• NYPD chief: Bombing suspects may have been headed for NYC to party

    Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is telling authorities he and his brother, Tamerlan, learned how to make bombs from Al Qaeda's online magazine, which recommends using fireworks. Officials say Tamerlan bought fireworks in New Hampshire before the bombing. NBC's Jeff Rossen reports.

    By Erin McClam, Staff Writer, NBC News

    The brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings may have been headed for New York to party after the attack, the New York police commissioner said Wednesday.

    “There was some information that they may have been intent on coming to New York, but not to continue doing what they’re doing,” Kelly told reporters at police headquarters. “The information that we received said something about a party, or having a party.”

    A man authorities say was carjacked by the brothers has told investigators he believes one of the brothers said “Manhattan” before he escaped, but investigators have cautioned that it may have been a language mixup because the brothers were speaking with Russian dialects.

    The surviving brother has told investigators that the pair acted alone, were inspired by an al Qaeda propaganda magazine, and plotted the bombing to defend Islam after the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, federal law enforcement officials told NBC News.

    Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed early Friday after a shootout with police in the Boston suburbs. His younger brother and alleged accomplice, Dzhokhar, is in fair condition at a Boston hospital. The brothers killed a campus patrol officer and carjacked an SUV before the shootout, authorities have said.

    Homemade explosives and one semi-automatic handgun believed to belong to the brothers were recovered by investigators, officials said. The gun’s serial number was obliterated, but Massachusetts state police were working to reveal the number.

    Slideshow: Aftermath and reaction following Boston bombings

    Cj Gunther / EPA

    Heightened security, empty streets, and memorials mark the the days after the Boston Marathon bombings.

    Launch slideshow

    Cambridge police, meanwhile, released a booking photo of Tamerlan Tsarnaev from a 2009 domestic violence arrest during which he was accused of assaulting his girlfriend.

    In a closed-door session on Wednesday, members of the House Intelligence Committee were briefed by the FBI and other federal agencies on the ongoing investigation. Among the issues discussed is what federal authorities knew about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's trip to Russia as well as a timeline on his radicalization. 

    Also, according to an interview with Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Mich., the ranking member on the committee, it was learned that the device used to trigger the explosives was a remote control for a toy, not a cellphone as thought earlier.

    Nine days after the twin blasts near the marathon finish line, authorities early Wednesday reopened the section of Boylston Street in central Boston where the first bomb went off.

    The site of the explosion has been paved with fresh cement and is surrounded by orange construction cones but opened to foot traffic. People stopped to pay respects and take photos.

    “The people of Boston are strong like cement. Strong people. They get together when it’s needed,” said Robert Bibias, a city masonry worker who early Wednesday cemented over what had been a blood-stained crime scene.

    Thousands of people, including police from all over the country, gathered at the baseball stadium of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a memorial service for Sean Collier, the campus patrol officer who authorities said was shot to death by the Tsarnaev brothers before the carjacking and shootout.

    With police snipers holding positions atop nearby buildings, Vice President Joe Biden called the perpetrators of the marathon bombing “twisted, perverted, cowardly, knockoff jihadis.”

    “The irony is, we read about these events, we experience them, but the truth is, on every frontier, terrorism as a weapon is losing,” he said. “It is not gaining adherents.”

    Tamerlan Tsarnaev is seen in a booking photo from a 2009 arrest in Cambridge, Mass.

    The vice president went on: “We will not hunker down. We will not be intimidated.”

    His wife, Dr. Jill Biden, visited Boylston Street on Wednesday.

    Private funerals were held Tuesday for Collier and for Martin Richard, the 8-year-old boy killed near the finish line. Two other people were killed at the marathon, and more than 200 were injured, including 39 who were still hospitalized Wednesday.

    In Russia, the brothers’ aunt said that a Boston-area mosque has refused to hold a funeral for Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

    American authorities have told the family that they can have Tsarnaev’s body, and an uncle approached the mosque to request a burial and funeral but was declined, said the aunt, Patimat Suleimanova.

    She said that she did not know the name of the mosque but that it was one the family attended. A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., has said that Tsarnaev attended and occasionally caused disruptions and that mosque leaders threatened to kick him out.

    A spokesman for the Cambridge mosque, Yusufi Vali, said the mosque had not heard from the family.

    “There were some reports out there that we had rejected his burial, and — or the family had reached out to us, rather. And to our knowledge, you know, the family has not reached out to us,” he said on the MSNBC program “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”

    The mosque, run by the Islamic Society of Boston, has also said that congregants have been questioned by the FBI. The mosque did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday from NBC News.

