Two U.S. citizens charged in connection with the operation of a series of fraudulent business opportunities were arrested today in Costa Rica following their indictment by a federal grand jury in Miami on March 9.

Lee Bentley Farkas, the former chairman of a private mortgage lending company, Taylor, Bean & Whitaker (TBW), was arrested last night in Ocala, Fla., and charged in a 16-count indictment for his alleged role in a more than $1.9 billion fraud scheme that contributed to the failures of Colonial Bank, one of the 50 largest banks in the United States in 2009, and TBW, one of the largest privately held mortgage lending companies in the United States in 2009.

Pedro Antonio Bermudez, also known as “El Arquitecto,” was arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, N.Y., following his extradition on June 15, 2010, from Mexico to the United States on charges of participating in an international drug trafficking conspiracy.

Omid Khalili, an Iranian national, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Alabama to attempting to illegally export fighter jet or military aircraft parts from the United States to Iran.

The United States filed a False Claims Act suit against R&J Feed Co., Jerry Goodwin, Richard Carter and Carter Livestock Inc. in the U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Mo.

A federal grand jury in the Southern District of New York has returned a 10-count indictment charging Faisal Shahzad for allegedly driving a car bomb into Times Square on the evening of May 1, 2010.

“Faisal Shahzad plotted and launched an attack that could have led to serious loss of life, and today the American criminal justice system ensured that he will pay the price for his actions,” Attorney General Eric Holder said. 

A federal grand jury in Spokane, Wash., has returned an indictment charging Ronald James Davenport of Deer Park, Wash., with filing fraudulent multi-billion-dollar liens against four government officials.

The owner and the vice president of a Detroit-area physical therapy clinic were convicted today by a federal jury for their roles in a $23 million Medicare fraud scheme, announced the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services.

Two Taiwanese nationals were sentenced to prison today in federal court in the U.S. Virgin Islands for conspiracy to ship internationally protected black coral into the United States in violation of federal wildlife statutes.

“The Department of Justice is committed to protecting our nation’s communities from the violent and dangerous crimes alleged in this indictment,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer.

Mikalai Mardakhayeu, a Belarusian national residing in Nantucket, Mass., was arrested Wednesday night and charged for his alleged participation in an international online “phishing” scheme to steal income tax refunds intended for U.S. taxpayers around the country.

A federal grand jury in Mobile, Ala., has returned a three-count indictment charging Thomas Hayward Lewis, 24, of Mobile, with violating and conspiring to violate the civil rights of congregants of the Congregation Tree of Life Messianic Synagogue in Mobile, as well as possession of an unregistered firearm.

Eight individuals were arrested Sunday for allegedly carrying out long-term, “deep-cover” assignments in the United States on behalf of the Russian Federation.

A federal jury in Chicago convicted former Chicago Police Department (CPD) Commander Jon Burge, 60, of Apollo Beach, Fla., on perjury and obstruction charges related to his denials that he participated in the torture of suspects in police custody decades ago.

The indictment, unsealed today in Hammond, Ind., charges six alleged members of the gang known as Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation for their alleged roles in a racketeering conspiracy in Hammond, Ind., and elsewhere.

Homer Richardson of Loveland, Ohio, pleaded guilty in federal district court in Cincinnati to corruptly impeding the due administration of the Internal Revenue Code.

Juan Javier Cardenas was charged in a three-count indictment returned today by a federal grand jury in Miami with conspiracy to buy, sell and use stolen credit card information.

Today in Sacramento, Calif., U.S. District Court Judge John A. Mendez sentenced a couple from Fairfield, Calif., for their roles in a July 2007 beating of an American citizen who is originally from India.

Following a five-week trial, a fish wholesaler and two of its employees were found guilty with purchasing illegally harvested striped bass, known locally as rockfish, from the Potomac River in Virginia and Maryland from 1995 through 2007.

Eric Jon Eisenhower was arraigned in federal court in Alexandria, Va., on an indictment that alleges that he failed to collect, account for and pay over to the Internal Revenue Service more than $200,000 in withholdings from employees’ paychecks between 2004 and 2008.

Italian citizen Flavio Ricotti, a former executive of Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif.-based valve company Control Components Inc. (CCI), has been extradited to the United States from Germany in connection with his alleged participation in a conspiracy to secure contracts by paying bribes to officials of foreign state-owned companies as well as officers and employees of foreign and domestic private companies.

Carline Ceneus, Cabioch Bontemps and Willy Edouard have been indicted by a federal grand jury sitting in the Northern District of Florida for engaging in a conspiracy to commit forced labor and visa fraud involving Haitian nationals.

The Justice Department today announced charges against five members of an al-Qaeda plot to attack targets in the United States and United Kingdom.

U.S. Army Major Charles E. Sublett, 46, of Huntsville, Ala., pleaded guilty today in federal court in Memphis, Tenn., to making false statements to a federal agency.

