another example of the Credit Card industry's deceptive advertising targeting children
cartoon of the month

Thursday, June 30, 2005

Who is Oliver Harvey Really ?

A few stories on who this Oliver Harvey really is :- Anatoly Tal, Dominic Mohan(? ho ho), a caring father in a spiderman suit, or just a guy who weighs big breasts!


The Communicator
SUN BUNGLES JUICY ASYLUM SCOOP
Guest Editor Gordon Doh Fondo believes The Sun's ASYLUM EXPOSED was a magnificent if muddled story, skewed to satisfy the paper's xenophobic tastes.

I read this 'Major Sun Investigation' on Mon 19 May with admiration, and great disappointment. An otherwise fine piece of journalism was reduced to a mere platitude - that asylum-seekers get FREE accommodation and FREE food. It also insinuated that new arrivals should be starved to death.

No one can fail to admire the courage and bravado of journalist Oliver Harvey, alias Moldovan asylum-seeker 'Anatoly Tal'). Those who flee the Saddams and Mugabes come in the wings of planes, at the back of uncushioned containers, and on foot. Harvey hid 'in the back of a white van' wrapped 'inside a duvet… rather than risk suffocation'. That takes nerves of steel.

However, this self-styled undercover agent failed to take on board the physical and psychological torture experienced by asylum-seekers who have escaped death by a hair's breadth.

Harvey's investigation did prove one thing; however well you fake it no one can ever replicate the weight that asylum seekers carry with them.

He had contingency plans and probably credit cards tucked safely away; most asylum-seekers fee with more will than wallet, taking risks far too excruciating for a white-collar journalist to copy.

It took Harvey thirty-five minutes to get to his 'promised land'; it may take many weeks for some of those genuinely seeking asylum-seekers.

DEFINING TERMS

A definition of 'refugee' or 'asylum-seeker' (the difference is rarely explained in the UK press) might help The Sun.

Article 1 (2) of the UN Convention of 1951 defines a refugee as a person who, 'owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it'. (my emphasis)

The emboldened passage is often left out but needs to be emphasised. It means, in essence, that all 'British' Zimbabweans fleeing from Mugabe's iron fist ARE asylum-seekers in the UK.

It follows that British nationals habitually resident in Iraq or Saudi Arabia who flee war or terrorism, ARE asylum-seekers in the UK. Yet the press never bothers to write about their situation or the free housing they receive on arrival. Are they more entitled to it by virtue of their colour and accent?

The Sun also needs to find out more about the rights and entitlements of asylum-seekers under international law.

ASYLUM BENEFITS

Harvey uses the word 'FREE' eleven times to refer to accommodation, food, transport and NHS care, given asylum-seekers.

Article 13 of the 1951 Convention could not be more explicit: "the Contracting States shall accord to a refugee treatment as favourable as possible and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances, as regards the acquisition of movable and immovable property and other rights pertaining thereto.."

My emphasis on the key phrase.. Which means that if white people are fleeing from Mugabe to seek asylum in the UK, then the same accommodation and other related benefits ought to apply to them as it applies to Africans, Arabs or, as in the case in point, Moldavians.

The Sun declared (Wed 22 May, 2002, p.8) that '90% of asylum-seekers are conmen' seeking benefits.
The paper frowns at 'free hand-outs' to asylum-seekers. In other words a destitute asylum-seeker should pay rent and buy food and bus tickets with no money!

Section 95 (1) of the 1999 Immigration and Nationality Act entitles asylum-seekers to support on the grounds of destitution [95 (2) and 95(3) (a) and (b)].
The Sun may argue that Article 55 of the 2002 Act has superseded this provision, especially in relation to in-country applicants who fail to claim 'as soon as is reasonably practical' (whatever that may mean).

Recent court decisions suggest otherwise. Mr Justice Collins described this provision as "ultra vires" and "draconian". Ruling against it Lord Ellenborough said "the law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford [asylum-seekers] relief, to save them from starving."

Where would The Sun's man Oliver Harvey have slept if he were not immediately granted accommodation? Would he have shared a phone booth with a homeless asylum-seeker or headed for the comfort of home or a 5-star hotel on expenses?

DUE PROCESS

I am no apologist for the Home Office but in fairness to them, it can be argued that the asylum process is like other judicial procedures where rules relating to discovery and evidence apply.

Paramount, though, is the presumption of innocence. An asylum-seeker must be considered genuine until such time as the asylum procedure proves otherwise. The onus of proof rests with the Home Office.

Obtaining an ID card marked 'Employment Prohibited' and a tiny room with 'dirty sheets' does not sound to me like a good motive for seeking asylum.

Our man in the duvet had a healthy bank account, a passport (held by his friend Paul in case he was discovered) and a clear mind - not having abandoned his wife and family to a vengeful dictator. He ended his journey just when he would have started learning the harsh realities of asylum seeking.

He missed out on completing the exacting 21-page Statement of Evidence Form, and avoided the 13-day minimum (sometimes longer than 6-month) wait to be called for a Substantive Interview. He did not share the fate of Baindu Dassama from war-torn Sierra Leone, whose file was 'mislaid'.

RUMBLED

Before the interview, a caseworker would have read up on the history, geography and politics of Moldova, and quickly rumbled Harvey's 'five minutes study on the internet'.

'Anatoly Tal' would also have found that the biometrics data held in his file had been checked against asylum databases all over Europe and the UK.

Could he not provide clear, concrete evidence that he was a journalist, his claim would have been refused. He would wait another two to six months to be called for appeal, after which he might have a deportation order hanging over his head.

Meanwhile he would live on a 'free breakfast of mango juice, toast and jam' in his "free accommodation," with no wife to return to, no child to lisp at his return, no company to share jokes with, and an uncertain future.

The authorities may not earn high marks for failing to detect a human bundle hidden under crates in a van driven by a UK national. But they acted on the assumption that Oliver/Anatoly was an asylum-seeker.
The port is not the place to decide whether or not he was genuine. The law has to run its cours e. Nor can The Sun draw conclusions from an isolated case. Let's see it get the same result 6 out of 10 times.

POISON PEN

The Sun found ink to fill a poisonous pen. An otherwise brilliant story, which could have been used for political leverage to spark off reforms, was presented to readers as another reason to hate asylum-seekers.

The Sun's feeble outburst of mea culpa does not mitigate the xenophobic tone of the article. But it does show that even an enemy of asylum-seekers can see their plight. Of 'Anatoly''s free room Oliver says: 'the sheets were dirty but the mattress was comfortable enough'. Of those he met, he says, 'Many seemed to have suffered in their homelands'. And of the atmosphere, '[it] was a bit like a community centre on a housing estate".

Not even a Sun journalist looking for a reason to witch-hunt asylum-seekers could ignore their shoddy living conditions.

The enemies of the UK are not asylum-seekers. They are the thousands of able-bodied men and women who sign on at the dole for decades and rip off the test of us by claiming benefits from the state; they are the journalists whose racist pens stir up a people to maim and kill innocent men and women who have fled for their lives.

Well done The Sun. A great story which has not advanced the asylum debate one iota. It just muddied the waters, and added to your reputation as the most xenophobic paper under the sun.

Gordon Doh Fondo worked as a sports reporter and presenter for the Cameroon National Television Corporation. Since January, he has been co-presenter of In Site on Channel 7 Television UK.


The Sun also revealed that Bahree, “an ex-public school boy”, is “a member of India’s top Brahmin caste” and that he is “a virgin who lives with his parents”. How either nugget is relevant to Bahree’s alleged financial crime is not made clear.


Sun reporter fails language test

Chris Tryhorn and Claire Cozens
Wednesday April 13, 2005
The Guardian

A Sun journalist's attempt to gain entry to Britain posing as an asylum seeker came a cropper when his language skills were found wanting.

