12/23/2008

State Sanctioned Pedophilia


8-Year-Old Girl Not Old Enough to Divorce Husband, 58

A Saudi court has ruled that an 8-year-old girl who is married to a 58-year-old man cannot divorce her husband until she is older.
After the girl's father married her off for a £5,000 dowry, the girl's mother, who is separated from her husband, filed for divorce on behalf of her daughter. "The judge has dismissed the plea because she does not have the right to file such a case, and ordered that the plea should be filed by the girl herself when she reaches puberty," said lawyer Abdullah Jtili. Relatives say the father and husband have a verbal agreement that the marriage will not be consummated until the girl turns 18, and she still lives with her mother.

COMMENT: I'm glad she lives with mom, and it's oh-so-nice that dad and the husband have a verbal agreement, but I suspect when push-come-to-shove, if the hubby wants that marriage consummated, he'll do it, verbal agreement or no. This stinks. -NefariousNewt

8-Year-Old...

"She doesn't know yet that she has been married," lawyer Jtili said then of the girl who was about to begin her fourth year at primary school.
Saudi Court...

Dear friends, our lives are too dark for you to even imagine. Scores of young girls are too timid to deny the wishes of their parents and too often marry men who are of an advanced age to be grandfathers. Once legally bound, these young girls feel as though they have no choice but to do this man’s bidding. They leap to fulfil his every wish. In the dark of their bedrooms, they have sexual intercourse with men whom they fear! The thought of such pitiful lives lived in perpetual dread is too much to even imagine. The physical attacks women in Arabia endure are accompanied by mental abuse.

From an early age, female children come to realize that their lives pale in comparison with that of male children. This is a cruel existence, even if there is no physical abuse. To always feel that your status is undesirable creates a distressing sadness in our young women. If you ever have occasion to witness the behavior of an Arab women, most likely you will notice that they will respond in a bashful, hesitate manner. This is a direct result from their childhood lessons that their thoughts, dreams and wishes do not matter.

Even in my own family, a family that rules the land, there are women who are beaten and sexually assaulted by the men who are responsible for their well-being. This happens frequently, even though in my religion it is forbidden for a man to behave in the manner too many Saudi men believe is their God given right. Letter from a Saudi Princess

12/13/2008

Joe Hunt: White Collar Psychopath

Joe Hunt stands trial for the murder of Ron Levin c.1986 (trutv.com)


Joe Hunt c.2000 (bluedharma.com)


by Katherine Ramsland
(excerpt)

A PSYCHOPATH
Joe Hunt, a.k.a. Joe Gamsky, was the second son of Kathy and Larry Gamsky. He was born on Halloween in 1959, and as he grew up, it was clear to his educators that he was academically gifted. Author Randall Sullivan writes that one teacher said that he was not only the brightest student she had ever seen, but was mature and "preternaturally calm." Little did she know she was describing the essence of a psychopath.


The foremost expert on the condition known as psychopathy, Canadian researcher Dr. Robert Hare, says that psychopaths display certain obvious traits, notably a lack of attachment to others, impulsive decision-making, a lack of remorse, a tendency to rationalize what they do and to blame others, a charming and manipulative manner, and a lack of empathy. Joe Hunt would grow into all of these qualities, along with a verbal fluency that bordered on glibness. He was also arrogant and narcissistic, and he never failed to grab the opportunity to exploit others. Even without a formal diagnosis, descriptions of his words and behavior easily fit the prototype.


In fact, everyone noticed that young Joe was quite competitive, with a drive toward perfection. He had to create an impression on others and he had to win. Even worse, he cheated sometimes, and he lied. Or rather, he "rationalized" a sticky situation to make it look different to others than it really was. This strategy became his trademark, and when he set for himself the task of improving his vocabulary, he added another weapon: a wealth of words that mesmerized others. He became a talented and intimidating salesman.

THE CLUB
Joe and his older brother were both admitted into a prestigious Los Angeles prep school, the Harvard Club, on a scholarship. Joe, 12, didn't fit in very well with the children of actors, moviemakers, and corporate businessmen. His principal liability was his family's lack of money, but at that point in his development, he was also socially awkward. He joined the forensic club, which gave him a modest social life, but when he falsified evidence during a debate, he was kicked off. He took it hard, but rebounded.

