An investigative report by the Miami Herald published today reveals that two local Florida police agencies engaged in a slick money laundering scheme ripped from a Hollywood movie, reaping a whopping $2.4 million for themselves in drug money.

The Tri-County Task Force, which consisted of officers from two small police agencies, the Glade County Sheriff's Office and Bal Harbour Police Department, laundered millions of dollars via SunTrust Bank through countries including Panama and China, the Herald found.

Per the Herald:

The Tri-County Task Force turned a money-laundering investigation into a multi-million-dollar enterprise, spending lavishly on travel and dining while picking up suitcases stuffed with drug cash from as far away as Los Angeles and San Juan.

The officers used fake names to set up seven accounts, starting in 2009, with the help of SunTrust official Ivan Morales, laundering millions each month.

The so-called sting operation laundered a total of $71.5 million — but did not result in any arrests. The illegal cash was moved overseas despite U.S. policy that forbids it.

Extraordinary claims made by a prominent British climate scientist recently made headlines in the UK. Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University, told the UK Times that he suspected the deaths of three of his peers in early 2013 were the result of foul play:

'Climate scientist fears murder by hitman'
By Ben Webster, The Times, July 25th, 2015

[Wadhams] said that assassins may have murdered scientists who were seeking to reveal how rapidly global warming was melting Arctic ice... [and] believed that he had also been targeted but had a narrow escape after a driver of an unmarked lorry tried to push his car off the M25.

Professor Wadhams faced criticism this week after a study contradicted his prediction that Arctic ice was melting so fast that it could all disappear this summer. Asked by The Times for his response to the discovery that the total volume of ice grew 40 per cent in 2013, Professor Wadhams insisted that there was still an outside possibility of the Arctic being ice-free this year [in 2015 - NB].

Top left: Peter Wadhams. Top right: Seymour Laxon. Bottom left: Katharine Giles. Bottom right: Tim Boyd.

He then said there were only four people in Britain who were "really leaders on ice thickness in the Arctic" and he was one. The others, he said, had died in early 2013.

He said: "It seems to me to be too bizarre to be accidental but each individual incident looks accidental, which may mean it's been made to look accidental."

He named the three as Seymour Laxon of University College London, Katharine Giles, a climate change scientist who worked with Professor Laxon at UCL, and Tim Boyd of the Scottish Association for Marine Science.

Professor Laxon died after falling downstairs at a New Year's Eve party in Essex; Dr Giles died in a collision with a lorry while cycling to work in London; and police said they believed that Dr Boyd was killed by lightning as he walked near a loch in Scotland.

Professor Wadhams said that about the same time he was driving on the M25 late at night when the lorry hit his car. "This guy showed definite evidence of malevolence. He was trying to run me right off the road." He said his car was damaged but he managed to get home and called the police the next day. He was told no action could be taken.

"I just thought 'what is going on here?' Somebody is trying to do in people who are working on ice thickness in Britain."

He said: "If it was some kind of death squad, you don't expect that with something like climate change. I know oil companies have been giving lots and lots of money to... climate change denialist organisations but you don't expect them to kill people."

While Wadhman's claims may seem outlandish, it's not beyond the realm of possibility that scientists working in certain areas might be discretely bumped off. Post 9/11, a flurry of microbiologists died in mysterious circumstances. More recently, a pattern has emerged of holistic medical doctors and practitioners meeting untimely demises.

In the case of the microbiologists, it's either known, or considered very likely, that their research connected into high-level military/government projects and sensitive research areas. It's less clear-cut how natural health practitioners could present such a threat to the Powers that Be that they merit 'termination'. While a string of suspicious deaths of researchers in particular fields is not necessarily evidence of a conspiracy or cover-up, it's also true that powerful interests may wish to, at any time and in any field, snuff out apparently innocuous research. Science can indeed be dangerous work.

The problem with Wadham's claim however is that the research he and his former colleagues were engaged in supports the dominant man-made global warming theory. 'Warmists' are a godsend to those in power because it deflects blame for increasing climate chaos from powerful and extremely wasteful institutions like central banking and the US military onto the masses of ordinary people.