The reporter, Brian Flynn, until recently the paper's New York correspondent, was questioned by immigration officers at Dover yesterday after claiming to be a Kosovan refugee.

When officers summoned an interpreter, Flynn's inability to speak either of the region's languages, Serbo-Croat or Albanian, were exposed.

Article continues
"We can confirm that some journalist posing as a clandestine immigrant was stopped at Dover by immigration officers," a Home Office spokesman said. "He was questioned and subsequently released."

A spokeswoman for the Sun declined to comment.

In May 2003, another journalist at the paper, Oliver Harvey, successfully claimed benefits posing as an asylum seeker.

Harvey pretended to be a Moldovan journalist fleeing state oppression, using the name Anatoly Tal and "hamming up" an east European accent when meeting officials.

In the article, Harvey explained how he had avoided the trap into which Flynn fell two years later.

"I said I was an ethnic Russian whose mother tongue was Russian. My interviewer asked: "Do you need an interpreter?' I replied: "No, no. My English is very good. I have a degree in English and media." In fact, I was born in Hertfordshire and I don't speak a word of Russian."

Harvey added that his knowledge of Moldova was "based on five minutes' study on the internet".



http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003510656,00.html

Causing chaos ...

'Spiderman' climbs along crane yesterday Spidey's protest
fiasco

By IAN HEPBURN
and OLIVER HARVEY

A DESPERATE dad demonstrating in a Spiderman outfit up a 200ft crane has been branded a bigger pain than David Blaine. David Chick¹s protest has paralysed the area around London¹s Tower Bridge ‹ just weeks after it was gridlocked by fans flocking to see the US magician in a box. The crossing and several surrounding streets have been closed by police since Chick, 36, scaled the crane on Friday ‹ causing misery for motorists and crippling trade for local businesses. The dad, of Burgess Hill, Sussex, is protesting lack of access to his four-year-old daughter and vowed to stay for 10 DAYS on the Taylor Woodrow building site, where 120 staff have had to suspend work. Drivers endured 44 days of congestion and delays as people came to see Blaine¹s starvation stunt by the bridge, which ended last month. Local Bill Kennedy, 35, said: ³This idiot is causing a total snarl-up of the roads. As if David Blaine wasn¹t bad enough!²

Police were criticised for closing off the area. But a Scotland Yard spokesman said: ³The blame for this lies with the demonstrator, not the police. Unmasked ... David Chick

³Police have a duty of care to the man himself and the public and our priority has to be health and safety.
³Not to close the bridge would be to expose motorists to the risk of the man falling from the crane.² Three officers climbed up the crane yesterday, but Chick clambered along the 100ft jib ‹ swaying as it was buffeted by the wind. Police said last night Chick would be arrested for aggrevated trespass and public nuisance offences.
* IF you are a dad fighting for access call The Sun on 020 7782 4019
between 10am and 6pm today, email features@the-sun.co.uk or write to Rights
For Dads, The Sun, 1 Virginia Street, E98 1XY.


By SHARON HENDRY
and OLIVER HARVEY


THE specialist who helped wrongly convict Angela Cannings of murdering two of her babies was blasted by another jailed mum yesterday.

Donna Anthony, 30, is serving life after Prof Sir Roy Meadow, 70, dismissed her claim that HER two tots were cot death victims.

But the child care expert’s evidence in several cases has been discredited and he is being investigated by the General Medical Council. Mrs Cannings, 40, walked free from a life sentence on Wednesday after being cleared by the Appeal Court.

And Anthony’s lawyer George Hawks, 54, said: "Donna knows now that a lot of people are rooting for her."

Shortly before the Cannings appeal, Anthony said at Durham prison: "People are leaning on me to admit murdering my babies so that I can get parole.

"I know they don’t let you out unless you admit your guilt.

"But I won’t - because I didn’t kill my babies. I loved them."

Anthony, of Yeovil, Somerset, was jailed in 1998 - the year that Prof Meadow was knighted.

She was found guilty of murdering daughter Jordan, 11 months, in 1996, and son Michael, four months, in 1997.

Mr Hawks now wants her to be granted a second appeal hearing after the first failed.

During his client’s trial Prof Meadow said of the babies: "I find the circumstances of both lives and both deaths are typical of a child who has been smothered."

The Sun told yesterday how Angela - cleared of murdering sons Matthew, 18 weeks, and Jason, seven weeks - was the third mum accused of baby killing to be freed this year.

Prof Meadow, now retired, was a prosecution witness in each case.

He has argued that multiple cot deaths are suspicious events.

But his theory is not supported by scientific evidence. In one instance he alleged the chances of losing two babies to cot death were 73 million to one, a figure he now accepts was inaccurate.

The correct statistic is closer to 64 to one.

Campaigner Anne Diamond, 49, yesterday called for a review of how multiple cot deaths are investigated.

Ban him now


‘See You In May: Thousands of gipsies head for Britain’ was The Sun headline on January 18. Inside a two-page spread by Oliver Harvey used the simple fact that 1.5 million Roma who live in Poland and Slovakia will become EU citizens after May 1 and can come and work in Britain.

Of course it is impossible to predict how many Roma may come to the UK but The Sun claimed ‘tens of thousands are poised to flock to Britain when the EU expands on May 1.’

The Daily Express had no qualms about predictions. Its front page on January 20 had the emotive scare headline ‘1.6 million gipsies ready to flood in’ and a double spread accompanied by a map of Europe with the caption ‘The Great Invasion 2004: Where the gipsies are coming from’.

Date added: Monday, February 02, 2004 07:33 PM
Last modified: Monday, February 02, 2004


A superintendent pharmacist accused of misconduct after becoming involved in the internet supply of Viagra, exposed by an investigation carried out by The Sun newspaper, has been reprimanded by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

In the first case of its kind to come before the statutory committee, ABC Drug Stores Limited of Portobello Road, Notting Hill and its superintendent pharmacist Julian Wyatt from Raynes Park, southwest London, faced a series of allegations.

Sun journalist Oliver Harvey managed to buy Viagra via the website Menscare UK. Later he obtained the slimming drug Reductil without first obtaining a prescription from a doctor. ...


THE SUN NEWSPAPER

Edition 1GMD TUE 30 SEP 2003, Page 20
Dark Forces
OLIVER HARVEY
CONSPIRACY THEORIES RUN WILD OVER BLACKOUTS
THE electricity blackouts that brought New York, London, Copenhagen
and Italy to a standstill have the conspiracy theorists working
overtime.
From cries of an alien invasion to the rise of a new world order,
the doom and gloom merchants cannot get enough.
When 57million Italians suffered power cuts at the weekend, it was
the FOURTH time in SIX weeks a Western nation had been plunged
into
darkness.
The cuts, which have affected more than 100million people, started
in August when New York and much of north-east America was blacked
out.
Within days London and southern England suffered a similar power
failure, then Denmark and its capital Copenhagen followed suit.
But is it just coincidence, the groaning of long outdated and
creaking power grids, or are there really dark forces at work?
Secret
The Internet is buzzing with wild theories and bizarre rumours.
One of the most popular is that the Western nations have secretly
organised the blackouts as dummy runs against terror attacks.
One US web user said on a chat site: "There's a good chance this was
orchestrated to test public response and as a reminder to be
prepared."
Others believe a top secret US military experiment is to blame,
suggesting it had affected the Earth's magnetic field which caused
the cuts.
One Net nerd has even written an essay titled Did A Secret Military
Experiment Cause The 2003 American Blackout?
Another web surfer called Keith put it down to the rise of a new
global power. He said: "Power cuts in the US, the UK and now Italy.
Is the new world order up to something?"
Others attributed the blackouts to aliens taking over the world. One
conspirator said: "The aliens transmit large amounts of electricity
into power relay stations and blow out their circuit breakers. It's
all part of their invasion plan and every industrial country will be
affected."
Perhaps the most bizarre explanation came from a conspirator simply
known as Acoloss, who said: "Maybe electricity is a form of life and
it's become aware."
But last night electricity suppliers insisted there was a rational
explanation to the cuts. National Grid Transco spokesman Chris Mostyn
said: "The British blackout had nothing to do with terrorism or
aliens. It was a technical fault."
But for conspiracy theorists, this explanation is just another
example of how we are being kept in the dark.


