Today, we are announcing that nine Japan-based companies and two executives have agreed to plead guilty – and to pay a total of more than $740 million in criminal fines – for their roles in separate conspiracies to fix the prices of more than 30 different products sold to U.S. car manufacturers and installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere.

Justice Department officials along with other senior officials from the Administration yesterday convened the third annual National Summit on Preventing Youth Violence to share strategies on how to prevent and reduce violence and gang activity and improve opportunities for young people.

The Justice Department announced today that Plaza Home Mortgage Inc. (Plaza) of San Diego will pay $3 million to aggrieved borrowers as part of a settlement to resolve allegations that it engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination on the basis of race and national origin.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced today that the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) will provide $150,000 in Fiscal Year 2013 funding to Newtown, Conn., to fund two positions to ensure school safety, such as school resource officers.

Two Miami-area residents were indicted in connection with their alleged participation in a $190 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Today, I am pleased to be in Detroit to announce that – in addition to our ongoing enforcement of antitrust and consumer protection laws – as part of the Obama Administration’s commitment to supporting the City of Detroit, the Justice Department will take a variety of actions to provide direct assistance to city leaders and local law enforcement authorities in order to improve public safety throughout the metropolitan area.

The former owner of a Los Angeles medical clinic management company has been indicted for his role in a $13 million scheme to defraud Medicare.

A former owner of a Los Angeles medical equipment supply company has been indicted for allegedly engaging in a $4 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Two financial investors who purchased municipal tax liens pleaded guilty today for their roles in a conspiracy to rig bids at auctions conducted by New Jersey municipalities for the sale of those tax liens, the Department of Justice announced.

A Pennsylvania man today admitted he conspired to defraud FIRSTPLUS Financial Group Inc. (FPFG), a Texas-based financial services company allegedly targeted for extortionate takeover and looting by a group led by alleged Lucchese organized crime family member Nicodemo S. Scarfo.

The Justice Department announced it has filed a lawsuit today in the federal district court for the Western District of Michigan against the owners and manager of Alger Meadow Apartments in Grand Rapids, Mich., alleging that the manager has sexually harassed tenants in violation of the Fair Housing Act.

The Justice Department today announced that it has filed a lawsuit alleging that the Housing Authority for the City of Ruston, La., has engaged in a pattern or practice of discrimination against African-American tenants, in violation of the federal Fair Housing Act.

We are here to announce that the Justice Department will file suit today against the State of North Carolina to challenge portions of the State’s highly restrictive new voting law.

The following message from the Attorney General was emailed to Justice Department employees on October 1, 2013.

The following message from the Attorney General was emailed to Justice Department employees on October 10, 2013.

Boston Scientific Corp. and its subsidiaries, Guidant LLC, Guidant Sales LLC and Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. (Guidant), have agreed to pay $30 million to settle allegations that, between 2002 and 2005, Guidant knowingly sold defective heart devices to health care facilities that in turn implanted the devices into Medicare patients.

Brandon Shane Mundy, a former police officer of numerous law enforcement agencies, the most recent being the Town Creek, Ala., Police Department was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge R. David Proctor to serve five years in prison and three years of supervised release, and to pay $3,745 in restitution for violating the civil rights of a man during the course of an arrest.

Two Latino men associated with the Compton 155 street gang pleaded guilty today to federal hate crime charges related to a racially motivated attack on African-American juveniles at a residence in Compton, Calif. on New Year’s Eve.

The following message from the Attorney General was emailed to Justice Department employees on October 17, 2013.

David Kalai and Nadav Kalai face additional charges after a federal grand jury in the Central District of California returned a second superseding indictment yesterday.

The United States has requested that the federal district court in Jackson, Miss., permanently bar Danee Aikens from preparing federal income tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

A Vietnamese national has been indicted in the District of New Hampshire for allegedly participating in an international scheme to steal and sell hundreds of thousands of Americans’ personally identifiable information (PII) through various underground websites that he operated.

The reality is that police don’t always have the luxury of time to get their most highly-trained, best-equipped officers on the scene. To save lives, the first officers to arrive must sometimes be the ones to directly engage an active shooter. That’s why all law enforcement officers must have the best equipment and most up-to-date training to confront these situations. We owe these officers nothing less.

Diebold Inc. (Diebold), the Ohio-based provider of integrated self-service delivery and security systems, including automated teller machines (ATMs), has agreed to pay a $25.2 million penalty to resolve allegations that it violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing government officials in China and Indonesia and falsifying records in Russia in order to obtain and retain contracts to provide ATMs to state-owned and private banks in those countries.

Two current U.S. Army National Guard soldiers have pleaded guilty for their role in bribery and fraud schemes that caused a total of at least $70,000 in losses to the U.S. Army National Guard Bureau.

A Georgia real estate investor and his company pleaded guilty today for their role in conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions in Georgia.

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole and Panamanian Attorney General Ana Belfon today signed an agreement in Panama City, Panama, to share more than $36 million in forfeited criminal assets with the Government of Panama.

The administrator and employee of two Miami health care companies was sentenced today to serve 60 months in prison for her participation in a $74 million home health Medicare fraud scheme.

A former owner of a Salt Lake City medical equipment supply company has been indicted and three former company employees have pleaded guilty for allegedly engaging in a $20 million Medicare fraud scheme.

