Category Archives: Whistleblower

Mook, Clinton’s Campaign Manager Hired Fusion GPS and Elias

Posted on by

Campaign manager Robby Mook contrasts Hillary Clinton ...

source

British judge orders Christopher Steele to pay damages to Russian bankers named in dossier

A court in the United Kingdom ordered British ex-spy Christopher Steele to pay thousands in damages to two Russian bankers named in the former MI6 agent’s dossier as having “illicit” financial ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Justice Warby of the Queen’s Bench Division of the British High Court of Justice presided over a weeklong March hearing in the defamation lawsuit brought by the owners of Russia’s Alfa Bank, Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman, and German Khan, against Orbis Business Intelligence, Steele’s private intelligence firm through which he conducted research in 2016 for Fusion GPS through the Perkins Coie law firm on behalf of Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Steele made a series of allegations related to the Russians and their connection to Putin in “Memorandum 112” of his dossier which was used in the FBI’s Russia investigation, and Sir Mark David John Warby ruled Wednesday that one of the assertions, that former Alfa executive and current Russian government official Oleg Govorun was used by Aven and Fridman to deliver “large amounts of illicit cash” to Putin when he was deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, was demonstrably false and worthy of fines of more than $22,000 that will be paid to Aven and Fridman.

“I have found that the ‘illicit cash’ allegation was inaccurate,” Justice Warby ruled, saying its disclosure to Fusion GPS and to government officials violated the U.K.’s Fourth Data Protection Principle, which states that personal data processed for law enforcement purposes must be accurate. “The personal data about the delivery of ‘illicit cash’ to Mr. Putin did amount to sensitive personal data about alleged criminality … My conclusion is that I should award each of the first and second claimants compensation in the sum of £18,000.”

The judge ruled that Steele’s claims about Govorun were demonstrably “untrue” because “there is documentary evidence that Mr. Putin ceased to be Deputy Mayor in June 1996, and that Mr. Govorun was first employed by Alfa Bank on 3 March 1997.” The judge said Steele “admitted in cross-examination that Govorun was not working for Alfa before 1997, and that his source had erred in that respect,” and yet “he refused to accept that this meant that Memorandum 112 was inaccurate.” The judge said Steele “cavilled” by “suggesting that it might be the case that Govorun was used to deliver illicit cash to Mr. Putin in the late 1990s, after his stint as Deputy Mayor.” The judge said: “There is no evidence to support that. Even if there were, the Memorandum would remain inaccurate and misleading.”

Justice Warby did rule, however, that Steele “took reasonable steps to ensure the accuracy of propositions” in his dossier related to the allegations of “favours, foreign policy advice, recent direct meeting, and political bidding.”

DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s report shows Steele also pushed the now-debunked claim that Alfa Bank was a secret conduit between Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and the Kremlin during an early October meeting with State Department figures Jonathan Winer and Kathleen Kavalec. Steele also told DOJ official Bruce Ohr in late September the Alfa Bank server was a link to the Trump campaign and that the Russia-American organization belonging to “Person 1” used the Alfa Bank server two weeks prior.

Horowitz criticized the Justice Department and the FBI in December for at least 17 “significant errors and omissions” related to the FISA warrants against Trump campaign associate Carter Page in 2016 and 2017 and for the bureau’s reliance on Steele’s unverified dossier. Robert Mueller said his special counsel investigation “identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign” but “did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

The British judge reached other conclusions in his 57-page ruling.

“Mr. Steele’s evidence is that he now believes the Ultimate Client was the Democratic National Committee,” Justice Warby said. “[Steele’s lawyer] Mr. Millar submits that the Ultimate Client was the Clinton election campaign, ‘Hillary for America.’ This is in line with the FBI Note of 5 July 2016, which records Mr. Steele telling the FBI that Orbis had been instructed by Mr. Simpson of Fusion and ‘Democratic Party Associates’ but that ‘the ultimate client were (sic) the leadership of the Clinton presidential campaign.’ The FBI Note also indicates that Mr. Steele had been told by that stage that Mrs. Clinton herself was aware of what Orbis had been commissioned to do.”

