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Is Your Teenager a Money Mule for Gangs?

The lure begins in Facebook

It is a growing phenomenon not only in the United States but in Europe. If your teenager does end up being a money mule and gets arrested then you could need to contact lawyers like this firm in Hudson County, NJ. Are you watching your teenagers or are parents encouraging this?

In south Texas, Mexican cartels often use teenagers – many just middle school-aged – to smuggle drugs. The cartels entice kids in impoverished Texas border towns into trafficking huge loads of marijuana or cocaine by promising quick cash. Then of course they leave them hanging when they’re caught by Border Patrol or local law enforcement. Teens end up doing serious time in south Texas juvenile detention centers. And when they finally get out, they leave with criminal records that make it even harder to find jobs in depressed areas of the Rio Grande Valley.

The story of Elias, a Falfurrias teen, isn’t all that unusual.

Elias’ uncle made it sound easy: just hop in the car, drive it from point A to point B, and get rewarded with $6,000 in cash. To sweeten the deal, if he made it, he got to keep the car – a quick little Chevy pick-up with a Camaro engine. Elias was 14 years-old, still too young to even qualify for his learner’s permit.
“Alright. I drove the truck from here in [Falfurrias] to Corpus, to a strip club,” Elias says. “The first time I did, I made it. I liked the money, I was young. My dad had just died. I was struggling with my mom. We never had a car; we never had nothing badass. It sucks, you know? So that’s what I got into,”

Mexican cartels are increasingly leaning on south Texas teenagers like Elias to handle their smuggling work north of the border. It’s an area that is, by far, the busiest stretch of border in the U.S. for the passage of drugs.

Cartels recruit teens through family members or friends and use them as drivers for cars loaded down with hundreds, sometimes thousands of pounds of drugs. For many boys along the border, it feels like an offer they can’t refuse, paying them at a lucrative per pound rate of between $10 and $50, according to 79th Judicial District Attorney Carlos Garcia.

“It’s definitely the money,” Garcia says. “They can make a lot of money in a short period of time. There’s not a lot of opportunities, especially in rural communities. Usually the opportunities find them. Once somebody’s been in the business for several years, maybe they’ve already aged out or they’re not juveniles anymore, but they’ll go and try to recruit some to come in.”

Using juveniles carries advantages for cartels, Garcia says.

“They’re going to look for where there’s the least amount of risk. When the juvenile’s involved, everything’s going to stop. Law enforcement knows – there are specific rules that keep them from talking to this juvenile,” he says.

The connections between cartels and juveniles aren’t new. In a particularly striking example, two Laredo teens became prolific assassins for the Zeta cartel in the mid-2000s. Dan Slater published a book last September about them titled “Wolf Boys.”

“The way I’d seen the cartel wars depicted in the media was through the stories of the cartel bosses, the people we see on the front of The New York Times. The Chapo Guzmáns… The more I learned about the drug war, the more I learned those stories really had nothing at all to do with the reality of the drug war. The reality was more about young men, and often boys, slaughtering each other,” Slater says.

Remedies have been few and far between. In 2012 Eagle Pass opened the Border Hope Restorative Justice Center, intended specifically for kids recruited into the drug trade. But the state shut down the center a year later and the juvenile probation officer who spearheaded the initiative resigned last year amid pressure.

Meanwhile, the problem persists.

The cartels bribe Border Patrol agents to get drugs across the Rio Grande, then turn to Texas teens like Elias to act as mules to get the drugs through the major inland checkpoints and into urban areas upstate. Elias knew he was a small pawn in this big web, but a pawn that made really good money – too good he says for him to pass up.

“I shouldn’t have been doing what I was doing, but to be honest, around here that’s all there is. I kept moving [expletive deleted] for my uncle,” Elias says. “I was 14 years-old. I moved out of my mom’s house. I was giving her $1,000 a week. I was doing good. [Expletive deleted] still going to school. I had my dumbass friends who were dropped out selling for me,” he says.

