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If you are a fugitive, you must know how to avoid capture by the authorities. To avoid arrest and conviction, you must devise the ideal strategy. It is difficult to remain on the run. You must be dedicated and willing to give up your family, friends, and all ties to your previous life. Assuming a new identity is always necessary, but it is not a guarantee that you will never be caught. To avoid ending up like Benjamin Quinn, who was apprehended in Bethlehem, Connecticut, after ten years on the run, you must be extremely skilled and consistent at being...

In this day and age, it's possible to buy not only citizenship but also a New Identity. Vancouver-based citizenship agency Amicus International Consulting faced the same challenges last year as other firms in the industry. Before the pandemic, they handled Second passport plans for America's wealthiest.  When the borders were closed, that business was turned upside down. So several years ago, the company turned a corner by launching a "Citizenship Program with New Identity," which helps people get a second passport from one of 98 countries on their roster It's open to anyone, but more than 90 percent of inquiries...

As many of the world's elite have discovered, it becomes even more challenging to roam as the world shrinks. The solution to a world full of borders is clear, as obtaining a second citizenship and a New Identity through investment easily removes those barriers. High society quickly recognized how second citizenship could ease their global mobility issues, unlock the door to the world, and hand them the keys, but dual citizenship is much more than an enhanced travel document; it is a framework for a transcendent life.   This article will show you how investing in a second citizenship/New Identity...

  I issued a warning about the difficulties presented by all of the technology developments in cameras and facial recognition back in 2005. I was concerned about how these factors would impact the art of espionage. In other words, thanks to facial recognition technologies, members of intelligence services worldwide, including our very own CIA, will have a tough time concealing their "New Identities." When someone joins Facebook, their photo will be accessible to the public indefinitely in the future according to the mathematical formulas used by FRT, also known as facial recognition technology. Okay, what do you say we converse...

Listed below are some of the most desirable alternatives for a New Identity: 1. The Russian Federation, the People's Republic of China, and Mongolia Our list of top countries that do not practice extradition places Russia and China at the top of the list. These are two large nations that are not easily maneuvered against their will. Neither of these countries has an extradition treaty with the United States. Both parties have a history of having rather "cold" relations with one another, so it is highly unlikely that they will want to cooperate with one another. The case of Edward...

For more than 50 years, a Boston man kept a secret that not even his family knew until just before his death last May. Before Thomas Randele died, his wife of nearly 40 years asked his golfing buddies and his co-workers from the dealerships where he sold cars to come by their home. They gathered to say goodbye to a guy they called one of the nicest people they'd ever known — a devoted family man who gushed about his daughter. This golfer never bent the rules, a friend to so many that a line stretched outside the funeral home...

Pseudocide—faking your death—is not technically illegal. However, to fake your death, you'd most likely need to break several laws. "Pseudocide isn't inherently a crime … but it involves so many built-in frauds that it's virtually impossible to fake your drowning legally. Frankly, you'll only be drowning in fraud," James Quiggle, the Coalition Against Insurance Fraud's director of communications, told Live Science in 2012. Why go to the trouble of faking your death? People may commit pseudocide so they can collect life insurance money, evade outstanding arrest warrants, get out of paying off school, car, or home loans, or start over...

Why do so many of us choose to live below the radar and off the grid? Some of us stay below the radar for safety reasons, while others just run away from their past and start a new identity. Either way, every action taken has a purpose. Good examples are when one is forced to live under the radar to escape an abusive relationship or run away from a dangerous criminal association. How do you stay below the radar? 1. Stay away from the Internet The Internet has become a crucial part of our daily life; it contains all your...

Even with cryptocurrency, investigators can follow the money unless one uses a Crypto-ID. or new identity. Bitcoin, the Internet currency beloved by computer scientists, libertarians, and criminals, is no longer invulnerable. As recently as three years ago, it seemed that anyone could buy or sell anything with Bitcoin and never be tracked, let alone busted if they broke the law. "It's anonymous," was how one commenter put it in Bitcoin's forums in June 2013. "The FBI does not have a prayer of a chance of finding out who is who." The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other law enforcement...

Are you trying to find the easiest country to get citizenship & how to legally obtain a second passport? If you’re lucky enough to have ancestors from places like Poland, Italy, or Ireland, then obtaining a second passport is quite straightforward assuming you can document your family ancestry. However, for most people who aren’t part of this fortunate bloodline club, obtaining dual citizenship or a second passport requires either: Money Time Flexibility Having dual citizenship allows you to become a citizen of two or more countries at the same time. While not all countries allow you to hold two (or...

There are several reasons someone may want to change their name, often after a marriage or divorce or disappear altogether. The process of legally changing your name generally includes petitioning to change your name and using your new name. Steps to Legally Change Your Name Petition to change your name by filling out a name change form, an order to show cause for legally changing your name, and a decree to change your name and get a new identity honestly. Take these forms to the court clerk and file them with your state's required filing fees. A judge or magistrate will review your forms...

The illegal trade of identity documents on the surface Web and in Onionland The online market of forged identity documents is quickly evolving. Sellers of these documents operate both on the surface Web and the deep Web, specifically in 'Onionland,' thanks to the typical features of the internet; anonymity, gaps in the legislation, and the absence of an actual tangible distance in cyberspace create an environment that provides several advantages to fraudsters. The market has been studied with a criminological approach, mainly virtual ethnography. The analysis was conducted on the surface Web and on the part of the deep Web...

Ever since Edward Snowden leaked detailed documents on how governments worldwide are spying on their citizens, many people have started to ask themselves if it is still possible to change their identity. Our lives over the last two years have changed at an unprecedented speed. We turned from a society where our privacy is respected and cherished into a mass surveillance society. Some people choose to change their identity or create 'multiple new identities to protect their privacy. Virtually everything we do online is being tracked: • Our smartphones are equipped with GPS senders, which government agencies can access to...

How cryptocurrency taxes work As a United States citizen, you owe taxes on the income you earn worldwide. Most people hold cryptocurrency as an investment. Under the current Internal Revenue Service virtual currency guidelines, cryptocurrency is often treated as a capital asset. This means the tax you pay on it is capital gains tax. (Cryptocurrency may also be received as income) You pay capital gains taxes depending on the type of capital gain you have. The two types are short-term and long-term capital gains and are based on how long you hold the asset, in this case, the cryptocurrency. Short-term capital...

What are the most common methods people use to change their identity illegally? If you research “change identity” online, you will discover that there are many illegal methods people try to use while trying to create a New Identity. Ghosting/Paper Tripping Some of them include a method called ‘ghosting’ or ‘paper tripping.’ Those methods are based on the idea of taking over the identity of someone who died, hoping that no one will ever find out since the person is already dead. To put it in a nutshell, it is stealing a dead person’s identity. Shockingly, people would even come...

Myth #1: You become an entirely new person. REALITY: You’re the same person with just a new name or new SSN/SIN number. You’re still the same you, with the same financial and legal obligations you had before you changed your identity. In fact, after changing your identity, your life might become more complex. When the federal government makes a social security/social insurance number change, they must share that with several other federal, state, and provincial agencies. Including the IRS/CRA, child support agencies, state/regional tax agencies, student loan companies, and entitlement programs (e.g., welfare). Law enforcement may have access to your...

Jan Marsalek, the former Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Wirecard AG, remains one of Europol's most wanted fugitives for his role in the massive Wirecard fraud scandal.  As COO, Marsalek was responsible for the entire operational business, including sales. Since at least 2015, he had been primarily responsible for the Asia business and the TPA business.  According to Europol, the Austrian-born former executive has committed commercial crime-fraud, embezzlement, and other property and economic offences. These offences are estimated to have been in the tens of billions of euros. Wirecard had filed for insolvency in June 2020. The payment service provider...

Johann Steynberg, the fugitive CEO and founder of collapsed Bitcoin trading platform Mirror Trading International, has been arrested and charged with using a fake ID. Former Mirror Trading International (MTI) chief Johann Steynberg will likely face charges in Brazil for using forged identity documents and being deported to South Africa. Captain Jonathan Andrade of a particular military police unit called Giro in the Brazilian state of Goiás said they arrested Steynberg after receiving a tip about a foreigner who was using a fake ID. They placed Steynberg under surveillance after receiving the tip-off, and when their intelligence gathering capabilities were...

Using Your New Identity. Be prepared to start over from scratch. You will have no credit history or employment history. You will not have a job or personal references, and no record of any education or special training. Anyone who checks your employment or credit history is likely to be suspicious when they find nothing. Practice introducing yourself with your new name. Practicing writing it and speaking it. You don't want to accidentally slip and use your old name, even once. Similarly, practice the lies you must tell about your family, personal history and places you've lived or visited. Adopt new mannerisms,...

If someone is suspected of committing a crime, they may try and leave the country to avoid a trial or punishment. However, if they go to a country that has an extradition agreement with the United States, they may find themselves turned over to U.S. custody. Some countries do not have extradition treaties with the U.S., others place limitations on who can be extradited. In some cases, a country may not turn over a suspect until the U.S. guarantees that the defendant will not face the death penalty. Some suspects flee the country because they fear they will not get...

Perhaps you've thought to yourself how nice it would be to be somebody else from time to time. A recent conversation with a colleague pointed out, disappearing with a new identity isn't that hard. Amicus International talked to Bob Burton, president of the highly regarded bounty hunting company U.S. Cobra, about how one could easily disappear. Burton suggested that the lonely dead could be of service: "You look in the obituaries," Mr. Burton said, "in Topeka, Kan., say. You want a gas station attendant more or less your age. Once you get the date of birth, you call the county....

Opinion: You’re a Chinese citizen if China says you are. It’s becoming tougher to walk the second passports tightrope. There is no shortage of wealthy Chinese citizens picking up second passports to make travel easier. It establishes a safe haven for their families, particularly in the U.S., Australia, Britain, and Canada. But there’s a hitch: The People’s Republic of China, unlike the other countries above, doesn’t, technically, allow its citizens to hold dual citizenship. As a result, many China-born residents have avoided revealing to their home country they have a second or third passport. They do not want to renounce...

Are you looking for how to get a second passport? Grenada has become a popular second citizenship option and is easily one of your best bets in securing a second citizenship outside of Nigeria. With the investment citizenship programme the country offers, successful applicants are able to obtain citizenship that allows visa-free travel to more than 140 countries and territories, including Schengen member states, the UK, Schengen Zone, Most of Asia and Russia and the opportunity to apply for an E-2 investor’s visa of the USA – an investor’s visa that allows Chinese citizens to set up or buy a...

There's plenty to be said for international cooperation. But if you really want to change the world, first be a good American.  Are we citizens of the world? In recent years, an unlikely collection of lefty environmentalists, Internet libertarians, multicultural educators, and voracious capitalists has coalesced around the idea that nations don't really matter anymore - that all we need is state-free citizenship of the globe. It's a powerful vision. It has in its favor much evidence and many trends. And it is a mirage. To be sure, technology and economic globalization have made nations weaker and borders less meaningful....

There are endless reasons to be anonymous or to increase your privacy. The most obvious is your freedom. Do you like it when people watch you as you eat or kiss your girlfriend/wife in your sleeping room? It is rarely in your interest that your government, Internet providers, administrators/supporters, or company know what you are doing online. What illness are you googling about? What porn do you watch? What political party do you favor? Do you search pirated software? The list is endless, and everyone is affected. There are more reasons to be anonymous. If you were unknown, you could...

China's social credit system isn't a world first but when it's complete it will be unique. The system isn't just as simple as everyone being given a score though China's social credit system has been compared to Black Mirror, Big Brother and every other dystopian future sci-fi writers can think up. The reality is more complicated — and in some ways, worse. The idea for social credit came about back in 2007, with projects announced by the government as an opt-in system in 2014. But there's a difference between the official government system and private, corporate versions, though the latter's...

Xi Jinping is using artificial intelligence to enhance his government’s totalitarian control—and he’s exporting this technology to regimes around the globe. Northwest of Beijing’s Forbidden City, outside the Third Ring Road, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has spent seven decades building a campus of national laboratories. Near its center is the Institute of Automation, a sleek silvery-blue building surrounded by camera-studded poles. The institute is a basic research facility. Its computer scientists inquire into artificial intelligence’s fundamental mysteries. Their more practical innovations—iris recognition, cloud-based speech synthesis—are spun off to Chinese tech giants, AI start-ups, and, in some cases, the People’s...

By Amicus International Consulting. According to Forbes, wealthy Americans are rushing to secure second passports, as a growing club of individuals have begun participating in government programs abroad that allow foreigners to acquire them. Eric Schmidt acquired all the typical trappings of a mega-rich U.S. citizen: a superyacht, a Gulfstream jet, a Manhattan penthouse. One of his newest assets is far less conventional: a second passport and a new identity. According to an announcement last month in a Cypriot newspaper that was first reported by the website Recode, Alphabet Inc.'s former chief executive officer applied to become a citizen of...

By Amicus International Consulting. For generations, the American passport afforded its holders the privilege of hassle-free travel around much of the world. That has changed with the coronavirus pandemic. While borders are beginning to reopen to international travel, some countries are staying closed to Americans because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak stateside. These travel restrictions are producing an emerging trend among some wealthy Americans: buying a second passport. “This limitation of mobility has made more people aware of ... the benefits of having more than one passport,” said Armand Arton, the president of financial firm Arton Capital, which specializes in...

By Amicus International Consulting The term “economic citizenship” refers to a passive, one-time investment in a country that leads to citizenship and a second passport, but how much “mobility” (Visa free travel) do they actually provide In the 1990s, more then a dozen countries offered buy-a-passport programs—officially known as Citizenship Through Investment Programs, or CIPs—that became corrupted and eventually discontinued because citizens carrying those passports were being questioned when they traveled. By the start of the 21st century, only St. Kitts and Nevis and Dominica offered realistic and legitimate options for economic citizenship. In the past several years, however, many...

Shedding Your Identity in the Digital Age Stories from the Hunt Evan’s Daily Costume Change Media, From TV to Mags to Blogs, Followed the Hunt Social Networking Sites at Center of Coast-to-Coast Coordinated Search Wired Tests Writer with a Series of Bold Challenges 1 August 13, 6:40 PM: I’m driving East out of San Francisco. August 13, 6:40 PM: I'm driving East out of San Francisco on I-80, fleeing my life under the cover of dusk. Having come to the interstate by a circuitous route, full of quick turns and double backs, I'm reasonably sure that no one is following...

By Amicus International Consulting. Many people are creating a new identity for themselves these days so they can get a second chance at life. A chance to run away with personal problems. The only way to get that second chance is to create a completely new identity legally in a new name with a clean new credit record and with all complete documents. This is the only way to effectively escape your past problems and live your new life safe, secure and worry-free. But most of them make many mistakes while doing it. Unaware of the government role Some people...

