Category: Security

Source: US FBI

FBI Director Christopher Wray spoke with the sheriffs of the U.S.’s most populous counties about violent crime, extremism, border security, election security and swatting.

Director Wray met with the Major County Sheriffs of America during their 2024 Winter Conference on February 9 in Washington, D.C., to discuss threats facing law enforcement and strategies to address them.

Wray emphasized partnerships as the key to better protecting the American people. “Partnerships are how we leverage our respective strengths and capabilities,” he told the sheriffs.

The association includes the more than 100 sheriff’s offices in counties or parishes with a population of 500,000 or more. Wray spoke with the group about violent crime, extremism, border security, election security and swatting.

Violent Crime

Though the surge in violent crime during the pandemic has leveled off or dropped in some places, Wray said, “it’s still higher than anyone in this room would like.” Partnerships have helped reduce it.

In western Pennsylvania last summer, the FBI and its partners arrested 58 members of a violent gang that trafficked fentanyl and methamphetamine. In the months after, violent crime dropped by 20% there.

In Los Angeles, the FBI and its partners targeted an organized crime syndicate that trafficked fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine across North America. Charges were brought against the Mexican-based suppliers, the Canada-based truck drivers, and the distributors in the United States.

FBI-led task forces are working cases like these nationwide, Wray said, and they include more than 6,000 officers from hundreds of departments and agencies, “including many from the departments represented in this room.”

And the Bureau doesn’t take task force officers for granted, he added. With it comes security clearances; access to our systems, intelligence, and training; and contacts that allow for easier deconfliction and coordination.

Juvenile Crime

Calling the surge in juvenile crime “an alarming trend,” Wray said, “more and more we’re seeing some of the offenders responsible for some of the worst violence are minors.”

And this includes not just carjackings, shootings, and assaults, he continued, but many who are radicalized by foreign terrorist organizations or other extremists to commit violence.

“So, we’ve looked for ways to bring together law enforcement, community partners, mental health professionals, schools and social workers to deter juvenile offenders,” he said.

This multidisciplinary approach diverted at least two juveniles in Dallas who were “on dangerous paths toward carrying out shootings,” he said, but added he would still continue to press the Department of Justice and federal prosecutors to make criminal prosecutions an effective deterrent.

“There are repeat violent offenders who have to be held accountable, even if they’re minors,” he said.

Border Security

Threats that cross the border don’t stop there, Wray said. Dangerous drugs, like fentanyl, make it into our neighborhoods, as does the violence that follows drug and gang activity. 

Another concern is the increase in recent years of KSTs—known or suspected terrorists—who’ve attempted to enter the country, and the possibility that some KSTs won’t be caught at the border.

The seriousness of the KST threat stems from our border vulnerabilities, Wray said, and the heightened risk since October 7, 2023, of a terrorist attack, given “the rogue’s gallery of foreign terrorist organizations out there who are all calling for attacks.”

To address this threat, he said, the FBI is focusing on intelligence sharing, community outreach, and Joint Terrorism Task Forces building up their source networks.

“We’re also counting on the backstop of the 800,000 local officers with NCIC [National Crime Information Center] access to trigger a notification if a KST is encountered anywhere,” he added.

Election Security

On top of perennial threats, Director Wray said the election year presents its own challenges, including foreign adversaries seeking to undermine confidence in our elections and cyber threats.

Though Russia is often associated with election influence operations, he said, two Iranian nationals recently were indicted for an online campaign to interfere in the 2020 elections.

In April 2023, 34 officers from China’s Ministry of Public Security were also charged. Using fake social media accounts, they promoted divisive narratives, for instance, on the anniversary of George Floyd’s death, portraying law enforcement as thuggish and racist.

The reality about our elections, Wray said, “is that advances in AI [artificial intelligence] are lowering the barrier for foreign actors to engage in efforts like this. It makes those efforts appear more realistic, which makes them more dangerous.”

The FBI, he said, has stepped up efforts with Intelligence Community partners to expose these foreign adversaries.

Turning to cyber threats, he said they ranged from system intrusions to theft and information leaks. Though voting machines garner the most attention, pre-election processes, like voter registration systems, are actually more vulnerable.

Spies and criminals want voters’ personally identifiable information so they can exploit it for various purposes, he said, but we’re working with election officials to harden that target.

Other threats, he added, included ballot and voter fraud, campaign finance violations and physical threats against election workers.

