Category Archives: Gangs and Crimes

6500 Felons Go Free, DA’s Refuse to Prosecute

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Primer:

The White House on Thursday proposed removing certain penalties associated with trafficking of fentanyl-related substances (FRS), prompting criticism that it would weaken illicit drug enforcement.

President Biden and former President Trump temporarily placed FRS under schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act. Thursday’s proposal would make that change permanent while removing certain quantity-based mandatory minimums.

In a letter to Senate leaders reviewed by Fox News, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) described the plan as the result of collaboration with the Justice Department (DOJ) and Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

“We are pleased to present to Congress a long-term, consensus approach that advances efforts to reduce the supply and availability of illicitly manufactured FRS, while protecting civil rights, and reducing barriers to scientific research for all schedule I substances,” said ONDCP acting Director Regina LaBelle.

Fentanyl deaths in the US spiked 1,000 percent over 6 ...

CRUZ, ROY SLAM BIDEN ADMIN OVER ‘MAN-MADE’ BORDER CRISIS AS FENTANYL DEATHS SKYROCKET

LaBelle added that “the proposal would exclude those FRS that are scheduled by class from certain quantity-based mandatory minimum penalties normally associated with domestic trafficking, and import and export offenses of CSA schedule I compounds.”

“It would further ensure that a federal court can vacate or reduce the sentence of an individual convicted of an offense involving an individual FRS that is subsequently removed or rescheduled from schedule I.”

The letter came amid a spike in fentanyl deaths, which some Republicans have blamed on the administration’s border enforcement.

April of this year alone saw a 233% increase in fentanyl seizures at the southern border, according to data released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Fentanyl, a dangerous opioid, is significantly stronger than heroin and the related opioid carfentanyl is even stronger than fentanyl.

Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., slammed the Biden administration’s proposal for being soft on criminals who are pushing fentanyl and killing Americans.

“Fentanyl analogues kill thousands of Americans each year. To protect our communities from the dealers pushing this poison, President Biden needs to keep them off the streets, not let them off the hook,” said Cotton in a statement to Fox News.

BORDER CRISIS: 233% INCREASE IN FENTANYL SEIZURES AT SOUTHERN BORDER

A Senate aide also told Fox News the proposal wasn’t serious and would encourage illicit drug labs. “This is not a serious proposal. It’s nothing more than a compromise between mainstream Democrats and pro-crime Democrats, and would only encourage illicit Chinese drug labs to get creative again with new fentanyl variants,” the aide said.

The White House did not immediately respond to Fox News’ request for comment.

Thursday’s proposal raises questions about how the Biden administration will continue the previous president’s fight against an opioid epidemic that has ravaged communities across the U.S.

In May, Biden extended a rule from Trump’s DOJ by signing the Extending Temporary Emergency Scheduling of Fentanyl Analogues Act, which lasts until Oct. 22.

LaBelle added that Congress should approve $41 billion in spending for national drug program agencies, as well as continue working on legislation designed to counter overdoses.

“Expanding the nation’s public health approach to substance use disorders and strengthening our public safety efforts to reduce the drug supply are essential parts of our strategy to bringing down the rates of overdose death,” said LaBelle.

“Acting to permanently schedule FRS, combined with historic investments in the addiction infrastructure, as well as efforts to tackle illicit finance and disrupt drug trafficking, will stand as the most comprehensive effort to address substance use and its consequences in our nation’s history. In all these efforts, we look forward to working with Congress to support safe and healthy communities. Please do not hesitate to reach out if you have any questions.

6,500 accused NYC felons go scot-free as DAs decline to prosecute

District attorneys across the Big Apple last year declined to prosecute accused felons at nearly twice the rate of 2019 — letting more than 6,500 suspects off the hook, The Post has learned.

Prosecutors dropped all charges in 16.9 percent of the 38,635 felony cases that were closed in New York City during 2020, according to data compiled by the state Division of Criminal Justice Services.

The year before, that rate was just 8.7 percent and the average for 2016 to 2019 was an even lower 8 percent, the statistics show.