By Amicus International Consulting. It’s never been easier for individuals to make themselves disappear and they don’t need a magician to do it. A dozen websites advertise their ability to help anyone “Remove Yourself from the Internet,” “Delete Background Check Items; Get a Clean Online Record” and “Remove Yourself from Internet: Delete All Your Personal Info.” And if you’re willing to leave a retail trail online, you can order books including “How to Disappear from the Internet Completely While Leaving False Trails: How to Be Anonymous Online” and “How to Disappear: Erase Your Digital Footprint, Leave False Trails and Vanish...

For Matthew Alan Sheppard, all of the anxiety, deception, and delusion converged in one moment on a crisp winter weekend in February 2008. From the outside, he hardly seemed like a man prepared to abandon everything. At 42, he’d been happily married for 10 years, with a 7-year-old daughter and a comfortable home in Searcy. For Matthew Alan Sheppard, all of the anxiety, deception, and delusion converged in one moment on a crisp winter weekend in February 2008. From the outside, he hardly seemed like a man prepared to abandon everything. At 42, he’d been happily married for 10 years,...

By Amicus International Consulting Cyprus is suspending a scheme that grants citizenship and guarantees visa-free travel throughout the EU for those who invest a minimum of €2m (£1.8m). It comes after Al Jazeera reporters filmed Cypriot officials using the scheme to assist a fictional Chinese businessman with a criminal record. One of those filmed was Cyprus's parliamentary speaker, Demetris Syllouris, who said he would step down until an investigation was completed. The move comes into force next month. Mr. Syllouris, who is Cyprus's second-highest ranking state official, said he would withdraw from his duties from 19 October. In the video...

By Amicus International Consulting. Overview of the laws governing passport fraud, why and how it's committed, and what the consequences may be. Passport fraud is a federal crime and not one taken lightly by the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of State’s law enforcement arm, the Diplomatic Security (DS) Service, uses special agents who coordinate with other federal and international law enforcement agencies in more than 160 countries around the world to investigate passport and visa fraud. This article will first provide some background on the crime of passport fraud, and address the penalties under U.S. law. Uses of False U.S....

By Amicus International Consulting. The United States and Canada are now sharing a huge amount of information about their citizens. They are making your information available to a growing number of foreign governments as well.  Some information is also shared with non-government companies. Once the information is shared, it then becomes part of the other entities database so your information can end up in databases around the world. Thanks to license plate readers and RFID technology in passports and other documents, border agents know who is approaching them before you arrive at the customs station. This information is run against...

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. U.S. Marine Corporal Cesar Laurean, the principal suspect in the murder of 20-year-old pregnant Lance Corporal Maria Lauterbach is believed to be on the run in Mexico, and the search for him is now well underway. The FBI, U.S. Marshals and local police are coordinating their efforts in an international manhunt. But just how do they go about finding a fugitive - phone taps, rewards, tip lines? What if you don't have a picture, just witnesses? And what do you do if a skilled hunter or a trained soldier...

Passport Records Requests To the extent provided for under the Privacy Act and related Department of State regulations, a Federal, State or local (and in some cases foreign) law enforcement agency may obtain information from U.S. passport files by sending a signed written request on official agency letterhead, including the subject’s name, date of birth, place of birth, and other identifying information, and the reason for the request, which must include the following: ( 1) whether this request arises in the context of a prosecution or an investigation and identify the names of the defendants, or those under investigation, to...

A leak of government documents reveals Cyprus sold citizenship to dozens of foreigners linked to crime and corruption. Convicted fraudsters, money launderers and political figures accused of corruption are among dozens of people from more than 70 countries who have bought so-called “golden passports” from Cyprus, according to a large cache of official documents obtained by Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit. The Cyprus Papers is a leak of more than 1,400 passport applications approved by the government of the island nation between 2017 and 2019, and it raises serious questions about the Cyprus Investment Programme. Passports from the Republic of Cyprus...

Discover the visa requirements for Mexican passport holders for all the countries across the world.        By Amicus International Consulting. Visa requirements for Mexican citizens are administrative entry restrictions set by the authorities of other countries for Mexican passport holders. The Mexican passport is considered the 24th most powerful passport in the world regarding travel freedom, according to the Henley Passport Index. Mexican passport holders are currently able to travel to around 159 states without a visa or with a visa on arrival. Before planning a trip to a foreign country, Mexican citizens should check visa requirements to find out whether...

By Amicus International Consulting Planning to travel internationally on a one-way flight? You might have a problem. Some airlines and countries require proof of onward travel. Here’s how you can get it. “Before you can board this flight, I need to see your proof of onward travel. “What?! But I’m traveling on a one-way ticket! I remember the first time this happened to me. I was checking in at Boston’s Logan Airport for an international one-way flight to Bangkok, Thailand. Excited to visit Southeast Asia for the first time, I was planning to spend a few months living in Chiang...

By Amicus International Consulting. Traveling with two passports? You could find that it’s a mixed blessing. The door swings open to possibilities beyond the range of what a single passport can do, but total liberty may be a bit illusory — and sometimes you will need to be careful choosing which passport to use. You may find yourself with a dual, or more, nationality for many reasons — for example birth, marriage to a foreign national, or ancestry that with the proper bureaucratic steps can translate to a second passport. For international travel, in many cases it’s a distinct advantage....

By Amicus International Consulting. 1. Family For school, single mom’s want to have their child’s last name be the same as their own last nameMarried couples want to have the whole family share the same last namesSometimes a person wants to honor someone important in their upbringingA person might hate their legal name because of very bad childhood associationsSome people want to restore a family name important in their heritage 2. Uniformity of ID – REAL ID Real ID/Passport – For US and International Air Travel and access to Secure Federal Areas within the US, Name and ID must be...

By Amicus International Consulting. Americans can, of course, travel within the U.S. and its territories without a passport. There are also a few out-of-country locations that U.S. citizens can visit with only a valid driver's license and certified birth certificate, but only when traveling via cruise ships that depart and arrive at the same port. Passports are required for all out-of-country air travel. U.S. Territories The U.S. has five inhabited territories. American citizens can visit any of the territories without having a passport as long as they do not also travel to other countries during the same trip. American Samoa...

By Amicus International Consulting. The super-rich are no longer just spending their money on private jets, yachts, and hotels — they're also splashing out on second passports. The Second Citizenship Survey 2019 from CS Global Partners found that 89% of people would like to own a second passport, and over 44% said they had looked into investing in a second citizenship. Even more striking were the 80% who said they would be willing to invest or donate 15% of their annual salary for a second citizenship — more than they spend on monthly rent. Luckily, a number of countries offer...

By Amicus International Consulting. Imagining you want to escape the troubles of the world and set out on the adventure of a lifetime, you may be considering your options for transportation. Costs, convenience, and practicality will all matter in this grand of a trip. So, perhaps you are considering setting sail in your favorite water vessel. Can you travel the world in a boat? Yes, with the proper boat, equipment, legal documentation, and other preparations, it definitely is possible. You will want to consider your safety variables, seamanship, and plans for your route before departure. While you do not need...

By Amicus International Consulting. Having a criminal record can significantly reduce your chances of traveling to other countries. If you are a U.S. citizen and have a U.S. passport, you are able to enter approximately 160 countries without first applying for a Visa. The good news is that means you don’t have to spend many hours before your trip to get approval from the other country you are interested in visiting. However, the bad news is that you will only know for a fact whether you can enter the country or not when you get to the customs checkpoint at...

By Amicus International Consulting. What is an International Driver's License? An International Driver's License (the correct term is "international driving permit", or IDP) is a document that allows you to drive a motor vehicle legally in 174 countries when it is accompanied by your valid US driver's license. It contains your name, photo and driver information. You are eligible for an IDL/IDP if you are a permanent US resident at least 18 years of age and have a driver's license that will remain valid for at least six months from the date of issuance of the IDP. An international driving...

By Amicus International Consulting. Fugitive Edward Snowden is hoping to get to Ecuador, despite not having a valid passport. So, when can you legally travel without one? The US state department has revoked Snowden's passport and asked other countries to prevent him from travelling. Wanted on espionage charges, the American flew from Hong Kong to Moscow on 23 June - using his US passport, according to one of his lawyers - and has applied for asylum in Ecuador. On Monday, a seat was booked in his name on a flight to Cuba, but he was not seen on board. A...

By Amicus International Consulting. Connecting passengers to the travel ecosystem Electronic Visa Authorization systems, cloud-based passports, secure credentials on mobile phones, digital identities, and biometrics can simplify international travel as they eliminate the need to carry a physical passport or obtain paper-based visas. They speed up border crossing, streamline the traveler experience and shape the future of travel. The good news for travelers is that the digital transformation is already taking place. However, security, privacy, and global governance are vital concerns. In this article, we'll detail the latest initiatives and trends shaping the future travel experience. Let's dig in. Australia,...

By Amicus International Consulting. International travel can be quite overwhelming, especially for first timers! And even for me, someone who has traveled to quite a few countries, it can still be very confusing. So hopefully this blog will help you, because it definitely helped me get a better understanding and feel more comfortable navigating airports and customs in particular. I am going to start by breaking down a few things: Border Control: Border Controls are measures taken by a country to monitor or regulate its borders. So yes, when you fly into a country you are still crossing into their borders....

By Amicus International Consulting Times are changing. I am sure people have always been saying that and I certainly remember this phrase making the rounds since I was a child. Somehow, it feels like they are changing faster and in more terrifying ways than ever before. Where previously people might refer to technological advances, different ways of working or how their kids were growing up differently to themselves – now we are worried about how where we were born influences our ability to work and travel. I’ve grown up with the notion that I was different from the people in...

By Amicus International Consulting. Are you thinking to start a new life abroad anytime soon? Oh, I know how you feel. I have moved so many times in my life. The very first time when I moved, I was 18. At that time, I have finished high school in my hometown in Ukraine and was on the way to the capital to go to university. Seven years later another move happened, this time to the U.S. Actually, I went there as an au-pair with a goal to continue my education but life gave me a chance to settle and become...

By Amicus International Consulting. There are many reasons for moving to Mexico with a Mexican citizenship: the people are welcoming, the cost of living is low, and buying real estate in Mexico is safe and easy. Mexico’s climate is generally warm and can, in fact, get downright hot in the summer. Tequila and guacamole are both plentiful (so survival is assured) and can accompany the many delicious regional foods throughout the country. Oh, and many of the beaches are world-class destinations and a casual wardrobe is all you will need for nearly every occasion. All this can be had for costs that...

By Amicus International Consulting. I’m not here to question the reasons why you want to disappear. I’m sure your interest in disappearing is complicated, diverse and very personal. Maybe you owe the mob a fortune in money you don’t have, and they’re going to break your legs and feed you to the sharks.Or perhaps you are preparing to do something so dastardly – so sinister – so illegal – you’re going to need to vanish from the face of this earth. Whatever your motivation, be it for good or evil, the following is a guide to disappearing entirely. DISAPPEARING IS A BIG DEAL It’s an action not to...

By Amicus International Consulting. My friends were hiking in Washington State last year when they came upon this sign…."WARNINGUnited States BoundaryThis is an Unlawful Pedestrianor Conveyance CrossingViolators are Subject to Arrest,Fines and or Forfeiture of PropertyUS Customs and Border ProtectionPlease Report Suspicious Activity to1-800-218-9788U.S. Border Patrol"So of course they braved the possible minefield and sensor nets surrounding this sign and ALLEGEDLY traipsed back and forth across the border. They also ALLEGEDLY experimented with that strange limbo of having half their bodies in each country."Allegedly" is a journalistic term of art that will protect us from overzealous law enforcement agents seeking...

SIIP is a break-through Suspect Identification solution based on a novel Speaker-Identification (SID) engine fusing multiple speech analytic algorithm (e.g. voiceprints recognition, Gender/Age/Language/Accent ID, Keyword/ Taxonomy spotting and Voice cloning detection).  This Fused Speaker Identification will result in significantly higher true-positive speaker identification, reduced False-Positives/Negatives while increasing reliability & confidence. SIIP analyzes rich metadata from voice samples and social media. SIIP provides judicial admissible evidence for identifying crime/terror suspects as well as for mapping/tracing the suspect terror/crime network. SIIP is crucial when individuals use Internet-based applications (e.g. VoIP or social media) to plan a crime or terrorist attack. SIIP's results...

What Not to Believe About Interpol—Exploding Five Myths By Amicus International Consulting. Myth One: Interpol agents make arrests No matter how convenient this is as a dramatic device, there are no Interpol agents out there carrying guns, breaking down doors, and arresting suspects. Interpol itself shares a bit of the blame for this one, as its press releases often imply — without ever quite stating — that Interpol itself is responsible for arresting the latest batch of cigarette smugglers or illicit loggers. But the main guilty party here is Hollywood, which is seemingly addicted to putting so-called Interpol agents in...

By Amicus International Consulting. Chinese officials have defended their decision to bar three US citizens from leaving the country, saying they are suspected of "economic crimes". Victor and Cynthia Liu, children of a fugitive businessman, and their mother, Sandra Han, have been detained since June, the New York Times reported. The US Department of State confirmed to the BBC that they are in "close contact" with the adult Liu children. Their father, Liu Changming, is wanted in a $1.4bn (£1bn) fraud case in China. "As we understand it from the relevant authorities, these people you have mentioned all have legal...

By Amicus International Consulting. Myth #1 MYTH: You become an entirely new person. REALITY: You’re the same person with just a new name or new SSN. You’re still the same you, with the same financial and legal obligations you had before you changed your identity. In fact, after changing your identity, your life might become more difficult. When the federal government makes a social security number change, they have to share that with quite a few other federal and state agencies, including the IRS, child support agencies, state tax agencies, student loan companies, and entitlement programs (e.g., welfare). Law enforcement...

As the UAE is expecting an influx of visitors in the run up to Expo 2020, immigration officials are tightening their grip on forged and fake passports and travel documents. The main Document Examination Center at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigner Affairs (GDRFA) in Dubai is established for travel document forgery detection to keep control of all ports in the emirate. Established five years ago, it has helped detect 718 fake passports, 23 altered passports and 417 impersonation cases from January 2016 to 2017. Aqil Ahmed Alnajjar, Director of the Document Examination Center, said modern technologies are constantly...

