On Q Professional Investigations

A 19-year-old Canadian man has become the first person arrested in relation to the Heartbleed security vulnerability, which he used to steal taxpayer information.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) is accusing Stephen Arthuro Solis-Reyes of hacking into the Canadian Revenue Agency’s (CRA) website late last week.

Solis-Reyes, of London, Ontario, is suspected of stealing around 900 Social Insurance Numbers.

“It is believed that [Mr] Solis-Reyes was able to extract private information held by CRA by exploiting the vulnerability known as the Heartbleed bug,” the RCMP said in a statement.

“The RCMP treated this breach of security as a high priority case and mobilized the necessary resources to resolve the matter as quickly as possible,” RCMP assistant commissioner Gilles Michaud said. “Investigators from National Division, along with our counterparts in ‘O’ Division have been working tirelessly over the last four days analyzing data, following leads, conducting interviews, obtaining and executing legal authorizations and liaising with our partners.”

Solis-Reyes has been charged with “unauthorized use of a computer” and “mischief in relation to data.” He is scheduled to appear in court on July 17.

The 19-year-old is a second-year student at Western University, located in his hometown. In high school, he was on a team that won first place in a programming competition at the London District Catholic School Board. He has also authored a BlackBerry phone app that solves Sukoku puzzles, according to The Globe and Mail.

His father is a Western computer science professor. The family lived in Lafayette, Indiana before moving to Ontario.

Early last week, the open-source OpenSSL project released an emergency security advisory warning of Heartbleed, a bug that pulls in private keys to a server using vulnerable software, allowing operators to suck in data traffic and even impersonate the server. Heartbleed was first noticed by a Google researcher and Codenomicon, a Finnish security firm.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) reported that the private information of about 900 people was stolen thanks to Heartbleed’s impact. CRA became one of the first major organizations to curtail services as a result of the vulnerability.

“Regrettably, the CRA has been notified by the government of Canada’s lead security agencies of a malicious breach of taxpayer data that occurred over a six-hour period” last week, CRA said on Monday.

Private firms and governments are working to patch their vulnerabilities to the bug, yet more breaches are expected.

The Canadian government “was really slow on this,” Christopher Parsons from the Citizen Lab at the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto told CBC.

Yahoo was one major private entity to immediately address its exposure to Heartbleed, claiming it had successfully updated its servers after hearing of the bug.

“If you look at Yahoo, it had begun updating its security practices prior to the CRA fully taking action,” Parsons said. “The same thing with other larger companies. As soon as they saw what was going on, they immediately reacted and issued public statements.”

View Source

A man caught on surveillance cameras has been charged with sexually assaulting a woman as she walked home through a Lakeview alley, according to police.

Marcus Lynch, 20, of the 4700 block of South Loomis Boulevard, has been charged with one count of aggravated criminal sexual assault with a weapon and one count of armed robbery, police said.

Surveillance cameras showed Lynch following the woman to a gas station at Halsted Street and Addison Avenue, where she bought cigarettes, and then following her down an alley as she headed home Monday afternoon, according to a police report.

A camera on the CTA Red Line captured Lynch fleeing after the attack, police said. Fingerprints recovered from the scene matched his, according to the police report.

The 22-year-old woman told police she was walking through the alley in the 3500 block of North Halsted Street around 4:25 p.m. Monday when she heard someone running and turned to see a man headed toward her, the report said.

The woman thought the man would run past her, but instead he grabbed her around the neck, pulled out a knife and said, “Don’t do anything, I’ll slit your throat,” according to police. He forced her to the back of a garage and assaulted her behind a pickup truck, police said.

The man then pushed her to the ground and ran off with her purse and iPhone, warning her, “I know where you live.” The woman waited a few minutes, then ran to a nearby coffee shop for help. She was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Hospital, according to a police report.

Police described the suspect as black, between the ages of 25 and 32, 5-foot-4 to 5-foot-5, police said. He was wearing a black skull cap, blue jeans and white gym shoes, according to police.

View Source

WILLISTON, N.D. (AP) — The blood-drenched man had survived a brutal attack: Beaten with brass knuckles, shocked with a stun gun, slashed with a razor blade, then dumped 40 miles away in Montana, he staggered to a farmhouse for help. His path eventually led authorities back to a quiet backyard in this oil boom town.

What they uncovered was a large-scale methamphetamine ring that had found a home in a state long known for its small-town solitude, its slow pace and peaceful pastures.

The members of this violent gang were all relative newcomers to Williston. They called themselves “The Family,” the feds say, and were holed up in a few campers tucked behind an innocent-looking, white-frame house. They had plenty of firepower, too: One of the men had an arsenal of 22 weapons.

Authorities say several “Family” members had abducted and planned to kill one of their own, seeking to enforce their code of silence out of fear he’d spill the group’s secrets. They assaulted him in a camper in Williston, stuffed him into a plastic-lined car trunk, then beat him again after he escaped. He was left for dead in a Montana field. He wound up, instead, in a North Dakota hospital, telling the FBI his story.

