Medical Device Maker Merit Medical To Pay $18 Million To Settle Allegations Of Improper Payments To Physicians
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/medical-device-maker-merit-medical-pay-18-million-settle-allegations-improper-payments
The fastest way to send criminal cash: money transmitters
How companies like Western Union and MoneyGram play a hidden role in laundering cash from around the globe.
No, this former vice president cannot have his seven planes back.
In May, the International Criminal Court ruled that Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, will not be compensated for spending more than a decade in detention on war crimes and other charges mostly overturned on appeal. He will not be reunited with his planes, villas and river cruiser, nor will he receive the $77 million he asked for in compensation.
After 12 years and more than 100 witnesses, history now records just one judgment of guilt: that Bemba bribed witnesses using Western Union and MoneyGram International, the world’s largest money transmitters.
Bemba and his allies, the court found, offered soldiers and civilians $100 or more — and in some cases relocation to Europe — to lie in Bemba’s trial.
In 2002 and 2003, Bemba commanded 1,500 Congolese soldiers who intervened in a conflict in the neighboring Central African Republic. His forces killed civilians and raped women and girls as young as 10, victims and other witnesses later claimed. The ICC found Bemba guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and witness tampering in 2016. The first two charges were overturned on appeal in 2018.
The bribery conviction held up. A leak of U.S. government banking records reveals new details about the alleged payoffs — and the role Western Union played in them.
Bemba and four aides, also convicted of bribing witnesses, sent more than $429,000 through Western Union from 2005 to 2015, according to a suspicious activity report submitted by Western Union to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department. It is unclear how much of this money was used for bribes.
The suspicious activity report cites hundreds of recipients in 23 countries and names three people who have not been identified before, including one of Bemba’s key allies, Narcisse Arido, who received nearly $30,000 through Western Union, according to the report.
The Western Union report is also notable for its timing. Financial institutions are required to regularly examine transactions and accounts for signs of money laundering and other types of financial crime. Western Union didn’t file the suspicious activity report, or SAR, describing the payments until 2015 or later — at least seven years after Bemba’s arrest.
The undated Western Union document is one of more than 2,600 records obtained by BuzzFeed News and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists as part of the FinCEN Files investigation. The reporting team found that banks, money transmitters like Western Union and other financial institutions have moved vast amounts of money for people accused of corruption and other crimes, often long after allegations were first made public.
https://www.icij.org/investigations/fincen-files/the-fastest-way-to-send-criminal-cash-money-transmitters/
J&F Investimentos S.A. Pleads Guilty and Agrees to Pay Over $256 Million to Resolve Criminal Foreign Bribery Case
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/jf-investimentos-sa-pleads-guilty-and-agrees-pay-over-256-million-resolve-criminal-foreign
Humanity RIP
Visiting New York City as a young man, I found a wallet on the street. There was money and identification in it.
I took it back to the hotel where I was staying and gave it to the people at the front desk, to turn over to the police.
They looked at me as if I were an alien.
I suffered from congenital idealism for most of my life. I was "innocent" which I regard as arrested development.
I held my elders in high esteem. I bought most of the bullshit peddled by education, government, movies, and the mass media.
I thought humanity was engaged in a valiant effort to raise itself up both economically and spiritually, and I was eager to play a small part in this glorious endeavor.
CONFESSION OF AN IDEALIST
I always had an intuition that the world was governed by a Moral Order, a moral ladder that we climb or descend.
"You can't feel good unless you are good." (This thinking was behind my game Scruples.)
Plato taught that before birth, our souls bathe in the presence of God.
Truth, Beauty, Justice, and Love, like light and warmth, are self-evident.
I couldn't understand why I intuited innate Order and Purpose (God) when there was so much injustice and suffering in the world.
Society taught that God doesn't exist and we live in an amoral mechanistic universe. This was avante guard thinking!
My soul did not get the memo. I was no longer in heaven.
It took me more than 50 years to figure out that humanity has been subverted by a satanic cult that wishes to enslave and destroy it.
https://www.henrymakow.com/2020/10/humanity-rip.html
‘Not a Body Double’: Navy SEAL Claps Back at Trump Over QAnon Theory on Osama bin Laden Death
The retired US Navy SEAL credited with the assassination of al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden is speaking out after US President Donald Trump amplified a baseless conspiracy theory suggesting that former US President Barack Obama’s administration actually staged a fake operation, complete with a bin Laden body double.
“Very brave men said goodby to their kids to go kill Osama bin Laden. We were given the order by President Obama. It was not a body double,” Robert O’Neill, the former Navy SEAL who allegedly killed bin Laden in a 2011 raid, tweeted on Tuesday. “Thank you Mr. President. Happy birthday @USNavy.”
