Grants Scam Dupes Northern Illinois Residents

Several people throughout Northern Illinois are receiving checks worth nearly three thousand dollars. This is a part of a grant they allegedly have been awarded for fifty thousand dollars.

The Better Business Bureau of Chicago and Northern Illinois has issued a warning regarding the grant scam coming from a company calling itself Mutual Grants Inc.

The grants checks and notifications are being sent from a location in Canada through U.S. Mail not through email as usual. After the mail is received, the recipient is asked to sign and deposit the enclosed check and return the 2,970 dollars to cover fees. The letter also includes a phone number to a “processing agent”, James Bentley, who will provide instructions on returning the money using either Western Union or MoneyGram.

The victims scrub their heads when they become aware that the check they deposited is fake and their banks informs them that they are responsible for the funds they withdrew.

So, be careful of this grants scam.

Source: eNews Park Forest, Park Forest, IL, USA

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Japanese Businessman Accused in Murder Kills Self

Kazuyoshi Miura is a 61-year-old Japanese businessman who was recently returned to the U.S. on charges that he murdered his wife. He was found hanging in his jail cell Friday evening.

"Miura apparently hanged himself sometime Friday night, said an officer at Parker Center police headquarters, where Miura was taken after arriving in the country early Friday.

Miura was arrested in the U.S. commonwealth of Saipan on Feb. 21 and has been in custody ever since. He was to remain in a city jail cell until his arraignment next week.

His wife, Kazumi Miura, was shot in the head near downtown L.A. in 1981, then moved to Japan where she died the next year. She was 28 when she died.

On Thursday, prosecutors with the District Attorney's Office filed papers, asking that a murder charge be reinstated against Miura.

"We fully support that request," police Capt. Denis Cremins said. "Detectives who have been involved in this investigation have no doubt that Mr. Miura is responsible for his wife's death."

Miura had been tried on that charge in Japan and acquitted. Because he was not found guilty of conspiracy, prosecutors were allowed to refile charges in his wife's murder.

In a statement released in May 1988 after the murder and conspiracy charges were filed in Los Angeles, prosecutors alleged Miura collected about $750,000 from life insurance policies on his wife.

Prosecutors also allege Miura "solicited five different people to murder his wife," including the person who actually shot her."

Source: CBS 2, Los Angeles, CA, USA

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Winsted School Investigates Fake Gun Incident

Schools administrators continue the investigation of the fake gun incident in the Northwestern Regional High school where a student brought a fake gun to school.

The student has been suspended for ten days. Further disciplinary action against him will be taken at a Board of Education meeting.

"A replica of a gun can be as dangerous as a real gun," Superintendent Clint Montgomery said. "The student showed a tremendous breach of judgment."

The 15-year-old whose name was not released was issued a juvenile summons for breach of peace and was later released into the custody of his mother, police said. He is scheduled to appear in juvenile court Oct. 26.

Students were listening to presidential candidate Ralph Nader speak at the time when administrators found the fake gun and called the police.

Source: Torrington Register Citizen, Torrington, CT, USA

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Former 100-Meter World Record Holder Sentenced to 5 Years

Tim Montgomery, the former 100-meter world record holder was sentenced to five years in prison after he admitted to distributing heroin.

The 33-year-old American was earlier sentenced to a three-and-a-half-years in New York for his role in a check fraud conspiracy. He will now serve the mandatory five-year term on top of the old one.

US Drug Enforcement Administration agents said Montgomery sold 111 grams of heroin to an undercover informant for about 8,500 dollars, with four meetings between Montgomery and the informant videotaped by the federal authorities.

Montgomery set a world 100m record of 9.78 seconds in Paris in 2002. It was stricken down from the books in 2005 after he was found guilty in a doping scandal.

Source: AFP

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19-Year-Old Girl Kills Mother, Stabs 50 Times with a Knife

Rachel Mullenix of Huntington Beach is a 19-year-old girl. She was convicted on Friday for gruesomely stabbing her mother to death and dumping her body in the ocean. She was sentenced to 25 years for life in prison.

