Crime – Page 97 – Blazingcatfur

Unexplained wealth orders will make life harder for B.C. criminals: compliance expert

VANCOUVER – Plans by the British Columbia government to confiscate suspected proceeds of crime with “unexplained wealth orders” are drawing praise from an expert in financial compliance as a way to make life harder from criminals.

Alexandra Wrage, CEO of Trace International, a global business association focused on commercial transparency and good governance, said unexplained wealth orders would help to redress and deter financial crime in the province, including money laundering.

I see a well intended idea abused by corrupt law enforcement. Asset seizures in the US have been nothing less than state sanctioned theft.

by Blazingcatfur•November 23, 2022November 23, 2022•0•"Good Intentions Paving Company", Crime

Police task force busts Los Angeles train cargo theft rings

One year after gangs of thieves looted Western Pacific trains leaving Los Angeles, a police task force has brought down two cartels that stole $18 million in high-priced goods and sold them through online marketplaces.

It was a familiar sight to see tracks leaving the Port of Los Angeles littered with boxes and debris during late 2021, the result of burglars who rifled through slow-moving trains loaded with goods. The items were destined for stores across the nation that had been decimated by the pandemic and awaited new goods.

by Blazingcatfur•November 23, 2022November 23, 2022•0•Crime

Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, senior staff, parents bought Bahamas property worth $300 mln

NEW PROVIDENCE, Bahamas, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Sam Bankman-Fried’s FTX, his parents and senior executives of the failed cryptocurrency exchange bought at least 19 properties worth nearly $121 million in the Bahamas over the past two years, official property records show.

Separately, attorneys for FTX said on Tuesday that one of the company’s units spent $300 million in the Bahamas buying homes and vacation properties for its senior staff, and that FTX was run as a “personal fiefdom” of Bankman-Fried. No further details were given.

by Blazingcatfur•November 23, 2022November 22, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime, WTF?

These evil crimes are why we should lock ’em up

IN September, when commenting on the evil killing of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel at bedtime in her own home, I said, ‘A final word to the “lock ’em up brigade”. The thing about locking criminals up for a long time (the serious ones, the nasty ones) is that then they are not free to burst into the homes of little girls at bedtime to continue their gangland feud. If you lock up dangerous criminals they can sort out all their feuding in prison, where they should have plenty of time on their hands. Only then can the children have a peaceful bedtime story instead of being fatally shot in their own homes.’

We should all remember this when some bleeding-heart liberal tells you the prison population is ‘too high’.

by Blazingcatfur•November 22, 2022November 22, 2022•0•Crime

Racism cannot explain away youth violence

We must not make excuses for violent perpetrators.

Youth violence is intrinsically tragic. It is a catastrophe that so many young men and boys, due to a complex matrix of moral, social, economic and cultural reasons, make decisions and take actions that will likely lead to the permanent and vicious disfiguring of their lives and those of others. There is no silver-bullet solution or public-policy programme that will completely resolve this issue. One thing we must not do, however, is hand the young men caught up in youth violence an excuse – a narrative about deprivation or racism that can be used to excuse or explain away their behaviour.

This is the NYT’s story referenced – They Called Him a Gangster Out for Revenge. The Evidence? 6 Text Messages.

by Blazingcatfur•November 22, 2022November 22, 2022•0•Crime

The delicious fall of Sam Bankman-Fried

The FTX founder is the sort of sanctimonious fraud our species knows well

Dame Edna Everage says one of life’s most precious gifts is the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others. You may lament this instinct, yet we all harbor it. New Yorkers are especially prone when it comes to property envy. Every couple of years, it feels like, a skyscraper goes up in the city that is significantly taller than the previous very tall new skyscraper. Each time one does, the only thing that goes higher than the tower’s residences is the cost of purchasing them. So with what rapture do New Yorkers read about the misfortunes these buildings go through. Oh, the thrill of learning that they sway in the wind, that people get seasick in the penthouses, that when owners put their garbage in the trash chutes the noise on the lower floors is like a tactical nuke.

Will there be Madoff or Holmes like jail time for Sammy?

Unlikely given his parents Dem party standing.

Disgraced FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried looks distressed as he hunkers down with Mommy & Daddy at his $40M penthouse hideaway in the Bahamas

by Blazingcatfur•November 22, 2022November 22, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime

The EIGHT most puzzling aspects of the Idaho murder mystery that cops must address

Idaho’s bungling Moscow Police Department have found themselves under increasing pressure to produce answers into the brutal slayings of four students as they slept – including why 911 was only called nine hours later.

Officials who raced to the six-bedroom property initially claimed that there was no wider threat to the public – a statement they retracted three days after the incident and have failed to make a single arrest.