A few months into his work for the cartel, Elias was introduced to synthetic marijuana, also known as spice or K2. It’s a drug that’s rapidly growing in popularity among America’s poor because of its relative cheapness and potency. Elias had more money than he knew what to do with, and started smoking his supply. He would only sober up when his uncle told him he had another job for him. Then things got even worse. He saw blue and red lights as he was taking a load to Corpus.

“That time they lit me up here in Fal,” he says. “I had my truck. I wasn’t going to stop. I took off. I figured – it was just the Border Patrol. I had always ran from Border Patrol. By the time I came through the backroads of Fal, I had state troopers on me… I lost them going into San Diego. I burned them [expletive deleted]. They caught me again in SD coming out the other side going to Freer. I was trying to go Beeville to hide out in the hills. I flipped over on the curves. I just grabbed the [expletive deleted] and started running into the monte. I broke my leg. They found me sooner or later. I was just on the floor. The vato said, ‘We found you because you had a white trail following you.’”

The cops caught Elias with several hundred pounds of cocaine and some K2. If he hadn’t run, he might have been OK. Brooks County Sheriff Benny Martinez says that often when kids get caught at the checkpoint, officers treat them with “soft-hands,” seizing the drugs and letting the boys go. But Elias did run, and so he was sent to serve time in the juvenile center in San Diego.

That’s one place Texas sends kids caught and charged with a felony-level drug crimes in south Texas.

“To manipulate a child to do it is very easy,” says Lionel Ibarra, who is in charge of the San Diego Juvenile Detention Center. “They paint a real beautiful picture to these kids, and they fall in the trap. How can you tell a kid you need to go find a job at McDonald’s for $8.50 [per hour] when they can make $850 dealing drugs in the same hour?”

The San Diego Juvenile Detention Center has 22 beds. They’re often full.

“You see these kids that are so – they have so much of a future ahead of them,” Ibarra says. “And all of a sudden they turn the wrong way, and it’s downhill after that. Especially in a little community like ours. In a little community like this, everybody knows everybody.”

The other place teens in south Texas are sent for felony drug crimes is the Starr County Juvenile Detention Center in Rio Grande City. Doralisa Saenz oversees the 12 beds and in the basement of the Starr County courthouse.

“Before we used to have several kids from Mexico that would get caught on this side,” Saenz says. “That is on the decrease. But we’ve seen they’ve used local kids to smuggle drugs.”

Saenz and Garcia agree that relaxed punishment from local district attorneys for juveniles involved in smuggling is in part driving the increase. But the teens that do get involved still face consequences.

“Law enforcement can still see your juvenile record at any time in your life,” Saenz says. “We’ve had kids come back and say, ‘This is affecting me for financial aid. For little jobs.’ Local Whataburger, HEB, do criminal background checks. It affects them. They carry that for a while.”

I met former Kleberg County judge Pete de la Garza at a Mexican restaurant in Riviera, 30 miles east of Falfurrias. He’s now the main juvenile defender in Falfurrias and has defended kids as young as 11. He’s pushed hard to keep kids out of juvenile centers, which he calls just a smaller version of prison. He says reforms are badly needed.

“It all boils down to money,” de la Garza says. “And money is what the state of Texas doesn’t have. We need more juvenile centers, we need more bootcamps. We need a lot of places they can get psychological help. There are so many that a lot of times they slip through the cracks. You send them to a psychologist – the psychologist will take to them maybe three times – and that’s it.”

Elias had a rough time in the San Diego Detention Center. And since his release, he’s been struggling to stay straight. He got kicked out of school for fighting his principal and is trying to get a GED. His girlfriend also got pregnant and had a son. The week before I met him he says she took all of his belongings, and their nine-month-old son, and vanished.

