Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics

Slave Labor Markets in Libya and Beyond

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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?

Image result for slave labor markets  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.

 

 

FBI Global Hackers Sweeping Sting Arrests

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So many complain the FBI is slow-walking cyber and hacking operations especially when it comes to the Russian investigations. Well, the FBI rarely announces cases and prosecutions. When it comes to the recent Russian hacking scandal into the United States election and campaign infrastructure, perhaps the Department of Justice and the FBI are building a huge file for proof.

So, try this:

NBC/McClatchy

 

U.S. sweeping up Russian hackers in a broad global dragnet

BY TIM JOHNSON/WASHINGTON

McClatchy: The arrests caught the Russian hackers totally by surprise. One was at a Finnish border crossing. Another was arriving at an airport in Spain. A third was dining at a restaurant in Prague. Still others were at luxury resorts in the Maldives and Thailand.

Many have now turned up in U.S. courts. The long arm of U.S. law enforcement is spanning the globe like never before to bring criminal hackers to justice.

And it may not be just about crime. The Justice Department cites fuzzy and overlapping boundaries between criminal hackers and Russian intelligence agencies, the same ones the U.S. accuses of coordinating the hacking and subsequent disclosure of emails from the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign.

President Donald Trump dismisses allegations that Russia meddled in the election as “fake news,” but the FBI and congressional committees have launched probes and the Obama administration ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in late December.

Rubio says Russian hackers targeted his presidential campaign

During a Senate committee hearing on Thursday, Florida Senator Marco Rubio stated that his 2016 presidential campaign staff members were the targets of Russian hackers in July 2016 and March 2017, but both efforts were unsuccessful.

The U.S. campaign leaves Russian hackers with a dilemma: If they leave the safe confines of Russia, which has no extradition treaty with the United States, or Russia’s most ardent allies, they may get picked up and sent to the U.S.

“They no longer travel, the high-profile hackers. They understand the danger,” said Arkady Bukh, a criminal defense lawyer in New York City who has defended numerous accused Russian cybercriminals.

Still, some Russian and Eastern European hackers do enjoy holidays abroad – and live to regret it. Just this week, Maxim Senakh, a 41-year-old Russian, pleaded guilty in a Minneapolis courtroom to operating a massive robotic network that generated tens of millions of spam emails a day in a zombie criminal enterprise that purportedly brought in millions in profits.

Senakh didn’t come voluntarily. He’d been visiting a sister in Finland before that country put him on a U.S.-bound plane in January, answering a U.S. extradition request.

“He fought it, the Russian government fought it, and the Russian government put political pressure on its neighbor, Finland,” federal prosecutor Kevin S. Ueland said at a Feb. 19 hearing.

Another Russian, Mark Vartanyan, 29, pleaded guilty March 20 to computer fraud in an Atlanta courtroom after reaching a deal with prosecutors to offer far-reaching cooperation that would limit a prison term to five years or less.

Norway extradited Vartanyan to the U.S. in December.

David Hickton, a former U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh who made the city a hub for prosecutions of foreign hackers, said such actions are a sign of the new dimensions of crime.

IT’S NO DIFFERENT THAN IF SOMEONE PULLED A TRUCK UP TO YOUR HOUSE AND STOLE VALUABLE MATERIAL. David Hickton, former federal prosecutor

“This is 21st century burglary. It’s no different than if someone pulled a truck up to your house and stole valuable material,” said Hickton, who now directs the Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security at the University of Pittsburgh.

But Hickton acknowledged that carrying off successful prosecutions is a challenge.

“These cyber investigations are very, very hard. You’re talking about evaporating evidence, borderless crimes and defendants who can hide behind the borders of countries that don’t have extradition treaties with us,” he said.

It is not easy to pigeonhole the accused and convicted hackers. Some are brainy but merely cogs in larger crime groups. Others flash their wealth and opulent lifestyles.

NOT ALL OF THEM ARE RICH. 

Arkady Bukh, criminal defense attorney in New York City

“Not all of them are rich,” Bukh said. “A lot of them are involved in computer intrusion and that does not bring much money.”

Bukh recalled one client, Aleksandr Panin, who was placed by authorities on a plane in the Dominican Republic to 2013 bound for Atlanta, put on trial and convicted.