Stay off ALL social media when you are trying to stay off authorities Rader, by Amicus International Consulting.  Chinese police captured a fugitive who revealed his whereabouts by posting holiday selfies on a social media web site. The 27-year-old man surnamed Qin went into hiding last year after reputedly being hired as a hitman and seriously injuring his target, a villager in central China's Henan Province. On May 3, the last day of the May Day holiday, Qin emerged on the popular messaging and photo-sharing web site WeChat and posted selfies taken on Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province, which neighbors...

If you had to disappear, could you do it? Like, what if you were falsely accused of a crime (or, you know, rightfully accused) and wanted to escape trial? Think of how many government and private databases hold your information, how many ways you're being tracked -- shit, the puzzle game on your phone probably knows which restaurants you've visited this week. Think of the sheer number of cameras that exist in the world. Well, we talked to a guy who did it. "Jack Baker" was charged with a crime last year, then vanished. How? Well, let's put it this...

Last year, the US state department said it had uncovered a fake embassy in Accra that had been issuing a stream of forged visas. The story went viral – but all was not as it seemed. On Friday 2 December 2016, a curious story appeared on the website GhanaBusinessNews.com. “Ghana security authorities shut down fake US Embassy in Accra,” the headline declared. For a decade, the story went, there had been a fake US embassy in the Ghanaian capital. The fraudsters behind it had flown the American flag from their building and even hung a portrait of Barack Obama on...

FROM LATE 2007 until March 2011, if you were an identity thief or credit card fraud artist in need of a fake ID, your best bet was “Celtic’s Novelty I.D. Service.” From its base in Las Vegas, the online storefront manufactured driver’s licenses for 13 states and shipped them to buyers around the world. No questions asked. With a reputation for quality and the fastest turnaround in the industry, Celtic was a no-nonsense player in a global underworld benighted by drama and infighting. On the Russian-led criminal forum Carder.su, his primary home, he accumulated scores of glowing reviews from satisfied...

On February 26, 2009, an Iraqi-born Dutch citizen, Wesam Al Delaema, was charged with participating in a conspiracy to attack Americans based in Iraq. The criminal complaint was filed at the U.S. District Court in Columbia on July 27, 2008. Al Delaema, a/k/a Wesam Khalaf Chayed Delaema, was charged on four counts:  conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens abroad; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives); possession of a destructive device (explosives) during a crime of violence; and conspiracy to possess a destructive device (explosives) during a crime of violence. Al Delaema, 32, was born in Fallujah, Iraq. He...

By Amicus International Consulting Counterfeit ID cards for press, students, airline crews, driving licenses, university diplomas and even the FBI are sold openly on Bangkok’s famous tourist centre. How do the vendors get away with it? THAILAND may be the only country in the world where counterfeit documents are openly displayed for sale on the street. Along Khao San Road in Bangkok are around a dozen stalls – the first opposite Chana Songkhram police station, under a giant screen showing two police patrolmen and a sign saying “24-Hour Protection and Services” – offering a huge variety of fake identity cards...

By Amicus International Consulting. The boss of a company that allegedly supplied encrypted phones to criminal organisations with possible links to at least two Australian underworld murders has been arrested in the United States. Chief executive of Phantom Secure, Vincent Ramos, was charged by the FBI for racketeering activity involving gambling, money laundering and drug trafficking after a joint operation between law enforcement agencies in the US, Australia and other countries. The company allegedly installed encryption software and removed the camera, microphone, GPS navigation and other features from BlackBerry devices to help organised crime groups avoid detection from law enforcement....

By Amicus International Consulting. The reason a person can be denied a Passport from the country of citizenship can vary greatly from§ 51.60 Denial and restriction of US. Passports. (a) The Department may not issue a passport, except a passport for direct return to the United States, in any case in which the Department determines or is informed by competent authority that: (1) The applicant is in default on a loan received from the United States under 22 U.S.C. 2671(b)(2)(B) for the repatriation of the applicant and, where applicable, the applicant's spouse, minor child(ren), and/or other immediate family members, from...

Roman Seleznev, a 32-year-old Russian cybercriminal and prolific credit card thief, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in federal prison. That is a record punishment for hacking violations in the United States and by all accounts one designed to send a message to criminal hackers everywhere. But a close review of the case suggests that Seleznev’s record sentence was severe in large part because the evidence against him was substantial and yet he declined to cooperate with prosecutors prior to his trial. The son of an influential Russian politician, Seleznev made international headlines in 2014 after he was captured while vacationing in The Maldives,...

Second Citizenship, Nationality & Residency Program Information Amicus International LLC. is an information provider on legal Nationality and Residency programs. We currently refer serious candidates to highly trusted and reliable source/s who represent a few select approved "Residency" Programs as referral agents for a few select countries. Please be advised that Amicus International LLC. does "NOT" sell PASSPORTS. As per our agreement with the respective sources, the countries and the issuing authorities, we are unable to disclose the exact name of each country at this time. As referral agents we are entrusted with the responsibility of screening the possible applicants carefully....

The International Criminal Police Organisation, known as Interpol, issued a red notice for Chinese tycoon Guo Wengui at the request of China on Tuesday.  Guo, who was placed under an arrest warrant by Chinese police in April 2014 for bribing the country’s deputy spy chief and has since fled overseas, said on his Twitter account that he was currently in the United States. The US does not have an extradition treaty with China. We look at what an Interpol red notice is and how it works. What is an Interpol red notice? An Interpol red notice is a request to...

UPDATE. In the pecking order of federal fugitives, former Tulsa millionaire Joseph Ross always ranked as small fry compared to the James "Whitey" Bulgers of the world. After 16 years on the lam, Bulger, 81, a New England crime boss, was arrested in California and later convicted in Boston of 19 murders. "Bulger is what many call a psychopath," says John Thomas, the Internal Revenue Service investigator who tracked Ross for a dozen years. "Joe Ross was no psychopath. But indictments allege that both broke the law in their own ways. " Yet Ross, an indicted tax evader, pulled off...

Nowhere to run to, Nowhere to hide……..On the run in 2020. By Amicus International Consulting. If you feel that you are being spied on, or being chased by a vindictive spouse, or perhaps are the target of a bounty hunter, then you need a safe place to live. If you had the option of flying to any country in the world in order to feel safe, then where would you go? We are not encouraging you to break the laws and fraud creditors by running away from your responsibilities. However, if you genuinely are in a difficult situation and fear...

How far will the US. go to extradite a person? By Amicus International Consulting. The arrest in Canada of a top Chinese technology executive for possible extradition to the United States has roiled markets and cast doubt on a recent U.S.-China trade truce. Huawei Technologies chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is also the daughter of the telecommunications company’s founder, was detained on Saturday while changing planes in Vancouver. A person familiar with the matter told Reuters she faces extradition on charges related to U.S. sanctions violations. Chinese authorities have criticized the United States and Canada, saying they did not...

Extradition processes in the UK. post BREXIT By Amicus International Consulting. On 11 April 2019, the Metropolitan Police arrested an Australian national at a flat in Knightsbridge. Within minutes, the arrest was dominating social media before being picked up by news outlets. This arrest, on suspicion of conspiracy to commit computer intrusion, even kept Brexit off the front pages of newspapers - briefly. The flat in question was the Ecuadorian embassy and the man arrested was Julian Assange, who is now potentially facing forced removal, or extradition, to the USA to answer espionage charges. At the time of writing, Assange...

Does the absence of an extradition treaty lull a person into a false sense of security? By Amicus International Consulting. A common misconception in international law is that if there is no extradition treaty in existence between two countries, then you cannot be detained pursuant to an extradition request or extradited. The recent arrest of Ahmed Monsour illustrates this misconception clearly. Mansour – an Al-Jazeera journalist – was arrested and detained in Germany as a result of an Egyptian arrest warrant. The arrest warrant was issued following Monsour’s conviction in absentia, which he has described as ‘a flimsy attempt at character assassination’....

THE STATE OF EXTRADITION TO THE US. (2020) By Amicus International Consulting. If someone is suspected of committing a crime, they may try and leave the country to avoid a trial or punishment. However, if they go to a country that has an extradition agreement with the United States, they may find themselves turned over to U.S. custody. Some countries do not have extradition treaties with the U.S., others place limitations on who can be extradited. In some cases, a country may not turn over a suspect until the U.S. guarantees that the defendant will not face the death penalty....

What Is Extradition? By Amicus International Consulting. The extradition process enables governments to bring fugitives abroad to justice, but it can be fraught with political tension, even when a treaty is in place. Introduction Building on a practice dating back to antiquity, states forge extradition treaties so they can pursue fugitives and other wanted individuals in faraway jurisdictions. Extradition has become ever more important given the spread of transnational criminal organizations, including those involved in terrorism, drug trafficking, counterfeiting, and cybercrime. The United States has extradition treaties with more than a hundred countries. But even with treaties in place, extraditions...

How China uses national identity as a weapon Beijing does not recognise dual citizenship, making life difficult for ethnic Chinese in the diaspora. A young history graduate leaves China, his country of birth, to pursue further studies in Sweden. He settles there, gains Swedish citizenship and thus renounces his Chinese citizenship, because Beijing by law does not recognise dual nationality. He buys a bookshop in Hong Kong to publish gossip about Chinese politicians. Is he Swedish, or Chinese? Until recently, nobody would have doubted that Gui Minhai, the bookseller I described above, was a Swedish national. He had a Swedish...

No hiding place overseas for fugitive officials By Amicus International Consulting. China's anti-graft authorities have gone on the offensive in the fight against corrupt individuals who flee the country to avoid arrest. The first person on a list of China's 100 most-wanted fugitives has been arrested after 14 years on the run overseas, according to the body charged with rooting out corruption. Dai Xuemin, former manager of a State-owned trust and investment company in Shanghai, was detained in Hefei, capital of Anhui province, several days ago after recently entering the country on a foreign passport, said a statement issued by...

Operation “Fox Hunt” Launched Regional coordination to prevent corrupt officials escaping with their illegal gains steps up China's anti-corruption efforts. The concluding document of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Economic Leaders' Meeting underlines the spirit of joint endeavor in the anti-graft field, which is well presented in the Beijing Anti-Corruption Declaration. Both promise a joint network among its members to combat corruption. The declaration passed at the 26th APEC Ministerial Meeting held on Nov 7 and 8 and its reflection in the final document come in time to aid China's anti-graft efforts. The authorities have claimed initial success in the recent...

US ‘Top Destination’ for China’s Fugitive Officials Without an extradition treaty, China is having difficulty repatriating corrupt officials who flee to the United States. By Amicus International Consulting. China’s anti-corruption campaign is going global.  The CCP has already begun a crackdown on “naked officials” (government employees whose children, spouses, and assets have been moved overseas), demanding that such officials either bring their families home or face demotions.  Now, a report in China Daily focuses on corrupt officials who have fled to other countries — and the U.S. is apparently the most popular choice. China Daily quotes Liao Jinrong, the director-general...

By Amicus International Consulting. Acquiring Citizenship through the Right of Return The right of return is a principle which is drawn from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, intended to enable people to return to, and re-establish citizenship with, their country of origin. The right of return has not passed into customary international law, although it remains an important aspirational human right.  Instead, international law gives each country the right to decide for itself to which person it will grant citizenship. Reacquisition Some countries, such as the Philippines, Poland, Greece, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Spain, Serbia, Taiwan...

By Amicus International Consulting. A laissez-passer (from the French let pass) is a travel document issued by a national government or certain international organizations, such as the United Nations, European Union, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). A laissez-passer is often for one-way travel to the issuing country for humanitarian reasons only such as Restoring Family Links. Some national governments issue laissez-passers to their own nationals as emergency passports. Others issue them to people who are stateless, or who are unable to obtain a passport from their own government, or whose government is not recognized by the...

By Amicus International Consulting. If Mr. Robert Vesco indeed eluded the American authorities until his final day, it was the fitting end to his nearly four decades on the run. He was wanted for, among other things, bilking some $200 million from credulous investors in the 1970s, making an illegal contribution to Richard M. Nixon’s 1972 presidential campaign and trying to arrange a deal during the Carter administration to let Libya buy American planes in exchange for bribes to United States officials. Mr. Vesco last made the news a decade ago when he was sentenced to prison in Cuba, where he...

The "Fugitive Financier" Amicus International Consulting client. Martin Frankel ran the largest insurance fraud in U.S. history when he stole $355 million USD from insurers in five states before fleeing the country on May 2, 1999. Before Frankel was the “fugitive financier,” he ran Franklin American Life Insurance from his 8-acre estate in Greenwich, Connecticut.  He bought up small insurance companies, mostly in the Southern states with limited regulation, and transferred the premiums away in a Swiss bank account.  Among the many partners in his confidence scheme – 16 of whom were convicted – was a former Roman Catholic Church...

Top 10 Countries to Hide Out in By Amicus International Consulting. So, you are a citizen of the free world, wanted by your local authorities for something you did (whatever, we are not judging). However, just for fun: where would you run? Not that we are suggesting you flee the law. But with the governments of today being more tyrannical than political, if you did have to, what would your first choice be? Anonymity, discretion, and no extradition treaty with your first country should be the obvious points as rating criteria. So in the light of NSA whistleblower Edwin Snowden’s safe...

The Best Countries for Your Escape Plan from the US. government. By Amicus International Consulting. Suppose you were NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden, or fictional international spy Jason Bourne, and the most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet were hunting you. Where would you go? This is a farfetched scenario for most of us. That’s why it’s only a thought experiment. On the other hand, for folks like the founder of Liberty Dollar (a gold/silver-backed private currency), whom the U.S. government has labeled a “domestic terrorist,” it might not be implausible. Regardless of how likely the scenario, if you do need...

How to get a Second Passport with a Felony By Amicus International Consulting. How to get a Second Passport with a Felony If you have a felony or criminal history, it’s nearly impossible to get a second passport. There are a few countries that will allow those with white-collar offences in if you have the cash. Here’s how to get a second passport with a felony. To reiterate, I am talking about white-collar felonies and not violent crimes, drugs, or gun offences. White-collar crimes such as minor SEC or IRS charges from a few years back are the easiest to work with....

Escape from the American Government: The Five Cheapest Places to Move too, If You Want to Leave the US. Permanently. By Amicus International Consulting. As the coronavirus pandemic continues to take its toll and the political situation heats up, many Americans are thinking about bolting and leaving the U.S. permanently. According to Immigration New Zealand, a total of 250,000 Americans has looked into how to leave the U.S. and move to the Pacific island nation, with visits to the website New Zealand Now spiking 160%—an average of about one U.S. resident a minute. Companies that help Americans get second passports are also witnessing a massive increase...