“For my son I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble, but I haven’t been able to see my son or nothing,” he says. “I’ve been going back to what I was doing before. [expletive deleted], it’s extra hard. I [expletive deleted] went and applied everywhere. Walmart told me straight up: you have a clear history. So they wouldn’t hire me. [expletive deleted]. I’ve even gotten clean for jobs. Piss clean and everything. It’s [expletive deleted] hard to get a job, it really is. You can’t find [expletive deleted] around here. I would love to be able to get what I can for my son. To do for my family. And just can’t. I’ve tried so hard. And it just doesn’t happen. It’s not as easy as it sounds.”

He’s learned the hard way that the easy way to make money in the Rio Grande Valley, isn’t that easy after all.

Gangs force thousands of teens to become ‘money mules’

Youngsters have been approached with violent threats if they did not consent, say police

The number of young people targeted by criminals to be “money mules” – people who let their bank accounts be used to launder money – has doubled, according to a fraud prevention service.

Cifas, which aims at reducing financial crime in the UK, said that the number of “misuse of facility” frauds involving those under 21 years of age, has risen sharply.

There were 4,222 cases in the first half of 2017, compared with 2,143 in the first part of 2916, the fraud prevention service said.

It also reported that 65 per cent of the 17,040 incidents in the UK in the first six months of 2017 were committed by those under 30.

This type of fraud normally sees an individual allowing their bank account to be used in transferring money, according to Cifas, making it more difficult for authorities to monitor.

The organisation has also called for children to receive fraud education in the national curriculum.

“We are trying to prevent young people from getting involved in something that could end up being quite damaging,” said Sandra Peaston, Cifas, assistant director. “Not just the repercussions of laundering money but getting involved in organised crime can get very nasty.”

Ms Peaston added that criminals were advertising on social media, offering cash if youngsters allow them to use their bank accounts.

The Metropolitan Police has sent out warnings to parents through London schools after worries that school children are being approached outside school gates. There have been several cases recorded outside of London according to The Times.

Youngsters have been approached with violent threats if they did not consent, say police.

Parents were warned to talk to their children so they are on alert concerning these money laundering schemes, as they may not be aware that this is a criminal offence and could damage their credit status in the future.

Operation Falcon, the Met police’s fraud department sent out a letter explaining how youngsters are lured in. “This is either done by force or for a financial incentive. We need your support to help educate young people around this issue.

Bank accounts are private and must only be used by the account holder. Any misuse could not only be criminal but could cause serious credit issues for the account holder.”

Children as young as 13 now have bank accounts, said Detective Chief Inspector Gay Miles, and they now have “access to money that they didn’t have before.”

Dear President Trump: Sign, Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban)

The Taliban are watching all things Washington DC, especially Secretary of Defense Mattis and the White House.

Context: U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told reporters on Monday that the Trump administration was “very, very close” to a decision on Afghanistan, adding that all options were on the table. However, U.S officials believe it could take weeks for a South Asia strategy to be approved.

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CNN: President Donald Trump and his national security team are scheduled to meet next week to discuss US strategy for Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, according to two administration officials familiar with the latest thinking.

While the meetings could be delayed or rescheduled, the officials told CNN that the ongoing review appears to be drawing to a close.
On Friday the Pentagon announced that the US killed Abu Sayed, the leader of ISIS-Khorasan, the terror group’s Afghanistan affiliate in a drone strike on Tuesday.
But there are major challenges ahead, and Defense Secretary James Mattis has been framing the internal discussions inside the administration as a “South Asia strategy.” It encompasses a way ahead in Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops, but also a look at new ideas for dealing with Pakistan, which the US believes is supporting or turning a blind eye to a number of terror groups operating inside the country.  More here.

LWJ: The Taliban has published an “open letter” to President Donald Trump, urging him to “adopt the strategy of a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan instead of a troops increase.” The letter was clearly penned with the Trump administration’s ongoing debate over the war in Afghanistan in mind.

