This looks so much like a CPS child abuse and neglect proceeding, where one is guilty until proven innocent through ex-parte proceedings of, not allowed to challenge one's accuser who is through anonymous sources, where fraudulent documents are generated to be recorded into the public record for grounds to terminate the gift of the grant to hold of custodianship and guardianship of the parental right to the trust of the child.
In this instance, McGahn lied his ass off to terminate the right to hold the Office of the President, but it comes off as Trump being the culprit.
Can you say Detroit?
I can, but no one will #sayhisname in this hearing.
In essence, an impeachment hearing is like a Termination of Parental Rights hearing, except there is due process.
Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer at the center of the “Trump Tower Meeting,” got much of her information from Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson, the same company that put together the phony Trump Dossier. #MuellerHearingspic.twitter.com/Qx6GDgw94i
"It takes a special kind of person to get up everyday and put their life on the line for someone they do not know."
Christopher Wray
7-23-2019
From what I am gathering from this hearing is the question of whether or not the U.S. is ready for Russia to "up its game" on interfering in the 2020 election.
Well, you know I took this in a completely different direction.
Is the U.S. prepared to present its case with Russia to interfere in the 2020 election with legal action?
See, the DOJ has a long standing history of not taking any legal action during a political election cycle which is why the Democrats are fast-tracking their campaign because we are in Detroit.
But, what if another nation initiates legal action pertaining to the 2016 election interference by going back at lest 10 years?
No one is speaking upon the possibility of another nation initiating action.
I do not know why because the U.S. likes to do those Public Private Partnerships all the time, but hey, what do I know?
Wray is talking about taking it down to the local level because the people are not just putting their lives on the line, but also our public servants, like the FBI.
USA Freedom Act Section 215 is about to sunset. It deals with accessing business records through FISC, unlike a National Security Letter.
CHILD WELFARE TRANSLATION: YOU CANNOT MAKE UP STUFF TO GET AN EX-PARTE ORDER TO SNATCH A KID BECAUSE THERE MUST BE DUE PROCESS IN THE COURT, NOT AN ADMINISTRATIVE DECISION AND IF YOU LIE, THE FEDS CAN SNATCH YOUR BUSINESS DOCS TO CIRCUMVENT THAT "BEST INTERESTS OF THE CHILD" PRIVACY CRAP TO STOP YOU & HOLD YOU ACCOUNTABLE FOR TRAFFICKING TINY HUMANS, WHICH INTERFERES WITH ELECTIONS.
Durbin is asking about the FBI not taking seriously enough racial extremist attacks.
Wray states that the FBI does not investigate ideology and focuses on violence.
What was not raised in discussion on home grown domestic terrorism is propaganda.
Extremist conduct is inspired by foreign actors through PayPal, Patreon, and Youtube Superchat called *investigative-jounalists*.
For the right monthly subscription price, you can get just about anyone who is desperately trying to keep their lights and water on, to regurgitate just about any talking points you want.
It seems the FBI Tipline turned out to be a FBI "dump site".
Wray clarified the difference between a background investigation and a criminal investigation.
Human trafficking was questioned about the FBI progress.
Not one damn word on Foster Care & Adoption.
They are calling child trafficking "medival".
I identify child trafficking as what built this great, christian nation.
Wray drops some juicy tidbits on foreign NGOs taking over our graduate research in our universities, then stealin' the research through Public Private Partnerships which is funded through Social Impact Bonds with Medicaid from their Predicitive Modeling Crappy Programs in Child Welfare, by omitting this vast, new territory of modern day trafficking tiny humans, because Mueller has yet to testify.
Instead, he focuses on China snatching our intellectual resources from the universities, but did not mention Detroit Patent and Trademark Office, because Mueller has yet to testify.
Grassley wanted to know about whistleblower information on national security and election interference, and what the FBI did wrong.
I am going to answer this one.
The FBI was having some personal issues of disbelief because they were using Predictive Modeling Crap to do Behavioral Analysis on The Sacred Snitchers*, and, as such, spent too much time trying to rule out why The Sacred Snitchers were doing what they were doing, instead of looking at the stuff the Sacred Snitchers were screaming and crying about, for over a decade, but we are in Detroit, now, so everything is peachy keen.**
Corporate Shape Shifters was addressed along with campaign finance, but no one spoke upon propaganda.
Propaganda has no political affiliation, remember?
Booker question Black Extremism Ideology and NOBLE.
FEDERAL COURT RECORDS AND PROSECUTORS DETAIL INNOVATIVE SHOE-LEATHER DETECTIVE WORK THAT LED TO ONE OF THE LARGEST FENTANYL SEIZURES IN U.S. HISTORY
Detroit — A clue gleaned from a Sony PlayStation box led federal investigators to one of the largest fentanyl seizures in U.S. history and a cross-country drug conspiracy.
