More Details on Panama Papers and Implications

Posted on April 4, 2016April 4, 2016 by Denise Simon

Fusion: It’s being called the “Panama Papers” — a trove of 11.5 million leaked internal documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, showing how hundreds of thousands of people with money to hide used anonymous shell corporations across the world. Fusion’s investigative unit was one of the more than 100 media organizations that dove into the files — and found drug dealers, arms traders, human traffickers, fraudsters. We also found no shortage of politicians or their family members.

Here is a listing of current and former world leaders connected to the files. Check out Dirty Little Secrets, Fusion’s full investigation into the leak and the underworld it exposes.

For additional information on these names and more, read “The Power Players,” an interactive presentation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), from which much of this information is gleaned.

MAURICIO MACRI

President of Argentina
Macri — who as president has vowed to fight corruption — is listed, with his Italian tycoon father Francisco and brother Mariano, as a director of Fleg Trading Ltd., incorporated in the Bahamas in 1998 and dissolved in January 2009 — a financial connection Macri didn’t disclose on asset declarations when he was mayor of Buenos Aires. His spokesman said didn’t list Fleg Trading Ltd. as an asset because he had no capital participation in the company. The company, used to participate in interests in Brazil, was related to the family business group. “This is why Maricio Macri was occasionally its director,” he said, reiterating that Macri was not a shareholder.

AYAD ALLAWI

Former Iraqi PM

A wealthy Iraqi exile who helped lead the push for war with Saddam Hussein, Allawi returned to Iraq to serve as prime minister in 2004. He also served as vice president s recently as last year. From 1985 to 2013, Mossack Fonseca helped run his Panama-registered company I.M.F. Holdings Inc. I.M.F. owned a house in Kingston upon Thames, England worth roughly $1.5 million, and another offshore company of his, Moonlight Estates Ltd., held a property in London. Representatives for Allawi confirmed that he “is the sole director and shareholder of Foxwood Estates Limited, Moonlight Estates Limited and IMF Holdings Inc.,” adding that he ran many of his house purchases through anonymous offshores “in light of an assassination attempt on him.” Indeed, he survived an attempt on his life in 1978, presumably by Saddam Hussein.

SIGMUNDUR DAVID GUNNLAUGSSON

PM of Iceland

A radio personality who led the Progressive Party to victory after the financial crisis of 2008, Gunnlaugsson and his wealthy wife owned a British Virgin Islands shell company called Wintris Inc., that held nearly $4 million in bonds in Iceland’s three major banks. He failed to declare his ownership of Wintris on entering the Parliament in 2009. In March, a TV interviewer asked Gunnlaugsson if he had ever owned an offshore company. “Myself? No,” he said, adding: “Well, the Icelandic companies I have worked with had connections with offshore companies.” A spokesman told the ICIJ that Gunnlaugsson and his family had followed all Icelandic laws.

KING SALMAN BIN ABDULAZIZ BIN ABDULRAHMAN AL SAUD

King of Saudi Arabia

Through a series of British Virgin Islands shell companies, the Saudi king appears to have taken out several luxury mortgages for houses in London — at least $34 million worth — and held “a luxury yacht the length of a football field.” The king did not answer the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

PETRO POROSHENKO

President of Ukraine

Known as Ukraine’s billionaire “chocoloate king,” Poroshenko swept into office in 2014 vowing reforms that have not yet come. He became the sole shareholder of Prime Asset Partners Limited in 2014, as Russian troops invaded Eastern Ukraine. The following year, Poroshenko vowed to sell most of his assets; news reports said they ultimately ended up in “Prime Asset Capital.” His spokesman told the ICIJ said that “creation of the trust and related corporate structures had no relation to political and military events in Ukraine,” adding that his assets held by an independently managed fund — Prime Asset Capital.

RAMI AND HAFEZ MAKHLOUF

Cousins of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad

“For years, any foreign company seeking to do business in Syria had to be cleared by Rami, who controlled key economic sectors such as oil and telecommunications. Hafez, a general in charge of Syria’s intelligence and security apparatus, has been suspected of helping his older brother intimidate business rivals.” The cousins have been subjected to international financial sanctions and appear to have used multiple offshore accounts to siphon wealth from Syrian industry and avoid freezes on their assets. In early 2011, emails show employees at Mossack Fonseca discussing U.S. sanctions and allegations of bribery and corruption made against members of the Makhlouf family. By that June, Mossack had cut its ties with the Makhloufs.

