Category: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

“The Safe Online Surfing program is a great way for teachers and families to prepare students for their journey through cyberspace,” said Ken Hoffman, who leads the FBI’s national community outreach program. “The interactive platform helps kids build a digital defense against predators and bullies while teaching them how to be responsible cyber citizens.” 

While taking the course, students guide a robot avatar through six thematic areas, answering true/false, multiple choice, and matching questions along the way. After completing all levels, students will take a final exam.  

Since the program’s launch in 2012, more than 1.6 million students have participated in the SOS challenge. 

The SOS website and its activities are open year-round, both at home and in the classroom. The challenge opens on September 1 and runs through May. Each month during this timeframe, the classes with the top exam scores nationwide will receive an FBI-SOS certificate and, when possible, receive a congratulatory visit from FBI personnel.  

To participate in the challenge, teachers must register their classes at sos.fbi.gov. Teachers manage their students’ participation in the program; the FBI does not collect or store any student information.

Learn more and register your class at sos.fbi.gov. 

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Moorer, who recently retired from the Navy and concluded his internship, encourages fellow wound warriors to apply, nothing that “I don’t think there’s a better program for you to go get on-the-job experience, exchange knowledge with other people who are very knowledgeable, and get an excellent job opportunity that could end up being the perfect career for you.

Eligibility 

The FBI Wounded Warrior Internship Program is part of the Defense Department’s Operation Warfighter program. This DOD initiative links wounded warriors with federal government internships so that they can gain work experience while recuperating from a wound, illness, or injury. 
 
The program is incredibly competitive, but at this time, there’s no limit on the number of qualified servicemembers who may be selected for internships each year, Keffer said. Thirteen FBI interns are expected to onboard by the end of fiscal year 2023, according to the program. 
 
As long as a field office or Headquarters division has an operational need—and if they believe an applicant is the right fit for the position—the FBI’s Human Resources Division will make the match.  
 
To qualify for the program, a servicemember must: 

• Be an active-duty servicemember, a mobilized reservist, or a member of the Army or Air National Guard
• Be a U.S. citizen
• Be assigned to a Wounded Warrior unit, detachment, or regiment
• Hold an active Top Secret security clearance
• Have at least six months remaining on their service commitment
• Have the ability to travel to and from their assigned worksite
• Meet FBI security and suitability requirements

Interested servicemembers can reach out to their Operation Warfighter coordinator to begin the application process.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

FBI Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Forces across the country work throughout the year to locate victims and their traffickers. Often, victim specialists are embedded in operations. They serve as a liaison between the victims and FBI agents. They also help victims find services to rebuild their lives. The FBI’s Victim Services Division has a team of child and adolescent forensic interviewers, or CAFIs, who are specially trained interviewers skilled at gathering evidence without further traumatizing children and others with mental or emotional disabilities. These multi-disciplinary teams work with state and local partners to make resources available for victims, which might include counseling, medical services, housing, or job placement.  

“Our victim specialists, victim service coordinators, child and adolescent forensic interviewers, and other victim service professionals work collaboratively with special agents to ensure a trauma-informed, victim-centered approach is taken when engaging with victims,” said Regina Thompson, assistant director of the Victim Services Division. “This is especially important when engaging with victims of human trafficking as it is a very complex, traumatic crime.”  

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Thank you, Cathy, for that kind introduction, and for the opportunity to be here with you all today.

As Cathy mentioned, our paths have crossed many times over the years, and I worked closely with her during my time at the Washington Field Office. I have incredible respect and admiration for Cathy – she’s extraordinary and the epitome of exceptional leadership. I am grateful to have worked with her and to call her a friend. Just recently in March, Cathy joined us at FBI Headquarters as a guest speaker for our celebration of Women’s History Month. We are grateful that she shared her story with people from across the Bureau. Each time I have the chance to see Cathy again, I am reminded of all that she did for this city as chief of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Cathy was always on-scene, leading from the front, visible, and constantly communicating with and reassuring the public during every incident and every major event. She was engaged, hands-on and everywhere all the time. In my mind, that’s what it takes to protect our communities. And all of the people in this room today know that well.

Protecting a gathering of thousands of people is a tall order on any day – but I would say, especially at a major event like a League game, with so many participants and spectators and so much at stake. So today, I’d like to talk briefly about what we’re up against – what we see as some of the most pressing threats to our national security — and how it all translates into security considerations for sporting event management and business operations. We’ve talked about these challenges before, but it’s more important than ever to stay focused and disciplined in our approach. I’ll touch on the growing cyber threat, the persistent threat of terrorist attacks, and, briefly, criminal threats to the integrity of sports.

I’ll start with the cyber threat. We’re increasingly concerned about the threat of cyber attacks against our country’s critical infrastructure, including the energy sector, emergency services, local government operations, and more. There’s a good reason for that. Over the past two years, the FBI has seen a wider-than-ever range of cyber actors threaten Americans’ safety, security, and confidence in this digitally connected world. Those cyber actors include cyber-criminal syndicates and nation states – and sometimes the two working in toxic combination. And they’re constantly developing new ways to compromise our networks and get the most reach and impact out of their nefarious operations.

We’re particularly focused on ransomware schemes. Not only have these schemes wreaked havoc on company operations and caused devastating financial losses, but they’ve targeted hospitals, 911 call centers, and even schools. And no one is immune from these attacks – including sports leagues, teams, and those of you who head up security for stadiums and teams around the country.

A cyber attack on this sector is an attack on our country’s economic security and on one of our favorite pastimes. And unfortunately, cyber actors have and continue to target sporting institutions and events. In 2018, six Russian nationals used malware called Olympic Destroyer to launch an attack against the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. They also used spear phishing campaigns and malicious mobile apps to target Olympic athletes, partners, and visitors – and International Olympic Committee officials. Those attacks were part of a larger campaign that included efforts to destabilize Ukraine and Georgia and interfere in France’s elections. Multiple FBI field offices were involved in the investigation, which culminated in indictments of six individuals in 2020. And earlier this year, we saw a professional sports team affected by ransomware. The same way we respond to all cyber incidents, we moved swiftly to provide indicators of compromise and helped mitigate the threat, all while working to safeguard the victim’s sensitive data.

We have the tools to investigate these malicious attacks, identify the perpetrators, and then impose risks and consequences on them. That’s part of our new cyber strategy, which you may have a sense of if you attended this conference last year and heard EAD Brian Turner speak. But it’s now such an integral part of how we operate that I want to give a bit more detail.

We’re using a full range of authorities as both an intelligence and a law enforcement agency, and working seamlessly with our domestic and international partners. Together, we’re working to defend networks, attribute malicious activity, sanction bad behavior, and take the fight to our adversaries overseas. The strategy centers on prevention and disruption – hitting hackers before they attack or before their intrusions can cause major harm. To dismantle them, we’re pursuing them on three fronts. First, we’re taking aim at the actors. Working with our partners, we identify who’s responsible for the most damaging schemes. And we take a broad view – everyone from administrators to affiliates to operators of services facilitating cybercrime. Second, we target their technical infrastructure. Seizing or disabling their servers, domains, botnets; disrupting their operations; raising their costs … all while gleaning valuable new intelligence on their activities. Third and finally, we’re going after their money. Knowing that virtual currencies are central to ransomware, we trace many transactions back to bad actors. Where we can, we’re also seizing the funds, or we’re shutting down illicit currency exchanges. We’re intent on making it harder and more painful for hackers to steal data and hold IT networks hostage. And while actors, infrastructure, and money are all important individually, we achieve the biggest impact when we disrupt all three together.

