THURSDAY, JULY 6, 2017 INTERNATIONAL ‘Russian organized crime’ poses a News in brief

threat to democratic institutions Brussels terror raids BRUSSELS: Four people have been arrested, and arms cache found after overnight terror raids in Brussels Probe draws attention to Russian skullduggery linked to a bikers’ club called the Kamikaze Riders, feder- al prosecutors said yesterday. “During one of the house WASHINGTON: The US government has long warned that along with two officers of Russia’s Federal Security Service you’re looking for.” Federal prosecutors continue to bring searches, various weapons were found. In all, four per- Russian organized crime posed a threat to democratic in a cyberattack on Yahoo Inc. in 2013. It’s too early to traditional organized crime cases, such as one last month in sons were arrested and taken in for questioning,” prose- institutions, including “criminally linked oligarchs” who know how Russian criminal networks might fit into the New York charging 33 members and associates of a Russian cutors said in a statement. A spokesman said the raids might collude with the Russian government to under- election meddling investigation, but central to the probe crime syndicate in a racketeering and extortion scheme were linked to the Kamikaze Riders, which has been mine business competition. Those concerns, ever-present are devastating breaches of Democratic email accounts, that officials say involved cargo shipment thefts and efforts implicated in terror offences. A source close to the inves- if not necessarily always top priorities, are front and cen- including those of the Democratic National Committee to defraud casinos. But there’s a heightened awareness tigation said the raids in the gritty Anderlecht district ter once more. and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. about more sophisticated cyber threats that commingle the found at least two Kalashnikov assault rifles while An ongoing special counsel investigation is drawing US authorities have blamed those hacks on Russian interests of the government and of criminals. reports spoke of explosives also being discovered. The attention to Russian efforts to meddle in democratic intelligence services working to discredit Clinton and help “An organized criminal group matures in what they statement from prosecutors said the raids were “com- processes, the type of skullduggery that in the past has Trump - but have said the overall effort involved third-par- do,” said retired FBI assistant director Ron Hosko. “What pletely independent” from the probe into the deadly relied on hired hackers and outside criminals. It’s not clear ty intermediaries and paid internet trolls. Former law they once did here through extortion, some of these November 2015 Paris and March 2016 Brussels attacks, how much the investigation by former FBI Director Robert enforcement officials say Russian organized crime has been groups are now doing through cyberattack vectors.” which were claimed by Islamic State and carried out by Mueller will center on the criminal underbelly of Moscow, a concern for at least a couple of decades, though not nec- Within the Justice Department, it’s been apparent since jihadi cells based in the Belgian capital. Meanwhile in but he’s already picked some lawyers with experience essarily the most pressing demand given finite resources the collapse of the Soviet Union that crime from that ter- northern France, a joint Franco-Belgian anti-terrorist fighting organized crime. And as the team looks for any and budget constraints. The threat is diffuse and complex, ritory could affect national security in Europe and the US operation picked up a man on suspicion of having links Acting FBI director Andrew McCabe was years ago a to the Kamikaze Riders. supervisory special agent of a task force created to deal with Eurasian organized crime. A 2001 report from the Justice Department’s National Institute of Justice, a research arm, called America “the land of opportunity for unloading criminal goods and laundering dirty money.” It said crime groups in the region were establishing ties to drug trafficking networks, and that “criminally linked oligarchs” might work with the government to undermine competition in gas, oil and other strategic markets. Three months later came the Sept. 11 attacks, and the FBI, then under Mueller’s leader- ship, and other agencies left no doubt that terrorism was the most important priority. “I recall talking to the racket- eering guys after that and them saying, ‘Forget any focus now on organized crime,’” said James Finckenauer, an author of the report. Besides cyber threats, Justice Department officials in recent years have worried about the effect of unchecked international corruption, creating a kleptocracy initiative to recover money plundered by government leaders for their own purposes. In 2014, then-Attorney General Eric Holder pledged the Justice