It's £500 for a passport
The Sun 12-5-04.
by KATHRYN LISTER NEIL SYSON
and OLIVER HARVEY

CROOKED immigration officer Lucy Denyer demanded £500 for a dodgy passport — then bragged she could get THREE more.

Brazen Denyer even claimed she was charging HALF the going rate.

The Gatwick Airport worker — exposed in an undercover investigation by The Sun — refused to haggle over the price.

She insisted: “Normally it would cost you £1,000, so it is cheap.

“You have got to remember this is my job at risk and this is my life at risk for you, so it’s £500. It is a very good price, trust me.”

Denyer, 21, who earns £21,500 a year in her job STOPPING illegal foreigners at one of Britain’s biggest gateways, made her demands to two Sun investigators in a pub.

Asked if she could provide more passports, she replied: “Yeah, two or three.”

Denyer was clutching one filched from an office at Gatwick’s North Terminal — part of a stack confiscated from suspect travellers.

The greedy official believed it was for a Romanian called Piotr who had slipped into the UK in the back of a lorry at Dover.

But Piotr was in fact reporter Oliver Harvey — and the entire meeting was captured on video.

An appalled gay pal had tipped off The Sun that lesbian Denyer was touting around her friends for dodgy visa and passport business.

Reporter Kathryn Lister first contacted her by text, posing as a woman called Andrea and asking for help for a friend.

The women had met briefly months before — but Andrea was not the person who tipped us off.

Over five days, Denyer exchanged text messages and even asked for a description of our Romanian so she could get the best passport match.

The officer then sent the excited text: “I’ve got it now. Will arrange to meet in croydon monday afternoon, hows that? Will he have the £’s on him? X.”

Denyer, an immigration officer for three years, arrived at the South London pub, sure of a sale with Oliver and Kathryn.

Ironically, the venue is half a mile from the immigration service’s national HQ, where thousands of asylum seekers flock for processing.

Cocky Denyer collected her £500 as she slipped the passport under the table. She told Oliver: “You take the photo out the top and slide yours in.

“You need to be very, very careful with it. Do it very slowly. It is better to have your own photo in it rather than get someone like you.”

The passport, number 034705825 and issued on June 28, 1999, was in the name of James Smallwood, supposedly born in Northampton on February 6, 1979.

It was seized at Gatwick in September 2001 from drug smugglers and used as evidence at Croydon Crown Court.

Denyer even had advice for Oliver if officers grew suspicious.

She said: “If they stop you and say ‘I know that’s not you’, hold your hands up and claim asylum. It is either claim asylum or go to jail. If you claim asylum there’s no jail.”

Pals allege Denyer has openly boasted about taking bribes from foreigners entering Britain and once pocketed £1,500.

Denyer said of the passport: “This will be my second like this but I’ve done visas before. The visas are easier because it is something I can just put a stamp on.

“We have got two drawers full of British passports — about 70.”

Reporter Oliver last month uncovered a fake passport scam in Poland when he bought one for £800 in a Warsaw market.

Denyer, of Lingfield, Surrey, told him part of her role involved assessing passengers through two-way mirrors.

She bragged: “When I joined I was the youngest immigration officer in the UK. I think I’m still one of the youngest.”

Last night The Sun gave its damning dossier to the Home Office and Denyer was suspended from duty pending a probe.

Immigration Minister Des Brown said: “We’d like to thank The Sun for bringing this incident to our attention. We treat it with the utmost seriousness.”


Excellent False Passports Sold in Polish Marketplace
AN undercover Sun reporter has exposed just how easy it is to get a false east European passport and exploit the Government’s shambolic immigration system. Our man was able to buy a forged Polish passport with a false name in a bustling Warsaw street market for just £800. He was also able to buy a picture ID card in his own name for £330. The Home Office last night confirmed that from May 1 — when Poland and nine other nations join the EU — either document will allow entry to Britain. Similar fake credentials could be used by illegal immigrants from non-EU countries . . . as well as terrorists or big-time criminals.

A tip-off from a contact in the Polish underworld led us to Rozyckiego Market, a vipers’ nest of criminality in the centre of Polish capital Warsaw. Within seconds of entering the collection of rickety wooden and corrugated iron stalls we were approached by an unshaven man in a leather jacket. Through a translator, the man, with black moustache and baseball cap, offered our reporter a Polish ID card. The man boasted: “You can have it in whatever name you like. You will be able to travel all over Europe with it. It will be a perfect fake. You can pick it up tomorrow.” Then, as other shoppers strolled by, we were ushered behind a flower stall out of sight of the busy street. Our man was then introduced to another gang member, an overweight, bald man in his fifties. He asked through the translator for our reporter’s height, hair and eye colour. He agreed to provide an ID card in the name Oliver Harvey. Our man handed over a passport picture and 300 US dollars (£165) up front. Returning two days later, he picked up the picture ID, a brilliant fake which also gave our reporter a false address in Warsaw. It also gave the city as his place of birth and a made-up name for his father. The green-fronted card, number DX1258874, came complete with official government stamps and watermarks. We paid a further £165 in US dollars for the ID and shook hands.

The bald man then said through our translator: “We trust you now. Why don’t you buy a passport? We have Polish and Austrian, but Austrian is more expensive. You can have any name you like but why don’t you let us make up a Polish identity for you? Border guards will simply look at your passport and wave you through.” His pal said: “People travel to Britain and throughout Europe on our passports. We will create a new identity for you, no problem.” After quoting $2,000, around £1,100, our man bartered the price down to £800. As we struck the deal another man, of central Asian origin, arrived to collect HIS false passport. The racketeer proudly showed the fake to our reporter who, judging the papers a good copy, handed over a £500 down payment in US dollars. Our reporter now had the false name of Andrzej Miler, false date of birth March 28, 1968, and passport number BM3196643. When we compared our version with a legitimate Polish passport, there was no obvious difference. One local said: “This market is like a passport consulate. As well as passports and ID cards, you can get driving licences and degrees.”

In four weeks Poland will be the EU’s eastern frontier. Mafia gangs have already established the nation as a people-smuggling staging post en-route to Britain and the West. Around 50,000 illegals from as far afield as China, Afghanistan and Somalia were stopped trying to cross Poland’s borders last year. Almost 10,000 forged passports and other ID documents were discovered at British ports in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available — an increase of 46 per cent on 2001. But an unknown number of illegals with false papers make it into Britain each year. Forged passports are commonly used by terrorists to slip in and out of countries undetected. Two al-Qaeda terrorists, jailed in Britain in 2003, were discovered with hundreds of false travel documents. ....

The false documents we bought in Poland were examined by a counterfeit passport expert . . . who passed them with flying colours. The London-based specialist, unnamed because he helps investigations involving terrorists and organised crime, subjected the documents to vigorous forensic tests. He concluded in a written report: “Both documents would be accepted as genuine in a variety of scenarios. After Poland’s accession to the EU, the passport is likely to be accepted in all EU countries. “This is particularly the case where they are not physically examined but merely accepted ‘on the nod’ as the holder passes through the control holding the photo page open, as in the UK.” Once in Britain the passport could be used for a string of criminal and black market activities. The specialist added: “You could use the passport to open a bank account, get a credit card, get a job and cash cheques.” But he said the fakes are not perfect. And the passport could be rumbled if a Customs man decided to look closely at it. He added: “I would not expect an immigration officer to accept the passport if it is subjected to any kind of physical examination. “Having said that, if there were travel stamps and visas in the passport, it might be enough to put the officer off asking too many questions.”

