in the company, although he conceded that he had attended Milton Group’s New Year’s party as a guest. He also said that Naspay does not process payments, but merely “transfers information” between websites that accept payments and financial institutions. OCCRP did not find evidence Todua has any ownership of Milton.)

After their initial investments, some victims were told they needed to send additional fees in cash to individuals in far-flung countries such as Colombia and Uganda rather than company bank accounts.

Leif Nixon, a Swedish cryptocurrency expert who helps law enforcement investigate bitcoin-related crime, analyzed the bitcoin addresses used by Milton Group to accept payments from its customers. He said the set-up did not appear to be that of a legitimate operator.

He noted several indications that clients’ money was not being invested as promised, including the fact that many different people were told to send their bitcoins to the same few addresses. Clients were also given different addresses each time they made a payment.

“It’s like opening a bank account, but you don’t get an account number; instead, for every deposit you make you get a different account number,” Nixon explained.

Ultimately, he said, $5.9 million in bitcoins from seven of Milton Group’s addresses disappeared into East Asian exchanges in 2019.

“I can’t see why a legitimate operation would make these kinds of transactions,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Call center staff were well aware that their job was to steal, the whistleblower says. Alexey told DN that on one of his first days at Milton, the sales manager joked that even when she was as young as six, she dreamed of being a “motherfucker and stealing people’s money.”

At a training session for new staff at a Tbilisi call center linked to the Milton Group, attended by an undercover reporter last month, a trainer explained that the company’s goal was for customers “to lose their money in a realistic way.” Asked why, she laughed: “It’s naive to ask, to be honest. When they lose the money, it stays with us.”

An internal customer database reviewed by reporters is laced with expletives about “fucking” clients out of money, as well as highlighting their vulnerabilities and how they might best be targeted. In one note from October 2019, a Milton staff member wrote of a 67-year-old Swedish woman: “Sold her home to pay, no money, crying.”

That woman, reached by Dagens Nyheter in a rural part of central Sweden, told journalists she was tricked into investing over $100,000 by Milton staff who took out loans on her behalf.

She, like many other victims, was initially sucked in by the illusion that she was making huge profits: “You become hypnotized and brainwashed.”

But when she wanted to withdraw her supposed earnings, “they disappeared.” Today she cannot afford to buy food or pay her rent. “I have nothing to live for,” she said. While Milton Group’s fake investments have brought its victims financial ruin, the picture is very different for the firm’s alleged managers.

A review of their social media profiles shows that they have a penchant for expensive cars, foreign holidays, and guns. Some also have high-level political connections.

The CEO of Milton Group is Jacob Keselman, who declares himself “the Wolf of Kiev” on his Instagram account, a nod to “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the Hollywood film about a notorious penny-stock scammer. His social media profiles are replete with photos of luxury cars, foreign holidays, and the occasional gun. In one photo he can be seen working in a room with a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. He writes: “The one who loves his job is truly happy.”

OCCRP could not obtain official information about Keselman’s national origin, but on his LinkedIn profile he writes that his native language is Russian, he attended university in Kyiv, and he did two stints in sales in Israel before joining Milton Group.

Contacted for comment, Keselman denied that Milton Group had defrauded anyone. “You know how it is working, investment and forex brands … a lot of clients lose money because they don’t understand how it’s working,” he said. He went on to claim that Milton only provided IT support for companies selling investments. He did not respond to follow-up questions.

David Todua, a 38-year-old Georgian-born Israeli citizen, is a frequent visitor to the call center office in Mandarin Plaza, where according to Alexey the staff knew him as one of Milton Group’s owners.

Alexey said he saw Todua there at least six times, including once in November 2019, when he congratulated the staff on their performance and said Milton had brought in $50 million that year to date. The whistleblower said Todua always travelled with multiple bodyguards.

No official documents connect Todua to the scam call center, which on paper is owned by a different Georgian, Irakli Dadivadze. OCCRP was unable to track down any information about him.

However, Todua does own Naspay, a Cyprus-based payment platform through which Milton processes many of its “investments,” internal documents show.

At the firm’s New Year’s party, a man named David was called up to the stage by Keselman, the CEO, identified as the company’s “father,” and presented with a cake with three candles in it, representing the three years Milton Group had been in operation. The whistleblower identified this “father” as David Todua.

