Targeting the Lonely: Nigerian-based Scammers

02/21/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 1 Comment

pink computer — Cute image, sad stories! https://www.axios.com/scarlet-widow-anatomy-of-a-romance-scam-ring-25b6a993-8478-4e72-912e-d21e5ae4b9b4.html

I know it’s hard to believe that there are so many lonely men and women, especially seniors, who fall for on-line dating site scams and actually send money—millions of dollars annually—to people they think they are in love with, but have never met.
This story from Axios is about “Scarlet Widow” a Nigerian-headquartered fraud network,

Scarlet Widow: Anatomy of a romance-scam ring

A Nigeria-based romance-scam outfit, dubbed Scarlet Widow in a new report, has been bilking lonelyhearts of their savings since 2015.
Why it matters: In the abstract, people often dismiss email scams as a punchline they are somehow above. In truth, they are a billion-dollar crime paradigm preying on the gullible and savvy alike. And romance scams have particularly tragic dimensions.

Apparently the Nigerians are great actors in addition to being clever scammers.

The moniker “Nigerian scam” is more than a nickname. Agari’s research found the Scarlet Widow group, like 90% of email scams, actually does originate in Nigeria.

Go here for more.

But the romance scammers don’t just live in Nigeria.

Black Axe victim — Canadian victim of romance scammers connected to Nigerian Black Axe group. Story at The Globe and Mail https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/shadowy-black-axe-group-leaves-trail-of-tattered-lives/article27244946/

Here is a story by reporter Anna Marie Bolton about one such Nigerian scammer (affiliated with Black Axe) from Canada who had been living in Garland, Texas and was found guilty late last year of cheating older lonely women out of life savings.

Florida Jury Finds Nigerian ‘Axemen’ Guilty of Scamming Elderly Women for Millions

While all eyes are on Florida for the recount of the Senate election, a federal jury in Tampa has found Okechuwku “Desmond” Amadi, a Canadian who had been living in Garland, Texas guilty of conspiracy and money laundering. He was caught operating a complex fraud scheme from Garland, via Florida, Canada and Nigeria, that preyed on elderly and divorced women.
The announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Middle District of Florida came Thursday, stating that Amadi faces 60 years in federal prison.
The feds nabbed Amadi in Sept. 2017 as he returned on a flight to JFK International Airport from Nigeria.

More here.

Be sure to keep an eye on granny! Or grandpa! Or some other lonely family member so that they don’t fall prey to scammers like these!

Use of Dental X-rays to Age the 'Children,' Verboten say Medical 'Ethicists'

02/21/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 8 Comments

In my previous post I told you about the large percentage of “children” in federal custody who are purportedly under 18 years of age.
This is a companion piece because the dilemma is this—how do you know if the “child” is being truthful about his or her age? Apparently we call in dental experts to provide forensic X-rays—a practice which has the Left in hissy-fits. Finding medical ‘experts’ with a bias to criticize the practice is probably not too difficult.

Closeup of dentist looking at dental x-ray plate — How old is the unaccompanied alien “child?” Don’t we have a right to know!

When you read this story, I want you to notice the use of a common tactic employed by the Left in political battles. It is something Saul Alinsky taught.
Alinsky said people hurt more quickly than institutions so instead of only going after government bureaucrats and elected officials, here they go after dentists in a personal way suggesting that any dentist who would use x-rays for this purpose is somehow immoral (even suggesting a parallel to medical experiments by he-who-shall-not-be- named).
From STAT (If you don’t know STAT, I didn’t, here is a bit about the publication):

The unethical behavior of forensic dentists at our southern border

Parents who entrust the care of their children to doctors and dentists do so based on the belief that these professionals will act in the best interest of their children. A profound breach of that trust occurs when those professionals not only violate the “do no harm” maxim they pledged when taking the Hippocratic oath, but do so through the misuse of the licenses and privileges they’ve been granted in exchange for our trust. That’s happening right now on our southern border.
When immigration authorities believe that an individual who has crossed the border claims to be a child but might be over the age of 18, they call in forensic dentists to take panoramic X-rays. The dentists do this not to identify dental maladies or make sure they can provide appropriate dental treatment — which would be appropriate uses of X-rays — but because they claim they can identify an individual’s age with an extraordinary degree of precision from his or her X-rays.
All children ostensibly receive some dental care while in custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Yet only two groups are X-rayed: those with obvious dental issues and those whose age is in question.