Even though far fewer cases were disposed of last year, the 6,522 defendants whose charges were dropped exceeded the 5,985 who weren’t prosecuted in 2019.

The total number of cases closed in 2020 plunged by a massive 44.1 percent last year amid court closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic — down from 69,119 the year before.

A law enforcement source said there were “a lot of layers to the problem,” including veteran prosecutors retiring or leaving for other jobs and “inexperienced [prosecutors] and cops making it harder to do trials,” as well as the political nature of DAs’ jobs.

“The DAs are worried about getting re-elected,” the source said.

“Plus, you throw in a bucket of ‘woke’ and no one is getting prosecuted.”

The source also pointed to controversial, recently enacted laws governing the disclosure of evidence to the defense, known as “discovery.”

“Now, if someone takes a plea, you still have to provide the discovery information even though the case is closed,” the source said.

“Before, you didn’t have to. If you DP [decline to prosecute] a case, there is no discovery.”

The borough with the highest number of felony cases that weren’t prosecuted last year was the Bronx, where DA Darcel Clark dumped 2,408, or 28.5 percent.

Another 2,365 cases, or 28 percent, were dismissed by judges, helping push the rate at which defendants were convicted and sentenced in the Bronx to a dismal 27.4 percent, down from 44.2 percent in 2019.

But that number was even lower in Brooklyn, where it dropped to just 21.1 percent last year from 41.5 percent in 2019.

DA Eric Gonzalez declined to prosecute 2,206 cases, or 17.8 percent, and judges dismissed more than twice as many: 5,335 or 42.9 percent.

In Manhattan, outgoing DA Cyrus Vance Jr. declined to prosecute 11.7 percent of the cases disposed of last year, up from 7.6 percent in 2019.

Only two boroughs saw district attorneys decline to prosecute cases last year at rates that didn’t reach double digits.

In Queens, under DA Melinda Katz, the number was 9.9 percent, up from 5 percent in 2019, and on Staten Island, under DA Michael McMahon, it was 8.2 percent, up from 4.8 percent.

Last year’s increase in the proportion of cases abandoned by prosecutors was also accompanied by steep decreases in the number of convictions and sentences of incarceration, the statistics show.

Just 7.4 percent of defendants 18 and older were convicted of felonies and 10.5 percent were convicted of misdemeanors, compared to 12.1 percent and 17.1 percent, respectively, in 2019.

And only 3.8 percent of cases that began as felonies resulted in judges sending criminals to prison for a year or more or to jail for shorter terms during 2020.

In 2019, prison sentences were handed down in 7 percent of cases and jail sentences in 7.2 percent of cases.

Joseph Giacalone, a retired NYPD detective sergeant and adjunct professor at the city’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice, was outraged by the situation, saying, “There’s so many people that will lose their lives because of that.”

“Eventually, it’s all going to backfire,” he said.

“It’s going to take its course, like everything else. The pendulum will swing back the other way, and they’ll stop electing people who are pretending to be a district attorney in name only.”

A Bronx DA spokeswoman said, “We prosecute cases when there is legally sufficient evidence. We decline to prosecute or defer prosecution in cases where police may need to gather more evidence or secure the cooperation of witnesses so that the case can move forward.”

“It is our duty as prosecutors to ethically assess each arrest as it comes in and determine if it is legally sufficient to proceed,” spokeswoman Denisse Moreno added.

A Gonzalez spokesperson said his office “led the way” at the height of the pandemic last year “by announcing that we would decline to prosecute low-level and non-violent cases in response to the public health emergency.”

“We have since resumed our pre-pandemic practice, which includes robust diversion programs wherein we decline prosecution if individuals successfully complete their requirements,” the spokesperson said.

“The fact that homicides and shootings in Brooklyn have decreased by over 20 percent compared to last year and major crime is down 5 percent proves that our approach has been successful and kept the public safe.”

A McMahon spokeswoman declined to comment and none of the spokespersons for the other DAs’ offices immediately returned requests for comment.