The judge added that Steele knew his dossier might be used to “challenge the eventual outcome of the Presidential Election.”

Steele testified in March that he met with Michael Sussman and Marc Elias, two top lawyers for the Perkins Coie law firm which represented the Clinton campaign and the DNC, in 2016.

He testified Sussman provided him with the claims about Alfa Bank’s purported ties to Putin during a late July meeting. These allegations made their way into a mid-September 2016 memo that became part of Steele’s dossier, although Steele repeatedly misspells “Alfa” as “Alpha.” Shortly after writing that memo, Steele met with Elias, who was the general counsel for Clinton’s campaign and personally hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS in April 2016. Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson hired Steele in June 2016.

“I’m very clear that the first person that ever mentioned the Trump server issue, Alfa server issue, was Mr. Sussman,” Steele told Alfa Bank’s lawyers in March. Steele also said, “I was given the instruction sometime after that meeting by Mr. Simpson.”

Horowitz said the FBI dismissed the Alfa Bank Trump-Russia cyber collusion claims. Recently declassified footnotes also show the bureau was aware Steele’s source network might have been compromised by Russian disinformation.

Former FBI General Counsel James Baker testified in 2018 that Sussman, a former DOJ colleague of his, separately shared the Alfa Bank claims with him during a September 2016 meeting. And notes from Ohr’s December 2016 meeting with Simpson show Simpson said the New York Times was wrong to doubt the Alfa Bank server story.

Elias told House Intelligence Committee investigators that he was aware of Fusion GPS’s plans to have Steele brief reporters about his anti-Trump research in 2016. Elias said he was “aware that he talked to media outlets in that time period” and knew about the meetings before they happened.

Robby Mook, Clinton’s presidential campaign manager, said in 2017 he authorized Elias to hire an outside firm to dig up dirt on Trump and Russia. Mook said Elias was receiving information from Fusion GPS in 2016, and Elias periodically briefed the Clinton campaign.

The FBI told Steele in October 2016 it was looking into a variety of Trump associates, and Steele passed along at least some of this to Fusion GPS.

Perkins Coie was paid more than $12 million between 2016 and 2017 for representing Clinton and the DNC. According to Simpson, Fusion GPS was paid $50,000 per month from Perkins Coie, and Fusion GPS paid Steele roughly $168,000. Full document of decision is found here.

Check the Corruption in the Paycheck Protection Program

Posted on by

The federal government has not disclosed most of the forgivable coronavirus-stimulus loans issued to businesses under the $660 billion federal Paycheck Protection Program.

The Small Business Administration has publicly released lists of the forgivable loans under $150,000 issued in each state but it did not include the names of the recipients.

Loans under $150,000 make up the bulk of the loans issued. According to SBA data through June 30, 2020, loans under $50,000 represented 66.8% of all loans provided, $50,000 to $100,000 represented 13.8% and $100,000-$150,000 represented 6%.

The state-by-state lists the SBA released included only the names of the lenders, including banks and credit unions, that approved the loans as well as the estimated number of jobs the loan will help retain. To date, banks have earned billions in taxpayer-funded fees for issuing the loans as part of PPP, which was setup by the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. The SBA hasn’t said whether individual bank branches directly received forgivable PPP loans.

As Just the News previously reported, the federal government isn’t going to conduct a review of most taxpayer-funded forgivable loans issued under the program.

Pennsylvania Treasury, Joe Torsella - State Treasurer source

According to the SBA, the loan is forgivable if “at least 60 percent” of it is used toward payroll. The rest can be used for qualified expenses such as rent and utilities. More here.

***

So…let’s take a look at some details of corruption shall we? Then measure your outrage…if you can. It may also be a good time to call your representative and ask them if they took any PPP money of any kind or ask them if they are outraged and what are they gonna do about it.

