Category: Security

Source: US FBI

ST. LOUIS – A man from Washington, Missouri on Wednesday admitted recording his sexual activity with a 14-year-old.

Todd Kelly, 37, pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography. He admitted making the recordings on his cell phone in June and July of 2023. The victim’s father contacted authorities after learning about the relationship in August of 2023.

Kelly is scheduled to be sentenced July 28. The U.S. Attorney’s office will recommend a prison sentence of 25 years.

The Warren County Sheriff’s Department, the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tiffany Becker is prosecuting the case.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Source: US FBI

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City, Mo., man was sentenced in federal court today for his role in a conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.

Colt Justin Draggoo, 22, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Roseann Ketchmark to five years in federal prison without parole.

On September 12, 2024, C. Draggoo plead guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute fentanyl.

C. Draggoo admitted that he sold fentanyl pills and collected drug money for his brother and co-defendant, Tiger Dean Draggoo. Between December 29, 2021, and October 22, 2022, C. Draggoo either brokered or sold approximately 263 pills containing fentanyl on behalf of his brother.

C. Draggoo is the third defendant in this case to be sentenced. On Oct. 16, 2024, Tiger Dean Draggoo plead guilty to his role in the fentanyl conspiracy and to three counts of distributing fentanyl resulting in death. Three additional defendants have plead guilty and await sentencing.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Brad K. Kavanaugh and Robert Smith. It was investigated by the Jackson County Drug Task Force, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Belton, Mo., Police Department, the Raymore, Mo., Police Department, the Cass County, Mo., Sheriff’s Department, and the FBI.

Source: US FBI

HOUSTON – A 45-year-old Colombian national will make his initial appearance in U.S. federal court on charges of narco-terrorism and distributing kilogram quantities of cocaine from Colombia, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.

Adrian Alberto Cano Gomez, an alleged member of the National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional aka ELN), was extradited from Colombia and is now in Houston. He will make his initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dena Hanovice Palermo April 25 at 2 p.m.

The now unsealed indictment, returned March 23, 2023, alleges ELN is a Colombian guerrilla group officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization Oct. 8, 1997. It allegedly continues to operate as one of the largest narco-terrorism organizations in the world.

Cano Gomez is charged with international cocaine distribution conspiracy. He is also charged with distribution of a controlled substance and knowing or intending to provide anything of pecuniary value to a person or organization that engages in terrorism or terrorist activity (narco-terrorism).

“This is not a routine drug case, nor is the ELN the typical drug trafficking organization,” said Ganjei. “Rather, this terror group has used American communities to fund its violent activities and destroyed countless lives in the process. This extradition is a big step towards this office’s goal of dismantling the narcotics-to-terrorism pipeline, and a clear demonstration that no matter where you are, no matter who you are, you are not beyond the reach of the American justice system.”

“The extradition of suspected narco-terrorists like Cano Gomez to the United States is another example of how FBI Houston’s reach extends beyond geographic borders,” said Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams of the FBI. “For years, Cano Gomez has allegedly been a liaison of international drug trafficking for the ELN-drugs that are smuggled into the United States and make their way onto our streets. His arrest and extradition are a giant step into disrupting the drug trafficking operations and mass violence carried out at the hands of his foreign terrorist organization.”

“For over a decade, this ELN foreign terrorist organization allegedly profited off American communities by trafficking in cocaine and devastating countless lives,” said acting Special Agent in Charge William Kimbell of the Houston division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). “Gomez, who is an alleged ELN member believed to have facilitated cocaine distribution from Colombia, is now on American soil to face justice.”

According to the indictment, Cano Gomez and others were involved in an ongoing 16-year conspiracy to distribute cocaine from Colombia to the United States knowing or intending to provide pecuniary support to the ELN.

In November 2021, Cano Gomez and others allegedly participated in distributing approximately 15 kilograms of cocaine in Colombia, knowing it would be imported into the United States.

Colombian authorities took him into custody at the request of the United States in March 2024.

The indictment remains sealed as to those charged but not as yet in custody.

