More about those Russian Oligarchs in the U.S.

Posted on March 10, 2022March 10, 2022 by Denise Simon

We tend to have short memories but we have a chance to recall Russian operatives in the United States during all things RussiaGate. We learned that oligarchs clean dirty money and escape investigations generally through covert real estate transactions not only in the United States but especially in Britain.

With the sanctions…many of them are now scrambling and should be. Remember that Alfa Bank fake scandal tying Donald Trump directly to the bank servers?

OREANDA-NEWS Billionaires Mikhail Fridman and Peter Aven “in the near future” will resign from the board of directors of Alfa-Bank because of the sanctions imposed against them. Businessmen Alexander Galitsky and Sergey Matsotsky will leave the council together with them. On February 28, against the background of the ongoing Russian “special operation” in Ukraine, the EU blacklisted a number of businessmen, military personnel and public figures.

The press service of Alfa-Bank reported that the board of directors will be headed by the president of the credit institution Oleg Sysuev, who previously held the position of first deputy chairman.

Mikhail Fridman also resigned from the board of directors of Veon, the owner of the Vimpelcom mobile operator (Beeline brand). Friedman has been a member of the board of directors of Veon since 2010, 47.9% of the shares of Veon belong to LetterOne, which is part of the Alfa Group of Mikhail Friedman and partners.

After the start of the “operation” of the Russian army in Ukraine, Western countries imposed new sanctions. Among them are personal restrictions on high-ranking officials, including President Vladimir Putin. Also blacklisted were large businessmen, military, parliamentarians and cultural figures.

Earlier, The Secret wrote that the government would spend part of the National Welfare Fund to buy shares of Russian companies. In 2022, up to 1 trillion rubles will be allocated for these purposes.

While Britain is going after their own oligarchs in and around London…good ole’ Miami Beach has some work to do.

Barrons reports in part:

Altogether, Russian buyers accounted for just 0.8% of all foreign buyers who purchased U.S. residential property between April 2015 and March 2021. During that time, total purchases by foreign-born buyers accounted for just 1.8% of total existing-home sales. A little over half of the Russian purchases were all-cash deals, compared with 27% of overall transactions in January.

Florida was the most popular destination for Russian-born buyers, representing 29% of these deals. Georgia was next at 16%, followed by New York at 13%. But as the report notes, even within Florida these transactions represent a mere fraction of overall home purchases. Only 0.2% of the homes sold in Florida between July 2020 and June 2021 were bought by Russian-born individuals.

***

Sunny Isles, Florida, has long been an escape for Russia’s wealthy and elite, who have purchased so much luxury property in the area that it’s become known as “Little Moscow” and “Moscow by the Sea.”

sunny isles beach Sunny Isles, Florida. Meinzahn/Getty Images

“They love to be here, and they like to spend their money and enjoy their life,” Lana Bell, a Russian real-estate agent, told the News Nation correspondent Brian Entin on Monday.

President Joe Biden issued sanctions this week that target Russia’s elite and their families and restrict the Kremlin’s ability to access Western financial institutions. Though people in Little Moscow have been worried the escalating Russia-Ukraine conflict will threaten their lifestyle and blacklist them from buying American real estate, Entin reported, Bell said it hadn’t been a problem. Experts told the Miami Herald’s Michael Wilner the sanctions in place were unlikely to have a strong effect in South Florida. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Thursday showed the tensions were far from over.

“We are extending the reach of US sanctions to prevent the elites close to Putin from using their kids to hide assets, evade costs, and squander the resources of the Russian people,” a National Security Council official told the Miami Herald. “This is a new approach.”

Anders Åslund, a Swedish economist and the author of “Russia’s Crony Capitalism: The Path from Market Economy to Kleptocracy,” doesn’t think this will affect the Russian rich in the greater Miami region that Little Moscow is in. He told Wilner that the Miami Russians weren’t powerful enough to feel the sanction burn.

“These are comfortable people, rather than the top people,” he said.