A gang netted more than £1million by sticking immigrants’ pictures into genuine British passports. In 14 months up to 500 illegals were waved through at British airports and ferry terminals. Three of the gang — Britons Robert Walkden, 31, Mohammed Jamil, 32, and Khalid Mahmood, 31 — were jailed for six years each in Bradford yesterday. They charged £2,000 to escort the Asian migrants from Europe into Britain, sticking their photos into genuine passports believed to have been bought from British citizens. Detective Constable Peter Thornton, who led the inquiry, said: “The fact is if you are in the queue for people with British passports, the chances are you won’t be stopped.”
Posted by Mike Sylwester 1:00:07 AM|| E-Mail|| Page ||

#1 You will note that the Mob don't deal in Euros.
Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-02 8:32:21 AM Top Page

#2 This explains why the US has not lifted visa restrictions on travel from Poland despite their help in Iraq and the WOT. The Polish government can bitch all they want, but those restrictions need to be kept in place until Poland cleans up this problem.
Posted by: Steve 2004-04-02 8:46:12 AM Top Page

#3 Yeah right. This reporter should ask for a refund. First of all, the last name on the passport should be 'Miller' not 'Miler', even though they are pronounced the same way in Polish. An easy mistake for a dumbass forger to make (and even dumber reporter). With a sharp border guard this should immediately raise a flag.

Who is Oliver Harvey Really ?

A few stories on who this Oliver Harvey really is :- Anatoly Tal, Dominic Mohan(? ho ho), a caring father in a spiderman suit, or just a guy who weighs big breasts!


The Communicator
SUN BUNGLES JUICY ASYLUM SCOOP
Guest Editor Gordon Doh Fondo believes The Sun's ASYLUM EXPOSED was a magnificent if muddled story, skewed to satisfy the paper's xenophobic tastes.

I read this 'Major Sun Investigation' on Mon 19 May with admiration, and great disappointment. An otherwise fine piece of journalism was reduced to a mere platitude - that asylum-seekers get FREE accommodation and FREE food. It also insinuated that new arrivals should be starved to death.

No one can fail to admire the courage and bravado of journalist Oliver Harvey, alias Moldovan asylum-seeker 'Anatoly Tal'). Those who flee the Saddams and Mugabes come in the wings of planes, at the back of uncushioned containers, and on foot. Harvey hid 'in the back of a white van' wrapped 'inside a duvet… rather than risk suffocation'. That takes nerves of steel.

However, this self-styled undercover agent failed to take on board the physical and psychological torture experienced by asylum-seekers who have escaped death by a hair's breadth.

Harvey's investigation did prove one thing; however well you fake it no one can ever replicate the weight that asylum seekers carry with them.

He had contingency plans and probably credit cards tucked safely away; most asylum-seekers fee with more will than wallet, taking risks far too excruciating for a white-collar journalist to copy.

It took Harvey thirty-five minutes to get to his 'promised land'; it may take many weeks for some of those genuinely seeking asylum-seekers.

DEFINING TERMS

A definition of 'refugee' or 'asylum-seeker' (the difference is rarely explained in the UK press) might help The Sun.

Article 1 (2) of the UN Convention of 1951 defines a refugee as a person who, 'owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, unwilling to return to it'. (my emphasis)

The emboldened passage is often left out but needs to be emphasised. It means, in essence, that all 'British' Zimbabweans fleeing from Mugabe's iron fist ARE asylum-seekers in the UK.

It follows that British nationals habitually resident in Iraq or Saudi Arabia who flee war or terrorism, ARE asylum-seekers in the UK. Yet the press never bothers to write about their situation or the free housing they receive on arrival. Are they more entitled to it by virtue of their colour and accent?

The Sun also needs to find out more about the rights and entitlements of asylum-seekers under international law.

ASYLUM BENEFITS

Harvey uses the word 'FREE' eleven times to refer to accommodation, food, transport and NHS care, given asylum-seekers.

Article 13 of the 1951 Convention could not be more explicit: "the Contracting States shall accord to a refugee treatment as favourable as possible and, in any event, not less favourable than that accorded to aliens generally in the same circumstances, as regards the acquisition of movable and immovable property and other rights pertaining thereto.."

My emphasis on the key phrase.. Which means that if white people are fleeing from Mugabe to seek asylum in the UK, then the same accommodation and other related benefits ought to apply to them as it applies to Africans, Arabs or, as in the case in point, Moldavians.

The Sun declared (Wed 22 May, 2002, p.8) that '90% of asylum-seekers are conmen' seeking benefits.
The paper frowns at 'free hand-outs' to asylum-seekers. In other words a destitute asylum-seeker should pay rent and buy food and bus tickets with no money!

Section 95 (1) of the 1999 Immigration and Nationality Act entitles asylum-seekers to support on the grounds of destitution [95 (2) and 95(3) (a) and (b)].
The Sun may argue that Article 55 of the 2002 Act has superseded this provision, especially in relation to in-country applicants who fail to claim 'as soon as is reasonably practical' (whatever that may mean).

Recent court decisions suggest otherwise. Mr Justice Collins described this provision as "ultra vires" and "draconian". Ruling against it Lord Ellenborough said "the law of humanity, which is anterior to all positive laws, obliges us to afford [asylum-seekers] relief, to save them from starving."

Where would The Sun's man Oliver Harvey have slept if he were not immediately granted accommodation? Would he have shared a phone booth with a homeless asylum-seeker or headed for the comfort of home or a 5-star hotel on expenses?

DUE PROCESS

I am no apologist for the Home Office but in fairness to them, it can be argued that the asylum process is like other judicial procedures where rules relating to discovery and evidence apply.

Paramount, though, is the presumption of innocence. An asylum-seeker must be considered genuine until such time as the asylum procedure proves otherwise. The onus of proof rests with the Home Office.

Obtaining an ID card marked 'Employment Prohibited' and a tiny room with 'dirty sheets' does not sound to me like a good motive for seeking asylum.

Our man in the duvet had a healthy bank account, a passport (held by his friend Paul in case he was discovered) and a clear mind - not having abandoned his wife and family to a vengeful dictator. He ended his journey just when he would have started learning the harsh realities of asylum seeking.

He missed out on completing the exacting 21-page Statement of Evidence Form, and avoided the 13-day minimum (sometimes longer than 6-month) wait to be called for a Substantive Interview. He did not share the fate of Baindu Dassama from war-torn Sierra Leone, whose file was 'mislaid'.

RUMBLED

Before the interview, a caseworker would have read up on the history, geography and politics of Moldova, and quickly rumbled Harvey's 'five minutes study on the internet'.

'Anatoly Tal' would also have found that the biometrics data held in his file had been checked against asylum databases all over Europe and the UK.

Could he not provide clear, concrete evidence that he was a journalist, his claim would have been refused. He would wait another two to six months to be called for appeal, after which he might have a deportation order hanging over his head.

Meanwhile he would live on a 'free breakfast of mango juice, toast and jam' in his "free accommodation," with no wife to return to, no child to lisp at his return, no company to share jokes with, and an uncertain future.

The authorities may not earn high marks for failing to detect a human bundle hidden under crates in a van driven by a UK national. But they acted on the assumption that Oliver/Anatoly was an asylum-seeker.
The port is not the place to decide whether or not he was genuine. The law has to run its cours e. Nor can The Sun draw conclusions from an isolated case. Let's see it get the same result 6 out of 10 times.

POISON PEN

The Sun found ink to fill a poisonous pen. An otherwise brilliant story, which could have been used for political leverage to spark off reforms, was presented to readers as another reason to hate asylum-seekers.

The Sun's feeble outburst of mea culpa does not mitigate the xenophobic tone of the article. But it does show that even an enemy of asylum-seekers can see their plight. Of 'Anatoly''s free room Oliver says: 'the sheets were dirty but the mattress was comfortable enough'. Of those he met, he says, 'Many seemed to have suffered in their homelands'. And of the atmosphere, '[it] was a bit like a community centre on a housing estate".