The result: Seven guilty pleas. Prison sentences of up to 20 years. And the dismantling of a drug trafficking ring that sold meth for more than a year in one of the fastest-growing corners of America.

The oil boom in the Bakken shale fields has touched off an explosion of growth and wealth on this remote wind-swept prairie. Big money is raining down in small towns. Oil rigs light up the night sky. But the bonanza suddenly flourishing here has also brought with it a dark side: a growing trade in meth, heroin, cocaine and marijuana, the shadow of sinister cartels and newfound violence.

Small-town police forces have been struggling to keep pace. In nearby Watford City, for instance, police calls for service have multiplied at a staggering rate — almost 100 times — in a five-year period. County jails overflow on weekend nights. Local sheriffs no longer know every name and face when they stroll down Main Street.

Drugs and dealers are popping up in all kinds of places: Heroin is being trafficked on isolated Indian reservations. Mexican cartels are slowly making inroads in small-town America. And hard-core criminals are bringing drugs in from other states, sometimes concealing them in ingenious ways: liquid meth in windshield wiper reservoirs.

“Organized drug dealers are smart,” says U.S. Attorney Tim Purdon. “They’re good businessmen. They go where the demand is and that’s what we’re seeing here. … There’s simply a lot of money involved, a lot of money flowing around in those communities.”

With the problems becoming more pronounced, the feds are pouring in resources to bolster local police and drug task forces.

“We’re battling our butts off to stay ahead of this,” Purdon says. “Our concern is that this is an open market and as people start to compete, the violence will increase. … There’s nothing less at stake here than our way of life.”

The oil boom with its gusher of dollars was already under way more than three years ago when Tim Purdon was sworn in as chief federal prosecutor for western North Dakota.

The Bakken Formation — tens of thousands of square miles of oil-bearing shale under the long, flat prairies of western North Dakota, eastern Montana and part of Canada — was touted as a modern-day Gold Rush. Thousands flocked here, most law-abiding Americans in search of good-paying jobs. But the lure of big money was a guaranteed draw, too, for drug dealers and other troublemakers.

As the population skyrocketed, Purdon noticed a seemingly inevitable consequence: more people, more crime.

Federal prosecutions in the western half of North Dakota nearly tripled — from 126 in 2009 to 336 last year — mostly, he says, because of drug cases involving several people.

In Montana, 70 people — about half from outside the region — have been charged since October with federal drug offenses. Last spring, about 10 others, included two reputed members of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, were accused in a drug conspiracy. The two pleaded guilty to distributing at least 80 pounds of meth to local drug dealers within a five-month period; the intended market, the feds say, was the oil patch.

The cartel members also traded meth for about 150 guns, some of which made their way to Mexico, according to authorities.

“We have a formidable opponent,” says Mike Cotter, U.S. attorney in Montana. “They market it well. They move it well and it’s a battle that we have to continue to fight.”

It’s not one that’s readily visible.

Drug deals here are arranged in phone calls, behind closed doors or along back streets of once-sleepy towns now pulsating with the work of a multibillion-dollar oil industry. Tanker trucks rumble down the roads day and night. Recent arrivals come and go from “man camps” — rows of identical, barrack-like dorms sitting on empty fields. And cars with license plates from almost every state in the union zip in and out of crowded fast-food parking lots.

“The idea of having junkies hanging around the rigs and the fracking sites — that’s not happening,” says Williams County Sheriff Scott Busching.

Drugs are not new here. Years ago, homegrown meth was a scourge in North Dakota but its supply was sharply reduced by a crackdown on “mom-and-pop” meth labs and legislation that made it harder to buy ingredients.

These days, the drug trade looks a lot different.

Meth is still most common, but most of it originates in Mexico. It’s more potent and is generally being found in larger quantities. (In Ward County, about two hours away, meth seizures jumped from $63,200 in 2012 to $404,600 last year, according to the sheriff’s office.)

Heroin is more visible, something that “scares me,” says Busching, who adds that he’d probably rate the drug problem in his county a 7 on a scale of 10.

Prices are up, too, fueled by demand in an area where lots of young men are flush with cash, far from their families and have little to do in their spare time. Authorities say a gram of meth that might sell for $120 in big cities can cost $200 in Williston. In Montana, an ounce that might have sold for $800 in 2008 now goes for about $2,400-$2800.

Guns also are increasingly becoming part of the business.

“We’re seeing a lot more armed drug traffickers than I’ve previously noticed,” says Derek Hill, an ATF agent in Bismarck. “It’s kind of a two-way street,” he adds, with guns used as protection and for barter.

The ATF opened a bureau last year in the tiny town of Bottineau and within the first five months, the agent had opened 14 weapons cases throughout western North Dakota, many also involving drugs, says Scott Sweetow, special agent in charge in the region.

