Category Archives: Victimless Crimes

ByBrian Monroebmonroe@acfcs.orgAugust 21, 2021

For Phil Cotter, the choice to jump into the fincrime compliance field boiled down to career advice he got more than 20 years ago: forget titles and salaries. Ask yourself what will you be doing every day? Who will you be helping and how?

Then go a step further, breaking down the potential position into things you enjoy doing and things you dont. If it largely contains the things that you enjoy doing, then you are likely to be successful simply because if you enjoy something, you are likely to do it well.

Cotter, now Group Head of Customer & Third-Party Risk Solutions, Data & Analytics at Refinitiv, a London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) business, not only believes he made the right decision some seven years ago, he calls it the highlight of my career.

Why?

Because I real feel that we are contributing to the greater good through the work we all do, he said. I love working with people who are passionate about what they do, and you feel you are making a positive contribution to society.

Prior to joining Refinitiv then Thomson Reuters Cotter was previously Managing Director of Experians Credit Services business in the UK, ran his own consulting business and served as a non-executive director on the board of Bisnode AB, a pan-European information services provider based in Sweden.

He also holds several advisory positions including University of Nottingham Business School, where he is an Honorary Professor.

Refinitiv, though it might seem a newer name in the fincrime compliance data, analytics and technology space, is actually a multi-billion-dollar company with tens of thousands of employees, commanding a long, rich history in the field.

The company is an American-British global provider of financial market data and infrastructure.

Refinitiv was founded in 2018 when Thomson Reuters sold a majority stake in its Financial & Risk (F&R) unit to private equity firm Blackstone Group LP in a deal which valued the total F&R business at about $20 billion, according to media reports.

This business was formed into Refinitiv, with the firms predecessors including Thomson Financial.

Refinitiv became part of LSEG in January of this year after the $27-billion-dollar sale from Blackstone Group LP, which held a 55 percent stake and Thomson Reuters, which owned 45 percent.

Refinitiv is also the parent of the venerable World-Check, now more than 20 years old, a widely relied upon database of politically exposed persons (PEPs), negative news and heightened risk individuals, firms and entities.

The focus to create a company that can help a broad array of financial services firms strengthen fincrime programs and better manage resources to improve results follows top industry watchdog groups and countries shifting the focus from technical compliance with laws and regulations to effectiveness.

The goal in this new regime: not just managing AML analysts and dispositioning transactional alerts but elevating compliance efforts to more efficiently discern and create intelligence valuable to law enforcement that could be the foundation of cases or take ongoing investigations further.

Often the focus is on compliance, which of course is important, but, in my view, the critical point is the role we all play in helping to protect society, Cotter said.

That has spurred Refinitiv to craft stronger public-private partnerships, eventually becoming co-founders of the Global Coalition to Fight Financial Crime along with Europol and the World Economic Forum, a powerful pathway to promote improved dialogue with regulators, policy makers and governments.

Many people think financial crime is a victimless crime or a few banks losing some money, however, he said, we know that money laundering is the result of serious crimes that often prey on the more vulnerable in society.

Cotter was kind enough to share some of his insight in our latest ACFCS Member Spotlight:

Visit link:

For Refinitiv's Phil Cotter, jump from distilling information to divining fincrime risk, protecting the vulnerable, the 'highlight of my career' -...

On Tuesday, September 21, 2021, Boise Police officers in partnership with Idaho State Police troopers conducted a sex trafficking demand reduction operation at an undisclosed location in Boise. The intent of the operation was to send a clear message that illicit criminal activities, including the sex trafficking of men, women, and children, are not welcome to operate in Idaho.

Our focus for this operation was to reduce the demand for prostitution in the Treasure Valley, said Boise Police Detective Mike Miraglia. Prostitution is not a victimless crime and targeting the buyers of commercial sex is one way to make an impact on the bigger problem of human trafficking and stop it from happening in our city.

Human trafficking is not confined to one city or state and lives around the world are impacted. The Idaho State Police were happy to join a team highly skilled and dedicated to stopping this crime wherever we can, said Idaho State Police Captain Matthew Sly, ISP District 3

As a result of this special operation, a total of eleven (11) people were arrested on misdemeanor prostitution charges Tuesday and booked into the Ada County Jail. The suspects arrested are identified as:

- Saverio Paul Mancieri, 71, Star, ID

- Jerry Deon Reiner, 33, Pocatello, ID

- Jose R Montenegro, 35, Wilder, ID

- Frank Ramos Moran, 34, Portland, OR

- David Richard Lockwood, 69, Boise, ID

- Chadwick Vaughn Jolley, 48, Kuna, ID

- Gerardo Escobar-Rodriguez, 37, Mountain Home, ID

- Thomas David Matthews, 40, McCall, ID

- Gabriel Castillo, 40, Arleta, CA

- Abdul Kwitonda, 34, Boise, ID

- Madison Dean Guernsey, 30, Boise, ID

Sex trafficking victims are often subjected to severe forms of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse at the hands of their trafficker, said Boise Police Detective Mike Miraglia. Boise is not immune to this type of crime and we are working to address the problem from multiple fronts including public awareness.

Sex trafficking often involves a number of complex crimes requiring us to collaborate with other law enforcement and community partners to identify and respond to victims, while holding accountable those who are responsible for their exploitation.

We want to thank our community partners who we work with on a regular basis to help identify and provide follow up care for victims of this crime. FACES of Hope, the Idaho Anti-Trafficking Coalition, and Idaho COBS are valuable community resources, and we appreciate their support.

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Arrests Made in Sex Trafficking Demand Reduction Operation | News - City of Boise

A sick paedophile kept blow-up dolls dressed as young boys in his bedroom - in the house where he lived with his mum.

Martin Hewes, of Southen-on-Sea, Essex, accessed hundreds of indecent images of youngsters via computers at his home.

When cops raided his home in Bournemouth Park Road they found the blow-up dolls and sickening images, writes EssexLive.

The 51-year-old was sentenced at Basildon Crown Court earlier this week, (Tuesday, September 21).

Prosecuting, Allister Walker said: "The defendant has no previous convictions, he lived at the address with his mother.

"A search was conducted and a number of devices were retrieved, and as they were taken for further examination officers noted an inflatable doll and others that were dressed up in types of child's underwear and small boys' underwear in the defendant's bedroom.

"Two mobile phones and one laptop were found to contain indecent images of children."

More than 300 images were discovered, the majority containing young boys, on Hewes' devices, including 65 images and 12 videos in Category A - the most serious kind.

There were also 84 photos in Category B and 239 in Category C.

Hewes admitted three counts of making indecent images of children.

Natalie Bird, mitigating, said the defendant worked full time and cared for his elderly mum, and his estranged father had died.

She said: "His mother is very unwell, she is in her 70s and suffered a stroke. His parents separated when he was a young adult. Last year his father passed away.

"On return from work he cooks dinner, helps her get into bed and is a general carer for her. His offending comes from viewing pornography at a young age.

"He didn't access illegal material until a few years ago. He now fully understands how wrong it was to do so and realises his behaviour was atrocious.

"No matter how lonely he might have been feeling from lack of other romantic relationships in his life, he wants to make sure he doesn't access them again.

"He would never, ever seek to act out anything he would have been watching on children."