Not even a Sun journalist looking for a reason to witch-hunt asylum-seekers could ignore their shoddy living conditions.

The enemies of the UK are not asylum-seekers. They are the thousands of able-bodied men and women who sign on at the dole for decades and rip off the test of us by claiming benefits from the state; they are the journalists whose racist pens stir up a people to maim and kill innocent men and women who have fled for their lives.

Well done The Sun. A great story which has not advanced the asylum debate one iota. It just muddied the waters, and added to your reputation as the most xenophobic paper under the sun.

Gordon Doh Fondo worked as a sports reporter and presenter for the Cameroon National Television Corporation. Since January, he has been co-presenter of In Site on Channel 7 Television UK.


The Sun also revealed that Bahree, “an ex-public school boy”, is “a member of India’s top Brahmin caste” and that he is “a virgin who lives with his parents”. How either nugget is relevant to Bahree’s alleged financial crime is not made clear.


Sun reporter fails language test

Chris Tryhorn and Claire Cozens
Wednesday April 13, 2005
The Guardian

A Sun journalist's attempt to gain entry to Britain posing as an asylum seeker came a cropper when his language skills were found wanting.

The reporter, Brian Flynn, until recently the paper's New York correspondent, was questioned by immigration officers at Dover yesterday after claiming to be a Kosovan refugee.

When officers summoned an interpreter, Flynn's inability to speak either of the region's languages, Serbo-Croat or Albanian, were exposed.

Article continues
"We can confirm that some journalist posing as a clandestine immigrant was stopped at Dover by immigration officers," a Home Office spokesman said. "He was questioned and subsequently released."

A spokeswoman for the Sun declined to comment.

In May 2003, another journalist at the paper, Oliver Harvey, successfully claimed benefits posing as an asylum seeker.

Harvey pretended to be a Moldovan journalist fleeing state oppression, using the name Anatoly Tal and "hamming up" an east European accent when meeting officials.

In the article, Harvey explained how he had avoided the trap into which Flynn fell two years later.

"I said I was an ethnic Russian whose mother tongue was Russian. My interviewer asked: "Do you need an interpreter?' I replied: "No, no. My English is very good. I have a degree in English and media." In fact, I was born in Hertfordshire and I don't speak a word of Russian."

Harvey added that his knowledge of Moldova was "based on five minutes' study on the internet".



http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2003510656,00.html

Causing chaos ...

'Spiderman' climbs along crane yesterday Spidey's protest
fiasco

By IAN HEPBURN
and OLIVER HARVEY

A DESPERATE dad demonstrating in a Spiderman outfit up a 200ft crane has been branded a bigger pain than David Blaine. David Chick¹s protest has paralysed the area around London¹s Tower Bridge ‹ just weeks after it was gridlocked by fans flocking to see the US magician in a box. The crossing and several surrounding streets have been closed by police since Chick, 36, scaled the crane on Friday ‹ causing misery for motorists and crippling trade for local businesses. The dad, of Burgess Hill, Sussex, is protesting lack of access to his four-year-old daughter and vowed to stay for 10 DAYS on the Taylor Woodrow building site, where 120 staff have had to suspend work. Drivers endured 44 days of congestion and delays as people came to see Blaine¹s starvation stunt by the bridge, which ended last month. Local Bill Kennedy, 35, said: ³This idiot is causing a total snarl-up of the roads. As if David Blaine wasn¹t bad enough!²

Police were criticised for closing off the area. But a Scotland Yard spokesman said: ³The blame for this lies with the demonstrator, not the police. Unmasked ... David Chick

³Police have a duty of care to the man himself and the public and our priority has to be health and safety.
³Not to close the bridge would be to expose motorists to the risk of the man falling from the crane.² Three officers climbed up the crane yesterday, but Chick clambered along the 100ft jib ‹ swaying as it was buffeted by the wind. Police said last night Chick would be arrested for aggrevated trespass and public nuisance offences.
* IF you are a dad fighting for access call The Sun on 020 7782 4019
between 10am and 6pm today, email features@the-sun.co.uk or write to Rights
For Dads, The Sun, 1 Virginia Street, E98 1XY.


By SHARON HENDRY
and OLIVER HARVEY


THE specialist who helped wrongly convict Angela Cannings of murdering two of her babies was blasted by another jailed mum yesterday.

Donna Anthony, 30, is serving life after Prof Sir Roy Meadow, 70, dismissed her claim that HER two tots were cot death victims.

But the child care expert’s evidence in several cases has been discredited and he is being investigated by the General Medical Council. Mrs Cannings, 40, walked free from a life sentence on Wednesday after being cleared by the Appeal Court.

And Anthony’s lawyer George Hawks, 54, said: "Donna knows now that a lot of people are rooting for her."

Shortly before the Cannings appeal, Anthony said at Durham prison: "People are leaning on me to admit murdering my babies so that I can get parole.

"I know they don’t let you out unless you admit your guilt.

"But I won’t - because I didn’t kill my babies. I loved them."

Anthony, of Yeovil, Somerset, was jailed in 1998 - the year that Prof Meadow was knighted.

She was found guilty of murdering daughter Jordan, 11 months, in 1996, and son Michael, four months, in 1997.

Mr Hawks now wants her to be granted a second appeal hearing after the first failed.

During his client’s trial Prof Meadow said of the babies: "I find the circumstances of both lives and both deaths are typical of a child who has been smothered."

The Sun told yesterday how Angela - cleared of murdering sons Matthew, 18 weeks, and Jason, seven weeks - was the third mum accused of baby killing to be freed this year.

Prof Meadow, now retired, was a prosecution witness in each case.

He has argued that multiple cot deaths are suspicious events.

But his theory is not supported by scientific evidence. In one instance he alleged the chances of losing two babies to cot death were 73 million to one, a figure he now accepts was inaccurate.

The correct statistic is closer to 64 to one.

Campaigner Anne Diamond, 49, yesterday called for a review of how multiple cot deaths are investigated.

Ban him now


‘See You In May: Thousands of gipsies head for Britain’ was The Sun headline on January 18. Inside a two-page spread by Oliver Harvey used the simple fact that 1.5 million Roma who live in Poland and Slovakia will become EU citizens after May 1 and can come and work in Britain.

Of course it is impossible to predict how many Roma may come to the UK but The Sun claimed ‘tens of thousands are poised to flock to Britain when the EU expands on May 1.’

The Daily Express had no qualms about predictions. Its front page on January 20 had the emotive scare headline ‘1.6 million gipsies ready to flood in’ and a double spread accompanied by a map of Europe with the caption ‘The Great Invasion 2004: Where the gipsies are coming from’.

Date added: Monday, February 02, 2004 07:33 PM
Last modified: Monday, February 02, 2004


A superintendent pharmacist accused of misconduct after becoming involved in the internet supply of Viagra, exposed by an investigation carried out by The Sun newspaper, has been reprimanded by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

In the first case of its kind to come before the statutory committee, ABC Drug Stores Limited of Portobello Road, Notting Hill and its superintendent pharmacist Julian Wyatt from Raynes Park, southwest London, faced a series of allegations.

Sun journalist Oliver Harvey managed to buy Viagra via the website Menscare UK. Later he obtained the slimming drug Reductil without first obtaining a prescription from a doctor. ...


