Richard #BigBaldy Uva, Alleged #Gambino Associate, Pleads Guilty to RICO Conspiracy Violation Related to Organized Crime Gambling Ring

Richard "Big Baldy" Uva, 44, of Trumbull, has pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act stemming from his involvement in organized-crime controlled gambling businesses.

Deirdre M. Daly, Acting U.S. Attorney for District Connecticut, said Uva, formerly of Stamford, entered the plea before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas P. Smith in Hartford.

"According to court documents and statements made in court, after a long-term investigation led by the FBI Fairfield County Organized Crime Task Force, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation and the Stamford Police Department, UVA, Dean DePreta and 18 others were charged with various offenses related to their involvement in an illegal Internet sports bookmaking operation and illegal card gambling clubs in Stamford and Hamden," the prosecutor said.

Uva and DePreta are alleged associates of the Gambino organized crime family, Daly said.

The investigation, which included the use of court-authorized wiretaps, revealed that UVA assisted DePreta’s operation of a large-scale sports bookmaking business in which gamblers placed bets with offshore Internet sports-gambling websites, particularly www.44wager.com based in Costa Rica.

"Uva served as the “master agent” for the bookmaking operation. In addition, DePreta, Uva and others operated a card gambling club at 2965 State St. in Hamden, where a house percentage, commonly referred to as a “rake,” was collected from every hand played."

Uva supervised the club’s operation, Daly said. "Uva also admitted that he committed acts of extortion while participating in this racketeering enterprise and collected “tribute” payments from independent sports bookmakers operating in Connecticut, which payments were subsequently delivered to Gambino Family associates in New York," she said.

Uva is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant on Oct. 24, 2013, at which time he faces a maximum term of imprisonment of 20 years.  He also has agreed to forfeit $250,000.

Uva has been released on bond since his arrest on June 13, 2012. DePreta has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

FBI analysis of the sports-betting web site utilized by the co-defendants has determined that the total gross revenues of the Stamford-based gambling operation were nearly $1.7 million from October 2010 to June 2011.

To date, the defendants who have pleaded guilty have agreed to forfeit more than $1.3 million.

This matter is being investigated by the FBI Fairfield County Organized Crime Task Force, the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation, the Stamford Police Department, the Bridgeport Police Department and the Connecticut State Police.  This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Hal Chen and Peter Jongbloed.

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Federal Police in Brazil Crackdown on Death Squad of Active-duty Law Enforcement Officers

Brazil’s Federal Police arrested 18 people Tuesday in a crackdown on an extermination squad that operated in Natal, capital of the northeastern state of Rio Grande do Norte.

The suspects, who include 11 state and municipal police officers, have been linked to 22 homicides and five attempted homicides, Federal Police spokespersons said.

Besides targeting drug dealers, the death squad engaged in murder-for-hire and killings of witnesses, according to federal authorities. More than 200 Federal Police took part in Tuesday’s arrests.

The suspects will be charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder and with membership in an extermination squad, Federal Police said in a statement. The leaders of the group could face prison sentences of up to 395 years.

This is the third time in two years that Federal Police have moved against a death squad comprising active-duty law enforcement officers.

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Will Legalized Pot Mellow Out Chicago's Murder Rate?

Illinois became the twentieth state in the Union Friday to legalize the medical use of marijuana. The law sets up state-run pot dispensaries statewide. They think it might cut down on the murder rate in Chicago if no one can remember where they left their gun.

Thanks to Argus Hamilton.

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Feds Use Spyware & Hacking Tools Including Remote Activation Recordings Via Cell Phone Microphones to Target Suspects

Law-enforcement officials in the U.S. are expanding the use of tools routinely used by computer hackers to gather information on suspects, bringing the criminal wiretap into the cyber age.

Federal agencies have largely kept quiet about these capabilities, but court documents and interviews with people involved in the programs provide new details about the hacking tools, including spyware delivered to computers and phones through email or Web links—techniques more commonly associated with attacks by criminals.

People familiar with the Federal Bureau of Investigation's programs say that the use of hacking tools under court orders has grown as agents seek to keep up with suspects who use new communications technology, including some types of online chat and encryption tools. The use of such communications, which can't be wiretapped like a phone, is called "going dark" among law enforcement.

A spokeswoman for the FBI declined to comment.

The FBI develops some hacking tools internally and purchases others from the private sector. With such technology, the bureau can remotely activate the microphones in phones running Google Inc.'s GOOG +0.26% Android software to record conversations, one former U.S. official said. It can do the same to microphones in laptops without the user knowing, the person said. Google declined to comment.

