By a Biometrica staffer Anyone can, potentially, help in the battle against human trafficking. How? One possible place to start is by learning and researching on spotting some typical signs and indicators of this tragic crime. So, if you happen to come...
By a Biometrica staffer On Friday, Feb. 4, the Justice Department announced that Aaron Crawford of Maryland had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. Why? For engaging in what Attorney General Merrick B....
By a Biometrica staffer In this piece, we look at the DHS Blue Campaign Enhancement Act, introduced in both chambers of Congress, which seeks to increase coordination between various components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and augment the Blue Campaign....
By a Biometrica staffer In July, Biometrica wrote about how human traffickers adapted to the "new normal" after Covid-19 and appeared to be increasingly targeting children online, even as the pool of vulnerable persons who could be recruited by these criminals grew,...
By a Biometrica staffer Only yesterday, Dec. 2, Europol announced the results of a massive international law enforcement operation that targeted money mules. The operation, codenamed EMMA 7 (i.e. the European Money Mule Action), involved 26 countries including the U.S., and led...
By a Biometrica staffer The multi-billion dollar casino industry, possibly much like several other sectors, has sometimes been a target of unscrupulous characters who try and use the cover of a legitimate business to surreptitiously carry out criminal activities. When it comes...
By Aara Ramesh In an earlier story in this series on sports betting, we wrote about how just as there have been wagers (legal or otherwise) placed on sporting outcomes as long as there have been sports, match-fixing has existed just as...
By Deepti Govind Earlier this month, there were reports of a 12-state human trafficking, joint undercover sting, called Operation United Front, that led to the arrests of 102 people. Through the operation, 47 victims were rescued, including two minors. As part of...
By a Biometrica staffer Cultural property crime continued unabated throughout the global Covid-19 pandemic, and in some cases even surged to new heights, according to INTERPOL’s 2020 Assessing Crimes Against Cultural Property survey findings. In the Americas, the number of offences reported...
By Deepti Govind One in 10 people aged 18–25 and one in 30 people aged 13–17 experience homelessness each year. To put it another way, in a classroom of 30 students, at least one will experience homelessness this year, which means they...
By a Biometrica staffer Early in 2015, Kevin Kimmel, a driver with Con-way Truckload, pulled into a truck stop in Virginia, hoping to catch some shut-eye. He happened to glance over at an RV and saw a “distraught-looking young girl” in the...
By a Biometrica staffer The Global Organized Crime Index paints a "worrying picture of the reach, scale and impact of organized crime in 2020." The data driven analytics tool evaluated 193 United Nations member states. The 2020 report, the first published by Global Initiative,...
By a Biometrica staffer The latest report in the Cocaine Insights series, published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the Europol takes a hard look at the trade in the illegal drug around the world, highlighting some of...
By a Biometrica staffer U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced its first Continued Presence (CP) resource guide on Friday, July 30, targeted at assisting federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement agencies nationwide with their human trafficking investigations and prosecutions. The CP...
By a Biometrica staffer Two weeks ago, a Department of Transportation (DOT) Inspector General audit found that states fail too often when it comes to transmitting driver electronic conviction notifications in a timely manner to federal regulators, Transport Topics reported. What does...
By a Biometrica staffer The Covid-19 pandemic turned the whole world upside down in a manner of speaking, but for some sections of global society, the impact was darker and more pronounced. Last Tuesday, we gave you a brief overview of the...
By a Biometrica staffer An undercover investigation in middle Tennessee ended in the arrests of 18 men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday, July 12. The operation began on July 8 and...
By Deepti Govind "The true art in art theft is not in the stealing, it’s in the selling," Robert Wittman, who led the FBI’s Art Crime Team, told NBC News after the discovery of two stolen paintings by Dutch master Vincent van...
By Charlotte Spencer The Combating Human Trafficking in Commercial Vehicles Act (hereafter, the Act) is a relatively new law designed to help do exactly what its title suggests. The Act — S. 1536 — passed the House and Senate in 2017, and...
By a Biometrica staffer The Covid-19 pandemic has, undoubtedly, disrupted everyone's lives across the world. Yet, most of us have managed to find a semblance of normal and continue to follow our routines. So, it would be folly to assume that criminal...
By a Biometrica staffer Image Source: UNODC, based on the GLOTiP report One hundred and nineteen. That's the number of countries across the world that have never had a female leader. Women serve as heads of State or Government in just 21...
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 a Biometrica staffer Rachel Manna, an Iowa resident, pled guilty to posting the photographs and names of individuals assisting authorities with a narcotics investigation on her Facebook page, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement. She got this information...
By a Biometrica staffer A former resident of California was sentenced to 15 years and eight months in prison for forced labor violations, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Sharmistha Barai and her husband Satish Kartan were found guilty...
By a Biometrica staffer The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and other agencies were part of an international operation to disrupt drug trafficking on the darknet. As part of the investigation, charges were also brought on against...
By a Biometrica staffer Eight missing children were rescued in a five-day operation in the Indianapolis area, as part of “Operation Homecoming.” The children are between 6 and 17 years old and considered to be some of the most “at risk and...
By a Biometrica staffer Three men from Philadelphia were charged for their roles in a sex trafficking operation that exploited numerous minors from 2016 through 2017 by a federal grand jury, the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Andre Michael...
The number of crisis trafficking situations in the US increased by over 40% this April, when several states had already enacted a shelter-in-place order due to the Covid-19 pandemic | © Joshua Resnick - Dreamstime.com By a Biometrica staffer The number of...
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...