You Face a U.S. Legal Problem. Where Should You Run? By Amicus International Consulting. U.S. chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer, shown in 1971, a year before he won the world's most famous chess match, fled to Iceland in 2005 to avoid prosecution in the U.S. He remained there until his death in 2008. Let's say you are an American facing prosecution and you want to escape the long arm of the American law. Where's the best place to go? Iceland, perhaps, and we'll get to that in a moment. Edward Snowden, who faces potential prosecution after declaring that he leaked details...

A new Russian Ploy to protect its hackers: Competing Extradition Requests Amicus International Consulting. Lawyers for an accused Russian hacker, Pyotr Y. Levashov, leaving court after his extradition hearing in Madrid in July. (European Pressphoto Agency) MOSCOW — The Russian spam kingpin had long been in the cross hairs of the F.B.I., and agents finally got their shot when the man scheduled a vacation in Spain. At the agency’s request, Spanish security officers in April arrested the man, Pyotr Y. Levashov, who is accused of stuffing untold millions of inboxes with ads for pornography, pills and penny stocks. But then the...

Facial recognition helps reunite kidnapped toddler with family after 32 years Amicus International Consulting. BEIJING, CHINA -- A Chinese man kidnapped as a toddler 32 years ago has been reunited with his biological parents, after police used facial recognition technology to help track him down. Mao Yin had a tearful reunion with his birth parents who had never given up the search for their missing son. Mao Yin was just two when he was snatched outside a hotel in Xi'an in central Shaanxi province in 1988 and sold to a childless couple in neighbouring Sichuan province who raised him as...

US. National ID. card coming soon? Amicus International Consulting. September 11 was quickly followed by calls from some lawmakers and business leaders for a more robust national identification system: ID cards that possess sophisticated biometric data, making them harder to forge than today's driver's licenses. What the US. National ID. card could look like with its security features. Privacy advocates are strongly opposed, arguing that such cards, while enabling the government to track individuals and access personal data, would do little to separate the innocent citizen from the walking security threat. For now, the Trump administration is cool to the...

APPLE’S FACE ID COULD BE A POWERFUL TOOL FOR MASS SPYING Amicus International Consulting. THIS TUESDAY APPLE unveiled a new line of phones to much fanfare, but one feature immediately fell under scrutiny: FaceID, a tool that would use facial recognition to identify individuals and unlock their phones. Unsurprisingly, this raised major anxiety about consumer privacy given its profound ramifications: Retailers already crave facial recognition to monitor consumers, and without legally binding terms, Apple could use FaceID to track consumer patterns at its stores, or develop and sell data to others. It's also possible that police would be able to more easily unlock phones...

New Tech Brings Live Facial Recognition to Police Body Cameras Amicus International Consulting. Digital Barriers has launched what it calls the world’s first live facial recognition system for body cameras. It’s called SmartVis Identifier, and is based in part on Digital Barriers’ EdgeVis platform, which enables live facial recognition against watch lists via smartphone camera streams. SmartVis brings that concept to Digital Barriers’ body-worn cameras aimed at police and security applications. The company also says it will license the technology to other camera and device makers. In a statement announcing the solution, Digital Barriers said it offers police the advantages...

The High-Tech Features That Make Passports Secure Amicus International Consulting. The flimsy pages and patriotic designs betray just how many security measures are hidden inside. To get a better idea, CityLab spoke with Barry Kefauver, a former deputy assistant secretary for Passport Services at the State Department who now consults the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) on passport standards and technology. Worldwide, passports follow a few security and design standards laid out by ICAO, a 191-member U.N. agency that ensures that aviation policies and regulations in each country maintain some consistency across the globe. One of the most fundamental standards is...

Switzerland launches biometric passport Amicus International Consulting. From March 1 biometric passports will be issued in Switzerland - containing a holder’s photograph and fingerprints - bringing the country into line with its neighbours. Critical impression: New biometric passports contain a chip loaded with digital fingerprints and a photo The move was approved by a wafer-thin majority of voters last year amid scepticism over security. The Swiss abroad will be able to get their new passports from embassies and the document will allow visa-free entry into the United States. “Switzerland is part of the Schengen area and is obliged to follow...

Australia's New Passports Have A World-First Security Feature Amicus International Consulting. Australia's passports are some of the world's most advanced. The latest iteration is even more so; a world-first "floating image" — of kangaroos, naturally — means that any legitimate passport will be virtually impossible to counterfeit. The new document is printed like Australia's polymer banknotes, too, further stymying potential forgers. The world's-first feature is a pair of holographic, coloured stylised kangaroo designs on the passport holder's identification spread, "which appear to float independently above and below the page". Designed by 3M in consultation with the Australian government, the design...

Indian Government To Carry Out Digital Makeover Of Passports Amicus International Consulting. The Indian Government has always embraced technology to simplify processes and make life easier for its citizens. Now it is all set to introduce Biometric Passports, or E-Passports to curb the menace of passport forgery. Minister of State for External Affairs, V K Singh, revealed in the Lok Sabha that every Indian citizen would soon be getting an e-passport. They have already started the procedure to acquire the necessary infrastructure to manufacture these passports. But what exactly are e-passports and what are its advantages over the regular passports? What...

Electronic Passport (ePP) Overview by Amicus International Consulting ePassports - Secure Chip Based Travel Documents NXP® is the leader in electronic passports (ePassports or biometric passports) solutions and works with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to advance security and facilitation of international travel. NXP products are ICAO passport standard 9303 corresponding and, in all interoperability, tests recognized as fully compliant solutions with benchmark performance. For ePassports, controlling access to sensitive personal information is a fundamental requirement. Our secure smart card IC product families feature highly advanced counter-measures against attacks as well as hardware firewalls, ensuring personal data stays safe and...

Captured Mob boss 16 years on the run is linked to more crimes as he faces Boston court. September 8, 2017 Appearance: In this courtroom sketch, James 'Whitey' Bulger stands during his initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Boston. His brother William Bulger, left, and Judge Marianne Bowler, right, can be seen. Hearing: Catherine Greig, girlfriend of Bulger, is shown during her initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Boston. William Bulger is shown leaving the court, after attending the hearing for his brother.  The ruthless Boston mobster has also got agents and cops 'holding their breath', wondering what he...

US fugitive's wife thought jail break story was 'just a boast' Amicus International Consulting. The wife of a convicted murderer wanted after escaping from a US prison and for allegedly hijacking a plane says she never quite believed he had broken out of prison. THE WIFE OF captured American fugitive George Wright said her husband told her he escaped from a US jail but never revealed he had been convicted of murder or accused of a dramatic airplane hijacking. July 1972 file photo of an FBI agent wearing only swim trunks, as per the hijacker's instructions, carrying a $1m ransom to...

Australian Man Who Ran Third Largest Car Dealership in the United States and was Fugitive for 24 Years Pleads Guilty in $50 Million Scheme That Defrauded Multiple Banks in the 1980s Amicus International Consulting. LOS ANGELES—An Australian man, who ran the third largest car dealership in the United States before he fled the country 27 years ago, pleaded guilty late yesterday afternoon to federal charges for bank fraud and lying to banks. Eminiano “Jun” Reodica, Jr., 71, ran a fraud scheme that caused nearly $50 million in loss to the banks in the 1980s. At that time Reodica was the...

World's most successful prison fugitive has been on the run for 65 years Amicus International Consulting. John Patrick Hannan - who used knotted bedsheets to escape over walls of Verne Prison in Dorset in 1955 - notches up six decades at large John Patrick Hannan escaped from Verne Prison in 1955 Photo: Ian Patrick / Alamy The world's most successful fugitive, who climbed over the walls of a Dorset prison using knotted bedsheets, has now been on the run for 60 years. John Patrick Hannan holds the record for the longest escape from custody after he escaped from Verne Prison, in Portland,...

After 20 years on the run, one of the most wanted fugitives comes home Amicus International Consulting. Chen Fujin is met at Pudong airport on his return to Shanghai. A former banker, who is one of Shanghai’s most-wanted fugitives, has turned himself in. Chen Fujin, 72, former director of the Minhang branch of the Bank of Communications, used a “new identity”passport to fly to the United States on March 13, 1996. His wife escaped with him, according to prosecutors of Minhang District. On October 18, 1997, he was put on Interpol’s “red notice” wanted list of Chinese economic fugitives who...

New Jersey hopes Cuba-US relations thaw will help extradite former Black Panther Amicus International Consulting An undated photo of Shakur, who resurfaced in Cuba in the 1980s, where Fidel Castro granted her asylum. Photograph: Associated Press New Jersey officials hope the thaw in diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba will make it easier to extradite a former Black Panther Party member convicted of killing a state trooper in a controversial 40-year-old case. Joanne Chesimard, who changed her name to Assata Shakur, was convicted in the 1973 death of New Jersey state trooper Werner Foerster. Prosecutors say Shakur killed Foerster in a shootout...

CIP passports come at steep price to access the world Amicus International Consulting Turns out money doesn’t just buy a glamorous vacation in the Caribbean or a killer suite in Quebec — it can buy residency too. Ireland and other countries have found a lucrative business in citizenship by investment programs that enable access to powerful passport. — Photo from CNN While British citizens are rushing to claim Irish passports post-Brexit vote, the world’s most elite travelers don’t bother standing in line at immigration counters. Instead, they enlist in citizenship by investment programs, where investing in a country’s economy can...

Want to buy citizenship? It helps if you're one of the super-rich Malta has announced it is selling passports to foreign investors for £746,000, ($1,000,000USD) but that's cheap compared with other countries, such as Britain and the US. Citizenship is like rhythm: if you weren't born with it, it's not easy to get. However, in the EU there is a fast-track for the super-rich. The Maltese government now has a scheme to attract "high-value" foreigners to the country, by selling passports for £746,000. Which, by passport standards, is pretty cheap. The move has ruffled feathers in the UK. In part,...

Second Passports-FAQ By Amicus International Consulting. Second Passports Amicus International LLC. is an information provider on legal Nationality and Residency programs. We currently refer serious candidates to highly trusted and reliable source/s who represent a few select approved "Residency" Programs as referral agents for a few select countries. Please be advised that Amicus International LLC. does "NOT" sell PASSPORTS As per our agreement with the respective sources, the countries and the issuing authorities, we are unable to disclose the exact name of each country at this time. As referral agents we are entrusted with the responsibility of screening the possible applicants...

A Dutchmen grounded. Multiple citizenship is on the rise. But some states continue to deter it. By Amicus International Consulting. AT THE height of the Dutch golden age, merchants exported their goods and their families to colonies on four continents. Four centuries later their descendants are less impressed by such adventuring. A new law proposed by the Dutch government aims not only to limit dual nationality among immigrants (in 2011 around 20,000 people gained Dutch nationality through naturalisation) but also to make it easier for the authorities to strip members of the 850,000-plus Dutch diaspora of their nationality, should they...

In praise of a second (or third) passport Multiple identities are natural. Citizenship laws should catch up SEEN from the state's point of view, multiple citizenship is at best untidy and at worst a menace. Officials would prefer you to be born, live, work, pay taxes, draw benefits and die in the same place, travel on one passport only, and bequeath only one nationality to your offspring. In wartime the state has a unique call on your loyalty—and perhaps your life. Citizenship is the glue keeping individual and state together. Tamper with it, and the relationship comes unstuck. But life...

Diplomacy Canadian Style: New ID. A new identity and a precious Canadian passport for a fugitive Mossad agent. A honeypot security officer worked for Canadian immigration, romancing an Iranian-Canadian business person and letting the cat out of the bag. Who needs John le Carre? The smitten Canadian, Trina Kennedy, a senior national security investigator at Passport Canada, revealed to tall, dark and handsome Arian Azarbar that one of the 27 Mossad agents who assassinated Palestinian Hamas member Mahmoud al-Mabouh in 2010 in Dubai had escaped to Canada, where he was living under a new name, as free as a Canada...

Passport buyers’ origins to remain ‘a secret’ Information could irritate diplomatic partners. The origin of foreign millionaires buying a Maltese passport cannot be revealed as it may prejudice the government’s diplomatic relations with other counties, according to Identity Malta. Identity Malta’s decision not to release such information was supported by the Data Protection Commissioner, who was brought into the picture by the Times of Malta after seeking details on the so-called individual investor programme under the Freedom of Information Act. Following a year-long investigation, the Data Protection Commissioner found that the government agency was right in rejecting this newspaper’s request “as the...

 Amicus International Consulting is the expert you need if you wish to live a life of anonymity’  A Vancouver firm offers clients ‘new identities’. Its customers have included Chinese criminals "Amicus is the expert you need if you wish to live a life of anonymity’ The Hongcouver by Ian Young         February 24. 2017 Kuang Wan Fang is escorted away at Changle Airport in Fuzhou on September 24, 2015, after arriving from the US on a forced repatriation flight. Vancouver firm Amicus International has claimed Kuang is a client whom it helped obtain Spanish citizenship while imprisoned in...

Banking Passports. By Amicus International Consulting A "Banking" passport provides you with much needed anonymity and protection in an age of stricter banking and financial transaction measures.  That is why it’s a great advantage to have a second passport with which to conduct all your offshore banking. Governments of the world do not want you to take your money overseas; more than ever before, they are placing greater restrictions on offshore banking by their citizens. China, for example, makes it “illegal” for its government officials to use foreign banks and almost impossible for its citizens to secure offshore bank accounts....

By Amicus International Consulting. Imagine you’re being pursued by government agents, angry creditors, a vindictive ex-spouse, or a hit-man with a bounty on your head. You need to find somewhere to hide out under the radar until things blow over… or possibly forever. Where would you go if the world was your oyster and you had to escape? Your first inclination may well be to look for one of the world’s non-extradition countries. You ought to be careful, however, because they are not all created equal. Of course, I’m not advocating that you flee the law. But think about: if...

Russia Fails to Stop Alleged Hacker From Facing US Charges The repercussions over custody and extradition of Aleksei Burkov have set off a geopolitical maelstrom. ANDREI SHIROKOV THE LEAST INTERESTING thing about the alleged Russian hacker who appeared Tuesday morning in a Virginia courtroom may end up being the charges he faces there. The Justice Department indicted Aleksei Yurievich Burkov on five counts related to his alleged role from 2009 to 2013 running an online criminal marketplace, known as CardPlanet, that sold stolen credit card numbers. The scale of CardPlanet, as online forums go, was relatively small—150,000 stolen payment cards that...

Why Were the Russians So Set Against This Hacker Being Extradited? The Russian government has for the past four years been fighting to keep 29-year-old alleged cybercriminal Aleksei Burkov from being extradited by Israel to the United States. When Israeli authorities turned down requests to send him back to Russia — supposedly to face separate hacking charges there — the Russians then imprisoned an Israeli woman for seven years on trumped-up drug charges in a bid to trade prisoners. That effort failed as well, and Burkov had his first appearance in a U.S. court last week. What follows are some clues that...

