- FBI warns of ongoing COVID-19 vaccine related fraud schemes
December 22, 2020
US federal agencies have warned about scammers exploiting the public’s interest in the COVID-19 vaccine to harvest personal information and steal money through multiple ongoing and emerging fraud schemes. The warning was issued earlier today through the FBI National Press Office by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Department of Health and Human Services Office ...
- Law enforcement take down three bulletproof VPN providers
December 22, 2020
Law enforcement agencies from the US, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the Netherlands have seized this week the web domains and server infrastructure of three VPN services that provided a safe haven for cybercriminals to attack their victims. The three services were active at insorg.org , and safe-inet.net before the domains were seized ...
- U.S. charges Libyan in 1988 Lockerbie bombing that killed 270
December 21, 2020
The United States on Monday unsealed criminal charges against a third alleged conspirator in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, that killed 270 people, mostly Americans. The suspect, Abu Agila Mohammad Masud Kheir Al-Marimi, a former senior Libyan intelligence official, was charged with two criminal counts related to the bombing. He ...
- Italian police arrest 2 in defense data theft case
December 6, 2020
Police in Italy have arrested two people in connection with the hacking of Italian aerospace and electronics company Leonardo, the Interior Ministry announced on Saturday. The Leonardo group also has a cybersecurity division that counts NATO among its customers and is involved in making electronic weapons and missiles. The hackers allegedly managed to steal sensitive data ...
- Samuel Paty murder: French security services failed to act over incendiary social media campaign
December 4, 2020
French security services failed to appreciate the gravity of the defamatory campaign on social media against the teacher Samuel Paty before his murder, an inspectors’ report has found. Despite the school’s headteacher reporting concerns about increasingly incendiary posts targeting the history and geography teacher on Facebook and Twitter, intelligence officials underestimated the risk. School inspectors said Paty, ...
- Burner phones and banking apps: Meet the Chinese ‘brokers’ laundering Mexican drug money
December 3, 2020
Early next year, a Chinese businessman named Gan Xianbing will be sentenced in a Chicago courtroom for laundering just over $530,000 in Mexican cartel drug money. Gan, 50, was convicted in February of money laundering and operating an unlicensed money-transfer business that whisked cartel cash from U.S. drug sales offshore. Gan has maintained his innocence; his ...
- Britain’s first black policewoman honoured with lifetime achievement award
December 3, 2020
Britain’s first black policewoman has been honoured with a lifetime achievement award at a ceremony celebrating black, Asian and minority ethnic female officers. Sislin Fay Allen, 82, joined the Metropolitan Police in 1968, paving the way for other women of colour. Speaking from her home in Jamaica, Mrs Allen said she feels “honoured and humbled” after being ...
- Channel crossings: Suspected people-smuggling gang arrested in raids
December 3, 2020
A suspected people-smuggling gang accused of bringing hundreds of people to the UK in small boats has been broken up, the Home Office says. A 36-year-old British Syrian man was detained at his flat in north-west London on Thursday morning, bringing the total number of arrests to 14. The group is alleged to have helped more than ...
- Germany bans far-right extremist group ‘Sturmbrigade 44’
December 1, 2020
Germany’s Interior Ministry on Tuesday banned the extreme-right group “Sturmbrigade 44,” after a series of raids across three German states. Interior Minister Horst Seehofer proscribed the group, also known as “Wolfsbrigade 44,” allowing a series of measures to be taken against members. The classification allows officials to confiscate assets and propaganda material, with the aim of also ...
- Kansas: WPD’s Explosive Detection K-9 ‘Boomer’ goes viral for daily treadmill workout
November 26, 2020
Boomer is a two-and-a-half-year-old Golden Retriever and he loves running on the treadmill. He’s WPD’s new explosive detection canine and like his co-workers, he tries to stay healthy and in shape to keep up with the job. He and his handler, Detective Stephanie Neal, workout together every day at the police gym at City Hall. “He normally ...