The Houston Field Offices of the FBI and DEA conducted the investigation with assistance of U.S. Marshals Service as part of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF). FBI and DEA agents in Bogota provided substantial support as did the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) multi-agency Special Operations Division, including assigned attorneys from the Narcotic and Dangerous Drug Section (NDDS) and National Security Division, as well as the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs, Criminal Division’s NDDS’ Office of Judicial Attaché in Bogotá, Colombia, with the cooperation of Colombian authorities and international partners including the Colombian Army, Colombian National Police, National Prosecutor’s Office and Technical Body of Investigation.

The operation, dubbed Operation Selva Roja, is part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime. Operation Take Back America streamlines efforts and resources from the Department’s Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhood.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Casey N. MacDonald and Anibal Alaniz of the Southern District of Texas are prosecuting the case.

An indictment is a formal accusation of criminal conduct, not evidence. A defendant is presumed innocent unless convicted through due process of law

Source: US FBI

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is marking the 45th anniversary of the creation of its first Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF). Formed in 1980, the first JTTF became a model for law enforcement cooperation across the nation.

The Boston Division of the FBI organized its first JTTF in April 1986. Known as the New England Terrorism Task Force, it was comprised of the FBI, the Boston and Cambridge Police Departments, and the state police departments in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. On September 19, 1997, the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force split off from the New England Terrorism Task Force and became its own entity. Five years later, on November 7, 2003, the Rhode Island JTTF was established, and shortly after that, the New Hampshire and Maine JTTFs were created. In 2011, FBI Boston opened the nation’s first airport-based JTTF office at Logan International Airport. In total, FBI Boston sponsors five JTTFs in our area of responsibility.

JTTFs gather trained investigators, intelligence analysts, linguists, and tactical experts from federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Task force members share intelligence and investigative leads and respond to threats and incidents.

“Every day, FBI Boston’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces are working fervently to detect, disrupt, and dismantle extremist plots before they happen because in today’s dynamic threat environment, no one agency can do it alone,” said James Crowley, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Boston Division. “All our partners bring their unique skills, perspectives, and expertise to these teams and work with us and our private sector and community partners to keep our communities safe. We thank them for their dedication to this mission.”

The FBI’s JTTF model dates to 1979, when the New York Police Department and the FBI’s New York Field Office created a joint task force to tackle violent bank robberies. They initiated the model in 1980, when terrorist bombings, bomb threats, and other violence plagued the city.

Following the 9/11 attacks, FBI leadership directed all FBI field offices to establish a JTTF. Additionally, the FBI established a National Joint Terrorism Task Force to support the local task forces in June of 2002. The NJTTF at FBI Headquarters enhances communication, coordination, and cooperation from partner agencies.

JTTFs have disrupted dozens of plots in the last four decades, including a plan to attack millennial celebrations in Los Angeles in 2000; a plan to detonate a car bomb in Times Square in New York in 2010; and plans to sow chaos in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2022 and 2023 by destroying energy facilities. 

The FBI Boston Division counts numerous disruptions of its own, including:

• A plot by Tarek Mehanna from Sudbury, Massachusetts to provide material support to terrorists. In 2012, Mehanna was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison following an eight-week trial where he was convicted of conspiracy to provide material support to Al Qaeda, providing material support to terrorists, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country, conspiracy to make false statements to the FBI, and two counts of making false statements. According to testimony at trial, Mehanna and his co-conspirators discussed their desire to participate in violent jihad against American interests and their desire to die on the battlefield.
• Rezwan Ferdaus from Ashland, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison on November 1, 2012 for plotting an attack on the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol, and for attempting to provide detonation devices to terrorists.
• David Wright, of Everett, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 30 years in prison on September 29, 2020, after a federal jury convicted him of conspiring to murder U.S. citizens, including police, on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq & Syria (ISIS). Shortly after, Nicholas Rovinski, of Warwick, Rhode Island, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for conspiring with Wright and Usaamah Abdullah Rahim (now deceased) to commit acts of terrorism to support ISIS, specifically, to behead Americans and kill police.
• Alexander Ciccolo, of Adams, Massachusetts, was arrested by FBI Boston’s Western Massachusetts JTTF on July 4, 2015, for plotting to engage in ISIS- inspired terrorist activity. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison after admitting to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, attempting to use weapons of mass destruction, felony possession of firearms, and assaulting a nurse during a jail intake process by use of a deadly weapon causing bodily injury.
• Edward McLarnon, of Malden, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison on May 16, 2018 for buying explosives and firearms with the intent to murder a federal judge, a former Massachusetts Attorney General, and his ex-wife’s husband.
• Xavier Pelkey, of Waterville, Maine, was arrested by FBI Boston’s Maine JTTF and later admitted to self-radicalizing, pledging loyalty to ISIS, and conspiring with two minors to commit a mass shooting at a mosque in Illinois. He was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison on November 6, 2023.

