JTF Database and files- Episode 1 References

[welsh]

Dear Players-
This thread has been created as a depository for files related to our game, allowing you specific information and reference materials to help you as you conduct your services.

[welsh]

Dear Players-

Your Assistant US Attorney that will be coordinating your activities is Assistant US Attorney Claire McKenna. She is currently serving with the US Attorney General's Office for the Southern District of NY.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny

[welsh]

Joint Task Force Authorization Act. Summary-

Under Act of Congress, Section 504 Coordination of Law Enforcement Title V of the HR 3162 of the US Patriot Act, as implemented under Executive Order EO 5219 and NSC 102967, the US Attorney General's Office is given the authority to conduct investigations in the furtherance of US National Security of expected hostile activities through the creation of specific joint inter-agency task forces.

Just Joint inter-agency task forces will be comprised of agents selected from different governmental offices as required by the US Attorney's office in order to pool their collective talents in furtherance of the interests of US National Security.

Joint Inter-agency task force operations shall not be deemed limited to federal law enforcement agencies related to the US Justice or Treasury Department but may also include members of the US Armed Services, State Department, Central Intelligence Agency, Postal Service, Internal Revenue Service, Department of the Interior or any other agencies deemed necessary by the coordinating US Attorney.

Joint Task Force operations may involve investigations both foreign and domestic on any manner of activities under the jurisdiction of the US Attorney's office.

All US government employees are obligated and expected to provide service at the discretion of the US Attorney for as long as the US Attorney deems necessary in furtherance of US Attorney responsibilities.

Inter-agency task forces may be engaged with any activity related to foreign and domestic terror, political corruption, financial crimes, environmental crimes, threats to US national security, narcotics investigation, white-collar investigations, subversive activities and special operations as deemed necessary as deemed necessary by the US Attorney.

For the duration of the their term with the Interagency Joint Task Force, agents will be placed under the supervision of the designated Assistant US Attorney and will remain subordinate to that Assistant US Attorney until relieved.

Agents assigned to joint inter-agency tasks will be placed on temporary, if potentially long-term, hiatus from any career-related obligations or expectations to their parent agency but will other retain all rank, privilege, salary, benefits and status as they might otherwise normally enjoy.

Once service to the inter-agency task force, agents can expect to return to their home agency.

[welsh]

NY City Law Enforcement- Federal, State and City-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enfor ... _York_City

[Philulhu]

NY City Law Enforcement- Federal, State and City-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enfor ... _York_City

There’s an issue with this link.

[welsh]

Hey Bud-

Hmmm. Again, apologies for being out of practice. Let me try something-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_enfor ... _York_City

That should work, yes?

[Philulhu]

That works. Don’t worry - I always struggle with links and photos too.

[welsh]

Episode 1 -

Our case begins in a neighborhood on the border of Brooklyn and Queens, a lost neighborhood called "The Hole".

Here is a link to Google Earth so that you can take a walking tour of the Hole if you like to get a sense of the place. Note the number of abandoned buildings, the trucks, the water. https://earth.google.com/web/search/The ... rdGiq-KUsA

Ok, some background about this neighborhood.

From wikipedia- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole,_New_York - as most of you are probably relatively new to NY, you probably don't know that the very small neighborhood is famous for two things- It was the home of the New York Chapter of the Federation of Black Cowboys and that it was also a popular Mafia dumping ground for bodies.

In our story, the Hole has become increasingly occupied by homeless folks who are fearful of going to homeless shelters and don't want to freeze to death (a regular problem in NYC during cold winters, and its been a cold one). Many of the individuals have taken up residence in abandoned dilapidated or abandoned trucks. Recent rains have caused area flooding and the rains are coming down as our story begins. Squatters taking up residence in abandoned houses have been known to set fires that get out of control all over NYC, and especially so in The Hole. Long-term residents of the Hole are not quite happy that there little "Lost Community" has become increasingly populated by homeless, but its the sign of the times. Old timers will stick together and try to help the newcomers best they can. Plans for building a sewer for the Hole never came to anything- bureaucratic inertia perhaps, and the police rarely come.