The good news is, thanks to extensive safeguards, he said attempts to compromise the election likely will not cause large-scale disruptions or prevent voting.

Even though you and other state and local partners have the lead for a lot of these issues, he told the sheriffs, the FBI wants to be a good partner. We’ll share intelligence and step in when a crime becomes a federal one.

He asked the sheriffs to get to know the election crime coordinators. Each FBI field office has two of these coordinators—a special agent and an intelligence analyst, respectively—who work closely with state and local officials, public and private sector partners, and others on election crime.

Swatting

Director Wray concluded his talk with swatting, a crime “that seems to be growing all the time,” he said. To combat it, the FBI has prioritized providing resources and education.

In May 2023, a common operational picture was set up to track swatting and understand its characteristics. Today the group includes 700 members from 350 agencies, and more than 600 incidents have been tracked.

This was so we could improve training, he said. And since the first of year, the FBI has trained around 24,000. Beyond this, he added, we have to work toward imposing consequences because “the bad guys think they can get away with it.”

He cited a recent case where partners across several states worked together to arrest a “particularly prolific juvenile” and charge him as an adult. Eventually, the juvenile was arrested in Los Angeles and extradited to Florida where he is “now locked up,” Wray said.

“Swatting incidents are expensive; they’re dangerous; and they put innocent people at risk,” Director Wray concluded, “and it’s going to take all of us working together to stop them.”

Source: US FBI

Las Vegas is a city that never slows down or turns off. Personnel from the Las Vegas police and fire departments, FBI, DHS, TSA, FAA, Homeland Security, and the National Weather Service, among others, operate this fusion center 24/7. All parties are focused on keeping attendees safe at the Super Bowl.

Planning for the Super Bowl “started over a year ago,” said Assistant Special Agent in Charge Jeremy Schwartz of FBI Las Vegas. The FBI provides bomb technicians, WMD experts, additional agents, and other operational resources to the city during the Super Bowl.

But what is most vauable, says Schwartz, is “having a full-time footprint at the fusion center in the Valley.”

Adam Seely, section lieutenant, Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center, adds, “Having the FBI as part of the Southern Nevada Counterterrorism Center has helped us greatly. It’s enhanced our communications with our FBI partners, and we’re able to jointly work investigations with them. It’s a great working relationship … and it’s critical, especially, that we work with the fusion center to protect the city.”

Source: US FBI

Eleven people indicted were arrested, including Robert Scoppa, an alleged Canadian drug trafficker with close ties to the Montreal Italian Mafia, and Guramrit Sidhu, of Canada.  

The defendants allegedly conspired to traffic and import hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and methamphetamine from Mexico through Los Angeles for export to Canada or redistribution throughout the U.S. 

The investigation, known as Operation Dead Hand, examined this network of “handlers” and “dispatchers” moving these substances. The indictment alleges that Scoppa allegedly purchased the drugs wholesale from cartel-affiliated suppliers in Mexico—then handlers ensured they were loaded onto a long-haul semi-truck. Through coordination with trucking companies, the drugs were delivered across a port of entry into Canada.

“Drug trafficking is a global problem being driven by sophisticated, organized crime groups who put profits over people’s lives,” said Martin Estrada, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, during a press conference on January 30. “Motivated by greed, these criminals destroy lives, devastate families, and wreak havoc in our community. But this case shows that we will collaborate with our international partners to bring these criminal networks to justice. Those who traffic in highly addictive and dangerous drugs will be held accountable.”

The operation began in September 2022 and specifically targeted the groups’ leaders. 

FBI Los Angeles Supervisory Special Agent Tracy Dockery explained how the Bureau and its partners investigated the criminal organizations from a global perspective, from the source of supply to the customer base—ultimately identifying high-ranking leadership. 

“By targeting the highest level of transnational organized crime, the goal was to dismantle and disrupt the global network instead of just the network in Los Angeles that engages in these illicit activities and ultimately reduce the harm to the public that these organizations pose,” said Dockery. “Operation Dead Hand was a model case for this kind of strategy.”  

The strategy worked.  

Source: US FBI

Chinese government hacking efforts now target the entire American populace, and the escalating urgency of the overall threat that China poses to U.S. national security requires more investment in the FBI’s capabilities, FBI Director Wray warned lawmakers during a January 31 appearance before the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party. 

“I do not want those watching today to think we can’t protect ourselves,” he told legislators. “But I do want the American people to know that we cannot afford to sleep on this danger.” 

