Speaking To Crime Novelist Lisa Scottoline

Yesterday, I interviewed Lisa Scottoline, the best-selling crime novelist and the author of What Happened to the Bennetts. 

What Happened to the Bennetts is a well-written, fast-paced and suspenseful crime thriller.  

My interview with her will appear in my On Crime column in the Washington Times. I’ll post the column here when it comes out in a week or two. 

Lisa Scottoline is just as intelligent, interesting and witty as her crime novels. 

Although I knew she had deep South Philly roots, I discovered that in our early lives, we lived in the same Italian American neighborhood in South Philadelphia. Although I’m a few years older, she lived on Daly Street near 9th and Wolf, just around the corner from Tree Street, where I lived. 

She told me that her Aunt Rachel owned and operated Ray’s, the luncheonette with pinball machines at 9th and Wolf where I hung out as a kid. 

Small world. 

You can visit Lisa Scottoline’s website via the below link:

Lisa Scottoline – #1 Bestselling Author

FBI Director Christopher Wray Announces Actions To Disrupt And Prosecute Russian Criminal Activity

FBI Director Christopher Wray delivered the following remarks during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., with partner agency officials announcing actions to prosecute criminal Russian activity. (Remarks as delivered):

I’m pleased to be here today to help announce this series of actions countering threats originating from Russia.

I want to focus for a few minutes on the FBI’s role in one of the actions the Attorney General mentioned, and what it says about the FBI’s unique cyber capabilities and what we can accomplish together with the private sector.

Today, we’re announcing a sophisticated, court-authorized operation disrupting a botnet of thousands of devices controlled by the Russian government—before it could do any harm.

We removed malware from devices used by thousands of mostly small businesses for network security all over the world. And then we shut the door the Russians had used to get into them.

Yesterday’s Darknet takedown struck a blow against Russian criminals and the ecosystem of cryptocurrency tumblers, money launders, malware purveyors, and other supporting them. The botnet disruption we’re announcing today strikes a blow against Russian intelligence, the Russian government.

The bot network we disrupted was built by the GRU—the Russian government’s military intelligence agency. And in particular it was the unit within GRU known to security researchers as Sandworm Team.

This GRU team, Sandworm, had implanted a specific type of malware known as Cyclops Blink on thousands of WatchGuard Technologies’ Firebox devices—these are security appliances, mainly firewalls, that are typically deployed in home office environments and in small to mid-size businesses.

Sandworm strung them together to use their computing power in a way that would obfuscate who was really running the network and let them then launch malware or to orchestrate distributed denial of service attacks like the GRU has already used to attack Ukraine. I should note here, that the GRU’s Sandworm team has a long history of outrageous, destructive attacks: The disruption of the Ukrainian electric grid in 2015, attacks against the Winter Olympics and the Paralympics in 2018, a series of disruptive attacks against the nation of Georgia in 2019, and, in 2017, the NotPetya attack that devastated Ukraine but also ended up hitting systems here in the U.S., throughout Europe, and elsewhere, causing more than 10 billion dollars in damages­—one of the most damaging cyberattacks in the history of cyberattacks.

With the court-authorized operations we’re announcing today, we’ve disrupted this botnet before it could be used. We were largely able to do that because we had close cooperation with WatchGuard.

We’ve worked closely with WatchGuard to analyze the malware and develop detection tools and remediation techniques over the past several weeks. And our operation removed Russia’s ability to control these Firebox devices on the botnet network, and then copied and removed malware from the infected devices. Now I should caution that as we move forward, any Firebox devices that acted as bots may still remain vulnerable in the future until mitigated by their owners, so those owners should still go ahead and adopt WatchGuard’s recommended detection and remediation steps as soon as possible.

We’re continuing to conduct a thorough and methodical investigation, but as we’ve shown, we are not going to wait for our investigations to end to act. We are going to act as soon as we can, with whatever partners are best situated to help, to protect the public.

This announcement today shows the value of the FBI’s technical expertise and unique authorities—both as a law enforcement agency and an intelligence service. And that unique combination, both of which were essential to the success of this operation. 