Senior administration officials have reportedly prepared several plans, ranging from a complete withdrawal to a small increase of several thousand American troops. Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, the national security adviser, favors the latter while alternative scenarios have also been presented to the president.

President Trump has been reticent to commit additional forces, as he would then take ownership of the longest war in America’s history. The Taliban obviously knows this and is trying to influence the debate inside the US.

But readers should keep in mind that the new letter is propaganda and should be read as such. The letter is laced with erroneous and self-serving statements. And some of its key points, crafted for Western readers, are contradicted by the facts.

Allied with al Qaeda, which exports terrorism around the globe

The Taliban describes itself as a “mercy for Afghanistan, [the] region and the world because the Islamic Emirate does not have any intention or policy of causing harm to anyone and neither will it allow others to use the Afghan soil against anyone.”

Although the Taliban does not explicitly mention al Qaeda, the group likely wants readers to assume that this sentence means there is a clear distinction between the Taliban’s operations inside Afghanistan and jihadist threats outside of the country. In reality, there is no such clear line of demarcation.

Ayman al Zawahiri, the head of al Qaeda, remains openly loyal to the Taliban’s overall leader. Zawahiri swore allegiance to Mullah Mansour in Aug. 2015. Mansour, the successor to Taliban founder Mullah Omar, described al Qaeda’s leaders as the “heroes of the current jihadist era” and Osama bin laden as the “leader of mujahideen.” Mansour publicly accepted the “esteemed” Dr. Zawahiri’s fealty shortly after it was offered.

After Mansour was struck down by an American drone strike in Pakistan in May 2016, Zawahiri quickly rehearsed the same oath to Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, who still presides over the Taliban. Akhundzada’s son carried out a suicide bombing in Helmand province in July. The attack was just the latest piece of evidence confirming that the Taliban emir is a committed ideologue, not a prospective peace partner.

Under Akhundzada’s leadership, the Taliban is hardly bashful about its continuing alliance with al Qaeda. The Taliban celebrated the relationship in a Dec. 2016 video, which contained images of Osama bin Laden alongside Mullah Omar. One such image from the production can be seen below:

 

Other al Qaeda figures are also proudly featured in the Taliban video, such as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP) Khalid al Batarfi, a veteran jihadist who plays an important ideological role. Batarfi praised the Taliban for harboring and supporting al Qaeda. And he directly connected the Taliban’s war in Afghanistan to the jihad against the US.

“Groups of Afghan Mujahideen have emerged from the land of Afghans that will destroy the biggest idol and head of kufr of our time, America,” Batarfi said in the Taliban’s video. The “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was sacrificed and even vanished in support of our sacred religion, but they (the Taliban) did not trade off their religion.” Batarfi crowed that the jihadists can finally “see [the] light of victory,” as governance according to the “rule of Sharia” law is “even stronger in Afghanistan than before.”

While the Taliban is often portrayed as a nationalist group (this is the intended implication of the group’s letter to President Trump), the Dec. 2016 video portrayed the Taliban’s struggle as part of the global jihad and the effort to reclaim all Muslim lands.

Akhundzada’s top deputy is the aforementioned Sirajuddin Haqqani, a longtime al Qaeda ally. The Haqqanis have been in bed with al Qaeda since the 1980s. Sirajuddin’s father, Jalaluddin, was one of Osama bin Laden’s earliest and most influential backers. Files recovered during the May 2011 raid on bin Laden’s compound reveal that al Qaeda’s men have fought alongside Sirajuddin’s forces for years. This is especially significant because Haqqani oversees the Taliban’s military operations.

There are numerous other ties. In Sept. 2014, for instance, Zawahiri publicly announced the creation of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), which brought together existing al Qaeda-allied groups. AQIS has repeatedly made it clear that its men fight under the Taliban’s banner and that its primary goal is to restore the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate to power in Afghanistan. In Oct. 2015, US and Afghan forces raided two massive al Qaeda training camps in southern Afghanistan. One of the camps, approximately 30 square-miles in size, may be the largest al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan’s history. Both of the camps were supported by the Taliban. AQIS conducts operations in Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and elsewhere.

