One of the country's busiest shopping streets has been closed as a man wearing gas canisters stormed into an office and threatened to blow himself up, it was reported. Tottenham Court Road in central London was closed after police received emergency calls at midday. Scotland Yard sent a hostage negotiator to the scene amid reports the man had held people hostage inside the building several floors up. Pictures emerged of computer and office equipment being thrown through one of the office windows. A police spokesman said it was "too early to say if the suspect was armed or indeed had taken any hostages" but businesses and nearby buildings were evacuated. Joaqam Ramus, who works at nearby Cafe Fresco, said before being evacuated: "There was talk of a bomb and somebody having a hostage in a building. "All Tottenham Court Road is closed and so are we - the police told us to shut. "We don't know what it is but it seems someone has a hostage."
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Busy London street evacuated over ‘hostage situation’
POLICE have been called to a potential hostage situation after Tottenham Court Road in London, one of the country’s busiest shopping streets, was closed. Businesses and shoppers were evacuated from the area at midday. Scotland Yard said it had sent a negotiator to the scene after reports of a man throwing furniture out of a window several floors up. A spokesman said it was “too early to say if the suspect was armed or indeed had taken any hostages”. Joaqam Ramus, who works at nearby Cafe Fresco, said before being evacuated: “There was talk of a bomb and somebody having a hostage in a building. “All Tottenham Court Road is closed and so are we - the police told us to shut. “We don’t know what it is but it seems someone has a hostage.” A spokesman for Transport for London could not confirm details of the ongoing operation but confirmed they were “aware of an incident”. Staff from news website The Huffington Post UK were evacuated from their building after a man reportedly wearing a gas canister threatened to blow himself up in the adjoining building, they said. People near the scene reported shots being fired and said computers and equipment had been thrown out of the windows of the office block housing the Huffington Post. Huffington Post UK executive editor Stephen Hull posted a video on Twitter of an office worker who saw the man enter the building. Abby Baafi, 27, the head of training and operations at Advantage, a company which offers HGV courses, told Mr Hull the man had targeted her offices and was currently holding four men hostage. In a video posted on YouTube, she said: “What happened is, we were in the office and someone came in. He asked him what his name was and he said it was Michael Green. “I recognised him because he was one of our previous customers but he is not quite stable - mentally stable. “He turned up, strapped up with gasoline cylinders, and threatened to blow up the office. “He said he doesn’t care about his life. He doesn’t care about anything, he is going to blow up everybody. “He was specifically looking for me but I said ‘My name’s not Abby’ and he let me go.” Ms Baafi said the man failed the HGV training course and wanted his money back.
Credit card fraud websites shut down on three continents
Three men have been arrested and 36 criminal websites selling credit card information and other personal data shut down as part of a two-year international anti-fraud operation, police have confirmed. The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA), working with the FBI and US Department of Justice, as well as authorities in Germany; the Netherlands; Ukraine; Australia and Romania, swooped after identifying the sites as specialising in selling card and bank details in bulk. The move comes as a blow to what is a growing black market for stolen financial data. Detectives estimated that the card information seized could have been used to extract more than £500m in total by fraudsters. SOCA claimed it has recovered more than two and a half million items of compromised personal and financial information over the past two years. “The authorities have shut down 36 websites but it is difficult to know how many other people had access to that data. They could spring back up somewhere else if a gang is not eradicated completely,” said Graham Cluley of internet security firm Sophos. He added: “This is big business and, just as in any legitimate company there are people who specialise in different things, so there are those who actually get their hands on the personal data and those who sell it on; they are not often the same person.” An investigation by The Independent last summer found that scammers were making a “comfortable living” getting their hands on sensitive information and selling it online. Card details were being offered for sale for between 4p and £60 per card – depending on the quality – according to one source in the business. Some cards would be sold with incomplete or unreliable information; others ready to use. Some of the card details for sale on the websites shut down by SOCA were being sold for as little as £2 each. Investigators said that the alleged fraudsters were using Automated Vending Carts, which allowed them to sell large quantities of stolen data. They are said to be a driver of the growth in banking fraud over the last 18 months because of the speed with which stolen data can be sold. Lee Miles, Head of Cyber Operations for SOCA said: “This operation is an excellent example of the level of international cooperation being focused on tackling online fraud. Our activities have saved business, online retailers and financial institutions potential fraud losses estimated at more than half a billion pounds, and at the same time protected thousands of individuals from the distress caused by being a victim of fraud or identity crime.” An alleged operator in Macedonia was one of those arrested, while two British men accused of buying the information were also detained. Britain’s Dedicated Cheque & Plastic Crime Unit also seized computers suspected of being used to commit fraud.
