List of All Articles with Tag 'crime'

SINGAPORE Singapore police have arrested 10 foreigners for alleged money laundering and forgery offences, in a case involving

Armored trucks descended on a Philadelphia neighbourhood on Friday, releasing a flood of FBI agents who stormed and raided a house in search of a suspected aspiring terrorist. There were no adults home when agents arrived; they found three minors in the home. But one of them was their suspect, a 17-year-old with alleged ties to a Syrian extremist group. Reporters outside captured the scene as agents marched a cuffed teenager, wearing only his undergarments, out into the street and into federal custody. Days later, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office made clear what had happened; they had arrested someone they claim was engaged in "the most serious alleged terrorist activity prosecuted in Philadelphia County court in recent history”. The suspect The suspect is a minor, and his name has not been released to the public. Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner called the teenager an "aspiring terrorist" during a press conference after his arrest. "The young man who is under arrest is – was, an aspiring terrorist who was not merely thinking, but was doing things that are deeply disturbing and presented a grave danger to everyone," he said. FBI Special Agent in Charge Jacqueline Maguire also spoke at the conference, and revealed the suspect allegedly took steps to build a weapon of mass destruction. "Among the items he purchased were tactical equipment, wiring, chemicals and devices often used as remote detonators," she said. "He had not only taken steps in acquiring those items and materials that are commonly used in improvised explosive devices, but that he had also taken steps to start putting potential devices together," She also noted that the suspect allegedly had access to a "significant number of firearms." "He is currently charged with the following offenses: weapons of mass destruction, criminal conspiracy, arson, causing or risking catastrophe, attempt to commit criminal mischief, possession of an instrument of crime, and reckless endangerment of another person," she said. He is being tried as a juvenile, according to Mr Krasner. The investigation The 17-year-old landed on the FBI's radar after the agency learned of his alleged communication with members of Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad, a Syria- based extremist group that the US classifies as a global terror organisation. The group has ties to al-Qaeda, the organisation formerly led by Osama Bin Laden that carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. The FBI believes the organisation was responsible for the bombing of metro station in St Petersburg, Russia, in 2017, which killed 15 people. The agency also believes the group carried out a suicide car bombing in 2016 that injured three members of the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. Federal officials believe the teenager was communicating with the terror organisation between March and April of this year. The FBI also discovered a WhatsApp account allegedly linked to his phone number that used a banner of the Riyad-us-Saliheen Brigade of Martyrs, a terror group based in Chechnya. On 6 August, the banner was reportedly changed to that of Isis. The agency eventually began surveilling the teenager, and allegedly witnessed him purchasing bomb-making materials on 7 August. The following day the US Customs and Border Protection agency said the suspect had 14 international shipments of military and tactical gear delivered to their home. Mr Krasner said that the FBI "potentially thwarted a catastrophic terrorist attack in the name of a perverted ideology that in no way, shape, or form represents the beliefs of the overwhelming majority of peace-seeking people of faith, including Muslims.” The suspect's family While the suspect's name has not been released as he is a minor, his father has commented on the shocking raid that ended with his child in FBI custody. Qawi Abdul-Rahman, a prominent criminal defence attorney in Philadelphia, told The Daily Beast that he was "shocked and devastated" to learn on Monday that his 17-year-old child was facing terror allegations. He recalled receiving a phone call at work from his children as the raid was ongoing. They told him the FBI had swarmed the home. At the time, only his three children — the 17-year-old included — were home, as both Mr Abdul-Rahman and his wife were at work. The attorney rushed home to find his child in FBI custody. He said he was "shocked" and "devastated" to learn about his child's alleged involvement with terror organisations. In the aftermath of the arrest, Mr Abdul-Rahman said he was struggling to discuss the incident and its implications with his two younger children. He said he doesn't know "how to even address it," asking how one could even explain such a concept to a child. "Your job as a father is to protect," he told The Daily Beast. "But I couldn't do a thing." Read More Philadelphia defense attorney ‘devastated’ to learn his son is FBI terror suspect Teen accused of plotting potentially ‘catastrophic terrorist attack’ Man held on suspicion of having information likely to be useful to terrorists after police data breach