One of our most important resources in this fight is all of you – our partners in law enforcement and the private sector. We’re constantly looking to open new avenues to work together and ways to help if you do get hit with an attack. We’ve now set up Cyber Task Forces in all of our 56 FBI Field Offices across the nation – similar to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces you may be familiar with. So, if you reach out for help, you’re going to get a whole team with specialized expertise … and with jurisdiction to go after any cyber threat actor. That’s at every field office.

At the agency level, our Internet Crime Complaint Center established its Recovery Asset Team – which we just call “the RAT” – in 2018. Out of the top 50 U.S. banks by assets, the IC3 RAT has partnerships with 45, including all of the top 10 banks. Every year, the team culls through thousands of public complaints to help fraud victims recover hundreds of millions of dollars lost to cyber-crime. And more-and-more companies are coming to us for help. RAT addressed 32 percent more incidents in 2021 than 2020, with a solid record of being able to help. And between 2019 and 2021, the number of ransomware complaints reported to the FBI through the IC3 increased by 82 percent.

We’re also focused on sharing information through cybersecurity advisories. These advisories identify specific malware signatures; indicators of compromise; and tactics, techniques, and procedures. At the same time, we recommend that all of our partners take some steps to protect themselves.

First and foremost is to be extremely vigilant. You know your networks best, and chances are you’ll be the first to learn of a cyber attack conducted on your system. Second, we always recommend having a solid cyber incident response plan that includes instructions to call your local FBI field office if something happens. And third, we encourage you to review those cybersecurity advisories I mentioned, so that you’re working with the same information we have. Now more than ever, it’s critical that we keep our information flowing, fortify our networks, and stay on guard.

Next I want to talk about the threat with the potential to do the most physical, real-world damage, with potentially tragic consequences, and that’s terrorism. We’ve been briefing on the terrorist threat for the past 20 plus years, and there is no doubt we must remain vigilant on it. To be sure, by putting so much of our authority and resources behind the terrorism fight, we’ve made it really hard for international terrorist organizations to plan intricate, complex physical attacks. That doesn’t mean that kind of threat is gone. ISIS and al-Qaeda are still committed to attacking the U.S. and the West. They regularly put out calls for lone actor attacks. And the greatest terrorist threat we face is posed by those lone actors, or small, isolated cells.

We refer to those as homegrown violent extremists, and they typically radicalize online – inspired by some terrorist organization. But because they aren’t talking back and forth, coordinating with someone overseas, there’s no communications to intercept and no group to infiltrate. And as they’ve increasingly favored using guns, knives, and cars against soft targets, that limits the opportunities to see attacks coming. So, this is a really hard problem. And its scope is massive. We currently have about 1,000 homegrown violent extremist cases open, spanning all 50 states and all 56 FBI field offices. And then, separate from the homegrown violent extremists who are inspired by global jihad, we’re also concerned about what we call domestic violent extremists, who are motivated by issues happening at home.

Over the past few years, we’ve elevated two of the sub-groups within the domestic violent extremist category to be National Level Priorities – the same level as ISIS and Homegrown Violent Extremism. Those are the racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists – particularly those advocating for the superiority of the white race. And the anti-government anti-authority violent extremists, which includes militia violent extremists (anarchist violent extremists) and sovereign citizen violent extremists. The FBI currently has more than 2,700 domestic terrorism investigations ongoing. No matter which category the attackers fall into, they are eager to exploit security vulnerabilities in spaces with high attendance and a lot of media attention – like sporting events and music venues – to hurt as many people as possible. That’s where the attacks can have the greatest impact, in their view.

So, how do we address this? Just like with cyber, we at the FBI believe we have the best chance of thwarting these attacks when we effectively share intelligence and leverage our partnerships. We need a clear picture of what’s happening in communities across the country. And our partners, for example in the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which some of you here may be part of – help us get there. The task force model allows us to share information quickly, surge resources where they’re most needed, and collaborate with our partners most effectively.

We’re also keeping companies and law enforcement agencies up to date with partner calls, situational reports, and intelligence products. On top of that, we’re working collaboratively with community groups to provide training on preventive measures. In so many cases, family members, peers, and associates are the best positioned to detect hints that someone they know may be considering violent action. So, a huge line of effort for the FBI is educating companies and the public on how to detect extremist conduct – in person and online. These are all avenues through which we share threat information and strategies to combat those threats.

Information is crucial, because when targets are unknown, soft targets are at highest risk. Of course, the information flow and coordination don’t stop at our borders: The FBI has 63 legal attaché offices around the world. So as the NFL holds more events overseas, we hope to partner with you there as well. In short, we firmly believe that each organization brings its unique abilities to the table, but it requires tremendous teamwork and cooperation to pull everything together into a unified whole.

I also want to briefly mention a program we’ve had in place for a number of years now, and that’s our Integrity in Sport and Gaming Initiative. You’ll hear about ISG from our Criminal Investigative Division later today, so I don’t want to steal the spotlight from that team. They’ll cover what the FBI is doing to combat threats of influence from organized crime groups and other criminal actors targeting leagues, athletes, coaches, referees, and others.

The main point I want to make right now is that behind this initiative, there’s a great deal of passion – not just for investigating sports crimes, but for the sports themselves. At the heart of our efforts is a recognition that sports hold a special place in our country and with the American people, and we’d hate to see the country’s most popular sport get undermined. So even though the ISG grew out of our Transnational Organized Crime program, one of the main tenets of the initiative is to preserve the integrity of our sporting institutions and to provide support. And we’re determined in our pursuit of those who prey on sport for profit.

Earlier I talked about the importance of intelligence, and I must say it’s great to see that our private sector partners like the NFL are on the same page with us about that. In fact, it looks like you’ll soon be hearing from Robert Gummer. Before he became the NFL’s director of intel operations, Rob was one of the FBI’s senior national intelligence officers. They make up sort of a brain trust at the Bureau. If there’s anyone who knows the importance of intelligence – that the common connection for countering these threats is understanding them, sharing information, and working with partners to disrupt threats before harm occurs – it’s Rob.

I do appreciate the opportunity to meet with you today, and I hope the partnership between the Bureau and the League will continue to be a strong one. With the NFL season schedule set to be released tomorrow, tens of thousands of Americans will start making plans to attend the games. Millions will be getting excited to watch on TV or online. So the stakes are high, as they’ve always been. And we all want the same thing – to make sure every game goes off without a hitch. To keep fans safe.

I want to thank you for choosing and devoting yourselves to the important work of protecting the American people. And I want to assure you that the FBI will continue to work ever more closely with you as the threats continue to evolve. It’s a privilege to join you here. Stay well and be safe. Thank you.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Remarks prepared for delivery.

Introduction  

Thank you, Mark, for that introduction. Good afternoon, everyone. Glad to be back here in person speaking to all of you. Conferences like these give us a chance to step away from our day-to-day challenges and gain some perspective on the issues we’re all facing in law enforcement.