Joe's father, who insisted that his children call him Larry, viewed himself as Joe's teacher. He insisted, as author Sue Horton put it, that his children become self-sufficient as quickly as possible. After Joe dropped out of the University of Southern California, Larry sent him to business school, where at the age of 19, he passed the examination for Certified Public Accountant. While he was the youngest person to have been successfully tutored for it by a specific firm, he bragged that he was the youngest person in the entire state of California to have passed the exam. (In the film based on Horton's book, he's presented as the youngest in the entire country.)

Joe managed to impress two other young men, Dean Karny and Ben Dosti, who had attended the Harvard School as well. He began to hang around with them and mentioned that he would like to start an investment club with members from well-to-do families who could make a good impression and help the club to succeed. He described some of his ideas for trading commodities at low risk, and the other boys were impressed. He also told them he wanted to create a corporation with a Utopian atmosphere based on the works of Ayn Rand, where each person would do what he was best qualified to do. However, he would need money to get started.

Then in 1980, Joe's father, divorced from Kathy, moved to Chicago. Joe went with him and learned his way around the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He was a bold trader, impressing those around him, and he managed to do very well. He convinced Dean Karny's parents to invest money with him, and they gave him $150,000.

It was right around that time that Joe's father changed his name to Ryan Hunt, and Joe followed suite by accepting the new last name. The difference was that Larry changed his name through legal channels and Joe did not.

Then in short order, he lost 14 million dollars. His story was that he'd been squeezed out by people who were jealous of his success. In the movie, he named the Mafia and a Middle East conglomerate, but in Horton's book, he blamed a large brokerage house. When he returned to L.A. two years after he'd left, he had four dollars, but he assured those who had lost money with him that he had a surefire plan for making it back, and then some. For some reason, they believed him.

"You won power over a person through the knowledge of two things, Joe explained: One was what they wanted, the other was what they feared."

What the investors did not know was the Joe had actually taken their money but had failed to register it under the investors' names. He was investigated and then suspended from trading for 10 years.

However, that didn't stop Joe Hunt. He knew ways around the system, and he soon inspired Ben and Dean to help him gather people for a club, which he wanted to call the BBC, after the Bombay Bicycle Club in Chicago, where he used to play videogames.

It wasn't difficult for three young men, dressed well and with the gift of the gab, to interest other young men in their ideas. After all, image was everything, and they looked pretty good. Ben and Dean believed in Joe, and Joe knew how to talk a good talk. In short order, the club was up and rolling, fed by naïve and gullible investors.

PARODOX PHILOSOPHY
Joe liked to persuade people that life was best lived and business best done according to what he called "paradox" philosophy. It was a combination of situation and utilitarian ethics: the ends justified the means, and one should do whatever had to be done to benefit oneself. From different perspectives, the same item or situation can have contradictory qualities: White is black and black is white. Everything depends on how you look at it. As long as there was a payoff, one could reconcile oneself to doing anything. Anything.

The core group of "boys," as they called themselves, prepared a presentation in 1983 to give to 30 prospective members, in which Joe outlined how the club would be formed. Sue Horton points out that he took his central tenets from science fiction: People would operate in "cells" comprised of a small number of members, and a "nexus" for communication. They would propose "shapes," or monetary projects, for approval by the whole club, and the shape would have an "output."

The club itself was to be run by specific levels of personnel, and the three founders were to be called "Shadings." A Shading, someone who operated in a shaded realm between black and white, was eligible for leadership because he was the one who best understood paradox philosophy and who was committed to protecting it by doing whatever needed to be done. Shadings would be judges in the Paradox Court, and they would resolve all internal disputes.

As Joe put together his company and brought in more members - always young men from families of wealth or breeding - he gave them a test, which was later described in court as the following:

"Would you murder someone, if you knew you could get away with it, for a million dollars?"

"No."

"Would you do it if it were a matter of saving your life?"

"No."

"Would you murder someone if you had to do it to save your mother?"

"Well...yes."

"Then you can't claim that you have a line you won't cross."

If there were no moral absolutes, as Joe contended, then it was just a matter of believing sufficiently in the situation to take the necessary action.

Joe was always angling for psychological leverage, no matter what the gain: one-upsmanship with a wine connoisseur, deceiving an investor about where his funds were going, or manipulating his partners to do whatever he asked.

In fact, they did not even get salaries. Most had allowances from their parents, so Joe would buy them things, pick up dinner tabs, and sometimes offer them rolls of cash from out of his pockets. He kept pretty strict control over them. He was the benevolent father.

