Work In Progress

I’ve really enjoyed reading the Gazette’s look at cold cases over the past few weeks. It’s hard enough to have a loved one murdered, but not to know who did it or have any closure would be unbearable.

Here’s a 30-year-old murder case that was solved with the help of some new technology from the FBI.

May 1977. A man is beaten to death in a suburb of San Diego. Police find a smudged latent print at the scene and search it against California state fingerprint files. No match is found, no leads developed, no suspect identified.

May 2007. The investigating agency—the Escondido Police Department—creates a cold case squad and reopens the 1977 murder case. This time around, law enforcement is able to take advantage of an investigative tool that was not in existence 30 years earlier—the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS) that ties together fingerprint records from around the country. Several hits are made in IAFIS and a suspect is identified.

This is just one example of the thousands of cases investigated every year by state and local law enforcement around the country that get an assist from IAFIS. It was also the case chosen by our Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division to receive its 2008 IAFIS “Hit of the Year” award presented late last year.

The Hit of the Year is the brainchild of our CJIS Division, which created the award in 2007 in response to a survey of law enforcement agencies that were asking for more details of major cases solved when IAFIS identified latent prints. The award, presented annually at the International Association for Identification conference, was given out for the first time in 2007. Details about the award-winning case are also published in a CJIS publication available online to all law enforcement.

The Escondido case was selected for recognition because of the persistence of the cold case squad members and the California state fingerprint analyst. Their efforts led to not only an identification but an arrest as well…30 years after the murder.

Here are some of the case details.

Shortly after the Escondido Police Department cold case squad was formed, the team began looking into the 1977 murder. In addition to two homicide detectives, members of the team included two retired officers—one who had actually been on patrol in Escondido the night of the murder—and a retired FBI agent.

The squad interviewed more than 30 people across the country and reviewed crime scene photos. They also submitted photographs of the smudged print to the California Department of Justice, where a latent print analyst checked state databases as well as the Bureau’s IAFIS.

Within 16 minutes, IAFIS kicked out 20 possible matches for comparison. The state analyst determined a definite match—to a convicted murderer who had been arrested in several states and was currently living in Reno, Nevada, out on lifetime parole after the murder of a Reno woman.  

The suspect was arrested by Reno authorities and extradited to San Diego. He pled guilty to the murder of the Escondido man and is now back in prison, where he belongs.

Looking for nominations.

If you work at a police department and you think you’ve got a great case for consideration for the 2009 Hit of the Year, e-mail the details to the CJIS Division’s Latent Technology Development Team at ltdt@leo.gov. The award will be presented in August at the International Association for Identification conference in Tampa. Best of luck!

Driving home around 3:30 Tuesday morning after reporting on a wreck I saw the blue lights of a police car flashing before me on South New Hope Road, near the location of  Bethlehem Church’s entranceway.

I figured it was a license check. I was sober so I was safe. I also had my license on me.

But instead of a license check, it was a single police officer standing outside his car headed north as I traveled south. Instead of looking for drunken drivers, he had turned on his lights to help a little turtle - a box turtle, I guess - cross the road.

There was no other traffic on the road, so the officer wasn’t blocking passers-by with this small act of kindness. I didn’t ask his name, and didn’t recognize him, but he also said he was on his way home when he saw the turtle crossing the street.

He didn’t want anyone to hit the turtle, so he had apparently turned around his patrol car and stood watch in the light morning rain as the turtle slowly inched across two lanes of traffic.

He might be embarrassed if anyone knew what he did, but it’s nice to know that Gastonia has police officers nice enough to even help out turtles when they probably just wanted to head home and go to sleep.

The FBI has added an animal rights “extremist” to its list of most wanted terrorists, which include the likes of Osama bin Laden.

This person is accused of bombing facilities in California, causing substantial property damage, but no loss of life.

Here is the report:

An animal rights extremist wanted for allegedly bombing two San Francisco-area office buildings in 2003 has been added to our Most Wanted Terrorists list—the first domestic terrorist to be included with international terrorists such as Usama Bin Laden.