Some more info-

AN older photo essay- but little has changed- http://kensinger.blogspot.com/2009/08/hole.html
Some images, a video and some details here- https://gothamist.com/news/welcome-to-t ... ing-ground
Here's a video which I kind of like- https://vimeo.com/13401051

IF you stretch out the map, you find that the Hole is actually very close to JFK airport, the cities primary international airport. Thousands of people drive practically past the Hole every day and don't notice it.

As for the Federation of Black Cowboys, they kept stables in the area until fairly recently, but a couple of the horses died and they had to move out, the property being transferred to a NGO that does work with disabled people. According to our story- he NGO has been facing its own financial problems (due to the Covid-inspired economic crisis) and so the Federation of Black Cowboys now rents stables from them for their horses again, helping the NGO stay in business. For more on the Federation of Black Cowboys-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_ ... ck_Cowboys
https://www.facebook.com/The-Federation ... 628747571/
https://www.wrangler.com/legends/federa ... wboys.html

The neighborhood recently got a strip mall built but in our story, many of the shops have been boarded up, abandoned, and are up for rent. The "lost neighborhood"

Local police precinct is the 73rd- It's on the edge of some rather dicey neighborhoods in Brooklyn.
https://www.facebook.com/NYPD73pct/
https://gothamist.com/tags/73rd-precinct

It's a high crime area and, according to our plot, things have gotten a lot worse. Many of the neighborhoods that the 73rd patrol are poor, minority communities with a history of crime and drugs. Tensions are high across East New York https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_New_York,_Brooklyn in part because urban development has generally crapped out since before the pandemic hit. It is policed by the 75th precinct. Nearby Howard Beach https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Beach,_Queens is a bit safer, but Ozone Park has been having problems as well https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_Par ... ater_years

[welsh]

Links?
NYPD https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/index.page
NYPD Homicide- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_ ... ive_Bureau
FDNY = https://www1.nyc.gov/site/fdny/index.page https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_ ... Department

additional info rivers around NY_
Pollutants https://www.riverkeeper.org/water-quali ... ollutants/
More on the Hudson- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_River#Pollution
The East River, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_River

[welsh]

Some more links-

Where is the Hole and the crime scene?

The Hole- on Google Earth. If you do a search on Google Earth and type "The Hole" Neighborhood Brooklyn NY in some combination you will get a nice overview in the day of the neighborhood a few years ago.
https://earth.google.com/web/search/The ... dgF3UsAoAg

The little red marker is the corner we are supposed to be meeting up in our story. The white two story house with garages attached on the corner of Dumont and 76th street, is the one that has been blown to hell. I had originally been thinking of the three story long house about a block up the road on the corner of 77th street. A couple of things worth noting. (1) There is a hell of a lot of green space in this little neighborhood, and that its basically blocked, with major local roads that run parallel on both sides and big buldings that run parallel on the other two sides. (2) Lots of flooding on a sunny day. (3) Lots of trucks that are abandoned.

The picture is old. Now there are more trucks, more people and the flooding is worse. But the neighborhood is basically the same.

On NYC environmental protection.

One of the interesting aspects of US federalism is that you have strange overlaps of jurisdiction on a range of legal matters. Like there is federal, state and local criminal law and criminal investigations, there is also federal, state and local corporate, trade and other policies. On environmental issues, the NYC authorities are here- https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/index.page The Department of Environmental Protection, that will outline some of the issues facing the local community. I raise special attention to air pollution issues in the Hole, and I would guess that studies of air quality will likely reveal these various elements-
https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/environme ... tions.page

Honestly, I find the NYC page a bit thin, but the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is actually better- https://www.dec.ny.gov/

Some links on arson investigation?


I found this rather useful link that goes back to 2009 for arson/fire investigations that you might find helpful- https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/gui ... son#arrive and this https://nij.ojp.gov/law-enforcement/inv ... stigations
less useful but shorter links but still worth noting- https://www.stevenson.edu/online/about- ... ting-arson and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_investigation

For more on the cause of fire-
https://www.interfire.org/res_file/aec.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Detection ... ccelerants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_accelerant

Common chemicals that cause fires-
https://www.interfire.org/res_file/aec_20ig.asp



Federation of Black Cowboys- where are the stables?

