Suspected member of child trafficking gang jailed for £800,000 benefits fraud
May 17, 2011 No Comment
• Romanian masterminded fraud targeting state handouts • Crime ring’s haul enriched Romanian town of Tandarei A leading member of a Romanian criminal gang, which is believed by police to be responsible for trafficking 181 children to Britain, has been jailed for conspiracy to defraud the benefits system. Telus Dumitru, 36, was sentenced to four years and eight months in jail after pleading guilty to masterminding a £800,000 fraud involving UK housing benefit, tax credits, income support and child benefit. Dumitru is believed by police to be the most senior UK-based figure so far brought to justice from a Roma gang from south-east Romania whose members are accused of trafficking children who then beg and steal across the south of England. Seven other gang members from near the small town of Tandarei were also sentenced at Southwark crown court, while 26 more remain on trial in Romania on charges of trafficking children into the UK for the purpose of forced criminality, money laundering, membership of a criminal gang and, in some cases, firearms offences. “This was a large-scale fraud which deliberately targeted the benefits system,” said Judge Stone QC. “I regard it as a serious matter that the UK benefits system was targeted from abroad in a sophisticated way.” Dumitru was “the central figure” in the operation, the judge said, in a scheme that sent large sums back to Tandarei by money transfer or cash, or via wired sterling accounts in Romania. The town has been transformed by the proceeds of the organised crime ring. Previously rundown areas in Tandarei have prospered and gang members have built dozens of new marble-floored mansions and bought luxury cars. Southwark crown court heard that Dumitru “controlled and directed” the benefit fraud activities of at least seven other adult Romanians in the UK who were linked by blood or marriage. Sentencing Dumitru’s wife, Ramona, 33, to 20 months’ jail for fraudulent claims including £50,000 in child benefit for six children, the judge highlighted “the possibility that the children are the subject of child trafficking and are not your children”. The Dumitrus insist the youngsters are their own. Dorina Dumitru, 38, the gang leader’s sister, claimed he used “goons” to enforce his will, and told social workers “she was scared her life might be at risk” after admitting he took her to cashpoints to withdraw scammed money. She pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years after fraudulently obtaining more than £100,000 over five years in tax credits, income support and housing benefit claimed for addresses in Liverpool, Sefton, Newcastle and Nottingham. Telus Dumitru was held responsible by the court for leading the fraud. Police seized a bin bag from under his bed in Birmingham which held 41 false Home Office letters, more than 30 false Romanian birth certificates – mostly blank – and false references. The claimants use forged Home Office documents and job references to get national insurance numbers, which were then used to claim the state handouts. Detectives say the conviction of Dumitru represents the biggest scalp for the British end of a joint Metropolitan police and Romanian national police anti-trafficking investigation called Operation Golf, which has cost at least £1m. Only four of the 85 UK convictions have been for trafficking but police insist the criminal activity is interrelated. “We have been seeking to prosecute suspected traffickers for any and all offences, with the aim of disrupting their activities to reduce their ability to traffic and exploit adults and children,” a spokeswoman for Operation Golf said. Police said a few of the 181 children concerned had been safeguarded by social services, but more than 100 were unaccounted for and presumed to no longer be in the UK. Chief Inspector Colin Carswell, who led the investigation, said: “This crime is not about Roma culture. These criminals have corrupted the norms of their community. “Either the parents are complicit in bringing their children over for exploitation, or they face intimidation and coercion from the gang to send them. Gang members have gone to parents who are facing hard times and promised to find work for their children, and the children are put on British streets.” In evidence of what the judge described as “utterly flagrant fraud”, Claudia Radu, 35, Dumitru’s sister-in-law, flew back and forth from Romania for the sole purpose of making benefit claims worth £15,000. She was stopped by police at Stansted airport, having been dropped off by Dumitru, and found to have €13,000 and £2,000 in cash, as well as cashpoint receipts detailing withdrawals using her card in Tandarei by another member of the gang, Dragasun Radu, who is among those facing charges in Romania. She was freed, having already served 158 days on remand. Adrian Radu, 33, son of one of the gang’s suspected Romania-based leaders, Constantin Radu, drew £29,000 in income support and tax credits from 2008 to 2010 while living in Romania. When police arrested him in Tandarei he was living in a recently built marble-floored, six-bedroom mansion and driving an expensive Audi Q7 car. UK government officials were criticised in court for failing to properly scrutinise the forged claims of Dumitru’s gang. The address of the Home Office immigration unit in Croydon on faked letters granting leave to remain in the UK was written as “Corydon” and the Home Office slogan of seeking a “safe, just and tolerant society” was retyped as “tolerante society”. “This was clearly a fraud which exploited laxity in the benefit system to some extent, and while sophisticated, not so sophisticated as to be undetectable had rather more care been exercised,” said Chris Hehir for the prosecution. The court also heard that a British solicitor, whom the judge ordered should not be named, enabled the fraud conducted by Dumitru, since the latter was illiterate and spoke almost no English upon his arrival in the UK. The solicitor helped Dumitru get indefinite leave to remain in the UK and, in return, Dumitru referred other members of the Roma community to the solicitor, whose practice flourished. A confiscation hearing was scheduled for September. Crime Romania Europe Roma, Gypsies and Travellers Child benefit Housing benefit Robert Booth guardian.co.uk
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There’s been a few smartphones exclusive to Japan as of late that we’d like to see available over here, but perhaps none more so than KDDI’s just-announced INFOBAR A01, which is set to hit the country in July. It runs Android 2.3, but you wouldn’t know it from the interface: a completely custom UI designed by Yugo Nakamura that follows some similar glanceable design principles to Windows Phone 7 , or what KDDI describes as a “single band of information.” The phone is no slouch hardware-wise either — it boasts a 3.7-inch qHD display (that’s about 300 ppi) , an 8 megapixel camera, a 1Seg TV tuner, and dual-mode GSM / CDMA connectivity (no word on the processor, unfortunately). As you can see, it also has some tile-like buttons — a common theme with with previous INFOBAR phones — and it’s available in your choice of four different color schemes, no less, along with some optional silicone and leather cases designed to match the phone (by the phone’s designer, Naoto Fukasawa, incidentally). Hit up the gallery below for a closer look, and head on past the break for a pair of videos showing the interface in action. Gallery: KDDI INFOBAR A01 Continue reading KDDI announces Android-based INFOBAR A01 smartphone with glanceable iida UI KDDI announces Android-based INFOBAR A01 smartphone with glanceable iida UI originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 15:21:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds . Permalink
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Who is this boy? Investigators in Maine continue to ask this question two days after discovering the body of an unidentified four- or five-year-old boy on the side of a rural road. Authorities have received more than 100 tips about the child, but Maine State Police Lt. Brian McDonough told ABC News that his agency is no closer to to identifying the boy than they were when they found the child under a blanket on a remote road in South Berwick at around 5 p.m. on Saturday. “Somebody has got to miss this child. He’s a nephew of somebody, a son or grandson of somebody. … It’s just been very, very frustrating that we haven’t gotten any leads, significant leads, in identifying this child,” McDonough said. Police say the child’s death is suspicious. The boy is described as having short, dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. According to police, the child is about three feet, eight inches, weighs 45 pounds and still has his baby teeth. He was found wearing a gray camouflage hooded sweatshirt, tan pants and a dark blue short-sleeved shirt featuring the words “Aviator Series,” CNN reports. Making matters more complicated, no child matching that description has been reported missing in Maine, New Hampshire or Massachusetts. Maine State Police have released a computer generated image of the boy, hoping someone will recognize the child. Authorities are currently investigating reports from witnesses who spotted a woman driving a blue Toyota Tacoma pickup truck with an extended cab and a covered bed near the site where the body was discovered on Saturday morning. Authorities urge anyone with information about the child or the pickup truck to call Maine State Police at (207) 657-3030. WATCH:
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May 17, 2011 No Comment“Today on the program, we'll ask whether Americans are losing the skills of true debate and with it a central pillar of this democracy,” BBC's Jonny Dymond told listeners of the May 15 “Americana” podcast . Yet when it came to Dymond's guests, there was no dissent from the liberal line.
