Feature Stories

On Feb. 24, the Department of Justice’s Fraud Section released its 2020 “Year In Review.” Sixty-two of the 167 individuals charged last year by the Health Care Fraud Unit were medical professionals, 13 of whom faced charges for illegal opioid prescriptions. Together,...

By Charlotte Spencer On Feb. 4, we published a story on proposed child protection laws in the United States available here. This week, we are reviewing proposed domestic violence laws other than those that focus specifically on child protection. As of Feb....

It’s been in the works for five years-going-on-35, but it’s all finally official. On Jan. 1, 2021, the National Incident-Based Reporting Program officially replaced the Summary Reporting System as the UCR’s data standard. We take a look at the history of the...

Cashless Systems, Cryptocurrency Patents For Gaming Transactions And The Rise Of Legal Sports Betting and iGaming Revenue Even In An Otherwise Traumatic Year. The U.S. Gaming Industry Is Bound For Change And It’s All Quite Exciting. By Michael P. Johnson Everyone knows...

By Deepti Govind Hate crime in the U.S. reached its highest level in more than a decade in 2019, an FBI report released in November 2020 showed. There were 7,314 hate crime incidents in 2019, up from 7,120 the year before — and...

By Anand Vasu An 84-year-old man from Thailand died from his injuries on Jan. 30 in San Francisco, after being attacked on his morning walk two days prior. Soon after, on Jan. 31, a 91-year-old was injured after being violently shoved to...

By Charlotte Spencer Contact Us As of February 2021, the 117th Congress already has seven bills introduced which, if passed, would change background checking requirements in our country. Five of these bills focus specifically on the subject of background checks involving gun...

By Deepti Govind When David Mamet wrote the screenplay for The Untouchables, he wrote in a dialogue for one of the lead characters that became very popular: "You wanna know how to get Capone? They pull a knife, you pull a gun....

By Kadambari Wade On Feb. 1, 2021, the Department of Justice (DOJ) published the first of two issues of their Department of Justice Journal of Federal Law and Practice focused on missing or murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives. This was part of...

By Charlotte Spencer Yes, you can, and Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, recently found that out the hard way. Most people are aware of the fact that posting certain content online, such as child sexual abuse imagery, or “true threats” can get...

For first responders and investigators, some of the most compelling cases are not the ones that got away, but the ones that disappeared without a trace. They are the people missing for decades, the bodies that were never found, the searches that...

50 Small Businesses Receive $20,000 Grants Each In Partnership With IEEP Some of the business owners that were among the 50 chosen for the San Manuel-IEEP grants watch on Zoom while the grants are announced.  All images in this post are courtesy of the...

By Deepti Govind Virginia may soon become the first of the Southern states to legalize weed in the U.S., and if so, it would also be the 16th state to fully legalize marijuana in the country. The state's General Assembly voted on...

By Charlotte Spencer The House of Representatives currently has four pieces of legislation before it aimed at better handling child abuse so far in 2021. Of these, one is a reauthorization of the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, two are proposed...

By Gaétane Borders, Ed.S. If you're a missing African American child, you're very likely to get less media coverage, and be an oft forgotten statistic, than a missing white girl. Girl at play photo: © Akesin - Dreamstime.com African American children make...

By Deepti Govind Map courtesy of the Casino City Press Gaming Directory, which can be accessed here. You can change the date on the map above to see openings at any given time. The $261 billion U.S. casino and gaming industry may...

By Charlotte Spencer Graphic by Charlotte Spencer This January, the FTC brought the first cases ever under a new law passed five years ago. The BOTS Act, which passed with bipartisan support in 2016, is designed to protect consumers from people who...

Above: An annotated photo illustration of the Route 91 Harvest Festival site at Las Vegas Village, the Mandalay Bay Hotel, and the fuel tanks gunman Stephen Paddock also shot at on the night of Oct. 1, 2017. Photo © User: Mliu92 /...

Above: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children forensic artists, Colin McNally and Joe Mullins, at work in Alexandria, Virginia. Mullins is holding 3D prints of skulls. Photo credit: NCMEC Senior Multimedia Editor Sarah Baker, courtesy NCMEC By Kadambari M. Wade Nestled...

This artwork, in the image of 8-year-old Ryan VanLuchene doing what he loved best, being outdoors, was created especially for us by Germany-based Indian photographer and artist, Priyanka Oberoi. Her work can be found here. By Derek VanLuchene, with Nadia Eley On...

With the city of San Francisco waterfront in foreground, a container ship sails on San Francisco Bay with the city of Oakland and Port of Oakland in the background. Mt. Diablo looms over the scene. The Bay Area Search And Rescue Council...

Above: A young child, evidently alone, and at risk, asks for a lift by the side of a road as the sun begins to set. © Alien185 | Dreamstime.com Note: This is the second in a series of “Conversations across Communities,” which will touch...

Above: Chris James addresses the Reservation Economic Summit (RES) in Las Vegas in March 2018; photo courtesy NCAIED. Note: This is the first in a series of "Conversations across Communities," which will touch upon various aspects of security, surveillance, law enforcement, intelligence, crime,...

This was a guest piece written in 2017. Numbers and statistics cited have since changed. You can find updated internet usage statistics at https://firstsiteguide.com/internet-stats/ and current information on other facts cited in this article at https://www.icmec.org/. Above picture: Courtesy ICMEC The anonymity that the Internet allows makes...