Author: Nancy Neveloff Dubler plays the morality card

[….]
The need for precision is essential to this task. The “calculation” that someone is 17 and 364 days old as opposed to being 18 and one day old has enormous consequences. Detained immigrants under age 18 are sent to shelters operated by the Office of Refugee Resettlement or sometimes released into the custody of relatives. Those who are 18 or older are sent to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement adult detention centers, which are essentially prisons.
Whether an individual is a minor when he or she crosses the border also carries consequences down the line related to his or her ultimate ability to obtain asylum and lawfully remain in the United States. Improper age determination may also cause a child to unnecessarily lose status as what the Office of Refugee Resettlement calls an unaccompanied alien child and the legal protections that come with that status, such as a non-adversarial asylum interview and release to an eligible sponsor.

Co-author Brendan Parent, ethics ‘expert’ and lawyer attacks dentists

Given the consequences, it isn’t surprising that immigration authorities have an interest in making claims about the ages of young immigrants. That they have turned to forensic dentistry to do so is deeply troubling and ethically impermissible.
[….]
The absence of scientific support for these actions is troubling. What is shocking is the willingness of dentists to do harm at the behest of the state purely to serve the political/legal goal of defeating children’s rights.
[….]
Instigating a medical procedure for the purpose of depriving a child of the right to be treated as a child — or for the purpose of facilitating and permitting imprisonment — is absolutely prohibited by the ethics of medicine, not to mention by the notions of fairness and decency.

More here.
Where is the “fairness and decency” from the authors! Ethics experts, my foot!
The hypocrisy of the Left has no bounds, one commenter asked: Didn’t abortion doctors sign an oath to do no harm? And, I would argue that all those money-grubbing pill-pushing pain doctors I’ve been writing about did the same.
alinsky_rules_for_radicals_810_500_75_s_c1
I wonder have Dubler and Parent, the authors of this screed, written similar words about abortionists or Nigerian pill-pushers?
By the way, the issue of lying youths is a problem all over the world and governments are attempting to find the best scientific methods to age the aliens streaming across borders in Europe and elsewhere.
Hey, and I thought the Left loved science! Science uber alles, right!

What can you do? Pay attention to tactics used by the Left and call them out whenever you can. One way to do that is by commenting at ‘news’ stories that allow comment, or write a letter to the editor when you see Alinsky tactics being used. Make fun of the writer for using Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals because LOL! Alinsky says the most powerful political weapon is humor! Use it!

Story about Unaccompanied Alien Children in Florida Shelter is Humorous and Infuriating

02/20/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

This is a story from UPI last week that has been languishing in my posting queue.
It’s a longish story, but worth reading if you want to know more about life (the good life) in a shelter for the “children” who have come across our border illegally and unaccompanied.

Unaccompanied alien teens — Here come the Unaccompanied Alien Children!

I’m only going to bring your attention to a couple of points, one that made me laugh, the other that should infuriate you as it did me!

The point that makes me laugh is this!

The Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter (never mind that they are not refugees!) houses up to 1,600 youths older than 13. However, in almost every paragraph (there are 53 paragraphs!) in the story the teens are referred to as “children.” In fact, the word “child” or “children” is used a whopping 63 times (twice in some paragraphs) while the word “teen” or “teenager” is never used, not even once!
Just that one little linguistic trick is meant to direct your thinking so that you imagine hundreds of little children missing mommy and daddy and crying themselves to sleep each night.
And it infuriates me to read that 670 of the “children” are 17 and older and as they age-out at 18, a big hunt begins to find them “sponsors” to take charge of them so that they aren’t turned over to ICE.
Here are the opening paragraphs of the UPI story,

Feb. 13 (UPI) — A month after federal officials removed the last child from a facility in Texas, 1,600 unaccompanied migrant children are being housed at a so-called temporary emergency shelter in Florida.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services invited UPI and other media on Wednesday to tour the facility in Homestead, Fla., which is located in a former Job Corps facility near the Homestead Air Reserve Base. It is used as a shelter for what HHS calls “unaccompanied alien children,” or UAC — migrants between the ages of 13 and 17 who have no lawful immigration status and no legal guardians able to provide care in the United States.
Since March 2018 more than 6,000 children have been placed at the site and about 4,450 have been discharged to what the department considers suitable sponsors — generally a parent or some other relative — in the United States, according to HHS.
At the time of UPI’s visit, 1,575 children were being sheltered at the facility — 1,143 males and 432 females.