China now links graft suspects to investor migration, but alarms have been ringing in Canada for years Investor migrants may not be inherently corrupt – but such visa schemes appeal to those who are, from a Hong Kong drug boss to a murderous Taiwan tycoon. Hong Kong’s infamous Ice Queen, Lee Chau-ping, once the world’s biggest crystal methamphetamine producer, is pictured in her Vancouver home in this rare 1992 picture. Photo: SCMP Picture When Chinese corruption fighters last week published the street-level addresses of suspects living overseas, including five in British Columbia, the accompanying statement was filled with the usual guff...

One of China’s most wanted operating Chilliwack mushroom farm Mushroom farmer Wang Qingwei on China’s list of 100 most wanted for financial crimes Chilliwack mushroom farmer Wang Qingwei’s photo and information as it appears on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China Hundreds of yellow dandelion heads fill the large, grassy front lawn of a nondescript house on Fairfield Island. Beyond the long gravel driveway, through a metal gate, are barns made of plywood and tin. An otherwise ordinary Chilliwack agriculture property, yet it is the man who runs the mushroom farm on the 2.5 acres...

Where do prison escapees and absconders actually go? Beating up love rivals and trying to find gainful employment are among the reasons prisoners have given for "going on the run", it has emerged. The faces of some England's offenders who have fled lawful custody in the past three years A BBC investigation has sought to find out where people fleeing lawful custody actually go and why. There were 13 prison escapes and 105 cases of absconding in 2015/2016. While a significant number of offenders simply go home, where they are usually caught quite quickly, some manage to leave the country....

Chinese fugitive Ching Mo Yeung is a criminal and fraudster, says Canada’s immigration ministry Scathing statement follows revelation Chinese police asked Canada to deny citizenship to Vancouver property mogul, now seeking asylum Michael Ching Mo Yeung, pictured in 2011 (left), and as he appears in Interpol's Red Notice under the name Cheng Muyang. Photo: SCMP Picture Canada’s immigration ministry has launched a scathing attack on Chinese corruption fugitive Michael Ching Mo Yeung, describing the Vancouver property mogul as a criminal and a fraudster. The extraordinary statement was issued to the South China Morning Post on Thursday, two days after the Post exposed Ching as...

Canada deports hundreds to China each year with no treatment guarantee The Canadian government is deporting hundreds of people to China each year without receiving any assurances that they will not be tortured or otherwise mistreated, statistics provided to The Globe and Mail reveal. Lai Changxing is led away in handcuffs from an immigration hearing in Vancouver on July 11, 2011. The alleged smuggler's deportation back to China appears imminent as Canadian authorities recently placed him in custody. (Simon Hayter For the Globe and Mail) Canada and China do not have a formal extradition treaty, and the Trudeau government has signalled...

China accuses Canadian-Chinese tycoon of major role in pyramid scheme Edward Gong (far left) has been accused by Chinese authorities of running an elaborate pyramid scheme. Mr. Gong has attended fundraisers with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. A Chinese-Canadian businessman who attended one of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's controversial cash-for-access fundraising dinners last year is now fighting accusations by prosecutors in China that he played a key role in a massive pyramid scheme that took in more than $350-million. Edward Gong, from his home in Markham, Ont., has assembled a business empire in recent years, acquiring hotels in the Toronto-area as...

Wanted Canadian drug trafficker arrested in Bangkok Immigration police have arrested a man wanted for trafficking more than 200kg of cocaine in Canada. On Monday, officers swooped on a condominium in the Huai Kwang district of Bangkok and arrested Canadian Khamla Wong. Immigration officers told reporters that Wong is thought to have been on the run in Thailand since 2012, having fled his native Canada when other members of his crime network were arrested by Canadian authorities for drug trafficking and possession of illegal weapons. Police in Canada say Wong was part of a major drug dealing operation which spanned two...

You've properly seen it in movies, the abused wife or girlfriend fakes her own death and starts their life over in a new city or country. A criminal informant enters WITSEC (Witness Protection Program administered by the US. Marshall service) Someone hi-jacks your identity, wreaks havoc on your life and forces you to become someone else. Changing your identity and starting over is a common motif in books and movies. But is it possible to do so in real life? The quick answer is that no, you can't completely erase your identity in this day and age -- unless the government does it for you....

Convicted Iranian-Canadian gangster Omid Tahvili, who escaped from the jail last year, has contacted the Mounties and offered to surrender if police promise he won't be extradited to the United States. Omid Tahvili is wanted by FBI Tahvili, 37, recently called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and said he was in Toronto.  Caller ID also showed he was calling from a Toronto number, but police remain skeptical about Tahvili being in Canada.  Police believe he fled to his native Iran, which does not have an extradition treaty with Canada. Crown prosecutor Wendy Dawson told a court Friday about Tahvili's...

By: Amicus International Consulting If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you choose? It’s a game we’ve all played, as kids on a summer afternoon or in late-night chats with adult friends. For a growing number of rich people, the game is real. Golden Visas, born more than 30 years ago as a way to pump money into the faltering economy of the Caribbean island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, have mushroomed into a secretive, multi-billion-dollar global industry involving more than 20 countries. It’s hard to be precise about what constitutes a Golden Visa program, because...

The world's most daring cybercriminals: how US intelligence is tracking down Russian hackers even though they had New Identities.   Since the beginning of 2010, US special forces have apprehended at least ten Russian hackers with New Identities in various parts of the world. Some of them are already in American prisons, while others are awaiting a verdict; one of the hackers was released and returned to Russia.   The Russian Foreign Ministry refers to such arrests as "abductions." Russian hackers using New Identities are frequently accused of carrying out "the biggest attacks" in history and causing damage worth hundreds...

How to generate Spoofed Irises from an Iris Code Template Biometrics has gained a lot of attention over recent years as a way to identify individuals. Of all biometrics-based techniques, the iris-pattern-based systems have recently shown very high accuracies in verifying an individual's identity. The premise here is that iris patterns are unique across people. Only the iris bit code template specific to an individual need be stored for future identity verification. It is generally accepted that this iris bit code is unidentifiable data. However, in this work, we explore methods to generate alternate iris textures for a given person...

Master forger arrested in Thailand over fake passports for migrants to Europe Skilled counterfeiter known as ‘The Doctor’ ran a sophisticated international operation to supply bogus documents to Middle East, police allege Fake passports are displayed at the immigration bureau in Bangkok Photo: AFP/Getty Images Thai police say they have busted an international fake passport syndicate and arrested an Iranian master forger known as “The Doctor” who was wanted in several countries including Britain. His expertly counterfeited travel documents were custom-ordered from the Middle East to be used by thousands of people fleeing conflict zones to try to reach Europe...

An Alberta restaurant worker from Pakistan has been ordered out of Canada after facial recognition software declared he is really someone else entirely Immigration and Refugee Board An Alberta restaurant worker from Pakistan has been ordered out of Canada after facial recognition software analyzed his driver’s license photo and declared he is really someone else entirely. While Farhan Mahmood says it is a bizarre case of two men with the same face, Canada Border Services Agency says its use of biometric technology caught a man who shouldn’t be in Canada. It is among the first reported cases of CBSA proactively using...

We aren’t entirely sure what the government is doing with the images. We’re willing to do a lot to make the airplane boarding process smoother, but privacy experts say we might want to think twice before agreeing to let a camera at the gate scan our faces. Facial-recognition systems may indeed speed up the boarding process, as the airlines rolling them out promise. But the real reason they are cropping up in U.S. airports is that the government wants to keep better track of who is leaving the country, by scanning travelers’ faces and verifying those scans against photos it...

Robert F. Nelson escaped from prison in 1992 (KTNV) - A career criminal who turned violent after escaping federal custody and fleeing to Nevada has been brought back to justice.Robert Frederick Nelson, 64, of North Las Vegas, committed a string of violent felonies in Nevada after he escaped from a Minnesota federal prison in 1992. He is now back in federal custody following his arrest by investigators from the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles’ Compliance Enforcement Division.Nelson applied for a renewal of his Nevada identification card on June 5, 2017. Investigators withheld the card after the DMV’s facial recognition system...

How China's facial recognition technology is changing daily life When you are introduced to China’s facial recognition technology in a public toilet, it loses some of its futuristic allure. Nonetheless it does illustrate the extent to which Chinese engineers are frantically working to introduce the technology into every part of our daily lives. It was introduced at the Temple of Heaven toilets in southern Beijing in order to ration the amount of paper people use. After a scan of your face machines will issue around half of metre of paper and only after 9 minutes can you get second helping,...

Ban on use of UnionPay cards at ATMs without new technology meant to hasten roll-out of new policy to stem capital flight from mainland China As of Monday, 834 of Macau’s 1,300 ATMs had been fitted with facial recognition technology. Photo: Bloomberg A ban on withdrawals from hundreds of ATM machines in Macau left some previously busy cash points deserted on Tuesday as analysts sought to allay fears that the latest move in the crackdown on capital flight and money laundering would hit casino takings in the world’s biggest gaming hub. From Tuesday, holders of mainland-issued China UnionPay bank cards were...

“If you want to, and you know how, you can become someone else, just like that, real easy,” Charles Hollin (note: our photo is posed by a model) bragged to his friends and coworkers, letting them know that he had the fake hair pieces and mustaches to pull it off. And then, he did just that. The suspected child kidnapper and molester disappeared, slipping away from arrest and remaining a fugitive, hiding under an identity he stole from a dead eight-year-old boy, for 18 years. But if you want to, and you know how, and you’re in the FBI, and...

A Leviathan: The NSA collects 5 billion cellphone records a day, mapping the planet’s population The NSA is vacuuming 5 billion cellphone records a day, enabling the spy organization to track the location of individuals, and their relationship with other individuals, around the clock. The vast data represents an unimaginable power to “geo-locate” millions of people across the planet, according to documents given to the Washington Post by Edward Snowden. Since cellphones constantly broadcast location data to nearby masts, the NSA is able to track the movements and networks of people anytime, anywhere, even when GPS is turned off. The leaked documents estimate at...

RCMP used cellphone tracking technology unlawfully 6 times, says privacy watchdog Force failed to obtain a warrant before using the device IMSI catchers can intercept the unique ID number associated with your phone, the International Mobile Subscriber Identity, which can then be used to track your phone. Canada's privacy commissioner says the RCMP used the devices unlawfully six times. (CBC News) The RCMP used cellphone-tracking technology in a way that was "not lawful" six times, Canada's privacy commissioner said in a report released Thursday.  Mobile device identifiers (MDI) — also referred to as IMSI catchers — work by mimicking a cellphone tower...

RCMP reveals use of secretive cellphone surveillance technology for the first time After CBC investigation into suspicious signals in Ottawa, police offer new insight into their own tactics RCMP Chief Supt. Jeff Adam confirmed Wednesday that the national police force is using cellphone-tracking devices known as IMSI catchers. (Patrick Doyle/The Toronto Star) The RCMP for the first time is publicly confirming it uses cellphone surveillance devices in investigations across Canada — but at the same time says the potential of unauthorized snooping in Ottawa, as reported by CBC News, poses a threat to national security. "Absolutely," RCMP Chief Supt. Jeff Adam,...

Vancouver police admit using Stingray cellphone surveillance, BCCLA says 'Yes, they have used an RCMP Stingray and yes, they would do so again,' says Michael Vonn This undated photo provided by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office shows the StingRay II, manufactured by Harris Corporation, of Melbourne, Fla., a cellular site simulator used for surveillance purposes. (U.S. Patent and Trademark Office/The Associated Press) The B.C. Civil Liberties Association says it has confirmed that Vancouver police have used a controversial cellphone surveillance device — a Stingray — at least once. Police confirmed the device was used nine years ago. The device was employed...

Biometrics leads to arrest of accused child molester on the lam 17 years FBI says it matched suspect's passport photo with pics from nearly 20 years ago.  Nearly two-decade-old photos of a suspected child molester matched a 2007 passport photo via a biometrics analysis by the FBI, leading to Charles Hollin's arrest in Oregon. A fugitive suspected of molesting a 10-year-old Indiana girl 17 years ago has been arrested after the Federal Bureau of Investigation employed facial recognition technology, according to court documents. The bureau said the suspect's US passport photo in December was run though a Facial Analysis, Comparison,...

Convicted domestic terrorist Sara Jane Olson, 68, of St. Paul, was allowed to go through TSA's expedited security screening known as TSA Pre Check last year, despite her criminal background. And when a TSA Agent at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport recognized Olson, and alerted a supervisor, his concerns were ignored. Sara Jane Olson Those are the findings contained in an TSA Inspector General Report released earlier this month. Olson is not identified by name, but is rather described as a "notorious convicted felon." Fox 9 has confirmed through sources that the passenger was Olson and the airport was MSP. The...

Eight tips on how you can spot a forged passport, driving licence and other official documents A Border Force officer checking passport (Image: Steve Parsons/PA Wire) Would you know how to check if you have a fake passport or other confirmation of identity? New research has shown that most people can’t tell the difference between a genuine one and a forgery. The same applies to driving licences, military identity cards, and biometric residence permits. The identity confirmation service, HooYu, said the public is at risk because most of us can’t identify what is genuine. A spokesman for the company said:...

Even the federal agents snooping on citizens from above need a day off. Over the last four months of 2015, US federal agencies have secretly flown spy planes above American cities more than 3,500 times. That's according to data from the aircraft tracking site FlightRadar24 collected by BuzzFeed News to map out the clandestine surveillance flights, which came to prominence last summer after it was discovered that the FBI had flown light aircraft in circles over the Black Lives Matter protests in Baltimore, MD and Ferguson, MO. The data offers the most comprehensive portrait yet of hidden aerial surveillance operations run by the FBI and Department...

Even as facial recognition proves itself; bigger databases will likely lead to more mismatches. Using facial recognition software, the FBI have caught a fugitive who was on the run for 14 years.  Neil Stammer, wanted for child abuse and kidnapping, escaped capture from the US authorities in 1999. The case went cold, but recently one agent took an interest in it. By chance, another agent with the Diplomatic Security Service (DDS) was trying some new facial recognition software. The purpose of the kit was to uncover passport fraud, and when Stammer's wanted poster photo was put through the scanner to test the...

Delaware cops to use AI dashcam to look for fugitives in passing cars as experts warn of 'huge privacy issues' Police in the US state of Delaware are poised to deploy 'smart' cameras in cruisers to help authorities detect a vehicle carrying a fugitive, missing child or straying senior. The video feeds will be analyzed using artificial intelligence to identify vehicles by license plate or other features and 'give an extra set of eyes' to officers on patrol, says David Hinojosa of Coban Technologies, the company providing the equipment. 'We are helping officers keep their focus on their jobs,' said...

