8 people arrested amid Northern California torture, kidnapping investigation
On Friday, several law enforcement agencies worked together to execute five search warrants across San Joaquin County. Officials said the torture and kidnapping investigation was gang-related.
Teens accused of armed robbery amid Stockton middle school promotion ceremony
Subsequently, eight people were arrested and face charges of false imprisonment, kidnapping, torture, conspiracy to commit a crime, dissuading a witness, assault with a semiautomatic firearm, threats to terrorize, illegal possession of an assault weapon, manufacture/sale of high-capacity magazines, and several other offenses.
Additionally, law enforcement said during the search, it seized several guns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, high-capacity magazines, and more than $15,000 in cash. Video footage of the bust can be found on the SJSCO Facebook page.
'This takedown was part of the FBI's Summer Heat initiative, a nationwide effort targeting violent offenders and gang members who terrorize our communities,' the San Joaquin County Sheriff's Office said on social media. 'Summer Heat reflects Director Patel's commitment to the American people to crush crime and restore safety in neighborhoods across the country.'
The circumstances behind the alleged torture and kidnapping are unclear.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
11 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Creating realistic deepfakes is getting easier than ever. Fighting back may take even more AI
WASHINGTON (AP) — The phone rings. It's the secretary of state calling. Or is it? For Washington insiders, seeing and hearing is no longer believing, thanks to a spate of recent incidents involving deepfakes impersonating top officials in President Donald Trump's administration. Digital fakes are coming for corporate America, too, as criminal gangs and hackers associated with adversaries including North Korea use synthetic video and audio to impersonate CEOs and low-level job candidates to gain access to critical systems or business secrets. Thanks to advances in artificial intelligence, creating realistic deepfakes is easier than ever, causing security problems for governments, businesses and private individuals and making trust the most valuable currency of the digital age. Responding to the challenge will require laws, better digital literacy and technical solutions that fight AI with more AI. 'As humans, we are remarkably susceptible to deception,' said Vijay Balasubramaniyan, CEO and founder of the tech firm Pindrop Security. But he believes solutions to the challenge of deepfakes may be within reach: 'We are going to fight back.' AI deepfakes become a national security threat This summer, someone used AI to create a deepfake of Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an attempt to reach out to foreign ministers, a U.S. senator and a governor over text, voice mail and the Signal messaging app. In May someone impersonated Trump's chief of staff, Susie Wiles. Another phony Rubio had popped up in a deepfake earlier this year, saying he wanted to cut off Ukraine's access to Elon Musk's Starlink internet service. Ukraine's government later rebutted the false claim. The national security implications are huge: People who think they're chatting with Rubio or Wiles, for instance, might discuss sensitive information about diplomatic negotiations or military strategy. 'You're either trying to extract sensitive secrets or competitive information or you're going after access, to an email server or other sensitive network," Kinny Chan, CEO of the cybersecurity firm QiD, said of the possible motivations. Synthetic media can also aim to alter behavior. Last year, Democratic voters in New Hampshire received a robocall urging them not to vote in the state's upcoming primary. The voice on the call sounded suspiciously like then-President Joe Biden but was actually created using AI. Their ability to deceive makes AI deepfakes a potent weapon for foreign actors. Both Russia and China have used disinformation and propaganda directed at Americans as a way of undermining trust in democratic alliances and institutions. Steven Kramer, the political consultant who admitted sending the fake Biden robocalls, said he wanted to send a message of the dangers deepfakes pose to the American political system. Kramer was acquitted last month of charges of voter suppression and impersonating a candidate. 'I did what I did for $500,' Kramer said. 'Can you imagine what would happen if the Chinese government decided to do this?' Scammers target the financial industry with deepfakes The greater availability and sophistication of the programs mean deepfakes are increasingly used for corporate espionage and garden variety fraud. 'The financial industry is right in the crosshairs," said Jennifer Ewbank, a former deputy director of the CIA who worked on cybersecurity and digital threats. 