Category Archives: Biden administration

Half of Pandemic Money Stolen, Just $400 Billion

Posted on by

At least 30% of unemployment claims are fraudulent. 70% of the money has left our shores…oh don’t worry…the Biden administration has set aside $2 billion to stop this. What?

Beware of increased unemployment fraud due to identity theft

Axios:

Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say.

Why it matters: Unemployment fraud during the pandemic could easily reach $400 billion, according to some estimates, and the bulk of the money likely ended in the hands of foreign crime syndicates — making this not just theft, but a matter of national security.

Catch up quick: When the pandemic hit, states weren’t prepared for the unprecedented wave of unemployment claims they were about to face.

  • They all knew fraud was inevitable, but decided getting the money out to people who desperately needed it was more important than laboriously making sure all of them were genuine.

By the numbers: Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a service that tries to prevent this kind of fraud, tells Axios that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50% of all unemployment monies might have been stolen, he says.

  • Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimates that at least 70% of the money stolen by impostors ultimately left the country, much of it ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere.
  • “These groups are definitely backed by the state,” Talcove tells Axios.
  • Much of the rest of the money was stolen by street gangs domestically, who have made up a greater share of the fraudsters in recent months.

What they’re saying: “Widespread fraud at the state level in pandemic unemployment insurance during the previous Administration is one of the most serious challenges we inherited,” said White House economist Gene Sperling.

  • “President Biden has been clear that this type of activity from criminal syndicates is despicable and unacceptable. It is why we passed $2 billion for UI modernizations in the American Rescue Plan, instituted a Department of Justice Anti-Fraud Task Force and an all-of-government Identity Theft and Public Benefits Initiative.”

How it works: Scammers often steal personal information and use it to impersonate claimants. Other groups trick individuals into voluntarily handing over their personal information.

  • “Mules” — low-level criminals — are given debit cards and asked to withdraw money from ATMs. That money then gets transferred abroad, often via bitcoin.

The big picture: Before the pandemic, unemployment claims were relatively rare, and generally lasted for such short amounts of time that international criminal syndicates didn’t view them as a lucrative target.

  • After unemployment insurance became the primary vehicle by which the U.S. government tried to keep the economy afloat, however, all that changed.
  • Unemployment became where the big money was — and was also being run by bureaucrats who weren’t as quick to crack down on criminals as private companies normally are.
  • Unemployment fraud is now offered on the dark web on a software-as-a-service basis, much like ransomware. States without fraud-detection services are naturally targeted the most.

The bottom line: Many states are now getting more sophisticated about preventing this kind of fraud. But it’s far too late.

*** What Is Unemployment Insurance Fraud? | does

Consequences should also be on the states and we don’t spend anything more in unemployment until at least 50% is recovered…..billions of dollars likely ending up in the hands of foreign crime syndicates based in China, Russia and other countries, experts say.

“Fraud is being perpetrated by domestic and foreign actors,” Blake Hall, CEO and founder of ID.ME, told FOX Business. “We are successfully disrupting attempted fraud from international organized crime rings, including Russia, China, Nigeria and Ghana, as well as U.S. street gangs.”

Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solution, suggested the bulk of the money – about $250 billion – went to international criminal groups, most of which are backed by the state. The money is essentially being used as their slush fund for “nefarious purposes,” such as terrorism, illegal drugs and child trafficking, Talcove said.

The criminals have been able to access the money by stealing personal information and using it to impersonate claimants or buying it on the dark web. The groups also use an army of internet thieves to submit fraudulent claims. States, which administer the aid, may be prepared to combat fraud from individuals who are trying double-dip or cash in on benefits they don’t need, but not international criminals using the dark web to exploit the system.