Daniel Andreas San Diego, 31, should be considered armed and dangerous. His domestic acts of terror were planned to destroy property, to cause economic hardship for the companies he targeted, and possibly to take lives—one of his bombs was laced with nails to create potentially deadly shrapnel. We are offering a reward of up to $250,000 for information directly leading to his arrest.

“We have added San Diego to the Most Wanted Terrorists list to increase public awareness about this domestic terrorist fugitive and to aid in his arrest,” said Michael J. Heimbach, Assistant Director of our Counterterrorism Division, at a press conference today at FBI Headquarters in Washington. “We will not relent until San Diego is apprehended and his potential for future acts of violence and destruction is eliminated.”

Animal rights and environmental extremism pose a significant domestic terror threat. To date, extremists have been responsible for more than 1,800 criminal acts and more than $110 million in damages. Currently, we are investigating approximately 170 such extremist incidents across the country. 

San Diego, known to be involved with a group called SHAC—Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty—is wanted for his alleged involvement in bombing two biotech facilities that did business with Huntingdon Life Sciences, a company that conducts animal experimentation for the medical and pharmaceutical industries.

The first bombing occurred on August 28, 2003, outside Chiron Life Science Center in Emeryville, California.  When authorities responded, a second bomb was discovered, but exploded before it could be disarmed, raising the possibility that the device was planted specifically to target first responders.

Less than a month later, another bomb exploded outside a company based in Pleasanton, California. That bomb was made with metal nails to create more powerful shrapnel and destruction.

After each crime, claims of responsibility were posted on the Internet demanding that the businesses end their affiliation with Huntingdon Life Sciences. Future violence was threatened if these demands were not met.  Fortunately, no one died in the explosions, but property damage was extensive.

San Diego was initially identified as a suspect after being stopped by a local police officer for a minor traffic violation in Pleasanton about an hour before the Pleasanton bombing. A subsequent search of his home and vehicle revealed bomb-making materials similar to those used in both attacks, and he was later indicted for the crimes.

San Diego has been on the run since October 2003.  He is six feet tall, weighs about 160 pounds, and has brown hair and brown eyes. He wears glasses, is known to carry a 9mm handgun, has traveled internationally, and may be living out of the country, possibly in Costa Rica. He is a vegan, and avoids consuming or wearing anything made with animal products. He also has distinctive tattoos—one on his chest is round and shows burning hills and plains with the words “It only takes a spark.”

We need your help. If you have information you believe may be helpful to the investigation, contact our San Francisco office or submit a tip on our Tips and Public Leads page.

This week’s FBI Top 10 stories has a real focus on some dirty rotten scoundrels in business - from folks who helped Bernard Madoff steal millions to another Ponzi scheme operator in Atlanta.

In today’s economy there seems to be a lot of fingerpointing and demonization of those in the financial world.

Here’s the list:

FBI’s Top Ten News Stories for the Week Ending March 20, 2009

1. New York: Bernard Madoff’s Accountant Charged with Fraud Stemming from Accounting Violations

David G. Friehling, CPA, the accountant for Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, LLC, was charged with securities fraud, aiding and abetting investment advisor fraud, and four counts of filing false audit reports with the SEC. Full Story

2. Boston: Ex-Pfizer Manager Found Guilty of Obstruction

Thomas Farina was convicted of obstruction of justice when he caused a sales representative under his direction to alter documents and backdate the alterations to delete evidence of the promotion of a drug for uses and dosages not approved by the FDA. Full Story

3. New York: Gambino Family Soldier Convicted of Racketeering Conspiracy

Charles Carneglia was convicted of racketeering conspiracy, including murder, murder conspiracy and extortion. Carneglia was a soldier in the Gambino Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra and was a member of the inner circle of hit men. Full Story

4. Los Angeles: Ex-FBI Agent and Accomplice Convicted

Vo Duong “Ben” Tran and Yu Sung Park were convicted on charges related to a scheme to commit a home invasion robbery at a residence believe to be a drug “stash house.” Tran’s FBI employment was terminated in 2003. Full Story

