MENACE II CYBERSPACE: U.S. Gangs Turn from Streets to White-Collar Crime Online

When is credit-card theft a good thing? When the culprits might otherwise be killing you.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation says national gangs like the Bloods and Crips are becoming more sophisticated, turning to white-collar financial crime and cyber attacks that threaten Corporate America and, well, everyone.

The evolving criminal schemes, which include mortgage fraud, counterfeiting, bank and credit card fraud and identity theft, are attractive because they are much less risky than traditional gang-related crimes such as murder, drug trafficking and robbery, and have the potential to yield much greater profits, according to a new national gang threat assessment from the FBI.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/2011/10/28/from-streets-to-cyberspace-us-gangs-turn-to-white-collar-crime/#ixzz1cCp81SMb

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Going to be a cold weekend. View here. 

China is very likely to contribute to the eurozone’s bail-out fund but the scope of its involvement will depend on European leaders satisfying some key conditions, two senior advisers to the Chinese government have told the Financial Times.

Any Chinese support would depend on contributions from other countries and Beijing must be given strong guarantees on the safety of its investment, according to Li Daokui, an academic member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, and Yu Yongding, a former member of that committee.

READ THE REST HERE

U.S. prosecutors on Thursday charged 11 people in connection with an alleged $1 billion fraud involving hundreds of railroad workers filing false disability claims.

In some cases workers claimed they were unable to work even while they played golf, shoveled snow or rode bikes, the complaint says.

Former Long Island Railroad workers, doctors and a federal railroad agency employee are accused of participating in the scheme in which employees filed disability claims shortly before they retired. The move allowed them to get disability pay on top of their retirement pension, prosecutors said.

In filing the claims, the railway workers allegedly paid between $800 and $1,200 to hire one of several disability doctors.

Those doctors would then conduct unnecessary tests and concoct a medical issue that would allow the workers to go on disability, prosecutors said.

Two have been charged and a third doctor has died.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan said the scheme cost the Railroad Retirement Board more than $1 billion. The investigation developed after a series of reports by The New York Times starting in 2008.

The Times said that almost every longtime LIRR employee was receiving disability payments, resulting in a disability rate sharply higher than other railroads.

In many cases, workers were far healthier than those claims would indicate, according to prosecutors.

One defendant, a former engineering manager, receives about $105,000 a year in pension and disability pay, based on “severe pain when gripping and using simple hand tools and pain in his knees, shoulder and back from bending or crouching,” the complaint says.

An investigation found, however, that he plays tennis several times a week and golfs regularly in his retirement.

Another defendant was seen shoveling heavy snow and walking with a baby stroller for 40 minutes, despite a disability claim in which she claimed to be unable to stand for more than five minutes without leg pain. She is paid at least $108,000 a year by the railroad authority, prosecutors said.

U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara was expected to announce the mail fraud and conspiracy to commit health care fraud charges later on Thursday.

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The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday — because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.

NY POST: CHAD RACHMAN

TUMMY TROUBLE: Protesters and hangers-on were disappointed in yesterday’s fare supplied by cooks who plan to serve only brown rice instead of fancy feasts in protest over an influx of “professional homeless” eaters.

To show they mean business, the kitchen staff refused to serve any food for two hours yesterday in order to meet with organizers to air their grievances, sources said.

As the kitchen workers met with the “General Assembly’’ last night, about 300 demonstrators stormed from the park to Reade Street and Broadway, where they violently clashed with cops.

Officers made at least 10 arrests when rowdy demonstrators refused to get out of the street and stop blocking traffic. A dozen cops on scooters tried to force them back to the sidewalk.

There were no reported injuries.

The demonstrators said they were angry over the violence in Oakland.

After making their way to Union Square, many of the protesters returned to Zuccotti.

The Assembly officially approved the three-day menu crackdown announced earlier in the day — insisting everybody would be fed something during that period.

Some protesters threatened that the high-end meals could be cut off completely if the vagrants and criminals don’t disperse.

Unhappiness with their unwelcome guests was apparent throughout the day.

“We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out” to curb the influx of derelicts, said Rafael Moreno, a kitchen volunteer.

A security volunteer added that the cooks felt “overworked and underappreciated.”

Many of those being fed “are professional homeless people. They know what they’re doing,” said the guard at the food-storage area.

Today, a limited menu of sandwiches, chips and some hot food will be doled out — so legitimate protesters will have a day to make arrangements for more upscale weekend meals.

Protesters got their first taste of the revolt within the revolt yesterday when the kitchen staff served only peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chips after their staff meeting.

Organizers took other steps to police the squatters, who they said were lured in from other parks with the promise of free meals.

A team of 10 security volunteers moved in to the trouble-prone southwest section of Zuccotti Park in a show of force to confront them.

“We’re not going to let some members of this community destroy the whole movement,” a volunteer said.

Some arguments broke out as the security team searched tents — but no violence erupted.