VP Harris Trip Results in Joint Task Force Alpha

Posted on by

Harris meets with Mexico's president, declares 'new era' - Los Angeles Times source

In part from USA Today: GUATEMALA CITY – Vice President Kamala Harris, during a trip to Guatemala, announced initiatives Monday to address corruption and human trafficking in Central America and urged people from the region not to come to the U.S.-Mexican border. Harris announced that a task force would be created to work with the Justice, Treasury and State Departments to investigate corruption in the region. U.S. officials will train law enforcement in Guatemala to conduct their own investigations.

Joint Task Force Alpha was established to enhance U.S. law enforcement efforts against human smuggling and trafficking groups in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

“I have personally worked on these cases in my career and can say that when we see some of the most vulnerable in our communities being taken advantage of, being sold for profit, being abused, it should be a priority for all of us who care about the human condition and humanity,” Harris said.

“Corruption really does sap the wealth of any country and in Central America is at a scale where it is a large percentage of GDP across the region,” said Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department’s special envoy for the Northern Triangle. “We see corruption as one of the most important root causes to be dealt with.”

Part of the strategy to slow the pace of migration is creating better living conditions and economic opportunities for people in the region through investment. Last month, Harris secured the commitment of 12 U.S. companies and organizations – including MasterCard, Microsoft and Chobani – to invest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

US: Kamala Harris declares Mexico, Guatemala trip ′a success′ | News | DW | 09.06.2021

From the DOJ:

“Transnational human smuggling and trafficking networks pose a serious criminal threat,” said Attorney General Garland. “These networks profit from the exploitation of migrants and routinely expose them to violence, injury, and death. The joint efforts we are announcing today will combine investigative, prosecutorial, and capacity-building efforts of both the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Our focus will remain on disrupting and dismantling smuggling and trafficking networks that abuse, exploit, or endanger migrants, pose national security threats, and are involved in organized crime. Together, we will combat these threats where they originate and operate.”

In addition to the work of the Joint Task Force, Attorney General Garland directed the Office of Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training (OPDAT) and the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), in coordination with the State Department, to enhance the assistance provided to counterparts in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico to support their efforts to prosecute smuggling and trafficking networks in their own courts.

The Joint Task Force will consist of federal prosecutors from U.S. Attorney’s Offices along the Southwest Border (District of Arizona, Southern District of California, Southern District of Texas, and Western District of Texas), from the Criminal Division and the Civil Rights Division, along with law enforcement agents and analysts from DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration will also be part of the Task Force. And it will work closely with Operation Sentinel, a recently announced DHS operation focused on countering transnational criminal organizations affiliated with migrant smuggling.

 

The Under Reported Threat to the US of Smuggling Chinese

Posted on by

We have watched for years the chaos at the U.S. Southern border with Mexico. While there is has been a single focus on Latin Americans crossing into the United States, very little has been reported about the volume of Chinese. This should stimulate some critical thinking and questions.

Is this espionage, operatives or the building of a force for other reasons? In February of 2020, NBC News was asking some of the same questions.

A Chinese student walked around a perimeter fence at a U.S. naval base in Key West, taking pictures of government buildings. Stopped by police, he said he was trying to capture images of the sunrise.

aerial view of nas key west naval air station base truman ...

And nine days after that, two more Chinese students drove past a guard at the same naval base. When stopped by security 30 minutes later, they voluntarily displayed the videos and photos they had taken of the base.

The first Chinese student arrested at the naval base in Key West was Zhao Qianli, 20, who was taken into custody on Sept. 26, 2018.

Zhao entered the base by walking along the facility’s secure fence line and trudging through the beach, court documents say.

Zhao headed directly to the Joint Interagency Task Force South property, according to court records, where he took several photographs on his Motorola cellphone and his Canon EOS digital camera.

His devices contained photos and videos of sensitive equipment at the facility’s “antenna farm,” as well as images of warning signs that read “Military Installation” and “Restricted Area,” according to court documents.

Zhao initially told military police that he was “lost” and that he was a “dishwasher from New Jersey.” In later conversations with the FBI, Zhao said he traveled to Key West to “see the sights, such as the Hemingway House,” but there were no images of tourist attractions on his phone, according to his sentencing memo.