A spokesman for the Office of Court Administration declined to comment on behalf of the city’s judiciary.

1000’s of Migrant Children Missing in the U.S.

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This actually is not a new phenomenon as it goes back to the Obama administration. But read on and the fear and failure continues when government is paid to get it right once it was determined the condition was wrong.

Axios Exclusive:

The U.S. government has lost contact with thousands of migrant children released from its custody, according to data obtained by Axios through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Why it matters: Roughly one-in-three calls made to released migrant kids or their sponsors between January and May went unanswered, raising questions about the government’s ability to protect minors after they’re released to family members or others in the U.S.

  • “This is very dismaying,” said Mark Greenberg, who oversaw the unaccompanied minors program during the Obama administration and was briefed on Axios’ findings. “If large numbers of children and sponsors aren’t being reached, that’s a very big gap in efforts to help them.”
  • “While we make every effort to voluntarily check on children after we unite them with parents or sponsors and offer certain post-unification services, we no longer have legal oversight once they leave our custody,” an HHS spokesperson told Axios, adding that many sponsors do not return phone calls or don’t want to be reached out to.

By the numbers: During the first five months of the year, care providers made 14,600 required calls to check in with migrant minors released from shelters run by the Department of Health and Human Services. These minors typically were taken in by relatives or other vetted sponsors.

  • In 4,890 of those instances, workers were unable to reach either the migrant or the sponsor.
  • The percentage of unsuccessful calls grew, from 26% in January to 37% in May, the data provided to Axios showed.

 

The big picture: More than 65,000 unaccompanied kids crossed the border illegally during those months, and July set yet another all-time record for young border crossers. That suggests the problem of losing track of released children could be compounded in the months to come.

  • The data also indicates calls aren’t happening with the frequency they should. Between President Biden’s inauguration and the end of May, HHS discharged 32,000 children and teens — but the government placed fewer than 15,000 follow-up calls, according to the FOIA response.
  • In both March and April, the number of kids discharged was twice as high as the number of check-in calls the following month — indicating that half of the released kids might not have gotten a 30-day call, according to public agency data.

Flashback: In 2018, the Trump administration was criticized for being unable to account for the whereabouts of around 1,500 children released from HHS shelters during a three-month period.

  • There were around 4,500 such minors as of the end of May who had been released under the Biden administration.

Between the lines: The government is already investigating whether dozens of migrant children were released to labor traffickers, as Bloomberg Law recently reported.

  • This happened in 2014 as well, when migrant teens were released to traffickers and forced to work on an egg farm.
  • Although these horrific situations have been rare, some members of Congress and former agency officials have called for better oversight to ensure kids are safe after leaving the government’s care.
  • The Trump administration and Republicans have used these instances to advocate for more stringent vetting for sponsors.

HHS’s Administration for Children and Families oversees the care and custody of migrant minors.

  • In guidance on the agency’s website, the 30-day calls are described as opportunities “to determine whether the child is still residing with the sponsor, is enrolled in or attending school, is aware of upcoming court dates and is safe.”
  • Axios made the FOIA request in May after the agency declined to share information about whether it had been conducting the 30-day calls.

***.Modern day slavery: BigAg corporations repeatedly violate ...

Reuters reported in 2014 just one case example:

Suyen has a quick smile and looks like a typical American teenager in her sandals and fashionably-torn blue jeans. But she recounts a harrowing journey, saying she left home to escape a father who was beating her, and that along the way she was raped by a “coyote” or migrant smuggler. She endured 24 hours with no food as she sat atop a slow-moving freight train through Mexico and made an overnight trek by foot.

When she struggled to pull herself over a wall at the Mexico-U.S. border, Suyen said, “I thought I was going to die” after being shoved over by a coyote, plunging down the other side and landing atop a man below.

Unlike most kids, she entered the United States undetected, only to end up in a stranger’s house in Houston. There, she said she was forced to work without pay for a month before being transferred to a vineyard, where she cooked meals, also without pay, for 300 migrant workers. Reuters has not verified the details of her journey but Suyen told a similar story in a sworn deposition to an immigration court.