Federal court records and prosecutors detail innovative shoe-leather detective work that led to the seizure and describe a drug ring accused of helping fuel the nation’s opioid epidemic. The investigation involves a series of fatal mistakes and an oddball cast, including a pediatrician, a horse groomer, a barber and a fugitive drug mule with a long lucky streak.
Recent arrests and drug seizures in Maryland and Indiana deepen what federal prosecutors call a sprawling drug conspiracy involving at least seven people and a Mexican cartel. The conspiracy continued after federal agents found 88 pounds of heroin and more than 10 kilograms of fentanyl last summer in a Novi condominium, a seizure that led to the recent arrest of what prosecutors called the drug kingpin in Baltimore who was found with a secret stuffed in a couch.
“There is a staggering amount of narcotics that have been seized,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Hutting said. “It shows, given the amount, that this is a sophisticated organization, and they are a connected organization.”
The investigation dates to March 2017, when U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents seized 600 grams of heroin following a drug deal in the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter between Grand River Avenue and Interstate 96 in Novi.
Agents were monitoring the drug deal thanks to a court-approved wiretap on the drug buyer. The buyer was arrested after leaving the Walmart and, during the arrest, agents found the heroin packaged inside an otherwise empty Sony PlayStation box.
The box still contained the gaming system's serial number, so investigators subpoenaed Sony for details about the PlayStation's purchase.
Agents learned that someone paid cash for the PlayStation at the same Walmart nine days before the heroin seizure.
Walmart let agents review security video footage. They discovered the PlayStation buyer was a black man, 20-30 years old, who drove a silver sport-utility vehicle.
The Sony subpoena also revealed that a man named "James Clover" of Rialto, California, had activated the gaming system. Agents could not, however, find anyone with that name.
Three real credit cards, however, were linked to the Sony PlayStation and used to activate the gaming system, according to investigators.
The credit cards were linked to two names.
One name was fake, investigators believe.
A second credit card traced back to a partial name. Someone named "Manjaro."
The Sony subpoena would fill in the gaps.
The Sony PlayStation, like many devices, lets people play games online through a distinct Internet Protocol address, or IP address.
The Sony subpoena showed the PlayStation was utilizing an IP address owned by Internet service provider Bright House.
So DEA agents subpoenaed Bright House to determine which account was linked to the IP address.
The account was registered to Matthew Maccage, another bogus name.
But Bright House told agents the PlayStation was connected to the Internet at a condominium on Joyce Lane in Novi, about three miles north of the Walmart.
After questioning the person who bought heroin outside the Walmart and reviewing wiretapped phone calls, DEA agents learned the heroin dealer had arrived at the drug deal in an Uber cab.
So agents subpoenaed the ride-sharing company.
Uber records showed an account linked to Andre Lee Scott, 25, a barber from San Bernardino, California, was used for a pick-up at the Walmart at the time of the drug deal, according to federal court records.
After being picked up at the Walmart, Uber dropped off the customer at the same Novi condo where the PlayStation was connected to the Internet.
On July 10, agents executed a search warrant at the $1,200-a-month, two-bedroom condo at the Brownstones complex near 13 Mile and Novi roads. Inside was an epic haul and an eclectic group.
Agents found 88 pounds of heroin with a street value of $4 million, $515,710 shrink-wrapped in plastic and the Sony PlayStation.
The drug stash included more than 10 kilograms of pure fentanyl, said Hutting, the federal prosecutor. Fentanyl is an opioid drug that is as much as 50 times more potent than heroin.
"A staggering amount of narcotics," she said.
The raid netted the third-largest seizure of pure fentanyl in DEA history, outranked by the 11 kilos found near Seattle last year and 18 kilos near St. Louis, also last year.
Agents also found Scott and two other men in the condo:
• Manuel Arnulfo Barajas, a 21-year-old horse groomer at Los Alamitos Race Course near Los Angeles.
• Adolfo Verdugo Lopez, a 51-year-old pediatrician from the Sinaloa drug cartel’s home turf in Mexico.
Agents using a serial number from a Sony PlayStation box to identify and find the target of a drug investigation is a novel twist, said Nathan Wessler, staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
Federal agents seized 88 pounds of heroin last year at a condo complex in Novi and arrested Adolfo Verdugo Lopez, left, and Andre Lee Scott, 25, right. The drugs’ path into the Metro area is unclear.
“In some ways, this is creative shoe-leather police work but it also raises important questions about making sure there is the right kind of judicial oversight,” Wessler said. “This is illustrative of how much of our lives are susceptible to a search by law enforcement.”
After searching the Novi condo, agents searched Scott's rental car in the parking lot. Inside, agents found one kilo of cocaine hidden under the front passenger seat.