Judge Ian Graham told Hewes: "The reason these cases are taken seriously is that these are not just made up images or fantasies. They are real children who have been forced into acting out these adult fantasies. These are not victimless crimes in any sense."

Hewes was given an 18-month community order with 50 days of rehabilitation and 100 hours of unpaid work.

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Paedo who lived with his mum kept blow-up dolls dressed as young boys in his bedroom - Daily Star

Jonathan Wall is a living reminder that the War on Drugs continues to snare new individuals in the system with its severe mandatory minimum sentences.

The 26-year-old Maryland native faces a mandatory minimum 10-year sentence over a federal distribution conspiracy charge, with the Feds alleging that Wall was part of an operation running cannabis from Humboldt County, where he lived at the time, to his native Maryland. If he goes to trial and loses, he could face up to life with his conspiracy charge of distributing over 1,000 kilograms of cannabis.

Wall, a first-time offender, is alleged to be the mastermind of the operation between Northern California, including Humboldt County, to his native Maryland. The Feds crackdown occurred in April 2019, with Wall in custody since July 2020. His first trial date is nearly a year away in May 2022.

While he waits, the aspiring mainstream cannabis operator attempts to maintain his composure while interned in Baltimores Chesapeake Detention Facility, a facility with a penchant for violence and corruption involving inmates and guards. The matters were only made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Wall was born in Maryland and raised by his parents. He said they got along fine after adolescence, but had been contentious previously. Wall claimed to have had a bit of an issue with authority, stating that he saw through the bullshit of society early on. Happiness for Wall didnt involve material goods like much of the world around him. Stating that he wanted to push his boundaries to find a sense of wholeness, he pursued an unconventional route.

That route included running away several times as a youth. He recalled the first time he smoked pot while on the run from home, joining a group of migrant crabbing industry workers in the back of their work van. He said everything changed from there. Cannabis being introduced into my life allowed me to elevate my sense of consciousness and kind of see things in a different light. Claiming to now see things differently, he said he saw through the veil of the mundane, everyday reality, and witnessed the human experience as it truly is from a new and fresh perspective.

Running away from home eventually led to Wall becoming homeless in his teens, turning to friends, and on occasions, public parks and restrooms. The lack of a stable home led to him dropping out of school, taking his GED instead to obtain his degree. Wall said the decision allowed him to pursue an alternate route in life.

Hed spend the next few years working in local restaurants, with cannabis supplementing his income. At 20, he saw an opportunity to enter the emerging California cannabis market in Humboldt County. At the time, California was operating as a medical-only marketplace, adhering to the Proposition 215 regulations and its subsequent reforms. Wall said he wanted to help provide cost-efficient cannabis to medical patients. Income would always be welcomed, but he stated several times throughout the interview with High Times that his prime intention was to give customers medical cannabis access.

Wall saw the lifestyle as a way to gain freedom from a society he felt disenfranchised with. He saw the 2008 economic collapse and subsequent lack of prosecution as a sign that society and the system was broken, with the working class left to serve to the rich. Through cannabis and Northern California, he shared that he saw this as an opportunity to be entirely autonomous from a system that I saw as broken.

Wall found that autonomy and a community he lacked back at home, save for his skateboarding friends. Wall felt he was contributing to a sustainable and victimless livelihood that helped others while providing him a modest living.

The Northern California community was well aware it still faced potential dangers with violating state and federal laws. However, the Obama years and the Cole Memo gave some a slight sense that the Feds were finally coming around on federal decriminalization and eventual legalization.

Wall said operators in the area remained naturally paranoid during the period, still in fear of just one person tipping off the Feds. Still, he said the general consensus was that cannabis prosecution was a 20th century invention finally existing solely in the past, which wouldnt cause the unfortunate damages it had for decades before.

He said sentiments began to change when President Donald Trump appointed two anti-cannabis Attorneys Generals during his term, first Jeff Sessions and then William Barr.

Federal intervention became a reality in 2019. Wall was made aware that he was the subject of a crackdown while on vacation with family in Portugal. It was during this time that he said he became aware of the severity of cannabis charges. Everybody knows its federally illegal, but certainly not to that extent until the find themselves affected first-hand, he stated.

Wall was worried he wouldnt be allowed back into America without facing apprehension. After those fears were dashed, he first tried to get his affairs in order, but he found many in his trying opting to cash-out rather than support him.

Eventually, around autumn 2019, Wall left the U.S. for Central America. He would stay on the run until July 2020 before turning himself over to Feds at Los Angeles LAX airport. He would be shipped across the U.S. via bus and Con-Air flights, stopping at various prisons along the way, before reaching his current destination in Maryland. He said the journey is known as diesel therapy.

While Wall awaits his hearing on nonviolent federal cannabis charges, he is housed at the Chesapeake Detention Facility in Baltimore. The facility, known for its high level of violence, also endured significant exposure to the COVID-19 virus.

This is no place you want to be, said Wall, as he reported that stabbings occur regularly. He noted that one prisoner went so far as to have weaponized milk cartons with bodily waste against guards in an assault.

The experience has certainly created an impact on Wall, like it would almost anyone. He doesnt consider himself institutionalized, but shared that staying in a groove is essential to healthy adaptation. To do so, he exercises regularly, reads often and tries to meditate for at least 20 minutes a day. A profound read has been Murray Rothbards The Ethics of Liberty. The book had a significance in developing his enthusiasm for Libertarianism social and economic structures. He also credited former cannabis convict turned author Richard Stratton for helping with his adjustment.

Life in the facility worsened when COVID-19 reached the prison, with Wall saying he didnt know an inmate who didnt contract the virus. He stated that his symptoms were minimal but remains slightly concerned about possible long-term effects. He alleges that the guards brought in the virus, saying, Its the only way it comes in here. He added that instead of separating infected cellmates from other individuals, the guards would lock the door, not allowing either to leave for days at a time. He called the scenario a nightmare.

Wall waits for his May 2022 first appearance in court. I will have been incarcerated for 23 months as a legally innocent individual by the time I have my first appearance in court, said Wall, asking if that timeline adhered to a citizens right to a speedy trial.

It is oft-reported that prisoners face harsher sentences if they forgo a plea deal and fight their chargesoften forcing many to take a plea regardless or guilt or innocence. Despite the risk, Wall is ready to have his day in court. Whether guilty or innocent, Wall abhors the idea of surrendering by copping out, to a plea. He considers doing so accepting defeat. Ive known from childhood that these people were wrong, he said of regulators. He doesnt believe in fate, but said the case almost feels like something hes been preparing for some time.

He calls the drug war the most historically flagrant violation of personal property rights by the state. Asking who is the government to regulate what a citizen can consume, he added, especially a natural plant, widely regarded as a holistic medicine. Wall would later explain that alcohol, pharmaceuticals and shotguns as far more dangerous, readily available legal options.

Walls lawyer, Jason Flores-Williams, is a noted activist and is prepared to fight the case.

Flores-Williams isnt shying away from grand language to drive home his point. I dont understand this countrys commitment to ideological necrophilia, the insistence on continuing to have sex with dead ideas, he said of the ongoing drug war and its effects.

The lawyer added, I do not intend to live with the distinction of being the last attorney to have his client go to prison for pot.

Despite the attention being on Wall, he hopes readers understand that he is just one of many continuing to be arrested and forced to serve years, decades for nonviolent cannabis charges. Like himself, many continue to face lengthy prison sentences despite the so-called Green Rush of legalization sweeping America.