Department’s commitment to recoup- ing large sums believed to have been stolen during the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president chased from power that year. NEW YORK: Emergency personnel stand near the That effort led to an FBI focus on Paul Manafort, the scene where a police officer was shot in the Bronx WASHINGTON: Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, the special counsel probing Russian interference in the 2016 Trump campaign chairman who did political consulting section of New York yesterday. Police said Officer election, departs Capitol Hill following a closed door meeting in Washington. — AP work on behalf of Yanukovych’s pro-Russia political party Miosotis Familia died at a hospital yesterday. — AP and who remains under scrutiny now. But those same for- financial entanglements of Trump associates and relation- and Russia’s historic lack of cooperation has complicated eign links have also made cases hard to prove in court. In NY cop fatally shot ships with Russian officials, its focus could land again on efforts to apprehend suspects. many instances, foreign criminal hackers or those spon- NEW YORK: A New York City police officer was shot the intertwining of Russia’s criminal operatives and its And the responsibility for combating the problem often sored by foreign governments - including China, Iran and to death yesterday morning, ambushed in a marked intelligence services. falls across different divisions of the FBI and the Justice Russia - have remained out of reach of American authori- patrol car by a man with a revolver who was later Russian organized crime has manifested itself over the Department, depending on whether it’s a criminal or ties. In some cases, judges have chastised US authorities for killed by officers. Officer Miosotis Familia, a 12-year decades in more conventional forms of money laundering, national security offense - a sometimes-blurry boundary. prosecutorial overreach in going after international targets. member of the department, was assigned with a credit card fraud and black market sales. Justice “It’s not an easy thing to kind of grasp or understand, but A San Francisco federal judge, for instance, in 2015 dis- partner to a mobile command post when the man Department prosecutors have repeatedly racked up con- it’s very dangerous to our country because they have so missed an indictment involving two Ukrainian business- fired one round through the window and struck her victions for those offenses. In recent years, though, the many different aspects, unlike a traditional cartel,” said men who’d been accused of bribing an official at a United in the head as she was wrapping up her shift. She bond between Russian intelligence agencies and criminal Robert Anderson, a retired FBI executive assistant director Nations agency responsible for creating standards for was rushed to a hospital but did not survive. “This networks has been especially alarming to American law who worked counterintelligence cases and oversaw the machine-readable international passports. The judge said was an unprovoked direct attack on police officers enforcement officials, blending motives of espionage with criminal and cyber branch. he couldn’t understand how the government could apply a who were assigned to keep the people of this city more old-fashioned greed. “You have to know where to look, which makes it more foreign bribery law to conduct that had no direct connec- safe,” Police Commissioner James O’Neill said. Her In March, for instance, two hired hackers were charged complicated,” he added. “And you have to understand what tion to the US. — AP partner radioed for help, and officers responded fast, encountering the suspect, 34-year old Alexander Bonds, about a block away, he said. As they confront- Rights icon Simone Veil secures ed him, he pulled a revolver, and police fired, striking and killing him. A silver revolver was found at the coveted place in the Pantheon scene. A bystander was hit in the stomach by a bullet during the standoff, and is in stable condition, police PARIS: French Holocaust survivor and 1927, Veil was arrested by the Gestapo in said. Bonds had been on parole for a robbery case in rights icon Simone Veil, who died last week March 1944 and deported to Auschwitz with Syracuse, New York, police said. aged 89, will receive the rare honor of one of her sisters and her mother Yvonne. being inducted into the Pantheon, The two girls, who were put to work in a President Emmanuel Macron announced at concentration camp, survived-as did anoth- her funeral yesterday. Veil will become only er sister who was deported for her part in Murderer’s death sentence the fifth woman to be laid to rest in the the French Resistance. Her mother suc- COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s High Court handed the death Paris monument, which houses the remains cumbed to typhoid in Belsen just before sentence