“In December, the company turned three years old,” Keselman said, according to an audio recording of the event obtained by OCCRP. “We are big kids, and our father is proud of us, while we are proud of him. And firstly [we] want to say a big thank you, David. And we want to give a cake, because what birthday is without a cake? And David will blow out the candle today.”

Todua told OCCRP he had been at the firm’s New Year’s party as a guest of Keselman, but denied holding any role in the company. “I am not father of any company, I am a proud father of 5 children,” he said.

On Instagram, he calls himself david_todua_007 and poses with a golden Kalashnikov, shoots with a sniper rifle, celebrates birthdays with a champagne tower, and posts photos of expensive cars parked outside his home. (“Hunting is indeed one of my hobbies,” he told OCCRP.)

He also has business ties with a surprising number of politicians from several countries, including ministers and other figures from the United National Movement party, which governed Georgia under President Mikheil Saakashvili for almost a decade until 2012. Saakashvili later became a Ukrainian citizen and forged a political career in the country.

Little is known about Todua’s life in Israel, where he migrated with his family in 1993, but court records and posts from his social media accounts show that he lived until recently in a villa near Tel Aviv. Today he lives in Cyprus.

In Albania, which boasts a 400-strong call center that also appears to be linked to Milton Group, the company operating it is owned by an adviser to a senior minister.

?The Georgian Connections

Although David Todua’s family left Georgia for Israel when he was just 11, as an adult he has ties to a surprising number of prominent political figures from his home country.

Most notably, his business partner in two Ukrainian companies is Davit Kezerashvili, an ex-defense minister and former chief of Georgia’s financial police under Saakashvili.

Todua and Kezerashivili co-own Project Partners, a real-estate and construction firm that is based out of a neighboring office building in Kyiv as Milton Group. Its head is Gia Getsadze, a former deputy justice minister in both Georgia and Ukraine.

Project Partners, in turn, co-owns a construction and civil engineering firm, Elitekomfortbud, with another former Georgian official, Petre Tsiskarishvili, a minister of agriculture under Saakashvili and a former leader of his United National Movement party.

Kezerashvili was charged in 2013 with accepting some $12 million in bribes to turn a blind eye to massive smuggling of alcohol from Ukraine to Georgia. He was ultimately cleared of the charges, which he says were politically motivated, but continues to live outside Georgia.

OCCRP has found no evidence that any of the former ministers are involved in the call center. In an email, Kezerashvili said he had never heard of Milton Group and had no knowledge of its activities, but confirmed that he was a business partner of Todua.

“You Will Never Regret This Decision”

Milton Group’s Kyiv call center does not appear unusual at first glance: Hundreds of phone sellers sit side by side, headsets on, using modern telephone and customer management systems.

Workers make up to 300 calls a day to clients around the world in an attempt to reach their monthly sales targets and secure bonuses.

The center is split into different sales desks by language — including Russian, English, Italian, and Spanish — each targeting their own areas of the world. Sellers use so-called “stage names” to build trust with the person on the other end of the call: A Senegalese man on the German desk goes by the name “Todd Kaiser,” while a Ukrainian woman whose real name is Daria calls herself “Diana Swan” or “Kira Lively.”

But undercover footage from inside Mandarin Plaza, as well as leaked internal documents, confirm that Milton was no ordinary call center.”

It is protected by burly guards and personal mobile phones are forbidden.

On the walls, next to posters of sports cars, a whiteboard sets out sellers’ monthly targets: $40,000 for the Russian market; $60,000 for Spanish, and $100,000 for those working the English-speaking desk.

The staffers in the sales department are provided with a set of notes explaining exactly how to target “clients” by nationality.

Scandinavians, the notes say, are mostly “old people and they really need someone to talk to.”

People from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, on the other hand, like to believe they know everything and are certain that their countries are the best in the world, so call center workers are advised to pump them up.

“The only way to Handle [sic] such people is not to argue with them on whatever direction they take and make them feel that they are intelligent,” the notes explain.

“Later talk to them about how important the financial market has become because of great countries like Australia, UK, and New Zealand.”

“You will never regret this decision” is another line suggested to entice customers.

