Things to Keep an Eye On – by Arthur Bloom

I’ll have a review of the new Gareth Gore book on Opus Dei sometime next week, I’m about a third of the way done. It’s quite good so far, and there are many concerning things about the events described. Opus Dei is a subject that tends to confound journalists, for many good reasons, not least of which is its semi-clandestine character. In general the things that are most concerning about it are the places where it diverges from Catholic norms, when it comes to lay spiritual direction, for instance, which is not really a thing for Catholics.

At the end of the book the author says Francis’s papacy is the last opportunity to rein in Opus Dei before it rides roughshod over the liberal order. That’s probably overstating it, but we are in a moment in which people are starting to think about the next papacy. Pope Francis is getting old, and he’s often sick. It’s a moment in which lots of things are likely to happen. Is that vague enough for you?

There are many anti-modernisms, and Opus Dei is only one type, in some ways the least appealing. The coterie of journalists who tend to be most in Francis’s corner are very keen to promote the idea that he’s a progressive. It would be too glib to say the reason for this is that most of their friends are progressive, too. But you get the idea.

Lots of people have talked about the chaos of Francis’s papacy, including himself—he famously talked about making a mess. An interesting question to ask is whether there’s a method to the madness? There probably is more than is immediately obvious. Julian Assange, whose wife had a private audience with the pope last year, is speaking to the Council of Europe on Tuesday.

Last week a number of interesting things happened with some of the traditionalist and conservative groups. A former SSPX district superior left and joined a conservative community in France. And the FSSP was informed of an apostolic visitation. Lastly, the well-known CNA/EWTN journalist Alejandro Bermudez was sanctioned. One might also note the meeting between Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and Mel Gibson.

Steve Wynn gets his peepee slapped

Politico reported that the junior Zionist Chinese casino magnate told his little slave boy Trump that he was off-message. Shortly thereafter a motion was filed that would force him to retroactively register under FARA. The cofounders of Trump Social, former Apprentice contestants, also dumped their stock this week.

Ryan Routh and his son indicted in the same week

The father for allegedly trying to assassinate former President Trump, and the son for allegedly possessing child porn.

What’s going on with France

France has a new government as of this week, and a lot of the things that are going on you can bet they’re taking great interest in. The bombing of Lebanon, for instance, which caused their new foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot to call for an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The French are also helping the Emiratis set up their own foreign legion. France seems to be acting more boldly than they have in a long time. I think it’s great, they think about the Middle East in a way that’s much more sane than most people in Washington.

Israeli judicial reform debate at Berkeley, and where things stand

This is worth noticing, Simcha Rothman was a main architect of what has been called Israel’s judicial coup. The American perspective is that we would rather Israel be run from Yale Law School:

Very few people are going to raise much of a stink about Israel’s decapitation of Hezbollah, including a lot of Lebanese, but as with much Israeli military activity, there’s been a lot of collateral damage that induces a lot of ill-will. And Bibi’s second or third-string of diplomats and cabinet ministers are doing a terrible job of smoothing anything over, they’re almost all making it worse. Israel’s diaspora minister said this week that Lebanon is a fake country, trying the same playbook as with Gaza, I guess. The actual military elite of Israel is almost all in opposition to the government, and a former IDF chief of staff was violently removed from anti-government protests this week. Didn’t stop Doug Burgum from meeting with Netanyahu, though.

The New York Times also reported this week that Jared Kushner’s investment fund comprises 99 percent foreign funding. It’s an incredibly bad look, it makes it look like he was using his father-in-law’s presidency to extort various investors, because he’s a mob kid.

Apple bows out of NSO suit

Allegedly it’s because of the Israeli government’s intervention:

Well, it worked. We’ll have to see how this plays out in the lawsuit WhatsApp brought against NSO Group, but it has managed to shed one litigant thanks to intervention from the home team: the Israeli government.

In July, documents obtained by Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoS) revealed the desperate measures NSO Group deployed to avoid having to turn over internal information during discovery in multiple lawsuits, including one filed by Apple. Knowing that discovery was inevitable, NSO met with Israeli government officials and asked them to secure a blocking order from the nation’s courts to prevent having to comply with discovery requests.

DOJ files Sherman Act lawsuit against Visa

This is big, and a sign of a post-Biden Democratic Party:

The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit today against Visa for monopolization and other unlawful conduct in debit network markets in violation of Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the complaint alleges that Visa illegally maintains a monopoly over debit network markets by using its dominance to thwart the growth of its existing competitors and prevent others from developing new and innovative alternatives.

USAID told the State Department Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid, Blinken ignored it

This is important:

The U.S. government’s two foremost authorities on humanitarian assistance concluded this spring that Israel had deliberately blocked deliveries of food and medicine into Gaza.

