USDOJ: Russian-American Organized Crime Enterprise Operating International Sportsbook That Laundered More Than $100 Million

The Russian and Chinese Hackers

Pete Bennett is former programmer for PG&E, Bank of America, Wells Fargo Bank and AT&T

He is unpaid for a series of projects linked to 9/11, PG&E San Bruno and 20,000 pages of PG&E documents consisting of detailed maps, sub station, gas transmission, fiber optic entry points but most important enough detail to kill millions.

The #campfire was a warm up. Stock up water, food and be prepared for the energy disruption event of your lifecycle.

U.S. Attorney's Office

Southern District of New York

(212) 637-2600

April 30, 2014

Two Defendants Sentenced for Participating in Racketeering Conspiracy with Russian-American Organized Crime Enterprise Operating International Sportsbook That Laundered More Than $100 Million

Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that ANATOLY GOLUBCHIK was sentenced yesterday in Manhattan federal court to five years in prison, and VADIM TRINCHER was also sentenced today to five years in prison for participating in a racketeering conspiracy in connection with their roles as members of a Russian-American organized crime enterprise. GOLUBCHIK and TRINCHER were also each ordered to forfeit more than $20 million in cash, investments, and real property. They were charged in April 2013 along with 32 other alleged members and associates of two Russian-American organized crime enterprises in an indictment that included racketeering, money laundering, extortion, and various gambling offenses. GOLUBCHIK and TRINCHER were sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jesse M. Furman.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said: “The sentences meted out to Anatoly Golubchik and Vadim Trincher are just and appropriate penalties for the roles the defendants played in this far-reaching, Russian-American organized crime ring. I’d like to thank the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department, and the Internal Revenue Service for their tireless efforts in working to ensure that the members of this underground enterprise were held to account for their crimes.”

According to the indictment, other documents filed in Manhattan federal court, and statements made at various proceedings in this case, including today’s sentencing:

The Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization (the “Organization”) was a criminal enterprise with strong ties to Russia and Ukraine. The enterprise operated a high-stakes, illegal sports gambling business out of New York City that catered primarily to Russian oligarchs living in Ukraine and Russia. GOLUBCHIK and TRINCHER were U.S.-based participants in the enterprise. GOLUBCHIK and TRINCHER booked sports bets that reached into the millions of dollars and laundered the proceeds of the Organization’s international sportsbook. Between 2006 and April 2012, the enterprise laundered approximately $100 million in proceeds from their gambling operation in Russia and Ukraine through shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus; and of this $100 million, approximately $50 million was subsequently sent from Cyprus into the United States. Once the money had been transferred to the United States, it was either laundered through additional shell companies or invested in legitimate investments, such as hedge funds and real estate.

The Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization operated under the protection of Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov, who is known as a “Vor,” a term translated as “Thief-in-Law,” that refers to a member of a select group of high-level criminals from the former Soviet Union. Tokhtakhounov used his status as a Vor to resolve disputes with clients of the high-stakes illegal gambling operation with implicit and sometimes explicit threats of violence and economic harm. Between December 2011 and February 2013, Tokhtakhounov was paid at least approximately $12 million for his services by the Taiwanchik-Trincher Organization. Tokhtakhounov is also under indictment in the Southern District of New York for his alleged involvement in bribing officials at the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tokhtakhounov is a fugitive and is still being sought.

***

Twenty-eight defendants in this case have pled guilty and two have entered into deferred prosecution agreements. The defendants who have pled to date have agreed to forfeit, in total, more than $68 million. The following defendants have pled guilty, and have been sentenced or await sentencing:

• Bryan Zuriff pled guilty to gambling charges on July 26, 2013, and was sentenced on November 25, 2013.
• William Barbalat pled guilty to gambling charges on August 14, 2013, and was sentenced on December 16, 2013.
• Kirill Rapoport pled guilty to gambling charges on August 16, 2013, and was sentenced on December 19, 2014.
• Edwin Ting and Justin Smith pled guilty to gambling charges on September 4, 2013, and were sentenced on January 21, 2014, and January 6, 2014, respectively.
• Dmitry Druzhinsky and David Aaron pled guilty to gambling charges on October 4, 2013, and were sentenced on April 18, 2014, and February 14, 2014, respectively.
• Alexander Zaverukha pled guilty to gambling charges on October 10, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 1, 2014.
• Nicholas Hirsch pled guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud on October 16, 2013, and was sentenced on February 25, 2014.
• Anatoly Shteyngrob pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering on October 17, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 10, 2014.
• Yugeshwar Rajkumar pled guilty to gambling charges on October 18, 2013, and was sentenced on March 25, 2014.
• Stan Greenberg pled guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering on October 22, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 2, 2014.
• Arthur Azen pled guilty to conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to collect extensions of credit by extortionate means on November 5, 2013, and was sentenced on April 9, 2014.
• Hillel Nahmad pled guilty to gambling charges on November 12, 2013, and was sentenced on April 30, 2014.
• Vadim Trincher pled guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering on November 14, 2013, and was sentenced on April 30, 2014.
• Eugene Trincher pled guilty to gambling charges on November 14, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on June 9, 2014.
• Anatoly Golubchik pled guilty to conspiring to commit racketeering on November 15, 2013, and was sentenced on April 29, 2014.
• Illya Trincher pled guilty to gambling charges on November 15, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 8, 2014.
• Ronald Uy pled guilty to structuring financial transactions on November 25, 2013, and was sentenced on March 27, 2014.
• Moshe Oratz pled guilty to gambling charges on December 3, 2013, and was sentenced on April 9, 2014.
• Michael Sall pled guilty to interstate travel in aid of an unlawful activity (illegal gambling) and Jonathan Hirsch pled guilty to gambling charges on December 4, 2013. Sall was sentenced on April 18, 2014, and Hirsch is scheduled to be sentenced on May 9, 2014.
• Noah Siegel pled guilty to gambling charges on December 5, 2013, and was sentenced on April 10, 2014.
• Molly Bloom pled guilty to gambling charges on December 12, 2013, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 2, 2014.
• Alexander Katchaloff pled guilty to gambling charges on January 16, 2014, and is scheduled to be sentenced on May 20, 2014.
• Donald McCalmont, John Jarekci, a/k/a “John Hanson,” and Abraham Mosseri pled guilty to making a fraudulent tax statement, to failing to file a tax return, and causing a financial institution to participate in a lottery related matter, respectively, on January 24, 2014, and are scheduled to be sentenced on May 29, 2014, May 28, 2014, and May 21, 2014, respectively.
• William Edler and Peter Feldman entered into deferred prosecution agreements on April 11, 2014.

Mr. Bharara praised the investigative work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the New York City Police Department, and the Internal Revenue Service.

The case is being prosecuted by the Office’s Violent and Organized Crime Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Harris M. Fischman, Joshua A. Naftalis, Peter J. Skinner, and Kristy J. Greenberg of the Violent and Organized Crime Unit are in charge of the prosecution. Assistant

U.S. Attorney Alexander Wilson of the Office’s Money Laundering and Asset Forfeiture Unit is responsible for the forfeiture aspects of the case.

This content has been reproduced from its original source .

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The Scherer Murders and Russian Mob of Trump Towers

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Pete Bennett | Twitter | F: petercbennett LI: petercbennett

A little snippet.  The timing of the Scherer Murders leads to the Mormon Community.  The involved Mormon units are Mitt Romney, Danville Stake, The Oakland Temple and millions stolen.

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Sources: FBI investigation continues into 'odd' computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization

Sources: FBI investigation continues into 'odd' computer link between Russian bank and Trump Organization

  

  

By Pamela Brown and Jose Pagliery, CNN

Updated 6:00 AM ET, Fri March 10, 2017

(CNN)Federal investigators and computer scientists continue to examine whether there was a computer server connection between the Trump Organization and a Russian bank, sources close to the investigation tell CNN.

Questions about the possible connection were widely dismissed four months ago. But the FBI's investigation remains open, the sources said, and is in the hands of the FBI's counterintelligence team -- the same one looking into Russia's suspected interference in the 2016 election.

One U.S. official said investigators find the server relationship "odd" and are not ignoring it. But the official said there is still more work for the FBI to do. Investigators have not yet determined whether a connection would be significant.

The server issue surfaced again this weekend, mentioned in a Breitbart article that, according to a White House official, sparked President Trump's series of tweets accusing investigators of tapping his phone.

CNN is told there was no Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant on the server.

The FBI declined to comment. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

In addition, companies involved have provided CNN with new explanations that at times conflict with each other and still don't fully explain what happened.

The story -- of a possible connection between computer servers -- is a strange tale because there are no specific allegations of wrongdoing and only vague technical evidence.

Internet data shows that last summer, a computer server owned by Russia-based Alfa Bank repeatedly looked up the contact information for a computer server being used by the Trump Organization -- far more than other companies did, representing 80% of all lookups to the Trump server.

It's unclear if the Trump Organization server itself did anything in return. No one has produced evidence that the servers actually communicated.

Slate and The New York Times were first to report the unusual server activity.

The Times said the FBI had concluded there could be an "innocuous explanation." And cybersecurity experts told CNN this isn't how two entities would communicate if they wanted to keep things secret.

But for those who have studied the data, the activity could suggest an intent to communicate by email during a period of time when ties between the Trump Organization and Russia are being closely scrutinized because of Russia's alleged involvement in hacking the emails of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta.