THE SUN NEWSPAPER

Edition 1GMD TUE 30 SEP 2003, Page 20
Dark Forces
OLIVER HARVEY
CONSPIRACY THEORIES RUN WILD OVER BLACKOUTS
THE electricity blackouts that brought New York, London, Copenhagen
and Italy to a standstill have the conspiracy theorists working
overtime.
From cries of an alien invasion to the rise of a new world order,
the doom and gloom merchants cannot get enough.
When 57million Italians suffered power cuts at the weekend, it was
the FOURTH time in SIX weeks a Western nation had been plunged
into
darkness.
The cuts, which have affected more than 100million people, started
in August when New York and much of north-east America was blacked
out.
Within days London and southern England suffered a similar power
failure, then Denmark and its capital Copenhagen followed suit.
But is it just coincidence, the groaning of long outdated and
creaking power grids, or are there really dark forces at work?
Secret
The Internet is buzzing with wild theories and bizarre rumours.
One of the most popular is that the Western nations have secretly
organised the blackouts as dummy runs against terror attacks.
One US web user said on a chat site: "There's a good chance this was
orchestrated to test public response and as a reminder to be
prepared."
Others believe a top secret US military experiment is to blame,
suggesting it had affected the Earth's magnetic field which caused
the cuts.
One Net nerd has even written an essay titled Did A Secret Military
Experiment Cause The 2003 American Blackout?
Another web surfer called Keith put it down to the rise of a new
global power. He said: "Power cuts in the US, the UK and now Italy.
Is the new world order up to something?"
Others attributed the blackouts to aliens taking over the world. One
conspirator said: "The aliens transmit large amounts of electricity
into power relay stations and blow out their circuit breakers. It's
all part of their invasion plan and every industrial country will be
affected."
Perhaps the most bizarre explanation came from a conspirator simply
known as Acoloss, who said: "Maybe electricity is a form of life and
it's become aware."
But last night electricity suppliers insisted there was a rational
explanation to the cuts. National Grid Transco spokesman Chris Mostyn
said: "The British blackout had nothing to do with terrorism or
aliens. It was a technical fault."
But for conspiracy theorists, this explanation is just another
example of how we are being kept in the dark.


It's £500 for a passport
The Sun 12-5-04.
by KATHRYN LISTER NEIL SYSON
and OLIVER HARVEY

CROOKED immigration officer Lucy Denyer demanded £500 for a dodgy passport — then bragged she could get THREE more.

Brazen Denyer even claimed she was charging HALF the going rate.

The Gatwick Airport worker — exposed in an undercover investigation by The Sun — refused to haggle over the price.

She insisted: “Normally it would cost you £1,000, so it is cheap.

“You have got to remember this is my job at risk and this is my life at risk for you, so it’s £500. It is a very good price, trust me.”

Denyer, 21, who earns £21,500 a year in her job STOPPING illegal foreigners at one of Britain’s biggest gateways, made her demands to two Sun investigators in a pub.

Asked if she could provide more passports, she replied: “Yeah, two or three.”

Denyer was clutching one filched from an office at Gatwick’s North Terminal — part of a stack confiscated from suspect travellers.

The greedy official believed it was for a Romanian called Piotr who had slipped into the UK in the back of a lorry at Dover.

But Piotr was in fact reporter Oliver Harvey — and the entire meeting was captured on video.

An appalled gay pal had tipped off The Sun that lesbian Denyer was touting around her friends for dodgy visa and passport business.

Reporter Kathryn Lister first contacted her by text, posing as a woman called Andrea and asking for help for a friend.

The women had met briefly months before — but Andrea was not the person who tipped us off.

Over five days, Denyer exchanged text messages and even asked for a description of our Romanian so she could get the best passport match.

The officer then sent the excited text: “I’ve got it now. Will arrange to meet in croydon monday afternoon, hows that? Will he have the £’s on him? X.”

Denyer, an immigration officer for three years, arrived at the South London pub, sure of a sale with Oliver and Kathryn.

Ironically, the venue is half a mile from the immigration service’s national HQ, where thousands of asylum seekers flock for processing.

Cocky Denyer collected her £500 as she slipped the passport under the table. She told Oliver: “You take the photo out the top and slide yours in.

“You need to be very, very careful with it. Do it very slowly. It is better to have your own photo in it rather than get someone like you.”

The passport, number 034705825 and issued on June 28, 1999, was in the name of James Smallwood, supposedly born in Northampton on February 6, 1979.

It was seized at Gatwick in September 2001 from drug smugglers and used as evidence at Croydon Crown Court.

Denyer even had advice for Oliver if officers grew suspicious.

She said: “If they stop you and say ‘I know that’s not you’, hold your hands up and claim asylum. It is either claim asylum or go to jail. If you claim asylum there’s no jail.”

Pals allege Denyer has openly boasted about taking bribes from foreigners entering Britain and once pocketed £1,500.

Denyer said of the passport: “This will be my second like this but I’ve done visas before. The visas are easier because it is something I can just put a stamp on.

“We have got two drawers full of British passports — about 70.”

Reporter Oliver last month uncovered a fake passport scam in Poland when he bought one for £800 in a Warsaw market.

Denyer, of Lingfield, Surrey, told him part of her role involved assessing passengers through two-way mirrors.

She bragged: “When I joined I was the youngest immigration officer in the UK. I think I’m still one of the youngest.”

Last night The Sun gave its damning dossier to the Home Office and Denyer was suspended from duty pending a probe.

Immigration Minister Des Brown said: “We’d like to thank The Sun for bringing this incident to our attention. We treat it with the utmost seriousness.”


Excellent False Passports Sold in Polish Marketplace
AN undercover Sun reporter has exposed just how easy it is to get a false east European passport and exploit the Government’s shambolic immigration system. Our man was able to buy a forged Polish passport with a false name in a bustling Warsaw street market for just £800. He was also able to buy a picture ID card in his own name for £330. The Home Office last night confirmed that from May 1 — when Poland and nine other nations join the EU — either document will allow entry to Britain. Similar fake credentials could be used by illegal immigrants from non-EU countries . . . as well as terrorists or big-time criminals.

A tip-off from a contact in the Polish underworld led us to Rozyckiego Market, a vipers’ nest of criminality in the centre of Polish capital Warsaw. Within seconds of entering the collection of rickety wooden and corrugated iron stalls we were approached by an unshaven man in a leather jacket. Through a translator, the man, with black moustache and baseball cap, offered our reporter a Polish ID card. The man boasted: “You can have it in whatever name you like. You will be able to travel all over Europe with it. It will be a perfect fake. You can pick it up tomorrow.” Then, as other shoppers strolled by, we were ushered behind a flower stall out of sight of the busy street. Our man was then introduced to another gang member, an overweight, bald man in his fifties. He asked through the translator for our reporter’s height, hair and eye colour. He agreed to provide an ID card in the name Oliver Harvey. Our man handed over a passport picture and 300 US dollars (£165) up front. Returning two days later, he picked up the picture ID, a brilliant fake which also gave our reporter a false address in Warsaw. It also gave the city as his place of birth and a made-up name for his father. The green-fronted card, number DX1258874, came complete with official government stamps and watermarks. We paid a further £165 in US dollars for the ID and shook hands.

The bald man then said through our translator: “We trust you now. Why don’t you buy a passport? We have Polish and Austrian, but Austrian is more expensive. You can have any name you like but why don’t you let us make up a Polish identity for you? Border guards will simply look at your passport and wave you through.” His pal said: “People travel to Britain and throughout Europe on our passports. We will create a new identity for you, no problem.” After quoting $2,000, around £1,100, our man bartered the price down to £800. As we struck the deal another man, of central Asian origin, arrived to collect HIS false passport. The racketeer proudly showed the fake to our reporter who, judging the papers a good copy, handed over a £500 down payment in US dollars. Our reporter now had the false name of Andrzej Miler, false date of birth March 28, 1968, and passport number BM3196643. When we compared our version with a legitimate Polish passport, there was no obvious difference. One local said: “This market is like a passport consulate. As well as passports and ID cards, you can get driving licences and degrees.”