Earlier today, charges were unsealed against Romanian fugitive Nicolae Popescu, the leader of an international organized crime syndicate that ran a multimillion dollar cyber fraud scheme, and six other fugitives charged with participating in the same scheme. Interpol has issued red notices to foreign law enforcement partners seeking assistance in the apprehension of these fugitives, and the FBI has also released “Wanted” posters to facilitate their arrests.

Dr. Patricia Lynn Hough, of Englewood, Fla., was convicted today by a jury in Fort Myers, Fla., of conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) by concealing millions of dollars in assets and income in offshore bank accounts at UBS and other foreign banks, and of filing false individual income tax returns which failed to report the existence of those foreign accounts or the income earned in those accounts

Tarrish Tellis of Montgomery County, Ala., pleaded guilty today to conspiracy, theft of public funds and aggravated identity theft, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department's Tax Division and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama George L. Beck Jr.

David Ostermeyer, who retired from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2012, will pay the government a $30,000 penalty to settle allegations that he participated in a matter in which he had a financial interest that conflicted with his duties when he was Chief Financial Officer of the agency.

Harvey James pleaded guilty to one count of mail fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft for his role in a Stolen Identity Refund Fraud (“SIRF”) scheme, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department's Tax Division and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama George L. Beck Jr.

The Justice Department today filed a lawsuit against the owner and operators of a Fremont, Calif., apartment complex, alleging that they had discriminated against families with children in violation of the Fair Housing Act by prohibiting children from playing in the common grassy areas of the complex.

Former U.S. Congressman Rick Renzi was sentenced today to serve 36 months in prison following his June conviction by a federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., for extortion, bribery, insurance fraud, money laundering and racketeering. Renzi’s co-defendant, James Sandlin, was also sentenced today to serve 18 months in prison for his role in the extortion, bribery and money laundering scheme.

The former president of Port Arthur Chemical and Environmental Services LLC (PACES) has been sentenced for occupational safety crimes which resulted in the death of an employee, announced Robert G. Dreher, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division and John M. Bales, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas.

We come together this year at a time of reflection and renewal – in a moment of progress and possibility; of challenge as well as opportunity. It was 14 years ago, in Washington, D.C., when then-Vice President of the United States Al Gore convened the very first Global Forum on Fighting Corruption and Safeguarding Integrity – an initiative that reflected a growing international willingness to acknowledge corruption as a problem that every country must face. Since that time, international leaders have repeatedly come together – in a variety of ways – to foster widespread consensus on the need for collective action in the face of shared challenges. And our nations have together accomplished a great deal.

Coöperatieve Centrale Raiffeisen-Boerenleenbank B.A. (Rabobank) has entered into an agreement with the Department of Justice to pay a $325 million penalty to resolve violations arising from Rabobank’s submissions for the London InterBank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and the Euro Interbank Offered Rate (Euribor), which are leading benchmark interest rates around the world, the Justice Department announced today.

The United States has sued Eric Hardaway, aka Eric Brittenum, and Yvonne Hardaway, seeking to bar them and their business, Hardaway Taxx, from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today.

A Rockford, Ill., man was arrested today in connection with an indictment charging three Chicago-area residents for their roles in an alleged $12 million health care fraud scheme.

A Massachusetts man was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison today for engaging in an illegal practice known as “swatting,” in which he made hoax emergency telephone calls reporting an ongoing, dangerous crime to elicit an armed police response from a SWAT team to a specific location, typically in order to harass someone he believed was at the location.

The Justice Department announced today that, jointly with the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, it is moving in the U.S. District Court for the appointment of Juan Mattos Jr. as Technical Compliance Advisor (TCA).

Attorney General Eric Holder today announced a total of $6.7 million in grants to state and local criminal and civil legal services organizations across the country that provide legal defense services for the poor.

The government has intervened in a lawsuit filed under the False Claims Act against United States Investigations Services LLC (USIS) in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, alleging that USIS, located in Falls Church, Va., failed to perform quality control reviews in connection with its background investigations for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

The Justice Department announced today that Anthony Williams, a resident of Baton Rouge, La., pleaded guilty today to one count of threatening to retaliate against a witness in a federal criminal tax trial.

The Department of Justice announced today that a federal grand jury sitting in Salt Lake City returned a superseding indictment charging Macon Openshaw, 21, of Salt Lake City, on gun possession charges and a federal hate crime charge relating to a bias-motivated attack at a local synagogue.

A federal jury in Houston has convicted Gwendolyn Climmons-Johnson, 53, of multiple counts of health care fraud for submitting false and fraudulent claims to Medicare for ambulance services.

Vladimir Kats, 41, of Brooklyn, N.Y., pleaded guilty today in federal court before U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote to money laundering and operating an unlicensed money transmitting business. The charges stem from his role in running Liberty Reserve, a company that operated one of the world’s most widely used digital currency services and allegedly laundered more than $6 billion in suspected proceeds of crimes.

Vernon Harrison, of Montgomery, Ala., was sentenced to serve 111 months in prison and three years supervised release, along with an order to pay $82,791 restitution, for his role in a stolen identity refund fraud scheme, announced Assistant Attorney General Kathryn Keneally of the Justice Department's Tax Division and U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama George L. Beck Jr.