Those targeted by Milton Group are offered the chance to invest in cryptocurrency, stocks, or foreign currencies through a variety of different “brands,” all of which have generic-sounding names and similar websites, and are moved out of the rotation over time. Recently, Milton Group’s brands have included CryptoMB, Cryptobase, and VetoroBanc. All have been subject to recent investor warnings from regulators in the UK, Italy, and Spain.

The precise relationship between the call center and the brands they market is not always clear. Brands are sometimes not associated with any legal entity; when they are, they hide behind offshore secrecy. CryptoMB and VetoroBanc are run by offshore firms in the Marshall Islands and St. Vincent & Grenadines, respectively, while OCCRP could find no evidence that Cryptobase was tied to any specific company.

Alexey told journalists that the supposed VetoroBanc was entirely fabricated inside the Milton offices, with the name chosen by the Italian retention manager because it sounded “like one of the Italian banks.” The VetoroBanc website uses stock images for its staff that appear to have been taken from the internet. “Sylvia Moreno,” a supposed market analyst, is in fact an American pediatrician.

Alexey explained that staff had no specific expertise in financial products, but were carefully taught to sell “emotions.”

“It doesn’t matter which emotions, positive or negative: You can sell those fake products if people are really thinking about that,” he explained.

Clients were often shown huge profits to encourage them to invest further funds, but the money was always just numbers on a screen, the whistleblower explained. The only time victims were allowed to receive any of their funds back was in order to encourage an even bigger investment.

The most promising — and vulnerable — investors were passed on to the “retention team,” where the top salesmen work.

Their job is to “squeeze the money from the clients to the last cent,” Alexey explained, pushing them to borrow money and sell their cars and apartments. In one case, he said, a heavily pregnant Russian woman was convinced to hand over the small nest egg she had scraped together for her baby.

The most prolific and ingenious scammer at Milton Group is a man on the retention team who tells prospective investors his name is “William Bradley.”

In fact, he is a young Iranian who uses images of well-known US salesman and motivational speaker Marc Wayshak — who dubs himself “America’s sales strategist” — to disguise his identity on video calls.

OCCRP was unable to verify his real name, but at work and on social media he goes by “Hamze” and speaks fluent Farsi. Alexey claimed he takes in a massive $450,000 a month.

The call center’s internal customer database tracks how much each client has “invested,” as well as the potential to extract more money from them. Comments seen by OCCRP are laced with profanities and details of clients’ vulnerabilities.

One reads: “I saw 800 EUR in his bank and he is sick, he have problem and he told me I want someone fuck me and I said Foster [another call center operator] will fuck you.”

Another reads: “Getting fucked every month for at least 1000 EUR. Gets pension on the 20th/works every tuesday.”

Notes from the Milton Group’s internal customer database describing the situation of one of their victims, Östen Morian. Credit: Alexander Mahmoud/DN

Of another man, a call center staffer wrote: “Very Old man/pushed him to get the commission payment, hoping he can sort that out today, should call back at 3pm Sweden time.”

A month later, another note appears: “He is at his friend’s home because he doesn’t have money for food. Call him back on Monday, lost 400 k.”

That client was 75-year-old Östen Morian, a retired carpenter who lives close to the Arctic Circle in remote northern Sweden.

Contacted by DN, Morian confirmed he had lost around 400,000 Swedish krona (about $41,000) to the scammers after taking out loans, at 39 percent interest, to make what turned out to be fake investments. He was left heavily indebted.

“I don’t know what I can do,” he said. “Wait to die only.”

Go here for citations, photos and video

 

Govt Report on Prevention of Nationwide Cyber Catastrophe

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A good first step for sure, however there needs to be a government-wide decision on cyber attacks being an act of war and how to respond.

***

The Cyberspace Solarium Commission’s proposes a strategy of layered cyber deterrence. Our report consists of over 80 recommendations to implement the strategy. These recommendations are organized into 6 pillars:
  1. Reform the U.S. Government’s Structure and Organization for Cyberspace.
  2. Strengthen Norms and Non-Military Tools.
  3. Promote National Resilience.
  4. Reshape the Cyber Ecosystem.
  5. Operationalize Cybersecurity Collaboration with the Private Sector.
  6. Preserve and Employ the Military Instrument of National Power.