The bureau typically uses hacking in cases involving organized crime, child pornography or counterterrorism, a former U.S. official said. It is loath to use these tools when investigating hackers, out of fear the suspect will discover and publicize the technique, the person said.

The FBI has been developing hacking tools for more than a decade, but rarely discloses its techniques publicly in legal cases.

Earlier this year, a federal warrant application in a Texas identity-theft case sought to use software to extract files and covertly take photos using a computer's camera, according to court documents. The judge denied the application, saying, among other things, that he wanted more information on how data collected from the computer would be minimized to remove information on innocent people.

Since at least 2005, the FBI has been using "web bugs" that can gather a computer's Internet address, lists of programs running and other data, according to documents disclosed in 2011. The FBI used that type of tool in 2007 to trace a person who was eventually convicted of emailing bomb threats in Washington state, for example.

The FBI "hires people who have hacking skill, and they purchase tools that are capable of doing these things," said a former official in the agency's cyber division. The tools are used when other surveillance methods won't work: "When you do, it's because you don't have any other choice," the official said.

Surveillance technologies are coming under increased scrutiny after disclosures about data collection by the National Security Agency. The NSA gathers bulk data on millions of Americans, but former U.S. officials say law-enforcement hacking is targeted at very specific cases and used sparingly.

Still, civil-liberties advocates say there should be clear legal guidelines to ensure hacking tools aren't misused. "People should understand that local cops are going to be hacking into surveillance targets," said Christopher Soghoian, principal technologist at the American Civil Liberties Union. "We should have a debate about that."

Mr. Soghoian, who is presenting on the topic Friday at the DefCon hacking conference in Las Vegas, said information about the practice is slipping out as a small industry has emerged to sell hacking tools to law enforcement. He has found posts and resumes on social networks in which people discuss their work at private companies helping the FBI with surveillance.

A search warrant would be required to get content such as files from a suspect's computer, said Mark Eckenwiler, a senior counsel at Perkins Coie LLP who until December was the Justice Department's primary authority on federal criminal surveillance law. Continuing surveillance would necessitate an even stricter standard, the kind used to grant wiretaps. But if the software gathers only communications-routing "metadata"—like Internet protocol addresses or the "to" and "from" lines in emails—a court order under a lower standard might suffice if the program is delivered remotely, such as through an Internet link, he said. That is because nobody is physically touching the suspect's property, he added.

An official at the Justice Department said it determines what legal authority to seek for such surveillance "on a case-by-case basis." But the official added that the department's approach is exemplified by the 2007 Washington bomb-threat case, in which the government sought a warrant even though no agents touched the computer and the spyware gathered only metadata.

In 2001, the FBI faced criticism from civil-liberties advocates for declining to disclose how it installed a program to record the keystrokes on the computer of mobster Nicodemo Scarfo Jr. to capture a password he was using to encrypt a document. He was eventually convicted.

A group at the FBI called the Remote Operations Unit takes a leading role in the bureau's hacking efforts, according to former officials.

Officers often install surveillance tools on computers remotely, using a document or link that loads software when the person clicks or views it. In some cases, the government has secretly gained physical access to suspects' machines and installed malicious software using a thumb drive, a former U.S. official said.

The bureau has controls to ensure only "relevant data" are scooped up, the person said. A screening team goes through all of the data pulled from the hack to determine what is relevant, then hands off that material to the case team and stops working on the case.

The FBI employs a number of hackers who write custom surveillance software, and also buys software from the private sector, former U.S. officials said.

Italian company HackingTeam SRL opened a sales office in Annapolis, Md., more than a year ago to target North and South America. HackingTeam provides software that can extract information from phones and computers and send it back to a monitoring system. The company declined to disclose its clients or say whether any are in the U.S.

U.K.-based Gamma International offers computer exploits, which take advantage of holes in software to deliver spying tools, according to people familiar with the company. Gamma has marketed "0 day exploits"—meaning that the software maker doesn't yet know about the security hole—for software including Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer, those people said. Gamma, which has marketed its products in the U.S., didn't respond to requests for comment, nor did Microsoft.

Thanks to JENNIFER VALENTINO-DEVRIES and DANNY YADRON.

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John Whitehead Discusses "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State" on #CrimeBeatRadio

On August 8th, Mr. John Whitehead discusses his book "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State" on Crime Beat Radio.

Crime Beat is a weekly hour-long radio program that airs every Thursday at 8 p.m. EST. Crime Beat presents fascinating topics that bring listeners closer to the dynamic underbelly of the world of crime. Guests have included ex-mobsters, undercover law enforcement agents, sports officials, informants, prisoners, drug dealers and investigative journalists, who have provided insights and fresh information about the world’s most fascinating subject: crime.

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