© Wavebreakmedia/Getty Images/iStockphoto
Each block of cheese was found to contain two ‘bricks’ of cocaine
© West Yorkshire Police
Each block of cheese was found to contain two ‘bricks’ of cocaine
© West Yorkshire Police
Marie Theobald and her dogs, Honey and Riley, were killed three days before Christmas
© Met Police
The tranche of two million Epstein files has sparked numerous probes from UK police forces
© US Department of Justice
The tranche of two million Epstein files has sparked numerous probes from UK police forces
© US Department of Justice
Each block of cheese was found to contain two ‘bricks’ of cocaine
© West Yorkshire Police
© JOÃO PORFÍRIO/OBSERVADOR
© Photothek via Getty Images
© ANTÓNIO COTRIM/LUSA
The tranche of two million Epstein files has sparked numerous probes from UK police forces
© US Department of Justice
"There is a panoply of drugs out there that will destroy your kids," says retired NYPD inspector and Fox News contributor Paul Mauro.
Following recent college deaths and allegations around a campus cocaine trafficking ring, Mauro said America's students are now the primary prey for a relentless and deadly drug trade.
"If you're sending a kid off to college these days, you better sit that child down and give that child a hard primer on what could possibly happen," he said.
A recently unsealed indictment shows Moises Freire, 19, and Brian Peralta, 18, both from Queens, New York, are facing charges after a young woman was killed and another seriously injured after they were allegedly poisoned by fentanyl.
Reports indicate Annabel Richter, 20, was killed after she ingested the drug supplied by the men, who allegedly told her it was simply "cocaine."
She had moved from Brazil to live in the U.S. to pursue her studies at Manhattan's Fashion Institute of Technology, the New York Post reported. She was found unresponsive with another female victim in a dorm room.
According to the federal indictment, Freire allegedly raped the victim and "waited approximately 45 minutes to contact campus security" about the woman being unconscious.
Mauro questioned why there wasn't more media attention on the case.
"It happened on a campus and the only thing I can conjure is that it happened in New York City, and so the powers that be as we come into an election season would rather these rape stories or these campus crime stories occur someplace far from New York where they could have any impact on the elections here," he said.
The indictment also alleges Freire texted photos to his friends of one unconscious victim, who was "naked below the waist."
Read the indictment here:
The second victim sustained "serious bodily injury" and regained consciousness after receiving life-saving care in the hospital.
Court records indicate both men pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to federal charges of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance resulting in death. Freire is additionally charged with distributing a controlled substance with the intent to commit rape.
In a statement, FIT President Jason Schupbach said in part, "We are thankful to our teams from Public Safety and Residential Life for their immediate response in March, and also to the Department of Justice and the NYPD for their actions in March and their continued focus on this case. As a community, we continue to support each other through difficult times."
Campus drug deaths extend beyond New York City, including at the University of Mississippi, where federal prosecutors and local authorities launched intensive investigations following the deaths of two students.
Ole Miss students Aidan Hamilton, 18, and Robert Strang, 20, were found dead of suspected drug overdoses in September.
TWO OLE MISS STUDENTS FOUND DEAD AS PACKAGED KRATOM IS RECOVERED AT TWO SITES: OFFICIALS
WHAT IS KRATOM? RISKS OF POPULAR SUBSTANCE REVEALED AFTER COLLEGE STUDENTS' DEATHS
Investigators recovered packages of kratom-related products or "gas station heroin" at both scenes where the victims were discovered.
The discovery prompted federal charges against a vape shop clerk and his son for illicitly selling dangerous, banned compounds disguised in retail packaging.
The deaths sent shock waves through the campus community, intensifying urgent warnings from law enforcement about unregulated substances flooding college towns.
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"It really is a minefield out there these days, and it's not an accident. Our enemies know what they're doing, and your kids are the target," Mauro said.
Fox News Digital reached out to Ole Miss for comment.
Adding to the mounting national crisis on campuses, Pennsylvania's top prosecutor, Attorney General Dave Sunday, announced sweeping charges against 14 men — including current and former students — following an investigation into an alleged cocaine trafficking organized crime ring.
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Investigators revealed that the network operated out of off-campus fraternity houses, including Sigma Chi and Delta Upsilon.
