National Security

Victims of FBI seizure are missing items from their safe deposit boxes for no known reason: report

Published

9 months ago

May 10, 2021

Staff Writer

In March, the Federal Bureau of Investigation reportedly shut down U.S. Private Vaults, a Beverly Hills facility full of 800+ safety deposit boxes and seized all its contents. Now, the FBI is currently facing 5 lawsuits pending in federal court.

Federal prosecutors allege in their filings that “the majority of the box-holders are criminals who used USPV’s anonymity to hide their ill-gotten wealth.” But even they admit that “some” of the company’s customers were actually “honest citizens.”

Yet those honest citizens have had no luck getting their valuables back. About six weeks have passed and according to a report from Reason, these victims have received no communication from the FBI.

Read the full article here.

You can follow Jenny Goldsberry on Twitter @jennyjournalism

Related Topics:banks FBI investigation US Private Vaults

National Security

Mexico: Top Officials Among Charged in ‘Fast and Furious’ Weapons Trafficking

Published

2 weeks ago

January 10, 2022

Sara Carter Staff

On Sunday, Mexican prosecutors said they have charged seven individuals in the infamous “Fast and Furious” weapons trafficking scandal. Among those charged in the more than decade old case were former top police official Genaro Garcia Luna and former drug lord Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman.

“Fast and Furious” was and investigation in which agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold guns to criminals with the intention of tracking the weapons.

The plan went horribly wrong, and the agency lost most of the guns, including two guns that were found at the scene of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry who was murdered In December of 2010.

Terry’s murder exposed the bungled investigation. Fox News reports Mexico says drug gangs and former officials also participated in or failed to stop the weapons trafficking. Garcia Luna was arrested in Texas in 2019 for allegedly protecting a drug gang.

Luna was security chief in President Felipe Calderon’s 2006-2012 administration, and was also tasked with being the leader of the government’s fight against organized crime. Also charged was former Federal Police commander Luis Cardenas Palomino, who was the right-hand man of Garcia Luna.

Palomino was already arrested on charges of torture and U.S. prosecutors have separately accused him of accepting millions in bribes from the Sinaloa cartel, reports Fox News. Drug lord ‘El Chapo’ was also charged with weapons trafficking, but is already serving a life sentence in Colorado.