He believes that without change, others like him will continue to get snared in the system while the powerful continue to escape punishment for the various allegations and crimes. Are we tired of being lied to, tired of all the lies and the War on Drugs? Wall asked.

Read more from the original source:

Most Affected: Jonathan Wall Will Serve Nearly Two Years Before His First Day in Court For Cannabis - High Times

Pilatus Bank officials today face trial for money laundering and financial crimes. The defunct bank itself is slapped with a multi-million euro fine for almost entirely flouting anti-money laundering laws. But that Pilatus Bank was riddled with alleged illegalities is not news.

The only update is that proceedings against them are only now in motion, action which would have been welcome before Daphne Caruana Galizia was allowed to be assassinated.

Today, Pilatus legacy is a humourless reminder of state takeover and a persistent denial in addressing crime and corruption and the institutional weaknesses that have been identified and exploited by Joseph Muscats Labour government.

The concerted efforts to protect Pilatus Bank at the expense of Maltas democracy can never be expunged from the record.

For years, alleged criminals were entertained, not detained, despite pressure. Keith Schembri and Muscat attended the wedding of a banker whose track record is infamous on either side of the Atlantic. Ali Sadr Hasheminejad was flagged by the Maltese FIAU years ago.

My colleagues and I fought every step of the way to assign political pressure on the regulatory authorities to do their job, for Maltas sake. Instead, Muscat did everything in his power to silence us. Because what Pilatus Bank did was more than a series of errors; it enjoyed protection from Muscats government.

Pilatus Banks clientele is telling: Schembri, Brian Tonna, Adrian Hillman all under criminal investigation, family members of one of Europes worst dictators, the Aliyevs, and Chen Cheng, allegedly embroiled in the embezzlement of millions from the Maltese taxpayer through Electrogas.

The rules for money laundering are stringent. Yet, Pilatus Bank was allegedly compliant about 3.5 per cent of the time. This would mean that for 12 days in a year, Pilatus Bank obeyed the law and breached it every other day.

What repercussions followed?

For starters, attempts at cover-ups were in overdrive. ONE News gaslit the Maltese public with scathing mockery of anyone who spoke about Pilatus Bank. Edward Scicluna, today Maltas top banker, played his part, too.

The cover-up was not victimless. Journalists, activists, whistleblowers and politicians were hounded and hunted down for their work. Caruana Galizia was assassinated for investigating this nefarious web of crime. The public inquiry into Daphnes murder cannot be separated from Pilatus Bank, which is only one piece of a broad puzzle.

This inquiry slammed Muscats entire cabinet for failing to assure good governance and the rule of law. They are equally guilty for destroying Maltas reputation not just as a financial centre but as a serious democracy.

Today, Robert Abelas administration is keen to brush over this as a failure of regulation. But Pilatus Bank and the subsequent reputational collapse go well beyond a failure of law. Not to mention that, unlike what Edward Zammit Lewis asserts, this is not a problem that can be solved with cosmetic changes that in themselves threaten constitutional principles. Concentrating power to the same institutions that snapped under political pressure is an aggravation, not a solution.

ONE News gaslit the Maltese public with scathing mockery of anyone who spoke about Pilatus Bank- David Casa

That things appear to be moving now is not redemptive of Abelas administration. The proceedings are undoubtedly damage control in reaction to FATFs greylisting. It was a catastrophic response by the international community over Maltas total lack of willingness to do anything to prosecute high-level financial crime for which the evidence was overwhelming and in the public domain for years.

We knew in 2017 that this was because the Labour Party and its key members benefitted from the same alleged crimes for which their government was responsible to prosecute.

AML laws are tools to combat the worst financial crimes, organised crime and high-level corruption. The Maltese taxpayer has been most heavily hit financially from a lack of seriousness about fighting corruption. And, yet, small business owners and ordinary citizens are now bearing the brunt of it. Serious financial institutions are cutting ties with Malta and heightened due diligence is making it next to impossible for professionals to deal with clients.

Making it more difficult for small business owners to operate can never be a substitute for ensuring justice for those at the highest levels of power who abused the electorates trust to rob the Maltese people blind. That it has become a Kafkaesque nightmare to open bank accounts for SMEs does not impress anyone. And it certainly wont impress the FATF that resources are being dedicated to curbing smaller infringements over the elephants in the room.

While writing this article, I came across a headline about Finance Minister Clyde Caruana warning citizens that the government is going to get tough on financial crime and tax evasion. Caruana makes this statement with a straight face, pretending that there isnt an alleged bank robber and recipient of big bags of undeclared cash from an alleged murder mastermind in his own parliamentary group.

The convoluted saga of both Labour administrations over the past eight years is testament to the fact that solving the disease of criminality in Malta is about more than just law and government. Invariably, its about politics.

The only way for Maltas reputation to be cleared is for them to have already vacated their office.

While Labour continues to deny its long and troubled history of wrongdoing and while Abela remains obliged to his predecessor, Malta will remain trapped in a dangerous spiral.

A spiral that will see honest citizens being thrown under the bus and from which it will take years to recover.

Independent journalism costs money. Support Times of Malta for the price of a coffee.

See original here:

Pilatus Bank: a political failure at the nations expense David Casa - Times of Malta

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead does extensive background research whenever he works on a book. For his latest novel, Harlem Shuffle, that meant learning how stolen items get "fenced."

"There's not a lot of literature about fences," Whitehead says. "But there is actually a book ... [that's] a sociological a study about these guys in the Midwest in the '60s, and one of the first things that struck me was their description of [the fences] being a wall between the straight world and the crooked world."

In Whitehead's novel, the main character, Ray Carney, is that wall. Carney owns a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem, but he has a sideline trafficking in stolen goods. Whitehead says inspiration for the story came to him a few years back, when he was deciding on a movie to watch.

"I was just thinking about how much I like heist movies and thinking [about] how much fun the directors and writers must have put it all together," he says. "And asked myself ... can I do that?"

Whitehead's two most recent books were historical novels set in the South. The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys focused on the brutality of slavery and institutional racism. Writing them back-to-back exacted a heavy emotional toll.

"As I was finishing The Nickel Boys and bringing the boys closer to their tragic fate ... I felt very depressed and depleted," Whitehead says. "I finished the book and then just played video games and barbecued for six weeks and that's how I came back into myself."

Working on Harlem Shuffle was different: "Having fun with this crime genre and some of the supporting cast who are kind of colorful was a relief," Whitehead says. "From the first page of writing the book and getting back into writing a book set in New York, I felt I was on my home turf."

On choosing to set his heist novel in Harlem between 1959 and 1964

The first thing I thought was [that] crooks might exploit some big New York event. So I tried to think of [ideas]: Should I use the blackout of '77 and then use that for cover for a heist? The riot of the early '40s, which happened when a cop abused a Black person in Harlem? And then I thought, Ralph Ellison kind of owns that because Invisible Man, so I can't really go there. [Then, I thought of] the riot of '64, after a young Black teenager was killed by a white policeman. And so once I had '64, it all flowed from there. And I split up into three sections, 1959, '61 and '64 and try to find different pegs for what's happening in New York that could serve the story.

