His career is, in itself, a map of both the transformation and the limitations of states in the face of organized crime: he played a key role in the downfall of Colombia's major cartels in the 1990s; led the intelligence services during the moments of greatest threat to his country; spearheaded police reforms that professionalized criminal investigations; and, as vice president, participated in the construction of peace agreements that marked a turning point in Colombia's recent history.
But this is not the first time Rocha has been the subject of the authorities' interest. The businessman, with a lavish track record in the corporate world and in the import and export of hydrocarbons in Mexico, is wanted for his involvement in a fuel, weapons, and drug smuggling ring originating in Guatemala that connects him to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and the Mexico City-based cartel La Union Tepito.
Eric Halem, a former LAPD officer, and Gabby Ben, alleged by prosecutors to have 'ties to the Israeli mafia,' were denied bail Friday. The two men are accused of pretending to serve a police search warrant and using threats of violence to coerce a teenager into emptying a digital wallet full of cryptocurrency. Both have pleaded not guilty. Halem's attorney said her client faces danger in jail: 'He worries he is going to be killed because he was a cop.' One night last December, six men met at a home in the Hollywood Hills to plot a kidnapping, prosecutors say.
Using apartments in the San Fernando Valley and Glendale area, a shadowy group of identity thieves has been quietly exploiting a new kind of victim - foreign scholars who left the U.S. years ago but whose Social Security numbers still linger in American databases, according to a cybercrime expert. Criminals are resurrecting these dormant identities and submitting hundreds of applications for bank accounts and credit cards, says David Maimon, head of fraud insights at SentiLink and a criminology professor at Georgia State University.
Ammar Awawdeh, 34, played a key role in the sprawling plot to run the sprawling rigged poker scheme, the feds allege, operating one of the crooked games out of 80 Washington Place, a Greenwich Village townhouse where rapper Travis Scott and Kylie Jenner reportedly once lived that sold for $17 million in 2024. The conspiracy used Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and former Cleveland Cavaliers player and coach Damon Jones to draw in big-money players to underground poker games.
The police operation that left an unprecedented trail of death in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday (121, according to the latest official count) is already the subject of furious political debate, even though the fallen officers have only just been buried and many mothers in the favelas are still anxiously waiting to locate or identify their sons. Public safety has thus become a key issue in the lead-up to Brazil's presidential elections in a year's time.
Players are trying their best to win; the games are on the level. If you lose that, if the games are fixed or the players are motivated by something other than the competition, the whole thing collapses. (This is why sports gambling was banned for nearly 100 years after the Black Sox scandal; it was understood by everyone involved, until very recently, that players and coaches gambling on their own games was sports' third rail.) There's no reason to watch a game you can't believe
Poker chip trays that can secretly read cards. Glasses that can detect card markings. Rigged underground games run by the New York mafia. NBA figures exchanging insider information as part of illegal betting schemes. These are some of the wild allegations filed in two criminal complaints this week by federal prosecutors in one of the most sweeping and sensational betting scandals in recent professional sports history.
The Louvre, it turns out-at least certain nooks of the ancient former palace-is something like an anopticon: a place where no one is observed. The world now knows what the four thieves (two burglars and two accomplices) realized as recently as last week: The museum's Apollo Gallery, which housed the stolen items, was monitored by a single outdoor camera angled away from its only exterior point of entry, a balcony.
Following an investigation, LAPD officials announced Thursday they arrested two women who they suspect posed as a cleaning crew to gain access to homes in the San Fernando Valley, where they allegedly stolen thousands in cash, jewelry and high-end bags. Nikol Quiroga, 30, and Sandra Aguillon, 49, both Colombian nationals, have been booked on suspicion of grand theft and are suspected to be part of a "larger transnational organized crime group," according to a news release from the LAPD.
101 East investigates whether China is using alleged criminals to win over Taiwan's sole South American ally, Paraguay. Paraguay is one of just 12 countries that maintains diplomatic ties with Taiwan, not China. But is Beijing using unofficial channels to extend its influence into the South American nation? In our three-year undercover investigation, we meet a shadowy Chinese businessman who says he is a proxy for Beijing, a claim that China denies.
"Trailblazer" wastes no time revealing how Junior and Babbitt killed Anna Dixon in her bathroom. The pair fumble over each other trying to bust her bathroom door open to question her, knocking her over in the process and inadvertently breaking her skull against the lip of the tub. It's a senseless act of violence that takes the most blameless life of anyone who has ever earned a dime off the Black Rabbit.
Protection rackets are not a popular topic among bar owners in Cape Town. "You just adapt," says a man from East Africa who does not want to give his name. "The laws of the street apply here." German bar owner Randolf Jorberg learned what these laws look like in 2015. After he spoke publicly for the first time about extortion practices in the restaurant industry and refused to pay, a Congolese bouncer working for him was stabbed to death.
Evidence collected during sting operations planned and carried out by YouTubers helped dismantle a massive Chinese organized crime group that allegedly scammed $65 million from more than 2,000 mostly senior victims across the United States, federal prosecutors in San Diego announced Wednesday. Not all heroes wear capes, San Diego-area U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said. Some have YouTube channels. RELATED: South Bay DA pushes for jail time in organized retail theft case that stretched across region Over the past week, federal agents in California, New York, Michigan and Texas arrested 25 of the 28 individuals indicted by a grand jury for allegedly participating in the fraud scheme.