Click here to download the full report.

A much-anticipated government report aimed at defending the nation against cyber threats in the years to come opens with a bleak preview of what could happen if critical systems were brought down.

“The water in the Potomac still has that red tint from where the treatment plants upstream were hacked, their automated systems tricked into flushing out the wrong mix of chemicals,” the Cyberspace Solarium Commission wrote in the opening lines of its report.

“By comparison, the water in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has a purple glint to it. They’ve pumped out the floodwaters that covered Washington’s low-lying areas after the region’s reservoirs were hit in a cascade of sensor hacks,” it continues.

So begins the report two years in the making from a congressionally mandated commission made up of lawmakers and top Trump administration officials, pointing to the vulnerabilities involved with critical systems being hooked up to the internet.

The report, which includes more than 75 recommendations for how to prevent the cyber doomsday it spells out, and the commission that made it were both mandated by the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

The commissioners, who include co-chairmen Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) and Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.), highlight a range of issues to address, but zero in on election security as “priority.”

“The American people still do not have the assurance that our election systems are secure from foreign manipulation,” King and Gallagher wrote in the report. “If we don’t get election security right, deterrence will fail and future generations will look back with longing and regret on the once powerful American Republic and wonder how we screwed the whole thing up.”

The focus on shoring up election security, and the agreed-upon recommendations for how to do this, sets the report apart from the approach to the subject on Capitol Hill, where it has been a major issue of contention between Republicans and Democrats since Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Beyond election security, the commissioners call for overarching government reform to address cyber vulnerabilities. Chief among these is calling on the White House to issue an updated national strategy to address cyber threats and to establish a national cybersecurity director position to coordinate efforts.

In terms of congressional action, commissioners recommend that Congress create cybersecurity committees in both the House and Senate, establish a Bureau of Cybersecurity Statistics, and establish an assistant secretary position at the State Department to lead international efforts around cybersecurity.

“While cyberspace has transformed the American economy and society, the government has not kept up,” commissioners wrote in calling for reforms.

The commission also zeroed in on “imposing costs” to adversaries who attempt to attack the U.S. online. In order to do so, it recommended that the Department of Defense conduct vulnerability assessments of its weapons systems, including nuclear control systems, and that it make cybersecurity preparedness a necessity.

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber agency, would be empowered as the “lead agency” at the federal level.

The report’s recommendations were debated on and pinpointed by a group of high-ranking commissioners who also included FBI Director Christopher Wray, Deputy Secretary of Defense David Norquist, Transportation Security Administration Administrator David Pekoske, Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.), and Rep. James Langevin (D-R.I.).

Langevin said in a statement on Wednesday that the report is intended to shore up the nation’s cyber “resiliency for years to come.”

“Our charge in drafting this report was to prevent a cyber event of significant national consequence, and we know that the short- and long-term recommendations we crafted will better position us to realize the promise of the Internet, while avoiding its perils,” Langevin said. “The sooner our recommendations are implemented, the better positioned the country will be to prevent and respond to incidents that can disrupt the American way of life.”

The report’s recommendations may soon have real-world consequences on Capitol Hill.

Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the ranking member on the House Homeland Security Committee’s cyber panel, told The Hill this week that there “definitely will be some legislation” stemming from the report’s recommendations, and that hearings would likely be held.

Katko noted that he had talked with Senate Homeland Security Committee Chairman Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) about the Senate also taking action around the report.

“This report screams of the need for bipartisan action on this, and I hope that we can leave the politics out of it, and I hope we can attack these problems quickly and effectively,” Katko said.

Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), the cyber subcommittee’s chairman, opened a hearing on Wednesday by praising the report’s recommendations and saying he looked forward to working to “codifying” the ideas alongside House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.).

Industry groups also reacted positively to the report’s recommendations. Tom Gann, the chief public policy officer of cybersecurity firm McAfee, told The Hill in a statement that he agreed with most of the report’s findings and hoped that they are “acted upon with speed.”

Protect Our Power, a nonprofit with the goal of protecting the electric grid, also praised the report.

“These are compelling recommendations, echoing issues we have highlighted for several years now, and action is long overdue,” Jim Cunningham, executive director of the group, said in a statement. “Without a reliable supply of electricity before, during and following a disabling cyberattack, none of our critical infrastructure can function.”