 

More related reading: Report: Obama Administration Handed Child Migrants Over to Human Traffickers

The United States government placed an unknown number of Central American migrant children into the custody of human traffickers after neglecting to run the most basic checks on these so-called “caregivers,” according to a Senate report released on Thursday. (2016)

In the fall of 2013, tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors traveled to the U.S. southern border, in flight from poverty and gang violence in Central America. At least six of those children were eventually resettled on an egg farm in Marion, Ohio, where their sponsors forced them to work 12 hours a day under threats of death. Local law enforcement uncovered the operation last year, prompting the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations to open an inquiry into the federal government’s handling of migrants.

 

 

“It is intolerable that human trafficking — modern-day slavery — could occur in our own backyard,” Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio and the chairman of the subcommittee, told the New York Times. “But what makes the Marion cases even more alarming is that a U.S. government agency was responsible for delivering some of the victims into the hands of their abusers.”

 

As detention centers became incapable of housing the massive influx of migrants, the Department of Health and Human Services started placing children into the care of sponsors who would oversee the minors until their bids for refugee status could be reviewed. But in many cases, officials failed to confirm whether the adults volunteering for this task were actually relatives or good Samaritans — and not unscrupulous egg farmers or child molesters. The department performed check-in visits at caretakers’ homes in only 5 percent of cases between 2013 and 2015, according to the report.

 

The Senate’s investigation built on an Associated Press report that found more than two dozen unaccompanied children were placed in homes where they were sexually abused, starved, or forced into slave labor. HHS claimed that it lacked the funds and authorities that a more rigorous screening process would have required. However, the investigation also found that HHS did not spend all of the money allocated to it for handling the crisis.

 

The agency placed 90,000 migrant children into sponsor care between 2013 and 2015. Exactly how many of those fell prey to traffickers is unknown, because the agency does not keep track.

 

 

More Evidence of the Persistent China Threat to the US

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Exactly how much is the United States going to tolerate?

Not only is the United States and the Western world concerned about the constant military threat of China in the South China Sea but the cyber war continues.

Just read through this Department of Justice report for context –>

Four Chinese Nationals Working with the Ministry of State Security Charged with Global Computer Intrusion Campaign Targeting Intellectual Property and Confidential Business Information, Including Infectious Disease Research

Indictment Alleges Three Defendants Were Officers in the Hainan State Security Department (HSSD), a provincial arm of China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS)

A federal grand jury in San Diego, California, returned an indictment in May charging four nationals and residents of the People’s Republic of China with a campaign to hack into the computer systems of dozens of victim companies, universities and government entities in the United States and abroad between 2011 and 2018. The indictment, which was unsealed on Friday, alleges that much of the conspiracy’s theft was focused on information that was of significant economic benefit to China’s companies and commercial sectors, including information that would allow the circumvention of lengthy and resource-intensive research and development processes. The defendants and their Hainan State Security Department (HSSD) conspirators sought to obfuscate the Chinese government’s role in such theft by establishing a front company, Hainan Xiandun Technology Development Co., Ltd. (海南仙盾) (Hainan Xiandun), since disbanded, to operate out of Haikou, Hainan Province.

The two-count indictment alleges that Ding Xiaoyang (丁晓阳), Cheng Qingmin (程庆民) and Zhu Yunmin (朱允敏), were HSSD officers responsible for coordinating, facilitating and managing computer hackers and linguists at Hainan Xiandun and other MSS front companies to conduct hacking for the benefit of China and its state-owned and sponsored instrumentalities. The indictment alleges that Wu Shurong (吴淑荣) was a computer hacker who, as part of his job duties at Hainan Xiandun, created malware, hacked into computer systems operated by foreign governments, companies and universities, and supervised other Hainan Xiandun hackers.