    Earlier this week, Imam Talal Eid of the Islamic Institute of Boston, a separate institution, told The Huffington Post: “I would not be willing to do a funeral for him. This is a person who deliberately killed people. There is no room for him as a Muslim.”

    NBC News' Adrienne Mong, Alastair Jamieson, Bill Dedman and Matthew DeLuca contributed to this report.

    Related:

     

    This story was originally published on Wed Apr 24, 2013 7:14 AM EDT

  • Father of alleged Boston Marathon bombers: 'I want facts ... anything could be set up'

    By Adrienne Mong and F. Brinley Bruton, NBC News

    MAKHACHKALA, Russia - The father of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers said he was struggling to believe his sons were behind the twin blasts that killed three and injured more than 170.

    “I’m planning to find the truth, justice,” said Anzor Tsarnaev during an interview at his home in the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. "I want facts, proof that this is all original because otherwise, anything could be set up."

    Tsarnaev’s son Tamerlan, 26, died following a gunbattle with police four days after the bombings. His brother Dzhokhar, 19, was captured on Friday and has been charged with using weapons of mass destruction. 

    The mother of the Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, tells the that prior to the attacks the FBI had been watching her oldest son when they were in the United States.

    The case in the United States was clearly taking a toll on Tsarnaev’s wife Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who told NBC News' U.K. partner ITN News that she "wanted to die."

    The FBI had been watching her oldest son when they were in the United States, she told Channel 4.

    "They were monitoring him and I know that because I used to talk to them," she said. "They used to come to our house, like two, three times. And then my son Tamerlan used to tell me that he used to talk to them too, because they called me once and they wanted his number.

    "At such moments I used to get really worried because, you know, my kids and I’m their mother,” Tsarnaeva told Channel 4 News, which is also NBC News' partner.

    An agent told her that they "saw whatever (Tamerlan) was reading," and asked if she thought he would get involved with a radical organization, Tsarnaeva said. "I said no, no," she added.

    When NBC News spoke to Tsarnaeva, who says she began to practice a "pure" form of Islam around four years ago in the United States, she became visibly angry at the suggestion that Tamerlan may have visited a Salafist mosque. Salafist Sunnis believe in a very strict interpretation of the Koran.

    When asked why her sons were at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, Tsarnaeva told Channel 4 that they were athletes and liked watching the marathon. 

    "Last year they went too, and I went last year," she said.

    “What happened was a terrible thing," she said.  "But I know that my kids have nothing to do with this. I know it. I am mother. I know my kids."

    In an emotional interview with NBC News, the father of the two brothers suspected of setting off two bombs at the Boston Marathon insisted his son Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was an innocent child and brother Tamerlan a gifted boxer who was "very religious" and homesick. NBC's Adrienne Mong reports.

    For his part, the suspects' father described his sons as “wonderful children.”

    “They are gentle, like girls, they as soft in their character – soft,” Tsarnaev said.

    He called Dzhokhar “an innocent angel.”

    The couple say they moved Dagestan over a year ago after Tsarnaev became sick. 

    The surviving suspect is a naturalized U.S. citizen of Chechen origin. He made his initial court appearance on Monday at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition.

    Dzhokhar was assigned three federal public defenders. The charges could carry the death penalty.

    Related:

    'Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that'

    Marathon bombing survivor Ryan McMahon: 'I want my Boston back'

    Full coverage of the Boston Marathon tragedy

    This story was originally published on Tue Apr 23, 2013 7:34 AM EDT

  • Eritrean man sentenced to nine years for aiding Somali terrorist group

    By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News

    An Eritrean man who joined Somali guerrillas was sentenced Wednesday in New York City to more than nine years in prison for assisting a U.S.-designated terrorist group, federal authorities said. 


    Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed, 38, had been living in Sweden when he traveled to Somalia to join al-Shabaab militants in their war against the Somali government, according to court records.

    The State Department has formally designated al-Shabaab as a foreign terrorist organization.

    Ahmed was arrested in 2009 in Nigeria and sent to the U.S., where he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiracy to receive military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization. 

    Court records show that Ahmed's unexpected guilty plea came shortly before U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel was about to rule on his motion to suppress information he gave FBI officials while he was in custody in Nigeria. 