"He mesmerized us," one of the members later admitted. Joe had a charismatic manner and an ability to tell convincing stories about his success, as well as to lay out clearly what had to be done to continue to have that success. The others all bought into his schemes and became emotionally dependent. Joe's method was to instill in them an all-encompassing desire for flashy cars, beautiful girls, and classy living so that they'd go along with anything he did, including murder.

CON vs CON - While his ultimate dream was to house all his boys together in a huge condominium as a single social and business unit, Joe knew that would take a lot of money. He looked around for investments and decided to get the BBC into the energy arena, so he persuaded Gene Browning, a bio-scientist, to sell him rights to an attrition machine he called a Cyclotron. They would give him a salary, a house, and a car in return for the rights to develop and market the machine. Browning agreed.

Now they needed even more money, so they looked around for people interested in investing in the development of more prototypes of this machine, under the auspices of a company called Microgenesis.

To make a better impression, Joe rented an expensive office suite, told investors he was making money hand over fist, and built the BBC into a company that looked prosperous and busy. In reality, the boys didn't have a lot to do. Nor was Joe investing money. Instead, he was using whatever he brought in to pay the rent, throw lavish parties, and build up his fleet of cars.

He needed big money and he needed it fast. Enter, Ron Levin.

Levin had a reputation for running a lot of sideline businesses at once, but he was also a con man who'd served time in prison. Joe figured that he and Levin would have a meeting of the minds and that he, Joe, would emerge the winner. Levin agreed to meet him and hear him out, but failed to offer him any money. Joe kept badgering him, and eventually told him that he'd gotten a large investment from someone else. He even showed him the check. Levin just laughed at the other investor's gullibility.

However, he agreed to let Joe prove himself. He set up a credit line of five million dollars with a certain investment firm, and Joe could use that to show his mettle. While Joe initially lost four million, he got a few tips from another commodities broker and within seven weeks, he had driven Levin's five million up to fourteen million. Then Levin closed the account. Joe had been promised half the profit for the BBC, so they fully expected a check to be sent to them for over four million dollars.

They started the celebration early by leasing condos in a ritzy neighborhood overlooking Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Joe described his vision of them all living and working together in the same place, one big family. He was ebullient that night as he talked about the luxury cars they would buy to share.

However, even in the midst of all this revelry, one of the members, Dave May, began to have reservations. He didn't buy into Joe's ideas, although his twin brother, Tom, obviously did. He decided to wait and watch.

It wasn't long before Joe began to wonder why the check wasn't arriving. Levin avoided his calls, so he called the broker and learned that the entire operation had been on paper only. There never had been any money. It was all a game.

In fact, in the days to come, Joe discovered it was even worse than that: Levin had used him to con someone else. He'd taken the statements from Joe's paper trading to show to another investment firm as a way to get a sizable loan. The con had conned the con.

Then Levin said he'd used the money to buy a shopping center in Chicago, and he would give the BBC a share. They thought they were again on the rise, but soon discovered there was no shopping center.

Yet Joe wasn't about to just accept defeat. Now he was in deep financial trouble, as well as having a bruised ego. He had to face his boys and tell them the truth, but according to statements some of them later made, he added that one day he would kill Ron Levin.

THE LIST - Dean introduced Joe to a security guard who called himself Jim Graham, although in reality his name was Jim Pittman. He was a muscled black man who claimed to have once played pro football and to have won weight-lifting contests. He had fled Delaware to escape felony charges. Yet because he knew things about guns and explosives, he was allowed into the inner sanctum. He became the BBC's head of security.

Around this time, one of the boys figured out that the group was spending around $70,000 a month, but he didn't see that same amount coming back as income. He realized that Joe was spending money entrusted to him by investors. Clearly, things were deteriorating.

Joe decided it was time to pressure Levin to pay them at least something. He decided that he would have to force Levin to sign over some assets and then kill him. He would leave a contract for Microgenesis in Levin's home so that it would be easy to explain why he had a signed check, and he created a paper trail by writing a series of letters back and forth about the deal. These, too, would be planted in Levin's house. Being the organized person that he was, one day Joe made a seven-page list of things that had to be done, that included some of the following:

Jim digs pit.
Joe arrives at 9:00. Lets Jim in.
Execution of agreements.
Close blinds
Tape mouth
Handcuff
Kill dog.

