Tag Archives: Crime

Another party on the rise

That’s what I see as I took notice of the BBC article ‘City trader sues UBS for $400m after rate-rigging conviction quashed’ (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz6ngvenxj6o). There is even a third setting on this horizon. We are given “A former trader who had his conviction quashed for “rigging” interest rates following a 10-year legal battle is suing his former employer UBS. Tom Hayes launched a legal claim for malicious prosecution against the Swiss banking giant, claiming he was the bank’s “hand-picked scapegoat” in one of the biggest scandals of the 2008 financial crisis. In July, Mr Hayes had his conviction overturned by the UK Supreme Court after it was ruled unfair. He had been jailed in 2015 for manipulating interest rates used for loans between banks.

Quashed as unfair? This calls into question a few issues. First there is the persecution. They either had the evidence, or they did not. Then the question becomes, how this evidence was obtained. I am not on the side of Tom Hayes, Im siding with the law, but all parties must do their due diligence. And on the other side The claim that he was a ‘hand picked scapegoat’ also requires proof (of some sort). Was he a convenient altar boy? Did he break any banking law? These are questions that come to mind. 

And the setting we are given is “The filing said Mr Hayes was taking legal action in a bid to “deter and punish UBS for its role in intentionally directing the destruction of an innocent man’s life for their own selfish reasons”. His lawyers claim the global banking giant misled US authorities with the aim of branding him the “evil mastermind” behind alleged Libor misconduct in an effort to protect its senior executives and minimise regulatory fines.

As I see it, to be branded ‘evil mastermind’ requires evidence of access and the simple facts that ‘others’ had his ears, did they? As it goes and as it tends to go, if he was a true ‘evil mastermind’ there is a lack of evidence, more a setting of assumed handed evidence through interviews. Was that the case? Then we get a much more sinister part. We are given “The complaint, filed in Connecticut, also claims UBS “gained control over the investigation into its own alleged misconduct” and conducted a “fundamentally flawed” investigation in order to pin the blame on Hayes. It added that UBS “offered Hayes up on a silver platter” to be prosecuted in both the US and the UK, and that those prosecutions were “engineered by UBS’s intentional false and misleading disclosures”.” The setting can be held as evidence. As I see it, The accusation of a “fundamentally flawed” investigation” could be investigated and seen as evidence on the whole. As well as “those prosecutions were “engineered by UBS’s intentional false and misleading disclosures”” at the time it might have been invisible, but now with time and the logs stamped as permanent it might be easier and after that amount of time, these people would have left their positions and now the UBS is on the hook. They will cry all points of mercy and that they didn’t know. But as I see it, we have in the first “senior executives and minimise regulatory fines”, that one raises the need for the fine to be upheld and even raised to at least $800 million and that is just for starters. The second setting is that the prosecution allowed a “gained control over the investigation into its own alleged misconduct” and that is, as I personally see it, on the heads of the prosecution. 

I think that Tom Hayes has a decent chance to walk away with a decent bundle of cash if he can proof even one of these accusations. The prosecution is decently tempted to withhold any assistance, but I see that as a wrongful act. They made the mess, they need to clean it up and as I see it, it is merely the first setting. You see, this comes out after 10 years. How long until someone at a bank gets to be clever and gets DML involved? That person merely needs to ask “How can I increase profit without breaking the law. What hurdles will I face?” That could get several non senior executives a pauplan that outstrips whatever they had their senior executives. A setting that some will see as amicable. So what happened in 2012 will not come to our shores twice a week. Is the prosecution ready for that? How many people will it convict allegedly innocent and after they spend their 5 year (or more) in Hotel Sing Sing, how much will these people claim at that point? It will be a while new party to come and everyone is invited to that setting.

Don’t believe me, wait for the second part of this musical because it will be awesome. The big banks self monitoring and they get to hand over billions for short sighted actions. It will be a grand new world to come. So have a great day and enjoy the payment of fines if you are due any.