1.8 million complaints of fraud, identity theft or some other deceptive business practices last year. This is up roughly 40% from 2010. 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states that had the most complaints in proportion to the size of their populations.
When times are hard, fraud often gets worse. Americans are under great financial pressure, and there is no shortage of criminals waiting to take advantage of it. According to the most recent report published by the Federal Trade Commission, there were more than 1.8 million complaints of fraud, identity theft or some other deceptive business practices last year. This is up roughly 40% from 2010. 24/7 Wall St. examined the 10 states that had the most complaints in proportion to the size of their populations.
More than 30 different categories of complaints were recorded in 2011. Identity theft was the most common one, representing 15% of all complaints. Many other categories relate to a growing number of Americans in debt as a result of the recession and the housing crash. Debt collection fraud was the second most common category, defined by the FTC as consumers reporting abuse by both legitimate debt collectors and those pretending to be. Other categories included banking and lending scams, as well as scams arising from promises of relief from mortgage debt.
The FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection has focused in the past five years on "last dollar frauds," such as mortgage foreclosure rescue scams. According to associate director of the Division of Planning and Labor David Torok, "These are the truly pernicious frauds that steal from the consumers that are facing economic problems." These frauds take advantage of consumers in need, "ripping them off under the guise of trying to help them."
Not surprisingly, many of the states that had the highest rates of fraud also experienced the worst of the recession. Five of the 10 worst-off states lost at least 25% of total home value from their prerecession peaks. Seven of the states on this list have among the highest percentage of homeowners who were delinquent on housing payments at the end of 2011.
According to John Simpson at Consumer Watchdog, "It makes sense that states with the highest levels of debt and biggest declines in home value would be the hardest hit by fraud." People is these states "were willing to try solutions that were obviously too good to be true."
While some of the states with the worst rates of fraud have residents that are struggling, many of these states also have relatively wealthy populations who carry a lot of household debt. Six of the 10 states with the highest rates of fraud have among the top 15 highest median incomes. Eight of the states are in the top 15 for mortgage debt per person, and five are in the top 10 for highest credit card debt, according to credit data analytics firm Credit Karma.
In order to identify the 10 states with the highest incidence of fraud, 24/7 Wall st. reviewed data from the FTC's Sentinel Network Data Book, which compiles the total number of complaints for each state. These complaints are divided between identity theft and a second category, which includes all other kinds of fraud. 24/7 Wall St. combined the total complaints of fraud per 100,000 people in each of these categories.
These are the 10 worst states for fraud.
America's Worst States for Fraud
10. New Jersey
Complaints per 100,000 population: 538
Total complaints: 47,336
Identity theft complaints per 100,000: 86.4 (8th most)
Recession home value decline: 19.2% (17th largest)
Homes late on payment or in foreclosure: 10.6% (3rd most)New Jersey had 47,336 fraud related complaints in 2011, or the equivalent of 538 per 100,000 people. The state had roughly 7,600 reports of identity theft last year and nearly 40,000 complaints categorized as fraud or other. Thirteen percent of fraud reports in the state fell into the "advance fee loans and credit protection/repair" category. New Jersey has, according to Credit Karma, the fourth highest credit carddebt per capita and mortgage debt per capita.
9. Washington
Complaints per 100,000 population: 546
Total complaints: 36,685
Identity theft complaints per 100,000: 72.2 (18th most)
Recession home value decline: 26.6% (8th largest)
Homes late on payment or in foreclosure: 6.2% (22nd most)In 2011, Washington state residents reported 36,685 counts of fraud, or 546 for every 100,000 people. The Mount Vernon-Anacortes Metropolitan region was a particularly hard-hit area, reporting a rate of 833.4 cases per 100,000 residents. The most common type of complaint was debt collection fraud, followed by Internet services and prizes, sweepstakes and lotteries. While the state is among the worst in several categories, identity theft is not a serious problem. Washington only ranks 18th-worst in the country.
8. Georgia
Complaints per 100,000 population: 568
Total complaints: 55,020
Identity theft complaints per 100,000: 120 (2nd most)
Recession home value decline: 26% (10th largest)
%19 > Total complaints: (6th most)Georgia only had the 13th-highest level of fraud and other than identity theft complaints. Meanwhile, identity theft complaints were 120 per every 100,000 residents, the second worst in the country. Creditcard fraud accounted for 17% of identity theft. Phone and utilities fraud accounted for 14% and bank fraud for 12%.
