1179 posts tagged with crime.
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Is that QR code a scam?
According to Click2Houston: Houston is warning the public about a scam they’ve learned about in Texas cities and may be affecting people using on-street parking stations in Houston. Officials said Wednesday that fraudulent QR codes are being affixed to on-street parking pay stations. These fraudulent QR codes link to a non-city-affiliated website or a fake vendor. In the past three weeks, Houston officials say parking enforcement officers in both San Antonio and Austin discovered fraudulent QR codes affixed to on-street parking pay stations. [more inside]
There's a new sheriff in town!
Manhattan has a new District Attorney, Alvin Bragg. And now that he has been sworn in, he is coming in hot with a policy memo directing Manhattan prosecutors to stop prosecuting certain crimes (e.g. misdemeanor pot, jumping turnstiles, prostitution) and sharply curtailing pretrial detention, in addition to a number of additional significant reforms (like a presumption that cases against adolescent defendants will go to family court). [more inside]
The latest in the bonkers Ebay stalking case
Amazon. Etsy. eBay. Lots of companies appeared in David and Ina Steiner’s E-commerce newsletter. Only one tried to take them out. Previously 1, Previously 2, and Previously 3.
Putting the Indiana in Indiana Jones
Don Miller, a resident of rural Indiana, spent a lifetime collecting of tens of thousands of archeological artifacts, showing it off to visitors. His method of obtaining the artifacts though was not quite legal. How the FBI Discovered a Real-Life Indiana Jones in, of All Places, Rural Indiana.
That's a Lot of Dead People and Crime
Let Me Say This With As Much Sensitivity As I Can: Wow, That’s a Lot of Dead People and Crime. Ben Mathis-Lilley at Slate on the long, strange history of disgraced South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh's family.
‘It has to be known what was done to us’
Reading the criminal complaint in June 2020, the Steiners got a view for the first time of what had been going on inside eBay during their torment. “The vitriol towards us, where did it come from?” David asked. “We didn’t even know these people,” Ina added. “We were helping their customers sell more. That should be a good thing.” (CW: stalking, harassment)
AN0M
'When an Australian underworld figure began distributing customised phones containing the app to his associates as a secure means to communicate, police could monitor their messages'. 'From 2018, the FBI was covertly in control of An0m and Australian police introduced the technical ability to decrypt communications on the platform and monitor them for years'. 'Police claim the plan to use an encrypted app was hatched overseas over a few beers with FBI agents in 2018, before police figured out how to decrypt all messages'.
When great powers continually destabilize each other and foment unrest
The future of war is bizarre and terrifying [thread(reader)] - "Drones, eternal cyberwar, info ops, and the specter of biological warfare."[1,2] [more inside]
Tales of Derring Do Bad and Good Luck Tales
He came to believe that, if he had enough money, he would be able to focus on his art. He decided to turn to a life of crime, but didn’t want to risk the violence of a stickup. [SL New Yorker]
As Germany reunited, Arno Funke, an unsuccessful cartoonist, started to bomb department stores (at night to avoid injury) and leave ransom notes signed Scrooge McDuck.
Pants on Fire
The Truth about Lying. "Police thought that 17-year-old Marty Tankleff seemed too calm after finding his mother stabbed to death and his father mortally bludgeoned in the family’s sprawling Long Island home. Authorities didn’t believe his claims of innocence, and he spent 17 years in prison for the murders. Yet in another case, detectives thought that 16-year-old Jeffrey Deskovic seemed too distraught and too eager to help detectives after his high school classmate was found strangled. He, too, was judged to be lying and served nearly 16 years for the crime.
One man was not upset enough. The other was too upset. How can such opposite feelings both be telltale clues of hidden guilt?" [more inside]
Rep. Matt Gaetz & DOJ trafficking inquiry
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz faces investigation over relationship with teen girl (USA Today, March 31, 2021) Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., said he is under investigation for his sexual conduct after a report Tuesday that the Department of Justice is looking into whether he had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl, and he claimed the investigation is related to an effort to extort him. The New York Times reported that, according to three sources briefed on the issue, an inquiry seeks to uncover whether Gaetz violated sex trafficking laws by paying for a teen girl to travel with him. Charges have not been filed against the Florida congressman. [more inside]
Just find 11,780 votes
“The people of Georgia are angry,” POTUS said in audio obtained by The Washington Post (Law & Crime). “The people in the country are angry. And there’s nothing wrong with saying that you’ve recalculated.” He asserted he won the state of Georgia, and he repeated baseless conspiracy theories regarding widespread voter fraud as well as sabotage. “All I want to do is this,” Trump said on the audio. “I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
Audio and transcript via CNN. [more inside]
The Curse of the Buried Treasure
Rebecca Mead tells the tale of two British detectorists who, in 2015, discovered an astonishing Viking hoard – and flouted the Treasure Act to hide their find from the authorities (The New Yorker)
Say G’day to the New Hardboiled Sheriff in Town, Mate
The movie “Mystery Road” introduces us to Detective Jay Swan. Portrayed by Aaron Pederson (and written for him by director Ivan Sen), Detective Swan is an indigenous Australian cop who navigates not being fully trusted by his fellow servants of The Crown for being “a blackfella”, and not being fully trusted by the indigenous communities for being a cop and a servant of the Crown. Swan constantly code-switches between modes of speaking (or not) depending on who he’s talking to, and which community they are from.
