Criminal

On Tuesday, December 13, the US Supreme Court decided to hear the appeal of a North Carolina man serving life in prison for participating in a scheme to murder a lady in the Philippines at the direction of the head of a transnational criminal organization. The court decided to examine whether Adam Samia’s right to face the witnesses against him …

An Indonesian bomb builder convicted for his role in the deadly nightclub assaults in Bali in 2002 has apologized to the relatives of the victims, after his release from prison was met with fury in Australia. Umar Patek, a member of the al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah group, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for his role in …

On Wednesday, December 14, prosecutors announced that a former Twitter manager who had been convicted of espionage for Saudi Arabia had been sentenced to 3-and-a-half years in a jail in the United States. In August, following a trial that took place in the federal court in San Francisco, Ahmad Abouammo was given a verdict of guilty by a jury. On …

A new complaint accuses Meta Platforms of facilitating the proliferation of violent and abusive remarks from Ethiopia on Facebook, thereby inflaming the country’s deadly civil conflict. The complaint was launched in Kenya on Tuesday, December 13, by two Ethiopian scholars and the Katiba Institute, a Kenyan rights organization. It is claimed that Facebook’s recommendation systems amplified violent posts in Ethiopia, …

The confiscation of a private plane, supercars, narcotics, and sumptuous residences are just some of the rewards of crime that are raising uncomfortable concerns about how international criminals have effortlessly transferred millions of dollars worth of illegal money through the kingdom of Thailand. Late in the month of October, during a statewide anti-drug operation conducted by the Thai police, a …

A former chief financial officer of Agritrade International deceived 16 financial institutions around the world into providing her company with millions of dollars in trade financing, resulting in losses of US$469 million (S$631 million). The losses were incurred by the financial institutions, which included major banks in Japan, South Korea, India, and Taiwan, between January 2016 and November 2019. This …

Umar Patek, a bomb-maker in the 2002 Bali bombings, has been granted parole in Indonesia, the ministry of law and human rights said on Wednesday, December 7. Patek, a member of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Jemaah Islamiyah, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 2012 for mixing the explosives that exploded in two Bali nightclubs, killing 202 individuals, including 88 …

Wednesday, December 7, a federal judge in California dismissed a lawsuit against reality TV star Kim Kardashian, boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr., and others over their role in promoting a cryptocurrency, stating that it was unclear whether the investors who filed the lawsuit actually saw the promotions. The January complaint alleges that EthereumMax officials conspired with celebrity promoters to entice …

Donald Trump’s real estate corporation was convicted on Tuesday, December 6, of participating in a 15-year-long plot to cheat tax authorities, adding to the former president’s legal difficulties as he bids for reelection in 2024. The Trump Organization, which runs hotels, golf courses, and other real estate worldwide, was found guilty of paying personal expenditures to key officials, including former …

A combined operation led by the National Bureau of Investigation in Central Visayas (NBI-7) on November 30 rescued a girl in Barangay Pasil, Cebu City, who had reportedly been subjected to months of online sexual exploitation and torture at the hands of her own mother. Officials from the NBI Cebu District Office, the Inter-Agency Council Against Trafficking, and the Department …