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From
Fox News/AP:
One applicant to be a New York City correction officer had been fired from his last job as a security guard for stealing. Another admitted he had regularly socialized with gang members. Another had debts of more than $400,000.
Yet all those candidates and dozens like them were hired last year to be part of the force overseeing nearly 11,000 inmates on Rikers Island, according to a yearlong city probe of jail hiring practices released Thursday. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the findings hours before they were to be announced.
The probe found systemic problems with the Department of Correction hiring system, including no recruiting strategy for the past six years, that allowed an alarmingly high number of hires who had arrest records, gang ties or other red flags that are markers for corruption.
Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said the chronic problems of violence, smuggling and bribery that plague the city jails can all be traced to the character and qualifications of the employees.
City investigators randomly pulled 153 application files of guards hired last year and found that 54 — or 35 percent — "presented significant red flags that should have either precluded their hiring outright or required further follow-up."
The probe found 79 hired officers admitted having friends or family members who were inmates — including one with nine relatives who had done time in Rikers. Ten new hires had been arrested more than once, and another 12 had been rejected by the significantly higher standards of the New York Police Department, including six for psychological reasons and one who failed a drug test.
From
CBS 2:
Five people have pleaded guilty to charges that they exploited undocumented immigrant workers at 7-11 franchises they operated in New York and Virginia.
Prosecutors say Farrukh Baig, Malik Yousaf, Bushra Baig, Shahnawaz Baig, and Zahid Baig pleaded guilty Monday at the federal courthouse on Long Island.
They pleaded guilty to wire fraud and concealing and harboring illegal immigrants. Prosecutors say the defendants agreed to forfeit franchise rights to 10 stores in New York and four in Virginia.
Prosecutors say the defendants hired illegal immigrants and used stolen IDs to swindle more than $2.6 million in wages from the workers.
As part of the guilty plea, the defendants also agreed to forfeit five houses they owned. The homes are valued at over $1.3 million.
From
NBC:
The hub of America’s illegal ivory trade - a business that kills about 35,000 African elephants a year – is right here in New York, wildlife experts say. Pei-Sze Cheng reports.
From the
Forum:
Police found 7,200 electronic stun guns this month in a Ridgewood store and arrested the manager who had displayed some of them for sale, the Queens district attorney said.
Xiao Zhang, 43, manages the store Top Choice Trading Inc. at 47-38 Metropolitan Avenue and was arrested on Feb. 6. She is charged with fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon.
The district attorney’s criminal complaint alleges Zhang had boxes of the stun guns stashed above the store in Ridgewood. She also told employees to display a box downstairs on the show floor, the D.A. said.
Zhang, who was responsible for receiving and storing shipments at the store, said the shipment came from China and when it was held up by customs, she followed up to get it released, according to the complaint.
The manager was arraigned on Feb. 7. A Bronx narcotics detective testified that he checked one of the stun guns and said they were operational.
From the
Daily News:
Ten members of the infamous MS-13 gang from Flushing were indicted Thursday on racketeering charges, including violent machete and baseball attacks against rivals, authorities said.
Federal agents and NYPD detectives arrested eight of the thugs in early morning raids while two others were already incarcerated.
The defendants were members of a powerful clique of Mara Salvatrucha 13 wreaking havoc in their Queens neighborhood since 2007, authorities said.
Christian Merino, a reputed leader of the clique, was secretly intercepted on a wiretap discussing a September 2010 stabbing and baseball bat beating with an associate.
A machete was seized from gang member Abraham Iraheta, who is charged with using the large knife in a 2009 attack.
Carlos Hernandez is charged with volunteering to be the triggerman in a revenge shooting against a rival who slashed the face of MS-13 member Kevin Cardona.
The indictment also charges the Queens-based faction with raising money to finance the gang’s activities in El Salvador and with plotting to smuggle MS-13 members from the Texas border to Virginia.
From the
Daily News:
A Brooklyn judge struck a blow for endangered fish the world over, sentencing a Queens man Wednesday to one year in jail for smuggling the bony-tongued Arowana in his suitcase.
The rare fish is sold on the black market in Chinatown and Asian neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Queens for up to $8,000 apiece because of its supposed power to bring good luck.
But Chee Chaw has had nothing but bad luck since his suitcase was misplaced during a transfer from Hong Kong, and the fishy contraband was discovered after the bag arrived on a later flight.
Nine of the 16 fish, packed in water-filled plastic bags, died during the journey. Four more fish from a previous smuggling mission were recovered in his Elmhurst apartment.
"He's contributing to the demise of this fish by importing them into the United States," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiana Demas.