Florida’s Russian rich

In Sunny Isles, condos can cost as much as $35 million. The most expensive home in the area listed on Sotheby’s is $13.9 million. It’s an area where the Trump brand is dominant, which The Washington Post reported was part of the appeal among Russian investors looking to move their money in the post-Soviet economy.

Jose Lima, a salesperson for the company that developed the region’s Trump towers, told The Post in 2016 that Russian speakers bought about one-third of the 500 units he sold. (While Trump doesn’t actually own the buildings, The Post reported, he licensed the use of his name there.)

Russia a No-Show at the International Court of Justice

Posted on March 7, 2022March 7, 2022 by Denise Simon

We have heard that the International Criminal Court has opened an investigation into Putin and being a war criminal. Not only is it on full display for more than a week, but his war crimes go back to the conflict in Syria. At least 39 countries have sent referrals to the ICJ regarding Putin’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. The ICJ is expected to fast track the investigation. This could get messy as Russia is not a member of the International Criminal Court and for that matter neither is the United States.

Putin has justified his invasion of Ukraine claiming genocide of Russian citizens as well as ongoing military hostilities. Yeesh.

Many don’t realize that many within Putin’s inner circle have not only turned on him, and have provided intelligence to the West including Ukraine to be able to take offensive measures especially in the matters of the assassination squads sent to kill the members of the Ukraine government including President Zelensky. Additionally, there are others within Putin’s orbit that have resigned and fled Russia for fear of prosecution which really means execution.

One of Putin’s lawyers, Alain Pellet resigned last week and described the reason to be the widely known fact that the Kremlin despises law…including international law. You can read his letter here.

The truth is, the ICJ should not begin or end with Putin as a war criminal, it should included the oligarchs and other Duma operatives that have enabled this war and the illegal activities associated with it including Yevgeniy Viktorovich Prigozhin.

Prigozhin is on the FBI’s most wanted list.

He has a long list of criminal charges against him including that troll factory that was located in St. Petersburg that interfered with the 2014 U.S. election process. He has ties to Indonesia and Qatar as well.

The UK is the first country to not only step up in cooperation with the ICJ but has a team that is working the critical task to preserve all evidence of war crimes including shelling location, types of missiles including cluster-bombs and the fact that Russia violated at least 2 cease fires after agreeing to humanitarian escape corridors in Ukraine.

(rather like a feeble Nuremberg trial)

So, what is the process of the International Criminal Court you ask? In part:

The court has 123 member states, but neither Russia nor Ukraine is a party. However, back in 2015 when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, Ukraine referred the conflict to the court for investigation. And there’s a provision in the Rome Statute — article 12.3 — which allows states that are not members of the court to refer a conflict and allegations of crimes to the court. But an investigation has to be triggered, and one way for that to happen is if one of the 123 member states asks the court to investigate. And it was just announced Thursday night that 39 states referred the Ukraine situation to the International Criminal Court for investigation. So, the prosecutor of that court announced that he is immediately opening up an investigation and will start collecting evidence. That investigation is also open into past crimes that could have occurred in the Crimea and eastern Ukraine.

Why is it important for the court to begin investigating now, rather than waiting for the conflict to end?

Investigations and prosecutions are important even before cases are brought before the court because they bring attention to the crimes that are being committed, and to the victims of these of these crimes. So, even aside from what happens in court down the road, the act of investigating and framing what is happening and naming it is extremely important.

What types of crimes can the International Criminal Court investigate?

The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over four types of crime: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression. And there is no doubt that this is an act of aggression by Russia against Ukraine. However, the crime of aggression has a particular requirement, which is different from all the other crimes. It can only be prosecuted by the court if one member state commits an act of aggression against another. Since neither Russia nor Ukraine is a member, the crime of aggression here does not apply. So, the International Criminal Court is focusing on war crimes, and it will also consider crimes against humanity if they arise.

There is also an International Court of Justice. What role does it play?