'Even individuals who know each other have been convinced to transfer vast sums of money.' In the context of corporate espionage, they can be used to impersonate CEOs asking employees to hand over passwords or routing numbers. Deepfakes can also allow scammers to apply for jobs — and even do them — under an assumed or fake identity. For some this is a way to access sensitive networks, to steal secrets or to install ransomware. Others just want the work and may be working a few similar jobs at different companies at the same time. Authorities in the U.S. have said that thousands of North Koreans with information technology skills have been dispatched to live abroad, using stolen identities to obtain jobs at tech firms in the U.S. and elsewhere. The workers get access to company networks as well as a paycheck. In some cases, the workers install ransomware that can be later used to extort even more money. The schemes have generated billions of dollars for the North Korean government. Within three years, as many as 1 in 4 job applications is expected to be fake, according to research from Adaptive Security, a cybersecurity company. 'We've entered an era where anyone with a laptop and access to an open-source model can convincingly impersonate a real person,' said Brian Long, Adaptive's CEO. 'It's no longer about hacking systems — it's about hacking trust.' Experts deploy AI to fight back against AI Researchers, public policy experts and technology companies are now investigating the best ways of addressing the economic, political and social challenges posed by deepfakes. New regulations could require tech companies to do more to identify, label and potentially remove deepfakes on their platforms. Lawmakers could also impose greater penalties on those who use digital technology to deceive others — if they can be caught. Greater investments in digital literacy could also boost people's immunity to online deception by teaching them ways to spot fake media and avoid falling prey to scammers. The best tool for catching AI may be another AI program, one trained to sniff out the tiny flaws in deepfakes that would go unnoticed by a person. Systems like Pindrop's analyze millions of datapoints in any person's speech to quickly identify irregularities. The system can be used during job interviews or other video conferences to detect if the person is using voice cloning software, for instance. Similar programs may one day be commonplace, running in the background as people chat with colleagues and loved ones online. Someday, deepfakes may go the way of email spam, a technological challenge that once threatened to upend the usefulness of email, said Balasubramaniyan, Pindrop's CEO. 'You can take the defeatist view and say we're going to be subservient to disinformation," he said. 'But that's not going to happen.' David Klepper, The Associated Press Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
CBS News
13 minutes ago
- CBS News
2 teens killed, 1 injured in crash in McHenry, Illinois
Two teenagers are dead and another person is seriously injured after a crash in McHenry, Illinois. Police said an Audi was driving south on Richmond Road when it collided with a black Nissan at the intersection of Richmond and McCullom Lake roads around 12:30 a.m. The cars also hit an unoccupied and parked Toyota Echo in the 1800 Block of Richmond Road. The 18-year-old man driving the Audi was taken to Northwestern Medicine McHenry Hospital with serious injuries. The two occupants in the Nissan, a 19-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy, were both pronounced dead at the scene by the McHenry County Coroner's Office. Route 31 is closed between Blake Boulevard and First Avenue. Kris Habermehl recommends commuters use Riverside Drive. McHenry police are investigating the cause of the crash.
CBS News
14 minutes ago
- CBS News
ICE protests planned in NYC as Trump administration challenges sanctuary laws
Protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in New York City are being planned following the release of video showing conditions inside the facility at Manhattan's federal immigration building. Organizers said they plan to protest twice on Monday, first at noon outside ICE detention centers, immigration courts and federal buildings, like Federal Plaza, before another round of protests in the evening. Last week, the New York Immigration Coalition provided video showing what looks like the inside of an ICE processing center at 26 Federal Plaza. Members of Congress have been trying to access the area for weeks after hearing complaints alleging detained immigrants have been held there for days in deplorable conditions. ICE has maintained that the facility is not a detention center and is only used for temporary processing. Organizers of the protests, which are planned in New York and other major U.S. cities, stressed they do not want any violence during the demonstrations. Monday's rallies are also being planned as Mayor Eric Adams seeks changes to the city's sanctuary laws amid a Justice Department lawsuit filed last week aiming to strike them down. Adams said he supports the sanctuary laws protecting undocumented immigrants, but he believes modifications are needed to go after people who commit crimes. The mayor is facing stiff resistance from the City Council though, as members seek to stop him from expanding the role of federal immigration agents in the city. Federal officials have been particularly upset that the City Council went to court to stop an executive order issued by Adams to allow ICE agents work on Rikers Island, where they could identify undocumented immigrants who may be in the country illegally and have have committed crimes.