They also give us the opportunity to hear directly from you what you’re seeing and experiencing in your states, and what we at the FBI can do to help.

We also hope to find ways to make our partnerships even stronger. Today I’d like to talk about what we’re up against—what some of the most pressing threats are to our national security and to law enforcement.

That includes our priorities—the counterterrorist threat, threats through cyberspace, from foreign intelligence, and in the form of violent crime, including violence against law enforcement.

FBI Priorities

Our number one priority at the FBI remains preventing terrorist attacks.

We still face threats from al-Qaida and other foreign terrorist groups that want to carry out large-scale attacks in the U.S. and around the world, but today, the greatest terrorist threat we face is from lone actors. These include homegrown violent extremists, who are inspired by foreign terror groups and ideologies, and domestic violent extremists.

Far too often, we’re seeing people resort to violence to advance their ideological, political, or social goals.

That’s why the FBI has significantly surged resources to our increasing number of domestic terrorism investigations.

Another one of our top priorities is, of course, the cyber threat. It’s taking an ever-increasing amount of our attention and energy. Today’s cyber threats are more pervasive, hit a wider variety of victims, and carry the potential for greater damage than ever before, which is why the cyber threat will stay near the top of our list, as long as nation-states and cybercriminal syndicates keep innovating. 

They’re constantly developing new ways to compromise our networks and get the most reach and impact out of their operations. We’re laser-focused on ransomware schemes—particularly those targeting our nation’s critical infrastructure.

Not only have these schemes wreaked havoc on company operations and caused devastating financial losses, but they’ve also crippled hospital systems, targeted the energy sector, threatened emergency services, shut down local government operations, and more. 

Even law enforcement data isn’t immune from this threat, as we’ve seen ransomware attacks on police departments from California to Washington, D.C.

But that’s not all we’re up against.

We’re also facing persistent counterintelligence threats from formidable adversaries like North Korea, Russia, and Iran. 

However, the greatest long-term counterintel threat, not only to our information and intellectual property, but also to our economic vitality and, ultimately, our national security—comes from China. 

We’ve got around 2,000 active China CI cases across the Bureau, about a 1,300% increase over where we were a decade ago.

Violent Crime

So those are some of our top priorities at the FBI, but a topic that remains top of mind for us and all of you these days is of course violent crime.

In too many communities, we’re seeing a disturbing uptick in homicides and violent assaults. Our 2020 detailed crime data—which we released late last year—illustrates this.

Overall violent crime in the United States, which includes not only murder but also assault, robbery, and rape, rose by more than 5%. I want to put that in perspective, because it’s hard to visualize what 5% actually means.

It means in 2020, there were 67,000 more violent crime offenses than there were in 2019. And homicides jumped nearly 30% in 2020, the largest single-year increase in more than 50 years.

You all know what’s driving the violent crime in your states.

Whether it’s a community where a disproportionate amount of gun violence takes place or rival gangs wreaking havoc in a particular region or a handful of well-known trigger pullers who keep finding their way back to the streets, no matter how many times they’re arrested, at the FBI, we want to be your integral partner in the fight against violent crime.

This is why we’re sharing information, working strategically with our state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners, and prosecuting the right cases in federal court. Our primary model for fighting violent crime remains our task forces.

Throughout the U.S., we have more than 50 violent crimes task forces; 175 Safe Streets gang task forces, with nearly 2,000 TFOs; 22 Safe Trails Task Forces, which are working to reduce Indian Country crime; and more than 100 Transnational Organized Crime Task Forces, with 600 members.

For some of the cities hit hardest by the recent surge, we’re boosting those efforts by temporarily surging resources to our field offices. These investigative, analytical, and technical resources embed with FBI personnel and support existing initiatives with our law enforcement partners for an immediate, measurable impact against violent crime.

Depending on where they are, the teams might focus on helping to get violent gun offenders off the streets, targeting commercial robbery crews, or taking aim at drug-trafficking gangs and criminal enterprises.

To date we have surged resources to six offices—Buffalo, Milwaukee, Louisville, Memphis, San Juan, and a current deployment in San Francisco. And collectively, these deployments have yielded nearly 150 arrests and the seizure of over 70 firearms from violent criminals.

And we’re seeing promising trends. In Milwaukee, homicides went down 17%, and non-fatal shootings fell by 28% during the resource surge.

And in Buffalo, there was a 50% decrease in homicides during the deployment. Buffalo is a good example of what we can accomplish when we gather intelligence across jurisdictions, surge resources, and build large enterprise investigations.

Buffalo had approached all-time highs in shootings and homicides over the past several years. By taking a hard look at what was driving that increase, we identified a couple of local gangs that were responsible for a number of murders.

We worked with our partners to build the case, and last fall, the 13th member of that gang was sentenced to life in prison after he was convicted on two counts of murder in aid of racketeering.

We work shoulder-to-shoulder with our state and local partners in investigations like that across the country every day.

Just last year, our Safe Streets Task Forces made more than 20,000 arrests, seized more than 8,000 firearms, and dismantled over 200 gangs and criminal organizations.

These kinds of joint investigations we can all be proud of, agents and task force officers working with our partners to make communities safer.

I want to especially thank ASCIA’s member agencies for sending your best and brightest investigators and intel analysts to our task forces and for helping to ensure information flows both ways through fusion centers.

By doing this, you’re helping your local partners combat this ongoing wave of violence in so many areas of our country.

We’re going to continue surging resources, and we’ll keep assessing where our support will most help our partners to continue cracking down on violent criminals.

It means going after the most violent offenders, making good use of intelligence about what’s fueling crime, and working together across agencies and departments to drive results.

Our goal is to help make a lasting impact, so our communities are safer places to live and work.

Threats to Law Enforcement

We need those communities to not only be safer places for our citizens to live and work, but also for the men and women whose job it is to protect those citizens.

That brings me to a topic that’s of paramount importance to me, and I know it is to you, too, threats to law enforcement.

Last year, 73 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed on the job—the highest single-year number since 9/11.

And that doesn’t even count those we lost to COVID or in accidental deaths, those killed while they weren’t on duty, or the scores of officers who were injured but thankfully survived.

Especially troubling is that a record number of those officers killed—nearly half—had no engagement with their assailant before the attack.

They were ambushed while sitting in their vehicles, attacked while on patrol, or lured out into the open and killed.

And so far in 2022, 16 more officers have been murdered in the line of duty.

One of those was Officer Drew Barr, from Mark Keel’s home state of South Carolina. Officer Barr was shot and killed while responding to a domestic disturbance just over a week ago.

At a news conference later that day, Cayce Police Chief Chris Cowan said Officer Barr was “married to this profession. He cared about nothing else other than serving his community. He was shot and killed this morning for no reason….It was inexcusable.”

Like Officer Barr, each one of the officers we’ve lost got up one morning, picked up their badge, not knowing whether they’d make it home that night.

They did their jobs despite all the hardships they’ve faced in these especially difficult past few years because they were devoted to protecting their fellow Americans, both friends and strangers alike, devoted to serving their communities.

The loss of any agent or officer is heartbreaking for their families, for their agencies, and for the communities they serve. It’s why working together, to fight the scores of threats we collectively face, is so important.

