Month: October 2024

Source: United States Department of Justice

The Justice Department announced today that it has filed a lawsuit alleging that the owners and managers of Suburban Heights Apartments, a residential rental property in Kinloch, Missouri, near St. Louis, engaged in a pattern or practice of race and/or color discrimination against prospective Black tenants by banning tenants with any past felony conviction and certain other criminal histories, in violation of the Fair Housing Act. The defendants, Suburban Heights LLC, Crestline Property LLC, Triline Properties LLC and Jingle Properties LLC, each owned and/or managed the property at various relevant times since at least 2015.

“Rental property owners and managers that ban tenants with a criminal history risk running afoul of the Fair Housing Act,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Policies that perpetuate racial discrimination in the housing market can prove devastating for communities of color. This lawsuit should send a clear message to housing providers that certain criminal history bans on people seeking to put a roof over their heads are not just unfair but unlawful. The Justice Department is committed to enforcing the protections of the Fair Housing Act to prevent housing discrimination on the basis of race and color in all its forms.”

The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri and alleges that, during their respective periods of ownership or management of the property from at least November 2015 to January 2024, the defendants publicized and enforced a categorical ban on tenants with felony convictions and certain other criminal histories, regardless of how long ago the conviction occurred. This policy excluded prospective tenants based on their criminal histories, which are known to have significant racial disparities, and which are not accurate proxies for actual underlying criminal activity nor reliable predictors of future criminal activity. By choosing to use that policy, the defendants likely deterred prospective Black tenants from applying to rent and excluded them from housing opportunities at Suburban Heights Apartments.

The allegations were based, in part, on evidence generated by the department’s Fair Housing Testing Program, in which individuals pose as prospective renters to gather information about possible discriminatory practices.

The lawsuit seeks monetary damages to remedy the harms caused by the defendants’ policy, a civil penalty to vindicate the public interest and a court order barring future discrimination.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination in housing based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability and familial status. Individuals who believe that they may have been victims of housing discrimination at Suburban Heights Apartments or other dwellings owned or managed by the defendants, or who have other information that may be relevant to this case, may contact the Civil Rights Division’s Housing Discrimination Hotline at 1-833-591-0291. Press 1 for English, press 1 for discrimination in housing and then press 8 for Suburban Heights Apartments to leave a message. Individuals may also send an email to talk.suburbanheights@usdoj.gov or submit a report online.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Today, the Department is announcing charges against 10 individuals affiliated with pharmaceutical distributors alleged to have funneled nearly 70 million opioid pills and 30 million doses of other commonly abused prescription drugs to “pill-mill” pharmacies, mostly in the Houston, Texas area. These drugs had an estimated street value of over $1.3 billion.

Related Press Release:

Ten Pharmaceutical Distributor Executives, Sales Representatives, and Brokers Charged in Connection with Unlawful Sales of Nearly 70M Opioid Pills

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

Two men were sentenced today for participating in a scheme to defraud Apple Inc. (Apple) out of millions of dollars worth of iPhones. Haotian Sun, 34, a Chinese citizen residing in Baltimore, was sentenced to 57 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $1,072,200 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture money judgment of $53,610. Pengfei Xue, 34, a Chinese citizen residing in Germantown, Maryland, was sentenced to 54 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $397,800 in restitution to Apple and a forfeiture money judgment of $19,890.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, from May 2017 to September 2019, Sun and Xue, along with their co-conspirators, submitted counterfeit iPhones to Apple for repair to induce Apple to replace the counterfeit phones with genuine iPhones. As part of the scheme, Sun and Xue would receive shipments of inauthentic iPhones from Hong Kong at UPS mailboxes throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. They then submitted the fake iPhones, with spoofed serial numbers or IMEI numbers, to Apple retail stores, including an Apple Store in Washington, and other authorized Apple service providers. Members of the conspiracy submitted more than 6,000 inauthentic phones to Apple during the conspiracy, causing a loss of more than $2.5 million.

On Feb. 20, Sun and Xue were both convicted after a five-day jury trial of one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud. Sun was also convicted of one count of mail fraud and Xue was convicted of six counts of mail fraud.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia; Inspector in Charge Damon E. Wood of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Washington Division; and Special Agent in Charge Derek W. Gordon of the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Washington Field Office made the announcement.

USPIS and HSI investigated the case.

Trial Attorney Ryan Dickey of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Kondi Kleinman for the District of Columbia prosecuted the case.

Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division

The Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) co-hosted the Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Justice Symposium in Washington, D.C., at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Oct. 2.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Criminal Division, kicked off the symposium by delivering a keynote speech describing the promises and perils of artificial intelligence (AI) and announcing a new Strategic Approach to Countering Cybercrime that is part of the division’s plan to combat cybercrime and other offenses enabled by emerging technology like AI.  The Strategic Approach emphasizes the division’s focus on using all tools to disrupt criminal activity and hold criminal actors accountable, developing law and policy to prevent and prosecute cybercrime, and promoting cybersecurity through capacity building and public education. 

As part of the Strategic Approach’s focus on developing law and policy to prevent and prosecute cybercrime, PDAAG Argentieri announced the division’s support for the UN Convention on Cybercrime, which the department negotiated along with its interagency partners to address the need for international cooperation on combatting cybercrime while protecting civil rights.

In addition, PDAAG Argentieri announced that, as part of the Strategic Approach’s focus on promoting cybersecurity, the division will engage with external stakeholders to update CCIPS’s Vulnerability Disclosure Framework to foster the responsible use of vulnerability testing and reporting and to account for the need for good-faith security research into AI systems.  As PDAAG Argentieri noted, such research can help identify systems whose operations or outputs are unsafe, inaccurate, or ineffective for their intended uses and can protect against potentially serious harms to individual rights.

A newly released Fact Sheet illustrates the recent enforcement actions that CCIPS has taken in furtherance of its Strategic Approach.  Since 2021, CCIPS, working with domestic and international law enforcement partners, has:

• Disrupted seven of the most prolific ransomware variants, including by seizing their infrastructure and distributing their decryption keys to victims—thereby saving victims from having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments;

• Ended the operation of a malicious proxy service, three criminal cryptocurrency money laundering or transmitting services, two major hacker forums, and two online criminal marketplaces — thereby disrupting criminals who were using those services for narcotics trafficking, computer crimes, identity theft, and child exploitation;

• Liberated more than 20 million computers from botnets or other forms of malicious software; and

• Publicly announced the conviction of over 100 defendants in connection with schemes involving ransomware, malware, criminal marketplaces, and cryptocurrency.

The symposium was attended by members of government, industry, academia, civil society, and the public, and a recording of the livestream is available on the symposium webpage.

Source: United States Department of Justice 2

The Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) co-hosted the Artificial Intelligence in the Department of Justice Symposium in Washington, D.C., at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) on Oct. 2.

Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Criminal Division, kicked off the symposium by delivering a keynote speech describing the promises and perils of artificial intelligence (AI) and announcing a new Strategic Approach to Countering Cybercrime that is part of the division’s plan to combat cybercrime and other offenses enabled by emerging technology like AI.  The Strategic Approach emphasizes the division’s focus on using all tools to disrupt criminal activity and hold criminal actors accountable, developing law and policy to prevent and prosecute cybercrime, and promoting cybersecurity through capacity building and public education. 

As part of the Strategic Approach’s focus on developing law and policy to prevent and prosecute cybercrime, PDAAG Argentieri announced the division’s support for the UN Convention on Cybercrime, which the department negotiated along with its interagency partners to address the need for international cooperation on combatting cybercrime while protecting civil rights.

In addition, PDAAG Argentieri announced that, as part of the Strategic Approach’s focus on promoting cybersecurity, the division will engage with external stakeholders to update CCIPS’s Vulnerability Disclosure Framework to foster the responsible use of vulnerability testing and reporting and to account for the need for good-faith security research into AI systems.  As PDAAG Argentieri noted, such research can help identify systems whose operations or outputs are unsafe, inaccurate, or ineffective for their intended uses and can protect against potentially serious harms to individual rights.

A newly released Fact Sheet illustrates the recent enforcement actions that CCIPS has taken in furtherance of its Strategic Approach.  Since 2021, CCIPS, working with domestic and international law enforcement partners, has:

• Disrupted seven of the most prolific ransomware variants, including by seizing their infrastructure and distributing their decryption keys to victims—thereby saving victims from having to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments;

• Ended the operation of a malicious proxy service, three criminal cryptocurrency money laundering or transmitting services, two major hacker forums, and two online criminal marketplaces — thereby disrupting criminals who were using those services for narcotics trafficking, computer crimes, identity theft, and child exploitation;

• Liberated more than 20 million computers from botnets or other forms of malicious software; and

• Publicly announced the conviction of over 100 defendants in connection with schemes involving ransomware, malware, criminal marketplaces, and cryptocurrency.

The symposium was attended by members of government, industry, academia, civil society, and the public, and a recording of the livestream is available on the symposium webpage.