South Korea Springhill Group - New scam emerges in Hernando Co. | Crime | Spring Hill-Brooksville News

http://springhill.wtsp.com/news/crime/103010-new-scam-emerges-hernando-co

http://springhillgrouphome.multiply.com/journal/item/79/New_scam_emerges_in_Hernando_Co._Crime_Spring_Hill-Brooksville_News

Hernando County, FL -- Think an organization is trying to help recover money lost in a scam? Think again, says the Hernando County Sheriff's Office.

Detectives are warning citizens of a new scam that has been making the rounds throughout the county. The scammers are targeting people who have already been victims of a scam and are offering them a refund, claiming to be an organization that investigates these types of scams.

Detectives say the scammers are pretending to be affiliated with "IC3.org-Internet Crime Complaint Center" and are sending emails from "test@islacad.org". They claim to be "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs" in South Africa but if you check the domain for the email, "islacad.org", it belongs to the "International Spanish Language Academy".

In the email, detectives say they only ask for your name, address and phone number, but it's when you receive a letter in the mail and/or phone call is when they discreetly ask for bank account information. You may also be told that money is waiting to be sent, but you must pay a wire transfer, tax, "duty fee", or one of many other reasons before receiving their refund.

The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office would like to remind everyone to be cautions and only communicate with individuals whom they know or businesses they have already checked out and confirmed are legitimate businesses.

Remember "if it's too good to be true, it probably is!"

The sheriff's office has provided one of the most recent internet scams being circulated:
After receiving several reports from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) that you have been scammed by fraudsters from Africa especially from Nigeria; we have decided to contact you and Just in case you don't know the (IC3), the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to serve as a means to receive Internet related criminal complaints and to further research, develop, and refer the criminal complaints to federal, state, local, or international law enforcement and regulatory agencies for any investigation they deem to be appropriate. Their website is http://www.ic3.gov

In response to the report, we have concluded our investigation and we have agreed to reimburse you with the sum of Two Hundred and fifty thousand United states dollar only (US$250,000) via Western Union Money Transfer agent location office in Cape Town,South Africa,which we have made necessary and sufficient arrangements for you to be compensated.

Send the details below to the Western Union agent office via their email address stated below and they shall endeavor to transfer your fund within 48 hours of your response.

Name:...
Address:...
Telephone:...

Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100

Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
After receiving several reports from the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) that you have been scammed by fraudsters from Africa especially from Nigeria; we have decided to contact you and Just in case you don't know the (IC3), the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C) to serve as a means to receive Internet related criminal complaints and to further research, develop, and refer the criminal complaints to federal, state, local, or international law enforcement and regulatory agencies for any investigation they deem to be appropriate. Their website is http://www.ic3.gov
In response to the report, we have concluded our investigation and we have agreed to reimburse you with the sum of Two Hundred and fifty thousand United states dollar only (US$250,000) via Western Union Money Transfer agent location office in Cape Town,South Africa,which we have made necessary and sufficient arrangements for you to be compensated.

Send the details below to the Western Union agent office via their email address stated below and they shall endeavor to transfer your fund within 48 hours of your response.

Name:...
Address:...
Telephone:...

Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100

Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
In response to the report, we have concluded our investigation and we have agreed to reimburse you with the sum of Two Hundred and fifty thousand United states dollar only (US$250,000) via Western Union Money Transfer agent location office in Cape Town,South Africa,which we have made necessary and sufficient arrangements for you to be compensated.
Send the details below to the Western Union agent office via their email address stated below and they shall endeavor to transfer your fund within 48 hours of your response.

Name:...
Address:...
Telephone:...

Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100

Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Send the details below to the Western Union agent office via their email address stated below and they shall endeavor to transfer your fund within 48 hours of your response.
Name:...
Address:...
Telephone:...

Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100

Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Name:...
Address:...
Telephone:...
Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100

Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Government Accredited Licensed Claim Agent.
Western Union Information and Payment Bureau.
Email :   wumtoffices@postafiok.hu
Tele/FAX : +27727529100
Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.

And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Please do not respond to emails which asks you to send your username and password for any reason as these are means of hacking into your email account to steal from you.
And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!

Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
And also take note that we have never held any scam victims compensation program in the AU region. This is the First-Of-Its-Kind so Do not be deceived!
Yours sincerely,

Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.
Mrs. Linda Makhado (Public Relations Officer) Oversea Communication Department (SARB) Ministry of Foreign Affairs (RSA), South Africa.