Barbara Mullenix, her mother, whose body was pulled from Newport with a butter knife protruding from an eye in September 2006 had been stabbed 50 times by her.

During the hearing she told the judge that she made some "bad choices" but did not kill her mother.

"My mom was my world. She was my life," Rachel Mullenix told the judge in Orange County Superior Court. "And somebody saying that I would stab her really affects me because I didn't.

"I'm not saying I'm completely innocent. But planning and killing my mom I did not do, and I will never, ever take responsibility for it."

Her lawyer, David Cohn, said he will appeal his client's July 17 conviction. He said she should be eligible for parole when she is about 40 years old.

Her ex-boyfriend, 23-year-old Ian Allen, was also convicted of first-degree murder in a separate trial. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 14.

Source: Sfgate.com

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Man arrested for making 600 tonnes of fake protein powder

Police arrested a Zhang Yujun from the Hebei province who produced more than 600 tons of fake protein powder on Friday. This is another dangerous revelation after the fake milk case.

Zhang Yujun is a resident of Hebei's Quzhou county. He made the protein powder with the industrial chemical melamine and food additive maltodextrin. He started this activity from September last year in a village near Jinan, the capital of Shangdong.

Zhang's learning began in his dairy farm in Hebei. Here, he became a master of making fake protein powder. Using the name Zhang Haitao, he made the fake protein powder on an industrial scale in Shangdong.

Melamine, is a dangerous substance which can lead to urinary tract problems such as kidney stones. It was only a few days ago that melamine was found in a baby formula produced by Sanlu group based in Hebei.

Police had arrested a total of 36 persons related to the fake protein powder case. Further details are awaited.

Source: China Daily, China

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10 Tips to Avoid Identity Theft

Identity theft is a serious problem today. Identity theft can make it difficult to improve your credit score. It can also lead to legal troubles. If your credit history is affected, you may have trouble getting a new job, housing, or insurance.

Here are 10 tips that can help you from becoming a victim of identity theft:

• Memorize your social security number and your PIN numbers.

• Don’t use easy to guess passwords, like your birthday or your mother’s maiden name.

• Secure your computer by using firewall software and always update your computer security to safeguard your computer from spyware.

• Confirm if the website URL that is requesting your personal information is authentic or legitimate.

• Beware of emails, especially with attachments, belonging to someone you don’t know. Emails like these contain viruses or spyware that can easily be installed in your computer and can send your personal information stored in your computer to thieves.

• Websites that ask for personal information should be secure. A secured website usually has URL that starts with “https://” with the “s” meaning secured.

• Beware of telephone inquiries asking you to give your personal information, unless you contacted them.

• If you lost your credit card, report it immediately to concerned authorities. It could have been stolen by identity thieves.

• Get your mail as soon as it is delivered.

• Do not discard bank, credit card or any other transaction receipts in public areas. Someone might obtain these information by dumpster diving.

Source: CreditScoreAide.com

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Tommy Peacock Pays You $187000 E-mail Scam

Tommy Peacock might be a treasure hunter or some sort of magician. He sends e-mail to people promising the recipients $187,000 which can be picked at any Western Union outlet.

The email also states that if the recipient wants to receive his or her money they need to get a Western Union Promo Card. In order to get one, certain information must be sent through e-mail.

He asks for name, money transfer control number, telephone number and address. Peacock also provides an e-mail address of a Western Union agent to whom people should send their information.

The e-mail also mentions that Peacock is on his way to Chile to complete a bridge project, so he won't be around to reply to e-mails.

So be aware and don't let this Mr. Peacock fool you!

Source: Canada.com, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada

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Federal Regulators Sue Democrat Fundraiser for $60 Million Scam

On Monday, federal regulators sued political fundraiser Norman Hsu for allegedly operating a $60 million investment scam and using some proceeds to contribute to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other prominent Democrats.

The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles. It accuses Hsu of using a company called Next Components to solicit investments that promised high rates of return by providing short-term loans to other companies.The lawsuit also states that Hsu used the investments to pay off early investors in a classic Ponzi scheme while using the rest to make political contributions and support a lavish lifestyle.

