Month: July 2024

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Rodrigo Paez-Quintero, a Mexican national, has been extradited from Mexico to the United States to face charges related to drug trafficking. Paez-Quintero’s surrender to U.S authorities after an extradition proceeding in Mexico demonstrates the ongoing cooperation between the United States and Mexico to combat the influx of dangerous drugs, including fentanyl, into the United States.

Paez-Quintero made his initial court appearance today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona in Tucson.

“Our fight against international drug traffickers who spread poison into our communities requires all hands on deck,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “This extradition is yet another example of our partnership with Mexican law enforcement to dismantle deadly cartels and bring drug kingpins to justice.”

“This indictment alleges coordinated conduct to traffic fentanyl and other illicit drugs into Phoenix,” said U.S. Attorney Gary Restaino for District of Arizona. “Many thanks to our federal, foreign and sovereign tribal partners for their teamwork and dedication.”

Paez-Quintero is charged in an indictment unsealed today with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl and multiple counts of possession with intent to distribute heroin, methamphetamine, and fentanyl. Each count carries a maximum penalty of life in prison and a maximum fine of $10 million. In the year prior to March 2019, the indictment alleges Paez-Quintero’s involvement in at least nine drug trafficking events from the Lukeville Port of Entry, through Ajo and up to Phoenix. According to numerous open sources, Paez-Quintero is the nephew of jailed Mexican drug kingpin Rafael Caro-Quintero.

This effort is part of an Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) operation. OCDETF identifies, disrupts, and dismantles the highest-level criminal organizations that threaten the United States using a prosecutor-led, intelligence-driven, multi-agency approach. Additional information about the OCDETF Program can be found at https://www.justice.gov/OCDETF.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Tucson, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Sells, and the FBI Tucson Field Office investigated this case, with substantial assistance from the Tohono O’odham Nation Police Department. The U.S. Marshals Service assisted with the extradition efforts. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs worked with law enforcement partners in Mexico to secure the arrest and extradition of Paez-Quintero.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona is prosecuting the case.

An 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 Criminal Division

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

On behalf of the United States, I am thrilled to welcome you to this official High-Level Political Forum side event, “Turning the Tide: Scaling SDG 16 for the Future, Reinforcing Access to Justice, and Advancing Democracy.”  

My name is Rachel Rossi, and I serve as Director for the Office for Access to Justice at the U.S. Department of Justice.

I am honored to welcome you in partnership with the Department of State, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the U.S. Agency for International Development and our 16 co-sponsors. 

As you know, SDG 16 provides a roadmap to advance peaceful and inclusive societies, access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions. 

I am proud to lead an office focused on these principles, the Office for Access to Justice, which advances a vital mission: that justice should belong to everyone, regardless of wealth or status. We lead robust and high-level policy initiatives to close justice gaps. 

For example, just last month, our office launched AccessDOJ, a new Department-wide program that uses human-centered design principles to ensure that our services are more accessible, effective and efficient. We also promote economic justice, including through advocacy for the elimination of unjust legal system fines and fees. We support access to counsel and legal help, including through our launch of the first-ever medical-legal partnership in a federal prison to meet civil legal needs. And we advance access to justice across the U.S. government by leading the Federal Government Pro Bono Program and the White House Legal Aid Interagency Roundtable, among many more initiatives. 

Our office also plays a key role in U.S. engagement on access to justice within multilateral for a like the United Nations. In this role, we were proud to offer technical assistance during the negotiations which led the UN General Assembly last year to adopt the first-ever UN resolution on access to justice.

Additionally, in line with Presidential mandates, our office assists with U.S. efforts to implement SDG 16. In line with this directive, later today, the U.S. DOJ Office for Access to Justice is convening – for the first time – a variety of entities and leaders from diverse backgrounds, including academics, people with lived experience, civil society organizations, cities, counties, states and our federal government. Together, we will discuss how better collaboration going forward can generate knowledge, inspire action and connect data to policy to advance the goals of SDG 16 here in the U.S. We hope you will join us in this effort. 

I’ll conclude by centering us on the reason we are here: the far too many individuals who are simply not able to access justice in the U.S. and around the world. In these grand halls, with sweeping views, surrounded by governments, with the expansive goals set forth by an impressive Sustainable Development agenda, it can be easy to forget the people this work is for. But the founding United Nations Charter reminds us that the “peoples of the United Nations determined … to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small.” 