The cocaine was bound in Saran wrap. Agents tested the Saran wrap and found six fingerprints that belonged to James "Bug" McGlory, 32, a trucking company employee from Los Angeles, according to court records.
McGlory is "one of the leaders of a large drug-trafficking organization," Hutting said.
Several members of the narcotics ring live in the San Bernardino area and criss-cross the country distributing drugs and money, prosecutors say.
The drug ring has operations in Maryland, Florida, Indianapolis and Dallas.
Investigators believe Scott, the barber, took turns with other members overseeing operations at the Novi condo, Hutting said.
A search of Scott's cell phone showed frequent contacts with McGlory's phone, including text messages referencing drug ledgers and drug distribution, according to court records.
Location data showed McGlory's phone pinged off a cell tower near the Novi condo on July 8, two days before the DEA raid, the prosecutor said.
Agents checked flight records for Scott and learned he was listed as the contact for a California woman named Joyce Haynes, 59. She flew from Detroit to Los Angeles on July 10 — leaving about the same time agents raided the Novi condo, according to court records.
Prosecutors portray Haynes as a veteran drug courier with ties to McGlory.
Flight records showed Haynes and McGlory flying from Los Angeles to Baltimore in March 2017. The next month, McGlory paid for them to fly from Los Angeles to Detroit, according to court records.
Haynes switched her mode of travel in August 2017 — one month after the Novi raid.
That month, Haynes was arrested at a Greyhound bus station in Indianapolis. Investigators found three kilograms of cocaine in her backpack, according to prosecutors.
"She did admit to being a drug courier who had never been caught," Hutting said.
Agents seized her phone and learned one of her most frequent contacts was McGlory.
"Following Haynes' arrest, activity on (the) McGlory drug phone ceased," DEA Special Agent Michael Reamer wrote in a court filing.
Haynes, the accused drug courier, was about to catch a lucky break.
Indianapolis police inadvertently released her, triggering a nine-month hunt by the U.S. Marshals Service.
"She has been on the lam for almost a full year," Hutting said.
While federal agents hunted for Haynes, they identified the mysterious person named "Manjaro" whose credit card was linked to the Sony PlayStation purchased at the Walmart in Novi.
Around the time the PlayStation was purchased, investigators found text messages on Scott's cellphone describing account and password information for the gaming device. The texts were exchanged with a phone prosecutors said belonged to California resident Manjaro Johnson, 30, a self-described disc jockey and aspiring rapper.
Agents compared images of the unknown black male shown on Walmart security camera footage buying the PlayStation with photos of Johnson, the prosecutor said.
"I will say that there is a strong resemblance when you look at the photograph of the person who purchased the Sony PlayStation and Mr. Johnson," Hutting said.
Location data for Johnson's phone showed the device pinged off a cell tower near the Novi condo, and the Walmart at the time of the PlayStation purchase, the prosecutor added.
"We think that this defendant, Manjaro Johnson, was the one that purchased the PlayStation that started this investigation," Hutting said. "Andre Scott and . . . Manjaro Johnson essentially took turns spending time at the Novi condominium and overseeing the drug trafficking organization's operations out of that condominium."
Prosecutors have no evidence linking Johnson to the Novi condo or drugs, defense lawyer Vincent Toussaint said.
"You don't have anything in terms of any fingerprints, nothing that would tie Mr. Johnson to narcotics that were found at any location," Toussaint said. "There's no surveillance of Mr. Johnson at that location. There's nothing there."
The drug trafficking did not stop after the raid at the Novi condo and fentanyl seizure in July 2017.
Six months after the Novi raid, in January, Johnson was stopped at Los Angeles International Airport after arriving from Dallas.
Officers approached Johnson and received permission to search his luggage. Investigators seized $34,515 cash and asked Johnson about the money.
"First, he said 'I earned that DJing. I was saving to buy a car and I didn't leave it in a bank because I don't trust banks,'" Hutting said.
There is no proof Johnson is a DJ and he reported no consistent employment, the prosecutor said.
"So that is inexplicable how he would be in possession of $34,000 in cash unless it is reasonably drug proceeds," Hutting said.
Later, Johnson said some of the money belonged to the woman he flew with to Los Angeles, the prosecutor added.
"That individual is also significant," Hutting said.
Prosecutors believe the woman is Donna McGlory, the younger sister of accused drug kingpin James McGlory. She denied knowing anything about the cash, Hutting said.
James McGlory became a focus of the investigation after DEA agents found his fingerprints on the kilo of cocaine in the car outside of the Novi condo, according to court records.
Agents started analyzing James McGlory's history of flights around the country.
In early April, investigators learned McGlory and Johnson were flying to Maryland.
Agents set up undercover surveillance and spotted the men at a Comfort Inn in Towson, Maryland. Johnson arrived April 11; McGlory a day later, according to court records.
