Drugs smuggling on US – Mexico corridor

By Land, Sea or Catapult: How Smugglers Get Drugs Across the Border

The majority of illegal drugs enter the United States in an assortment of vehicles, with drugs hidden in secret compartments in door panels or the roof, gas tanks, tires and even engines.

Smugglers also dig cross-border tunnels, primarily to move large volumes of marijuana. While many tunnels are rudimentary, others have lighting, tracks and ventilation systems, even elevators. As of March 2016, a total of 224 tunnels were discovered on the Southwest border since 1990.

Cargo trains, tractor-trailers and passenger buses have been used to move illegal drugs. Trucks and trains carrying fresh produce such as watermelons, limes and other fruits and vegetables have been used to bring in narcotics. Drug shipments are often painted green and hidden within crates with fake watermelons or limes. Cocaine has been found in tomato crates.

More in NY Times article

Another method used by smugglers: Coast Guard Intercepting Submarine Carrying $181 Million In Drugs

The Coast Guard Cutter Stratton crew seizes bales from a self-propelled semi-submersible submarine interdicted in international waters off the coast of Central America, July 19, 2015. The Coast Guard recovered more than 6 tons of drugs from the 40-foot vessel.

GEORGE FRIEDMAN DESPRE ISRAEL

Notițe de lectură despre strategia politică a SUA aferentă Israelului, descrise de George Friedman în “Următorul deceniu: de unde venim … și încotro ne îndreptăm” (2011): Capitolul 6.

Statele Unite au recunoscut independenţa Israelului în 1948, dar cele două ţări nu au fost aliate în nici un sens al cuvântului. În timp ce SUA au recunoscut întotdeauna dreptul Israelului de a exista, acest lucru nu a constituit niciodată subiect cu adevărat important în politica Statelor Unite. În 1948, atunci când Israelul a devenit realitate, interesul american principal era limitarea influenţei Uniunii Sovietice, iar atenţia Americii se concentra în primul rând asupra Turciei şi a Greciei.

Problema strategică a Israelului consta în faptul că necesităţile sale de securitate naţională depăşeau întotdeauna propria bază industrială şi militară. Cu alte cuvinte, având în vedere ameninţările din partea Egiptului şi Siriei, şi posibil şi a Iordaniei, ca să nu mai vorbim despre Uniunea Sovietică, nu putea produce armele de care avea nevoie pentru a se apăra. Pentru a asigura o sursă stabilă de armament, avea nevoie de un protector străin important.

Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report, 2019 Q1

Cryptocurrency Anti-Money Laundering Report, 2019 Q1, by http://www.ciphertrace.com

Highlights from the report:
– Criminals stole more than US$356 million from exchanges and infrastructure during the first quarter of 2019. 
– A tsunami of tough new global anti-money laundering(AML) and counter-terror financing(CTF) regulations will roll over the crypto landscape in the coming year.
– On March 6, 2019, the UN Security Council reported North Korean state-backed hackers successfully breached at least five cryptocurrency exchanges in Asia between January 2017 and September 2018, causing $571 million in losses. 
– Iran announced the imminent launch of its long-rumored Crypto Rial, a state-backed stable coin developed with the express purpose of circumventing political sanctions and overcoming sanctions-related restrictions by SWIFT. 
– Bithumb, The largest cryptocurrency exchange in South Korea, Bithumb, was hacked in March, and attackers made away with $14 million in EOS and XRP. According to Bloomberg, Bithumb said the incident was most likely caused by an “accident involving insiders” because an external intrusion path hadn’t been revealed after an inspection. This was the second major hack experienced by Bithumb. In June 2018, cybercriminals robbed the exchange of $30.8 million in cryptocurrency. 
– In February 2019, the FATF published a draft of an Interpretive Note to Recommendation 15, further clarifying how its regulation recommendations apply to virtual assets. These changes will guide regulatory authorities in a member country when identifying risk, sharing information, and monitoring virtual asset service providers. Additionally, virtual asset service providers will need to be registered or licensed, agree to monitoring by competent authorities, and comply with FATF Recommendations 10-21 (which include policies regarding customer due diligence, record-keeping, politically exposed persons, higher-risk countries, suspicious activity reports, ad confidentiality). The note will be adopted as a part of FATF Standards in June 2019.

More info on:

Click to access ciphertrace-q1-2019-cryptocurrency-anti-money-laundering-report.pdf

Banking on Bitcoin

Banking On Bitcoin

 Prin interviuri cu utilizatori entuziaști și experți, acest documentar prezintă modul în care a apărut moneda virtuală bitcoin, viitorul său și tehnologia care o susține.

Human Trafficking: It Happens Here

Human Trafficking: It Happens Here

Although slavery is commonly thought to be a thing of the past, human trafficking still exists today at the global level. Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery where people profit from the control and exploitation of others. There are an estimated 21 million men, women, and children who are victims of labor and sex trafficking worldwide.

Real Human Trafficking Stories

Young Boy was Kidnapped and Almost Killed.

What is Bitcoin?!

Bitcoin or the cryptocurrencies are rapidly becoming a popular buzzword nowadays. Everyone heard about folks that are millionaires in bits. But what is the bitcoin?

An interesting article from NY Times “What Is Bitcoin, and How Does It Work?” gives us some useful explanations:

A Bitcoin is a digital token — with no physical backing — that can be sent electronically from one user to another, anywhere in the world. A Bitcoin can be divided out to eight decimal places, so you can send someone 0.00000001 Bitcoins. This smallest fraction of a Bitcoin — the penny of the Bitcoin world — is referred to as a Satoshi, after the anonymous creator of Bitcoin.

