Tag: theft

EU to propose new plan to leverage €170bn of frozen Russian money

Brussels is pressing ahead with a plan to use €170 billion of Russia’s frozen sovereign assets to back “reparation loans” for Ukraine, the Financial Times has reported. The EU faces growing pressure to find additional funding for Kiev as US cuts back its support.

Moscow has condemned the asset freeze and warned that any seizure of its money would amount to “theft.” 

Western nations froze an estimated $300 billion in Russian funds after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in 2022 – some €200 billion of which is held by Brussels-based clearinghouse Euroclear. The funds have accrued billions in interest, and the West has explored ways to use this revenue to finance Ukraine. While refraining from outright seizure, the G7 last year backed a plan to provide Kiev with $50 billion in loans to be repaid using the profits generated by the funds. The EU pledged $21 billion.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has proposed going further by creating a ‘reparation loans’ mechanism, which she described as urgently needed to finance Kiev.

People familiar with discussions said the plan involves channeling cash balances from Russia’s immobilized assets into EU-issued bonds, with the proceeds transferred to Ukraine in tranches. Brussels argues the system would provide Kiev with immediate support while sidestepping a formal seizure.

Keep reading

Cardiff Man Wrongly Accused of Theft After Facial Recognition Error Triggers Privacy Complaint

A Cardiff man has filed a formal complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office after being wrongly accused of theft in a store using facial recognition software.

The case is now drawing wider attention to the unchecked spread of biometric surveillance in everyday retail environments.

On 29 April 2025, Byron Long, 66, arrived at the B&M outlet in Cardiff Bay Retail Park expecting an ordinary shopping trip.

Instead, he was approached by staff and told he was barred from the premises. In front of other customers, he was accused of stealing £75 ($101) worth of goods during a visit earlier that month.

That accusation was entirely false. During the visit in question on 9 April, Long had bought a single item: a £7 ($9.50) packet of cat treats. He paid for them in full. He later obtained CCTV footage showing himself at the checkout in a Red Bull Formula 1 jacket, clearly completing the purchase.

“It was a horrible experience, and I haven’t been back to the store since. The incident has had a very serious impact on my mental health, which is very fragile anyway, and I am now very anxious whenever I go shopping,” Long said, as reported by Nation Cymru.

The misidentification came from Facewatch, a private firm contracted by retailers to run facial recognition scans on customers. Images from Long’s previous visit were processed and matched to a database of alleged offenders. That match triggered the alert that led B&M staff to accuse him.

B&M later acknowledged the error, issuing a written apology and stating: “Our B&M store and security teams have a duty of care to all our customers and to our company, and this includes challenging people that they believe are potentially shoplifting. This is an extremely difficult task, and sadly we don’t always get it right; your case would be one of these instances…We can confirm your data has been removed from Facewatch.”

They also offered a £25 ($34) voucher as compensation, an offer Long flatly rejected.

Facewatch responded to the incident by suspending the user who had submitted the incorrect data. Michele Bond, the company’s Head of Incident Review and Data Protection Enquiries, said: “Facewatch Incident data is submitted by authorized users, who must confirm the accuracy of the information provided. Once the error was identified, the user responsible was immediately suspended from using the Facewatch system.”

Long has since taken the matter to Big Brother Watch, a civil liberties group focused on privacy and surveillance. The organization has now submitted a complaint to the ICO on his behalf.

Keep reading

Property Taxes Are Theft

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida has an absolutely thrilling idea, one I never imagined I would see unfold in my lifetime. He is putting on the ballot next year a referendum that would abolish or restrict local governments from taxing owner-occupied homes.

That’s right, he wants to get rid of the property tax, saving residents some $3,400 a year and fundamentally disrupting the way schools and local governments are financed.

Texas is considering the same path.

If this really happens, I can easily predict more of a demographic shift out of the Northeast and Northwest to the South and Texas. If this spreads to more states, it would amount to a revolution in public finance.

It’s long overdue. These tax schemes are brutal on home ownership. Indeed, it’s hard to say that you are ever really the owner of your home if you are having to pay rent to the government every year.

It’s especially a problem in an environment when the home valuation goes up every year and so does the tax you owe on the place. You have done nothing but lived there and enjoyed life. It is entirely paid off. Meanwhile, the government keeps coming after you with ever more pressing demands for money.

You cannot really say you are an owner of anything under these conditions. Of course when I hear about how this will save $3,400 on average in Florida, I nearly faint. In my area of the country, this would be pennies. Property taxes in New England can be $20K–40K and that is not unusual.

These taxes fund schools that people don’t use. That’s how public schooling in this country came to be financed. The system of school districts really is a system of tax districts. That’s why they are so heavily enforced. Live on this side of the street instead of that one and your taxes can be completely different. It’s all to fund the public schools, whether you use them or not.

Friends of mine are paying $30K in property taxes plus $70K per kid for private schools for three kids.

If that kind of expenditure shocks and amazes you, you are not alone. I find it all unfathomable but that’s how New England works.