In four weeks Poland will be the EU’s eastern frontier. Mafia gangs have already established the nation as a people-smuggling staging post en-route to Britain and the West. Around 50,000 illegals from as far afield as China, Afghanistan and Somalia were stopped trying to cross Poland’s borders last year. Almost 10,000 forged passports and other ID documents were discovered at British ports in 2002, the latest year for which figures are available — an increase of 46 per cent on 2001. But an unknown number of illegals with false papers make it into Britain each year. Forged passports are commonly used by terrorists to slip in and out of countries undetected. Two al-Qaeda terrorists, jailed in Britain in 2003, were discovered with hundreds of false travel documents. ....

The false documents we bought in Poland were examined by a counterfeit passport expert . . . who passed them with flying colours. The London-based specialist, unnamed because he helps investigations involving terrorists and organised crime, subjected the documents to vigorous forensic tests. He concluded in a written report: “Both documents would be accepted as genuine in a variety of scenarios. After Poland’s accession to the EU, the passport is likely to be accepted in all EU countries. “This is particularly the case where they are not physically examined but merely accepted ‘on the nod’ as the holder passes through the control holding the photo page open, as in the UK.” Once in Britain the passport could be used for a string of criminal and black market activities. The specialist added: “You could use the passport to open a bank account, get a credit card, get a job and cash cheques.” But he said the fakes are not perfect. And the passport could be rumbled if a Customs man decided to look closely at it. He added: “I would not expect an immigration officer to accept the passport if it is subjected to any kind of physical examination. “Having said that, if there were travel stamps and visas in the passport, it might be enough to put the officer off asking too many questions.”

A gang netted more than £1million by sticking immigrants’ pictures into genuine British passports. In 14 months up to 500 illegals were waved through at British airports and ferry terminals. Three of the gang — Britons Robert Walkden, 31, Mohammed Jamil, 32, and Khalid Mahmood, 31 — were jailed for six years each in Bradford yesterday. They charged £2,000 to escort the Asian migrants from Europe into Britain, sticking their photos into genuine passports believed to have been bought from British citizens. Detective Constable Peter Thornton, who led the inquiry, said: “The fact is if you are in the queue for people with British passports, the chances are you won’t be stopped.”
Posted by Mike Sylwester 1:00:07 AM|| E-Mail|| Page ||

#1 You will note that the Mob don't deal in Euros.
Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-02 8:32:21 AM Top Page

#2 This explains why the US has not lifted visa restrictions on travel from Poland despite their help in Iraq and the WOT. The Polish government can bitch all they want, but those restrictions need to be kept in place until Poland cleans up this problem.
Posted by: Steve 2004-04-02 8:46:12 AM Top Page

#3 Yeah right. This reporter should ask for a refund. First of all, the last name on the passport should be 'Miller' not 'Miler', even though they are pronounced the same way in Polish. An easy mistake for a dumbass forger to make (and even dumber reporter). With a sharp border guard this should immediately raise a flag.

Another Hoax story from NYT

Card sharps after your bank details
June 29, 2005

Cyber-savvy gangs are after your banking details, costing business more than $50 billion a year and shaking the world's financial system. Tom Zeller reports.

'Want drive fast cars?" asks an advertisement, in broken English, atop the website iaaca.com. "Want live in premium hotels? Want own beautiful girls? It's possible with dumps from Zo0mer." A "dump", in the blunt vernacular of a flourishing online black market, is a credit card number. And what Zo0mer is peddling is stolen account information - name, billing address, phone - for gold Visa cards and MasterCards, at $US100 apiece.

It is not clear whether data stolen from CardSystems Solutions, the payment processor reported in recent weeks to have exposed 40 million credit card accounts to possible theft, has entered this black market. But police and security experts say it is a safe bet the data will eventually be peddled at sites such as iaaca.com - its name shorthand for International Association for the Advancement of Criminal Activity.

Despite years of security improvements and tougher, more co-ordinated policing, the information that criminals siphon - credit card and bank account numbers, and raw consumer information - is boldly hawked on the internet. The data is used for online purchases, producing counterfeit cards, or in elaborate identity theft schemes.
AdvertisementAdvertisement

The online trade in credit card and bank account numbers, and other consumer information, is highly structured. There are buyers and sellers, intermediaries and service industries. The players come from all over the world, but most of the websites on which they meet are run from computer servers in former Soviet countries, making them difficult to police.

Traders quickly earn titles, ratings and reputations for the quality of their goods. That quality also determines prices. A wealth of institutional knowledge and shared wisdom is doled out to newcomers to the market - such as how to move payments and the best time to crack an account.

The US's Federal Trade Commission estimates that about 10 million Americans have their personal information pilfered and misused every year, costing consumers $US5 billion ($6.47 billion) and businesses $US48 billion.

"There's so much to this," says Jim Melnick, a former Russian affairs analyst for the Defence Intelligence Agency who is now the director of threat development at iDefense, a company that tracks cyber crime. "The story that needs to be told is the larger, long-term threat to the … financial industry. It's a cancer. It's not going to kill you now, but slowly, over time."

No one will estimate knows how many cards and account numbers make it to the internet auction block, but investigators describe the market as huge. Every day, at sites such as iaaca.com and carderportal.org, pseudonymous vendors do business in an arcane slurry of acronyms.

"Cobs", or changes of billings, are a hot commodity. Typically, a peddler of cobs is offering fresh bank or credit card accounts, along with the ability to change the billing address through a pilfered PIN. In other cases, a vendor selling cobs is offering to change billing addresses as a service. Sometimes the address is changed to a safe "drop", which might be an empty flat or some other scouted delivery point.

Lengthy tutorials posted at online "carding" forums indicate that the cob art form is highly developed. A criminal will wait until the day a victim receives a billing statement. "That way you have a full 30 days" before the victim is likely to look at his account again, explained one tutorial collected by the FBI.

A user called "mindtrip" had cobs for sale recently. "I'm selling cobs from at this time only banks Discover and American Express t'ill further notice," he wrote in brusque English. "The cobs come with full info including MMN [mother's maiden name]." Discover Card cobs with any balance were on special: $US50. American Express, a more exclusive and potentially more lucrative account, commanded $US85.

Alongside advertisements for cobs are pitches from malicious-code writers, who sell their services to the con artists, known as phishers, who contract with spammers to send out millions of increasingly sophisticated phoney emails designed to lure victims into revealing account information.

A successful phishing operation might bring in thousands of fresh account numbers, along with other identifying details: names, addresses, phone numbers, passwords, PINs, and mothers' maiden names. The richer the detail (and the higher the account balance), the better the asking price.

A user nicknamed Sirota is peddling account information so detailed, and so formatted, that it clearly came from a credit report. He is asking $US200 per dump on accounts with balances above $US10,000, with a minimum order of five if the buyer wants accounts associated with a particular bank.

Every day brings more. "These things have a short shelf life," says Dan Larkin, from the FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Centre. "The criminal value of a compromised credit card is very short-term, so there's a constant need to keep backfilling their resources."

Those buying fresh batches of account numbers may try to make purchases online, having goods delivered to a drop and then fencing them through online auctions.

More sophisticated thieves will seek vendors of encoding devices, and others who sell "plastic" (blank credit cards) and "algos" (algorithms needed to properly encode the magnetic strip and produce a usable card). And "cash-out" services can be arranged with those offering to take the encoded plastic to a cash machine and make withdrawals until the account is depleted. The cash-out risk commands a premium - often 50 per cent or more of the total balance.

Traders build reputations by earning the right to advertise, and then augment their status by receiving published kudos from other members. No one is permitted to post product or service offers at most of these websites without first having their wares vetted by site administrators, or by those selected as trusted "reviewers".

At iaaca.com, for example, those who want to sell cobs or cob services "will be required to provide 10 change of addresses, to be distributed to two reviewers", who "will test this service by either phone or internet". New vendors of credit card numbers "will be required to furnish 20 valid dumps (five classics, five business, five platinums, five corporate; 50 per cent Visa, 50 per cent MasterCard)", say the administrators. "The testers will determine the quality, in a percentage of valid numbers."

