Category: Crime

Cross border cattle raid leaves 200 dead, children abducted

19/4/2016

Cattle raiders have crossed the Ethiopian border with South Sudan to kill and steal. On Friday last, armed men crossed into Ethiopia on a cattle raid. They have left 208 people dead at last count. In addition they have kidnapped over 100 children and stolen about 2000 head of livestock.

While cattle raiding has taken place in the past, the scale of this raid and the brutality of it are unprecedented. Thousands of heavily armed men attacked 10 villages. While some authorities state that the S. Sudan rebels or military were not involved, it has been reported that most of the raiders were wearing military uniforms.

A spokesman for the Ethiopian government has stated that the military has killed 60 of the raiders and has crossed the S. Sudan border in pursuit of the rustlers. The state communication minister stated that the group from S. Sudan was of one ethnic group and they were targeting a different group.

You might ask why the raiders would burden themselves with children. The area has a long history of holding captives as slaves. People are bought to use as free labour. Many of the girls and women captures are also sexually abused.

Cattle in the region are local currency. They indicate wealth and status. Since the particularly nasty civil war in S. Sudan began the raids have turned increasingly deadly as more and more lethal weapons have proliferated. Most of the raids are conducted between hostile ethnic groups.

The theft of the children and the slaughter of the people have made the survival of those left even more tenuous than before. Ethiopia is facing famine because of the long lasting drought which has ruined most crops. It has been estimated that over 10 million people need food aid now.

Sources:
Al Jazeera
The Guardian
All Africa News
Anti War. Com

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Bizarre cult ruled by child rapist

21/2/2016

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The Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints (FLDS) is a cult that broke away from the main LDS(Mormon) Church in 1890.One of the conditions of attaining statehood was the repudiation of the custom of polygamy. The FLDS has maintained the practise in spite of it being a crime in both the US and Canada.

Central to the FLDS belief system is the faith that god speaks through the leader or prophet. Since 2002 that lone leader has been Warren Jeffs. He has consolidated his power over his believers who reside mainly in Utah, Arizona and Texas. There are about 7500 followers in the towns of Colorado City and Hildale which straddle the Utah Arizona state lines.

There have long been rumours about abuses in the colonies, but after Jeffs attained power conditions for the faithful deteriorated further. Family men have been kicked out of the towns and their wives and children assigned to men more favourable to the prophet. Because all property is held in a church trust, people kicked out of the colonies leave with nothing and are forbidden to contact their former friends and family.

When Jeffs’ father died, he married 20 of his stepmothers and assigned others to men of his choosing. He had a reputation for watching out for young, beautiful girls and marrying them as “spiritual brides”. His nephew sued him for raping him when the nephew was five years old.

Some of the wives escaped the colonies and began to tell the public about abuses. An investigator was brought onto the scene to find out about the “lost boys”. Those are young boys and men who are expelled from the colonies never to return. It is obvious that a polygamous system cannot function with an even number of men and women. Warren Jeffs alone is reputed to have married over 80 women. A photograph in the book Prophet’s Prey by investigator Sam Brower, shows Jeffs posing with 58 of his wives.

Law enforcement people tried on several occasions to serve subpoenas but Jeffs always seemed to be not at home. The FBI put him on the Ten Most Wanted list and he was apprehended. In his possession at the time was a tape recording of him raping 12 old Merrianne Jessop. The offense took place in Texas and he was charged with her sexual assault as well as the assault of another under age girl. That got him a life sentence with no parole.

He is still able to control his cult. He does it by phone.
The town marshal and the City Manager of Hildale/Colorado City are currently embroiled in a federal court case that alleges that they aided and abetted crimes against non-church members.

According to the Justice Department, the Marshal's Office selectively enforces "laws and regulations against non-FLDS individuals on the basis of religion."

Just when you may think you’ve heard it all, information was leaked out in a child custody case that those men in the FLDS fold are no longer allowed to touch their wives, except to hold their hands while selected “seed bearers” impregnate them.

Most of the members of the cult are descended from two founding families. The inbreeding that has occurred has resulted in a formerly rare genetic disorder now firmly in place in the colonies. The defect results in microcephaly, major brain dysfunction, severe seizures and early death. It has been explained to the mothers as a test from god.

Sources:
CNN
Topix.com
Courthouse News Service
CNN

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Martin Shkreli arrested for fraud

17/12/2015

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Martin Shkreli, poster boy for corporate greed, has been arrested. He has been charged with fraud, using the funds of a biotech company, Retropin, to support his lavish lifestyle and to cover millions lost in poor investments. The FBI arrested him for milking the biotech company to cover personal losses.

The US Attorney Robert Capers characterized it as a Ponzi scheme.

"As alleged in the indictment, Shkreli essentially ran his companies like a Ponzi scheme, where he used each subsequent company to pay off the defrauded investors in the prior company," CNBC

Shkreli came to the general public’s attention this past summer when news leaked out that he had purchased rights to Daraprim. The drug was developed many years ago and given to a non-profit manufacturer. It is an important drug in fighting the toxoplasmosis parasite, especially in those who have compromised immune systems – the very young and old, HIV positive people, cancer patients. When Shkreli’s drug company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought the rights to Daraprim he promptly increased the price from $13.50 per dose to $750.