The U.S. Agency for International Development delivered its assessment to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the State Department’s refugees bureau made its stance known to top diplomats in late April. Their conclusion was explosive because U.S. law requires the government to cut off weapons shipments to countries that prevent the delivery of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid. Israel has been largely dependent on American bombs and other weapons in Gaza since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

Russian warlord was moving cash through JPMorgan and HSBC

From FT:

JPMorgan Chase and HSBC unwittingly processed payments for companies in Africa controlled by the deceased Russian warlord Yevgeny Prigozhin, as his sanctions-hit Wagner private army expanded across a continent where it has been accused of brutal human rights abuses.

Leaked documents obtained by the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), a Washington-based think-tank, show that in 2017 a Sudanese company controlled by Prigozhin made purchases of industrial equipment from China that passed through large western banks

Turkish diplomat accused of human trafficking

Along with his wife:

The second-highest ranking diplomat at Turkey’s embassy in Washington, D.C., along with his wife, also a diplomat, has been accused of human trafficking, fraud, unjust enrichment, breach of contract and violations of US labor and wage laws.

In a civil suit filed on May 5 in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Hüsnü Sinan Ertay, the former deputy chief of mission at the Turkish Embassy, and his wife, Anıl Özge Ertay, a diplomatic counselor, were accused of exploiting their housekeeper and nanny, Sharon Thomas Agdipa, a Philippine national.

FTC takes action against Bill Browder’s son’s company

This is interesting:

The FTC is taking action against DoNotPay, a company that claimed to offer an AI service that was “the world’s first robot lawyer,” but the product failed to live up to its lofty claims that the service could substitute for the expertise of a human lawyer.

According to the FTC’s complaint, DoNotPay promised that its service would allow consumers to “sue for assault without a lawyer” and “generate perfectly valid legal documents in no time,” and that the company would “replace the $200-billion-dollar legal industry with artificial intelligence.” DoNotPay, however, could not deliver on these promises. The complaint alleges that the company did not conduct testing to determine whether its AI chatbot’s output was equal to the level of a human lawyer, and that the company itself did not hire or retain any attorneys.

FBI raids Synergy ship

The same company whose ship was involved in the Baltimore bridge collapse, from Sept 21:

Federal agents on Saturday boarded a vessel managed by the same company as a cargo ship that caused the deadly Baltimore bridge collapse, the FBI confirmed.

In statements, spokespeople for the FBI and the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland confirmed that authorities boarded the Maersk Saltoro. The ship is managed by Synergy Marine Group.

FBI raids NOVA infosec company

One to watch:

The FBI raided the Reston, Virginia headquarters of IT, software and cybersecurity services provider Carahsoft Technology Corp. on Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The raid was conducted sometime Tuesday morning, said one of the people, who asked not to be identified due to the matter’s sensitivity.

“We can confirm that the FBI conducted court-authorized law enforcement activity on Sunset Hills Road this morning. We decline to comment further,” an FBI spokesperson said in a statement.

Lots of crypto cases

This is the most interesting:

A Los Angeles crypto entrepreneur, who went by the name “The Godfather,” allegedly impersonated the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to steal crypto at gunpoint.

During the 2018 robbery, Adam Iza allegedly stole a laptop containing the cryptocurrency, held a person known as “Victim T.W.” and his girlfriend at gunpoint, and demanded the passwords for the laptop in order to access the cryptocurrency.

SEC also settled with TrueCoin:

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled charges against TrueCoin LLC and TrustToken Inc. for their fraudulent and unregistered sales of investment contracts involving TrueUSD (TUSD), a purported stablecoin.

According to the SEC’s complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, TrueCoin was an issuer of TUSD and TrustToken was the developer and operator of TrueFi, a so-called lending protocol.

And then this Russian one which involved domain seizures and criminal charges:

The Justice Department today announced actions coordinated with the Department of State, Department of the Treasury, and other federal and international law enforcement partners to combat Russian money laundering operations. The actions involved the unsealing of an indictment charging a Russian national with his involvement in operating multiple money laundering services that catered to cybercriminals, as well as the seizure of websites associated with three illicit cryptocurrency exchanges.

“Today’s actions highlight the Department’s continued disruption of malicious cyber actors and their criminal ecosystem,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. “The two Russian nationals charged today allegedly pocketed millions of dollars from prolific money laundering and fueled a network of cyber criminals around the world, with Ivanov allegedly facilitating darknet drug traffickers and ransomware operators. Working with our Dutch partners, we shut down Cryptex, an illicit crypto exchange and recovered millions of dollars in cryptocurrency.”

Also the DraftKings settlement with the SEC is very interesting if you look at the details, the selective leaking of nonpublic information.

