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“Swift And Lethal”: U.S. Southern Command Eliminates Tren De Aragua Kingpin In Venezuela

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“Swift And Lethal”: U.S. Southern Command Eliminates Tren De Aragua Kingpin In Venezuela

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed late Friday that U.S. forces, working in coordination with Venezuelan security services, conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua compound inside Venezuela, killing the foreign terrorist organization’s leader, Niño Guerrero.

The decapitation strike is part of the Trump administration’s Western Hemisphere defense posturing of purging the Americas of transnational narco-terror networks and should put renewed focus on how TdA-linked gangsters are embedded inside the US, thanks to the Biden-Harris regime’s nation-killing open orders.

“Earlier this week, the @DeptofWar — in full collaboration with Venezuelan security forces — conducted a kinetic strike on a Tren de Aragua (TdA) compound in Venezuela. TdA founder & leader Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, aka “Niño Guerrero,” was confirmed killed during the strike,” Hegseth wrote on X.

He added, “The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere. We will continue to work closely with security partners, like Venezuela — and counties in the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition (A3C) partners — to take the fight to our enemies.”

Guerrero, 43, had been indicted in New York on racketeering, terrorism, drug smuggling, and related charges. U.S. authorities had offered a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Prosecutors accused him of running TdA like a multinational crime syndicate, including laundering money through crypto, trafficking drugs and weapons, and directing violence across borders.

Federal prosecutors have associated TdA gangsters and affiliates with a sprawling criminal network that includes drug trafficking, firearms trafficking, sex trafficking, kidnapping, robbery, theft, fraud, extortion, and much more.

Related:

Odd move by Democratic lawmakers… 

Last month, the Department of Justice said that TdA members and associates had been identified or arrested in Colorado, Tennessee, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Mexico, Washington, Georgia, Nebraska, Texas, and elsewhere. 

The U.S. National Counterterrorism Center recently warned that the TdA presence in the U.S. operates as a decentralized transnational gang network, with more autonomous local leaders and fragmented cells after the group expanded beyond Venezuela and invaded the U.S under open borders.

Along with TdA and the removal of the Maduro regime in Venezuela, the U.S. has been escalating the fight against drug cartels in Mexico.

The U.S.-Mexico cartel fight has shifted from drug interdiction to counterterrorism-style operations, with US military and intelligence support helping Mexican special forces map, isolate, and dismantle command and control nodes of cartels before they can regenerate. Reuters previously reported that U.S. officials wanted Special Operations troops or CIA officers to accompany Mexican soldiers on raids against suspected fentanyl labs, while a newly formed U.S. military-led Joint Interagency Task Force-Counter Cartel reportedly aided Mexico’s hunt for CJNG boss El Mencho through intelligence and target-package support.

Beyond purging FTOs and drug cartels from the Americas, the Trump administration has also played a crucial part in shifting the political landscape in countries from far-left leaders and unhinged socialists to center or, in Argentina’s case, libertarian-right.

Related: 

Trump’s emerging strategy is clear: clean up the Western Hemisphere, purge cartels and socialists and Marxists, and ensure China does not gain ground.

One threat assessment question: whether the decapitation strike could raise the risk of TdA-linked retaliation inside the U.S. 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 13:25

President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All

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President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All

Summary:

  • President Trump confirms that he is expecting to sign the US-Iran peace deal tomorrow (Sunday), opening the Strait to all

  • Pakistan PM confirms US and Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement

  • IRGC continues to push back against deal

President Trump Says Iran Peace Deal To Be Signed Sunday, Will Open Strait To All

President Trump said a long-awaited deal to end the war in the Middle East is scheduled to be signed on Sunday, paving the way for the opening of the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

In a statement issued through Truth Social, President Trump first took a shot at President Obama:

Barack Hussein Obama’s Deal with Iran, the JCPOA, was an easy, beautiful, smooth road to a Nuclear Weapon, which Iran would have had six years ago, and would have used long before now.

Then explained why his deal is different:

My Agreement with Iran is the exact opposite, A WALL TO NO NUCLEAR WEAPON!

