Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
OAKLAND – Maxfer Palma was sentenced Friday to 192 months in federal prison for one count each of possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute fentanyl, possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine on premises where children were present or resided, and possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
A dual citizen of Mexico and the United States who trafficked multi-kilogram quantities of fentanyl, heroin, and cocaine was sentenced on July 14, 2026, to 104 months in prison and four years of supervised release before U.S. District Judge Michael E. Farbiarz in Newark federal court.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Earlier today, at the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, Bianca Vieux was arraigned on a superseding indictment charging Vieux and seven other defendants in a fraud scheme relating to deposits of falsified checks and the production of fraudulent Social Security cards. Vieux was arrested on July 7, 2026 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Steven Boyce, Daija-Nek Johnson, Michelle Wilson, and Valeria Waldron were arrested on June 18, 2026 and previously arraigned. Christopher Walker and Destiny Mendez were previously charged in the original indictment and their cases are pending. One additional defendant remains at large. In addition, in May 2026, two defendants charged in the original indictment, Aaron Warren and Tara Dildy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud and are awaiting sentencing.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
Today, a payment processing broker who facilitated stealing money from businesses bank accounts was sentenced to three years in prison. Through his scheme, sham merchants stole and attempted to steal $14 million dollars from victims’ bank accounts.
According to court documents, Jeremy Todd Briley, 47, of Happy Valley, Oregon, worked as a payment processing broker. Acting on behalf of clients (merchants), Briley identified payment processors in the United States for his clients to use in processing charges. Briley’s two largest clients were sham companies that falsely represented that they provided online marketing services to businesses. Instead, they stole from victims by fraudulently debiting their bank accounts, causing over $14 million in unauthorized debits and attempted debits.
From February 2017 to December 2023, Briley obtained and maintained payment processing relationships for those sham companies so that they could process fraudulent debits, knowing that the sham companies were fraudulently debiting bank accounts, according to court documents. Despite repeatedly receiving information that the debits processed on behalf of the sham companies were not authorized by the victims, Briley concealed the fraudulent activities of the sham companies in various ways, and he arranged for a payment processor to deceive banks by manipulating return rates on the fraudulent debits.
Briley was also sentenced to three years of supervised release and ordered to forfeit $460,000 in proceeds of the fraud.
In April 2026, Briley pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida; Inspector in Charge Eric Shen of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) Criminal Investigations Group; and Special Agent in Charge Vincent R. Zehme of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Office of Inspector General (FDIC-OIG), Chicago Region made the announcement.
The USPIS and FDIC-OIG investigated the case.
Trial Attorney Daniel Zytnick of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section prosecuted the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Grosnoff for the Southern District of Florida handled forfeiture.
Source: United States Department of Justice
Last month, the Justice Department’s Energy and Natural Resources Division (ENRD) — in partnership with the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law and the Independent Forest Monitoring Network — continued in its work with other U.S. government agencies to provide strategy and resources to foreign law enforcement partners to combat illegal natural resource crimes, like animal crushing and animal and timber trafficking. The division sent personnel to Indonesia to meet with dozens of law enforcement officials, including judges and prosecutors.
Workshop banner.
ENRD shared examples of previous cases, investigative strategies, and successful prosecutorial practices in targeting illegal logging, wildlife crimes, and related financial offenses.
“What we’re trying to accomplish by our ongoing work on timber and wildlife trafficking is to reduce illegal, criminal activity,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Adam Gustafson of ENRD. “Empowering law enforcement in places like Indonesia helps prevent illegal flora and fauna from being introduced into commerce both in the United States and abroad. Enforcing laws against illegal wildlife and timber trafficking gives consumers confidence and provides a level playing field for companies that operate within the law.”
Workshop banner.
To become more familiar with trade regulations and supply chains, participants including ENRD visited a timber processing facility and a port.
Timber from a processing plant in Indonesia.
Entrance to Tanjung Perak Port in Surayaba, Indonesia.
The workshop concluded a three-part series launched in August 2025. The U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Oceans and Environmental and International Scientific Affairs funded the workshop. DOJ’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training supported the workshop, as well as U.S. law enforcement officers, analysts, and forensic scientists from the Customs and Border Protection, Fish and Wildlife Service, Forest Service, and Homeland Security Investigations.