  1. Movie star and Trump hater, Robert De Niro: He got $28 million.
  2. A law firm founded by VP Joe Biden Monzack Mersky McLaughlin and Browder, of which Biden no longer has an interest but he maintained close ties. Monzack, who has donated thousands to Biden’s presidential campaign, attended a state dinner at the White House for Chinese President Hu Jintao in 2011. The law firm is also a registered agent for companies tied to Biden.
  3. EDI Associates in San Rafael, California, has 52 employees and says it’s in the “full-service restaurant business,” government documents show. The company received between $350,000 and $1 million in Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) money. EDI is partially owned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
  4. A progressive political consulting firm that receives large payments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D., N.Y.) reelection campaign and activist Shaun King’s PAC raked in hundreds of thousands in taxpayer money meant to help small businesses.

    New data show that between $350,000 and $1 million flowed from the Paycheck Protection Program, a federal program created to help small businesses cope with the economic downturn caused by coronavirus, to Middle Seat Consulting, a Washington, D.C.-based digital firm that provides services to far-left Democrats.

  5. The campaign of Christine Eady Mann, a Democratic candidate for Congress running in Texas’s 31st district, received $28,600 in May from the PPP, a federal program designed to help small businesses. Mann’s campaign said it used the loan to offset “challenging” fundraising numbers. The campaign repaid the loan in full six weeks later.

There are many more but here is the kicker of it all perhaps….

NP: Entities led by high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members, collaborators with state-owned enterprises, and Confucius Institute partners rank among the beneficiaries of the U.S. government’s coronavirus pandemic bailout.

These companies received up to $3.4 million from the U.S. federal government according to Treasury Department’s records released on Monday.

Beyond funding the opposition in the ongoing economic and information warfare between China and the U.S., Chinese companies often coerce American companies to comply with their censorship standards, routinely steal intellectual property, and spearhead massive outsourcing-fueled trade deficits at great cost to American jobs and workers.

Despite this, CCP-linked companies which benefited from the program meant to save American businesses and jobs hurt by the coronavirus include:

China United Transport, $350,000-$1,000,000

As a global transportation and logistics company, China United Transport’s brands itself as a lifeline for the global supply chain.

With weekly shipments to “Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Tianjing, Dalian, Qingdao, and Ningbo,” the company works with several Chinese state-owned ocean and air carriers.

China United lists AirChina, a state-owned enterprise that has received awards from the CCP and boasts it “has always demonstrated its strong brand image as a government-controlled enterprise” in its company profile.

Another partner, COSCO Shipping Lines, features 11 out of its 13 board members listing CCP affiliations in their biographies.

The Chairman and Managing Director Yang Zhijian, for example, serves as the Deputy Secretary of the CCP’s Central Committee and Deputy Managing Director Qian Weizhong serves as Party Secretary.

The CCP also retains a majority stake in partners China Eastern Airline and China Southern Airline.

China Manufacturers Alliance, $350,000-$1,000,000

China Manufacturers Alliance is a facilitator of U.S. dependence on Chinese manufacturing, defining its mission as “uniting major tire manufacturers in China under a unique and powerful cooperative alliance.”

Beyond serving as a boon for the Chinese economy, its parent company is Shanghai Huayi Group. The group is headed by CCP members including its president Lili Gu and Technology Director Dengxi Wu.

Boardmember Liu Genyuan has also advised the CCP’s Belt and Road Initiative, a predatory investment scheme whereby China funnels extensive amounts of money to developing countries who often default on the loans they are provided.

This allows the CCP to seize control of critical infrastructure and facilitate the regime’s quest to end the world’s reliance on the West by bringing countries into their technological and financial orbit.

China Luxury Advisors, $150,000-$350,000

China Luxury Advisors, which strives to “engage the global Chinese consumer,” boasts on its homepage that it’s a Tencent International Premium Agency Partner and Official Alibaba Partner.

