Friday, January 4, 2013

FBI Lists Most Significant Cases of 2012

The following list was posted by the FBI.

Insider trading: Charges against seven investment professionals were announced in New York in January alleging an insider trading scheme that netted nearly $62 million in illegal profits. Details


California gang takedown: A total of 119 defendants were charged in San Diego in January with federal racketeering conspiracy, drug trafficking violations, and federal firearm offenses in one of the largest single gang takedowns in FBI San Diego history. The target was the Mexican Mafia gang and its affiliates.Details


Economic espionage: In February, a federal grand jury in San Francisco charged five individuals and five companies with economic espionage and theft of trade secrets in connection with their roles in a long-running effort to obtain U.S. trade secrets for the benefit of companies controlled by the People’s Republic of China. Details


Cyber hackers charged: Several hackers in the U.S. and abroad were charged in New York in March with cyber crimes affecting over a million victims. Four principal members of the hacking groups Anonymous and LulzSec were among those indicted; another key member previously pled guilty to similar charges. Details


Anchorage man indicted for murder: In April, Israel Keyes was charged with the kidnapping and murder of an Anchorage barista. Keyes is believed to have committed multiple kidnappings and murders across the country between 2001 and March 2012. In December, after Keyes committed suicide in jail, the FBI requested the public’s help regarding his other victims. Details


Financial fraudster receives 110-year sentence: In June, Allen Stanford—the former chairman of Stanford International Bank—was sentenced in Houston to 110 years in prison for orchestrating a 20-year investment fraud scheme in which he misappropriated $7 billion to finance his personal businesses.Details


Nationwide sweep recovers child victims of prostitution: The FBI and its partners announced the results of Operation Cross Country, a three-day law enforcement action in June in which 79 child victims of prostitution were recovered and more than 100 pimps were arrested. Details


International cyber takedown: Also in June, a two-year FBI undercover cyber operation culminated in the arrest of 24 individuals in eight countries. The investigation focused on “carding” crimes—offenses in which the Internet is used to steal victims’ credit card and bank account information—and was credited with protecting over 400,000 potential cyber crime victims and preventing over $205 million in losses.Details


Health care fraud: In July, global health care company GlaxoSmithKline pled guilty to fraud allegations and failure to report safety data and agreed to pay $3 billion in what officials called the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history. Details

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Gun purchasers set new record in December



The number of FBI background checks required for Americans buying guns set a record in December, as the Connecticut school massacre stirred interest in self-defense and prompted renewed talk of limits on firearms, according to FBI data.
The FBI said it recorded 2.8 million background checks during the month, surpassing the mark set in November of 2 million checks. The number was up 49 percent over December 2011, when the FBI performed a then-record 1.9 million checks.
Consumer demand for guns appears to have accounted for the uptick in activity. There were no changes in FBI background check procedures that would have affected the December numbers, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said.
However, December is typically the busiest month of the year for checks, due in part to Christmas gift sales.
The figures do not represent the number of firearms sold, a statistic the government does not track. They also do not reflect activity between private parties, such as family members or collectors, because federal law requires background checks only for sales from commercial vendors with a federal license.
Someone who passes a background check is eligible to buy multiple firearms.
FBI checks for all of 2012 totaled 19.6 million, an annual record and an increase of 19 percent over 2011.
The FBI system - known as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) - "processed transactions following normal established protocols," Fischer said.
The national debate on guns has grown louder since December 14 when Adam Lanza forced his way into Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, and killed 20 children and six adults before committing suicide in one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history, investigators said. Lanza also killed his mother, the registered owner of the guns used in the killings, before going to the school.
Interest in guns tends to increase after a mass shooting, as customers fear for personal safety or worry that lawmakers might ban certain firearms.
President Barack Obama has committed to pushing new legislation, possibly including a proposed ban on some semi-automatic weapons, this year.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

University of North Carolina's Fraud Running Deeper?


In early December, former Governor of North Carolina, Jim Martin, declared the University of North Carolina free from any wrongdoing in an alleged athletic scandal, which revolved around questionable classes within the Department of African American Studies. Martin claimed that officials tried to raise red flags on a couple different occasions. Specifically, Martin said that in 2002 and 2006, officials informed the Faculty Committee of Athletics of the abnormally higher than expected number of independent enrollments and lecture courses that had all of a sudden turned in to independent studies. Martin reported that this committee responded by stating that the professors operated with “high latitude on how to teach a course”, and Martin firmly stated that while the courses were filled with mainly athletes, there was no athletic scandal.

After the proclamation by the former Governor, the University of North Carolina seemed to have mitigated some of its potential damage. However, a recent review of the faculty minutes do not allude to any such red flags ever being raised. In fact, several faculty members have specifically addressed the proclamation and asserted that the alleged red flags were never raised or that they do not remember them existing.
A former committee chair in 2002, Dr. Stanley Mandel, commented on the alleged red flags being brought up. “You won’t find any reference to it in the committee minutes because there was no reference to it,” said Mandel. “There was no discussion. Nothing was brought up.” A former committee member from 2006 stated, “It seemed like everyone around the table was congratulating themselves about what a squeaky clean program they had.”  With this recent news about the red flags never being brought up via the evidence of the committee minutes, it seems as if Martin has potentially made some borderline fraudulent statements. Still, Martin’s report showed that 216 classes had either proven or potential problems, and 560 classes were suspected to have incurred unauthorized grade changes. The opposite of squeaky-clean.
Full article by Darren Heitner can be found here.