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To all the dopey’s in the land

It sounds weird, but there are times that I have to flex my disgust. It might not be nice but at times you cannot stay indifferent to ignorance. And as such I start this Monday with a blog with a little scent of negativity. So Yesterday I saw an image. It doesn’t matter who send it as I do herald free speech at times. The person did nothing wrong and perhaps they believe this to be true. But I know better, or at least the evidence (I am pretty much always driven by evidence) gives my view the larger credibility.

As you can see, it is seemingly a leftish opinionated view. Some people feel that way and that is their right. But I have looked into this and what do I get as my response to “Based on what evidence?” I get:

As such, well I have read books (plural) the works of Stephen King, Alistair McLean, Desmond Bagley, John Le Carre, William Gibson, JRR Tolkien, JK Rowling, James S. A. Corey and many many more. I would feel safe to say hundreds more. So I have read books. So the person who did this:

Yet more importantly, I also read the UN report on this issue which I discussed in ‘That was easy!’ Which I did on February 27th 2021 (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2021/02/27/that-was-easy/) I shot holes in that document by some UN essay writer and I specified them, but there was one part I left out in the open. There was also the fictional setting from a book called ‘Blood and oil’ written by two wannabe reporters (as far as I can remember) and my response was “All whilst the report that gives us “the Crown Prince’s support for using violent measures to silence dissidents abroad”, a stage that is not met with actual facts and factual evidence.

It is evidence that counts. Do I know that he is innocent? No, I do not, yet the law was unable to prove this to any degree and more important the media made all kinds of speculation whilst hiding behind ‘might’ and ‘could have’, similar to the UN report where we see terms like ‘high confidence’ by the CIA and ‘high confidence’ is not evidence. These are the people who claimed Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and they never gave us the factual evidence even though even though they had around 16,000 troops there. Evidence counts and we weren’t given any. It is as I personally see it ‘an American smear campaign’ and Huawei can tell you what that is like. They are still going through it. So what was the ‘evidence’ I omitted? Well we have all heard of those torture tapes but no-one (I say again no-one) gave us any factual and forensic evidence of this/these tape(s). There is not forensic report stating how long this torture lasted, forensic evidence that it was the voice of Jamal Khashoggi and such matters. Perhaps it exists and perhaps it does not. In the meantime the media threw all kinds of loosely connected stories and more than one by people who were ‘protected’ by anonymity.

That is the factual setting and the story I referred to has the actual document that the UN spread, so feel free to check that reference and the list of issues I found within an hour, isn’t it strange that the media never did that? It is the result of a smear campaign on behalf of a stakeholder vying for the needs of unnamed people. 

As such I debunked the setting of “On the left, the guy who ordered his 15-man death squad to kill and dismember American journalist Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.” In the first what order was there and who gave it? Then we get to “kill and dismember”, how is that proven. There was never a body and as for kill? Apparently he is living the sweet life on Bora bora with his mistress. A speculation that was never proven either. We merely know for a fact that he was at some point in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. That is all we know for sure. The rest is speculation and even the UN resorted to an essay writer, to set certain cogs in motion. Is my evidence any better? I can agree that some people state that this is not, but I am resorting and critically analyzing the data we are given and I used that UN document. At no point did I use any Saudi Documentation. So have a great day (it felt good to get this of my chest yet again).

135 minutes until breakfast.

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When the media uses the media