In fact, they no longer want a Nuclear Weapon, nor will they have one, either through purchase, development, or any other form of procurement.

The Deal is scheduled to get signed tomorrow, and immediately after it is signed, the Hormuz Strait is OPEN TO ALL.

Building relationships:

Our relationship with Iran is a much different and better one than previous Administrations have had.

Unlike Obama’s Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in payments to them, including 1.7 Billion Dollars in green, cold cash, no money will exchange hands.

We look forward to working with Iran, and the entire Middle East, long into the future.

About the nuclear dust:

At the appropriate time, when all is calm, we will go in and get the Nuclear Dust, buried deep under the powerful sunken granite mountains, thanks to our beautiful B-2 Bombers and their brilliant pilots, and downblend and destroy it, whether in Iran, or the United States.

…

Hopefully, this process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly.

If it doesn’t, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again!

Trump’s statement, however, ran counter to Iran’s foreign ministry which indicated earlier in the day that the deal would not be signed Sunday, according to state media reports.

We shall see…

Iran Peace Deal Signing Expected Within 24 Hours, Technical Talks To Follow, Pakistan’s Sharif Says

After Friday witnessed a rare moment of agreement between Tehran and Washington saying that indeed a peace deal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is indeed ‘very close’ – there’s been more color issued by Pakistan.

The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz ​Sharif said that the United States and ​Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement, but that curiously Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic ​signing ​expected ⁠within the next 24 ​hours.

Is this going to be history’s first Docusigned peace agreement? 

Sharif further indicated this signing will be followed by ​technical-level ⁠talks this upcoming week – but this is definitely where the proverbial devil will be in the details. 

Contained within the MoU signing will reportedly be an extension of the April 7 ceasefire by 60 days, during which the Strait of Hormuz would gradually reopen – or we should say that this is at least the very optimistic version of things, given that Tehran still insists that its military is in control of the Strait, which the Pentagon has flatly rejected is a a reality.

So Iran is seeking to hold on tightly to its obvious geographic leverage, while the US is rejecting that this is the case at all.

Another interesting possibly point of contention – but which looks to be merely papered over for now – is the status of the nuclear file, which has long been a major point of fierce contention.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear Friday Iran’s understanding that terms dealing with the country’s nuclear program would be finalized in the 60 days after the initial agreement is signed. So in essence, this means Iran could get its wish of pushing nuclear negotiations back, only after the hot conflict has clearly ended. Iran has long sought to separate the issues of a final end to the war from consideration of its nuclear program.

Importantly Araghchi indicated the two sides could extend the 60-day period further, and a yet a lot could go wrong in such an extended interim. Still, it remains that Washington – and certainly the American public – doesn’t have the appetite for an escalation that would lead to a boots-on-the-ground scenario complete with full regime change operations (and this means almost inevitable nation-building).

CNN earlier floated the possibility of peace being firmed up in a formal ceremony held in Geneva. The following Saturday report seems to lend credence to this as an impending scenario:

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Switzerland expressed hopes of a breakthrough in peace negotiations to end the US war with Iran during a Saturday phone call, according to Islamabad’s Foreign Ministry. 

Though no further details were offered, the sides said they hoped the effort would contribute to regional peace and stability.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis reportedly agreed to maintain close contact ahead of talks expected to take place prior to an upcoming G7 summit in nearby Evian, France, from June 15-17.

IRGC and Deep Rifts Remain In iran

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is again alleging a familiar US narrative – that there are deep rifts within Iran over just how to respond to US deal-making efforts. The question is to what degree the civilian leadership actually holds the power to make final decisions, or also how tight a grip the IRGC holds over this process.

“Iran faces its own political dilemma in selling a deal to hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are steadfastly opposed to giving in to Trump’s demands for limits on its nuclear program, especially without upfront concessions from Washington,” WSJ writes. “But it has absorbed damage during the war and from the U.S. blockade of the Persian Gulf, pushing Tehran toward an agreement.”

