• In 2012, someone stole 50,000 bitcoin from the Silk Road, an illegal dark web marketplace. Over time, the value of the stolen bitcoin skyrocketed to more than $3 billion dollars and for years it remained one of the biggest mysteries in the world of cryptocurrency.
• Almost a decade after the 2012 hack, the thief made a critical mistake that allowed the IRS-CI to crack the case.
• CNBC obtained never-before-seen footage that shows how investigators linked the thief to the crypto heist.

Athens, Georgia, is home to the University of Georgia, and the police there are used to college town-type crimes: break-ins, bar fights and assorted rowdiness. That kind of thing.

But the 911 call that came in on the night of March 13, 2019, was unlike anything the Athens-Clarke County Police Department had ever encountered.

On the phone was 28-year-old Jimmy Zhong, a local party boy and Georgia alum who frequented Athens’ drinking establishments. He wasn’t like the other town rowdies – Zhong was also a computer expert who had an unusually robust digital home surveillance system.

Now, he was calling to report a crime: hundreds of thousands of dollars in crypto currency that he said had been stolen from his home. Thinking of all that lost money, Zhong was distressed.

“I’m having a panic attack,” Zhong told the dispatcher, according to a recording obtained by CNBC.

Zhong turned down the dispatcher’s offer of an ambulance, and began trying to explain the situation. “I’m an investor in bitcoin, which is like an online thing,” he said.

What happened next would bring an end to a nearly decade long manhunt and solve one of the biggest crimes of the crypto era. And it also would lead to the largest seizure of cryptocurrency from an individual in the history of the Department of Justice.

Zhong’s emergency call that winter evening sent investigators down a long digital trail that led back to the earliest days of bitcoin and revealed a dark truth about the universe of hackers and coders responsible for the creation of cryptocurrencies. It’s a world where heroes and villains traded places and could even be the same people.

None of it would go at all the way Zhong wanted.

The 911 call didn’t produce a suspect in the theft from Zhong’s house. Athens police were dealing with one of their first crypto cases and unfamiliar with the shadowy underworld, and they failed to make progress in the case.

So Zhong turned to local private investigator Robin Martinelli, who owns and operates Martinelli Investigations in nearby Loganville, Georgia.

A former sheriff’s deputy turned PI, Martinelli was far from an expert in crypto. She specialized in process serving, cheating spouses and custody investigations, the type of probes that once got her firm featured on an episode of “The Montel Williams Show.”

Martinelli had recently undergone surgery to amputate one leg, leaving her to conduct her surveillance operations with the help of a prosthetic.

Still, she was motivated to solve Zhong’s case.

“When you wake up and don’t put two feet on the ground, but you still have to run a company, you got to get out there and kick ass,” Martinelli told CNBC in an interview for the new documentary, “Crypto 911: Exposing a Bitcoin Billionaire.”

She began by examining Zhong’s robust surveillance video archive of his home. In looking at footage from the night of the crime, Martinelli spotted a slender male figure.

“We could tell that they had like a hood on – a gray hood – but then they had almost like a black ski mask,” Martinelli said.

The suspect appeared to know his way around Zhong’s house, which led Martinelli to believe that he was a friend or at least someone who had heard Zhong boast about his bitcoin stash. From the video, Martinelli was able to determine the suspect’s height and even the size of his hands.

She said she began her investigation by putting Zhong’s friends under surveillance, following them to their homes and downtown bars on Broad Street and College Avenue. She put trackers on cars and scoured social media and conducted background checks.

As she watched Zhong’s bar friends come and go, Martinelli formed a low opinion of the group. She described them as “very, very casual, plastic, not really caring, maybe using Jimmy a little bit.”

Martinelli said Zhong appeared resistant to her theories, especially when they began to focus on his circle of friends. Martinelli eventually settled on one suspect in particular who she believed had stolen 150 bitcoins from Jimmy. At the time, that amount of the digital currency was worth nearly $600,000.

Zhong didn’t want to hear it, she said.

“He would get upset when I would kind of mention somebody would had to have known where this cash was,” Martinelli said. And she understood why Zhong was so hurt by the idea that someone close to him could have betrayed him.

“Jimmy wanted to be loved,” she said. “Jimmy wanted friends.”

Even as Martinelli soured on the friend group, she was warming up to her client, who she perceived as an odd man in search of friends.

“Jimmy was a good guy,” she said. 

A lot of people around Athens felt similarly about him.

In the years before the theft, Zhong was known for throwing a lot of money around town. He was the kind of guy who would buy a round of expensive shots for the whole bar, hundreds of dollars vanishing in seconds down eager throats.

Although he lived in a modest off-campus bungalow, near student housing and the downtown college bar scene, he stayed at fancy hotels, including the Ritz Carlton, the Plaza and the Waldorf Astoria, according to court documents CNBC reviewed. He shopped at high-end stores such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Jimmy Choo. He drove fancy cars, including a Tesla.

He bought a second home, a lake house with a dock in Gainesville, Georgia, a short drive from Athens. He stocked it with jet skis, boats, a stripper pole, and lots and lots of liquor.

His parties were epic.

