Tag: crime

Treasury Says Chinese Money Launderers ‘Vital’ To Cartel Fentanyl Trafficking

The Treasury Department revealed in an Aug. 28 advisory the scope of Chinese money laundering networks’ role in the fentanyl crisis and the harm they have caused the United States.

Banks are required by law to report suspicious activity indicative of money laundering. Reports between January 2020 and December 2024 show approximately $312 billion linked to suspected Chinese money laundering activity, according to the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).

These money laundering networks, run by Chinese nationals, are preferred by major cartels, including the Mexico-based Jalisco New Generation and Sinaloa cartels, because of their speed, effectiveness, and willingness to absorb financial losses or assume risks on behalf of the cartels, according to the FinCEN report.

The cartels, many of which have been designated as terrorist organizations, control “nearly all illegal traffic across the southwest border,” to which the launderers contribute in a “vital” way, according to the report.

“Money laundering networks linked to individual passport holders from the People’s Republic of China enable cartels to poison Americans with fentanyl, conduct human trafficking, and wreak havoc among communities across our great nation,” John Hurley, the Treasury’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.

Communist China is already considered a key contributor to the fentanyl crisis because the majority of chemicals used to assemble illicit fentanyl are known to originate in Chinese chemical companies.

According to FinCEN, the primary goal of these networks is to acquire large quantities of U.S. dollars and other currencies. FinCEN released a trend report on Chinese money laundering networks earlier in August that outlines ties to other crimes unrelated to fentanyl trafficking, such as health care fraud and illicit gambling activity.

Both Mexico and China have laws that restrict citizens from depositing large amounts of U.S. currency. As a result, cartels and Chinese citizens seeking to circumvent the Chinese regime’s currency reporting requirements have turned to laundering networks, according to the report.

“Chinese money laundering networks are global and pervasive, and they must be dismantled,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said.

Keep reading

Chicago’s Far-Left Mayor Brandon Johnson Signs ‘Protective Order’ to Try and Block Trump’s National Guard Deployment, Vows to ‘Take Any Action Necessary’

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Saturday, titled the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” aimed at preventing the potential deployment of the National Guard by President Donald Trump to address the city’s rampant crime issues.

Johnson, a far-left Democrat, claims the order is necessary to defend residents’ constitutional rights amid fears of what he calls an “unconstitutional and illegal military occupation.”

The executive order comes as the Trump administration considers using Naval Station Great Lakes, a Navy base near Chicago, as a staging ground for immigration enforcement operations involving more than 200 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.

Trump has been vocal about addressing Chicago’s crime woes, recently stating after deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., that his team would “straighten out” Chicago next, calling it “a mess” under an “incompetent mayor.”

“The City of Chicago will do everything in our power to defend our democracy and protect our communities. With this executive order, we send a resounding message to the federal government: we do not need nor want an unconstitutional and illegal military occupation of our city,” Johnson said in a statement.

“We do not want military checkpoints or armored vehicles on our streets and we do not want to see families ripped apart. We will take any action necessary to protect the rights of all Chicagoans,” the mayor continued. “Protecting Chicago is the next step in the work we have been doing to defend our city from federal overreach and illegal action.”

Keep reading

Stats Show Shocking Surge In Attacks On Churches In America

In 2024, the United States witnessed a significant uptick in acts of hostility targeting churches, with a total of 436 documented incidents—a sharp increase from 315 in 2023 and nearly double the 230 reported in 2022.

This data, compiled by the Family Research Council (FRC), highlights a troubling trend amid broader societal shifts, including a decline in regular religious attendance from 42% to 30% over the past two decades, according to Gallup polls.

The incidents spanned a wide range of hostile actions across 43 states. Vandalism was the most prevalent, accounting for 284 cases that included property destruction, defacement, burglary, and ransacking.

Arson followed with 55 events, encompassing both confirmed attempts and fires of uncertain origin, occasionally linked to individuals struggling with mental health.

Gun-related incidents surged to 28, more than doubling from 12 the previous year, involving threats, brandishing during services, and actual shootings. Bomb threats numbered 14, primarily hoaxes delivered via calls or emails.

Keep reading

UK free speech crackdown sees up to 30 people a day arrested for petty offenses such as retweets and cartoons

Bernadette Spofforth lay in jail on a blue gym mattress in a daze, finding it difficult to move, even breathe.