Just over two weeks before the 2016 presidential election, the US hunted down a top al Qaeda commander known as Farouq al-Qahtani in eastern Afghanistan. Qahtani not only commanded jihadists fighting alongside the Taliban, he was planning attacks inside the United States at the time of his demise.

All of these details, and more, belie the Taliban’s claim that it won’t “allow others to use the Afghan soil against anyone.”

State sponsors and enablers of the Taliban-led insurgency

The Taliban claims that the US government has concluded that the “mujahideen” are entirely self-sufficient and do not receive any foreign support. “Your intelligence agencies admit that our Mujahideen are not being supported by any country and neither can they produce any proof in the contrary,” the letter reads.

This is obviously false — Pakistan’s support for the Taliban is longstanding and well-known. Other countries, such as Iran and Russia, provide some level of assistance. Wealthy benefactors in the Gulf have contributed rich sums to the Taliban cause as well.

In July, the US State Department once again confirmed that Pakistan harbors the Taliban, including the so-called Haqqani Network (HQN), which plays an integral role within the organization. “Pakistan did not take substantial action against the Afghan Taliban or HQN, or substantially limit their ability to threaten US interests in Afghanistan, although Pakistan supported efforts to bring both groups into an Afghan-led peace process,” State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2016 reads. A “number” of attacks inside Afghanistan throughout 2016 “were planned and launched from safe havens in Pakistan.”

In a report submitted to Congress in June, the Defense Department also explained the enduring importance of the jihadists’ Pakistani safe havens. “Attacks in Afghanistan attributed to Pakistan-based militant networks continue to erode the Afghanistan-Pakistan relationship,” the Pentagon noted. “Militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, continued to utilize sanctuaries inside Pakistan.”

The Afghan Taliban is not operating under the radar in Pakistan, but instead receives assistance from parts of the government. “Afghan-oriented militant groups, including the Taliban and Haqqani Network, retain freedom of action inside Pakistani territory and benefit from support from elements of the Pakistani Government,” the report reads (emphasis added).

This is consistent with Pakistan’s “Good Taliban” vs. “Bad Taliban” policy, which favors jihadists who are focused on attacking the Afghan government and allied forces, including the US. Only the “Bad Taliban” — that is, those jihadists operating against the Pakistani state — are regularly targeted by Pakistani security. The effects of this policy are plain to see. The Quetta Shura Taliban (QST) earned its name because the group’s most senior leaders have been able to operate openly in the city. It is well-known, too, that the Haqqanis have cozy relations with the Pakistani military and intelligence establishment. Sirajuddin Haqqani has been the Taliban’s top deputy leader since 2015.

Pakistan isn’t the only regional player supporting the Taliban-led insurgency. The Iranian government is as well.

“Iran provides some support to the Taliban and Haqqani Network and has publicly justified its relationships as a means to combat the spread of the ISIS-K threat in Afghanistan,” the Pentagon reported in June. Although the Iranians attempt to justify their policy as a form of realpolitik, a necessary consequence of fighting the Islamic State’s Wilayah Khorasan (Khorasan “province,” or ISIS-K), the reality is that they first forged a working relationship with their former foes in the Taliban immediately after the 9/11 hijackings. [See FDD’s Long War Journal report, Analysis: Iran has supported the Taliban’s insurgency since late 2001.]

A striking example of Iranian complicity in the Afghan insurgency was revealed in May 2016, when the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mansour, was killed in an American airstrike. The US followed Mansour from Iran, where he was holding meetings, across the Pakistani border into Baluchistan, where he was struck down. Mansour’s ability to travel freely inside Iran speaks volumes about the ongoing relationship.