Keeping our people safe is our highest priority, and I know you feel the same. Getting the most violent offenders off our streets will go a long way toward that, and so will making sure folks have the training and equipment they need to do the job safely.

Because law enforcement is dangerous enough; wearing a badge shouldn’t make someone a target.

We need good people to continue to answer the call to make law enforcement their career.

Of course, if we’re going to be able to recruit and retain the special kind of person willing to put his or her life on the line to protect others, we need to show them that we appreciate their sacrifices, that we have their backs.

I’ll keep doing my best to sound the alarm, and I’d ask for your help in raising awareness on the issue, too.

Data Collection Programs

To know how to effectively address violent crime or threats to law enforcement, we need to understand the trends. We need concrete information and transparency into what’s really going on in our communities—accurate, objective data. We need the facts.

The great news is now that we’ve transitioned to the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS, the FBI can provide more detailed and comprehensive crime data.

NIBRS-only reporting has been up and running for over a year, and we’ve got nearly 12,000 law enforcement agencies (63%) reporting their data. I want to thank everyone who’s participating, but we can do better.

If you aren’t contributing NIBRS-certified data yet, I strongly encourage you to do so. We know it can be a challenge, but we’re here to help you.

The Bureau’s investing—and is going to continue investing—in training and tools to help you make the transition to NIBRS.

If you have questions or need help getting us your data, please contact our team at ucr@fbi.gov.

Without it, we can’t get an accurate nationwide picture of things like hate crimes or assaults on law enforcement officers

If you aren’t NIBRS-certified, you can’t contribute that kind of data. And we need your information so our agencies, and the public we serve, can understand the issues we’re facing and make the best possible decisions.

The same goes for our National Use-of-Force Data Collection, also a top priority for us, and I know it is for ASCIA as well.

Our goal there is not to offer insight into single incidents; it’s to provide a comprehensive view of the circumstances, subjects, and officers involved in use-of-force incidents nationwide.

I’m happy to report that we hit our participation threshold last month. We’ve now got over 60% of law enforcement agencies contributing data.

That means in the very near future, we’ll be able to release our first statistics on the use of force, things like the top types of force used and resistance encountered, as well as the overall percentages we’re seeing for different incidents and reasons for initial contact.

Once we get to the 80% mark, we’ll be able to share even more data and insight into use-of-force incidents. We can give the public the necessary facts, and, I believe, strengthen our nation’s confidence in law enforcement.

As we all know, if we don’t provide the data and the context, others out there might try to paint a very different picture, using their own information and their own context or spin.

It all depends on the data our law enforcement agencies provide. I know I’m speaking to the choir here; many of ASCIA’s member agencies are already submitting use-of-force data.

We’ve got to continue to encourage our local law enforcement partner, our city and county departments, to submit their use-of-force statistics.

Another program I want to tell you about today is a new one, and it’s one that’s hard to talk about. This year, we started collecting data on law enforcement suicides and attempted suicides. That includes not just the location of these tragedies and the manner of death, but also things like biographical information, employment history, and any triggers, issues, or out-of-the-ordinary behaviors or actions agencies might have seen.

You can access this data collection through the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal, or LEEP.

We need to be able to take care of our people, and we can’t do that properly without greater insight into what’s really happening out there.

I firmly believe these data collections are going to be vital for all of us as we continue making the physical and mental health of our people a priority.

Conclusion

Those are just a few thoughts on our current priorities and challenges. Times like these call for both strong partnerships and innovation.

At the FBI, we’re committed to both, and I know ASCIA is, too. After all, your organization was founded more than 40 years ago to improve communication, share ideas, and build relationships among public safety agencies.

We need to stay tightly connected, now more than ever, so I hope you’ll continue to work with us, including on our many task forces.

And we want to continue to help you in whatever way we can.

Thank you for your service, for your support, and for your partnership with us, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to join you today.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Counterintelligence Threats

First, I’d like to talk for a moment about the threats we’re facing today, and I’ll start with one that’s at the top of the Bureau’s list of concerns and should be at the top of every U.S. company’s list, too.

That’s the counterintelligence threat posed by China. When we tally up what we see in our cases, nothing presents a broader, more severe threat to our ideas, our innovation, and our economic security than the People’s Republic of China.

The PRC is leading a generational fight for China to surpass the U.S. as a global superpower, and it’s pursuing those goals with little regard for international norms and laws and certainly not through fair and lawful competition.

Instead, the Chinese government has shown its willingness to steal its way up the ladder. In fact, the scale of China’s theft of U.S. innovation is unprecedented. And as a result, U.S. companies are facing a greater, more complex danger than they’ve ever faced before.

Because stolen innovation is not just the theft of one idea—it means stolen jobs, stolen opportunities for American workers, stolen national power, and stolen leadership in the industries China seeks to dominate in the decades to come.

That’s why investigating and preventing economic espionage and illicit technology transfer to the Chinese state is a top priority for the FBI.

Let me give you some context for this threat. The FBI has 56 field offices across the country.

Every single one has cases on the Chinese government’s attempts to steal U.S.-based information and technology, and those investigations tell us a lot about the tools and tactics the Chinese government uses to steal what it wants from unwitting companies.

These tactics range from the use of intelligence officers, to hackers, to front companies, to seemingly benign joint ventures or research partnerships to recruiting employees who use their legitimate access to steal corporate secrets, what we all refer to as “insider threats.”

Now later today, you’ll hear from Rachel Rojas, who heads up the Bureau’s Insider Threat Office, and others from both the USIC and the private sector who work in this field, in what promises to be a great panel discussion about establishing and running an insider threat program within your own organizations.

But I’d be remiss if I didn’t take a couple minutes to highlight the significant role insiders play when it comes to the Chinese government’s theft of American information and innovation.

So, I want to tell you a little bit about the case of Shan Shi. He was sentenced to federal prison in 2020 for stealing trade secrets from a company in Texas regarding a technology called syntactic foam. It’s export-controlled because it’s got important military applications–it allows submarines to evade detection underwater.

In that way, it helps make up the foundation of our naval power–and it’s also part of a multibillion-dollar oil and gas industry. Most important, it’s a technology China’s government agencies and state-owned enterprises hadn’t been able to manufacture themselves.

So here’s what they did instead. They gave Shi three million dollars to incorporate a company in Houston and get what they needed to make syntactic foam in China. But first he needed the technology, so he targeted the American victim company’s employees on social media.

Shi used cash incentives and cushy job offers to entice two former employees, two former insiders, to help with this effort in exchange for the company’s trade secrets and technical data.

Once he had the information, Shi sent it to China, where they started manufacturing a key component of syntactic foam.

Now, and here’s one of the more galling and egregious aspects of the scheme. Shi and his co-conspirators actually patented in China the very manufacturing process they’d stolen from the American company, and the Chinese government actively helped them do it.

Then, Shi contacted the victim company and offered it a joint venture using its own stolen technology. His business plan?

Gain the company’s cooperation—and then put it out of business and take over the market. We’re talking about an American company that spent years and millions of dollars developing a technology.

The Chinese government couldn’t replicate it. So instead, it paid to have it stolen. Fortunately, this story has a happy ending.

Although the FBI’s investigation started after the trade secrets were stolen, we were able to move quickly and prevent more damage. Eager to secure his employees’ jobs and keep a critical technology out of the Chinese government’s hands, the victim company’s CEO fully cooperated with the Bureau.