On April 13, agents spotted McGlory and another man outside a Baltimore apartment building. The other man dumped a trash bag, which investigators later searched, finding a label addressed to an apartment within the building, heat-sealed bags and rubber gloves consistent with the type used for narcotics trafficking, according to court records.
Agents obtained a warrant to search the apartment later that day.
Inside the apartment on English Oak Road, agents found an upholstered couch.
Agents cracked open the couch. Taped underneath, agents found the majority of a drug stash that included 15 kilos of heroin, three kilos of cocaine, marijuana and $250,000.
"So if somebody were to just appear that they were moving a couch, they wouldn't have been detected but they would have been moving a significant amount of drugs and money," Hutting said.
There is no concrete connection between McGlory and drugs seized by investigators, his defense lawyer Kevin Bessant said.
“By no means whatsoever is Mr. McGlory a major drug player in this,” Bessant said.
In May, one month after the Baltimore bust, accused drug mule Joyce Haynes' luck ran out. She was arrested in California following a nine-month search. She is expected to be brought to Detroit soon to face charges.
The group was indicted May 10 on several charges, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. The felony is punishable by up to life in prison.
"The Celestial Goddess of the Woodshed honoring her Noble #Superfans with the powers of a scribe."
To Dave Gelios and the crew over here in the Detroit FBI, Mommy loves you soooooooooo much!!!
I keep telling you, human trafficking is a highly sophisticated, complex fraud scheme.
They have monetized our genomes and protein strands in patents.
They have established unregulated egg and sperm banks, that can actually engage in financial transactions of leveraging based upon their commodities.
They have constructed the research to generate humans as commodities.
They have highjacked our laws to allow the cultivation of humans for the extremely dark ancillary sectors of designer babies.
They have erected the facade of the institution of adoption with federally funded propaganda to cover up the financial industry of selling identities and legacies through state sanctioned NGO children's trust funds.
They have refined the policies and the laws which allow their operations of human trafficking to be part of our curriculae, our institutions of worship, or entie way in which we understand our banking systems and intellectual property.
They made us poor, stole the children, they stole the land, they stole the vote, then they steal the bodies.
I wonder how long it will take them to construct a business plan and get federal funding to steal our souls.
Exporting U.S. body parts is just another form of human trafficking, a multi-trillion industry.
Made in America: U.S. body brokers supply world with human torsos, limbs and heads
Part 9: Body parts from American donors have been exported to at least 45 countries, and thousands of parts are sent abroad annually. Demand is high in nations where customs limit selling or dissecting their own dead. In the U.S., though, almost anything goes.
REMAINS FOR RENT: A U.S. body donation company leased the heads of dead Americans to a Tel Aviv dental training facility. The facility posted pictures of the training on Facebook in October, just before returning a shipment of heads to the United States. That shipment was intercepted by U.S. border agents because the manifest mislabeled the package of heads as “electronics.” REUTERS/Handout
According to the manifest, the shipment bound for Europe included about 6,000 pounds of human remains valued at $67,204. To keep the merchandise from spoiling, the container’s temperature was set to 5 degrees Fahrenheit.PORTLAND, Oregon – On July 20, a Hong Kong-flagged cargo ship departed Charleston, South Carolina, carrying thousands of containers. One of them held a lucrative commodity: body parts from dozens of dead Americans.
The body parts came from a Portland business called MedCure Inc. A so-called body broker, MedCure profits by dissecting the bodies of altruistic donors and sending the parts to medical training and research companies.
MedCure sells or leases about 10,000 body parts from U.S. donors annually, shipping about 20 percent of them overseas, internal corporate and manifest records show. In addition to bulk cargo shipments to the Netherlands, where MedCure operates a distribution hub, the Oregon company has exported body parts to at least 22 other countries by plane or truck, the records show.
Among the parts: a pelvis and legs to a university in Malaysia; feet to medical device companies in Brazil and Turkey; and heads to hospitals in Slovenia and the United Arab Emirates.
Demand for body parts from America — torsos, knees and heads — is high in countries where religious traditions or laws prohibit the dissection of the dead. Unlike many developed nations, the United States largely does not regulate the sale of donated body parts, allowing entrepreneurs such as MedCure to expand exports rapidly during the last decade.
No other nation has an industry that can provide as convenient and reliable a supply of body parts.
Since 2008, Reuters found, U.S. body brokers have exported parts to at least 45 countries, including Italy, Israel, Mexico, China, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. Whole bodies are studied at Caribbean-based medical schools. Plastic surgeons in Germany use heads from dead Americans to practice new techniques. Thousands of parts are shipped overseas annually; a precise number cannot be calculated because no agency tracks industry exports.
Most donor consent forms, including those from MedCure, authorize brokers to dissect bodies and ship parts internationally. Even so, some relatives of the dead said they did not realize that the remains of a loved one might be dismembered and sent to the far reaches of the globe.
