Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

By

Phantom CEO busted for encrypting Blackberry for cartel use

The chief executive of a company that created highly-secure smartphones allegedly used by some of the world’s most notorious criminals has been indicted.

Canadian-based Phantom Secure made “tens of millions of dollars” selling the modified Blackberry devices for use by the likes of the Sinaloa Cartel, investigators said.

The charges marked the first time US authorities have targeted a company for knowingly making encrypted technology for criminals.

The Department of Justice arrested Vincent Ramos in Seattle last week. He was indicted on Thursday along with four associates.
. . .
They are charged with racketeering and conspiracy to aid the distribution of drugs. Both crimes have a maximum penalty of life in prison. Mr Ramos is the only one of the group currently in custody.

“This organisation Phantom Secure was designed to facilitate international drug trafficking all throughout the entire world,” US attorney Adam Braverman told the BBC.

“The difference is this company was specifically-designed to aid international drug trafficking organisations,” and new customers needed a referral from an existing customer. A six-month subscription cost $2,000-$3,000, easily affordable by their target customers.

The only surprising thing is that it took this long to create the business.

UPDATE
Linked to by The Other McCain. Thank you!

Share

By

Mexico: Hernandez and Martinez found dead

The two special agents kidnapped by the CJNG have been found,
Forensic experts in Mexico say human remains found last week are those of two special agents kidnapped by armed men earlier this month.

The two agents went missing on 5 February while they were on leave attending a christening in Nayarit state, western Mexico.

Mr Martínez, a 26-year-old lawyer, and Mr Hernández, a 28-year-old criminologist, had joined the agency less than a year ago.

Their bodies were found in a car in the city of Xalisco. So far no one has been arrested in connection with their killing.
. . .
The country experienced its most violent year in 2017 with more than 25,000 murders, official figures suggest.

It is the highest annual tally since modern records began. Organised crime accounted for nearly three-quarters of those murders.

in case you missed it, Jesús Pérez Caballero examines Mexico’s CJNG: Local Consolidation, Military Expansion and Vigilante Rhetoric

In each of the states where the group operates, it continues to successfully exploit its defining features: the flexibility to combine a military perspective with its historical criminal ties, a strategic commitment to become involved in pre-existing conflicts, and the promotion of vigilante rhetoric through propaganda.

Read the full article.

UPDATE

Share

By

Mexico: CJNG kidnaps two special agents

Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación (Jalisco New Generation Cartel) is on the move. Here are two articles:

Two members of a special investigative police force who disappeared in Mexico a week ago have been shown in a video posted on YouTube.

The two agents from the Criminal Investigation Agency appear sitting in front of five masked men who force them at gunpoint to read a statement.

The armed men are believed to be members of the Jalisco New Generation cartel.

The cartel has been expanded rapidly and aggressively across Mexico.

Mexico’s Attorney General Raul Cervantes recently declared it the nation’s largest criminal organisation and it has been blamed for a series of attacks on Mexican security forces and public officials.

Here’s the YouTube (in Spanish),

Jesús Pérez Caballero analyzes at InSight Crime, Mexico’s CJNG: Local Consolidation, Military Expansion and Vigilante Rhetoric

The CJNG is expanding its presence and influence throughout Mexico. In each of the states where the group operates, it continues to successfully exploit its defining features: the flexibility to combine a military perspective with its historical criminal ties, a strategic commitment to become involved in pre-existing conflicts, and the promotion of vigilante rhetoric through propaganda.

At the moment, the rewards of this strategy seem to outweigh the risks assumed by the Jalisco Cartel New Generation (Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación – CJNG) and its leader, Nemesio Oseguera, alias “El Mencho.”

Read the full report.

Share

By

Uruguay: The big watch robbery

Remarkable for the type of crime, and for the involvement of Mexican nationals.

Infobae reports that a gang of thirteen Mexican commandos broke into a jewelry store in the resort city of Punta del Este (link in Spanish), wearing hoods and carrying machine guns. the jewelry store is located at the Hotel Casino Enjoy Conrad de Punta del Este.

Among the 200 watches stolen during the three minutes they were at the store was a US$460,000 limited edition Jaeger Lecoultre watch.

The least expensive watch retails for $10,000.

Here’s the security video,

Nine people are under arrest, all Mexicans.

And,
After I wrote the post, I’m puzzled, why watches? All premium watches are registered by the manufacturers’ numbers and are traceable.

Share

By

El Chapo promises to not kill jurors

It’s jailbird Tuesday!

“That’s a great jury you put together“?

