Jeff Sessions/FBI and MS-13

Posted on April 20, 2017April 20, 2017 by Denise Simon

Four members of the violent, foreign MS-13 gang were convicted on federal racketeering charges, some of which involved murder.

Miguel Zelaya, 20-years-old, Luis Ordonez-Vega, 36-years-old, Jorge Sosa, 24-years-old and William Gavidia, 23-years-old, were all convicted on a count of conspiracy to commit racketeering, according to the Charlotte Observer:

Zelaya, who also goes by “Most Wanted” and “Ne Ne” is a member of MS-13’s “Coronados Little Cycos Salvatrucha” clique. On Dec. 18, 2013, he shot and killed Jose Orlando Ibarra, an associate of The Latin Kings, a rival gang, the release said.

Ordonez-Vega, also known as “Big Boy,” is a member of the Brentwood Locos Salvatrucha” clique, according to the news release. On June 6, 2013, Ordonez-Vega shot and killed Noel Navarro Hernandez in a strip mall parking lot in Charlotte, believing the victim was a member of a rival gang.

Sosa, who goes by “Koki” and “Loco” is a member of the “Charlotte Locotes Salvatrucha” clique. Prosecutors say he’s been involved in multiple gang-related crimes. In Feb. 2008, he flashed MS-13 gang signs at a rival gang member’s mother and pointed a gun at her while they were stopped in traffic. In June, 2013, he was involved in a gang-related shooting where he and another person followed victims in a neighborhood in Charlotte and opened fire with a high-caliber rifle, the release said.

All of the gang members are either immigrants or the children of immigrants in the U.S. and they are also facing state charges for their crimes.

“Today’s guilty verdicts underscore that even though gang membership may in some ways ‘protect’ gangsters from outsiders, it certainly won’t protect them from the vast reach of the US. Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners,” U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina Jill Westmoreland Rose said in a statement.

The MS-13 gang members were four of 37 who were charged with racketeering after an investigation into the criminal activity by the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. Thirty of the other gang members charged with racketeering are either awaiting sentencing or have pleaded guilty to the charges.

According to the U.S. District Attorney, Ordonez-Vega and Zelaya were convicted on charges to murder in aid of racketeering. Those charges are connected to two separate murders. Meanwhile, Sosa was convicted for attempted murder in the aid of racketeering.

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InSightCrime

In 2015 the U.S. Treasury Department froze the assets of three members of the gang who were funneling funds back to higher-ups in El Salvador from prison. These actions were an attempt “disrupt” MS-13’s financial network by cutting off profits from illegal activities in the United States, the Treasury Department said. In 2012 the Obama administration designated MS-13 a transnational crime organization and implemented sanctions against six members in 2013.

While the U.S. government attempts to target MS-13’s earnings, targeting its culture is proving more difficult. The fierce loyalty among members is unique, Ron Hosko, former assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, told FOX Business.

“They’re very cohesive and often directed by imprisoned bosses in El Salvador to recruit and expand in American communities. That tends to mean there’s an aggressive internal enforcement mechanism which equates to internal discipline involving physical violence and murder for disrespect or betrayal,” he said.

The FBI in El Salvador Because of MS-13:

CNN Reported Dossier Basis for Trump Surveillance, But…

Posted on April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 by Denise Simon

The FBI last year used a dossier of allegations of Russian ties to Donald Trump’s campaign as part of the justification to win approval to secretly monitor a Trump associate, according to US officials briefed on the investigation.

The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to US officials briefed on the probe.

This includes approval from the secret court that oversees the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to monitor the communications of Carter Page, two of the officials said. Last year, Page was identified by the Trump campaign as an adviser on national security. More here from CNN.

Okay, so everyone remains angry with James Comey right? Okay, well hold on….this could get complicated. We cant dismiss the notion that Obama and Susan Rice had a valid reason for their surveillance

actions, at least some as the below case was provided to the White House.

Enter Evigeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev.

Image result for evgeniy mikhailovich bogachev

U.S. v Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev et al by Brian Ries on Scribd

Bogachev was a case from 2014 investigated by CrowdStrike and then later offered help to the FBI office in Omaha and later the FBI office in Pittsburgh finally after countless months, ran a global cyber operation and succeeded in stopping international bank thefts in the millions of dollars. Many Russian immigrants located in Brighton Beach were recruited to be mules going to domestic banks, opening accounts and later withdrawing funds, cleaning all traces of the stolen millions. It should be noted that CrowdStrike was the same firm the Hillary campaign hired to investigate intrusions.

