Category Archives: Media corruption

Cartel Del Golfo is Operating Stash Houses in Texas

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

***

Mexican Authorities Rescue 47 Kidnap Victims from Cartel ...

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

Texas border stash house packed with 108 migrants in searing heat

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Biden Gives Putin a List of Entities to not Hack

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Yup…16 of them. All the other parts of infrastructure is okay or not as important? Does the same list apply to hackers from China, Iran or North Korea? Do they get a copy too?

Primer:

Remember MH17? Just for what context on Russian operatives, it is not just the United States.

Russian hackers compromised the computer systems of the Dutch national police while the latter were conducting a criminal probe into the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (MH17), according to a new report. MH17 was a scheduled passenger flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014. All 283 passengers and 15 crew on board, 196 of them Dutch citizens, were killed.

Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, which revealed this new information last week, said the compromise of the Dutch national police’s computer systems was not detected by Dutch police themselves, but by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service (AIVD). The paper said that neither the police nor the AIVD were willing to confirm the breach, but added that it had confirmed the breach took place through multiple anonymous sources.

On July 5, 2017, the Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia announced the establishment of the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) into the downing of flight MH-17. The multinational group stipulated that possible suspects of the downing of flight MH17 would be tried in the Netherlands. In September 2017, the AIVD said it possessed information about Russian targets in the Netherlands, which included an IP address of a police academy system. That system turned out to have been compromised, which allowed the attackers to access police systems. According to four anonymous sources, evidence of the attack was detected in several different places.

The police academy is part of the Dutch national police, and non-academy police personnel can access the network using their log-in credentials. Some sources suggest that the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) carried out the attack through a Russian hacker group known as APT29, or Cozy Bear. However, a growing number of sources claim the attack was perpetrated by the Main Directorate of the Russian Armed Forces’ General Staff, known commonly as GRU, through a hacker group known as APT28, or Fancy Bear. SVR attackers are often involved in prolonged espionage operations and are careful to stay below the radar, whereas the GRU is believed to be more heavy-handed and faster. The SVR is believed to be partly responsible for the compromise of United States government agencies and companies through the supply chain attack known as the SolarWinds cyber attack, which came to light in late 2020. source

Live blog: Biden, Putin finish Geneva summit, confirms ... source

(notice Victoria Nuland at the table?)

FNC:

President Biden told reporters Wednesday he gave President Vladimir Putin a list of 16 critical infrastructure entities that are “off limits” to a Russian cyberattack.

Those entities include energy, water, health care, emergency, chemical, nuclear, communications, government, defense, food, commercial facilities, IT, transportation, dams, manufacturing and financial services.

“We’ll find out whether we have a cybersecurity arrangement that begins to bring some order,” Biden said. Putin, for his part, denied any involvement in a recent spate of cyberattacks that have hit major industries across the U.S.

“I looked at him. I said, ‘How would you feel if ransomware took on the pipelines from your oil fields?’ He said, ‘It would matter.’ This is not about just our self-interest.” the president said.

Biden refused to say if military action was on the table if Russia was found to be responsible for a ransomware attack.

“In terms of the red line you laid down is military response an option for a ransomware attack?” a reporter asked.

“Thank you very much,” Biden said as he abruptly tried to end the shorter-than-expected conference. “No, we didn’t talk about military response,” he said when pressed again.

Biden in another moment had said he didn’t make any threats but rather “simple assertions.”

Biden stressed the need for both nation “to take action against criminals that conduct ransomware activities on their territory.”

Putin, in his own press conference after the meeting, claimed that American sources say that a “majority” of the cyberattacks in the world come from within the U.S.

The number of organizations affected by ransomware has jumped 102% compared to the beginning of 2020 and “shows no sign of slowing down,” according to a research note last month from IT security firm Check Point.

Both Colonial Pipeline and JBS Holdings, a meat-processing company, have been subject to major cyberattacks, where against the guidance of the FBI they paid millions of dollars in ransom to resume operation. The Colonial Pipeline attack was linked back to a Russian hacking group.