In the meantime peace and red lines are still being hotly tested:

U.S. forces shot down multiple Iranian one-way attack drones heading toward the Strait of ​Hormuz, a source familiar with the ⁠matter told Reuters ​on Friday, in the latest ⁠military flare-up even as Washington and Tehran cite progress in peace ​talks.

The source, who ‌spoke on condition ‌of anonymity, said the drones had posed a ⁠threat to ‌commercial traffic.

President ⁠Donald Trump had ⁠warned ⁠Iran earlier on Friday against firing ‌more drones at ships attempting to transit ‌the Strait, ​saying ‌Tehran “better get their act together, and FAST!”

Iran’s strategy has been to smell blood in the water and capitalize – sensing a bit of White House panic (the longer this drags on… quagmire being a key dreaded word), and so it has an interest in prolonging the economic pain and global energy shock toward exacting a pound of flesh from the Trump administration (so long as the Islamic Republic itself can survive the stand off). 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 13:00

Court Denies SBF’s Last-Ditch Effort To Toss Conviction, Leaving Trump As His Only Hope

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Court Denies SBF’s Last-Ditch Effort To Toss Conviction, Leaving Trump As His Only Hope

FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried will remain in PMITA prison for the foreseeable future, after a federal appeals court rejected a hail-mary attempt to overturn his fraud conviction and 25-year prison sentence on the grounds that he didn’t receive a fair trial. 

A three-judge panel on Friday unanimously refused to toss his 2023 guilty verdict, which SBF’s attorneys argued was tainted by improper evidentiary rulings and a biased judge – which is hilarious because Judge Lewis Kaplan is a Clinton-appointed judge who oversaw the E. Jean Carroll v. Trump Bergdorf Goodman ‘fingering’ trial – where despite Carroll not being able to remember the year it allegedly happened, and the Jury ruling “no” as to whether Trump raped Carroll, Kaplan went leeroy jenkins and awarded her $5 million.

“The government’s evidence against him was, conservatively stated, robust,” Judge Barrington Parker wrote for the panel.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Bankman-Fried was found guilty by a New York jury in November 2023 on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the collapse of FTX, once one of the world’s largest digital-asset trading platforms.

The company collapsed in a matter of days in November 2022 after reports about the financial ties between FTX and Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm also founded by Bankman-Fried. Those reports showed that Alameda held a large amount of FTX’s own token, raising questions about the company’s financial stability and triggering a wave of customer withdrawals.

The collapse sent shockwaves through the broader crypto market, driving the total value of digital assets down from an all-time high of about $3 trillion in late 2021 to roughly $800 billion by the end of 2022.

Federal prosecutors described Bankman-Fried’s scheme as one of the largest financial frauds in American history. They said the evidence showed that while he assured investors, regulators, and the public that FTX customer funds were safe, he secretly transferred billions of dollars from customer accounts to Alameda and other entities.

Prosecutors said Bankman-Fried then used those funds to make investments unrelated to FTX customer deposits, cover Alameda’s losses, and finance other spending, while falsifying business records to conceal the transactions.

He was later sentenced to 25 years in federal prison.

His attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The ruling comes as Bankman-Fried has formally submitted a pardon request to President Donald Trump, according to information posted on the Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney website.

The exact date of the filing is unclear, but the website states that a request for a “pardon after completion of sentence” was submitted in 2026 and remains pending.

In an interview with Fox Business from prison earlier this week, Bankman-Fried said he “absolutely” wants a pardon, though he acknowledged that the decision is “ultimately up to the president, not up to me.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment on that matter.

Trump, meanwhile, said in a January interview with The New York Times that he was not interested in pardoning a list of high-profile figures that included Bankman-Fried. When asked about Bankman-Fried, Trump replied, “I don’t know him at all.”

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 12:15

India Caps Fuel Sales To Avoid Shortages

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India Caps Fuel Sales To Avoid Shortages

Submitted by Irina Slav of OilPrice.com

India has imposed limits on gasoline and diesel sales at retail fuel stations to avoid supply crunches, with commercial consumers banned from buying any fuel from retail stations, Bloomberg reported, noting there will be daily limits on diesel sales.