Zhao admitted to receiving military training as a university student in China and was found to have a “police blouse” and a People’s Republic of China Interior Ministry belt buckle at his hotel, the memo says.

 

In 2016, Newsweek in part reported:

Smuggling Chinese across the southern U.S. border appeals to traffickers because it is more lucrative than smuggling individuals from Mexico or Central America. A longer journey commands a steeper price and the going rate per person is believed to be somewhere between $50,000 and $70,000; the total value of the trade for the Chinese mafias involved has been estimated at $750 million.

The role of Chinese mafia groups (triads) in bringing migrants across the border has also deepened their exposure to and ties with Latin American narcotics cartels, both in human smuggling and beyond.

An “alliance between Chinese and Latin American smuggling rings” was noted as early as 1993, but today the scope of this “alliance” encompasses not just smuggling, but also other illicit activity including the sale of drug precursors from Asia and pirated materials.

In Mexico, contact between triads and cartels occurs in various regions, including those ruled by the ruthless Los Zetas syndicate and the Gulf and Juarez cartels, depending on what routes are used for migrants. Triad groups are believed to operate in the Mexican state of Chiapas and the Red Dragon triad, which operates in Peru, is involved not only in smuggling, but also in extortion and drug trafficking within Latin America. The wide-ranging activities of transnational organized crime groups generate additional law enforcement concerns beyond border security.

But it is important to look to the other side of our country, the area of the Bahamas and South Florida. A few islands in the Bahamas are now fully owned by China, one such island is Bird Cay. From Forbes in 2019 in part:

Quoting CaribbeanNews.com directly:

“China has set its sights on The Bahamas and has invested billions of dollars in building new infrastructure and industry across the country.

New roads, new businesses, new hotels, and booming Chinese immigration has led to many companies being staffed with more Chinese workers than local Bahamians.”

Plus, “Reports show that over 200,000 Chinese are illegally smuggled into the Caribbean every year to open their shops or work at Chinese businesses, with many sending their money back to China.”

However, the local government doesn’t see how it’s in a good position to do anything about it since Chinese state banks are simultaneously flooding the islands with tens of millions of dollars… even going so far as to finance new ports there.

Private Islands for sale - Bird Cay - Bahamas - Caribbean Bird Cay, owned now by China

Hold on, there is South Florida where those smuggled Chinese are making their way into the United States aboard some very expensive yachts.

The Miami Herald just last year told us:

Dozens of Chinese nationals without proper papers have been smuggled from the Bahamas to South Florida by operators of luxury yachts who are charging them thousands of dollars each for the short Atlantic journey, according to federal criminal cases.

In recent instances, the Coast Guard stopped two vessels approaching the South Florida shore, leading to the arrests of three men accused of transporting a total of 26 Chinese passengers and one Bahamian, court records show. The alien smuggling operations were not related, however.

Rocco Oppedisano, a 51-year-old Italian national, is scheduled for arraignment in Miami federal court Wednesday on charges of conspiring to transport aliens into the United States and bringing them here for financial gain. Oppedisano told a magistrate judge this week that properties he once owned in the Northeast have been sold along with his Mercedes-Benz, Porsche and Fiat vehicles to pay for legal costs over his immigration troubles.

Oppedisano was stopped by the Coast Guard on Dec. 2 while he was commandeering a 63-foot Sunseeker yacht named INXS FINALLY with 14 Chinese passengers and one Bahamian, according to an indictment. Among the passengers was a Chinese national, Ying Lian Li, who was deported last April but tried to re-enter the country.

It is unclear why these Chinese nationals — unlike Cubans and Haitians smuggled here in both go-fast and rickety boats in the past — sought to come to South Florida. But over the past five years, the Bahamas has experienced an influx of Chinese workers flocking to the archipelago as part of a push by China to invest in the country’s hotel, tourism and trade industries.

