On Q Professional Investigations

“This week, the Arizona State Legislature has scheduled hearings for several important pro-gun bills. Bills scheduled for hearings include:

Senate Bill 1266, sponsored by state Senator Steve Smith (R-11), would improve the state firearms preemption law to ensure consistency throughout the Grand Canyon State. This would be done by providing a mechanism to declare unlawful regulations null and void in addition to providing penalties for knowing and willful violations by localities. SB 1266 is a much-needed protection that will help law-abiding gun owners ensure they are in compliance with the law. SB 1266 is scheduled for two hearings on Wednesday, February 3. The first hearing is at 9:00am in the Senate Public Safety, Military and Technology Committee and the second at 2:00pm in the Senate Government Committee.

Senate Bill 1257, sponsored by state Senator John Kavanagh (R-23), makes changes to existing law and expands the list of places where law-abiding gun owners can exercise their fundamental right to self-defense to include some additional public areas where certain security measures are not in place. SB 1257 is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Government Committee at 2:00pm on February 3.

House Bill 2446, sponsored by state Representative David Livingston (R-22), makes necessary revisions to Arizona’s current definition of a “prohibited weapon” to exclude all firearms or devices that are legally possessed in compliance with the National Firearms Act (NFA). The technical correction made by HB 2446 changes the registration of NFA items from the Treasury Department to the appropriate Federal Agency in order to be compliant with current federal law. HB 2446 is scheduled for a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee at 9:00am on Wednesday, February 3.

House Bill 2494, sponsored by state Representative Steve Montenegro (R-13), would offer a tax credit for the costs incurred during the taxable year for training courses taken by the taxpayer, a spouse or a dependent, in order to apply and qualify for a permit to carry a concealed weapon in Arizona. HB 2494 was scheduled for a hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee​ yesterday, and is now being held in committee for further consideration.”

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As soon as next year, a driver’s license may no longer be enough for airline passengers to clear security in some states, if the Department of Homeland Security has its way.

Federal officials said they would soon determine whether Transportation Security Administration agents would start enforcing a 10-year-old law that required states to comply with a set of federal standards when issuing driver’s licenses.

The issue is quickly intensifying, and the debate over identification and privacy has grown after the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California.

But some states have bitterly opposed these requirements out of privacy concerns, and more than a dozen have passed laws barring their motor vehicle departments from complying with the law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The new standards require more stringent proof of identity and will eventually allow users’ information to be shared more easily in a national database.

Privacy experts, civil liberty organizations and libertarian groups fear the law would create something like a national identification card.

Federal and state officials have been arguing for years about the merits of the law, called the Real ID Act, which was enacted by Congress in 2005 on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission. Its proponents argue that it is a necessary tool to reduce identity theft and fraud, and enhance the nation’s security.

The federal government cannot force states to adopt these identification standards, but it can gain compliance in other ways. In October, it began requiring that visitors to military bases, nuclear plants and federal facilities produce a driver’s license from a state that complies with the law, or show another form of government ID, like a passport.

But the biggest leverage the government has over the states is commercial air travel.

The Department of Homeland Security said it would provide a schedule by the end of this year for when airport screeners would start accepting only driver’s licenses that complied with federal standards. It said that 120 days’ notice would be given before starting to enforce the law at airports.

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Do you have what it takes to be a special agent? The FBI is now accepting applications from talented and motivated individuals who want to embrace this challenging and rewarding opportunity to serve their country and communities.

Special agents bring with them a variety of experience and skills, from computer science and engineering to law and accounting. The FBI is looking for diversity of perspective to effectively achieve its mission.

Applicants must successfully complete the Special Agent Selection System (SASS), a mentally and physically challenging process designed to identify the most capable candidates. The SASS includes an online application to screen for eligibility and willingness, followed by a number of exams, interviews, and background evaluations. Applicants are rated on their individual competitiveness and the professional needs of the FBI. The process can take six months to a year.

Becoming a special agent isn’t easy. In fiscal year 2014, the Bureau received more than 20,000 applications for approximately 700 special agent vacancies.

Before you apply, make sure you meet the preliminary standards (with some exceptions):

Be a U.S. citizen
Be between 23 and 36 years of age
Possess a bachelor’s degree
Have at least three years of full-time work experience
Have lived in the United States or its territories for three of the last five years.