"S**t. I just found out that I killed Osama bin Johnson. Drinks are on me, I guess…” he added in a tweet later that day.
O’Neill’s comments followed the US president’s Tuesday decision to retweet a post from a since-deleted account with reported ties to QAnon, the pro-Trump conspiracy theory movement.
Trump previously attacked Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden regarding the 2011 raid by SEAL Team 6.
“He opposed the mission to take out Osama bin Laden,” Trump said of his political rival on September 17.
“If it were up to Joe, bin Laden and [Iranian Maj. Gen. Qasem] Soleimani would still be alive, ISIS [Daesh] would be still on the rampage, and China would now be the dominant power in the world – not America.”
O’Neill continued to subtweet Trump and his Republican supporters in a series of tweets issued on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Despite being an alleged war hero, the former Navy SEAL has received a lot of negative press in recent years for his 2016 DUI arrest, which resulted in lessened charges, and alleged belligerent behavior on a flight in 2018.
O’Neill was most recently banned from Delta Air Lines planes after he posted a picture of himself not wearing a mask during a flight, the Associated Press reported.
“Thank God it wasn’t @Delta flying us in when we killed bin Laden… we weren’t wearing masks…” he said in a later tweet.
“Part of every customer’s commitment prior to traveling on Delta is the requirement to acknowledge our updated travel policies, which includes wearing a mask,” the airline said in a statement, as reported by AP. “Failure to comply with our mask-wearing mandate can result in losing the ability to fly Delta in the future.”
https://sputniknews.com/us/202010141080771293-not-a-body-double-navy-seal-claps-back-at-trump-over-qanon-theory-on-osama-bin-laden-death/
>>11070961 The fastest way to send criminal cash: money transmitters
This is related to the FinCEN disclosure
Pompeo Calls on Riyadh to Normalise Ties With Israel as Bahrain and UAE Did in September
Israel, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates signed the Abraham Accords on 15 September after two surprise announcements by US President Donald Trump, who brokered the historic deal. The accords enabled Israel to start official cooperation in a number of spheres with the two Gulf States.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has urged Saudi Arabia to follow in the footsteps of Bahrain and the UAE and normalise its relations with Israel, thus becoming the third Gulf state in history to do so. Pompeo also praised Riyadh's help in bringing Tel Aviv, Abu Dhabi, and Manama together, stopping short of revealing the nature of this support.
"We hope Saudi Arabia will consider normalising its relationships as well, and we want to thank them for the assistance they've had in the success of the Abraham Accords so far", the secretary of state said.
Pompeo expressed hope that Riyadh could play a part in convincing the Palestinian Authority or Palestinian leaders to return to negotiations with Tel Aviv in order to achieve a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US top diplomat further noted that the recent decisions by Abu Dhabi and Manama are indicative of the transformation the region is going through right now, suggesting that this is a reaction to the alleged threat from Iran.
First Two Gulf States Normalise Ties With Israel
Bahrain and the UAE officially established diplomatic ties with Israel by signing the Abraham Accords on 15 September in Washington, after US President Donald Trump and his administration brokered the surprise historic deal. The two countries, the first Gulf states to do so, expressed readiness to cooperate with the Jewish state in a number of fields, ranging from culture to regional security, in exchange for Tel Aviv putting its plans to extend its sovereignty over parts of the West Bank on hold.
Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. President Donald Trump, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Abdullatif Al Zayani and United Arab Emirates (UAE) Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed wave and gesture from the White House balcony after a signing ceremony for the Abraham Accords, normalizing relations between Israel and some of its Middle East neighbors
© REUTERS / Tom Brenner
Israel, UAE, Bahrain and US Sign Historic Abraham Peace Accords at White House
Saudi Arabia has neither criticised nor supported the deal, which was strongly opposed by Palestinian leaders. Riyadh has so far refrained from committing itself to going down the same path, noting that it is not yet ready to make that move. Saudi Arabia was behind an initiative that Arab states should only normalise ties with Israel after Tel Aviv agrees to a two-state solution deal with the Palestinians and returns to the pre-1967 borders. The initiative was proposed in 2002; however, since then, King Salman has de facto handed over power to run the country to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is known for his reformatory approach in terms of some domestic policy issues.
https://sputniknews.com/world/202010141080769628-pompeo-calls-on-riyadh-to-normalise-ties-with-israel-as-bahrain-and-uae-did-in-september/
REMINDER: MIKE YOU WORK FOR THE USA NOT ISRAEL
Democrats, Mainstream Media, Silicon Valley Try to Suppress Biden-Burisma Story
The Biden campaign lashed out at the New York Post after it reported Wednesday on emails showing that Hunter Biden arranged a meeting between an adviser to the Ukrainian company he worked for and then-Vice President Joe Biden, despite the elder Biden’s repeated denials he ever discussed business dealings with his son.