“There are people who wouldn’t necessarily mind where the specimens were sent if they were fully informed,” said Brandi Schmitt, who directs the University of California system’s anatomical donation program. “But clearly there are plenty of donors that do mind and that don’t feel like they’re getting enough information.”
MedCure shipments are now the subject of a federal investigation. In November, the Federal Bureau of Investigation raided the company’s Portland headquarters. Though the search warrant remains sealed, people familiar with the matter say it relates in part to overseas shipping.
MedCure is cooperating with the investigation, said its lawyer, Jeffrey Edelson. He declined to comment on the FBI raid, but said: “MedCure is committed to meeting and exceeding the highest standards in the industry. It takes very seriously its obligation to not only deliver safe specimens securely, but to do it in a way that respects the donors.”
Edelson also said MedCure “partners with government and industry agencies to follow and exceed requirements for shipping human tissue,” and that “shipping handlers, drivers and carriers are specially trained for the safe handling and transportation of human specimens.”
PRECIOUS CARGO: The OOCL Europe left July 20 from South Carolina for the Netherlands carrying a refrigerated container filled with human body parts. Here, it is docked at the Port of Newark in New Jersey in November, after it delivered the parts to Europe. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
INFECTED PARTS AT THE BORDER
As a Reuters series last year revealed, the body donation industry is so lightly regulated in the United States that almost anyone can legally buy, sell or lease body parts.
Although no federal law expressly regulates the body trade, there is one situation in which the U.S. government does exercise oversight: when body parts leave or enter the country. Border agents have the authority to ensure that the parts are not infected with contagious diseases and are properly shipped.
This authority played a leading role in the government securing a conviction last month of Detroit broker Arthur Rathburn, who stored body parts in grisly, unsanitary conditions, according to trial testimony. The FBI began to focus intently on Rathburn’s business, International Biological Inc, after repeated border stops in which he was found ferrying human heads, court records show.
The jury found that Rathburn defrauded customers by supplying body parts infected with HIV and hepatitis.
“The fraud scheme orchestrated by IBI shocked even the most experienced of our investigative team,” said FBI special-agent-in-charge David Gelios. Even in death, Gelios said in a statement after the verdict, donors were “victimized as IBI intentionally and recklessly marketed and transported contaminated human remains… Personal greed overcame decency.”
CONVICTED BROKERS: Steve Gore (far left), was a Phoenix body broker who pleaded guilty to defrauding customers. He testified against Detroit broker Arthur Rathburn (foreground) in federal court last month. Rathburn was convicted of fraud and transporting hazardous materials. REUTERS/Jerry Lemenu
Rathburn was also convicted of transporting hazardous materials — the head of someone who had died of bacterial sepsis and aspiration pneumonia. The transportation conviction underscored the U.S. government’s growing concern about shipments of body parts that might endanger public health, officials said.
Martin Cetron, director of Global Migration and Quarantine for the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, said that when brokers dissect a body that is infected, there is added risk of transferring that disease to anyone who handles the parts.
“In the case of saws (used) to cut bones or limbs, there may be additional procedures that could potentially turn a fluid into an aerosol that could be inhaled and be communicable,” Cetron said.
A Reuters review of government records shows that border agents intercepted body parts suspected to be infected at least 75 times between 2008 and 2017. Border agents pay more attention to goods entering the country than those departing, and virtually all of the intercepted shipments were remains of American donors whose body parts were being returned to United States. Typically, body parts are returned to America for three reasons: to comply with foreign laws on final disposition; when cremation is not available in the foreign country; or when a U.S. broker intends to reuse the parts.
In 2016 and 2017, for example, federal agents stopped shipments being returned to MedCure at the border, law enforcement records show. The body parts they stopped included torsos carrying infectious biological agents that cause sepsis, a body’s extreme response to infection. At least one carried the life-threatening MRSA bacteria, the records show.
For more than a year, records show, U.S. officials and some body brokers have disagreed over whether the presence of sepsis in a corpse — without further information about a person’s cause of death —poses enough of a risk to warrant special packaging and warning labels.
“Sepsis itself is not a disease diagnosis but it raises a red flag,” said Cetron, the CDC official. The pathogen that caused sepsis, he said, “could be a bacteria, could be Ebola, could be salmonella, could be E. coli.” That’s why further documentation, including a death certificate, must accompany any body part imported into the United States, he said.
The CDC has an exemption intended to allow for shipping blood and other lab testing samples. Reuters found dozens of examples of brokers labeling customs manifests and packages with a version of the term “exempt human specimen” to ship body parts.
“I think that’s a deceptive practice,” Cetron said. “If they are human remains, part or in whole — heads, arms, limbs, etc. — they are not exempted.”