It’s a different world in Texas and Florida. Here you have new experiments in school choice. The plans are different but they generally let the parent use the money that would otherwise go to the public school for private schools, charter schools, or homeschools, either in the form of direct payments or deductions from the tax bill overall.

We might ask how all of this is happening now. The answer traces to the school closures of 2020 and 2021 which dramatically reduced confidence in the public schooling system and hence the way they are financed. If millions of people are homeschooling and millions more are attending newly established private schools, the political pressure for ever-higher property taxes is thereby reduced.

Keep reading

Argentina charges daughter of World War II Nazi for concealing decades-old art theft

The daughter and son-in-law of a Nazi who stole art from European Jews during World War II were charged in an Argentine court on Sept 4 with hiding numerous works, including 22 by French painter Henri Matisse.

The pair came into the spotlight after an 18th century painting stolen from a Dutch art collector was 

spotted in an Argentine property ad in August, only to vanish once again.

“Portrait of a Lady” by Italian baroque painter Giuseppe Ghislandi was missing for eight decades before being photographed in the home of a daughter of Nazi Friedrich Kadgien, who had fled to Argentina after the war and died there in 1978.

Police opened an investigation and conducted multiple raids in search of the painting, only to find 22 works from the 1940s by Matisse (1869-1954), and others whose origins have yet to be determined.

The artworks were found in the Argentine seaside resort of Mar del Plata in possession of members of the Kadgien family, officials said.

Keep reading

College Students Can Take a Class to Learn How to Steal – Yes, Really

New York City college students at a four-year university in Manhattan can now take a course titled “How to Steal,” which promises to look at “radical ethics” around theft. Yes, you read that correctly.

Students at Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts can take the four-credit class that will cost students upwards of $10,040 to look at things like the “aesthetics of theft in a world where accumulation is sacred,” the New York Post reported.

The report noted the insanity of the course description.

It read:

This field-based seminar explores the politics, ethics, and aesthetics of theft in a world where accumulation is sacred, dispossession is routine, and the line between private property and public good is drawn in blood. 

Students will critically examine what it means to steal-from whom, for whom, and why— through site visits and fieldwork in places where capital is hoarded and value is contested: corporate storefronts, grocery chains, museums, libraries, banks, and cultural institutions.

The one part that really stood out was the part about how the course will ask the question, “Is it possible to steal back what was already stolen?”

It went on:

What does theft look like under capitalism, colonialism, and in everyday life? When is theft survival, protest, or care-and when is it violence, appropriation, or harm?

The course catalog concluded by pointing out that the class is “not a course in petty crime—it is a study in moral ambiguity, radical ethics, and imaginative justice.”

The irony of teaching this class in a blue state like New York, where criminals can shoplift less than a $1,000 worth of goods and face nothing more than a misdemeanor, is not lost. California was also a place where this craziness ruled the day, allowing people to just steal and face little consequences, before residents said enough was enough, passing Proposition 36, as RedState reported.

Keep reading

Dem Lawmaker Arrested For Shoplifting From Target Once Again

Connecticut State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan (D) is facing fresh criminal charges after allegedly stealing from a Target store for the second time this summer — and from the same location as his first arrest just weeks ago.

Allie-Brennan, 33, turned himself in to police on July 28 after a warrant was issued for an incident at the Bethel, Connecticut Target — about 30 miles from Bridgeport. According to an arrest affidavit, a store security guard saw the lawmaker “concealing items into the Goodfellow bag that he had selected.” The total value of the merchandise was $54.55, the CT Mirror reported.

Store Recognized Him From “Previous Unreported Larcenies”

Target employees told police they recognized Allie-Brennan from earlier unreported thefts. The four-term Democrat, first elected in 2018, has not made any statements beyond a Facebook post claiming he is taking “full responsibility” and working to “resolve the matter quickly and respectfully.”

He was released on a promise to appear in state Superior Court on August 5.

Second Arrest in Weeks

In June, Allie-Brennan was arrested for allegedly stealing $26 worth of merchandise from the same store. At the time, he claimed two items “were not scanned” during checkout and that he was “in a rush” to bring them to his hospitalized grandmother.

Following that first arrest, he was charged with sixth-degree larceny.

Calls for Resignation

Connecticut Republican Party Chairman Ben Proto called on Allie-Brennan to resign. “It is regrettable that, once again, a Democrat member of the Connecticut General Assembly has found themselves in handcuffs… Representative Allie-Brennan should step down from his position.”

Democratic House Speaker Matt Ritter said the lawmaker will take personal time away from the legislature “to deal with the legal, political and personal ramifications” of the situation.

Keep reading

Cocky cop jailed for stealing bitcoins had log of his crypto theft in his office

A former cop in the United Kingdom was sentenced to five and a half years in prison Wednesday after pleading guilty to covering up his theft of 50 bitcoins seized during an investigation into the now-defunct illicit dark web marketplace Silk Road.

