Free Republic

A gang of wealthy 'crypto bros' have been arrested for luring their former business partner to a stunning New York City mansion before torturing him for weeks. The group are accused of kidnapping the 28-year-old Italian man before committing sickening acts on him in the $75,000-per-month rented brownstone in Soho. They alleged to have Tazed him, pistol-whipped him and threatened to carve him up with a chainsaw if he did not give up the millions of dollars in his crypto account. But their plot was foiled when the victim - who has not been named - escaped and flagged down...

I’m not gonna say “I told you so” because that’s tacky…But I do take my reporting very seriously and I love to see when our reporting is backed up by big sources.I’ve been shouting from the rooftops that the banking failures of April/May are not over.That was just the start.I’ve been saying we almost certainly see a period of time where the banks “shut down” and you can’t get your money. Now I being you this clip from Patrick Bet-David’s podcast with Col. Douglas MacGregor who basically confirmed all of that is true. But worse than I even expected.I expected...

Abdala Rada Ramel has close ties to Salman Raouf Salman, who has been also accused of an important role in the AMIA bombing attack The "clans" consist of groups of Lebanese origin who exert control over given territories in South America - and enable Hezbollah All three clans are strategically positioned close to the most important ports of Venezuela, from which they doubtless oversee the trade and handling of goods that in turn allows Hezbollah to profit Assad Ahmad Barakat is accused of having been involved in the AMIA bomb attack and operating call centers and shell companies on behalf...

Authorities in Mexico have confirmed the remains found in 45 plastic bags near Guadalajara belong to as many as eight call center employees, who were reported missing in May, according to CBS. Six men and two women were reported missing by their families between May 20 and May 22. While their families believed their loved ones worked at a typical call center, the facility was reportedly one of 19 in Mexico under investigation by the United States Department of the Treasury for possible links to the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG). “CJNG’s deep involvement in timeshare fraud in the Puerto...

It may be setting the stage to eliminate voter fraud by illegals and scammers. Use this as a basis for voting and it can only improve the troubled and fraud-filled voter databases that fill BLUE state voter rolls. I have a natural aversion to this sort of seemingly intrusive verification of names and federalization of data. But so much scamming has been going on in the state systems that they are untrustworthy in many places. Maybe this is the base move for creating a national voting ID to end fraud in elections.

For years, scammers have targeted community colleges across the state, posing as students in order to steal money from scholarships or government financial aid. Recent state reports suggest the problem is getting worse, and college leaders say they’re worried that the Trump administration’s cuts to the U.S. Department of Education could hamper fraud prevention and investigations. In 2021, the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office reported that about 20% of college applicants were likely fake. In January 2024, the state said it was up to about 25%. Now it’s around 34%, according to the most recent data from the last calendar...

Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) crew have revealed that 40%—nearly half—of the phone calls the Social Security Administration receives are from “fraudsters” who are changing beneficiaries’ bank information to steal benefits. “When you want to change your bank account, you can call Social Security. We learned 40% of the phone calls that they get are from fraudsters,” one of Musk’s prodigies stated. President Trump’s DOGE head, Elon Musk, and members of his team sat for an interview with Bret Baier, which aired on Thursday evening, to discuss the waste, fraud, and abuse in government spending that...

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, blasted California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) for abandoning transgender athletes earlier this week in an interview with conservative activist Charlie Kirk. Newsom launched a podcast last year, and recently revamped it, saying that he wanted to interview people in the MAGA movement. (Newsom’s office has repeatedly refused requests for interviews with, or of, Breitbart News.) The publicity stunt is apparent meant to burnish Newsom’s bipartisan credentials ahead of a possible run for the presidency in 2028. But it backfired badly after Newsom, who built his career on LGBTQ causes, backtracked. As Breitbart...

Twenty-five Canadians have been charged with swindling hundreds of American seniors out of more than $21 million through what's known as a "grandparent scam," federal prosecutors announced Tuesday. The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Vermont said in a statement that the alleged perpetrators were indicted by a federal grand jury in late February. They range in age from their late-20s to mid-40s and all but one are based in Quebec province, which is home to Montreal. The announcement lists their names as well as the aliases they used, including Muscles, Elvis, Blondie, Happy, Honda and...

