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However, the spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether Fullbrook Strategies had suspended “commercial activities” and, if it had, why it might be hiring Mr Fullbrook on secondment to the government.

The Venezuelan banker Julio Herrera Velutini asked the court to exclude him from the gag order imposed on the parties in the case against the former governor Wanda Vazquez Garced.

In a motion filed yesterday afternoon, the defense of Herrera Velutini requested that the order be dropped or, at the very least, be allowed “to make public statements regarding the allegations in this case if such statements are directed to the press, the media, and/or the public outside of the United States.” the United States”.

The motion stated that the restriction prevents him from publicly defending himself against the allegations against him, which have been expressed by federal authorities and reviewed by the press.

He also argued that the gag “has a disproportionate impact on him.”

He pointed out that, until the moment he turned himself in to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), he lived in London, England, where he operates an international business network.

He added that since the indictment he has received “constant requests about the allegations,” since the gag order “will not stop the press from reporting on the matter,” while “it will only stop Mr. Herrera Velutini from having a voice in that discussion.”

In this way, just as Vázquez Garced did, the banker joins co-defendant Mark Rossini’s petition to rescind or modify the gag order.

Federal Judge Raúl Arias Marxuach issued the order last month. It provided that the parties to the case may only discuss the information that is part of the public record of the case, such as motions and orders. The indictment is also public.

They can only comment on documents that are sealed or other procedures that are not available to the general public.

Arias Marxuach indicated in his order that the purpose was to try to find a balance between the public attention of a case – which involves a former governor – with the interest that the accused have a fair trial, since the members have not yet been selected. of the jury.

For his part, Herrera Velutini pointed out that, although the gag order “has good intentions”, the effect will be that “it will cause more damage than what it prevents.”

In that sense, he cited an expression of the Fourth Circuit of Appeals indicating that “‘by prohibiting only certain types of information from selected sources,’ the protection order can actually distort public discussion, ‘thus increasing prejudice instead of mitigating it.”

“Therefore, it is equally important for Mr. Herrera Velutini to receive a fair trial to have a vehicle through which to express his truthful and valid defenses to the allegations in this matter in response to press speculation in this regard,” he added.

A federal grand jury issued on August 3 last a seven-count indictment against Vázquez Garced, Herrera Velutini and Rossini. All three face 20 years in prison on charges that include conspiracy, bribery and fraud.

Herrera Velutino is the owner of Bancocrédito and Rossini was his advisor, in addition to having worked in the past as an FBI agent.

According to the indictment of the Federal Grand Jury, the three conspired for Vázquez Garced to receive contributions to his gubernatorial campaign from the banker, with the help of Rossini, in exchange for the then official removing George Joyner from the Office of the Commissioner of Financial Institutions (OCIF), in order to put an end to the audit that had detected suspicious transactions in Herrera Velutini’s bank accounts.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The Mexican army’s role in the disappearance of 43 college students, its participation in covering up the facts and its alleged links to organized crime are now at the center of a case that has shaken the nation. The government’s Truth Commission declared the incident a “state crime” in August.

Three members of the military and a former federal attorney general were recently arrested in the case, and few now believe the government’s initial claim that a local drug gang and allied local officials were wholly to blame for seizing and killing the students on July 26, 2014, then burning their bodies — most of which have never been found.

Crucial details remain unclear despite years of investigation.

But the newspaper Reforma, which obtained portions of a Truth Commission report shared with the Attorney General’s Office, has published details of messages between drug gang members and the military that appear to show at least some of the students’ bodies were taken to a local army base. Advocates for the students’ families fear the leak of sensitive details about suspects could jeopardize prosecutions.

Here are some questions and answers about the abductions.

WHAT HAPPENED?

The president of the Truth Commission, Alejandro Encinas, says that the false, official version announced at the time by Attorney General Jesús Murillo Karam “was designed at the highest levels of the federal government” after meetings in the presidency, then in the hands of Enrique Peña Nieto.

According to that version, Iguala officials thought the students were going to disrupt a local political event. It says police rounded up the 43 students and turned them over to a local drug gang, which killed the youths, burned their bodies at a dump and threw the remains into a river.

Although all the students apparently were murdered, it has since been proven that they were taken in groups to different places. Some apparently were kept alive for days.

