Wednesday, December 23, 2015

Gangs going high tech

From the Epoch Times:

The Van Dyke Money Gang in New York made off with more than $1.5 million this year—but it wasn’t in gunpoint robberies or drug running, it was a Western Union money order scheme. In New Jersey, 111 Neighborhood Crips used a machine to make dozens of fake gift cards for supermarkets, pharmacies and hardware stores. In South Florida, gangs steal identities to file false tax returns.

These aren’t members of an organized Mafia or band of hackers. They’re street crews and gangs netting millions in white-collar schemes like identity theft and credit card fraud—in some instances, giving up the old ways of making an illicit income in exchange for easier crimes with shorter sentences.

“Why would you spend time on the street slinging crack when you can get 10 years under federal minimums when in reality you can just bone up on how to make six figures and when you get caught you’re doing six months?” said Al Pasqual, director of fraud security at the consulting firm Javelin Strategy and Research.

Law enforcement officials say they see increasingly more gangs relying on such crimes. This year, more than three dozen suspected crew members have been indicted in separate cases around the country. Grand larcenies in New York City account for 40 percent of all crime last year—compared with 28 percent in 2001. About 5 percent of Americans nationwide have experienced some kind of identity theft, with Florida leading the country in complaints.

5 comments:

(sarc) said...

But while they were sitting in jail, they were "rehabilitated".

Or so they tell us...

Anonymous said...

We have more problems within the USA with our growing gang activity. We do not need to spend billions on dealing with Al Queida or ISIS.
We need to spend some serious money on our internal gangs and home grown American terrorists who will undue our system quicker than any Middle Eastern thugs. It has already begun, in case nobody has taken notice.

Anonymous said...

So the real gangsters have been tech geeks all along!

Cav said...


"We need to spend some serious money on our internal gangs...

Yeah, spend money. That always works- in some alternate reality. Who needs to deal with untangling the zeitgeist cultural wreckage caused by post modernism and the welfare state? Another social engineering program to fix the problems caused by past social engineering programs will work this time dontcha know.

"...our internal gangs and home grown American terrorists who will undue our system quicker than any Middle Eastern thugs. It has already begun, in case nobody has taken notice."

If by that you mean the last seven years in the reign of Our Glorious Leader- King Unicorn von Choom-Wagon then yes I've noticed. And His Sacred Majesty is working as fast as he can with social justice warriors and the radical Islamists to accomplish this goal. So if you really hate this country and its people, want to see it and us crushed then not to fear. All is progressing well.

But if you actually love this country, want greater individual freedom, economic growth and stability, social mobility as what it at least stood for before the progressive borg hivemind got their hooks into it, then be afraid. Be very afraid.

Oh, and (sarc), would our betters lie to us? lol!/sarc

Don Cavaioli

Anonymous said...

>Who needs to deal with untangling the zeitgeist cultural wreckage caused by post modernism and the welfare state?

Yep, because there were no gangs before that.