In the other alien smuggling case, a Coast Guard cutter encountered a 70-foot Hatteras yacht about 20 miles east of South Florida on July 23, when officers radioed the vessel to ask how many people were on board. The yacht’s response: two crew and eight Japanese passengers with passports, who did not need additional visas to enter the United States.

It was all a lie, according to a Homeland Security Investigations criminal affidavit.

About 10 miles east of Port Everglades, Coast Guard officers boarded the yacht and asked crew member Robert L. McNeil Jr. to bring all the passengers on deck. The officers counted 12 passengers with passports from the People’s Republic of China but without required visas to enter the United States, according to the HSI affidavit.

The Coast Guard concluded that none of the 12 Chinese nationals possessed documents that would allow them to enter the United States legally. McNeil, and the yacht’s charter captain, James A. Bradford, along with the 12 Chinese nationals were transferred to the Coast Guard cutter.

During questioning, Bradford said he left South Florida on the Hatteras yacht bearing the name CAREFREE on July 22 and arrived in Nassau, Bahamas, that day. He admitted that the purpose of the trip was to pick up a “tour group of aliens” in the Bahamas, transport them to South Florida and return to the Bahamas on July 26.

Bradford, who has been a charter captain for decades, said “he never checked to see if the passengers had proper documents to come to the U.S.,” according to the affidavit.

A search of the yacht uncovered 10 cellphones in the bridge area; none of the Chinese nationals had mobile phones on them.

“Based on my knowledge and experience in human smuggling cases, smugglers often collect cell phones from migrants until they are paid for delivering the migrants to the U.S.” wrote HSI special agent David Jansen, who added that none of the passengers carried any luggage.

The search also uncovered $118,100 hidden behind the wall paneling of the yacht’s master bedroom, the affidavit said. Investigators also seized more than $2,800 from McNeil.

Both Bradford and McNeil were indicted on charges of conspiring to transport aliens into the United States and bringing them here for financial gain. To resolve his case, McNeil pleaded guilty earlier this month to one count of alien smuggling to make a profit. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

The Hill says this is a disturbing trend.

Matt Cardy/Getty Images

While it’s unclear why these Chinese nationals sought to come to South Florida, the move is part of a larger five-year trend in the region. The Bahamas has seen a surge of Chinese workers as China invests in the archipelago’s hospitality and tourism industries. China’s presence in the Bahamas reportedly stems from a burgeoning relationship between the two countries, after China provided disaster relief in a bid to establish trade.

 

But What is NOT in Fauci’s Emails?

Posted on by

That is the question(s)…

While many are calling for the resignation of Dr. Anthony Fauci, I say hold on. Why? Often, in fact most often, former government employees rarely are investigated, charged or prosecuted. I say just suspend him without pay until a full commission is launched.

There are all kinds of people reading through all the released Fauci emails and rightly so. While reading through many articles and posts relating to the emails where so appear to be smoking guns…we must consider what is not in the emails.

As Joe Biden has ordered the intelligence agencies to go through a full review and report back, a long application of strategic thinking is also in order. The reader is invited to ask their own questions in the comments section of this post.

For some context and courtesy of Bloomberg News in part:

No matter where the inquiry leads, the history of lab safety shows, at the very least, that leaks of pathogens have happened in the past — sometimes with deadly consequences. It also shows that even transparent, thorough investigations into the origins of an outbreak can end in uncertainty.

By the late 1970s, smallpox had been eradicated in nature, but work on it continued in a handful of labs around the world, including a facility in Birmingham, England, which had access to a particularly virulent strain. In the summer of 1978, a medical photographer working there named Janet Parker fell ill. When pustules spread across her upper body, a local doctor diagnosed it as a bad case of chickenpox.

