News Blog

Theft of Trade Secrets

While Derek Wai Hung Tam Sing was employed at avionics firm Rogerson Kratos, he stole trade secrets related to his work on helicopter instrument systems and displays such as this; following his dismissal, he sent the proprietary information to the company’s competitors.

For an aircraft electronics company looking to ramp up production, Derek Wai Hung Tam Sing must have seemed like a dream hire—20 years of experience as an electrical engineer and an extensive résumé. But the Glendale, California resident turned out to be a nightmare for his employer, Rogerson Kratos.

Sing was hired by the Pasadena-based firm in April 2012 to improve avionics systems and circuit boards that would ultimately end up in military helicopters. Before starting work with the company, Rogerson Kratos required Sing to sign a confidentiality agreement prohibiting him from sharing trade secrets with anyone outside the company.

Despite the agreement, Sing stole and distributed product schematics to several competitors, violating the Economic Espionage Act. The crimes resulted in an investigation by the FBI, which ended up landing Sing in federal prison.

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FBI Hosts Meeting of International Law Enforcement Group

This week in Washington, D.C., Director James Comey is hosting a meeting of the Five Eyes Law Enforcement Group (FELEG), an international coalition of law enforcement agencies from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States who share criminal intelligence and collaborate on operations to combat transnational crime.

Members of the FELEG include representatives from the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Australian Commission, Australian Federal Police, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the U.K. National Crime Agency, and the New Zealand Police. Within the FBI, the FELEG’s operational point of contact is Associate Executive Assistant Director David J. Johnson from our Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch.

According to Johnson, “The work of the FELEG has led to increased sharing between partner nations of both criminal intelligence expertise and operational resources, and the FBI is proud to be a part of it.”

And Executive Assistant Director Randall Coleman of our Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch highlighted the arrest late last year of alleged international money launderer Altaf Khanani by the DEA as one of FELEG’s success stories. “That arrest,” Coleman said, “stemmed from an unprecedented level of sharing and operational cooperation among the Five Eyes partners, and the lessons learned from that case are already being applied to subsequent investigations into complex criminal networks.”

FELEG operations are conducted by working groups that concentrate on specific criminal or functional areas. These groups include the Criminal Intelligence Advisory Group, which addresses organized crime and drug-related operations; the Money Laundering Group, which focuses on money laundering activities; the Cyber Crime Working Group, whose goal is to identify the sophisticated perpetrators operating key cyber criminal services in the cyber underground marketplace; and the Technical Working Group, which facilitates the technical means for inter-agency communications and information exchange.

The most recent FELEG entity is the Going Dark Forum, established earlier this year after being proposed by the FBI to address the effects of Going Dark. This issue, a growing challenge to public safety and national security, has eroded law enforcement’s ability to obtain electronic information and evidence with a court order or warrant.

In August 2015, the FBI began its two-year term as chair of the FELEG. This week’s meeting of the group’s principals is an annual event held to establish priorities and direction for the coming year, and to assess the progress of its working groups.

Seeking Public Assistance in the Orlando Shooting Investigation

View poster

The FBI asked for the public’s help today to learn more about the movements of Omar Mateen prior to his shooting rampage Sunday at an Orlando, Florida nightclub that left 49 people dead.

“We need your help in developing a picture of what the shooter did and why he did it,” said Ron Hopper, assistant special agent in charge of the Bureau’s Tampa Field Office. During an afternoon press briefing in Orlando with local law enforcement partners, Hopper urged anyone with information, no matter how small, to call the FBI or submit a tip online.A Seeking Information poster regarding the deceased shooter is available on the FBI’s website. Anyone who has had contact with the shooter, either in person or online, is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI, submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov, or call your local FBI office.“The FBI’s Office for Victim Assistance and its experienced Victim Assistance Rapid Deployment Team is working together with the city of Orlando and federal, state, and community agencies to provide resources and support to victims, next of kin, and loved ones,” Hopper said. For more information about victim services and receiving assistance, visit fbi.gov/orlandovictims.

Additional information:

• Seeking Information Poster: Omar Mateen
• Assistance for Victims of the Pulse Nightclub Shooting
• Hopper’s full remarks at press briefing
• FBI, This Week podcast
• Submit a tip | tips.fbi.gov | 1-800-CALL-FBI
  

Help Us Catch the East Area Rapist

Although four decades have passed since a prolific serial rapist and murderer terrorized California communities from Sacramento to Orange County, the FBI and local law enforcement announced a national publicity campaign today—and a significant reward—in the hopes of locating the suspect and finally bringing him to justice.

Between 1976 and 1986, the violent and elusive individual known as the East Area Rapist, and later as the Original Night Stalker and the Golden State Killer, committed 12 homicides, 45 rapes, and more than 120 residential burglaries in multiple California communities. His victims ranged in age from 13 to 41 and included women home alone, women at home with their children, and husbands and wives.

At a press conference today in Sacramento, the FBI and local law enforcement agencies announced a $50,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer along with a nationwide multimedia campaign to once again bring the case to the public’s attention.

Full story, audio, video, and related information

Director Provides Update on Orlando Shootings Investigation

FBI Director James Comey—joined by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates—addresses members of the media during a press briefing held June 13, 2016 at FBI Headquarters regarding the recent mass shooting at nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

FBI Director James B. Comey said today that the FBI is working non-stop to understand what led a man to commit a mass shooting in Orlando, Florida that left 49 people dead and dozens more injured.

In a televised news briefing at FBI Headquarters, Comey said FBI investigators—working closely with state and local law enforcement agencies—are trying to understand “every moment of the killer’s path” leading up to the shooting early Sunday morning at a popular nightclub.