As US-China relations reach a boiling point, Washington has started to screen Chinese students at airports for technology theft. When Boston Logan International Airport's announcement asked Keith Zhang to come to the boarding desk, he thought it was a regular boarding check. But when he saw two armed American officers expecting him there, his heart sank. "They questioned me under the premise that I am here to steal technology," Keith Zhang - not his real name - tells the BBC. Zhang, a 26-year-old PhD student from China, was a visiting researcher at Brown University's department of psychological sciences for a...

Mark Lyttle, a U.S. citizen born in North Carolina "deported" to Mexico for being an illegal alien A citizen trapped in the system. You get arrested. The authorities run a background check. They need to know if you have outstanding warrants or unpaid tickets, if you jumped bail somewhere, if you’re driving a stolen vehicle. To obtain your criminal history, they routinely send your fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which keeps a database of more than a hundred million prints. The F.B.I., under a federal program known as Secure Communities, will share your fingerprints with the Department of...

Overview ePassports - Secure Chip Based Travel Documents NXP® is the leader in electronic passports (ePassports or biometric passports) solutions and works with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to advance security and facilitation of international travel. NXP products are ICAO passport standard 9303 corresponding and, in all interoperability, tests recognized as fully compliant solutions with benchmark performance. For ePassports, controlling access to sensitive personal information is a fundamental requirement. Our secure smart card IC product families feature highly advanced counter-measures against attacks as well as hardware firewalls, ensuring personal data stays safe and secure on the chip. The adoption of...

Zhang Jianping at Pudong International airport It was celebrated as a key victory in China's campaign to hunt down corrupt fugitives who had fled overseas. Using a combination of big data and sophisticated facial recognition technology, Chinese authorities said they identified a man coming through Shanghai's Pudong International Airport on January 20 last year. He held an Australian passport under the name of Zhang Jianping. The identification of Zhang was even more remarkable as he'd fled China 15 years earlier, after defrauding investors and a state-owned securities firm of 91 million yuan ($18.7 million). The message was clear. Even the...

Several newly-announced technologies could increase the accessibility of biometrics for different use cases, including internet log-ins, browser-based interactions with contact centers, mobile fleet control, parking space management and background checks. Futronic finger vein scanner Futronic has announced the launch of a new biometric finger vein scanner using infrared light and a CMOS image sensor in a system specially designed to reduce optical background noise in the vein image. The VS80 USB2.0 Finger Vein Scanner works with all major operating systems, and Futronic has also released a new version of its proprietary Windows logon control software, FinLogon, which is provided free to...

Jack Webster: In recent years, record numbers of Americans are renouncing their citizenship. What is going on here? Amicus Int.: Well, it used to be that having a US passport was a tremendous advantage. But over the years, it’s turned into an albatross around the necks of the people who own one. America is the only major country in the world that taxes its citizens no matter where they live. Even if an American move abroad—he never returns or even sets foot in the US again—he’s obligated to file taxes and, at best, can get a $100,000 or so exemption...

If you were on the run from the law, where would you go? Former CIA employee Edward Snowden chose Hong Kong after leaking information on NSA surveillance programs. On Wednesday he said he was not hiding from the U.S., but that he did plan to fight extradition back to the U.S. Is Hong Kong a good place to fight extradition? What is? Countries That Don’t Extradite and Do Offer Asylum The U.S. has extradition treaties with many countries in the world, but not all, making them potentially good places to hide out from U.S. law. Countries that have diplomatic ties to the U.S....

Are there a lot of fugitives hiding in the Philippines? I ask the question because it is a common perception that there are many people hiding in the Philippines. Are there any fugitives hiding here? Of course, there are foreigners hiding in the Philippines. I think this perception is more common with Filipinos than with the foreigners that live in the Philippines. Like most other things, the number is not as large as many think. I often hear foreigners make comments saying someone is or probably is “Running from the law”. Most of the time, these foreigners are just doing...

I hear Namibia is nice this time of year. The U.S. government hasn't officially declared its intentions to extradite former CIA employee and PRISM leaker Edward Snowden back to the States, though that certainly doesn't mean it won't. Snowden is currently hiding out in Hong Kong, though where in that massive and complex city isn't clear. Hong Kong isn't a great choice if you're trying to lay low and avoid extradition; it has an extradition law with the United States and is also, despite being technically a part of China, a staunch ally of the United States. The two governments...

Regulation, to be gradually rolled out at entry points nationwide, will affect all foreigners aged 14 to 70 All foreigners aged between 14 and 70 will be asked to leave their fingerprints at entry points to the country and the information will then stored for official use. File photo: Edit international The move, aimed at improving border checks, would see China collecting the fingerprints of all foreigners aged between 14 and 70 entering the country, the Ministry of Public Security said in a statement on its website on Thursday. The new regulation will start on Friday at Shenzhen Baoan International Airport,...

Governments are testing artificial intelligence to reduce queues at passport control, spot potentially dangerous travellers and detect smuggled goods at their borders, but can this technology be trusted? Unisys has been developing technology, including facial recognition systems, to help border guards identify travellers who could be a threat (Credit: Molly Kendrick) International travel is increasing at a rapid rate. In 2017, a record 1.4 billion tourists visited other countries last year and that number is expected to reach 1.8 billion by 2030. This swelling number of globetrotters also means growing queues at passport control. The vast majority of people who are detained by border agents...

U.S. Customs purchased 5,000 Kojak FAP 60 scanners According to the company, most of the newly-acquired scanners are in operation at busy airports, including Atlanta, Chicago, Dulles, LAX, and Miami, with thousands of more sets to be installed at other CBP facilities in the coming months. CBP chose IB’s Kojak scanners with Light Emitting Sensor (LES) technology to replace glass-prism fingerprint technology acquired by CBP about ten years ago. Integrated Biometrics CEO Stephen Thies told Biometric Update in an interview. Advantages of Kojak scanners the company says CBP can benefit from include ease of use, the lack of costly silicon membranes, and...

It reads like a plotline from the hi-tech Mission: Impossible spy films.  Elderly white man in flat cap, brown cardigan and thin-rimmed specs boards plane in Hong Kong and arrived in Canada as a young Asian man. However, the suspicions of eagle-eyed staff as he was boarding were aroused by his strangely youthful hands. And when the old man didn't disembark the flight at Canada's Vancouver airport, police swooped and discovered an astonishing plot. In what Canadian authorities are describing as an 'unbelievable case of concealment', it transpires that the young man had boarded the plane in elaborate disguise with...

Introduction Humans often use faces to recognize individuals and advancements in computing capability over the past few decades now enable similar recognitions automatically. Early face recognition algorithms used simple geometric models, but the recognition process has now matured into a science of sophisticated mathematical representations and matching processes. Major advancements and initiatives in the past ten to fifteen years have propelled face recognition technology into the spotlight. Face recognition can be used for both verification and identification (open-set and closed-set). History Automated face recognition is a relatively new concept. Developed in the 1960s, the first semi-automated system for face recognition...

New technologies and procedures have helped curtail the fraudulent use of travel documents, to the point where humans are now the weakest link in the equation. The recent case involving the arrest and deportation of Russians has once again raised the subject of document fraud in general and passport fraud in particular. The FBI’s investigation into the group of Russian operatives discovered that several of the suspects had assumed fraudulent identities and had obtained genuine passports (and other identity documents) in their assumed names. One of the suspects assumed the identity of a Canadian by the name of Christopher Robert...

Arguing that the arrested Huawei executive Sabrina Meng was a flight risk, American prosecutors revealed on Friday that Meng had been issued at least seven passports. The arrest of Meng, Huawei’s chief financial officer and a daughter of its founder, has touched a raw nerve in China, where the telecoms giant is seen as a poster child of the country’s technological achievement. The passports included at least four from mainland China and three from Hong Kong, a letter from the US Department of Justice suggested at Meng’s bail hearing on Friday, when accusations of fraud against her emerged and raised the stakes in the US-China tech rivalry. But...

In biometrics, iris and retinal scanning are known as “ocular-based” identification technologies, meaning they rely on unique physiological characteristics of the eye to identify an individual. Even though they both share part of the eye for identification purposes, these biometric modalities are quite different in how they work. Let’s take a closer look at both and then explain the similarities and differences in detail: Retinal Scanning: The human retina is a thin tissue composed of neural cells that is located in the posterior portion of the eye. Because of the complex structure of the capillaries that supply the retina with blood,...

Alain Boucar flips open a passport and holds it under an ultraviolet light. A background image of Belgium's royal palace, faintly printed on the page, vanishes. ''See that?'' he says. He holds another Belgian passport under the spooky purple light. The image on this one is printed in a special reactive ink. It glows brightly. ''The first one's a complete counterfeit,'' he announces. Boucar is the director of the antifraud unit for the Belgian federal police. A genial 44-year-old, he works in a small, plain office in Brussels that is strewn with dozens of passports. It's only 10 a.m., but...

Eight tips on how you can spot a forged passport, driving licence and other official documents Would you know how to check if you have a fake passport or other confirmation of identity? New research has shown that most people can’t tell the difference between a genuine one and a forgery. The same applies to driving licences, military identity cards, and biometric residence permits. The identity confirmation service, HooYu, said the public is at risk because most of us can’t identify what is genuine. A spokesman for the company said: “A sample of 1,013 people were asked to identify if...

FROM LATE 2007 until March 2011, if you were an identity thief or credit card fraud artist in need of a fake ID, your best bet was “Celtic’s Novelty I.D. Service.” From its base in Las Vegas, the online storefront manufactured driver’s licenses for 13 states and shipped them to buyers around the world. No questions asked. With a reputation for quality and the fastest turnaround in the industry, Celtic was a no-nonsense player in a global underworld benighted by drama and infighting. On the Russian-led criminal forum Carder.su, his primary home, he accumulated scores of glowing reviews from satisfied...

Refugee crisis and Paris attacks put spotlight on Europe’s free-for-all. Greece and Italy trouble US officials the most. ROME — Europe’s trade in forged and stolen passports is so out of control that the U.S. has given five EU countries until next week to act or risk losing visa-free travel right The threat comes in response to growing alarm over the rising number of lost and stolen documents in the EU, which has doubled in five years. The number of forged passports in the Middle East is also a rising concern. Interpol has data on 250,000 stolen or lost Syrian...

It was one of the greatest disappearing acts of modern times. Amidst a swirl of allegations and rumors that the Nugan Hand bank was involved in arms smuggling, drug-running, and covert operations for the Central Intelligence Agency, the institution’s American founder vanished from Australia. Thirty-five years later, that man, Michael Jon Hand, was tracked to a small town in Idaho where he has been living under the name of Michael Jon Fuller. Hand was found by an Australian writer, Peter Butt, whose just-released book, Merchants of Menace, discloses Hand’s whereabouts after decades of mystery. If finding Hand, now 73, solves...

A fake news story about the introduction of a new Chinese passport went viral on Chinese social media. The debunked story claimed that the Chinese government is about to issue a new travel document, a “frequent traveler passport,” which would allow holders of the new passport to visit 141 countries on a visa-free basis. In comparison, the ordinary Chinese passport allows visa-free access to some 50 countries, putting far down in the list of the world’s best passports. While the story quickly got debunked by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the fact that the story went viral so fast...

Perhaps you are like us and you’ve often wondered, “if I were on the run from the law, how long would I make it before being caught?” Data scientist Christopher Peters decided to figure it out, compiling data on the 500 criminals that have been on the FBI’s Most Wanted Fugitives List since 1950. He determined how long each criminal was on the list before being caught (though some have yet to be caught). The next step was to calculate how long the average fugitive was on the run. However, Peters couldn’t just take a simple average. The problem was...

Fleeing to a country with no extradition treaty may safeguard you, at least for a bit, from the nastiness of being dragged into criminal court in the United States. For those on the run like alleged NSA leaker Edward Snowden, most countries do have an extradition treaty. Once that foreign power gets a hold of you, they will happily ship you back to the United States. If extradition isn't your bag, you may want to consider one of these five countries without a U.S. extradition treaty: 1. Cuba Homeland of Fidel Castro and a socialist paradise for those who are...

By Megan Papesh | March 24, 2014 | American Scientific Journal Imagine that you are a bouncer, checking IDs outside a popular bar in a college town. It is somewhat dark outside the door, there are many distractions: loud music is playing and your job requires you to also keep an eye on the crowd for trouble. And because the patrons are dressed for a night out, many of them look somewhat different than their ID photos. Despite all these challenges, intuition probably tells you that matching faces to ID photos is easy and accurate. Look at the photo, look...

WHEN RYAN LACKEY travels to a country like Russia or China, he takes certain precautions:  Instead of his usual gear, the Seattle-based security researcher and founder of a stealth security startup brings a locked-down Chromebook and an iPhone SE that's set up to sync with a separate, non-sensitive Apple account. He wipes both before every trip, and loads only the minimum data he'll need. Lackey goes so far as to keep separate travel sets for each country so that he can forensically analyze the devices when he gets home to check for signs of each country's tampering. Now, Lackey says,...

The Keys to Successful Anonymous Travel through Airports At Amicus, we have the knowledge and expertise to guide you through airport screening upon arrival. If at all possible, use the Passport self-service kiosks that are part of the Automated Passport Control system found at many Airports. Travelers scan their passport, take a photograph using the kiosk, and answer a series of questions confirming flight and biographic information. Once passengers have completed the series of questions and submitted their Customs declaration form, a receipt will be issued then bring their passport and receipt to a Customs/Passport Officer to finalize their inspection...

Fake photos are a rampant issue in our digital age, but researchers are working hard to restore a greater degree of trust to photography. One team has created a new AI that can detect when faces in photos were manipulated using Photoshop  The researchers at Adobe and UC Berkeley have published their work in a new paper titled, “Detecting Photoshopped Faces by Scripting Photoshop,” explaining how the new method can figure out if Photoshop’s Face Aware Liquify feature was used. First, the researchers trained a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) using thousands of portraits scraped from the Internet that Face Aware...

OTTAWA -- Federal officials used photo-matching technology to identify 15 high-risk people -- all wanted on immigration warrants -- who used false identities to apply for travel documents. The Liberal government might make the facial-recognition scheme permanent to help find and arrest people ineligible to remain in Canada due to involvement with terrorism, organized crime or human rights violations. It's just the latest example of federal efforts to zero in on lawbreakers using biometrics -- physical identifiers such as images, fingerprints or iris scans. The photo-matching idea emerged from concerns that people wanted by the Canada Border Services Agency might...