    That motion had been seen as an important test of the Obama administration's contention that investigators can question terrorism suspects without reading them their Miranda rights against self-incrimination. 

    The FBI revealed in case records unsealed this month that it interviewed Ahmed twice in Nigeria — once without advising him of his rights and again after having done so. 

    In a reply to Ahmed's motion to suppress, the government argued that it could legally question terrorism suspects without advising them of their rights and without compromising a criminal investigation if doing so was "relevant to the national security of the United States."

    The second interrogation was conduced by different agents at a different location and was therefore "clean," it argued — a contention that civil liberties advocates have questioned.

    The judge's ruling on Ahmed's motion was never released.

    Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

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  • FBI informant warns so-called Blind Sheik 'will kill Americans'

    View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

    By Jonathan Dienst, Joe Valiquette and Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.com

    An FBI informant who has helped catch some of the world's most dangerous terrorists is coming out of witness protection to warn that a terrorist sheik in prison remains a significant threat to the U.S.

    Emad Salem is urging the U.S. to keep the ailing 74-year-old sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, often known as the Blind Sheik, behind bars and to not transfer him, even as governments overseas continue to press for his release.

    "He will kill Americans," said Salem. "He will kill anyone who disputes what he says with a fatwa."

    Salem, a one-time Egyptian military officer, had warned officials about the looming 1993 World Trade Center bombing, but his warnings were ignored after a lie-detector test was inconclusive and he said he would never testify at any trial. 

    After the bombing, Salem agreed to become an FBI informant and managed to become the sheik’s personal assistant and bodyguard. Salem was able to record the sheik ordering the killing of Americans during his time in Jersey City, N.J., and Brooklyn, N.Y. 

    Salem was also able to link the sheik to the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 injured in that first attack.

    Now Salem is concerned about the mounting pressure on the U.S. from Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi and other Mideastern government leaders to get Rahman out of American custody.

    'A terrible price'
    In one letter dated Feb. 26, 2008, the justice minister of Qatar relayed a request from Rahman's family asking U.S. officials to have him transferred back to the nation to serve the rest of his sentence. They said they wanted to be able to visit him more easily, according to the letter by Qatar Attorney General Dr. Ali Bin Fetais Al Marri.

    More recently, on this 20th anniversary week of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Rahman's sons wrote on their family website that "America will pay a terrible price" if he is not released soon.

    "The rain begins with one drop. America should expect more violent reactions if it does not release the sheik," the sons wrote on the website.

    Don Emmert / AFP, file

    A 1993 photo shows Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, who is serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in terrorist attacks, including an explosion at the World Trade Center in 1993.

    The sons pointed to the killing of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens as an example of terrorists acting on behalf of the sheik. The terrorists in that attack are believed to have called themselves the “Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman Brigade” in honor of the Blind Sheik.

    Read more from NBCNewYork.com

    The family also pointed to the recent attack on a gas plant in Algeria where hostage takers demanded the sheik be set free or American hostages would be killed.

    The sons said they were hopeful that Morsi would make progress in working to free the sheik next month or they will "review their options."

    Experts said the sheik’s family was intensifying an already active campaign to both seek the sheik’s release and inflame passions among the sheik’s extremist followers.

    Calls monitored
    The sheik has also been able to call his relatives twice a month from his prison, NBC 4 New York has learned. Officials said the calls are monitored, and his relatives tell NBC News' Ayman Moyheldin that the calls are personal in nature and do not include calls for a violent jihad.

    But in one posting on their website, Rahman's sons posted a political message they said was from the sheik. In that message, Rahman urged Egyptians to vote for Morsi in the recent presidential election "because he is the candidate who represents Islam and represents the revolution."

    A Federal Bureau of Prisons spokesman declined to discuss the specifics of the sheik's phone privileges.

    Rahman's lawyer, Lynne Stewart, was arrested in 2002 and later convicted for her role in sneaking out terror messages for the sheik in which he called for more attacks on Western tourists in Egypt after the Luxor massacre killed 58 people.

    “When are we going to wake up and smell the coffee?” asked Salem. “This man is dangerous in prison. What will happen when he is out of prison?”

    A Justice Department spokesman insisted the U.S. government will not be swayed by the appeals from Mideast leaders calling for Rahman's release. 

    “The Blind Sheik will spend the rest of his life in a U.S. federal prison. Period,” said DOJ spokesman Dean Boyd.

    Still, Rahman remains an inspiring figure for al-Qaida and radical jihadist figures across the globe. Salem said he was risking his life stepping forward because the sheik and his followers want him dead.