Another difference: Authorities are seeing more criminals from out of state, some with long rap sheets. One of the suspects arrested by the Bottineau agent had 15 felonies, according to the ATF.

The seven men in the 2012 abduction-drug conspiracy had all come to Williston within two years before their arrests. Brian Dahl, also known as Kodiak, had transported meth from Washington, according to documents. Though his felony record should have barred him from owning firearms, he was arrested with nine rifles, six pistols, four shotguns and three revolvers. He’s awaiting sentencing.

Jeffrey Jim Butler, also known as Pops, identified by the feds as The Family’s recruiter, had an assault and drug record. He’s serving a 20-year sentence after pleading guilty to kidnapping and conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine.

In another big drug bust, a 24-year-old Bakersfield, Calif., man who was jailed back home on murder, assault and gang charges was among 22 people indicted in January in “Operation Pipe Cleaner.” The group is accused of trafficking heroin, crack, cocaine, marijuana and painkillers in the Dickinson area, about 100 miles from Williston.

And “Operation Winter’s End”— an ongoing local, state and federal probe — also has tentacles that extend well beyond the Bakken’s borders. More than 40 people have been charged with dealing heroin and meth in on and around the Fort Berthold reservation, home to the Three Affiliated Tribes. Among the accused: residents of California and Colorado alleged to have been a drug connection for local dealers.

“It used to be if someone was selling methamphetamine in the area, there probably were six degrees of separation from a Mexican cartel or a motorcycle gang,” Purdon says. “Those drugs were passing through a lot of different hands before they ended up on the street. Generally, what we’re seeing now is only one or two degrees.”

Local police chiefs deal with the tragic results.

In New Town, a hamlet that sits on the Fort Berthold reservation, Art Walgren, police chief until recently, said he knew when a new batch of heroin arrived, because there’d be a rash of overdoses.

Like many oil patch towns, drugs are part of a larger crime wave that includes more thefts, bar fights and domestic violence. “We kind of run around plugging holes in the dikes,” Walgren said, “hoping they don’t break.”

Federal officials — including U.S. senators from North Dakota and Montana who met in the Bakken last summer to discuss drugs — have focused new attention on the area.

The FBI — which is planning a permanent office in the region — ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Indian Affairs have added or diverted resources. Last fall, the feds and state officials in both states launched “Project Safe Bakken,” a collaborative effort to pursue criminal networks, including drug dealers,

And Williams County — home to Williston — was recently designated a high-intensity drug trafficking area, paving the way for more federal dollars. Some of that aid will be used by the North Dakota attorney general’s office to add a prosecutor who will specialize in drug cases, working in both state and federal courts.

Local police desperately need the help.

A North Dakota State University study released last year, called “Policing the Patch,” found the number of police calls for service in Williston had quadrupled from 2005 to 2011 to nearly 16,000. In Watford City — about 30 miles away — there were just 41 calls in 2006. In 2011: almost 4,000.

Nearly a third of police officers in the study said the drug problem is acute.

“I think one in every five people that I deal with has drugs on them,” one unidentified officer said.

Another summed up the situation this way:

“More drugs than we have ever dealt with. … Ninety percent of the people who come here to work in the oil fields are good people. The 10 percent of the people who work in the oil fields that are problems make it bad for the rest of them.”

Judge David Nelson sees some of those lawbreakers in his court.

A 31-year veteran of the bench, Nelson, presiding judge of the Northwest judicial district of North Dakota, says the most dramatic change in crime that has occurred is the degree of violence. “It’s not just two guys duking it out and shaking hands,” he says. “The knives come out. People drive cars over other people. The guns come out.”

Nelson estimates more than half his cases involve newcomers.

Before the boom, he says, “I pretty much knew most of the defendants. I knew their parents, their kids, their grandparents, their next-door neighbors. Now I can go weeks and see people I’ve never seen before. It’s amazing how many people are arrested within days of getting here.”

With workers living in temporary addresses and drug dealers adept at blending in, investigators find it hard to develop the kind of who’s who of local crime that other police departments have at their fingertips.

“It’s like trying to capture smoke,” says Bryan Lockerby, administrator of the Montana Department of Justice’s Division of Criminal Investigation. “It runs the gamut from high-end cartels to street dealers. It’s not like you catch one organization and it’s over.”

Federal agents say the same.

“I really think it’s going to take us awhile to sort of determine which organizations are having the biggest influence,” says J. Chris Warrener, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Minneapolis division, which includes North Dakota. “It’s safe to say the Mexican cartels are involved but that the drugs are not necessarily flowing straight up from Mexico.”

One thing is certain: There is a brisk narcotics trade. It continues even though most oil companies conduct drug tests, both for hiring, and later, randomly.

Patrick Johnsen has seen it firsthand.