The conspiracy’s hacking campaign targeted victims in the United States, Austria, Cambodia, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, Norway, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Targeted industries included, among others, aviation, defense, education, government, health care, biopharmaceutical and maritime. Stolen trade secrets and confidential business information included, among other things, sensitive technologies used for submersibles and autonomous vehicles, specialty chemical formulas, commercial aircraft servicing, proprietary genetic-sequencing technology and data, and foreign information to support China’s efforts to secure contracts for state-owned enterprises within the targeted country (e.g., large-scale high-speed railway development projects). At research institutes and universities, the conspiracy targeted infectious-disease research related to Ebola, MERS, HIV/AIDS, Marburg and tularemia.

As alleged, the charged MSS officers coordinated with staff and professors at various universities in Hainan and elsewhere in China to further the conspiracy’s goals. Not only did such universities assist the MSS in identifying and recruiting hackers and linguists to penetrate and steal from the computer networks of targeted entities, including peers at many foreign universities, but personnel at one identified Hainan-based university also helped support and manage Hainan Xiandun as a front company, including through payroll, benefits and a mailing address.

“These criminal charges once again highlight that China continues to use cyber-enabled attacks to steal what other countries make, in flagrant disregard of its bilateral and multilateral commitments,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco. “The breadth and duration of China’s hacking campaigns, including these efforts targeting a dozen countries across sectors ranging from healthcare and biomedical research to aviation and defense, remind us that no country or industry is safe. Today’s international condemnation shows that the world wants fair rules, where countries invest in innovation, not theft.”

“The FBI, alongside our federal and international partners, remains committed to imposing risk and consequences on these malicious cyber actors here in the U.S. and abroad,” said Deputy Director Paul M. Abbate of the FBI. “We will not allow the Chinese government to continue to use these tactics to obtain unfair economic advantage for its companies and commercial sectors through criminal intrusion and theft. With these types of actions, the Chinese government continues to undercut its own claims of being a trusted and effective partner in the international community.”

“This indictment alleges a worldwide hacking and economic espionage campaign led by the government of China,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman for the Southern District of California. “The defendants include foreign intelligence officials who orchestrated the alleged offenses, and the indictment demonstrates how China’s government made a deliberate choice to cheat and steal instead of innovate. These offenses threaten our economy and national security, and this prosecution reflects the Department of Justice’s commitment and ability to hold individuals and nations accountable for stealing the ideas and intellectual achievements of our nation’s best and brightest people.”

“The FBI’s San Diego Field Office is committed to protecting the people of the United States and the community of San Diego, to include our universities, health care systems, research institutes, and defense contractors,” said Special Agent in Charge Suzanne Turner of the FBI’s San Diego Field Office. “The charges outlined today demonstrate China’s continued, persistent computer intrusion efforts, which will not be tolerated here or abroad. We stand steadfast with our law enforcement partners in the United States and around the world and will continue to hold accountable those who commit economic espionage and theft of intellectual property.”

The defendants’ activity had been previously identified by private sector security researchers, who have referred to the group as Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) 40, BRONZE, MOHAWK, FEVERDREAM, G0065, Gadolinium, GreenCrash, Hellsing, Kryptonite Panda, Leviathan, Mudcarp, Periscope, Temp.Periscope and Temp.Jumper.

According to the indictment, to gain initial access to victim networks, the conspiracy sent fraudulent spearphishing emails, that were buttressed by fictitious online profiles and contained links to doppelgänger domain names, which were created to mimic or resemble the domains of legitimate companies. In some instances, the conspiracy used hijacked credentials, and the access they provided, to launch spearphishing campaigns against other users within the same victim entity or at other targeted entities. The conspiracy also used multiple and evolving sets of sophisticated malware, including both publicly available and customized malware, to obtain, expand and maintain unauthorized access to victim computers and networks. The conspiracy’s malware included those identified by security researchers as BADFLICK, aka GreenCrash; PHOTO, aka Derusbi; MURKYTOP, aka mt.exe; and HOMEFRY, aka dp.dll. Such malware allowed for initial and continued intrusions into victim systems, lateral movement within a system, and theft of credentials, including administrator passwords.