Yesterday I saw a message that threw me (at first). The BBC gave us (at https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7747l84xp1o) and we are given ‘Hitman offered $71,000 for Canadian reporter’s assassination’. As I see it, it doesn’t matter who or where, but anyone paying more than $25K for shortening the life-wire of the reporter in question is over-inflating the problem. We are given “Convicted killer Frédérick Silva confessed to La Presse that he had offered the contract to anyone willing to carry out the hit on Daniel Renaud, who was covering his trial for three murders and an attempted murder in 2021.” The first thought I had was how people could fall for this. A convicted killer handing out the job to anyone for $71K? As I personally see it who is Frédérick Silva trying to escape from? Then we get “The “contract” was in place for roughly two months, but was never carried out, La Presse reported. Silva eventually cancelled the order, he said, because he had “more important issues to deal with”.” As I see it, when a person sets up a contract, it tends to be ‘fulfilled’ within a few days. So I am weirded out by a $71K contract that stays open for about 2 months and then withdrawn? The setting does not fit as some would say. Consider the premise of anyone in the lower security tier. Day one, scope where he lives, or where he frequents. Set the stage and set up a sniping position on day two. Wait for day 3-5 for the mark to show up and end his career (with a 7.62mm prop). In case of ‘dubio’ you could set it up in week 2 as well. So all the effort in two weeks explained and a convicted killer can’t do it and no one wants a $71K job? America with its problems and everyone in that setting passes up on a $71K job? And no one sees this? I had all these doubts, so I decided to take a look at the Canadian side of things and the CBC (at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/hit-man-wanted-to-kill-journalist-1.7397281) gave me ‘Notorious Quebec hit man wanted to have La Presse journalist killed for $100K’ with the byline “a threat recently made public revealed there could have been a third attempt three years ago, when a contract was put on the head of La Presse crime reporter Daniel Renaud. “I was shaken,” Renaud was quoted saying in La Presse. “I am always careful about what I write. For me, the best guarantee for my protection is my writing.”” I read two articles and the only thing dripping off the writing is ‘how considerate’ he pretended to be seen. You see, we get one additional thing. We are given “Quebec provincial police informed Renaud in the fall of 2022 that notorious hit man Frédérick Silva, whose trial Renaud covered the year before, had put out a $100,000 contract to have the journalist killed.” If that was true the journalist either had something no one has seen yet, or there is another personal setting. So when Radio Canada gives us “Frédérick Silva was arrested in 2019 after spending months in hiding. Three years later, he decided to become a police informant and was airlifted to a secure location from jail.” So he was in hiding for months? And decided to become a police informant? What a disgrace (to some). So consider that “notorious hit man” forks out a contract. I get it, that would be needed to create an alibi and if he was so notorious some would take the contract to gain favour and fame in certain circles. And it came with a $71K bonus? I have issues with this all and I am surprised that I might be the only one. It is not the person. I wonder if anyone outside of Canada knows Daniel Renaud? That is not an attack on Daniel Renaud, he might be very famous in Canada, perhaps even more famous in Quebec. But I (and many more) have never heard of him and that is fine in this world where there are more journalists than there are pools. If you add the self proclaimed journalists we get a pool of so many people that they can replace the population of a medium sized country. So when you realise these items in the equation. Consider what these articles were all about. About a failed attempt on a life where the slightly above average precision shooter could gain an easy $71K, or a reporter that has suddenly be pushed into the limelight. 

As I see it there are way to many debatable issues here for comfort. I will let you make up your own mind.

Have a great day.