It also shows what we can accomplish with our partners to help companies—like the thousands of mostly small business affected by this botnet—hit by threats like these posed by the Russian government.

Our partnership with the private sector was key here. WatchGuard enthusiastically cooperated with the FBI to figure out the source of the infection and to counter it. That kind of cooperation makes successes like the one we’re announcing today possible, and it will continue to be important going forward.

The Russian government has shown it has no qualms about conducting this kind of criminal activity, and they continue to pose an imminent threat. And this global botnet disruption, in conjunction with the other actions discussed today, reflect an aggressive effort by the FBI and our partners to go on offense against Russian cyber threats, wherever they appear.

I’d also like to commend our partners at the DEA, IRS, and our foreign partners on the Hydra Darknet takedown and all of the men and women of the FBI involved with both of those operations, as well as the indictments and property seizures involving Russian oligarchs this week.

I should emphasize that we will continue to rely on companies to work with us the way WatchGuard has so that we can protect our nation’s cybersecurity together. For businesses, I would encourage you to have a cybersecurity plan and to include contacting your local FBI field office as an important part of that plan. And if you suspect a cyber intrusion, please contact your local FBI field office immediately—the more quickly we get involved, the more we can do to protect you. We are laser focused on disrupting the threat, on preventing harm from dangerous adversaries. Sometimes that means making arrests, and other times—like both yesterday and today—that means taking adversaries’ capabilities off the field.

No agency or business can do this alone. It takes everyone's cooperation. And the FBI will be there to work with you on cyber threats from Russia or anywhere else.

Finally, I would like to thank and congratulate our FBI teams in a wide number of field offices here in the U.S. and our legal attaches overseas for their work that has paid off this week—with seizing sanctioned assets here and in Spain, with the indictments we’re announcing today, and with the disruption of both criminal and hostile intelligence activities that we’re here to discuss this morning.

Thank you. 

Watching 'Jesus Of Nazareth'

My wife and I watched part one of Franco Zeffirelli's Jesus of Nazareth tonight.   

The brilliant 1977 TV series, co-written by Zeffirelli, Suso Cecchi d' Amico and novelist Anthony Burgess, starred Robert Powell as Jesus. The series also has a fine supporting cast with some of the world's best actors. 

We'll probably watch the rest of the series tomorrow after a family dinner.

We've seen the series before, but it is worth watching again after several years.     

My Washington Times On Crime Column On The Best Mystery Stories Of The Year 2021

The Washington Times published my On Crime Column on The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021. 

Mystery and crime short stories are popular with readers and Otto Penzler (seen in the below photo), the president and CEO of MysteriousPress.com and the owner of the Mysterious Bookshop in New York City, offers another fine anthology of crime and mystery short stories.

 

“The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021,” guest-edited by Lee Child, the author of the Jack Reacher thriller series, offers short stories from some of our best writers, such as James Lee Burke, Stephen King and Joyce Carrol Oates.

 

“Long ago, I came to agree with the brilliant John Dickson Carr, who wisely averred that the natural form of the traditional mystery is not the novel but the short story,” Otto Penzler noted in the introduction to the book. “It is not uncommon for a detective story to revolve around a single significant clue – which can be discovered, divulged, and its importance explained in a few pages. Everything else is embellishment, and novels have more of this than short stories.”

 

You can read the rest of the column via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/14/book-review-the-best-mystery-stories-of-the-year-2/

 

Federal Officials Unveil Two Indictments Charging 14 People With Illegally Trafficking 400 Firearms Into Philadelphia

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Philadelphia released the below information:

PHILADELPHIA – United States Attorney Jennifer Arbittier Williams, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Philadelphia Field Division Special Agent in charge Matt Varisco announced federal charges in two separate interstate firearms trafficking cases at a press conference held at Philadelphia ATF Headquarters today. Both cases involve individuals illegally trafficking firearms from states in the southern United States into Philadelphia, a large northeastern city, a fact pattern which is known as the ‘iron pipeline.’ Taken together, both trafficking conspiracies are alleged to be responsible for illegally putting approximately 400 firearms on the streets.