Continue reading …Don Gorske ate his first Big Mac on May 17, 1972. Today, 39 years later, he will eat his 25,000th. Gorske, 57, normally eats two of the McDonald’s classics a day, but has eaten just one on a number of days this year so that he could hit his…
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Young Afghans being coerced into joining jihad with threats of violence and promises of martyrdom The Taliban gave Noor Mohammad a simple choice – either they would cut off his hand for stealing or he could redeem himself and bring glory on his family by becoming a suicide bomber. Held in Taliban custody in a different village from his parents, after allegedly stealing mobile phones during a wedding party in his village, the 14-year-old boy went for the second option. He was soon being given basic lessons in how to use a handgun, which he would use to shoot the guards at a nearby US military base in Ghazni, a province in south-east Afghanistan which is considered the most violent in the country. He was also fitted with a suicide vest that covered his torso with explosives. He was told that when inside the base he should touch two trailing wires together, killing himself and as many US and Afghan soldiers as possible. Having kitted the soon-to-be martyr out in his jihadi outfit, the insurgents took photos and sent him on his way. Such is one method by which the Taliban recruit a growing number of children used for suicide missions. A tactic pioneered by al-Qaida but almost unheard of in Afghanistan until 2005, suicide bombing is becoming more popular with insurgents attempting to meet the massively intensified Nato campaign with their own surge of violence. In one recent case a 12-year-old boy in Barmal district in Pakitika province, which borders Pakistan, killed four civilians and wounded many more when he detonated a vest full of explosives in a bazaar. “They are relying more and more on children,” said Nader Nadery, from the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission, who thought the Taliban were struggling to recruit enough adults. “When somebody runs out of one tool they go to use the second one.” Mohammad, who talked to the Guardian on Tuesday at a children’s prison in Kabul, is awaiting trial after surrendering to the Americans rather than going through with the attack. He says he was left by his Taliban handlers to walk the last few miles to the base in Andar district two weeks ago. Instead he sat down and thought about his predicament. “It is a sin to kill yourself and to kill others,” he decided. “So I took off the vest and threw it away.” Surrendering proved tricky as the guards he had been supposed to kill were slow to raise the alert and he was questioned only after sleeping outside the camp for a night. He later led the Americans to the village where the Taliban members lived, identifying a house where the Americans recovered weapons and homemade explosives. Two Taliban from the village were also killed during a shootout after he identified them, Mohammad said. He knows that because he will never be able to go back to his village and will probably never see his family again. Not all bombers are coerced. Some are tricked, like a group of four children who were recently arrested after travelling alone across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Lutfullah Mashal, the spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said his spy agency’s informants in Peshawar had raised the alarm that the four were on their way. The boys had confessed during questioning, telling the security forces they believed only American soldiers would die when they detonated their bombs and that they would escape unscathed. But, speaking on Tuesday, they claimed they were forced into making a confession after being beaten and threatened with rape by police. Their new account is hard to believe, however, and at times contradictory. According to Fazal Rahman, a tearful nine-year-old made all the more distressed by the loss of two teeth at the dentist, the idea to travel to Afghanistan came from Maulavi Marouf, the mullah in charge of the Spin Jumad madrasa in the town of Khairabad. They say an “uncle” in Kabul phoned Marouf asking him to send some physically weak children for a couple of days of manual labour, unloading a delivery of car batteries from lorries. None of the boys, who are Afghans but have lived in Pakistan all their lives, has an address or phone number for the man. Nor did they think it necessary to tell their parents they were going to Kabul. “Our family is very poor,” said Niaz Mohammad, a nine-year-old who said he used to help his father beg. “When I was promised 50,000 rupees [£360] to go to Afghanistan, I went immediately.” But they all describe the madrasa as an institution that cultivated in them a hatred for American soldiers in Afghanistan. “All the time in Friday prayers the maulavi talked about the Americans in Afghanistan and he told us that we should do jihad, especially on Fridays,” he said. It is feared