For more information, visit https://www.fbijobs.gov/special-agents

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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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Seattle will receive $1.5 million to combat human trafficking, U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch said during a visit to the city.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch came to Seattle Thursday to praise the progress of police reforms, meet with community organizers and announce a $1.5 million grant to help fight human trafficking.

It was Lynch’s first visit to Seattle since being named the country’s top law-enforcement officer, and it coincided with the release of the latest report by a federal monitor overseeing Department of Justice-mandated (DOJ) reforms of the city’s police department. The report found the SPD had reached initial compliance with three out of four key reforms involving the use of force by officers.

However, the report by federal court-appointed monitor Merrick Bobb said the department still has a lot of work before it reaches full compliance with a 2012 consent decree between the city and the DOJ to curb the use of excessive force and avoid biased policing. Thursday’s report dealt with the first four of 15 initial assessments the monitor will conduct over the next several months.

Lynch’s visit was part of a six-city tour to promote Community Oriented Policing, a concept at the core of the efforts to reform the SPD. The department came under investigation after community groups complained about harsh methods and lack of accountability that had resulted in a loss of confidence.

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Albanian Crime Group Used Violence, Intimidation in Business Dealings

Loan sharking. It’s a term that might conjure up historical images of shadowy organized crime figures handing out questionable loans at exorbitant interest rates to desperate customers, usually followed by threats of violence if the loans aren’t paid off.

Unfortunately, loan sharks are alive and well in 2015 and continue to benefit from the financial misfortunes of others. Last month, the two top leaders of an Albanian criminal organization operating in the Philadelphia area were sentenced to lengthy federal prison terms for running a violent loan sharking and illegal gambling ring. Ylli Gjeli, the boss, and Fatimir Mustafaraj, the muscle, were convicted late last year after a six-week trial. Two other defendants were convicted at the same trial.

From 2002 to 2013, Gjeli and Mustafaraj led the multi-million-dollar criminal enterprise with two primary sources of income: loan sharking and illegal gambling. The illegal gambling arm of the operation included an online sports betting website that contributed more than $2.9 million in gross profits to the group’s criminal coffers. There was often crossover between the two arms of the organization—when customers couldn’t cover their gambling losses, bookies would refer them to the loan sharking side of the house.

The illegal activity took place in various Philadelphia bars and coffee houses owned or controlled by the organization. In addition to the gambling operation, Gjeli, Mustafaraj, and company generated money by making loans to customers at interest rates that ranged from 104 percent to 395 percent and demanding weekly repayments.

These repayment demands were almost always accompanied by acts of intimidation. Customers were menaced with firearms, hatchets, and threats of physical harm to themselves or family members. In a number of instances, perhaps to create the false impression that the Albanians were part of a larger and more powerful organization, customers were told that “people from New York” were willing to cause bodily harm to anyone who didn’t pay up.

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As if misguided anti-gun policies that leave our fighting men and women defenseless stateside weren’t enough, some gun control advocates are intent on reviving a Clinton-era gun control tactic that would pose a danger to our military in the field.

In an opinion piece for the Saturday edition of the New York Times, several representatives of the Metro Industrial Areas Foundation, described as a group “aimed at building power for social change,” encouraged President Obama to inject gun control politics into federal firearms acquisition procedure.

More specifically, Metro-IAF wants the president to exercise the federal government’s purchasing power to reward firearms manufacturers that acquiesce to “voluntary” gun control measures in its dealings with civilian gun owners, and punish those that refuse to curb the rights of American gun owners.

According to the group, “For the government to keep buying guns from these companies — purchases meant to ensure public safety — without making demands for change is to squander its leverage.”

The first organization Metro-IAF would like to foist their gun control experiment on is the U.S. Army.

The group states, “The Pentagon is in the process of selecting the provider of handguns for the United States Army. It should require all bidders to provide detailed information about their gun safety technologies and distribution practices in the civilian market. No response, no contract.”

Another target specifically mentioned by Metro-IAF is the FBI. However, it appears the group would like to extend this strategy to all of federal law enforcement.

Under the group’s plan, in order to compete for federal contracts, manufacturers would be required to fund unprofitable “smart gun” technology, only sell through dealers that will not complete a sale following a delayed NICS check that extends past the three-day safety-valve provision (a potential gun ban for the significant number of persons wrongfully delayed each year), and “distribute their guns exclusively through dealers that sell guns responsibly.”

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McALLEN — Six of the seven Mexican drug cartels have established command and control in Texas and are recruiting at schools across the state, San Juan Police Chief Juan Gonzalez said Thursday at the School-Based Law Enforcement Summit.