The diesel cap was set at 200 litres per vehicle or customer, with resale of the fuel forbidden, Reuters noted in a report on the news. Commercial users, meanwhile, will have to get their fuels from bulk sellers after their rush to retail fuel stations drained some of them. Fuels are cheaper at retail stations to shield consumers from the oil price shock.

The limits will be in effect for an initial period of 90 days, per the government order that instituted them. They can be canceled earlier, however, the document also said.

Since the war in the Middle East began and cut off over 40% of India’s crude oil flows, those that passed through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the highest-flying economies in Asia, have seen their oil import bill soar, investors fleeing the capital market, and the local currency plunging to an all-time low against the U.S. dollar.

As a result, the world’s third-largest crude importer saw its wholesale inflation jump to 8.3% in April from a year earlier, significantly accelerating from 3.88% annual inflation in March, driving wholesale fuel prices higher. These surged in April, with gasoline prices up by 32.4% and diesel prices up by 25.19%. That’s up from a monthly rise of 2.5% for gasoline in March, and 3.62% for diesel. For May, inflation is seen rising by 4% as a result of the energy price surge, with wholesale inflation soaring by over 9%.

Because of the energy flow disruption, India ended a four-year freeze on fuel prices, hiking them four times in the space of a single month.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 11:40

Northeast Heat Wave Arrives As World Cup Matches Get Underway

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Northeast Heat Wave Arrives As World Cup Matches Get Underway

As the World Cup starts, a prolonged spell of summer heat is expected to grip New York and much of the Northeast through the end of the week and into the weekend.

Daytime temperatures are forecast to reach the 90s across several major cities, while high humidity will make conditions feel even hotter, according to Bloomberg.

Forecasters expect the most intense heat on Thursday and Friday, when heat alerts will be in place across large parts of the region. Multiple cities along the East Coast could see daily temperature records challenged or broken as the unusually warm air mass spreads across the area.

The timing coincides with the start of several FIFA World Cup matches in the Northeast, including games scheduled in New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. While temperatures are expected to ease somewhat after sunset, spectators and athletes may still face hot and uncomfortable conditions during evening events.

Bloomberg writes that the heat is also expected to drive up electricity consumption as households and businesses rely more heavily on air conditioning. Transportation networks could experience disruptions as well, since extreme temperatures can affect rail infrastructure and overhead power systems, leading to slower train service.

Elsewhere, a separate weather system is creating risks across parts of the Midwest. Forecasters have warned that strong thunderstorms could bring damaging winds, large hail, isolated tornadoes, and localized power outages, potentially affecting travel and other infrastructure.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 11:05

Endgame Finally? Iran Peace Deal Signing Expected Within 24 Hours, Technical Talks To Follow, Pakistan’s Sharif Says

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Endgame Finally? Iran Peace Deal Signing Expected Within 24 Hours, Technical Talks To Follow, Pakistan’s Sharif Says

After Friday witnessed a rare moment of agreement between Tehran and Washington saying that indeed a peace deal Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) is indeed ‘very close’ – there’s been more color issued by Pakistan.

The country’s Prime Minister Shehbaz ​Sharif said that the United States and ​Iran have ​agreed to the final text of the agreement, but that curiously Pakistan is now preparing for an electronic ​signing ​expected ⁠within the next 24 ​hours.

Is this going to be history’s first Docusigned peace agreement? 

Sharif further indicated this signing will be followed by ​technical-level ⁠talks this upcoming week – but this is definitely where the proverbial devil will be in the details. 

Contained within the MoU signing will reportedly be an extension of the April 7 ceasefire by 60 days, during which the Strait of Hormuz would gradually reopen – or we should say that this is at least the very optimistic version of things, given that Tehran still insists that its military is in control of the Strait, which the Pentagon has flatly rejected is a a reality.

So Iran is seeking to hold on tightly to its obvious geographic leverage, while the US is rejecting that this is the case at all.