Tencent has been identified by the State Department’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation as a “tool of the Chinese government,” noting the company has “no meaningful ability to tell the Chinese Communist Party ‘no’ if officials decide to ask for their assistance.”

It also provides “a foundation of technology-facilitated surveillance and social control” as part of the CCP’s broader crusade “to shape the world consistent with its authoritarian model,” the report added. And CCP collaboration is not far-fetched: its CEO is also known to have direct links to the CCP, currently serving as a Congressional Deputy and Standing Committee member and assisting the CCP with “law enforcement and security issues” and collaborating on “patriotic” video games.

Alibaba founder Jack Ma is a member of the CCP who insisted at a Wall Street Journal event to “be in love with them,” referencing the CCP. Forbes reported the “Chinese Government Has A Huge “Stake” In Alibaba” in 2015 and The New York Times unearthed the company’s “deep political connections of the investment firms, Boyu Capital, Citic Capital Holdings and CDB Capital, the China Development Bank’s private investment arm” in 2014.

The Times also noted Alibaba’s “senior executive ranks included sons or grandsons of the most powerful members of the ruling Communist Party.”

China Luxury Advisors also “works closely with WeChat to register and manage official accounts, develop mini-programs, create content, and place advertising across Tencent’s platforms.” WeChat is a Tencent-owned messaging app with a track record of banning or censoring users who share content counter to the state’s narratives and users are often subject to CCP surveillance and data breaches.

China Institute, $150,000-$350,000

China Institute has a nearly 100-year history of working alongside the CCP. Notable events it touts on its timeline include:

China Institute is instrumental in the Chinese Government’s decision to provide additional funds to Chinese students through its Committee on Wartime Planning for Chinese Students in the United States.

The New York-based advocacy group also hosts a Confucius Institute in partnership with East China Normal University (ECNU), a state-funded University which advertises its adherence to CCP “education and other related policies” in its teachings.

The partnership has allowed Confucius Institutes to metastasize into nine K-12 schools despite being controversial operations replete with “undisclosed ties to Chinese institutions, and conflicted loyalties,” propaganda, and intellectual property theft, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).’

The Confucius Institute’s Beijing Headquarters, colloquially known as “Hanban,” pushes teachers to use “teaching resources” penned by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) itself.

Chinatex, $150,000-$350,000

Chinatex is a global cotton trading enterprise focusing on apparel. The company’s introduction page boasts of its state-owned status and subservience to the CCP’S five-year plans:

In July 2016, Chinatex was integrated into Cofco Group as its wholly-owned subsidiary subject to approval by the State Council. According to its 13th Five-Year Plan, Chinatex is now adhering to the overall guiding principle of “professional management and industrialization development”, shouldering the important historical missions of “serving as the major force in maintaining the safety of the national cotton industry, a leader in cotton market regulation, and a practitioner of green, environmentally friendly factories”, vigorously enhancing its vitality, influence and control in the industry, and striving to become a world-class cotton merchant.

The Beijing-based manufacturer is responsible for siphoning American manufacturing and textile jobs.

GateChina, $150,000-$350,000

GateChina’s flagship website is WenxueCity, a Chinese-language news aggregator intended for expatriates. The outlet routinely links to content from CCP run and funded media outlets such as China Network Television.

The news of the loans going to CCP-linked companies is sure to raise eyebrows, especially given the Trump administration’s recent focus on China in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and the crackdown in Hong Kong.

A few more items are here like:

In Los Angeles, luxury residential brokerage the Agency received a $2 to 5 million PPP loan to retain 104 employees, according to the SBA data. Stimulus recipients in L.A. also included a number of Chinese developers, like Greenland Group, which received two $1 to $2 million loans to retain a total of 339 employees; and Shenzhen New World Group, which received two $2 to $5 million loans for a total of 533 employees. Shenzhen New World has been implicated as a major player in a bribery scheme surrounding recently-arrested City Councilmember Jose Huizar.

