Car thieves use mystery gadget to hack in

Police across the country are stumped by a rash of car thefts.

In surveillance video of the thefts, criminals appear to open locked cars with a mysterious handheld device.

But Kyung lah reports nobody — not even the car manufacturers — knows how it works.

In Long Beach, California, a man walks up to a car and using a small box, opens it.
Right next to him is another man, also using a box, opens that car.
The problem — they’re thieves. No keys. Now they’ve swiped all valuables from the cars.

In Chicago, the exact same scenario. A man by the sedan, unlocks it. No key.

Alarm disabled by some mystery device. You feel you’ve been outsmarted.
I thought I had everything on lockdown. The same thing happened to Steven Doi of Corona, California.

His car’s computer system was hacked. But the crook didn’t get away clean. Doi’s dash-cam, pointing toward the front of his Escalade. They caught the suspect… pacing… holding some mystery box.

“I was like whoa. You see this guy walking back and forth in front of the car.”

Sure enough, in the video, you can hear the door locks go plop. In just 18 seconds, the crook emptied out $3,000 worth of electronics.

Same device, different cities.

Mike Bender,an ex-cop and auto theft expert, calls it the latest high tech crime tool hitting New York to Los Angeles.

And like police across the country, he doesn’t know exactly what it is.

“The ease that this is working and the frequency we’re seeing it reported throughout the US, means it’s only become a greater problem,” Bender said.

Bender says your car is a rolling computer. What it takes to break in aren’t sledgehammersnot sledgehammers but hacking devices.

If you can hack into the NSA you can hack into GM.

But federal agents may be closing on what these boxes are. Law enforcement sources tell CNN they now have one of these boxes in Texas.

They’re trying to figure out if this is the same device used in other car burglaries.

California Father and Son Rhino Horn Smugglers Imprisoned

LOS ANGELES, California, May 15, 2013 (ENS) – A father and son team from Orange County, described by prosecutors as being “at the apex of the rhino horn smuggling pyramid within the United States,” each will spend more than three years in prison on federal smuggling and money laundering convictions.

Vinh Chuong “Jimmy” Kha, 49, of Garden Grove, was sentenced to 42 months in federal prison for overseeing a U.S.-based operation that prosecutors argued played a direct role in a huge increase in rhinoceros poaching in Africa over the past several years.

Felix Kha, 27, the son of Jimmy Kha, also of Garden Grove, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for working with alongside his father in the scheme that generated millions of dollars that provided them with profits, as well as money to purchase more contraband rhino horns and pay bribes to customs officials in at least one other nation.

“The Khas’ smuggling operation fueled international demand and played a significant role in driving the price of rhino horn to nearly $25,000 per pound,” said U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. “It was that rising value of rhino horn that encouraged ruthless poachers to scour the South African wilderness in search of profits. The Khas played a role in pushing species like the African black rhino to the brink of extinction, which is why we aggressively prosecuted this case and sought lengthy prison terms.”

The rhino horns acquired by the Khas during the course of their conspiracy had a market value of up to $2.5 million, prosecutors say.

In their plea agreements, both defendants admitted that they purchased the horns in order to export them overseas to be sold and made into libation cups or used for traditional medicine. They admitted making at least one illegal payment to Vietnamese customs officials to ensure clearance of horn shipments to that country, and evading income taxes owed in 2009 and 2010.

The Khas and Win Lee were sentenced this afternoon by U.S. District Judge Christina Snyder, who said the Khas engaged in “conduct not acceptable by anyone in the world.”

Calling the matter a “serious crime against the environment and wildlife,” Judge Snyder said, “There are portions of Africa where the rhino is gone, and Lord knows if they will ever come back.”

In addition to the prison terms, the Khas were each ordered to pay a $10,000 fine. Judge Snyder also ordered them to pay a cumulative total of more than $185,000 in tax fraud penalties to the Internal Revenue Service.

Both Khas, along with the father’s company, were also ordered to pay a total of $800,000 in restitution to the Multinational Species Conservation Fund, a fund managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to support international efforts to protect and conserve rhinos and other critically endangered species around the world.