Now check this out! 43% of the “children” are between 17 and 18 years old! (Or, they could be older, see my next post!)

The south campus houses 905 children between the ages of 13 and 16, including 634 males and 271 females, while all 17-year-olds at the facility live on the north campus, which houses 509 males and 161 females.

In case you wondered what happens when the “children” turn 18:

Three months before a “child” turns 18, the sponsor hunt begins in earnest.

Children who turn 18 while in custody at a shelter are considered undocumented immigrants and are released to authorities, Weber said.
There were 21 such cases at the Homestead facility last month and 90 in the past year, the Homestead program coordinator said.
A team of case managers at the facility focuses on finding sponsors for children within three months of their 18th birthday and the program coordinator receives daily reports regarding their status in the two weeks before those children turn 18.

Read the whole story, it is worth your time.

Remember, YOU are paying for all of this! And, more are on the way! You MUST scream at your elected officials—‘Enough is enough!’—and do it at every opportunity! Today, you might tell the President (again!) by going to the White House comment page and voicing your opinion.

Refugee Resettlement Contractor wants Rep. Ilhan Omar to Tone it Down

02/20/201909/21/2019 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 3 Comments

Editor: It’s a snow day here in the East so hopefully I will have more time to check e-mails and post your comments. Sorry that sometimes I’m AWOL!
Yesterday I told you that we should want to keep Minnesota Somali Representative Ilhan Omar talking. Consider her Minnesota’s gift to America!
I’m guessing her cocooned life in Minneapolis, surrounded by thousands of her own ethnic group, didn’t prepare her for a national stage and so she doesn’t have her mentor’s (Keith Ellison) slickness.

Omar and Sarsour — Hmmmm! “Unapologetic leaders”

Therefore the savvy hard Left political organizations that do understand that she might be putting her foot in it, want to school her and tone her down.
One of those savvy political organizations is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) headed by CEO Mark Hetfield. See one post of a very large archive at RRW about HIAS.
Over the many years I’ve followed their activities, contrary to what you might assume, HIAS has demonstrated no great love for the state of Israel.
I’m guessing that they are saying, ‘damn we are bringing in Muslim refugees, Omar’s friends and family, and then we get dumped on by Omar!’
(I’ve seen it mentioned in a recent news report about HIAS that some of their supporters are questioning why HIAS resettles Muslims in the first place!).
The story (about a CONFIDENTIAL phone call!) is widely reported.
Here it is at The Times of Israel,
(emphasis is mine)

Ilhan Omar apologizes to Jewish groups for hurt caused by AIPAC tweet

In a brief confidential conference call with Jewish organizations, Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized for any hurt caused by her tweets suggesting that AIPAC pays politicians to support Israel.
“Let me reiterate my sincere apology for any actual hurt my words have caused,” Omar, a freshman Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, said on Tuesday afternoon, according to someone present on the call.
“I know there are a lot of people who in the last weeks have expressed support in trying to say this isn’t anti-Semitic or this shouldn’t be looked at in that way,” she added.

Mark Hetfield at an anti-Trump rally in early 2017. Then Rep. Keith Ellison headlined the rally for a group that is 50% or so federally funded!

But Omar said it is up to the Jewish community to define anti-Semitism.
“I do not want to give space or energy to anyone who wants to minimize the hurt,” she said.
Omar came under fire last week for posting successive tweets suggesting that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobby, pays politicians to be pro-Israel. Democratic and Republican leaders condemned the tweets as echoing anti-Semitic stereotypes about Jews, money and power. The allegation is also false, as AIPAC does not donate to candidates or endorse them.
Omar subsequently apologized for the tweets.
The call Tuesday included a range of centrist and liberal Jewish groups including the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Democratic Council of America, the refugee resettlement agency HIAS, Americans for Peace Now and Bend the Arc.
Omar kept her remarks brief but promised to meet face to face with the groups in the near future.