    “They are seeking to get me killed to be a feather in their hat, that 'We killed the man who helped America,'” Salem said.

    But he said not stepping forward to warn about the potential threat the sheik and his followers still pose could be an even greater danger.

    A New York Police Department spokesman said there is no new specific threat to New York but intelligence officials are aware of the Rahman family website and the terror warnings posted there this week.

    While security experts said the sheik does not have operational capability from prison, they agree that as long as he is alive in a U.S. prison he could serve as inspiration for extremists to act. 

    “This guy -- 1990 or 2013 -- sadly, unfortunately, [is] still in charge of his followers,” Salem lamented.  “He is the 'Prince of Jihad’ and will continue to be.”

    Related:

    New York-area politicians condemn Egypt's new leader over bid to free terrorist

  • FBI joins investigation into death of New York City woman in Istanbul

    John Minchillo / AP

    Betzaida Jimenez, mother of 33-year-old Sarai Sierra who was found dead on Saturday in Turkey, pauses before a news conference at a friend's home in Staten Island, on Monday.

    By Eileen AJ Connelly, The Associated Press

    The FBI is playing a significant role in the investigation into the death of a New York City woman in Istanbul while on a solo vacation, a U.S. congressman said Monday.

    Rep. Michael Grimm, a former FBI agent, said U.S. investigators were invited by Turkish authorities to assist as they try to find out what happened to Sarai Sierra, a 33-year-old mother of two who disappeared Jan. 21. Her body was found 12 days later, near the remnants of the city's ancient walls. Police said she had suffered a fatal blow to the head.

    Prosecutors in Istanbul got a court order Monday for authorities to take blood and DNA samples from 21 people already questioned in the death, according to Turkish state media.

    Meanwhile, her family was working out how to return her body to the U.S.

    "Our No. 1 priority right now is bringing Sarai home," said Grimm, who accompanied Sierra's parents, Betzaida and Dennis Jimenez, as they spoke to the media at the home of a family friend on New York's Staten Island.

    Sierra's husband, Steven, is in Istanbul, where he traveled last week to help in the search. He intends to accompany her body back to New York, but the family is still determining how to fund the transport. Their church and friends are working to raise money to help defray the costs.

    Turkish authorities finished an autopsy Monday on Sierra and gave DNA samples from it to a crime lab, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. After that, Istanbul prosecutors got the court order but did not identify the possible suspects, the agency reported.

    On Monday, police with sniffer dogs were scouring the area where the body was found for clues, it said. The Milliyet newspaper said the forensic lab will examine samples from Sierra's fingernails as well as hair and other samples from a blanket found near her body. It said some nail scrapings suggest she may have tried to fight off at least one attacker.

    Sarai Sierra made her first trip overseas alone after her childhood friend, Magdalena Rodriguez, backed out. At Monday's news conference in New York, Rodriguez fought back tears as she said she wished she had not changed her plans.

    "I wasn't working at the time and I didn't have the money to go," she explained.

    Family and friends described Sierra as a devoted mother to her 9- and 11-year-old sons who volunteered at their school and worked part time so she would be available for them after school. "Every time I saw her, she was always with her family," said another longtime friend, Dulce Arroyo.

    Arroyo ran across Sierra on a shopping trip two days before she left the U.S. and said traveling alone didn't appear to be a frightening prospect. Her friend was looking forward to an exciting adventure and spent most of their conversation talking about the murals and architecture she planned to photograph.

    "She was perfectly OK with taking this trip on her own," Arroyo added. "She was thrilled."

    Dennis Jimenez said Sierra tried to calm any fears by emphasizing that she'd be in regular contact via video calls and text messages.

    "I didn't want her to go, but she wanted to go," he said. "Turkey was a land rich in architecture and ancient history, and she was very fascinated by that."

    He added that she shared her photos online and checked in frequently. "You could tell that she was happy," he said.

    Grimm said Turkish police still have hours of video footage to review as they piece together Sierra's last movements. A special unit of Turkish police set up to find Sierra have an image of her at Galata Bridge, which spans Istanbul's Golden Horn waterway and where she went on her last day to take photos.

    The trip also included preplanned excursions to Amsterdam and Munich.

    Betzaida Jimenez said her two grandsons do not know what had happened to their mother. They only know their father went to get her after her vacation.

    "We're going to talk about that when he gets back," she said.