While there may be legislative action soon – and praise from industry groups – both Gallagher and King emphasized in the report that their main aim was for it to open the eyes of Americans to the dangers posed by cyberattacks on critical systems.

“The status quo is inviting attacks on America every second of every day,” the co-chairmen wrote. “We all want that to stop. So please do us, and your fellow Americans, a favor. Read this report and then demand that your government and the private sector act with speed and agility to secure our cyber future.”

Phony Immigration Lawyer Filed more than 215 Fake Asylum Applications

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TAMPA, Fla. – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is looking for additional victims of a Tampa area man charged Monday with a 25-count indictment including eight counts of mail fraud, eight counts of making false statements in immigration documents, and nine counts of aggravated identity theft. This case was investigated by HSI, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS), and Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office.

Elvis Reyes 55 FL

According to the indictment, Elvis Harold Reyes, 56, of Brandon, owned and operated EHR Ministries Inc., and portrayed himself as an immigration attorney, pastor, accountant, immigration expert, former immigration official and former federal law enforcement officer. Reyes is not and has never been a licensed attorney. Reyes targeted undocumented immigrants from Spanish-speaking countries who were seeking Florida driver licenses and work authorization. He gave false, inaccurate and incomplete legal and immigration advice to victims in order to induce them to retain his services and those of EHR Ministries.

Any person who was, or knows of someone who may have been, a possible victim is urged to contact the Homeland Security Investigations at 1-866-DHS-2ICE or http://www.ice.gov/webform/hsi-tip-form.

Victims retained and paid Reyes to represent them in immigration-related matters before USCIS and other agencies. Reyes allegedly filed fraudulent immigration applications in the victims’ names, seeking asylum relief and withholding-of-removal protections provided for under the United Nations Convention Against Torture. In doing so, Reyes falsified answers to questions in the asylum applications—fabricating stories about threats, persecution, and the applicants’ fear of returning to their native countries. Reyes did not inform the victims of the answers that he had provided on their behalf. He also did not inform the victims about the legal, administrative, and other immigration-related consequences that might follow from filing for asylum relief or for Convention Against Torture protection.

If convicted, Reyes faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison for each count of mail fraud, up to 15 years’ imprisonment for each false statement count, and a mandatory, consecutive term of two years’ imprisonment for the aggravated identity theft counts.

An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.

This case will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Frank Murray, with United States Attorney Maria Chapa Lopez Middle District Florida office.

***

Part of the website has the following: Help us help the homeless and the orphans no matter in what country they find themselves. USA, South America, Africa, India, and others.
Make a donation today, Help! This ministry meet the challenges faced with every day on a global scale. Partner with us in giving Food, Clothes, Water, Shelter, helping the sick and rehabilitating the imprison. Help us built orphanages, help us bring water, education, to those who seek Him. Help our missionaries accomplish their missions in Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Peru, and other Countries. Do it for Him “Jesus” Amen.
Click on the orange bar below and give as the Lord touches your heart. “Thank you!” Amen! “Keep this in mind.” $175 Feeds a family for a year. $90 provides 375 lbs of rice and beans, $43 Feeds a child for one year. 

We serve the immigrants
  • Preparing INS documents and immigration applications.
  • Referring them to license attorneys.
  • Helping them with housing, education, and job training.
We serve the unemployed.

  • Job placement.
  • Job training and education.
  • Helping them write resumes.
  • Preparing them for job interviews.

Something about this website easily leads one to believe the photos are not part of the organization but rather taken from internet sources.

From BayNews9 in 2019:

PLANT CITY, Fla. — A Plant City couple say they were defrauded of thousands of dollars by a man who claimed to be an immigration attorney.

  • Lorenzo Aguilar, Josephina Ramos-Ramirez work as laborers
  • Couple says they hired Elvis Reyes, 54, to help them with path to citizenship
  • Reyes has spent time in prison for aggravated assault, grand theft, forgery
  • More Hillsborough County stories

“When we started the process, he wanted half of the money up front, like $2,500 dollars,” said Aguilar through a translator. “And then after the fingerprints came back — that’s when he would ask for the rest of the money.”