On learning about "fences" (the people who resell stolen goods)

I decided to have a fence for a hero because I always find it appalling when I watch a heist movie and the criminals have stolen their $2 million in jewels and half the gang is dead and the cops [are] looking for them, and then they go to the fence and the fence says, "I'll give you 10 cents on the dollar." And it's always so appalling and I'm so mad, and I figured that would be a good person to figure out for a book. ...

Things come in stolen, slightly "previously owned" and then they go out into the world ready for the next owner cleaned up. And ... I immediately mapped [that divide] onto Carney's personality. He has this part of himself that wants to leave the life that he grew up in and have a business and go to college and have a nice family. But there is that call in his blood ... and that struggle going back and forth is paralleled by the fence's role and speaks to so much of how I think a lot of us live. I think there are a lot of us who have different parts of us, reconciled, unreconciled, and sometimes that's the drama of our lives.

On how fencing stolen goods works

When I was reading these sociological studies of fences, one thing that was made apparent very early was that they often have fronts, front stores. And so the main guy in this one study reupholstered furniture. In the front of the store, he has these used armchairs that he's refurbished and where does he get them? He goes to the swap meet, and at the swap meet, there's like a rare coin guy over there. And so a criminal has given the fence these jewels and coins and other things to watch, and he'll find other dealers at a swap meet. He'll sell them at his store. But you're connected in this shadowy underground of people who specialize in this or that particular thing. If you put your diamond necklace in the hands of your jewelry connection, that person who has connections to the legit broader marketplace, and so something that is stolen on Tuesday could re-enter the supply chain on Friday. And it's very fluid and the idea of a front, the front that you have out to the world with the sort of bad business in the back is applicable, definitely, to Carney's personality.

On recognizing a front business when he sees one

I still continue to be a failure to know what stores are fronts and what is not. When I lived in Brooklyn ... in the '90s, I would go to the store to buy a six pack of beer and the store is completely empty except for like S.O.S and Brillo pads, two Twinkies and a six-pack of Corona. And I go to pay for the beer and the guy is like, "What are you doing in here? Like, don't you get it?" And so then my friends would tell me, "Oh, that's a weed spot." Like, it's not really legit. So I'm very oblivious.

On tracing the migration of people in Harlem and in his fiction

One hundred fifty years ago, Harlem [was] farmland, and then speculators put up buildings, and then the tenements and townhouses were filled with all these refugees from Europe. And it's Italians and Irish, Jews from all over Europe, and they come to make their way in this new country. They cross the water, they enter the middle class and move away to the suburbs, to downtown different neighborhoods in Manhattan. They're replaced by a wave of Black migration from the South, from the Caribbean. My grandmother came through Ellis Island in 1920, from Barbados.

What I love in doing the research is walking through these different neighborhoods and seeing these old brownstones and townhouses and imagining that churn. I mentioned the churn of stolen goods and out of people's hands. And there is this churn inside these humble townhouses, all those different lives and those different rivers and oceans that they've crossed to come here, and they enter the middle class or they don't. In the same way there's all this the secret history behind the storefronts, the bakeries and crooked stationery stores, it's this whole secret history of these townhouses.

On his 2011 novel Zone One about a plague that turns people into zombies and if COVID made him think about that book again

I was always thinking about it in a very depressing way, just being locked down and remembering this or that passage from the book. But mostly I was angry about the things I didn't get right. The characters in the book are called "sweepers," and they go door to door, retrieving dead bodies and taking out the last of the zombies so that they can restart civilization. So I didn't realize how much toilet paper they would find when they went into these different folks' apartments. So that was a failure of my imagination.

And then secondly, I had no idea that people would say, "Oh, the zombie virus is just like the flu. It doesn't really matter," or "I'm not going to get the zombie vaccine," the depths of the denial and psychosis around vaccines I couldn't foresee. So if I did it over again, definitely there'll be people who would resist the zombie vaccine and suffer the consequences, which would be unfortunate.

Sam Briger and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Natalie Escobar adapted it for the Web.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Colson Whitehead, won a Pulitzer Prize for each of his last two novels, "The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys." "The Underground Railroad" is about a 15-year-old enslaved girl who escapes a brutal Georgia plantation. It was adapted into an Amazon TV series, which is now nominated for multiple Emmys. "The Nickel Boys" was based on the story of the Dozier School for Boys in northern Florida, a reform school infamous for its mistreatment and brutal punishment of the boys who were sent there and for the buried bodies discovered on its grounds.

There's many sides to Colson Whitehead's writing. He also wrote a novel about a plague where everyone who's infected becomes a zombie and wrote a memoir about playing poker. Now he's written a crime novel, called "Harlem Shuffle," set in Harlem between 1959 and 1964. The main character, Ray Carney, owns a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem, but he has a side line trafficking in stolen goods as a fence or, as he prefers to think of it, he was a middleman, part of the natural flow of goods in and out and through people's lives from here to there, a churn of property that he helped facilitate. In his mind, he was nothing like his father, who was more of a full-time crook with crooked friends. Ray is also a family man. He and his wife are expecting their second child when the novel begins. The novel is about his dual life, class divisions within Harlem and the crimes of the elite compared to the crimes on Ray Carney's level.

Colson Whitehead, welcome back to FRESH AIR. I love this novel. Thanks for writing it, and thanks for coming back to our show.

COLSON WHITEHEAD: Yeah, thanks for having me back. It's very exciting.

GROSS: I want to start by asking you to do a reading. And just to set this up a little bit - so, you know, Ray Carney is a fence, and he basically deals with pretty small-time stuff. But his cousin, who's more of a full-time crook - and this is a cousin who Ray has bailed out all of the cousin's life - the cousin Freddie comes to him and says, look; we're doing a heist of a safe at the Hotel Theresa. And you describe this as the Waldorf of Harlem, and it was a real hotel. And Ray thinks, wow, robbing that is kind of like pissing on the Statue of Liberty. And he thinks this is a - this job is just, like, too big for him. It's, like, wrong for him. So I'd like you to do a reading about Ray Carney's reaction to his cousin's proposal about fencing the stolen jewels from this heist after the heist is done.

WHITEHEAD: All righty.

(Reading) Even if he were crooked enough for his cousin's proposition, he didn't have the contacts to handle a haul from the Hotel Theresa. Three hundred rooms, who knows how many guests locking up valuables and cash in safe deposit boxes behind reception - he wouldn't know what to do with it. Neither would his man Buxbaum down on Canal - have a coronary if Carney walked in with that kind of weight.

Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked, in practice and ambition. The odd piece of jewelry, the electronic appliances Freddie and then a few other local characters brought by the store he could justify. Nothing major, nothing that attracted undue attention to his store, the front he put out to the world. If he got a thrill out of transforming these ill-gotten goods into legit merchandise, a zap-charge in his blood like he'd plugged into a socket, he was in control of it and not the other way around, dizzying and powerful as it was. Everyone had secret corners and alleys that no one else saw. What mattered were your major streets and boulevards, the stuff that showed up on other people's maps of you. The thing inside him that gave a yell or tug or shout now and again was not the same thing his father had, that sickness drawing every moment into its service, the sickness Freddie administered to more and more.

Carney had a bent to his personality. How could he not growing up with a father like that? You had to know your limits as a man and master them.

GROSS: Thanks for reading that. That's Colson Whitehead reading from his new novel "Harlem Shuffle." So after writing novels with really big social themes, "The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys," why did you want to write a crime novel set in Harlem in 1959 to '64?