ATTN: Sir / Madam,

South Korea Springhill Group - [Editorial] Insurance fraud

http://view.koreaherald.com/kh/view.php?ud=20120521000391&cpv=0

http://springhillgrouphome.multiply.com/journal/item/78

The insurance fraud in Changwon uncovered by the Financial Supervisory Service is both shocking and disturbing. It involved as many as 1,361 people, mostly residents of the South Gyeongsang Province city, who either posed as fake patients or exaggerated their illnesses. Collectively, they claimed 9.5 billion won from 33 insurance companies between 2007 and 2011.

At the center of the scam ― the largest ever in terms of the number of people involved ― were three unconscionable hospitals in the city, which recruited fake patients systematically in cahoots with insurance brokers and solicitors. They did this to increase revenue and ease their financial distress.

The main ploy used by the hospitals was to share a patient, meaning they would arrange for a patient to check in the three hospitals alternately for a different disease. For this, they faked his illnesses and prepared false documents. For close cooperation, they shared patient information among themselves.

This scheme helped patients pocket more insurance money. They all purchased multiple private health insurance policies before hospitalization. On average they received some 7 million won per person. In one example, a man in his 50s was hospitalized for a total of 564 days over three years, collecting 95 million won in insurance.

The Changwon case followed a similar one that took place in Taebaek last November, involving more than 400 people in the declining mining town in Gangwon Province. They got a total of 14 billion won in insurance payments. As with the Changwon scam, three financially distressed hospitals in the city played a central role. 

The two cases suggest that insurance fraud is a fairly common occurrence in Korea. According to the FSS, the number of insurance-related crimes has surged in recent years. Last year alone, more than 70,000 people were caught for insurance scams, with the amount of false claims they filed reaching 423 billion won.

Yet the figure represented just the tip of the iceberg. A study by the Korea Insurance Research Institute estimated that domestic insurance companies paid a total of 3.4 trillion won to fraudsters in 2010, up 53 percent from 2006. 

The figure accounts for 12.5 percent of the entire sum insurance companies paid to their customers in that year. According to the institute, these false claims had the effect of increasing annual insurance premiums by 70,000 won per person or 200,000 won per household on average.

Health insurance scams inflict damage not only on private insurers but on the National Health Insurance, which is jointly funded by taxpayers, corporations and the government. As insurance fraud increases health care costs, the government needs to crack down on fraudsters. 

Yet the problem is that fraud rings employ increasingly sophisticated schemes to beat insurance companies and regulators. For instance, people involved in the Changwon case limited their hospital stay to less than two weeks as a longer one would be scrutinized by the National Health Insurance Corp.

To fight insurance fraud, insurance companies need to be more aggressive in handling suspicious claims. When they encounter questionable claims, they should investigate them. But they often choose to pay the claims and transfer the costs to customers as doing so is cheaper and more convenient. 

The NHIC and the FSS are also required to enhance their skills to analyze suspicious claims and beef up their investigation manpower. But these measures alone would not be enough to curb the rising trend of insurance scams.

A more fundamental solution would be to enact a special law, as in many other countries, to deal with insurance fraud differently from fraud of other types. In fact, the FSS has already submitted a bill to toughen punishment for insurance fraud. But lawmakers have not acted on it for years.

The bill calls for canceling the licenses of insurance agents and slapping doctors and hospitals with heavier penalties when they are found to have been involved in a scam. It also proposes to grant insurance companies a limited right to investigate suspicious claims. 

Along with these steps, the government will have to find measures to ease the financial hardship of many hospitals in provincial cities. These hospitals are in trouble as patients in their cities prefer big, well-known hospitals in Seoul. If local hospitals put up the shutters, the nation’s entire health care delivery system would be crippled.

Justice Department Sues Florida Man To Halt Tax Scam

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501706_162-57431446/study-outside-media-changing-n-korean-worldview/

WASHINGTON — A U.S. government-funded study says North Koreans have unprecedented access to foreign media, giving them a more positive impression of the outside world.

But it says North Korea still has the world's most closed media environment, and those changing perceptions are unlikely to translate into significant pressure on their repressive government in the short term.

The study was commissioned by the State Department and conducted by a consulting group, InterMedia. It is based on research involving several hundred North Korean defectors and refugees during 2010-11. The Associated Press obtained the study ahead of its formal release Thursday.

The study, titled "A Quiet Opening: North Koreans in a Changing Media Environment," says restrictions that threaten years in prison and hard labor for activities like watching a South Korean soap opera or listening to foreign news broadcasts have been tightened since the mid-2000s, but are enforced less than in the past. People remain wary of government inspection teams, but fewer citizens appear to be reporting on each other.