In the first case, captioned United States v. Norman, et al, the following 11 defendants have been charged by Indictment with conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to make a false statement to a federally licensed firearms dealer:

• Fredrick Norman, 25, of Atlanta, GA;
• Brianna Walker a/k/a “Mars, 23, of Atlanta, GA;
• Charles O’Bannon a/k/a “Chizzy,” 24, of Villa Rica, GA;
• Stephen Norman, 23, of Villa Rica, GA;
• Devin Church a/k/a “Lant,” 24, of Villa Rica, GA;
• Kenneth Burgos a/k/a “Peppito,” 23, of Philadelphia, PA;
• Edwin Burgos a/k/a “Rock,” 29, of Philadelphia, PA;
• Roger Millington, 25, of Philadelphia, PA;
• Ernest Payton, 30, of Philadelphia, PA;
• Roselmy Rodriguez, 22, of Philadelphia, PA; and
• Brianna Reed, 21, of Shippensburg, PA.

Additionally, defendants Edwin Burgos and Kenneth Burgos were each charged with dealing firearms without a license.

In the second case, captioned United States v. Ware, et al, the following three people have been charged by Indictment with conspiracy to deal firearms without a license and to make a false statement to a federally licensed firearms dealer:

• Muhammad Ware a/k/a “Moo,” 26, of Myrtle Beach, SC;
• Haneef Vaughn a/k/a “Neef,” 25, of Philadelphia, PA; and
• Jabreel Vaughn a/k/a “Breely,” 20, of Elkins Park, PA.

Additionally, defendant Muhammad Ware is charged with dealing firearms without a license.

United States v. Norman, et al:

Beginning in October 2020, ATF Special Agents identified multiple firearms which were recovered in the Philadelphia area as having been originally purchased in Georgia. The short time frame between the firearms’ purchase in Georgia and subsequent recovery in Philadelphia (known as a short “time to crime” period) indicated that the weapons may have been trafficked into the city.

According to the Indictment, subsequent investigation showed that over the course of six months, the conspiracy led by defendant Norman allegedly purchased nearly 300 firearms from dealers in and around Atlanta, and transported the firearms to Philadelphia for distribution and sale on the black market in exchange for approximately $116,000.

United States v. Ware, et al:

Beginning in March 2020, ATF Special Agents identified multiple firearms which were recovered in Philadelphia as having been originally purchased in South Carolina. Agents subsequently learned about a number of additional firearms recovered in Philadelphia with short “time to crime” periods that indicated they may have been trafficked into the city, just as in Norman, et al.

According to the Indictment, the recovered firearms were concentrated in a particular area of Philadelphia and were originally purchased near Myrtle Beach, SC. Subsequent investigation showed that defendant Ware had allegedly purchased several of the recovered firearms, and conspired and communicated with defendants Haneef Vaughn and Jabreel Vaughn, and others about the purchase, transportation and sale on the black market of over 100 illegal firearms.

“When I announced the All Hands On Deck initiative in April 2021, I vowed that our Office would do all we could to stop the violence ravaging our city and support the Philadelphia Police Department in its work,” said U.S. Attorney Williams. “Earlier this year, the Justice Department announced strategies to fight violent crime, including cracking down on firearms trafficking and the ‘iron pipeline’ – the illegal flow of guns sold in mostly southern states, transported up the East Coast, and found at crime scenes in northeastern cities like ours. The two indictments announced today, charging fourteen people with iron pipeline firearms trafficking conspiracies, show that we are aggressively focused on this work.”

“Preventing the illegal use and trafficking of firearms is a central focus of ATF's strategy to combat violent crime and protect our communities,” said Matthew Varisco, Special Agent in charge of ATF’s Philadelphia Field Division. “Illegally purchased firearms often end up in the hands of violent offenders and affect communities near and far.  Ensuring firearms traffickers are aggressively investigated and swiftly brought to justice will remain a top priority for our firearms trafficking task force. And this collaborative effort between all of our law enforcement counterparts is a prime example of such.”