KOJO ANNAN

Son of ex-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan

Then only son of former U.N. head Kofi Annan courted controversy in 1998, when a firm of his won a big contract under the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food humanitarian program in Iraq. An inquiry eventually cleared father and son of any corruption in the deal. Internal Mossack Fonseca documents show Koji Annan has held several offshore shell companies, using one to purchase a half-million-dollar apartment in central London. A spokesman for Annan said his business was for “normal, legal purposes of managing family and business matters and has been fully disclosed in accordance with applicable laws.”

FAMILY OF NAWAZ SHARIF

PM of Pakistan

For years, Sharif, a longtime presence in Pakistani politics, has had to answer questions about his family’s “riches from a network of businesses that include steel, sugar and paper mills and extensive international property holdings,” ICIJ says. Mossacks’ documents show a series of offshore companies operated by Sharif’s children, Mariam, Hussein and Hasan, including one to hold “a UK property each for use by the family” and others that moved million in assets. Mossack Fonseca resigned from a company Hasan directed in 2007, calling him “a politically exposed person.” The Sharif family did not respond to the ICIJ’s requests for comment.

ARKADY AND BORIS ROTENBERG

Lifelong friends of Russian President Vladimir Putin

The billionaire brothers grew up with Putin and have benefited richly from his turns as Russia’s president and prime minister. The U.S. has sanctioned their wealth over alleged corruption, particularly allegations they profited over contracts from the 2014 Sochi Olympics. They ran at least seven British Virgin Islands shell companies “involved in everything from investing in a major pipeline construction company… to buying equipment for the construction of an Italian villa in Tuscany for Arkady’s son.”

SERGEY ROLDUGIN

Close persona friend of Putin

Widely known as one of the world’s better cellists, Roldugin has been close to Putin since the 1970s, when the future president worked in the Soviet KGB. Documents show Roldugin owned three shell companies, two of which were funded by a Russian organ that the U.S. government calls “Russia’s ‘personal bank for senior officials.’” Through those companies, Roldugin appears to hold significant shares of Kamaz, Russia’s largest truckmaker, and a major state media corporation.

IAN CAMERON

Father of David Cameron

The father of Great Britain’s current Conservative Prime Minister died in 2010, having amassed a fortune in smart investments. According to the documents, “Cameron helped create and develop Blairmore Holdings Inc. in Panama in 1982 and was involved in the investment fund until his 2010 death.” Blairmore was valued at $20 million in 1998 and was promoted to investors in brochures as “not liable to taxation on its income or capital gains.” The promotional literature added that Cameron’s fund “will not be subject to United Kingdom corporation tax or income tax on its profits.”

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Analysis: The security implications of the Panama Papers

IntelNews: Aside from their immediate shock value, the Panama Papers reveal the enormous extent of tax evasion on a worldwide scale. This unprecedented phenomenon is inextricably tied with broader trends in globalized finance-capitalism that directly threaten the very survival of the postwar welfare state. National intelligence agencies must begin to view offshore tax evasion as an existential threat to the security of organized government and need to augment their economic role as part of their overall mission to protect and secure law-abiding citizens.

THE BACKGROUND OF THE LEAK

The source of the Panama Papers leak —the largest in history— is apparently a single individual who contacted the widely respected German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung over a year ago. After receiving assurances that his or her anonymity would be safeguarded, the source proceeded to provide the paper with what eventually amounted to over 11.5 million files. They include company emails, banking transaction records, and files of clients that span the years 1977 to 2015. The source asked for no financial compensation or other form of reimbursement in return, saying only that he or she wanted to “make these crimes public”.

Faced with the largest data leak in recorded history, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reporters contacted the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which is the international arm of the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity. With ICIJ acting as an umbrella group, the German reporters were eventually joined by 370 journalists representing 100 news outlets from 76 countries. On Sunday, following a year-long analysis of the data, the reporting partners began publishing revelations from the Panama Papers, and say they will continue to do so for several days to come.

THE ROLE OF MOSSACK FONSECA

The documents are from the internal records of Mossack Fonseca, a law firm headquartered in Panama City, Panama, with offices in 42 countries. The company is one of the world’s most prolific registrars and administrators of shell companies in offshore locations. It has created more than 300,000 shell companies throughout its history, most of them in offshore tax havens like the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, or Guernsey. Its clients are offered the ability to incorporate a generic-sounding company and headquarter it in an offshore tax haven. In exchange for an annual fee, Mossack Fonseca provides the company with a sham director and shareholders, thus concealing the true owner and actual beneficiary of the business.