Johnsen, 29, came to the Bakken in 2010 to escape drugs. He’d been heavy into meth and crack back home in the Chicago suburbs and decided to start over, moving to North Dakota. He arrived with a mountain of debts and $11.72 in his pocket.

He found an oil job using engineering skills he’d acquired during college. But old habits die hard. “I was still under the mindset of ‘work hard, party hard,’” Johnsen says. He was arrested for drunken driving and fired.

He turned things around, though, and has been sober since September 2012. Johnsen now works on an oil rig in Montana. He helped start a twice-weekly support group of recovering substance abusers and stays out of bars.

Johnsen says some workers use drugs, falsely believing it will “increase their endurance, their alertness. It’s that hustle that goes with all drugs in terms of what you believe it’ll make you do … work harder, work stronger, work longer, when in fact, it actually makes you that much more sloppy and makes you such a safety hazard on the job.”

Johnsen knows there’s another kind of danger.

He’s reminded of it by a photo on his cell phone of a friend who’d come to the Bakken, attended his support group and recently lost his struggle with alcohol and drugs.

“He was a young guy,” he says. “There was no reason he should have died.”

Every day, Sheriff Scott Busching — a self-described “die-hard, old-school cop” — faces the ever-changing landscape that is the Bakken:

More serious traffic accidents. (He stopped riding his motorcycle, selling his Harley.) More arrests. And a county jail filled to capacity. (The average nightly inmate population has jumped from 24 five years ago to 135.)

The veteran sheriff says he once employed a “North Dakota nice” philosophy where law enforcement tried to solve problems, whenever possible, by avoiding tickets and jailing people. Now there’s no time for that.

Busching — who notes this area is in its third oil boom — compares the transformation of the Bakken to a home renovation: messy, chaotic at times. But ultimately, good.

He celebrates the positive — the wealth of good-paying jobs, the new businesses, the promise of oil riches for years to come — that would be the envy of any community.

He acknowledges the negative, too, the drugs and everything else, but says he’s tired of those who dwell on that.

Busching concedes it took time for him to accept the dramatic changes but he came around.

“I wanted my old town back, my old country back,” he says. “I liked it that way. I want it to be Mayberry. But when I came to realization that it’s never, ever going to be that way (I thought) … Well, let’s stick around and see if we can make it the best place possible.”

It’s a long-term project. Oil is expected to flow in the Bakken for another generation or more.

View Source

New York Cell Withdrew $2.8 Million In Cash From Hacked Accounts In Less Than 24 Hours

A four-count federal indictment was unsealed in Brooklyn charging eight defendants with participating in two worldwide cyberattacks that inflicted $45 million in losses on the global financial system in a matter of hours.1 These defendants allegedly formed the New York-based cell of an international cybercrime organization that used sophisticated intrusion techniques to hack into the systems of global financial institutions, steal prepaid debit card data, and eliminate withdrawal limits. The stolen card data was then disseminated worldwide and used in making fraudulent ATM withdrawals on a massive scale across the globe. The eight indicted defendants and their co-conspirators targeted New York City and withdrew approximately $2.8 million in a matter of hours. The defendants are charged variously with conspiracy to commit access device fraud, money laundering conspiracy, and money laundering.

Seven of the eight defendants have been arrested on the charges in the indictment: the arrested defendants are Jael Mejia Collado, Joan Luis Minier Lara, Evan Jose Peña, Jose Familia Reyes, Elvis Rafael Rodriguez, Emir Yasser Yeje, and Chung Yu-Holguin, all residents of Yonkers, New York. Rodriguez was arrested on a criminal complaint on March 27, 2013, when he attempted to flee the United States for the Dominican Republic. Peña was arrested on a criminal complaint in Yonkers, New York, on April 3, 2013. Lara, Reyes, and Yeje surrendered to law enforcement authorities on April 15, 2013, and Collado and Yu-Holguin were arrested yesterday afternoon. The indictment also charges an eighth defendant, Alberto Yusi Lajud-Peña, also known as “Prime” and “Albertico,” who is reported to have been murdered on April 27, 2013, in the Dominican Republic. The case has been assigned to United States District Judge Kiyo A. Matsumoto.

The charges were announced by Loretta E. Lynch, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Steven Hughes, Special Agent in Charge, United States Secret Service, New York Field Office, and James T. Hayes, Jr., Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), New York.

“As charged in the indictment, the defendants and their co-conspirators participated in a massive 21st century bank heist that reached across the Internet and stretched around the globe. In the place of guns and masks, this cybercrime organization used laptops and the Internet. Moving as swiftly as data over the Internet, the organization worked its way from the computer systems of international corporations to the streets of New York City, with the defendants fanning out across Manhattan to steal millions of dollars from hundreds of ATMs in a matter of hours,” stated United States Attorney Lynch. “Law enforcement is committed to moving just as swiftly to solve these cybercrimes and bring their perpetrators to justice.”

