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A Romanian national pleaded guilty on Monday to charges related to his role in a “swatting” ring that targeted dozens of public officials, including a former US president. Going by the aliases “Plank,” “Jonah” and “Cypher,” 26-year-old Thomasz Szabo took part in a years-long conspiracy to place bogus 911 calls, claiming emergencies were taking place at the homes of top government officials, and make bomb threats against government buildings and houses of worship, according to Justice Department. Szabo and a co-conspirator, 21-year-old Serbian national Nemanja Radovanovic, allegedly targeted about 100 people, including members of Congress, governors, cabinet-level executive branch officials...

While his father was vice president in 2016, Hunter Biden met with a State Department official on behalf of a Romanian businessman who paid the troubled first son more than $1 million to help his corruption case, raising questions about whether the younger Biden engaged in unregistered foreign lobbying. A review of emails and documents on Hunter Biden's laptop reveal a March 2016 meeting with then-U.S. ambassador to Romania Hans Klemm on the topic of a corruption case against Gabriel Popoviciu, a Romanian real estate tycoon. Popoviciu made more than $1 million in wire payments to Biden from November 2015...

There has been a downward trend since 1960 in the number of children born in the EU. In 2024, Romania recorded its lowest natality rate in the last 100 years. Romania has registered the lowest natality rate in a century – with figures showing that less than 150,000 babies were born last year. Many Romanian villages are registering an ageing population. In urban areas, many are choosing to put their career first and instead have children at a later age. Some schools and kindergartens have been forced to shut due to the lack of children available to attend courses. This...

A major bitcoin investor has suddenly died, leaving behind a cryptocurrency fortune reportedly worth more than $2 billion. Mircea Popescu, a Romanian national, drowned last week off the coast of Costa Rica, local reports said. He was 41. Popescu drowned at Playa Hermosa, according to Teletica.com, which reported that Popescu was swept away by the current and died. His death has prompted questions surrounding what will now happen to Popescu's enormous bitcoin fortune. Popescu, a controversial figure sometimes referred to as "the father of bitcoin toxicity," is known for launching a "bitcoin securities exchange" called MPEx in 2012, according to...

Special Counsel David Weiss appears to have finally made the long-awaited case exposing years of concealment and political corruption. No, it is not the case against Hunter Biden. The allegations of tax fraud in California are obvious and unavoidable. Weiss just made the case against the Justice Department and himself in protecting Hunter Biden from the most damaging charges of being an unregistered foreign agent. In a new filing, Weiss released evidence on Hunter seeking money to advance the interests of a Romanian on United States policy. I have previously testified on the Foreign Agents Registration Act and have previously...

Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu expected to testify against Hunter Biden Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors allege Hunter Biden was paid by a Romanian oligarch to "influence U.S. policy and public opinion," while his father, Joe Biden, was vice president, according to new documents. The documents were filed by Special Counsel David Weiss in the Central District of California on Wednesday. The filings pertain to Hunter Biden's tax trial in California. The allegations are the closest prosecutors have come to tying President Biden to his son's overseas business dealings. Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu is expected to testify against Hunter Biden in...

Prosecutors in special counsel David Weiss' office are accusing Hunter Biden of accepting payments from a Romanian businessman "to influence U.S. government agencies" while his father Joe Biden was vice president. If true, the allegation would mark the closest prosecutors have come to tying President Joe Biden to his son's overseas business endeavors -- a matter congressional Republicans have spent years scrutinizing.

Border Patrol Agents in California arrested groups of migrants suspected of involvement in a sophisticated theft scheme involving stolen department store gift cards, possession of fraudulent identity documents, and credit card skimming activities. The pair of independent busts occurred in the El Centro Border Patrol Sector last week and involved five Chinese nationals in one case and two Romanian nationals in the second. Early last week, Border Patrol agents near Indio, California, encountered five Chinese nationals at an interior Border Patrol immigration checkpoint. Agents found the migrants in possession of numerous stolen gift cards and 23 fraudulent Pennsylvania driver’s licenses....

Houlton Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended 20 Romanian migrants who rushed a border crossing from Canada into Main on Tuesday. The migrants illegally crossed the border in four human smuggling vehicles. Agents patrolling the border near Hodgdon, Maine, received information about four vehicles crossing the international boundary between Canada and the United States on November 21. Agents responded to the area and encountered the four vehicles on Lincoln Road.

The following 19-point time line lays out the data points obtained from whistleblowers, the “Laptop from Hell,” James Comer, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and the Senate 2020 report on the family. One:

Hunter Biden met with his father multiple times while working for a Romanian real estate tycoon accused of corruption — an effort that netted Joe Biden’s second son and associates “millions” of dollars ... The timing of the meetings between the then-vice president and his son have raised questions about the “full truth” of the involvement with Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings... ... Hunter Biden began working for Gabriel Popoviciu in the spring of 2015... The Romanian wanted Hunter Biden’s help fighting a conviction stemming from his purchase of a 550-acre parcel of government-owned land for a steep discount. ......