But after Reyes received the money, Aguilar didn’t hear back.

“He stopped answering the phone,” he said. “We would continue to call him and he just would never answer the phone anymore.”

Aguilar and his common-law wife Josephina Ramos-Ramirez, who work as laborers, paid Reyes $5,000.  It’s money they say they can’t afford to lose.

The couple also has an infant son with a rare brain disorder who requires specialized treatment he can’t get back in their native Mexico.

“I can’t go back to our country because of the treatment that he needs,” said Ramirez. “And because of that is why we’re having so much difficulty right now because I fear being deported.”

We reached out to Reyes and his church through phone calls and email.  His mailbox is full and emails weren’t returned.

According to online records, Reyes spent time in prison for aggravated assault, grand theft and forgery.

The couple has since hired Ananis Makar, an immigration attorney, based in Plant City.

“We’ve had quite a few people coming in telling us that somebody who is claiming to be an attorney have filed documents on their behalf,” said Makar.

Makar now represents three other clients who claim they were cheated by Reyes.  She tells us Reyes also filed paperwork with the federal government on their behalf.

“It just makes (their case) a little more difficult,” said Makar. “To gain any kind of immigration status is already a challenge.”

Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office has opened an investigation into Reyes amid reports there could be 40 individuals allegedly defrauded by Reyes.

“People preying on our residents is unacceptable,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said in a statement. “Our job as a local law enforcement agency is to protect all people, regardless of their immigration status, from criminals looking to take advantage of them. We are looking into this case and working to bring those responsible to justice.”

Democrats Refuse Legal Protection for Medical Mask Makers

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*** What Senator Cotton referred to is 3M company being granted the government contract to manufacture the N9 masks and 3M wants protection from litigious lawyers for all kinds of reasons and the House Democrats refused siding with nasty lawyers. There is building bi-partisan movement to protect the manufacturers….meanwhile…about that $8.3 billion….

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wants to funnel the $8.3 billion that will be spent to combat the coronavirus out of the money spent on foreign aid.

After passing through both chambers of Congress, President Trump signed legislation that makes $8.3 billion in emergency funding available to combat the coronavirus outbreak. Paul, who was the only senator to vote against the spending package, views the funding as necessary to address the spreading illness, but he did not want to take out the taxpayers’ checkbook without saving money elsewhere.

“I support the money,” Paul told WDRB. “I just think we should take it from somewhere else in the budget where it’s not being used wisely. So I had an amendment that would have said the $8 billion should come from foreign welfare that we send to foreign countries in the form of foreign aid. I think really we ought to concentrate on our country.”

He added, “I think really we ought to concentrate on our country, instead of borrowing more money from China. The virus came from there. Now we’re borrowing from China to spend on it. Why don’t we take it from the money we’re actually sending overseas and spend that money here?”

As Paul noted, the coronavirus outbreak has been traced back to Wuhan, China. Since the outbreak began late last year, more than 116,000 people have been infected worldwide, and more than 4,000 have died. In the United States, 27 people have died, and more than 750 have been infected.

Paul voted against the emergency funding last week, citing how the package did not include spending cuts to counter the money spent on fighting the coronavirus. He argued that even more money could have been allocated to stop the disease, but that he could not support a funding package that did not have an adjacent spending cut.

“I think we could allocate more money, but we should pay for it,” Paul said. “If you don’t follow through and you say, well, we should pay for it, but I’ll vote for it anyway, then that just gives them license to do it again and again and again. And that’s what happens.”

The U.S. spent nearly $40 billion on foreign aid in 2019, which was less than 1% of the federal budget. In 2017, China received more than $53 million in foreign aid from the U.S. The countries receiving the most foreign aid from the U.S. are Afghanistan, Iraq, and Israel.