 

 

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

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

Hat tip:

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

Helayne Seidman

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

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

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

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

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

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

Others in Biden’s orbit were even more reticent.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Proof There are Bats Inside the Wuhan Lab

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Primer question: Will social media shut down this article? It has evidence and comes from renowned scientists including at MIT.

Back in early 2020, during the middle of the nationwide lockdown, this site published two items, here and here regarding the Wuhan Institute of Virology and that bats were in fact at the center of the cause of the pandemic.

Recently, former President Trump told media that the United States should demand at least $10 trillion from China due to the various forms of destruction and death by China. He is right. Frankly, the United States should declare all the debt load that China carries in the form of loans for the United States paid in full. Further, President Trump was exactly right to defund the World Health Organization and in fact it should be criminally charged for death and destruction.

*** The WIV had been genetically sequencing the mine virus in 2017 and 2018, analyzing it in a way they had done in the past with other viruses in preparation for running experiments with them.

For years, concerned scientists have warned that this type of pathogen research was going to trigger a pandemic. Foremost among them was Harvard epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch, who founded the Cambridge Working Group in 2014 to lobby against these experiments. In a series of policy papers, op-eds, and scientific forums, he pointed out that accidents involving deadly pathogens occurred more than twice a week in U.S. labs, and estimated that just 10 labs performing gain-of-function research over a 10-year period would run a nearly 20 percent risk of an accidental release. In 2018, he argued that such a release could “lead to global spread of a virulent virus, a biosafety incident on a scale never before seen.”

Thanks in part to the Cambridge Working Group, the federal government briefly instituted a moratorium on such research. By 2017, however, the ban was lifted and U.S. labs were at it again. Today, in the United States and across the globe, there are dozens of labs conducting experiments on a daily basis with the deadliest known pathogens. One of them is the Wuhan Institute of Virology. For more than a decade, its scientists have been discovering coronaviruses in bats in southern China and bringing them back to their lab in Wuhan. There, they mix genes from different strains of these novel viruses to test their infectivity in human cells and lab animals. source

 

Now we appear to have video evidence that came from an Australian media source.

As a reminder, the United States was not the only country that not only gave funding to ‘gain of function’ to the WIV but Australia did as well. More research paper summaries are surfacing as well as additional evidence that includes patent applications. The scientific theory now is that the WIV modeled the function of the virus to be more lethal in the transmission of human to human, altering it from animal to human.

So, where is Dr. Fauci on this? His emails did not include anything that resembled an inquiry of gain of function or bats.

There were live bats in the Wuhan Institute of Virology ... that is a bat hanging off the lab workers hat.

***

The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was found to have filed patents for “bat rearing cages” and “artificial breeding” systems in the months before the coronavirus first emerged last December. WIV has been subject to international scrutiny as it was known to have been carrying out experiments on bat coronaviruses – and is located just miles from Covid’s ground zero.

And the allegations continue despite the World Health Organisation appearing to exonerate the lab in its findings after a mission to Wuhan – which since been branded a “whitewash”.

The new revelations about the bat cages raises more questions about the work the Chinese scientists – lead by Dr Shi Zhengli, known as Batwoman – were doing in the months leading up to the pandemic.

It had previously been denied that WIV was keeping any live bats on site – but an online profile of the lab reportedly claimed it has capacity to keep 12 bat cages.

WIV scientists filed patents in June 2018 and October 2020 for the cages and methods for breeding of bats, which are believed to be the natural reservoir of Covid.

The first patent was filed for “bat rearing cages” which would be “‘capable of healthy growth and breeding under artificial conditions”, reports the Mail on Sunday.

And the second patent relates to a method of “artificially breeding” of wild bats, and in the document it describes bats being “artificially” infected with coronaviruses.

It explains it is hoped the breeding scheme will allow them to create a “brand-new model experimental animal for scientific research”.

The patents raise yet further questions about the work of the shadowy lab which has been accused by the US of having links to the Chinese military.