Over the course of season 1 and season 2 of the TV show “Mystery Road” followed by the movie “Goldstone”, we get a look at issues of race, money, history, resource exploitation, drugs, corruption, and life in sparsely populated small-town/rural Western Australia, the landscape of which is almost a character itself.
Cheerleading, monopolies, and predators
(CW for sexual abuse). The story of monopolization in cheer is a great example of the problem of concentrated corporate power, because it reveals so much about how our economy actually works. As a quick recap, the company involved is called Varsity Brands, which has monopolized the sport of cheerleading by buying up most major competitions. Varsity is owned by private equity giant Bain Capital. What makes this story so useful is that there are no fancy high tech gadgets in cheer, no possible excuses from economists; it’s just the use of raw power to extract money from teenagers and their families through a business conspiracy. [more inside]
It Was Never Enough
"Reed felt a strong sense of urgency. Here, he thought, is a guy who can drive or fly just about any vehicle, with ties to foreign governments, who is known to use satellite phones and pay in cash, and who deals with foreign corporations that would give him funding outside U.S. jurisdiction. He wanted to get T. R. into custody before he fled the country, never to be seen again.""I got to the point where I was probably too arrogant and cocky for my own good,” T. R. said. “I thought that I would never be arrested, or that I could buy my way out of it. That’s how things work in the rest of the world.” SL TM
The Enduring, Pernicious Whiteness of True Crime
After all, as Walter Lowe told me, you can’t sell a product for which there is no audience. To have more books, features, and podcasts by and about nonwhite people, there must be a demand for them. (There is.) In order for there to be sufficient, recognized demand, he said, nonwhite victims must be seen as people. That part, maddeningly, is not a given. 4000 heavily linked words from Elon Green for The Appeal.
Virtual Kidnappings at Scale
Australian authorities are warning that “virtual kidnappings” could be on the rise as anonymous criminals seek to exploit Chinese students in the country and their families back home (NYT). Students are convinced, via robocall, that they must check into a hotel and turn off their phone for their safety. Meanwhile, parents receive a digitally-manipulated ransom video of their child.
"Any criminal that uses an encrypted phone should be very, very worried"
International cooperation between police forces enabled them to spy on an encrypted phone network, Encrochat, since the 1st April 2020. The result is a massive operation arresting 746 suspects in the UK alone. [more inside]
Whistleblower Blasts Trump's Response to Pandemic
According to Vanity Fair, there are many troubling allegations contained in the "blistering, 63-page complaint" that Dr. Rick Bright, former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), filed today with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. Among other things, "He was pressured to invest in drugs and vaccines that lacked scientific merit, because the people selling them had friends in the Trump administration, up to and including the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner." [more inside]
They Who Must Sell Are Not Free
“ Anarchists, far from ignoring “human nature,” have the only political theory that gives this concept deep thought and reflection. Too often, “human nature” is flung up as the last line of defence in an argument against anarchism, because it is thought to be beyond reply. This is not the case, however. First of all, human nature is a complex thing. If, by human nature, it is meant “what humans do,” it is obvious that human nature is contradictory — love and hate, compassion and heartlessness, peace and violence, and so on, have all been expressed by people and so are all products of “human nature.” An Anarchist FAQ
“A Scrappy Chicago Organization”
“ Last week, The Daily Beast published a report on “Protech Local 33”—a supposed union that claims to represent workers in California’s growing cannabis industry. According to The Daily Beast’s reporting, signs point toward Protech acting as a “company” or (in labor slang) “yellow” union: something banned under both international and national labor laws. .... But our investigation, conducted through extensive research through Department of Labor records, court records, IRS records, the Chicago Tribune newspaper archive, and interviews with Chicago labor activists shows that Protech is much more than a company union—and connects back to a long, troubling history of corruption in some segments of organized labor...” ‘I heard you grow marijuana’: Inside the organization behind Protech Local 33 (Strike Wave)
comparing bluejeans seams is relatively useless
A Key FBI Photo Analysis Method Has Serious Flaws, Study Says After ProPublica’s reporting last year, scientists at UC Berkeley tested one of the FBI Lab’s photo analysis techniques, identifying bluejeans by the pattern on their seams, and found flaws that challenge the method’s reliability. [ProPublica]
COIN PROS COP IRONS
Treasure Hunters Headed to Jail After Concealing Their Discovery of Viking Treasure Trove. The metal detector enthusiasts, along with two coin dealers who assisted in selling the concealed find, have all been sentenced to up to 10 years in jail. The collection is worth an estimated $15.4 million.