that hundreds of children may have been radicalised and turned into bombers in what Haneef Atmar, Afghanistan’s former interior minister, describes as “hate madrasas”. Suicide bombing has also developed a sinister glamour among the youth of the Pakistan’s tribal areas. A video in which a group of children enact a suicide bombing has circulated widely in Pakistan in February, sparking public alarm at how jihad appears to have reached the playground . It also seems to have reached the Kabul juvenile detention centre where staff are trying to give the mix of criminals and would-be jihadists a proper education. “When I told my cellmates I refused to do a suicide attack, none of them could understand why I didn’t do it,” said Mohammad. Taliban Afghanistan Global terrorism Children Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
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Young Afghans being coerced into joining jihad with threats of violence and promises of martyrdom The Taliban gave Noor Mohammad a simple choice – either they would cut off his hand for stealing or he could redeem himself and bring glory on his family by becoming a suicide bomber. Held in Taliban custody in a different village from his parents, after allegedly stealing mobile phones during a wedding party in his village, the 14-year-old boy went for the second option. He was soon being given basic lessons in how to use a handgun, which he would use to shoot the guards at a nearby US military base in Ghazni, a province in south-east Afghanistan which is considered the most violent in the country. He was also fitted with a suicide vest that covered his torso with explosives. He was told that when inside the base he should touch two trailing wires together, killing himself and as many US and Afghan soldiers as possible. Having kitted the soon-to-be martyr out in his jihadi outfit, the insurgents took photos and sent him on his way. Such is one method by which the Taliban recruit a growing number of children used for suicide missions. A tactic pioneered by al-Qaida but almost unheard of in Afghanistan until 2005, suicide bombing is becoming more popular with insurgents attempting to meet the massively intensified Nato campaign with their own surge of violence. In one recent case a 12-year-old boy in Barmal district in Pakitika province, which borders Pakistan, killed four civilians and wounded many more when he detonated a vest full of explosives in a bazaar. “They are relying more and more on children,” said Nader Nadery, from the country’s Independent Human Rights Commission, who thought the Taliban were struggling to recruit enough adults. “When somebody runs out of one tool they go to use the second one.” Mohammad, who talked to the Guardian on Tuesday at a children’s prison in Kabul, is awaiting trial after surrendering to the Americans rather than going through with the attack. He says he was left by his Taliban handlers to walk the last few miles to the base in Andar district two weeks ago. Instead he sat down and thought about his predicament. “It is a sin to kill yourself and to kill others,” he decided. “So I took off the vest and threw it away.” Surrendering proved tricky as the guards he had been supposed to kill were slow to raise the alert and he was questioned only after sleeping outside the camp for a night. He later led the Americans to the village where the Taliban members lived, identifying a house where the Americans recovered weapons and homemade explosives. Two Taliban from the village were also killed during a shootout after he identified them, Mohammad said. He knows that because he will never be able to go back to his village and will probably never see his family again. Not all bombers are coerced. Some are tricked, like a group of four children who were recently arrested after travelling alone across the border from Pakistan into Afghanistan. Lutfullah Mashal, the spokesman for the National Directorate of Security (NDS), said his spy agency’s informants in Peshawar had raised the alarm that the four were on their way. The boys had confessed during questioning, telling the security forces they believed only American soldiers would die when they detonated their bombs and that they would escape unscathed. But, speaking on Tuesday, they claimed they were forced into making a confession after being beaten and threatened with rape by police. Their new account is hard to believe, however, and at times contradictory. According to Fazal Rahman, a tearful nine-year-old made all the more distressed by the loss of two teeth at the dentist, the idea to travel to Afghanistan came from Maulavi Marouf, the mullah in charge of the Spin Jumad madrasa in the town of Khairabad. They say an “uncle” in Kabul phoned Marouf asking him to send some physically weak children for a couple of days of manual labour, unloading a delivery of car batteries from lorries. None of the boys, who are Afghans but have lived in Pakistan all their lives, has an address or phone number for the