Homan and Noem in NY for Illegal Migrant Operations

Posted on January 28, 2025January 28, 2025 by Denise Simon

The operations in New York included criminal and civil law enforcement actions. A ruthless leader of Tran de Aragua, Anderson Zambrano-Pacheco was arrested who is/was wanted for kidnapping a woman from Aurora, Colorado also with the help of the DEA in an apartment building in the Bronx.

It is important to know however just what law enforcement is up against in New York as noted below as an example:

🚨Breaking News 🚨

This was sent into multiple migrant shelters and hotels throughout NYC .

It’s telling employees of migrants shelters not to work and pretty much stall federal agents from entering migrant shelter.

This was sent in from a source at a migrant shelter. pic.twitter.com/lnoM43CC3g

— Viral News NYC (@ViralNewsNYC) January 27, 2025

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ABC News:

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined an immigration enforcement operation in New York City on Tuesday.

Noem posted a brief video of an arrest to her social media account.

The secretary is witnessing both criminal and civil enforcement operations, according to sources familiar with the actions in New York.

The criminal case involves a member of a Venezuelan gang that took over an apartment complex in Aurora, Colorado, the sources said. One alleged gang member was arrested in the Bronx.

The New York division of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said it was working with partners at the Justice Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to assist the Department of Homeland Security with enforcement efforts.

***. Violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua recruiting NYC migrants for ... TdA recruiting migrants

There have been recent arrests in New York of a Venezuelan fugitive and TdA gang member. ICE published this example from May of last year in New York:

NEW YORK — On May 10, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) New York City arrested an unlawfully present Venezuelan citizen and member of the Tren de Aragua transnational criminal organization. Johan Jose Cardenas Silva is wanted by Peruvian authorities for conspiracy, assault and aggravated theft. Cardenas was also one of eight noncitizens arrested by the New York City Police Department March 27 and charged with criminal possession of a weapon-second degree: loaded firearm; criminal possession weapon-second degree: loaded firearm on school grounds; criminal possession-controlled substance-5th: intent to sell; and act in manner injure child less than 17.

ERO New York City officers assigned to its Long Island office arrested Cardenas upon his release from Nassau County Correctional Center pursuant to an administrative warrant of removal. He is detained in ICE custody pending removal proceedings.

“This international fugitive mistakenly thought he could waltz into the United States to not only evade justice in other countries, but to continue his criminality with impunity,” said ERO New York City Field Office Director Kenneth Genalo. “His history of lawless behavior and membership in a violent international criminal organization clearly demonstrate that he is a serious threat to the public safety.”

U.S. Border Patrol officials encountered Cardenas in Del Rio, Texas, Oct. 4, 2022, and determined he unlawfully entered the United States and issued him a notice and order of expedited removal.

On Jan. 19, 2023, ERO San Antonio served Cardenas a notice to appear with a list of free legal services and filed it with the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). On March 30, 2023, an immigration judge ordered Cardenas removed from the United States.

On Oct. 5, 2023, Cardenas was released from Stewart County Detention Center on an order of supervision to report to New York City; however, he never reported as directed.

On March 27, NYPD arrested him for the crimes of criminal possession of a weapon-second degree: loaded firearm; criminal possession weapon-second degree: loaded firearm on school grounds; criminal possession-controlled substance-5th: intent to sell; and act in manner injure child less than 17. On this same date, the Bronx Criminal Court arraigned and released Cardenas on his own recognizance before an immigration detainer could be lodged. Due to the New York state’s Protect Our Courts Act, ERO New York City was precluded from arresting Cardenas upon his release.

On April 1, the Nassau County Police Department arrested and charged Cardenas with the crimes of grand larceny in the fourth degree: value property greater than $1,000 and petit larceny. On that same day, ERO New York City lodged an immigration detainer with the Nassau County Jail against Cardenas’ release.

On April 9, ERO New York City received notification that Cardenas was an international fugitive wanted by Peruvian authorities on an arrest warrant issued in October 2018.