“The guy couldn’t afford a car even with (having caused) a billion dollars in losses. He’s like a mad scientist geek,” Bukh said.

Then there are those on the opposite extreme, who pose for photos with piles of cash or at luxury beach resorts. One of them, Roman Seleznev, was convicted last year in Seattle on 38 counts related to cybercrime. His father is a deputy in the Russian parliament, or Duma. Prosecutors retrieved a photo from his cell phone of him standing next to a yellow Dodge Challenger muscle car in Red Square near the Kremlin.

The magnitude of damages that prosecutors have alleged can be mind-boggling.

Vartanyan, the young Russian hacker brought to Atlanta from Norway, was part of the development team that created Citadel, a “universal spyware system” sold on underground Russian criminal hacker forums that ended up lodged on 11 million infected computers around the world.

In their complaint against him, prosecutors cited industry estimates that Citadel caused “over $500 million in losses” in a three-year period.

The investigations can be incredibly complex, leading federal investigators to call in specialized cybersecurity firms to conduct forensics. In the probe of Senakh, whose guilty plea came last month, the feds turned to ESET, a cybersecurity firm with 18 offices around the world.

ESET analyzed the malicious code Senakh used, dubbed Ebury malware, and found that it had compromised 25,000 servers around the world, researcher Marc-Etienne Leveille said in an email.

Stanislav Lisov, a computer programmer from Taganrog, a town on Russia’s Black Sea coast, had arrived at Barcelona’s international airport with his wife on Jan. 13 when Spanish Civil Guard police arrested him on an FBI warrant issued through Interpol. The charges: electronic and computer fraud.

WE WERE DETAINED AT THE AIRPORT IN BARCELONA. 

Darya Lisova, wife of accused Russian hacker Stanislav Lisov

“We were detained at the airport in Barcelona, when we came to return a rented car before flying out to Lyon, to continue our trip and visit friends. When we were getting out of the car, two police officers approached, showed us the badge, and said they were detaining my husband,” Darya Lisova told the Russian state-operated RT network.

Spain has not yet extradited Lisov, who is blamed for being the architect of a sophisticated Trojan, NeverQuest, used in stealing log-in credentials for bank accounts.

Here is a rundown of some other recent cases:

Yevgeniy Nikulin, 29, was arrested by police while dining with his girlfriend in a hotel restaurant in Prague’s Old Town Oct. 5. He has been indicted by a federal grand jury in northern California on charges of computer intrusion, identity theft and other crimes for penetrating into the systems of high-tech companies LinkedIn, Dropbox and Formspring. Since then, Washington and Moscow have been in a tug-of-war over Nikulin’s extradition.

Olga Komova, a 26-year-old Uzbek, and Dmitry Ukrainsky, a Russian, were arrested in mid-2016 at beach resorts in Thailand and accused of stealing more than $28 million as part of a mega cyber bank fraud ring. Komova has turned up in U.S. custody and faces federal charges of wire fraud and money laundering. How she was brought to the United States is unclear. Her U.S. lawyer, Michael Soroka, declined to discuss the case.

When extradition isn’t an option, U.S. authorities lure alleged hackers to jurisdictions where they can be arrested. Such tactics have been decried by Moscow as “kidnapping.”

Seleznev, the identity thief who is the son of the Duma deputy, chose to vacation at a five-star resort in the Indian Ocean archipelago nation of the Maldives in 2014 precisely because it has no extradition treaty with the United States.

U.S. officials got word and persuaded Maldives authorities to intercept Seleznev at the airport, where in a fast-paced operation he was bundled on a private plane to Guam, a U.S. territory in the western Pacific, then flown to Seattle to face federal charges.

Upon his conviction last August, prosecutors said Seleznev had stolen millions of credit card numbers, causing 3,700 banks $169 million in losses. He faces a 40-year jail term.

No matter where the hackers travel, prosecutors say they will follow.

The U.S. attorney in Atlanta, John Horn, who has also made a name for himself in prosecuting Russian hackers, offered an unapologetic defense last year of the global reach of U.S. justice.

“Cybercrime is borderless, but increasingly, so too are our law enforcement capabilities,” Horn said.