While U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies are not barred from receiving PPP assistance, lack of guidance in the early days of the program had led to significant confusion among potential borrowers.

Last month, an L.A. marketing agency that had received a PPP loan sued its Canadian landlord Onni Group, alleging the foreign company was seeking “back-door” access to the program by demanding the funds be used to pay rent. Check out more here.

 

25 Cities to go on Strike for BLM

Posted on by

NEW YORK (AP) — A national coalition of labor unions, along with racial and social justice organizations, will stage a mass walkout from work this month, as part of an ongoing reckoning on systemic racism and police brutality in the U.S.

Dubbed the “Strike for Black Lives,” tens of thousands of fast food, ride-share, nursing home and airport workers in more than 25 cities are expected to walk off the job July 20 for about eight minutes — the amount of time prosecutors say a white Minneapolis police officer held his knee on the neck of George Floyd in May — in remembrance of Black men and women who died recently at the hands of police.

The national strike will also include a handful of worker-led marches through participating cities, organizers said Wednesday.

According to details shared exclusively with The Associated Press, organizers are demanding sweeping action by corporations and government to confront systemic racism in an economy that chokes off economic mobility and career opportunities for many Black and Hispanic workers, who make up a disproportionate number of those earning less than a living wage. They also stress the need for guaranteed sick pay, affordable health care coverage and better safety measures for low-wage workers who never had the option of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We have to link these fights in a new and deeper way than ever before,” said Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents over 2 million workers in the U.S. and Canada.

“Our members have been on a journey … to understanding why we cannot win economic justice without racial justice. This strike for Black lives is a way to take our members’ understanding about that into the streets,” Henry told the AP.

Among the strikers’ specific demands are that corporations and government declare unequivocally that “Black lives matter.” Elected officials at every level must use executive and legislative power to pass laws that guarantee people of all races can thrive, according to a list of demands. Employers must also raise wages and allow workers to unionize to negotiate better health care, sick leave and child care support.

The service workers union has partnered with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the American Federation of Teachers, United Farm Workers and the Fight for $15 and a Union, which was launched in 2012 by American fast food workers to push for a higher minimum wage.

Social and racial justice groups taking part include March On, the Center for Popular Democracy, the National Domestic Workers Alliance and the Movement for Black Lives, a coalition of over 150 organizations that make up the Black Lives Matter movement.

Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, a strike organizer with the Movement for Black Lives, said corporate giants that have come out in support of the BLM movement amid nationwide protests over police brutality have also profited from racial injustice and inequity.

“They claim to support Black lives, but their business model functions by exploiting Black labor — passing off pennies as ‘living wages’ and pretending to be shocked when COVID-19 sickens those Black people who make up their essential workers,” said Henderson, co-executive director of Tennessee-based Highlander Research and Education Center.

Labor Supports BLM, Calls on Police Unions for ...

“Corporate power is a threat to racial justice, and the only way to usher in a new economy is by tackling those forces that aren’t fully committed to dismantling racism,” she said in a statement

Trece Andrews, a Black nursing home worker for a Ciena Healthcare-managed retirement home in the Detroit area, said she feels dejected after years of being passed over for promotions. The 49-year-old believes racial discrimination plays a part in her career stagnation.

“I’ve got 20 years in the game and I’m only at $15.81 (per hour),” she said in a phone interview.

As the single mother of a 13-year-old daughter and caregiver to her father, a cancer survivor, Andrews said inadequate personal protective gear makes her afraid of bringing the coronavirus home from her job.

“We’ve got the coronavirus going on, plus we’ve got this thing with racism going on,” Andrews said. “They’re tied together, like some type of segregation, like we didn’t have our ancestors and Martin Luther King fighting against these types of things. It’s still alive out here, and it’s time for somebody to be held accountable. It’s time to take action.”