The power of the leaked documents is that they reveal the actual owners of 214,000 offshore shell companies managed by Mossack Fonseca. The long list of names includes dozens of current and former heads of state, as well as hundreds of politicians, public figures and celebrities. Many of these individuals have failed to declare their earnings from their shell companies in their annual tax statements, which means they have not been paying taxes in their country of citizenship or residency. Thus, there are now thousands of Mossack Fonseca clients in over 100 countries who are preparing to face the legal consequences of tax evasion.

SECURITY IMPLICATIONS

Equally importantly, however, the leaked documents reveal that Mossack Fonseca’s clients appear to include at least 33 individuals and companies that are involved in organized crime or have close contacts with terrorist organizations. This sheds light on the increasingly disappearing line that once separated illicit activities such as tax avoidance and tax evasion, from money laundering, organized crime and terrorism. This phenomenon is assisted by unscrupulous companies like Mossack Fonseca, which act as anonymizing platforms for wealthy celebrities, criminals and terrorists alike.

The leak also shows the extent to which national governments have been unable to stem the tide of unfettered finance-capitalism, which today threatens the stability and cohesion of developed and developing economies alike. Moreover, the sheer scale of offshore capital funds, which, according to one expert, amount to as much as $32 trillion, threaten the economic security of nation states and must be viewed as an existential threat to the ability of states to fund public expenditures though taxation. The political arrangement that led to the creation of the postwar welfare state is today being directly threatened by the inability or unwillingness of organized states to monitor the largely unregulated flow of capital to offshore tax havens.

Today, entire economies, including much of southern Europe, the Balkans, as well as Latin America, are crumbling under the fiscal weight created by mass-scale tax evasion and organized crime. Organized criminals are now actively working closely with the banking sector, thus creating even more opportunities for money laundering and other financial illegality on an unprecedented scale. The Süddeutsche Zeitung revelations demonstrate that the line that separates legitimate economic activity from the rogue underbelly of global capitalism is exceedingly thin. It is high time that Western intelligence agencies viewed this worrying development as an asymmetrical threat against the security of law-abiding societies and began dealing with offshore tax havens with the same intensity that they have displayed against terrorist safe havens since 9/11.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis

Migrant Crisis Intersection of Horror, Greece

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Take a Country on the Brink. Now Add 10,000 Asylum Hearings a Week.

Cargo containers used as courthouses. Camps flooded with sewage. A government on the verge of collapse. Why the EU refugee deal is a disaster for Greece.

FP: ATHENS — The ferries bound from the eastern Aegean Sea to Athens reach the port of Piraeus at the E2 Terminal. Immediately confronting disembarking passengers is a five-story banner proclaiming that, two-and-a-half millennia ago, the Greeks won a naval battle in the nearby straits of Salamis. Just below the banner, a concrete pier stretching several hundred meters into those straits is now the site of a tent city.

The 1,600 inhabitants of this city share 45 toilets, shower at the homes of local volunteers, and are coached in elementary Greek as they wait in parallel lines — “Men on the left! Women and kids on the right!” — for pasta and tangerines. International photographers capture their every movement. Out of a green cargo container, volunteer nurses distribute tampons and baby formula while from the back of a van, volunteer medical specialists pick through hair for lice during their breaks from local hospitals. Plates and trays are washed in a trough connected to the Athenian sewage system. Recent fist fights between Syrians — who are, broadly speaking, from middle-class families — and Afghans — typically poor, rural men — have led to the division of the pier into twin encampments: The Afghans face the sea; the Syrians, Iraqis, and Kurds face Athens.

A Greek state that cannot even provide basic services to these refugees has now been placed, as part of a deal struck this month between the European Union and Turkey, at the center of an enormous task. In return for 6 billion euros and vague promises of visa-free travel for its citizens, Turkey will supposedly take back anyone currently attempting to enter Greece. In exchange, for every person turned away at the Greek border, a Syrian will supposedly be relocated from a Turkish camp to an EU country willing to take him or her in. The execution of this deal, however, hinges on Greece successfully processing, with breathtaking speed, each individual who arrives in the country — determining where he or she came from and whether he or she is eligible for asylum.

