Source: United States Navy
PACIFIC OCEAN — The Arleigh-Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley (DDG 101) participated in a multinational visit, board, search and seizure (VBSS) drill while underway July 15 during Exercise Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC), a large-scale international maritime exercise.
Source: United States Navy
A helicopter from HSM 79, conducting routine flight operations from Bulkeley spotted people indicating distress onboard a dead-in-the-water vessel, and reported the adrift vessel back to the destroyer.
Bulkeley, in coordination with the Joint Rescue Coordination Center, requested a nearby merchant, the Motor Vessel Seaways Sabine to approach the vessel and provide assistance. The Seaways Sabine found 31 personnel onboard a vessel that had been adrift for days, and found three people who needed medical attention.
The Bulkeley’s Rigid Hull Inflatable Boat delivered Bulkeley’s Corpsmen to the Seaways Sabine to provide medical assistance to the three unresponsive personnel. Unfortunately, the medical team was not able to save one of the patients despite an extended period of CPR. The two other patients in need of medical assistance are in a stable condition, and are being transported to the nearest suitable port by the Seaways Sabine.
“In times of crisis, the United States Navy is there to respond and assist whenever possible,” said Cmdr. Arturo Trejo, commanding officer of USS Bulkeley. “I want to thank our crew aboard and the crew aboard Seaways Sabine for their quick action and teamwork in assisting those during a time of need. This incident, while unfortunate, underscores our Navy’s ability to respond to those in need and showcases the readiness and capabilities of our team.”
Motor Vessel Seaways Sabine will be taking the rescued personnel to Port Sidi Kurayr, Egypt for further assistance.
U.S. 6th Fleet, headquartered in Naples, Italy, conducts the full spectrum of joint and naval operations, often in concert with allied and interagency partners, to advance U.S. national interests and security and stability in Europe and Africa.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Benjamin Carpenter, also known as Abu Hamza, 34, of Knoxville, Tennessee, was sentenced today to 20 years in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) in connection with providing translation services to ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.
“For years, this defendant led a global digital media operation to distribute pro-ISIS propaganda, promoting the group’s radical message of terror and pushing it to every corner of the world,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “Today’s sentence reflects the seriousness of this defendant’s conduct and the Justice Department’s commitment to identifying and holding accountable those who would provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations.”
“Combating terrorism and keeping our communities safe are the highest priorities of the United States Attorney’s Office,” said U.S. Attorney Francis M. Hamilton III for the Eastern District of Tennessee. “This case deals a serious blow to the expansion of ISIS and its broken message of hatred and senseless violence.”
“With today’s sentencing, Carpenter is being held accountable for betraying his country and helping ISIS terrorists,” said Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI’s National Security Branch. “He led a propaganda machine which called for war against U.S. and allied forces through suicide bombings and other means. The FBI and our partners will relentlessly pursue and bring to justice terrorists who devote their lives to hurting American citizens.”
According to court documents, on Oct. 19, 2023, following an eight-day trial in U.S. District Court, a jury convicted Carpenter of attempting to provide material support to ISIS. The evidence presented at trial demonstrated that Carpenter served as the leader of Ahlut-Tawhid Publications, an international organization of pro-ISIS “munasirin” (i.e., supporters), dedicated to translating, producing and distributing ISIS propaganda throughout the world. For years, Carpenter, using his alias Abu Hamza, published a large body of ISIS media, including his weekly newsletter entitled From Dabiq to Rome, a periodical that celebrated the deaths of American soldiers, glorified suicide bombers and called for open war against the United States and its Western allies, among other pro-ISIS propaganda themes. In 2020 and 2021, Carpenter contacted an individual he believed to be affiliated with ISIS’ central media bureau and provided translation services for a project intended to relaunch Al-Hayat Media Center, ISIS’ official foreign-language media arm. Unbeknownst to him, that individual was an FBI undercover employee who had infiltrated Carpenter’s group.
The FBI Knoxville Field Office is investigating the case, with assistance from FBI Field Offices from across the country.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Kyle J. Wilson and Casey T. Arrowood for the Eastern District of Tennessee and Trial Attorney Charles J. Kovats Jr. of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section prosecuted the case.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Maxim Marchenko, 52, was sentenced today to three years in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in procuring dual-use, military grade OLED micro-displays for Russian end users.
“Today’s sentence holds Mr. Marchenko accountable for his role in a procurement syndicate that funneled U.S.-manufactured military-grade microelectronics to end users in Russia, illegally delivering controlled technologies worth hundreds of thousands of dollars,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The Justice Department remains relentlessly focused on dismantling illicit procurement networks led by individuals like the defendant, who use their business skills and connections to advance the Russian war agenda.”
“The transshipment of military-grade microelectronics through Hong Kong to Russia helps fuel the engine of Russia’s war machine,” said Assistant Secretary of Commerce Matthew S. Axelrod for Export Enforcement. “Today’s sentencing is just the latest example of our unceasing efforts to target and disrupt illegal Russian procurement networks.”