Image result for evgeniy mikhailovich bogachev

Now it gets even more interesting.

The matter of Bogachev with his named operation of ‘Business Club’ and his global cyber operatives hacking with sophisticated bots, malware and remote servers came to the attention of the Russian Federation. They liked what the Bogachev Zeus operation had the ability to do. So, top Kremlin officials allowed the operation to continue without prosecution if they would work to gather intelligence on the global reaction to Putin annexing Crimea and moving in on Ukraine.

All of this came to the attention also of U.S. based private cyber professional where they studied the code, the IP addresses, the servers, the patterns, names and other common cyber traits. The DNC hack attributions are a dovetail to the ‘Business Club’ operation due to style, coding, networks, language and server locations.

In 2015, the Obama State Department issued sanctions and a $3 million dollar bounty on Bogachev who operated with the alias of ‘Slavik’. Russia of course is not only not cooperating but refuses to admit any such action was real and the evidence is not vetted. This is a usual response by top Russian officials.

An estimated $100 million was stolen via cyber operations by Slavik and computers infected with various versions of Zeus still exist while the FBI was able to seized all those known to their sting operation.

The FBI described the cyber sting operation as hand to hand combat with Bogachev and his operation on the Zeus case was deemed successful. It is unknown at this time who and where is he still operating. The summary of this operation was taken from the full article published by ‘Wired’ under the title ‘The Hunt for Russia’s Most Notorious Hacker’

Late last year, the DHS released a joint statement which read in part:

This activity by Russian intelligence services is part of a decade-long campaign of cyber-enabled operations directed at the U.S. Government and its citizens. These cyber operations have included spearphishing, campaigns targeting government organizations, critical infrastructure, think tanks, universities, political organizations, and corporations; theft of information from these organizations; and the recent public release of some of this stolen information. In other countries, Russian intelligence services have also undertaken damaging and disruptive cyber-attacks, including on critical infrastructure, in some cases masquerading as third parties or hiding behind false online personas designed to cause victim to misattribute the source of the attack. The Joint Analysis Report provides technical indicators related to many of these operations, recommended mitigations and information on how to report such incidents to the U.S. Government.

A great deal of analysis and forensic information related to Russian government activity has been published by a wide range of security companies. The U.S. Government can confirm that the Russian government, including Russia’s civilian and military intelligence services, conducted many of the activities generally described by a number of these security companies. The Joint Analysis Report recognizes the excellent work undertaken by security companies and private sector network owners and operators, and provides new indicators of compromise and malicious infrastructure identified during the course of investigations and incident response. The U.S. Government seeks to arm network defenders with the tools they need to identify,, detect and disrupt Russian malicious cyber activity that is targeting our country’s and our allies’ networks.

Venezuela Today is Syria 7 Years Ago, Violence/Protests

Posted on April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 by Denise Simon

‘Mother of All Marches’ Turns Violent in Venezuela

by Geraldine Cols Azócar and Mariana Atencio

Clashes between protesters and security forces erupted in Venezuela during marches taking place Wednesday in at least 12 cities across the country.

Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets to protest the government of President Nicolás Maduro as the country marked its 207th anniversary of the revolution that led to its independence from Spain.

A teenager who was shot in the head in Caracas near one of the protests has died in the hospital, according to the Associated Press. Opponents of the government said pro-government militias opened fire on a crowd, but government officials say the boy was assaulted while walking home from a soccer game.

Marches started in the early morning; closer to noon, the Venezuelan National Guard started deploying tear gas on people marching on the west side of Caracas, according to the Associated Press.

Liliana Machuca, a teacher in Caracas told the AP she believes protesting is her only option after all the “abuses” she says have been committed by the government.

“This is like a chess game and each side is moving whatever pieces they can. … we’ll see who tires out first,” she said.

A demonstrator throws a tear gas canister back at the police during a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas on April 19, 2017. JUAN BARRETO / AFP – Getty Images

The country entered its fourth week of protests following two Supreme Court decisions — to revoke the impunity that protects legislators and to dissolve the opposition-controlled legislature, a move that many including the Organization of American States (AOS) dubbed as an “auto-coup d’etat.”

