Don Ching Trang Chu, the “expert-network” executive arrested this week

Don Ching Trang Chu, the “expert-network” executive arrested this week on insider-trading charges, had a roster of Asia-based employees of North American technology companies to feed information to clients, court documents show.

Chu, who lives in the Somerset section of Franklin Township, worked for Primary Global Research of Mountain View, California. He offered to set up hedge-fund manager Richard Choo-Beng Lee with employees of Sierra Wireless, Broadcom and Atheros Communications when he planned to travel to Taiwan in 2009, U.S. prosecutors said in a criminal complaint filed this week in Manhattan. Lee, co-founder of Spherix Capital, was secretly cooperating with the government after being ensnared in the Galleon Group insider-trading probe.

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former secretary who funded a luxury lifestyle on the proceeds of a £12 million VAT fraud in areas including Walsall has been jailed for 10 years,

former secretary who funded a luxury lifestyle on the proceeds of a £12 million VAT fraud in areas including Walsall has been jailed for 10 years, according to Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs (HMRC).

Jayne Mitchell, 40, bought Ferraris, luxury properties and went on lavish shopping sprees with the cash she made from the huge tax fraud involving the importation of vehicles from across Europe, HMRC said.

Mitchell, along with six others, imported more than 7,000 new vehicles which they sold on through a complex web of fake companies with a turnover of more than £80m in two years.

Revenue officials said the cars were imported VAT free, passed through a chain of fake companies, and eventually sold on to unsuspecting car supermarkets and dealerships across the UK. But many of the fake companies disappeared without paying the VAT due on the sales.

The companies were spread around England including some based in Selby, North Yorkshire; Pudsey, West Yorkshire; Walsall, West Midlands and in Northamptonshire.

Mitchell, who was originally from Selby, had a luxury home near the North Yorkshire town and another in Belgium, where she was arrested.

She once worked as a secretary and is a well-known pigeon fancier. Mitchell, of Wilsden Road, Allerton, Bradford, was found guilty on Friday at Bradford Crown Court of conspiracy to cheat the public revenue. She was jailed for 10 years by Judge Jonathan Durham Hall.

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Cobb lawyer gets prison for fraud | ajc.com

Cobb lawyer gets prison for fraud  | ajc.com: Steven Zagoria, 59, was sentenced to one year and nine months in jail for bilking his law firm of $343,639 and using the money to pay his mortgage, credit card bills and child’s college tuition, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
U.S. District Judge Marvin Shoob on Monday also ordered Zagoria to pay $318,000 in restitution as well as $4,000 in a special assessment.
Zagoria was found guilty of forging the signature of one of the law firm’s principals on checks that were actually for attorney’s fees – and then depositing that money into his own personal bank account, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
Zagoria also gave some of the money to his wife so she could buy a second home, the U.S. Attorney’s office said.
“An attorney has an obligation to put his clients’ best interests before his own. Instead, this defendant betrayed this trust by stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from not only his clients but his partners,” U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said"

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Officers of prepaid funeral business charged with fraud - KansasCity.com

Officers of prepaid funeral business charged with fraud - KansasCity.com: "Officers at a prearranged funeral business defrauded customers, funeral homes and states out of as much as $600 million, according to a 50-count federal indictment announced Monday.
The U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis announced indictment on fraud, money laundering, conspiracy and other charges against Randall Sutton, 65; Sharon Nekol Province, 66; Doug Cassity, 64; his son Brent Douglas Cassity, 43; Howard Wittner, 73; and David Wulf, 58.
All six defendants are from St. Louis County, and all were controlling officers for National Prearranged Services Inc., based in Clayton.
Brent Cassity is listed in the Missouri secretary of state’s office as the owner of Mount Washington Forever Funeral Home in Independence, which closed in July."

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Ralph Esmerian, Jeweler, Is Charged With Fraud - NYTimes.com

Ralph Esmerian, Jeweler, Is Charged With Fraud - NYTimes.com: "Duchess of Newcastle diamond brooch, circa 1887. A gilded album commissioned by Marie Antoinette in 1781. A carved ivory, enamel and jeweled case made at the request of Czar Nicholas II in 1893.
The Endymion butterfly brooch, worth about $2.4 million, figures in the case. Taken together, these intricate pieces and sparkling objects are valued at about $3 million. But they make up only a fraction of the jewelry and other collectibles that federal prosecutors say were at the center of an equally intricate series of frauds orchestrated by Ralph O. Esmerian, the former owner of the jewelry company Fred Leighton, who has draped his glittering treasures around the necks and wrists of celebrities in what some have called a red-carpet marketing campaign.
Agents from the United States Postal Inspection Service arrested Mr. Esmerian, 70, a former board president of the Museum of American Folk Art and one of its biggest patrons, on Monday morning. He was charged with bankruptcy fraud and wire fraud and concealing assets, and he appeared later in the day before a federal magistrate in United States District Court in Manhattan."