In 2014, the former UK National Crime Agency (NCA) officer, Paul Chowles, assisted in the arrest of Thomas White, a man “who had launched Silk Road 2.0 less than a month after the FBI had shut down the original site in 2013,” the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said in a press release.

Chowles was tapped to analyze and extract “relevant data and cryptocurrency” from White’s seized devices, specifically due to Chowles’ reputation for being “technically minded and very aware of the dark web and cryptocurrencies,” CPS said.

Like US cops busted for stealing bitcoins from Silk Road seizures, Chowles’ theft was brazen. In 2017, he transferred 50 of 97 seized bitcoins from one of White’s wallets to a public address, then used a cryptocurrency mixer called Bitcoin Fog to break up the bitcoins into smaller amounts “in an attempt to hide the trail of the money,” CPS said.

At the time, the bitcoins were worth about $80,000, but today, they’re valued at nearly $6 million.

Keep reading

Democrat busted for shoplifting at Target self-checkout line — and uses ailing granny as an excuse

A Democratic state representative from Connecticut busted for shoplifting after failing to scan items at a Target self-checkout offered a litany of excuses, including that he was “in a rush to bring items to my grandmother in the hospital.”

State Rep. Raghib Allie-Brennan was arrested Monday night at a Target store in Bethel, about 60 miles southwest of Hartford, after authorities reviewed security footage allegedly showing he neglected to scan two of his items, totaling $26.69 in value.

He was detained by loss prevention personnel, who later told cops they recognized the four-term lawmaker from “previous unreported larcenies,” CT Mirror reported, citing a Bethel Police arrest summary.

Allie-Brennan, 33, who was first elected in 2018, acknowledged the incident on his Facebook page Tuesday in an excuse-laden post.

“During a recent visit to the Bethel Target, two items in my armload of others were not scanned. I was in a rush to bring items to my grandmother in the hospital, the store didn’t have bags, and I was juggling multiple purchases,” he wrote.

Keep reading

Former Smith County constable chief deputy gets probation after pleading guilty to stealing while serving 2021 eviction notice

A former Smith County constable chief deputy was sentenced to 18 months’ probation after pleading guilty Thursday morning in connection with stealing while serving an eviction notice alongside former Pct. 1 Constable Curtis Traylor-Harris.

LaQuenda Banks, who was a Smith County Pct. 1 Constable’s Office chief deputy, entered a guilty plea in the 241st District Court after she previously testified during Traylor-Harris’ trial in December 2022. The 18-month probation sentence was then handed down. 

Banks, Traylor-Harris and former Smith County Pct. 1 Sgt. Derrick Holman were arrested in November 2021 on official oppression and property theft by a public servant charges for accusations of stealing items from a Tyler home in late January 2021 while issuing an eviction.

Traylor-Harris was convicted on a theft by a public servant charge and sentenced to five years’ probation in December. He was also ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. If he breaks that probation, he would go to a state jail facility for two years.

In August, Holman was found not guilty of the same theft charge during a trial. Banks also testified in Holman’s trial.

Banks’ attorney Brett Harrison said on Thursday she received probation for the official oppression charge, which is a misdemeanor, and the prosecution agreed to drop the felony theft by a public servant charge through the guilty plea. 

Harrison said Banks received no deals prior to or in exchange for her testimony in both Holman and Traylor-Harris’ trials. 

“She is obviously remorseful for her actions,” Harrison said.  

Arrest documents said Banks’ body camera footage, which was turned on accidentally, showed Traylor-Harris, Holman and Banks stealing from a home during an eviction. 

The stolen items included watches, ammunition, cash, Oakley sunglasses, Ray-Ban sunglasses, makeup and a safe containing antique coins, quarter collection, military medals, a diploma, a birth certificate and a social security card, the affidavit read.

During her testimony at Traylor-Harris’ trial, Banks said on the stand she felt “forced” to take the items and if she didn’t do it, she would’ve gotten fired. 

Keep reading

Asda launches massive trial of live facial recognition technology that can pick up on thieves in SECONDS in an attempt to combat shoplifting ‘epidemic’

In a move branded ‘disproportionate’ and ‘chilling’ by anti-surveillance groups, the retailer is introducing the scheme in five shops across the Manchester area.

The technology has been integrated into Asda’s existing CCTV network and works by scanning images and comparing the results to a known list of individuals who have previously committed criminal activity in one of its stores.

If a match is found by the automated system, in a matter of seconds head office security will conduct a check and report it to the store in question immediately.

The trial is just one of a battery of measures being taken by major stores to combat an ‘epidemic’ of retail crime – just as plummeting conviction rates have led to accusations that shoplifters are able to ‘act with impunity’.

They include Co-op, which has installed ‘fortified’ kiosks featuring toughened screen and keycode-controlled entry in hundreds of stores.

It is also trialling AI that uses CCTV to track suspicious behaviour.

Meanwhile Tesco controversially introduced weighing scales at its Gateshead to check whether customers using ‘Scan as you shop’ aren’t taking home extra goods.

Keep reading