The plan was to take some dinners over to Ron as a friendly gesture so they could have a meeting. Then Jim would arrive with a gun and demand money that Joe supposedly owed him. Joe would tell Levin that Jim was a Mafia enforcer and that he will kill them both if Levin doesn't sign over a sizable check. Once they had the check, they would pack Levin's bags, since he was scheduled to go to New York the following day, and "send" him out of town. Then Jim would go to New York and use Levin's credit cards in the hotels to make it look as if he had actually gone there.

On Wednesday, June 6, 1984, Joe and Jim carried out this plan. They got Levin to sign over a check from a Swiss bank account for $1,500,000. Then they handcuffed him and took him into the bedroom, where they made him lie face down on the white comforter of his bed. One of the two men shot Levin - it was never clear who - and then they wrapped him in the comforter and hauled him outside to stuff into the trunk of a BMW.

It was Joe's idea to take him to Soledad Canyon, about an hour from Los Angeles. He often went hunting there, and he had noticed that it would be a great dumping ground: anything or anyone left there would never be found.

Dean Karny later testified that Joe had described what they had done at the canyon as an added touch: They shot Levin's corpse numerous times to make him unrecognizable. During this grisly session, Levin's brain had popped out of his skull and landed on his chest—an image that Karny was never to forget. What made it worse was the way Joe told the tale, as if he though it had been kind of neat to watch.

Then Jim went off to New York,while Joe tried to cash the check. He'd left the contract and correspondence in Levin's house, so he felt perfectly safe, but what he'd forgotten in all the haste to get rid of the body was the "to do" list. That, too, was back at the house.

THE COVER UP - Jim Graham got himself into trouble when Levin's credit cards proved to be over-extended. He tried to flee from the luxury hotel off Central Park where he'd been staying, but he was caught and arrested. Joe flew east to bail him out. Then he found out even worse news: Levin's check had been refused.

He knew it was time for another meeting. Referring to the Levin matter as "Mac," he talked things over with Dean Karny, who was stunned by what had taken place but who did nothing to encourage Joe to turn himself in.

They handpicked the members they felt they could trust and divulged to eight more people the facts about Levin's murder. Joe Hunt told them it was "the perfect crime."

At least, it was perfect within his narcissistic delusions. Little did he know what was forming around him among those who thought he was dangerous.

The boys to whom Joe confessed all seemed to go along with it, but some were secretly getting cold feet. Dave May, who was not at the meeting, nevertheless heard about what had taken place. He went to his father to admit how wrong he'd been about Joe Hunt and to ask for help. His father brought in an attorney.

The attorney pointed out the difficulties: There were no witnesses, no body, no proof, no missing-person report, and Hunt was known as a liar. They would have to get some hard evidence, possibly in the form of documents. The boys should just return to work as if nothing had happened, so as to avoid making Hunt suspicious.

To raise morale, Joe threw another expensive party and used $20,000 to purchase 10 matching motorcycles. The boys were impressed. Looking at those bikes, it was easy to forget that they had some real problems.

In the meantime, Ron Levin's father asked the police to check into his son's disappearance. They found a thick file on him for fraud, theft, and other scams. Because it was no surprise that a con man might turn up missing, they shrugged it off.

Then the BBC found another target.

Joe Hunt: White Collar Psychopath


Wikipedia's condensed version
Joe Hunt is the only person in California's legal history to represent himself in a capital case and not receive the death penalty.

Ice Heist

Harry Winston diamond wreath (couturesnob.com)


$108M STOLEN IN GIANT DIAMOND HEIST
(12-05-08)

NEW YORK (AP) -- Criminals, too, have to get by in a recession, and one group of robbers wanted nothing but the best.

Chic jewelry retailer Harry Winston Diamond Corp. was robbed of $108 million in merchandise Thursday, in one of the biggest jewel heists in history. The company's stock fell 42 cents, or 11.9%, to close at $3.12 on Friday.

It was déjà vu for the store, which caters to the über-rich on the fashionable Avenue Montaigne in Paris. A year ago, it was robbed of $28.4 million in jewels, according to Thomas Weisel analyst Matthew O'Keefe.

"While insurance should cover this loss, it could take several quarters before the settlement is received," the analyst noted. "With two robberies at the same place in a relatively short time span, there is a risk that insurance and security costs will rise, putting further pressure on the retail business." $108M Stolen


BALKAN GANG LINKED TO HARRY WINSTON HEIST?