The strike continues a decades-old labor rights movement tradition. Most notably, organizers have drawn inspiration from the Memphis sanitation workers’ strike over low wages, benefits disparity between Black and white employees, and inhumane working conditions that contributed to the deaths of two Black workers in 1968. At the end of that two-month strike, some 1,300 mostly Black sanitation workers bargained collectively for better wages.

“Strike for Black Lives” organizers say they want to disrupt a multi-generational cycle of poverty perpetuated by anti-union and other policies that make it difficult to bargain collectively for better wages and working conditions.

Systemic poverty affects 140 million people in the U.S, with 62 million people working for less than a living wage, according to the Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival, a strike partnering organization. An estimated 54% of Black workers and 63% of Hispanic workers fall into that category, compared to 37% of white workers and 40% of Asian American workers, the group said.

“The reason why, on July 20th, you’re going to see strikes and protests and the walk-offs and socially distanced sit-ins and voter registration outreach is because thousands and thousands of poor, low-wage workers of every race, creed and color understand that racial, economic, health care, immigration, climate and other justice fights are all connected,” the Rev. William Barber II, co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, said in a telephone interview.

“If in fact we are going to take on police violence that kills, then certainly we have to take on economic violence that also kills,” he said.

Organizers said some striking workers will do more than walk off the job on July 20. In Missouri, participants will rally at a McDonald’s in Ferguson, a key landmark in the protest movement sparked by the death of Michael Brown, a Black teenager who was killed by police in 2014. The strikers will then march to a memorial site located on the spot where Brown was shot and killed.

In Minneapolis, where Floyd was killed on May 25, nursing home workers will participate in a caravan that will include a stop at the airport. They’ll be joined by wheelchair attendants and cabin cleaners demanding a $15-per-hour minimum wage, organizers said.

Angely Rodriguez Lambert, a 26-year-old McDonald’s worker in Oakland, California, and leader in the Fight for $15 and a Union, said she and several co-workers tested positive for COVID-19 after employees weren’t initially provided proper protective equipment. As an immigrant from Honduras, Lambert said she also understands the Black community’s urgent fight against police brutality.

“Our message is that we’re all human and we should be treated like humans — we’re demanding justice for Black and Latino lives,” she told the AP.

“We’re taking action because words are no longer bringing the results that we need,” she said. “Now is the moment to see changes.”

Feds Remarkable Investigations Lead to Several Arrests

Posted on by

In a time where many people protesting and are vandalizing wearing protective virus face coverings, Federal law enforcement is doing extraordinary work to identify the criminals. Several arrests have been made and ATF is asking for the public’s help to assist in more identifications.

WASHINGTON, DC — Four men were charged with destruction of federal property in connection with an attempt to tear down a status in Lafayette Square, according to federal prosecutors. Only one has been arrested so far, and he will appear Monday in U.S. District Court related to the attempt to tear down the statue of Andrew Jackson.

Prosecutors said one of the suspects — Lee Michael Cantrell, 47, of Virginia — was seen on video using a wooden board and yellow strap trying to pull the statue off its base June 22.

Graham Lloyd, 37, of Maine, handed a hammer to an unknown person and was seen pulling on ropes, according to authorities. He also is accused of breaking off and destroying the wheels of cannons that were on the statue’s base.

Connor Matthew Judd, 20, of Washington, D.C., was trying to pull down the statue, while 37-year-old Ryan Lane of Maryland attached a rope to one part of the statue and pulled on another roped tied elsewhere, prosecutors said, citing the video.

Judd was arrested Friday, appeared in Superior Court of the District of Columbia Saturday and will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robin M. Meriweather Monday. Prosecutors said the three other men have not been taken into custody yet.

U.S. Secretary of the Interior David Bernhardt said Judd was arrested at home “without incident.”

All were charged by criminal complaint, which is a formal accusation for establishing probable cause and not evidence of guilt., officials said.

While the U.S. Park Police and FBI took the lead on the investigation, the Metropolitan Department provided “significant assistance,” according to a statement from prosecutors. More here.