Indictments and arrests soon followed, and we disrupted a planned purchase of millions of dollars’ worth of manufacturing equipment destined for China.

Ultimately, four defendants—including the two insiders—pleaded guilty. Shi was convicted at trial and the Chinese government’s attempts to dominate that particular industry were thwarted.

Cyber Threats

But of course, economic espionage isn’t the only threat American companies are facing. The broader cyber threat ranks right up there, too. And it’ll stay near the top of our list as long as nation-states and cybercriminal syndicates keep innovating.

They’re constantly developing new ways to compromise our networks and get the most reach and impact out of their operations. As a result, today’s cyber threats are more pervasive, hit a wider variety of victims, and carry the potential for greater damage than ever before.

At the Bureau, that translates to the literally hundreds of national security and criminal cyber threats we’re tracking and countering, around the clock. We’re most concerned about possible cyberattacks against our nation’s critical infrastructure that could wreak havoc in our everyday lives.

A big portion of critical infrastructure attacks today come from ransomware groups. Last year alone, we saw ransomware incidents against 14 of the 16 U.S. critical infrastructure sectors.

Not only have they wreaked havoc on company operations and caused devastating financial losses. But we’ve also seen them compromise networks for oil and gas pipelines, healthcare systems, grade schools, 9-1-1 call centers, and local governments.

They cause real-world harm, threatening our national security, economic vitality, and public health and safety. And the monetary losses associated with ransomware are striking.

In 2020, victims paid an estimated $350 million in ransom—an increase of more than 300% over 2019—with the average payment at more than $300,000. And those ransom amounts often pale in comparison to the massive costs associated with business disruption and remediation.   

In total, between 2019 and 2021, the number of ransomware complaints reported to the FBI increased by 82%.

As harmful as attacks are when conducted by criminal actors, though, targeting of vital networks is in some ways even more dangerous when it’s done by nation-states.

Their efforts may look the same as a criminal attack at first. For example, if they’re using ransomware, you see a notice that your data is encrypted. But when a nation-state is responsible, there may not be a decryption key available—at any price.

Last June, hackers sponsored by the Iranian government prepared to launch a ransomware attack against a U.S. children’s hospital. Let me repeat that: a children’s hospital.

And in 2017, the Russian military used purported ransomware called NotPetya to hit Ukrainian critical infrastructure.

It was supposed to look like a ransomware heist, but it was actually designed to destroy systems. They targeted Ukraine, but ended up also hitting systems here, throughout Europe, and elsewhere.

That attack ended up causing more than 10 billion dollars in damages—one of the most damaging in the history of cyberattacks—and went global before anyone knew to do anything.

Just last month, we disrupted a global botnet of thousands of infected network hardware devices under the control of Russian military intelligence hackers. With the ongoing conflict raging in Ukraine, we’re particularly focused on the destructive cyber threat posed by the Russian intelligence services and the cybercriminal groups they protect and support.

But we’ve also got to keep a close eye on other nations with a history of threatening us in cyberspace, which brings me back to China.

In March 2021, Microsoft—a valuable DSAC partner–and other U.S. tech and cybersecurity companies disclosed some previously unknown vulnerabilities targeting Microsoft Exchange Server software. They warned the public that cyber actors were exploiting those vulnerabilities to illegally access email servers.

The hackers were operating out of China. Through our private sector partnerships, we identified the vulnerable machines. And learned the hackers had implanted webshells, malicious code that created a backdoor and gave them continued remote access to the victims’ networks.

So we pushed out a joint advisory with CISA to give network defenders the technical information they needed to disrupt the threat and eliminate those backdoors. But some system owners weren’t able to remove the webshells themselves, which meant their networks remained vulnerable.

So we executed a surgical, court-authorized operation, copying and removing the harmful code from hundreds of vulnerable computers. Those backdoors the hackers had propped open?

We slammed them shut, so the cyber actors could no longer use them to access victim networks. Our work wouldn’t have been successful without the strong partnerships we have with the private sector.

And those partnerships also enabled the U.S. to join our allies last July in publicly attributing the Microsoft Exchange compromise to China’s Ministry of State Security. And that’s just one example, out of many, where we’ve shown the U.S. business community that when it comes to cyber investigations.

One, we’re here to help. Two, building relationships with us ahead of time can go a long way in protecting your information, technology, and innovation. And three, there’s actually quite a bit we can do even after the fact to recover what’s been stolen or to mitigate the damage—if you come to us early.

Bottom line, whether you’re in the midst of a cyber problem or you’re preparing for one, we’re here for you.

Importance of Partnerships

It’s clear we’re up against some awfully serious threats to our economic and national security. And it’s equally clear that if we’re to continue combating those threats successfully, we’ve got to maintain and strengthen our partnerships with you.

We know we need to keep a meaningful dialogue going, and continue building trust throughout the private sector.

One of our most important partnership efforts is this one—DSAC—and for 17 years, it has served an absolutely critical role in keeping Americans safe.

What started as a few CSOs meeting with the FBI and State Department.

Has grown into a powerful organization representing more than 600 U.S. companies and millions of employees, at least 50 unique industries and nearly every critical sector.

Today, through our DSAC portal, we’re sharing important security information, intelligence products, event notifications, and training resources.

And when a critical incident occurs or an emerging threat surfaces, we’re providing you with as much detail as we can—in the immediate aftermath and in the days and weeks that follow.

You, in turn, are sharing with us your insight, knowledge, and expertise about the threats affecting you.

Combining our intelligence with what you’re seeing, making all of us stronger.

I can’t overstate how proud I am of this organization’s success, nor how grateful I am to DHS, our partners in developing DSAC for the past 14 years, for helping to make it possible.

Still, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. That’s why, this past December, our Office of Private Sector held a day-long strategy session with DSAC’s Expanded Executive Working Group.

It was a day of candid conversation about what we’re doing right that’s most helpful to you—and what we can do better, too.

The group provided a lot of valuable feedback on ways to improve our DSAC community, and we took that feedback to heart.

We’ve used it put together short- and long-term strategies to guide DSAC, emphasizing four strategic pillars: people, partnerships, capabilities, and innovation.

And before I close, I’d like to share a little about those pillars and why we believe they’re so important.

First among our four pillars is people. Sure, DSAC’s a success today, but to ensure that success tomorrow and into the future—well after we’ve all retired—we need to increase diversity among our members and leaders.

And by that I mean both diversity in terms of the sectors and industries DSAC represents, as well as in the demographics of our members.

That’s the only way we can make sure we’re bringing the right mix of perspectives to the table.

The second of our strategic pillars is partnerships. And I hope I’ve made clear today—and many times over the years—partnerships are this organization’s bedrock.

We all need each other, and we all have a lot to gain from a strong partnership. When we can combine what we see with what you see, when we work together.

Our two plus your two equals more than four—five, or six, or seven. So an important part of our strategy involves a focus on those partnerships.

On making sure you, as DSAC members, have the information and relationships you need for successful security collaboration.

Third among our pillars is capabilities. What we need to have so we can effectively do our jobs—keeping companies, and people, safe.

To inform our decision making, it’s important that we’re all making the best use of the analytic tools we’ve got. That we’re offering the best training and resources to keep our members at the top of their game.