Nearly half of those interviewed said that while in North Korea they had watched a foreign DVD, the most commonly used type of outside media. About a quarter of people had listened to a foreign radio news broadcast or watched a foreign news station.

Nearly one-third of television watchers whose sets were fixed to state-run programing had modified them in order to capture a signal from outside stations detectable along the Chinese and South Korean borders.

South Korea Springhill Group : Suspect arrested in Navy veterans fundraising scam

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/18002117/ohio-ag-arrest-in-navy-ve

By THOMAS J. SHEERAN
Associated Press

CLEVELAND (AP) - A fugitive on the run for more than two years has been arrested on accusations that he ran a scam that collected $100 million in donations from people in dozens of states who believed they were helping U.S. Navy veterans, Ohio's attorney general and the U.S. Marshals Service announced Tuesday.

The man, who uses the false identify of Bobby Thompson, was indicted in Ohio in 2010 on theft, money laundering and other charges related to the Florida-based charity. He disappeared in June 2010. Little, if any, of the money collected by the charity was used to benefit veterans, authorities have said.

Authorities acting on a tip tracked Thompson to a bar in Portland, Ore., on Monday night, followed him home and made the arrest, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine said. He had multiple fake ID cards from Canada and a backpack containing cash, DeWine said.

Thompson refused to speak to investigators, authorities said.

At a hearing Tuesday, U.S. District Judge John Acosta of Portland ordered Thompson to be returned to Ohio. Thompson, who limped into the courtroom, spoke frequently with his public defender during an hour-long hearing to establish he was the man authorities were looking for.

DeWine said authorities hope to have the man returned within 10 days to Ohio, where he will be tried in state court in Cleveland. The alleged fraud, which DeWine called "despicable," spanned 41 states, including up to $2 million in Ohio.

People who contributed gave small amounts, ranging from $5 to $50, DeWine said. "The bulk of this was not huge contributions," he said. "But these were patriotic Americans who gave money believing that that money was going to help Navy veterans."

Authorities still don't know the man's real name, but investigators uncovered information earlier this year that led them to believe he may have lived recently in New Mexico.

Ohio investigators also tracked Thompson through Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Washington and West Virginia.

Elliott said Thompson fled New England the day after an episode about his case aired on "America's Most Wanted" in March 2011.

The arrest closes a search dating back several years and involving a Tampa, Fla.-based charity known as the U.S. Navy Veterans Association.

The charity's former legal counsel said she long accepted Thompson's explanations for irregularities in the group's financial records, but ultimately changed her mind after flying to Tampa two years ago where Blanca Contreras, another agency official, denied her access to many records. Thompson was gone by then, Helen Mac Murray said.

"He was a very brilliant man," said Mac Murray, of New Albany in suburban Columbus. "He had an answer for any questions that popped up about any kind of irregularity."

Mac Murray said she took her concerns to the attorneys general of Ohio and Florida and the FBI in 2010 and has been cooperating ever since. She says she is not a suspect of the investigation. Cleveland-based U.S. Marshal Pete Elliott confirmed her cooperation.

Mac Murray said she last saw Thompson at a board meeting in New York City in June 2010. She doesn't know what Thompson was doing in Oregon, although he had frequently mentioned contacts he had there and in New Mexico. She also doesn't know who he really is or what is name is.

"He lied to all of us," she said.

Contreras of Tampa, Fla., was sentenced to five years in prison last year for her role in the scam. Contreras had pleaded guilty to theft, money laundering and other charges related to allegations she handled nearly $475,000 in Ohio donations for the charity.

Former Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray had also investigated Thompson and had worked with the Hamilton County prosecutor's office on an arrest warrant issued from Cincinnati, where in 2003 the man set up a UPS mailbox to collect donations for the association.

Authorities say the real Thompson, a Choctaw who worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, wasn't connected to the association and had his identity, including his Social Security number and date of birth, stolen.

The association made a few sporadic contributions that benefited veterans, but public records show the man behind it contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to political candidates around the country, Cordray said in 2010. Authorities didn't know the motives for those contributions, he said.

Cordray's office froze the association's bank accounts and drop boxes and ordered it to stop operations in Ohio.