California Bullet Train, Shut-up About Fleecing the Government

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Exactly how come Senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein have nothing to say? Pelosi? Nah….
When Mark Styles was hired in October 2018 to help oversee Central Valley scheduling for the California bullet train, he soon learned he had walked into a mess.
Over the previous half decade the project had repeatedly fallen behind schedule, and the cost by 2018 had jumped from $64 billion to $77 billion in two years.
California is Building High-Speed Rail | High Speed Rail ...
A core problem was the project’s operating culture, in which managers for WSP, the bullet train’s lead consultant, threatened to punish or terminate employees if they failed to toe the company line, Styles said.
“I was told to shut up and not say anything,” said Styles, a career construction manager who was hired as WSP’s senior supervisory scheduler in the project’s Fresno office. “I was told that I didn’t understand the political arena the project was in. I told them I am not going to shut up. This is my job.”
The atmosphere described by Styles has been corroborated by a half dozen current and former senior officials knowledgeable about the project’s Fresno office.
The officials say it helps explain why California’s high-speed rail endeavor has barreled ahead for more than a decade, despite warnings it was structured on risky assumptions and could run out of money before any trains operate.
WSP spokeswoman Denise Turner Roth rejected Styles’ claims. “We always work carefully with our client to evaluate the demands of each project and to prepare realistic and transparent recommendations regarding schedule and budget,” she said.
But other ex-WSP employees in the Fresno office, including engineer Vera Lovejoy and project controls coordinator Todd Bilstein, say they were also discouraged from sharing bad news with bosses.
“I wanted the project to succeed,” said Lovejoy, who left the project in 2019 after one year. “I was eager to help deliver it. But I couldn’t stay. If you rock the boat, you are labeled as not a team player.”
Bilstein also left in 2019 after a nine-month tenure.
“If I was to give a talk at a construction conference, I would say they were not following generally accepted project management principles,” he said. The company’s failures, he said, ran the gamut of estimating costs, scheduling construction and managing change orders.
“Revealing bad news was discouraged,” he added. “I just couldn’t continue to work there. I don’t work that way. American professionals don’t work that way.”
Styles, who has no lawsuit or other legal claims, is also no longer with WSP. He left in November, calling it “the worst job of my career,” and moved to a new construction job out of state.
Brian Kelly, chief executive of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said in a statement that the agency “takes seriously any claim of wrongdoing by an employee or contractor. We have procedures in place for any such claim to be raised and reviewed. We have an expectation that all employees act within the law and that our contractors meet the requirements of state and federal law.”
He added in an interview, “Our focus is on the mission in front of us.”
In the last half year, Kelly has moved to make changes in his organization’s culture, replacing numerous middle-level management officials, orchestrating more documentation for its plans and vowing to improve transparency in the agency operations.
WSP and Parsons Brinckerhoff, which merged in 2014, have been on the project since the 1990s. The Montreal firm, one of the largest infrastructure engineering organizations, is working under a $666-million contract. When he arrived at the project’s Fresno office, Styles said, he found a dysfunctional operation like he had never seen before — a pressured environment that aimed to contain bad news that could damage the project’s fortunes.
At the time, the rail authority was confronting delay claims, resulting from its slow acquisition of land, and change orders — both amounting to millions of dollars in higher costs.
Within days, he asked to see the detailed justification documents for the change orders. He said he wanted to understand the delays and how they would affect future construction, a routine part of a scheduler’s job.
WSP management, he said, told him that he didn’t need to see the documents. WSP was pushing to “keep the numbers looking good,” which in some cases involved altering reports written by its staff to make construction progress look better, he alleges.
Styles and other sources speaking off the record say that the bullet train schedule, which calls for installing 119 miles of track and a complex signal system from Madera to Wasco by 2022, is “impossible,” even though the project’s budget is predicated on the completion date.
To install track by 2022 would normally require all of the bridges, viaducts, trenches and other structures to be completed beforehand. As a stopgap measure, the rail authority now plans to install track in five-mile discontinuous segments, which the Federal Railroad Administration has criticized as illogical.
A more likely scenario would have the current construction completed between 2025 and 2028, which would drive costs up and force the state to either find new money or curtail the project, Styles and others said.
Rail authority spokeswoman Annie Parker said the agency has acknowledged repeatedly that “the deadline is a challenge.” It will require boosting monthly construction spending from the current $46 million to $70 million, said chief financial officer Brian Annis, who added that its construction pace is improving.