    She recalled hugging her daughter before she departed and praying together for a safe journey.

    "Just the thought that I'll never be able to hug her again," she said, pausing to compose herself. "We just didn't think a tragedy like this was going to happen."

    Related: Mom of woman slain in Turkey: Her sons don't know

  • Top 10 fugitive went to extremes to evade capture in Mexico

    By M. Alex Johnson, NBC News

    FBI

    The FBI's listing for Jose Luis Saenz after his capture last week in Mexico.

    An alleged drug cartel hit man on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list was living a relatively normal life when he was arrested last week in Mexico, the FBI said Monday.

    Toni Guinyard, Jonathan Lloyd and Janet Kwak of NBC 4 of Los Angeles and R. Stickney of NBC 7 of San Diego contributed to this report. Follow M. Alex Johnson on Twitter and Facebook.

    The man, Jose Luis Saenz, who is 36 or 37 (the FBI listed four possible birthdates), went to great lengths to build that life, agents said Monday after his arraignment in Los Angeles in connection with four brutal murders in California from 1998 to 2008.

    When he was taken into custody Thursday at his apartment in Guadalajara — partly as a result of a $100,000 reward, the FBI said — Saenz identified himself as "Giovanni Torres," just one of 21 aliases the FBI said he was known to have used.

    Saenz had also put on significant weight and had undergone procedures to remove identifying tattoos on his arms, it said. He had even tried to alter his fingerprints.


    Saenz is accused of three murders in Los Angeles in 1998: the killings of two alleged rival gang members and the kidnap, rape and slaying of his estranged girlfriend two weeks later.

    Investigators said Saenz killed Sigrieta Hernandez, his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, because he believed she was going to tell police about the gang slayings.

    Saenz was added to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list in 2009, after he was linked with a fourth homicide in Whittier, Calif., in October 2008. 

    The victim in that case, identified as Oscar Torres, was killed over a drug debt, authorities said. A security camera videotaped a man believed to be Saenz in the act of killing Torres, wounding another person and leaving the scene in a stretch limousine. 

    View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

    The FBI said Saenz was believed to be highly dangerous because he had "reportedly made previous statements indicating plans to kill a police officer upon his arrest."

    In Mexico, Saenz was working as a hit man for a drug cartel in Guadalajara, "living as an average citizen in an apartment above a beauty salon," FBI agent Scott Garriola said.

    "We were dogged in our determination to find him, but when you have that many aliases and you have that much money and connections and you move around that much, it makes it a little more difficult," Garriola said.

    He was flown Friday night to Los Angeles, where he told reporters he was "not guilty for life."

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  • One of FBI's 10 most-wanted fugitives captured in Mexico

    View more videos at: http://nbclosangeles.com.

    By NBC News staff and wire reports

    One of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives was arrested in Mexico and returned to Los Angeles Friday night to face charges of murder, kidnapping and rape, U.S. officials said.

    Reputed Los Angeles gang member Joe Luis Saenz was taken into custody in Guadalajara late Thursday following a joint operation with the Mexican government, Bill Lewis, assistant director in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, said.


    Investigators said Saenz shot and killed two rival gang members in July 1998 to retaliate for an assault on one of his associates.

    Saenz suspected Sigrieta Hernandez, his girlfriend and the mother of his daughter, was going to tell police about the slayings, investigators said.

    He is accused of kidnapping, raping and killing her less than two weeks later.

    Videotape murder
    Saenz also is believed to have killed Oscar Torres at his home in suburban Whittier in October 2008 because he failed to repay $600,000 in drug money after police seized the cash during a traffic stop.

    Authorities said they have videotape from a surveillance camera at Torres' house that shows Saenz killing Torres and wounding another person.

    Saenz was still listed on the FBI’s most-wanted list early Saturday, but with a red caption on his photograph reading “CAPTURED.”

    Born in Los Angeles, Saenz was known to travel between the United States and Mexico.

    Saenz, who is about 37 years old, was believed to be hiding in Mexico, working as an enforcer and hit man for a Mexican drug cartel.

    He had a number of aliases including Zapp, Peanut Joe Smiley and Honeycutt, it added.

    Saenz had been on the FBI's most-wanted list since 2009, putting him among the ranks of Osama bin Laden, Boston crime lord James "Whitey" Bulger and other notorious criminals.

    There was a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his arrest.

    The Associated Press, Reuters and NBC's Ian Johnston contributed to this report.