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At the center of the enterprise, authorities identified former student Agostino Abbatiello, 24, as the primary ringleader and kingpin, aka "Pablo Pledgescabar."
According to a criminal complaint, fraternity pledges were forced to cut, package and bag large quantities of cocaine for the operation.
The drugs were then distributed widely among Penn State students across the University Park campus.
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The drugs were coming from larger networks like Philadelphia and New York City.
Mauro said the networks rely on supply from foreign countries.
"You got the Chinese making this stuff. It goes to the cartels in Mexico and South America. It gets brought up here into the country, and it's [distributed onto campuses now]," he said.
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"They keep coming. Why? Chinese make this stuff in labs. They just change the formula all the time, and one of the reasons for that is they want to stay ahead of the charging here in America, the charges that get captured by the drug laws," he said.
Penn State said in a statement, in part: "While the problem of illicit narcotics is a global issue, the recent allegations of drug trafficking taking place so close to the University Park campus is very concerning."
"In prevention efforts, Vice President for Student Affairs Andrea Dowhower shared a message with the Penn State community last month, and additional messaging has been sent directly to students and parents related to health and safety, including on alcohol, drugs and hazing," the school added.
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In my first career, I stood in courtrooms as a defense attorney dealing intimately with the fallout of organized crime and gang violence. I have cross-examined operatives, analyzed thousands of pages of gang intelligence and witnessed firsthand the brutal efficiency of transnational syndicates. If my time immersed in the legal trenches of the gang world taught me one undeniable truth, it is this: cartels do not respect international borders. In fact, they weaponize them. For too long, the jurisdictional lines on a map have served as the greatest defense strategy for the world's most violent criminal organizations.
We have treated multinational, multibillion-dollar criminal enterprises as localized law enforcement problems. Fortunately, the landscape of international justice is shifting. The U.S.-led "Shield of the Americas" initiative, which recently designated eight major criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations, is fundamentally rewriting the playbook on how we dismantle these syndicates.
There remains one critical holdout, Brazil, whose president is not expected to join this critical coalition. Indeed, the re-election of incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva all but ensures an increase in organized criminal activity in Brazil.
To understand the necessity of this initiative, one must understand how modern cartels operate. In the courtroom, you quickly realize that the street-level gang members, like the MS-13 triggermen or the Tren de Aragua enforcers, can be the lowest rung on a massive, sophisticated corporate ladder.
These organizations operate with the logistical precision of Fortune 500 companies. They manage complex supply chains, launder money through intricate global financial networks and employ specialized cells for enforcement, distribution and corruption.
At times, our legal framework has been outmatched by their agility. A drug shipment might originate in the Andes, be financed through a front company in Central America and be distributed by local gangs in American cities. When law enforcement attempts to build a case, they can hit a variety of bureaucratic obstacles and challenges sharing evidence, securing extraditions or tracing illicit funds across different countries. The cartels know this and deliberately structure their operations to exploit operational disconnects between regional governments.
EXCLUSIVE: FBI EXTRADITIONS SOAR AS PATEL RAMPS UP FOREIGN OUTREACH, VOWS 'NO SANCTUARY'
By officially designating eight major cartels and gangs, including the Sinaloa cartel, the Jalisco New Generation cartel (CJNG) and Tren de Aragua, as foreign terrorist organizations and specially designated global terrorists, the U.S. government dramatically altered the legal reality.
RUBIO DESIGNATES ECUADORIAN GANG LINKED TO DRUG TRAFFICKING A TERRORIST GROUP
The terrorist designation unlocks a completely different enforcement arsenal. It allows for the immediate freezing of assets, imposes severe penalties for anyone providing "material support" and authorizes deep, aggressive disruption of their financial networks.
You cannot arrest your way out of a cartel problem — you must disrupt the business itself. By targeting their money and imposing serious consequences on the seemingly legitimate financial institutions that launder it, the Shield of the Americas strikes at the absolute core of cartel power. It equips law enforcement to fight proactively and focus on strategic dismantling of cartel financial infrastructure.
DRUG CARTEL KINGPIN AMONG TARGETS IN SWEEPING TRUMP CRACKDOWN ON ALLEGED MEXICAN CORRUPTION NETWORK
Equally crucial is the initiative’s mandate for unprecedented intelligence sharing and military coordination. Currently, countries like Argentina, El Salvador, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay and Chile are participating in the Shield of the Americas.