Ten individuals pleaded guilty today in Manhattan federal court to conspiring to serve as unlawful agents of the Russian Federation within the United States and will be immediately expelled from the United States.

Dwayne Lequire, 51, of Elgin, Ariz., was found guilty by a federal jury in Tucson, Ariz., late yesterday of eight counts of embezzling insurance premiums and one count of conspiracy.

A federal jury in Orlando, Fla., found former Bureau of Prisons corrections officer Michael Kennedy guilty late yesterday on felony federal civil rights charges related to the fatal assault of an inmate in March 2005.

Six officers with the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) were charged today in connection with the federal investigation of a police-involved shooting on the Danziger Bridge in the days after Hurricane Katrina.

The Justice Department announced today that a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., returned an indictment charging Felix M. Mathis, an attorney practicing in Zurich, Switzerland, with conspiring to defraud the United States and structuring the importation of currency into this country.

A Las Vegas federal grand jury has indicted Thanh Viet Jeremy Cao, a resident of Orange County, Calif., for filing false liens against federal employees and corruptly obstructing the administration of the federal tax laws.

Robert D. Hearn, 55, was charged in a five-count indictment in the Southern District of Texas with wire fraud and conversion stemming from a scheme to defraud the United States and Iraq.

Three Colombian nationals have been extradited from Colombia to the United States on charges of conspiracy to smuggle aliens for profit, alien smuggling for profit, and conspiracy to commit visa fraud in connection with their alleged roles in an extensive and sophisticated visa fraud scheme through which they fraudulently procured visas from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.

Univision Services Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Univision Communications Inc., pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in connection with a scheme to obtain increased radio broadcast time.

Chief U.S. District Court Judge Robert J. Conrad Jr. today formally imposed the federal death penalty sentence on Alejandro Enrique Ramirez Umana, aka “Wizard”.

The United States has filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Dr. Najam Azmat and the Satilla Regional Medical Center in Waycross, Ga.

Three former financial services executives were indicted today for their participation in fraud schemes and conspiracies related to bidding for contracts for the investment of municipal bond proceeds and other municipal finance contracts.

Donald Hertz pleaded guilty today in federal court in Spokane to one count of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act and one count of transmitting a threat in interstate commerce.

The United States has intervened and filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Oracle Corporation and Oracle America Inc.

A federal grand jury in Shreveport, La., returned an indictment yesterday charging Joshua James Moro, 23; Jeremy Matthew Moro, 33; and Sonya Marie Hart, 31, with offenses related to a cross-burning in Athens, La., in October 2008, near the home of an interracial couple.

Paul Magliocchetti, the founder and president of PMA Group Inc. (PMA), a lobbying firm in Arlington, Va., was arrested today on charges of making illegal campaign contributions and making false statements to a federal agency.

CF Industries Inc. has agreed to spend approximately $12 million to implement facility-wide operational changes to reduce and properly manage hazardous wastes generated at its Plant City, Fla., phosphoric acid and ammoniated fertilizer manufacturing facility.

Two foreign subsidiaries of Alliance One International Inc., a global tobacco leaf merchant headquartered in Morrisville, N.C., pleaded guilty today to violating various provisions of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA).

Sergei Tšurikov, 26, of Tallinn, Estonia, has been extradited to the United States to face charges of hacking into a computer network operated by an Atlanta-based credit card processing company.

A federal jury in U.S. District Court for the District of Hawaii today found Noshir S. Gowadia guilty of five criminal offenses relating to his design for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) of a low signature cruise missile exhaust system capable of rendering a PRC cruise missile resistant to detection by infrared missiles.

Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, 27, aka “BadB” of Moscow, Russia, was indicted by a federal grand jury in November 2009 on charges of access device fraud and aggravated identity theft.

A former contract employee of the U.S. Defense Department (DoD) pleaded guilty today to conspiracy to bribe U.S. Army contracting officials stationed at Camp Arifjan, an Army base in Kuwait, and to money laundering conspiracy.

The Justice Department filed a consent decree today resolving claims of religious discrimination against the Lucky Joy restaurant, located in Flushing, N.Y. In the consent decree, the restaurant’s owner, Lucky Joy Restaurant Inc., and its president, Xiao Rong Wu, admit that the restaurant engaged in a pattern or practice of wrongfully ejecting Falun Gong practitioners from the premises.

Charles Yi and John Bostick were arrested Wednesday for violations of the Clean Air Act’s asbestos work practice standards committed during the renovation of a 204-unit apartment building in Winnetka, Calif., in January through February of 2006.

A federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Natchez, Miss., Police Department Officers Elvis Prater, 35, and Dewayne Johnson, 32, with civil rights offenses and other offenses related to the beating of two men in custody, the theft of an arrestee’s credit and debit cards, and the officers’ false statements to federal investigators.