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  • FBI agents keep out of Benghazi

    In a statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, officials said they are revising their initial assessment of the attack in Benghazi to reflect new information indicating that it was a "deliberate and organized terrorist attack carried out by extremists." NBC's Pete Williams reports.

    By The Associated Press

    For security reasons, FBI agents are staying away from the Libyan city where a U.S. ambassador and three other Americans were killed, two law enforcement officials said Friday.


    The officials say the bureau is not going to put agents in harm's way and that the city of Benghazi must be made secure before the FBI sends investigators there.

    The officials demanded anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record about an ongoing investigation.

    FBI agents were sent to Libya last week to look into the Sept. 11 attack that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, a State Department computer expert and two former U.S. Navy Seals.

    Terrorist groups in Libya tried to coalesce in month leading to consulate attack, officials say

    At FBI headquarters Friday, spokesman Paul Bresson said "we are moving forward with our investigation," but Bresson declined to comment on the specific location of the agents.

    Several questions still remain as to why top U.S. officials offered the wrong initial assessment of the Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans. Was there a cover-up? Or were they trying to avoid acknowledging mistakes so close to the presidential election? The Obama administration has denied any wrongdoing. NBC's Andrea Mitchell reports.

    Separately, the State Department is further reducing the U.S. Embassy staff in Tripoli for security reasons. The embassy warned Americans of possible demonstrations in the capital and Benghazi on Friday.

    On Thursday, Libya's leader said his government had disbanded about 10 militia groups and will continue to take action against Muslim extremists.

    President Mohammed el-Megarif said the attack on the U.S. Consulate earlier this month that killed the four Americans was a final straw. He did not say when the militias were disbanded, or how many remain.

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  • New Zealand admits illegally spying on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom

    Mark Coote / Reuters

    The FBI requested the arrest of Kim Dotcom for leading a group that netted $175 million since 2005 by allegedly copying and distributing music, films and other copyrighted content without authorization.

    By NBC News' Ian Johnston and wire reports

    New Zealand's spy agency illegally carried out surveillance on Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, an official report showed Thursday, prompting an apology from the prime minister and dealing a possible blow to a U.S. bid to extradite him.

    Washington wants the 38-year-old German national, also known as Kim Schmitz, to be sent to the United States to face charges of internet piracy and breaking copyright laws. 


    The FBI requested the arrest of Dotcom for leading a group that netted $175 million since 2005 by allegedly copying and distributing music, films and other copyrighted content without authorization.

    Dotcom maintains that the Megaupload site was no more than an online storage facility, and has accused Hollywood of lobbying the U.S. government to prosecute him.

    New Zealand police asked the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) to keep track of Dotcom and his colleagues before a raid in late January on his rented country estate near Auckland, which saw computers and hard drives, works of art, and cars confiscated.

    Megaupload founder's homes raided, $5M in luxury cars seized

    A report by Justice Paul Neazor found that the GCSB had illegally spied on Dotcom because it is only allowed to gather “foreign intelligence” and people who are New Zealand citizens or residents are protected.

    Megaupload founder "Kim Dotcom," the alleged mastermind behind one of the Internet's biggest and most lucrative schemes, appeared in a New Zealand court Monday morning as new details emerged about his extravagant lifestyle. NBC's Stephanie Gosk reports.

    The illegal surveillance may deal another blow to the U.S. extradition case after a New Zealand court ruled in June that search warrants used in the raid on Dotcom's home were illegal.

    New Zealand Prime Minister John Key blamed “human error” in a statement, saying the GCSB had relied on information from the police about Dotcom’s residency status without checking further and also made a mistake in interpreting the law.

    “It is the GCSB’s responsibility to act within the law, and it is hugely disappointing that in this case its actions fell outside the law. I am personally very disappointed that the agency failed to fully understand the workings of its own legislation,” he said.

    More international coverage from NBC News

    The director of the GCSB, Ian Fletcher, said he was “very sorry” over the affair in a statement, admitting that “we got this wrong.”

    “I know that it will take time to regain the trust and confidence that we have lost,” he said.

    Opposition Labour Party leader David Shearer described the Neazor report as a “whitewash,” and called for a broader inquiry in a statement.

    He complained the report “doesn’t address why, in the 15 meetings the Prime Minister had with GCSB this year, he was not briefed about this issue given it involved national security and a massive police operation involving the FBI.”