This will help break down silos where one law enforcement agency has one piece of the puzzle, while authorities in Colombia or El Salvador hold the rest. Without a streamlined mechanism to share that data, the kingpins remain untouchable.
The Shield of the Americas facilitates the real-time sharing of actionable intelligence among partner nations. This means that a cartel operative’s communications intercepted in Lima could be instantly used to disrupt a trafficking route in Central America and ultimately support a federal indictment in New York. Furthermore, joint military coordination ensures that the sheer firepower of these cartels could be matched.
The final critical piece of this initiative is Brazil, South America’s largest nation.
CONSERVATIVE WAVE HITS ROADBLOCK IN BRAZIL AS LULA HOLDS OFF BOLSONARO CHALLENGE
Brazil is a continent-sized nation with its own deeply entrenched criminal organizations, most notably the Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and the Comando Vermelho. These groups have grown into major forces in the global drug trade, forging alliances with international cartels and expanding their reach far beyond Brazilian borders. Unfortunately, the current government has abstained from joining the U.S.-led effort, which is expected to continue in light of the recent presidential election.
Brazil’s participation would have a tremendous impact. The cartels would lose one of their most significant safe havens and operational hubs in the hemisphere. A unified front stretching from the U.S.-Mexico border down to the Southern Cone would squeeze transnational syndicates from every direction. It would close the geographical and jurisdictional gaps they have exploited for generations.
The human cost of cartel operations is staggering. Hundreds of thousands of American lives have been lost to cartel-linked fentanyl overdoses, while communities across Latin America have been destabilized by extreme violence and corruption.
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The Shield of the Americas represents a profound modernization of our approach to international justice. By recognizing these cartels for the global terror threats they are, strangling their finances and uniting the hemisphere's law enforcement and military resources, we are finally fighting the battle on equal footing.
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If more nations commit to this alliance, we will not just be managing the cartel problem; we will be systematically dismantling it. The cartels have operated globally for decades. It is long past time the law did the same.
O Partido Comunista Chinês (PCC) prometeu hoje intensificar o combate às regras informais que favorecem a corrupção e enfraquecem a disciplina interna, no âmbito de uma nova ofensiva para reforçar o controlo sobre os seus dirigentes.
Numa conferência de imprensa dedicada às conclusões do quinto plenário do Comité Central, encerrado na quinta-feira, altos responsáveis do partido sublinharam que a corrupção continua a representar uma ameaça grave, apesar da campanha lançada pelo Presidente chinês, Xi Jinping, há quase 14 anos.
A reunião, que decorreu durante quatro dias, terminou com a aprovação de uma resolução sobre o reforço da governação interna e da disciplina partidária, que identifica expressamente as chamadas “regras não escritas” como um dos principais obstáculos ao funcionamento das instituições.
“Durante algum tempo, certas regras não escritas existiram, em diferentes graus, dentro e fora do partido, prejudicando a autoridade e a aplicação das normas e da disciplina partidárias”, afirmou Xie Chuntao, vice-presidente executivo da Escola Central do Partido, em conferência de imprensa.
Segundo o responsável, estas práticas suscitaram fortes críticas entre os quadros partidários e a população.
Xie explicou que a resolução prevê reforçar a transparência nos assuntos do partido e do Governo, melhorar a formação dos dirigentes e corrigir práticas informais que permitem contornar as regras oficiais.
O documento procura ainda estabelecer mecanismos institucionais que impeçam a utilização de relações pessoais e redes de influência para obter promoções ou benefícios políticos.
Num artigo publicado este mês na revista de teoria política Qiushi, Xi Jinping alertou para os riscos associados à prevalência destas práticas.
“Quando as regras formais não são firmemente respeitadas, as regras não escritas proliferam inevitavelmente; quando estas prevalecem, as regras formais tornam-se meras decorações”, escreveu o líder chinês.
Xi advertiu que este ambiente permite a intermediários políticos e burlões recorrerem a contactos pessoais para progredir dentro do partido, defendendo maior transparência, fiscalização e responsabilização dos dirigentes.
O diretor do Gabinete Central de Investigação de Políticas do PCC, Tang Fangyu, afirmou que a resolução constitui o principal resultado do plenário e que a sua elaboração foi diretamente supervisionada por Xi Jinping.