Another interesting possibly point of contention – but which looks to be merely papered over for now – is the status of the nuclear file, which has long been a major point of fierce contention.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi made clear Friday Iran’s understanding that terms dealing with the country’s nuclear program would be finalized in the 60 days after the initial agreement is signed. So in essence, this means Iran could get its wish of pushing nuclear negotiations back, only after the hot conflict has clearly ended. Iran has long sought to separate the issues of a final end to the war from consideration of its nuclear program.

Importantly Araghchi indicated the two sides could extend the 60-day period further, and a yet a lot could go wrong in such an extended interim. Still, it remains that Washington – and certainly the American public – doesn’t have the appetite for an escalation that would lead to a boots-on-the-ground scenario complete with full regime change operations (and this means almost inevitable nation-building).

CNN earlier floated the possibility of peace being firmed up in a formal ceremony held in Geneva. The following Saturday report seems to lend credence to this as an impending scenario:

The foreign ministers of Pakistan and Switzerland expressed hopes of a breakthrough in peace negotiations to end the US war with Iran during a Saturday phone call, according to Islamabad’s Foreign Ministry. 

Though no further details were offered, the sides said they hoped the effort would contribute to regional peace and stability.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis reportedly agreed to maintain close contact ahead of talks expected to take place prior to an upcoming G7 summit in nearby Evian, France, from June 15-17.

Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal is again alleging a familiar US narrative – that there are deep rifts within Iran over just how to respond to US deal-making efforts. The question is to what degree the civilian leadership actually holds the power to make final decisions, or also how tight a grip the IRGC holds over this process.

“Iran faces its own political dilemma in selling a deal to hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who are steadfastly opposed to giving in to Trump’s demands for limits on its nuclear program, especially without upfront concessions from Washington,” WSJ writes. “But it has absorbed damage during the war and from the U.S. blockade of the Persian Gulf, pushing Tehran toward an agreement.”

In the meantime peace and red lines are still being hotly tested:

U.S. forces shot down multiple Iranian one-way attack drones heading toward the Strait of ​Hormuz, a source familiar with the ⁠matter told Reuters ​on Friday, in the latest ⁠military flare-up even as Washington and Tehran cite progress in peace ​talks.

The source, who ‌spoke on condition ‌of anonymity, said the drones had posed a ⁠threat to ‌commercial traffic.

President ⁠Donald Trump had ⁠warned ⁠Iran earlier on Friday against firing ‌more drones at ships attempting to transit ‌the Strait, ​saying ‌Tehran “better get their act together, and FAST!”

Iran’s strategy has been to smell blood in the water and capitalize – sensing a bit of White House panic (the longer this drags on… quagmire being a key dreaded word), and so it has an interest in prolonging the economic pain and global energy shock toward exacting a pound of flesh from the Trump administration (so long as the Islamic Republic itself can survive the stand off). 

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 10:30

Anthropic Blocks Foreign Access To Fable 5, Mythos 5 After U.S. National Security Order

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Anthropic Blocks Foreign Access To Fable 5, Mythos 5 After U.S. National Security Order

About four days after Anthropic released Claude Fable 5, a next-generation “Mythos-class” AI model, the frontier AI lab led by Dario Amodei revealed late Friday that it was disabling foreign customers’ access to these cutting-edge models, citing an export-control directive from the federal government.

“The US government, citing national security authorities, has issued an export control directive to suspend all access to Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including foreign national Anthropic employees,” Anthropic wrote on X around 9 p.m. ET.

The AI lab’s website stated that the federal directive was received around 5:21 p.m. ET. To ensure compliance, the lab was forced to shut off Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all customers.

Anthropic continued, “The net effect of this order is that we must abruptly disable Fable 5 and Mythos 5 for all our customers to ensure compliance. Access to all other Claude models is not affected.”

Anthropic pointed out that it understands the government’s concern centers on a potential method of bypassing, or “jailbreaking,” Fable 5.

Dario’s company laid out some of Fable’s safeguards:

  • We have instituted strong safeguards that greatly reduce the likelihood that Fable is misused for tasks related to cybersecurity (among others). In fact, our safeguards are so strong that many users have complained that they are overly broad.