Lawrence Ray arrested update...
Lawrence Ray arrested, previously on the blue... In 2019, the blue linked to an expose that was published about abuse at a small college in Westchester. Finally, it seems the wheels of justice are turning, thanks in most part to that expose.
Victims family find some relief.... Warnings for sexual abuse of teenagers and cult-like behavior.
The Edison of the Slot Machines
‘But in the slot cheat business, triumph is always short-lived. Less than two years after The Monkey Paw’s invention, fresh innovations in security rendered it obsolete. Indeed, the legacy of The Monkey Paw wasn’t so much in its lasting efficacy, but in the confidence it instilled in Tommy. Archimedes once said, “Give me a lever and a place to stand and I will move the earth.” At the end of the nineties, Tommy Carmichael declared, “Give me a slot machine and I’ll beat it.”’
The Svalbard Heist
an indefinite time while they work to earn money to pay
Think Debtors Prisons Are a Thing of the Past? Not in Mississippi. How the state’s "restitution program" forces poor people to work off small debts. [The Marshall Project] [more inside]
the food is either extremely good, or extremely bad
“the biggest scandal that has ever hit … Oxford’s classics department”
A scandal in Oxford: the curious case of the stolen gospel by Charlotte Higgins focuses on the sale of a purported 1st Century papyrus fragment of the Gospel of Matthew, allegedly stolen by an Oxford professor of classics, Dirk Obbink. However, it also touches on another papyrus, known as “P. Sapph. Obbink” which was the source of a new poem by Sappho, which has equally murky provenance, as laid out by professors C. Michael Sampson and Anna Uhlig.
No Domain For Old Men
How a feud over a website address led to a bloody shootout: "He slammed the door behind him and braced for impact. Moments later, the intruder kicked through the doorway and grabbed Deyo by the neck. 'Where’s your computer?' he demanded."
“We need this solidarity desperately now.”
“ The threat of antisemitism is not some abstract idea to me. It is very personal. It destroyed a large part of my family. I am not someone who spends a lot of time talking about my personal background because I believe political leaders should focus their attention on a vision and agenda for others, rather than themselves. But I also appreciate that it’s important to talk about how our backgrounds have informed our ideas, our principles, and our values.” How To Fight Antisemitism by Sen. Bernie Sanders (Jewish Currents) Responses.
"we're talking about a real event in someone's life that happened"
The Problem With Crime Junkie Indianapolis-based Crime Junkie, one of the hottest podcasts in the country, has built a seven-figure business telling stories about true crime. Too bad the tales aren’t their own. [Indianapolis Monthly]
She had a stillborn baby. Now she’s being charged with murder.
Her case is part of a nationwide problem, advocates say. California is one of dozens of states around the country where a person can be charged with a crime for harming a fetus through behaviors like using drugs while pregnant....These laws are intended to prevent harm to a fetus, but they can backfire, making people less likely to seek prenatal care. A recent study found that laws defining drinking during pregnancy as child abuse were actually associated with worse health outcomes for babies, possibly because they discouraged pregnant people from going to the doctor.
Traumatic brain injury and the law
The Final Five Percent. "If traumatic brain injuries can impact the parts of the brain responsible for personality, judgment, and impulse control, maybe injury should be a mitigating factor in criminal trials — but one neuroscientist discovers that assigning crime a biological basis creates more issues than it solves." [more inside]
They're good dogs Brent
Twelve years ago, 47 dogs were rescued from Michael Vick’s dogfighting operation and allowed to live. They've enriched the lives of countless humans and altered the course of animal welfare. (SL Washington Post, includes pictures of 47 good dogs.) [more inside]
Lesbian Space Crime
NASA is currently looking into what may be the first instance of crime in space. Also of interest: the first protest in space (2017), the first strike in space (1973).