On April 30, the First District Court of Nassau County convicted him of petit larceny and sentenced him to 60 days of imprisonment. More here.

The $200M Smuggling Bust at the Long Beach Port

Posted on January 28, 2025January 28, 2025 by Denise Simon

FoxLA:

LA Ports smuggling bust: Feds arrest 8 suspected of smuggling $200M in Chinese goods

LOS ANGELES – Federal authorities have arrested eight individuals in connection with a large-scale smuggling operation that allegedly brought counterfeit and illegal goods from China into the United States through the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The operation, involving logistics companies, warehouse owners, and corrupt truck drivers, is believed to have smuggled at least $200 million worth of goods. An additional defendant, believed to be the lead orchestrator, remains at large and is thought to be in China. The defendants face multiple charges, including conspiracy, smuggling, and breaking customs seals.

9 charged in 15-count indictment

What We Know: Federal law enforcement has charged nine defendants in a 15-count indictment with conspiracy, smuggling, and breaking customs seals. The defendants allegedly collaborated with partners in China to manipulate shipping containers flagged for inspection, using logistics companies to facilitate the smuggling of counterfeit goods into the U.S. Investigators have seized over $130 million in contraband, and the organization is believed to have smuggled at least $200 million worth of goods through this scheme. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the busiest container ports in the Western Hemisphere, were the focal points of the operation.

How the crime ring operated

According to Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally, the scheme involved logistics companies, warehouse owners, and corrupt truck drivers working together to defy U.S. customs laws. The defendants and their partners in China filled shipping containers with contraband, including counterfeit goods and illegal chemicals. They circumvented the security system by learning the unique serial numbers of security seals and creating duplicate fake seals. These counterfeit seals were sent from China to the U.S. When shipments arrived at the port, instead of going to secondary inspection sites, corrupt truck drivers took the containers to offsite warehouses. There, the seals were cut, contraband removed, and new counterfeit seals applied before presenting the containers to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) for inspection. Truck drivers were paid significantly above normal rates to transport the containers illegally.

Timeline: The indictment details a conspiracy that operated from at least August 2023 to June 2024. The scheme involved filling shipping containers in China with contraband, counterfeit goods, and illegal chemicals. These containers were sealed with unique security seals, whose numbers the conspirators obtained in advance to create duplicate fake seals. Upon arrival in the U.S., the containers were diverted to offsite warehouses instead of secondary inspection sites, where the contraband was removed, and new counterfeit seals were applied before presenting the containers for Customs and Border Protection (CBP) inspection. Seven defendants were arrested on Friday, with an eighth taken into custody on Saturday. The arraignment for the seven arrested took place on Friday, where they pleaded not guilty, and a trial date was set for March 18. The eighth defendant is expected to be arraigned soon.

The Backstory: The smuggling operation involved executives from logistics companies, warehouse owners, and corrupt truck drivers who coordinated the shipment of contraband from China to the U.S. through the Port of Los Angeles. The defendants allegedly circumvented customs inspections by breaking security seals on containers, removing contraband, and replacing the seals with counterfeit ones to evade detection.

Biden’s Admin Lost 291,000 Unaccompanied Migrant Children

Posted on August 21, 2024August 21, 2024 by Denise Simon

Remember when the Democrats launched a huge attack on President Trump for disconnecting families/children of illegal migrants? Well…hold on…seems things are bubbling to the surface that the Biden administration and that pesky Border Czar, Kamala don’t care about who they lost….noting that an estimated 290,000 children have been exploited, trafficked or are in a forced labor condition.

Where is the joy now Kamala? Where is the child safety of these unaccompanied children? Inspector General Joseph Cuffari did the investigation and is shouting for immediate action. That ‘border bill’ that was killed and blamed on Trump never addressed the matter of the chaos and scandals at the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

DHS Secretary Defends Response to 20-Year-High Surge of Unaccompanied ...