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Good News

Well, it is good news of a sort. The Guardian reported yesterday (at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/23/violent-crime-murder-rate-fbi-2023) that ‘FBI confirms US murders declined in 2023, contrary to Republican claims’, it is here we get “Murder dropped by more than 11% in largest single-year decline in decades while rape and other crimes also fell”, as plenty of us consider the one nation that is mostly in decline (due to the Karen’s) it is nice that we see an article like this. We also get “Meanwhile, the broader category of violent crime nationwide decreased about 3%, said the data, which is audited and confirms earlier reporting from unaudited statistics”, as well as “the FBI said rape decreased by an estimated 9.4%, property crime dropped 2.4% and burglary fell by an estimated 7.6%”. Some say that it is nothing to write home about. The larger setting is that in a country as overloaded with 343,477,335 people both good and less so. These drops are nothing to be sneered at. I say hurrah to the police and FBI department on a national scale. I am still of the mind that criminals tend to find other ‘activities’ to fuel their need for greed and violence. What it is is anyone’s guess. In certain fields I tend to be a gloomy source of skepticism. And it is here that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said: “Data drives policy, and without having a complete understanding of the problem, we cannot effectively address this significant surge in hate violence” OK, I will agree with that. Data tends to be the driving instigator in understanding certain crimes. It is also a little weird that hate violence would be the driving power against sexual assaults and burglaries. One does not optionally fuel the other side and as such I feel uncertain what to think. That is the other side of data. The lack of numbers does not fuel the understanding into another side. It is not that we can state with any kind of ‘comprehension’ that (2022) 16 sexual assaults + 84 burglaries = 14 sexual assaults + 58 burglaries + 28 hate crimes (2023) it just presumptuously does not work that way. But in the end crime went down to some extent and for that we can say ‘hurray ye police departments’ and ‘hurray ye FBI’. We then get ““Our administration has improved and expanded background checks, announced the single largest investment in youth mental health in history, and been an unprecedented resource to states, cities, and local communities,” said Kamala Harris” I am less convinced here. I am not debating the soul and spirit of the thought, there is a larger stage to consider. I wrote a few years ago that the ATF is staggeringly underfunded and for the longest time there was no head at the organisation. There was a lack of IT funds and all kinds of settings that sets the ATF with decades of lack of innovations at their disposal. In addition, last year the WBUR (in 2023) gave its audience ‘Does the man enforcing the country’s gun laws have the tools to do the job?’ I had raised that amendment issue a few years earlier. They gave us “ATF protects the public from crimes involving firearms, explosives, arson, and the diversion of alcohol and tobacco products. Regulates lawful commerce in firearms and explosives, and provides worldwide support to law enforcement, public safety, and industry partners.” All whilst the gun lobby does everything to make things harder for the ATF. And all whilst all the Tech biggies (Amazon with AWS, Microsoft with Azure and Google with Gemini) have lacked in assisting the ATF in ways that work. I am not placing blame in any of those three, but the lack of innovation in IT power in the ATF is staggering. And in that setting the FBI and the local police forces need to do their work. Weird is it not? Then in 2020 we see ‘Rethinking ATF’s Budget To Prioritise Effective Gun Violence Prevention’ apart from the fact that the ATF was without a permanent director for seven years the wondering setting by Kamala Harris with “Our administration has improved and expanded background checks” but I have issues with the statement. I will fully agree with the statement that it was true, but consider a car in 2022 when it was going at a speed of 23 mph, the fact that it now does 43 mph makes the statement true, but when we consider that the fact that the ATF is to be seen as The Tiger Brigades (1974) where the officers relied on something not dissimilar of the Ford model T, the improvements would be impressive all whilst the criminals out there relied on their Lamborghini Countach LP400 (179 mph), you do see that the police has absolutely no way of winning. When we realise this a lot more could be done, but political players relying on the gun lobby donations are o so willing to throw a clog in the wheels (the origin of the expression saboteur) and the larger issue is not that America needs to stop crime. It is important that they are gaining access to the tools that allows them to do their job.

So I am not attacking the good news we were given, but the fact that the truth is that certain organisations were supposed to do their job with one hand on their back. The lacking funds for infrastructure does not help I reckon. 

All reasons for applauding the local police departments and the FBI for getting some of the work done. So to all involved: “Well Done!

I am now pondering a thought I had yesterday and a larger premise. Not sure yet what to do, but it is a consideration to behold. And now, with my eyes on the Scotia bank on Yonge street (Toronto) I will sign off and enjoy a glass of ice tea.

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Devil in the details

We all make mistakes at time, the issue is not that we make mistakes, the issue is on how to clear the error in question, that is always how I saw work, we (without question) try to work without error, the people that tell you that they never made a mistake are usually lying to you. Some hide it, some clean it up before it is noticed, these are merely two types, but in honesty, who would you prefer to be working for your company (or the company you work in)? So when I got wind of ‘UK concealed failure to alert EU over 75,000 criminal convictions‘, I had to take a step back, you see, this is not some failure, this is not some sall bungle, the quote we are give is “The police national computer error, revealed in the minutes of a meeting at the criminal records office, went undetected for five years, during which one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and as I see it it is not some small mistake, a stem like this does not work sometimes, it does not work or it works always. This leaves me to think that issues were filtered, optionally on purpose giving out a larger concern when we see “It’s an ongoing glitch that we need to fix. We are working towards getting that done“, I personally refuse to believe that this was a glitch, this was orchestration set to pass as a glitch, the question is why and when we see “There is still uncertainty whether historical DAFs [daily activity file], received from the Home Office, are going to be sent out to counties (sic) as there is a reputational risk to the UK.