The Supreme Court reversed the decisions amid mounting international pressure and after the Venezuelan Attorney General, Luisa Ortega Díaz, called the decisions “a rupture of the constitutional order.”

Since then, people have been protesting for the removal of the Supreme Court Justices, the reinstatement of gubernatorial and local elections, the release of the political prisoners and ultimately, Maduro’s resignation.

“I went to the rally because I wanted to get those images of what’s going on, of people protesting. I know it’ll help us get rid of this government,” Hector Trejo told NBC News. Trejo, 47, is a photographer for El Estímulo magazine covering Western Caracas. “But it’s hard because when government supporters see you with a camera they send motorcycles to try and grab it from you,” he added.

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En este momento #A19 en La Plaza Bolívar de #Barquisientopic.twitter.com/nZKC7SFfMJ

At this time #A19 in La Plaza Bolívar of #Barquisiento

Human rights organizations, several Latin American countries and the United States have accused Venezuelan security forces of using excessive force and violence to quash the protesters. Protesting is a right protected by the Venezuelan constitution. During this last wave, at least five people have died and hundreds have been arrested.

Maduro accused the U.S. State Department of encouraging a military intervention.

The country is in the middle of an economic crisis with an inflation rate that reached 800 percent in January. People are starving and the lack of medication and supplies has led to deaths.

“I came to march because I believe in this country and I want our youth to have a future; Venezuelans want to stay,” said Mercedes Expósito, 53, who told NBC News that people say they want to stay in the marches though they’re “choking from the tear gas; they will wait until the government runs out of its bombs.”

Slave Labor Markets in Libya and Beyond

Posted on April 17, 2017April 17, 2017 by Denise Simon

So, the United Nations reports this but so what? Is anyone at the United Nations taking action? Never heard anything out of the Obama White House either, did you? How about out of the Hillary Clinton or John Kerry State Department? Anything? Did WikiLeaks cables include any of this? Nah….

That whole Hillary Libya operation did not work out well at all, the country remains in a tailspin.

Migrant Smuggling – a deadly business

Currently, data is too scattered and incomplete to paint an accurate picture of numbers of people who are smuggled each year and the routes and methods used by those who smuggle them. Still, available evidence reveals the following trends and patterns:

Criminals are increasingly providing smuggling services to irregular migrants to evade national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. Most irregular migrants resort to the assistance of profit-seeking smugglers. As border controls have improved, migrants are deterred from attempting to illegally cross them themselves and are diverted into the hands of smugglers.

Migrant smuggling is a highly profitable business in which criminals enjoy low risk of detection and punishment. As a result, the crime is becoming increasingly attractive to criminals. Migrant smugglers are becoming more and more organized, establishing professional networks that transcend borders and regions.

The modus operandi of migrant smugglers is diverse. Highly sophisticated and expensive services rely on document fraud or ‘visa-smuggling’. Contrasted with these are low cost methods which often pose high risks for migrants, and have lead to a dramatic increase in loss of life in recent years.

Migrant smugglers constantly change routes and modus operandi in response to changed circumstances often at the expense of the safety of the smuggled migrants.

Thousands of people have lost their lives as a result of the indifferent or even deliberate actions of migrant smugglers.

These factors highlight the need for responses to combat the crime of migrant smuggling to be coordinated across and between regions, and adaptable to new methods. In this regard, UNODC seeks to assist countries in implementing the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol while promoting a comprehesensive response to the issue of migrant smuggling.

More here. Has anyone heard from the African American community on this issue at all?

PBS

Back in 2013, the UN essentially reported the same conditions in North Korea.

North Korea’s hidden labor camps exposed: A new UN panel is vowing to hold North Korea’s Kim regime to ‘full accountability’ for decades of mass crime and murder. Will Pyongyang face ICC indictment? More here from CS Monitor.

The Global Slavery Index also provides insight into the estimated absolute numbers of people in modern slavery, in 162 countries. When the estimated number of enslaved people is considered in absolute terms as a single factor, the country ranking shifts considerably.

The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Taken together, these countries account for 76% of the total estimate of 29.8 million in modern slavery.

