Tag: gangs

Nevada man pleads guilty to providing 140 firearms to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico

From April 1, 2020, to September 17, 2025, Osorio conspired with co-defendants to purchase firearms, magazines and ammunition on behalf of people affiliated with drug trafficking organizations in Mexico.

The 140 firearms purchased by Osorio included multiple large-caliber and long-range firearms.

Osorio also admitted to harboring people who unlawfully resided in the United States to employ them at a Nevada mining company, according to the DOJ.

“Trafficking military-style firearms and ammunition to drug trafficking organizations in Mexico fuels violence, strengthens criminal networks and threatens communities on both sides of the border,” said Jonathan Sherwin, Deputy Special Agent in Charge for Homeland Security Investigation (HSI) Las Vegas.

“In the world of organized crime and drug trafficking, guns and drugs go hand-in-hand,” said David S. Olesky, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Los Angeles Field Division, which also covers Nevada.

“Firearms trafficking networks feed the violent cartels that terrorize border communities and pump illicit drugs into our neighborhoods,” said First Assistant United States Attorney Sigal Chattah for the District of Nevada. “By cutting off this supply chain and holding this defendant accountable, we are directly disrupting the operational capabilities of these dangerous criminal organizations.”

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Momma’s boy gangbanger who was driven to NYC shooting by cop mom, ex-con dad plotted hit while in court: DA

Chase Lackard, 20, faced a judge on a 2024 gun rap just 20 minutes before the alleged June 29 drive-by gang shooting – with help from his mom, disgraced Mount Vernon Deputy Police Commissioner Jennifer Lackard, and drug-dealing dad James Lackard, according to prosecutors.

“He’s captured on cameras running into this courthouse,” Bronx Assistant District Attorney Keturah Ladd told the judge. “He had a court date and a court appearance on the third floor of this building.”

Momma’s boy Chase Lackard, a reputed member of the “Slutty Gang,” was ordered held without bail.

Jennifer Lackard, 49, a former member of Bronx Community Board 9, was hired in 2020 to run the suburban department’s Wellness Unit, and was fired from the job after her arrest.

Also named in the Bronx indictment is her drug-dealing ex, James Lackard, who served 10 years in federal prison for peddling heroin in North Carolina — but remains on the lam.

According to sources and news reports, Jennifer Lackard co-founded and ran a North Carolina nonprofit with her ex-con hubby, which was shut down after James Lackard’s conviction.

Jennifer Lackard moved north and joined the Bronx community board and started a new nonprofit in the borough, Re-Entry Link LLC, before she was hired to the newly created position by Mount Vernon Mayor Shawyn Patterson-Howard.

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Tragic: Ex-NYPD Officer’s Innocent 12-year-old Son Gunned Down Outside Bodega in Mamdani’s Gang-Invested New York

On Saturday, 12-year-old Jacob Freytes, the son of a retired NYPD sergeant, jumped on his bike and set out for a local store to purchase a ball, something that happens thousands of times a day for children across the country.

But in Mamdani’s New York, a simple right of passage turned tragic.

Freytes, who was struck by a stray bullet during the senseless shootout in a gang-infested area of The Bronx.

He was rushed to an area hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.

Per The New York Post:

The 12-year-old son of a cop was fatally gunned down by random shots fired into a crowd outside a Bronx bodega Saturday — where the youngster was seen on heartbreaking video staggering inside clutching his injured chest before collapsing onto the floor.

The gunfire erupted after a brawl broke out on Elliot Place near the Grand Concourse at about 5:30 p.m., injuring two people and killing the 12-year-old who was an innocent bystander, police said.

The young boy had stopped by the Wanda Deli Grocery on Elliot Place to purchase a ball when he was struck by the stray bullet, the United Bodegas of America said.

Two others were injured and are in stable condition.

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Haiti Descends Deeper Into Chaos as Gang Terror Displaces Millions and Children Are Recruited Into Violence

Haiti’s security and humanitarian crisis continues to spiral, with heavily armed gangs controlling most of the capital, expanding into new regions, and leaving millions of Haitians trapped between violence, hunger, and institutional collapse.

The severity of the crisis was underscored this week by U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz, who briefed the U.N. Security Council after visiting Haiti. Waltz described his trip as one marked by “painful anecdotes,” recounting scenes that illustrate the extraordinary brutality facing ordinary Haitians every day.

A Nation Held Hostage by Criminal Gangs

According to the United Nations, armed gangs now control approximately 85 percent of the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area and continue expanding into other regions, including Artibonite and Centre.

The criminal organizations have taken over major highways, neighborhoods, ports, fuel terminals, and key transportation corridors, severely restricting the movement of people, humanitarian aid, and commercial goods.