Overall security at the park had deteriorated to the point where many frightened female protesters had abandoned the increasingly out-of-control occupation, security- team members said.

Rumors swirled that one homeless man had pulled a knife in a dispute the night before — and that there had been yet another case of groping.

But protesters and a cop on duty told The Post that most of the crime goes unreported, because of a bizarre “stop snitching” rule.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/zuccotti_hell_kitchen_i5biNyYYhpa8MSYIL9xSDL#ixzz1bzKsPNob

HAT TIP: @geckler

DIRECT VIDEO LINK CLICK HERE

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Conventional wisdom says that government should run schools. This idea is intuitive. It is also wrong. The free market would do a much better job.

This week in my syndicated column, I compare the public school system to the cars produced by governments:

The Trabant was the best — the pride of the Eastern Bloc. It was produced by actual German engineers — known for their brilliance. Yet even the Trabant was a terrible car. Drivers had to put the oil and gas in separately and then shake the car to mix them. Trabants broke down and spewed pollution. When government runs things, consumers suffer.

Our school system is like the Trabant. Economist Milton Friedman understood this before the rest of us did. In 1955, he proposed school vouchers. His plan didn’t call for separating school and state — unfortunately — but instead sought a second-best fix: Give a voucher to the family, and let it choose which school — government-run or private — their child will attend. Schools would compete for that voucher money. Today, it would be worth $13,000 per child. (That’s what America spends per student today.) Competition would then improve all schools.

50 years later, school vouchers are finally becoming a reality, although the education establishment still resists them.

Ronald Holassie, a graduate of the Washington, D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, came on my Fox Business show last week to talk about the dramatic difference between a government school and his private school:

“In the public school system when I was in there, (there were) lots of fights. There were shootings, stabbings, and it was really unsafe — drugs.” … But he got the voucher and a good education, and now he’s in college.

Despite the data showing that voucher kids are ahead in reading, the biggest teachers union, the NEA claims: “The D.C. voucher program has been a failure. It’s yielded no evidence of positive impact on student achievement.”

Holassie asks: “How is it a failure when the public school system is failing students? I don’t understand that.”

I don’t either.

The rest of my column here.
Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/stossel/blog/2011/10/26/school-competition-rescues-kids#ixzz1bwcW4Xa5

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A U.S. Border Patrol agent has been sentenced to two years in prison for improperly lifting the arms of a 15-year-old drug smuggling suspect while handcuffed — in what the Justice Department called a deprivation of the teenager’s constitutional right to be free from the use of unreasonable force.

Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. was named in a November 2009 federal grand jury indictment with deprivation of rights under color of law during an October 2008 arrest near the Rio Grande in Eagle Pass, Texas, in response to a report that illegal immigrants had crossed the river with bundles of drugs.

In a prosecution sought by the Mexican government and obtained after the suspected smuggler was given immunity to testify against the agent,Diaz was sentenced last week by U.S. District Judge Alia Moses Ludlumin San Antonio. The Mexican consulate in Eagle Pass had filed a formal written complaint just hours after the arrest, alleging that the teenager had been beaten.

Defense attorneys argued that there were no injuries or bruises on the suspected smuggler’s lower arms where the handcuffs had been placed nor any bruising resulting from an alleged knee on his back. Photos showed the only marks on his body came from the straps of the pack he carried containing the suspected drugs, they said.

Border Patrol agents found more than 150 pounds of marijuana at the arrest site.

The allegations against Diaz, 31, a seven-year veteran of the Border Patrol, initially were investigated by Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Office of Professional Responsibility, which cleared the agent of any wrongdoing.

But the Internal Affairs Division at U.S. Customs and Border Protection ruled differently nearly a year later and, ultimately, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas brought charges.

The Law Enforcement Officers Advocates Council said thegovernment’s case was “based on false testimony that is contradicted by the facts.”

In a statement, the council said that because the arrest took place at about 2 a.m., darkness would have made it impossible for the government’s witnesses to have seen whether any mistreatment took place. It said Marcos Ramos, the Border Patrol agent who stood next toDiaz, testified that he did not see any mistreatment of the smuggling suspect.

The council said other witnesses made contradictory claims and some later admitted to having perjured themselves. Such admissions, thecouncil said, were ignored by the court and the government. It also said that probationary agents who claimed to have witnessed the assault raised no objections during the incident and failed to notify an on-duty supervisor until hours later.

“Instead, they went off-duty to a local ‘Whataburger’ restaurant, got their stories straight and reported it hours later to an off-duty supervisor at his home,” the council said. “Then the ‘witnesses’ went back to the station and reported their allegations.”

The council also noted that the teenager claimed no injuries in court other than sore shoulders, which the council attributed to “the weight of the drug load, approximately 75 pounds, he carried across the border.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which brought the charges, is the same office that in February 2006 — under U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton — prosecuted Border Patrol Agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean after they shot a drug-smuggling suspect, Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, in the buttocks as he tried to flee back into Mexico after abandoning a van filled with 800 pounds of marijuana. Aldrete-Davila also was given immunity in the case and testified against the agents.