European Union’s Attention and Dollars on Failing Africa

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Image result for sahel region

The European Commission has launched an “Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa”, made up of €1.8 billion from the EU budget and European Development Fund, combined with contributions from EU Member States and other donors. The Trust Fund will benefit a wide range of countries across Africa that encompass the major African migration routes to Europe. These countries are among the most fragile and those most affected by migration. They will draw the greatest benefit from EU financial assistance. The countries and regions are:

The Sahel region and Lake Chad area: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.

The Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.

The North of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.

Neighbouring countries of the eligible countries may benefit, on a case by case basis, from Trust Fund projects with a regional dimension in order to address regional migration flo ws and related cross- border challenges. Read the full document here.

EU Economic and Military Investments in Africa Increase
Africa faces a number of security challenges, from terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and al Shabaab, to civil wars and violent conflicts in South Sudan and Libya, to severe droughts causing hunger crises in Somalia and Yemen.

This instability contributes to migration from Africa to Europe. In addition, a demographic boom is taking hold in Africa, stoking concerns about future mass migration. “Today, Africa is twice the population of Europe. In 2050, it will be four times the population of Europe, and it is projected at the end of this century to be 10 times the population of Europe. … There is a sense in many political circles in Europe that what’s happening today is just the beginning of a much bigger movement that could reach Europe tomorrow,” Philippe Fargues, founding Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Italy, told The Cipher Brief.

The European Union is intervening. On the migration front, the EU is engaged in Partnership Framework Agreements with several African countries to stem the flow of migrants. “This was followed up with the setting up of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (a €2 billion aid program aimed at securing African countries’ cooperation in tackling irregular migration), leading to the initial signing of bilateral agreements with Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Ethiopia” says the Abuja, Nigeria-based Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Idayat Hassan.

Niger, for example, is receiving €610 million to keep migrants from reaching Europe, Hassan says, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged €17 million to Niger to help develop the Agadez region, a major route for West African migrants.

Germany seems to be leading European action in Africa. Last year, German Development Minister Gerd Müller unveiled a “Marshall Plan” for the continent. “Germany and Europe have an interest to save people’s lives, to limit the effects of climate change and avoid ‘climate refugees,’ to prevent mass migration and to help create a future for Africa’s youth,” said Müller.

Asmita Parshotam, a researcher under the Economic Diplomacy Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, tells The Cipher Brief that this plan is intended to “cover a broad range of issues such as trade, increased private investment, bottom-up economic development, entrepreneurship, and job creation and employment.”

In addition to Germany’s unilateral aid to Africa, the EU recently announced its EU External Investment Plan that will help expand Africa’s private sector, with €3.35 billion in funding until 2020 and €88 billion if EU member states fully match that contribution.

The European Development Fund and African Investment Facility also provide economic development assistance from the EU to Africa.

In the development-security aid realm lies the EU Sahel Strategy, launched in April 2015. “The enhancement of security in the region through the fight against terrorism, illicit trafficking, radicalisation and violent extremism, remains the key objective of the EU,” according to a memo on the EU Sahel Strategy from the Council of the European Union.

EU member states also host a number of military bases in Africa. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all have boots on the ground in Djibouti. France’s presence there is now around 1,700 personnel.

About 3,500 French troops operate in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, and Gabon is a key base that France has used to send troops to interventions in the Central African Republic. France last year boosted its military presence in Cote d’Ivoire to about 900 men to serve as a forward operating base for West Africa.

The French, along with the Germans, are also in Niger. Germany has an air transport base at the Niamey international airport that supports its increasing troop contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, a country that underwent a rebellion and coup in 2012 and a serious deterioration in the security environment in January 2013 when terrorist groups – Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, in addition to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – advanced south.

A majority of UN peacekeeping missions, in which many Europeans are involved, are in Africa.

The question remains, will the EU’s economic and military investment in Africa work in stabilizing a continent plagued by terror, war, drought and famine, extreme poverty, and inadequate governance?

Müller’s “Marshall Plan” acknowledges that African governments must take responsibility for fighting corruption, ensuring good governance, and improving opportunities for women.