Adm. Cecil D. Haney, Strategic Command's (Stratcom) senior leader, said during remarks at a nuclear deterrence conference that despite arms control efforts, hypersonic weapons are among several threatening strategic trends emerging in the world.

China has conducted four flight tests of a 7,000 mile-per-hour maneuvering strike vehicle, and Russia is developing high-speed weapons and reportedly tested a hypersonic weapon in February.

Haney said the Pentagon is developing capabilities that can be used to counter hypersonic arms.

Stratcom is in charge of U.S. nuclear weapons and warfighting, and is tasked with protecting and countering threats to strategic space systems and cyberspace, which is used for command and control of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

This week on Behind the Headlines, we interviewed British journalist, author and human rights advocate Anne Cadwallader about UK government collusion with terrorism in Ireland.

Cadwallader is a former BBC and RTE journalist who has written extensively on the Northern Ireland conflict for media outlets like Ireland on Sunday, the New York Irish Echo, Reuters News Agency, and others. Using her deep understanding of the conflict, she has dedicated herself to helping bereaved families discover more about the circumstances in which their relatives were killed, and has campaigned for an Agreed Truth Recovery Process for all those who lost family members during 'The Troubles'.

To this end, Anne has worked with the now-suspended Historical Enquiries Team, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, and the Serious Crime Review Team of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Perhaps her most important work however has been as a researcher with the Pat Finucane Center (PFC), an Armagh-based human rights advocacy and lobbying organisation. One of the core activities of the PFC is to research and document individual cases of death during the conflict.

As a result of her work in this regard, Anne wrote the book Lethal Allies: British Collusion in Ireland, published by Mercier Press of Cork in October 2013. This ground-breaking work, which lays bare the fact of British collusion in Ireland, has sold 17,000 copies to date, and has been reprinted seven times.

Running Time: 02:02:00

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The United States Senate confirmed General Joseph Dunford as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week. Dunford is just the latest in a long line of paranoid, delusional 'reality makers' to occupy the top military office in the USA.

In his confirmation hearing, Dunford told the Senate committee, "Russia presents the greatest threat to our national security". When pressed to expand on this, the general cited Russia's "alarming" behavior and said it poses "an existential threat to the United States". Someone should tell this guy that saying the same thing with different words does not constitute an explanation.

Dunford's statement was echoed by another top U.S. military official, Secretary of the Air Force, Deborah James, who told Reuters one day earlier, "I do consider Russia to be the biggest threat."

The truth has never played much of a part in shaping U.S. public perception, and those who further this unhinged, psychopathic worldview are granted distinction and rewarded with high office. But let's not dismiss what Dunford et al are saying just yet. While they are clearly not being honest, there is a truth to what they're saying, once we scratch the surface of the rhetoric.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave a hint of the hidden truth when he said that such statements are creating "an artificial atmosphere of hostility". "As far as the statements from Washington are concerned, we have already got used to the fact that the Department of Defense, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee and the Air Force secretary regularly make statements that usually come from politicians," Lavrov said.

President Putin has also repeatedly exposed the Pentagon's manipulations. In June he stated, "I think that only an insane person, and only in a dream, can imagine that Russia would suddenly attack NATO. I think some countries are simply taking advantage of people's fears with regard to Russia."

These days, Sweden is all agog. In the midst of the coldest summer in living history that deprived the Swedes of their normal sun-accumulating July routine, the country plunged into an exciting search for a Russian submarine in the Stockholm archipelago, and (as opposed to the previous rounds of this venerable Swedish maritime saga) this time they actually found the beast.

Now we know for certain the Russians had intruded into Swedish waters! The Swedish admirals and the Guardian journalists probably feel themselves vindicated, as they always said so. Does it matter that the U-boat was sunk one hundred years ago, in 1916? Surely it does not, for the Russians are the same Russians and the sea is the same sea!

I would continue in the same vein and have a lot of fun, but many innocent readers (especially on the internet) are not attuned for irony. If they read Swift's Modest Proposal, they'd call the police. For the benefit of the reader in whom is no guile (John 1:47), I'll say it in plain words: the Swedish Navy and the great British newspaper Guardian made fools of themselves again, as they blamed the Russian president Putin for sending a submarine that turned out to be a one hundred year old war relic.
The U-boat called Som (Catfish) had been built in the US in 1901 for the Russian Navy, served in World War I and went down with all hands in 1916. The Swedes admitted that much, but, as in the one-liner about a guest suspected of stealing silver spoons,the spoons were found, but the ill feeling loitered.