French police suspect that the Pink Panther gang, could have been responsible for last week’s Harry Winston robbery, Paris media report.

The recent robbery of Harry Winston fine jewelers in the French capital could have been perpetrated by the Pink Panther group, made up of a sophisticated chain of criminals from the former Yugoslavia, whose specialty is robbing large jewelry stores using “Hollywood methods”.

Last week, a French court convicted fugitive Dragan Mikić to 15 years, Goran Mikić to 10 years, and Boban Stojković to six years for robberies committed from 2001-2003, with booty totaling EUR 7.5mn.

Having pulled off spectacular heists in Paris, Geneva, Dubai, San Tropez, Monaco, Tokyo and London, worth more than EUR 100mn, the Pink Panther group has become a nightmare for police around the world, Paris daily Figaro writes.

After police stated that the latest robbery on Saturday bore all the hallmarks of the Pink Panther group’s style, French media have gone into the group’s modus operandi in detail.

Once a location has been determined, a team is sent for reconnaissance. This is usually a couple who play the role of rich clients, who speak several languages very well, and who are sent to gauge the security situation and plot an escape route. Another camouflaged team then takes care of the robbery.

According to the French media, the group’s “hard core” is made up of 30 kingpins based in Zagreb, Tirana and Belgrade, who send instructions to operatives made up of former Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin policemen and soldiers who fought in the wars in the former Yugoslavia. Pink Panther gang



'To Catch an ID Thief'
'To Catch an ID Thief'

12/05/2008

Master Cons

CONFIDENCE TRICK
A confidence trick or confidence game (also known as a bunko, con, flim flam, gaffle, grift, scam, scheme, or swindle) is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence.
Persons of any level of intelligence are vulnerable to deception by experienced con artists. Confidence tricks exploit human weaknesses like greed, dishonesty, vanity, but also virtues like honesty, compassion, or a naive expectation of good faith on the part of the con artist.
The confidence trickster often works with one or more accomplices called shills, who help manipulate the mark into accepting the con man's plan. In a traditional confidence trick, the mark is led to believe that he will be able to win money or some other prize by doing some task. The accomplices may pretend to be random strangers who have benefited from successfully performing the task. Confidence Trick

PONZI SCHEME
A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that involves promising or paying abnormally high returns ("profits") to investors out of the money paid in by subsequent investors, rather than from net revenues generated by any real business. It is named after Charles Ponzi.
A Ponzi scheme has similarities with a pyramid scheme though the two types of fraud are different.
A Ponzi scheme usually offers abnormally high short-term returns in order to entice new investors. The high returns that a Ponzi scheme advertises (and pays) require an ever-increasing flow of money from investors in order to keep the scheme going.
The system is doomed to collapse because there are little or no underlying earnings from the money received by the promoter. However, the scheme is often interrupted by legal authorities before it collapses, because a Ponzi scheme is suspected and/or because the promoter is selling unregistered securities. As more investors become involved, the likelihood of the scheme coming to the attention of authorities increases. Ponzi Scheme

PYRAMID SCHEME
A fraudulent moneymaking scheme in which people are recruited to make payments to others above them in a hierarchy while expecting to receive payments from people recruited below them. Eventually the number of new recruits fails to sustain the payment structure, and the scheme collapses with most people losing the money they paid in.
From the day the scam is initiated, a pyramid scheme’s liabilities exceed its assets. The only way it can generate wealth is by promising extraordinary returns to new recruits; the only way these returns can be paid is by getting additional investors. Pyramid Scheme

CHURNING
Stock traders make their money by taking a commision of the stock trades they make on the behalf of their client. Everytime a stock is bought or sold, the trader makes money regardless of whether the client should purchase the stock. The stock may lose money, the amount of tax due by the client may increase and the client's money may be put in undue risk but the trader will still make their commission.
Therefore, an unethical trader can increase their own personal profit or profits of their company by increasing the number of trades they make. Instead of putting the client's money in long term investments, they will move the money quickly from stock to stock and fund to fund, making a fee each time they do this.
Churning has been found amongst small time brokers as well as top level executives of major firms. Churning


MORE LINKS

The World's Greatest Con Artists

To Catch a Con Man

Barton Watson of Cybernet

Amway/Quixtar Scam

The Man in the Rockefeller Suit