Unlike traditional payment networks like Visa, the Bitcoin network is not run by a single company or person. The system is run by a decentralized network of computers around the world that keep track of all Bitcoin transactions, similar to the way Wikipedia is maintained by a decentralized network of writers and editors.

The record of all Bitcoin transactions that these computers are constantly updating is known as the blockchain.

FinCEN Issues Advisory on the Iranian Regime

FinCEN Issues Advisory on the Iranian Regime’s Illicit and Malign Activities and Attempts to Exploit the Financial System

Release: October 11, 2018

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) issued an advisory to help financial institutions better detect and report potentially illicit transactions related to the Islamic Republic of Iran.

“This advisory lays out in great detail the extent to which the Iranian regime uses deceptive practices, including front companies, fraudulent documents, exchange houses, seemingly legitimate businesses and government officials, to generate illicit revenues and finance their malign activities. Iran’s deceptive practices have been orchestrated not only by elements of their government such as the IRGC-Qods Force, but also by Central Bank of Iran officials who were at the highest levels. Any country that allows its Central Bank to be involved in deception in support of terrorism requires the highest levels of scrutiny, particularly when the country itself is the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism,” said Sigal Mandelker, Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.

“Governments, financial institutions of all types around the world, and other companies need to be on high alert to the types of schemes described in this advisory. More than that, as we expect Iran to continue to attempt to engage in wide scale sanctions evasion while simultaneously using its resources to fund a broad array of malign activity, financial institutions should continue to sophisticate their compliance programs to keep these actors from exploiting them.”

For example, the Iranian regime has masked illicit transactions using senior officials of the CBI, who used their official capacity to procure hard currency and conduct transactions for the benefit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF) and its terrorist proxy group, Lebanese Hizballah. Accordingly, financial institutions are advised to exercise appropriate due diligence when dealing with transactions involving exchange houses that may have exposure to the Iranian regime and/or designated Iranian persons, and the advisory details examples of exchange house-related schemes. Iran-related actors use front and shell companies around the world in procurement networks through which the Iranian regime has gained goods and services related to currency counterfeiting, dual-use equipment, and the commercial aviation industry.

The advisory further warns financial institutions to be on the lookout for possible evasive practices involving Iranian shipping companies. Financial institutions should also be aware of possible Iranian abuses of virtual currency and precious metals to evade sanctions and gain access to the international financial system and to conceal their nefarious actions.

More on:
www.fincen.gov/ news release
www.fincen.gov Full Advisory in pdf format

EU TERRORISM SITUATION AND TREND REPORT 2018 (TESAT)

This 2018 edition of the annual TESAT report issued by EUROPOL provides an overview of the nature and volume of terrorism that the EU faced in 2017.

“The human suffering and the threat of terrorist attacks still remains high in Europe. In 2017 European countries were again hit by terrorist attacks and there were many innocent victims of this indiscriminate violence. It therefore goes without saying that combatting terrorism remains a top priority for Europol.”

GEORGE FRIEDMAN DESPRE GEOGRAFIA POLITICĂ ÎN ORIENTUL MIJLOCIU

Notițe de lectură despre strategia politică în regiunea Orientului Mijlociu descrise de George Friedman în “Următorul deceniu: de unde venim … și încotro ne îndreptăm” (2011): Capitolul 6.

În 1453, turcii cuceriseră Constantinopolul şi până în secolul al XVI-lea o mare parte din teritoriul care fusese odată cucerit de Alexandru cel Mare. Cea mai mare parte din Africa de Nord, Grecia şi Peninsula Balcanică, precum şi zona care se întinde de-a lungul ţărmului nordic al Mării Mediterane, s-a aflat sub control otoman din vremea lui Columb şi până în secolul XX.

Toate acestea s-au sfârşit în momentul în care otomanii, care se aliaseră cu Germania, au fost învinşi în Primul Război Mondial. Prada a ajuns în mâna învingătorilor, aceasta incluzând provincia otomană numită Siria.[…] Împărţirile ulterioare au dat naştere nu numai Siriei moderne, ci şi Libanului, Iordaniei şi Israelului.

Francezii doreau să reprezinte o influenţă în regiune încă din epoca lui Napoleon. Făcuseră, de asemenea, o promisiune să apere creştinii arabi din zonă împotriva majorităţii musulmane a populaţiei. […] în anii 1920, când francezii au ajuns în sfârşit să deţină controlul, au transformat regiunea predominant maronită (creştină) a Siriei într-o ţară separată, denumind-o după elementul topografic dominant, munţii Liban. Ca stat, Libanul nu avea nici o realitate anterioară. Singura trăsătură care unea populaţia era o anumită afinitate faţă de Franţa.

Zona britanică din sud a fost împărţită în mod similar prin nişte linii arbitrare[în funcție de interesele și promisiunile britanicilor]… După ce britanicii s-au retras în 1948, Transiordania a devenit Iordania de astăzi, o ţară care, precum Libanul şi Arabia Saudită, nu a existat înainte

Nici una dintre aceste frânturi nu era o naţiune, în sensul deţinerii unei istorii sau identităţi comune, cu excepţia Siriei, care îşi revendica o descendenţă ajungând până în remurile biblice. Libanul, Iordania şi Palestina erau invenţii franceze şi britanice, menite să le aducă avantaje politice. Istoria naţională nu ajungea decât până la domnul Sykes şi domnul Picot şi la câteva înşelătorii britanice în Arabia.

“Furtul miliardului nu putea fi realizat fără implicarea politicienilor”!

Convorbirea telefonică dintre fostul președinte al Curții Constituționale Alexandru Tănase și omul de afaceri Veaceslav Platon despre jaful bancar din Republica Moldova.

Bun venit în lumea interlopă locală în care desigur doar cetățenii acestei țări au de suferit.