On Q Professional Investigations

A convicted murderer who escaped from an Ohio prison in 1978 by cutting through cell bars and a fence was captured in Minnesota’s capital, where he had a job delivering newspapers, the U.S. Marshals Service said Friday.

Oscar Juarez, 66, was among Ohio’s most wanted fugitives and evaded being caught while on the run despite being arrested but let go at least seven times in the 1980s.

He was taken into custody Thursday night in St. Paul, Minnesota, at an apartment building on a tree-lined street, said Pete Elliott, the U.S. marshal for northern Ohio. It wasn’t clear how long he had been in Minnesota.

He was living alone in St. Paul under a different name, said Chris Clifford, the supervisory deputy U.S. marshal in Minneapolis. Juarez told authorities he’d been living in Minnesota for 20 years, but “we are finding that hard to believe,” Clifford said.

Juarez made an initial appearance before a U.S. magistrate in St. Paul on Friday. He will be held until a hearing next week to determine his identity and argue detention.

He gave the magistrate a different name when he was asked if he understood his rights. But Elliott said there was no doubt it was Juarez, noting his fingerprints were a match and the name he gave was that of a deceased person.

Juarez was arrested at least six times on minor charges in California and once in 1988 in Texas, but he went undetected because he was using fake identities, Elliott said.

“We know if he was in several different states over the years,” Elliott said. “It wasn’t one thing that led us to his doorstep. It was a number of things and good old-fashioned police work.”

He apparently worked as a welder and machine operator, the FBI said in a most wanted advisory.

It appears that Juarez had family in Texas and Ohio and may have picked Minnesota at random, Clifford said.

Juarez was serving a life sentence for fatally shooting a Toledo man after a bar fight in 1975.

He escaped from a state prison in Marion three years later by sawing through prison bars and cutting through a fence, according to the marshals. They say he also put a dummy in his bed and covered it with blankets.

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Inside the Investigation of a Las Vegas Construction Boss

When a federal judge sentenced former Las Vegas construction boss Leon Benzer to nearly 16 years in prison in August, it marked a final chapter in a $58 million fraud scheme that took investigators nearly a decade to unravel.

Over a period of many years, Benzer brazenly sought to gain control of numerous condominium homeowners associations (HOAs) in the Las Vegas area to secure lucrative construction and other contracts for himself and additional conspirators. To date, 44 individuals, including numerous state officials, have been convicted of crimes in connection with the fraud—which has been described as one of the largest public corruption cases in Nevada history.

“This case represented an incredibly complicated financial fraud with a significant public corruption component,” said Special Agent Michael Elliott, who spent nearly eight years working on the investigation from the FBI’s Las Vegas Division. “It involved so many people over so long a period of time, it was like an intricate spider web of crime that kept expanding.”

The scheme was nothing if not grandiose. In attempting to control dozens of Nevada HOAs between approximately 2002 and 2009, Benzer, an attorney, and other conspirators recruited straw buyers to purchase condominiums and then secure positions on HOA boards of directors. Benzer rigged HOA board elections and paid board members to take actions favorable to his interests—including hiring his co-conspirator’s law firm to handle construction-related litigation and awarding profitable construction contracts to Benzer’s company, Silver Lining Construction.

Benzer manipulated and bribed HOA boards in a variety of ways—he often claimed he had local judges and law enforcement in his pocket; in other cases, he fooled unwitting homeowners into thinking his actions were legitimate and they were simply making wise investment choices.

In September 2008, investigators executed a search warrant—one of nine that would take place during the investigation—and found that Benzer was in the process of targeting well over 20 different HOAs for illegal takeovers. “There were boxes and boxes of folders with information about different HOAs,” Elliott said. “He was deliberately attempting to identify board members along with other information to target what he believed were HOAs vulnerable to takeover through bribery, extortion, or whatever illegal means could be used.”

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Authorities were searching Sunday for three suspects who allegedly attempted to smuggle $5.4 million worth of drugs into Puerto Rico from the Dominican Republic.

Police said they arrested Teofilo Tineo Gonzalez, a 36-year-old Dominican man, after seizing about 518 pounds (235 kilograms) of cocaine and heroin and a 22-foot (6.7-meter) boat on the coast west of San Juan, but three other suspects got away.

Police Superintendent Jose Caldero said authorities were hunting for three others they believe were aboard the boat that left the Dominican Republic for the U.S. territory on Wednesday night.

A hotel security guard alerted police around 10 p.m. Saturday about four people unloading packages from the boat in a suspicious manner. Police were interviewing the arrested man before turning him over to federal authorities.

The superintendent said police this year have seized about 14,300 pounds (6,500 kilograms) of drugs, mostly cocaine, more than what was seized in 2013 and 2014 combined.

The U.S. Coast Guard is also having a record year. Last month, it seized $41 million worth of cocaine and marijuana during Caribbean interventions.