WHITEHEAD: Yeah, well, I usually do mix it up - you know, write a serious book or most - more sober book and then something lighter with more jokes. I originally was going to follow up "The Underground Railroad" with "Harlem Shuffle," but then after the last election - presidential election, I had to sort out my feelings about being in America. Are we heading in the right direction? Am I optimistic or pessimistic? And so the philosophical dilemma of the two boys in "The Nickel Boys" was more compelling. But that meant when I finished that book, I had all these notes for "Harlem Shuffle," and I was eager to get back to it. As for the why, about seven years ago, I was trying to think of a movie to rent that night, and I just think about how much I like heist movies and thinking how much fun, you know, the directors and writers must have putting it all together. And I asked myself, you know, why can't I do that? And the answer is, you know, no reason at all. Why not?

GROSS: Now, you set it in a period of the civil rights movement, '59 to '64. It ends a year before the Voting Rights Act. Carney is pretty oblivious to the civil rights movement, but his wife works for a Black travel agency that books people into places that are safe for Black people, which is especially important in the South. Then the agency becomes involved in booking travel for civil rights groups. And I found it really interesting that the civil rights movement is way in the background for him, whereas it's kind of forefront for her.

WHITEHEAD: Well, I think - look; like many couples, you know, some people (laughter) - someone is paying attention, and the other person isn't. You know, I didn't feel any need to make Carney more political than he probably would be. You know, he's half crook. He's preoccupied with his store and isn't as clued in as the teenagers and college kids who are marching when there are - you know, there are various protests. He - you know, he hopes that he's not going get a brick thrown through his window, and that's what he's concerned about. And his cousin Freddie, you know, who's, you know, more of a freewheeling type, likes to go to marches so he can talk to pretty girls - you know, these teenagers. So I didn't feel the need to make them more political than they would have been.

GROSS: So as you've described, the main character has a dual personality. He's part legit businessman with his furniture store. His side line is as a fence. What interested you in a character with those dual sides?

WHITEHEAD: Well, I always start with, you know, these abstract propositions or questions like, why can't I do a heist novel? - and then have to actually make it into a story. So it's a heist. When is it? Where is it? Going to be in New York. And the first thing I thought was the - you know, the crooks might exploit some big New York event. So I tried to think of, you know, should I use the blackout of '77 and they use that for cover for a heist? The riot of the early '40s, which was - happened when a cop abused a Black person in Harlem. And then I thought, Ralph Ellison kind of owns that because "Invisible Man," so I can't really go there, which left the riot of '64, after a young Black teenager was killed by a white policeman. And so once I had '64, it all flowed from there. And I split it up into three sections - 1959, '61 and '64 - and then tried to find different pegs for what's happening in New York that could serve the story.

GROSS: So in the book, Ray's father, who is dead when the book begins, he's someone who occasionally had to break somebody's knees. He was the muscle, the guy who had to follow through on the threats. So this is how Ray grew up, with a father who was out all the time doing God knows what. And Ray becomes a fence. Did you have to do a lot of research into how fences operate or how they operated back in the '60s?

WHITEHEAD: Yeah, I mean, the research is fun 'cause it feeds the book. So I decided to have a fence for a hero because I always find it appalling when I watch a heist movie, and, you know, the criminals have stolen their $2 million in jewels and half the gang is dead and a cop's looking for them. And then they go to the fence, and the fence says, I'll give you 10 cents and a dollar. It's always so appalling, and I'm so mad. And I figured that would be a good person to figure out for a book.

And so there's not a lot of literature about fences, but there is actually a book called "The Fence," and it's a sociological study about these guys in the Midwest in the '60s. And one of the first things that struck me was their description of being as a wall between the straight world and the crooked world. You know, things come in stolen, slightly previously owned, and then they go out into the world, ready for their next owner, cleaned up.

And that dividedness, I immediately mapped onto Carney's personality. He has this part of himself that wants to leave the life that he grew up in and have a business and go to college and have a nice family. But there is that call in his blood, which I, you know, sort of put in that reading that we started the show with. And that struggle going back-and-forth is paralleled by the fence's role and speaks to so much of how I think a lot of us live. You know, I think that a lot of us have, you know, different parts of us reconciled, unreconciled, and sometimes that's the drama of our lives.

GROSS: I love the way Carney describes some of what he sells as gently used (laughter).

WHITEHEAD: He - you know, he's - he lies to himself. He's not necessarily as clued in to how crooked he is at the start of the book. And in the three different sections, you know, there's three different jobs or capers, as I call them, and he gets more comfortable with his criminal side. He rejects it. So the start of the book, you know, Freddie comes up to him and says, we're doing this heist, and Carney is like, that's ridiculous. Like, I'm not a fence. You know, I'm just a humble businessman, and I sell some lightly-used merchandise. And Freddie, of course, calls him on it. And so part of that internal drama, you know, I have a lot of fun with. How much can Carney admit to himself who he actually is? And then when he does admit to it, what does he do with that knowledge?

GROSS: Carney could put what he was doing in a more kind of sociopolitical economic context and say things like in a world where my business degree means nothing because I'm Black, this is the work I have to do to fulfill my ambitions 'cause doors are closed to me. But he doesn't think in those larger tones. He just thinks, like, it's really hard to make a living in a furniture store selling on the installment plan because I barely have the money to pay rent, and I want my family to move to a nicer home. And so I think it's interesting, since you are so socially, politically, economically aware and have written novels that show that, that in this character's mind, that doesn't really figure into it.

WHITEHEAD: Yeah, well, I think that's what I sort of find lovely about him, is that he's complicated. And as the book goes on and the years pass, he's not hurting as much for money. You know, his wife, Elizabeth, has a good job and things are going well, but he still does dabble and then do more than dabble in the criminal world. So what drives him? And I think that perplexing situation was very tantalizing.

In my last two books, I had an enslaved girl, Cora, who runs North, and she's very much defined by slavery, the social order of the times. And the two kids in "The Nickel Boys," too, are very much defined by Jim Crow and the racist world around them. And so immediately, once I started writing Carney, I knew this was somebody who was going to win. You know, he was going to win sometimes - not all the time, but he has a different sort of engagement with the forces around him. And maybe he's not as socially conscious, and maybe I don't find him admirable all the time, but I have great affection for him and putting him in these different positions where he's tested was quite a lot of fun.

GROSS: All right, let's take a short break here. My guest is Colson Whitehead. His new novel is called "Harlem Shuffle." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Colson Whitehead. He won Pulitzer Prizes for his novels "The Nickel Boys" and "The Underground Railroad," which was adapted into an Amazon TV series that's now nominated for multiple Emmys. His new book is a crime novel called "Harlem Shuffle," set in Harlem between 1959 and 1964. I want to get back to being a fence. So could you describe in a little more detail how fencing goods works? I mean, it's kind of like laundering money, but with goods.

WHITEHEAD: Sure. Well, it's different things. You can - it's jewels, it's rare coins, TVs. So in the case of Carney, when we first meet him, Freddie and other local hoods have stolen televisions, radios, and Carney has a little spot in the corner of his store where he sells used TVs, and no one really asks where they come from. When I was reading these sociological studies of fences, one thing that was made apparent very early was that they often had fronts, front stores.