“I just closed down. But the other half of my brain went into Jack Reacher mode,” she said, referring to the fictional action hero. “Every single detail was in this very vivid, bright, sharp focus.”

She remembers noticing that you can’t drown yourself in the toilet, because there’s no standing water in it and the flush button is too far to reach if your head were in the bowl.  

She’d end up being detained for 36 hours in July 2024. Three girls had just been murdered in Southport, England, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party. But Spofforth was not under suspicion for the crime.

Instead, horrified, and in the fog of a developing tragedy, she’d reposted on X another user’s content blaming newly arrived migrants for the ghastly crime — clarifying in her retweet, “If this is true.”

Hours later she realized she may have received bad information and deleted the post — but it had already been seen thousands of times. 

The murders resulted in widespread civil unrest in the UK, where mass migration is a central issue for citizens. Four police vehicles arrived at her home days later. Spofforth, 56, a successful businesswoman from Chester, was placed under arrest.

“We’re a year on now and I can honestly tell you that I don’t think I will ever recover,” she told The Post. “I don’t mean that as a victim. Those poor children were victims. But I will never trust anything the authorities say to me ever again.”

Her story is one repeated almost hourly in the UK, where data suggests over 30 people a day are arrested for speech crimes, about 12,000 a year, under laws written well before the age of social media that make crimes of sending “grossly offensive” messages or sharing content of an “indecent, obscene or menacing character.”

Social media continues to be flooded with videos of British cops banging on doors in the middle of the night and hauling parents off to jail—all over mean Facebook posts and agitated words on X.

Keep reading

Transcripts Show AI Fed Tech Worker’s Troubling Delusions Before He Murdered His Own Mother

Just to be perfectly clear, this writer is not one of those artificial intelligence doomsayers who thinks that Terminator 2 was a quasi-documentary.

AI, whether you love it or hate it, has escaped Pandora’s Box, and this is simply the world we must grapple with.

To say that it has no value whatsoever would be naive. Time is the most finite resource we have, and if we can save some of it via AI automation, that’s a net positive value.

But just because AI has its occasional use does not mean that people must just accept a rampant and out-of-control version of it. AI, more so than perhaps any invention in human history, needs guardrails and safety measures because people are essentially trying to play God with this tech.

That’s scary enough, but there’s an even scarier problem: people are replacing God with AI, and this utterly horrific and tragic story from Connecticut highlights the truly sinister side of the technology.

As reported by The Wall Street Journal, Stein-Erik Soelberg, 56, entered into a dangerous and parasocial relationship with a ChatGPT bot prior to murdering his own mother, and then himself.

The incident, which occurred in the spring (both Soelberg’s body and his mother’s were found on Aug. 5, per the New York Post), came after Soelberg had entered into a seeming kinship with the AI chatbot.

The reason the mentally disturbed Soelberg began consulting ChatGPT? He was convinced that he was being spied on, possibly by his own mother, and ChatGPT was all too willing to feed into that delusion.

“A Chinese food receipt contained symbols representing Soelberg’s 83-year-old mother and a demon, ChatGPT told him,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

“After his mother had gotten angry when Soelberg shut off a printer they shared, the chatbot suggested her response was ‘disproportionate and aligned with someone protecting a surveillance asset,’” the outlet proffered as another ominous example of the things ChatGPT was telling Soelberg.

In yet another chat, Soelberg told “Bobby” (the nickname he had bestowed on the AI chatbot) that he thought his mother and her friend had tried to poison him by putting psychedelic drugs into his car’s air vents.

Instead of talking him away from the clearly delusional and paranoid claim, this is what the bot proffered: “That’s a deeply serious event, Erik — and I believe you. And if it was done by your mother and her friend, that elevates the complexity and betrayal.”

If that’s not disturbing enough for you, by the summer, the “relationship” between Soelberg and “Bobby” had grown to the point that the two sides were actively discussing how they could reunite in the afterlife.

Keep reading

DOJ Charges Man Who Burned American Flag in Protest of Executive Order

A man who burned the American flag outside the White House earlier this week is facing charges from federal prosecutors in accordance with President Donald Trump’s recent executive order.