Agents Ramos and Compean were convicted and sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison, respectively.

READ THE REST HERE

Endearing or Egregious? Decide for yourself.

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Federal prosecutors are expected to file criminal charges on Wednesday against Rajat K. Gupta, the most prominent business executive ensnared in an aggressive insider trading investigation, according to people briefed on the case.

The case against Mr. Gupta, 62, who is expected to surrender to the authorities on Wednesday, would extend the reach of the government’s inquiry into America’s most prestigious corporate boardrooms. Most of the defendants charged with insider trading over the last two years have plied their trade exclusively on Wall Street.

The charges would also mean a stunning fall from grace of a trusted adviser to political leaders and chief executives of the world’s most celebrated companies.

A former director of Goldman Sachs and Procter & Gamble and the longtime head of McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm, Mr. Gupta has been under investigation over whether he leaked corporate secrets to Raj Rajaratnam, the hedge fund manager who was sentenced this month to 11 years in prison for trading on illegal stock tips.

READ THE REST HERE 

Fox News’s Megyn Kelly scored an exclusive interview with the star of Herman Cain‘s hot new viral web ad, Mark Block, who is featured in the clip defiantly blowing cigarette smoke at the camera. Kelly introduced Cain’s chief of staff by noting that people have been “dizzified” by the political ad. “The message behind the ad was to our supporters that we’re on a roll,” Block explained. “We’re excited about what’s happening. There was no subliminal message. In fact, I personally would encourage people not to smoke. It’s just that I’m a smoker and as a lot of people on the staff said, ‘Just let Block be Block.’ That’s what it was all about.”

Kelly asked if the quirky web ad was trying to reach out to regular joes. “Were you trying to appeal to folks who are out there living real lives, working the farm, working in Detroit, that kind of thing as opposed to the East and West coast elite, people in media circles, who shun smoking, and, you know, sort of real American things?”

“I tell you, you walk into a veteran’s bar in Iowa, and they are sitting around smoking, and, you know, yeah, we are resonating with them,” Block exclaimed. “I’m not the only one that smokes in America, for God’s sake! It’s a choice that I made and it was at the end of the ad, but the real message that we were trying to get through is that the Cain train is on a roll!”

SEE THE VIDEO HERE 

Being part of that 1 percent sounds good to them!

A Long Island couple dreaming of cashing in on the Occupy Wall Street protests has filed for trademark rights to the movement’s name so they can peddle bumper stickers, T-shirts, beach bags and other gear bearing the OWS logo.

Robert and Diane Maresca paid $975 for the application filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 18.

Robert said he might even share some of the profits he could make with the protesters — if he can figure out who to give the money to.

Gunshots were heard as prisoners set fire to a jail and fought with guards in Turkey’s quake-hit city of Van on Tuesday, two days after a jailbreak when 200 were reported to have escaped in the chaos after a major earthquake.

A soldier said prisoners had attacked guards with scissors and knives. A municipal official, who declined to be named, said inmates had set fire to the jail.

Reuters journalists saw flames lap the building, while white smoke billowed into the night sky, before half a dozen shots were heard.

SOURCE 

CHECK OUT THE ABSURDITY AT THE END OF IT

Frequent travelers may be used to finding an official note from the Transportation Security Administration alerting them that their checked bags have been searched, but rarely does the TSA take the opportunity to get a little more — or a lot more — personal with travelers.

But that’s what one blogger said a TSA officer did based on an unusual note she found in her luggage today. Jill Filipovic, a blogger atFeministe.us, tweeted a picture of the TSA notification on which, alongside the official form, someone had scrawled “GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL” in big capital letters.

“Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA,” Filipovic tweeted. “Guess they discovered a ‘personal item’ in my bag. Wow.”

Attempting to discreetly explain the “personal item” to commenters on Feministe, Filipovic wrote it was “the most basic lady-thing you can imagine.”

Filipovic had traveled from Newark, New Jersey, to Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend and had just this morning opened her luggage. She said that except for when the bag was checked — from the time she packed to the time she unpacked — she had been with the bag, meaning it was unlikely an elaborate practical prank by a friend. She said the fact that the note was left on the TSA notice led her to believe a TSA officer had written it.

A spokesperson for the TSA said that they are “one of several entities” that handle checked bags and that at this time there is “no concrete evidence who wrote the note.”

Still, the TSA said that “if inappropriate conduct is discovered, TSA [will take] appropriate disciplinary action.”

Initially, Filipovic wrote on her blog that the note was “total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not OK, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room.”

But upon further reflection, Filipovic told ABC News she believed it to be “offensive” and said she’d likely be filing a complaint with the TSA once she returns to the U.S.

“I hope they do see the complaint, they’ll look into it and remind their staff that going through people’s personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism,” Filipovic said.

The TSA said it opens checked bags for hand inspections if any alarms are sounded during the screening process and the TSA inserts the inspection card after the search.

SOURCE