To pursue this work effectively, we must consistently center the perspectives of the communities we serve and the real-life impact of our mission. The United States ranks 115th out of 142 countries, and dead last among the 46 wealthiest countries, on “accessibility and affordability of civil justice” in the World Justice Project Rule of Law Index. In real and human terms, this means that people cannot get enough help with the most critical needs, such as access to housing, food security, keeping families together or safety from violence. The United States also maintains the highest prison population in the world, and barriers to accessing counsel remain pervasive across our criminal justice systems. 

SDG 16 is more than an agenda item. It is a tool to facilitate action to directly impact people, ensuring that core promises of economic security and equal justice are within reach for everyone. 

Colleagues, this Forum, and this panel, are a call to action for a renewed commitment to this mission. The task before us is urgent. Together we can turn the tide and successfully close the justice gap.

Now, to deliver keynote remarks, I am pleased to welcome Isobel Coleman, Deputy Administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development. I was honored to join Deputy Coleman last year at the Summit for Democracy in Washington and continue to be impressed by her commitment to access to justice. Since that time, our partnership with USAID has grown – and we look forward to future joint efforts.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

A Leader of Maniac Murder Cult, a White Supremacist Group, Allegedly Recruited Others to Commit Arsons and Bombings Targeting Racial Minorities and the Jewish Community

Planned New Year’s Eve Attack Involved Santa Claus Handing Out Poisoned Candy to Racial Minorities as well as Distributing Poisoned Candy to Jewish Children in Brooklyn

A federal grand jury in Brooklyn, New York, returned a four-count indictment today charging Georgian national Michail Chkhikvishvili, 21, also known as Mishka, Michael, Commander Butcher and Butcher, with soliciting hate crimes and acts of mass violence in New York City.

According to court documents, Chkhikvishvili was arrested pursuant to an Interpol Wanted Person Diffusion, which was issued based on a criminal complaint. Chkhikvishvili is alleged to be a leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, also known as Maniacs Murder Cult, Maniacs: Cult of Killing, MKY, MMC and MKU, an international racially or ethnically motivated violent extremist group. MKY adheres to a neo-Nazi accelerationist ideology and promotes violence and violent acts against racial minorities, the Jewish community and other groups it deems “undesirables.” MKY members share a common goal of challenging social order and governments via terrorism and violent acts that promote fear and chaos. MKY has members in the United States and abroad. Chkhikvishvili allegedly recruited others to commit violent acts in furtherance of MKY’s ideologies, including planning and soliciting a mass casualty attack in New York City from an undercover law enforcement employee whom Chkhikvishvili believed was a prospective MKY recruit.

Since approximately September 2021, Chkhikvishvili has distributed a manifesto titled the “Hater’s Handbook” to MKY members and others. The handbook discusses MKY’s principles and encourages members to engage in acts of mass violence in furtherance of those principles. In the handbook, Chkhikvishvili states that he has “murdered for the white race” and encourages and instructs others to commit acts of mass violence and “ethnic cleansing.” For example, and among other things, the handbook encourages its readers to commit school shootings and to use children to perpetrate suicide bombings and other mass killings targeting racial minorities. The document describes methods and strategies for committing mass “terror attacks,” including, for example, using vehicles to target “large outdoor festivals, conventions, celebrations and parades” and “pedestrian congested streets.” It specifically encourages committing attacks within the United States.

Sometime after April 2022, Chkhikvishvili traveled to Brooklyn and stayed with his grandmother while he was there. He traveled to the United States again in June 2022 and provided to border authorities his paternal grandmother’s address in Brooklyn as his address of record in the United States.

Beginning at least as early as July 2022, Chkhikvishvili repeatedly encouraged others, primarily via encrypted mobile messaging platforms, to commit violent hate crimes and other acts of violence on behalf of MKY. This included conspiring to solicit violent acts with a leader of a separate violent extremist neo-Nazi group and soliciting acts of mass violence in New York from an individual who claimed to be a prospective MKY recruit, but who, unbeknownst to Chkhikvishvili, was actually an undercover FBI employee (the UC).

In a September 2023 conversation, the UC messaged Chkhikvishvili whether there was an application process to join MKY. The defendant responded, “Well yes we ask people for brutal beating, arson/explosion or murder vids on camera.” He further stated that “[p]oisoning and arson are best options for murder,” and suggested also considering a larger “mass murder” within the United States. Chkhikvishvili advised the UC that the victims of these acts should be “low race targets.”