The prosecutor said Chaw had smuggled fish at on at least three occasions since 2004. A previous arrest was disposed of with an $850 fine.
From
CBS New York:
Human trafficking is a bigger problem in New York than first thought, according to a new study.
Hofstra University published the study this month that claims there are 11,268 human trafficking survivors in New York state since 2000.
That number only includes the survivors who have come forward.
From the
NY Times:
A Korean immigrant housekeeper has accused her former employers — a Korean Buddhist monk and his family — of keeping her as a prisoner in their homes in Queens for 12 years and forcing her to work as their “slave” under threat of death, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Manhattan.
The housekeeper, Oak-Jin Oh, 60, has alleged that the family forced her to work long hours without pay, deprived her of medical care when she was sick and “usually” refused to give her a bedroom or a bed to sleep in.
Though the family allowed her outside their homes from time to time — she was permitted to go to the grocery store to buy food for the family’s meals — they used threats to dissuade her from reporting her situation to the authorities, the lawsuit alleges.
“She was threatened with reputational harm, physical harm and death,” the lawsuit says.
The suit, filed last week, names the family patriarch, Soo Bok Choi, a Buddhist monk, as a defendant, as well as two of Mr. Choi’s brothers, his son and daughter, a niece and the personal representative of the estate of his mother, who died in 2009.
According to the lawsuit, Ms. Oh was introduced to the Choi family in 1998 by an employment placement agency in South Korea. Mr. Choi said he was looking for someone to work in his family’s home and in his temple in New York, the complaint says.
Ms. Oh agreed to travel to the United States to work for the family in exchange for a monthly wage of 1.3 million Korean won, equivalent to about $1,200 at current exchange rates, the complaint says.
Mr. Choi flew with Ms. Oh to Toronto, the lawsuit says, then smuggled her across the border into New York “under the cover of night” in a small boat.
Over the next 12 years, the Choi family “harbored” Ms. Oh in residences around Queens, including in Elmhurst, Little Neck, Bayside, Flushing and Whitestone, according to the complaint.
From the
Daily News:
A Malaysian man smuggled illegal Chinese immigrants into Brooklyn in style - aboard the ultraposh Queen Mary 2 cruise ship, federal authorities say.
Five women and four men were taken into custody last month after the QM2 - touted as the most luxurious ocean liner ever built - arrived at the New York Cruise Terminal in Red Hook.
The accused smuggler, Fatt Kwee Wong, told agents he was paid $3,000 for each of the nine passengers by an unidentified person in China. The illegal immigrants also forked over $500 each when they boarded the ship in Dubai, according to court papers.
A spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection said it is believed to be the first case of its kind in the New York area.
From
AOL News:
Lost in the rhetoric about illegal immigration are new reports that Mexican drug cartels have moved into the United States, gaining a major foothold here that may be the start of a permanent expansion onto this side of the border. They're even growing marijuana in our national parks, one expert says.
Mexico's cartel families and their associates have moved into cities in the southwestern U.S. as part of their ongoing drug selling and distribution operations, according to an alert from the U.S. Justice Department's Drug Intelligence Center, first reported April 11 by Mexican media.
Roberta Jacobson, deputy secretary of state for Mexico and Canada, said on April 12 that Mexican drug cartels are now operating in 230 American cities. Drug trafficking "is not a crisis that affects only the border," Jacobson said. ""It's a crisis in our cities across the country."
The Los Angeles Times reported this week about a member of Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel who operated a cocaine operation in South Carolina and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. The report said there are similar rings run by cartel members living and working in Seattle, Minneapolis and Anchorage, Alaska.
The new warnings coincide with the discovery of mass graves in the state of Tamaulipas, just south of Texas, with at least 116 bodies in them earlier this week, and a discovery late Wednesday of 26 bodies in a mass grave in Durango.
The Mexican government says the Los Zetas drug cartel is responsible for the Tamaulipas murders. So far, about 35,000 people have died in the Mexican drug wars since 2006.
The cartel-related violence is spreading to the U.S., law enforcement officials say. And it all starts at the border.
From the
Daily News:
Roger Levans of Queens got off a Delta Airlines flight from Georgetown, Guyana, on Dec. 29, and wrote on a Customs declaration that he was carrying food items, according to a criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn Federal Court.
"Levans was asked what kind of food items he was carrying, to which he responded 'cooked rabbit,'" Homeland Security special agent Noah Abbott said in the complaint.
Levans' three suitcases were passed through an X-ray machine and the inspectors were suspicious about what they saw.