Notorious drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán promises he won’t kill any jurors seated in his upcoming federal court trial, arguing it’s therefore unnecessary to keep them anonymous and under armed guard as prosecutors have asked.

HOW WEST SIDE BUST LED THE FEDS TO ‘EL CHAPO’. STREET-LEVEL DEAL SPARKED PROBE OF WORLD’S NO. 1 DRUG KINGPIN, INTERVIEWS, RECORDS SHOW

Authorities have never revealed that the case against the man who some believe was the biggest drug kingpin in the world began with Baines, a mid-level dealer whose father owned a grocery store in Austin and also drove a bus for the CTA.

But a Sun-Times review of court records and interviews with Baines and others involved in the case, including a key former federal prosecutor, has found that a Drug Enforcement Administration task force used a web of informants and hundreds of wiretapped calls to trace a path that ultimately led from Baines to El Chapo.

“We went from the streets of Chicago to the mountaintops of Mexico,” says Thomas Shakeshaft, a former assistant U.S. attorney who supervised each phase of the investigation. “We started a case against the Traveling Vice Lords on the West Side of Chicago and went all the way up.

“Before Sean Penn flew down to Mexico with [actress] Kate del Castillo and recorded this thing where Chapo admitted he was the largest drug-trafficker in the world, we had the only legally admissible voice recording of Chapo in the world.”

Video,

There are even Breaking Bad-like identical twins*,  Pedro “Peter” Flores and Margarito “Junior” Flores.

The twins agreed to cooperate with U.S. investigators in late 2008, court records show, and Pedro Flores recorded a damning phone conversation with his supplier — El Chapo. The recording became the key evidence in the 2009 federal indictment filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago.

Read the whole thing.

————————————————-

*Breaking Bad twins,

Share

By

Florida felon caught trying to flee to Ecuador with money laundering to-do list

Claiming he was granted asylum in Ecuador, Florida man was caught at the airport with a money laundering to-do list while awaiting sentencing,

[Nikesh] Patel, of Windermere, Fla., pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago in 2016 to five counts of wire fraud, admitting in a plea agreement with prosecutors that he sold tens of millions of dollars in fraudulent loans to an investment firm in Wisconsin and blew the cash on a lavish lifestyle and to buy hotels, court records show.

He had a money laundering to-do list when he was stopped at the Kissimmee airport while trying to flee to Ecuador,

he was carrying a document that laid out an elaborate escape plan, from applying for political asylum in Ecuador to marshaling ill-gotten assets to buy $30 million in diamonds from a merchant in Dubai.

The document, which was titled “What we are doing,” appeared to be written to an unidentified person aiding him in the escape attempt, according to the prosecution filing made last week.

“I have got my final asylum approval and need to move things along and cannot just sit around here and wait any longer,” Patel wrote. “I managed to get a few more dollars (don’t ask how) so as of today, I have a total of $35MM in ‘dirty’ money.”

The document went on to detail how Patel was finalizing the purchase of a 104-carat “fancy dark” diamond — “one of the rarest diamonds in the world and very sought after” — through a merchant he trusted in Dubai, according to the court records.

Patel’s wife and children had already fled to Ecuador after his arrest. He had obtained a new passport from a friend in India late last year and applied for political asylum in Ecuador. He used to own a hotel in Peoria.

If you’re going to be crook, Fleeing to South America? Leave the incriminating to-do list at home

Share

By

Mexico: Cartels cripple the country’s refineries

Nearly ten years ago, one of this blog’s readers was aware of this,
THE REFINERY RACKET: Mexico’s drug cartels, now hooked on fuel, cripple the country’s refineries

Drug gangs pressure refinery workers to tap the lifeblood of Mexico’s oil industry. One former worker fled the country. One former gang member helps authorities understand the racket.
. . .
Between 2011 and 2016, the number of unauthorized taps discovered on Mexico’s fuel lines nearly quintupled, according to a recent report by the federal auditor. Repair costs surged almost tenfold, to 1.77 billion pesos ($95 million).

A May 2017 study, commissioned by the national energy regulator and obtained by Reuters via a freedom of information request, found that thieves, between 2009 and 2016, had tapped pipelines roughly every 1.4 kms (0.86 mi) along Pemex’s approximately 14,000 km pipeline network.

After decades of poor upkeep, the refineries are bleeding money as well as fuel. In addition to unscheduled outages, which cause big operational losses, maintenance problems have led to fatal accidents, including fires and explosions.

Share

By

The Steinle verdict

The defense presented a credible case that the death was an accident, while the prosecution pressed for a first degree murder conviction (which would have meant that Garcia premeditated killing Steinle).

Read my post, The Steinle verdict



Share