Sylmar-based Tutor Perini, which is building rail structures in Madera and Fresno counties, said a week ago it will complete its work in 2023. The company’s contract was initially $1 billion, but delay claims and change orders have doubled the amount.
Chief Executive Ron Tutor told security analysts in a recorded telephone call on Feb. 26, “With our extending the completion date from the end of ’21 to the first quarter of ’23, once again, we are in discussions with the owner to resolve payment for that further delay. However, it seems certain that given all of the results and resolves over the last 90 days that that should be the final end date for high-speed rail.”
It would mean that the rail authority could not begin to install track and signals until after that construction is completed.
When The Times asked the rail authority if it had comment on Tutor’s statement, it received an email Friday from Tutor saying his statement to investors had caused “some confusion.” He said that he hopes that “substantial completion” of his company’s work would occur in early 2022, leaving “paperwork, acceptances and contractual documentation” to be completed in early in 2023.
Turning around the multibillion-dollar project has proved difficult for years, given California’s complex governance structure, flawed contracts and past decisions, officials close to the project say. Executives in civil engineering firms say the rail authority lacks technical resources.
“They have all these people in top jobs with no technical background,” said a top executive at a major European engineering firm, who worked on the project. “They are politicians. They never disclose the full cost. They give you incremental truth. They believe that is a successful business model. They should cancel the contracts and start over.”
The Federal Railroad Administration, which oversees billions of dollars in grants, has long warned the rail authority it risked missing deadlines and was headed for big cost overruns. In December 2016, the FRA warned the statethat the cost of the Central Valley construction could jump by $3.6 billion. After The Times obtained a copy of the confidential report and published its findings, the rail authority denied the legitimacy of the analysis. Today, the cost is even higher than the FRA projected.
WSP said it stands by the job it is doing for the bullet train. “To the extent WSP prepares cost and schedule estimates for the program as a whole, WSP brings world-class talent to the project that prepare professional estimates based on client needs and the information available when generated,” Turner Roth said.
Styles said he was shut out of work not long after taking the job at WSP, though the company did not fire him. Over many months, Styles, who was being paid $170,000 annually, said he kept advising management about the problems and writing procedures for contract compliance.
In a Facebook posting in June, Styles wrote that he had been warned by a co-worker “to be careful” and “you know too much” and to take a lower profile. “I’d rather be dead than a coward,” he wrote.
Styles filed an ethics complaint against his former employer in June, which was examined by a management committee in Chicago. “The committee concluded there was no proof that WSP violated ethics with the state,” he said.
Turner Roth said, “In 2019, an employee — who has since left the company — raised a question about the schedule data submitted to WSP by the construction managers and construction contractors. In response to this question, WSP thoroughly investigated the matter, and concluded there was no wrongful conduct by WSP employees in their review of contractor submissions.”
As for Lovejoy, whose career includes engineering jobs at major public agencies and corporations, she said problems started more a decade ago when the Obama administration issued a $2.5-billion grant from its economic stimulus program, intended for “shovel-ready projects.”
The grant came about four years before the first construction contract was issued, and actual work did not begin for two more years. “It was so far from shovel-ready,” Lovejoy said.
Another former WSP employee, who spoke anonymously out of concern that he would face retribution, supported Styles’ assertion that monthly and annual reports submitted by staff often were changed by WSP management before they were reviewed in meetings and sent to state executives.
“We gave them the bad news and they wouldn’t accept it,” he said.
The Times has previously reported that the project has struggled to relocate pipes, electrical lines and other infrastructure that stands in the way of securing parcels and laying track. Today, the rail authority is short by 497 of the 2,042 parcels it needs, according to its most recent progress report. In December, the authority acquired only five parcels.
In late 2018, Hemanth Kundeti, a database manager, was hired into the project to help improve property records, but he lasted only several months.
Kundeti, an employee of a subconsultant to WSP, said he developed his own software tool that could track the work more accurately. It would have allowed the state to replace a subcontractor that was charging $2 million annually to maintain the records, he said.
When he proposed the tool to WSP and state officials, it was rejected. In February 2019, he was twice reprimanded for “insubordination” for continuing to promote his software, according to a copy of the reprimand. In response, he wrote on his warning letter that management “without healthy debate is dangerous for any organization.” He was terminated a few weeks later.
“I am still reeling from the after-effects of being terminated for trying to save taxpayers’ money from being wasted,” said Kundeti, who has found a new job.