The first two bags contained an assortment of fruits and vegetables - and no rabbit, according to the complaint.
The inspectors noted that Levans appeared "nervous and anxious" when they peeked inside the third suitcase.
Again, no rabbit - but there were three brick-shaped packages wrapped in brown masking tape. A Customs and Border Protection agent poked them, revealing three kilos of cocaine.
Levans, who was released on $100,000 bail, stated in an affidavit that he works for Guardsmark Security as a guard at Yankee Stadium.
From the
NY Post:
Two convicted sex traffickers -- who entombed a deceased infant in concrete and kept it for 11 months in the house with their children -- were hit yesterday with manslaughter and child-endangerment charges.
Domingo Salazar and Norma Mendez, both illegal aliens, pleaded guilty in July to federal charges of smuggling women from Mexico and putting them on the street as prostitutes.
Salazar fathered the baby with a teenager he forced into prostitution, Assistant DA Jacqueline Kagan said in Brooklyn Supreme Court. The tot, Carlos Santillana, died of battered-child syndrome.
The pair allegedly put the body into a container and filled it with concrete. They kept the container in the house with their three young kids, Kagan said.
"They allowed them [the children] to live in the house with the decomposing body of their step-brother," she said.
Mendez's lawyer, Amanda Scioscia, said her client did not commit an "overt act" of violence -- she only failed to get medical attention for the tot.
From
Fox News:
Twenty-three New York City business owners were arrested for their role in sneaking illegal Chinese immigrants into the U.S. to work at restaurants and other establishments, federal officials told FOXNews.com Thursday.
James Hayes Jr., U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Special Agent in Charge for New York, said the aliens were often held in unsanitary conditions and were transported to and from the establishments daily.
The eight-month investigation culminated on Wednesday and Thursday with arrests at the employment establishments, which were located in the city's Chinatown neighborhood.
"We anticipate at least one more [arrest]," Hayes told FOXNews.com, adding that the immigrants were believed to have paid up to $75,000 each to be smuggled into the U.S. from China.
Once in New York City, owners of employment agencies would place the aliens -- the majority of whom were male -- to work in restaurants, Hayes said.
It was unclear how long the operation had been going on.
From the
NY Post:
Drug-sniffing dogs at Kennedy Airport hit a $1 million "smackpot," leading customs agents to more than 33 pounds of heroin, much of it sealed in bags of dried milk and coffee in luggage arriving from Guayaquil, Venezuela.
Two Venezuelan men, flying separately from the same airport to JFK on Sept. 14 and Sept. 18, were busted when they retrieved their suitcases.
Murilla Aquilera was arrested after his checked bag, which appeared unusually thick, was found to contain heroin, with a street value of more than $550,000, in milk-powder and coffee containers, authorities said.
On Sept. 18, Holga Ortega-Bravo was arrested after a dog flagged a bag with five packs of heroin, worth $510,000, disguised as milk powder, authorities said.
From the
NY Times:
The Lake Shore Limited runs between Chicago and New York City without crossing the Canadian border. But when it stops at Amtrak stations in western New York State, armed Border Patrol agents routinely board the train, question passengers about their citizenship and take away noncitizens who cannot produce satisfactory immigration papers.
“Are you a U.S. citizen?” agents asked one recent morning, moving through a Rochester-bound train full of dozing passengers at a station outside Buffalo. “What country were you born in?”
When the answer came back, “the U.S.,” they moved on. But Ruth Fernandez, 60, a naturalized citizen born in Ecuador, was asked for identification. And though she was only traveling home to New York City from her sister’s in Ohio, she had made sure to carry her American passport. On earlier trips, she said, agents had photographed her, and taken away a nervous Hispanic man.
He was one of hundreds of passengers taken to detention each year from domestic trains and buses along the nation’s northern border. The little-publicized transportation checks are the result of the Border Patrol’s growth since 9/11, fueled by Congressional antiterrorism spending and an expanding definition of border jurisdiction. In the Rochester area, where the border is miles away in the middle of Lake Ontario, the patrol arrested 2,788 passengers from October 2005 through last September.
The checks are “a vital component to our overall border security efforts” to prevent terrorism and illegal entry, said Rafael Lemaitre, a spokesman for United States Customs and Border Protection. He said that the patrol had jurisdiction to enforce immigration laws within 100 miles of the border, and that one mission was preventing smugglers and human traffickers from exploiting inland transit hubs.
From the
Times Ledger:
A Whitestone resident and another Queens man were among nine people indicted in an international counterfeiting and smuggling ring that delivered goods to sites in Ridgewood and Maspeth as well as College Point, federal authorities said.