Comey said the shooter, who was killed in a gunfight with police responders, made three 911 phone calls from the club during the attack, beginning at about 2:30 a.m. In the calls, he claimed allegiance to the leader of the so-called Islamic State (ISIL) as well as the perpetrators of the 2013 Boston Marathon attack and a Florida man who died as a suicide bomber in Syria for a terrorist group in conflict with ISIL.

“There are strong indications of radicalization by this killer and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorism organizations,” Comey said, adding that the FBI is the lead investigative agency on this case because it is a terrorism investigation.

Director Comey also described the FBI’s prior contacts with the killer, beginning in May 2013. The FBI opened an investigation when the shooter, then working as a contract security guard, made some inflammatory comments to co-workers and claimed a family connection to Al Qaeda. The shooter was interviewed twice during the preliminary investigation, where he admitted making the statements but said he had done so in anger at his co-workers, who he believed were discriminating against him. The case was closed after 10 months.

Two months later, the shooter’s name surfaced as a casual acquaintance of the Florida man who blew himself up in Syria for the terrorist group al Nusra Front. “Our investigation turned up no ties of any consequence between the two of them,” Comey said. “We will continue to look forward in this investigation, and backward. We will leave no stone unturned.”

Comey said the Bureau is reviewing those cases to see if anything was missed. “We’re also going to look hard at our own work to see whether there is something we should have done differently. So far, the honest answer is: I don’t think so. I don’t see anything in reviewing our own work that our agents should have done differently.”

The Director, who was joined at the press briefing by Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, expressed sorrow for the victims and their families.

“Our hearts are broken and ache for the people who are lost in Orlando, those wounded, and their families,” he said.

Comey also thanked first responders for their heroic work. “They showed professionalism and extraordinary bravery that saved lives,” he said. “We are very lucky that such good people choose lives of service in law enforcement.”

• Comey’s full remarks
• Yates’ full remarks
• Assistance for victims
  

Animal Rights Extremists

When a family-owned mink farm in Illinois was attacked by animal rights extremists in 2013, 2,000 minks were released from their cages and a barn was spray-painted with the words “Liberation is Love.”

On an August night in 2013, a family-owned mink farm in Morris, Illinois came under attack. Approximately 2,000 minks were released from their cages, an acidic substance was poured over two trucks parked on the property, and a sign spray-painted on the barn declared, “Liberation is Love.”

Some 24 hours later, when a police officer from nearby Roanoke, Illinois pulled over a car without license plates, he had no idea that the two young men inside were responsible for the earlier crime.

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Oil and Crime in Indian Country

FBI Director James B. Comey joins Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation Tribal Chairman Mark Fox for an aerial tour of Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in northwestern North Dakota on June 6, 2016. During the tour, Fox described how the communities and landscape below have been impacted by the sharp influx in oil drilling since 2008. The tour was part of Comey’s visit to the reservation, where he met with state, local, and tribal leaders to discuss the Bureau’s support in fighting rising crime caused by the oil boom.

Since 2008, a remote Indian reservation in northwest North Dakota has seen an explosive increase in crime following a now-waning oil boom in the region.

But while oil drilling and production has slowed in Fort Berthold, illegal activity like drug and human trafficking, prostitution, domestic abuse, and homicides are still on the rise. And limited resources have strained the ability of tribal police and the sheriff’s department to respond quickly to incidents that have been occurring across six different counties in the area.

Standing by the Bureau’s commitment to protect communities throughout Indian Country, FBI Director James Comey met with tribal officials, congressional leaders, and local law enforcement personnel yesterday in New Town, North Dakota to discuss the myriad challenges facing the reservation.

Later that day, Comey helped celebrate the opening of a new FBI resident agency in Williston, North Dakota, the result of collaborative efforts by North Dakota officials to gain additional Bureau support. Comey said three special agents and support staff assigned to the office will allow other FBI resources to point their efforts toward Fort Berthold.

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Darwin Letter Recovered, Returned to Smithsonian

A handwritten letter by Charles Darwin that was stolen from the Smithsonian Institution Archives more than three decades ago was recovered by FBI special agents and returned last week to the care of the Smithsonian.

The letter, written in 1875 by the British naturalist and geologist best known for his theory of evolution, was stolen in the mid-1970s from a collection of correspondence and documents relating to the history of North American geology. The FBI received a tip about the letter earlier this year, and special agents on the Bureau’s Art Crime Team recovered the artifact. There are no criminal charges pending in the case because the statute of limitations has expired.

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Child Sex Tourism

A tip to police from a concerned citizen in Anchorage, Alaska led to an FBI investigation that stopped a sexual predator from victimizing children in Cambodia—and landed the offender behind bars for a lengthy sentence.

In March, a federal judge sent 45-year-old Jason Jayavarman to prison for 18 years for attempting to sexually exploit children in Cambodia over a period of years and attempting to arrange a child sex tourism trip there for himself and others.

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Civil Rights and Law Enforcement

FBI Director James Comey addresses the audience at the annual FBI and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) conference on civil rights and law enforcement at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on May 25, 2016.

It was September 15, 1963 when a bomb exploded inside the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls and injuring countless others before Sunday worship.

The racially charged attack at the African-American church drew national attention and marked a major turning point in the civil rights movement. It was this act of violence and numerous other atrocities that ultimately led to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which provided the FBI with new federal laws to investigate civil rights violations.

Decades later, on the hallowed ground of the historic church, FBI Director James B. Comey recalled the discrimination African-Americans in Birmingham have faced during a speech today at the annual FBI and Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (BCRI) conference on law enforcement and civil rights.

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