One email dated April 17, 2015, said, according to the Post: “Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure.”
Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said in a statement to Politico:
Investigations by the press, during impeachment, and even by two Republican-led Senate committees whose work was decried as ‘not legitimate’ and political by a GOP colleague have all reached the same conclusion: that Joe Biden carried out official U.S. policy toward Ukraine and engaged in no wrongdoing. Trump Administration officials have attested to these facts under oath.
The New York Post never asked the Biden campaign about the critical elements of this story. They certainly never raised that Rudy Giuliani – whose discredited conspiracy theories and alliance with figures connected to Russian intelligence have been widely reported – claimed to have such materials. Moreover, we have reviewed Joe Biden’s official schedules from the time and no meeting, as alleged by the New York Post, ever took place.
The Biden campaign’s statement is not a clear denial that the meeting ever happened — just that there was no meeting according to Biden’s “official schedules.”
The New York Post reported:
Hunter Biden introduced his father, then-Vice President Joe Biden, to a top executive at a Ukrainian energy firm less than a year before the elder Biden pressured government officials in Ukraine into firing a prosecutor who was investigating the company, according to emails obtained by The Post.
The never-before-revealed meeting is mentioned in a message of appreciation that Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma, allegedly sent Hunter Biden on April 17, 2015, about a year after Hunter joined the Burisma board at a reported salary of up to $50,000 a month.
“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the email reads.
An earlier email from May 2014 also shows Pozharskyi, reportedly Burisma’s No. 3 exec, asking Hunter for “advice on how you could use your influence” on the company’s behalf.
The blockbuster correspondence — which flies in the face of Joe Biden’s claim that he’s “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings” — is contained in a massive trove of data recovered from a laptop computer.
Meanwhile, those on the left discussed trying to suppress the story by not linking to it or sharing it.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/10/14/democrats-mainstream-media-silicon-valley-try-to-suppress-biden-burisma-story/
CIA Whistleblower Alan Parrot With Congressman Weldon, Osama, Obama, Biden! - Must Videos
Part 1 linked
https://youtu.be/iyYX2fiUZOc
Part 2
https://youtu.be/2et2Cru2Mn8
Under Cover of COVID, Philippines to Roll Out Mandatory National ID
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), the central organism tasked with collecting, compiling, and analyzing data in the southeast Asian nation, has begun a large-scale, house-to-house canvassing operation to preregister 9 million heads of households and other adults in the country’s lowest income brackets.
Due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the flagship program will initially be carried out in regions where COVID cases are low, and only on a voluntary basis. Despite reportedly widespread support for the new system (upwards of 70 percent), concerns over privacy have dogged the identification system since it was mandated by the Philippine Identification System Act and signed into law by President Rodrigo Duterte in 2018.
The legislation, originally drafted by a former head of the Philippine National Police, will include information already held by the PSA as well as the eventual inclusion of biometric data, such as iris scans and full fingerprint sets. Filipino researcher Josh Malonzo, from the College Editors Guild of the Philippines, tweeted out an all-caps warning on Monday about how the national ID program will dovetail with the highly controversial Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020, resulting in de facto mass surveillance.
Much of the justification for the national ID system revolves around efforts to consolidate the country’s 46 existing government-issued IDs and facilitating payments across commercial sectors. The central bank of the Philippines is among the major institutions pushing for the new system, which it hopes will increase the number of Filipinos with bank accounts from the current 29 percent to 70 percent by 2023.
Other powerful supporters of the nascent ID system are two of the nation’s biggest telecom companies, PLDT and Globe Telecom, who have been trying to introduce e-payments into a country where the majority of the population still prefers to use cash for day-to-day transactions, mirroring similar initiatives by banking and transnational corporations in other developing nations.
The preregistration period will run from October 12, 2020, until December 30 and overlap slightly with the beginning of the full registration process, slated to begin in November. The current chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP), Gen. Camilo Cascolan, instructed his charges to coordinate with the PSA and Local Government Units (LGUs), to carry out the pre-registration process, which will begin in the country’s rural areas and move on to the metropolitan regions next year. The PSA aims to enroll 108 million Filipinos by the end of 2022.
Working excuses
The momentum for a national ID system is not stopping at the borders of what the financial industry calls “emerging markets”, however. In the United States, legislation for a new national ID is currently sitting in the U.S. Congress awaiting passage. Introduced by U.S. Congressman Bill Foster on September 11, 2020, the Improving Digital Identity Act of 2020, avails itself of many of the same justifications used in the Philippines to generate consensus for a national ID, such as the coronavirus crisis, which has “exposed the lack of a comprehensive digital identity strategy,” in the United States, according to the bill’s advocates.
