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UPDATE 10:52 AM – The suspect accused of stealing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s Gucci bag containing approximately $3,000 in cash has been identified as a Chilean undocumented migrant. According to a report by the New York Post, Mario Bustamante-Leiva, 49, was detained on Saturday after reportedly stealing the shoulder bag when Noem, 53, was celebrating Easter with her family at The Capital Burger in Washington, DC. Bustamante-Leiva, who is illegally in the United States, is considered to be a member of a vast east coast robbery network, and law enforcement is still looking for another undocumented immigrant who served...

The masked migrant who was arrested for stealing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s Gucci bag containing $3,000 in cash is a Chilean national who was previously busted for a similar scheme in London, law enforcement sources told The Post. Mario Bustamante-Leiva, 49, of Santiago, was arrested on Saturday after he allegedly made off with the luxury shoulder bag while Noem, 53, was at an Easter outing with her family at The Capital Burger in Washington, DC, sources told The Post. Bustamante-Leiva, who is in the US illegally, is believed to be part of a large East Coast robbery organization. Cops...

Welp, it sounds like they've arrested the man accused of stealing Kristi Noem's purse, and SHOCKER, he's not in this country legally.We wouldn't be more surprised if we woke up tomorrow morning with our heads sewn to the carpet.

The spread of Chinese overseas police service stations around the world raises concerns among human rights campaigners. The Chinese government is opening illegal police posts all over the world. China claims that these posts are capable of cracking down on global and multinational crimes. These checkpoints have been opened in many countries around the world including developed countries like Canada and Ireland. According to local media reports, Fuzhou has established informal police service stations affiliated with the Public Security Bureau (PSB) across Canada. At least three of these stations are located in the Greater Toronto Area only. Chinese Police Station...

While the focus of the Trump administration has been on seizing control of the Panama Canal from China, another port on the Pacific Ocean side of South America, CopiaPort-E in Chile, billed as the “Rotterdam of the Pacific,” demands President Trump’s attention. The World Bank, UNESCO, and the Chinese Communist Party had long planned for CopiaPort-E’s 8-kilometer-long natural breakwater peninsula to be the landing pad for China’s “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) in South America. If the Trump administration acts fast, President Trump can block the final step in China’s BRI expansion plans in South America before China finalizes the...

New research from writers and researchers Trevor Loudon and Cliff Kincaid shows that Leon Panetta, the CIA director being considered on Thursday for the position of Secretary of Defense, had a previously undisclosed personal and friendly relationship with Hugh DeLacy, a prominent member of the Communist Party USA. DeLacy visited such countries as China and Nicaragua and was himself a personal contact of identified Soviet spies Solomon Adler and Frank Coe and accused spy John Stewart Service. Panetta spoke at DeLacy’s memorial service, directed a series of letters to him personally as “Dear Hugh,” and placed a tribute to him...

A female individual of Alsodes vittatus (Credit: Edvin Riveros) CONCEPCIÓN, Chile — For 130 years, a small Chilean frog vanished from scientific view. Biologists searched. Nature enthusiasts kept their eyes open. But Alsodes vittatus remained stubbornly invisible, known only from a single preserved specimen and the yellowed pages of a century-old scientific description. That changed when a team of determined researchers from Chilean universities finally located not one but three populations of this mythical amphibian hiding in remote Andean streams. Their March 2025 paper in the journal ZooKeys documents what might be the most exciting amphibian rediscovery in South America...

A major lithium deposit discovered near the Portuguese border in Castilla Leon could power Spain’s energy future. Found within the Conchas Project by Berkeley Energy, the 31 square kilometre site has been hailed financially as a highly significant resource that, if mined efficiently, could meet Spain’s lithium needs, reducing the country’s reliance on imports. Currently, most of the lithium Spanish battery manufacturers use comes from South America. The project, which is still in feasibility studies, promises significant economic growth for the region but faces hurdles. Environmental groups warn that extraction could harm water resources and biodiversity, and they are calling...

The Massachusetts lobster diver who was accused of lying about being swallowed by a whale says horrifying footage of a Chilean kayaker who endured the same fate has now 'vindicated' him. Shocking cell phone footage showed an unsuspecting kayaker being seemingly devoured by an enormous humpback whale near Punta Arenas on February 8. Fortunately, the whale spat Adrian Simancas, 24, out of its mouth just moments after engulfing him and he was unharmed. Adrian's panicked father Dell, who recorded the ordeal from another kayak, was heard yelling for him in Spanish - telling his son to remain calm. He quickly...

Cuba has officially declared its intention to join South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the court announced on Monday. “Cuba, invoking Article 63 of the Statute of the Court, filed in the Registry of the Court a declaration of intervention in the case concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip,” the court stated. With the move, Cuba joined Nicaragua, Colombia, Mexico, Libya, Bolivia, Turkey, the Maldives, Chile, Spain, Ireland and the Palestinian Authority, all of which had previously joined the South African...