It comes as the White House said it has “deep concerns” that the Chinese government may have interfered with WHO’s investigation into the origins of Covid.WHO investigator Peter Daszak, who has longstanding links with WIV, had previously claimed no live bats were being kept by the lab.

Last April, he said: “All bats are released back to their cave site after sampling. It’s a conservation measure and is much safer in terms of disease spread than killing them or trying to keep them in a lab.”

In December, he appeared to repeat the claim by stating labs he had worked with “DO NOT have live or dead bats in them. There is no evidence anywhere that this happened”.

Daszak had been a member of the ten-person WHO team who swung its weight behind the Chinese government’s effort to deflect blame over the origins with the virus.

The team all but ruled out the lab leak, suggested the virus may have come from outside of China, and appeared to place their focus on claims the virus may have come from frozen food.And then just days later, WHO investigator Dominic Dwyer backtracked as he said it likely did start in China, and later claimed the Communist Party authorities refused to hand over raw data.

He said: “Why that doesn’t happen, I couldn’t comment. Whether it’s political or time or it’s difficult .

“But whether there are any other reasons why the data isn’t available, I don’t know. One would only speculate.”

The WHO mission was tightly controlled and stage managed by China – and even saw the scientists visits a propaganda museum celebrating Wuhan’s fight against Covid.

The organisation itself is also facing questions about how it handled the early days of the pandemic, being accused by former US President Donald Trump of being “China-centric”.

VP Harris Trip Results in Joint Task Force Alpha

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Harris meets with Mexico's president, declares 'new era' - Los Angeles Times source

In part from USA Today: GUATEMALA CITY – Vice President Kamala Harris, during a trip to Guatemala, announced initiatives Monday to address corruption and human trafficking in Central America and urged people from the region not to come to the U.S.-Mexican border. Harris announced that a task force would be created to work with the Justice, Treasury and State Departments to investigate corruption in the region. U.S. officials will train law enforcement in Guatemala to conduct their own investigations.

Joint Task Force Alpha was established to enhance U.S. law enforcement efforts against human smuggling and trafficking groups in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

“I have personally worked on these cases in my career and can say that when we see some of the most vulnerable in our communities being taken advantage of, being sold for profit, being abused, it should be a priority for all of us who care about the human condition and humanity,” Harris said.

“Corruption really does sap the wealth of any country and in Central America is at a scale where it is a large percentage of GDP across the region,” said Ricardo Zuniga, the State Department’s special envoy for the Northern Triangle. “We see corruption as one of the most important root causes to be dealt with.”

Part of the strategy to slow the pace of migration is creating better living conditions and economic opportunities for people in the region through investment. Last month, Harris secured the commitment of 12 U.S. companies and organizations – including MasterCard, Microsoft and Chobani – to invest in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

US: Kamala Harris declares Mexico, Guatemala trip ′a success′ | News | DW | 09.06.2021

From the DOJ:

“Transnational human smuggling and trafficking networks pose a serious criminal threat,” said Attorney General Garland. “These networks profit from the exploitation of migrants and routinely expose them to violence, injury, and death. The joint efforts we are announcing today will combine investigative, prosecutorial, and capacity-building efforts of both the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security. Our focus will remain on disrupting and dismantling smuggling and trafficking networks that abuse, exploit, or endanger migrants, pose national security threats, and are involved in organized crime. Together, we will combat these threats where they originate and operate.”

In addition to the work of the Joint Task Force, Attorney General Garland directed the Office of Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training (OPDAT) and the International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), in coordination with the State Department, to enhance the assistance provided to counterparts in the Northern Triangle countries and Mexico to support their efforts to prosecute smuggling and trafficking networks in their own courts.

The Joint Task Force will consist of federal prosecutors from U.S. Attorney’s Offices along the Southwest Border (District of Arizona, Southern District of California, Southern District of Texas, and Western District of Texas), from the Criminal Division and the Civil Rights Division, along with law enforcement agents and analysts from DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol. The FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration will also be part of the Task Force. And it will work closely with Operation Sentinel, a recently announced DHS operation focused on countering transnational criminal organizations affiliated with migrant smuggling.