And that we’re investing in DSAC’s working groups so we can continue improving the way all of us work together.

Our final pillar is innovation. In the private sector, you’re no strangers to the pressure of finding new ways to be more efficient, more agile, and more resilient. And in government, we’re always working to stay a step ahead, too.

DSAC should be no different. We need to be working constantly to update our technology, so we can communicate and share information more effectively. And we’ve got to find new ways to increase collaboration across the private sector.

So while we should be proud that we’ve come a long way since those days of informal meetings with a handful of CSOs, we definitely aren’t resting on our laurels, and we know we’ll continue to have our work cut out for us.

Conclusion

Today, I’ve described the pretty daunting threats we’re facing to our economic and national security.

But I hope I’ve also demonstrated that we’re depending on you, our private sector partners, to help us keep Americans safe, to help us keep U.S. businesses and jobs safe, and to help us keep American information, technology, and innovation safe.

Because while that responsibility may be a daunting one, our adversaries are no match for what we can accomplish when we work together.

So, thank you for the work you’ve done with us as members of DSAC. I look forward to our continued partnership

I know next you’re going to hear from Secret Service Director Murray, and I’m sure he’ll have some excellent thoughts on how to strengthen partnerships as well.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Remarks prepared for delivery.

Introduction

Thank you, Deputy Chief Lokey, for that kind introduction, and for the opportunity to be here with you all today.

Good morning, everyone.

I’m honored to join my colleagues on this panel—I’ve really enjoyed hearing everyone’s insightful remarks, so thank you.

To start, I wanted to take a look back in history to the early 1970s.

Back then our nation was in the final stages of the Vietnam War. The U.S. economy was about to hit stagnation, and the Watergate scandal was around the corner.

In short, it was a tumultuous time for our country.

It was also a time of firsts for the FBI, an eventful time for the us.

On May 12th, 1972—50 years ago next month—FBI Acting Director L. Patrick Gray announced that for the first time ever, the FBI would open the special agent position to female applicants.

That announcement ended a long era of policies that excluded women and prevented them from serving as agents.

By the end of that year, the FBI would welcome a total of 11 women agents.

And so began an era of firsts in the FBI.

Between 1972 and 2001, the FBI saw:

• The first woman African American special agent,
• The first woman firearms instructor,
• and the first women legal attachés, first woman special agent in charge of a field office, and the first women to attain the ranks of assistant director and executive assistant director at Headquarters.

And 50 years on, we’re fortunate to have women heading field offices; serving at the highest levels at HQ; leading squads working counterterrorism, cyber, counterintelligence, and major criminal investigations; serving as firearms instructors, bomb techs, and crisis negotiators; and leading FBI offices around the world.

Diversity Initiatives

Although the FBI has come a long way since that 1972 advancement, the reality is it wasn’t all that long ago.

And we’re still working hard to remove barriers and create a reflective workforce—not just in terms of gender, but across a full spectrum of diversity.

There is a long way to go and a tremendous amount of work to be done.

The FBI is focused on recruiting and building a diverse workforce—one that reflects all the communities we serve, building the kind of teams that bring the right mix of different perspectives to the table

Women now make up 45% of our workforce overall and nearly a quarter of our senior executive positions.

And I’m encouraged to report that over the past several years, our special agent applicants have been more diverse than the U.S. population as a whole.

The female special agent percentage has been rising in NAT classes over the last 2-3 years.

In fact, our classes at Quantico now have more women, more underrepresented minorities, and more people of varied backgrounds and life experiences than ever before.

We’ve also increased our recruiting initiatives at Historically Black Colleges and Universities and are expanding our recruiting focus to other minority-serving institutions. And we’ve been hard at work improving how we develop, promote, and mentor our personnel once they’re onboard.

It is taking time, but I’m confident we’re headed in the right direction.

I’m proud that the FBI is addressing this important issue, but I know that we can do even better, and we will.

Not only because it’s the right thing to do, but because bringing together a wide array of perspectives is key to building trust, credibility, and meeting today’s increasingly complex and evolving threats and protecting people.

Violent Crime

One of the threats we’re all concerned about is the increase in violent crime.

We’re all seeing a disturbing trend in rising violent crime across the country.

There’s an increase in gun violence, homicides, and aggravated assaults, all occurring at an appalling pace.

There are also hate crimes and the persistent threat posed by violent extremists. 2020 incident-based crime data, which was released late last year, contains some troubling statistics.

Overall violent crime—which includes not only murder but also assault, robbery, and rape—rose by more than 5%.

Percentages can seem abstract, but when you attach the numbers, become more staggering: There were 65,000 additional violent crime incidents in 2020 than there were in 2019.

That’s 65,000 more people victimized by violent crime than in the year before, and each one, as we all know, with families, sorrow, and trauma.

And homicides jumped nearly 30% in 2020—the largest single-year increase recorded in 50 years.

Today’s violent crime problem is taking the lives of too many innocent people, tearing apart too many communities, and denying too many Americans the basic right to feel safe in their homes and neighborhoods.

Given that, at all levels of government, our most fundamental duty is to safeguard people’s right to live without fear of violence.

I can assure you that at the FBI we are committed to leveraging are using all of our tools and resources and working strategically and operationally with agencies like yours to meet that duty.

You undoubtedly have thoughts of your own about how we can best do that, and we’re eager to hear them, but I can tell you we’re laser-focused on working with you through the hundreds of task forces we host throughout the country.

They include:

• More than 50 Violent Crimes Task Forces,
• 175 Safe Streets Gang Task Forces with nearly 2,000 TFOs,
• 22 Safe Trails Task Forces, and
• More than 100 Transnational Organized Crime Task Forces with nearly 600 members.

For some of the cities hit hardest by the recent surge, we’re boosting those efforts by temporarily surging resources to our field offices.

That includes investigative, analytical, and technical resources, who embed with FBI and Task Force personnel and support existing initiatives with our law enforcement partners, all designed to make an immediate, measurable impact on violent crime.

Depending on where they are, the teams might focus on helping to get violent gun offenders off the streets, targeting commercial robbery crews, or taking aim at drug-trafficking gangs and criminal enterprises.

To date, we have surged resources to six cities and offices—Buffalo, Milwaukee, Louisville, Memphis, San Juan, and a current deployment in San Francisco.

And collectively, in a relatively short period of time, these deployments have helped lead to nearly 150 arrests and the seizure of over 70 firearms from violent criminals. And we’re seeing some promising trends.

During the deployments, homicides decreased by 50% in Buffalo. And in Milwaukee, homicides went down 17%, and non-fatal shootings fell by 28%.

We’re going to continue surging resources like this to help, support, and assist you in any way we can. And we’ll keep assessing where our support will most help our partners like you to continue cracking down on violent crime.

Our goal is to make a lasting impact, so our communities are safer places to live and work.

Threats to Law Enforcement

With that, it is recognized that the violent crime threat is not just affecting the communities we serve—it’s also making the law enforcement profession even more dangerous.

Sadly, last year 73 law enforcement officers were feloniously killed on the job, the highest single-year number since 9/11.

And that doesn’t account for those lost to the pandemic or in accidental deaths, those killed while they weren’t on duty, or the scores of officers who were injured but thankfully survived.