The students had hijacked buses to get to a protest in Mexico City and were intercepted in Iguala — possibly because one of the buses contained a drug shipment.

WHO HAS BEEN ARRESTED RECENTLY?

Three members of the military were arrested this month, among them José Rodríguez Pérez, who as a colonel commanded the local army base in Iguala at the time of the students’ disappearance. The Truth Commission report alleges he ordered the killing of six students days after their abduction.

Rodríguez Pérez was later promoted to general. Now retired, he faces organized crime charges. A fourth member of the military, Capt. José Martínez Crespo was arrested in 2020. On Saturday, the Spanish newspaper El Pais published documents showing that the Attorney General’s Office had asked a judge to drop arrest orders against 16 other members of the military. The office did not respond to requests for comment.

The most politically significant arrest took place last month when former Attorney General Murillo Karam was detained. He has been charged with forced disappearance, not reporting torture of suspects and official misconduct. He is accused of announcing a false version of events that he called “the historical truth.”

WHAT WAS THE MILITARY’S ROLE?

It was known from the beginning that the army had real-time knowledge of events in Iguala on that night because soldiers were in key locations, including a police coordination center. The Truth Commission report says at least one soldier was infiltrated among the kidnapped students.

In 2015, then-Army chief Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos guaranteed that the army had no responsibility in the events either by action or omission. Communications collected by the Truth Commission, however, contradict that assertion. They suggest military personnel were in contact with the criminals at key moments.

WERE THERE ARMY INFILTRATORS?

The Truth Commission report says at least one of the disappeared students was a soldier sent to spy on the college and an attorney for parents has contended there was another. Separately, relatives of Julio Cesar Mondragon, one of six students killed after surviving the initial attack and then being tortured, have asked for an investigation of two other students — now politicians — who were the leaders who sent the group of protesters to Iguala despite threats the school had received.

WHERE DO THINGS STAND IN THE JUDICIAL PROCESS?

The Ayotzinapa case is a tangle of 28 criminal cases spread over seven states. Eight years later, no one has been convicted.

Santiago Aguirre, a human rights attorney for relatives of the victims, said around 50 people are imprisoned awaiting trial. In August, the Attorney General’s Office issued 80 new warrants, but Aguirre said most just opened new cases involving people already in custody.

Still being sought is the man who headed the early investigation into the abductions, Tomás Zerón, who is in Israel. Mexico is seeking his extradition.

Due to the torture of witnesses and other irregularities, dozens of defendants have been acquitted of some charges. However, many of them remain imprisoned on other charges.

WHY IS THE MEXICAN ARMY’S RECORD CONTROVERSIAL?

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has increasingly used the military to build major infrastructure projects and to replace police in the fight against crime, arguing it is less corrupted than other agencies.

Accusations of human rights abuses against the military were common during the “dirty war” of the 1970s and ’80s. They were especially harsh in the poor, opium poppy-growing state of Guerrero. Some abuses have continued — as well as allegations of officers linked to drug cartels.

In the last 25 years, three generals have faced charges in Mexico, although only one has been convicted.

The defense secretary at the time of the abductions, Cienfuegos, was arrested in the U.S. in 2020 and accused of links to drug cartels. But under pressure from the Mexican government, the charges against him were later dropped and he was returned to Mexico, which released him.

In the Iguala area where the students were abducted, ties between the military and criminals go back at least to 2013. According to a court document to which The Associated Press had access, members of the military helped a local cartel with weapons and training for its hitmen.

The testimony of an imprisoned criminal suspect said Capt. Jose Martínez Crespo, who was arrested in 2020, received money from a leader of local drug gang, Guerreros Unidos, to help them move weapons. “He used his vehicles so he could move freely through the region,” the witness said.

FAYETTEVILLE — The FBI and local police are reporting an increase in “sextortion” crimes in Northwest Arkansas, with young boys increasingly being targeted.

Mark Grimm, special supervisory agent for the FBI office in Fayetteville, said the increase in schemes targeting young males reflects a national trend. He said the predators persuade victims to provide sexual videos or photos and then rely on threats and embarrassment to coerce their victims into providing money.

“It’s not just in Arkansas, it’s national,” Grimm said. “Particularly with young men, the fraud really succeeds if the subject is embarrassed.”