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NEWPORT NEWS, Va. (WAVY) — Newport News Police and the ATF are investigating a gun store burglary that happened overnight.

Police said they responded to an alarm at The Marksman, a firearms training center, shooting sports retailer and indoor shooting range, located in the 500 block of Industrial Park Drive, just before 2 a.m. Officers said they found a car had been driven through the building and was completely inside. Several guns were taken, but no suspects were at the scene, police said.

The car is a 2006 Lincoln and it was stolen from the Kiln Creek area of Newport News between 6 p.m. on Monday and 6 p.m. Tuesday, police said. The keys were left in the car.

Business owner George McClain said surveillance video shows it all happened in minutes.

“They backed the car up to the curb there and then put black marks down. They floored it, and so when they hit the wall, they hit it full speed. Our security video shows the car penetrating the wall, and when it did, the front tires were in excess of 12 inches off the ground, so they were coming in pretty good,” he said.

McClain thinks the burglars planned the crime carefully, and took at least 25 guns, valued at approximately $450 each.

“It’s very obvious, looking at the videos, that they knew exactly where the guns were. They didn’t waste any time looking some place else or looking for the guns. They went right to them, so this is somebody that has been in the store and they were there for a reason…Everyone wants to talk about, you know, the guns are the problem. It’s not the guns. It’s these type of individuals,” McClain said.

The ATF’s industry operations investigators and Violent Crimes Task Force are also working on the case.

Anyone with information on the burglary or the stolen car is asked to call the Newport News Crime Line at 1-888-LOCK-U-UP.

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Friday, Aug. 28, proved to be a very bad day for 24-year-old Demarcus Linwood. Sgt. Stan Seo with the King County Sheriff’s Office tweeted out at 11:24 a.m. that day “citizen arrested Demarcus Linwood in White Center this morning then called KCSO. Saw fugitive on Washington’s Most Wanted”.

Linwood, nicknamed “Charm”, is a level 3 sex offender and between Aug. 25 and Aug. 28 was a fugitive from the law. After pleading guilty to failing to register as a sex offender Linwood was granted release to attend a funeral. He never showed to his next court date after that and apparently went into hiding.

A citizen who watches Washington’s Most Wanted recognized Linwood in White Center and apprehended the sex offender. After restraining him this good Samaritan called the King County Sheriff’s Office and turned Linwood in.

At the time of his arrest Linwood was facing 43 months for the failure to register charge and an additional 43 months for a rape that he plead guilty to. Linwood has been in trouble with the law since he was 14 and his other offenses include attempted robbery, criminal trespass and multiple assault convictions.

According to Washington’s Most Wanted Linwood prefers his victims to be teenagers and attempts to befriend them on the bus, on the street or at a large event (concerts, gatherings, parties, etc.). Once he gained the victim’s trust he would brutally attack and rape them.

There are two victims that are known of and their cases are outlined in the Washington’s Most Wanted profile for Linwood. In 2013 police put out a bulletin on Washington’s Most Wanted asking more victims to come forward so they could build a larger case against Linwood.

While it has not been revealed how exactly the citizen that arrested Linwood went about it Washington State does allow for citizens to lawfully make arrests if the criminal is committing a felony or misdemeanor. Typically the few RCWs that applies to arrests made by citizens are applied to security guards or loss prevention officers.

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WASHINGTON – Fourteen years after its reported theft from a Paris museum, a Pablo Picasso painting will be returned to France. The repatriation of “La Coiffeusse” follows an investigation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) as a part of Operation Toile.

ICE Director Sarah R. Saldaña presided over the official transfer of the painting at a ceremony held at the French Embassy in Washington Aug 13.

“The recovery and return of stolen artwork and other cultural artifacts remains a significant priority for ICE,” said ICE Director Saldaña. “As our world continues to shrink, protecting cultural treasures has become even more important and we are committed to doing everything we can to return them to their rightful owners.”

Pursuant to an investigative lead, HSI and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials conducted an inspection of a targeted shipment in December 2014 in Newark, New Jersey. Upon inspection, the painting was revealed and seized as the shipment contained, in addition to the stolen painting itself, fraudulent statements regarding the shipment’s value, country of origin and description. The shipping label described its contents as a low-value handicraft valued at 30 euros.

In reality, the cargo contained a $15 million painting by Picasso, which has been listed on the Interpol Stolen Works of Art database since it was reported stolen in 2001.

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Twelve alleged gang members face fraud, aggravated identity theft and other charges in connection with a federal indictment accusing them in a money order scheme at banks in the New York area and along the East Coast, authorities said Tuesday.

Eight of the 12 suspects were arrested early Tuesday during a raid at the Van Dyke Houses in Brownsville by Department of Homeland Security agents, U.S. Postal Inspectors and NYPD, officials say.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said the case suggests that “members of street gangs, like the Van Dyke Money Gang, have expanded their criminal repertoire to include white collar crimes like bank fraud and identity theft.”