Eight vessels, 30 coach buses, and 4,000 new workers — including several dozen Frontex police officers and potentially 1,000 army and security staff — will eventually be dispatched from various EU countries to Greek borders to help enforce the agreement by determining their eligibility as “exchangeable” refugees. But, even prior to their arrival, the Greek government is still responsible for documenting some 10,000 incoming asylum-seekers per week.

The process began last week on Lesbos: Each morning, the roughly 1,000 refugees who continue to arrive everyday from Turkey were detained, photographed, given a numbered orange wristband, read their rights — “please be patient” — and bussed to a camp near the village of Moria. There, 60 judges operating out of makeshift courts — mostly cargo containers and tents — presided over appeals committees for any refugee who refused to leave Greece voluntarily. Arabic specialists parsed accents to determine whether Syrians have come from sufficiently dangerous swaths of their country to qualify for consideration of eventual asylum. “There are certain questions we can ask to make sure they’re telling the truth,” one of these specialists, a volunteer named Dionysia, told me in Piraeus, before departing for Lesbos. “‘What is the biggest street in Aleppo?’ ‘Which river runs through Homs?’” To the chagrin of many Greeks, Turkish observers are working within these deportation centers — at Lesbos and elsewhere — to determine if those refugees actually passed through Turkey on their way to
Greece. (Only the ones who did will be accepted back.) “How can you tell if someone without a passport has passed through Turkey?” I asked Dionysia. She shrugged.“How can you tell if someone without a passport has passed through Turkey?” I asked Dionysia. She shrugged.

Meanwhile, the government tasked with handling this mammoth organizational project teeters on the edge of collapse. The events of last summer demonstrated that a coalition of nationalists and former communists could find ways to cooperate during a fiscal crisis — namely, by invoking patriotism as a last plank against the technocrats of the EU. But virtually no common policy unites the ruling Independent Greeks-Syriza coalition when it comes to refugees. The leader of the right-wing Independent Greeks, Defense Minister Panos Kammenos, courts popularity by attacking the “imminent Islamization of Greece.” He refuses to distribute Greek army rations to refugees on the grounds that the Greek military is not a “catering service.” Syriza, a left-wing political party, takes a different stance. It came to power on a promise to dismantle all detention centers in Greece (a promise it has nevertheless broken); last week, members of its youth organization hung banners from the Acropolis calling for the opening of all national borders. The coalition nearly collapsed early this month when Syriza’s alternate immigration minister, Ioannis Mouzalas, called the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia by the name nearly every other country on earth uses — “Macedonia” — and was almost forced into resignation by Kammenos for his grievous affront to Hellenic identity. (Failos Kranidiotis, a prominent member of the opposition New Democracy party, was forced to resign when he said that Mouzalas should be hung publicly and that he himself would provide the rope.)

One of the few tactics both parties agree on is tying the treatment of refugees to the relieving of the national debt. Kammenos threatened to unleash a “wave of jihadis” on the rest of Europe if austerity measures continue unabated. But this strategy has proved mildly effective at best; Germany’s finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, has conceded that the Greek financial reforms will require some “flexibility” if Greece is to bear the brunt of Europe’s refugee crisis, but, so far, no changes to the bailout terms have been set.

The new arrivals, however, continue to come ashore. At the E2 Terminal, I met Muhammad from Iraq, who arrived in Piraeus on March 21. He speaks proficient English, worked 20 years as a tailor, and left his wife and 2-year-old daughter at their home in central Baghdad to seek a stable life in Germany, where he remains determined to go. In early March, Muhammad flew to Istanbul and then crossed to Lesbos in a dinghy with 120 others. Had he left Baghdad one week earlier, he would have likely crossed the Macedonian border and may have made it to Germany by now. Had he arrived several hours later than he did, he would have been turned back at Lesbos and very likely repatriated to Iraq under the terms of the new agreement, which makes no provisions for non-Syrians (though, in theory, looks at all asylum claims on their individual merits). As I got up to leave, Muhammad removed his sneaker and gestured to a horseshoe of scars curled around his left anklebone. Next, he pulled up his right pant leg, revealing a white cast that ended just below his knee. Both were the work of an Islamic State car bomb, he told me.