At a minimum, Russia has rhetorically backed the Taliban. “Russian-Afghan relations suffered due to Russia’s public acknowledgment of communications with the Taliban and support of the Taliban’s call for coalition withdrawal from Afghanistan,” the Pentagon has said. Press reports continue to point to evidence that Russian-supplied weapons are helping to fuel the Taliban-led insurgency. Asked about these reports in April, Gen. John Nicholson, the Commander of Resolute Support and US Forces Afghanistan, refused to refute them.

There are other obvious problems with the Taliban’s letter. The group accuses President Trump’s generals of lying about the American casualties incurred. The “[g]enerals are concealing the real statistics of your dead and crippled however the Afghans can easily count the coffins being sent your way on a daily basis,” the letter reads. This is nonsensical, as American casualties are readily verified. Moreover, the Taliban frequently lies about the number of Americans killed or wounded in combat.

The Taliban says that it could “conquer many provincial capitals currently under siege,” if it “were not for fear of civilian casualties.” There is no question that the Taliban currently threatens multiple provincial capitals, but its concern about civilian casualties is mostly cosmetic. The United Nations has repeatedly documented the Taliban’s culpability in killing and wounding innocents. The group is responsible for more civilian casualties in Afghanistan than any other actor.

The US approach to the war in Afghanistan should be based on a rational assessment of the situation, not the Taliban’s misleading claims.

DreamHost/DistruptJ20 Warrant is an Outrage

The warrant is here.

The response delivered from DreamHost to the Justice Department is 60 pages and found here.

What is this Justice Department and Judge thinking? Of note, Jeff Sessions was not sworn in as Attorney General until February 9th. The warrant was signed off by John W, Borchert who was assigned to the Criminal Division’s Fraud Division.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is aiding DreamHost as noted in this extensive blog post.

DreamHost is fighting DoJ request for 1.3M IP addresses of visitors to anti-Trump protest site

Web hosting service DreamHost is fighting a Department of Justice demand to scoop up all the IP addresses of visitors to an anti-Trump website. The website in question, disruptj20.org, organized participants of political protests against the current U.S. administration.

Blogging about its objections to the warrant yesterday, DreamHost’s general counsel describes it as “a highly untargeted demand that chills free association and the right of free speech afforded by the Constitution”.

DreamHost says it has not been able to see the affidavit pertaining to the warrant as those records are sealed. The search warrant can be found here.

In the warrant the DoJ demands that DreamHost hand over 1.3 million visitor IP addresses to the disruptj20.org website, along with contact information, email content, and photos of thousands of people.

“That information could be used to identify any individuals who used this site to exercise and express political speech protected under the Constitution’s First Amendment. That should be enough to set alarm bells off in anyone’s mind,” argues DreamHost.

“This is, in our opinion, a strong example of investigatory overreach and a clear abuse of government authority.”

The latest developments in what has been a months-long disagreement already, are that DreamHost has now filed arguments in opposition of the DoJ demand.

Its counsel will be attending a court hearing on the matter on August 18 in Washington, D.C.

DreamHost initially challenged the government to narrow the scope of the warrant but says instead the DoJ filed a motion in the Washington, D.C. Superior Court asking for an order to compel it to produce the records.

Also blogging about the issue yesterday, the Electronic Frontier Foundation accuses D.C. prosecutors of using “unconstitutional methods” to pursue their investigation into the J20 protests, aka the day President Trump was inaugurated.

“In just one example of the staggering overbreadth of the search warrant, it would require DreamHost to turn over the IP logs of all visitors to the [disruptj20.org] site. Millions of visitors — activists, reporters, or you (if you clicked on the link) — would have records of their visits turned over to the government. The warrant also sought production of all emails associated with the account and unpublished content, like draft blog posts and photos,” the EFF writes.