In Norman, et al: If convicted of all charges, Edwin Burgos and Kenneth Burgos face a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. All other defendants face a statutory maximum penalty of 5 years in prison.

In Ware, et al: If convicted of all charges, defendant Ware faces a statutory maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. Defendants Haneef Vaughn and Jabreel Vaughn each face a statutory maximum penalty of 5 years in prison.

These cases are part of Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN), a program bringing together all levels of law enforcement and the communities they serve to reduce violent crime and make our neighborhoods safer for everyone. The Department of Justice reinvigorated PSN in 2017 as part of the Department’s renewed focus on targeting violent criminals, directing all U.S. Attorney’s Offices to work in partnership with federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement and the local community to develop effective, locally-based strategies to reduce violent crime.

The Norman, et al case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Philadelphia, Atlanta, and Harrisburg Field Offices, the Philadelphia Police Department, the Pennsylvania State Police, Homeland Security Investigations, and the U.S. Marshals, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Priya T. De Souza.

The Ware, et al case was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Miller and Special Assistant United States Attorney Martin Howley.

An indictment, information, or criminal complaint is an accusation. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. 

FBI, State Department Announce $5 Million Reward For Fugitive Semion Mogilevich

 The FBI released the below information:

The FBI, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Transnational Organized Crime (TOC) Rewards Program, announced today a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Semion Mogilevich, wanted for his alleged participation in a scheme that defrauded thousands of investors out of more than $150 million.

Mogilevich was federally indicted in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 2002 and 2003. The charges against him include racketeering, securities fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, and money laundering.

The indictments allege that between 1993 and 1998, Mogilevich headed and controlled the Mogilevich Enterprise, an association which consisted of numerous individuals and a network of companies in more than 20 different countries that orchestrated a sophisticated scheme to defraud investors in stock. The scheme was allegedly funded and authorized by Mogilevich. This complex network of corporations was set up to create the illusion of a profitable international business.

Semion Mogilevich is described as a white male, 5’6” to 5’7”, 290 pounds, balding, with gray hair and green eyes. He was born on June 30, 1946, in Kyiv, Ukraine, but also uses July 5, 1946, as an alias date of birth. Mogilevich has Russian, Ukrainian, and Israeli passports. His current residence is believed to be in Moscow, Russia.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and the Justice Department’s Organized Crime and Gang Section (OCGS) of the Department’s Criminal Division are prosecuting the case.

Individuals with information on Mogilevich that could be helpful to investigators are asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, via WhatsApp (neither a government-operated nor government-controlled platform) at 215-839-6844, or online at tips.fbi.gov. All identities are kept strictly confidential.

Tokyo Vice: HBO Max's Series About An American Reporter On The Police Beat In Japan

It’s a long way from Miami to Tokyo, but Michael Mann, the creator of Miami Vice, has directed the first of eight episodes of Tokyo Vice, which is airing on HBO Max. 

Tokyo Vice, based on Jake Adlestein’s true crime book, Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan, is an interesting journalistic thriller about an American working on Japan’s largest newspaper in Japan. The young reporter covers crime for the newspaper and encounters Japanese yakuza gangsters and Japanese cops.   

Tokyo Vice is laboriously slow at times, but rich in exotic atmosphere and introduces the viewer to some unique characters, such as Jake Adelstein (Ansel Elgort), a nice Jewish boy from Missouri who travels to Japan at 19 to attend college and later becomes the only American to work on a major Japanese newspaper. Other interesting characters in the series are a Japanese cop (the great actor Ken Watanabe) who mentors Adelstein, and a young yakuza gangster (Sho Kasamatsu). 

Whether you’ve visited Japan, as I have, or not, most viewers will be fascinated with Tokyo Vice, Japanese culture and Japanese crime. 

I also recommend that viewers of the series go on to read Jake Adelstein's book.

I covered the book in my Crime Beat column in 2010. 

You can read my column below: 

Jake Adlestein, an American reporter working the police beat for a Japanese newspaper, begins his true crime story with a meeting he took with two members of the yakuza, Japan’s organized crime group.