Nevertheless, in a country where digital payments are already ubiquitous, the raison d’etre used in the Philippines – namely, the desire to bring millions of unbanked Filipinos into the banking system – is not necessarily going to work as well in America, where the threat of cyberattacks and cybersecurity issues, in general, are instead cited as the top reason for the implementation of a national ID system, featuring many of the same biometric features Duterte’s compatriots will soon be compelled to provide to their government.
Foster’s bill quotes the director of the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network of the U.S. Treasury Department (FinCEN), Kenneth A. Blanco, to make its case by blaming identity theft as the root cause “behind much of the fraud and cybercrime affecting our nation today.” Just a few weeks later, the infamous FinCEN leaks conveniently revealed the global extent of fraudulent activities engaged in by the world’s largest financial institutions, covered by this author.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/78246/under-cover-of-covid-philippines-to-roll-out-mandatory-national.html
RAND and the Malevolent Encirclement of Russia
Over recent weeks a series of events in the states surrounding the Russian Federation has erupted that certainly are not being greeted with joy in the Kremlin. Each crisis center of itself is not a definitive game-changer for future Russian security. Taken together they suggest something far more ominous is unfolding against Moscow. A recent RAND study prepared for the US Army suggests with remarkable accuracy who might be behind what will undoubtedly become a major threat to Russian security in coming months.
The Turkish-backed attacks by Azerbaijan against Nagorno-Karabakh, igniting a territory after almost three decades of relative stalemate and ceasefire, the ongoing destabilization of Lukashenko in Belarus, the bizarre EU and UK behavior surrounding the alleged poisoning of Russian dissident Navalny and most recently, the mass protests in Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union in Central Asia, bear the fingerprints of the MI6 of Britain, the CIA and an array of regime-change private NGOs.
Nagorno-Karabakh
On September 27 military forces from Azerbaijan broke the 1994 ceasefire with Armenia over the conflict in predominantly ethnic- Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh. The heaviest fighting in years ensued on both sides as confrontation escalated. Turkey’s Erdogan came out openly in support of Baku against Armenia and Armenian-populated Nagorno-Karabakh, leading Nikol Pashinyan, the Prime Minister of Armenia, to accuse Turkey of “continuing a genocidal policy as a pragmatic task.” It was a clear reference to the 1915-23 Armenian charge of genocide of more than a million Armenian Christians by the Ottoman Empire. Turkey to this day refuses to acknowledge responsibility.
While Armenia blames Erdogan for backing Azerbaijan in the present conflict in the Caucasus, Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, sometimes called “Putin’s chef” for his catering empire as well as his close ties to the Russian President, has said in an interview with a Turkish paper that the Armenia-Azeri conflict was provoked by “the Americans,” and that the Pashinyan regime is essentially in the service of the USA. Here it gets interesting.
In 2018 Pashinyan came to power via mass protests called the “Velvet Revolution.” He was openly and heavily supported by the Soros Open Society Foundation-Armenia which since 1997 has been active funding numerous “democracy” NGOs in the country. As Prime Minister, Pashinyan has named recipients of Soros money to most key cabinet positions including state security and defense.
At the same time it is unthinkable that Erdogan’s Turkey, still in NATO, would so openly support Azerbaijan in a conflict that potentially could lead to a Turkish confrontation with Russia, without prior backing in some form Washington. Armenia is a member of the economic and defense association Eurasian Economic Union together with Russia. This makes the comments of Prigozhin especially interesting.
https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/78243/rand-and-the-malevolent-encirclement-of.html
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8840113/Facebook-squashes-New-York-Post-story-Joe-Biden-saying-needs-fact-checked.html
Secrets and Scandals of the Vatican
Speaker and Edge discuss the Pope, the Vatican, and the Catholic church. From the New World Order agenda, to the countless money scandals, the rampant pedophilia, and accusations of satanic practices within elements of the church, Speaker and Edge pack a lot into this one hour episode. When we take a step back to look at it all, the big picture is quite revealing.
The Pope’s new encyclical entitled, “Fretelli Tutti,” has been described by one of his top advisors as a warning that the world is “on the brink,” signaling, once again, that the world must take a new direction toward their globalist plans.
This video sheds light on many of the secrets and scandals of the Vatican. Please watch and share it with others.
This information is presented to you by The Speaker and The Sharp Edge, from Dig It! Podcast, on their H1veM1nd channel.
Be sure to read Corey’s Digs report on Church Pedophiles and Child Sex Trafficking Nests Intersect by The Thousands, by Corey Lynn.
https://www.coreysdigs.com/global/secrets-and-scandals-of-the-vatican/
kek
Goldman wonder is he's a chew