*** An exceptional piece of work has led to the arrest of the ring leader. His name is Jason Charter. A look at his Twitter feed was likely an easy pathway to identification.

This is his Twitter banner and he describes himself as: Political activist/organizer. #IAmAntifa #SmashRacism

So, Jason: Image you were in fact found and arrested eh? Care to comment now?

 

Then Jason thought it was cool to re-Tweet this:

 

***

Law enforcement sources tell Fox News that Jason Charter was arrested at his residence Thursday morning, without incident, and charged with destruction of federal property. These sources add that Charter has connections to Antifa and was in a leadership role on the night of June 22 when a large group of protesters tried to pull down the statue.

Protesters try to topple Andrew Jackson statue in Washington's Lafayette Park

“They were very organized,” a federal law enforcement official said. “Charter was on top of the statue and directing people … they had acid, chisels, straps and a human chain preventing police from getting to the statue.”

Charter is expected to make an appearance — likely virtual — in U.S. District Court in Washington on Thursday, Fox News is told.

Protesters say the Andrew Jackson statue is offensive because he was a slave owner and because of his treatment of Native Americans. Another man, Graham Lloyd, 37, turned himself in for similar charges in Portland, Maine, and had an initial appearance in federal court there on Wednesday afternoon. Lloyd is also accused of destruction of federal property for his role in the attempt to take down the Jackson statue. Source

 

 

 

Italian Police Seize $1 Billion of ISIS Amphetamines

Posted on by

The Guardia di Finanza said that markings on the drugs were consistent with those used by Islamic State (IS). Though the amphetamine has been linked to IS in the past, some experts doubted that IS had the capacity to produce drugs in such quantities, and stated that Syrian pro-regime entities were more likely responsible.

Police just made history's biggest drug seizure: 15 tons ...

IN: Police in Italy have announced the seizure of the largest shipment of amphetamines in counter-narcotics history, containing drugs believed to have been manufactured by the Islamic State in Syria. The drugs shipment was intercepted at the port of Salerno, located south of Naples in southwestern Italy.

 

Italian police announced on Wednesday that it had made “the largest seizure of amphetamines in the world”, both in terms of quantity and street value. The latter is estimated at approximately $1 billion. Drug traffickers are rarely known to transport such large volumes of drugs in a single shipment, due to the risk of capture by the authorities. However, the lack of supply in Europe due to the coronavirus pandemic has prompted suppliers to take unusual risks, according to experts.

The amphetamines —approximately 84 million tablets— were found hidden inside three containers filled with paper cylinders. More pills had been placed inside the hollow parts of agricultural machinery products, according to police. The confiscated tablets are marked with the logo for the drug Captagon, which is better known by its genetic name, Fenethylline. Captagon was a popular drug in the Middle East in the 1990s, and today amphetamines produced by the Islamic State bear its logo, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

The drug is regularly given to Islamic State volunteers prior to battles and terrorist attacks, in order to help reduce their inhibitions, including susceptibility to fear, and to prevent them from feeling physical pain. Security agencies in the Middle East refer to the substance as “the jihad drug”. It is particularly prevalent in Syria, which has become the global leader in the production of illicit amphetamines in the past decade.

Italian police said the shipment was most likely intended for distribution by “a consortium of criminal groups”, who would then traffic the substance to illicit markets across Europe. It would be unthinkable for a single distributor to be able to afford a $1 billion single purchase, according to officials. The largest buyer among these distributors was probably the Camorra —the organized crime syndicate based in the region of Naples. The Camorra has international links through which it can channel the illicit drugs in much larger volumes than other crime syndicates, according to experts.

Asked about the clues that led to the seizure of the amphetamines, a spokesman for the Italian police said the force knew the when the shipment was coming in, due to “ongoing investigations we have with the Camorra”. He added, “we intercepted phone calls and members, so we knew what to expect”.