JTTFs are also among the first responders to arrive at the scenes of horrific violence—whether they are terror-based or not—and lead the investigations of terrorist incidents.

Among the cases Boston’s JTTF has investigated are:

• The 9/11 attacks, given that two of the hijacked flights – American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines 175, both of which were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center – originated from Logan International Airport in Boston. Additionally, Mohammed Atta, the ringleader of the hijackers, had traveled to Logan Airport via a connecting flight from Portland, Maine.
• Richard Reid attempted to destroy American Airlines Flight 63 as it traveled from Paris to Miami in December 2001. Alert passengers thwarted his attempts to ignite a bomb in his shoe, and the flight was diverted to Logan International Airport where he was taken into custody. In January 2003, Reid was found guilty of terrorism and sentenced to life in prison.
• Two self-radicalized brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, executed the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. They detonated two powerful explosives, killing three people and injuring more than 500 others.  Days later, on April 18, 2013, the brothers—armed with five IEDs, a Ruger P95 semi-automatic handgun, ammunition, a machete, and a hunting knife—drove their Honda Civic to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) campus, where they shot and killed MIT Police Officer Sean Collier and attempted to steal his service weapon. Following a manhunt that culminated in a shoot-out with police in Watertown, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed, and his younger brother Dzhokhar was taken into custody after hiding out in a boat. He was charged with use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and conspiracy along with 29 additional terrorism related charges. Tsarnaev was convicted and formally sentenced to death in June 2015. He is currently appealing that sentence.

Source: US FBI

A man who conspired to distribute methamphetamine in Dubuque, Iowa, pled guilty today in federal court in Cedar Rapids.  Juan Jose Ruiz, age 29, from California, was convicted of conspiring to distribute 500 grams or more of a mixture or substance containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine, and 50 grams or more of actual (pure) methamphetamine.   

In a plea agreement, Ruiz admitted that between January 2021 and December 2021, he agreed with others to distribute methamphetamine.  On December 14, 2021, in Clear Creek County, Colorado, law enforcement officers stopped Ruiz as he was driving to Dubuque.  Officers found over 25 pounds of ice methamphetamine in his car.  Ruiz intended to distribute the methamphetamine to a co-conspirator in Dubuque.   

Sentencing before United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams will be set after a presentence report is prepared.  Ruiz remains in custody of the United States Marshal pending sentencing.  Ruiz faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, a $10,000,000 fine, and a lifetime of supervised release following any imprisonment.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Devra T. Hake and was investigated by the Dubuque Drug Task Force, Dubuque County Sheriff’s Office, Dubuque Police Department, Quad City Metropolitan Enforcement Group, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Postal Inspection Service, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation Criminalistics Laboratory.

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

The case file number is 23-CR-1006.  

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Source: US FBI

The defendant, a felon, also possessed a firearm in connection with the drug offense.

Source: US FBI

MIAMI—The FBI Miami Field Office is aware of a recent increase of scam attempts targeting South Florida residents. Callers identify themselves as a federal officer and typically instruct people to wire or mail “settlement” money or to assist law enforcement with an investigation against a bank. These calls are fraudulent, and call recipients should hang up immediately. Federal agencies do not call or email individuals threatening them to send money or to use their personal money as “bait” for a federal investigation.

There are many versions of this government impersonation scam, but they are all variations of the same tactic. This type of scam has been around for years and targets people across the nation.

