For years, Maduro and his inner circle systematically looted Venezuela—billions in oil revenue, gold reserves, and state assets—and, according to sources with direct knowledge of the operation, converted much of it into cryptocurrency.

The man who allegedly orchestrated that conversion, who built the shadow financial architecture that kept the regime alive under crushing sanctions, is not on that ship.

His name is Alex Saab.

And he may be the only person on Earth who knows how to access what sources estimate could be as much as $60 billion in Bitcoin—a figure that, if verified, would make the Maduro regime’s hidden fortune one of the largest cryptocurrency holdings on the planet, rivaling MicroStrategy and potentially exceeding El Salvador’s entire national reserve.

The claim comes from HUMINT sources and has not been confirmed through blockchain analysis, but the underlying math is provocative.

Venezuela exported 73.2 tons of gold in 2018 alone — roughly $2.7 billion at the time. If even a fraction of that was converted to Bitcoin when prices hovered between $3,000 and $10,000, and held through the 2021 peak of $69,000, the returns would be staggering.

Sources familiar with the operation describe a systematic effort to convert gold proceeds into cryptocurrency through Turkish and Emirati intermediaries, then move the assets through mixers and cold wallets beyond the reach of Western enforcement.

The keys to those wallets, sources say, are held by a small circle of trusted operatives—with Saab at the center.

What Washington didn’t know—and what court documents would later reveal—was that Saab had been a DEA informant since 2016, even as he built Maduro’s shadow financial empire.

~ Full article…

While his involvement in the opium trade is indelible, it was Sassoon’s broader vision of India’s economic potential that truly left its mark on the country. In addition to his mills, Sassoon was instrumental in founding several financial institutions, most notably the Bank of India, established in 1906. The Bank of India was conceived in response to the Swadeshi Movement, a nationalist movement advocating the use of Indian-made goods in a direct challenge to British colonialism.

Alongside prominent figures such as Cowasjee Jehangir and R.D. Tata, Sassoon sought to create an institution that would promote Indian economic autonomy. However, despite its nationalist intentions, the bank’s legacy was not without controversy. It was accused of being elitist, with much of its management and oversight still dominated by the British.

In response to these inequities, one of the bank’s Indian accountants, Sorabhji Pochkhanawala, left in 1911 to found the Central Bank of India, a new institution aimed at promoting Indian control over the nation’s financial system. The rivalry between the Bank of India and the Central Bank reflected a broader struggle for economic independence that would define much of India’s fight against British rule.

The reach of the Sassoon family extended well beyond India’s borders. Sassoon’s influence was particularly felt in Shanghai, where his descendants would continue to expand the family’s business empire throughout the twentieth century. Victor Sassoon, the fourth generation of the family, was a pivotal figure in the empire’s expansion.

He founded over thirty companies in Shanghai, making his mark as one of the city’s most successful businessmen. Notably, Victor also offered refuge to Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust, providing them with homes and work in Shanghai during and after World War II. The Sassoon family, by then firmly entrenched in international trade and banking, played a crucial role in shaping the economic landscape of East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East.

Despite their prominence, the Sassoons have remained largely out of the public eye in recent decades, overshadowed by other, more visible dynasties such as the Tatas and the Godrej family. Yet, when one delves into the history of the Sassoon family, their influence on the development of modern India becomes clear.

~ Full article…

In a massive lawsuit seeking $10 million each, 510 women are suing the health system and senior executives for negligence, saying they were victimized by former OB-GYN Javaid Perwaiz, currently serving a 59-year prison sentence for Medicaid fraud correlating to the unnecessary operations.

Most of the procedures were covered by Medicaid, a government-assisted health plan for the less fortunate. With most of the women still being within childbearing years, Perwaiz allegedly removed the reproductive organs without their knowledge.

~ Full article…

Herrera “initially donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc. in late 2024 as her father, Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker, was facing federal charges for trying to bribe the governor of Puerto Rico in 2020,” said the report. “In May, a top Trump appointee at the Justice Department authorized a misdemeanor plea deal to settle the case, overruling career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence. In July, Ms. Herrera donated another $1 million to MAGA Inc.”

This comes after a report back in August detailed how MAGA Inc. is effectively operating as a platform to sell access and favor with the president, despite it ostensibly being an independent and distinct entity not under control of the president by law.

It also comes as Julie K. Brown, the Miami Herald reporter who has been covering the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking case for years, has speculated that donors to pro-Trump causes who may appear in the Epstein case files are leaning on Trump and the Justice Department to obscure their names in the Congressionally-required release of the documents.