Students at a Florida university were warned to shelter-in-place after shots were fired at the nearby Gulf Coast Town Center shopping mall on Wednesday morning. Florida Gulf Coast University sent an alert to students after shots were reported at a construction site at the mall 15 miles (24kms) south of downtown Fort Myers at around 11.15am. Lee County Sheriff’s Office deputies responded to the shooting, and later confirmed that no shoppers had been hurt. They are searching for the occupants of two cars who fled the scene. The Florida Gulf Coast University police department posted an update at around 1.30pm to say there was no active threat and there had been no danger to students on its main campus. The university said on social media that an alert about an active shooter on campus was sent out in error. Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in a social media post that the shooting appeared to have been an isolated altercation between two vehicles that had since fled. He said no businesses had been affected, but to expect an increased law enforcement presence in the area. Florida Gulf Coast University had an enrollment of 16,000 students in 2022. Read More Rising political threats take US into uncharted territory as 2024 election looms Attacks at US medical centers show why health care is one of the nation's most violent fields Maui police chief pleads for patience, recalls pain of victim IDs after deadly Vegas mass shooting

A California judge accused of fatally shooting his wife during an argument while he was drunk has claimed her killing was an accident. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson is free on a $1m bail and must wear an electronic tracking bracelet in the state’s Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties after pleading not guilty in court. The 72-year-old judge was arrested on 3 August in the affluent Anaheim Hills neighbourhood 45 miles southeast of Los Angeles after his adult son called the police. When officers arrived at the home they found his wife, Sheryl Ferguson, dead from at least one gunshot wound. Prosecutors say that the couple began arguing at a restaurant and that the fight between them continued when they got back to their home, reported CBS News. Court papers state that the judge made a threatening hand gesture towards his wife “indicative of pointing a gun at” her. Investigators say that hIs wife replied something along the lines of “Why don’t you point a real gun at me?” And the judge allegedly pulled out a Glock 0.40 pistol from an ankle holster and shot her in the chest. Court filings say that their son and Judge Ferguson called 911, and the judge also texted his court clerk and bailiff admitting he had shot his wife. “I just lost it. I just shot my wife. I won’t be in tomorrow. I will be in custody. I’m so sorry,” the filing states he texted. Following his arrest he was arraigned in Los Angeles after state officials were asked to decide if there was a conflict of interest in him being dealt with by courts in Orange County, His next court hearing is scheduled for 30 October. The suspect has been a judge since 2015 after beginning his career in the Orange County district attorney’s office in 1983. He and his wife were married in 1996 and have two adult sons, according to CBS Los Angeles. Read More California judge charged in wife's murder expected to appear in Los Angeles court Former 'Family Feud' contestant Timothy Bliefnick gets life for wife's murder Testimony set to start in trial of 2 white Mississippi men charged in shooting at Black FedEx driver

A man in Utah has been arrested after allegedly posing as a doctor and making at least $2m by selling a fake cure for Covid-19. He evaded arrest for almost three years. Gordon Hunter Pedersen, 63, who lives in Cedar Hills, Utah, was arrested last week on Wednesday after he was charged in 2020 with seven felonies, including mail and wire fraud, selling of misbranded drugs with intent to defraud and mislead, the US attorney’s office in the state said on Monday. He allegedly sold a "structural alkaline silver" online and claimed that the drug "resonates or vibrates at a frequency that destroys the membrane of the (COVID-19) virus, making the virus incapable" of infecting humans, court documents said. He posed to his customers as an "anti-ageing medical doctor" with PhD degrees in immunology and naturopathic medicine, it said. A warrant for Mr Padersen was issued in August 2020 when he failed to appear in a court for the indictment, leading to a three-year manhunt. The arrest in the case comes a month after he was spotted on surveillance camera footage at a gas station around 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. Mr Padersen promoted his fake cure through YouTube videos, Facebook posts, podcasts and websites, wearing a white lab coat with “Dr” monogrammed on it. “There is no drug that man has made that can do the same,” he said in his podcast interview in March 2020. “If you have the silver in you, when the virus arrives, the silver can isolate and eliminate the virus,” he added. He maintained that his silver product can destroy Covid-19 virus in an interview with federal agents but acknowledged that his credentials were exaggerated. He had been promoting a cure for diseases such as arthritis, diabetes and pneumonia, since 2014. But he substantially profited between January and April 2020 when he made approximately $2m in sales from the company he co-owned, My Doctor Suggests, according to court records. The US District Court for Utah filed a restraining order against Mr Pedersen to stop him from selling the products by labelling them cure-alls, the Justice Department said at that time. Following three years of evading authorities, Mr Pedersen was identified by a Food and Drug Administration special agent on 5 July, while he was in a vehicle registered under his wife’s name, Julia Currey, according to prosecutors. The agent tracked the vehicle to a gas station, where Mr Pedersen was captured on a surveillance camera, as stated by prosecutors. His indictment was part of a task force created by attorney general Merric Garland in 2021 to prosecute businesses and entities that tried to “profit unlawfully from the pandemic. His lawyer is yet to comment on the development. Read More Marjorie Taylor Greene addresses online conspiracy theory linking her to Jan 6 pipe bomber Trump claims mystery press conference report clears him of Georgia election charges – live updates Trump shares moody new video with poem voiceover about ‘suffering to win’

Ukrainian security services have released to CNN exclusive footage showing the moment in July when they used an experimental sea drone to attack Russia's bridge to annexed Crimea, providing new details on the attack and warning more such assaults will follow.