  • In the weeks leading up to the launch of Fable, Anthropic worked with the US government, the UK AISI, multiple private third-party organizations and internal teams to red-team Fable’s safeguards for thousands of hours in total.

  • These tests showed that Fable’s safeguards are substantially more effective than those of any previously deployed model.

  • No testers have yet been able to find a universal jailbreak—a jailbreak method that can very broadly bypass the model’s safeguards, unblocking a wide range of cyber capabilities.

  • We suspect that perfect jailbreak resistance is not currently possible for any model provider. Every safeguard used in the industry is vulnerable to non-universal jailbreaks (which can elicit some cyber information in specific circumstances), and it is likely that universal jailbreaks will eventually be found in the future. We stated this clearly when we released Fable 5.

  • Given that perfect jailbreak resistance does not appear to be possible today, Anthropic adopted a defense in depth strategy with Fable 5. We aimed to make jailbreaks either narrow (in the case of non-universal jailbreaks) or very expensive to produce (in the case of universal jailbreaks), and to combine this with thorough monitoring to quickly detect and shut down any successful attacks. This is also why Anthropic has required 30-day retention of customer data with Fable—a policy change that carries real costs for us with customers, but that allows us to research and mitigate jailbreaks.

  • We stand by this defense in depth strategy. It reduces the risks posed by Fable, making them comparable to the risks of existing models already deployed across the industry.

  • We have not even received a disclosure of a concerning non-universal potential jailbreak that led to a harmful result. The potential jailbreaks that have been disclosed to us are either entirely benign responses or are minor findings that provide no Mythos-specific uplift.

Jailbreak concerns already out in the X universe? 

Last week, shortly after Tuesday’s Fable release, BMO analyst Brian Pitz told clients, “We maintain that Anthropic is the leading pure-play AI lab, combining best-in-class model intelligence with its cutting-edge, benchmark-leading Claude Fable 5 frontier model released June 9, 2026; with clear commercial traction and momentum in its enterprise offerings.”

Pitz said, “Anthropic’s strengths are particularly evident in coding, agents, and enterprise, where Claude has emerged as a leading model powering tools such as Claude Code and Cowork, both of which have scaled rapidly. This reinforces the company’s advantage in translating model intelligence beyond benchmark performance into viable, real-world applications—what we view as the next key battleground in AI.”

The release of Claude Fable 5 prompted Pitz’s team to declare, “While it is too early to crown a winner among foundation models, we see Anthropic and OpenAI as the leading pure-play AI labs today.”

Read Pitz’s note here.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 09:55

Britain Goes Full ‘Airstrip One’

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Britain Goes Full ‘Airstrip One’

Authored by Stephen Green via PJMedia.com,

In George Orwell’s 1984, Great Britain was just a province of Oceania named “Airstrip One” as a none-too-subtle nod to the U.K.’s role as host to the heavy bombers of U.S. Eighth Air Force during World War II.

Four decades past the real 1984, and there’s still no Oceania. But Britain looks more and more like Airstrip One as Parliament considers a bill opening up everyone’s smartphone to government supervision — and jail time for tech execs who don’t submit.

You had to figure this was probably coming, right?

Right.

Reclaim the Net reports that “Ministers are reportedly drafting a law that would force Apple, Google, and the rest to make it impossible for a child to send, receive, view, or share a single nude image, with the executives who refuse facing up to five years in prison.”

That might sound all well and good, but as usual, For the Children™ is little more than the government’s justification for total surveillance.

“You cannot block every naked picture someone might stumble across without inspecting every picture, every message, every video call, every streamed film, on every device, all the time,” Reclaim noted, with nudity serving as “the excuse and the unbroken view into your phone is the actual prize.”

The industry term is “client-side scanning,” which sounds much nicer than “a government mandated app that looks at everything on your phone all the time.”

And even that sounds better than “Big Brother is Watching You,” which is exactly what it is.

As already required by Britain’s Online Safety Act, Apple and Google forcibly install age verification on every iPhone and Android device in the UK via app store updates.

No, it can’t be uninstalled.