Keanu Reeves’ stolen Rolex has been found — in Chile.The $9,000 Rolex Submariner, engraved with Reeves’ name, turned up in a police raid on four houses in Santiago. The timepiece is believed to have been stolen from Reeves’ Hollywood Hills home in December 2023. Two other watches belonging to Reeves, described by police as valuable, were also found in a sweep linked to a series of local robberies, according to CNN.A 21-year-old man was arrested.Reeves, perhaps most famous for his starring role in the “John Wick” movie series, had engraved the Rolex watch with his first name and the words...

A suspected home invasion in Bradenton turned fatal late Thursday night after the homeowner confronted two intruders and shot one of them, the sheriff’s office said. Just after 9 p.m., deputies say two masked men were caught on the homeowner’s video surveillance entering the back of a house on the 6700 block of Hickory Hammock Circle in the River Club community. “This is the state of Florida. If you want to break into someone’s home, you should expect to be shot,” Sheriff Rick Wells said at a press conference Friday morning. The homeowner, who was inside at the time, fired...

On the edge of Peru's coastal desert, a remote fishing town where a third of all residents have no running water is being transformed into a huge deep-water port to cash in on the inexorable rise of Chinese interest in resource-rich South America. The megaport of Chancay, a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, is turning this outpost of bobbing fishing boats into an important node of the global economy. China's President Xi Jinping inaugurates the port Thursday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru. The development — expected to encompass 15 quays and a...

MEXICO CITY — In Peru, there is talk of building a monument in his honor. In Honduras and Ecuador, leaders have copied his draconian security policies, his tough-on-crime rhetoric — and even his fashion choices. In Chile, Costa Rica, Colombia and Guatemala, citizens have taken to the streets calling on their own governments to embrace his extreme strategies for combating violence. The brash young autocrat has won legions of fans throughout the region for a sweeping crackdown on gangs that has dramatically lowered violent crime. That his “mano dura” policies draw scorn from human rights and democracy advocates seems to...

DARIEN GAP, Panama—The grind of heavy machinery breaks the silence of the Darién jungle, where the Pan American Highway ends at Yaviza in Panama. Construction workers have cleared towering trees to make way for a steel and concrete bridge mighty enough to withstand flooding from the Chucunaque River. An onsite worker for the construction company Cusa told The Epoch Times the construction project will cut 4 miles into the Darién jungle at a cost of $42 million and includes a second bridge crossing the Tuira River. That would leave some 55 miles to finish the Pan American Highway, also known...

Agroup of illegal immigrants from South America was indicted by a federal grand jury for allegedly using construction crew disguises, blowtorches and cellphone jammers, among other "sophisticated tactics," to rob banks across multiple states of more than $4 million in cash, according to federal prosecutors. The crew, made up mostly of Chilean nationals, targeted more than 29 banks and credit unions throughout California, Oregon and Washington between May and October, U.S. Attorney Phillip A. Talbert announced. According to court documents, the group mapped out ATMs in "vulnerable locations," then rented short-term vacation properties nearby and used cars they rented on...

Vehicle tracks have torn through the geoglyphs of Alto Barranco. Image courtesy of the Atacama Desert Foundation Acollection of gigantic artworks carved into the Atacama Desert centuries ago has been destroyed by thunderous parades of 4x4s, quadbikes, and all-terrain motorcycles. Located in the Tarapacá region of present-day northern Chile, the geoglyphs of Alto Barranco were made by the region’s Indigenous people along the migration route between the Oasis of Pica and the coast of the Pacific Ocean. The etchings were created between 900 and 1450 CE by removing darker surface rocks and pebbles from the ground, revealing a lighter sandy...

The following is a report from Gateway Hispanic. The Chilean Congress has passed a law to protect the rights of domestic animals. It criminalizes the slaughter, distribution, and commercialization of the meat of pets and companion animals. The Chilean congressman José Carlos Meza authored the bill. This measure arises from reports about the consumption of dog and cat meat in certain foreign communities within the country, particularly the Haitian community, according to Deputy José Carlos Meza, the bill’s author. In Chile, it is documented that foreign communities, particularly Haitians, consume the meat of domestic animals and pets, such as cats....

“They’re coming.” That’s what Miguel, a Venezuelan migrant who came to America with his wife and two daughters, told me about the gang, Tren de Aragua, earlier this year. “And they’re very bad.” The past few days have shown how far the Venezuelan gang appears willing to go. In Aurora, Colorado, Tren de Aragua has allegedly terrorized the local community. According to Mayor Mike Coffman, at least two buildings in the city “have fallen to” a group of armed men, suspected to be gang members. “This is an organized criminal effort. Whether it’s Tren de Aragua, that remains to be...

(CNN) An alleged multistate human trafficking ring forcing immigrant women into prostitution. The mysterious killing of a former police officer in South Florida. Attacks against police officers in New York. The arrest of a drug dealer in Chicago. Local and federal officials say these apparently unrelated crimes have a common denominator: Tren de Aragua, a transnational criminal gang that originated in a Venezuela prison and has slowly made its way south and north in recent years. They say it’s now operating in the United States. The scale of its operations is unknown, but crimes attributed to alleged members of the...