___

Andrew Welsh-Huggins in Columbus, Ohio, and Steven DuBois in Portland, Ore., contributed to this report.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Titanic - James Cameron's subversive masterpiece : South Korea Springhill Group | Newsvine

http://kyliecassidy.newsvine.com/_news/2012/04/25/11398922-titanic-james-camerons-subversive-masterpiece-alan-nothnagle-open-salon-south-korea-springhill-group

Titanic - James Cameron's subversive masterpiece

  

How a Hollywood blockbuster blasted a century’s worth of reactionary pieties straight out of the water

JAMES CAMERON’S TITANIC IS back in cinemas this month, now in a 3D makeover, to mark the one hundredth anniversary of the mighty ship’s sinking on April 15, 1912. The rerelease, unlike the lingering memory of the collision and the resulting 1,514 lost lives, has been something of a non-story, aside from the inevitable debate over the quality or necessity of the 3D conversion, with the only visible debate arising from a Huffington Post article that decries the Twitter generation’s alleged confusion over whether “the story is true or not.” Huffpost became typically huffy, suggesting that it is a disgrace for millennials to be unaware of the sinking as an historical fact and of the “lessons” the event contains for us all.

I have not written on the ensuing debate myself (although I did add my two cents worth to Scott Mendelson’s thoughtful blog entry a few days ago), but I would like to cut the kids some slack – not over whether or not Rose and Jack were real (there have been stranger love stories, after all, as most readers of this essay can probably attest from personal experience), but rather over the “lessons” the tragedy has supposedly bequeathed to us. In fact, young filmgoers are facing a real dilemma, for even though the film recreates the disaster with remarkable historical accuracy, it systematically trashes nearly everything the Titanic has ever stood for in popular culture. And if you ask me, Cameron is about a century overdue. 

Titanic as grand cinema

What of the film itself? Let me state for the record that I adore it and have watched it at least a dozen times, including no fewer than five times in the cinema. Not for me the typical response I regularly hear in my own pseudo-intellectual milieu, namely that “it’s horrible Hollywood schlock, sickly and superficial, and I absolutely refuse to watch it!” Okay, I’ll concede that there may well be people out there who are simply too intelligent to watch Titanic, but I love it –the whole thing: Trite plot, bland dialogue, “king of the world” and all the rest of the usual complaints. I actually like the love story, driven as it is by the sheer charisma of the two youthful leads – I can even identify with them a little for my own obscure personal reasons, and who doesn’t long to be swept off his or her feet like that at a decisive moment in their lives? – and the dialogue doesn’t bother me. Instead, I have long been impressed at the film’s narrative economy, the way it squeezes a personal drama, a major maritime disaster, and a modern treasure hunt into a mere three hours and fourteen minutes. And the story is undeniably effective – at a cinema in Stockholm where I was watching it back in 1998 a teenage girl started sobbing during the raft scene, and her friends practically had to carry her out of the theater at the end of the credits. Anyway, when I’m in the mood for complex relationships and mind-blowing dialogue I’m more likely to reach for Kenneth Branagh’s production of Hamlet . . . .   READ MORE 

Facebook - South Korea Springhill Group : Oft-testead routine for nuclear reactor VIPs - The National

http://www.facebook.com/notes/bethany-rawlins/south-korea-springhill-group-oft-tested-routine-for-nuclear-reactor-vips-the-nat/198613003589676

           

http://www.thenational.ae/business/energy/oft-tested-routine-for-nuclear-reactor-vips

Oft-tested routine for nuclear reactor VIPs

KORI, SOUTH Korea // Visitors to the construction site of Korea's latest model in nuclear reactor technology are first treated to a video about its many safety advantages.

As the film about the APR-1400 reactors ends in the darkened room, automated shades draw back from floor-to-ceiling windows to reveal the immense concrete domes and construction cranes at the edge of the blue sea. Steam floats from a boiler undergoing tests, and workers in blue hard-hats confer at the base of the reactor buildings that seem as vast as a mall in Abu Dhabi.The design of Shin-Kori 3 and 4, as the reactors are called, is to be nearly identical to the four a South Korean consortium is building in the UAE. Adjustments for the Gulf's climate, from larger pumps to more air-conditioning units, are undergoing review, along with the rest of the design, by the UAE regulator.

On a recent day at Kori, visitors representing some of the highest levels of the nuclear industry, from Japan to the Czech Republic, crowded towards the irresistible view.

South Korea has a well-rehearsed routine for international visitors to the world's newest nuclear exporter, from photo ops to specialearphones for listening to engineers in the noisy interior of functioning plants nearby.

The first reactor is scheduled to come online next year, five years after the first spadefuls of earth were dug from this spot on Korea's south-east coast. The second reactor is due to follow in 2014. Another four are planned at the same site.

"The construction schedule is going well," said Lee Young-il, a vice president at Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, the company hosting the visit.

ayee@thenational.ae