Bloomberg: FTX Implosion Prompts Call by DOJ Arm for Independent Probe. “The US Justice Department’s bankruptcy watchdog is calling for an independent probe into the collapse of FTX Group, saying a neutral party should investigate the cryptocurrency empire’s downfall.”
Gizmodo: DOJ and SEC Investigating FTX Collapse as Entire Crypto Market Plunges. “The Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission are investigating FTX, a crypto platform that halted withdrawals on Tuesday, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal. And while the SEC’s investigation has reportedly been going ‘for months,’ the agency’s scrutiny has only expanded this week following the liquidity crisis at FTX, which has caused the entire cryptocurrency market to tank.”
Bleeping Computer: Z-Library eBook site domains seized by U.S. Dept of Justice. “Internet domains for the popular Z-Library online eBook repository were seized early this morning by the U.S. Department of Justice, preventing easy access to the service. Z-Library is ranked in the top 10k most visited websites on the Internet, offering over 11 million books and 84 million articles for free via its website.”
US Department of Justice: Google Enters Into Stipulated Agreement to Improve Legal Process Compliance Program. “The Department of Justice today filed a stipulation and agreement resolving a dispute with Google over the loss of data responsive to a search warrant issued in 2016.”
Bloomberg: DOJ Is Preparing to Sue Google Over Ad Market as Soon as September. “The US Justice Department is preparing to sue Google as soon as next month, according to people familiar with the matter, capping years of work to build a case that the Alphabet Inc. unit illegally dominates the digital advertising market.”
US Department of Justice: Man Arrested For Leading Role In $10 Million Tech Support Fraud Scheme That Exploited Elderly Victims . “Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced charges against VINOTH PONMARAN for participating in a conspiracy that for several years exploited elderly victims by remotely accessing their computers and convincing victims to pay for computer support services they did not need, and which were never actually provided. In total, the conspiracy generated more than $10 million in proceeds from at least approximately 7,500 victims.”
CNN: Justice Department seizes $500K from North Korean hackers who targeted US medical organizations. “The US Justice Department seized approximately half a million dollars that North Korean government-backed hackers had either extorted from US health care organizations or used to launder ransom payments, deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Tuesday as she touted an aggressive US strategy to claw back money for victims of ransomware attacks.”
Reuters: DoJ expected to file antitrust lawsuit against Google in weeks – Bloomberg News. “The U.S. Department of Justice is expected to file an antitrust lawsuit against Alphabet Inc’s… Google in weeks over its dominance in the online advertising market, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing people familiar with the matter.”
US Department of Justice: Justice Department Announces Enforcement Action Charging Six Individuals with Cryptocurrency Fraud Offenses in Cases Involving Over $100 Million in Intended Losses. “The Department of Justice, together with federal law enforcement partners, today announced criminal charges against six defendants in four separate cases for their alleged involvement in cryptocurrency-related fraud, including the largest known Non-Fungible Token (NFT) scheme charged to date, a fraudulent investment fund that purportedly traded on cryptocurrency exchanges, a global Ponzi scheme involving the sale of unregistered crypto securities, and a fraudulent initial coin offering.”
Gizmodo: Job Ad for Bureau of Prisons Touts Amazing Number of Mental Illnesses in U.S. Prison System. “The U.S. Bureau of Prisons purchased a number of Facebook ads recently in an attempt to hire new people in a variety of roles throughout the country. But one ad in particular is catching attention on social media for how bleak it seems. The Bureau of Prisons seems to be using the number of mental illnesses in the U.S. prison system as a career opportunity for any psychologists who happen to be job hunting right now.”
Krebs on Security: RaidForums Gets Raided, Alleged Admin Arrested. “The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) said today it seized the website and user database for RaidForums, an extremely popular English-language cybercrime forum that sold access to more than 10 billion consumer records stolen in some of the world’s largest data breaches since 2015. The DOJ also charged the alleged administrator of RaidForums — 21-year-old Diogo Santos Coelho, of Portugal — with six criminal counts, including conspiracy, access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.”
Bureau of Justice Statistics: Now available—the new, modern Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) with prisoners data. “For the first time, the dashboard combines data from the National Corrections Reporting Program and National Prisoner Statistics program. This dashboard provides data users central access to more comprehensive, in-depth, state-level data on persons in state prison, including data by age, sex, race or ethnicity, offense, sentence length, time served in prison, and type of admission and release.”
Bloomberg: Google Rebukes DOJ Claim It Hid Documents by CC’ing Lawyers. “Alphabet Inc.’s Google is pushing back on U.S. Justice Department claims that it improperly used attorney-client privilege to conceal documents in the government’s monopoly lawsuit against the company.”
ABC News: DOJ charges Russian officials over hacking campaigns that targeted critical infrastructure. “The Justice Department unsealed two indictments Thursday charging four Russian government employees with two separate conspiracies — outlining their alleged involvement in hacking campaigns that targeted critical infrastructure networks in the U.S. and across the globe between 2012 and 2018.”
Department of Justice: Justice Department Announces First Director of National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team . “The NCET was established to ensure the department meets the challenge posed by the criminal misuse of cryptocurrencies and digital assets, and comprises attorneys from across the department, including prosecutors with backgrounds in cryptocurrency, cybercrime, money laundering and forfeiture. The NCET will identify, investigate, support and pursue the department’s cases involving the criminal use of digital assets, with a particular focus on virtual currency exchanges, mixing and tumbling services, infrastructure providers, and other entities that are enabling the misuse of cryptocurrency and related technologies to commit or facilitate criminal activity.”
The ResearchBuzz Firehose is regular RB content presented as individual posts.
For digest-type posts a couple of times a day, please visit ResearchBuzz.
Want to know how to best use the Firehose for content discovery?
Check out this handy article.