FBI

A Tennessee man allegedly plotting violence at the southern border with militia groups to “stir up the hornet’s nest” with an arsenal of explosives, AR-15s and a sniper rifle was arrested Monday after selling an undercover agent an unregistered AK-47 suppressor for $100, according to a federal criminal complaint. Paul Faye Sr. said he planned to serve as a sniper in a confrontation with federal Border Patrol agents, and to coordinate with militias from Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, an FBI agent…

The FBI is warning of an uptick in online scammers who impersonate government officials, convince victims to liquidate their assets and then arrange a pick-up time for a courier to retrieve the valuables in person — often after convincing the victims to purchase gold or other precious metals. In a public service announcement Monday, the FBI warned there was an increase in this illegal activity between May and December last year, with losses totaling more than $55 million. Many of the victims are senior citizens,…

Chinese government hackers are busily targeting water treatment plants, the electrical grid, transportation systems and other critical infrastructure inside the United States, FBI Director Chris Wray told House lawmakers Wednesday in a fresh warning from Washington about Beijing's global ambitions.Underscoring the threat, the Justice Department and FBI announced just before the hearing that they had disrupted a botnet of hundreds of U.S.-based small office and home routers owned by private citizens and companies and…

As we all become more wary of scams, it only makes sense that the criminals behind them find new ways to scam us. On Monday, the FBI sent out a public service announcement warning the public about one such scam that has been on the rise (via Bleeping Computer).Scammers posing as tech support agents and US government officials are telling unsuspecting victims their bank accounts have been hacked, so they need to liquidate their assets. According to the FBI Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), scams like this…

Nancy Pelosi suggested that Russia may be funding pro-Palestinian protesters who have been interrupting Democratic campaign events, saying that some calling for a ceasefire are promoting “Putin’s message.” Protesters disrupted Pelosi’s appearance in Seattle on Thursday to call for an end to Israel‘s assault on Palestine. Vocal demonstrators have also been appearing regularly at President Joe Biden’s events. Pelosi said that she would like the FBI to investigate whether Russia is financing these groups. “I’ve…

The FBI violated people’s constitutional rights when it opened and “inventoried” the contents of hundreds of safe-deposit boxes during a raid on a Beverly Hills vault in 2021, a federal appellate court ruled Tuesday.The ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reverses a lower court decision in favor of the FBI. The panel found that the agency’s cataloging of the contents of the privately rented boxes, without individual criminal warrants for each, violated the box holders’ 4th Amendment…

Twitter recently lost one of its premier chaos agents: Jaboukie Young-White, the ace comic responsible for maybe the best single act of trolling in the hellsite’s history. The Illinois native attracted a large social media following in the 2010s thanks to his Instagram posts and tweets brimming with sardonic wit and diablerie. He was branded “gloriously extra” (BuzzFeed’s words), featured on Rolling Stone’s 25 Under 25 list, wrote for Big Mouth and American Vandal, and spent a few years as a Daily Show…

A Denver man found himself indicted on federal fraud charges in an $8.5 million vacation rental scam on Airbnb and Vrbo that not only allegedly defrauded thousands, but also racially discriminated against guests, in 10 states over several years. Shaunik Raheja, 34, was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday, alongside Miami resident Shray Goel, 35, on claims that the pair ran “a double-booking, bait-and-switch scam” through online marketplaces Airbnb and Vrbo. Deceptive vacation rental listings and phony…

O n an August night in 2003, a young woman who went by the name Paulina sank into the sofa of her modest, rented apartment, opened up her laptop, and began talking about sex with a man she’d recently met in a Yahoo chat group. His name was Stephen Bolen. His first communications had been terse, but he soon warmed to Paulina. It didn’t take long for both of them to begin to open up.  Paulina had told Bolen she lived in the Atlanta area, that she had a three-year-old daughter, that her daughter’s father was…

A foreign exchange student has been found after being reported missing last week, according to local authorities. The student, Kai Zhuang, had been staying with a host family in Riverdale, Utah, at the time of the incident. Riverdale Police said they received a report of a kidnapping Friday. “Officers were contacted by the high school of the missing foreign exchange student,” a Sunday press release by Riverdale Police read. “The high school reported to Riverdale Police that they were contacted by the…