The current deal does nothing to address Muhammad — or the 53,000 other asylum-seekers like him who are now stuck in Piraeus, the former Olympic arenas in Attica, the squares of Thessaloniki and Kavala, the old Athens airport, the hills around Idomeni, and elsewhere in Greece. It’s likely they will be trapped in Greece indefinitely, victims of an EU that now feels it must overcompensate for months of doing nearly nothing to address the flow of refugees. Various entities and institutions allegedly trying to help people like Muhammad have found themselves at odds with one another and their goals incompatible: Last week, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR), Médecins Sans Frontières, the International Rescue Committee, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council all announced their withdrawal from Greece in protest of the prison-like conditions of its detention centers. Greece, for its part, blames the fenced-off camps on the EU, which habitually threatens Greece’s expulsion from the Schengen zone if refugees aren’t more carefully documented. (At least three of the Brussels bombers are known to have passed through Greece.)

Responsibility for caring for the refugees, meanwhile, continues to fall on private donations from Greeks, though it’s unclear how long a citizenry whose GDP has been devastated by an output drop of one-quarter can continue to do so. The Greek right has been quick to exploit the situation. On Greece’s Independence Day last week, a mysterious group calling itself the “Sacred Band” paraded through the main boulevard of Thessaloniki crying, “Greece stands for Orthodoxy!” The conservative Greek media, meanwhile, stoked fears of Greece’s Islamization by running footage of an Egyptian girl marching in the Athens parade wearing a headscarf. (The girl had absolutely no connection to refugees; she was born in Greece.)
The most damning critique of the EU-Turkey deal — that it breaks the Geneva Conventions by turning refugees back toward conflict zones — is partially offset by another: Rarely has the EU shown the organizational capacity necessary for its implementation. It has made previous commitments to move 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy to northern Europe by the end of 2016; only 937 have been relocated thus far. Nearly everywhere you go in Athens, you see how haphazard any potential efforts to implement the deal will be on the Greek end alone — and how, even if the deal does work, Greece will inevitably be put in the position of having to pick and choose who has a chance to move on to prosperous northern Europe and who doesn’t. Beyond the 53,000 refugees currently living in asylum camps, an estimated 500,000 “irregular migrants” have been living for years on Greek streets without any care or recognition by the country’s inefficient bureaucracy.

When Macedonia closed its border to northern Greece in early March, human smugglers in Athens reportedly threw a party in celebration of the fact that their routes were soon to become more dangerous and, thus, their rates more expensive. Aid workers I met insisted that the current EU-Turkey deal will only do more of the same. “The EU is incapable of realizing that an Afghan family that packed all its belongings into a suitcase, walked halfway across the Middle East, nearly drowned in the Aegean, and is now living in a tent will find a way of getting to Germany,” a Hellenic Red Cross worker told me. He produced a map of the Mediterranean for me on his iPhone. “All the Balkan borders with Greece are now closed.” He pointed toward the Black Sea. “Smugglers are now sneaking them to Bulgaria by boat. They have already begun buying up small hotels on the northwest Turkish coast from which they will launch their boats. When the weather gets better, that will be the next crisis point.”

Will Hillary, Keith, Debbie and Others Give the Donations Back?

Posted on April 1, 2016April 1, 2016 by Denise Simon

Heh…they wont even return phone calls….and this is just in Detroit, other locations possible or a larger network?

Los Angeles, California; Houston and Dallas, Texas; Southern Louisiana, Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Brooklyn, New York; Tampa and Miami, Florida

Details here.

Dem Donors Plead Guilty to $33 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme

Group has given more than $40,000 to Democrats

FreeBeacon:Five individuals who have donated to Democratic politicians pleaded guilty to a scheme that drained Medicare out of $33 million dollars.Two physicians and three owners of hospice and home care companies based out of Detroit, Mich., were charged on June 18, 2015 as part of the largest Medicare fraud case in history for submitting fraudulent claims for home health care and hospice services that were either not provided or deemed medically unnecessary.

The elaborate operation revolved around Muhammad Tariq, Shahid Tahir, and Manawar Javed—the owners of the home health care and hospice companies—paying kickbacks and bribes to physicians for referrals to their companies that included A Plus Hospice and Palliative Care, At Home Hospice, and At Home Network Inc.

Wasseem Alam, a physician who was the top referrer to the companies, admitted he was responsible for millions in Medicare reimbursements and said he received kickbacks, along with other inducements, in exchange for those referrals.

“Alam bribed his patients into accepting services from At Home Network by providing them with medically unnecessary controlled substance prescriptions both personally and through unlicensed individuals, he admitted,” the Justice Department said. “Co-owner Tariq admitted that he knew about Alam’s controlled substances bribes to patients. Alam also instructed others to falsify patient files to hide the fact that the prescriptions were medically unnecessary, according to his plea agreement.”