The International Criminal Court investigates and prosecutes international crimes committed by individuals. The International Court of Justice resolves disputes between states. Ukraine has brought an emergency case before that court, which will be heard next week. The focus of Ukraine’s complaint is that Russia has used as one of its justifications — I’ll say, phony justification — for invading Ukraine the allegation that there is a threat of genocide against Russian nationals living in Ukraine. Ukraine says this is nonsense. The ICJ should rule that there is no such threat and that assertion cannot be used as a justification for the invasion.

Any real hope for justice on this? Not really.

$30 Million in Grants for Kits of Crack, Cocaine and Meth, no Really

Posted on February 8, 2022February 9, 2022 by Denise Simon

Update –> There is a BIG mess going on in DC about how ‘crack pipes’ are part of the ‘safe smoking kits’….HHS Secretary and the White House are saying that crack pipes are not included in the distribution…yeah okay…but hold on fact checkers….upon doing more checking seems our own government was funding a crack pipe study in Mexico….you know that Dr. Fauci agency….now we may know where this all started.

This is the page regarding the crack pipe study we paid for in 2019 in Mexico.

This is the screenshot in case it goes away…giggles:

When government become an illicit drug distributor….a bridge too far?

Source: In the name of harm reduction, the substance abuse arm of the Health and Human Services Agency will begin providing funds to help distribute “safe smoking kits” for the consumption of various illicit drugs like crack cocaine and crystal meth.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) has allocated roughly $30 million for a Harm Reduction Program Grant, which includes funding for syringe exchange programs, the opioid reversal drug naloxone, test kits to detect fentanyl and “safe smoking kits/supplies,” among other more traditional measures, like HIV testing and safer sex resources.

A grant program funded by the Biden administration will furnish syringes and “safe smoking kits” among other items as a means to advancing equity.

The deadline for the $30 million program is Monday, with the Department of Health and Human Services distributing funds to nonprofit groups and local governments. Among the items the grant will pay for are syringes and “safe smoking kits/supplies.”The kits will allow users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and other illicit substances. source

Harm reduction efforts, like testing for infectious diseases, needle exchanges and naloxone distribution programs, are nothing new, but providing federal taxpayer funds for paraphernalia used to smoke drugs is.

>>>

Drug overdoses are the leading cause of death for adults 18-45 and this is how the Biden admin is responding: https://t.co/rI6DxzazTv

— Jim Banks (@RepJimBanks) February 7, 2022

An HHS spokesperson reportedly confirmed to The Washington Free Beacon these “safe smoking kits” will provide pipes for the consumption of “any illicit substance” to reduce the risk of infection, which can potentially occur through cuts and sores.

Seattle previously distributed meth pipes to residents in 2015, according to Reuters, but it’s reportedly hard to tell the benefit such a program can have.

“It is plausible the intervention could be effective,” said Matthew Golden, a Seattle and King County disease control official and a University of Washington medical professor, when the program was launched. “It’s simply an unstudied idea.”

One nonprofit said it had conducted research which determined meth users would be less likely to inject the drug if given access to pipes, but there is little evidence to back up such a claim, Reuters reported.

San Francisco has handed out crack pipes as well, according to local reporting, where allegedly an estimated 25,000 people actively inject drugs.

The SAMHSA grant’s $30 million will be spread across three years, and the money will be prioritized for “underserved communities that are greatly impacted by substance use disorder (SUD).”

Other measures funded by the grant include harm reduction vending machines – including the contents to stock them, infectious disease test kits and medicines, vaccination services and wound care supplies.

The National Desk reached out to SAMHSA to see if the “safe smoking kits” will also be available at harm reduction vending machines across the country but did not receive an immediate response in time for publication. This story will be updated if a response is obtained.

Meanwhile, Microsoft Details the Russian Hack of Ukraine

Posted on February 7, 2022February 7, 2022 by Denise Simon

The Windows maker’s Threat Intelligence Center (MSTIC) is tracking the cluster under the moniker ACTINIUM (previously as DEV-0157), sticking to its tradition of identifying nation-state activities by chemical element names.

The Ukrainian government, in November 2021, publicly attributed Gamaredon to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and connected its operations to the FSB Office of Russia in the Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol. Details.