The SEC is seeking to recoup the investors' money and financial penalties.

In May, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered Hsu to pay $28.8 million to aggrieved investors who sued him. Hsu wasn't represented by a lawyer in that case and never responded to the lawsuit.

Source: The Associated Press

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Botanist Heslop-Harrison’s Rare Plants Discovery is a Fake

Professor John Heslop-Harrison who claimed to have discovered rare plants was labelled as fake by his fellow peers.

Professor John Heslop-Harrison, formerly of Newcastle University, led scientific expeditions to the Isle of Rum in Scotland in the 1940s. He claimed to have found unusual Arctic alpine plants. A finding which led some to wonder if the Ice Age ever reached Scotland.

But the so-called unusual plants were actually grown in Prof Heslop- Harrison’s Gateshead greenhouse, before he replanted them in Scotland.

The scientific scandal was first uncovered by writer Karl Sabbagh in 1999 — in his book A Rum Affair: A True Story of Botanical Fraud — in which he claimed some colleagues doubted the Newcastle professor’s work and suspected foul play.

Source: Sunday Sun, Newcastle upon Tyne, England, UK

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Israeli Hacker in Multimillion-dollar Online Fraud

The United States is seeking the extradition of an Israeli hacker known as "The Analyzer" from Canada. He is believed to be the mastermind of a multimillion-dollar worldwide online fraud.

Ehud Tenenbaum is aged 29.He was arrested in late August over charges relating to a $1.8-million theft from a Calgary financial institution. While he was granted bail last week, he was arrested again on a provisional warrant under the Extradition Act before he could post the required $30,000 bail.

Canwest News Service reported on Friday that Court of Queen's Bench Justice Bryan Mahoney denied Tenenbaum bail on the U.S. charges. The court heard on Friday that the allegations against Tenenbaum involved potentially hundreds of financial institutions in Russia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Sweden, Belgium, Germany and other countries.

"Mr. Tenenbaum is alleged by the government of the U.S. to be one of the principal hackers, if not the mastermind, of their entire global operation," Canwest quoted federal Crown prosecutor David Gates as arguing.

"Mr. Tenenbaum and others did the actual hacking into financial institutions to obtain [debit and credit] card PIN numbers, and then sold them to others in their operation."

The U.S. government now has 60 days to submit an extradition order to have him taken back to face the charges, according to Canwest. Canada's justice minister then has 30 days to decide whether or not an extradition hearing can take place.

Mr.Tenenbaum is quite a renowned man and not any 'roadside-chap' as you would think. He was earlier sentenced to 15 months in jail in Israel in 1998 for hacking into the Pentagon computer system in the U.S.

Source: Ha'aretz, Tel Aviv, Israel

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Canadian Granny Scam Dupes Americans

Telephone scammers in Canada love Americans. They also have found that some of the American people are incredibly easy to fool with a scam. If they can concoct a convincing story, they can get people to send them thousands of dollars.

With the Granny Scam the caller pretends to be a grandchild in trouble in Canada who needs money immediately. The caller often says he’s been arrested, was in a car accident or had some type of medical emergency.

“I fell for it completely,” says Bill Wilson, 79, of Sequim, Wash., who got taken for $6,500. The caller, who pretended to be his grandson, said he was in jail in Canada.

This deviously clever scam is very effective because it catches the potential victims off guard and tugs at their heartstrings.

In 2007, the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre received 128 complaints about this scam. Since the beginning of the year, more than 317 complaints were filed, and the majority of those were in July and August.

This sort of scam, based on an “emergency situation” has been around for years. But the Canadian Anti-Fraud Call Centre, also known as PhoneBusters, reports a dramatic increase in the number of complaints.

“We’ve seen tremendously high losses, usually $3,000 to $4,000 a hit,” says PhoneBusters’ spokesperson Debbie Bell. But some victims lose much more.

Because they are in another country, it’s hard to track down, let alone prosecute these telephone con artists. They know many tricks to avoid law enforcement.