yesterday to a laborer who was found guilty of great national figures, and only the that camp was liberated in 1945, and her of murdering former Agence France-Presse journalist fourth to be allocated a spot on her own father and brother were last seen on a train Mel Gunasekera in a break-in at her home. Anthony merits. She will join Polish-born French sci- of deportees bound for Lithuania. “Sixty George, who stabbed Gunasekara to death in February entist Marie Curie; two French Resistance years later I am still haunted by the images, 2014, will have his sentence automatically commuted members who were deported to Germany, the odors, the cries, the humiliation, the to life in prison as Sri Lanka has an unofficial moratori- Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz and blows and the sky filled with the smoke of um on capital punishment. High Court judge Piyasena Germaine Tillion; and Sophie Berthelot, the crematoriums,” she said in a TV inter- Ranasinghe also found George guilty of breaking and who was buried alongside her chemist hus- view broadcast in 2005. Reflecting on her entering and of stealing Gunasekera’s mobile phone. band Marcellin Berthelot. famously resolute character in a eulogy During a lengthy trial, the court heard that he had mur- Among the other luminaries buried in the yesterday, her son Jean Veil said: “That dered Gunasekera after she recognized him as a labor- secular mausoleum are writers Voltaire, determination was the backbone the er who had been hired over a month earlier to paint Victor Hugo and Emile Zola. Veil was deport- armor that helped you survive hell.” BARCELONA: Tourists pull their suitcases as they pass by a butcher shop of El Gotic her parent’s house. Gunasekera, 40, was an assistant ed to Auschwitz in 1944 while still a teenag- neighborhood, in Barcelona.— AFP vice president at Fitch’s Sri Lankan operation, a posi- er. She survived the concentration camps Landmark abortion law tion she took up in 2012 after a five-year stint as that claimed the lives of her mother, father After the war Veil studied law and met Colombo correspondent for AFP. and brother, and went on to become an her husband Antoine Veil, with whom she Bye-bye locals: European indefatigable crusader for women’s rights had three children. A member of the cen- and European reconciliation. Her biggest tre-right Union for French Democracy, she city centers sound alarm Plane stowaway survivor political achievement was pushing through a was named health minister in 1974 and led LAGOS: Nigerian authorities have launched an law to legalise abortion in France in 1974 in a battle that marked her generation: the investigation into claims that a teenager survived 12 BARCELONA: Memories of the past come have all contributed to forcing people out the face of fierce opposition. Several hun- legalisation of abortion. Veil led the charge hours hidden in the wheel compartment of a plane flooding back as Manuel Mourelo strolls for economic reasons... or due to sheer frus- dred dignitaries, relatives and friends attend- in the National Assembly, where she between Lagos and London, an aviation official said through Barcelona’s picturesque Gothic tration. The arrival of Airbnb and other ed her funeral yesterday at the Invalides mili- braved a volley of insults, some of them yesterday. The boy, said to be aged 15 or under, was Quarter: children playing, fun with the such home-renting platforms has only tary hospital and museum in Paris. likening pregnancy terminations to the apparently discovered in the wheel compartment of neighbors, traditional bars... But now, “all of aggravated the problem, locals say.”We’re Draped in the French tricolor, her coffin Nazis’ treatment of Jews. a Med-View Airline Boeing 747 which made the that has disappeared.” Hordes of tourists fill not talking about gentrification, about sub- was borne into the museum’s courtyard by The legislation, named the “Loi Veil” (Veil round trip last Saturday. “We are looking into the the narrow, winding alleys on guided tours, stituting the original population by another members of the Republican Guard and set Law), is today considered a cornerstone of incident to find how it happened and to prevent a bike and Segway rides, while residents more wealthy one,” says Gala Pin, a coun- down on the cobbles on a wooden bier. women’s rights and secularism in France. In recurrence,” Sam Adurogboye, of the Nigerian Civil have deserted buildings full of history to cilor in Ciutat Vella. “We’re talking about the Macron told the mourners he would bestow 1979, she become the first elected presi- Aviation Authority (NCAA) said. Adurogboye said make way for quaint hotels and tourist historic centre emptying out.” For sociolo- the Pantheon honor on her and her hus- dent of the European Parliament. Instantly the authorities were “disturbed by the incident rentals-an issue that affects popular spots gist Daniel Sorando, co-author