“New technologies and the rapid growth of the Internet have eliminated the traditional borders of financial crimes and provided new opportunities for the criminal element to threaten the world’s financial systems. However, as demonstrated by the charges and arrests announced today, the Secret Service and its law enforcement partners have adapted to these technological advancements and utilized cutting edge investigative techniques to thwart this cybercriminal activity,” said Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Hughes. “I want to take this opportunity to commend the dedicated men and women of the Secret Service and HSI for their extraordinary efforts in this investigation. This case is an excellent example of the impact that can be made when the law enforcement community works together.”

Read More

What is believed to be one of the largest local shoplifting rings in at least four decades has been broken up by Oakland County detectives, officials announced Wednesday.

Five people have been arrested in connection with the ring: Shah Abullais Khalish, 28, of Hazel Park and Delwar Miah, 23, of Detroit, are believed to have been the ringleaders, and April Lynn Cooper, 29, and Sandra Gale Cooper, 47, both of Warren, and Shantell Danne Collins, 24, of Detroit, were also charged.

The suspects are believed to have been part of a $3 million-plus retail fraud ring — the largest such operation that Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard has ever seen.

“The scope and size” of the operation is “amazing,” Bouchard said during a Wednesday afternoon press conference.

Bouchard’s law enforcement career began in the 1970s.

Investigators seized merchandise believed to have been stolen from multiple retailers, including CVS, Walgreens and Victoria’s Secret.

The investigation began as a drug case, as the Sheriff’s Office’s Narcotics Enforcement Team received a tip about people who were possibly selling pseudoephedrine for use in methamphetatmine production.

NET investigators soon determined that the suspects were not selling pseudoephedrine but were stealing between $9,000 and $15,000 worth of merchandise, per person, per day.

“This was great work by the detectives to follow a case where it goes, and they’ll continue to do that,” Bouchard said.

The merchandise was taken to a warehouse on Dequindre near 8 Mile Road in Hazel Park, and it was sold on Amazon, eBay and other online retailers.

“A lot of this (theft) was right out the front door,” Bouchard said, adding that those who commit retail fraud often have special “boosting” clothes with compartments sewn into them.

Investigators obtained search warrants on March 19, watched the suspects steal items from CVS and Walgreens and arrested all five suspects, officials said. More than $9,000 worth of merchandise was found in the suspects’ vehicle.

A search of the warehouse followed. The building contained more than $3 million worth of Victoria’s Secret merchandise, along with $30,000 worth of CVS and Walgreens merchandise and $100,000 in other brand name products. Investigators also seized $75,000 in cash from the building.

“This warehouse was a substantial warehouse,” Bouchard said.

“They bought this warehouse about nine months ago with $200,000 in cash. They were generating that much money that they could plunk down $200,000 in cash.”

Seven semi trucks were needed to empty all the merchandise from the building.

The operation crossed state lines, as most of the Victoria’s Secret items came from Las Vegas, Bouchard said.

He could not reveal the exact details of where the items came from and said more charges could be forthcoming.

It is unclear how long the operation had been in place but the time frame is likely measured in years, Bouchard said.

All five suspects are charged with two counts each of organized retail crime and one count each of receiving and concealing stolen property. Bond was set at $300,000 for both Khalish and Miah, while the Coopers and Collins received $50,000 bonds. All five have been released on bond and are next scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m. April 25 in front of 44th District Judge Derek Meincke.

View Source

A North Carolina prison inmate used a smuggled mobile phone to keep in touch with kidnappers holding the father of a prosecutor who helped send him away for life, federal authorities said.

Five people were arrested and Frank Arthur Janssen, a Wake Forest man whose daughter prosecutes violent crimes, was rescued late Wednesday following a raid by the FBI’s elite Hostage Rescue Team on an Atlanta apartment.

During the abduction, the kidnappers took a picture of Janssen tied up in a chair and sent it to his wife, threatening to torture and dismember him if she went to police, the FBI said in court documents.

Janssen’s kidnapping was related to his daughter’s prosecution of Kelvin Melton, who is serving a life sentence for ordering the shooting of a man in 2011, said John Strong, the FBI’s agent in charge for North Carolina.

Authorities say Melton, 49, had a mobile phone in his cell at Polk Correctional Institution in Butner, exchanging at least 123 calls and text messages with the alleged kidnappers in the past week. Authorities closed in on the suspects by tracking their mobile phones and listening to their calls.

According to testimony from his 2012 trial, Melton is a high-ranking member of the Bloods street gang from New York City who ordered a 21-year-old subordinate to travel to Raleigh and kill his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. Court records show Melton has a long record of felony convictions in New York, the first being a 1979 robbery committed when he was 14.

The admitted triggerman, Jamil Herring Gressett, testified that he followed Melton’s orders for fear he or his loved ones would be killed if he didn’t. The victim survived a gunshot wound.

The prosecutor in the case was Wake County Assistant District Attorney Colleen Janssen.