Beyond territorial control, many gangs have evolved into parallel governing structures, imposing their own rules, collecting extortion payments, controlling food distribution, and financing their operations through kidnappings, arms trafficking, and organized crime.

The result has been the near-collapse of state authority across large portions of the country.

Horrific Stories From the Ground

Speaking before the U.N. Security Council, Ambassador Waltz shared several stories that captured the human cost of Haiti’s crisis.

One volunteer serving with Haiti’s Gang Suppression Force reportedly surrendered himself after gang members kidnapped his family. After securing their release, he was executed publicly by the gang as a warning to others.

In another incident, Haitian police officers traveling in an armored vehicle became trapped after their vehicle was immobilized. Gang members surrounded the officers, set the vehicle on fire, and killed them in an exceptionally brutal attack.

Perhaps most disturbing was the story of an 8-year-old boy who had been systematically groomed by gang members. According to Waltz, the child had been taught to kill dogs as preparation for future acts of violence before eventually being rescued by security forces.

The ambassador warned that many other children remain under gang control.

Children Increasingly Drawn Into Organized Crime

International organizations have expressed growing alarm over the recruitment of children by Haiti’s criminal organizations.

U.N. agencies estimate that children may now comprise up to half of the membership of some gangs, with minors being recruited as lookouts, couriers, combatants, and participants in violent crimes.

Gang leaders have also expanded their recruitment efforts through social media platforms, including TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram, where they glorify violence, display weapons, and portray themselves as revolutionary figures to attract vulnerable young people.

Humanitarian Catastrophe Continues to Worsen

The humanitarian consequences continue to mount.

According to the United Nations:

More than 2,300 people have been killed since the beginning of 2026.

More than 1,100 people have been injured.

A record 1.47 million Haitians have been displaced by gang violence.

Approximately 6.4 million people require humanitarian assistance, including food, clean water, medical care, and shelter.

Many neighborhoods have effectively become no-go zones where residents face constant threats of kidnapping, extortion, sexual violence, and forced displacement.

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Republican Lawmakers Demand Action After Somali Gangs Open Fire in Minnesota Park

A shooting in a Minnesota park has spurred Republican legislators to call for a crackdown on Somali gang activity.

Crime Watch Minneapolis said that about 50 Somali youth were at Yancey Park in Edina when shots were fired on Wednesday night, according to Alpha News.

Residents reported hearing more than 20 gunshots. No one has been arrested. No injuries were reported.

Republican Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota said this latest incident is proof action is needed.

“I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, if you won’t assimilate, then get the hell out of here,” Emmer said.

“First it was an estimated $9 billion in fraud, now it’s out-of-control violence. These Somali gangs have shot up high school graduations and assaulted players on opposing basketball teams with tire irons. It’s absolute madness, and something must be done,” he said.

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Dr. Oz claims NY Medicaid program is being ripped off by Chinese crime syndicate

Federal Medicaid czar Dr. Mehmet Oz said New York’s overblown $110 billion spending on medical bills is sickening — as he claimed Chinese crime syndicates are ripping off the Empire State.

The TV doctor-turned-Trump administration official, blasted New York’s Medicaid program as rife with fraud in an interview Sunday as he outlined an alleged scheme that included millions of dollars in fraudulent medical bills.

“Social safety net programs are being defrauded. They’re being hurt oftentimes by foreign governments or foreign-run criminal syndicate organizations,” Oz, administrator of the US Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, said Sunday on 77 WABC ‘s the “Cats Roundtable” program.

Oz recently toured Flushing, Queens where a cluster of 64 social adult care centers operate — mostly serving ethnic Chinese and Korean senior citizens. Officials claim the center and pharmacies have generated massive amounts of questionable bills to Medicaid, a public insurance program intended to help the needy.

The social centers arguably shouldn’t be propped up by taxpayers, Oz said. The federal government covers more than half of Medicaid’s costs, with the state and local governments covering the rest.

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CBC calls for more gun control after suspected gang shooting in Toronto

Two people were killed and five others were injured at Toronto’s Salsa on St. Clair Festival over the weekend. Hours later, shots were fired near Polson Pier, a ride share was carjacked with passengers inside, and the suspect struck pedestrians and vehicles while fleeing.

David Menzies and Sheila Gunn Reid reacted to the wild weekend in Toronto on Monday’s Rebel Roundup livestream.

“I started the stopwatch to see how quick it would be before the CBC and the Toronto Star trotted out the anti-gun advocates,” David said.

Sure enough, the CBC ran a headline that made no mention of bail reform or gang violence. “Advocates speak out against gun violence following troubling weekend of shootings,” it read.