7. Virginia
Complaints per 100,000 population: 595
Total complaints: 47,581
Identity theft complaints per 100,000: 67.7 (21st most)
Recession home value decline: 16.7% (21st largest)
Homes late on payment or in foreclosure: 4.1% (10th fewest)Virginia's reported incidents of identity theft relative to the size of the state's population were about average relative to the rest of the country. However, the state had the fifth-highest rate of fraud and other complaints, at 527 incidents per 100,000 people. After debt collection fraud reports, the most common complaints were shop-at-home catalog sales, followed by banks and lenders. The state has the ninth-highest credit card debt per capita in the country, the seventh-highest mortgage debt per capita and the 10th-worst average credit score.
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14 charged in '£300,000 bank fraud'
Fourteen people have been charged by police in connection with a £300,000 fraud. Central Scotland Police said 34 people, most of them elderly, had been affected. They were allegedly telephoned by people pretending to be bank officials or police officers who claimed there was a problem with their bank account or cards. They were then persuaded to give their bank details or hand over their card to a courier. Police said 13 people had money taken, while 21 others were targeted but did not hand over any cash. During their investigation, links to similar alleged crimes in other police force areas were found and Operation Jenga was set up to share information. To date, police said 14 people allegedly linked to various organised crime groups have been traced and charged in connection with crimes such as being the courier to collect the bank card, allowing their bank accounts to be used to transfer money and carrying out transactions using fraudulently obtained cards. Now police are warning that anyone who allows their bank account to be used for funds to be transferred from victims and then quickly withdrawn could be charged with involvement in serious and organised crime. Detective Sergeant Frank McCann said: "We became aware of this scheme last summer and we set up an investigation which revealed it was complex and spanned the whole of the UK. "Thirteen people in our force area had more than £300,000 taken from them. In some cases their life savings were taken. There were attempts to defraud 21 other people out of their money. "As our inquiries progressed we discovered that many of these crimes had links to similar crimes being investigated in other forces. We set up Operation Jenga and made sure that information was shared with the Scottish Crime and Drug Enforcement agency as well as forces throughout Scotland and the rest of UK." He added that anyone contacted over the phone and asked to provide their bank details should end the call immediately. He said: "Neither banks nor the police will ever call and ask for your bank details. You will never be asked to provide your pin number and if you are you should never divulge it."
Brooklyn school leader charged with fraud
The head of a group of charter schools in Brooklyn has been indicted of bilking the state of more than $70,000 in taxes. Eddie Calderon-Melendez was charged with tax fraud, grand larceny and falsifying business records. State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said that while Calderon-Melendez earned a six-figure salary he "robbed the state of much-needed revenue when he failed to pay his taxes for six years in a row." Calderon-Melendez earned $1.4 million managing the schools from 2005 to 2010. He was arraigned Thursday and released without bail. Citing financial mismanagement, the city and state closed two of the charter schools earlier this year. The third remains on probation. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fake sheikh attempted fraud gang jailed
Four men have been jailed for an attempted £1.5m fraud which involved two people posing as rich Arab sheiks. They pretended to own a £6m home in an attempt to secure a "loan". The fraud was exposed when central London finance company Masthaven became suspicious and called in police, who organised a sting operation. The four had all admitted conspiracy to defraud by way of false representation. One of the defendants disappeared while on bail awaiting sentencing. Mortgage broker Jonathan Flynn, 38, of Pudsey, West Yorkshire, was jailed for four-and-a-half years. Shakil Ahmed, 36, from Paddington, west London, was jailed for three years in his absence, having fled while on bail. Ahmed Ali, 47, of Manchester and Shane Martin, 51, both of Tarporley, Cheshire, were jailed for two-and-a-half years. Flynn was also banned from being a company director for seven years. The Old Bailey heard that Ali was one of the men who posed as a sheikh. Another man accused of imitating a sheikh was acquitted. 'Forged documents' The court heard the police operation was staged at a West End hotel after Andrew Bloom, managing director of Masthaven, became suspicious of the gang. Jonathan Flynn and Shakil Ahmed were both jailed for their roles in the fraud Two of the men turned up posing as a pair of wealthy Arab brothers and were arrested. Prosecutor Jonathan Kinnear QC said the brothers, who did not exist, were put forward to guarantee the loan with an expensive property. The flat, which was on sale, had been "hijacked" using paperwork from the Land Registry, he said. Speaking after sentencing, City of London Police Det Con Lizzie Roberts said: "The gang used forged documents, a fake property valuation and dressed as sheikhs to try and disguise their true intentions, which was to commit a major fraud. "But none of this was enough to overcome sound business practices and an investigation team ready to act quickly."