And so the main guy in this one study reupholstered furniture. And so in the front of the store, he has these used armchairs that he's refurbished. And where does he get them? He goes to the swap meet. And at the swap meet, there's, like, a rare coin guy over there. And so a criminal has given the fence these jewels and coins and other things to wash, and he'll find other dealers at a swap meet. He'll sell them at his store. But you're connected in this, you know, shadowy underground of people who specialize in this or that particular thing.

If you put your diamond necklace in the hands of your, you know, your jewelry connection, that person has connections to the legit broader markets, marketplace. And so something that is stolen on Tuesday, you know, could re-enter the supply chain on Friday. And it's very fluid. And the idea of, like, a front, you know, the front that you have out to the world with the sort of bad business in the back is applicable, definitely to Carney's personality.

GROSS: When you were writing this novel, did you develop an eye for stores that you thought might be fronts?

WHITEHEAD: Well, I was always, you know - I still continue to be a failure to know what stores are fronts and what is not. When I lived in Brooklyn in, I guess, what they call a changing neighborhood in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in the '90s, I would go to, like, the store. You know, I'd buy a six-pack of beer. And the store was completely empty, this bodega, except for, like, S.O.S Brillo pads...

GROSS: (Laughter).

WHITEHEAD: ...Two Twinkies and a six pack of Corona. And I go to pay for the beer, and the guy's like - he's like, what are you doing in here? Like, don't you get it? And so then my friends were telling me, oh, that's a weed spot. Like, you know, (laughter) it's not really legit. So I'm very oblivious. But I have to get into character. And Carney, as he enters more deeply into the criminal world, starts to see things he didn't know before. And so he's riding along with this corrupt cop who's picking up his envelopes, his cash from all the people he's shaking down. And he passes the bakery that he's walked by for decades. And it's actually - has a craps game in the back. And the stationery store is a front for a numbers operation. And so as he awakens to his own criminality, he awakens to the corruption that's been invisible to him his whole life but has been omnipresent.

GROSS: One of the ways he protects himself from thinking of himself as being a criminal is that he sees the goods, but he never sees the people who were robbed or the businesses that were robbed. And if there's no victim that he knows about, it's less of a crime. It really made me think about how much - how easy it must be to protect yourself from thinking about the victim. If you don't know who the victim is, you don't know who's been hurt and how they've been hurt.

WHITEHEAD: I think that's definitely true. I don't think I explored that enough in the book, so I'll take that (laughter). I'm going to write that down for future inquiry.

GROSS: (Laughter).

WHITEHEAD: Thank you. Thank you for that point. But also, you know, I - in each section in the book, you know, from '59 to '61 to '64 - I keep pulling back, and we start with, like, a street-level view of crime in Harlem. And then we pull back and meet some well-to-do African American bankers and insurance agents, the sort of upper class of Harlem. And there, you know, it turns out they're pretty crooked, too. And a lot of their victims, they can't put faces to because they're signing paper, calling in mortgages on people who've never seen. And then in the third section, I pull back even more, and we see more of the power structure in the city. We visit Park Avenue and Wall Street. And those guys on the 34th floor have no idea who they're harming in their machinations. And so, yes, Carney is luckily - is in a position where he doesn't - doesn't get to see who's the actual victim of his crimes. And then there are people who are operating on a scale so much - of such a bigger magnitude.

GROSS: You told the New York Times that you think everyone has a criminal side even if it's just stealing a pack of gum. So of course, I have to ask, do you feel that way yourself?

WHITEHEAD: Mostly when I was stealing Wi-Fi before everyone had passwords.

GROSS: (Laughter).

WHITEHEAD: Like, 15 years ago, so I'm (laughter)...

GROSS: That is truly a victimless crime unless you're hacking the person you're stealing from (laughter).

WHITEHEAD: But their, you know, their...

GROSS: You're freeloading.

WHITEHEAD: ...Their streaming is slowing down 'cause I'm, you know, stealing their bandwidth. No, I'm very much a Boy Scout. So I have to use my - the powers of my imagination to figure out Carney and these other characters.

GROSS: We need to take another break here, so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Colson Whitehead. He won Pulitzer Prizes for his novels "The Nickel Boys" and "The Underground Railroad." And his new book is a crime novel called "Harlem Shuffle." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THELONIOUS MONK'S "IN WALKED BUD")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Colson Whitehead. He won a Pulitzer Prize for each of his two previous novels, "The Nickel Boys" and "The Underground Railroad." "The Underground Railroad" is adapted into an Amazon TV series that is now nominated for multiple Emmys. His new novel, "Harlem Shuffle," is a crime novel set in Harlem between 1959 and '64. The main character, Ray Carney, is the owner of a furniture store on 125th Street, which also traffics in stolen goods. He's a fence.

You set the novel in Harlem. It's a Black world in Harlem and in your novel, except for the cops, who are white. Was it a relief to write about Harlem after writing about an escaped slave who runs into every imaginable problem after escaping?

WHITEHEAD: I think doing "Underground" then "Nickel Boys" back to back definitely took its toll. I mean, I think I had done all my emotional heavy lifting before I wrote "Underground Railroad." And so I knew what I was getting into. But then having another setting where innocents are being brutalized and are searching for their freedom really demoralized me. And so as I was finishing "The Nickel Boys" and bringing the boys closer to their tragic fate that I had mapped out, you know, two years before, I definitely felt very depressed and depleted. And I finished the book, and then just played video games and barbecued for six weeks. And that's how I came back into myself. So having a project that has the capacity for joking and humor - and I do see making jokes as part of my project and why I write. It's one of my, you know, avenues of exploration. So having fun with, you know, this crime genre and some of the supporting cast who are kind of colorful was a relief. And from the first page of writing the book and getting back into writing a book set in New York, I felt I was on my home turf after writing two books set in the South. And the challenge of recreating a New York before I appeared on the scene - I was born in '69 - was a nice challenge to put before me.

GROSS: Do you see a through line between, say, "Underground Railroad" and your new novel in the sense that after slavery and once Jim Crow started, and when, you know, lynchings and other forms of attacks against Black people were so common and so many people from the South moved to the North. And that's probably one of the ways Harlem became Harlem, you know, how Harlem became Black as opposed to Jewish and Italian, which it was before that. You write Harlem was desegregated in 1940 after the neighborhood tipped over from Jews and Italians and became the domain of southern Blacks and West Indians. I love this line. Everyone who came uptown had crossed some variety of violent ocean.

WHITEHEAD: Yeah. I mean, you know, there's this churn of immigrants in Harlem, which I found very fun to explore. The - 150 years ago, Harlem is farmland. It's pastureland. And then speculators put up buildings. And then the tenements and townhouses are filled with all these refugees from Europe. And it is Italians and Irish, Jews from all over Europe, Irish. And they come to make their way in this new country. They cross the water. They enter the middle class and move away to the suburbs, to downtown, different neighborhoods in Manhattan. They're replaced by a wave of Black migration from the south, from the Caribbean. My grandmother came through Ellis Island in the 1920s from Barbados.

And so what I loved in doing the research is walking through these different neighborhoods and seeing these old brownstones and townhouses and imagining that churn, you know? I mentioned the churn of stolen goods in and out of people's hands. And there is this churn inside these humble townhouses, all those different lives and those different rivers and oceans that they've crossed to come here. And they enter the middle class or they don't. But there's so much - in the same way there's all this secret history behind the storefronts, the bakeries and crooked stationery stores, there's this whole secret history in these townhouses.