In this the Shadow home secretary Diane Abbott gives us “It is bad enough to have made serious errors in relation to sharing information on criminals, but it seems that there was also an attempt at a cover-up. Ministers need to come clean. When did they know about these failures, why did they not make them public, and how are they going to prevent any repetition? A full, urgent investigation is needed.” In this situations she is almost right, I believe that there was a ‘cover-up‘, I merely think it ended up on a ministers plate and that person reacted poorly to the situation. And with ‘how are they going to prevent any repetition‘ we see a much larger failing. From my point of view the system was designed or was set up to optionally hide certain elements, yet the reason behind this is unclear. For some reason I believe that at least part of the reason is ‘fear of damaging Britain’s reputation‘, yet not in the way that this is shown in the article. When you look at the statistical numbers all over the field, consider that the crime numbers were supposed to be 30% (the one in three) higher (if every conviction based on merely one crime), what then? 

The Labour party would blame it all on austerity, yet the truth is (as I personally see it) much more refined. We have been in denial of what any government needs to do and we in turn do not try the criminal path, and let’s face it, we saw other news that allows to take care of the shortage of police officers. 

As issues like we see with Netflix are not resolved, and as another article gives us “This research shows that Netflix is ripping off our public services by channelling profits through tax havens even though it appears to have employees, property, and a substantial customer base in the UK,” yet linked to this is “the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) forecasts will make just £30m each from the likes of Facebook, Amazon, Google and Netflix“, so basically 5 companies see the light of optional international passing their revenue, avoiding well over £1,000,000,000 in tax payments, do you not think that this would have lowered austerity (and improved police visibility)? So when we see a group of losers wrongfully blame a tennis player for the environment, what if we ask the people in the UK all to renounce their Netflix subscription? Let’s not forget we have Disney Plus now (as well as Stan and a few others), I wonder how that massive hit will go over with Netflix. After that we start taking care of Amazon, Facebook and Google, the other four will actually be much harder to deal with, but Netflix is not, there are alternatives and the people protecting Netflix (and others) better realise that we are all about redistributing that one billions and taking their £ 350,000,000 profit away from them without any hesitation. 

Yet I digress, it is the crime statistics that might go out of whack, optionally impacting tourism if they had been released. Now we need to consider that not all crimes are alike, yet the article gives us: “including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states” and that statement surprised me, not because of those two, but because the number of armed robbery convictions would more than likely be much higher. We also do not know what happened to these people after their sentence, so there is the immigration and deportation part to consider as well. 

Yes, the article gives a certain lack (not judging), mainly because the start gives us ‘the Guardian can reveal‘, implying that this article had a pushed deadline to be first, as such the follow up in this matter would be interesting to read, I reckon that in the near future the Guardian would have a full page (or two) on this matter. So even if we had last may “There is a nervousness from Home Office around sending the historical notifications out dating back to 2012 due to the reputational impact this could have“, I personally believe that the Office for National Statistics (GOV.UK) has a much bigger problem in their near future, when the numbers going back to 2012, the interpretation of these numbers will suddenly get a very different story to content with. You might remember the sort of researchers that make a nice story when they get statistics and top line results. Their “when we look at these numbers, we can clearly see” and likeminded responses. When the results are a part of the 30% of convictions off, ‘we can clearly see‘ becomes an entirely different matter in this situation. 