“Criminals use law enforcement impersonation scams as a means of confusing and unnerving their intended victims in order to get them to act rashly,” said Supervisory Special Agent Michael Brown. “If you receive one of these calls, hang up, and report the incident to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3.GOV). In the 2024 IC3 report released this week, Florida residents reported 1,579 impersonation scams with an estimated loss of over $12 million.”

In addition, a scam phone call may seem legitimate because scammers can spoof caller ID information. It may appear the call is coming from a federal agency’s legitimate phone number or from Washington, D.C., or may show the name of a federal agency.

To protect yourself from falling victim to this scam, be wary of answering phone calls from numbers you do not recognize. Do not send money to anybody that you do not personally know and trust. Never give out your personal information, including banking information.

Anyone who feels they were the victim of this, or any other online scam should report the incident immediately at ic3.gov. More information about government impersonation schemes and other online fraud schemes can be found at https://www.fbi.gov/scams-and-safety/common-fraud-schemes.

For the latest annual report from the Internet Crime Complaint Center go here: https://www.ic3.gov/AnnualReport/Reports/2024_IC3Report.pdf

Source: US FBI

USERT grew out of the New York Field Office’s dive team, which was established in the 1980s. Initially, two agents who were recreational divers began finding weapons on their dives, many of which turned out to have connections to criminal cases. Word spread, and the requests for their special skillsets led to the creation of the New York Dive Team.

Today, USERT is part of the Evidence Response Team Unit (ERTU) within the FBI Laboratory. USERT divers are based out of the New York, Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington field offices and collaborate on cases across the country. With a total of 64 divers for the program, there are approximately 16 divers in each of the four field offices.

USERT members are not only expert divers—each one joined the FBI as an agent with a broad range of skillsets. Every agent can have a specialized collateral duty, in addition to their other responsibilities, which can take up to 25% of their time. USERT falls under this category, requiring tryouts to make the team and then rigorous training to prepare for the often grueling underwater work.

With USERT’s specialization, they get called in for the toughest underwater recovery cases.

As Supervisory Special Agent Brian Hudson, USERT program manager, explained: “We work on FBI cases and support local law enforcement—they’ll work the details of the case and collect the intelligence. Once they know something’s in the water, they’ll contact us to come out and search. We’ll recover the evidence, and based on chain of custody, we’ll give that evidence to the case agent or local law enforcement. They’ll send the items to a lab for further examination.”

Depending on the case, USERT may also work in international waters or assist fellow U.S. organizations. For instance, while the Coast Guard has their own maintenance divers, they do not have their own investigative dive team. In one case, USERT helped the Coast Guard recover large amounts of cocaine from a sunken drug running boat off the coast of Honduras. USERT has also been deployed to countries like Iraq to assist in investigations.

Source: US FBI

Before being sworn in the agencies from National Academy Session 284, FBI Director Christopher Wray met with DJ and his family and gave DJ his honorary FBI special agent credentials.  
 
“DJ Daniel’s journey brings unity to all law enforcement agencies, and the FBI National Academy is the ideal setting to demonstrate collective strength,” said FBI Dallas Special Agent Deborah Michaels, who serves as a counselor for this National Academy Session. “We are proud to be a part of DJ’s mission.” 

Source: US FBI

“The FBI event was supposed to be for us to get to know you guys, and for recruiting purposes, to see if this might be something we want to do…as well as get a good workout in,” O’Bar said. “Working out together is usually one of the first ways you get to know somebody and probably like them a little bit more. This was a good event. Building morale is always a good thing.”

The Wounded Warrior Regiment’s Marines came from an assortment of ranks and military career fields. They joined with students attending the FBI National Academy, a 10-week training program for law enforcement leaders that combines intensive coursework and physical training.

“As part of the FBI’s National Academy executive training program, we have weekly physical challenges,” said John Vanvorst, a supervisory instructor for the physical training unit at the FBI Academy. “In addition, today we linked up with members of the Wounded Warrior Regiment,” said Vanvorst. “They integrated in with members of our National Academy. So it was a true joint morale building and physical challenge exercise.”

The exercise challenges—held on a football field that features the eagle, globe, and anchor of the Marine Corps emblem—produced not only sweat but also the bonds of teamwork and partnership.