The EU has made much of its development aid contingent on African governments’ cooperation in addressing the EU’s security concerns. For example, on migration, Parshotam notes that an EU-Mali deal will give Mali aid in exchange for Mali taking back all citizens whose asylum claims were rejected.

But with African countries that have no stable government to work with, it becomes harder for the EU to invest in and create stability. “Libya is a failing state – there’s no central authority,” Leonard Doyle, Spokesperson of the Director General at the International Organization for Migration, told The Cipher Brief. “So the Europeans have not been able to reach a coherent agreement with Libya [on migration]. Although there is a lot of pressure now, especially militarily, to stop the smugglers, and economically as well, to help Libya get back on its feet,” he said.

“I think we are completely wrong in our policies,” said Fargues. “The amount of money contributed to African development is too small, but also in the short term and medium term, development will not curb migration,” he said, because the African population continues to grow, while Europe’s continues to shrink. “We have to get prepared for migration.”

 

IG Report: Improper Accounting at HUD, $516 Billion

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What We Found  Full 126 page Inspector General Report is here.

Image result for julian castro hud

Of note, Speaker Boehner hired a law, Jonathan Turley to represent the House in a lawsuit, where Treasury under Barack Obama was ordered to take monies from other agencies to fund Obamacare and pay insurers. That lawsuit case is found here. Where is the case now? In May 2016, Collyer ruled that the payments were illegal. The case is already on appeal to the D.C. Circuit and will probably be argued in early 2017.

Meanwhile, how about fraud at HUD, where Julian Castro was Secretary? Julian is a radical and a LaRaza advocate. Further, Politico reported that Julian Castro’s name was floated early as a Hillary running mate.

Image result for julian castro hillary clinton   Back to the half a trillion dollars….

The total amounts of errors corrected in HUD’s notes and consolidated financial statements were

$516.4 billion and $3.4 billion, respectively. There were several other unresolved audit matters,

which restricted our ability to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to express an opinion.

These unresolved audit matters relate to (1) the Office of General Counsel’s refusal to sign the

management representation letter, (2) HUD’s improper use of cumulative and first-in, first-out

budgetary accounting methods of disbursing community planning and development program

funds, (3) the $4.2 billion in nonpooled loan assets from Ginnie Mae’s stand-alone financial

statements that we could not audit due to inadequate support, (4) the improper accounting for

certain HUD assets and liabilities, and (5) material differences between HUD’s subledger and

general ledger accounts. This audit report contains 11 material weaknesses, 7 significant

deficiencies, and 5 instances of noncompliance with applicable laws and regulations.

What We Recommend

In addition to recommendations made in audit reports 2017-FO-0001, 2017-FO-0002, and 2017-

FO-0003, we recommend that HUD (1) reassess its current consolidated financial statement and

notes review process to ensure that sufficient internal controls are in place to prevent and detect

errors, (2) evaluate the current content of HUD’s consolidated note disclosures to ensure

compliance with regulations and GAAP, and (3) develop a plan to ensure that restatements are

properly reflected in all notes impacted.

On November 15, 2016, we issued an independent auditor’s report1 stating that the U.S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was unable to provide final fiscal years

2016 and 2015 consolidated financial statements and accompanying notes in a timeframe that

would allow us to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to determine whether they were free

from material misstatement. We also reported on the delays encountered in the material

weakness, Weak Internal Controls Over Financial Reporting Led to Errors and Delays in the

Preparation of Financial Statements and Notes.2

The delays were due to insufficiently designed and implemented financial reporting processes

and internal controls that were put into place because of HUD’s transition of its core financial

system to a Federal shared service provider (FSSP). HUD inadequately planned and tested the

changes to HUD’s financial reporting process before the transition. Additionally, late

restatements performed by HUD’s component entities, the Government National Mortgage

Association (Ginnie Mae) and Federal Housing Administration (FHA), contributed to the delay

in providing final consolidated financial statements.3 As a result, we were unable to provide an

opinion on HUD’s fiscal years 2016 and 2015 financial statements. While there were other

material matters that supported our basis for disclaimer, this was the primary reason for our

disclaimer of opinion.