5. Atlanta: Currency Trader Charged with Operating $25 Million Ponzi Scheme

James G. Ossie, founder and principal of “CRE Capital, Inc.,” was indicted on wire fraud charges. Ossie allegedly defrauded over 120 investors in nine months in his investment fund for private clients focused on options contracts in foreign currencies. Full Story

6. Albany: On-Line Organ Transplant Broker Charged

Jerome Howard Feldman was indicted for carrying out a scheme to defraud desperately-ill victims who paid large sums of money and traveled to the Philippines to receive organ transplants. Feldman advertised on the web site www.liver4you.org. Full Story

7. Newark: Federal Agents Shut Down an International Smorgasbord of Crime

Operation Black Eagle resulted in charging 26 individuals with a laundry list of crimes including narcotics and firearms trafficking, money laundering, interstate transportation of stolen property and criminal conspiracy. Full Story

8. Richmond: Business Owner Convicted in $126 Million Fraud

The former owner of The 1031 Tax Group LLP, Edward H. Okun, was convicted on charges of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, money laundering, bulk cash smuggling, and perjury. Full Story

9. San Francisco: Hedge Fund Manager Arrested in Hong Kong on Embezzlement Charges

Albert Ke-Jeng Hu, a Silicon Valley Hedge Fund manager, was arrested in Hong Kong on wire fraud charges. Full Story

10. FBI Director Recognizes Distinguished Community Leaders

One of my favorite FBI stories has to do with an unsolved case - exactly who was D.B. Cooper and did he survive a 1971 jump over the Pacific Northwest?

The crime was so crazy, but even more amazing to me is that even after all these years so little is known about the identity of the man identified as “Dan Cooper,” much less his fate. Well, here’s some insight into the case from the FBI. Pretty cool stuff.:

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Electron microscopes, dollar bills on a fishing pole, and a French Canadian comic book hero are providing tantalizing new insights into one of our greatest unsolved mysteries—the D.B. Cooper case.

We’ve told the story here before—how in 1971 a man calling himself Dan Cooper hijacked a plane from Portland to Seattle, demanded parachutes and $200,000 in cash, then jumped into the night with the money, never to be seen again. In the fictional series, Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot Dan Cooper takes part in adventures in outer space and real events of that era. In one episode, published near the date of the hijacking, the cover illustration shows him parachuting.

Seattle Special Agent Larry Carr, who took over the Cooper case two years ago, believes it’s possible the hijacker took his name from the comic book (the enduring “D.B.” was actually the result of a media mistake). That’s important because the books were never translated into English, which means the hijacker likely spent time overseas. This fits with Carr’s theory that Cooper had been in the Air Force (see sidebar).

Carr discovered the comic book connection on D.B. Cooper Internet forums, where fascination with the case is undiminished. The forums are also where Carr found the “citizen sleuths” who volunteered to help us reinvigorate the case.

The FBI assigned Carr to the case about two years ago.

Even though our investigation has remained open, it doesn’t make sense for the FBI to commit substantial resources to this nearly four-decade-old crime, Carr says. “So if the public can help, by whatever means, maybe we can shake something loose.”

Enter Tom Kaye, a paleontologist who usually searches for dinosaur bones in the Wyoming desert. With a team that included a scientific illustrator and a metallurgist, and assistance from a veteran Cooper searcher and Brian Ingram—who was eight years old in 1980 when he found $5,800 of the ransom money on a sand bar along the Columbia River (the only physical evidence in the case after Cooper jumped from the plane)—Kaye recently spent time conducting soil, water, and other experiments on the Columbia and some of its tributaries.

“The FBI threw out the challenge,” he said, “and we’ve taken the bait.”

Using technology unavailable in 1971, such as satellite maps and GPS, Kaye hopes to pinpoint exactly where Ingram found the money nearly three decades ago. He plans to retrace the plane’s flight plan to determine more exact coordinates for Cooper’s landing zone. And using an electron microscope, he wants to figure out if pollen found on a tie Cooper left behind on the plane came from a specific region of the country.

And that stack of dollar bills on fishing line? Kaye conducted experiments to help determine if the money Ingram found floated there over time, or was buried there shortly after Cooper jumped.

