Month: October 2019

Feds Bust 18 International Gang Members Stealing Millions Via ATM Skimmers

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 2 Comments

The Department of Justice announced charges have been filed against 18 crooks who have defrauded Americans out of millions of dollars by building and using skimming devices to steal money from bank accounts in at least 18 states.

The cool thing about the Justice Department press release is that we don’t need a secret decoder ring to figure out where this latest bunch of foreign crooks are from—they have provided a handy chart to inform us!  Most are Romanians!

Here are a few snips from that press release:

18 Members Of International Fraud And Money Laundering Conspiracy Charged In Manhattan Federal Court

Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), Troy Miller, Director, Field Operations, New York, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (“CBP”), and James P. O’Neill, the Police Commissioner for the City of New York (“NYPD”), today announced the unsealing of an indictment and two superseding indictments charging 18 defendants with participating in an international conspiracy to commit a variety of offenses, including access device fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud, and aggravated identity theft.

[….]

FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said: “An extremely frustrating thing to experience, you grab cash from an ATM but then find out your bank information was stolen and your account drained.

The scheme detailed here cost victims money, time, and effort to get their finances returned and their identities restored, which can be an infuriating long process. The FBI New York Cyber Crimes Task Force and our law enforcement partners have worked exhaustively to find the members of this criminal organization, and the arrests and charges are a testament to their hard work stopping these thieves from creating more havoc for anyone trying to access their hard-earned money.”

[….]

[The crooks] participated in a transnational organization that engaged in what is colloquially referred to as “ATM skimming” (the “Skimming Organization”). The Skimming Organization unlawfully obtained victim account holders’ debit card account information by using advanced technological devices to surreptitiously record the debit card numbers and personal identification numbers at automatic teller machines (“ATMs”), and then manufacturing counterfeit and fraudulent debit cards that bore the victim account holders’ account information. The Skimming Organization’s members then used those cards to fraudulently withdraw cash from victims’ bank accounts.

[….]

The defendants carried out hundreds of ATM skimming operations across the U.S., including in New York and at least 17 other states. The scheme defrauded financial institutions and individual victims of more than $20 million.

Below is a screenshot of the first part of the DOJs chart. Is this what Open Borders Inc. might be referring to when they tout ‘new American’ entrepreneurs?

Go to the press release, here, for the whole list!

Michelle Malkin on the SPLC/CAIR and Media Lemmings

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

You may have heard by now that the managers at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort have cancelled (on very short notice) an event scheduled there by Brigitte Gabriel’s Act for America at which Michelle Malkin was to be the featured speaker.

Here Malkin pens a piece published at Rasmussen Reports explaining how the SPLC and CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) say “jump” and the media does exactly what they are told and businesses like the Mar-a-Lago resort quake in their boots and capitulate!

Artwork from Conservative Review https://www.conservativereview.com/news/the-media-are-a-horde-of-intellectually-incurious-lemmings/

Surrendering to SPLC’s Lazy Media Lemmings

ACT for America, a nationwide grassroots group that educates the public about radical Islam, was founded in 2007 by my vigilant activist friend and Lebanese Christian immigrant journalist Brigitte Gabriel. I was honored to accept Gabriel’s invitation to speak at her organization’s annual banquet at Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida, on Nov. 7.

Gabriel has worked tirelessly to expose the Islamic imperialist agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic state; barbaric practices of female genital mutilation and honor killings by adherents of sharia; and the whitewashing of violent jihad in American middle school textbooks. Past speakers and honorees at ACT for America’s events and legislative briefings include former Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas (now President Donald Trump’s secretary of state), Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma (now Trump’s NASA administrator), Rep. Ron DeSantis of Florida (now Florida governor) and Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee.

I planned to talk to ACT for America‘s gala attendees about the ongoing national security threat that jihad-coddling Muslim grievance groups and other identity politics agitators in the “Open Borders, Inc.” infrastructure pose to our country’s very existence. But thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Council on American Islamic Relations, Miami Herald, copycat journalists and the Trump Organization, the event was banned from Mar-a-Lago.

Yes, banned.

All it took was a noisy little echo chamber of lazy media lemmings in search of weekend clickbait. On Saturday morning, the Miami Herald published an inflammatory attack masquerading as “breaking news” with the headline:

“Anti-Muslim extremist group says it will host $1,500-a-plate gala at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago.”

Where did the Miami Herald get its characterization that ACT for America was an “extremist group”? From the discredited charlatans at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Miami Herald reporter Nicholas Nehamas admitted to me that he wrote the “story,” padded with an obligatory assist and dutiful quote from SPLC’s Muslim counterparts at CAIR, after receiving an SPLC HateWatch alert titled:

“Anti-Muslim Hate Group to Hold Gala at Mar A Lago.“

Media monkey see. Media monkey do.

[….]

SPLC’s sweeping hate designations haven’t just targeted Gabriel and me (two conservative women of color, by the way), but also (for starters):

Go here to continue reading and see the extensive list of ‘haters’ the SPLC has designated and targeted (including me!) in their attempt to silence anyone who doesn’t agree with their Progressive world view.