- Three arrested as INTERPOL, Group-IB and the Nigeria Police Force disrupt prolific cybercrime group
November 25, 2020
Three suspects have been arrested in Lagos following a joint INTERPOL, Group-IB and Nigeria Police Force cybercrime investigation. The Nigerian nationals are believed to be members of a wider organized crime group responsible for distributing malware, carrying out phishing campaigns and extensive Business Email Compromise scams. The suspects are alleged to have developed phishing links, domains, ...
- UK: Far-right extremist jailed for terror and explosives offences
November 24, 2020
A far-right extremist has been jailed for possessing explosives and terrorist documents. Filip Golon Bednarczyk, 26, denied planning an attack or attempting to make a bomb and claimed he was acting on “curiosity borne out of boredom”. Giving evidence at the Old Bailey on Tuesday, he said he had downloaded numerous terrorist manuals and collected chemicals and ...
- Covid anti-vaxxers should face action for spreading false information that ‘could cost lives’, Britain’s top counter-terror officer says
November 19, 2020
Anti-vaxxers who spread false news about the dangers of a coronavirus cure could be be punished by new laws to tackle misinformation. The problem of malicious propaganda potentially causing people to die after avoiding treatment should be debated, according to Britain’s top counter-terrorism officer. Met Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said that there should be a discussion about ...
- Birmingham pub bombings: Man questioned over blasts
November 19, 2020
A man arrested in connection with the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings which killed 21 people is reported to be Michael Patrick Reilly. The blasts at the Mulberry Bush and Tavern in the Town pubs on the night of 21 November also injured 220 people. Police said a man, 65, was held at his Belfast home on Wednesday ...
- UK Counterterror police chief warns of ‘new and worrying trend’ of teenage neo-Nazis
November 18, 2020
Teenage neo-Nazis are being arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences in record numbers as part of a “new and worrying trend”, the head of UK counterterror police has said. Assistant commissioner Neil Basu said children as young as 14 had been detained in the past year, and almost all of those investigated by police had been ...
- Manchester Arena inquiry: People were ‘let down’ on night of attack, police admit
November 16, 2020
British Transport Police (BTP) “let people down” on the night of the Manchester Arena attack when officers left the foyer where the bomb was set off unguarded, a senior officer has admitted. No police officer was in the City Room at the moment of the attack or for most of the time the bomber Salman Abedi ...
- Thailand: Alleged drug dealers arrested after help from a stray dog
November 16, 2020
Police arrested 2 alleged drug dealers after a stray dog dropped off a bag full of amphetamine pills outside a post office in the northern province Phrae. No one knows exactly where the dog found the bag of drugs, but surveillance camera footage shows the dog carrying the bag and dropping it off at the Rong ...
- Abu Mohammed al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2, killed in US-Israel joint operation in Iran
November 15, 2020
The United States and Israel worked together to track and kill a senior Al Qaeda operative in Iran earlier this year, a bold intelligence operation by the two allied nations that came as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Tehran. Four current and former U.S. officials said Abu Mohammed al-Masri, Al Qaeda’s No. 2, ...
- DarkSide ransomware’s Iranian hosting raises U.S. sanction concerns
November 15, 2020
Ransomware negotiation firm Coveware has placed the DarkSide operation on an internal restricted list after the threat actors announced plans to host infrastructure in Iran. When the DarkSide ransomware operation encrypts a network, their affiliates steal unencrypted files, which they threaten to release if a ransom is not paid. This double-extortion strategy is always under attack by ...
- Two men arrested on terrorism offences along London’s Pall Mall
November 12, 2020
Two men have been arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences after their car was stopped along Pall Mall in central London, police have said. The pair, both 34 and from east London, were spotted acting suspiciously in a vehicle in Westminster at around 12.10am on Thursday and were stopped by armed officers in Pall Mall, according ...
