FBI Violent Gang Taskforce

 

 About 30,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with approximately 800,000 members operate in the U.S. today. Many are sophisticated and well organized; all use violence to control neighborhoods and boost their illegal money-making activities, which include drug trafficking, robbery, theft, fraud, extortion, prostitution rings, and gun trafficking. Here, you’ll find more on the threats posed by gangs, on how you can help spot and prevent gang activity, and on how we’re redoubling our efforts to disrupt and dismantle them through intelligence-driven investigations and new initiatives and partnerships.

Other Resources

• New L.A. Gang Task Force
• Director on Gang Response
• MS-13 Up Close
• How We’re Targeting MS-13
• Fighting Global Gangs

• Recent Statistics
• Violent Gang Task Forces
• Success Stories
• Gallery

• National Gang Threat Assessment (pdf)
• Gang Toolkit for Parents, Educators, Police
• National Youth Gang Center

MS-13 National Gang Task Force

 Based at FBI headquarters, the MS-13 National Gang Task Force combines the expertise, resources, and jurisdiction of federal agencies that investigate this violent international street gang. It focuses on maximizing the flow of information and intelligence, coordinating investigations, and helping state and local law enforcement improve operations and prosecutions targeting MS-13. The task force can be reached by calling (202) 324-5340.

National Gang Intelligence Center

To help curb the growth of gangs and related criminal activity, the FBI spearheaded the creation of the National Gang Intelligence Center (NGIC) in 2005. A multi-agency effort, the NGIC integrates gang intelligence from across federal, state, and local law enforcement on the growth, migration, criminal activity, and association of gangs that pose a significant threat to the U.S. Its mission is to support law enforcement by sharing timely and accurate information and by providing strategic/tactical analysis of intelligence.

Technorati tags: ms-13, violent, la gangs, global gangs, international street gangs, international crime, fbi, united states

UN Mismanagement update: turns a blind eye in more aid fraud

Courtesy of the Sydney Morning Herald (Hattip to World Net Daily)

UN turns a blind eye to reports of million-dollar aid fraud

TSUNAMI reconstruction funds worth $US500 million are being lost to fraud and corruption because of the failure by the United Nations to implement its own anti-fraud measures.

This claim is made by the UN’s former deputy director of investigations, Frank Montil, a former ASIO officer who for a decade was the deputy director of the UN’s internal watchdog unit, set up to investigate fraud and corruption within the UN and its agencies.

In an exclusive interview with the Herald, Mr Montil said “the oil-for-food scandal taught them nothing”. The fraud and corruption which had been occurring during the tsunami reconstruction period would come back to haunt the UN, which had willfully ignored all the warning signs.

For the rest of the story: UN turns a blind eye to reports of million-dollar aid fraud

Previous stories at World Net Daily:

The day U.N. killed 227,000

New anti-U.N. ad debuts

Americans reject U.N. relief control

Quake, roaring sea, … now pestilences

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Previous commentaries at World Net Daily:

U.N.: Poster child of irrelevancy

Tsunami relief: Let’s finally hold the U.N. accountable

America the stingy

Stingy Sam

U.N. unqualified for relief effort

Technorati tags: un, united nations, fraud, corruption, reconstruction, tsunami-devastated Indonesia, Australia

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The Evolving Terroris Landscape

AL QAEDA TODAY

The Evolving Terrorist Landscape

Courtesy of the FBI

A 22-year-old student—code-named “Irhabi 007”—creating a global virtual support network for terrorist plotters in Canada, Denmark, Bosnia, and the U.S., all from his basement apartment computer in London.

Small but sophisticated groups tapping into the larger al Qaeda brand—perhaps even receiving funding and training from bin Laden & Co.—but operating largely as independent terrorist franchises.

Homegrown, self-radicalized extremists inspired by the violent dogma of al Qaeda germinating plans to gun down soldiers at Fort Dix and blow up a pipeline at J.FK. Airport.

It’s the new shape of terrorism—specifically al Qaeda driven or inspired—as outlined Friday by Director Mueller at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

In the speech, the Director describes the new three-tiered threat posed by al Qaeda and its diverse band of affiliates and supporters around the world, whether that is in suburban basements, in ungoverned spaces or tribal areas in places like Pakistan and Africa, or in the shadows of the Internet.

“When America’s hammer fell on al Qaeda, al Qaeda broke into a hundred pieces,” the Director said. “Some of our adversaries were stopped, but others spread. The network is now diffuse.”