“This office will stop at nothing to hold accountable those who seek to circumvent our laws to gain access to some of our most sensitive technologies,” said U.S. Attorney Damian Williams for the Southern District of New York. “Today’s sentence should be a reminder that no number of shell companies or obfuscation will stop this office in its pursuit of those who seek to illicitly gain access to controlled technologies.”
“Marchenko and his co-conspirators operated an international smuggling network of sensitive microelectronics used in military gear and other weapons systems,” said Executive Assistant Director Robert Wells of the FBI National Security Branch. “Today’s sentencing demonstrates the FBI’s resolve in doing our part to protect national security and prevent American military technology from being diverted to foreign adversaries and hostile nation states.”
According to court documents, Marchenko is a Russian national who resides in Hong Kong and operates several Hong Kong-based shell companies, including Alice Components Co. Ltd. (Alice Components), Neway Technologies Limited (Neway) and RG Solutions Limited (RG Solutions). Marchenko and two co-conspirators, who are also Russian nationals, operate an illicit procurement network in Russia, Hong Kong and elsewhere overseas. This procurement network has fraudulently obtained from U.S. distributors large quantities of dual-use, military grade microelectronics, specifically OLED micro-displays, on behalf of Russia-based end users. To carry out this scheme, Marchenko and his co-conspirators used shell companies based in Hong Kong and other deceptive means to conceal from U.S. government agencies and U.S. distributors that the OLED micro-displays were destined for Russia. The technology that Marchenko and his co-conspirators fraudulently procured have significant military applications, such as in rifle scopes, night vision goggles, thermal optics and other weapon systems.
To perpetrate the scheme, Marchenko and other members of the conspiracy acquired the dual-use OLED micro-displays from U.S.-based distributors using Marchenko’s Hong Kong-based shell companies, including Alice Components, Neway and RG Solutions. Members of the conspiracy, including Marchenko, procured these sensitive microelectronics by falsely representing to the U.S. distributors (who, in turn, are required to report to U.S. agencies) that Alice Components was sending the shipments to end users located in China, Hong Kong and other countries outside of Russia for use in electron microscopes for medical research or hunting rifles. In reality, the OLED micro-displays were destined for end users in Russia. Marchenko and other members of the conspiracy concealed the true final destination (Russia) from U.S. distributors for the purpose of causing false statements to the U.S. agencies.
To conceal the fact that these OLED micro-displays were destined for Russia, Marchenko and other members of the conspiracy worked together to transship the illicitly procured OLED micro-displays by using pass-through entities principally operated by Marchenko in third countries, such as Hong Kong. Marchenko then caused the OLED micro-displays to be shipped to the ultimate destination in Russia using, among other entities, a freight forwarder known to provide freight forwarding services to Russia. In addition, Marchenko and other members of the conspiracy used Hong Kong-based shell companies, principally operated by Marchenko, to conceal the fact that payments for the OLED micro-displays were coming from Russia. In total, between in or about May 2022 and in or about August 2023, Marchenko’s shell companies funneled more than $1.6 million to the United States in support of the procurement network’s efforts to smuggle the OLED micro-displays to Russia.
The FBI, Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security and Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service investigated the case with assistance from the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer N. Ong and Shiva H. Logarajah for the Southern District of New York prosecuted the case, with assistance from Trial Attorney Garrett Coyle of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.
Today’s actions were coordinated through the Justice Department’s Task Force KleptoCapture and the Justice and Commerce Departments’ Disruptive Technology Strike Force. Task Force KleptoCapture is an interagency law enforcement task force dedicated to enforcing the sweeping sanctions, export restrictions and economic countermeasures that the United States has imposed, along with its allies and partners, in response to Russia’s unprovoked military invasion of Ukraine. The Disruptive Technology Strike Force is an interagency law enforcement strike force co-led by the Departments of Justice and Commerce designed to target illicit actors, protect supply chains and prevent critical technology from being acquired by authoritarian regimes and hostile nation states.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery
Good afternoon. I want to first start off by thanking Daniel Ortega for that most gracious introduction. And I also want to thank UnidosUS. I want to thank you for your leadership, your advocacy and for the invitation to be with you today.
As mentioned, my name is Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division at the United States Department of Justice. And it is such an honor to be here to address fellow foot soldiers in the fight against racism and discrimination.
Let me begin by expressing my immense gratitude for all of the work that you do to break through social and economic barriers affecting Latino communities. Thanks to you, more Latinos and English learners have access to high-quality education, to health coverage, to tax credits, to home ownership and to work. They can obtain clear, comprehensive immigration guidance and can exercise the most fundamental of rights in any democracy: the right to vote.