It might be noted that I mentioned the Federation of Black Cowboys who are local to the Hole and who has stables in the area until 2013, when 6 horses died there. The actual stables are the Cedar Lane Stables/ Sunrise Stables now controlled by an NGO called Gallup and can be scene here- https://earth.google.com/web/search/ced ... ddOd1LAKAI on google earth or here- http://gallopnyc.org/sunrise-stables.

For our story, the Federation of Black Cowboys have actually returned to the stables, having made a deal with the NGO that runs the stables to allow the cowboys to use some of the stalls to keep their horses. In exchange the NGO has been working with the federation on a variety of projects.

[welsh]

Came across this interesting link about the drug trade during a time of covid-
https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-an ... ai2020.pdf
https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063512
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wxek ... l-and-meth

How to know if your neighbor is cooking Meth?
https://www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pu ... /7341p.pdf
https://www.fs.fed.us/lei/dangers-meth-labs.php

More on the making of meth-
https://www.times-news.com/news/local_n ... d248f.html

Here's a video of a meth lab blowing up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7MaaVtiGIQ


On how meth labs catch fire
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/4wq4 ... es-on-fire

[welsh]

More references on our case.

Most popular narcotics in the Middle East?

https://www.albawaba.com/slideshow/thes ... ast-758836

Busiest ports in the Middle East-

https://www.logisticsmiddleeast.com/art ... east-ports

Busiest Container Ports in the US-
https://www.icontainers.com/us/2017/05/ ... -us-ports/

INTERPOL
https://www.interpol.int/en
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpol

NY Port Authority
https://www.panynj.gov/port-authority/en/index.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Auth ... New_Jersey

Street Map of The Hole and vicinity-
https://www.google.com/maps/place/76th+ ... -73.859456

Red WInd Commerce lmt and the mysterious containers
(This is a fictional entity by the way- a lot of the game has been playing on real life institutions and facts, but this company does not exist).
From Detective Dowd of the NY Port Authority PD-
• Interpol has been coordinating an investigation on containers moving through King Abdul Aziz Port in Damman, Saudi Arabia.
• A commercial outfit located in Saudi Arabia, Red Wind Commerce Lmtd, has been connected to shipping containers sent all over the world with goods usually originating from the Middle East, South Asia and Southeast Asia, essentially focused on the Indian Ocean but expanding outward.
• Most of this commerce has been legitimate and commercial, but cargo has also been sent to war zone areas and a few containers have been connected to illegal dealings.
• It is therefore likely that a governmental or non-governmental organization operating out of Saudi Arabia is connected.
• The DEA has been contacted on this case, and CIA is aware, but much of the investigation has been entrusted to the NY Port Authority Investigative arm- which is how Dowd is involved in this case.
• A German raid on a terrorist cell in Munich had received its weapons in a container believed to be moved by Red Wind.
• A raid on a Somali criminal gang in Manchester revealed a load of khat, tramadol, captagon, hash and even hagigat and weapons that were linked to a shipment from a container believed to be coming from Red Wind.
• It is believed that the narcotics being sold by the gang in Manchester were being trafficked to Middle Eastern expats who used those drugs.
• Investigators out of Rotterdam put trackers on some of the Red WInd Containers to build a case and track their movements.
• US investigators have been keeping the investigation quiet to maintain the security of the investigation.
• Red Wind containers have been found in US Container Ports across the country, including many of its largest: Long Beach, LA, Seattle, Norfolk, Miami, Houston.
• No illegal substances or suspicious substances have yet to be linked to Red Wind containers in the US.
• Red Wind has also shipped containers through the Port of Newark and through JFK airport.
• Dowd is generally suspicious of all cargo companies "
(Personal note, as a person who used to do Maritime Law, there is a broad belief that there is regularly illegal activities happening on cargo vessels, including smuggling, although the scope is often unclear).
• At least two Red Wind Containers have been tracked to the Hole. One is currently near the crime scene and was apparently damaged in the explosion.
Note to investigators. The Hole is famous for being a site where the Mafia dumped bodies. But it is also a place where there are a lot of abandoned trucks. It is possible some of those abandoned trucks might have been linked to past crimes but more likely they were simply abandoned by owners because they suffered mechanical breakdowns. If you were to hide a truck, this is a good place to do it.