For the first time since the annual summit began almost 40 years ago, school police officers spent an entire day focused on border crimes, including sex trafficking of students.

“It was important for us to make this possible because this is about our children and their livelihood,” said Sylvia Cruz, director of security and risk management for the Mission school district, which paid for the extra day of training.

Nearly 200 officers learned about human trafficking, teen suicide, and transnational criminal organizations, among other issues during the four-day summit.

Organized by the Texas State University Institute for Criminal Justice Studies (ICJS), the summit gives officers the chance to earn up to 32 of the 40 training hours mandated by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement every two years.

Last year, they trained about 1,000 peace officers and have more than 1,200 already registered this year.

The summits aim at providing free research-based training focused on law enforcement issues at both the K-12 and higher education levels, said Joe Muñoz, program manager at the ICJS.

“There’s a wealth of information that we are giving the participants,” Muñoz said. “From gang intervention to mental health expansion, to inappropriate relationships, we are giving them the tools they need to help these kiddos.”

A major focus of this year’s training dealt with domestic sex trafficking and how to detect children who are being targeted by human traffickers, who often use technology to recruit and prey on children with vulnerabilities including those lacking family support.

The average age of children recruited into forced prostitution is 11-14 years old, according to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC).

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Security officer Jeremy Reed frequently sees it at the Yakima County Courthouse: lines of people spilling out of the building and sometimes reaching about a half a block to the corner of North Second Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Each person entering the courthouse must place their belongings into plastic trays, remove their belt, surrender purses and bags to a search, and walk through a metal detector.

Long lines are no cause for personnel to rush. “We’re going to be here, do the job,” Reed said one recent afternoon. “It’s still one bag, one person at a time.”

Once, the general public could simply walk into the courthouse without any security checks through entrances at both ends of the building. But that was before increasing violence at government structures, including schools, prompted a nationwide move to heighten security.

Long lines have been increasing in frequency because nearly four years ago, the county stepped up security at the courthouse by reducing public access to a single set of doors facing Second Street and installing security guards and metal detectors.

Everyone is screened, one at a time, before entering. But the intense screening slows access to the building, often clogging the lobby and sidewalk outside when foot traffic into the courthouse is high, especially during jury trials and tax season.

Yakima County Commissioner Kevin Bouchey said a safer courthouse is worth the wait in line because gang-related murder trials and domestic violence cases aren’t going away.

“It’s a changing world and unfortunately we have to do this,” Bouchey said. “It’s a necessity.”

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Hikvision secures one of Cape Town’s busiest and most affluent suburbs with Licence Plate Recognition solution and sees 65% decrease in crime

Some of Cape Town’s busiest roads, leading to one of the wealthiest suburbs, are now being secured with an automated Licence Plate Recognition system installed by LPR Solutions. At its heart is a network of 42 sophisticated Day/Night cameras from Hikvision, whose iVMS video management software streams the video data to the LPR software. The increased surveillance has led to a dramatic drop in crime within the suburb, down an indicated 65% following the introduction of the cameras.

Sea Point is one of Cape Town’s most affluent and highly developed suburbs, the only one in fact to have high-rise development of any significance. The area’s oceanside location and general level of affluence make it very popular with city residents who enjoy the beach front promenade, a paved walkway along the beach-front used by residents and tourists for walking, jogging and socialising. It is also attracting a large amount of investment in second homes and apartments.

However, it is not that long ago that the area was regarded as less desirable, even dangerous. On top of South Africa’s high crime rates, many of the apartment blocks had been neglected by the absentee landlords, leaving them in poor physical condition. The result was a very high crime rate, much of which was attributed to vehicle-borne criminals.

Monitoring universal access
Located just a few kilometres west of the city’s Central Business District, the roads that access Sea Point are some of the busiest in the entire peninsular. Many arterial roads lead in and out of the area, providing drivers with a wide variety of route options and appealing to residents and legitimate visitors. However, the sheer number of route options means that the criminal fraternity has also been able to enjoy only partially restricted access to this valuable real estate.

Recognising the possibility to improve the safety and security of the area, the Sea Point City Improvement District, a joint Municipal/Police entity, decided to establish a licence plate recognition (LPR) system to monitor Sea Point’s access roads and highways. Their aim was to identify and track every individual vehicle entering or leaving the area and co-ordinate law enforcement activity to combat crime. To design and implement the system they turned to local company, LPR Solutions.

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