~ Full article…

At the heart of the pollution-poverty nexus lies inequality. Poor communities disprop or tionately inhabit environmentally hazardous spaces – along polluted rivers, near landfills, industrial zones, highways, or mining belts. These locations are not chosen freely but imposed by unaffordable housing, insecure land tenure, and social marginalization. In urban India, slum settlements often emerge on floodplains or beside drains, exposing residents to contaminated water, toxic air, and recurring disasters. In rural areas, land degradation, pesticide overuse, and deforestation affect small farmers and landless labourers the most, stripping them of productive assets. Environmental pollution directly deepens poverty through health impacts.

~ Full article…

France is bracing for a major farmers’ uprising as anger explodes over the EU–Mercosur trade deal. With tractors blocking highways and banners accusing Brussels of sacrificing French agriculture, farmers are now threatening to take their protest to Paris and bring the capital to a standstill. The 25-year-old trade agreement, expected to be signed in Paraguay on January 12, could flood European markets with cheaper South American agricultural imports. Farmers fear this will crush local farms, weaken food safety standards and threaten livelihoods across rural France. With “Next Stop Paris” banners going up and blockades being planned, the battle over Europe’s agriculture has officially begun.

~ Full article…

Farmers are protesting production costs and want guaranteed production prices that would cover them – a measure that would flout European Union regulations – as well as subsidized electricity prices, exemption from value-added tax, and no tariff-free imports of produce from regions with whom the EU has signed trade agreements. They also demand an immediate doubling of pensions, and, protesting delays in subsidy payments following the farm subsidies scandal, they demand that the government reverse its decision, imposed by the EU, to essentially scrap subsidies disbursement agency OPEKEPE and shift responsibility to the independent tax authority AADE. Farmers are also against a system for recording production and shipments online.

~ Full article…

Scammers steal billions of dollars in food stamps from needy people every year. Why isn’t Congress doing anything to stop them?
[…]
MAGA hacks like Rollins seldom acknowledge that a SNAP beneficiary is likelier to be the victim of a crime rather than its perpetrator. So-called targeted benefit fraud is common, costing an estimated $12 billion per year. And Rollins has to know that a thief who steals directly from a SNAP recipient is much likelier to be a hardened criminal than a SNAP recipient who bends or breaks some eligibility rule.

“This is white-collar crime,” Mark Haskin of the Agriculture Department’s special investigations unit told an Atlanta TV news reporter last year. “This is organized crime.” A Romanian transnational mafia gang known as the Dorneanu Organized Crime Group, for instance, allegedly led by one Mihai Dorneanu, stole over $180 million from California welfare funds, leading in February 2025 to 11 arrests by Romanian authorities, five by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and four by local police. Two members remained at large after they cut their ankle monitors and jumped bail in 2023. One of them was later arrested in Australia.
[…]
Vilsack’s successor, Rollins, included SNAP benefit theft among the items targeted in her “National Farm Security Action Plan,” but her main solution was to punish retailers judged insufficiently vigilant. In general, Rollins seems more preoccupied with chasing undocumented immigrants, penalizing states that didn’t suspend full SNAP payments during the government shutdown, and making all SNAP recipients reapply for benefits. Addressing actual SNAP fraud committed by real criminals like the Dorneanu Organized Crime Group is a low priority.

~ Full article…

Pompeo’s tenure as CIA Director in 2017-2018 coincided with a significant expansion of the CIA’s involvement in Ukraine. The CIA set up 12 clandestine bases following the February 2014 CIA-backed Maidan coup that fueled the conflict with Russia.

In November, AP News reported that Pompeo had joined the advisory board of Ukraine’s leading defense company, Fire Point, which develops long-range drones capable of striking targets deep inside Russia.[2]

At a press conference announcing his appointment, Pompeo said that his mission with the company was to help Fire Point become an important supplier for Western hardware [i.e., drones].”[3]
[…]
Allegedly, Fire Point CEO Yehor Skalyha first developed the know-how with drones when he used them in camera work that he did in the film-making industry.

Emerging from Ukraine’s film and TV industry, Fire Point, according to the Times, performed location work for a 2016 romantic comedy in which current Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky starred.

~ Full article…

According to Redfin, investors were responsible for buying 48 of the 119 lots for sale in the Pacific Palisades area during the third quarter. In nearby Altadena, investors purchased 27 of the 61 lots available, and in Malibu, 19 of the 43 lots for sale were bought by investors.

Redfin’s analysis indicates that many investors made lowball offers for lots in Altadena, where some of the destroyed homes had been built in the 1940s and 1950s. These lots have been selling in the $500,000 to $600,000 range. The report noted that while some owners rejected these offers, others were forced to sell as they lacked the money to rebuild.

By comparison, a typical empty lot sold for $1.6 million in Pacific Palisades, and for $1.3 million in Malibu.

~ Full article…