Hatem Ataya, a physician who was the second highest referrer to the At Home Network and the top referrer to At Home Hospice, also admitted to accepting kickbacks for his referrals.

“Ataya also admitted that the Tahir-associated companies would submit false billing based on his referrals for purported home health and hospice services, when, at times, these services were neither medically necessary nor provided,” the Justice Department said.

Ataya was separately charged last year in connection with the death of three patients and hit with three counts of delivering a controlled substance and another three counts of delivering a controlled substance causing death, according to WNEM TV in Flint, Michigan.

Tariq, Tahir, and Javed pleaded guilty to one count to commit health care fraud and wire fraud.

Alam and Ateya both pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care and wire fraud, while Alam additionally pleaded guilty to one count of structuring.

All five individuals have combined to give tens of thousands of dollars to Democratic politicians.

Shahid Tahir, one of the owners of the companies, has made 63 contributions totaling at least $33,000 to Democratic politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Reps. Keith Ellison (D., Minn.) and Gary Peters (D., Mich.), among many others.

Muhammed Tariq, another owner, added five donations to Democratic politicians including the likes of John Edwards and Reps. Debbie Stabenow (D., Mich.) and Bobby McKenzie (D., Mich.). Tariq contributed $2,000 to Democrats throughout the years.

Manawar Javed, the third owner, made two contributions to Democrats that totaled $750.

The first physician involved in the scheme, Waseem Alam, made $3,250 worth of donations that included a $1,000 contribution to both Hillary Clinton and Rep. Stabenow.

Hatem Ateya, the second physician, made four separate donations to Democrats that came to $2,500.

Together, they have donated more than $40,000 to Democratic politicians nationwide, compared to just $2,000 to Republicans within Michigan.

The group was initially caught last year during a nationwide sweep led by the Medicare Fraud Strike Force.

The sweep resulted in charges against 243 individuals including 46 doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals for $712 million in false billings—the largest Medicare fraud bust in history.

Requests for comment were not returned.

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Miami, Los Angeles:

The FBI arrested 46 doctors and nurses across the country this week in the largest Medicare fraud bust ever.

CNN: In total, 243 people were arrested in 17 cities for allegedly billing Medicare for $712 million worth of patient care that was never given or unnecessary. In one of the most egregious cases, owners of a mental health facility in Miami billed tens of millions of dollars for psychotherapy sessions based on treatment that was little more than moving patients to different locations, said Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A Los Angeles doctor is charged for allegedly billing $23 million for 1,000 power wheelchairs and home health services that were not medically necessary and often not provided. And in a Florida case, a health care provider received $1.6 million from Medicare for prescription drugs that were never purchased and never dispensed, said Lynch.

There is a Strike Force on Medicare fraud:

Medicare Fraud Strike Force Teams harness data analytics and the combined resources of Federal, State, and local law enforcement entities to prevent and combat health care fraud, waste, and abuse. First established in March 2007, Strike Force teams currently operate in nine areas: Miami, Florida; Los Angeles, California; Detroit, Michigan; southern Texas; Brooklyn, New York; southern Louisiana; Tampa, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; and Dallas, Texas.

Map of Strike Force Locations

Strike Force teams bring together the efforts of the Office of Inspector General, the Department of Justice, Offices of the United States Attorneys, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local law enforcement, and others.

These teams have a proven record of success in analyzing data and investigative intelligence to quickly identify fraud and bring prosecutions. The interagency collaboration also enhances the effectiveness of the Strike Force model. For example, OIG refers credible allegations of fraud to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) so that it can suspend payments to the suspected perpetrators, thereby immediately preventing losses from claims submitted by Strike Force targets.

ISIS Caliphate Cyber Army Next Soft Targets

Posted on March 30, 2016March 30, 2016 by Denise Simon

Companies could be the next ISIS target

MarketWatch: Companies could become larger targets of pro-Islamic State hackers, according to a security company that analyzes the group’s online activity.

The hacking capabilities of ISIS, which has spread propaganda through online channels such as Facebook and Twitter, remain nascent and relatively unsophisticated, according to researchers at the New York-based intelligence company Flashpoint. But the group has gained supporters with hacking skills who are helping propel the group’s online campaigns, the researchers say.

“These are individuals that are hackers first, ISIS supporters second,” says Laith Alkhouri, cofounder and director of research and analysis for the Middle East and North Africa at Flashpoint. “This is definitely a problem in the U.S. for individual businesses, especially individually businesses that are catering to customers digitally.”

