How a USDA Employee and 5 Others Stole Millions From the Poor
Excerpt:
President Donald Trump’s administration busted a $66 million food stamp fraud ring in New York.
U.S. Department of Agriculture employee Arlasa Davis had one job: stop food stamp fraud. Instead, she allegedly accepted bribes and caused $36 million of fraud over three years by sharing government data.
The Department of Justice charged six people for stealing over $66 million in food stamps from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program in late May.
Every year, the federal government gives billions of dollars to poor Americans who spend that money at over 250,000 licensed retailers ranging from grocery stores to bodegas.
The SNAP program uses federal tax dollars to help low-income households purchase food using Electronic Benefit Transfer cards. The federal government licenses stores to use EBT terminals to process EBT funds from the bank account to the store’s account.
The alleged criminal ring – Michael Kehoe, Mohamad Nawafleh, Omar Alrawashdeh, Gamal Obaid, Emad Alrawashdeh, and Arlasa Davis – are charged with conspiracy to steal government funds and to misappropriate USDA benefits.
In 2019, Kehoe supplied 160 unauthorized EBT terminals to smoke shops and other ineligible stores across the New York area to illegally process more than $30 million in EBT transactions.
The crime ring submitted about 200 fraudulent USDA applications, misappropriating USDA license numbers and, in some cases, doctoring application documents, to obtain EBT terminals for unauthorized stores.
The criminals sold hundreds of EBT license numbers enabling over $36 million in fraudulent SNAP redemptions at unauthorized stores. Davis photographed lists of license numbers intended for qualifying stores and texted them to someone who sold them to co-conspirators, who then used those license numbers to fraudulently obtain EBT terminals for stores that were not authorized by the USDA to process SNAP transactions.
Teenage boys using ‘nudifying’ AI apps to make X-rated images of girls and teachers at school
Excerpt:
Experts have warned of ‘a massive explosion’ in boys – some as young as 13 – using free AI programs to create lifelike fake nude images of fellow pupils.
It is claimed that girls have even been driven to suicide after falling victim to the so-called ‘nudifying’ smartphone apps.
The apps can turn fully clothed photos of classmates – as well as teachers – into realistic-looking explicit nude images. They are thought to now be in use in ‘every classroom’ and teenage pupils have already been convicted of creating and sharing the images.
Under current law, creating, possessing and distributing an indecent image of a child are offences which carry substantial prison terms.
Marcus Johnstone, a criminal defence lawyer, said that there has been a ‘massive explosion’ in such crimes by children who are often unaware how serious their actions are.
‘I am aware of some perpetrators being 13 but they’re mostly 14 and 15,’ he said. ‘But they are getting younger.
.....Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza called on the Government to ‘go much further and faster’ to protect children, telling The Mail on Sunday that the apps ‘are seriously harmful and that their existence is a scandal’.
She added: ‘Nudifying apps should simply not be allowed to exist. It should not be possible for an app to generate a sexual image of a child, whether or not that was its designed intent.’
.....Tech giant Meta is suing Hong Kong-based firm Joy Timeline amid claims it was behind nudifying apps including free to download CrushAI.
It followed reports it had bought thousands of ads on Instagram and Facebook, using multiple fake profiles to evade Meta’s moderators.
Derek Ray-Hill of the Internet Watch Foundation said: ‘This is nude and sexual imagery of real children – often incredibly lifelike – which we see increasingly falling into the hands of online criminals with the very worst intentions.’
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IMO students should not have smart phones in school at all. This tech is more than likely also available here in the US.
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