Month: May 2023

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The Justice Department, FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), and other federal law enforcement agencies announced today the completion of a three-month campaign that disrupted networks used by foreign fraudsters to obtain fraud proceeds. Multiple law enforcement actions addressed conduct by individuals sometimes referred to as “money mules,” who have been providing critical services to fraudsters by receiving money from fraud victims and forwarding the fraud proceeds to the perpetrators (many of whom are based overseas). Some individuals knew they were facilitating fraud, while others first interacted with fraudsters as victims and may have been unaware that their activity furthered criminal activity.

Over approximately the last three months, law enforcement took over 4,000 actions against individuals responsible for facilitating a range of fraud schemes. These schemes included those that targeted consumers, such as lottery fraud and romance scams, as well as those that targeted businesses or pandemic funds.

The thousands of actions taken by law enforcement — which ranged from criminal prosecutions to civil actions, to warning letters — were designed to punish those who knowingly assisted fraudsters and to advise those who may have been unknowingly helping fraudsters that their conduct furthered crime. These actions are intended to deter overseas fraudsters from relying on U.S.-based individuals to facilitate schemes and thereby reduce the harm caused by foreign fraud operations.

This year’s effort marked the fifth U.S. law enforcement campaign disrupting these money transmitting networks. Since the first campaign, during which approximately 400 actions were taken by law enforcement, agencies have collectively taken over 12,000 actions. Investigations have shown that disrupting money transmitting networks has impeded fraudsters’ abilities to receive funds, thereby reducing fraud victimization. These campaigns are part of a global effort to tackle money transmitting networks linked to illegal activity.

“Law enforcement is committed to reducing fraud using every tool at our disposal. Our efforts to disrupt networks used to transfer fraud proceeds, to educate the public about elder fraud, and to prosecute those involved in these schemes have stymied fraudsters,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “This initiative demonstrates what can be achieved through focused efforts and vigorous enforcement.”

“The money mule campaign was an effort to educate the public, disrupt criminal enterprises, and provide feedback to financial institutions who go to great lengths to implement anti-money laundering programs,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “The FBI values the partnership of the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch, USPIS, and other federal agencies who work together to disrupt criminal enterprises conducting fraud and money laundering schemes.”

“Anyone can be approached to be a money mule, but criminals often target students, those looking for work, and those on dating websites,” said USPIS Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the Criminal Investigations Group. “When those individuals use the U.S. Mail to send or receive funds from fraudsters, postal inspectors are quick to step in and put a stop to money mule activities.”

This year’s effort was coordinated by the Justice Department’s Consumer Protection Branch, FBI and USPIS, which were joined by Homeland Security Investigations, the Department of Labor Office of Inspector General and the Small Business Administration Office of Inspector General. Participating agencies collectively served over 4,000 letters warning individuals that their activities are facilitating fraud. These letters outlined the potential consequences for continuing to transmit illegally acquired funds. Participating agencies also filed 12 civil or administrative actions. Additionally, more than 25 individuals were criminally charged for knowingly receiving and forwarding victim funds or otherwise laundering fraud proceeds.

• The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District Massachusetts charged a defendant for using his accounting and “virtual CFO” business as a front to launder the proceeds of internet fraud schemes. As part of the alleged conspiracy, the defendant created dozens of shell companies and used those shell companies to open business bank accounts in Rhode Island and Massachusetts, through which the defendant laundered the criminal proceeds for his clients in exchange for fees. In total, since 2019, the defendant is alleged to have opened approximately 80 bank accounts (purportedly on behalf of 65 different companies), laundering approximately $35 million.

• The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of North Carolina charged an individual for facilitating an international, multimillion-dollar tech support fraud. The indictment alleged that the defendant agreed to obtain payment-processing services in his name to process victim payments and laundered the proceeds domestically and internationally to bank accounts located in India, receiving 3% of the revenue in return.

• The U.S. Attorneys’ Offices for the Central District of California and the District of Nebraska charged individuals who, despite warnings from law enforcement, continued facilitating fraud. In the Central District of California, an individual was charged for her role in receiving funds from fraud victims, including victims of business email compromises. According to the charges, the defendant opened 11 bank accounts at seven separate financial institutions in furtherance of the scheme. In the District of Nebraska, two individuals were charged for facilitating a lottery fraud scheme, including by receiving cashier’s checks in the mail.