GROSS: As we've mentioned, Ray Carney is the son of a crook, of a full-time crook. And Carney's wife is from a middle-class family. Her parents live on Strivers' Row in Harlem. Her father is a successful accounting for successful businessmen, politicians, doctors and lawyers in Harlem. Her father brags about his collection of loopholes and dodges. And he belongs to this club for the elite Black community in Harlem called the Dumas. Am I pronouncing it right, Dumas Club?

WHITEHEAD: I think if you - it's named after Alexandre Dumas. But I figure these guys say Dumas. That seems like the mid-century...

GROSS: Right (laughter). OK.

WHITEHEAD: ...Harlem way to say it. So I - mentally, I think of Dumas.

GROSS: Yeah. And so you describe it in the book as a paper bag club. Would you explain what that means?

WHITEHEAD: There were various social clubs for well-to-do Black folks in the 19th and 20th centuries. And you could only enter them if you had a, you know, upstanding job, and also if you were lighter than a paper bag. And so the paper bag test meant that if you were darker skinned, you were not accepted. And you're not going to join their little club.

GROSS: So there was that much colorism in the elite Black clubs?

WHITEHEAD: Yeah. And, you know, I mean, I can't speak for all of them. But that was definitely a real force, that sort of social stratification. Where are you from, you know? Are you first-generation college or third generation? Do you come from a long line of free Black folks? Or have you just come from Alabama, you know, last year and now you're trying to make it and try to be one of us? And so colorism and class stratification exists everywhere. And part of - you know, the second part of the book is pulling back to see these other social forces that are affecting Carney. You know, he has a bad background. He's darker skinned. And how does he navigate this hoity-toity, privileged world?

GROSS: Can you talk about how Harlem has changed from the time the novel is set, '59 to '64, to now, because I imagine you spent a lot of time in Harlem while you were writing the novel even though it has changed?

WHITEHEAD: Yeah. I mean, you know, location scouting and, you know, finding places for Carney to live. You know, it was a great, fun thing to do. I lived in Harlem until I was about 6 on 139th and Riverside. So my first New York is a very gritty, dirty New York.

But for research, I would, you go back to newspapers, and there are books about the Hotel Theresa. And then also, you know, if you go to YouTube and put in 1960s Harlem, some amateur filmmaker from the - you know, from back then has uploaded his reel of walking down 125th Street and - in '64 or '67. And for me, I look at all the signs in the background. I'm like, oh, OK, a hamburger was 35 cents. Or what kind of hat is that? And then I research what kind of clothes they're wearing.

And so when I compare the footage of just some guy walking around with his camera to what I see now and those tiny storefronts are now big box chains. It's Chuck E. Cheese, big Nike Store, Magic Johnson Theatres. The footprint of retail is quite different. And as in a lot of different places in the country, you can see in the background those painted signs, like, on the fifth floor of a building, you know, like, you know, Sammy's Shoe Store. And so if you look up at certain tall buildings, you can see that old sort of vanished New York in the same way you can see that old vintage Chicago or Seattle. But on a street level, it's, you know, that very shiny retail we have now. And so it's very stark when I'm walking around thinking of what Carney's going to do next and then there's a reality of 21st-century retail staring me in the face.

GROSS: Tell us about the Hotel Theresa and its place in Harlem.

WHITEHEAD: So a lot of - you know, a lot of the things in the book, I had no knowledge of. And so I'd walked past that building, you know, many times in my life. But I hit upon some references to the Hotel Theresa and its importance in Harlem culture in the '40s and '50s. So it was a whites-only hotel and then had to be desegregated because the neighborhood changed. And it became the place to stay. If you were Joe Louis or Billie Holiday or Cab Calloway, you would stay there if you were in town, be seen at the cocktail bar. You'd maybe keep an apartment upstairs. When a big band came to town, you know, they'd alert the media, and there'd be this big group of paparazzi, and all the folks from the neighborhood would come to see who was stepping off the bus.

And I read that and thought, that's a good place for a heist. You know, it just seemed - (laughter) it was such a holy place that it could be a site for some of the action in the book. And you know, I had to think of these different robbers' reactions. And so Miami Joe, who plans the heist at the Hotel Theresa, he's come from the South. He's a new arrival. People look down upon him. It's not necessarily 'cause he's from the South. I mean, he has a bad personality. But he takes it personally. And so robbing the Hotel Theresa would be, you know, sticking his finger in the eye of this Harlem elite who looks down upon him.

GROSS: Let me reintroduce you here. If you're just joining us, my guest is Colson Whitehead. His new novel is called "Harlem Shuffle." We'll be right back. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF INCREDIBLE BONGO BAND'S "APACHE (GRANDMASTER FLASH MIX)")

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to my interview with Colson Whitehead. His new novel, "Harlem Shuffle," is set in Harlem between 1959 and '64. It's a crime novel.

Mount Morris Park, which is now called Marcus Garvey Park, is a place where bodies are buried (laughter)...

WHITEHEAD: Yes.

GROSS: ...In the novel. Like, if you've killed somebody, that's the place to hide the body. And a lot of our listeners who aren't familiar with Harlem might know Mount Morris Park, now Marcus Garvey Park, from the Questlove documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival because that festival was held in Mount Morris Park. So what do you know - I mean, was it really - is this part of, like, the park's lore? Or is it, like, really true...

WHITEHEAD: (Laughter).

Continue reading here:

Colson Whitehead Returns To His Home Turf With 'Harlem Shuffle' - KUAR

The end point of unbridled self-belief went on trial in San Jose in California this week, as Elizabeth Holmes founder of defunct health tech company Theranos, and former worlds youngest self-made billionaire appeared in court accused of fraud.

After dropping out of Stanford at the age of 19, Holmes built a company that was valued, at its height, at $9bn (6.5bn), and appeared on the cover of every news magazine in the land. On Wednesday, she sat with her legal team as an assistant US attorney accused her of being a liar and a cheat. It was a thrilling end to the kind of American drama that makes the non-billionaires among us feel good.

The schadenfreude, familiar from other recent executive flameouts most spectacularly, Billy McFarlands catastrophic Fyre festival in 2017 is rooted in a general exhaustion with the mechanics of self-promotion.

The point at which self-belief shades into self-deception and then active fraud is only detectable when the perpetrator is skilled enough to recruit others to their reality. In the case of the average Instagram influencer, it is tempting to think of these exaggerations and distortions not only as victimless crimes, but as the packaged delusions that make up the product itself. (Im envisaging Caroline Calloway, the 29-year-old lifestyle guru exposed two years ago for selling and then refunding underwhelming creativity workshops for $165 a pop, to a crowd it was hard to drum up much sympathy for.)

In the case of Holmes, the scale of the alleged deception, if proven, will have been of a different order altogether, with the potentially serious consequences that come from faking medical technology. And yet what remains striking about Holmes and the case against Theranos is how, in broad outline, it is indistinguishable from any fake-it-till-you-make-it Silicon Valley startup.

Robert Leach, assistant US attorney, set out the case against Holmes in language familiar to viewers of Dragons Den (or its US equivalent, Shark Tank), accusing her of puffing up her company with standard-sounding PR guff. Holmes had, said Leach, exaggerated her revenue projections and used the media to make unprovable claims about her product like so many other companies chasing investment.

