Fbi

A small wooden cabinet went up for auction on EBay. Inside were two locks of hair, one granite slab, one dried rosebud, one goblet, two wheat pennies, one candlestick and, allegedly, one "dibbuk," a kind of spirit popular in Yiddish folklore. The seller, a Missouri college student named Iosif Nietzke, described the container as a "haunted Jewish wine cabinet box" that had plagued several owners with rotten luck and a spate of bizarre paranormal stunts.

The FBI is investigating the apparent disappearance of an estimated $1 million in donations that about 200 nonprofits reported losing when the organization that handled their finances abruptly shut down this year, forcing some groups to curtail their charity work. The head of one nonprofit said two FBI agents specializing in white collar crime interviewed her in April about the International Humanities Center, and the director of another said she has been asked to meet with agents this month.

The scheme was so outlandish it was difficult, at first, to take seriously. Investigators could not believe that the whole preposterous plot would ever get under way, that a former customs agent and 13 other people--almost all of them from small American towns like Sugar Tree, Tenn.--would really set out to take over the South American country of Suriname. But by Monday, when most of the members of the self-styled mercenary group arrived at the tiny airport in Hammond, La.

Authorities launched Burbank's largest manhunt in 20 years in search of a missing FBI agent who was believed to be suicidal and possibly carrying a handgun, officials said Saturday. More than 150 law enforcement personnel joined in a search that began Friday and fanned through the rugged Verdugo Mountains and other parts of Los Angeles County looking for Stephen Ivens, 35, a Los Angeles-based agent specializing in national security affairs. He was last seen Friday at his home in the 1700 block of Scott Road in Burbank.

Eric Justin Toth, a former private school teacher accused of possessing and producing child pornography, has been placed on the FBI's list of Ten Most Wanted fugitives, filling a spot once held by the likes of terrorist Osama bin Laden and accused mobster Whitey Bulger, the government announced on Tuesday. Toth, who also uses the name David Bussone, has been on the run since warrants for his arrest were issued in Maryland and the District of Columbia in 2008. There is a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading directly to Toth's arrest, the agency said . “We have always counted on the public's support to help capture fugitives and solve cases,” Mike Kortan, assistant director of the Office of Public Affairs, said in the statement.

The FBI suspects that serial killers working as long-haul truckers are responsible for the slayings of hundreds of prostitutes, hitchhikers and stranded motorists whose bodies have been dumped near highways over the last three decades. Federal authorities first made the connection about five years ago while helping police link a trucker to a string of unsolved killings along Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and several other states.

Each week, the FBI sends reporters an email of "top ten news stories" that it hopes will hit the headlines. The press releases usually highlight crooks nabbed, terrorism plots foiled and convictions notched up by the straight-shooting, gang-busting agents from the world's most famous law enforcement agency. It's doubtful any of the cases the FBI likes to publicize made it into Tim Weiner's absorbing "Enemies: A History of the FBI. " It is a scathing indictment of the FBI as a secret intelligence service that has bent and broken the law for decades in the pursuit of Communists, terrorists and spies.

Should the FBI now be known as the FIB? ROBERT LEES Los Angeles

Nearly two weeks after two U.S. Coast Guard  employees were shot to death at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska, there still have been no arrests, and the FBI continues to say little about the inquiry into the killings. But agents are now seeking the public's help in learning more about two vehicles that may have been used in the April 12 shootings. Over the weekend, the FBI released photos of a white 2002 Dodge Ram pickup and a blue 2001 Honda CRV. The vehicles “may have been used in connection with the recent double homicide on Kodiak Island,” the agency said in a statement.  “Authorities are asking anyone who personally observed either of these vehicles at any time on Thursday, 04/12/2012, or before noon on Friday, 04/13/2012, traveling on Rezanof Road, Anton Larson Road, near the State Airport or the Coast Guard Communications Station, to please call the FBI.” FBI spokesman Darrin Jones declined to say to whom the vehicles are registered, where they were last seen or why they may be connected to the shootings.

First, he preached the Gospel in South Los Angeles. Then he picked up a badge and gun as an LAPD officer working the Wilshire Division. From there, he moved to the FBI, serving as an undercover agent in Los Angeles, then in Tennessee. His life, he said, was "my American dream. " But now Darin McAllister is in federal prison in eastern Kentucky, serving a four-year sentence as part of a Justice Department investigation into mortgage fraud. His life today, he says, is "my American nightmare.