Several brokers said the government should clarify the rules — whether the CDC’s or those of other regulatory entities. They cited, for example, a U.S. Department of Transportation regulation that, they believe, exempts body parts. Transportation officials declined to comment on their regulations.
Alyssa Harrison, executive director of Oklahoma-based broker United Tissue Network, said most in her industry want to follow the law. But, she added, “there are many guidelines that are unclear and or contradictory to other department’s regulations.”
The disconnect between what the industry and government believe is dangerous, and what precautions are required by law, should be resolved, said Matthew Zahn, chairman of the public health committee for the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a group that represents doctors, researchers and other health professionals.
“It’s a situation where we don’t have a huge amount of regulation or clarity as to what the risks are,” Zahn said. “It feels like one of those cracks in the system where a practice has developed and the risk factors and oversight have not fully matured.”
EXPORTING AMERICANS
MedCure, founded in 2005, describes itself, as do most body brokers, as a non-transplant tissue bank. It has distribution hubs and surgical training centers near Portland, Oregon; Las Vegas; and Providence, Rhode Island. The company also has distribution hubs near Orlando and St Louis.
When MedCure donors die, the cadavers are transported to one of these five U.S. hubs. According to former employees, MedCure deploys a temperature-controlled truck to carry body parts between the five facilities.
FBI RAID: In November, federal agents searched the Portland headquarters of MedCure, and sources said the investigation relates in part to the company’s international shipments. REUTERS/John Shiffman
MedCure began shipping cadavers and body parts overseas as individual orders, one by one, and largely by airplane. The former employees said the company later calculated that it could increase profits by shipping bulk quantities of body parts to Europe, and distributing them from there.
In 2012, MedCure opened its European hub in Amsterdam. Since then, MedCure has sent to the Netherlands at least six refrigerated cargo containers filled with frozen human remains, manifest records show. The first container — 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, 9.5 feet tall — departed the Port of Tacoma in Washington state in July 2012. The body parts weighed about 5,000 pounds (2,268 kg) and were valued at $259,210.
MedCure continued to export via truck and plane as well — for example, shoulders to a hospital in Mexico, knees to a surgical training center in Taiwan and a head to a university in Chile. The shipments are detailed in internal MedCure documents and in data from two companies that collect trade manifests: Descartes Datamyne of Ontario, Canada, and PIERS, a unit of IHS Markit Maritime & Trade, based in London.
One reason foreign doctors and researchers rely on U.S. companies for body parts: Their nations restrict the dissection, sale and distribution of donated cadavers.
In many nations, certain sects of religions – from Judaism to Islam to Taoism — frown upon separating the bodies of the dead into parts. Huang Yi-Ling, who worked in Singapore for a medical device manufacturer, said that importing body parts from the United States avoids “conflict with donor intent” in regard to religion.
“MedCure makes donor tissue available for researchers and teaching facilities even in places where religious and cultural norms discourage body donation,” said Edelson, the MedCure lawyer.
Holger Gassner, director of the Finesse Center for Facial Plastic Surgery in Regensburg, Germany, said he began importing body parts from the United States in 2009 because he couldn’t obtain the volume of heads he needed locally for medical conferences. He also said most German anatomy departments use formalin to preserve bodies; MedCure supplies fresh body parts, which are more useful for teaching.
“You have to practice on human tissue in order to become a good or better surgeon,” Gassner said. “There’s no alternative.”
Gassner described MedCure as “very reputable” and noted that it sent an inspector to Germany to approve his facilities. “At the end of the day,” he said, “this has been a very positive thing for us and for the university.”
“SERIOUS WORRY”
The FBI search of MedCure in November is part of a national investigation by the bureau of body brokers, many of whom did business with each other.
MedCure, for example, was among the brokers who supplied Rathburn, the Detroit businessman convicted last month. MedCure was not accused of supplying any body parts at issue in the Rathburn trial.
A different Rathburn supplier, Steve Gore of Phoenix, pleaded guilty to providing customers with infected body parts. A Reuters report in December described how Gore’s business used construction saws to dismember donated bodies and employed an untrained intern to rip out cadavers’ fingernails with pliers.
In early 2016, authorities stopped nine torsos that were being returned from Vancouver, Canada, to MedCure in the United States. According to U.S. government records reviewed by Reuters, some torsos were infected with sepsis. At least one had MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.
Border officials in both countries struggled to verify the identities of the torsos and how they were used. The records show that officials determined that a Vancouver-area bioskills seminar to which the torsos were purportedly sent did not exist.
Canadian and U.S. officials said they do not comment on specific cases. Edelson, the MedCure lawyer, said the government's account is inaccurate and “the training course was a legitimate medical program.” He said the company does not sell or rent out human remains infected with HIV or hepatitis, and that body parts with other “non-contagious conditions are shipped overseas only with the permission of the CDC, including CDC permit, proper labeling and packaging and full disclosure” to its foreign clients.
