Want to get your hands on a sizable amount of the latest designer street drug? It’s nearly as easy as typing “research chemicals” into Google, exasperated American officials say.
Scroll through an endless list of Chinese Web sites hawking wholesale chemicals at a bargain price, and once you’ve picked your poison — perhaps from a site offering a free sample or touting “big beautiful crystals” — just wire a few thousand dollars to an English-speaking customer service representative on the other side of the world.
Militants attacked (WaPo) Afghanistan’s parliament in Kabul Monday, detonating suicide bombs as gunmen stormed the building. Five people have been confirmed dead (Al Jazeera), in addition to the seven attackers, with another twenty-one injured. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The raid comes as lawmakers were set tovote (TOLO) on the nominee for minister of defense. Meanwhile, Taliban fightersseized (RFE/RL) a second district in northern Kunduz province, according to reports by local security forces. The Taliban has launched offensives across Afghanistan in recent weeks, making inroads in Kunduz and carrying out attacks in southern Helmand province.
For computer crime expert and ex-Secret Service agent Shaun W. Bridges, the long arm of the law is about to extend itself from the opposite direction to what he had become accustomed during his career, concluding a case brought against two officers in April this year.
Formerly a member of the Secret Service task force which investigated anonymous online marketplace Silk Road’s illicit activities which included the facilitation of narcotics sale and money laundering, resulting in the seizure of the website by the US government, and the conviction and incarceration of founder Ross Ulbricht, Mr. Bridges is accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bitcoin, and routing the money to his own accounts according to federal court documents.
According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, Mr. Bridges’ involvement in the conviction of Mr. Ulbricht for narcotics trafficking, money laundering and computer hacking extends much further.
— General Motors has been hit with an expanded class-action lawsuit that accuses the automaker of mail and wire fraud over its handling of deadly ignition switch defects.
The lawsuit makes claims against the “New GM” (after it exited bankruptcy in 2009) of violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO.
MARION — Women are not only as capable as men at running a government office, they are equally equipped to steal from it, too. And the notion that women may be the more trustworthy of the genders can lead to women gaining unchecked positions of power — and ultimately, crimes that rob taxpayers of millions.
The latest research paper published by the SIU Paul Simon Public Policy Institute rings that warning, calling attention to a little-told chapter in Illinois’s long book of political corruption: the “bad girls” of women in government.
“We definitely need to have outside auditing and government oversight, no matter who is playing the part in the system,” said Ryan Ceresola, a doctoral graduate student in the Department of Sociology, and author of the report. “We can always point to bad apples, but there’s still a bad barrel in government that allows for this to happen and it can sweep anybody up.”
The FBI announced Thursday that 243 people, including nearly 50 health-care professionals, have been arrested in a record Medicare and Medicaid billing-fraud bust.
“They billed for equipment that wasn’t provided, for care that wasn’t needed, and for services that weren’t rendered,” said U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch in an FBI press release. Illegal kickbacks prohibited by federal law are also at issue in some of the cases.
ROCKVILLE, Md. (WJLA) – A 16-year-old boy is in jail, charged with raping a 19-year-old woman along the Montgomery County Circuit Courthouse’s exterior wall. Around 11:40 p.m. Thursday, a courthouse security guard noticed a struggle between a man and woman via closed circuit surveillance cameras. The guard notified sheriff’s deputies who exited the building and witnessed Marquiz Turner, 16, of Silver Spring, allegedly forcing sexual intercourse on a 19-year-old woman. Deputies immediately took Turner into custody.
A white man opened fire during a prayer meeting inside a historic black church in downtown Charleston on Wednesday night, killing nine people, including the pastor, in an assault that authorities described as a hate crime. The shooter remained at large Thursday morning.
DEVELOPING: At least one person reportedly has been injured after shots were fired at the front gate of the Little Rock Air Force Base.
“Base security personnel are responding to an incident at the base gate. All base gates are currently closed to traffic,” the facility said on its Twitter account.
The base said two people were transported to a local hospital, although the extent of their injuries was not immediately clear. The incident happened around 9:15 a.m. local time.