Fake British passports convincing enough to pass through airport security are being sold on the dark web. The passports, which are claimed to include all the security features of the genuine article - such as biometric data and RFID chips to use in automated airport customs gates - are being sold anonymously for bitcoin and in some cases cost as little as £460. Home to drug-dealing websites like the infamous Silk Road, the dark web is a part of the internet where websites cannot be found by search engines like Google, and are only accessible through a special internet browser...

Reporter bought $2,000 Syrian passport, ID card and driving licence in Turkey under the name of a real man who was killed in the conflict Forger boasted that ISIS fighters are using documents to travel to Europe to start terror sleeper cells or live under false name free of past crimes Also being used by economic migrants from other countries exploiting generosity of Europe to Syrian refugees Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee told MailOnline the scam was 'deeply disturbing' and should be 'addressed immediately' The blank documents are genuine, having been stolen from government offices by...

Vein Pattern Recognition has been deemed to be the most versatile biometric technology of all time. One of the biggest advantages that a Vein Pattern Recognition device possesses, is that it requires no direct contact with the individual. Thus, unlike Hand Geometry Recognition, there are no concerns with hygiene-based issues. However, the individual does need to come to a close proximity of the device. Once this occurs, the Near Infrared (NIR) light is then shone onto the primary target area, to illuminate the pattern of the vein structures fully. To accomplish this, two separate techniques can be used, and are...

“Show Me Your Papers” Becomes “Open Your Eyes” as Border Sheriffs Expand Iris Surveillance SINCE HIS INAUGURATION, President Donald Trump has found little funding for his “big, beautiful wall.” In the meantime, however, another acquisition promised to deter unauthorized immigrants is coming to the border: iris recognition devices. Thirty-one sheriffs, representing every county along the U.S.-Mexico border, voted unanimously on April 3 to adopt tools that will capture, catalogue, and compare individuals’ iris data, for use both in jails and out on patrol. Biometric Intelligence and Identification Technologies, the company behind the push, has offered the sheriffs a free three-year...

Three days before Jack Shepherd was due to stand trial for manslaughter by gross negligence, police found he had disappeared. He was convicted in his absence of killing Charlotte Brown in a drunken speedboat crash and has spent the last six months on the run. Can a fugitive really evade the law forever? Shepherd had been trying to impress Ms Brown when he let her drive his defective boat along the River Thames on their first date in 2015. It was a drastic error of judgement which ended with the speeding vessel capsizing, throwing the pair into the water, where...

A cutout of billionaire jeweler Nirav Modi during a protest in New Delhi on Feb. 16, 2018. In March, India accused the billionaire jeweler of defrauding one of the country’s biggest banks. Carlos Ghosn’s stunning escape from Japan makes him one of the most famous white-collar fugitives in recent years, joining the likes of Malaysian businessman Jho Low and Indian tycoon Vijay Mallya. The former head of Nissan Motor Co. and Renault SA, who was facing trial in connection with alleged financial crimes, defended his move to Lebanon by saying in a statement he’ll “no longer be held hostage by...

Steve Kroft reports on how cash-starved countries offer citizenship for a price, creating ways to ease travel for foreigners, including those running from the law If you have been thinking about leaving the United States, moving to another country and changing your nationality, it's never been easier to do. In this era of globalization, citizenship and passports have become just another commodity to be bought and sold on the international market. All you need is money and a willingness to contribute a few hundred thousand dollars to the treasury of a cash-starved country or acquire a piece of real estate...

Extradition is a cooperative law enforcement process by which the physical custody of a person  charged with committing a crime or convicted of a crime whose punishment has not yet been fully served, is formally transferred, directly or indirectly, by authorities of one jurisdiction to those of another at the request of the latter for the purpose of prosecution or punishment, respectively.[1] Between countries, extradition is normally regulated by treaties. Where extradition is compelled by laws, such as among sub-national jurisdictions, the concept may be known more generally as rendition. It is an ancient mechanism, dating back to at least the 13th century...

The global rich run into roadblocks as they shop for citizenships and residence permits in a post-Brexit world. Not 12 hours after Donald J. Trump was elected the 45th president of the United States, the Swiss citizenship planning firm Henley & Partners reported a spike in Americans inquiring about one of its many alternative residence programs. The boom in business was to some extent predictable. Canada’s immigration website had crashed as the results rolled in, and Irish embassies had already seen months of increased citizenship applications from Americans. For the passport business — the unexpected result of the American election,...

Photo Caption: Meng Wanzhou family photos in Vancouver What is extradition? Extradition is the formal process, established by a bilateral or multilateral treaty, that allows one country to return a criminal to face prosecution or punishment in the country where the crime was committed. What is contained in an extradition treaty? Modern treaties consider as extraditable any action that is considered a crime in both countries. Most nations make exceptions, however, such as in the case of political or military actions. Some countries also refuse to extradite individuals who may face the death penalty or life in prison, but they...

A recent finding about a detained Huawei executive’s passports is likely to raise more questions about the telecom giant’s relationship with the Chinese government.  In early December, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou was arrested in Canada at the request of US authorities on suspicion of violating US sanctions on Iran. Meng was granted bail after hearings that saw prosecutors point out that Meng had at least seven passports issued to her—including four from China and three from Hong Kong—that could allow her to “flee with greater ease,” according to documents filed with the court (pdf. p. 16). She faces...

Photo Caption: Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou and her two Vancouver homes, which are in the name of husband Liu Xiaozong. The homes in the expensive neighbourhoods of Shaughnessy (top right) and Dunbar (bottom right) are worth C$16.3 million and C$5.6 million respectively.  Title documents on two Vancouver homes, worth US$16.4 million, identify Meng Wanzhou’s husband as Liu Xiaozong. Meng’s current circumstances are remarkable, but her Canadian backstory is familiar – she is a reverse immigrant who left family members in Vancouver for year Huawei CFO Sabrina Meng Wanzhou and her two Vancouver homes, which are in the name of...

Photo Caption: Matthew Ng with his children Hugo, Alexandra, Isabella and Megan. MATTHEW Ng, a 45-year-old Australian businessman, now knows the worst. He will in all likelihood spend the next dozen years in a jail in China's southern Guangdong province. His Malaysian-born wife Niki Chow has breast cancer. He may not see his children - aged 14, 13, nine and six - until the youngest is 19. The unravelling has come bitterly fast. In 2009 he won, against strong competition, the title of entrepreneur of the year from the Australia China Alumni Association. A photograph was taken at the event...

Charges of smuggling against a Canadian winery owner who has been locked up in a Chinese jail for more than a year are trumped up, his lawyers say, accusing China of criminalizing a customs dispute, one that could have far-reaching consequences for an eventual bilateral free-trade deal. John Chang, who owns wineries in British Columbia and Ontario, will face a closed-door trial at the Shanghai High People’s Court next Friday, as will his wife, Allison Lu. Ms. Lu was released from jail in January, but is barred from leaving China and must report regularly to Chinese authorities. The couple’s Canadian...

A Putin ally and his criminal son bet big on Trump winning the White House. Will the new president reward their faith in him? The Federal Detention Center near Seattle is home to 563 men and women who are all waiting for something. Some are accused criminals approaching trial, others are immigrants facing deportation, a few are serving a sentence and waiting for their release date to arrive. For the last year, Russian hacker Roman Seleznev has been waiting for Donald Trump. Seleznev, 32, was once among the United States’ most-wanted computer criminals, sought for stealing credit-card numbers from restaurant point-of-sale...

Imagine that you are a bouncer, checking IDs outside a popular bar in a college town. It is somewhat dark outside the door, there are many distractions: loud music is playing and your job requires you to also keep an eye on the crowd for trouble. And because the patrons are dressed for a night out, many of them look somewhat different than their ID photos. Despite all these challenges, intuition probably tells you that matching faces to ID photos is easy and accurate. Look at the photo, look at the person, and they either match or not. It turns...

Maxi Sopo told his Facebook friends, including a former justice department official; he was living in paradise in Mexico, some people take to becoming a fugitive like a duck to water. They lie low, go out only in disguise, and even create whole new identities. Others, it would appear, do not. Take the case of Maxi Sopo, a 26-year-old criminal in hiding in Mexico who not only used his Facebook status to tell all and sundry what a good time he was having, but also made the somewhat elementary error of adding a former justice department official to his list...

Photo Cpation: His wife Grace Meng says her husband sent a knife emoji as danger signal China's anti-corruption watchdog says it is investigating Meng Hongwei, who heads the global law enforcement organisation Interpol, for suspected violations of the law.  Mr Meng, 64, who is also Vice-Minister of Public Security in China, had been reported missing after travelling from France, where Interpol is based, to China. "Public Security Ministry Vice-Minister Meng Hongwei is currently under investigation by the National Supervisory Commission for suspected violations of law," the Chinese anti-corruption body said in a brief statement on its website. The statement did...

Photo Caption: Xie Weidong’ Former Chinese judge. Interpol ruled there is evidence to back up Xie Weidong’s contention that the prosecution was instituted for over his criticism of China's legal system Interpol has taken the rare step of quashing its arrest warrant for a dissident Chinese judge living in Toronto, saying the “red notice” was likely issued for political reasons and could undercut the organization’s neutral stance. China had requested the notice in 2014 after charging Xie Weidong, 62, with accepting a bribe to favour one party in a civil dispute he adjudicated. But the “Commission for the control of...

Photo Caption: The glasses are connected to a tablet device that searches for matches of faces scanned. Photo: AFP Officers are using the technology at a railway station in Henan province during the Lunar New Year holiday period to search for wanted criminals Police in a city in central China are using special glasses with facial-recognition software to help search for wanted criminals passing through a railway station during the Lunar New Year holiday travel rush. Up to Tuesday, police had identified seven fugitives related to hit-and-run and human trafficking cases, plus spotted 26 cases of identity fraud with the...

Photo Caption: Chinese custom agent checks a passenger using Biometrics Project aims to achieve an accuracy rate of 90 per cent but faces formidable technological hurdles and concerns about security China is building the world’s most powerful facial recognition system with the power to identify any one of its 1.3 billion citizens within three seconds. The goal is for the system to able to match someone’s face to their ID photo with about 90 per cent accuracy. The project, launched by the Ministry of Public Security in 2015, is under development in conjunction with a security company based in Shanghai....

Photo Caption: An overlay depicts how facial recognition software pinpoints certain features and compares them to a database. The distance between the eyes and the shape of the cheekbone can be used to determine characteristics like sex and age. A decade-old effort by Canadian officials to use facial-recognition software to analyze passport photos is credited with helping catch a man accused of providing bogus travel documents to criminals. Last Friday, the RCMP National Division arrested 47-year-old Harbi Mohamoud Gabad of Gatineau, Que. According to the indictment filed at the Ottawa courthouse, Mr. Gabad is facing multiple criminal counts, including making...

Indianapolis - State investigators say the very things that helped a convicted Indiana murderer stay under the radar for more than three decades were what finally got her caught. When Tennessee police officers saw the 1970s prison photo, they knew Linda Delaney, a well liked, small town grandmother, was in fact Linda Darby, an escapee from the Indiana Women's Prison. She was a wife convicted of settling a family financial hardship by shooting her husband and setting him and their Hammond home on fire. The interviewer from Eyewitness News' sister station in Nashville asked her if she felt she had been living a lie...

Photo Caption: Businessman Mo Yeung Ching's refugee claim was rejected in 2015 but may be appealed. (Interpol) 'They don't need to publish these lists so who are they trying to scare?' China's anti-corruption agency has released the names and addresses of 22 alleged economic fugitives deemed "most wanted," but living free around the world — five of them listed  as living in B.C. The alleged criminals, wanted for a variety of corruption-related crimes from embezzlement to fraud, are described as living in the open in Canada, the U.S. and other countries, according to a statement from the the Central Committee for Discipline and Inspection...

In his heyday, Robert Woodring was a con man who lived a life of intrigue and adventure, then successfully went on the lam for 37 years to avoid going to prison. Law enforcement finally tracked him down a year ago in Guadalajara, Mexico, and he was sent back to South Florida to serve his time for the original offenses and to pay the price for eluding justice. But by Monday, when the 82-year-old Woodring was to be sentenced for jumping bond in 1977, the ravages of time had created another twist: He was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease and dementia...

Photo Caption: Left, a screengrab from Chinese television CCTV shows the supposed body double of Gu Kailai receiving her sentencing on Aug. 20, 2012. On right, Gu Kailai at a mourning held for her father-in-law Bo Yibo in Beijing Jan. 17, 2007. Gu Kailai was convicted of murder. But was that her at the trial or her body double? A year ago, Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai had it all. The rising Chinese political star appeared to be on the cusp of joining the country’s most exclusive club: the nine-member Standing Committee of the Communist Party’s Politburo. Last February, however,...

Photo Caption: Sze says he had no idea he could lose his Belgian citizenship. When is a Belgian not a Belgian? When he doesn't ask to remain one - as Hong Kong-born Sze Chung Cheung found to his cost, a decision that's effectively left the  banker stateless A 29-year-old man is stateless in Hong Kong after he was stripped of his Belgian nationality. Sze Chung Cheung, who has lived and worked in Hong Kong since 2009, was born in Hong Kong to a Belgian mother and a Hong Kong father. The financier's problems began in February when he applied for...

Photo Caption: The file photo, taken on June 13, 2017, captures Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, walking into the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office to face questioning over an influence-peddling case involving her mother and former President Park Geun-hye. (Yonhap) SEOUL, June 19 (Yonhap) -- The daughter of former President Park Geun-hye's friend roiled in an influence-peddling scandal attempted to get citizenship in Malta, the prosecution said Monday, fresh evidence that could give the court grounds for her arrest warrant Chung Yoo-ra, the daughter of Choi Soon-sil, tried to apply for citizenship in the Mediterranean island country while...

Photo Caption: Roman Seleznev Roman Seleznev, a 32-year-old Russian cybercriminal and prolific credit card thief, was sentenced Friday to 27 years in federal prison. That is a record punishment for hacking violations in the United States and by all accounts one designed to send a message to criminal hackers everywhere. But a close review of the case suggests that Seleznev’s record sentence was severe in large part because the evidence against him was substantial and yet he declined to cooperate with prosecutors prior to his trial. The son of an influential Russian politician, Seleznev made international headlines in 2014 after he...