“After 37 years,” he said, “we’re trying to use science to narrow all the possibilities.”

It’s yet another twist in a case that continues to fascinate the nation.

If you have any information on Cooper, please e-mail our Seattle field office at Seattle.FBI@ic.fbi.gov.

Resources:
- D.B. Cooper Redux: Help Us Solve the Enduring Mystery
- A Byte Out of History: The D.B. Cooper Mystery

Here’s another installment of the FBI’s Top 10 stories of the week. This week’s batch has a soldier stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars in Iraq, a corrupt Border Patrol agent and other examples of misdeeds.

Here’s the latest installment of the FBI’s Top 10:

1. Portland: West Point Graduate Indicted for Money Laundering and Theft of Government Property

Capt. Michael Dung Nguyen was charged with theft of government property, money laundering and structuring financial transactions. While deployed to Iraq, Nguyen stole more than $690,000 from the Commander’s Emergency Response Program. Full Story

2. Baltimore: Illegal Alien Sentenced for Racketeering Conspiracy  

Mohammad Akhtar was sentenced for his role in a racketeering conspiracy related to a scheme to bribe officials to illegally obtain green cards. Akhtar is a Pakistani national residing illegally in New Jersey. Full Story

3. Oklahoma City: Indictment in Alien Smuggling Case

Jorge Angel Kusanovic was indicted and charged with 15 felony counts involving alien smuggling, encouraging illegal entry, harboring aliens and possessing false immigration documents. Kusanovic maintained control over the aliens by illegally intercepting and recording their telephone calls without their consent. Full Story

4. San Antonio: CBP Inspector Sentenced for Alien Smuggling and Bribery

Former Customs and Border Protection inspector Guadalupe Garza was sentenced for alien smuggling and bribery. Garza corruptly demanded, received and accepted things of value to allow illegal aliens to enter the U.S. Full Story

5. Buffalo: Husband and Wife Plead Guilty to Harboring and Concealing Aliens

Ying Dong and Bing Lu pled guilty to harboring and concealing illegal aliens whom they employed at their massage parlor, Eastern Spa. Full Story

6. Houston: Two UK Citizens Indicted for Bribing Nigerian Government Officials

Jeffrey Tesler and Wojciech Chodan were indicted for their alleged participation in a decade-long scheme to bribe high-level Nigerian officials in order to obtain lucrative contracts as part of a Kellogg, Brown & Root Inc. venture scheme. Full Story

7. Los Angeles: CPA Sentenced in Massive Fraud Against HSBC

Richard Po-Chun Wong was sentenced for defrauding HSBC Business Credit out of approximately $46 million through several elaborate schemes. Through his accounting practice, he prepared false financial documents for his clients, “redid” their books and helped them secure credit lines. Full Story

8. Philadelphia: Three Individuals Charged with Operating Internet Prostitution Ring

Roger Sedlak, his wife, Marianna, and Kelli Kaylor were indicted on charges of operating a multi-state, internet-based prostitution ring. Each defendant faces a maximum of 35 years in prison. Full Story

9. San Diego: Guilty Plea in International Debit Card Fraud and Money Laundering Conspiracy

Mikhail M. Tuknov, Jr. pled guilty to debit card fraud and conspiracy to launder money through Automated Teller Machines. Tuknov admitted to using 1044 fraudulent debit cards and related PINs. Full Story

10. Phoenix: Four Indicted for Investment Fraud

A 90-count indictment was returned against operators of Mac Investments, Inc. alleging that at least 300 individuals were victims of the $8 million fraud. The defendants used aliases when promoting the scheme, a cashless ATM business program. Full Story

I want to thank GastonGazette.com readers for helping us cover the recent snowstorm with hundreds of photos, which can be seen online.

From Belmont to Cherryville, and Dallas, Cramerton, Mount Holly, Bessemer City in between we received photos from our readers. If you haven’t had a chance to see them, please do. The photos show children at play, historical buildings covered in snow and just old guys cleaning off their trucks.

Here

Dozens of folks sent us hundreds of photos. If we somehow missed yours, just drop me a note and we’ll get it online.