Especially in cyberspace, which the Director called “terrorism’s new frontier, offering both persuasive inspiration and practical instruction.” In the case of Younis Tsouli—aka “Irhabi 007” or “Terrorist 007”—the web was a tool to teach both the ideology and technology of terrorism. Tsouli, traced through a telephone number found in a terrorist safe house in Bosnia, posted thousands of files online, ranging from “videotaped beheadings to detailed manuals for constructing car bombs and suicide vests.”

And how to respond to this ever-evolving threat? With a united front that transcends national boundaries, agency jurisdictions, and national security disciplines. The Director says the FBI’s goal is to be an “effective bridge” in exactly those areas…and he gave several examples of how we’re filling that role today:

• By working alongside the military in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, operating as a team to “search safe houses, collect biometric evidence, analyze explosive devices, and trace terrorist financing.”
• By becoming a fully integrated member of the Intelligence Community, with stronger than ever relationships with the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security.
• By sharing information “on a daily basis with our intelligence counterparts on every continent, from MI5 in Britain to the Mabahith in Saudi Arabia.”
• By working closely with our 800,000 state and local law enforcement partners in the U.S. and with our counterparts overseas through our international offices now located in 60 capitols worldwide.
• And by being a part of globally coordinated investigations, where in the Tsouli case, for example, many different countries “made joint decisions as to when to move in and disrupt the plots, so as to protect the integrity of each other’s operations.”

To learn more about the new face of terrorism and our role in intersecting the work of militaries, intelligence services, and law enforcement agencies, we encourage you to read the full speech.

Resources:

• Director’s remarks
• FBI Counterterrorism operations

Technorati tags: terror cell, terrorists, Younis Tsouli, Irhabi 007, Terrorist 007, radical Islam, afghanitan, iraq, safe house, bimetric evidence, terrorist financing, internet terrorism, Homegrown, self-radicalized extremists, al Qaeda, Fort Dix, J.FK. Airport, counterterrorism

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The Hippo and the Tortoise — a true story

Emailed to me from a friend.  Verified at Truth or Fiction.Com

NAIROBI (AFP) – A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.  The hippopotamus, nicknamed Owen  and weighing about 300 kilograms (650 pounds), was swept down Sabaki River into the Indian Ocean , then forced back to shore when tsunami waves struck the Kenyan coast on December 26, before wildlife rangers rescued him.

“It is incredible. A-less-than-a-year-old hippo has adopted a male tortoise, about a century old, and the tortoise seems to be very happy with being a ‘mother’,” ecologist Paula Kahumbu, who is in charge of Lafarge Park , told AFP.

“After it was swept away and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized.  It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond.
They swim, eat and sleep together,” the ecologist added.

“The hippo follows the tortoise exactly the way it followed its mother. If somebody approaches the tortoise, the hippo becomes aggressive, as if protecting its biological mother,” Kahumbu added.

“The hippo is a young baby, he was left at a very tender age and by nature, hippos are social animals that like to stay with their mothers for four years,” he explained.

This is a real story that shows that our differences don’t matter much when we need the comfort of another.

Save the Earth … it’s the only planet with chocolate.

Technorati tags: hippo, giant tortoise, lafarga park, kenya, Tsunami Survivor, hippopotamus, nature, human interest, humanity

Ramos and Compean update; Ex-Border Patrol Agents file appeal

Courtesy of the Washington Times

Ex-border agents appeal convictions
September 24, 2007

     Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents sentenced to lengthy prison terms for shooting a drug-smuggling suspect have asked a federal appeals court to overturn their convictions, saying they were charged with a nonexistent crime and convicted after the jury was given improper instructions by the trial judge.

     Houston defense lawyer J. Mark Brewer said two counts of a grand jury indictment against former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean charged them under a federal statute with the discharge of a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, but the statute does not define a crime and contains only a sentencing factor to be addressed after conviction.

     Mr. Brewer said in a 20-page motion that the “improperly-crafted indictment” misfocused the agents, counsel and jury on a nonexistent crime of unlawful discharge of a firearm, because the agents were authorized to possess, carry and use a firearm in the normal course of their job.

      He said that in order to charge a crime under the government’s 10-year mandatory sentence statute, an indictment “must allege that a defendant either has used or carried a firearm … during and in relation to any crime of violence or has possessed a firearm in furtherance of such a crime.” He said the prosecution “misstated” the crime defined by federal statute.

      Mr. Brewer said the district court “erroneously told the jury the federal statute made it a crime for anyone to discharge a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence.”

     A ruling in the case is expected next month.