Grimm said a typical scheme begins with the predator posing as a young girl and trying to establish a relationship with the victim online or on social media. If they can persuade the target to provide a sexual image then the extortion begins.

“They turn around and use that image or video and the threat that they’ll make it public,” Grimm said. “They demand the target provide them with gift cards or information for bank accounts they have access to.”

Grimm said he couldn’t discuss specific cases but said the FBI and local police in Northwest Arkansas are seeing more and more reports of the crime.

Recent arrests in Benton and Washington counties show some of the earmarks of this type of crime. In Benton County, Matthew Nance is currently being held in the Benton County Jail in connection with rape and sexual extortion. Court records indicate the victims in those crimes were young girls. Other court records show search warrants for social media accounts used by Nance found IP addresses with locations in Africa.

Grimm said “a lot” of the sextortion crimes reported show links to African criminal enterprises also active in cyber fraud, banking fraud and other internet crimes.

In Washington County, Coleton Russell of Vian, Okla., was arrested Aug. 31 in connection with sexual extortion. Sexual extortion under Arkansas law is a Class B felony with penalties of five to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $15,000. Prosecuting Attorney Matt Durrett said Russell’s case showed similarities to the types of cases the FBI is reporting.

According to the criminal information filed in Russell’s case during November and December 2021 that he “with the purpose to coerce the victim to engage in sexual conduct or sexually explicit conduct … communicated a threat to harm the reputation of the other person, or produce or distribute a recording of the other person engaged in sexually explicit conduct or depicted in a state of nudity.” Court records show the victim in the case is a juvenile. Russell was released from the Washington County Detention Center Sept. 1 on $15,000 bond.

Durrett said some cases may be handled in state courts but others are taken up by federal courts. Connor Hagan, public affairs officer for the FBI office in Little Rock, said federal law states any person who forces or persuades a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct can face up to 30 years in prison. Additionally, Hagan said, most sextortion crimes also involve the use of a computer, which is an additional offense that can be punished by up to 10 years in prison and fines of up to $250,000.

According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the reports the organization receives show how sextortion is changing. Since 2016, according to information on the center’s website, the CyberTipline has received 262,573 reports of online enticement, the category that included sextortion. Between 2019 and 2021, the number of of reports involving sextortion more than doubled. The center also reports in the past the dominant motive of offenders was to get more explicit images of a child but in reports from early 2022, 79% of the offenders were seeking money.

Grimm said the use of social media platforms by the predators in these cases make it essential that parents, guardians and other adults are available to the victims and open to communication. Victim services providers agreed communication is the key to preventing or minimizing these crimes.

Casey Atwood, program director at the Children’s Safety Center of Washington County, said she’s aware of the recent increase in sextortion cases targeting young boys.

“I know that it is happening,” Atwood said. “It’s a growing trend. Technology is ever-evolving and kids are getting access at younger and younger ages.”

Atwood said that parents need to replace or modernize the antiquated “birds and the bees” conversation about sex and discuss the risks kids are facing today.

“Parents and guardians need to get out of the window of having a once-in-a-lifetime talk about the birds and the bees and have conversations about things they’ve seen or heard about in today’s world. Some people may be afraid that they’re putting ideas in kids’ heads. Don’t worry, they’re already being exposed to all those things.”

Atwood said the center website has a list of crisis hotlines and community resources.

Gretchen Smeltzer is executive director of Into the Light, a nonprofit organization providing services to victims of child sex trafficking. Smeltzer said she has also seen reports of the trend of young boys being targeted in sextortion crimes. She also said communication is vital.

“We would encourage parents to have a ‘preemptive’ talk with their boys about it,” Smeltzer said. “That this is an issue that is going on and to let them know that they’re not going to be in trouble if they tell you about it. Taking away that barrier of embarrassment and fear. Being non-judgemental is going to help open the doorway for a child to feel safe and to share what has happened to them.”

Smeltzer said Into the Light has resources available online and through a hotline. She said the group makes informational presentations to individuals and to groups.

 

The authority of the FBI to conduct criminal investigations and, with United States attorneys, to prosecute lawbreakers in our nation’s federal courts, is well known. Those cases, often reported in the press and dramatized by Hollywood, cover an enormous range of criminal behavior, from public corruption, to fraud, to crimes against children, to cyber intrusions, to the actions of violent gangs wielding guns and dealing drugs.