Tony Bobulinski, one of Hunter Biden’s former business associates, is worried that former elite FBI agent Timothy Thibault may have helped hide information he provided the bureau about his relationship with the Biden family, directly familiar sources told The Washington Free Beacon. Except that wasn’t supposed to happen: “Someone please remind Democrats that according to the precedent established during Alexander Vindman, nobody gets to question the veracity, the motives and the integrity of great Patriot and naval veteran Tony Bobulinski while giving testimony to the Senate tomorrow. Check and mate.” Bobulinski was brave enough to give his story to the...

President Joe Biden and his family are at the center of an influence-peddling scheme in which they traded the patriarch’s decades of time in political offices to line their own pockets and then tried to cover up their profiteering with a myriad of complicated transactions and accounts, the House Oversight Committee confirmed during a press conference on Wednesday. With the help of whistleblowers and congressional subpoenas, Republicans are confidently reporting that the Bidens received at least $10 million worth of diluted payments from foreign companies during and after the president’s time in the Obama White House. These payments were diced...

The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee mounted more attacks Wednesday against President Joe Biden and his family, alleging that relatives of the president engaged in business with foreign nationals. Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., sent a memorandum Wednesday morning to Republican members of the panel, which is investigating the finances of the Biden family, about what he described as information that the committee had recently received from subpoenas from four different banks. The memo said the subpoenas were “tailored to specific individuals and companies that engaged in business activities with Biden family members and their business associates.” It does...

WASHINGTON — House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer identified nine members of President Biden’s family Wednesday who allegedly received foreign income after teasing the bombshell for weeks. “Since you asked, I’ll tell you,” Comer (R-Ky.) told a rapt room of reporters at the Capitol after laying out new bank record evidence showing first son Hunter Biden received $1 million from a corrupt Romanian businessman while his dad was vice president. “Joe Biden’s son [Hunter], Joe Biden’s brother [James], Joe Biden’s brother’s wife [Sara], Hunter Biden’s girlfriend or Beau Biden’s widow [Hallie], however, you want to write that, Hunter Biden’s ex-wife...

Moldova’s parliament on Thursday (16 March) approved a law on referring to the national language as Romanian in all legislative texts and the constitution, despite opposition from a pro-Moscow communist party. The move is intended to resolve a heated dispute over whether the national language should be referred to as Romanian or Moldovan. The constitution currently refers to the national language as Moldovan, but Moldova’s 1991 declaration of independence from the Soviet Union stipulated that Romanian is the official language. Moldova’s governing PAS party proposed the draft law to bring the constitution into line with a constitutional court ruling in...

A Romanian court on Tuesday (Mar 14) denied social media personality Andrew Tate's request to be released on bail from police custody pending a criminal investigation into alleged sex trafficking. Tate, his brother Tristan and two Romanian female suspects have been under police detention since Dec 29 as prosecutors investigate them for suspected human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women, accusations they have denied. The Bucharest court said Tate’s request to have police custody replaced with a restricted release on bail was "inadmissible in principle".

Hunter Biden reportedly met with his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, in the White House on multiple occasions immediately following meetings with Romanian officials, presumably pertaining to a high-profile deal he was involved in with Romanian real estate mogul Gabriel Popoviciu. Hunter met with Biden three times from July 2015 to March 2016 about helping Popoviciu with a “conviction stemming from his purchase of a 550-acre parcel of government-owned land for a steep discount,” the New York Post reported from Hunter’s laptop from hell:

Romanian protesters tried to force their way into parliament on Tuesday, blocking traffic and vandalising some cars in the capital Bucharest in an attempt to prevent lawmakers from making a COVID-19 health pass mandatory for workers. While the ruling coalition of centrists and leftists is currently negotiating the terms of a health pass mandate, no such bill is on parliament's legislative agenda at the moment. An estimated 2,000-2,500 people from across the country gathered outside parliament in the morning waving Romanian flags and chanting "Freedom..." In October, Romanian senators narrowly rejected a bill requiring medical staff, public sector workers and...

LAKE CHARLES, La. – United States Attorney David C. Joseph announced that a Romanian citizen pleaded guilty to attempted bank fraud on Tuesday morning, July 21, 2020, admitting that he used an ATM skimming device in an attempt to steal money from the City Savings Bank in Deridder, Louisiana. U.S. District Judge James D. Cain, Jr. presided over the hearing.As part of his plea agreement, Gigi Velcu, 37, admitted that he attempted to defraud and intended to defraud the bank’s customers by using skimming equipment, including a camera, at the bank’s ATM. The skimming equipment was used to collect...