Kaylee Goncalves, 21, was one of the four students brutally knifed to death. Her parents say police told them the crime scene ‘will take a lot of time to process’ and the killer was ‘sloppy’.

by Blazingcatfur•November 22, 2022November 22, 2022•0•Crime

Guns weapon of choice: Last year saw highest rate of gang-related homicides in 16 years – Statistics Canada

Data from Statistics Canada show there was an increase in homicides in 2021 and nearly one-quarter of the killings were connected to gangs.

There were 788 homicides in the country last year — up three per cent from 2020 — and 184 of those were gang related.

It marks the highest rate of gang-related homicides since 2005.

The agency says firearms were the most common weapon used in homicides.

Imagine! Gangs of legal gun owners!

by Blazingcatfur•November 22, 2022November 21, 2022•0•Crime, Gun Control, Gun Rights

Favoring Violence Against Women

Whether they realize it or not, criminal-justice liberals enable the dangers they decry.

The de facto socialist leader of the failing British state, Rishi Sunak, said at the Bali conference of G20 nations that “the events of the last year showed us that so many women and girls, actually for a while have not felt as safe as they should.” This seems to have come to him as a revelation, which suggests that his grasp on reality is not all that one might have hoped. He said that all people want the streets to be safer, “particularly for their wife and sister.”

by Blazingcatfur•November 21, 2022November 21, 2022•0•Crime

How Caroline Ellison Found Herself at the Center of the FTX Crypto Collapse

As CEO of Alameda Research, Ms. Ellison took a leading role in helping Sam Bankman-Fried build the FTX empire

On a video call in early November, employees at Alameda Research dialed in to learn the fate of the trading firm, which was teetering on the brink.

It was up to Caroline Ellison to deliver the bad news. Alameda was at the center of Sam Bankman-Fried ‘s collapsing FTX empire. Ms. Ellison, who had just turned 28, was at the center of Alameda. And they were all in crisis.

Alameda and crypto exchange FTX were both the brainchild of Ms. Ellison’s friend Mr. Bankman-Fried, and he had picked her to help lead Alameda the year before. For a time, they rode the crypto wave together, with FTX eventually notching a blockbuster valuation of $32 billion. This month, it all came crashing down in a matter of days.

Another episode of empty rich kids doing bad.

by Blazingcatfur•November 21, 2022November 21, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime

Univ. of Idaho killer was ‘sloppy,’ left ‘mess’ of evidence, victim’s family says

The investigation into the brutal stabbing deaths of four University of Idaho students is slow and painstaking because the killer was “sloppy” and left a “mess” of evidence behind, according to the parents of a victim.

Steve and Kristi Goncalves, whose daughter Kaylee was one of the four students killed at an off-campus house on Nov. 13, said they’ve been told by police that examining the chaotic crime scene will take time.

by Blazingcatfur•November 21, 2022November 21, 2022•0•Crime

Did drugs, fake money and office ‘sleepovers’ cause crypto’s $32bn blow-up?

As the sun beat down on the Baha Mar resort in the Bahamas, Sam Bankman-Fried was living his very best life.

On stage and before an invited audience, Sam was in his usual work attire of trainers, shorts and a T-shirt, but Tony Blair tried to put the founder at ease. “I’m feeling a little overdressed here,” Blair assured him. Between them, the former US president Bill Clinton chuckled.

by Blazingcatfur•November 21, 2022November 20, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime

‘The money is gone’: people who lost out in FTX’s collapse

… William, a construction site manager from California, was woken by a text from friends about potential trouble at FTX in the early hours of 8 November. At the time, the 40-year-old had about $85,000 of fiat currencies on the exchange, plus three bitcoins worth about $55,000 and about $10k in other altcoins – a significant chunk of his assets.

“I opened the FTX app, and tried to take it all out, but fiat withdrawals were limited to $25,000, so I did that and was told to wait 24 hours,” he says. “When I tried to withdraw the bitcoins I got an error message.”

by Blazingcatfur•November 20, 2022November 19, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime

Polyamory, penthouses and plenty of loans: inside the crazy world of FTX

After the crypto firm collapsed, the executive who handled the Enron debacle was brought in – and said he’d never seen anything like it

Casual observers could be forgiven for thinking the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX is another typical tale of financial mismanagement. That’s how its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, terms it: a liquidity crisis that tipped over into a solvency one.

FTX had deposits and loans and when depositors tried to get their money back, FTX didn’t have it to hand. Sure, the loans were in fancy digital money, rather than stale dollars, but at first glance, it appears like just another big company failure.

Then you look closer, and it becomes clear that the whole edifice is in fact the corporate equivalent of three children in a trenchcoat pretending to be a fully grown man.

by Blazingcatfur•November 19, 2022November 19, 2022•0•"Digital Currency", Crime