38 Senators wrote a letter about this chaos and failure…radio silence from the FBI, DHS, HHS and the White House. Note the Department of Justice such as it is…does not care either. Human Rights? nah….

READ THE INSPECTOR GENERAL REPORT HERE

Table 1. UCs transferred to ORR, FYs 2019-2023 FY UCs released to ORR FY 2019 67,987 FY 2020 15,128 FY 2021 120,859 FY 2022 127,057 FY 2023 117,789 Total 448,820

Source: DHS OIG analysis of ICE data

According to OPLA officials, ICE ERO has no authority over UCs beyond managing their immigration cases. Therefore, even if ICE were to identify UCs in unsafe conditions, the agency has limited authority to respond. ICE personnel at two field offices affirmed this and explained they had identified UCs in unsafe conditions but were unable to intervene. One ICE officer expressed concern with not being able to take action in a case involving a UC whose sponsor claimed the UC was in an inappropriate relationship with her husband.

Also included in the report is this text:

We issued this management alert as part of an ongoing audit of ICE’s ability to monitor UCs who were released from DHS and HHS custody between FYs 2019 and 2023. The objective of our ongoing audit is to determine ICE’s ability to monitor the location and status of UCs once released or transferred from DHS and HHS’ custody. As part of our audit, between October 2023 and May 2024, we: • Interviewed more than 100 officials from ICE ERO, OPLA, Homeland Security Investigations, and the Center for Countering Human Trafficking, as well as external stakeholders from DOJ and HHS. The interviews included meetings with ICE field offices located in Miami, Los Angeles, St. Paul (Minnesota), Philadelphia, San Diego, Baltimore, Houston, Dallas, New York, and Chicago. • Reviewed relevant laws, reports, and policies, such as the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Immigration and Nationality Act, appropriations acts, prior DHS and HHS OIG reports, and internal ICE policies and handbooks. Additionally, we reviewed and analyzed multiple memorandums of agreement between DHS and HHS regarding UCs. • Reviewed and analyzed ICE data to determine the number of UCs ICE released to ORR from FY 2019 through FY 2023, UCs not served NTAs to date, and UCs who did not appear in court. We conducted this work pursuant to the Inspector General Act of 1978, 5 U.S.C. §§ 401-424, and in connection with an ongoing audit being performed according to generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require we plan and perform our audit work to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. Additional information and recom

Iran’s Mint Sandstorm, are you a Victim?

Posted on August 13, 2024August 13, 2024 by Denise Simon

So, a senior official in the Trump campaign was the victim of an email phishing trick and it worked….countless emails were hacked/stolen and began to be distributed. Microsoft has confirmed this and several Iranian cyber signatures from previous hack are providing some pretty good attributions to Iran as the hackers. But no worries, the FBI, likely the Pittsburgh office as agreed t investigate.

Just last night after some recent promoting the SPACES event hosted by Donald Trump and Elon Musk was delayed for an estimated 45 minutes due to a DDOS hit. Again, that too had the signature tactics of Iran. Mint Sandstorm Campaign's Targeted Cyber Attacks on Middle Eastern Experts source

Per CSOOnline in part:

The hackers allegedly obtained sensitive data as a result of a successful phishing campaign against Trump officials. Cheung cited the Microsoft report which said in June 2024, Mint Sandstorm, a group run by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC) intelligence unit, sent a spear-phishing email to a high-ranking official of a presidential campaign from a compromised email account of a former senior advisor.

“On Friday, a new report from Microsoft found that Iranian hackers broke into the account of a ‘high ranking official’ on the US presidential campaign in June 2024, which coincides with the close timing of President Trump’s selection of a vice-presidential nominee,” Cheung added. More here.

In part:

Threat actor Mint Sandstorm, believed to be linked to Iran, has been observed using bespoke phishing lures to attack high-profile targets while leveraging a new custom backdoor called MediaPI.