“No plausible explanation exists for a search warrant of this breadth, other than to cast a digital dragnet as broadly as possible. But the Fourth Amendment was designed to prohibit fishing expeditions like this. Those concerns are especially relevant here, where DOJ is investigating a website that served as a hub for the planning and exercise of First Amendment-protected activities.”

When Fentanyl Should be a WMD, NOW

Police department gets hazmat-like protective gear for overdose calls

FNC: A Massachusetts police chief ordered hazmat-like gear for his officers to help protect them from dangerously powerful drugs that could cause an overdose simply by touching the substance. Each Walpole Police Department patrol car will now be equipped with two hazmat suits, gloves, goggles and respirators to be used when responding to an overdose call, Boston 25 News reported. 

Chief John Carmichael placed the order after three officers in Chelsea became lightheaded while responding to a car crash earlier this month. The officers were exposed to an unknown substance after entering the vehicle to help extract three unresponsive victims.

Though the substance in the case Carmichael is referring to was not identified, officers around the country have been on high-alert for powerful drugs that could be dangerous to touch even with gloves on. One drug, dubbed “grey death by authorities in Georgia, is believed to contain heroin, fentanyl and a synthetic opioid called U-47700 and can kill users with a single dose.

Elsewhere in Massachusetts police are testing a new database for documenting opioid overdoses that they hope will help departments share information in real time and get people into treatment. It was developed by criminal justice experts at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island and Kelley Research Associates in Massachusetts.

The system is designed so that when a department responds to an overdose it is recorded into a system, which then alerts the corresponding department in which the victim lives to do a follow-up outreach visit.

“We know people suffering from the crisis don’t just overdose in their town,” East Bridgewater Police Chief Scott Allen, whose department is one of 27 in Plymouth Count using the system, told the Associated Press.

This is such a crisis for users and for first responders, I got the following in an email today. It is worth sharing such that it does make the case that fentanyl in all its forms should be classified as a weapon of mass destruction. Last year, records show that more than 40,000 people died from various forms of opioid/fentanyl use. Let that number sink in.

Increased illicit use of opioids, including synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and its analogue
carfentanil, is a source of increased risk to responders.
Most routine encounters between patients or detainees and EMS or law enforcement do not present a significant threat of toxic exposure. While there are anecdotal reports of public safety personnel being exposed to opioids during operations, they are largely unconfirmed. To proactively address the potential risks, this document establishes guidance for personal protective equipment selection and use, decontamination, detection, and medical countermeasures for first responders who may be exposed to opioids in the course of
their occupational activities.
Throughout the remainder of this document, the term synthetic opioids will be used to include fentanyl, fentanyl analogues, morphine analogues, the U-series opioids, and others.
Synthetic opioids (sufentanil, lofentanil,carfentanil, U-47700, and others) are highly toxic organic solids (UN 2811) Synthetic opioids may be found as powders, liquids, nasal sprays,
and pills.
The particulate size of synthetic opioid powders typically ranges from 0.2 to 2.0 mm, and
the powders are easily aerosolized.
The powders are both water and lipid soluble and present primarily a respiratory hazard. A secondary dermal hazard exists if there is direct skin contact with large bulk amounts of
concentrated threat materials.

Powder-like substances can become airborne and present a respiratory hazard,particularly during activities such as “burping” containers of potential narcotics or “brushi

ng” powdered residues from surfaces. Therefore, during encounters involving these types of materials, actions must be taken to avoid such aerosolization. Covering, wetting or leaving containers unopened are essential safety precautions. Use of proper personal protective
equipment and standard safe work practices to prevent inhalation of powders and to minimize direct skin contact with residues should be instituted as soon as the
potential presence of such materials is suspected.

EB-5 Abusers go to Jail, Need More of This

When money buys citizenship, the honor, pride and loyalty fades fast.