This issue intrigued a dozen computer researchers at a recent business conference in Washington, D.C. that pulled together the world's top network operators, the ones who help run the internet. To them, it's a strange coincidence that merits further scrutiny.

Another computer researcher, Richard Clayton of Cambridge University, said it's just plain weird.

"It's not so much a smoking gun as a faint whiff of smoke a long way away. Maybe there's something else going on. It's hard to tell," said Clayton, who has independently examined the scant evidence available.

What is known:

Last year, a small group of computer scientists obtained internet traffic records from the complex system that serves as the internet's phone book. Access to these records is reserved for highly trusted cybersecurity firms and companies that provide this lookup service.

These signals were captured as they traveled along the internet's Domain Name System (DNS).

These leaked records show that Alfa Bank servers repeatedly looked up the unique internet address of a particular Trump Organization computer server in the United States.

In the computer world, it's the equivalent of looking up someone's phone number -- over and over again. While there isn't necessarily a phone call, it usually indicates an intention to communicate, according to several computer scientists.

What puzzled them was why a Russian bank was repeatedly looking up the contact information for mail1.trump-email.com.

Publicly available internet records show that address, which was registered to the Trump Organization, points to an IP address that lives on an otherwise dull machine operated by a company in the tiny rural town of Lititz, Pennsylvania.

From May 4 until September 23, the Russian bank looked up the address to this Trump corporate server 2,820 times -- more lookups than the Trump server received from any other source.

As noted, Alfa Bank alone represents 80% of the lookups, according to these leaked internet records.

Far back in second place, with 714 such lookups, was a company called Spectrum Health.

Spectrum is a medical facility chain led by Dick DeVos, the husband of Betsy DeVos, who was appointed by Trump as U.S. education secretary.

Together, Alfa and Spectrum accounted for 99% of the lookups.

This server behavior alarmed one computer expert who had privileged access to this technical information last year. That person, who remains anonymous and goes by the moniker "Tea Leaves," obtained this information from internet traffic meant to remain private. It is unclear where Tea Leaves worked or how Tea Leaves obtained access to the information.

Tea Leaves gave that data to a small band of computer scientists who joined forces to examine it, several members of that group told CNN, which has also reviewed the data.

Possible explanations

The corporations involved have different theories to explain the server activity. But they haven't provided proof -- and they don't agree.

Alfa Bank has maintained that the most likely explanation is that the server communication was the result of spam marketing. Bank executives have stayed at Trump hotels, so it's possible they got subsequent spam marketing emails from the Trump Organization. Those emails might have set off defensive cybersecurity measures at the bank, whose servers would respond with a cautious DNS lookup. Alfa Bank said it used antispam software from Trend Micro, whose tools would do a DNS lookup to know the source of the spam.

Alfa Bank said it brought U.S. cybersecurity firm Mandiant to Moscow to investigate. Mandiant had a "working hypothesis" that the activity was "caused by email marketing/spam" on the Trump server's end, according to representatives for Alfa Bank and Mandiant. The private investigation is now over, Alfa Bank said.

Computer scientists agree that such an explanation is possible in theory. But they want to see evidence.

Alfa Bank and Mandiant could not point to marketing emails from the time period in question. "Mandiant has found evidence of an old marketing campaign, which... is too old to be relevant," Alfa Bank said in a statement.

CNN reached out to the Trump Organization with detailed technical questions but has not received answers.

Cendyn is the contractor that once operated marketing software on that Trump email domain. In February, it provided CNN a Trump Organization statement that called the internet records "incomplete" and stressed that they do not show any signs of "two-way email communication." That statement lends credibility to the spam marketing theory, because it says the Trump server was set up in 2010 to deliver promotional marketing emails for Trump Hotels. But Cendyn acknowledged that the last marketing email it delivered for Trump's corporation was sent in March 2016, "well before the date range in question."

Spectrum Health told CNN it "did find a small number of incoming spam marketing emails" from "Cendyn, advertising Trump Hotels." But it pointed to emails sent in 2015, long before the May-through-September 2016 time period examined by scientists. Spectrum Health said that it "has not been contacted by the FBI or any government agency on this matter."

Having the Trump Organization server set up for marketing also doesn't explain why Alfa Bank and Spectrum would stand out so much.

"If it were spam, then a lot of other organizations would be doing DNS lookups. There would be evidence of widespread connectivity with devices," said L. Jean Camp, a computer scientist at Indiana University who has studied the data.

Cendyn has also provided another possible explanation, suggesting a highly technical case of mistaken identity.

Cendyn routinely repurposes computer servers -- like the one used by the Trump Organization.

Cendyn's software, like its event planning tool Metron, sends email and thus relies on the 20 different email servers rented by the company. After "a thorough network analysis," Cendyn has said that it found a bank client had used Metron to communicate with AlfaBank.com.