of “First We band Antoine, who died in 2013, to show recognizable by her hair, which she always because of its implications for air safety”. Nigerian Europe-wide. Take Manhattan,” an essay that analyses the “the immense gratitude of the French peo- wore in a sleek bun, and her Chanel suits, media quoted Med-View’s spokesman Oyibotha Last year, Mourelo himself joined the phenomenon in various cities, the trend is ple to one of its most loved children.” “You she was consistently voted one of France’s Obuke as saying the airline was cooperating with exodus out of a district he had lived in towards “urban centers conceived as brought into our lives that light that burned most trusted public figures. In later life, she the relevant authorities. How the teenager survived since 1962 when he came to the Spanish machines to make money while the work- within you and which nobody could ever headed up the French Foundation for pre- at an altitude of 32,000 feet was a mystery, said seaside city from Galicia in the northwest. ing classes are displaced outside.” take away,” he said. Born Simone Jacob in serving the memory of the Shoah, or Adurogboye. Hypoxia or oxygen deficiency normally The flat he had been renting for 25 years the Mediterranean city of Nice on July 13, Holocaust.— AFP sets in from about 10,000 feet and would quickly was sold to an investor and he was evicted. Paris, Amsterdam, London render a person unconscious. Temperatures at that Having paid 500 euros ($560) a month in The problem also affects cities further altitude plunge to -48 degrees Celsius (-55 degrees rent, he was unable to find anything else afield. In Paris, concerned residents of the Fahrenheit), causing hypothermia. affordable in the area. “They were asking 4th district, where Notre-Dame Cathedral for 1,000, 1,200, 1,500 euros,” says the 76- is located, organized a symposium on the year-old, his face framed by thick glasses “invisible desertification” of city centers and a bushy moustache. “This was my vil- in March. The city hall in the French capi- Armenian shelling kills 2 lage. I had it all here, my friends, my shops, I tal said earlier this year that it had lost BAKU: Armenian forces have killed a two-year-old got married here, my children were born 20,000 housing units in five years, partly Azerbaijani girl and her grandmother in a fresh border here, and I thought I would die here. “I feel to tourist rentals. This contributes to a clash near the breakaway Nagorny Karabakh region, displaced,” he adds, his eyes welling up. “rise in prices” and a “drop in the popula- Baku said yesterday. Ex-Soviet Azerbaijan and Armenia tion,” Ian Brossat, in charge of housing for are locked in a decades-long conflict over the disputed ‘Emptying out’ - Paris’ city hall said. region, and frequent exchanges of fire nearly spiraled According to the city hall, the fixed pop- In Amsterdam, meanwhile, the ING bank back into all-out war a year ago. The toddler and her ulation in the Gothic district so loved by found that owners could earn 350 euros grandmother were killed Tuesday “as a result of a target- tourists has dropped from 27,470 residents more per month with seasonal rentals, ed and deliberate attack on civilians” in the village of in 2006 to just 15,624 at the end of 2015. pushing the prices up, Senne Janssen, Alkhanli “by the armed forces of Armenia” using mortars Now, 63 percent are “floating” residents- author of the study, told AFP. To try and and heavy grenade launchers, Azerbaijan’s foreign min- tourists or people in short-term lets. At the remedy the situation, Paris, London and istry said in a statement. Karabakh’s rebel authorities said same time, according to real-estate website Amsterdam want to regulate the duration they opened fire in response to Azerbaijan shelling their Idealista, rental prices in Ciutat Vella, where of rentals and register all flats and houses positions. “Azerbaijanis deploy their positions in populat- the Gothic Quarter is located, have gone being used for short-term lets in order to ed areas, using civilians as a human shield,” a Karabakh from 14.4 to 19 euros per square meter in better control them. In Berlin, people are defense ministry statement said. Baku and Yerevan have just two years. only allowed to rent out one room in their feuded over the Nagorny Karabakh region since PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron (right) stands in front of the flag-draped Rising rental prices, noise and crowds home since last year, and the whole flat or Armenian separatists seized the territory in a war that coffin of Simone Veil during a solemn funeral ceremony, in the courtyard of the jostling for space in the streets and the dis- house if it is a secondary or occasional use claimed some 30,000 lives in the early 1990s and ended Invalides in Paris yesterday. — AP appearance of traditional, everyday stores pied-a-terre. — AFP in a fragile 1994 truce.