Segundo Tang, o processo incluiu consultas a autoridades locais e departamentos governamentais, estudos sobre questões prioritárias e a recolha de mais de mil propostas de alteração.
A resolução reafirma a estratégia de manter uma pressão permanente sobre os dirigentes, visando criar condições para que estes “não ousem, não possam e não queiram” envolver-se em práticas de corrupção.
Huang Jianfa, vice-ministro do Departamento de Organização do Comité Central, explicou que o documento reforça também os critérios de seleção e avaliação dos quadros.
O partido deverá “afastar resolutamente aqueles que são desleais, que dizem uma coisa e fazem outra e que abusam do poder para obter benefícios pessoais”, afirmou.
Huang acrescentou que a fiscalização deverá ser acompanhada de mecanismos de incentivo e proteção dos funcionários que assumam responsabilidades e demonstrem iniciativa.
Zhang Fuhai, alto responsável da Comissão Central de Inspeção e Disciplina, anunciou o reforço da supervisão dos comités partidários, das estruturas locais e da coordenação entre os diferentes organismos de fiscalização.
Desde a chegada de Xi Jinping ao poder, em 2012, as autoridades chinesas abriram cerca de 8,1 milhões de processos disciplinares e puniram 7,92 milhões de pessoas, incluindo 963 altos responsáveis, segundo dados oficiais divulgados hoje.
As sanções abrangem diferentes infrações disciplinares e não correspondem necessariamente a condenações judiciais por corrupção.
O plenário ratificou ainda medidas disciplinares contra 34 membros efetivos ou suplentes do Comité Central, incluindo 18 dirigentes civis e 16 militares, um número sem precedentes nas reuniões plenárias recentes.
A reunião ficou igualmente marcada por uma participação invulgarmente reduzida: apenas 162 dos 205 membros efetivos do Comité Central estiveram presentes, o equivalente a 79% do total.
Ryan Dinnage – who accompanied Reform UK leader on walkabouts before local elections – was later jailed, raising questions about vetting failure
One of Nigel Farage’s security team who accompanied him on the local election campaign trail this year was facing a rape charge and was later jailed for eight years, raising questions about a failure of vetting.
Ryan Dinnage spent time protecting Farage in April and May, but in June was convicted of having raped a woman while she slept in a caravan at the Royal Windsor horse show.
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© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
© Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian
A man dressed as a zombie allegedly stabbed two people at an Austin, Texas coffee shop Wednesday night before speeding away in a pickup truck and crashing into an unoccupied vehicle.
The Austin Police Department (APD) identified the suspect as Shankar Temple Grace, 20, who was arrested after a search.
The incident unfolded shortly before a local comedy show was scheduled to begin at The Buzz Mill, a coffee shop and bar.
MYSTERY WOMAN SOUGHT AFTER AMERICAN FOUND DEAD IN COSTA RICAN TOURIST DESTINATION
Officials said police responded to reports of a "disturbance hot shot" inside the business, a classification for a rapidly escalating altercation involving an immediate threat to life or serious physical harm.
First responders found one victim with life-threatening injuries and another with non-life-threatening injuries, APD said.
Both victims were rushed to a hospital. They were last reported in stable condition, according to authorities.
FORMER TV ANCHOR WHO PLEADED GUILTY TO KILLING MOTHER LAST HALLOWEEN GETS LIFE SENTENCE
After the stabbing, the suspect fled in a pickup truck, speeding away before striking an unoccupied autonomous vehicle, KEYE reported.
Officers launched a search and eventually located him on a walking trail roughly 3 miles from the scene, police said.
The suspect was wearing a Halloween costume at the time of the attack, APD said.
A witness told police the man was dressed as a zombie with his face covered in makeup, according to KEYE.
People at the establishment also told police the man had caused a disturbance at the bar before Wednesday night's stabbing, the outlet reported.
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Grace was booked into the Travis County Jail and charged with two counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, a second-degree felony.
A United passenger who forced a Newark-bound flight to return to Las Vegas over his "hijacking threat" has blamed the incident on alcohol, telling authorities his remarks were drunken banter.
The post United Passenger Who Forced Newark-Bound Flight to Return to Vegas over ‘Hijacking Threat’ Blames Alcohol appeared first on Breitbart.
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