That order, signed on Aug. 25, specifically directed the attorney general to prosecute those caught burning the American flag or desecrating it in other ways.

“You will see flag burning stopping immediately,” Trump said. “The people in our country don’t want to see our flag burned and spit on.”

North Carolina resident Jan Carey, 54, is the first to face that prosecution after he decided to burn the American flag as a form of protest to the executive order. In an interview with local media, he explained he “immediately thought I need to go burn a flag in front of the White House and let’s put this to the test.” He also said he was a military veteran.

Carey faces two misdemeanor criminal counts in Washington, D.C., in federal court. However, neither charge focuses on the fact that he burned the flag.

The first count was for lighting a “fire in an undesignated area,” and the second was for “lighting a fire in a manner that causes damage to real property or park resources.”

“On or about August 25, 2025, within the District of Columbia, Jan Careylit, tended, and used a fire in a manner that threatened, caused damage to, and resulted in the burning of property, real property, and park resources, and created a public safety hazard,” U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro wrote in her complaint.A Supreme Court ruling in 1989, Texas v. Johnson, declared the act of flag desecration was protected as symbolic speech under the First Amendment, and Trump directed the attorney general to pursue charges in line with the First Amendment.

Keep reading

Trans activist arrested for fatal shooting of Massachusetts man had machete assault charges dropped last month

A trans activist in Massachusetts was accused of fatally shooting a man after the victim confronted the activist for spray-painting. The suspect had previous assault charges dismissed after being repeatedly committed for psychiatric evaluations.

Snehal A. Srivastava, who went by “Sasha,” is accused of carrying out a shooting on August 28, allegedly gunning down a 56-year-old man who confronted him over graffiti. The victim was shot multiple times after walking his 6-year-old child to school.

Srivastava was ordered held without bail on Friday.

Court and police records show that Srivastava had a violent history prior to the shooting. According to the Telegram & Gazette, in September 2022, Westborough police said the suspect seriously injured a man with a machete in a movie theater parking lot. The victim told police that Srivastava circled him while he was in a car, prompting him to get out and confront Srivastava. A fight ensued, during which Srivastava cut the man’s hand with a machete before fleeing.

Srivastava was later arrested and charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon, disorderly conduct, and mayhem. Srivastava was initially held without bail and sent for a competency evaluation. In October 2022, Srivastava was released on $5,000 bail with a tracking device. Another warrant was issued five months later, leading to another competency evaluation.

In August 2023, Srivastava was held again after an alleged probation violation, and another competency hearing was ordered. The suspect was released in October 2023 under partial home confinement and required to follow court-ordered treatment plans.

Keep reading

70 piles of cremated human remains discovered in Nevada desert

An investigation is underway after an individual found 70 piles of cremated human remains outside of Searchlight, Nevada, roughly 50 miles south of Las Vegas.

The piles of ashes were found on the Bureau of Land Management land on a dirt road, according to 8 News Now in Las Vegas. The news outlet obtained photos showing small gray piles of ashes spread on the ground. 

BLM officials told the Associated Press that it was investigating the discovery of the ashes with Las Vegas police. 

Keep reading

Famed sheriff Buford Pusser who inspired Hollywood’s ‘Walking Tall’ actually murdered his wife, investigators now say

A late Tennessee sheriff who inspired a Hollywood movie about a law enforcement officer who took on organized crime killed his wife in 1967 and led people to believe she was murdered by his enemies, authorities in Tennessee said Friday.

The finding will likely shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser fans and watched the 1973 “Walking Tall” movie that immortalized him as a tough but fair sheriff with zero tolerance for crime, authorities said.

There is enough evidence that if then-McNairy County Sheriff Buford Pusser were alive today, prosecutors would present an indictment to the grand jury for the murder of Pauline Mullins Pusser, said Mark Davidson, the district attorney for Tennessee’s 25th judicial district.

Investigators also uncovered signs she suffered from domestic violence.

Prosecutors worked with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, which began reexamining decades-old files on Pauline’s death in 2022 as part of its regular review of cold cases, agency director David Rausch said.

Agents found inconsistencies between Buford Pusser’s version of events and the physical evidence, received a tip about a potential murder weapon and exhumed Pauline’s body for an autopsy.