***

Gamaredon APT Improves Toolset to Target Ukraine Government, Military | Threatpost source

The Gamaredon APT was first spotted in 2013 and in 2015, when researchers at LookingGlass shared the details of a cyber espionage operation tracked as Operation Armageddon, targeting other Ukrainian entities. Their “special attention” on Eastern European countries was also confirmed by CERT-UA, the Ukrainian Computer Emergency Response Team.

The discovered attack appears to be designed to lure military personnel: it leverage a legit document of the “State of the Armed Forces of Ukraine” dated back in the 2nd April 2019. Source

For this reason, Cybaze-Yoroi ZLAB team dissected this suspicious sample to confirm the possible link with Russian threat actors.

***

There are several outside government cyber experts that are reporting much the same as Microsoft as noted here.

Source: While Gamaredon has mainly targeted Ukrainian officials and organizations in the past, the group attempted an attack on January 19 that aimed to compromise a Western government “entity” in Ukraine, researchers at Palo Alto Networks’ Unit 42 organization reported Thursday. Gamaredon leadership includes five Russian Federal Security Service officers, the Security Service of Ukraine said previously.

Microsoft threat researchers released their own findings on Gamaredon in the blog post today, disclosing that the group has been actively involved in malicious cyber activity in Ukraine since October 2021.

While the hacker group has been dubbed “Gamaredon” by Unit 42, Microsoft refers to the group by the name “Actinium.”

“In the last six months, MSTIC has observed ACTINIUM targeting organizations in Ukraine spanning government, military, non-government organizations (NGO), judiciary, law enforcement, and non-profit, with the primary intent of exfiltrating sensitive information, maintaining access, and using acquired access to move laterally into related organizations,” the threat researchers said in the post. “MSTIC has observed ACTINIUM operating out of Crimea with objectives consistent with cyber espionage.”

Evading detection

Tactics used frequently by the group include spear-phishing emails with malicious macro attachments, resulting in deployment of remote templates, the researchers said. By causing a document to load a remote document template with malicious code—the macros—this “ensures that malicious content is only loaded when required (for example, when the user opens the document),” Microsoft said.

“This helps attackers to evade static detections, for example, by systems that scan attachments for malicious content,” the researchers said. “Having the malicious macro hosted remotely also allows an attacker to control when and how the malicious component is delivered, further evading detection by preventing automated systems from obtaining and analyzing the malicious component.”

The Microsoft researchers report that they’ve observed numerous email phishing lures used by Gamaredon, including those that impersonate legitimate organizations, “using benign attachments to establish trust and familiarity with the target.”

In terms of malware, Gamaredon uses a variety of different strains—the most “feature-rich” of which is Pterodo, according to Microsoft. The Pterodo malware family brings an “ability to evade detection and thwart analysis” through the use of a “dynamic Windows function hashing algorithm to map necessary API components, and an ‘on-demand’ scheme for decrypting needed data and freeing allocated heap space when used,” the researchers said.

Meanwhile, the PowerPunch malware used by the group is “an agile and evolving sequence of malicious code,” Microsoft said. Other malware families employed by Gamaredon include ObfuMerry, ObfuBerry, DilongTrash, DinoTrain, and DesertDown.

‘Very agile threat’

Gamaredon “quickly develops new obfuscated and lightweight capabilities to deploy more advanced malware later,” the Microsoft researchers said. “These are fast-moving targets with a high degree of variance.”

Payloads analyzed by the researchers show a major emphasis on obfuscated VBScript (Visual Basic Script), a Microsoft scripting language. “As an attack, this is not a novel approach, yet it continues to prove successful as antivirus solutions must consistently adapt to keep pace with a very agile threat,” the researchers said.

Unit 42 had reported Thursday that Gamaredon’s attempted attack against a western government organization in January involved a targeted phishing attempt.

Instead of emailing the malware downloader to their target, Gamaredon “leveraged a job search and employment service within Ukraine,” the Unit 42 researchers said. “In doing so, the actors searched for an active job posting, uploaded their downloader as a resume and submitted it through the job search platform to a Western government entity.”