The country with the largest estimated number of people in modern slavery is India, which is estimated to have between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. The India country study suggests that while this involves the exploitation of some foreign nationals, by far the largest proportion of this problem is the exploitation of Indians citizens within India itself, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labour.

The country with the second highest absolute numbers of enslaved is China, with an estimated 2,800,000 to 3,100,000 in modern slavery. The China country study5 suggests that this includes the forced labour of men, women and children in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and forced marriage.

The country with the third highest absolute number in modern slavery is Pakistan, with an estimated 2,000,000 to 2,200,000 people in modern slavery. Read the 2013 report here.

CIA Director Spoke Truths and then got Trolled

Posted on April 13, 2017April 13, 2017 by Denise Simon

CIA’s Pompeo rips WikiLeaks as ‘hostile intelligence service’ abetted by Russia

CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in his first speech since taking over the agency, lambasted WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange — calling the group a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that is often abetted by “state actors like Russia.”

YahooFinance

Speaking Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Pompeo called Assange a “fraud,” someone with no “moral compass” and a “narcissist who has created nothing of value.”

He asserted that Assange and former National Security Agency staffer and famed leaker Edward Snowden “seek to use that information to make a name for themselves” and they “care nothing about the lives they put at risk or the damage they cause to national security.”

Asked why he would focus on WikiLeaks rather than other issues, Pompeo said he felt it was vital to inform the American people about the threat they pose.

In the case of Snowden, Pompeo said the detrimental impact of his leaks was expansive and that more than 1,000 foreign targets attempted to change their means of communication as a result of the Snowden disclosures.

“The bottom line is that it became harder for us in the intelligence community to keep Americans safe. It became harder to monitor the communications of terrorist organizations that are bent on bringing bloodshed to our shores. Snowden’s disclosures helped these groups find ways to hide themselves in the crowded digital forest,” he said.

Last week, WikiLeaks released the latest chapter in its ongoing “Vault 7” series of cyber and hacking tools that it claims were stolen from the CIA.

According to its release, the new leaked information contains 27 documents from the CIA’s Grasshopper Framework, which is allegedly the software tools used by the CIA to infiltrate Microsoft’s Windows platform. More here.

Baaghi

Enter the trolls:

The Hill reports:

WikiLeaks hit back at CIA Director Mike Pompeo on Thursday after he criticized the website.

Pompeo called WikiLeaks a “non-state hostile intelligence service” that had done “great harm to our nation’s national security.”

The site hit back by posting one of Pompeo’s now-deleted tweets from 2016 citing the group’s work publishing leaked documents from the Democratic National Committee.

“Need further proof that the fix was in from Pres. Obama on down? BUSTED: 19,252 Emails from DNC Leaked by Wikileaks,” Pompeo had tweeted.

WikiLeaks shared an image of that tweet, adding:”Tweet sent by CIA Director Mike Pompeo on 24 July 2016.” More here.

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Okay, it is popular now to dislike James Comey, the Director of the FBI. Okay, but the rank and file agents at the FBI are the ones doing the hard work on investigations.

Associated Press reports:

WASHINGTON (AP) — FBI Director James Comey said Americans should be aware of foreign efforts to undermine confidence in U.S. elections and mindful of the possibility that what they’re reading might be part of an organized disinformation campaign.

U.S. adversaries, including Russia last year, have “used all kinds of vectors to try and influence and undermine our own faith in our democratic processes” and have relied on increasingly sophisticated tactics, the FBI director warned.

Speaking at a Newseum event Wednesday night, he said the FBI would be transparent in publicly calling out efforts to meddle in American politics and that the public also should take steps to guard against foreign influence.

“The most important thing to be done is people need to be aware of the possibility that what they’re reading has been shaped by troll farms looking to push a message on Twitter to undermine our confidence” about the electoral process, Comey said. More here.

*** Just in case you are still not a believer, this site published a summary of a two panel hearing before the Senate regarding ‘Active Measures’ and constant KGB tactic(s) used during the Cold War and especially now with the use of the internet and social media.

When is it Enough for Putin and Russia? This describes the Russian ‘botnet’ operation with testimony from 6 experts not employed by any Federal government agency. And in case you missed it, also from this site is FBI Global Hackers Sweeping Sting Arrests where most of those arrested were…yup Russian.

A believer yet? Maybe there just was and is a reason for several government investigations into the American infrastructure……right?