Again, thanks for the effort.

And remember to send us photos again the next time a big (or small) event happens in your life.

Some of you may have seen the news from Sunday/Monday about a 30-mile pileup on I-85 North south of Gaffney, S.C. because of a snow-related incident.

I didn’t see the news accounts, but I lived it. Yes, my Greyhound bus trip back to Gastonia from McAllen, Texas, turned into even more of a marathon as the snowstorm delayed my return trip by a whopping 19 hours.

Ten of those hours were spent on the same square of I-85 asphalt. After we finally started moving, our bus driver announced that federal law prevented him from driving any farther within a 24-hour period so he had to park us at a Pilot gas station while we waited for another driver to arrive from Atlanta. That was another five hours, but at least during that time I could recharge the battery to my computer and phone.

The trip was supposed to be a 33-hour affair, with me arriving in Charlotte at 6:30 p.m. Sunday. Instead, I got back home around 1:30 p.m. Monday.

What does someone do for 10 hours stuck on a bus. I slept some, I talked with fellow passengers, made cell phone calls and just waited. I didn’t do enough praying, I’m ashamed to admit.

On the bright side, I was warm during this time, not exposed to the elements. I had food and water. There were bathroom facilities on the bus, although I’m more of an outdoor guy when it comes to such situations.

I joined the “smokers” outside the bus twice just to breathe some fresh air and take care of that other business as I mentioned earlier.

All in all, I’m still OK with taking a bus. It wasn’t a bad experience and I’d likely still have been stuck on I-85 in my own car.

Don’t hate me, but I went for a walk at 10:20 tonight (2/24) and the temperature was 68 degrees outside with a light breeze. Nice, real nice.

The Rio Grande Valley of Texas is one of my favorite places to visit, and not just because my parents live here. Located on the southern most tip of Texas, the temperatures are moderate this time of year, although it has broken 90 degrees on two of the four days I’ve been here. But I’ve also been swimming two nights, and could have gone the other two nights.

My parents live in the town of Pharr - no relation that I know of to the textile mill in Gaston County. This is a  town of more than 60,000 people in a community of four counties that more than 1.1 million call home. The population of this area swells by 200,000 or more each winter when the “Winter Texans” arrive in November and December, mostly from places like Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and other parts of the midwest.

The Winter Texans start heading home in March, although my parents have now lived here full time for about three years.

About 90 percent of the population here is Latino, and my parents actually live only about five miles from an international bridge that will take you into Mexico. You don’t have to speak Spanish to get by here, but it would help to be bilingual.

Agriculture remains a big part of the economy, on both sides of the Rio Grande River, which gives the region its name. The “valley” is really a delta.

They grow a lot of vegetables here, from watermelon to onions to tomatoes. And those vegetables can be bought on the cheap at area flea markets, which are huge here. The flea markets are a mix of folks selling home grown vegetables to drug store items to clothing and small electronics.

We went to a flea market Saturday that had hundreds of vendors and thousands of customers, and it had rained most of that morning. Now at these flea markets they also sell food. One of the most popular items is a fried baked potato that’s made into one huge curly fry.

Now on this curly fry/baked potato, folks will cover it in hot pepper sauce. In fact, they put chili pepper on most everything, including watermelon and pineapple - the latter of which I tried and did enjoy it.

But what brings people down is the weather, especially in the winter. Now, it does get cold, but you can also reach highs in the 70s and 80s many days. Because it’s so flat you also have a nice breeze most days and nights.

I especially like the nights here. There’s usually a cool breeze and a cloudless sky, full of stars.

One of the best things about Texas is the food, especially the barbecue and the Mexican food. To Texans, if it’s cooked on an open fire then it’s barbecue. So that includes sausages, brisket, tenderloin and the items we’re familiar with calling barbecue.

Most restaurants also sell breakfast tacos of eggs and bacon or sausage on fresh tortillas, which are very good. Mix in a little potato, some salsa and onion and it’s a meal.

Well, it’s getting late and we’re supposed to go to Mexico in the morning. Check back on updates. And remember, I’ll be blogging my bus ride home starting Saturday.