Sounded good in theory at the time back in 1990 perhaps, then of course abuse set in:

EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program

USCIS administers the EB-5 Program. Under this program, entrepreneurs (and their spouses and unmarried children under 21) are eligible to apply for a green card (permanent residence) if they:

  • Make the necessary investment in a commercial enterprise in the United States; and
  • Plan to create or preserve 10 permanent full-time jobs for qualified U.S. workers.

This program is known as EB-5 for the name of the employment-based fifth preference visa that participants receive.

Congress created the EB-5 Program in 1990 to stimulate the U.S. economy through job creation and capital investment by foreign investors. In 1992, Congress created the Immigrant Investor Program, also known as the Regional Center Program. This sets aside EB-5 visas for participants who invest in commercial enterprises associated with regional centers approved by USCIS based on proposals for promoting economic growth.

There was a time this top democrat said: “I don’t believe that America should be selling visas and eventually citizenship,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a Democrat of California. China is the biggest applicant to the program and no one can produce how many jobs are actually created.

In 2015 for instance, a Chinese national was arrested after investigators found he had obtained an EB-5 visa using stolen money. A 2013 Homeland Security investigation found that an Iranian who was arrested and involved in the EB-5 program had ties to Iranian intelligence operatives, The Times reported.

There has not been a congressional hearing dedicated to EB-5 abuse for more than a year, go here to watch the last one. Shocking.

The 2017 budget, which will continue funding the U.S. government until October, includes the extension of the EB-5 visa program, as lawmakers slipped the extension of the program into the spending bill.

 

It’s About Time — Two EB-5 Fraudsters Are Sent to Jail

After years of writing about the numerous and substantial frauds in the EB-5 program, I now can report that two people are going to jail for immigrant investor program crimes.

Each of the cases involved more than $100 million in misused EB-5 investments, with the actual thefts involving more than $10 million each. The cases had nothing to do with each other, but both show how badly the EB-5 program is managed by the Department of Homeland Security, an agency whose skill set does not include regulating high finance.

The EB-5 program currently gives a family-sized set of green cards to alien investors who place half-million-dollar investments through a DHS-approved regional center. The program, which keeps getting renewed by Congress for short periods, is due to sunset again on September 30. But the middlemen who benefit from the program (including some of the president’s in-laws) are likely to secure the program’s renewal again without any of the reforms it needs so badly. I hope I am wrong about that.

Earlier this month, Lobsang Dargey, said to be a former Tibetan monk, was sentenced to four years in prison for his crimes as part of a plea agreement. In addition to prison, Dargey agreed, along with associated firm Path Othello LLC, to disgorge $18.4 million. In these cases the question of deportation is handled separately and years later.

Dargey talked scores of investors, mostly from China, into buying into his Seattle real estate ventures.

Earlier in the year a similar conman was sentenced to three years in jail for an even bigger swindle in Chicago. This one was so dramatic that it reached the cover of Fortune magazine, even before sentencing. The promoters said it would be the:

“World’s First Zero Carbon Platinum LEED-certified and 100% Allergen Free convention center and hotel complex.” Lest anyone doubt its global eco-import, the project’s developer was branding it as a “Kyoto Protocol Centre.” At a projected cost of $913 million, it was to include three connected towers — 14, 17, and 19 stories tall — containing five upscale hotels with 995 suites and rooms, four levels of convention space, a green roof with a spa and yoga studio, a miniature golf course, and a 1,720-car “automatic robotic” parking garage.

The man behind the scam, Anshoo Sethi, now in jail, had told his gullible investors (and the equally gullible U.S. government) that he was investing $177.5 million worth of real estate in the project. However, that investment consisted of a modest motel, occupying two-plus acres near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, that had been purchased by Sethi’s family for $10 million, a fact that any of the investors — or any DHS employee — could have discovered in the city’s land records. But no one checked until years later.

One hopes that these sentences will discourage other would-be EB-5 fraudsters, but while there have been dozens of accounts of similar schemes (as shown on a CIS-created map), so far these are the first to have led to well-deserved prison sentences.