In a handwritten 2012 letter in the court file, Melton protested that the prosecutor had not followed proper legal procedure, citing a specific state statute.

“Prosecutor must file accuser affidavit with clerk of court ‘prior’ to seeking an indictment, this affidavit must be on file, mandatory!” Melton wrote. “The accused indictment is not legal and is rendered in-valid.”

Melton’s amateur lawyering didn’t work. He was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and being a habitual felon, resulting in a life sentence.

According to the FBI, a woman knocked on Frank Janssen’s door Saturday at his Wake Forest home in a quiet, upscale, golf course subdivision. Several people assaulted him and someone used a stun gun. He was then driven to Atlanta.

On Monday, his wife, Christie, started receiving a series of text messages from a mobile phone in Georgia. One of the texts said if law enforcement was contacted, “we will send (Mr. Janssen) back to you in 6 boxes and every chance we get we will take someone in your family to Italy and torture them and kill them … we will do drive by and gun down anybody.”

The messages made specific demands for the benefit of Melton, according to the FBI. Those demands were not spelled out in the court filings and authorities did not answer questions at a news conference Thursday.

A federal law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss an ongoing investigation, told The Associated Press that the kidnapping was an act of retaliation and that the communications of those involved suggested a link to the Bloods. The official had been briefed on the investigation.

At 12:19 a.m. Wednesday, Janssen’s wife received a text photograph of him tied up in a chair along with a message: “Tomorrow we call you again an if you can not tell me where my things are at tomorrow i will start torchering.”

At 8:20 p.m., the FBI says a call was placed by Melton from the prison to a phone associated with the kidnappers in Atlanta. The two male callers appear to be discussing how to dispose of a body:

“The first spot we are checking out is close to the house.”

“We want to make sure it’s in a secluded area and the ground is soft so we can go 3 feet deep.”

“Get a bag, put it over his head, and stuff something in his mouth.”

“However you feel like doing it, just do it.”

“Make sure to clean the area up. Don’t leave anything. Don’t leave any DNA behind.”

Following the call, authorities tried to enter Melton’s cell and he temporarily barred the door and smashed the phone. A few hours later, they located Janssen in Atlanta at the Forest Cove Apartments.

Charged with kidnapping were: Jenna Paulin Martin; Tiana Maynard; Jevante “Flame” Price; Michael “Hot” Montreal Gooden and Clifton James Roberts. Authorities also recovered a .45-caliber handgun, picks and a shovel, according to the FBI.

Those arrested appeared Thursday before a federal magistrate judge in Atlanta. They are due back in court for a bond hearing Tuesday, when they will each have a lawyer appointed by the judge.

According to prison records, Melton is being held on “maximum control” status after racking up several infractions over the past year, including being cited for possessing a weapon and twice for having a mobile phone.

In 2013, 747 mobile phones were confiscated from inmates in North Carolina’s prisons. So far this year, 166 have been seized.

Officials at the state Department of Public Safety concede many are smuggled in by prison employees bribed by inmates or their relatives. They are now investigating how Melton got the phone he allegedly used to help orchestrate the kidnapping of his prosecutor’s father.

“The department is deeply concerned about any corrupting influence by inmates against Adult Correction employees and will aggressively investigate and take action against offenders and staff involved in using cellphones to conduct criminal activity from inside prison walls,” Secretary Frank L. Perry said. “It will continue its ongoing efforts with increased intensity toward stopping contraband from entering any of its facilities.”

View Source

The highest-ranking leader of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel ever to be arrested on U.S. charges secretly pleaded guilty in Chicago more than a year ago to conspiring to distribute tons of cocaine and heroin and is cooperating with law enforcement, federal officials announced today.

Vincente Zambada-Niebla, 38, is a close associate of captured Sinaloa loader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and is the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is believed to have taken control of the vast enterprise after Guzman’s arrest in February.

Prosecutors said Zambada-Niebla, known as “Mayito” or “Little Mayo,” was for years the logistical coordinator of a billion-dollar cocaine and heroin operation, overseeing the delivery of thousands of kilograms of cocaine and heroin into the U.S.

He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo’s courtroom on April 3, 2013. Prosecutors in Chicago today unsealed his 23-page plea agreement.

Under federal sentencing guidelines, Zambada-Niebla faces life in prison, but prosecutors said that if he continues to “provide full and truthful cooperation” they will ask for an unspecified break in his sentence. As part of the plea deal, Zambada-Niebla agreed not to fight an order to forfeit in excess of a staggering $1.37 billion. A sentencing date has not been set.

In a written statement, U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon praised the work of federal agents “to hold accountable those individuals at the highest levels of the drug trafficking cartels who are responsible for flooding Chicago with cocaine and heroin and reaping the profits.”

Zambada-Niebla was arrested in 2009 in Mexico City when he was indicted with Guzman, his father and other alleged Sinaloa cartel leaders in what was considered the most significant drug case in Chicago history. The indictment accused the cartel of using jumbo jets, submarines, tunnels, and other means to smuggle drugs into the U.S.