Beginning in approximately November 2023, Chkhikvishvili solicited the UC to commit violent crimes, such as bombings and arsons, for the purpose of harming racial minorities, Jewish individuals and others. Chkhikvishvili provided detailed plans and materials such as bomb-making instructions and guidance on making Molotov cocktails to facilitate his desire for the UC to carry out these crimes. In November 2023, Chkhikvishvili began planning a mass casualty attack in New York City to take place on New Year’s Eve. The scheme involved an individual dressing up as Santa Claus and handing out candy laced with poison to racial minorities and children at Jewish schools in Brooklyn. Chkhikvishvili drafted step-by-step instructions to carry out the scheme and shared with the UC detailed manuals on creating and mixing lethal poisons and gases. He also instructed the UC on methods of making ricin-based poisons in powder and liquid form, including by extracting ricin from castor beans. Some of the materials transmitted by Chkhikvishvili have been linked to radical Islamist jihadist groups and designated foreign terrorist organizations such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Chkhikvishvili intended that the planned attack would be a “bigger action than Breivik,” referring to Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian neo-Nazi who killed 77 people in a bombing and mass shooting in Norway in 2011. Meanwhile, he told others of his plan and claimed to have previously committed other hate crimes while living in Brooklyn, New York, in 2022. Chkhikvishvili boasted to others that he was “glad I have murdered,” and that he would “murder more” but “make others murder first.”    

If convicted, Chkhikvishvili faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for solicitation of violent felonies (including hate crime acts and transporting an explosive with intent to kill or injure), a maximum penalty of five years in prison for conspiring to solicit violent felonies, a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for distributing information pertaining to the making and use of explosive devices and a maximum penalty of five years in prison for transmitting threatening communications.

Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, U.S. Attorney Breon Peace for the Eastern District of New York and Executive Assistant Director Robert R. Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch made the announcement.

The FBI is investigating the case.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ellen H. Sise and Andrew D. Reich for the Eastern District of New York and Trial Attorney Jennifer Levy of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting the case. The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division also provided assistance.

An 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 Criminal Division

A federal court on July 2 enjoined a West Virginia company and its owner from manufacturing, distributing or selling unauthorized nicotine vaping products.

In a complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, the government alleged that Soul Vapor LLC and the company’s owner, Aurelius Jeffrey, violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) by causing tobacco products to become adulterated or misbranded while they were held for sale after shipment of one or more of their components in interstate commerce. According to the complaint, the defendants manufactured and sold finished electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) products or e-cigarette products, including products under the Soul Vapor brand. The complaint alleged that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned the defendants that their ENDS products were adulterated and misbranded.

The complaint also alleged that the defendants submitted materially false information to FDA. Under the FDCA, entities that manufacture tobacco products must annually register with FDA. The government’s complaint alleged that the defendants falsely told FDA in their registration form that the company was “inactive” and “out of business” even while it continued to manufacture ENDS products. The complaint also alleged that Jeffrey told FDA that he would discontinue manufacturing and selling Soul Vapor-brand ENDS products that lacked FDA authorization, yet the products remained for sale.

The court previously granted the government’s motion for summary judgment against the defendants, finding that the defendants violated the FDCA and submitted materially false information to FDA. The order entered by the court permanently enjoins the defendants from directly or indirectly manufacturing, distributing, selling and/or offering for sale any new tobacco product that has not received marketing authorization from FDA. The court also ordered the defendants to destroy ENDS products that are manufactured by defendants and in their custody, control or possession.

The injunction against Soul Vapor is the most recent judicial enforcement action finalized since the Justice Department and FDA announced the creation of a federal multi-agency task force to combat the illegal distribution and sale of e-cigarettes. To date, the FDA has authorized the sale of 27 specific tobacco- and menthol-flavored e-cigarette products and devices. These are the only e-cigarette products that currently may be lawfully marketed and sold in the United States.

“Manufacturing and selling unauthorized vaping products is illegal and threatens public health,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division. “The Justice Department will continue to work closely with the task force to bring enforcement actions against those who illegally manufacture, distribute or sell these dangerous products.”

“FDA has clearly outlined what manufacturers need to do to comply with the law, and we are committed to holding those who fail to do so accountable,” said Director Brian King, Ph.D., M.P.H. of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products. “FDA will continue to work with our federal partners to identify and bring enforcement actions against these bad actors.”

Trial Attorney Michael J. Murali of the Civil Division’s Consumer Protection Branch handled the case, with assistance from Associate Chief Counsel William Thanhauser of FDA’s Office of the Chief Counsel.

Additional information about the Consumer Protection Branch and its enforcement efforts can be found at www.justice.gov/civil/consumer-protection-branch.

Claims made in a complaint are allegations that, if a case were to proceed to trial, the government would be required to prove by a preponderance of the evidence.