A third defendant in the case, Win Lee Corporation, which is owned by Jimmy Kha, was sentenced today to five years of probation and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine after it pleaded guilty to charges of smuggling and wildlife trafficking.

The Khas each pleaded guilty last September to five felony counts – conspiracy, smuggling, wildlife trafficking in violation of the Lacey Act, money laundering and tax evasion.

The Khas were among 14 people charged with federal crimes as a result of “Operation Crash,” an ongoing investigation led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

“On average, a rhino is slaughtered in Africa every 11 hours to feed the black market for their horns,” said Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe. “Criminals in this country who are cashing in on this illegal trade should know that the United States will hold them accountable for their crimes and do everything possible to protect wild populations of rhinos.”

Rhinoceros are a prehistoric species and one of the largest herbivores on earth. All rhinoceros species are protected under U.S. and international law, and the black rhinoceros is listed as an endangered species.

Despite national and international protection efforts dating back 40 years, the demand for rhino horn and black market prices have skyrocketed recently due to the value that some cultures have placed on the horns for ornamental carvings, good luck charms or purported medicinal purposes.

For decades, rhino poaching was an isolated event in countries like South Africa, where the number of wild rhinos illegally killed there averaged 15 animals a year – until 2008 when the Khas began trafficking rhino horns.

Rhino horns seized by Vietnamese authorities (Photo by Tom Millikan

At the peak of the Khas’ wildlife trafficking conspiracy in 2011, 448 wild rhinos were slaughtered that year for their horns in South Africa alone. Between 2007 and the end of 2011, the poaching of wild South African rhinos increased 3,400 percent.

In sentencing papers filed in U.S. District court, prosecutors argued that “although they themselves did not shoot the rhinos, defendants Jimmy and Felix Kha share direct culpability for the recent spike in the price of rhino horn, the increase in Vietnamese and Chinese demand for rhino, and thus the consequent wholesale slaughter of rhinos in the wild in Africa in recent years.”

From January 2010 through February 2012 the Khas conspired with others throughout the United States to purchase white and black rhinoceros horn with the knowledge that these animals were protected by federal law as endangered and threatened species.

“The Khas engaged in egregious criminal conduct by taking the horns of a species on the brink of extinction and making millions of dollars in the illegal trade in rhino horns,” said Ignacia S. Moreno, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division. “The Khas’ sentence sends a strong message that those who violate the law by illegally trading in rhino horns will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Operation Crash is an investigation being conducted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has received extensive assistance from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, IRS – Criminal Investigation, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.

The case against the Khas was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California and the Department of Justice’s Environmental Crimes Section.

Boy accused in killing of his sister hears charges

A 12-year-old boy accused of fatally stabbing his 8-year-old sister in their Central California home appeared Wednesday at closed juvenile court proceedings to hear the charges against him.

After the hearing, the boy’s attorney, Mark Reichel, said the family of the two children wants to be left alone.

“As they travel down this incredibly difficult path, they are obviously extremely concerned about their son, who they also dearly love,” he said.

The boy was charged with second-degree murder and a special allegation for use of a dangerous weapon for the death of Leila Fowler. No plea was entered.

Reichel and his law partner Steve Plesser said after the hearing that they had not yet seen the state’s evidence implicating the boy in the killing that terrified Calaveras County.

The attorneys declined to speak about the details of the case during brief statements after the hearing.

Ken Rosenfeld, a Sacramento legal analyst and attorney, said that under California criminal statutes, if the boy is convicted he cannot be held past his 25th birthday.

Most young people convicted of similar crimes are paroled by age 19 or 20, said Rosenfeld, who is not associated with the case.

“The juvenile court system is designed for rehabilitation,” Rosenfeld said. “If his sentence follows precedent and he does well in the system and doesn’t get himself in trouble, he’ll be out when he’s 19 or 20.”

The boy was arrested Saturday after a two-week manhunt for a mystery intruder the boy had said he saw in the home before he found his sister bleeding.

