Crime

The homicide detective working the Barry and Honey Sherman case says that after almost eight years, he still has no idea where he is in the probe.

“I’m playing blind,” Det. Const. Dennis Yim told a court, using a sports analogy. “I don’t know where I am on the field.”

Yim was answering questions in a case where the Star is seeking access to police documents filed in support of search warrants. Yim explained that police have yet to clear any of the myriad “persons of interest” in the case. A person of interest, court has heard, is one rung below a suspect — for example, if someone has speculated to police that the person may have been involved, but there is no hard evidence one way or the other.

Suspects have been arrested in the Louvre museum heist, the Paris prosecutor said Sunday, a week after thieves broke into the Paris museum and stole thousands of jewels and diamonds estimated to be worth over $100 million.

Paris Public Prosecutor Laure Beccuau did not disclose the number of people arrested or identify the suspects. The arrests were made Saturday evening local time, Beccuau said in a statement, adding that one of the men arrested was preparing to leave the country from Roissy Airport.

It would be easy for me to attribute my growing cynicism to my growing older.

After all, most people tend to get nostalgic for the “better times” of yesteryear. I was born in the mid-60s, and by the mid-1970s, it was the 50s that were being fondly remembered in shows like “Happy Days.”

When US officials unveiled two staggering illegal sports betting investigations on Thursday, they described the operations as something “reminiscent of a Hollywood movie”.

The schemes, which allegedly involved NBA stars, specialised contact lenses, marked cards, an x-ray table and $7m (£5.2m) in losses, led to the arrest of 31 people across 11 states, including members of the American-Sicilian mafia operation La Cosa Nostra.

Part of what makes the case feel so cinematic is the alleged involvement of the mob. Thanks to decades of film, television, and books dedicated to tales of mafia exploits, the mafia has developed a mythical place in American culture.

The FBI has arrested Chauncey Billups, NBA champion, Hall of Famer, and coach of the Portland Trail Blazers for his association in a rigged poker game operated by some of New York City’s most notorious crime family. “Why would Chauncey do it?” the world of sports is asking. He’s already worth tens of millions of dollars. That’s a question for Billups, his attorneys, his God, and, presumably, Blazers ownership to answer. But as someone who regularly plays a lot of low and micro-stakes poker, I have a pretty good idea.

A multibillion-dollar global black market deals in gold, diamonds and other precious metals and jewels stolen from museums and private collections

After a group of thieves brazenly broke into Paris’s Louvre Museum and snatched eight pieces of jewelry that form part of France’s crown jewels, the chase is on to find them before they filter into the black market.

The fear: that these historic artifacts could be dismantled and sold for parts.

“Everybody in the business is talking about this right now,” said Robert Wittman, a former art-crime investigator with the Federal Bureau of Investigation who runs his own art-recovery practice. By everybody, he means both jewelry thieves and the private investigating firms who make a living hunting them down.

WELLAND — On a frigid winter evening, evil came out to play.

By the time the smoke had cleared in the early morning hours of Jan. 19, 2021, Juliana Pannunzio, 20, of Windsor, and Christine Crooks, 18, of Toronto, had been shot and killed.

Teenage scouts cruise high-end GTA neighbourhoods and parking lots with shopping lists of vehicles they could never afford themselves.

They hope to make $75 to $100 for spotting a vehicle worth stealing: A Lexus RX, a Toyota Highlander, a Ram truck, a Honda CR-V, maybe a Range Rover.

Toronto has seen an auto theft boom since the beginning of the pandemic — and these young scouts are a vital part of it