man. Nor did they think it necessary to tell their parents they were going to Kabul. “Our family is very poor,” said Niaz Mohammad, a nine-year-old who said he used to help his father beg. “When I was promised 50,000 rupees [£360] to go to Afghanistan, I went immediately.” But they all describe the madrasa as an institution that cultivated in them a hatred for American soldiers in Afghanistan. “All the time in Friday prayers the maulavi talked about the Americans in Afghanistan and he told us that we should do jihad, especially on Fridays,” he said. It is feared that hundreds of children may have been radicalised and turned into bombers in what Haneef Atmar, Afghanistan’s former interior minister, describes as “hate madrasas”. Suicide bombing has also developed a sinister glamour among the youth of the Pakistan’s tribal areas. A video in which a group of children enact a suicide bombing has circulated widely in Pakistan in February, sparking public alarm at how jihad appears to have reached the playground . It also seems to have reached the Kabul juvenile detention centre where staff are trying to give the mix of criminals and would-be jihadists a proper education. “When I told my cellmates I refused to do a suicide attack, none of them could understand why I didn’t do it,” said Mohammad. Taliban Afghanistan Global terrorism Children Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
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IMF head apologised over affair with married subordinate Piroska Nagy but denied he abused his position The arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault and attempted rape charges has prompted fresh scrutiny of the International Monetary Fund’s dismissal of accusations that its director abused his power to pressure a subordinate into sleeping with him three years ago. The charges against Strauss-Kahn for allegedly assaulting a hotel chambermaid have brought fresh revelations about the French former finance minister’s treatment of women, including his alleged assault of a journalist in 2002. They have added weight to claims by Piroska Nagy, a Hungarian-born economist, that the fund’s director engaged in sustained harassment when she was working at the IMF that left her feeling she had little choice but to agree to sleep with him at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2008. In a letter to investigators, she described Strauss-Khan as “a man with a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command”. Strauss-Kahn, who is being held at the notorious Rikers Island penal complex in New York, was denied bail on Monday at a court appearance when prosecutors successfully argued he was a flight risk. The head of the IMF denies the charges against him. Nagy has accused Strauss-Kahn of abusing his position to make advances to her. She said there were several occasions when he called her with “inappropriate suggestions”. She alleged he persistently called and emailed on the pretext of asking questions about Ghana’s economy but then used sexual language and asked her out. Nagy, who now works for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, expressed her concern about Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour in an October 2008 letter to Robert Smith, a partner at the law firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which led an investigation on behalf of the IMF after the affair became public. “Despite my long professional life, I was unprepared for the advances of the managing director of the IMF. I did not know how to handle this; as I told you, I felt ‘I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t’,” she wrote. Nagy said that, under the sustained pressure, she made the mistake of letting herself be dragged into a brief affair. She wrote that she had no doubt Strauss-Kahn abused his position to gain access to her. Nagy wrote that she had a high regard for Strauss-Kahn as a leader and a man with a vision of how to tackle the global financial crisis, but she feared he was a man with a problem, making him unsuited to head an institution in which he had authority over women. Strauss-Kahn admitted the affair after Nagy’s husband found out about it and told the IMF. He apologised, described it as an “error of judgment” but added that “I firmly believe that I have not abused my position”. The investigation concurred and the IMF took no action against Strauss-Kahn other than to say that he had shown poor judgment. But Nagy vigorously disagreed with that conclusion, accusing the law firm investigators in a letter of sidestepping the central issue of sustained harassment by Strauss-Kahn. Nagy ended the affair after her husband became aware of it and left the IMF shortly afterwards. Nagy clearly feels bruised by the investigation, not only because her claims that Strauss-Kahn abused his position to pressure her into sex were not taken seriously but because there was a series of leaks intended to favour the IMF director’s version of what happened. Nagy said she was reluctant to co-operate with an internal IMF investigation because she feared publicity would hurt her family as well as Strauss-Kahn. But after Smith was hired as an independent investigator, Nagy said she overcame her hesitation. However, leaks to the press backed Strauss-Kahn’s claim he had not put pressure onNagy. She expressed disquiet that the leaks were intended to steer attention away from Strauss-Kahn’s abuse of power. Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF New York United States Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …IMF head apologised over affair with married subordinate Piroska Nagy but denied he abused his position The arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on sexual assault and attempted rape charges has prompted fresh scrutiny of the International Monetary Fund’s dismissal of accusations that its director abused his power to pressure a subordinate into sleeping with him three years ago. The charges against Strauss-Kahn for allegedly assaulting a hotel chambermaid have brought fresh revelations about the French former finance minister’s treatment of women, including his alleged assault of a journalist in 2002. They have added weight to claims by Piroska Nagy, a Hungarian-born economist, that the fund’s director engaged in sustained harassment when she was working at the IMF that left her feeling she had little choice but to agree to sleep with him at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2008. In a letter to investigators, she described Strauss-Khan as “a man with a problem that may make him ill-equipped to lead an institution where women work under his command”. Strauss-Kahn, who is being held at the notorious Rikers Island penal complex in New York, was denied bail on Monday at a court appearance when prosecutors successfully argued he was a flight risk. The head of the IMF denies the charges against him. Nagy has accused Strauss-Kahn of abusing his position to make advances to her. She said there were several occasions when he called her with “inappropriate suggestions”. She alleged he persistently called and emailed on the pretext of asking questions about Ghana’s economy but then used sexual language and asked her out. Nagy, who now works for the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in London, expressed her concern about Strauss-Kahn’s behaviour in an October 2008 letter to Robert Smith, a partner at the law firm of Morgan Lewis & Bockius, which led an investigation on behalf of the IMF after the affair became public. “Despite my long professional life, I was unprepared for the advances of the managing director of the IMF. I did not know how to handle this; as I told you, I felt ‘I was damned if I did and damned if I didn’t’,” she wrote. Nagy said that, under the sustained pressure, she made the mistake of letting herself be dragged into a brief affair. She wrote that she had no doubt Strauss-Kahn abused his position to gain access to her. Nagy wrote that she had a high regard for Strauss-Kahn as a leader and a man with a vision of how to tackle the global financial crisis, but she feared he was a man with a problem, making him unsuited to head an institution in which he had authority over women. Strauss-Kahn admitted the affair after Nagy’s husband found out about it and told the IMF. He apologised, described it as an “error of judgment” but added that “I firmly believe that I have not abused my position”. The investigation concurred and the IMF took no action against Strauss-Kahn other than to say that he had shown poor judgment. But Nagy vigorously disagreed with that conclusion, accusing the law firm investigators in a letter of sidestepping the central issue of sustained harassment by Strauss-Kahn. Nagy ended the affair after her husband became aware of it and left the IMF shortly afterwards. Nagy clearly feels bruised by the investigation, not only because her claims that Strauss-Kahn abused his position to pressure her into sex were not taken seriously but because there was a series of leaks intended to favour the IMF director’s version of what happened. Nagy said she was reluctant to co-operate with an internal IMF investigation because she feared publicity would hurt her family as well as Strauss-Kahn. But after Smith was hired as an independent investigator, Nagy said she overcame her hesitation. However, leaks to the press backed Strauss-Kahn’s claim he had not put pressure onNagy. She expressed disquiet that the leaks were intended to steer attention away from Strauss-Kahn’s abuse of power. Dominique Strauss-Kahn IMF New York United States Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Newt Gingrich is taking heat on the right, after calling Paul Ryan’s Medicare revamp “right-wing social engineering,” and saying he supported a “variation” on an individual health care mandate. Asked about Ryan’s voucher plan on Meet the Press , Gingrich replied, “I think that that is too big a jump.” Conservatives…
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