Crime

We spoke to Gavesh and five other workers from inside the scam industry, as well as anti-trafficking experts and technology specialists. Their testimony reveals how global companies, including American social media and dating apps and international cryptocurrency and messaging platforms, have given the fraud business the means to become industrialized. By the same token, it is Big Tech that may hold the key to breaking up the scam syndicates—if only these companies can be persuaded or compelled to act.

This is a depressing, but necessary and informative read: Inside A Romance Scam Compound — And How People Get Tricked Into Being There.

Wired has the "inside story of the teenager whose swatting calls sent armed police racing into hundreds of schools nationwide—and the private detective who tracked him down": The School Shootings Were Fake. The Terror Was Real by Dhruv Mehrotra Andy Greenberg.

Asterisk interviews David Skarbek (Professor of Political Economy at Brown) about Why We Have Prison Gangs.

I found this story rather interesting. In the 80s, gangs of vandals were paid by an upholstery company to slash the seats on BART (San Francisco's rapid transit). The vandals had signature slashes so the company knew who to pay. This went on for years, with the contract price growing every year.

The little-told story about the BART seat-slashing gang that was part of an upholstery racket

Here’s the outlandish story of how a BART contractor was arrested on felony vandalism and…

SFGATEDianne de Guzman

Staggering reporting by the Washington Post — Abused by the Badge — finds "at least 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022."

This interactive article was posted 2 months ago, yet didn't cross my radar. And I have pretty good radar. As a result, I've decided to do my part to get it more widely seen.

Well, this is fascinating.

Michael Pratt hid a massive sex trafficking ring in plain sight on PornHub. On the run from the FBI, an unexpected crew of ex-military, ex-intelligence officers and a lawyer tracked him down using his love of rare sneakers and crypto. For the first time, the group tells their story.

‘She Turned Ghost White:’ How a Ragtag Group of Friends Tracked Down a Sex Trafficking Ringleader

Michael Pratt hid a massive sex trafficking ring in plain sight on PornHub. On the run from the FBI, an unexpected crew of ex-military, ex-intelligence officers and a lawyer tracked him down using his love of rare sneakers and crypto. For the first time, the group tells their story.

404 MediaSamantha Cole

Abigail Goldman is an investigator in the public defender's office. As part of her job, she visits morgues, observes autopsies, and studies pictures of crime scenes. To relax, she turns nightmarish imaginings into precise, red-splattered miniatures.

More on Goldman's website.