Alexandra Tolstoy interview: ‘Sergei must have planned his escape. He didn’t tell me so I didn’t have to lie about it’ I don’t feel my life is in danger, but I am sure we are being watched and that our phones are bugged’ … Alexandra Tolstoy. Photograph: Guardian/Felix Clay August 20, 2017 he trekked 5,000 miles on camelback, married an Uzbek horseman while struck by the ‘romantic madness of the steppes’, then later a Russian billionaire – who fled the UK without warning in July after Putin came looking for him. Alexandra Tolstoy’s life is worthy of her cousin’s epic...

A photo of Tai Zhi Cui in the LAPD's files on a Koreatown triple murder. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times) Walt Teague had given up hope of making an arrest in the Koreatown triple murder.The suspect, Tai Zhi Cui, had fled Los Angeles for his native China, which has no extradition treaty with the United States. If Chinese police would confirm that Cui was indeed in China, Teague could at least close the almost decade-old case. In a cavernous room off Tiananmen Square, he met with nearly two dozen Chinese police officials. The highest-ranking officer then made an unexpected...

Name of fugitive businessman who once travelled in federal Conservative circles emerged during U.S. drug probe October 4, 2017 APTN National News has been investigating threads emerging from a 2008 police investigation by the name of Operation Cancun. Cancun targeted a drug smuggling network operating through the Mohawk territories of Kahnawake and Akwesasne. Many of these threads led from a man identified by the RCMP as “the banker” who entered the orbit of some high profile Conservatives. Now, a U.S. investigation alleges two individuals associated with “the banker” laundered money for a Montreal organization involved in the importation of cocaine...

He owned yachts and sped around the country in Lear jets—spoils from the more than $100 million he bilked from investors—before he was convicted and sent away to serve an 18-year sentence in federal prison. Then, late last year, Darren Berg disappeared. Every night at midnight, and again at 3 and 5am, corrections officers stroll by the dormitory beds where prisoners sleep two to a cubicle and count—four, six, eight, up to more than 100—to ensure all the men are there, snoring or lying quietly before breakfast starts at 6:30. The inmates at this camp next to the U.S. Penitentiary...

James Kilgore.....a life on the run January 23, 2018 To his neighbours, he was a brilliant academic with a passion for cricket. To the FBI, he was a ruthless terrorist and one of its 10 most wanted men. For 27 years, James Kilgore kept his double life a secret. But then came the knock on the door... You learn to expect that final reckoning. The knock knock knock on your door. The tap tap on the shoulder. The bullet. Push it out of mind, but it always comes back. Dream about it, dread it, wait for it. Sometimes you almost...

Brenda Delgado went home. If an American were in France and got charged with a serious crime, might he or she not consider doing the same? -FBI photo If you had to disappear, could you do it? Like, what if you were falsely accused of a crime (or, you know, rightfully accused) and wanted to escape trial? Think of how many government and private databases hold your information, how many ways you're being tracked -- shit, the puzzle game on your phone probably knows which restaurants you've visited this week. Think of the sheer number of cameras that exist in the...

Michael ching mo yeung This question arises with some frequency, and with reason.  INTERPOL’s member countries circulate Red Notices for people who are wanted either to stand trial or to serve a sentence.  People who are the subjects of Red Notices naturally want to know when it is safe to travel without risking detention or extradition due to an old Red Notice. Red Notices typically expire after five years.  However, they are subject to renewal if the INTERPOL member country that originally made the request advises INTERPOL that the notice should remain outstanding.  If a subject has not been apprehended...

Michael ching mo yeung The answer is, yes. Anytime INTERPOL is interested in you, there is sufficient cause for concern.  Note that I say concern, not panic. The subject of a Blue Notice may or may not be a suspect in a crime.  A Blue Notice is issued when INTERPOL grants a member country’s request for assistance with the following: seeking the location of someone connected with a criminal investigation identifying someone connected with a criminal investigation finding witnesses to a criminal act, and locating friends, relatives, or associates of offenders or suspected offenders The difference between a Red Notice,...

INTERPOL, Red Notices and Diffusions Q1. What is INTERPOL? INTERPOL is an international body which helps police forces in different countries cooperates by providing them with shared databases and communications channels. One of its major roles is to enable the circulation of information about wanted persons in the form of Red Notices (Q3) and Diffusions (Q4). For more information about INTERPOL, see our Frequently Asked Questions document. Q2. Who / what is a National Central Bureau? A National Central Bureau (‘NCB’) is a division of the police in a given country which exchanges information with INTERPOL. Typically, this will be...

An Interpol notice is an international alert circulated by Interpol to communicate information about crimes, criminals, and threats from police in a member state (or an authorized international entity) to their counterparts around the world. The information disseminated via notices concerns individuals wanted for serious crimes, missing persons, unidentified bodies, possible threats, prison escapes, and criminals' modus operandi. There are eight types of notices, seven of which are color-coded by their function: Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Black, Orange, and Purple. The most well-known notice is the Red Notice which is the "closest instrument to an international arrest warrant in use...

I-Checkit Passenger name record(PNR) Data Base In the airline and travel industries, a passenger name record (PNR) is a record in the database of a computer reservation system (CRS) that consists of the personal information for a passenger and also contains the itinerary for the passenger, or a group of passengers travelling together. The concept of a PNR was first introduced by airlines that needed to exchange reservation information in case passengers required flights of multiple airlines to reach their destination (“interlining”). For this purpose, IATA and ATA defined standards for interline messaging of PNR and other data through the...

Interpol’s Stolen and Lost Travel Documents (SLTD) database enables its National Central Bureaus (NCBs) and other authorized law enforcement entities (such as immigration and border control officers) to ascertain the validity of a travel document in seconds. How It Works: Details of stolen and lost passports are submitted directly to the STLD database via Interpol’s I-24/7 secure global police communication system.  Only the country which issued the document can add it to the database. Law enforcement officials at Interpol NCBs and other locations with access to Interpol’s databases through the I-24/7 system – such as airports and border crossings –...

The United States denounced a Dutch court's decision Wednesday to grant an early release to a Dutch citizen who had been sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to kill Americans in Iraq. "We are extremely disappointed in the Rotterdam District Court's decision to release Wesam al-Delaema from prison after serving less than six years, and rejecting the 16-year prison term recommended by Dutch prosecutors," Justice Department spokeswoman Laura Sweeney said. Delaema was convicted by a U.S. court, then transferred to Dutch custody. He agreed to accept a 25-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. It was unclear...

On February 26, 2009, an Iraqi-born Dutch citizen, Wesam Al Delaema, was charged with participating in a conspiracy to attack Americans based in Iraq. The criminal complaint was filed at U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia on July 27, 2008.  Al Delaema, a/k/a Wesam Khalaf Chayed Delaema, was charged on four counts:  conspiracy to kill U.S. citizens abroad; conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction (explosives); possession of a destructive device (explosives) during a crime of violence; and conspiracy to possess a destructive device (explosives) during a crime of violence. (1) Al Delaema, 32, was born in...

Another Chinese corruption suspect who had fled overseas returned to China to turn herself in recently, another victory after China ramped up its international manhunt of fugitive corrupt officials. Wang Chengjian, a former shipping finance executive in Shanghai, fled to the US in May 2005 after being accused of joint embezzlement. She was number 67 of China’s 100 most-wanted fugitives listed in an Interpol “red notice” and the 38th to return since the country launched its “Sky Net” campaign in April 2015. By the end of 2016, 2,566 fugitives had been extradited or repatriated from over 90 countries and regions,...

'No escape' for China's corrupt cadres, as the country's authorities widen scope of global manhunt to target accomplices and financing. China is ramping up its international manhunt of fugitive corrupt officials with a new multi-agency operation, code-named Skynet, aimed at restricting their financial channels. Operation Skynet will go further than last year's international manhunt led by national police, Operation Foxhunt, by coordinating various government departments in a multi-pronged attack on both the fugitives and those who help them. Underground banks and offshore companies that enable money laundering as well as people who forge licences, passports and other documents are among...

The repatriation of suspects and recovery of illicit money are the focus of Operation Fox Hunt, aimed at seizing corrupt officials and economic fugitives who fled China. Operation Fox Hunt forms part of the Sky Net campaign led by China's top anti-graft agency, which was launched in 2014. The goals were outlined by the Ministry of Public Security Meng Qing Feng, vice-minister of public security, who oversees the operation, asked police departments nationwide to target the right suspects, to work more efficiently and to bring them to justice. The ministry said it will work with the People's Bank of China,...

Photo Caption: A company that operates facial recognition systems in China has exposed the personal information of 2.5 million people after leaving a database unprotected. Facial recognition system showing a blue interface with a human head and biometrics data, with a grid of relevant points connected to facial features: used for surveillance, privacy control and identity tracking  A company that operates facial recognition systems in China has exposed the personal information of 2.5 million people after leaving a database unprotected, it has emerged. It was discovered by Dutch cybersecurity researcher Victor Gevers, who works for the GDI Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to...

Identity theft is one the fastest growing crime in the US with the identities of millions of individuals compromised in recent years. In 2019, the Federal Trade Commission received 3.2 million reports of consumer protection issues. Out of these, the most common fraud reported in the last year was imposter scams and identity theft, especially in government services, online shopping and credit bureaus. With an increase in massive and big-scale data breaches, traditional verification and authentication methods have been compromised. For instance, 5 million customer’s data was stolen by hackers in a recent DoorDash data breach. The personal information including...

Photo: A group of Hong Kong residents celebrate the passage of the national security law for Hong Kong and mark the 23rd anniversary of Hong Kong returning to China in Causeway Bay on Tuesday. France risked becoming a fugitive haven for desperados after it announced on Monday a halt to the 2017 extradition treaty with the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), experts said. The French foreign ministry said the decision was made in the wake of China's national security law for the HKSAR, which they believe violates "one country, two systems" and "fundamental freedoms" and affects French people and...

The Best Non Extradition C0untries To Become Invisible In... Imagine you’re being pursued by government agents, angry creditors, a vindictive ex-spouse, or a hit-man with a bounty on your head. You need to find somewhere to hide out under the radar until things blow over… or possibly forever. Where would you go if the world was your oyster and you had to escape? Your first inclination may well be to look for one of the world’s non-extradition countries. You ought to be careful, however, because they are not all created equal. Of course, I’m not advocating that you flee the...

Secondary ID "Fugitive deported from Canada faces death penalty in China" The Globe and Mail          June 14,2000 It is vital that you have "Secondary ID." that supports your Cover identity,a simple traffic stop can have dire consequences as in the case of Fang Yong Mr. Fang disappeared until police stopped him for a traffic violation in Montreal in 1999. Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan took a tough stand on the deportation from Canada of a Chinese refugee claimant who has now been sentenced to death, indicating that Canada will not refuse to expel white-collar criminals who face execution in...

Cover and Legend The most important element of  long-­term anonymity is the use of a Cover and the creation of a Legend. A Cover is a second identity, and a Legend is the background story and documents that support the Cover. When assuming your new Cover/alias, your ‘Legend’ is the background information that will ‘flesh-out’ your identity, and to ensure it is plausible. If your Legend is a nationality not your own, you should be familiar with basic politics and news in your home country …You don’t want to get caught because someone asks what school you went to in your cover’s home town and you can’t name it or its mascot,...

Unwanted New Identity Boris Johnson was an "accidental American" until he renounced his US citizenship in 2017 In recent years, Michael has come to view the United States, the nation of which he has been a citizen all his life, as an abusive parent. "I can acknowledge my past association with this person while wanting to keep future association to a minimum," he said. Michael – the name is fake as he requested anonymity to avoid being inundated with hate mail – has seen his disaffection with his homeland come to a head in 2020. The chaotic end of the...

Along with a second passport, a person can also have a New Identity. The coronavirus pandemic has transformed the world in every way imaginable. Things have changed even for US passport holders. While their passport granted Americans visa-free access to as many as 185 countries around the world, pandemic-related travel bans and current EU restrictions have drastically reduced their options for them. Dual nationality has emerged as an attractive proposition for them in the current circumstances. Apart from the COVID situation, there are several other reasons why US citizen wants to get a second passport along with a New Identity....

Looking for a New Identity and Second Passport? Before the coronavirus pandemic, holding a US passport granted visa-free access to 185 countries around the world. The American passport wasn't the most powerful on earth (that honor belongs to Japan), but it still got most of us where we needed to go. Until now..........With current EU restrictions and other pandemic-related travel bans, there are currently far fewer places Americans can go. Frustrated by this newly impeded mobility, some seek dual nationality, often as an opportunity to reconnect with their parents' or grandparents' country of origin, or to reassess their careers and...

The demand for Second Passports, New Identity, and Citizenship soars around the world National lockdowns, closed borders, and travel restrictions have helped to increase applications for second passports, new identity, citizenship, and foreign residency by more than 50% year over year. International financial advisory firm deVere Group, which has more than 100,000 clients worldwide, reports that this highly unusual year has seen demand for its residence and citizen services "soar". The majority of inquiries come from high net worth individuals from the United States, India, South Africa, Russia, the Middle East and East Asia who are looking for alternative options...

Have you ever given any thought to moving to a tax haven in the Caribbean, becoming a citizen of that country, or even renouncing your primary passport and securing a new identity? Wouldn't it be tempting if you could carry out such a strategy without being required to pay taxes and if you could do it in complete secrecy with a new identity and using cryptocurrency that has increased in value? It would appear that way according to Amicus International. Customers who already have cryptocurrency in their possession can use it to buy a second passport through the services provided...

The world is a dangerous place. It's been this way since the beginning of time, and it's not going to change anytime soon; it's in his nature. We cannot eliminate risks to our well-being as humans, but we can reduce them, and there is no better way to combat instability and risk than through investment in a New Identity and citizenship. Recent events in Ukraine have highlighted our vulnerability, reminding us that things can go wrong quickly. Because of this uncertainty, many people are investing in contingency plans. Having a solid contingency plan in place is the best way to...

The Tax Implications of a Second "Plan B" Passport in the United States Plan B 'Second Passports' Can Increase Tax Liability: Many U.S. taxpayers who want to avoid tax on gains on the sale of U.S. assets and/or avoid U.S. tax altogether may want to consider what is known as a Plan B or "second" passport. The idea is that taxpayers (typically US citizens and lawful permanent residents) buy Citizenship-by-Investment (CBI) and/or Residence-by-Investment (RBI) passports (also known as Golden Visas) in case they need to get out of the country. The issue is that simply purchasing a second passport without...

In the movies, once the spies have finished charging their gadgets and have discovered that they are behind enemy lines, they assume a cover identity.   We might also utilize cover identities, whether it be to blend in with the locals, bargain for the boss, or for any other reason you wish to pretend to be someone else. This could be done for any number of reasons. In the movies, they don't do much to make it their own, but in the real world, it's difficult to keep and conceal their New Identity for a long period of time. In...