In a Jan. 17 blog post, Microsoft Threat Intelligence said the attacks were on individuals working at a high level on Middle Eastern affairs at universities and research organizations in Belgium, France, Gaza, Israel, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

The Microsoft researchers said Mint Sandstorm — also known as APT35 and APT42 — used legitimate, yet compromised accounts to send phishing lures. The researchers said Mint Sandstorm continues to improve and modify the tooling used in targets’ environments, activity that might help the group persist in a compromised environment and better evade detection.

“Based on the identities of the targets observed in this campaign and the use of lures related to the Israel-Hamas war, it’s possible this campaign is an attempt to gather perspectives on events related to the war from individuals across the ideological spectrum,” wrote the researchers.

Mint Sandstorm operates as a state-sponsored actor from Iran and, as a result, serves government agency and potential military objectives, explained Balazs Greksza, threat response lead at Ontinue. Greksza said the group employs tactics such as watering hole attacks and phishing emails, to target governments, NGOs, private entities, and academia for espionage. They often pose as journalists, government officials, or academics on social media and their primary objective is to get hold of sensitive information.

“Actors like APT35 have primary goals around geopolitics, national security, counter-intelligence,” said Greksza. “As openly shared by different intelligence agencies in the past, intelligence goals may shift rapidly based on the needs of national interests, current political and military leadership and their decision and intelligence needs.”

Ngoc Bui, cybersecurity expert at Menlo Security, added that the deployment of the custom backdoor MediaPI, along with the use of other tools like MischiefTut, indicates a shift in the operational tactics of Mint Sandstorm, marking an evolution in their cyber espionage capabilities.

***

This all begs the question, just exactly what is being done to not only protect a political campaign and election, but every website or American out there from Iran, Russia, China or North Korea and their team of hackers?

CSOOnline goes on to read –>

Iran, found extremely capable in the past of conducting cyberattacks against its foes in the Middle East, earlier in 2022 had threatened to avenge the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by the United States in a drone strike ordered by the Trump administration.

During this time, among many other efforts, Mandiant reported that the news site EvenPolitics, a Tehran-controlled disinformation site, had published articles covering the 2022 US midterm elections. An inauthentic amplification network promoting the site was taken down by the X platform that same year, yet EvenPolitics continues to operate, releasing approximately ten articles per week.

Microsoft, in its report, added that Iranian cyber-enabled influence operations “have been a consistent feature of at least the last three US election cycles”.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations, in response to inquiries about the Trump campaign’s allegations, denied any involvement. Speaking to The Associated Press, the mission stated, “We dismiss these reports entirely. The Iranian government has neither the capability nor the intention to interfere in the United States presidential election.”

Have you Met John Mark Dougan, a Former Florida Deputy Sheriff?

Posted on July 22, 2024July 22, 2024 by Denise Simon

I continue to see friends on Facebook and a few other social media sites claiming that Ukraine’s President Zelensky and his wife are using millions if not billions of U.S. aid money to buy fancy cars and mansions….ehhh….c’mon people do that work please and stop getting punked by a former Marine and sheriff deputy from Florida that too fled to Russia….yes…fled and he is loving his deep fake life there and you are helping him win the bot/disinformation/propaganda war…and many members of Congress have bought into all this….but save yourself the humiliation and read on…

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It is not just here in the United States by the way…Europe is getting pummeled too:

The article looks real enough, though petrolheads may note the misspelling of Tourbillon. It even cites as evidence a video recorded by a dealership employee describing the supposed sale, and a picture of a Bugatti invoice for €4.5 million made out to Mrs. Olena Zelenska. If you were under any doubt, the site’s name should lay your fears to rest: Verite Cachee or, in English, hidden truth.

In fact, the video is a deepfake, the invoice is falsified, and the entire site is part of a Kremlin-linked influence operation, using AI-generated content to deliver a payload of Russian talking points. The false attack on Zelenska was designed, it seems, to hint at corruption.

Veritecachee.fr is one of two sites set up less than two weeks after French president Emmanuel Macron announced a surprise election, the other called France en Colere (Angry France). The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) and the Tow Center have connected both to a network of websites linked to John Dougan, an American former police officer now living in Moscow and known for spreading Kremlin-backed disinformation. This network was first identified by researchers at Clemson University in December last year.