It is striking that a record number of those officers killed—nearly half—had no engagement with their assailant before the attack.

They were ambushed while sitting in their vehicles, attacked while on patrol, or lured out into the open and killed.

So far in 2022, 14 more officers have been murdered in the line of duty.

Each one of those officers got up each morning, put on their badge and bravely ventured out knowing the risks they would face.

They did their jobs despite all the hardships encountered in these especially difficult past few years because they were devoted to protecting their fellow Americans and keeping communities safe.

Keeping our people safe is our highest priority. Law enforcement is dangerous enough. Wearing a badge and serving the public shouldn’t make someone a target. 

You’ve heard Director Wray address this issue whenever he speaks and we intend to continue sounding the alarm and bringing attention to this issue, and continuing to work with you to counter this horrible trend and take every action to best protect our people.

Data Collection Programs

When it comes to meeting this threat and the many others we face, it’s imperative we continue to increase cooperation and share information with each other.

In support of that, we need to build a complete picture of the situation and environment.

We need concrete information and transparency into what’s really going on in our communities; we need accurate, objective data; data that will allow for an increased understanding of the threat picture, and that will help mitigate the many threats we face.

As many may know, we’ve transitioned to the National Incident-Based Reporting System, or NIBRS data collection program.

It is more detailed, provides more comprehensive data, and is more streamlined and easier to use.

NIBRS-only reporting has been up and running for over a year, and we’ve reached nearly 12,000 law enforcement agencies, 63%, reporting their data.

If you’re participating, thank you.

And if not, I encourage you to do so, by contributing data, you’ll be helping the entire law enforcement community become more informed and intentional in how we approach our work.

The same goes for Use-of-Force data collection, also a top priority.

The goal is to provide a comprehensive view of the circumstances, subjects, and officers involved in use-of-force incidents nationwide.

We’ve now got agencies representing over 60% of law enforcement officers contributing data.

That means in the very near future, we’ll be able to release the first statistics on the use of force. Data that shows the types of force used and resistance encountered, as well as the overall percentages for types of incidents and reasons for initial contact.

Once the 80% mark is reached, we’ll be able to share even more data and insight into use-of-force incidents; able to gain insights that improve safety, trust, and transparency; and we can give the public the necessary facts—and, through transparency hopefully, strengthen our nation’s confidence in law enforcement.

Importance of Partnerships

Sharing data—working to understand our common challenges—is a way for us to work together as one law enforcement community.

And that’s more important now than ever before.

We at the Bureau are committed to building upon the already strong partnerships we share and creating new ones.

It’s not enough to just rely on what is already in place.

We have to go further, to complement one another and be truly integrated.

A few moments ago, I mentioned the violent crime task forces, but we’ve also got Joint Terrorism Task Forces, Cyber Task Forces, and Counterintelligence Task Forces. They’re in every one of our 56 field offices.

Each task force has FBI agents working side by side with federal, state, and local partners.

Those task forces only work because we have shared commitment to work with one another and because we mutually commit our best personnel to these joint endeavors.

We value the teamwork between us beyond any specific threat.

Our SACs should have established close relationships with each of you, and be keeping the lines of communication open.

We’re focused on building relationships with partners now, so when there’s a crisis, those connections are already in place.

If you don’t feel like you have a strong enough relationship with your local FBI office, I want to hear about it, and I want to get that moving in the right direction.

You can also reach out to us through our Office of Partner Engagement, or OPE who are here today.

OPE maintains our vital relationships with the law enforcement community, including this association and coordinates closely with federal, state, local, tribal, and other partners across the country.

I invite you to take advantage of OPE’s programs, including intelligence training, active shooter training, and the Police Executive Fellowship Program, just to name a few.

And I encourage you to stay in touch with your OPE liaison to let us know how we can best support you.

Information Sharing

Another priority of ours is to keep information and intelligence flowing to partners.

Our goal is to share information from across the spectrum and ensure we’re all working as a team to help identify and stop the threats plaguing our communities.

Last July, the FBI hosted an Intelligence Sharing Summit for state and local law enforcement leaders from across the country.

Partners specifically pointed out that our intelligence products related to emerging threats and issues are welcome and useful, and that people value the unclassified sitreps we disseminate during critical incidents.

They also provided some valuable feedback on how we can do better, and we’re already using it, so thank you for the honesty and transparency.

We’re continuing to examine our engagement, information sharing processes, intelligence collaboration and dissemination, and best practices, as well as the barriers that stand in the way and make our partnerships less effective than they could be.

We fully intend to repeat this process of engagement and implement lessons learned to build.

Conclusion

I’ve had the good fortune and great privilege of working for a number of women leaders in the FBI at HQ and in the field. I’m better for that and grateful to each of them for their support, mentorship, and all that I learned from them.

Just recently last month, the FBI hosted Cathy Lanier, former chief of police at the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, as our guest speaker for Women’s History Month.

Cathy is a longtime friend and partner of ours, and she’s someone I worked closely with during my time at the Washington Field Office.

Cathy is remarkable and the epitome of everything I admire and aspire to in leadership.

Like those first women special agents and field office leaders mentioned earlier, Cathy’s also a first.

In 2007, at age 39, after serving as lieutenant, captain, inspector and commander, she became the first woman to be named chief of MPD, one of the nation’s highest-profile police departments.

Not only was she the city’s first woman police chief—and the city’s longest-serving chief—but she and her team were credited with transforming the city, marking a turning point by bringing significant increases in public safety and security to DC.

When she spoke to our workforce last month, she said, “I wanted to change our reputation as the murder capital of the nation, our character and our tactics. It was clear what had to be done.”

That resolve and commitment, hallmarks of Cathy’s leadership, continue to inspire.

As chief, Cathy was always on scene, leading from the front, visible, and constantly communicating with and reassuring the public during every incident and every major event.

She was hands-on and everywhere all the time.

In my mind, that’s what it takes to protect and serve our communities and to be a good partner.

It means asking: What can we do more of? How can we be better?

It means sharing more information, strengthening existing partnerships, and establishing new ones, and yes, being everywhere all the time.

We look forward to strong, continued partnerships with all of you, so we can support each other in the important work of keeping America and its citizens safe.

Thanks to each of you for your fearlessness, for your originality, for your leadership, for your determination, sacrifices, and thank you for everything you do.

Thank you for all you do for your agencies/departments and for the American people every day.

It’s a privilege to join you here, and I hope to see you again very soon.

Stay well and be safe.

Thank you and God bless.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

Joly Germine, 31, of Croix-des-Bouquets, Haiti, was sentenced today to 420 months in prison for his role in a gunrunning conspiracy that smuggled firearms to Haiti in violation of U.S. export laws, and the laundering of ransoms paid for U.S. hostages held by the notoriously violent Haitian gang known as 400 Mawozo. Eliande Tunis, 46, of Pompano Beach, Florida, who styled herself as Germine’s “wife” and was described at trial as the “Queen” of 400 Mawozo, was sentenced on June 5, to 150 months in prison for her role in the conspiracy. Two other defendants in the conspiracy were also sentenced to jail time for their involvement.