It was the third leak of smallpox that decade from a British lab. The British government moved aggressively to contain the outbreak, quarantining hundreds of people and vaccinating many more. Thanks to their efforts, only one other person — Parker’s mother — developed the disease. But Parker died an excruciating, lonely death in an isolation ward — the last known victim of smallpox.

But there were other victims. At the time, the newspapers covering the episode fixated on the director of the laboratory, an expert on pox viruses named Henry Bedson. Despite an absence of evidence, the press blamed him for the outbreak. Quarantined at home and despondent, Bedson went out to his garden shed and slit his own throat; he died soon afterward.

The British government commissioned a thorough investigation into the outbreak. It turned up evidence that Bedson may not have observed sufficient safety protocols and speculated that Parker must have somehow contracted smallpox through contamination in the air ducts. Later, a lawsuit effectively refuted this explanation, leading to the unsettling possibility that Parker herself may have entered one of the work spaces without proper protection. The debate continues to this day.

When lab leaks take place in a secretive society, the difficult job of confirming the source of an outbreak gets much harder. A good case in point was the infamous anthrax outbreak in Sverdlovsk, an isolated city in the Soviet Union.

In 1979, rumors of anthrax killing dozens — or even thousands — began trickling out to the West. Later that year, Soviet journals confirmed some of these reports, noting that upward of a hundred people had contracted anthrax after ingesting contaminated meat; over 60 had died. A tragedy, yes, but perhaps inevitable: Anthrax was endemic in local animal populations.

Intelligence officials in the U.S. weren’t convinced. Satellite imagery showed what looked like decontamination trucks around the city, with considerable activity focused on a mysterious military facility known as Compound 19. CIA analysts hypothesized that the Soviets had mistakenly released a weaponized form of anthrax. More here.

***

Remember, Dr. Fauci has the Director of the NIAID since 1984. He not only knows the history of super bugs and pandemics but he also has access to the files and documentation of global laboratories and scientists.

Can we quit saying ‘lab leaks’, which infers an accident? Perhaps ‘released’ should replace ‘leak’. Anyway, moving on.

Exactly why was the CIA not called in by Fauci or the suggestion of that in 2019 or earlier like around the time of the warning cables that were sent by U.S. Embassy officials back to the State Department in 2018?

How come Dr. Fauci’s emails did not include communication exchanges with other countries that provided big financial aid to the Wuhan Lab like France and Canada?

As the Public Health Agency of Canada refuses to release uncensored internal documents, a Conservative MP says he wants to know how far Canada’s collaboration with China on Level-4 pathogens went — and why two federal scientists were let go by the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in January.

“We need these documents. We need to know what the Government of Canada was doing through the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg with respect to cooperating with the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China,” Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong said during a special parliamentary committee hearing on Canada-China relations Monday night.

The special committee has demanded to know why two federal government scientists were escorted out of Canada’s only Level 4 Lab in July 2019, just four months after one of them shipped samples of the Ebola and Henipah viruses to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China — stories first published by CBC News.

Two months after that shipment, on May 24, 2019, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) referred an “administrative matter” to RCMP that resulted in the removal of two Chinese research scientists — Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng — and several international students on July 5.

No where in the Fauci emails is the request for the medical files of ‘patient zero’ or of any Chinese scientists that fell ill or died. Why?

Did Dr. Fauci reach out to the Galveston National Laboratory which is part of the University of Texas for any pandemic details? Not so much, why?

Galveston bio lab explains connections to Wuhan | Local ...

How come Dr. Fauci only had Dr. Deborah Birx as an addition to the White House Virus Task Force and other virology experts were not called on like other world health leaders?

How about any references to expert white papers that Dr. Fauci made? He only said data…what data?

There are hundreds of questions and standing up a full commission is past due. Meanwhile, suspect the doctor and start the real interviews and subpoenas. There are likely hundreds if not thousands more across the world that know more with evidence….Dr. Fauci makes no email inquiries and the same goes for the intelligence agencies, unless they have and that is being embargoed too.