    Megaupload suspect Kim Dotcom denies Internet piracy, money laundering

    Ira Rothken, a U.S. lawyer working with Dotcom’s defense team, told Radio New Zealand that he wanted to find out what Key knew and when he found out.

    Video is released from the mansion raid of Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, just as the online file-sharing tycoon goes on trial. NBCNews.com's Dara Brown reports.

    “We’ve seen a great amount of government aggression in this case, from the raid on a family with children – Mr. Dotcom’s residence – to illegal search warrants to what we think is an illegal search and seizure and we also have seen that the United States has illegally taken some data offshore,” Rothken said.

    Feds shut down popular file-sharing website Megaupload

    Asked if the case should continue, Rothken told Radio New Zealand, “The prosecution [lawyers] in both New Zealand and the United States likely has a discretion that when you have such a high dose of illegality that goes into the process of dismissing the case in the interests of justice. Of course we think that’s the right thing to do.”

    U.S. authorities are currently appealing a New Zealand court decision that Dotcom should be allowed to see the evidence on which the extradition hearing will be based.

    The extradition hearing has been delayed until March 2013.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Mexico says it nabs top Gulf Cartel drug boss 'El Coss'

    /

    Mexican Marines present head of the Gulf Cartel boss Jorge Eduardo Costilla to the media in Mexico City on Thursday.

    By Reuters

    MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican Navy said Wednesday it had captured one of Mexico's most wanted drug bosses, the head of the Gulf Cartel, in what would mark a major victory in President Felipe Calderon's crackdown on organized crime.

    The Navy said it would give more details about the arrest of the man it believed to be Jorge Costilla, alias "El Coss," when it parades him in front of the media later Thursday.

    A government security official said Costilla, 41, was detained in Tampico in northeastern Mexico, where the cartel is active, without putting up a fight. The U.S. State Department has a reward of up to $5 million for his capture.

    No other details were immediately available.


    The arrest of the suspected capo comes barely a week after the Mexican Navy captured senior Gulf Cartel member Mario Cardenas, alias "Fatso," also in the state of Tamaulipas where Costilla was caught.

    The Gulf Cartel has been weakened by a violent turf war with the Zetas, a gang formed by army deserters which acted as enforcers for the cartel before breaking with their employers in 2010.

    It could also have political implications because top officials in the cartel's stronghold of Tamaulipas have been accused of taking money from local drug gangs.

    "All these politicians who were getting money from the Gulf Cartel ought to be very worried now because this information is going to come to light in Mexico or the United States," said Alberto Islas, a security expert at consultancy Risk Evaluation, after hearing the reports of Costilla's capture.

    Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

    Costilla features prominently on a wanted list of 37 kingpins the Mexican government published in 2009. Well over 20 on that list have now been captured or killed.

    Still, the Mexican Navy has erred before in its claims, saying in June it had captured a son of Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, only to later admit that it had not done so.

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    Damaging revelations
    Islas said he expected Costilla to be extradited to the United States, and that his testimony could prove damaging to officials in Tamaulipas and neighboring Veracruz state, which has also been dogged by allegations of corruption.

    Money, drugs, guns and gangs: Child actors shame Mexico politicians with mockumentary

    Tomas Yarrington, a governor of Tamaulipas between 1999 and 2005, is fugitive and wanted in Mexico for aiding drug gangs.

    Yarrington governed Tamaulipas for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which will retake the presidency in December after its candidate Enrique Pena Nieto won a July 1 election. The PRI suspended Yarrington from the party in May.

    A video "mockumentary" that shows children as kidnappers, corrupt cops and drug traffickers sparked a fierce debate in violence-torn Mexico. Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.

    Islas said damaging revelations about graft would raise pressure on Pena Nieto to take steps to clean up the image of the centrist PRI, which governed Mexico between 1929 and 2000. That rule was tainted by frequent allegations of corruption.

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    The FBI said Costilla is believed to have taken over the daily operations of the cartel after his former boss Osiel Cardenas was arrested and jailed in Mexico in 2003.

    President: Mexico gang-related deaths fall by 15 percent in 2012

    It said a federal arrest warrant was issued for Costilla in Texas in 2002, and that he was charged with drug offenses, threatening to assault and murder federal agents, and money laundering.

    The FBI's wanted notice includes a grainy photograph of Costilla wearing a cowboy hat and a moustache.

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    With Costilla's apparent capture, the cartel is looking increasingly weak, and bloody turf wars for control of the northeastern border with Texas would now intensify. "There will be an increase in violence there," Islas said.

