Security Information Bulletin- Email Scam

Email Scam (Fraudulent FBI Rep)

A new scam is active that involves a letter which appears to come from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security regarding an immigration clearance certificate. 

The emails list the contact person as the Reverend Frank Tim Kelly, or sometimes just Reverend Frank Kelly. The email is an attempt to gain your name, address and telephone number along with a fee of $350. There is a warning that legal action will commence if the recipient of the letter does not respond within 48 hours.

Corporate Security has confirmed that these emails are fraudulent and nothing more than a financial scam intended to defraud recipients and possibly expose them to additional identity theft.  You are urged to delete these emails upon receipt.

Red flags evident in these cases

·         The FBI is not involved with immigration-related matters.

·         The federal government sends its official communications via the United States mail and not through unsolicited emails.

·         Recipients of these letters are almost always United States citizens without immigration issues.

·         The contact person identifies himself as legal counsel to the government but uses ‘Reverend’ in his official title.

·         There are grammatical errors throughout the document: punctuation, improper capitalization of words and improper verb tense. 

·         There is no contact telephone number.

·         The sender uses a personal email address rather than a government email address as a contact point.

·         The sender indicates that the International Court of Justice will file legal action even though this purports to be a document from the United States federal government.

More information on this scam can be found at the following sites online

Sample Email
http://www.419baiter.com/_scam_emails/0-rzy-09-07a/scam-email-047721.shtml

Article
http://vicksburgonlinenews.com/19/?p=2984

FBI Warning

http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/internet-alert-scammers-sending-fake-fbi-e-mails-seeking-personal-information

This Security Information Bulletin can also be accessed by Johns Hopkins employees with JHM Intranet access on Corporate Security’s internal website.

Dead Bird

Near Bayview Medical Center

Nothing like almost stepping on a dead bird when getting out of your car.  The bird probably died from choking on a chicken bone scatter throughout the city.

Forget Dog Bites Man -- try Rat Bites Cop

Every Baltimore resident has a rat story.

Marc J. Camarote, a Baltimore police sergeant, has a tale for the tabloids.

Early Wednesday, the 15-year veteran was riding shotgun in an unmarked cruiser, speeding down Hanover Street to a robbery call in South Baltimore. He felt something on the back of his neck, and thinking his partner was playing a joke, he took a swipe with his arm.

That's when he discovered a large rodent had crawled up his back.

The rat bit the palm and thumb of Camarote's right hand. The two struggled, and the sergeant was finally able to throw the rat out of cruiser and onto the southbound lanes of the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Bridge.

His partner rushed to nearby Harbor Hospital, and they were told they needed to go back and find the rat, to have it tested for rabies. They returned to the scene of the crime, and according to a well-placed police source, found the suspected rat limping along Hanover Street.

A struggle ensued, the police source said, but in the end, Baltimore's Finest won the battle. A cop beat the rat to death with an umbrella. Must not have been carrying his Espantoon.

The officers bagged the rodent and it's being tested for disease. The sergeant is out on medical leave, awaiting to see if the rat is diseased.

Details, including the sergeant's name, came from the police source, but the incident itself was confirmed by the Baltimore Police Department's chief spokesman, Anthony Guglielmi. He did not officially release the officer's name.

It's not known how the rat infiltrated the cruiser; the source said the officers believe it crawled up through the underbelly and gnawed on some wires before it crawled to the passenger seat and up the sergeant's backside. It's not even clear if the rat knew he was breaking into a cop car.

Robert F. Cherry, the police union president, said that any cop from his first patrol days knows that running into alleys and onto streets means not only watching out for broken glass and drug needles, "but also rats."

Camarote can take comfort in knowing that he's not the first cop bitten by an animal other than a pit bull. Back in 1996, Officer Drew Dorbert got attacked by an 3-foot-long Ornate Nile Monitor Lizard that had beeng hanging out near Patterson Park.

Getting bitten by a rat inside a police car will most certainly earn Camarote a bit of unwanted fame, and ribbing by his colleagues. Cherry knew the sergeant when he patrolled the Western District, and wanted it know that he's a "good officer."

Camarote's only mention in the newspaper before now came in 2004, when retired police reporter Richard Irwin gave him the journalistic equivalent of a medal of valor -- a mention in the old police blotter for a drug arrest.

Source: http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/crime/blog/2011/06/forget_dog_bites_man_try_rat_b.ht

Officers get probation for misconduct

Officers get probation for misconduct

"Two Baltimore police officers convicted of misconduct for stranding two 15-year-old boys far from their homes received 18-month suspended jail terms and probation Wednesday, with a judge refusing prosecutors' request to strip them of their badges."