Pedro and Margarito Flores, twin brothers from Chicago’s West Side who had risen in the ranks of Guzman’s organization, provided key cooperation against Zambada-Niebla, leading to the seizure of millions of dollars worth of drugs between 2005 and 2009, according to court records.

Margarito Flores attended a meeting in 2008 with Zambada-Niebla, Guzman and other cartel leaders at a mountaintop compound in Mexico, the charges allege. Flores told authorities that Guzman discussed a plot to attack a U.S. or Mexican government or media building in retaliation for the recent arrest of an associate.

Later in the conversation, Zambada-Niebla turned to Flores and asked him to find somebody who could give him “big, powerful weapons” to help carry out the attack, according to court records.

“American (expletive). We don’t want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),” Zambada-Niebla said, according to Flores’ account of the conversation in court records. “We don’t need one, we need a lot of them.”

Zambada-Niebla admitted in his plea agreement that between May 2005 and December 2008, he was a high-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel and was responsible for many aspects of its drug trafficking operations, “both independently and as a trusted lieutenant for his father.”

According to the plea deal, Zambada-Niebla coordinated the importation of multi-ton quantities of cocaine from Colombia and Panama into Mexico and facilitated the transportation and storage of these shipments within Mexico.

Zambada-Niebla also admitted that he was aware that the cartel used violence and made credible threats of violence to rival cartels and to law enforcement in Mexico to facilitate its business.

Guzman remains in custody in Mexico, where he is facing additional charges. Zambada-Niebla’s father remains a fugitive.

View Source

A three-month investigation into an alleged north suburban heroin distribution ring has led to the arrests of a former Wilmette resident, an Evanston resident, a Glencoe resident and a juvenile from Chicago, authorities announced today.

Authorities alleged that a heroin distribution network was operated by Nikkolas Casillo, 28, a former Wilmette resident who allegedly supplied the drug to lower-level drug dealers in Chicago and on the North Shore who then resold the heroin in area communities.

Authorities said Casillo, now of the 4400 block of West Washington Boulevard in Chicago, is charged with manufacture/delivery of heroin; manufacture/delivery of heroin within 1,000 feet of a public park, school or church; employing a person under 18 to deliver a controlled substance; and possession of heroin over 15 grams, all felonies.

Officials said Casillo was arrested in Chicago on Monday after he allegedly directed a 17-year-old female to deliver heroin to an undercover officer. The juvenile was taken into custody during the drug sale. Officers recovered additional heroin and a small amount of cannabis from Casillo’s apartment, police said.

The juvenile, 17 and from Chicago, is charged with manufacture/delivery of heroin, including near a school, park or church.

Another one of the suspects, who authorities said is one of Casillo’s lower-level dealers, was arrested after undercover officers purchased heroin from him, officials said.

That man, identified by police as James Findlay, 23, was arrested Monday in a vehicle in the driveway of his residence in the 800 block of Greenwood in Glencoe, authorities said. They also said that he was in possession of a small amount of cannabis at the time of his arrest.

The driver of the vehicle, Taylor Appelbaum, 23, was also arrested after he was found to be in unlawful possession of prescription pills and cannabis, said authorities.

Findlay was charged with manufacture/delivery of heroin, including near public park, school or church and misdemeanor possession of cannabis, police said.

Appelbaum, of the 1700 block of Oak Street in Evanston, is charged with felony possession of a controlled substance and misdemeanor possession of cannabis, authorities said.

The investigation was launched after information was developed by Wilmette police of heroin use and sales on the North Shore, authorities said Wednesday. The Cook County Sheriff’s Police was contacted and a joint investigation led to numerous sales of heroin to undercover officers posing as suburban residents, said authorities.

“I think anytime we arrest somebody that’s selling drugs to kids it’s a satisfying bust,” Wilmette police commander Patrick Collins, said Wednesday. “The officers did a good job. Heroin has become a concern because of its relatively cheap cost…this drug is now making its way back.”

View Source

The 73-year-old man at the CTA bus stop caught the attention of Chicago police officers last month as they approached the 5700 block of North Ashland Avenue in their cruiser. Wearing a black coat and winter hat, he matched surveillance photos from an attempted bank robbery a few blocks away just 45 minutes earlier.

“I’m already in trouble,” Roosevelt Gordon announced to officers when asked where he was coming from, according to the arrest report. “I took some money from a bank a couple of months ago.”

In fact, five months earlier, a federal judge had given Gordon a break by releasing him to home detention after his arrest in connection with one bank holdup and two attempted robberies. Now authorities say Gordon — once an ordained minister, according to his family — is suspected in two additional attempted bank robberies last month while out on bond. He is being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Chicago’s Loop.