China’s quest to steal American intellectual property to gain an economic and militaristic edge over the United States—through nefarious cyber means and traditional espionage, alike—hasn’t let up. But the scope of its malicious cyber activities has expanded to target our nation’s critical infrastructure, Wray told lawmakers during the hearing, which looked to gauge the risks that CCP cyber efforts poses to U.S. national security. 

“There has been far too little public focus on the fact that PRC [People’s Republic of China] hackers are targeting our critical infrastructure—our water treatment plants, our electrical grid, our oil and natural gas pipelines, our transportation systems,” Wray told the committee during his opening remarks. “And the risk that poses to every American requires our attention now.” 

China’s state-sponsored hackers are posturing themselves to be able to take down these vital resources at a moment’s notice. That way, if conflict breaks out between the U.S. and China, they can cripple those resources and do direct harm to U.S. citizens, Wray explained. “Low blows against civilians are part of China’s plan,” he said. 

And, Wray stressed, this threat isn’t theoretical. On January 31, it was announced that the Bureau had worked with partners to identify Wi-Fi routers that had been infected with malware originating from a Chinese government-sponsored hacking group. 

“The Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation, and water sectors—steps China was taking, in other words, to find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous,” Wray said. “So working with our partners, the FBI ran a court-authorized, on-network operation to shut down Volt Typhoon and the access it enabled.” 

This disruption was significant, but it’s not the end of the story when it comes to countering malicious cyber efforts by the Chinese government.  

The FBI is leveraging its expertise in the areas of cybersecurity, criminal investigation, and weapons of mass destruction, as well as private and public sector partnerships and relationships with international allies to tackle this multifaceted threat, he said. And investment is central to sustaining our battle rhythm against this threat. 

The President’s Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request would help the FBI bolster its 56 field offices’ ability to investigate cyber threats, Wray’s written testimony to the committee stated. 

“The Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request includes an additional $63 million for more agents, enhanced response capabilities, and strengthened intelligence collection and analysis capabilities,” he wrote. “These investments reflect the National Cybersecurity Strategy’s emphasis on a whole-of-nation approach to addressing the ongoing cyber threat.” 
Cuts to the Bureau’s budget would hinder the FBI computer intrusion program’s ability to combat CCP threats to U.S. economic and national security “before they can do significant harm,” the written testimony noted. 

“The budgets that emerge from the discussions underway now will dictate what kind of resources we have ready in 2027—a year that, as this committee knows all too well, the CCP has circled on its calendar,” Wray told the committee. 

Wray testified beside witnesses from across the U.S. government’s highest levels of cyber leadership at the hearing about CCP threats to American cybersecurity. Fellow panelists included National Security Agency Director Gen. Paul M. Nakasone (who appeared in his capacity as commander of U.S. Cyber Command); Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Director Jen Easterly; and Harry Coker, Jr., who leads the Office of the National Cyber Director. 

“The Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party is committed to working on a bipartisan basis to build consensus on the threat posed by the Chinese Communist Party and develop a plan of action to defend the American people, our economy, and our values,” the committee’s website states. 

You can read Director Wray’s full written testimony here, and you can read his opening remarks, as prepared, here. 

Source: US FBI

Visualizing the Threat Picture

FBI New York personnel aim to be ready for anything when safeguarding NYE festivities, Burgwald said.

“Those threats can really range the ideological spectrum that can go from your traditional violent criminality to certainly terrorist attacks for New Year’s Eve,” he explained. 

For example, on Dec. 31, 2022, an attacker driven by extremist ideology attacked three NYPD officers with a machete. The attacker, Trevor Bickford, recently plead guilty to federal terrorism charges in connection with the attack.

Wittenberg says that the night of the festivities, the FBI takes nothing for granted. 

“During the course of the event, there is a constant assessment of how things are going and, as needed, we can adjust our plans and redirect some of the experts that we have deployed just to make sure that everything is going as smoothly as possible,” Wittenberg said.

As for 2023’s event, “there were no significant incidents,” Wittenberg said. “The plan and the new measures that were put into place to make sure that the event was smooth and not disrupted were very effective.” 

It’s event for which no news is good news.

“The New Year’s Eve event is just a reminder of the love of mission and just the sheer dedication to the FBI’s mission to keep the American people safe,” Burgwald said. “The team’s collective work is often done away from the spotlight, so when an event goes off without a quote unquote ‘incident,’ that’s a good thing.”