He was unapologetic in spite of the widespread public outcry. Later he announced that he would cut the price by 50%. That never happened.

Turing also holds the rights to two heart medications that have seen their price jump from $440 to $2700 since their purchase. There is another company controlled by Shkreli -- KaloBios – that has the right to a drug that treats Chagas Disease. Chagas,widespread in tropical and semitropical areas, is also called breakbone fever due to the pain it causes. The price has been increased from a few hundred dollars for a course of treatment to $100 000.

The stunning increases in drug costs have prompted the US Senate to conduct hearings to demand answers from some of the pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Perhaps the charges against Shkreli will put him in jail. You can’t be jailed for being despicable, but you can be punished for defrauding investors.

Sources:
Bloomberg Business
CNBC

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Chinese kids victims in expired vaccine scandal

29/9/2015

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Real or Fake?

Hundreds of Chinese kids in Shenqui county are sick and two have died after being vaccinated with expired vaccine. The vaccine was administered for whooping cough (pertussis) June of last year. The children have been reacting with fever and breathing problems.

After some sleuthing, parents have found that the vaccine expired in December 2013.

Health officials did not deny the use of vaccine that was out of date but concluded that the rash of youngsters with serious breathing problems is not connected with the vaccine. One of the hallmarks of whooping cough is a cough so severe that as the victim struggles to get a breath the intake produces a whooping sound.

Also not connected with vaccinations but following closely after them are reports of hundreds more children falling ill. In 2010 following compulsory measles vaccination many children suffered severe illness and some died. January 2014 after inoculation for Hepatitis B, 17 deaths resulted that followed closely but were deemed unconnected.

In addition to the worry over expired vaccines causing harm, there is also worry that poor quality control in the production of vaccines will allow toxic materials and metals into the fluid.

Drug cheaters are an ongoing problem in the PRC. 2012 saw 77 million drug capsules seized because tainted industrial gelatine was used. Undeterred by the authorities’ arrests and prosecutions for the poisonous gelatin, an even larger batch of chromium laced gelatin capsules were produced and sold two years later. 90 million capsules have gone out to the public. Authorities have arrested some and seized a relatively small amount of product.

The illegal workshop’s owner, identified by his surname Pan had hired 10 people from the county who were involved in a tainted capsule scandal in 2012, the report said. South China Morning Post

Unfortunately for us in Western Europe and N.America the counterfeiting and poor quality controls are increasingly affecting pharmaceuticals. Many generic drugs or their precursors are produced in China. The situation is compounded when people seeking lower priced pharmaceuticals order from shifty online sites. The American FDA has extensive warnings and tips to distinguish reputable sellers from the cheaters – FDA BeSafeRx.

Buying fake drugs can kill you.

At NEWTEKWORLDNEWS:
Counterfeit goods in Fake Britain

Sources:
Radio Free Asia
China Real Time
South China Morning Post
FDA

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China arrests 19,000 in major crime bust

25/9/2015

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Organized crime steals from us all

China is in the midst of a giant dragnet of suspected triad members. A reported 19,000 people have been arrested in what has been dubbed Operation Thunderbolt 15. It involved a coordinated effort among law enforcement personnel in Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong Province.

Estimations of how many people were actually detained varies from a low of 19 000 to as many as 51 000 in the Chinese government’s attempt to halt the spread of organized crime in Mainland China. The name Triad refers to the international crime syndicate that has spread its influence over the globe.

The activities associated with the triads include drug marketing, prostitution and increasingly loan sharking.

In addition to the arrests, authorities seized cash and goods worth approximately $170 HK(roughly $22 USD).

China has been working to have others suspected of corruption and ties with organized crime repatriated to face justice in the PRC. Thursday a second person was deported from the US to China within one week. Kuang Wanfang fled the PRC in 2001 when she was suspected of corruption and bribery.

She had been convicted of criminal activity in the US and jailed. Yan Jinjun was returned to the PRC on September 18 to face charges of economic crimes.

China does not have formal extradition treaties with many of the western countries, but a few people have been deported to that country.

Corruption and lavish lifestyles have come under increasing scrutiny in the PRC. One of the latest powerful functionaries to fall is the former deputy minister of sport. Xiao Tian has been expelled from the Communist Party. He was a powerful figure during the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The charges against him include:

"He also accepted bribes, invitations for luxury services and VIP cards of golf clubs for seeking profits for others by taking advantage of his governmental post, which are suspected criminal offenses" - China Daily

Sources:
China Daily
The Oslo Times
South China Morning Post

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Cross border cattle raid leaves 200 dead, children abducted

Bizarre cult ruled by child rapist

Martin Shkreli arrested for fraud

Chinese kids victims in expired vaccine scandal

China arrests 19,000 in major crime bust

Barbara McPherson

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