Here is a roundup of alleged cons, frauds and schemes to watch out for. Amazon.com email - Online shoppers should be careful if they receive emails that appear to be from amazon.com, but actually are attempts to steal victims' financial information, the Better Business Bureau said in a recent alert. The scam emails include the subject line, "Your Cancellation," the BBB said. Anyone who receives a suspicious email that appears to be from Amazon should visit the Amazon website directly by typing www.amazon.com into their browser, then sign into "your account" to see whether the email was valid, the BBB said.

Two Southwest Airlines flights with ties to Orange County and Phoenix were stopped Tuesday night after threats were made to the planes. The first incident began about 7:30 p.m. after Flight 1184 arrived at Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix from John Wayne Airport, an FBI spokesman told The Times. The plane was taken to an isolated area of the airport after authorities received an unspecified threat, said Special Agent Manuel Johnson of the FBI's Phoenix division.

WASHINGTON - The FBI is analyzing a sophisticated explosive device, similar to the underwear bomb used in an attempt to blow up a passenger jet over Detroit in 2009, that U.S. officials believe was built by Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen in an effort to target Western aircraft. U.S. officials said Monday that no one was captured by U.S. agencies as part of the operation. The officials emphasized that they found no sign of an active plot to use the new bomb design against U.S. aviation or U.S.-bound jetliners.

Nearly two weeks after two U.S. Coast Guard  employees were shot to death at a communications station in Kodiak, Alaska, there still have been no arrests, and the FBI continues to say little about the inquiry into the killings. But agents are now seeking the public's help in learning more about two vehicles that may have been used in the April 12 shootings. Over the weekend, the FBI released photos of a white 2002 Dodge Ram pickup and a blue 2001 Honda CRV. The vehicles “may have been used in connection with the recent double homicide on Kodiak Island,” the agency said in a statement.  “Authorities are asking anyone who personally observed either of these vehicles at any time on Thursday, 04/12/2012, or before noon on Friday, 04/13/2012, traveling on Rezanof Road, Anton Larson Road, near the State Airport or the Coast Guard Communications Station, to please call the FBI.” FBI spokesman Darrin Jones declined to say to whom the vehicles are registered, where they were last seen or why they may be connected to the shootings.

WASHINGTON — Police and federal agents pulled the car over in a suburb north of Denver. An FBI agent showed his badge. The driver appeared not startled at all. "My friend," he said, "I have been waiting for you. " And with that, Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela stepped out of his white 2002 BMW X5 and into the arms of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Over the next several days at his ranch in Colorado and an FBI safe house in Albuquerque, the Mexican cartel chieftain — who had reputedly fed one of his victims to lions in Mexico — was transformed into one of the FBI's top informants on the Southwest border.

NEW YORK — Gone are the quiet streets and the loading docks, replaced with hordes of shoppers ducking into stores selling scented body butter, premium denim and high-end furniture. But one thing remains unchanged on the narrow stretch of Prince Street in SoHo: the haunting memory of Etan Patz, a 6-year-old boy who left for school one morning in 1979 and never came back. It is one of this city's — and the nation's — most chilling unsolved mysteries, a case many had forgotten or never knew about until Thursday, when police and FBI agents began searching the basement of a building on the same block as the little boy's apartment.

Police and FBI agents Thursday were pursuing a possible new lead in the disappearance of Etan Patz, the little boy whose disappearance from a Manhattan street more than 30 years ago ushered in the use of milk cartons to publicize the plight of missing children and left the nation with one of its most haunting mysteries. New York police spokesman Paul Browne confirmed that officials planned to dig at a site in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, near where Etan was last seen on May 25, 1979.

FBI agents have arrived in Kodiak, Alaska, to investigate the fatal shootings of two U.S. Coast Guard members at a communications station, but a spokesman said there is no immediate evidence that the incident was a terrorist act. Investigators would not say Thursday evening whether a gunman was still at large on the remote island in southern Alaska, home to 13,000 people and the largest Coast Guard base in the U.S. “The investigation is...