     “This is an outrageous case of prosecutorial abuse,” said Paul Kamenar, senior executive counsel for the Washington Legal Foundation, a watchdog group among eight organizations and persons who have filed briefs in support of the agents. “Instead of prosecuting the drug smuggler, the Justice Department filed a dozen felony charges against two agents trying to do their job.”

      The pending appeal is being heard by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and seeks to overturn 11- and 12-year prison terms Ramos and Compean received, respectively…… For the rest of the story: Appeal

Technorati tags: ramos, compean & Ramos, compean, immigration, border patrol, Ignacio Ramos, Jose Alonso Compean, Washington Legal Foundation

Why is the United States ignoring terrorist activity in Venezuela?

Courtesy of Kenneth Rijock, Financial Crimes expert, World Check

19 September 2007

On 11 September 2001, on the executive floor of a major Venezuelan bank located on Margarita Island in the Caribbean, eyewitnesses reported that the champagne was flowing freely. Why? Because of the terrorist attacks on the World-Trade Centre and Pentagon that day. The bankers, who were engaged in funneling cash to known terrorist groups in the Middle East, were morbidly toasting the “success” of Al-Qaeda on that deadly day. The bank’s overt actions, supporting terrorist organisations through financing their activities, has never resulted in either OFAC sanctions, or any other punitive action from the United States. Why is America reluctant to confront Hamas, Hizballah, ETA and their financiers in the Western Hemisphere? Is it as Allan Greenspan states, all about oil? Is the US afraid that the Chavez government will turn off the petrol tap?

Let us  examine what else has been studiously ignored by the US government since 2001:

• Al-Qaeda theoretician Mustaphah Setmarian Nasar (UID 45641) lived openly in Venezuela whilst he was wanted by Interpol. Believed to be the intellectual author of the Madrid Train bombings, and holding both Syrian and Spanish citizenship, Nasar was escorted daily to Caracas’ principal mosque by armed government bodyguards driving black Hummers. He was seen in Margarita Island, and also at a port facility where freighters bearing Panamanian registry ship out for Iran regularly. Were they transporting Uranium for Iran’s nuclear programme? We cannot say, but Nasar has been linked to Carlos Rafael Lanz Rodriguez [UID 248222] , the ex-career terrorist* is currently the president of Venezuela’s state-owned national aluminium company, Alcasa, which is believed by mining engineers to be mining and trafficking in Uranium.

• The emergence of Hamas and Hizballah operatives in the Western Hemisphere. They are raising money through drug trafficking, arms sales, human smuggling, and sundry other illicit activities, all of which eventually results in the shipment of the proceeds of these crimes to their Middle Eastern commanders.

• The wholesale issuance of Venezuelan identity documents (Cedulas and Venezuelan passports) to Arab radicals who are allowed to enter the country. the Venezuelan Consulate in Maicao, Colombia has reportedly performing these services  for large numbers of people in transit from the Middle East to parts unknown. The next time you meet a Venezuelan who doesn’t speak Spanish, you may have seen a terrorist in the flesh.

• ETA terrorists wanted in Spain have found safe harbour in Venezuela, who actually pays them $600 per week in living expenses. They do not earn this stipend in any way, it is paid purely to sustain them whilst they live freely in the country. Spain this week announced its intention to hunt down these terrorists.

• Venezuela has long served as both a jumping-off point for terrorists entering the United States, and a refuge for terrorist suspects fleeing this country after having aroused law enforcement interest. This includes persons of interest to the FBI, who are believed to be connected with the World Trade Centre bombing.

• Hizballah continues to work openly in the country, through its local affiliate, Hizballah Venezuela.

Kenneth Rijock can give many other examples, but the above should be sufficient to show clearly that the US obsession with the conflict in Iraq has caused America to totally ignore terrorist threats much closer to home. These are clear and present dangers that need attention, lest they mature into actual terrorist operations within the United States.

Why does Kenneth Rijock get the feeling that nobody’s paying attention in Washington?  Perhaps it is because there has not been a significant arrest of an important terrorist agent by the United States in all of Latin America in the last six years.  We hope that the present administration will now be shamed into finally assuming a  proactive role in countering the growth of terrorism in Latin America.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________ * Lanz is known to be a hard-core terrorist who once kidnapped and held a prominent American businessman, William Niehaus,for ransom for several years. He has been linked to Venezuela’s expanding relationship with Iran.