Above: © Nomadsoul1 | Dreamstime; While young girls are predominant victims of trafficking, about 20% of victims are male. We have a problem — there’s just not enough comprehensive, substantive data. But depending on various accounts, between 100,000 to 1.5 million children are trafficked...

The heartbreaking stories of multiple victim events, including human trafficking and homicide, and their implications for investigators and first responders, among others, will be the focus of the 2017 Annual National Missing and Unidentified Person’s Conference (MUPC) in Atlanta in September. We...

Picture: © Saporob | Dreamstime.com The lines between our physical and virtual worlds continue to blur, and the words, “you’ve been hacked,” continue to take on all sorts of ominous connotations across these blurred lines, especially after a mega attack like last week’s WannaCry. With...

An Indian soldier on the India-Pakistan Line of Control in Kashmir. Picture © Oleg Doroshenko | Dreamstime.com For far too long, too many soldiers, paramilitary forces, and other security personnel have died because of a lack of planning or foresight. While there are any...

Everybody gets email, all the time. Copyright Vkraskouski | Dreamstime.com By Kevin King According to reports, people across the world will send and receive 269 billion emails in 2017. Internet Live Stats, which is the accepted global standard for such matters, and part...

When dealing with a gunman, try and find cover. © Nyul | Dreamstime.com By Colonel Sushil Kumar Singh (Ret.) Forewarned, forearmed; to be prepared is half the victory. - Miguel de Cervantes If someone tells you they felt no fear or unease when...

PII 101: AN FAQ Did your business lease photocopy machines for work and then return them without wiping other people’s personal data from the machine? Have you ever sent someone else’s personally identifiable information, including their name and address, or name and...

[A simulated image of a 1,700-year-old supply chain, in this case of the Roman Empire, which received most of its wheat and a large portion of its olive oil from its provinces in North Africa. Picture credit: Michael Hugos/SCM Globe] If your...

(Above: Donald Trump on the campaign trail in Gettysburg. © Georgesheldon | Dreamstime.com) In a rapidly evolving, technology-driven environment, where the IoT is a way of life, the incoming administration faces a number of new challenges, especially from a security perspective. Here...

The 5 Real World Things You Really Do Have To Keep In Mind To Secure Your Virtual World: Verify Credentials, Have Pinch Point Admission, Validate Vendors, Implement Physical Access Protocols To Devices, and Be Able To Trust Your Staff In the aftermath...

If you’re a casino in the U.S., or a casino that is part of a U.S. group, you’re almost certainly a non-bank financial institution (NBFI). You have a bunch of rules to follow, customers to know, patterns to watch out for, dollar...

(Picture above, courtesy IGA and Isle of Capri: The first riverboat casinos in the United States took off in Iowa on April 1, 1991, with the Diamond Lady launching off the shores of the city of Bettendorf in Scott County) Twenty-five years ago,...

[Picture above, credit © Outline205 | Dreamstime.com] By The Biometrica Blog Team Biometrica Systems, Inc., a Nevada corporation, is in the business of creating software and systems that link the physical to the digital with the intention of minimizing criminality, or events that...

[Pictured above: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where TDG is supplying Smart Cities Designs and Solutions as part of the Saudi Arabian National Transformation Programme, also known as Vision 2030, as viewed from space by moonlight; Picture © Anartis | Dreamstime.com, with...

(Above: The initial conceptual master plan for Kingdom City, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; courtesy Paul Doherty.) By Kadambari M. Wade Architect. Innovator. Integrator. Traveler. Paul Doherty, President & CEO of TDG [The Digit Group, Inc.], is one of the world’s foremost authorities on...

INTRODUCTION Ten years ago, the National Indian Gaming Association Chairman, Ernest Stevens, Jr., put in place an initiative called the Tribal Gaming Protection Network. The TGPN was envisaged as an advisory body that could provide resources to protect Tribes from internal and...

Contrary to what people think, bitcoin isn’t made for the bad guys. It’s actually the perfect tool for regulators, investigators, banks and NBFIs like casinos that want an absolute audit trail By Joseph Ciccolo The world of financial surveillance is moving into...

By The Biometrica Blog Team This case study examines how members of an England-based gang of Turkish-origin poker cheats, found guilty of a ‘conspiracy to cheat’ earlier this year in London, had been spotted on several occasions operating in the United States over...

By The Biometrica Blog Team Butch Pracale, the Director of Surveillance at the Four Queens Resort and Casino doesn’t like to share information. “I’m paranoid,” he laughs. “I watch out for the bad guys.” He’s done just this — looking out for...

By Colonel Sushil Kumar Singh In the 2003 historical epic, The Last Samurai, a striking conversation plays out between Ken Watanabe’s Katsumoto (the Samurai lord) and Capt. Nathan Algren, the war hero turned wastrel turned Japanese Imperial Army trainer. Algren, played by...

By Wyly Wade Last month, NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, released an initial version of a framework of standards to help developers of cyber-physical systems (CPS) build cybersecurity and privacy into their designs. This week, NIST announced that their Smart Grid Advisory Committee...

By David Garcia Here’s that big question: Are our products really good enough to catch you a cheater or a card thief? Here’s the short answer: They are. The longer answer: Well, I’m an IT guy with military experience. I have no...