Alkhouri says the pro-ISIS hackers typically deface websites to post messages in support of the group to gain notoriety and spread their propaganda. Flashpoint tracked one pro-ISIS hacking group by the end of 2014 and since then, at least five different groups have emerged, typically by defacing their websites. It’s difficult to know the full scope and number of ISIS-backing hackers because they’re behind computers, he says.

Pro-ISIS hackers have in the last year targeted government agencies, universities, businesses and media outlets of all sizes, according to a report released in August by the Middle East Media Research Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. While ISIS hacking capabilities have been considered relatively unsophisticated and focused on companies that may not have a large security apparatus, some still worry the group could bring on more skilled hackers.

For example, on Aug. 8, ISIS supporters posted messages saying “i love you Islamic State & Jihad” on the website of a Cincinnati restaurant, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute. French media outlets held an emergency meeting after hack attacks on TV5Monde’s website in April 2015, according to The Guardian.

Small or medium-sized companies with amateur websites should monitor each page to ensure a subsection of the website hasn’t been defaced with pro-ISIS messages, Alkhouri says. Often, he says, companies may not immediately realize a subsection of their website has been taken over by ISIS supporters, and the message could hurt the brand among customers. Alkhouri says the group’s attacks could escalate as the hackers seek more notoriety and publicity for their acts.

One pro-ISIS hacking group claimed it planned to take down Google, according to Newsweek, but instead posted its messages on the website of an Indian company called Add Google Online.

The Pentagon has launched an online offensive against ISIS, according to reports, in an attempt to frustrate the group’s computer and phone networks.

A prominent ISIS hacker was killed in a drone strike last year, The Wall Street Journal reported, after U.S. and British officials determined he played a key role in sharpening the group’s computer skills.

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Meanwhile, the FBI is on the trail stemming from the attacks in Belgium where investigations of internet and electronic communications could reveal more on the cyberwar, soft targets.

FBI examining laptops linked to Belgian militants: source

Reuters: The Federal Bureau of Investigation is examining laptop computers linked to suspects in last week’s deadly Brussels bombings as investigators work to unravel the militant network behind the attacks.

The laptops arrived in the U.S. on Friday and now are being examined by FBI experts, a U.S. government source familiar with the matter said on Tuesday.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that Belgian authorities had provided copies of laptop hard drives to the FBI. It is not yet clear whether FBI technicians have recovered any significant data from the equipment the Belgians turned over, the source told Reuters.

U.S. officials have pledged support for Belgian efforts to crack down on militants behind the March 22 suicide bomb attacks at a Brussels Metro station and the city’s Zaventem Airport and other recent attacks.

The death toll from the attack on the airport, and the subsequent bombing of a rush-hour metro train, rose to 35 on Monday, excluding the three men who blew themselves up.

On Saturday, President Barack Obama said the a team of FBI agents was helping investigators on the ground in Belgium.

U.S. officials have said that Belgium’s security and intelligence agencies are overstretched and also hampered by internal political, financial and cultural problems, including a linguistic divide between French and Flemish speaking investigators.

The Other Iranian Spending Spree, Syria?

Posted on March 29, 2016March 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Iran changing the face of Syria especially Damascus. Altering the human population and infrastructure has been underway for a long while. Question is how deeply involved is Russia with this? An Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps new base? Iran has moved to take full control of the Middle East and Russia paved the way with the assistance of Barack Obama and John Kerry.

Iranians Fuel Property Frenzy in Syria

VoA: The Iranian government is encouraging prominent Tehran developers to buy property in well-off Shi’ite majority neighborhoods in Syria’s capital, analysts and construction industry sources in Tehran said.

“Entire neighborhoods have been purchased by Iran,” Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told VOA.

During the early days of Syria’s civil war, Tehran kept Iran’s involvement in Syria mostly from public view. In recent months, though, the government-run media have been reporting how Iran has teamed up with Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against opposition rebels and the Islamic State group.

Tehran has reportedly increased the size of its Revolutionary Guard Corps in Syria, sending as many as 3,500 fighters to the front lines to defend Zeinab Shrine, a holy site for Shi’ite Muslims in the southern suburbs of Damascus.

Market inflation

According to news reports, rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive properties and lavish homes in the affluent districts of Damascus. The high demand for property has contributed to price increases in Syria’s real estate market, experts said.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war. The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the [real estate] market,” Alika said.