The way to fight back is to make sure your friends and family members don’t become victims. Explain how the scam works. Tell them to be suspicious of anyone who calls unexpectedly and wants them to wire money – especially to Canada. Make sure they know the right thing to do is to call you or someone else in the family, even if they’re told to keep it a secret.

Source: MSNBC, USA

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David Blaine is a Fake

People are angry with endurance artist David Blaine. They say he is cheating in his stunt to hang upside down for 60 hours.

New Yorkers arriving at Central Park to witness his record attempt yesterday were surprised to find him standing upright, being examined by a doctor.

Blaine had previously pledged to drink through a straw while hanging and to urinate through a catheter, but the amateur video shows him standing and drinking bottled water.

After 15 minutes or so, he returned to hanging upside down. This has led the bloggers who went to view the stunt dismayed.

“This is like being on a hunger strike for 22 hours a day. You know, taking two hours off for lunch and dinner break,” wrote one.

Another said: “I arrived at 9am this morning to find him on the platform, and he stayed there for 20 minutes. I watched the time. And while this was happening, I asked a security guard what he thought about it. He told me, ‘yeah, it's kind of cheap, isn't it?’ I asked him how many breaks he'd seen him take this morning, and the guard told me ‘Three, maybe four, since eight when I arrived.”

Now, the upside hanging star might be hanged straight by the public!

Source: Livenews, Sydney, NSW, Australia

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5 Ways to Identify a Fake Pound Coin in an Instant

According to a survey by the Royal Mint, in March this year about two out of every 100 of the 1.47bn pound coins in circulation fake coins. That's around 30m duff nuggets. And if one fake pound coin is in your pocket it is a criminal offence to spend it.

Follow these steps and you will have no trouble in identifying a fake pound coin:

1) The date and design on the reverse should correspond.

2) If the coin does not have the right picture for its year (Gateshead's Millennium bridge in 2007, for example) then it's a fake coin. The same applies to the inscription around the edge. You can check both at royalmint.gov.uk.

3) The milled edge may be poorly defined or the lettering uneven in depth and spacing.

4) If the Queen and the picture are faint, or not the same way up, or if the coin looks smart and shiny even though it has supposedly been jangling around 20 years.

5) Fake pound coins usually do not work in vending machines either, although some might say that hardly differentiates them from the real ones.

Source: guardian.co.uk, UK

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Aussies Sue International Olympic Committee for Ticket Scam

Australians and other victims of the online Beijing Olympic ticket scam are suing the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for millions of dollars.

Texan class-action lawyer, Jim Moriarty, is representing the 400 victims.

He also has his legal sights set on the London-based touts allegedly behind the scam, the US Olympic Committee and the official US provider of Beijing tickets, JetSet/CoSport.

Mr. Moriarty said, “The ultimate bad guys are the crooks in England and then the people that aided and facilitated their fraud and that clearly goes back directly to the IOC.”

Mr. Moriarty was also one of the victims of the ticket scam.

The 62-year-old lawyer lost $US12,000 ($14,235) in the ticket scam.

Mr. Moriarty said his lawsuits also would likely reveal why sports fans and the families of athletes were unable to secure tickets through the official Olympic ticket suppliers.

Many victims were told official ticket supplies were sold out despite plenty of vacant seats visible during the TV broadcast of the Olympics.

Source: News.com.au, Australia

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Historian Goes to Jail for Theft of Lincoln's and Washington's Letters

Edward Renehan Jr., 52, is a historian of a different kind. Instead of doing historical research or writing history books, he tried to do a somewhat different kind of historical activity and in the process, he made himself in history as ‘The Historian Who Stole the Letters of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Went to Jail’.

He was sentenced on Friday to a year and a half in prison after apologizing for stealing the letters.

Edward Renehan Jr., 52, also must pay more than $86,000 in restitution to a Manhattan gallery where he tried to resell the letters, U.S. District Judge Denny Chin ordered as he imposed the sentence.

Renehan admitted he stole the presidential letters in 2006 and 2007 from the Theodore Roosevelt Association, based in Oyster Bay, on Long Island. He was then its acting director.