“Today’s arrests dismantle a gang that allegedly used bank fraud and identity theft to line their pockets with cash using a scheme that cost New York banks over $1.5 million dollars,” HSI Special Agent-in-Charge Raymond J. Parmer Jr. added in a press release.

According to the indictment, the defendants fraudulently obtained blank postal and Western Union money orders and printed a specific dollar amount, usually under $1,000 on them. They allegedly recruited bank account holders and used their accounts to deposit the fake orders.

The defendants, allegedly members of the Van Dyke Money Gang, then withdrew the money from those accounts; they used more than 350 accounts for those purposes, the indictment alleges.

The scheme defrauded New York-area banks, as well as ones along the East Coast from Boston to Washington, D.C., out more than $1 million, authorities said.

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Reaching Out to Diaspora Communities in U.S. for War Crimes Tips

Five years ago, nearly a dozen former soldiers who served during the Bosnian civil war in the early ‘90s before settling in Arizona were sentenced for lying on their applications for refugee status when they came to the U.S. Last year, a Bosnian-born Minnesota man was arrested on fraud charges for not disclosing crimes—including murder, kidnapping, and robbery—he allegedly committed during his military service in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In January, a Bosnian-born Vermont man was found guilty of lying to get into the U.S. and obtain his naturalized citizenship.

These cases illustrate efforts across multiple agencies and international borders to hold accountable any individuals who committed war crimes or atrocities overseas before entering and settling in the U.S. And Bosnian war criminals represent just a sampling of the subjects being sought. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) is pursuing more than 1,900 leads and cases on individuals from about 96 countries. The FBI, which works alongside HSI and special prosecutors at the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center in Northern Virginia, has pending investigations in nearly a third of our 56 field offices.

Managing the FBI’s role in identifying, locating, and investigating these cases is the Bureau’s International Human Rights Unit (IHRU), which works closely with partner intelligence agencies and the Department of State to identify subjects and gather leads. Agents in the unit then coordinate the FBI’s approach in the field—whether it’s collecting intelligence, developing sources, or just meeting leaders in diaspora communities to make them aware that the FBI is seeking tips on the whereabouts of suspected war criminals and human rights violators.

“We are asking those communities, ‘If you know somebody or if you have heard of somebody who has done those things, let us know and then we’ll go from there,’” said Thomas Bishop, head of the IHRU. “I think in a lot of these communities, people know someone who was involved with something—or they hear about somebody being involved—but they may not know what to do with it. All we need is a tip so we can see if there’s anything to it.”

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FRANKFORT, Ky. (WHAS11) – A Franklin County man who escaped a North Carolina prison in 1972 turned himself into Kentucky authorities Monday after being on the run for more than four decades.

Franklin County Sheriff Pat Melton confirmed Monday night the man who identified himself as Clarence David Moore is the same person identified by North Carolina Department of Public Safety records as escapee David Edward Moore.

Moore, 66, called the sheriff’s office around 4 p.m. to turn himself in, Melton said.

“I need to make this right and get through this,” the sheriff recalled Moore saying.

Melton said deputies took Moore to the Frankfort Regional Medical Center to be checked out before transferring him to the Franklin County Jail.

According to North Carolina Department of Public Safety prison records, Moore had been convicted of larceny in July 1967 and was 23 at the time of the reported escape from the former Polk Youth Institute in Butner, North Carolina on June 10, 1972.

The records show he was originally scheduled to be released from the facility June 1, 1978.

During his time on the run, Melton said, Moore was involved in a 2009 car accident in Franklin County but did not have any identification to verify his identity, allowing him to evade capture.

Melton said, as a result of now learning his true identity, deputies obtained a contempt of court arrest warrant in connection to that wreck.

Melton said Moore would be arraigned in court Tuesday morning. It’s unclear whether the existing escape charge would supersede the local charge.

“If he agrees to be extradited willingly, our extradition office will make arrangements to have him returned to NC to serve the remainder of his sentence,” North Carolina Department of Public Safety Spokesperson Keith Acree said in an email, “If he fights extradition, then a more complicated legal process begins to get him returned to NC.”

When calculated, there have been 15,654 days between Moore’s escape and capture.

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U.S. immigration officers arrested 2,059 convicted criminal aliens in a five-day operation, the Department of Homeland Security said on Monday.

Those arrested are subject to being removed from the United States, and more than 1,000 have multiple criminal convictions, the department said in a statement.

The sweep, called “Cross Check,” started March 1 and ended March 5. It was the sixth such operation since May 2011, the statement said.

More than 1,000 of those arrested were convicted of felonies, including voluntary manslaughter, child pornography, robbery, kidnapping and rape.

Those arrested include 58 known gang members or affiliates and 89 convicted sex offenders. Most of the misdemeanor convictions were for driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, the statement said.

The detained foreign nationals who do not face U.S. prosecution will be processed for deportation, it said, without giving a breakdown of the nationalities of those arrested.

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