Trump’s Son-in-Law to Head new WH Office

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Really, at issue for smoother government operations is upgrading computer software across all agencies. Some parts of government is operating on Microsoft products no longer supported while others in fact still use DOS. It was never a lack of appropriations by Congress but rather using those funds for other expenditures and in some cases paying bonuses or for travel to classes, seminars or training.

Rather than have the White House launch this initiative, an outside advisory group should be mobilized to introduce and demonstrate innovation as the private sector is the cutting edge. Each agency lead or cabinet secretary should submit a ‘wants and needs’ wish list such that outside agencies can address those potential solutions, otherwise we end up with the fraud and collusion endured with the launch of the front-end, back-end and website for Obamacare. Anyone remember that disaster?

Image result for white house innovation summit

Anyway, the Obama administration did an innovation summit and solutions showcase at the White House. Has the Trump administration been through those files? Google visited the Obama White House at least once a week. This may be a good mission for government in the end, as Google is in fact offering some assistance to some issues the Trump White House is considering.

***

Trump Pledges New Office to Bring Business Innovation to Government Operations

The Trump administration is launching a new office to spur innovation in government operations, the White House announced Monday, promising to give business acumen a more prominent role in federal activities.

President Trump tapped Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, to lead the new White House Office of American Innovation. The administration is billing the initiative — first reported by The Washington Post — as a SWAT team of former business executives. The goal, the White House said, is to shake up the status quo of the federal bureaucracy by infusing new ideas that allow private enterprises to succeed.

The administration billed the office as non-partisan, looking for any new ideas from both inside and outside government. It will aim to make improvements at every federal agency, including through technology overhauls, projects stemming from Trump’s promised infrastructure investment and procurement reform. A particular area of focus will be improving the Veterans Affairs Department. The White House said the innovation office will function as a service organization offering its assistance to agencies.

Trump formally created the office through a presidential memorandum issued Monday, in which he vowed the office would “solve today’s most intractable problems.” It will consist of about a dozen existing White House staff and consult with the directors of the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Science and Technology Policy. After hearing from private sector leaders and government officials, the office will make policy recommendations to the president and “coordinate implementation of any resulting plans.”

When an agency is struggling with certain projects, the office and its team of White House advisers and business leaders will come in to offer creative and cost-efficient solutions. The team will look to ensure agencies keep pace with the latest innovations in the private sector.

The office will “apply the president’s ahead-of-schedule and under budget mentality to a variety of government operations and services, enhancing the quality of life for all Americans,” White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Monday. He conceded that “government is not business,” as there are certain things that “business would never do” and government must pick up the slack. Business leaders, he explained, can “help us deliver a better product, a better service to the American people.”

The business leaders participating in the project are “looking to give back in some way, shape or form,” Spicer said.

The new office is the latest in a series of moves from Trump aiming to streamline government operations. Earlier this month, he issued an order calling for a “comprehensive plan for reorganizing the executive branch,” which will require a “thorough examination” of every agency to identify “where money can be saved and services improved.” Another order has sent task forces to every agency to identify regulations for elimination or modification.

It also follows initiatives by several recent presidential administrations to modernize and streamline the way agencies do their work. On the technology side, a key focus of the new innovation office, President Obama launched the U.S. Digital Service in 2014 as a White House office to offer a “SWAT team” in troubleshooting high-priority information technology projects, as well as the General Services Administration’s 18F to provide consultant services to agencies looking to build up new technology-based offerings. Still, Spicer said some functions of government are so “outdated and unmodernized” that agencies are no longer serving their constituencies.

Through his Grace Commission, President Reagan tapped business executives to help identify waste and inefficiencies in government.

“What we need from you and your expertise and your associates is to literally come in to the various departments and agencies of government and look at them as if you were considering a merger or a takeover, and to see how modern business practices could be put to work to make government more efficient and more effective,” Reagan told his group in 1982. The commission eventually identified $424 billion in cuts. “There are a million things that you think of and take for granted every day in your business that you’ll find they don’t take it for granted in Washington, and it isn’t done that way, and that’s what it’s all about,” Reagan said.

President Clinton’s National Partnership for Reinventing Government promised to remake the federal government. Its National Performance Review proposed 1,200 changes to “serve customers better,” similar to Kushner’s promise to “achieve successes and efficiencies for our customers, who are the citizens.”