An illegal immigrant is facing deportation after he was caught allegedly scamming an elderly woman in Hermon with an aggressive scheme involving numerous escalating demands and multiple visits to her house. The Penobscot County Sheriff’s Department received a report on February 3 that scammers repeatedly called an elderly Hermon woman, claiming that her bank account was compromised and demanding that she withdraw the funds. According to the department’s report, the alleged scammers initially attempted to sound professional before resorting to more aggressive demands. The alleged scammers successfully coerced the woman into handing over a large, undisclosed amount of money in...

DARPA scientist Joshua Elliott, the documents show. He was a DARPA program manager from 2017 to 2023, according to his LinkedIn. Beforehand, he studied things like “socio-technical change,” and worked in academia for 10 years on things like “computational climate economics.” At DARPA, he was allowed to “program” $600 million in federal research and development funding, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Afterward, Elliott worked for the radical group Quadrature Climate Foundation, and more recently, Renaissance

Thai authorities have cut off internet, power and fuel along the Thailand and Myanmar border in a bid to thwart the operation of scam centres there. The move on February 5, 2025, came amid growing pressure for Thailand to do more to help clamp down on the illegal compounds that have ensnared vast numbers of people from many jurisdictions. The Thai Provincial Electricity Authority disconnected power supplies at five points along the northern border, including Myawaddy in Myanmar’s Shan state. The high-profile rescue of a Chinese actor from a scam operation near the Thai border in January has put the...

Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) now has access to the Treasury Department's payment system and some are concerned about the benefits many Americans receive. CBS MoneyWatch correspondent Kelly O'Grady reports.

With students at many colleges wrapping up final exams this week and preparing for their winter break, a number of schools, including Harvard, U.S.C. and Cornell, are advising their international students to return to campus before President-elect Donald J. Trump is inaugurated on Jan. 20. During his last administration, Mr. Trump imposed restrictions on entry to the United States from seven majority-Muslim countries, a policy that stranded thousands of students who were abroad at the time. Later in his term, Mr. Trump added more countries to the restricted travel list. And he has spoken of wanting to reimpose those restrictions...

'I've got all the time in the world.'Scammers worldwide are making off big. Last year alone, the Federal Trade Commission estimates US consumers lost a record $10 billion due to fraud, a 14% increase from just one year prior. More and more, scammers are targeting older, vulnerable people over the phone. Over than two-thirds of UK residents over the age of 75 surveyed in a recent research paper claimed they had experienced at least one fraud attempt in the past six months. 40% of those respondents faced frequent fraud attempts. Now, an AI-generated UK grandmother named “Daisy” is trying scammers’...

Donald Trump’s decisive victory is a stunning setback for the fight against climate change. The Republican president-elect’s return to the White House means the US is going to squander precious momentum, unraveling hard-won policy progress that was just beginning to pay off, all for the second time in less than a decade. It comes at a moment when the world can’t afford to waste time, with nations far off track from any emissions trajectories that would keep our ecosystems stable and our communities safe. Under the policies in place today, the planet is already set to warm by more than...

It can cause more harm than good! Key Features ·CrowdStrike shows the havoc that can be wreaked by supposed security software. ·Most people don't need third-party antivirus software. ·Most modern-day threats are aimed at exploiting humans, not computers.

Slim CD, a credit card processing service company popular in the United States and Canada, recently revealed that a hack, which took place last year, exposed personal information of almost 1.7 million customers. “On or about June 15, 2024, Slim CD became aware of suspicious activity in its computer environment,” said a Sept. 6 customer notification letter from the company. The Florida-based company said unauthorized system access occurred between Aug. 17, 2023, and June 15, 2024. “That access may have enabled an unauthorized actor to view or obtain certain credit card information,” Slim CD said. The company said customer names,...

Anti-global warming organizations and agitators have been falling over themselves to endorse Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris, insisting her record of green-friendly activism speaks for itself. The Sierra Club, the League of Conservation Voters, and the Green New Deal Network endorsed Harris, as have prominent climate change crusaders such as former U.S. climate czar John Kerry, Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee (D), former energy secretary Steven Chu, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Jo O'Brien feels like she has nothing left to lose. After her life savings were stolen, desperation led her in an unusual direction. She's been texting the man who admitted being involved in the elaborate plot that ripped her off. Many people would hesitate before pressing send, but Ms O'Brien is not one of them. "Why would people think it's unusual? "Why wouldn't you just ask, 'Where's my money?'" she asked. And that's exactly what she's been doing. On the receiving end is the Pakistan-born director of a tiny Melbourne company facing serious allegations. He is 29-year-old Muhammad Ali Waheed.