Even as this Dougan-affiliated network has targeted the French election, another Russia-linked disinformation operation, unmasked by French authorities earlier this year, has ramped up its activity in Europe. In June, the “Portal Kombat” network launched ten new sites, mostly aimed at Europe. Another five targeting Eastern Europe were set up in April and May. Read it all here for further context. Zelensky just bought a brand new $4.5 Million Dollar Bugatti for his ...

*** In part below:

It starts with a NewsGuard analyst happening upon what appeared to be a fledgling Washington D.C.-based news site promoting Russian propaganda. Unbeknownst to her, this was six months after her boss and his family had been threatened in a YouTube video that included an aerial shot of his home and calls to his unlisted phone number by a Russian disinformation operative working from a studio in Moscow. It turns out that this D.C. website, those threats to NewsGuard’s co-CEO, and what NewsGuard discovered were dozens of similar hostile information operations — including a “documentary” that the Russians used as an excuse to invade Ukraine — were all orchestrated by the same man — John Mark Dougan, a former Florida deputy sheriff who fled to Moscow after being investigated for computer hacking and extortion.

As of this writing, NewsGuard has discovered 167 Russian disinformation websites that appear to be part of Dougan’s network of websites masquerading as independent local news publishers in the U.S. and 15 films on Dougan’s since-removed YouTube channel. Ranging from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky siphoning off money meant to aid the war against Russia so he could buy an estate in England owned by King Charles, to a non-existent U.S. bioweapons lab in Ukraine being the reason the Russians had to invade that country, these concocted stories have been amplified on social media accounts to reach a broad global audience of more than 37 million views—including 1,300,000 views of just the narrative about Zelensky buying the king’s estate.

As a journalist based in Washington who scrutinizes the credibility of news outlets as a profession, I was familiar with the landscape of trusted local publications in the area. DCWeekly did not appear to be one of them.

I first noticed the site when it published an article reporting that the Ukrainian Azov Battalion was recruiting in France. It carried the byline “Jessica Devlin,” who was described as a “distinguished and highly acclaimed journalist.” Another scoop: The U.S. had bought a mansion for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Vero Beach, Florida.

Everything about the website and these articles was a red flag: The site presented itself as a credible new local news source yet was propagating fabricated narratives that smelled of Russian influence.

It turned out that “DCWeekly” is not actually based in the nation’s capital. Nor is “Jessica Delvin” a real person. As uncovered by researchers at Clemson University, the site operates from Moscow, hosted on an IP address belonging to John Mark Dougan.

His is a name I would come to know well over the coming months.

In further briefings, I learned that Dougan, a former marine, had been an officer in the Sheriff’s Department in Palm Beach County, Florida, until 2016, when he fled to Russia and was granted asylum after being targeted in a computer hacking scheme. Since then, I was told, he had become well known to the FBI and, as they put it, “our sister security agencies” as a Russian operative who specialized in producing some of the Russians’ most elaborate disinformation campaigns and narrating them as if he were an independent American journalist.

Relatedly, it appeared that the aerial video of my home in Dougan’s video was not a simple Google satellite shot. Instead, it had probably been taken by a drone that someone had hired. [Dougan denies this; see below.] I was also told that those same sister agencies reported that Dougan was still in Russia. “So he poses no imminent threat to you,” the lead agent on the case said.

But he knows where I live and the Russians must have people all over the United States, I said. And he must have followers here on his YouTube channel that could act on their own. The FBI agents agreed. This was more serious than a few random crank emails. In a meeting a few days later with three agents and my wife sitting at our dining room table, we agreed on a multifaceted security plan to be implemented by a private security company.

I now live in a home surrounded by twelve motion-detecting security cameras, monitored remotely by the security service, and filled with dead-bolt window and door locks and other reminders of Dougan’s video—which produced multiple new death threats.

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Related reading from the BBC