She had also, he said, knowingly promoted the companys blood-analysing technology as revolutionary, when in reality it did nothing that standard blood-testing tech couldnt do. If convicted, Holmes could land in jail for up to 20 years for, as her defence attorneys are framing it, the crime of doing what every other dreamer in Palo Alto is doing: simply trying your hardest.

Corporate deceit, when uncovered, is often a lot less sophisticated than the product its promoting, raising the question of why so many people so readily fall for it. In the case of Theranos, the prosecution alleges that, early on in the companys development, it produced a recommendation from Pfizer, in which the drug giant praised the blood-analysing tech for its superior performance. The problem, said prosecution attorneys, is that Pfizer wrote no such thing; it merely appeared on Pfizer-headed notepaper, an astonishingly entry-level scam, if true.

And yet otherwise smart people were allegedly taken in by Holmes, including Henry Kissinger, and former US secretary of state George Shultz, both of whom agreed to sit on the Theranos board. There is a nobility in overreach: it is the typifying American gesture, and the grandness of Holmes claims had a seemingly irresistible pull. Theres also a gender aspect here. Part of the narrative around Holmess success is that, by using her swishy blond hair and big eyes, she conned otherwise sensible elderly men into lending her their credibility. Being a woman has not, historically, worked out well for aspiring CEOs, but Holmes broke the mould here too.

The defence teams approach appears to be to dump a lot of the blame for Theranoss failure on Holmess business partner, Ramesh Balwani, with whom she was in a relationship at the time. She was naive, say her lawyers. Her company failed, and failure is not a crime. The villain the government just presented is actually a living, breathing human being who did her very best each and every day, said her lawyer, Lance Wade an oddly infantilising bid for sympathy that seemed gendered too.

At this stage, recasting Holmes as a wronged woman will be an uphill struggle. As we know from other fallen stars, once theres blood in the water, that which once looked impressive appears ludicrous and cheap. From Holmess wardrobe overnight, the black turtleneck went from uniform-of-a-genius to Steve Jobs Halloween costume to the garbled poetry she texted to Balwani while the pair were still seeing each other, cited in court papers and inviting a short stab of sympathy for the woman in the dock (You are breeze in desert for me / My water / And ocean / Meant to be only together tiger).

Holmes has elected to take the stand, a risky move and one that nods towards some lingering vestige of what landed her here in the first place. At the height of Theranoss fortunes, one got the sense about Holmes that no one found her as impressive as she found herself. The root of so much success and crashing delusion.

Read more here:

The trial of Elizabeth Holmes: perfect for the age of the Instagram influencer - The Guardian

The public are being reminded about the dangers young people can face online following todays (Thursday, September 9) sentencing of two teenagers for sharing terrorist material online.

Following an investigation by Counter Terrorism Policing North East, a 15 year old boy from Derbyshire pleaded guilty in June 2021 to the following offences:

He has been sentenced to a two-year Youth Rehabilitation Order and three-year Criminal Behaviour Order. He has been released from custody.

A second boy, a 16 year old from South East London, also pleaded guilty in June 2021 to one count under Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006. He has been sentenced to a 12-month Intensive Referral Order and ordered to pay 85 in costs and a 22 court surcharge.

The pair were arrested in September 2020 following a pre-planned, intelligence led investigation.

Detective Chief Superintendent Martin Snowden is Head of CTP North East and says it is important for families, friends and organisations to be aware of the risks online, know the signs of radicalisation and know where to turn for the right help and support.

It is important that we all work together to safeguard young people from the threat of radicalisation. If we dont recognise the signs early enough they may go on to commit very serious offences as weve seen in this case. Encouraging terrorism and disseminating terrorist publications are not victimless crimes and the impact of these offences can be far reaching. The spread of extremist material has the potential to threaten the safety of our communities and may even motivate others.

This case is one of an increasing number we have seen involving young people in the extreme right wing terrorism space. It is of huge concern for the police and our partners.

We are seeing a growth in children being targeted and radicalised by right wing extremists online including through multi-player online gaming, social media and chat forums.

We know that children and teenagers want to spend time online. This is a way for them to communicate with friends, assist with homework or just catch up on what is going on in the world. The internet can be a great tool but we have to be alive to the risk it can pose and know that it is a platform for extremists to spread hate and exploit others.

The ACT Early website provides information about signs to look out for when someone may be getting drawn into extremism and online security. The site also signposts people to support, who to contact if you are worried about a loved one and what help is out there.

Our research shows that family and friends are best placed to spot the signs that someone might be vulnerable to radicalisation. We want them toACTearly so their vulnerable friend or loved one can get the support they need before the situation escalates into something more serious.

Trust your instincts. Act early. If youre worried that someone you know is being radicalised, visit actearly.uk for more information.

Read the original:

PUBLIC URGED TO 'KNOW THE SIGNS' AFTER TWO TEENAGERS CONVICTED OF ONLINE RELATED TERRORISM OFFENCES - Counter Terrorism Policing

KITCHENER A Cambridge resident caught with a staggering amount of child pornography hundreds of thousands of images and thousands of videos has been sentenced to four years behind bars.

Charges were read out in court against Trevor Hunter, a.k.a. Dakota Hunter. Hunter is transitioning from male to female. The accused asked in court to be referred to as she/her. The judge, Crown and defence agreed to do so.

Hunter, 37, came to the attention of the police after Google identified online media as child pornography and reported it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Waterloo Regional Police searched Hunters Cambridge residence and seized several electronic devices. They found 381,857 unique images and 7,375 unique videos. Some of the files were being shared with others on the internet.

Hunter pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography and making it available.

It goes without saying that the facts of this case, the amounts of materials possessed and/or shared and the types of materials possessed and/or shared are staggering in their content and scope, Justice Craig Parry said in Kitchener court on Thursday.

The judge agreed to a four-year sentence recommended by Crown prosecutor Matthew McLean and defence lawyer Tom Brock.

The court is well aware that any offence involving child pornography is reprehensible, McLean said.

The case law makes it clear that these crimes are not victimless as theyre sometimes categorized. Not only are the children victimized in the creation of such materials, but theyre further victimized when these materials are continually shared with other individuals.

McLean said the sentence must focus on denunciation and deterrence.

The judge invited Hunter to address the court before being sentenced. Hunter declined.

Hunter, who has a prior but unrelated record, was given 759 days credit for presentence custody at the Vanier womens jail, leaving less than two years still to serve.

The judge put Hunter on the sex offender registry for life and ordered Hunter to take counselling while on probation for one year.

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Cambridge resident caught with 'staggering' amount of child pornography jailed four years - TheRecord.com

A number of instances also took place in Seaton.

A 27-year-old woman has appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court in relation to a series of alleged shoplifting crimes.

The incidents happened over a 2 month period, with the individual charged with 17 instances of shop lifting.

These took place in the Tillydrone and Seaton areas of Aberdeen.

It's alleged a four figure sum of goods were stolen in total.

Constable Susie Mair said:"stealing from shops is not a victimless crime and has the consequences of pushing the loss onto the consumer.

"We actively support local businesses to make them harder targets in order to deter such instances of theft. We actively pursue those involved in thefts, with a view to enhancing community safety.

"We are acutely aware of the reasoning behind persons committing such crimes and actively signpost them to support services when needed"

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Woman charged in connection to spate of shoplifting in Tillydrone - Free Radio