But the Russian investigation that has monopolized the news cycle for the past year has focused attention on another — lesser known — aspect of the FBI’s role: as the leading “counterintelligence” agency on U.S. soil. Of vital importance, that work often occurs outside the public eye, and is less well understood by citizens. This fact was reinforced over the weekend by shocking but not surprising reporting in The New York Times revealing that following President Donald Trump’s controversial firing of former FBI director James Comey in May of 2017, “law enforcement officials became so concerned by the president’s behavior that they began investigating whether he had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests.”

But what does counterintelligence entail — and what do we even mean when we say counterintelligence?

First, the basics. Intelligence is really just a fancy word for information. Agents and prosecutors collect information for use in court; when we use information that way, we refer to it as “evidence.” But when the U.S. government collects information for other purposes, such as to inform and guide the decision-making of U.S. national security officials, we call it intelligence. Evidence and intelligence are essentially the same thing: information, just put to different purposes.

Foreign governments, like our own government, have intelligence services. Those foreign intelligence services (think the CIA in our country or MI-6 in the United Kingdom) gather information about other countries, their leaders, their abilities, their industries and their intentions. Much of that work is classified — as you would expect.

We don’t worry about the U.K. (or other close allies) spying on us, but we do worry about hostile foreign governments (think Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and others) that attempt to, according to the FBI, “gather information about the U.S. that adversely affects our national interests.” Those hostile foreign governments collect intelligence about us — our industries, our research and development, our technology, and our leaders — so they can use it to their advantage and to our detriment.

The FBI is charged with countering the efforts of those hostile foreign intelligence services — thus, we say that the FBI conducts counterintelligence. The FBI explains the scope of that mission on its website, noting its work in this realm “include[s] foreign and economic espionage, or ‘spying’ activities, that may involve the acquisition of classified, sensitive, or proprietary information from the U.S. government or U.S. companies. The FBI investigates whenever a foreign entity conducts clandestine intelligence activities in the United States. [The FBI’s] counterintelligence investigations also help combat international terrorist threats, including those involving weapons of mass destruction and attacks on critical infrastructures.”

Indeed, the FBI has an entire division within its National Security Branch — the aptly named Counterintelligence Division — dedicated to this mission. The men and women of this division — special agents, analysts and professional staff — work on matters that may never see the inside of a courtroom. That requires some explanation, too.

Often, the intelligence-related activities of hostile foreign governments also violate domestic U.S. law. For example, Robert Mueller’s team recently indicted 12 Russian GRU (military intelligence) officers for hacking into U.S. computers. The conduct of the Russians constituted both an intelligence gathering operation directed against our country — and our 2016 presidential election — and a federal crime. In this instance, the Mueller team and the Department of Justice chose to charge those Russian officers with a crime.

However, in some situations where a foreign country is conducting an intelligence operation against our country, our national interests can sometimes best be served by not charging these bad actors with a crime. For instance, we might prefer a diplomatic solution to a criminal one. Or the intelligence we gather can be used to inform our judgments about the foreign country’s capabilities and inclinations, guiding longer term policy. Often, counterintelligence investigations do not end up in court because we exercise these other options or because the way in which we learn stuff about our adversaries is extraordinarily sensitive and we do not want to risk having them know about our capabilities.

As the FBI notes, “[f]oreign influence operations — which include covert actions by foreign governments to influence U.S. political sentiment or public discourse — are not a new problem. But the interconnectedness of the modern world, combined with the anonymity of the Internet, have changed the nature of the threat and how the FBI and its partners must address it. The goal of these foreign influence operations directed against the United States is to spread disinformation, sow discord, and, ultimately, undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values.”

The FBI’s counterintelligence work proceeds quietly, in many corners of our country. It often does not result in criminal prosecutions, but it helps to keep our nation safe, much as the FBI’s criminal enforcement work does. Of course, the FBI acts scrupulously within the rules here, consistent with the Constitution and the laws of this nation, and with rigorous oversight. Those rules ensure that civil liberties are respected and protected, particularly where American citizens are concerned.

Simply put, it is crucial that we have a robust counterintelligence capability housed within the FBI. You may not see most of its work, but they do an extraordinary job protecting us.