Sheila was blunt about who was actually involved.

“These are illegal firearms,” she said. “Any gun control measure you force on the rest of us doesn’t touch these people at all. And in fact, it draws police resources away from the real bad guys.”

The Polson Pier suspect, Omar Abdul-Singate, 25, of Brampton, was charged with four counts of forcible confinement, discharging a firearm recklessly, unauthorized possession of a firearm, possessing a firearm while prohibited — meaning he was already under a firearms prohibition — robbery, dangerous operation causing bodily harm, and dangerous operation.

A second suspect remains at large.

Both hosts also took aim at how Toronto police characterized the St. Clair shooting on social media, where it was described as an “active shooter” situation. 

Former Toronto police officer Jay Bannister, now of Mad Lab Press, told David the term was misleading. “When I hear active shooter, I’m thinking someone is still out there with a gun, walking down the street shooting innocent people,” David said, relaying Bannister’s assessment.

“What we had was gangbangers shooting other gangbangers, and then they made their escape. That’s not an active shooter.”

Sheila agreed. “This is just the gang war using this street festival as a battleground,” she said.

David closed with a note on bail, saying he could not confirm whether Abdul-Singate had been released, but was confident the question was worth asking.

“That is way more problematic,” Sheila said, “than taking away firearms from legal, law-abiding Canadians.”

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Sheriff Says Somali Youth Gangs Are Running Wild In Minneapolis

A Minneapolis sheriff has triggered an uncomfortable conversation by saying out loud what you are not supposed to talk about in Minnesota. “Out of control” gangs of Somali youths are terrorizing the city, and the mayhem is poised to get worse.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher released a livestream video on July 6 decrying widespread violence by Somali gang members over the Fourth of July weekend. He also took the opportunity to criticize media outlets in the Twin Cities and the state for refusing to cover the problem.

Fletcher “stated that the Somali gangs are responsible for at least 14 murders in the last two years as well as over 100 shootings – many of them at high-profile events like graduations and the State Fair. Fletcher also said in his promo video that he heard from a Minneapolis police officer who said that 20 percent of their homicides are now Somalis,” local news site Alpha News reports.

The situation is blowing up right in front of the public eye.

‘It’s All About Ego for 99% of It’

“Investigators say Somali gang violence is growing quickly and now spans the metro [area], with 12 Somali gangs tracked from Minneapolis and St. Paul to St. Cloud, Apple Valley and Burnsville. Most of the violence involves guns, according to the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office,” Fox-9 TV in Minneapolis reports. “Authorities say the gangs are still young and growing, with about 300 people involved right now.”

Ramsey County Deputy Ben Seidel said the Somali youth gangs don’t operate like traditional inner-city gangs in the sense of being motivated by money. “From what I’ve seen… it’s all about showboating. It’s all about ego for 99% of it. They aren’t selling narcotics. It’s all about just gloating,” Seidel states in the video.

There’s a history to Somali gang violence in Minneapolis that explains the seeming novelty of these officers’ remarks. In blue-dominated Minnesota, criticizing the Somali community in any way is immediately defined as racist. The “R card” has been so weaponized in the state that health-care fraud was allowed to flourish for years, which may have cost American taxpayers up to $9 billion.

There is nothing new about Somali gangs in Minnesota. They have been identified as a growing problem for 20 years or more. And it has never sounded like child’s play. Every few years, the issue is ventilated, only to recede amid de rigueur pressure from “anti-racist” organizations and personalities.

The City of Minneapolis commissioned a study in 2007 after a series of robberies by Somali teens in 2005. As Minnesota Public Radio detailed at the time:

“The report’s author, consultant Shukri Adan, presented her findings to members of the city council.

“Adan says at first it was thought the Somali youth were involved in loosely organized groups of ‘troublemakers.’ However, Adan says as these young people ended up in jail, they met established gang members and learned from them how to organize.

“‘They’re very sophisticated and they’ve adapted some of that into the Somali gang structure. But for the Somali gangs that I’ve identified, they were specifically Somalis and all their membership were Somalis, even though they had associations with other gangs.'”

Yet leftist MPR made sure to point out that “[t]he report says gang activity is relatively small. Statistics from the Minnesota Gang Strike Force identifies 52 Somali gang members – less than one percent of all known gang members in Minnesota.”

Three years later, the Somali youth had moved on to serious organized criminal activity.

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Venezuelan Illegal Alien Former Illinois School Teacher Arrested by ICE After Driving Tren de Aragua Gangsters to Chicago House Party Massacre That Killed Three and Wounded Five

A 32-year-old Venezuelan illegal immigrant who was teaching in an Illinois classroom has been arrested by ICE for allegedly acting as the driver and getaway accomplice for two Tren de Aragua (TDA) gang members during a brutal December 2024 mass shooting in Chicago that left three people dead and five others wounded.

