Thread: 21 charged in $4 million takedown of international car theft ring

I.C.E. News Release

TRANSNATIONAL GANGS

10/28/2015


21 charged in $4 million takedown of international car theft ring

TOTOWA, N.J. — Twenty-one people were charged by the New Jersey Attorney General Tuesday following the takedown of a major international carjacking and stolen car trafficking ring. The ring stole luxury cars in New Jersey and New York and shipped the cars to West Africa and other places where they were resold for large profits.

U.S. Immigration and Custom's Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), along with multi-agency teams, arrested 18 of those individuals Thursday on racketeering, carjacking and money laundering charges. Three fugitives remain at large.

About 90 stolen cars worth more than $4 million were recovered during "Operation 17 Corridor," a 16-month HSI investigation led by the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice and the New Jersey State Police, along with the Port Authority of New York, the New Jersey Police, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and 11 other agencies.

“This operation clearly demonstrates the combined strength of law enforcement in attacking a plague of property crime that has run a toll in the millions of dollars on our community,” said Kevin Kelly, acting special agent in charge of HSI Newark. “These individuals were part of an elaborate ring of international car thieves. By working together on the Border Enforcement Security Task Force, we are able to multiply our resources and build on our commitment to the protection of American people on a local and national level.”

According to court documents, the types of vehicles frequently sought included models of Land Rover, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Maserati, Porsche, Jaguar and Bentley. Some cars were taken through carjackings, while others were stolen from locations where the thieves were able to get them with one or more of their electronic keys or key fobs, which are critical to the resale value of the cars.

Three men were charged as leaders of the auto theft trafficking ring. Within the ring, individuals filled different roles, including carjacker, car thief, wheel man, fence, shipper and buyer. Shippers would load the cars into shipping containers, which were taken to ports for transport by ship to West Africa.

“The criminals in this ring scouted golf courses, pricey restaurants, malls and suburban driveways to find the specific luxury cars they coveted, working in teams to commit armed carjackings and other thefts,” said Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman. “While fortunately we have not had anyone shot or murdered during a carjacking in this case, we’ve seen in other cases how quickly things can turn deadly when carjackers carry out the type of armed ambush this ring committed. We’ve completely dismantled this dangerous network and charged its members with first-degree crimes.”

There were multiple levels of conspirators through which the stolen cars typically moved before reaching their ultimate destinations. The conspirators arrested within this organization would generally buy stolen cars directly from a theft crew or a lower-level conspirator within the organization. They then moved the car up to a higher-level person, or, in the case of a high-ranking conspirator, sold the car directly to a buyer. The stolen cars were sold both domestically and internationally.

Domestically, the stolen vehicles have been found in Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Georgia, Texas, and New Jersey. Internationally, the vehicles were most frequently exported to West Africa, including the countries of Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea, and Gambia. Luxury vehicles can sell in West Africa for prices in excess of new market value in the United States.

Of the 90 vehicles recovered, 23 were recovered at ports used by the ring, including Port Newark, Port Elizabeth, Global Terminal in Bayonne, and the Howland Hook Seaport in Staten Island, New York. Investigators believe that additional vehicles were being moved by this criminal enterprise beyond those recovered in the investigation.

https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/21...car-theft-ring

NOVEMBER 2, 2015

African immigrant population in U.S. steadily climbs

BY MONICA ANDERSON


African immigrants make up a small share of the U.S. immigrant population, but their numbers are growing – roughly doubling every decade since 1970, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census data.

There were 1.8 million African immigrants living in the U.S. in 2013, up from 881,000 in 2000 and a substantial increase from 1970, when the U.S. was home to only 80,000 foreign-born Africans. They accounted for 4.4% of the immigrant population in 2013, up from 0.8% in 1970.

The growth is evident among recently arrived immigrants. When compared with other major groups who arrived in the U.S. in the past five years, Africans had the fastest growth rate from 2000 to 2013, increasing by 41% during that period. (Africans are also a rapidly growing segment of theblack immigrant population in the U.S., increasing by 137% from 2000 to 2013.)

The transatlantic slave trade beginning in the 16th century brought hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans to the U. S., but significant voluntary migration from Africa is a relatively new trend.

One factor behind this recent wave can be traced to theRefugee Act of 1980, which made it easier for those fleeing conflict-ridden areas, such as Somalia and Ethiopia, to resettle in the U.S. Back then, less than 1% of all refugee arrivals were from Africa, compared with 32% today, according to figures from the U.S. State Department’sRefugee Processing Center. Statistics from the Yearbook of Immigration Statistics confirm this point.

Among refugee arrivals in 2013, five of the top 10 countries of nationality were in Africa: Somalia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia.



African immigrants from the sub-Saharan region are also more likely than immigrants overall to enter the U.S. through the diversity visa program – an act passed in 1990 to encourage immigration from underrepresented nations. This legislation was initially intended to boost the number of Europeans migrating to the U.S., but many Africans have also benefited from the initiative.

Foreign-born Africans come from all over the continent, but the most common countries of origin for African immigrants are Nigeria, Ethiopia, Egypt, Ghana and Kenya. These five countries accounted for nearly half of the foreign-born African population in the U.S in 2o13.

African immigrants are more likely to settle in the South (38%) or the Northeast (27%) than in the West (18%) or Midwest (17%), while the largest numbers of African immigrants are found in New York, California, Texas, Maryland and New Jersey. Each of these states is home to at least 100,000 foreign-born Africans.

In other states, Africans represent a higher percentage of the foreign-born population than the national average.

Many African refugees from Sudan, Somalia and Ethiopia have settled in South Dakota (Ethiopians are the largest immigrant group overall there). Africans make up 28% of South Dakota’s foreign-born population. Fueled by Minnesota’s sizable Somali-born community, 21% of the foreign-born population in that state is African. Africans account for a sizable portion of the overall immigrant population in several other areas, including Washington, D.C., Maryland and Maine.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank...eadily-climbs/

Report: Number of Immigrants to the U.S. from Africa On the Rise