In January 2017, another shipment being returned to MedCure from Hong Kong was stopped at the U.S. border. This one contained six torsos with legs. MedCure had sent the body parts to the Orthopaedic Learning Centre at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, which trains surgeons.
The specimens were used to test the biomechanics of a knee implant procedure, including the impact of the technique on muscles connecting to the pelvis and femur, said the center’s director, Jack Chun Yiu Cheng. The doctor would not disclose which company or individual had organized the workshop.
Reuters reviewed a copy of the MedCure medical summary accompanying the specimens noting that two of them carried sepsis, including one from a donor who died in part from “septic shock.” When asked about the summaries, Cheng said there was not enough information provided to determine what caused the septic shock, but he said that he would not have used the body parts himself.
“I would have serious worry,” Cheng said.
Any training workshop carries risk, he said. But going forward, the doctor said, the training center will probably reject torsos with sepsis, “or at least discuss it directly with the workshop leader, not just send them the forms.”
Edelson, the MedCure lawyer, said the company discloses appropriate medical information. He added, “Recipients are medical professionals who are expected to use basic safety precautions when handling any human tissue, including wearing gloves, masks and scrub suits.”
READING THE FINE PRINT
Some donor relatives said they were disappointed to learn their loved one’s parts were sent overseas.
“I should have read the fine print,” said Marie Gallegos, whose husband’s head was shipped to a dental school in Israel months after he died of a heart attack in May 2017.
Six hours after he died, she said, an employee from Donate Network of Arizona called to discuss body donation. The employee promised the body would advance medical research and be treated with dignity, Gallegos said.
She recalled signing two consent forms, one for Donate Network and one for the company she was told would handle the cremation, United Tissue Network. The UTN form authorized use of her husband’s body parts “both domestically and internationally.”
Later that summer, UTN delivered her husband’s ashes, which she buried at a veterans’ gravesite. She said she did not realize the ashes represented only a portion of her husband’s remains. UTN still had his head and in the fall shipped it to the Tel Aviv dental school.
FOREIGN ADVISORY: In the consent form for United Tissue Network, donors are advised that their bodies or body parts may be sent overseas. REUTERS/Handout
“Had I known that my husband’s head was over there, I would have waited to have the ceremony,” she said. “If they really wanted my husband’s body for these purposes, they should have told me upfront and verbally.”
Donor Network declined to comment about this case. UTN executive director Alyssa Harrison said, “We make it very clear for families to understand our whole process before deciding to donate.”
HEADS IN LIMBO
If not for the keen eye of a Phoenix airport worker, Marie Gallegos might not have learned what became of her husband’s remains.
On November 1, as Daniel Gallegos’ head and the heads of six other donors were returning from Israel to UTN in Arizona for cremation, someone noticed a discrepancy on the shipping documents. According to records reviewed by Reuters, the shipping manifest described the contents as “electronics” valued at $10 each. A label on the coffin-sized package described the contents as human remains.
SHOCKING NEWS: Marie Gallegos learned from a Reuters reporter that her husband, Daniel R. Gallegos, who donated his body to science, was dismembered and his head leased to a dental school in Israel by broker United Tissue Network. REUTERS/Caitlin O'Hara
Government records show that border officials were troubled that the package appeared punctured and a strong smell was wafting from the box. They also demanded death certificates to ensure that the specimens were disease-free, records show. One of the donors, records show, carried staphylococcus aureus, an infection the CDC website says poses a potentially serious risk to healthcare workers.
After officials stopped the package in Arizona, documents reviewed by Reuters show, UTN employees disagreed with border authorities about whether the package was damaged or death certificates were required. It took three weeks to resolve the dispute, according to the documents. The government then released the heads and they were cremated.
UTN’s Harrison told Reuters the electronics designation was “human error” and the package was sent in a leak-proof container. She disputed the government’s contention that further documentation should have accompanied the shipment, arguing that “a diagnosis of sepsis in the clinical setting does not confer any specific risk.”
Harrison said UTN and the freight company followed all laws and regulations covering the export and import of human medical specimens.
“The CDC should not have gotten involved,” she said.
Milli Raviv, whose Tel Aviv-based International Dental Studies center leased the heads from UTN, said her school maintains “high standards” to protect students.
On shipping documents, Raviv was listed as the contact person in Israel for shipping the heads back to UTN’s Phoenix office. Even so, the dentist professed ignorance about why the package was mislabeled.
I was supposed to be the Master of Ceremonies, but that all changed when I continuously questioned how it was possible to spend so much money on putting on a spectacular event, with valet parking, formal dining, musical groups, youth dancers in full costume and hired speakers.
Despite my suggestions of sponsorship and collaboration with other groups to expand an audience to bring awareness to what was going on in child welfare, I was shut down.