The conspiracy often used anonymizer services, such as The Onion Router (TOR), to access malware on victim networks and manage their hacking infrastructure, including servers, domains and email accounts. The conspiracy further attempted to obscure its hacking activities through other third-party services. For example, the conspiracy used GitHub to both store malware and stolen data, which was concealed using steganography. The conspiracy also used Dropbox Application Programming Interface (API) keys in commands to upload stolen data directly to conspiracy-controlled Dropbox accounts to make it appear to network defenders that such data exfiltration was an employee’s legitimate use of the Dropbox service.

Coinciding with today’s announcement, to enhance private sector network defense efforts against the conspirators, the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) released a Joint Cybersecurity Advisory containing these and further technical details, indicators of compromise and mitigation measures.

The defendants are each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit computer fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison, and one count of conspiracy to commit economic espionage, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. The maximum potential sentences in this case are prescribed by Congress and are provided here for informational purposes only, as any sentencings of the defendants will be determined by the assigned judge.

The investigation was conducted jointly by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California, the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Controls Section, and the FBI’s San Diego Field Office. The FBI’s Cyber Division, Cyber Assistant Legal Attachés and Legal Attachés in countries around the world provided essential support. Numerous victims cooperated and provided valuable assistance in the investigation.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Fred Sheppard and Sabrina Feve of the Southern District of California and Trial Attorney Matthew McKenzie of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting this case.

***   source

The threat however does not end in the cyber realm, there is the matter of nuclear weapons. Just days ago, China threatened Japan, an ally of the United States with a nuclear attack over the matter of Taiwan.

“We will use nuclear bombs first. We will use nuclear bombs continuously. We will do this until Japan declares unconditional surrender for the second time,” a threatening video circulated among official Chinese Communist Party channels warns.

“When we liberate Taiwan, if Japan dares to intervene by force – even if it only deploys one soldier, one plane or one ship – we will not only return fire but also wage full-scale war against Japan itself.”

Tensions between Tokyo and Beijing have spiked high in recent weeks.

Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso said: “We must defend Taiwan, under our alliance with the US”.

Defence Minister Yasuhide Nakayama added Japan and the US must “protect Taiwan as a democratic country”.

This was not what Beijing wanted to hear.

 

“We will never allow anyone to intervene in the Taiwan question in any way,” retorted Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian at a press briefing last week.

But a Chinese Communist Party approved video channel with close ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) took the anger to the next level.

*** Is the Biden administration taking anything seriously? Rather Kamala? Recently Foreign Policy magazine published in part the following:

For the past couple of months, a rumor has been going around Washington that China might be dramatically expanding its arsenal of nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that can strike the United States. I had heard that rumor and so had many of my colleagues.

According to a report released by the U.S. Defense Department last September, China had about 100 of those missiles but was expected to double that number in the coming years. Read in full here.

Cartel Del Golfo is Operating Stash Houses in Texas

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Primer: January 2020 by the Justice Department/ CDG is a violent Mexican criminal organization engaged in the manufacture, distribution, and importation of ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the United States. In the late 1990s, the Gulf Cartel recruited an elite group of former Mexican military personnel to join their ranks as security and enforcers who became known as Los Zetas. The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas operated under the name of “The Company.” Costilla-Sanchez became the leader of The Company for several years following the arrest of Osiel Cardenas in 2003 and before Costilla-Sanchez’s arrest in September 2012. More details here.

***

Mexican Authorities Rescue 47 Kidnap Victims from Cartel ...

So, with that already classified, and with stash houses operating inside the United States, why has it not been declared a domestic terror organization and where are the arrests by Federal agents?

Texas border stash house packed with 108 migrants in searing heat

Nearly 930,000 illegal migrant crossing were reported by CBP through the end of May

A large human smuggling stash house harboring 108 migrants in southeast Texas was uncovered by U.S. Border Patrol agents Monday afternoon.

The migrants were found crammed inside what appeared to be an old car garage, enduring extreme heat and harsh living conditions.