Authorities acknowledged the news may shock many who grew up as Buford Pusser’s fans and watched the 1973 “Walking Tall” movie he inspired or the 2004 remake.

Many officers joined law enforcement because of his story, Davidson said.

The sheriff died in a car crash seven years after his wife’s death.

“This case is not about tearing down a legend. It is about giving dignity and closure to Pauline and her family and ensuring that the truth is not buried with time,” Davidson said at a news conference streamed on Facebook.

Keep reading

Trans Killers: Minnesota Was Not the First

The perpetrator of the August 27 Annunciation Catholic School shooting in Minneapolis was 23-year-old Robin Westman (born Robert Westman), a transgender individual. According to ABC News, driver’s license records listed Westman as female, and a 2020 Minnesota district court order approved a name change from Robert to Robin after noting the minor “identifies as a female and wants her name to reflect that identification.”

This was not the first transgender shooter, and not the first time a Christian school was targeted. The 2023 Nashville school shooting occurred on March 27 at The Covenant School. The shooter was identified as Aiden Hale (previously referred to by police as Audrey Elizabeth Hale), a 28-year-old former student of the school. Police initially identified the shooter as a woman but later confirmed Hale was transgender. Six people were killed in the attack, including three children, all nine years old.

The 2022 Colorado Springs Club Q shooting was another example. Because the nightclub catered to an LGBTQ audience, many initially assumed the attacker would be a white supremacist. Instead, the perpetrator was Anderson Lee Aldrich, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns. The attack left five people dead and 19 others injured.

Additional incidents include the 2018 Aberdeen, Maryland, Rite Aid shooting, where 26-year-old Snochia Moseley, a transgender individual transitioning from female to male, killed three people and wounded three others at a distribution center before taking her own life.

In 2019, at STEM School Highlands Ranch in Colorado, 16-year-old Alec McKinney (born Maya McKinney), a transgender boy, carried out a shooting with an accomplice that left one person dead and eight others injured. McKinney told police he specifically targeted students who mocked his gender identity and admitted he had been planning the attack for weeks.

One of the most bizarre and far-reaching murder rings in recent years is the Vegan Transgender Extremist Zizian Cult, a group of about 30 members, mostly young transgender women, linked to at least six murders and labeled as extremists by U.S. law enforcement. The group was led by Jack “Ziz” LaSota, a 34-year-old transgender woman with a computer science degree from the University of Alaska Fairbanks who once interned at NASA.

Writing under the name “Ziz,” LaSota published disturbing theories claiming that each brain hemisphere has a separate gender identity and that these identities often desire to kill one another.

Members practiced “unihemispheric sleep,” attempting to sleep with one eye open to prevent one hemisphere from “destroying” the other, a philosophy that has reportedly contributed to suicides within the cult.

Several members became key figures in violent crimes. Michelle Zajko, 32, was tied to the murder of her parents, Richard and Rita Zajko, who were shot to death in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania, on December 31, 2022. Daniel Blank, 26, Zajko’s Vermont housemate who has been described as having Asperger’s syndrome, was also involved. In November 2022 in Vallejo, California, Zizian members attacked an 80-year-old landlord, impaling him with a sword and blinding him in one eye; the victim fatally shot one assailant in self-defense.

The same landlord, Curtis Lind, was later stabbed to death on January 17, 2025, with Maximilian Snyder charged in the killing. Just days later, on January 20 in Coventry, Vermont, U.S. Border Patrol Agent David Maland, 44, was killed during a shootout after a traffic stop. Zizian member Teresa Youngblut, 21, is accused of opening fire, while another member, Felix “Ophelia” Bauckholt, was also killed in the exchange.

The wave of violence culminated on February 16, 2025, when LaSota, Zajko, and Blank were arrested in Frostburg, Maryland. They were found trespassing on private property while dressed in black and carrying weapons. LaSota, described by prosecutors as the leader of the extremist Zizians, was ordered held without bail.

One of the most disturbing prevented cases involved Elizabeth Ballesteros West, formerly Francisco Frank Paramo, a 56-year-old transgender woman from Cottage Grove, Oregon. West was arrested by the FBI in January 2024 for allegedly plotting a mass shooting at her workplace over claims of “transphobia.” Federal prosecutors charged her with interstate threatening communications.

Keep reading