The Alliance Of Law And Capital
“Schmidt, a grandfather living on disability benefits from his war-related injuries, had no history of theft or fraud. But he found himself the target of an extraordinary alliance between private insurers and public law enforcement agencies — one that transforms routine claims into criminal evidence, premium-paying customers into suspects, and the justice system into a hired gun for a multibillion-dollar industry.” Insurance Companies Are Paying Cops To Investigate Their Own Customers (Buzzfeed News)
Maybe the women were too moral...or too clever
Art crime expert Noah Charney on forgery, why forgers defy typical criminological classification, and how he's not found any female forgers. [more inside]
The Scam-Baiting Art of Kitboga
Kitboga is the streamer who exposes callcenter scammers. Over the years, he's role-played at Edna, Nevaeh, Chad and others characters pretending to fall victim to scammers but ultimately exposing them on live streams. Like today's stream where Kitboga played two characters in conversation, "drove" to Walmart Walgreens and discovered that Edna had a totally not fabricated grandson who lives in... Idaho, New York. Enjoy his best clips and Youtube channel. Obviously there's a remix or two to listen to.
"I think there’s an obsession with the dark and our darkest impulses"
Victims, Families and America’s Thirst for True-Crime Stories "It was a Friday in June, the first day of CrimeCon, an annual true-crime festival sponsored by the TV channel Oxygen." [The Washington Post]
#29Leaks
“But the most important stories that will gradually be yielded from these materials will concern the looting of public resources, which institutions across the West have continued to facilitate despite the incalculable damage that results to entire populations. In 2016 Bullough summarized the Yanukovych affair – and much else – as follows: “If it was difficult for a Brit to discover that a registered address at 29 Harley Street was meaningless, it was even harder for a Ukrainian… investigative journalists in Kiev could see that a piece of state-owned land in a forest outside the capital had been illegally privatised, but they did not know who by.” This London Firm Helps The Wealthy Hide Assets - Or Steal Them. Thankfully We Have 15 Years Of Their Client Communications
"Me after reading any article on the cut: this is horrifying"
The Most Gullible Man in Cambridge: A Harvard Law professor who teaches a class on judgment wouldn’t seem like an obvious mark, would he? (SL:The Cut) [more inside]
No New Jails.
“Communities most affected by both crime and incarceration are overpoliced and underprotected. In 2018, the NYPD made 808 arrests for rape, but over 5,000 arrests for fare evasion. To remedy this, the city should facilitate community oversight of police and prosecutors, and significantly expand the scope and funding of its participatory budgeting program with a focus on communities that experience the most crime. “ Incarceration Is Always A Policy Failure
The Drug Trafficker Resocialization Program
“It became such a mess that the government as a whole just said f---ing bury this,” says Paul Craine, who was a DEA agent in Bogotá in the late ’90s. “If we try to unravel this, we’re going to have to prosecute FBI agents, DEA agents, prosecutors. It was so crazy, where do you even start?” ... “Without being presumptuous, I think I am one of the top money launderers who ever worked for the government,” Vega says. “But I have something that is called integrity.”
Strong stories that don’t resort to the same old clichés.
"There is indeed a healthy audience for thrillers without violence towards women." The Staunch book prize is "For A Thriller In Which No Woman Is Beaten, Stalked, Sexually Exploited, Raped Or Murdered." It was launched in 2018 by Bridget Lawless (IMDB, Twitter, Amazon). [more inside]
How to rob 30 banks and nearly get away with it
Hooked: A raging heroin addiction fueled a former Boeing engineer’s yearlong, 30-bank robbery spree.
A Brutal Inheritance
"His DNA solved a century-old jailhouse rape. The victim: his grandmother." (SLBNP)
“There is no where or when in which it is safe to be black.”
See You Yesterday [YouTube][Official Trailer] “The new Netflix sci-fi movie isn't concerned with stopping robot uprisings (Terminator), writing a high school history paper (Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure), or reliving the 1980s (Hot Tub Time Machine). Rare for the genre, See You Yesterday imagines time travel as a way to correct a societal wrong, to undo evil of a more on-the-ground variety: Its protagonists, teenage science whizzes Claudette/CJ (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian (Dante Crichlow), build a time machine to try to stop CJ's brother from being shot by police.” [via: Wired] [**Minor Spoilers Underneath the Fold**] [more inside]
"Hey dude, you wanna do the most epic road trip ever?"
Y'all wanna hear a story about the time I accidentally transported a brick of heroin from Los Angeles to Seattle? I bet.
Alright, let's do this...
Original twitter thread
Alright, let's do this...
Original twitter thread