Among the letters, one was handwritten by Lincoln on March 1, 1840; two were written by Washington. One of those was dated Aug. 9, 1791, the other Dec. 29, 1778.

Renehan still faces a state charge of stealing and trying to auction off a 1918 letter that President Roosevelt wrote about his son Quentin's death in World War I.

Roosevelt Association director Jim Bruns said outside court that it was "a painful pill when a historian is caught in a position like this." But he said it was a significant breach of trust that must be faced.

Source: The Associated Press, NY, USA

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Scam Artists Fine-Tune their Portfolio with Armed Robbery

Police are looking for a few scam artists in Austin, Texas, who just upped the ante from theft to armed robbery.
These scam artists first talk to people very gently for giving them donation. They say it is for a charity organization. However, if the victim refuses, they pull out a gun and force them to hand over money.

Seems like they have perfected their new art!

The suspects have African accents and are working in groups of two or three.

One of the suspects is a man in his 50s in a black felt hat with a short brim and a tattoo on his left arm with the letter E or H.

Source: KXAN-TV, Austin, TX, USA

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The Digg Fraud

Digg is a social bookmarking service where you submit links. If the links are popular (voted by friends, fans and others) they are listed on the Digg frontpage.
Apparently, only a miniscule portion of the submissions appear on the frontpage and that are also submitted by a very small majority of an alleged ‘Elite Digger Ring’.

There are a million visitors on Digg daily. That pops up a very interesting scenario. A scenario where money ‘the Great God’ is involved. A single frontpage article can send in visitors to a site by the thousands per minute. In addition, as with every ‘big money thing’ there is always a black game where without the help of the institution that is concerned you can’t make money, as is the matter with the fraudulent Establishment.

It is alleged that Kevin Rose is allied with a select few Diggers and that constitute the ‘Elite Digger Ring’. As you can understand it is a matter of ‘big money’, nothing can be impossible.

It is apparent that Diggers like MrBabymen, Msaleem and a few others have Dugged a gigantic amount and sometimes they Digg so quickly that you will be baffled. But their accounts are not banned instead you find the newbie Digger, that unsuspecting and unknowing fool’s account being banned with a one or two sprinkles from the top to bring in a show of reality to the show.

Here’s what one banned newbie Digger by the username of xDigger has to say:

“I was only a few days baby on Digg. On my third day of my Digg Life I had Dugg about 320. It was a holiday and I decided to spend the day Digging articles I like. I was banned the following day, but that is a small matter. They also had banned Zaibastu. He was the only guy who noticed me in the sea of Diggs, made me a friend and Dugg my first article. This is indeed very bad.

What’s bad in using scripts, if it can save your time? For is not the computer an invention that helped humankind save time. Now will you ban the computer from being used in offices and specially in Digg’s offices for it is saving time?”

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Detention Sergeant Arrested for Theft from Inmates

Amado Martinez, was a detention sergeant of the Pinal County Sheriff's Office Detention Facility. But his acts were somewhat against the colors of his uniform.
He was indicted on Friday on 18 charges, including theft from inmates, forgery and identity theft.

A staff employee at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center discovered Martinez was stealing money from inmates, investigators said.

Martinez was booked into the Pinal County detention facility on a $100,000 bond.

Source: KPHO Phoenix, Phoenix, AZ, USA

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Alexandria Woman Arrested for 17 Thefts

‘Frailty, thy name is woman,’ said the bard. Although some may say that he was incorrect, but a recent exploit by a ‘she’ turns the table upside down.

Alma Rene Williams, 22, of 2052 Overton St., Alexandria, is a woman miraculous – unlike any of her kind that we know or may have known.

Alexandria police arrested and charged her with 17 counts of theft in connection with the theft of cell phones and cash from Alltel Wireless over the past few months.

The charges are: one count of theft of more than $500, six counts of theft between $300 and $500 and 10 counts of theft of less than $300, police said.

An employee of Alltel Wireless at 3611 Jackson St. alerted police on Aug. 13 to the theft of money and 20 cell phones. After an investigation, officers arrested Williams, an employee of the store.

Source: Alexandria Town Talk, Alexandria, LA,USA

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