Due to the “steps and precision delivery involved in this campaign, it appears this may have been a specific, deliberate attempt by Gamaredon to compromise this Western government organization,” Unit 42 said in its post.

Unit 42 has said it’s not identifying or further describing the western government entity that was targeted by Gamaredon.

No connection to ‘WhisperGate’ attacks

The attempted January 19 attack by Gamaredon came less than a week after more than 70 Ukrainian government websites were targeted with the new “WhisperGate” family of malware.

However, the threat actor responsible for those attacks appears to be separate from Gamaredon, the Microsoft researchers said in the post today. The Microsoft Threat Intelligence Center “has not found any indicators correlating these two actors or their operations,” the researchers said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) last month suggested it’s possible that Russia might be eyeing a cyberattack against U.S. infrastructure, amid tensions between the countries over Ukraine.

Estimates suggest Russia has stationed more than 100,000 troops on the eastern border of Ukraine. On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden approved sending an additional 3,000 U.S. troops to Eastern Europe.

Modern Day Train Robbers Threatens the Whole Nation

Posted on January 24, 2022January 24, 2022 by Denise Simon

Sadly and factually, the Department of Justice, the FBI and District Attorneys have been silent on all this and crime across the country.

WSJ:

Michelle Wilde bought a piece of sand art during a visit to Jerome, Ariz., earlier this month. Rather than carry it home, she had the shopkeeper ship the $145 frame to her.

Instead of arriving at her home in Everett, Wash., the package ended up next to a railroad track in East Los Angeles. The frame was gone. The box remained.

It was among thousands of boxes recently found littered along Union Pacific Corp. UNP -2.20% tracks in the middle of Los Angeles. Thieves had broken into the train cars and made off with items shipped by Dr. Martens, Harbor Freight Tools and small businesses alike. The scene has set off finger-pointing between the railroad, local officials and police about who is to blame and how to stop a modern twist on one of the country’s oldest crimes.

“Why are people breaking into [railcars] and why is no one doing anything?” Ms. Wilde said, when she was contacted by a Wall Street Journal reporter to inform her of the fate of her package. “We’re like in year 13 of a pandemic so nothing surprises me about human behavior.”

Union Pacific said it has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020, including sharper increases in the months leading up to Christmas, when trailers are loaded with inventory bound for stores or gifts shipped to homes. The total losses to Union Pacific, with a market capitalization of $155 billion, have come to $5 million over the past year. That doesn’t include losses tallied by customers shipping on its rails.

Union Pacific has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020.

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Train robberies date to the dawn of railroads, and Union Pacific has had its share of famous heists. In 1899, Butch Cassidy’s gang robbed the Union Pacific Overland Flyer No. 1 as it passed through Wyoming. The group stopped the train and blew up its safe. A posse was sent out in pursuit of the bandits.

In other parts of the country, thieves occasionally plunder everything from alcohol to appliances from freight trains that either stop or crawl through areas. The railroads combat the problem with their own police forces. Union Pacific has more than 200 police officers, but they must patrol thousands of miles of track across 23 states.

Lance Fritz, Union Pacific’s chief executive officer, said rail theft has been a mostly small-scale problem. What is happening in Los Angeles is different. A couple of years ago, opportunistic individuals might see a mile-plus-long train inching through the city and pry open a car to see what was inside, maybe grab a few items, he said, but “today, that’s more organized.”

A Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles, where thousands of opened packages are strewn.

Photo: Mario Tama/Getty Images

The tracks being hit connect to an intermodal Union Pacific rail yard where containers are moved between trucks and trains. The rail corridor carries containers from nearby ports as well as trailers filled with packages from Amazon.com Inc., FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc., which are bound for other sorting hubs across the U.S.

This month local news footage showing packages strewn along the tracks went viral. On Thursday, empty packages were still piled on the sidewalks near the rails. As trains rolled by, railcars could be seen with their doors hanging open.