The conspiracy resulted in the purchase in the United States of at least 24 firearms, including weapons designed for the military and close-quarters combat such as AK-47s, AR-15s, an M4 Carbine rifle, an M1A rifle, and a .50 caliber rifle, which were smuggled from the United States to the gang in Haiti to further their criminal activities. Those firearms were bought using funds laundered from the proceeds of the hostage taking for ransom of U.S. citizens in Haiti in 2021.

“A leader of the Haitian gang known as 400 Mawozo will now spend 35 years in prison for a scheme to smuggle guns from the United States to Haiti using the proceeds extorted from kidnapping American citizens,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “The leaders of violent gangs in Haiti that terrorize Americans citizens in order to fuel their criminal activity will be met with the full force of the Justice Department.”

“Joly Germine is being held accountable for his role in smuggling weapons into Haiti using funds laundered from the ransoms of kidnapped American citizens,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray. “The 400 Mawazo gang not only wreaks havoc in its own communities but targets innocent Americans living and traveling in Haiti. The FBI will continue to work with our partners to target the leadership and take down any violent criminal group who preys upon Americans abroad and uses unlawful and dangerous tactics like weapons-trafficking and kidnapping to further their criminal enterprise.”

“Firearms smuggling is not a victimless crime,” said Director Steven Dettelbach of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). “Just like these weapons, many guns smuggled to Haiti end up in the hands of violent gangs. Those gangs use them to harm both Haitians and American citizens. As this sentence demonstrates, ATF is committed to working with our law enforcement partners both at home and internationally to hold gun smugglers responsible.” 

“Mr. Germine, a leader of a notorious Haitian gang, admitted to an illegal gun-running scheme to arm fellow gang members with U.S. firearms in support of the group’s violent crime spree across Haiti, including the alleged 2021 kidnapping of 16 U.S. citizens,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The Justice Department will aggressively pursue every tool at its disposal to hold accountable those who would smuggle U.S.-origin weapons and other controlled goods for the benefit of malicious actors and their criminal enterprises.”

“Violent gangs have ravaged Haiti, and all too often, Americans in Haiti have been targets of their violence,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “These two defendants not only helped lead a prominent violent gang in Haiti, but they were also intimately involved in arming the gang and laundering ransom proceeds the gang obtained from kidnapping Americans. Preventing them from illegally shipping anymore firearms or laundering the proceeds of kidnappings strikes a critical blow against the gang they once led.”

“As Joly Germine and Eliande Tunis have just learned, the FBI is dedicated to disrupting and dismantling gangs who undertake hostage-taking of U.S. Citizens anywhere,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI Miami Field Office.  “This includes taking away their ability to wreak violence on the innocent using smuggled firearms.”

“Today’s sentencing sends a strong message: the Diplomatic Security Service is committed to making sure that those who commit transnational crimes face consequences for their criminal actions,” said Assistant Director Paul Houston of the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) for Threat Investigations and Analysis. “DSS’ strong relationship with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and other law enforcement agencies around the world continues to be essential in the pursuit of justice.”

According to court documents, Germine, pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, to the 48-count second superseding indictment, which charged him with conspiring to violate U.S. export control laws and to defraud the United States, violating export control laws, smuggling, and laundering the proceeds of ransoms paid to free U.S. hostages taken by the gang and laundering money to promote his crimes. Germine’s plea came at the end of the government’s case at trial, which included the testimony of 24 witnesses and two weeks of evidence.

Germine’s co-defendant Tunis, who had a supervisory role in the conspiracy, pleaded guilty on the eve of trial on Jan. 17, to the same 48-count indictment, and was sentenced on June 5 to 150 months in prison. Other co-defendants, Jocelyn Dor, 31, and Walder St. Louis, 35, who acted as a straw gun purchasers for Germine and Tunis, both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 60 months and 36 months, respectively, for their roles in the gun-smuggling and money laundering scheme.

According to evidence presented at trial, from at least March through November 2021, Germine, Tunis, and two co-defendants conspired with each other and with other gang members in Haiti to acquire and supply firearms to the 400 Mawozo gang in Haiti. Germine directed the gang’s operations from a Haitian prison using unmonitored cell phones, including directing gang members in Haiti to transfer money to Tunis and others in the United States for the purpose of obtaining firearms for the gang. Germine then provided Tunis and the two other U.S.-based co-defendants, all Florida residents, specifications for firearms and ammunition that Germine and other gang leaders wanted sent to Haiti. Tunis and the two co-defendants then purchased at least 24 rifles, handguns, and a shotgun at Florida gun shops while falsely stating that they were the “actual buyers” of the firearms, when they were in fact acting as straw purchasers for Germine. In approximately May 2021, Tunis smuggled firearms and ammunition to Haiti in containers disguised as food and household goods. In October 2021, Tunis attempted to ship additional firearms and ammunition to Haiti, again by smuggling the firearms, but those firearms were seized by the FBI before they left the United States.

400 Mawozo is a violent Haitian gang that operated in the Croix-des-Bouquets area to the east of the capital, Port-au-Prince. From at least Jan. 12, 2020, 400 Mawozo was engaged in armed hostage takings of U.S. citizens in Haiti for ransom. The victims have generally been forced from their vehicles at gunpoint and kept in various locations by armed gang members while their relatives and colleagues negotiate payment for their release. At trial, the government presented evidence that the gang received ransom payments from the hostage taking of three U.S. citizens in the summer of 2021, who testified at trial, and the cash ransom proceeds were commingled with the gang’s funds and transferred via MoneyGram and Western Union from the United States to Haiti to buy more firearms.

In the fall of 2021, the 400 Mawozo gang claimed responsibility for taking 16 U.S. citizens hostage, including five children, and one Canadian citizen who were part of a missionary organization visiting an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. The gang demanded a ransom of $1 million for each hostage. The hostages were all released or had escaped by on or about Dec. 16, 2021. While Germine has been charged in a separate indictment in relation to that hostage-taking incident, today’s sentencing does not address those charges, which are lodged in case number 22-cr-161 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. An indictment is merely an accusation, and the defendant is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

The FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case, with assistance from the ATF and the Department of Commerce’s Office of Export Enforcement.

Valuable assistance was provided by the government of Haiti, particularly the Haitian National Police, the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, the Department of State’s Diplomatic Security Service and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida’s Special Prosecutions Section.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen P. Seifert and Kimberly Paschall for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Beau Barnes of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section prosecuted the case.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation FBI Crime News

An interim final rule signed by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland on June 24, 2024, will allow federal firearms licensees (FFLs) to voluntarily access records of stolen firearms in the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC). The rule implements parts of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) and allows FFLs to verify whether a firearm offered for sale has been reported as stolen prior to adding it to their inventory.  
 
FFLs will immediately have two options to access the stolen gun records:    

1. FFLs may partner with law enforcement agencies to search the NCIC stolen gun records. 
2. States may request an extract of the NCIC stolen gun records to make available to FFLs within their jurisdiction.  

A third option under development will allow FFLs that currently leverage the National Instant Criminal Background Check System for firearm background checks via E-Check to also use E-Check to query the NCIC stolen gun records.  
 
When a search indicates a firearm is stolen, the FFL may report that information to a criminal justice agency. This will assist law enforcement agencies investigating reports of stolen firearms by providing potential investigative leads and will help deter or halt the sale of stolen firearms through seemingly legitimate business transactions.