California fraudsters, public and private
First, we have a lawyer who has been DA George Gascon’s third in charge. Once again, it’s a good idea to read the whole thing, because it’s complex and an excerpt really doesn’t do it justice:
LA County Assistant DA Diana Teran, who oversaw George Gascón’s efforts to prosecute law enforcement officers instead of criminals and to release thousands of felons from prison early, was arrested Saturday on 11 felony charges related to the “unauthorized use of data from confidential, statutorily-protected peace officer files.” Like many alleged felons in Los Angeles County, Teran was out on bail less than an hour after her arrest.
Unlike many alleged felons in Los Angeles County, the Diana Teran scandal has the potential to topple the county’s power structure, or to put a severe dent in it.
That potential exists because of the sheer volume of personnel and criminal cases Teran was involved with that might now be challenged in court, and because her actions at issue in the criminal case allegedly involve coordination with high-ranking county officials, such as Inspector General Max Huntsman, District Attorney George Gascón, and current and former members of the county Board of Supervisors. …
It’s more convoluted than any script Hollywood could come up with. …
[For example,] Between 2014-18, as Constitutional Policing Advisor for LASD, Teran withheld exculpatory evidence from Internal Affairs Bureau (IAB) investigations and findings, leading to the discipline and termination of deputies who should have been exonerated.
NOTE: Those deputies’ personnel files would then contain inaccurate information about their actions, and could improperly taint cases they were involved in.
As I said, much much more at the link.
And then there are private actors who think big. This one’s about counterfeit postage. Does that sounds like a small matter? It’s not:
A San Gabriel Valley woman who was accused of using counterfeit postage on tens of millions of packages pleaded guilty Friday to defrauding the United States Postal Service out of more than $150 million.
Lijuan “Angela” Chen, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and one count of using counterfeit postage, according to a statement from the U.S. Justice Department.
Chen, a resident of Walnut, has been in federal custody since she was arrested in May 2023. A co-defendant, 51-year-old Chuanhua “Hugh” Hu — who authorities say is considered a fugitive hiding in China — has been charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the U.S., three counts of passing and possessing counterfeit obligations of the U.S. and one count of forging and counterfeiting postage stamps.
In all, authorities allege that the duo mailed more than 34 million parcels containing counterfeit postage labels from January 2020 through last May.
That’s a whole lot of parcels. Harness that energy for something good and you’d have something.
“34 million parcels” over 3+ years?
That must be true though, certainly the DOJ wouldn’t lie about the facts in a legal case, right? 😉
Were they acting as a subsidiary for Amazon?
Its turtles all the way down
The Democrats have certainly taken to heart the famous quote from Beria, the last- and longest lived- of Stalin’s NKVD chiefs: “Show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.”
One count of using counterfeit postage? Based on other cases currently being litigated, I would expect 34 million counts.
Withholding exculpatory evidence is a crime which should have exceedingly harsh punishments.
Here is an interesting news article though unrelated to the topic of CA fraudsters.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/29/us-news/wealthy-white-louisiana-residents-split-from-baton-rouge-to-form-their-own-city/
We need to see more of this, albeit NOT for racial reasons, but to help break the strangle-hold that large dense, uber liberal progressive cities enjoy over their state governments.
Educated guess on the why on the postage scam based on a previous career.
Trump ended the scam where the U.S. subsidized mail from China (because it was officially a developing country), that was a huge benefit to Chinese sellers on eBay, etc. this went into effect in 2021 per this article:
https://www.marketplace.org/2021/03/09/higher-u-s-postage-rates-send-vendors-in-china-scrambling/
The old policy made it so U.S. sellers could not compete with Chinese sellers, because shipping is very expensive and Chinese sellers shipping cost pennies.
Priority mail now starts around $8 and my guess average cost now is around $15. There is a discount for larger mailers. Priority mail is supposed to take 2-3 days.
So probably half the postage was fake, with a $150 million loss,
Based on what you’ve said Ray I wonder if the scam involved some form of freight forwarding to get that number of packages.
Thieves, gangsters and liars.
24/7
Maybe THAT’s what makes “Biden” so popular….
Jan 2020 – May 2023 = 41 months. 34,000,000 / 41 = 829,268 / month, or 27,642 / day (30 day month).
Those aren’t Amazon numbers – Amazon ships ~ 13.3 million /day, but they need hundreds of locations staffed by thousands of employees to accomplish it – but almost 28K / day isn’t exactly a rookie number, and it isn’t coming from one Mailboxes, etc. at Third and Maple.
What were they mailing, to whom, for what? And, was USPS incapable of noting that volume from one shipper? And that it was fraudulent? Which raises the question: How many other large shippers does USPS have as customers, and how cloely are they paying attention to their business?
(“Forget it Jake, it’s government….”)
I agree with Cavendish, they never say where all this postage was for.
you have to arrest the innocent, and free the guilty, is that not how it goes in San Angeles,
My guess the postage was for Chinese sellers via eBay, Amazon marketplace, etc.
And as LordAzrael mentioned freight forwarding.
Basically collect the packages in China and consolidate into one shipment.
Rent a container and ship it on their warehouses (plural per article and press release).
And then ship via usps priority mail to end customer
Using a mixture of real and fake postage. Probably 50% real to fake, hoping to escape detection.
So they probably actually shipped 64 million packages. Trumps change to Chinese post office postage destroyed the business model for many Chinese sellers.
What is strange, is priority mail usually tracks every step of the way. From pickup to mail centers movement to delivery. So scam was super easy to detect.
@ Barry > “Thieves, gangsters and liars. 24/7”
24/7/365.
Can we import some more like this guy through our open border?
https://notthebee.com/article/watch-nayib-bukele-inform-every-member-in-his-executive-branch-that-they-are-being-investigated-for-bribery-by-the-attorney-general
“I won’t be the president who didn’t steal, but was surrounded by criminals. I want to be remembered as the president who didn’t steal, and didn’t let anyone else steal either. And the one who put whoever stole in prison.”
https://www.thenewneo.com/2024/02/19/trump-milei-and-bukele-the-populist-three-at-cpac/
Indeed, that Bukele fellow is something else.
Hope he’s watching his back—or has people he can rely on doing so.
He’s stirring the wasps’ nest.
Going after some very powerful people who, depending on the level of their corruption, likely have very powerful—and nasty—people behind them who would probably prefer that their steady sources of income not, um, dry up…
(Cf. The Biden Family Syndicate, Inc.)