Florida sex trafficking conviction

One to notice:

Following a nine-day trial, a federal jury in the Southern District of Florida convicted Shannima Yuantrell Session, also known as Shalamar, 47, of Lake Placid, Florida, on 13 charges for sex trafficking nearly a dozen women and girls. Session compelled some of his victims to commit commercial sex acts between July 2011 and July 2013, and he compelled other victims to commit commercial sex acts between February 2016 and February 2019.

“The defendant used despicable and horrific means to terrify and coerce nearly a dozen women and girls to engage in commercial sex,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “The Justice Department is committed to protecting vulnerable victims from such cruel exploitation. This prosecution reflects that commitment. It is a testament to the courageous young women who cooperated with law enforcement to expose, prosecute and hold accountable this defendant for the years of misery he inflicted on scores of women.”

Ukrainians arraigned on immigration fraud and money laundering charges

What this basically is is a labor trafficking conspiracy involving Thai labor:

Two Ukrainian nationals made their initial appearance yesterday on a superseding indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Miami charging them with crimes related to labor-staffing companies they operated in Florida. The two men were extradited from the Kingdom of Thailand to the United States last week.

According to the superseding indictment, between August 2007 and July 2021, Oleg Oliynyk, Oleksandr Yurchyk and others owned and operated a series of labor-staffing companies in South Florida, including Paradise Choice LLC, Paradise Choice Cleaning LLC, Tropical City Services LLC and Tropical City Group LLC. The indictment alleges that the defendants, through these staffing companies, facilitated the employment in the hospitality industry of non-resident aliens who were not authorized to work in the United States. In addition, Oliynyk and Yurchyk allegedly conspired to defraud the IRS by, among other things, not withholding Social Security, Medicare and income taxes from these workers paychecks, and causing false corporate tax returns for the labor-staffing companies to be filed with the IRS.

3,400 violent fugitives rounded up

That’s a lot!

The Justice Department today announced that the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) arrested 3,421 violent fugitives, including 216 for homicide, 803 for assault, and 482 for weapons offenses, during the latest phase of its high-impact fugitive apprehension initiative called Operation North Star FY 2024 (ONS FY24).

ONS FY24 enforcement activities covered 74 operational days, from May 10 to Sept. 13, and targeted fugitives and violent offenders in 10 metropolitan areas, prioritizing those who used firearms in the commission of crimes or signaled high risk factors for violence. ONS FY24 targeted violent offenders wanted on warrants for homicide, sexual offenses, robbery, aggravated assault, and firearms violations. During the operation, investigators also seized 534 firearms, more than $508,000 in U.S. currency, and 456 kilograms in illegal narcotics, including 138 pounds and over 550,000 pills of deadly fentanyl.

Anna Paulina Luna’s opponent charged

For making threats:

An indictment was unsealed yesterday charging a Florida man with threatening to kill his primary opponent in the 2021 election for the 13th Congressional District of Florida and a private citizen and acquaintance of his opponent.

According to the indictment, William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, and Victim 1 were candidates in the primary election to represent the 13th Congressional District of Florida in the U.S. House of Representatives. Victim 2 was a private citizen and acquaintance of Victim 1. On June 8, 2021, Braddock made several threats to injure and kill Victim 1 and Victim 2 during a telephone call with Victim 2. Specifically, Braddock threatened, in part, to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” and make Victim 1 disappear. After making the threats, Braddock left the United States and was later found to be residing in the Philippines. Braddock was recently deported from the Philippines to the United States and made his first court appearance yesterday in Los Angeles.

OFAC sanctions Haitian gang leader:

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) is sanctioning a former member of Haiti’s parliament, Prophane Victor, for his role in forming, supporting, and arming gangs and their members that have committed serious human rights abuse in Haiti. OFAC is also designating Luckson Elan, the current leader of the Gran Grif gang, for his involvement in serious human rights abuse related to gang activity in Haiti’s Artibonite department.  

“Victor and Elan, through their influence over or leadership of the gangs in Haiti, have sought to perpetuate the horrific violence and instability,” said Acting Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith. “Treasury remains committed to holding accountable those who seek to leverage human rights abuses, violence, and corruption to achieve their political aims.” 

Little things

The charges against Dan Bilzerian’s father are funny, it’s maybe even funnier that he himself didn’t get charged. Big win for Hindenburg Research. A General Atomics spokesman called Anduril, covered on this blog, the “Theranos of defense” this week. And a judge ordered a Fox board member’s cell phone data to be turned over. And there’s an interesting bribery scheme in Ohio involving a municipal prosecutor accepting car repairs in exchange for work on behalf of a criminal defendant.