It is the setting of “historical backlog of 75,000 notifications” and we see that, but not before we consider the National Crime Statistics site, which gave us a few parts we need to consider “4% decrease in police recorded homicide offences (from 728 to 701 offences)” for Homicide, “11% increase in police recorded robbery offences (to 85,736 offences)” for Robbery, and “According to the CSEW, there was no change in the proportion of adults who experienced sexual assaults in the year ending March 2019 (2.9%)” for sexual assaults which is up to March 2019. Now consider the fact that (optionally) there was no decrease in homicide, optionally a small increase, that the robbery numbers are higher than now and that sexual assaults did not stay the same, they went up. This would change the story for the Police department to some degree (not their fault) and the stage we see now that the investments required would change a whole lot because of the non registered foreigner effort. You see, I believe that the situation is less positive. I believe that “UK has failed to pass on the details of 75,000 convictions of foreign criminals to their home EU countries” has a much larger impact. In my mind there is no way that people will avoid looking at the statistics when 75,000 conviction cases are missing. I believe that there is a larger (speculated) play and it is not merely my point of view. When we look (at https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/focusonpropertycrime/yearendingmarch2016), we see again and again “theft from the person offences along with cash or foreign currency and mobile phones“, when we consider ‘foreign currency‘, yet why are these merely crimes by Brits? and why is it ‘cash or foreign currency‘? I believe that there has been a trend and even as 75,000 convictions do not add up against some of the numbers, but when we see “Crimes recorded by the police show a 7% rise (539,767 offences) in criminal damage and arson offences“, we see that 75,000 convicted criminals are more likely than not to be a much larger impact on the numbers and now we see correlation and optional co-variant impacts on some of the crime, yet even as a co-variant is not always a good thing, we optionally now see a larger impact and in this instance can the government give clear answers on whether these 75,000 criminal convictions are part of these numbers? I have reason to believe (I have no evidence) that this might not be the case. It is a larger setting and I personally believe that it was not merely a play to make the foreign governments not aware, it was merely a side effect. 

You see, if that was not the case, the issue of ‘foreigners and crime‘ would have had a much larger hit and a lot sooner, a total of 75,000 might force the Home office to take a different stance, one that costs money. It is my personal believe that there are elements missing. Not due to the Guardian of course, because that would take a lot longer to investigate and it is more likely that not that the Guardian and the Independent will be all over this when the impact of damage is seen to a larger degree (the size of larger remains debatable). 

Consider these statements:

  • In contrast a much lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 7 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (3 in 1,000 adults)
  • Around 3 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 1 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

Now consider the (optional and speculated) impact of the statements after the 75,000 convictions are considered

  • In contrast a lower number of adults had been a victim of theft from the person (only 9 in 1,000 adults) or robbery (5 in 1,000 adults)
  • Around 4 in 50 children aged 10 to 15 had been a victim of personal theft and around 3 in 50 had been a victim of criminal damage to personal property

The shift seems small, yet still visible, the fact that the damage to children is now (mind you speculated) approaching 10% is an actual much larger setting then before, its impact would constitute the need for the government to change its position on crime and support a different stance on crime related issues from police to prison it would impact the government budget to a much larger degree. Now, we need to remember that this is speculated and the impact of data is not clear at present, yet I remain that ‘one in three alerts on offenders – potentially including murderers and rapists – were not sent to EU member states‘ feels wrong, a system fails or works, it does not filter, this all feels like orchestration, yet the stage is not clearly set. The Daily Mail was off course a little more colourful with “More than 2,000 foreign killers, paedophiles and rapists are waved into the UK without criminal records checks as police arrest TWO every day” yet there is still no (clear) information on how the numbers impact, as I am personally not convinced that this was merely one system, as the shift in the department of corrections would unbalance the system with numbers that did not match the Home office and as such the issue would have been seen well within the 5 years it took now.

Could I be wrong?

Of course, the issue of data is largely unseen which give optional strength to my speculation, and we need to be clear, I am speculating on the matter, yet the issue is based on a larger issue, a clear IT issue, until there is a clear open presentation on WHY one in three did not make it into the register, I feel that I am correct. However, when we consider the sources that the UK has, I truly believe that this could not be contained to merely one segment, and that is my personal view on the matter. As such I believe the 75,000 will have impacted numbers all over the stage, the foreign policy part being the one that (finally) exposed it finally after 5 years.

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