But Alfa Bank starkly denies "any dealings with Cendyn." And, it says, it's unlikely that it received any emails from that server. "Mandiant investigated 12 months of email archives and it found no emails to or from any of the IP addresses given to us by the media."

On Wednesday, Cendyn provided another explanation to CNN. Cendyn claims the Trump Hotel Collection ditched Cendyn and went with another email marketing company, the German firm Serenata, in March 2016. Cendyn said it "transferred back to" Trump's company the mail1.trump-email.com domain.

Serenata this week told CNN it was indeed hired by Trump Hotels, but it "never has operated or made use of" the domain in question: mail1.trump-email.com.

Upon hearing that Cendyn gave up control of the Trump email domain, Camp, said: "That does not make any sense to me at all. The more confusing this is, the more I think we need an investigation."

Other computer experts said there could be additional lookups that weren't captured by the original leak. That could mean that Alfa's presence isn't as dominant as it seems. But Dyn, which has a major presence on the internet's domain name system, spotted only two such lookups — from the Netherlands on August 15.

Alfa Bank insists that it has no connections to Trump. In a statement to CNN, Alfa Bank said neither it, bank cofounder Mikhail Fridman and bank president Petr Aven "have had any contact with Mr. Trump or his organizations. Fridman and Aven have never met Mr. Trump nor have they or Alfa Bank had any business dealings with him. Neither Alfa Bank nor its officers have sent Mr. Trump or his organization any emails, information or money. Alfa Bank does not have and has never had any special or exclusive internet connection with Mr. Trump or his entities."

Scientists now silent

The bank told CNN it is now trying to identify the person or entity who disseminated this internet traffic. "We believe that DNS traffic in mainland Europe was deliberately captured - in a manner that is unethical and possibly illegal -- in order to manufacture the deceit," it said.

Fear has now silenced several of the computer scientists who first analyzed the data.

Tea Leaves refused to be interviewed by CNN and is now "hiding under a rock," according to an intermediary contact.

Paul Vixie, who helped design the very DNS system the internet uses today, was quoted in the Slate story saying that Alfa Bank and the Trump Organization "were communicating in a secretive fashion." Vixie declined to go on the record with CNN.

Even the skeptics have unanswered questions.

Robert Graham is a cybersecurity expert who wrote a widely circulated blog post in November that criticized computer scientists for premature conclusions connecting the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank.

But he's still wondering why Alfa Bank and Spectrum Health alone dominated links to this Trump server.

"It's indicative of communication between Trump, the health organization and the bank outside these servers," he told CNN. "There is some sort of connection I can't explain, and only they are doing it. It could be completely innocent."

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OBIT: Ernest Francis Scherer Jr. and Charlene Abendroth (wife) March 14, 2008

Ernest Francis Scherer  

CIVMSC88-05163

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Ernest Francis Scherer Jr. Charlene Abendroth

Ernest Francis Scherer Jr. Charlene Abendroth Residents of Pleasanton Ernest Francis Scherer Jr. and his wife of 31 years, Charlene Abendroth, were found dead in their Pleasanton, California home on March 14, 2008. Ernest, 60, was a real estate investor and accountant who was active in local politics. He was born in Michigan, received his BA from UC Berkeley, an MBA in accounting from Berkeley, and was a CPA. He was a former campaign manager for U.S. Congressman Bill Baker and was named Contra Costa County Republican Man of the year in 1996. Ernie enjoyed traveling with his wife and traveled extensively across the world having visited all seven continents. They enjoyed hiking, were avid birders and took birding expeditions from Ecuador to Turkey. Ernie took pleasure in playing in duplicate bridge tournaments with his father and son. Charlene, 57, who was known by her family and friends as Cherie Scherer, was a lecturer in accounting at California State University East Bay and active with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Charlene was born in Seattle, Washington, obtained a BS in accounting from Brigham Young University and a Master's Degree in accounting from UCLA. She was a well regarded lecturer at Cal State East Bay for 30 years, was the advisor for Beta Alpha Psi, and was awarded advisor of the year in 2006. Cherie served in many capacities within the LDS church, including teaching in the women's organization, but her greatest love was to serve others and befriend those in need. Their main love was their family and spent any time they could with their children and grandchildren. Ernie and Cherie are survived by Ernie's father, Ernest Scherer Sr., Ernie's sister, Carolyn Scherer Oesterle, their children Ernest Scherer III and Catherine Scherer, and three grandchildren. Services will be held at the LDS Church at 6100 Paseo Santa Cruz, Pleasanton, CA 94566 on Saturday March 22, 2008 at 10am. - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/contracostatimes/obituary.aspx?n=ernest-francis-and-charlene-abendroth&pid=106075916#sthash.fodLXHcB.dpuf

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