Cincinnati landlord Courtland Gundlind had enough of the thief who had recently stolen two air conditioning units from his properties. So he hid a GPS tracker inside a new unit, installed it, and waited for the culprit to strike again. Two weeks later, the air conditioner texted him that it was "on the move." From Cincinnati.com:
The Okeana landlord called a friend and followed the trail. The GPS updated every 60 seconds, so they remained about a minute behind. He called police who eventually caught up with the unit and a suspect at the McDonald's on Reading Road.
Cincinnati Police arrested David Lester Walls, 50, of Linden Street, and charged him with theft and criminal damaging. He was arraigned April 11, pleaded not guilty, and is set to return to court May 15....
(Gundling) said police were surprised the GPS in the AC worked.
(Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)
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South Wales Police announced they were able to access a WhatsApp user's photos through a backdoor, then extract fingerprint data from a picture of a weed dealer's hand to help convict 11 involved people. Read the rest
Matt Bentkowski was stuck in traffic on Interstate 285 East near Atlanta, enjoying "a front row seat" when a driver behind him decided the shoulder would do just fine as a lane.
P.S. Instant Justice YouTube is obviously a lot of fun, but there's plenty there you might not want to bother with first thing in the morning. Read the rest
The Mercury News obtained and released a 30-minute captioned bodycam video of police interacting with Nasim Aghdam as she slept in a Walmart parking lot a few hours before shooting three people and killing herself at YouTube headquarters. Read the rest
Credit card fraud is a $24 billion business. Vice convinced a credit card scammer to be videotaped as he goes about his business.
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Sean Simpson is a teacher at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who had expressed an openness the idea of arming teachers to prevent school shootings.
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Suffolk County District Judge Robert Cicale is facing up to 15 years in prison after he was caught breaking into the home of a neighbor and stealing a 23-year-old woman's dirty underwear; the judge says he was gripped by an "urge," and his lawyer assured the press that his client's "reputation throughout the court is stellar. Every judge, every lawyer respects him."
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The woman who opened fire in a YouTube cafeteria, injuring three others then killing herself, was named as Nasim Najafi Aghdam by investigators late yesterday. Frenzied speculation over her motives (alt-right types immediateley sought to portray her as a jihadi) faded to general bafflement: Aghdam was apparently an Iranian Baha’i vegan fitness fan to whom stereotypical political identities seem ill-fitted, especially in light of her bizarre videos: the only clue is her often-expressed anger that YouTube had demonetized her channel. The discussion is already leaning toward issues of mental health, with the necessary caveat that such speculation itself is problematic and tends to assume things about the mentally ill that are untrue.
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As posted on the (verified) Twitter account of Warwickshire Police on April 2, this gentleman is on the run.
We can confirm that this is real ... it's serious as a woman was victim of a horrible crime. Hopefully the attention will mean we identify the offender/bring him to justice quicker
If you see him, be sure to inform the authorities and/or the SCP Foundation.
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Since 2016, when an FBI agent first used a dead suspect's finger to unlock his phone, police forces across the USA have made a routine practice of unlocking phones using suspects and victims' dead fingers, saving big on buying cyberwar tools like Cellebrite's $1500-$3000 unlocker, or Grayshift's $30k/year Graykey.
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It's been six years since investigative journalists published their expose accusing London's Metropolitan Police of colluding with the UK's construction cartel to blacklist workers who complained about unsafe working conditions, abusive bosses and wage-theft, as well as union organisers and other "troublemakers" -- this week, the Met confirmed that its officers were an active part of the illegal blacklist.
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When you look at the list of people that Wells Fargo stole from -- ordinary depositors, struggling mortgage borrowers, 800,000 car loan borrowers, mom and pop businesses, medium businesses and home owners -- a commonality emerges: they're all poor people, or middle-class people, or slightly rich people.