At the Justice Department, we are keenly aware that Latinos make up nearly one fifth of our country’s population, and that the Latino community is the second-largest ethnic group in the country today. This means that all of the work to advance civil rights and equal justice that I will speak to today affects this community. And I want you to know that we are using every tool available to confront injustice.
Hate and racism have fanned into flames in recent years, with hate crimes that target people for race or ethnicity making up the highest percentage of these crimes — more than all other categories combined. That is why we have stepped up our efforts to combat this pernicious issue.
Bigotry, racism and hatred have no place in our society today. Since January of 2021, we have charged more than 120 defendants with hate crimes in over 110 cases. This includes securing 90 consecutive life sentences for the man who killed 23 people and wounded 22 others in the heinous and tragic El Paso Walmart mass shooting in 2019. This shooting was one of the most horrific acts of white nationalist driven violence in modern times. I have spent time with and looked into the eyes of the survivors. Their pain is palpable. We remember those who lost their lives and the survivors and will ensure that they are never forgotten. We have also secured convictions and severe sentences for a Texas man who used the Grindr app to target gay men, many of them Latino, to rob and assault them.
We also prosecute perpetrators of human trafficking and forced labor schemes — crimes that target vulnerable people, and that too often prey on people from Latin America. We recently secured convictions of three racketeers and the owner of a farm labor company who had exploited Mexican H-2A workers, promising access to the American dream but instead subjecting them to grueling farm labor for upwards of seven days a week, confiscating their passports and threatening them with arrest and deportation. We also secured a conviction of three men who leveraged cruelty, violence, threats of violence and false debts to force Cuban women into commercial sex. Not only is such a scheme unlawful and dehumanizing, but it also terrorizes and dehumanizes the women, who are unable to break free. These men are now behind bars and must pay nearly half a million dollars of restitution to the survivors.
We’re also working to ensure constitutional policing across the country. And just last month, we released findings that the City of Phoenix and the Phoenix Police Department engage in conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law. We found that the police department discriminates against Latino, Black and Native American people. For instance, though Hispanic and white people make up roughly even shares of the Phoenix population, the police department cites or arrests Hispanics for traffic offenses at three times the rate of white people and cites or arrests Hispanic people seven to 12 times as often for offenses such as squealing tires and improper window tinting.
We are also working to ensure that Latinos have access to economic opportunities. And one way that we are doing this work is by aggressively fighting modern-day redlining to ensure that all communities have equal access to banks and financial institutions. That’s why the Justice Department, under the leadership of Attorney General Merrick Garland, launched the nationwide Combating Redlining Initiative in 2021. To date, we have secured over $122 million in relief for impacted communities across the country. In fact, in 2023, we secured the largest redlining settlement in the department’s history — a $31 million settlement with City National Bank in Los Angeles for systematically denying mortgages to the Latinx and Black communities there. That relief is now being distributed through a loan subsidy fund that is helping to provide Latino families access to the American Dream.
We are also working to address predatory lending. For example, this past December we sued Colony Ridge, a Texas-based developer and lender, that was operating an illegal land sales scheme that targeted tens of thousands of Latino borrowers with false statements and predatory loans. Colony Ridge aggressively markets flood-prone land without water, sewer or electrical infrastructure to Spanish-speaking borrowers. Then the company pressures borrowers into mortgages that they can’t afford and asks them to sign closing documents that were entirely in English. Many of these loans ended in foreclosure, at which point the company repurchased the properties and sold them again to new Latino borrowers. The Justice Department and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are working together to end this illegal scheme and to obtain restitution for those who were scammed and victimized.
I would be remiss if I didn’t say a brief word about our work safeguard voting rights. For example, we secured a win in Arizona where we challenged a law that required people to list their birthplace and to provide unlawful and discriminatory proof of citizenship when registering to vote. In all, since January of 2021, we have filed 32 statements of interest in courts across the country to protect the right to vote, securing consent decrees in New Jersey and Rhode Island under the language access provisions of the Voting Rights Act to ensure that Spanish-language election materials are made available at the polls. This election season, as in every election season, we urge you to speak up and report potential discrimination complaints to the Justice Department. Every eligible Latino American in our country should be able to exercise their voice in our democracy.
And language should never be a barrier to exercising any of our fundamental civil rights. To that end, we have secured resolutions with state courts in Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, South Dakota and New York, to ensure that they provide free interpreter services and address other language barriers. We’ve worked with police department across the country to ensure that those who receive federal funds are able to serve and protect everyone in their community, including those who are limited English proficient.
I want to close by sharing the words of Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “There are no bystanders in life. Our humanity makes us each part of something greater than ourselves.”
I hope this convention has been a fountain of hope and rejuvenation for you. I hope you leave here inspired to find new ways to open up the gates of justice, opportunity and equity for Latino communities across our country. And I want you to know that the Justice Department will be standing beside you every step of the way. Thank you so much for having me here today.