Border Patrol officials told Fox News that smugglers keep migrants in stash houses located near the southern border before dispersing them deeper into the U.S.

The insignia for “Cartel Del Golfo,” which means Gulf Cartel, was spray-painted on one of the interior garage walls – which law enforcement said was the cartel’s method for laying claim to the operation.

 

Border Patrol said the Gulf Cartel is known to be heavily involved in running human smuggling operations across Texas’ southeast border.

Law enforcement initially said 107 migrants were found at the house before upping the count by one.

Officials identified one migrant caretaker during their apprehension near Alton, Texas Monday, but did not confirm whether he was involved in the running of the smuggling operation.

Five unaccompanied children and two-family units with children as young as six years old were uncovered in the stash house, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) confirmed Tuesday.

The migrants arrived from Mexico, Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala.

Stash houses like the garage discovered Monday are not rare sights for Border Patrol agents.

One hour after the stash house in Alton was discovered, CBP reported that a residence near Rio Grande City was found to have been harboring 23 adult migrants.

Fox News could not immediately reach CBP to confirm the number of stash houses found in 2021 but earlier this month local news outlet KGNS reported that over 4,000 migrants had been arrested in more than 200 dismantled stash homes.

CBP has reported nearly 930,000 illegal immigrant encounters at the southern border since January.

More than 180,000 migrants were encountered in May alone.

 

Hunter Gets Big Money for his Paintings Likely Due to his Shady Art Dealer

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Any officials investigating for criminal activity other than the strident journalists at the New York Post? (rhetorical)

Hat tip:

As federal prosecutors continue their criminal probes into Hunter Biden’s taxes and international business dealings, the President’s son — shuttling between Washington DC and a sprawling Los Angeles home — is lying low, consulting with lawyers and focusing on his new career in art.Hunter1.The Georges Berges Gallery at 462 West Broadway in Soho.

Helayne Seidman

Biden, who turns 51 next week, is prepping a solo show with Soho art dealer Georges Berges, who currently represents Sylvester Stallone. Berges was once arrested for “terrorist threats” and assault with a deadly weapon in California and has strong ties to China.

Biden, who continues to hold business interests in a billion-dollar Chinese investment firm, recently moved to a sprawling Venice Beach rental with his wife Melissa Cohen and 10 month old son, according to the Daily Mail. He was previously living in a Hollywood Hills home where he had set up an art studio.hollywood-hills-hunter-biden-3 source

That home is connected to Shane Khoh, a Los Angeles-based entrepreneur and real estate investor who is CEO of SXU Investment Holdings LLC, the California company that has owned the $3.8 million property since 2011, according to public records. Khoh, an American who is fluent in Chinese, sits on the board of Siong Heng Realty Pte Ltd., a Singapore-based real estate holding company, according to his LinkedIn profile. He is also listed as a “venture partner” of Diverse Communities Impact Fund, a private-equity group that features former Democratic New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson on its board of advisors.

The house was featured in a New York Times profile of Biden as an emerging abstract painter last year. Last year Khoh told The Washington Examiner that Biden was paying $12,000 a month for the property, which features a pool house that Biden has turned into an art studio. Khoh denied any prior relationship with Biden to the newspaper.

But when The Post asked this week about his arrangements with his tenant, Khoh clammed up: “I have nothing to say about Hunter Biden. I have no comment.”

Biden and his family have since moved into a $5.4 million Venice Beach home owned by Sweetgreen co-founder and CEO Jonathan Neman, according to the Daily Mail report.

Others in Biden’s orbit were even more reticent.

Calls to Lunden Alexis Roberts, an Arkansas stripper who sued Biden for paternity and child support after the birth of their 2-year-old daughter, refused comment, as did her lawyer. It is not known how much Biden is paying in child support for “Baby Doe,” as she is referred to in court papers. The father of five had initially argued that the child was not his, and repeatedly tried to delay the case. Roberts, who met Biden at a Washington, DC, strip club where she used to work, said in a December 2019 court filing that Biden had not provided any financial support for the child.