As in past years, participating agencies are working to raise awareness about how fraudsters recruit and use individuals to assist their fraud operations. Federal agencies conducted outreach to the public and industry, and also expanded partnerships with local, state, and foreign law enforcement agencies. The Commodities Futures Trading Commission released a public awareness message about how fraudsters use and recruit people to facilitate romance fraud and “wrong number” text message scams, where fraudsters strike up conversations touting their wealth and success in trading crypto assets, over-the-counter foreign currency, or gold contracts to try and convince consumers to “invest” in crypto assets.

The agencies involved in this effort urge consumers to be on the lookout for signs someone is trying to recruit them to receive and transmit fraud proceeds. Do not agree to receive money or checks mailed to you or sent to your bank account for someone you have met over the phone or online. Do not open a bank or cryptocurrency account at someone else’s direction. Fraudsters will lie to persuade you to help them. They may falsely tell you that they are helping you get a lottery prize, initiate a purported romantic relationship and then tell you that they need money, or pretend to offer you a job, an opportunity to invest in a business venture, or the chance to help in a charitable effort.

For more information on this initiative, please visit www.justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch/money-mule-initiative.

Information about the Department of Justice’s Elder Fraud Initiative is available at www.justice.gov/elderjustice. If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been a victim of financial fraud, help is available at the National Elder Fraud Hotline: 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311).   

Information about the Justice Department’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force is available at www.justice.gov/coronavirus.

For more information about the Consumer Protection Branch and its enforcement efforts, visit its website at www.justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch.

A criminal indictment is merely an allegation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good morning, everyone. I am honored to be here with such a huge crowd of passionate first responders and advocates and experts and survivors.

If you don’t know the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW), we are a less huge but equally passionate crowd of first responders and advocates and experts and survivors.

We administer the Violence Against Women Act, which this year means we have $700 million to invest in the work you all are doing on the front lines making change in your communities.

We want our grants and our policy work to be truly effective. And to be effective, we must be guided by the people who are on the ground, the real experts, who are building community-based responses – basically, guided by the people who are represented here in this room today and united by the same mission.

You are among the first people a survivor encounters in the aftermath of violence, and the way you respond can make the difference between a survivor getting access to justice and a survivor getting revictimized by the system.

All survivors deserve meaningful access to justice. And for many survivors, that does not involve the criminal justice system.

They are seeking other options. They need something between 911 and nothing, a pathway to safety and accountability.

But many survivors do want the criminal justice system to provide that safety and accountability. They want to be heard and believed in court.

And to do that they often need a supportive health care provider, a patient-centered response to trauma and sensitive evidence-collection.

Evidence collection has changed so much over the years. When I was starting out working in shelters in the 90’s, our evidence collection for domestic violence was polaroid pictures – anyone remember that?

I also remember a lot of survivors who I failed.

One woman had been strangled and had crashed through a glass window to escape. Neither the police nor I realized that was a medical emergency or what physical evidence they could have gathered. They just dropped her off at the shelter with bits of glass still in her hair.

And I don’t know how she fared, because she walked out of the shelter and into the Florida night and never came back. She didn’t even have shoes with her.

What if, instead, she had been offered trauma-informed support that met her medical needs and, if she wanted, collected evidence that could help her stay safe and get justice?

That is why I today I am profoundly honored and excited to announce the release of the first-ever National Protocol for Intimate Partner Violence Medical Forensic Examinations.

The protocol guides the clinical practice for conducting medical forensic exams for patients experiencing intimate partner violence, or IPV.

While many IPV victims seek medical assistance for injuries, in the past, most IPV health care protocols focused on screening rather than forensic exams or collecting evidence – evidence that not only supports investigation and prosecution, but can also validate what a survivor has experienced. That’s important when you’ve been gaslit and you haven’t been believed and you’re not sure what to do next.

By bringing together trauma-informed, patient-centered care, with screening and evidence collection, this protocol connects survivors’ needs with an evidence-based medical forensic examination that, if implemented correctly, will enhance communities’ responses to IPV.