As I reported in January, what this means in practice is that London’s Office of Communications (“Ofcom” in Newspeak) mandates on-device software able to read everybody’s “private” messages in real-time and scan their images, too, before any personal encryption tools come into play. 

London pinky-swears that it’ll only look for CSAM and terrorism-related materials, but as the Telegram’s Zia Yusuf put it back then, “the slippery slope is obvious” and “mission creep is inevitable.” The country looking to ban traditional chef’s knives (really!) in the name of safety simply cannot be trusted with this much digital power.

Nobody can, really. 

The way things work now, if you don’t pass the mandatory age check, the iPhone software bars adult websites on every installable browser, and the Communication Safety feature scans every AirDrop, FaceTime, Messages, and photo for nudity, blurring whatever it catches. And the Android filter works in a similar way.

All For the Children™, naturally. 

But as Reclaim also pointed out, client-side scanning is “a general-purpose content scanner pointed at one target this year and swivelable toward any other the next, a flyer for the wrong march, a banned book, a face the Home Office has taken against.”

Now that the software is installed, Parliament can authorize the Home Office to ignore the age check and look for whatever it wants to on literally everyone’s device. That’s exactly what Parliament wants to do next.

Orwell envisioned ever-present two-way telescreens mounted on almost every wall that could only try to monitor everyone all the time. He never envisioned a telescreen that people would pay good money for, carry around 24/7, and trust with their every notion and secret.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 09:20

Sweden Plans To Lower Criminal Age To 14 Amid Rise In Violent Crime By Children

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Sweden Plans To Lower Criminal Age To 14 Amid Rise In Violent Crime By Children

Authored by Chris Summers via The Epoch Times,

The Swedish government has announced plans to reduce the age of criminal responsibility to 14 after dropping plans to lock up violent offenders as young as 13 in special prison units.

Ambulance and police stand at the scene where Swedish rapper Einar was fatally shot in Hammarby Sjostad district, in Stockholm, Sweden, on Oct. 22, 2021. Christine Olsson/TT News Agency via AP

Earlier this month, Swedish Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer announced plans to cut the age from 15 to 13, but on June 11, he said there was not enough support in parliament for that and that he had agreed to compromise at 14.

“We are going to propose that the age of criminal responsibility should be cut to 14 instead of 13 years old,” Strommer told reporters.

Currently, anyone under 15 who is suspected of having committed a serious crime is sent to a youth home, run by social services, and cannot be sentenced to a custodial sentence in prison.

Strommer said in 2025 that more than 50 children under 15 were suspected of murder or attempted murder.

There has been a surge in gang crime and drug-related violence in Sweden over the past 20 years, and it now has one of the highest rates of shootings and bombings in Europe, dozens of which were carried out by minors.

Thousands Of Gang Members

Swedish police estimate there are 17,500 active gang members and around 50,000 who are loosely associated with them.

Magnus Lindgren, a former police chief in Uppsala County and current secretary-general of the Safer Sweden Foundation, told The Epoch Times last year that there were about 15,000 “very dangerous criminals” in Sweden, who were divided evenly into biker gangs, football hooligans, and criminals from around 60 high-crime neighborhoods.

Organized crime gangs, such as the Foxtrot Network, use social media to recruit teenagers and children as young as 11 to commit acts of violence, including bombings and murders.

The recruiters, who operate anonymously, post adverts in special groups on social media apps and offer money through banking apps.

The EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol, launched Operational Taskforce GRIMM in April 2025 to target so-called “violence-as-a-service,” which it said often used “young perpetrators.”

After the 2022 elections, Ulf Kristersson, the leader of the center-right Moderates, formed a government that includes the Christian Democrats and Liberals, but has the crucial support of the right-wing Sweden Democrats, who campaigned against immigration and in favor of tougher criminal justice measures.

Kristersson’s government has overhauled Sweden’s criminal justice system, giving the police more powers and introducing tougher sentences for violent crime.

Under the new plans, children aged 14 who are convicted of violent criminal offenses will be sent to special prison units.