What you can do is get Malkin’s piece spread far and wide.  I see that this morning it is at the Minot Daily News.

Just a reminder!  I am posting almost every day on the newly reconstructed Refugee Resettlement Watch.  They tried to shut me up, but have failed.

United Nations Running Out of Money!

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 4 Comments

Starving the beast may be the best way to control it! 

The Trump Administration has been signalling it would like to reassess the US commitment to the UN which amounts to 22% of the UN’s $5.4 billion annual budget.

UN Secretary General Guterres doesn’t look happy as Trump speaks. BTW, what is he doing with his fingers?

Before I continue, don’t miss my post at RRW this morning about the latest revelation about refugee fraud within the UN—all the more reason to stop funding the United Nations!

Oh, and while you are visiting RRW, be sure to see my extensive archive on socialist UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres who was previously the UN High Commissioner for Refugees so I followed his ‘career’ for years.

From CBS:

United Nations could run out of money in a few weeks, Secretary General warns

United Nations — The United Nations is running a deficit of $230 million, Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Monday, and may run out of money by the end of October. In a letter intended for the 37,000 employees at the UN secretariat and obtained by CBS News’ Pamela Falk, Guterres said unspecified “additional stop-gap measures” would have to be taken to ensure salaries and entitlements are paid.

“Member States have paid only 70 percent of the total amount needed for our regular budget operations in 2019. This translates into a cash shortage of $230 million at the end of September. We run the risk of depleting our backup liquidity reserves by the end of the month,” he wrote.

Gasp! Cutting travel and meetings might be necessary to save them money! And, they might have to take measures to save energy!  Isn’t the leading global warming proponent in the world already taking all necessary measures to save energy?

To cut costs, Guterres mentioned postponing conferences and meetings and reducing services, while also restricting official travel to only essential activities and taking measures to save energy.

Although 129 States out of 193 have now paid their regular annual dues, the most recent being Syria, UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric told correspondents at the regular briefing in New York, others needed to pay “urgently and in full”.

[….]

Guterres had asked member states earlier this year to up contributions to the world body to head off cash flow problems, but they refused, a UN official told French news agency AFP on condition of anonymity.

The US is paying almost one quarter of the UN’s entire budget!

Not including what it pays for peacekeeping operations, the UN’s operating budget for 2018-2019 is close to $5.4 billion, with the United States contributing the largest share at 22 percent.

Continue reading here.

Looking for something to do?  Contact the White House (link in right hand side bar here at ‘Frauds and Crooks’).  Tell the President that the time is right to begin cutting the UN’s ties to our treasury!

Maine High Schools Trying to Cope with Diversity

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

Pay attention because as formerly areas of the country that didn’t experience cultural and racial tensions in a previous generation are now being confronted with those issues in high schools (like the recent brawl at Tech High in St. Cloud, MN) they are scrambling to head off more trouble.

As the immigrant population continues to grow, will your community high school be discussing “diversity training” and developing “crew meetings,” “cultural think tanks,” and “civil rights teams?”

And, if that is something your family isn’t ready for, maybe it is time for home schooling!

How diverse is your state? This is a screenshot of a very cool interactive map at Wallethub. https://wallethub.com/edu/most-least-diverse-states-in-america/38262/

 

This is an eye-opening story from the Portland Press Herald entitled:

As Maine schools grow more diverse, we need to talk

(A few snips, but read the whole thing!)

For students at Casco Bay High School, having conversations about topics that might be difficult to talk about is one of the most effective ways to ensure everyone feels welcome.

There are regular “courageous conversations” where students tackle big topics like gender, race and equity and daily “crew meetings” of small groups of students who check in with each other and break down the big discussions.

[….]

The school is part of one of Maine’s most racially diverse school districts – about 54 percent of students in the district are white, compared to 88 percent of students statewide.

[….]

More recent data from the Maine Department of Education shows that in the last 10 years there has been a 5 percent increase in nonwhite students and a 1 percent increase in the number of English language learners in Maine.

But pockets of the state, particularly those where new immigrants have settled, have seen growth that has far outpaced those numbers. Portland has seen a 13 percent increase in the racial diversity of its student body while Lewiston has seen a 20 percent increase.

I thought this might be the most informative paragraph in the whole long story:

And in Portland, students at Deering High School said the school’s high number of minority and economically disadvantaged students led people to spread rumors about the school that contributed to a sudden enrollment drop this fall.

More here.

Teachers unions and others making their living in the public school system must be quaking at the thought that people might just remove their kids from their schools.  And, therein lies the urgent need they feel to expand “diversity training” ASAP.

 

 

St. Cloud Tech High Brawl Post has been Updated, See Why

~ Ann Corcoran ~ 6 Comments

I was informed by the News Editor of the St. Cloud Times that I was not permitted to use their story in which they list the names of some of the students involved in the brawl that brought reportedly 20 police officers to the school.

See my updated post from Saturday by clicking here. And, then visit the St. Cloud Times story directly, here.

I do have sympathy for small city newspapers that are struggling. They need all the readers they can get and this story is of vital importance, so don’t miss it!