Although Biden has divested himself of many of his old business interests, he does not seem to be hard up for cash. He has been seen driving around Los Angeles in a Porsche Panamera, which retails for more than $90,000. He retains control of a limited liability corporation that has a 10 percent stake in BHR Partners, a Chinese private-equity firm with $2 billion in assets and partly owned by the Bank of China, according to reports.

Biden’s stake in the Chinese firm is owned by Skaneateles LLC, a company named for his mother Neilia Hunter Biden’s upstate New York hometown. The company has used the Hollywood Hills home as one of its addresses. Neilia, Joe Biden’s first wife, died in a 1972 car crash in Delaware that also killed Biden’s 1-year-old sister Naomi. Hunter Biden and his older brother Beau, who were toddlers, were injured in the accident.

“It’s like a lottery ticket he has in his hand with a 10 percent stake in a company worth billions,” said a source. “Just imagine if that company is worth $2 billion, Biden takes home $200 million.”

Biden’s convoluted international business dealings became a heated political issue in the final months of the 2020 presidential campaign after The Post revealed a trove of emails from Hunter’s laptop that raised questions about then-candidate Joe Biden’s ties to his son’s foreign business ventures, including Burisma. The Ukrainian energy company reportedly paid Hunter $50,000 a month between 2014 and 2019 to sit on its board of directors. Hunter Biden is also accused of promoting the interests of CEFC China Energy Co, a Chinese conglomerate that was to pay him more than $10 million a year for introductions to officials in Washington.

Last year, a federal watchdog called on the Department of Justice to launch “a full investigation” of Hunter Biden, who they claim did not register under federal Foreign Agent Registration Act rules that govern those lobbying for a foreign entity.

“Hunter Biden’s tangled web of shell companies, LLCs, investment vehicles, and options agreements make it virtually impossible to know where he is getting income from,” said Thomas Anderson, director for the National Legal Policy Center, adding that circumventing the FARA regulations allowed Biden and his associates to operate under the radar.

Selling his abstract artwork to wealthy investors may also be a lucrative way to rake in cash, Anderson said. “We highly doubt, however, a career as an artist will do anything more than act as a vehicle to further shield where that income is coming from,” he said.

But Hunter Biden told The Times he had another reason for turning to art. Painting is “literally keeping me sane right now,” he said, adding that it helped him in his battles with addiction to drugs and alcohol.

“If I didn’t know who it was and I saw it for the first time, I would think it was pretty interesting stuff. He’s got talent,” New York art critic Anthony Haden-Guest told The Post.

The paintings feature pastel bursts of flowers and other shapes made with layers of alcohol ink that he blows with a metallic straw onto Japanese Yupo paper, a smooth synthetic material made from recycled paper.

Biden’s new dealer, who opened his Soho gallery in 2015, is tight-lipped about his galleries in New York and Berlin, which are reportedly frequented by Spike Lee, Dave Chapelle and Susan Sarandon as well as international titans of industry.

“He’s got this Woody Allen look to him … He’s crazy in a good way,” one artist who’s worked with Berges told The Post.

Berges, 44, regularly features works by Chinese artists and told a Chinese network that he was keen to open other art galleries in Beijing and Shanghai in 2015. “The questions that I always had was how’s China changing the world in terms of art and culture,” Berges told the China Daily in 2014.

Berges was accused of defrauding an investor in a 2016 federal lawsuit. Ingrid Arneberg claims she invested $500,000 in Berges’ gallery for a promised expansion, but instead he used the cash to pay off old debts. Berges later countersued Arneberg, and the case was settled in 2018.

In 1998, he was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and making “terrorist threats,” which were dismissed. He pled “no contest” to the assault and received 36 months probation and served 90 days in jail, according to Santa Cruz Superior Court documents — the only information publicly available about the case.

Berges did not return several messages seeking comment. A worker at his gallery in Soho told The Post he didn’t know anything about Hunter Biden’s solo exhibition, which is scheduled for later this year, according to reports.

George Mesires, a lawyer for Hunter Biden did not return The Post’s calls.