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New York Police Department Officer Yessenia Jimenez was arrested by Drug Enforcement Administration agents on weapons and drug trafficking charges following a month long investigation. According to AP, Jimenez "helped her boyfriend run a heroin trafficking ring that spanned from Mexico to New York."
NYPD Commissioner James O’Neill is so troubled by the arrest that he suspended Jimenez without pay. "Cops are charged with enforcing the law, not breaking it," he said in a statement. "Today’s arrest — for serious allegations of trafficking heroin — are troubling.”
Did it really take this long for O’Neill to become troubled about crimes committed by his officers? Here are are a few recent stories about serious misdeeds conducted on his watch:
Lawyer says nine NYPD officers bullied teen girl who accused two detectives of cuffing and raping her
Secret NYPD files show hundreds of cops committed serious crimes and kept jobs and pensions
NYPD cops charged with felonies after beating up mailman
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Jun Ying was serving as CIO of Equifax when he avoided more than $117,000 in losses by exercising and liquidating all of his stock options before the public was notified of the company's catastrophic breach -- but after he had figured out what was going on.
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This week Victorville, California police arrested a 14-year-old boy who dressed up in a sheriff's uniform, put emergency lights on his grandfather's car, and drove around "responding" to various crimes. After the real police pulled him over, they searched his room and found "counterfeit money, simulation firearms, ballistic vests and other law enforcement related items." No word on whether the youngster had cultivated cop speak. From the Merced Sun-Star:
Police also realized the teen had a busy night before he was pulled over: He had pulled over a woman in a fake traffic stop, and asked for her identification, police said. The teen let her off with a warning.
During a separate incident that day, the juvenile turned on his emergency lights, drawing a 16-year-old out of a home. The dressed-up teen told the 16-year-old he was responding to a domestic disturbance call. But when the imposter was told no one had made such a call, he left the scene, police said.
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Last year, photographer Jim Young visited murder scenes and memorials in Chicago and documented what he saw with an instant camera. Last year, there were 650 murders in the area with 90 percent of them involving guns. Enough. “Though most of the [memorials] are gone,” Young says, “their photographs will be forever, and I hope memories [of the victims] will be, too.” See the series at FOTO: "Behind the Bullets"
Image above:
On Sept. 21, Manuel Hernandez was in a car when a minivan pulled up beside him. Someone in that van opened fire, killing the 30-year-old father of two girls. Pictured: the shattered glass of a nearby restaurant, hit by a stray bullet.
Twin sisters Addison and Makayla Henning loved riding their bikes. They were just shy of 6 years old when their mother, Celisa Henning, shot them in a murder-suicide on Aug. 31, 2017. The twins’ grandmother said Celisa Henning had suffered health issues resulting from a car crash in 2015.
Damien Santoyo, 14, was killed by shots fired from a car while he stood on the steps of an apartment with two other boys on Aug. 6. His killers had reportedly yelled gang slogans as they drove by, but relatives said Santoyo was not involved in any gang activity. A football player in junior high school, he was weeks from beginning high school.
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Lower Days Ahead is an Amazon print on demand paperback book filled with nonsense sentences, the kind found in spam email to make its way past Bayesian filters. The author is "Patrick Reames" but when Reames received a 1099 form from Amazon he made $24,000 selling the book he was surprised, because he didn't write it or get any money from the sale of the book. It's likely that criminals are using Amazon's print on demand program to launder money.
From Krebs on Security:
Reames said he suspects someone has been buying the book using stolen credit and/or debit cards, and pocketing the 60 percent that Amazon gives to authors. At $555 a pop, it would only take approximately 70 sales over three months to rack up the earnings that Amazon said he made.
“This book is very unlikely to ever sell on its own, much less sell enough copies in 12 weeks to generate that level of revenue,” Reames said. “As such, I assume it was used for money laundering, in addition to tax fraud/evasion by using my Social Security number. Amazon refuses to issue a corrected 1099 or provide me with any information I can use to determine where or how they were remitting the royalties.”
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