Giovanna Mercedes Moreno Occhipinti, a Venezuelan national with dual Italian citizenship, entered the United States in October 2021 under the Visa Waiver Program but overstayed her visa.

She was taken into ICE custody on May 13, 2026, and is currently being held at the Grayson County Detention Center in Leitchfield, Kentucky, pending removal from the country, Fox News reported.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, Occhipinti drove two alleged TDA gang members, Ricardo Granadillo Padilla and Edward Martinez Cermeno, to a house party in Chicago’s Gage Park neighborhood on December 2, 2024.

The gunmen opened fire on the crowd. Three people were killed and five were wounded. Federal authorities say she then helped the shooters flee the scene of the slaughter.

Chicago Police arrested Occhipinti just three days later, on December 5, 2024, after finding multiple weapons in her vehicle. But because Chicago and Illinois are militant sanctuary jurisdictions, she was released without ICE ever being notified, despite the obvious public safety threat tied to a triple homicide.

The two actual shooters were eventually deported. One had even been released from ICE custody earlier by a federal judge due to prosecutorial issues. Occhipinti remained free in the community and was reportedly working as a teacher at a school in the Chicago suburb of Elgin until HSI agents finally tracked her down months later.

Illinois officials have refused to disclose to DHS which school employed her.

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Dem Mayor Running for Congress Posed with Crips-Linked Lounge Operators Months After Scranton Detective Shooting

Scranton Mayor and congressional candidate Paige Cognetti (D-PA) promoted a violence intervention program involving a “safe space” for people who had entered the justice system or were recently coming out of it after a gang-related shooting wounded a city detective, months after photos were posted showing her with operators of a Crips-linked hookah lounge that authorities had repeatedly associated with criminal activity.

Cognetti, who is running against freshman Republican incumbent Rep. Rob Bresnahan, faced a rise in juvenile and gang violence in Scranton in 2024, including the January shooting of Scranton Police Detective Kyle Gilmartin, who was shot twice in the head during a “gang-related crime spree.”

In the aftermath, Cognetti acknowledged the city’s gang violence problem, saying her administration had “sent legislation to City Council to reallocate $580,626 in ARPA funds to enable the creation of a gang violence initiative that mirrors successful programs in other cities.”

In 2025, WNEP reported that the Gilmartin shooting “thrust gangs into the spotlight in Scranton,” and that Cognetti’s answer was a Group Violence Intervention (GVI) program. Cognetti said of the program, “This is not an arm of the police department; it’s not an arm of the county. It cannot be. By nature, this organization needs to be a safe space for people who have either entered the justice system and don’t want to go back in or are coming out of it freshly.”

In November 2024, before Cognetti promoted the GVI program, a photo was posted showing her with Dwight Smith and Damion Williams, operators of Blueface Global Hookah Lounge. The business, previously known as the Castle after-hours club, was described by District Attorney Mark Powell as a “notorious hotbed of criminal activity and violent incidents.”

Smith and Williams were both among a group of nine people arrested for their involvement in a Crips-run drug operation at Blueface Global Hookah Lounge. Williams’s criminal history dated to 2010, while Smith’s dated to 2014.

Smith pleaded guilty in July 2014 to conspiracy: theft by deception and was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison, according to the Montgomery County Court of Common Pleas. In November 2014, Smith pleaded guilty in Lackawanna County to manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver and was sentenced to up to four years in prison. In May 2022, he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence and was sentenced to six months in prison.

Smith was also charged in 2024 with manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, corrupt organizations, and possession of a firearm, according to the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas. In October 2025, he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to 48 months for each of the latter two charges and 24 months for the first charge. In March 2026, Smith pleaded guilty to doing business without a license.

Williams pleaded guilty in September 2010 to firearms not to be carried without a license and was sentenced to up to three years in prison, according to the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas. He later pleaded guilty to driving under the influence in June 2015, November 2015, and July 2016, receiving sentences of up to six months, up to 60 months, and up to six months in prison, respectively.

Williams was charged in 2024 with manufacture, delivery, or possession with intent to manufacture or deliver, corrupt organizations, and possession of a firearm, according to the Lackawanna County Court of Common Pleas. In September 2025, he pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced to up to 72 months in prison per offense.

The building had drawn law enforcement and neighborhood concerns years before it became Blueface Global Hookah Lounge. WNEP reported that Blueface Global Hookah Lounge was previously known as the Castle after-hours club, where a man was killed outside the building in 2019, and that the Castle was owned by Nasser Mohammadzad.

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