    Reuters

    The stage was now set for increased hostilities in the region between Mexico's two most powerful gangs, Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas, he noted.

    This could prove a headache for Pena Nieto, who has vowed to quickly reduce the number of beheadings and mass executions. There have been more than 55,000 drug-related deaths in Calderon's six-year offensive against cartels.

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  • Al-Qaida leader threatens to carry out more attacks on US soil

    By Jonathan Dienst, NBCNewYork.com

    An al-Qaida leader in Iraq has threatened to soon carry out an attack inside "the heart" of the U.S.


    Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi released an audio recording boasting that operatives from his al-Qaida affiliate are in the midst of planning a major terror operation.

    "Soon you will witness them in the heart of your homeland, as our war with you has just begun, and so await them," al-Baghdadi said.

    Federal and local security officials told NBC New York there are no new specific threats inside the U.S. The officials said that overseas terror leaders often make unsubstantiated claims and threats about targeting American interests. 

    This latest terror threat message did not specify where or when such a plot might take place. New York, which officials say has faced more than a dozen unsuccessful terror plots since 9/11, appears not to be a target.

    "There is no specific or credible threat to New York at this time," said FBI New York spokesman J. Peter Donald.

    Officials have said the 2009 Zazi subway terror plot and the 2010 Times Square car bomb attempt were the most serious threats to date against the city. Both of those plots were planned with the help of al-Qaida operatives based in Pakistan. 

    Al-Baghdadi – which is believed to be a pseudonym -- became head of al-Qaida in Iraq in 2010. 

    The al-Qaida affiliate in Yemen has also targeted U.S. airliners using explosives hidden in underwear. That group has also plotted to bomb cargo planes using explosives hidden in printer cartridges.

    In 2005, al-Qaida in Iraq had been linked to a "baby stroller" bomb threat targeting New York subways. But after an investigation, security officials determined the alleged plot to smuggle bombs onto trains hidden in baby strollers was based on unsubstantiated information from intelligence sources overseas.

    In addition to threats inside the U.S., al-Baghdadi boasted that the terror group would soon carry out more attacks and assassinations inside Iraq.

    As for the U.S., he said "The leader of the infidels and protector of the Cross, I say to her: Your war on the Muslims is a failure, and soon enough Allah-willing you will collapse and accept defeat."

    He went on to claim terror operatives were already en route to the US. "The Mujahideen have departed to pursue your fleeing army, and they have sworn to make you face more severe punishments than those dealt to you by Osama (bin Laden)."

    NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann translated al-Baghdadi's comments.

  • FBI called in as Australian 'hitman scam' issues death threats in texts

    By NBC News staff

    Police in Australia are seeking help from the FBI and Britain’s Scotland Yard after tens of thousands of Australians received death threats by text message, warning them that they will be killed unless they pay thousands of dollars, according to reports Monday.

    It has commonly been referred to as "the hitman scam," according to The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

    The Australian newspaper reported that the text message included the following line: "Sum1 paid me to kill you. get spared, 48hrs to pay [AU] $5000. If you inform the police or anybody, death is promised...E-mail me now: killerking247yahoo.com."

    The Morning Herald quoted New South Wales Chief Superintendent Peter Cotter saying that state police would look abroad for help.

    "We have direct connections with many international law enforcement agencies," Cotter told the newspaper.

    "There'll be people we'll be speaking to, such as the FBI and London Metropolitan Police and so forth," he told the paper.

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    'A very ugly attempt by fraudsters'
    Queensland Police Detective Superintendent Brian Hay called on recipients to delete the messages and disregard the threat, which he said had no credibility.


    "Across Australia at this point in time we've been flooded and inundated by disturbing emails and text messages claiming that you're about to be killed if you don't part with the sum of (Australian) $5,000 … to be transferred into the hands of criminals. Please understand that this is a scam -- a very ugly attempt by fraudsters overseas to get your money. There is no immediate threat to you or your family," Hay said in a video message to the public posted on the website for The Age newspaper.

    The Australian Broadcasting Corporation quoted a man identified only as “Shane” as saying he did not take the threat seriously.

    "I've probably got about $30 million worth of lottery text messages in my phone at the moment. So, usually when I get a message from an unknown number I don't take it too seriously," he was quoted as saying.

    People in at least five Australian states -- New South Wales, Western Australia, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania -- have reported receiving the texts on their cellphones, The Australian newspaper said.

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