I got to visit the New Orleans Family Justice Center earlier this year. Their HOPE Clinic provides onsite forensic exams for IPV, but that’s not all – they provide primary care and behavioral health services, too.

The Family Justice Center also offers a wellness program with a range of alternative healing modalities for survivors. Their process for forensic exams ensures that survivors are fully informed and in control of the process.

But not everyone is there yet, and that’s why we need a protocol.

For example, the International Association of Forensic Nurses (IAFN), OVW’s collaborative partner in developing the protocol, got a technical assistance request about an IPV survivor who sought medical care a couple of years ago. This survivor was not ready to report the abuse to law enforcement.

But, despite the absence of mandatory reporting requirements in their jurisdiction, the healthcare institution reported the assault to law enforcement.

They also called child protective services, even though the children were not present during the assault.

This was a violation of the state law and the patient’s privacy rights.

And it put her safety in jeopardy – she had not left the abusive relationship and she just needed to get medical care and document the injuries so she would have options in the future.

No one should have their life endangered or risk losing custody of their children because they sought a forensic exam. Will that survivor ever go back for help after that experience? Probably not, which is not going to keep her, or her kids, or her community safe.

The new protocol will help clinicians avoid that outcome.

It helps ensure that victims will be cared for with compassion and respect after an assault. Clinicians can offer survivors an assortment of choices, empowering them to make the decisions that they know are best for their welfare and that of their loved ones.

Last year, we came to the Conference on Crimes Against Women (CCAW) to announce our updated guidance on Improving Law Enforcement Response to Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence by Identifying and Preventing Gender Bias. Many of you exemplify the principles of that guidance and you are putting the “coordinate” into coordinated community response.

Our technical assistance providers like the International Association of Chiefs of Police, Police Executives Research Forum and the Law Enforcement Training and Technical Assistance Consortium can help if you need a little more support.

The new National Protocol for IPV Medical Forensic Examinations fits really well into a coordinated community response and ties in with the policing principles, so consider bringing those two pieces of guidance together when you get home and are connecting with your partner agencies.

We are profoundly grateful to the talented staff at IAFN, who also brought together 16 project partners from various disciplines to work on it. A much longer list of organizations participated in the extensive review process. Thanks to all of you who played a part.

IAFN also has technical assistance available on both IPV and sexual assault forensic exams at SAFEta.org.

I hope this guidance will prove a useful tool in helping you support survivors and address violence in your communities.

At OVW, we are relentlessly focused on changing the world by supporting all of you. Please help us do that by applying for OVW grants – we want to help you succeed.

Thank you to Jan Langbein and everyone at CCAW for bringing us together for this astounding conference. And thank you to the direct service providers, clinicians and first responders here today.

Creating options and choices – and supporting what survivors tell us they need, not what we think we should give them – is how we increase access to justice. It’s how we advance equity. It’s how we end gender-based violence.

Thank you.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A federal jury convicted a Pennsylvania man on May 19 for numerous crimes, including the torture of an Estonian citizen in 2015 in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, in connection with the operation of an illegal weapons manufacturing plant in Kurdistan.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Ross Roggio, 54, of Stroudsburg, arranged for Kurdish soldiers to abduct and detain the victim at a Kurdish military compound where Roggio suffocated the victim with a belt, threatened to cut off one of his fingers, and directed Kurdish soldiers to repeatedly beat, tase, choke, and otherwise physically and mentally abuse the victim over a 39-day period. The victim was employed at a weapons factory that Roggio was developing in the Kurdistan region of Iraq that was intended to manufacture M4 automatic rifles and Glock 9mm pistols.

In connection with the weapons factory project, which included Roggio providing training to foreign persons in the operation, assembly, and manufacturing of the M4 automatic rifle, Roggio also illegally exported firearm parts that were controlled for export by the Departments of State and Commerce.

“Roggio brutally tortured another human being to prevent interference with his illegal activities,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Thanks to the courage of the victim and other witnesses, the hard work of U.S. law enforcement, and the assistance of Estonian authorities, he will now be held accountable for his cruelty.”

