Cops and Robbers and Robbers and Cops

 

What is up with people impersonating cops?  And getting away with it?  To the point of duping actual law enforcement officers, sometimes at the highest levels?  

On April 30th, I read a strange article about a pair of guys, Arian Taherzadeh and Haider Ali, who had a company they wanted to register as "United States Special Police" but were obliged to officially call "USSP" due to fears that they might be confused with a legitimate police service.

Well-grounded fears as it turns out. Some time back the pair were arrested for impersonating law enforcement officers.  When arrested they were found to have all manner of guns and ammo, bulletproof vests, tactical gear, uniforms and insignia, handcuffs, breaching gear, etc.

They'd been living in a swanky apartment complex, The Crossing, whose residents included Secret Service agents, powerful lawyers, and people connected in various ways to the military.  They claimed to work for Homeland Security and leveraged it to get free rent in expensive apartments.  They had access to areas normally off-limits and openly carried sidearms at they "patrolled" the residence.  One time, a neighbor had occasion to enter their flat and saw a number of firearms and tactical gear, in addition to rows of computers with live feeds from all over the complex.  The number of guns, he said, was "staggering". 

Taherzadeh had access to the building's security system and binders full of details about the residents.  No one knows exactly yet what their motives were, but they lavished gifts upon many of their neighbors, including one Secret Service agent assigned to protect the First Lady.

Bribery?  Power?  Something else?

The Crossing wasn't the first place; they had finagled themselves into two other apartments and their paper trail dates back for at least three years.  Several lawsuits show a trail of creditors, lawyers, and unpaid rent.

Websites note that the USSP has several addresses and people on its board, but in a raid on one address in early April, no office was found, and a receptionist just shrugged her shoulders at the name USSP.  The lease for The Crossing lists a Kevin Fuller as the renter, but Taherzadeh later testified that Fuller was pure fiction.

Taherzadeh was denied a permit to carry a gun in 2019 due to a prior conviction for domestic assault, but in 2020 he reapplied, and got it.

According to the Post article:

....it remains unclear what, if anything, the men wanted from the federal agents in exchange for their gifts....Taherzadeh said he had “no intention of compromising any federal agent” and acted out of a “desire for friendship”; while Ali said he had gotten carried away in a scheme he did not fully understand and believed he was working for a legitimate security company....

The Secret Service has downplayed any risk to national security, but several former Secret Service officials stressed that the alleged ruse reveals vulnerabilities among employees who are supposed to be trained to spot scammers or spies but instead were apparently tricked.

Some links to third-party websites:  

https://brandfetch.com/ussp.us 

https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/united-states-special-police

In 2015, another group brazenly went around posing as legitimate LEO's; this time it was the Masonic Fraternal Police Department and its accompanying bogus Masonic Lodge (LoS)

These guys

....walked around L.A. claiming to be cops and had acquired an impressive collection of weapons, uniforms, law enforcement-type vehicles....which is why I can't quite ken why members actually went around to various police stations and introduced themselves and their mission.  "Call on us" they announced and left their calling cards, literally....

One person who exchanged cards with these "Masonic police" was an aide to the state AG, and the card he used was from the AG's office.  That AG, BTW, is none other than....Kamala Harris.

There is even a video "made in the wake of the demonstrations following the Zimmerman verdict, [in which] a group of Masons stands with an L.A.P.D. spokesman to call for peace and calm."

See the link above to grok that appeal to calm....

Then again, back in 2009, we wrote about the American Police Force. (LoS)

"Residents of Hardin, MT, were alarmed last week when executives from the firm, American Police Force, showed up in the town, which does not have its own police department, with Mercedes SUVs bearing City Of Hardin Police Department decals." The company is close to closing a deal which would give it control of a jail in the small Montana town in order to build a police training facility.  

Given all the double-headed eagle talk here on LoS, this one has a layer of coincidence beyond the fake LEO angle.

The APF was founded by Michael Hilton, a U.S. citizen originally from Montenegro. Hilton's long criminal record includes real estate scams, embezzlement, and writing bad checks. A shady character indeed. 

Regarding that double-headed eagle, back in 2009 The Raw Story blog studied Burke's Peerage and found that the APF coat of arms is almost identical to that of Serbian Prince Aleksandar Karageorgevich. (Born in White Lodge, England!)  Serbia denied any link to the APF.

Wikipedia has a page on the APF here.

So?

I don't have any deep insights into these stories, just find it odd that these scammers and shady characters decide to impersonate police officers and then seek the company of real ones.  They have uniforms, vehicles, firearms, tactical gear, and all manner of other equipment.  The APF was close to closing a deal to create a police training facility in a decommissioned jail until their web of deceit began to unravel.

These pseudo-agency stories aren't exactly ubiquitous, but three cases in 12 or so years is still pretty remarkable.  Hell, even one was remarkable enough for me to uh, write a few remarks about it.

Part of the strangeness is the question "Why?"  Just a perfect alibi, so to speak?  A way to hide one's crimes under the perfect cover?  Is there mental illness at play....high-functioning sociopaths who half believe their own stories? Through a Police Band Scanner Darkly, wot?  Crazy, or crazy like a fox?

In the above stories, no real harm was done.  Cheesy logos, mimicking the real thing, and names which seem straight out of a child's imagination.  Some embarrassed cops who got taken.  

But playing cop can have deadly consequences.

I recall that when Anders Breivik landed on Utøya Island, he got access to the ferry and was welcomed at first because he was posing as a police officer, heavily armed, with all the gear to play the part.  

This weekend, another manifesto-writing white supremacist carried out an attack against his perceived enemies. Another disturbed, young, white male, radicalized online, and resorting to terrorism.

Impersonating a police officer is a crime, but all the tools necessary to do it convincingly are freely available.

Maybe people are so easily taken because genuine military sub-contractors have become so ubiquitous.  The US used them extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Russians are currently using them in the a Ukraine.  Privatizing law enforcement and the military is bound to bring about all sorts of unintended consequences.

2009, 2015, 2022...if the pattern holds we'll be back to this topic sometime in 2030....