How charity investigators went undercover to outwit a global wildlife trafficking gang.

Brian Laundrie’s family will be deposed this week in a civil lawsuit filed by Gabby Petito’s parents for causing emotional distress when the doomed couple was considered to be missing. Joe Petito and Nichole Schmidt claim Christopher and Roberta Laundrie knew Gabby was dead when she vanished in August 2021 while on a road trip with their son Brian, but chose not to take any action other than saying they hoped she would be found. They are set to be questioned by the Laundries’ legal counsel team, as well family attorney Steven Bertolino, who is also named in the suit, according to WFLA. It’s not yet known if the Laundries will be present for the depositions, but if they are, it’ll be the first time the two sets of parents have come face-to-face since Laundrie’s suicide shortly after Gabby was murdered. Cassie Laundrie, Brian Laundrie’s sister, is the only family member who has spoken publicly since Gabby’s death. “Obviously me and my family want Gabby to be found safe,” Cassie Laundrie said in 2021. “She’s like a sister and my children love her, and all I want is for her to come home safe and sound and this to be just a big misunderstanding.” She is set to be questioned by the legal team for Mr Petito and Ms Schmidt on 6 November as part of the series of depositions leading up to a trial in May 2024 in Sarasota County court. The Petitos sued Brian Laundrie’s parents, accusing them of knowing that their son had murdered Gabby and then helped him with the coverup for nearly a month before her body was found in western Wyoming in September 2021, causing mental anguish, pain and suffering. Gabby, 23, was reported missing in August 2021. She had been on a road trip with her fiancé Brian, who returned to his Florida home without her. The couple had traveled by van across the US in the summer of 2021, visiting scenic places in Colorado and Utah before heading north. They documented their trip in detail, in real time, on social media. But their happy travels were not as they made it out to be online. Police in Moab, Utah, pulled over the van after it was seen speeding and hitting a curb at the entrance to Arches National Park in August 2021. Petito told police she and Laundrie had been fighting. Officers separated the couple for the night and didn’t pursue charges. Petito’s body was found a month later near a campground on the edge of Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park. A coroner determined she’d been strangled a few weeks earlier. A month later, Laundrie was found dead in Florida. Earlier this year, a handwritten note by Roberta Laundrie in an envelope that read “burn after reading” was released after a Florida judge ruled that it could be used as evidence in a lawsuit. The undated note reportedly informed her son that she would “dispose of a body” if needed because she loved him so much, according to copies of the note shared publicly by attorneys for Petito’s parents. The letter reads in part: “We will always love each other. If you’re in jail, I will bake a cake with a file in it. If you need to dispose of a body, I will show up with a shovel and garbage bags.” Roberta Laundrie claims in a sworn statement in the Florida case that she gave it to her son just before he and Petito left on a cross-country van trip. “I was trying to connect with Brian and repair our relationship as he was planning to leave home," the statement said. “I had hoped this letter would remind him how much I loved him.” The Petito family expressed doubt about Roberta Laundrie’s claimed timing of her letter, suggesting it was in fact written after Petito’s death. Read More Mother of man who killed Gabby Petito said in letter she would help son 'dispose of a body' Bombshell letter where Brian Laundrie’s mother vowed to ‘dispose of body’ is given to Gabby Petito’s parents Brian Laundrie’s mom ‘offered to bake him a cake with a shiv’ if he was jailed for Gabby Petito murder