On Tuesday, Reichel told The Associated Press the youngster might have lied about seeing a long-haired man fleeing the scene, but that doesn’t make the boy the killer.

He said his client might have made up a “macho” story about scaring away the intruder because he was scared.

The AP is withholding the boy’s name because he is a juvenile, and Wednesday’s hearing in juvenile court was not open to the public,

Meanwhile, a recording of a 911 call indicates a woman who identified herself as the mother of Leila Fowler believed the girl was fine when she called authorities from another location.

In the recording released Tuesday, a woman can be heard calling 911 after getting a call about a mystery intruder from the girl’s 12-year-old brother.

The caller said the children, including Leila Fowler, were OK.

“My children are at home alone and a man just ran out of our house. My older son was in the bathroom and my daughter started screaming. He came out and a man was in the house,” the panicked caller says in the call made April 27. “They said they’re OK.”

She added, “My daughter is freaking out right now.”

In fact, Leila Fowler was dying of stab wounds.

For two weeks, Calaveras County sheriff’s investigators searched door to door for witnesses and evidence.

The children’s father, Barney Fowler, was at a Little League game, and the siblings were home alone. The boy called his father and his fiancee to report that Leila had been attacked, and the fiancee called 911 and referred to the children as her own. The couple then sped home.

Frightened residents locked their doors and loaded weapons, fearing that a random attack had taken place in their midst.

“How does a 12-year-old commit the perfect crime?” said Reichel, whose firm was part of a team that two years ago successfully defended members of the Hmong community, including former Gen. Vang Pao, against charges they plotted to overthrow the government of Laos.

Reichel declined to comment on the emotional state of the boy or his family.

“They’re going through a very difficult time,” he said.

Barney Fowler spoke briefly with AP on Monday and said, “Until they have the proper evidence to show it’s my son, we’re standing behind him. If they have the evidence, well that’s another story. We’re an honest family.”

His 19-year-old son, Justin Fowler, described the family as “being in a fog.”

Lawyer-client secrecy trumps child-abuse reporting duty

A therapist or other medical professional who learns evidence of possible child abuse is required to report it to authorities or face criminal prosecution under California law. But suppose the therapist gets that information while working as an expert consultant for a criminal defense lawyer, whose client communications are supposed to be confidential?

The answer is that the therapist’s lips are sealed, according to a state appeals court. In a ruling that set a new precedent for trial judges in the state, the Second District Court of Appeal said the lawyer-client privilege of confidentiality, which protects a defendant’s right to a fair trial, outweighs any duty to report suspicions of child abuse.

The case involved a 10-year-old boy named Elijah, who was accused by Los Angeles County prosecutors in December 2011 of setting an arson fire. Elijah’s public defender questioned whether the fourth-grader understood the legal proceedings and asked a juvenile court judge to appoint a psychologist, Catherine Scarf, to evaluate him. Scarf was on the court’s approved panel of experts, but prosecutors objected to her selection because she said in advance that if she learned during her assessment that Elijah had been abused or neglected, she would notify only his lawyer and would not report to police or child protection authorities. She said she would take the same steps if she found out that the youth had threatened to seriously harm someone, a circumstance in which a therapist is normally required by law to notify the potential victim.

There’s been no indication that Elijah actually was abused or made any threats. But his case has been put on hold while the courts decide whether Scarf’s promise of confidentiality barred her from serving on his defense team. The juvenile court judge said it did, but the appeals court disagreed.

Elijah has a right to have an expert assisting his lawyer, and that includes a “right to speak in confidence to that expert,” Presiding Justice Dennis Perluss said in a 3-0 ruling May 8. “Reporting information obtained from the client while assisting defense counsel plainly violates the lawyer-client privilege … and potentially jeopardizes a criminal defendant’s right to a fair trial.”

Even if a defendant used a confidential discussion to threaten injury or death to another person, the court said, a therapist may be acting reasonably by reporting only to the defense lawyer, who would then have to decide whether the threat was imminent and serious enough to require contacting police.

At least that’s how the balance has been struck under the law, which the Legislature could always decide to change, Perluss said.

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