“Either erase the story, or we will erase you. And maybe your family. But we’ll do them first, so you learn your lesson before you die,” one of the yakuza members said to Adelstein.

Adelstein writes that this seemed like a straightforward proposition.

“Walk away from the story and walk away from your job, and it’ll be like it never happened. Write the article, and there is nowhere in this country that we will not hunt you down. Understand?”

Adelstein understood. In Tokyo Vice, Adelstein notes that it is never a smart idea to get on the wrong side of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest organized crime group. With about forty thousand members, Adelstein writes that it’s a lot of people to piss off.

The yakuza, Adelstein explains, are the Japanese mafia and one can call themselves yakuza, but many of them like to call themselves gokudo, meaning literally “the ultimate path.”

“The Yamaguchi-gumi is the top of the gokudo-heap,” Adelstein tells us. “And among the many subgroups that make up the Yamaguchi-gumi, the Goto-gumi, with more than nine hundred members, is the nastiest. They slash the faces of film directors, they throw people from hotel balconies, they drive bulldozers into people’s houses. Stuff like that.”

Although the history of the yakuza is murky, Adelstein explains that there are two major types:

“There are the tekiya, who are essentially street merchants and small-time con artists, and bukuto, originally gamblers but now including loan sharks, protection money collectors, pimps, and corporate raiders. Another large faction is made up of dowa, the former untouchable caste of Japan that handled butchering animals, making leather goods, and doing other “unclean” jobs.”

Adelstein writes that the Japanese National Police Agency estimates that there are 86,000 gangsters in the country’s crime syndicates, making the yakuza much larger than the Cosa Nostra or any other crime group in America.

Adelstein writes that the yakuza are organized as a neo-family, with each organization having a pyramid structure. The modern-day yakuza have moved into securities trading, and they have infected hundreds of Japan’s listed companies.

“Goldman Sachs with guns,” is how Adelstein describes them.

Although the Japanese were my father’s brutal enemy in World War II, he was forgiving, and he maintained a lifelong interest in all things Japanese. Like my father, I’ve long been interested in Japan.

I visited Sasebo and Nagasaki many years ago when I was in the Navy, and I have fond memories of my time in Japan. Although I am hardly an expert on all things Japanese, I’ve long been interested in Japanese history, literature, films and music and my personal library has many books on Japan. And over the years, I’ve talked to a good number of Japanese men and women who have visited here. 

And as a student of crime and a crime reporter and columnist, I’ve long been interested in the yakuza. Tokyo Vice is a good addition to my library.

Tokyo Vice reads like a crime thriller, with Adelstein narrating the tale in a noir-style voice. The book also contains a good bit of self-deprecating humor. He is very open about his personal life, although parts of which I could have done without knowing about.

Adelstein tells an interesting story about a nice Jewish boy from Missouri who travels to Japan to study Buddhism and the martial arts and becomes the only American to write for the Yomiuri Shimbun, a major Japanese newspaper.

Adelstein’s father was a county coroner, so he was always interested in crime and what he calls the dark side of the human condition. This interest led to his becoming a reporter covering Japan’s world of crime.

Adelstein covered many stories about murder, prostitution, the sex slave trade, drugs, and assorted crimes. He befriended a Japanese police officer who guided him through Japan’s complicated culture and the ways of the yakuza.

I found his stories about the Japanese cops, who lack the authority American cops have in fighting organized crime, to be the most interesting part of the book. His mentoring cop friend accompanied him to his meeting with the yakuza who threatened his life.

The story that led to his being threatened was a case concerning a yakuza boss named Tadamasa Goto. In Tokyo Vice we learn that this boss informed on his own organization to the FBI in order to receive a liver transplant in America, jumping ahead of American citizens on the waiting list.

(So much for Japan’s universal health care. Look at the lengths a powerful crime boss went to come to America for our health care system).

Adelstein wisely did not publish the story in the Japanese press, but he left Japan and published Tokyo Vice in America.

Tokyo Vice is a fascinating book and I recommend it if you’re interested in Japan, Japanese organized crime, and a very good crime story.