Source: US FBI

The FBI team started strong and led at the half. But youth won in the end with a final score of 35-31. David Johnson, a supervisory special agent at Headquarters and a commanding presence on the court, said after the game what nobody wants to hear an FBI agent say: “We were outgunned and outmanned.”

Johnson said the game was a great example of trying to build trust. “We are our community and we want the community to have a relationship with us,” he said. “We want to know what they need from us. Som this starts right here.”

James Johnson, a 15-year-old sophomore who landed a few buckets in the game, said the day offered him perspectives he had never imagined. “There’s 2,000 opportunities in the FBI, and that is something that I never knew,” he said. “But I’m glad I got to find out. It’s different from any type of nine-to-five job. You can do multiple things, and that’s what I like about it.”

David Sundberg, assistant director in charge of the Washington Field Office, said the day’s lessons cut both ways. “One thing we learned from these kids today, and I think we’ve known this, is our agency can be pretty opaque to them,” he said. “They can’t put a face to it. And so it’s important for us to be in those communities putting a face to that.”

After the first game, the teams mixed it up, with the FBI and high-schoolers playing again amongst themselves. The day ended with a lot of smiles, fist-bumps, and group pictures—a day the young players will likely remember.

“We are breaking down walls,” said Freeman, the city’s DPR director. “We are removing barriers and removing stereotypes, one opportunity at a time.”

Source: US FBI

Director Christopher Wray has named Brian Driscoll as the special agent in charge of the Newark Field Office. Mr. Driscoll most recently served as the commander of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team (HRT) and Critical Incident Response Group’s (CIRG) Tactical Section chief.

Mr. Driscoll joined the FBI as a special agent in 2007. He was first assigned to the New York Field Office, where he worked organized crime matters and later became a member of SWAT.

In March 2011, Mr. Driscoll was selected as an operator for FBI’s HRT. Ultimately, he became an HRT team leader, responsible for the planning and execution of tactical solutions in furtherance of FBI global operations. He also collaborated with foreign law enforcement and military partners to conduct operations and training, strengthening FBI global partnerships.

In 2019, Mr. Driscoll moved to New York to work in the Long Island Resident Agency as a supervisory special agent to establish and lead two joint task forces concerning violent crimes, child exploitation, and human trafficking.

Mr. Driscoll was transferred to the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force in 2020 to lead the North Africa international terrorism investigations squad. Mr. Driscoll was promoted to serve as the assistant special agent in charge of the NY JTTF’s Extraterritorial Terrorism Branch.

In April of 2022, Mr. Driscoll was promoted to head of HRT and tactical section chief of CIRG.

For his actions under fire on numerous tactical operations, Mr. Driscoll has been awarded the FBI Medal of Valor and the FBI Shield of Bravery.

Prior to his career with the FBI, Mr. Driscoll was a special agent with the Naval Criminal Investigative Service. Mr. Driscoll earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Villanova University and a master’s degree in public policy and international relations from Pepperdine University.

Source: US FBI

Court-Authorized Operation Removes PlugX Malware from More Than 4,200 Infected U.S. Computers

Source: US FBI

Source: US FBI

Director Christopher Wray has named R. Joseph Rothrock as the special agent in charge of the Dallas Field Office. Mr. Rothrock most recently served as the deputy assistant director in the Counterintelligence Division.

Mr. Rothrock entered on duty as an FBI special agent in 2006, assigned to the San Diego Field Office, Imperial County Resident Agency. During this assignment, he investigated transnational organized crime, violent crime, public corruption, and counterterrorism matters.

In 2012, Mr. Rothrock was promoted to supervisory special agent (SSA) and assigned to the Criminal Investigative Division (CID) at FBI Headquarters. Mr. Rothrock returned to San Diego in 2014 as an SSA working domestic and international violent crime, as well as crimes against children and victim services programs.

Mr. Rothrock was named assistant section chief for CID in 2019. He was later promoted to assistant special agent in charge of the Criminal Branch at the Pittsburgh Field Office. In 2022, Mr. Rothrock returned to CID once more, this time as a section chief. Mr. Rothrock has been serving as the deputy assistant director of the Counterintelligence Division since 2023. 

Prior to joining the FBI, Mr. Rothrock began his law enforcement career in 2001 as a police officer in Florissant, MO. He also earned a bachelor’s degree in information technology and a master’s degree in business administration from Lindenwood University.