Once the wares are vetted, a vendor might then pay a fee to peddle them on a site's message boards. Banner ads can also be purchased.

Contacts among deal makers almost always move off the boards and onto ICQ, the instant-messaging program of choice among cyberthieves because of its easy anonymity (no names, no registration, no email required). Payments often change hands in relative anonymity (and with little regulation) by e-gold, an electronic currency that purports to be backed by gold bullion and issued by e-gold Ltd, a company incorporated in the Caribbean.

Transactions might also be made in WMZs, electronic monetary units equivalent to American dollars and issued by WebMoney Transfer, a company based in Moscow.

Mark Rasch, the former head of cyber investigations for the US Justice Department and now the senior vice-president of Solutionary, a computer security company, says the numbers taken in the CardSystems breach - at least 200,000 are said to have been in stolen files - will probably end up in one of these trading posts.

CardSystems represented a vital hub through which millions of account numbers passed. ChoicePoint, a data aggregator, was another goldmine. It announced in February that thousands of records had been downloaded from its databases by thieves posing as legitimate clients (no hacking required).

"It used to be you'd get a few numbers from a few merchants and aggregate them yourself - a few numbers from a lot of people," Rasch says. "But at some point they said, 'Wait a minute, there are other people who aggregate this stuff.' "

And, he points out, it is nearly impossible to stop. For all the information that police and security experts can glean from sites such as iaaca.com, "there are whole marketplaces of bulletin-board systems and chats that are invisible".

Still, law enforcement has made inroads. In October, the US Justice Department and the Secret Service announced the internationally co-ordinated arrest of 28 people in eight US states and several countries, including Sweden, Britain, Poland, Belarus and Bulgaria. The Justice Department says that among them are the ringleaders of Shadowcrew.com, the largest English-language web bazaar, trading in everything from stolen credit card, debit card and bank account numbers to counterfeit drivers' licences, passports and social security cards.

The investigation, called Operation Firewall, broke up a 4000-member underground that, according to the Justice Department, bought and sold nearly 2 million credit-card numbers in two years and caused more than $US4 million in losses to merchants, banks and individuals.

But eight months later, the traders have adapted and resumed business. They are a bit more skittish, says John Watters, the chief executive of iDefense. Operation Firewall did take out some of the "low-hanging fruit", but that has caused the pricing models to become more refined, and the characters in this black-market economy to become more sophisticated.

He says there is also a small but growing market for the type of raw consumer information that has been pilfered from ChoicePoint, LexisNexis and other general-data aggregators.

"We've observed people paying for identities," Watters says, describing web forms where criminals can tick off the fields they have to sell or want to buy: address, date of birth, social security number, driver's licence number, mother's maiden name.

And as the traders slip deeper underground - or onto servers in regions with lax laws, overburdened or uninterested law enforcement, and no real working relationship with American authorities - the odds of pulling off another Operation Firewall get worse. "It's getting harder for us to do our job," he says.

Asked at a symposium on cyber crime recently if law enforcement was losing the battle against cyber criminals, Brian Nagel, assistant director for investigations at the Secret Service, said no, according to published reports.

But another panel member, Jody Westby, the managing director of security and privacy practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, disagreed, insisting that based on US Federal Trade Commission statistics on identity and credit card theft, only about 5 per cent of cyber criminals are caught.

Westby later offered an assessment no less bleak. "We're not making an impact. The criminals are too hard to track and trace, too hard to prosecute, and the information they steal is too easy to use."

At one Russian-language site, a user called Lexus celebrates the CardSystems breach, saying that "judgement day has come for the bourgeoisie". Another, Zer0, suggests on the site that the hacked numbers might represent new opportunities in the underground. "It is a good occasion for us," Zer0 says. "Happy hunting."

The New York Times

Sarbajit Roy : Cyber Law Expert view

Block The Sun’s portal: Complainant demands

[ THURSDAY, JUNE 30, 2005 02:41:43 AM]

NEW DELHI: In an interesting development, a complaint filed under the Information Technology Act, 2000 with Delhi’s IT adjudicating officer Prakash Kumar has called for blocking of The Sun’s website, and involving The Sun’s undercover reporter Oliver Harvey and accused Karan Bahree into the on-going investigation in the BPO scam relating to the data leakage.

Under the Act, each state has a designated adjudicating officer to look into cases relating to the breach of the Act. Delhi’s IT secretary Kumar serves as the adjudicating officer for the Capital. Currently, out of the country, he may take a call whether to entertain the complaint only next week.

According to complainant Sarbajit Roy, an IT consultant, Indian investigating authorities need to have physical possession of the “evidence”, namely the CD containing the leaked data for forensic examination to establish whether the data is actually of “confidential nature”.

His contention is that it is important to establish the nature of the data. “It can very well be confidential data like credit card particulars and mobile phone billing data and addresses which are easily available for a price and used by direct sales agents of banks, telecom companies and credit bureau of banks,” he added.

Roy alleges that the operation by The Sun reporter might have been undertaken with an aim to “defame” India as there are no laws in India concerning data protection and privacy for foreigners.

Meanwhile, an industry-government committee set up by the IT ministry, early this year, is already looking at updating the IT Act and giving more teeth for data protection and security. With the Prime Minister taking active interest in the case, it may well expedite the move to revamp the Act.

trackback : Roy on data protection and privacy

Hacked PM seeks Stronger IT Laws

India's Prime Minister Singh Seeks Stronger Data Privacy Laws

June 29 (Bloomberg) -- India's Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for changes in the country's laws to strengthen data privacy and make breaches a punishable offence after a U.K. newspaper reported bank account details were sold for cash.

``Indian professionals have built for themselves an enviable global reputation through hard work, dedication and commitment and the occasional misguided acts of some individuals should not be allowed to damage the high reputation of all professionals,'' Singh said in a statement issued today, after a meeting to review steps to deal with cyber crimes.

Changes in the law may strengthen the protection of data and help Indian investigative agencies to convict people accused of misusing data at a faster pace, easing concerns about security at Indian customer contact centers that threatens to derail one of the nation's fastest growing industries.

``We will need to put in stronger methods to prevent such things,'' said Raman Roy, who founded Spectramind eServices Pvt., a customer contact center that was acquired by Wipro Ltd. ``There are enough laws but the cycle time for conviction is long. If there was a separate data protection law, it could make it shorter, faster and more robust.''

Kkaran Bahree, a former employee of a call center, allegedly sold personal information, including bank account and credit card details, of 1,000 customers of HSBC Holdings Plc, Barclays Plc and Lloyds TSB Group Plc to an undercover reporter of the U.K's Sun for $5,000.

The sting operation came after former employees of Mphasis BFL Ltd.'s call center unit in Pune were accused of stealing as much as $300,000 from customers of Citigroup Inc, the world's biggest financial services company. They have been arrested and are being tried.

Employee Database

Kiran Karnik, president of the National Association of Software and Service Companies, or Nasscom, said the grouping will build a database of employees in the nation's call center and transaction processing industry to ensure quality standards.

``India's brand equity in this area is very strong,'' Karnik said in a statement. ``The recent incident may well have been a sting operation directed to give Indian industry a bad name against the background of its growing competitiveness.''

Export revenue from the Indian call center and transaction processing industry is forecast to quadruple to $21 billion by 2009 from $5.2 billion in the year ended March 31, according to a 2002 study by McKinsey & Co. for Nasscom.

Under the Information Technology Act, 2000, Bahree, if found guilty, could be jailed for three years and be asked to pay a fine of 200,000 rupees ($4,600), said Pavan Duggal, managing partner of New Delhi-based law firm Pavan Duggal & Associates.

In addition, Bahree may face charges of cheating, theft and breach of trust under the Indian Penal Code, Duggal said.

The Indian government in January set up a committee to look into changes in the Information Technology Act.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Saikat Chatterjee in New Delhi at schatterjee4@bloomberg.net.