More here.

Meanwhile Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan told Omar not to apologize, see here.

A prominent refugee espousing views that are deemed anti-Semitic is someone HIAS needs to shut the heck up!
Keep talking Ilhan!

Here is something you can do (and probably are doing!) especially you Minnesotans, find every word she has uttered in her meteoric rise to power there and publish those words (and actions)— focus especially on those words that educate people about Islam. Do it in a drip, drip fashion in order to keep her in the news.

Fox News Attempts to Explain why Minneapolis Somalis became Jihadists

02/19/201902/10/2020 ~ Ann Corcoran ~ 15 Comments

Okay, okay, I’m at least thankful that a national cable news outlet is finally getting around to the US Somali refugee radicalization problem that has been going on for at least twelve years, but I want to scream about how long it takes for the national media to catch up with serious issues like this one.

Ilhan Omar capitol — Don’t shut her up! Let Rep. Ilhan Omar keep talking because she is helping to educate more Americans about Islamic supremacist views. If it weren’t for her, this Somali terrorist story at a major cable news site would never have been published.

And, I guess we should be thankful that Ilhan Omar was elected to Congress, because her words and actions have become a focal point (a news hook) for stories like this one.
I honestly think she does us a great service by being in Congress—let her keep talking!
I can’t and won’t write a book here, but everyone should take time to read the Fox story, and to read about my trip to Washington in 2009 when I attended a Senate Homeland Security Committee hearing on the radicalization of Minnesota Somalis.

You will see that the FBI brushed off the idea of any Islamic connection and spokesmen testifying were fixated on their main point—the poor disenfranchised refugee “youths” were going back to defend Somalia from Ethiopian aggression (Move along, nothing to see about a broader reason for jihad recruitment).
Who headed the FBI in 2009? Robert Mueller.

And, by the way, Senator Amy Klobuchar never set foot into that hearing room that day even though she had constituents testifying!

Not a surprise that Klobuchar wants nothing to do with any suggestion that her Somali voters could be terrorists or have a radical agenda. Watch her pander!

Here is how the Fox News story begins,

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – More men and boys from a Somali American community in Minneapolis have joined – or attempted to join – a foreign terrorist organization over the last 12 years than any other jurisdiction in the country.
FBI stats show 45 Somalis left to join the ranks of either the Somalia-based Islamic insurgency al-Shabab, or the Iraq- and Syria-based ISIS combined. And as of 2018, a dozen more had been arrested with the intention of leaving to support ISIS. Both numbers are far higher than those of alleged terrorist wannabes who left or attempted to leave the country from other areas in the country where Muslim refugees have been resettled.
In the case of the Somalis, it’s no longer just the men. Early last year, a female was apprehended by authorities on charges of supporting providing material support to Al Qaeda and arson.
So what has made the area such a hotbed for such activity? And what has been Rep. Ilhan Omar’s record in addressing the issue – either before she was elected, or since?
The answers matter because federal authorities say they remain “highly concerned” about the terrorist connection with the Minneapolis Somalis – even though al-Shabab is struggling against the Somali government, and the so-called ISIS “caliphate” has crumbled under a sustained U.S.-led military campaign.
“We are very conscious that there may still be fertile ground for that, and that is could re-start at any time,” one federal official told Fox News. “Based on historical experience, we had (an uptick) in 2007 and 2008 going for al-Shabab, then a lull. Then, as ISIS came back, we saw a whole bunch of people no longer headed for Somalia. They were headed for Iraq and Syria. That really caught us off-guard, we didn’t see that coming. It didn’t make sense to us. We understood why kids were going back to Somalia, but going to Syria was another we (sic) issue.”

I can’t tell you how much that last paragraph above pisses me off!
The reason they were surprised is that they had completely focused, during Robert Mueller’s tenure at the FBI, on the idea that the kids were only going home to fight for Somalia, not as jihadists for Islam!
Read the rest of the Fox story, here.
And, again, here is the link to my post on attending that Senate hearing a decade ago! If you are really ambitious, you can read dozens of my posts (beginning in 2008) on the “missing Somali youths” here at RRW.

Frauds, Crooks and Criminals