Iran has reportedly relied on a prominent Shi’ite cleric, Abdullah Nazzam, to arrange its real estate dealings in Syria. Using his religious authority in Damascus and ties with the Syrian government, Nazzam has persuaded residents to sell their properties to Iranian businessmen.

“Some Iranian businessmen have been offering huge sums of money to buy Syrian houses near a holy Shi’ite site,” a Damascus landowner recently told a pro-opposition Syrian news site, All For Syria.

He said some owners, including himself, had refused to sell their properties, but under Syrian government pressure, they had no choice but to accept the offers, the resident said.

Alika, who studies the trends of local economies in Syria’s civil war, said Iranians tend to buy properties in areas of strategic importance.

“They are buying houses and lands near Shi’ite religious sites in Damascus,” he told VOA by phone.

Iran’s interest in owning real estate in Syria is not new, analysts said, but it increased after the beginning of the rebel uprising in 2011.

“The [Iranian] regime has always been active in the real estate market in Syria, but their boost became more visible,” said journalist Ali Nawaf, a Damascus native living in Turkey.

“After the [Syrian] revolution [in 2011], Iran realized that buying properties in Damascus and elsewhere would give it yet another excuse to continue its interference in Syria,” he told VOA.

FILE – Members of a construction crew work at a site for new apartment buildings in Damascus, Syria.

Go to Syria, workers told

Iran’s government is urging Iranian construction workers to go to Syria.

“A few months ago I was invited to a work-related gathering, and a fellow veteran contractor with strong ties with [Iranian] authorities informed us that there are very lucrative opportunities for builders in Damascus,” Amir Maghsoudloo, an Iranian construction contractor in Tehran, told VOA.

“When we asked about the security of the site, he said that the zone is even more secure than Tehran,” he said. “I turned the offer down due to family and security reasons, but, two other fellow contractors, as far as I know, got some projects in Damascus.”

Bricklayer Tahir Esmaili, an Afghan national who worked in Iran before moving to Syria in 2015, told VOA some Afghan workers in Iran had been offered construction jobs in Damascus.

Roughly 3 million Afghans live in Iran. Most settled there after fleeing war and conflict in their homeland. Many Afghans in Iran lack basic rights and live without a formal status. Most earn low wages in Iran, making Syria a lucrative alternative.

“There are quite a few projects running near [the holy Shi’ite site of] Sayyida Rouqqaya and the Iranian Embassy,” Esmaili said. “These projects are being dominantly run by Afghan nationals from Iran.”

Wider area of control

By buying properties throughout Syria, Iran is seeking to safeguard its presence in the war-torn country, even after a potential collapse of Assad’s government, experts said.

“Iran’s goal of owning property in Syria goes beyond business interest,” said Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi told VOA from Germany. “Controlling Syria politically, militarily and economically, through real estate, would only make Tehran in a better position to stay in control of other parts of the Middle East.”

Damascus isn’t the only area in Syria where Iranians have been buying properties, analysts said.

In the central city of Homs, local activists said more Iranian business people and companies are looking for new opportunities after the Syrian military and its Lebanese Hezbollah alllies took control of the city in late 2015.

“The [Syrian] regime wants Iranians to invest in Homs, because it connects Damascus to the Alawite heartland in the coastal region,” Nawaf said.

And with more Iranian-owned properties, Iran would have more incentives to maintain a stronger military presence in Homs and beyond, analysts said.

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VoA: Iran’s government wants its builders to buy up property in Shi-ite majority neighborhoods of Syria’s capital, Damascus.

It is also asking construction workers to go to Syria.

This information comes from construction industry officials in Tehran and Iranian experts.

Iranian analyst Fariborz Saremi said owning real estate gives Iran more control over Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

Rich and conservative Iranian business people with ties to the government are buying expensive homes in Damascus, according to news reports. This is influencing price increases in Syria’s real estate markets.

“Five million houses have been destroyed in the civil war,” said Syrian economist Khorshid Alika told Voice of America. “The increased Iranian demand to buy land and properties has naturally led to more inflation in the market.”

Iran’s interest in Syrian real estate is not new. But it increased after the rebel uprising began in 2011.

Government-run media have been reporting recently about how Iran joined Russia to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Assad’s government has been fighting against rebels and the Islamic State terror group.

Iran is not only asking people to buy homes and property in Syria. The country is also asking construction workers and contractors to take jobs there.