The previous round of this pleasant Swedish pastime took place last October 2014 when the search for Russian submarines in the Stockholm archipelago, that is, in the archipelago of thousands of islands in the Baltic Sea, began in earnest. Nessie of the Loch Ness would envy the hunt. In the newspapers, on radio and on television, they spoke only of the mysterious submarine, that allegedly had sent a distress signal to the Russian naval base in Kaliningrad from the Swedish waters. Millions of krona were spent on the futile search. A video of the U-boat rising was released. Eye witnesses reported they saw a man in black emerging from the sea near a tiny island. As the water temperature was about 10°C (50°F) this could not be a Swede, it's got to be a Russian Spetznaz man, as they are immune to cold...

Geneva International Centre for Justice released on 27 July 2015 its report 'Swimming Against the Tides: Examining the EU Response to Irregular Migration through the Mediterranean Sea.' GICJ has been following closely the recent developments at the European Commission with regards to irregular migration. GICJ wishes to highlight with this report the underlying causes of the crisis and the necessary steps that have to be taken to reach a sustainable solution.

The report shows that since the November 2014 cancelation of "Mare Nostrum", the Italian search and rescue naval operation in the Mediterranean Sea, hundreds of lives have been lost at sea. Despite the dangers facing them however, migrants continue to make the journey to Europe by the boatload. Those risking everything to come to Europe are doing so because they face unimaginable conditions and horrors in their home country. Europe represents an opportunity to forge the life they deserve. For them, Europe is a chance to fulfill many of their rights which are affirmed in various international human rights treaties. To deny anyone of this right goes against the essence of the human rights field. For Europe to deny these rights is an act of the utmost hypocrisy from the continent which has championed and pioneered the universality of human rights. Yet, in the report GICJ explores the repeated efforts by European states to shirk responsibility in the past few months, despite the ever worsening situation.

Broadcasting from deep in the heart of the American Empire, join your hosts Harrison Koehli and Elan Martin, and fellow Sott.net editors, as they discuss everything from current events and the latest machinations and manipulations of the global elite to history, science, and religion, and how it all fits together.

This week, join our hosts as they continue their discussion of the UK pedophile politician scandal, looking at other cases and current events.

The Truth Perspective is brought to you by the SOTT Radio Network and SOTT.net, your one-stop source for independent, unbiased, alternative news and commentary on world events.

Live every Saturday from 2-4pm EST / 11am-1pm PST / 8-10pm CET.

Running Time: 01:58:00

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Here's the transcript of the show:

The American government expressed "confidence" and "faith in the system" that Israel will prosecute the murderers of Ali Sa'ed Dabwasha last night in the occupied village of Duma, the State Department said today.

It must be "faith" because there's no evidence for it: the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem documents that Israeli government has a policy of NOT enforcing the law against Jewish settlers; and Jewish settlers are suspected in the murder. In the last three years, Israelis have set fire to nine Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank; and no one has ever been charged. So why does the U.S. government have "faith in the system" when it comes to the murder last night of Ali Saed Dabwasha?

The extremely rich have "psychiatric issues" and it affects day-to-day Americans, populist presidential candidate Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said recently. Research shows that he's on to something.

"We all know people who are addicted to alcohol or drugs. These people are addicted to money," Sanders said earlier this year, according to MSNBC. The result? A "philosophical war being waged against the middle-class and working families."

Sanders wants to revive a time in American history where "one person could work 40 hours a week and make enough to take care for the entire family."

That will take a political revolution, he said, and again he could be right.

Last August, Maria Fernandes became the poster child for the new American economy, in which the cost of living has far surpassed the minimum wage and political inaction has let it fester.

Fernandes, a 32-year-old from New Jersey, worked four part-time, low wage jobs to make a living. She died in her car while she was napping between shifts, accidentally inhaling carbon monoxide, according to the New York Daily News.