A new sketch of the last known victim of the notorious “Candy Man” serial killer Dean Corll has been released 50 years after he was discovered in a mass grave. For decades, the young man whose mutilated body was found in belted brightly-colored swim trunks has only been known as “Swimsuit Boy” or “John Houston Doe” – but now officials are hoping the new sketch will finally be able to give the victim his name back. The facial rendering was released by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) last week, on the 50th anniversary of the day many of the bodies were found in mass graves on 9 August 1973. Corll, who was infamously nicknamed “The Candy Man” because he was known to hand out free candy to kids at his parents’ candy store, terrorised young men in the Houston area in the early 1970s. Between 1970 and 1973, Corll and his accomplices David Owen Brooks, then 17, and Elmer Wayne Henley, then 18, kidnapped, tortured, raped and killed at least 28 males between the ages of 13 and 20. It’s believed the number of slayings, known as the “Houston Mass Murders,” were far more than 28. The victims’ remains were found after Henley led Houston police to a boat storage shed, where 17 bodies were found wrapped in plastic or sheets and buried under a layer of lime plaster, according to Dean Corll: The True Story of The Houston Mass Murders: Historical Serial Killers and Murderers, by Jack Rosewood. On 8 August 1973, a day before the bodies were found, Henley shot and killed 33-year-old Corll with the killer’s own .22 pistol, allegedly screaming: “I can’t go on any longer! I can’t have you kill all my friends!”, Texas Monthly reported. Henley admitted direct involvement in six of the killings, and is serving six consecutive terms of 99 years of imprisonment with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He will be eligible for parole in October 2025 at the age of 70. Brooks died from COVID-19 in 2020 in a Galveston hospital while serving a life sentence. Over the past 50 years, investigators have been able to identify 27 of Corll’s known victims, giving each of “The Lost Boys” a name – except one – John Doe 1973. The latest attempt to identify the final victim from the 1970s horror was revived this year after Corll’s house was razed in February. At least eight victims were shot and killed at that house, officials have said. John Doe, who police believe was white possibly Hispanic, and between 15 and 18 when he was killed, was one of the 17 bodies found at the boat shed, according to NCMEC’s website. He was found with belted “Catalina” swim trunks that had bright red, turquoise, gold, and dark blue stripes. The shorts also had the letter "C" with golden wings on the silver buckle. The victim was wearing a khaki-colored long sleeved 70s style shirt that tied in the front, with a large red, white, and blue peace symbol and the letters “USA.” Dark blue corduroys, a knotted leather ankle bracelet, and brown leather cowboy boots that were 12 inches in length and had the word "NEOLITE" on the heel, were also found. It was later determined that the young man had a mild form of spina bifida, according to NCMEC. Carol Schweitzer, supervisor of NCMEC’s Forensic Services Unit, said they “remain hopeful that this young man’s family and friends are still looking for him.” “This young man’s friends and classmates would be in their late 60s to early 70s, and we hope that this new imagery reaches them and helps bring in that one single lead needed to resolve this case,” Ms Schweitzer said in a statement. “He may have siblings, cousins, classmates, neighbors, or friends who have always wondered what happened to him. This young man’s friends and classmates would be in their late 60s to early 70s and we hope that this new imagery reaches them and helps bring in that one single lead needed to resolve this case.” Anyone with information on “John Doe 1973,” is asked to call the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children at 1-800-THE-LOST or the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences and reference case number ML73-3356. Read More California judge charged in wife's murder expected to appear in Los Angeles court Rachel Morin – latest: Bel Air mother-of-five’s killer remains at large as Maryland police step up patrols Alex Murdaugh planned a birthday party for his son Paul from jail 10 months after killing him, book claims

By Carolina Pulice MEXICO CITY Gabriella Batalha didn't think much when she noticed she had been logged out

Deja Taylor has reportedly admitted that her gun was stored in a way that the boy could access it.

More than a week after mother-of-five Rachel Morin was found dead on a popular trail in Maryland, authorities have yet to make any arrests in the investigation into her death. Morin, 37, was last seen heading to the Ma & Pa Trail at around 6pm on 5 August. Her boyfriend reported her missing that night after she failed to return home and her body was found the following day. On Thursday, Harford County Sheriff’s Office said investigators had been made aware of potential witnesses who may have seen Morin on the Ma & Pa Trail in Bel Air on Saturday. The witnesses – either three men, two women and two dogs or two men, three women and two dogs – were urged to come forward. Officials said that these individuals had been identified and were contacted by investigators. A spokesperson for the sheriff’s office told The Independent on Tuesday that the department had increased patrol on the Ma & Pa Trail area to reassure the community in the aftermath of Morin’s tragic death, but noted that there is no perceived threat at this time. Read More Rachel Morin was found dead on a popular Maryland hiking trail. Her sister says she ‘did not go willingly’ Rachel Morin’s mother breaks silence on daughter’s killing Man who described grisly state of Rachel Morin’s body never actually saw it, sheriff says