The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends that the age of criminal responsibility should be no lower than 14, which is the average across the European Union.

Swedish organized crime networks are also operating in Denmark, Norway, and Finland, and also in the Netherlands and Belgium, which have the two biggest ports – Rotterdam and Antwerp – for importing narcotics, hidden in cargo.

On March 12, 2025, sanctions were imposed on Rawa Majid, the alleged leader of the Foxtrot Network, one of Sweden’s largest organized crime groups, by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

OFAC stated that the gang trafficked illegal drugs and carried out attacks on Israelis and Jews in Europe on behalf of the Iranian government.

Norwegian Teen On Trial

A Norwegian teenager, Johannes Natland, was arrested in Huddersfield, England, in March 2025 and is currently on trial in London, where he has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to murder on behalf of the Foxtrot Network.

Natland, who was 18 at the time, was found in possession of two handguns and 17 bullets and has admitted to possessing firearms.

Giving evidence in court this week, Natland said he had been offered 25,000 euros ($29,000) to kill someone but said he planned to shoot himself in the foot to get out of having to do it, the BBC reported.

“I thought if I was to say no, I would be in serious danger, they’re going to hurt my family,” Natland said. “I thought they’d kill me.”

The Epoch Times reached out to Natland’s barrister, Paul Hynes KC, for comment but did not receive a response.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson attends a press conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on Feb. 26, 2024. Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 08:45

Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn

survivalnomics
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Hungary Backs Away From Crypto Criminalization In Regulatory U-Turn

Authored by Micah Zimmerman via BitcoinMagazine.com,

Hungary is dismantling the restrictive digital asset framework introduced under former Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a policy overhaul that will decriminalize crypto trading and eliminate the prison sentences that had driven major platforms from the country, government spokesperson Anita Kobol said Thursday, according to Bloomberg. 

The rollback marks a full reversal of legislation that took effect July 1, 2025, after parliament passed rules criminalizing the use of unlicensed exchanges and certain unauthorized high-value crypto transactions. 

Those transactions — ranging between 50 million Hungarian forints (roughly $162,000) and 500 million forints (roughly $1.62 million) — subjected individuals to prison terms of up to two or five years, depending on the transaction value.

Service providers operating without a central bank license faced sentences of up to eight years.

The rules required approved validation for both crypto-to-fiat and crypto-to-crypto conversions, a burden that led platforms including Revolut to suspend crypto services in Hungary and triggered an EU probe into whether the restrictions complied with bloc-wide regulations. 

Domestic trading volumes fell as local firms absorbed steep compliance costs.

Hungary’s politically motivated safeguards against bitcoin

Zoltán Tanács, Hungary’s Minister of Science and Technology, characterized the previous rules as “politically motivated” rather than market safeguards and announced the government’s intent to scrap the penalties. 

The new administration plans to abolish criminal prosecution for market participants, revise cybersecurity rules affecting approximately 4,000 Hungarian businesses subject to the NIS2 directive, and align national law with the EU’s Markets in Crypto-Assets regulation.

Officials have identified Estonia as the template for rebuilding Hungary’s digital regulatory environment. Tanács said the reforms should draw international platforms back to Hungary and reduce friction for domestic operators, according to Bloomberg.

The shift carries significance beyond Hungary’s borders. The Orbán-era framework was one of the most restrictive in the European Union, and the EU’s inquiry had put Hungary at odds with the broader MiCA framework that governs crypto activity across the bloc. 

Alignment with MiCA would bring Hungary in line with the regulatory standard now binding all 27 member states.

Hungary’s pivot follows a wider trend of governments reconsidering punitive crypto policies. In April, Pakistan’s central bank lifted an eight-year ban on cryptocurrency operations, part of a broader move toward regulatory openness across emerging markets. 

The convergence of those shifts suggests that restrictive unilateral frameworks face mounting pressure as institutional adoption of digital assets accelerates globally and cross-border regulatory coordination deepens under frameworks like MiCA.

The Hungarian government has not yet set a timeline for when the legislative changes will take effect.

Tyler Durden
Sat, 06/13/2026 – 08:10

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