Union Pacific complained in a December letter to Los Angeles officials that they weren’t doing enough to police the area and prosecute individuals caught trespassing.

Adrian Guerrero, a general director of public affairs at Union Pacific, said lenient prosecution means many of those arrested for rifling through railcars have their charges reduced to a misdemeanor or petty offense—and are often quickly released. “We just don’t see the criminal justice system holding these people accountable,” Mr. Guerrero said.

In a letter responding to Mr. Guerrero sent on Friday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said the number of cases submitted to his office in which Union Pacific was listed as the victim had fallen each of the past two years, from 78 cases in 2019 to 47 in 2021. The DA brought charges in 55% of those cases, Mr. Gascón said, with the others dismissed for lack of evidence or because they didn’t involve allegations of burglary, theft or tampering.

“It is very telling that other major railroad operations in the area are not facing the same level of theft at their facilities as UP,” Mr. Gascón wrote. “My Office is not tasked with keeping your sites secure.”

Los Angeles Police Capt. German Hurtado, who works in the Hollenbeck station covering the area, said Union Pacific had downsized its police force in 2020, leaving the company with just six officers patrolling between Yuma, Ariz., and the Pacific coast. Resignations and Covid-19 have also left the LAPD short roughly 2,000 officers, he said, including 50 at his station.

The LAPD has run several task forces around the tracks, he said, and since August has arrested about 125 people for rail-related offenses, including burglary and trespassing.

Union Pacific executives said they have added dozens of agents in recent months to patrol the area in Los Angeles, and are using drones, specialized fencing and trespass detection systems to combat the theft. The railroad said it is also actively looking to hire more officers. “While we have a private police force, they do not supplant the vital need and authority of local law enforcement,” a spokeswoman said.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom visited the scene Thursday and helped clean up some of the boxes scattered along the tracks. He touted part of his proposed budget, which would grant $255 million to local law enforcement over the next three years and create a dedicated unit to focus on retail, train and auto theft.

“There’s nothing acceptable about this,” Mr. Newsom said of the thefts. “It looked like a third-world country.”

Jim Foote, the CEO of CSX Corp. , another freight railroad that operates in the eastern U.S., said rail theft elsewhere isn’t as rampant as what he sees happening in Los Angeles. He recalls 20 years ago, while working for Canadian National Railway, there was a similar problem in Chicago. To deal with it, the railroad tried to avoid stopping trains where they were getting ransacked.

“We do everything we can to protect our customer shipments, but if the train stops at the wrong time and the wrong place, the modern-day Jesse James will get you,” Mr. Foote said.

Casey Rowcliffe had ordered a battery for his RV that never showed up. He hadn’t given much thought to his missing package until he saw the viral video showing the littered stretch of tracks in Los Angeles.

“I figured it was stuck in the port or somebody’s got it,” the 45-year-old general contractor said. The location of the battery remains a mystery. But the box with his Bellingham, Wash., address was among those found by a Journal reporter. “Out of all those packages, you picked mine?” Mr. Rowcliffe said.

A FedEx spokeswoman said it has measures in place to discourage theft, including advanced locking mechanisms on railcars. In cases where railcars are tampered with, FedEx works with the railroads to retrieve any shipments they can. A UPS spokesman said it would take a collective response to deter criminals and the company has streamlined the claims process for when there are issues with shipments.

Nellie Bly Kaleidoscopes and Art Glass, the small Arizona shop that sent Ms. Wilde her frame, ships out anywhere from three to 20 packages a day. When notified that its package was found torn open in Los Angeles, the shop reached out to Ms. Wilde, shipped out a replacement and started the claims process.

Anne Miranda, the store’s shipping manager, said it typically only has problems with a handful of shipments a year. “That was before the world went crazy,” she said.

Florida’s Russian rich

Drug Enforcement Administration

Evading detection

‘Very agile threat’

No connection to ‘WhisperGate’ attacks

Union Pacific has seen a 160% jump in criminal rail theft in Los Angeles since December 2020.

A Union Pacific freight train in Los Angeles, where thousands of opened packages are strewn.