That was not a problem because it was not my event.
I proposed breakout work sessions for advocacy.
I even went so far as to invite "The Elected Ones" and community leaders since no one wanted to publicly broach the topic of child welfare fraud.
Faith Based Initiative funding was the community propaganda funding scheme launched under G.W. Bush.
In a nutshell, Faith Based funding was doled out to churches, particularly in, oh, how shall we say this, "inner cities that are traditionally democratic and poor."
This was the birth of the megachurches, where massive temples were constructed in the inner cities to "inform" the public on public issues.
Now, of course, those public issues were hand picked by the current administration, the same concept of the Request For Proposals (RFP), where funding is based upon what those in power want, and not what is of concern to the community.
Surrounded by these megachurches were zones of intense poverty.
The "privateers" are federally funded, condoned with religious propaganda, just like has always been done:
“We weighing all and singular the premises with due meditation, and noting that since we had formerly by other letters of ours granted among other things free and ample faculty to the aforesaid King Alfonso -- to invade, search out, capture, vanquish, and subdue all Saracens and pagans whatsoever, and other enemies of Christ wheresoever placed, and the kingdoms, dukedoms, principalities, dominions, possessions, and all movable and immovable goods whatsoever held and possessed by them and to reduce their persons to perpetual slavery, and to apply and appropriate to himself and his successors the kingdoms, dukedoms, counties, principalities, dominions, possessions, and goods, and to convert them to his and their use and profit -- by having secured the said faculty, the said King Alfonso, or, by his authority, the aforesaid infante, justly and lawfully has acquired and possessed, and doth possess, these islands, lands, harbors, and seas, and they do of right belong and pertain to the said King Alfonso and his successors”.
The concept of slavery had finally been introduced as a mainstream concept in child welfare, but as the idea of child welfare being the "residual of the peculiar institution" is so novel, being completely omitted from the vernacular of the academic world, discord of the discourse will go on for the next four scores and seven years, all funded through relious faith based initiatives,
Chaos is a stable and predictable, open system.
How can one "fight the system" when it was designed to function under property law, or rather chattel law?
There is no parallel jurisprudence and now, through privatization, there is no redress of grievance.
How can there be shared parenting when the state, codifed in federal law, retains parental authority, or rather parental rights under the doctrine of commerce?
If a child is under the aegis of the state, is this not parental rights and would that mean that an origianl parent would have to share with the state?
Does this sharing include federal funding?
I was going to do an introductory lecture on my book, but that would be considered commerce and selling it, which will eventually be online, would violate that religious based funding eligibility.
The distractive bickering of "black-man-hate-white-man-hate-black-man-hate-white-man" will be well funded with the blessings of tax exempt God, with lots of fancy events praising the "profiteers" who continue their financial swashbuckling of the children, the land and the votes.
This State of the Children event was put on with this funding which is why there can be no corporate partnerships or profiteering.
This is why the FBI will participated in these community outreach functions.
But, the funding issue is not the sole issue which has me miffed.
FBI Special Agent In Charge, Dave Gelios made a statement which took me aback.
He came up after the Child Custody, Child Protective Services, Foster Care and Adoption horror stories of fraud.
I noticed that he was in a bit of a controlled shock as he broughtforth the disclaimer that his staff had advised him the subject matter of the event was human trafficking and the opioid crisis.
I cannot stand when staff does this crap.
It is just personal.
I like Dave.
They were mean to Dave.
So, you mean to tell me that the staffers of the top Detroit FBI Chief were actually doing work in accordance to their pay that they could not even just execute a basic online search to find out what the subject matter of the event was, considering the fact that my name was on the event?
No wonder there has not been a damn thing done in child welfare fraud with federal law enforcement because I remember how the U. S. Department of Justice, the one up in D.C., used to just stare at me, heads tilted, drooling as a side effect to my bombardment of information overload on the subject matter.
Staff either intentionally did not properly debreif him with proper talking points memo for the event, or there needs to be an internal review of operation policy.
He also spoke upon limited resources in his divisions.
Well, of course he is not getting the necessary funding for his child trafficking and opioid operations because the religious faith based propaganda initiatives have to put on events like this.
Duh.
It is time you guys have me downtown for lunch.
Child welfare fraud schemes started in Detroit, so why not initiate the global takedown right here, too?
I will bring my laptop and my amazing ability to make you feel all warm and fuzzy with my artistic rendentions of castigation with these fraudfeasors and their transgressions, no matter how bloody their acts upon children may be.
If you really want to know why children are sucked up into human trafficking you are going to have to come with me deeper into the iron triangular industrial complex of poverty, what I like to call child welfare, or you can just watch legally kidnapped explain it for you, which is why we do what we do.
And this is the tale of religious faith based initiatives and human trafficking in child welfare.