Al-Zawahiri to the U.S.: "Do Not Ask President Bush When The Soldiers Will Return– Ask Instead How Many Will Return"

VIEW THE NEW MEMRI TV WEBSITE AT: www.memritv.org

Special Dispatch-Jihad and Terrorism Studies Project  September 21, 2007

No. 1721

Al-Zawahiri to the U.S.: “Do Not Ask President Bush When The Soldiers Will Return– Ask Instead How Many Will Return”

To view this Special Dispatch in HTML, visit:
Al-Zawahiri to the U.S.: “Do Not Ask President Bush When The Soldiers Will Return– Ask Instead How Many Will Return”.

The Islamist website www.ekhlaas.org/forum/, which is hosted by Layered Technologies, Inc. in Texas, USA, posted, on September 20, 2007, an 80-minute video of Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri speaking on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of 9/11.

The video was produced by the Al-Sahab media company in the month of Sha’ban, 1428 (August-September 2007), apparently prior to September 11, 2007, and is subtitled in English.

In the video, statements by Al-Zawahiri are interspersed with footage of jihad fighters in various places around the world, audio clips from Osama bin Laden’s speeches, statements by Western commentators and U.S. officials, and more.

Following are the main points of Al-Zawahiri’s statements in the video:

First, Al-Zawahiri expresses his condolences for the death of the martyr cleric Maulana Abd Al-Rashid Ghazi in Afghanistan, promises to avenge his death, and calls on Muslims to follow in his path and in the path of other jihad-fighting clerics.

Al-Zawahiri then accuses Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf of selling Pakistan’s honor and religion, and says that Musharraf’s forces are serving “the hunting dogs of the Crusaders-Zionists.”

He then spoke of the Americans’ defeat in Iraq by the jihad fighters; an announcer then attributes this to the “sacrifice of the jihad fighters, first among them Abu Mus’ab Al-Zarqawi.”

Al-Zawahiri then advised the Americans, “Do not ask President Bush when the soldiers will return; ask instead how many of them will return.”

Al-Zawahiri called on the Muslims in the Maghreb to bring Andalusia back into the fold of Islam, and stated that this could only be done by “purging the Islamic Maghreb of the French and the Spanish who have returned there.”

He calls on the Sudanese to wage jihad against the Crusader invasion of Darfur, as their brothers did in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Further on in the video, Al-Zawahiri addresses the issue of jihad in Somalia, Chechnya, and Palestine, and calls on the Islamic nation to support the jihad fighters “under the victorious banner of the Prophet.”

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The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) is an independent, non-profit organization that translates and analyzes the media of the Middle East. Copies of articles and documents cited, as well as background information, are available on request.
MEMRI holds copyrights on all translations. Materials may only be used with proper attribution.

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Search previous MEMRI publications at www.memri.org

Seagull Shoplifter

So, this bird walks into a store…….

 

A seagull in Scotland has developed the habit of stealing chips from a neighborhood shop. 

The seagull waits until the shopkeeper isn’t looking, and then walks into the store and grabs a snack-size bag of cheese Doritos.

Once outside, the bag gets ripped open and shared by other birds.

The seagull’s shoplifting started early this month when he first swooped into the store in Aberdeen, Scotland, and helped himself to a bag of chips. Since then, he’s become a regular. He always takes the same type of chips.

Customers have begun paying for the seagull’s stolen bags of chips because they think it’s so funny.  For the rest of the story:  BBC SHOPLIFTING SEAGULL

Bin Laden Urges Pakistani Jihad

Courtesy of AP News, MyWay

  CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to rebel against President Pervez Musharraf in a new recording released on Thursday, saying his military’s siege of a militant mosque stronghold makes him an infidel.

The storming of the Red Mosque in Islamabad in July “demonstrated Musharraf’s insistence on continuing his loyalty, submissiveness and aid to America against the Muslims … and makes armed rebellion against him and removing him obligatory,” bin Laden said in the message.

“So when the capability is there, it is obligatory to rebel against the apostate ruler, as is the case now,” he said, according to a transcript released by Laura Mansfield, a U.S. terrorism expert who monitors militant message traffic.

Bin Laden’s voice was heard over a video showing previously released footage of the terror leader. It was posted Thursday on Islamic militant Web sites.

For the rest of the story: Bin Laden calls for Jihad in Pakistan

Ayman al-Zawahri releases new video tape days after Osama

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) – Al-Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said the United States was being defeated in Afghanistan, Iraq and other fronts in a new video released Thursday, the latest in a series put out by the terror network.

The video came days after Osama bin Laden released two messages to mark the Sept. 11 anniversary—including his first new appearance in a video in nearly three years.

The 80-minute video posted on Islamic militant Web sites Thursday was in a documentary style, touting al-Qaeda’s activities in various areas, including Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and North Africa.   For the rest of the article: New al-Qaeda Video Released