SCOTUS Unanimous Decision on Temporary Protective Status

Posted on by

There have been several unanimous decisions out of the Supreme Court lately and this one is curious. The progressive Jurist Elena Kagan wrote this on regarding immigrants obtaining a green cards status….simple description….NO, they can’t have one.

Sounds good…but hold on.

And remember –> The Trump administration has ordered an end to TPS benefits for nearly all immigrants who had them, stating that the program is meant to provide temporary rather than long-term relief. But a series of lawsuits challenging the administration’s decision have blocked those orders from taking effect, giving the vast majority of these immigrants a reprieve until early 2021.

Immigrants from 10 nations have Temporary Protected Status

LATimes:

The Supreme Court on Monday dealt a setback to hundreds of thousands of immigrants who have so-called temporary protected status, ruling they can’t have a green card if they entered the country illegally.

That means TPS recipients who entered the county legally as students or tourists, and stayed under TPS may obtain a green card, said Justice Elena Kagan. But the same is not true of those who entered illegally.

“Because a grant of TPS does not come with a ticket of admission,” she wrote in Sanchez vs. Mayorkas, “it does not eliminate the disqualifying effect of an unlawful entry.”

Temporary protected status has been extended to about 320,000 immigrants from El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras, Nepal, Nicaragua and Sudan.

But lower courts had been divided over whether these migrants, many of whom have lived here for decades, may apply for and receive lawful permanent status. Four years ago, the 9th Circuit Court in California ruled that TPS recipients were eligible for green cards even if they entered the country illegally.

The case decided by the Supreme Court began when Jose Sanchez and his wife, Sonia Gonzalez, sought green cards. They arrived from El Salvador in the late 1990s, established lives and careers in New Jersey and had four sons. But they were not lawfully admitted.

Kagan said Congress is considering legislation that would allow such TPS recipients to obtain lawful permanent resident status, but only Congress, not the court, can change the law in this respect.

“Sanchez was not lawfully admitted, and his TPS does not alter that fact,” she wrote. “He therefore cannot become a permanent resident of this country.”

***

When can the Secretary designate a country for TPS?

The Secretary can designate a country for TPS due to:

  • Ongoing armed conflict (such as civil war),
  • An environmental disaster (such as earthquake or hurricane), or an epidemic, or
  • Other extraordinary and temporary conditions.

Who is eligible for TPS?

TPS can be granted to an individual who is a national of a designated country, has filed for status during a specified registration period, and who has been continuously physically present in the U.S. since a designated date.

What are the benefits of TPS?

During a designated period, TPS holders are:

  • Not removable from the U.S. and not detainable by DHS on the basis of his or her immigration status,
  • Eligible for an employment authorization document (EAD), and
  • Eligible for travel authorization.

How many individuals are currently granted TPS?

The U.S. currently provides TPS to over 400,000 foreign nationals from the following countries, not including individuals from Venezuela and Burma as they were just recently designated:

Country Estimated Number
Venezuela 323,000 eligible
El Salvador 251,567
Honduras 80,709
Haiti 56,453
Nepal 14,575
Syria 7,010
Nicaragua 4,526
Yemen 1,465
Sudan 805
Somalia 465
South Sudan 83
Burma N/A

Where do TPS holders live?

TPS holders reside all over the United States. The largest populations of TPS holders live in California (17.95%), Florida (13.75%), Texas (12.88%), New York (12.33%), and Virginia (6.75%). Most TPS holders from El Salvador live in the Washington, DC (32,359), Los Angeles (30,415) and New York (23,168) metropolitan areas. Honduran TPS holders live mostly in the New York (8,818), Miami (7,467) and Houston (6,060) metropolitan areas. Haitian TPS holders live mainly in the Miami (16,287), New York (9,402) and Boston (4,302) metropolitan areas. source

We have no idea how many people have been granted TPS, there are only estimates as noted here.

(From uscis.gov website)