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He's known as the "Merchant of Death" and the "Lord of War,"

-- an alleged international arms dealer straight out of a cloak-and-dagger spy novel who eluded authorities for years and inspired Hollywood villains.
But in reality, according to those who have seen or met Viktor Bout, he is a somber man, sometimes nattily dressed, a wheeler-dealer who has insisted he is innocent of the allegations leveled against him.
Bout, a Russian citizen and former military officer, speaks six languages "and I could see him bargaining in all six at the same time," wrote CNN's Jill Dougherty in 2008, recalling her meeting with Bout in 2002 in Moscow, Russia.
Bout arrived in New York late Tuesday after being extradited from Thailand. He faces charges in the United States of conspiring to kill U.S. nationals, conspiring to kill U.S. officers or employees, conspiring to acquire and use an anti-aircraft missile and conspiring to provide material support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. American law enforcement officers have spent years pursuing him, and the extradition process from Thailand was an arduous one for them.
Before his 2008 arrest, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents led a sting operation by posing as members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), officials said.

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British woman killed in carjacking on honeymoon - Scotsman.com News

British woman killed in carjacking on honeymoon - Scotsman.com News: "YOUNG woman has been killed in a carjacking while she and her British husband were honeymooning in South Africa.
The horrific attack happened after the newlyweds were being taken back to their hotel in Cape Town and asked to drive through a township because they 'wanted to feel the vibe'.

As they were driving through the area, masked gunmen forced the driver
and her husband from the car before driving off with the 28-year-old woman.

The body of the woman, believed to be Indian, was discovered just 15 miles from where the attack took place on Saturday night. Police said she suffered a 'violent death'. Her husband, who is 31, was unhurt, and is being comforted by relatives who live in South Africa."

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Hell's Angels lose bid to quash convictions - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Hell's Angels lose bid to quash convictions - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation): "Two Hell's Angels members have lost their appeal against aggravated assault convictions they received for a brawl at the Darwin Airport Hotel.
Nicholas Frank Cassidy and James Parnwell Knight were convicted and sentenced to more than two years' jail for the brawl in December 2007.
The men appealed against their convictions and the length of their sentences.
But the Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed all grounds of the appeal, and upheld both men's sentences, angering Cassidy's brother Ray Padden.
'We'll be fighting the decision,' he said outside court.
'It's not fair. We'll be putting it to the public as well, so everyone will know what's going on.'
Knight has been released on parole and Cassidy is still serving time in jail.
Cassidy became a full member of the Hell's Angels after the assault, but argued that it would not affect his prospects for rehabilitation."

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Accused drug kingpin will go to Venezuela: Chavez | Top News | Reuters

Accused drug kingpin will go to Venezuela: Chavez | Top News | Reuters: "Colombia will extradite a businessman accused of being a major drug kingpin back to his native Venezuela to face justice, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday on Cuban television.Chavez said Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos promised in a recent meeting that Walid Makled, known as 'The Turk,' would go to Venezuela, not the United States, where he is also wanted.
Chavez fears that the United States, with whom he has frosty political relations, would use Makled to try to discredit him.
Makled was captured in August in Colombia in a joint operation with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the head of Colombian police said at the time he would be extradited to the United States.
He is accused of shipping tons of cocaine each month to the United States and Europe, in an alliance with Colombian leftist rebels."

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Andy Carroll set to face police quiz over 'drugs orgy' - mirror.co.uk

Andy Carroll set to face police quiz over 'drugs orgy' - mirror.co.uk: "Newcastle bad boy Andy Carroll celebrates his winning goal at Arsenal yesterday - as police get set to quiz him over an alleged drug-fuelled orgy.
The striker, 21, managed to put aside his latest scandal to become the hero of the 1-0 victory.
But police said they were taking 'very seriously' reports of his 14-hour booze bender when a substance which appears to be cocaine was taken at club captain Kevin Nolan's mansion. There is no evidence the two Premier League stars snorted the white powder at the house.
Carroll apparently yelled 'Ride me! Ride me!' as he romped with two young women, one in a cat suit, in a bedroom. It is understood Nolan was not involved with any of the girls."

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