Cranes at Tanjung Perak Port in Surayaba, Indonesia.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
A district court judge today convicted a local tax preparer and Franconia museum guide of receiving and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM) over multiple years.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, in December of 2022, law enforcement began an undercover investigation into a user who was requesting CSAM files on the peer-to-peer file sharing network, Freenet. Further investigation revealed that the user was Nathaniel Carey Lee, 39, of Springfield. In June of 2024, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant and seized multiple devices which were later found to contain a large volume of images and videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. In an interview with law enforcement, Lee admitted to possessing approximately 4 million images of CSAM and/or child erotica.
Following a bench trial, Lee was convicted on two counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 6, 2027. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Trial Attorney Nadia Prinz of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) and Assistant U.S. Attorney Meredith Clement for the Eastern District of Virginia are prosecuting the case.
The HSI Washington, DC Field Office investigated the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and CEOS, 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, visit www.justice.gov/psc.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today it is opening a compliance review into Harvard University to determine whether its China-based financial aid programs and practices exclude American-citizen students, in violation Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of national origin.
“Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it.”
Under Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, institutions of higher education, such as Harvard, must self-report gifts and contracts valued at $250,000 or more. Harvard’s disclosures indicate that it is the American university receiving the most funding from foreign sources, having disclosed nearly $4.5 billion in foreign funding. Harvard’s disclosures also confirm that its greatest source of foreign funding comes from sources based in China, which account for more than $630 million.
The Civil Rights Division’s audit of Harvard’s disclosures raised concerns about Harvard’s compliance with Title VI’s antidiscrimination requirements. Specifically, these China-based sources restrict Harvard’s use of their funds and require that Harvard support or establish financial aid programs “with preference given to students from particular countries.”
Harvard appears to be accepting these funds and, in adherence to their restrictions, providing student financial aid to foreign students, presumably Chinese, based on their national origin — to the potential detriment of students of other national origins, including American citizens.
The Civil Rights Division has not reached any conclusions about the subject matter of the investigation.
The public may inspect Harvard’s disclosures at www.foreignfundinghighered.gov, which is run by the Department of Education.
Note: Read the Department’s Notice Letter here.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah – A federal grand jury in Salt Lake City returned an indictment charging an illegal alien from Sinaloa, Mexico, and two Weber County, Utah, residents with drug crimes after law enforcement located and seized a large quantity of blue M30 fentanyl pills during two separate seizures following an alleged drug transaction in Tooele County, Utah.
Source: United States Department of Justice Criminal Division
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division announced today a finding that the University of California San Diego School of Medicine (San Diego Med) used race in its admissions process in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin, and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA), which banned race discrimination in higher education.
“Rather than rely on MCAT scores or GPA, San Diego Med’s shadow application process unlawfully judged applicants for admission based on their race,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “San Diego Med’s blatant efforts to prioritize race are illegal, and we will end these practices.”
The Department’s investigation found that San Diego Med manipulated applicant data to achieve greater racial diversity in student admissions. San Diego Med’s documents show that admissions staff used purportedly “race-neutral” subjective criteria to deliberately increase admission of so-called “underrepresented minorities in medicine” (URM), which includes black and Hispanic applicants. In fact, San Diego Med used racial proxies, which, under SFFA, are banned by Title VI.
One example includes San Diego Med’s admissions staff using answers to “hardship” application questions — which allow applicants to address how they “overcame” certain disadvantages — to help determine which students were URM applicants. Thereafter, the admissions staff sorted applicants into six categories: Groups A-C — from highest to lowest MCAT scores and GPA, with “hardship” subgroups for each group. Each group and its subgroup were combined (e.g., “Group A” plus “Group A with hardship”), further sorted into “batches” of 30, and then rated for the interview stage. By giving reviewers access to the applicant’s race during this stage for certain admissions cycles post-SFFA, San Diego Med ensured that more URM applicants would be invited to interview. Thus, San Diego Med deliberately used the “hardship” categorization to skirt SFFA, by putting more URMs into the subgroups, which ensured that more URMs received interviews.
The result of San Diego Med’s manipulation: white and Asian applicants were denied admission in favor of lower-credentialed black and Hispanic applicants.
Medical schools receive substantial federal financial assistance and are subject to federal non-discrimination laws. The Department will continue to monitor and ensure their compliance with Title VI and SFFA’s prohibition on race-conscious admissions. Where a violation has been found, the Department is engaging in settlement negotiations to ensure the school’s admissions practices are brought into compliance. If those efforts fail, the Department will file suit.
Note: Read the Department’s Findings Letter here.
Source: United States Navy
PACIFIC OCEAN — In the bright, blue waters surrounding the Hawaiian Islands, Military Sealift Command (MSC) Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships are providing the fuel, supplies, and sustainment that keep the world’s largest international maritime exercise underway.