Kin Yip Ng, 43, of Whitestone and Yenn-Kun Hsieh, 45, of an undisclosed location in Queens, were charged along with a Brooklyn woman, two Malaysians and four Chinese citizens with conspiring to smuggle counterfeit shoes, handbags and wristwatches into the United States, the Maryland U.S. attorney’s office said.
According to a federal indictment issued March 16, the defendants arranged with undercover agents from the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Bureau to import and clear shipments of counterfeit products into the United States without paying federal taxes and customs duties.
The nine defendants manufactured, brokered and distributed the fake Nike, Coach, Gucci and Cartier goods, importing them from Malaysia and China, federal prosecutors said. The items arrived in Baltimore, where the shipping containers were unloaded and delivered to locations in Ridgewood, Maspeth and College Point, as well as Brooklyn and New Jersey, prosecutors said.
The alleged smugglers imported 130,000 pairs of counterfeit shoes and 500,000 fake designer handbags, officials said.
Hsieh, Ng and others also allegedly paid the undercover agents extra to launder money for their ring and at one point paid the agents to ship three cargo containers to England, prosecutors said.
From the
NY Post:
Pickled cobra that "cures" kidney problems. Chinese Viagra made with deer penis. Balms filled with powdered tiger bone. Bushels of bushmeat.
These are just a few of the exotic and unlawful imports that pour into New York City daily.
And when the black-market booty is not seized by federal agents at airports, they can be found on the shelves of China town apothecaries, Bronx botanicas or swap meets in ethnic neighborhoods throughout the city.
"We had 10 million passengers come into JFK last year, and I have 12 inspectors," said Bob Onda, who supervises US Fish and Wildlife Service inspectors at JFK and La Guardia airports.
A Post interpreter was told recently in Chinatown that he could buy bear gall bladder to clean his blood, and deer penis to improve his sexual prowess.
Inspectors say many strange objects are used in so-called traditional Chinese medicines -- thought to cure everything from a toothache to cancer.
Onda said the Chinese use "medicine mules" like other cultures use "drug mules" -- smuggling into the country thousands of hidden pills containing ground-up tiger and leopard bone.
"If they get it by us they mule it into Chinatown," he said.
From the
Daily News:
The supposed good luck powers of the bony-tongued Arowana fish didn't work for a Queens man who was charged with smuggling the creatures into New York in his suitcase.
Chee Chaw packed his suitcase with 16 of the rare, valuable fish in water-filled plastic bags when he left Malaysia for Kennedy Airport last April, court papers said.
Authorities say Chaw, 47, bought the fish - which fetch thousands of dollars on the black market - while visiting relatives.
His suitcase got misplaced during a transfer in Hong Kong and arrived in New York on a later Cathay Pacific Flight. Chaw arranged to have it delivered to his home in Elmhurst.
A routine check of the bag revealed the unusual contents - and the feds dispatched a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent dressed up like a UPS worker to Chaw's house.
After Chaw confirmed the bag was his, Agent Paul Chapelle told him the fish found inside cannot be imported without a permit.
Agents recovered four more Arowanas during a search of the alleged smuggler's home. Several of the original 16 died in federal custody.
From
1010WINS:
The two black finches whistled songs at each other in fluttering voices as a group of men crowded around their cages.
It was the first bird singing competition of the morning, and men on either side of the two cages counted the songs, each as fleeting as a haiku. The first finch to tweet 50 would be declared the winner.
For years, bird racing, as the sport is known, has been held in a park in the Richmond Hill neighborhood of Queens on warm Sunday afternoons with scant attention from outsiders.
Yet the races have drawn increased scrutiny recently from law enforcement, as federal officials target illegal smuggling of finches from Guyana. Authorities also suspect the men place illegal bets on the birds.
The people who flock to the races, mostly Guyanese immigrant men, argue that it is simply a harmless cultural pastime.
"This is how we relax our minds," said Rajendra "Bush" Harinarian, who compared the sport to watching baseball for Americans. "We hang out with our friends, with the birds."
John Neal, a U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service agent serving New York, said his agents investigate six to eight finch smuggling cases each year. Most of the birds are destined to compete in the races at Phil "Scooter" Rizzuto Park, previously known as Smokey Oval Park, he said.
The illicit trade is fueled by the demand for males of species native to Guyana known as the lesser-seed finch or "towa-towa," Neal said. Racing enthusiasts consider them the best singers, he said.
Though the smuggled birds sometimes die before arrival, the males that survive can sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars in the U.S. market.