“Today’s guilty verdict demonstrates that Roggio’s brutal acts of directing and participating in the torture of an employee over the course of 39 days by Kurdish soldiers could not avoid justice,” said U.S. Attorney Gerard M. Karam for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. “We thank all the prosecutors and law enforcement agents who worked tirelessly to address these acts that occurred in Iraq.”

“Today’s milestone conviction is the result of the extraordinary courage of the victim, who came forward after the defendant inflicted unspeakable pain on him for more than a month,” said Assistant Director Luis Quesada of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division. “Torture is among the most heinous crimes the FBI investigates, and together with our partners at the Human Rights Violators and War Crimes Center, we will relentlessly pursue justice.”

“U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is firmly dedicated to pursuing those who commit human rights violations, like Roggio, to ensure perpetrators face justice for their atrocities,” said Deputy Director and Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director Tae D. Johnson of ICE. “Our investigators will continue to work tirelessly with government partners so these horrendous acts do not go without consequence.”

“The illegal export of firearms parts and tools from the United States often goes hand in hand with other criminal activities, such as the charge of torture on which the jury voted to convict the defendant,” said Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Carson of the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS), Office of Export Enforcement, New York Field Office. “I commend our law enforcement colleagues for their dedication to bringing justice in this case.”

Roggio was convicted of torture, conspiracy to commit torture, conspiring to commit an offense against the United States, exporting weapons parts and services to Iraq without the approval of the Department of State, exporting weapons tools to Iraq without the approval of the Department of Commerce, smuggling goods, wire fraud, and money laundering. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 23 and faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Roggio is the second defendant to be convicted of torture since the federal torture statute went into effect in 1994.

The FBI and HSI investigated the torture and were joined in investigating the export control violations related to the firearms manufacturing equipment by the Department of Commerce’s BIS Office of Export Enforcement.

Trial Attorney Patrick Jasperse of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section, Trial Attorney Scott A. Claffee of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd K. Hinkley for the Middle District of Pennsylvania are prosecuting the case. The Estonian Internal Security Service, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, and the Pennsylvania State Police also provided valuable assistance.

Members of the public who have information about human rights violators in the United States are urged to contact U.S. law enforcement through the FBI tip line at 1-800-CALL-FBI or the HSI tip line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE, or complete the FBI online tip form or the ICE online tip form.

Source: United States Department of Justice News

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good afternoon. Thank you for that warm welcome. Wonderful to see this Great Hall so filled with supporters of INTERPOL.

Thank you, Skip, for that kind introduction and for your many years of public service.

I am honored to join you to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of INTERPOL and 100 years of international law enforcement cooperation.

I am also honored to welcome Secretary General Jurgen Stock to the Department of Justice—and to thank him for his steadfast leadership of INTERPOL since 2014 and for his long and distinguished career of public service. 

Under his leadership, INTERPOL has made important advances in at least three respects:

First, in modernizing its technology and strengthening INTERPOL’s National Central Bureaus, to create a truly global network.

It is a network we rely upon every day to locate fugitives, and to seek their arrest overseas pursuant to INTERPOL red notices, so that they can be extradited to face justice here. 

Second, Jurgen has helped make INTERPOL a critical platform for multilateral coordination to fight terrorism and international and transnational crime. This ranges from creating a biometric database of foreign terrorist fighters to establishing networks for cooperation against environmental crime, human smuggling, narcotics trafficking, cybercrime, and other forms of organized crime.

And third, Jurgen has put in place safeguards—including the Notices and Diffusions Task Force—to ensure that INTERPOL notices are consistent with the INTERPOL Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights—and are not misused by repressive regimes.

Jurgen’s been busy.

Our National Central Bureau sees—every day—the importance of these advances made by the Secretary General.

I also want to pay tribute to the women and men at the National Central Bureau—and to its outstanding leader, Mike Hughes. They work around the clock keeping information essential to apprehending fugitives and protecting our citizens—flowing to and from INTERPOL.

I know that Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security John Tien, my friend—who is with us today, and who is our partner in staffing the National Central Bureau—joins me in recognizing the critical importance of this work.

We celebrating another anniversary this year—it is 20 years ago that we established the DOJ and DHS co-management of INTERPOL Washington. 