At a detention hearing in October, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Cole implored Gordon to stay out of trouble when he ordered him released to home with electronic monitoring. Prosecutors had sought detention, but Cole appeared to make up his mind after Gordon first appeared in his courtroom a day earlier.

“Please, I’m begging you. Just stay home, enjoy your wife, stay out of her way, whatever you need to do,” the judge said. “But don’t do anything wrong. You can’t violate any state, federal or local law. And you can’t have guns and you can’t have liquor to excess and you can’t use narcotics. It’s real common sense.”

Gordon’s brother Otis, who has talked to him only a few times in the last few years, said he and the rest of his large extended family — their parents had 13 children — learned of Gordon’s arrest last fall on TV. He hadn’t heard of the two most recent robbery attempts until a reporter talked to him last week.

“Shocked, the whole family,” the brother said from the living room of his house in the Austin neighborhood. “The whole family was calling each other. We would have put him up, whatever, would have paid his rent, but he was used to money. He wanted to live that lifestyle, but he didn’t have to do that. That was his pride. That’s what pride will get you.”

Gordon had been a trucker by trade in addition to his work as a minister, according to his brother. He had come into a substantial amount of money from an insurance settlement after a trucking accident and spent freely until it was gone, said his brother, who has had limited contact with him since 2012.

“He was a really good person. He shared money with the family when we, you know, we was not destitute but struggling,” Otis said. “But he lost a lot of money. … He liked Cadillacs. He was definitely used to having money.”

After his first arrest last fall, Gordon told FBI agents that he decided to rob a bank after he and his wife were evicted from their apartment several months earlier, the charges alleged. Police records show he was convicted of aggravated battery in the 1990s and was sentenced to probation.

Two separate criminal complaints against Gordon paint a picture of an ineffective bank robber. A number of tellers didn’t take him seriously when he announced a robbery despite his indications in some cases that he was armed. In his last holdup attempt, he implied he had a handgun concealed under a stocking cap pulled over his left hand. Another time he threatened to kill a teller, according to the charges.

When tellers hesitated, Gordon usually mumbled something about being in the wrong bank and calmly walked out empty-handed, the charges allege. He left four of the five robberies without any money, authorities said.

His only successful holdup occurred Sept. 24 at a BMO Harris Bank branch at 111 W. Monroe St., 10 minutes after he failed to rob another downtown bank, authorities said. Even then, the teller asked him, “Are you serious?” Assured he was, the teller removed all the loose cash in the drawer. Gordon, wearing a baseball cap and blue button-down shirt, tucked the $3,721 in cash into a jacket pocket and coolly said goodbye to the unsuspecting security guard as he walked out, according to the complaint.

He was arrested Oct. 16 while waiting to catch a CTA bus after an unsuccessful attempt to hold up a nearby Bank of America branch at 4758 N. Racine Ave., according to the charges.

After his release Oct. 18 under the electronic monitoring program, Gordon was allowed to leave his home to attend church, visit doctors, shop for groceries and collect his Social Security check. He was also cleared to attend mental health counseling in November.

Gordon apparently heeded the judge’s advice and stayed out of trouble, but for only a few months.

On March 17, the charges allege, he tried to rob the Albany Bank and Trust in the 3400 block of 3400 West Lawrence Avenue but left without any cash. Three days later, he was arrested at a CTA bus stop shortly after he attempted to hold up a Fifth Third Bank branch at 5501 N. Ashland Ave. without success, authorities said. Officers found no weapon on him.

Not surprisingly, Gordon’s lawyer this time didn’t attempt to win his release from custody.

In October, the judge made it explicitly clear to Gordon what would happen if he got in any kind of trouble while out on bail. If Gordon was late for or missed an appointment with officials in the same courthouse the next day, he would be jailed again, Cole warned.

“I’ll be here,” Gordon said.

View Source

GRAND RAPIDS, MI April 5 2014 – Grand Rapids Public Schools security officers helped police track down a teen who allegedly carried a concealed stolen handgun during a fight Thursday near the district’s Central Campus.

Police were called to a fight between about 15 people in the area of Lyon Street and Prospect Avenue NE about 2:54 p.m. April 3.
Security officers from nearby Innovation Central High School, 421 Fountain St., attempted to break up the altercation and noticed a 17-year-old male with a handgun, police said. The teen rode away on a bicycle before police arrived.

The suspect isn’t a student, but a security officer provided police with his name and a description.

Police arrested the teen about a half-mile away near Hawthorne Street and Eastern Avenue NE. The handgun was recovered in a garage in the 100 block of Langdon Avenue NE. Police said the suspect admitted to dropping the gun there after the fight.

Police determined the gun was reported stolen to the Wyoming Police Department.

The suspect is held on charges of carrying a concealed weapon and possession of a stolen firearm, police said. The prosecutor’s office will review the case Friday.

Anyone with additional information about the incident is asked to call police at 456-3604 or Silent Observer at 774-2345.
MLive!
View Source