Thank you, John, and the Department of Homeland Security, for being here today and for your partnership.

INTERPOL started in 1923, at the second International Criminal Police Congress, in which the United States was of one of the 20 countries that participated.

The central concept behind INTERPOL was to establish the means for police in different countries to cooperate on solving crimes—particularly through identification techniques, centralized criminal records, and arrest and extradition procedures.

Today, INTERPOL is 195, soon to be 196, countries strong and those founding ideas have expanded into myriad avenues for law enforcement cooperation around the globe. 

In 1923, member countries communicated by mail, telegram, and telephone, just a little bit of an advance through carrier pigeon, but not much. Today, through a dedicated 24/7 web-based communications system, police agencies around the world can instantly connect with just the click of a mouse—exchanging millions of messages and insights annually. 

INTERPOL’s notices by U.S. and foreign authorities can often be the fastest and most effective method of seeking the location and arrest of criminals—indeed, in many instances, the existence of an INTERPOL red notice may be the precondition for an arrest to be made by another country for the purposes of extradition.

In its infancy, INTERPOL relied on paper and ink fingerprints to aid in the identification of criminals. Today, digital fingerprint systems, DNA profiles, and facial recognition images lead to thousands of identifications every year. 

Through the marriage of partnerships and technology, INTERPOL is making it harder for criminals and terrorists to travel with impunity.

INTERPOL is at the forefront of helping law enforcement worldwide respond to the most urgent public safety and national security challenges. From terrorism, cybercrime, drug cartels, human trafficking—INTERPOL is increasingly playing an important role in our global security. 

And as autocratic nations seek to project power both at home and abroad, I want to applaud INTERPOL’s decision to increase scrutiny of requests, including through the Notices and Diffusions Task Force, to ensure that INTERPOL isn’t misused in furtherance of transnational repression.

INTERPOL provides a vital link between police agencies all around the world. And that global cooperation is evident here today—with the presence of so many leaders from across law enforcement at every level.  

Across my career, from being an AUSA to advising the President on homeland security and counterterrorism, to my role now as Deputy Attorney General, I have seen the value—and frankly, the necessity—of law enforcement cooperation across borders.

And on so many occasions, INTERPOL has been that critical link. I am sure that every law enforcement leader here could share examples of INTERPOL playing a key part in their critical investigations.

INTERPOL’s system of notices, databases, and communications between its member countries works both quietly behind the scenes and actively in investigations to prevent crimes, disrupt criminal organizations, catch criminals, and protect the public.

Through INTERPOL Washington, the United States is benefitting from these resources and the international cooperation required in the 21st century challenges that we all have to protect the public.

Hundreds of millions of queries of INTERPOL data every year by U.S. authorities result in countless matches on fugitives, missing persons, and dangerous individuals every single day.

To take just one notable example—one that has particular resonance given that we have just observed police week and honored our fallen law enforcement heroes—on June 20, 2013, nearly 10 years ago, in Bogota, Colombia, drug traffickers murdered DEA Special Agent James “Terry” Watson.

INTERPOL Washington worked closely with agents and prosecutors to quickly draft and expedite the publication of seven Red Notices, each within hours or even within minutes of the issuance of arrest warrants for the defendants.

The Red Notices provided the Colombian National Police with authority they needed to provisionally arrest the subjects who were all eventually extradited to the United States and successfully prosecuted in the Eastern District of Virginia in 2014. 

Then Attorney General Eric Holder said at the time that the final convictions in this case represented an “important milestone in our effort to achieve justice for a fallen hero”—and he noted in particular that this result was made possible through “assistance from INTERPOL.”

What started as a simple idea to foster communication between police agencies has grown into a global crime fighting force that touches every aspect of our mission to keep people safe and to uphold the rule of law.

We face ever evolving threats—from countering nuclear smuggling to tracking down terrorists, from disrupting the latest cyber threat to rescuing children from sex traffickers, from dismantling violent drug cartels to fighting illegal arms trafficking.  

Over the last 100 years, INTERPOL has evolved to meet the threat, and in so doing, has made the world a safer place.

Congratulations to INTERPOL on celebrating 100 years.