Zhong was living his best life with no visible source of income. As far as anyone knew, he didn’t really have a job. He told his friends that he’d gotten into bitcoin early, mining thousands of coins in the earliest days of the technology. Zhong told people he dabbled in crypto as far back as 2009, the year bitcoin was invented by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto and a small crew of developers tied online to the anonymous crypto creator.

Whatever Zhong was doing, he was making mountains of cash. And he was willing to splurge.

In 2018, when his beloved Georgia Bulldogs football team made the Rose Bowl, Zhong rounded up a small group of friends for a pilgrimage to Los Angeles. 

“It really felt like with Jimmy, there were no limits,” Stefana Masic, a Georgia alum and one of the friends on the trip, told CNBC. 

Masic said not only did Zhong pay for all the tickets, but he also rented a private jet for the cross-country flight. And he gave each friend up to $10,000 for a Beverly Hills shopping spree on Rodeo Drive. They spent it on outfits, accessories and baubles to wear in the city.

“I had never flown private before, and I never stayed in such a nice Airbnb

. It was cool because, you know, I got to experience a lot of things that I normally wouldn’t.”

As he was cheering on his team in LA, Zhong couldn’t have known that a small group of agents from the IRS Criminal Investigation unit, led by officials in the same city, were painstakingly trying to solve a crime that dated back years. 

What had captured the investigators’ attention was a 2012 hack in which someone had stolen 50,000 bitcoins from a site on the dark web called Silk Road, according to court documents CNBC reviewed. That site was one of the earliest crypto marketplaces, where anonymous buyers and sellers exchanged all manner of illicit material. It was full of drugs, guns, pornography and other stuff people wanted to keep secret.

Over the years, the value of the bitcoin stolen by the Silk Road hacker had soared to more than $3 billion, according to court documents. Investigators could track the location of the currency on the blockchain, which is a public ledger of all transactions. But they couldn’t see the identity of the new owner of the funds. So they watched and waited for years as the hacker transferred funds from account to account, peeled some away, and pushed some of it through crypto “mixers” designed to obscure the source of the money.

Finally, Chainalysis, a blockchain analytics company that was tracing the digital wallets containing the stolen Silk Road assets, saw the hacker made a tiny mistake. He transferred around $800 worth to a crypto exchange that followed established banking rules, including so-called know your customer processes, requiring real names and addresses of account holders.

The account was registered in Zhong’s name. The transaction took place in September 2019, six months after Zhong’s 911 call to the local police.

That alone wasn’t enough to prove Zhong was the hacker. They had to be sure.

So the IRS called the Athens-Clarke County Police Department and asked for some help, according to sources at both agencies. At the time, the police investigation into Zhong’s own crime report had been languishing.

“I got a call from an IRS agent,” Lt. Jody Thompson, who leads the local property and financial crimes unit, told CNBC.  “And he said, ‘can I come by and speak to you about Jimmy?’ And I was like, sure, I remember this case.”

After that, Thompson joined forces with IRS-CI special agent Trevor McAleenan and Shaun MaGruder, CEO of a cyber intelligence company called BlockTrace. MaGruder’s company works with the IRS as an embedded contractor and was hired for its experience untangling complicated blockchain transactions. 

Together, the three investigators said they devised a plan. They would approach Zhong using a ruse, telling him they were investigating the crime that he’d called about, the one in which a thief had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars of his bitcoin.

In reality, they were investigating Zhong for a crime they believed he had committed. A crime whose proceeds were now worth billions of dollars. 

When the three men knocked on the door of his lake home in Gainesville, Zhong opened it enthusiastically, according to body camera footage CNBC exclusively obtained. He believed the police officer and the two specialists were there to help solve his crypto cold case.

“If you guys solve this for me, I will invite you out for a party,” Zhong told the trio on the body camera footage.

The video shows the officers pouring on the praise. They called his front door “beautiful.” They called his speakers “crazy,” and they complimented his dog, Chad. They asked for a tour of the house. Body camera footage shows the men tapping on stone floors, looking in closets and checking out wood paneling. Zhong didn’t know it, but they were scouring for secret compartments. 

Zhong brought investigators to his basement, equipped with a full bar and a stripper pole.

“Is this your workout?” McAleenan asked Zhong.

“Nope, that’s for girls,” Zhong replied.

The body camera footage also shows they got a good look at Zhong’s security system, asking him to explain each of its features and capabilities. Zhong is also captured showing them a metal case he said he once used to store $1 million in cash so he could impress a woman.

“Did it work?” asked Lt. Thompson.

“Nope,” Zhong said.

“It never does,” Thompson replied.

The law enforcement officers learned that Zhong had a flamethrower on the premises. And they saw his AR-15 rifle hanging on the wall.

MaGruder said Zhong’s level of sophistication was apparent.

“He was navigating that keyboard like I’ve never seen someone navigate a keyboard,” MaGruder said. “He didn’t have to use a mouse because he knew all the hotkeys.”

Playing on the ruse, the officers asked Zhong to open his laptop and explain how he came to have the bitcoin in the first place. Zhong sat on the couch next to the investigators and entered his password, asking them to turn away as he typed.

When he opened the laptop, law enforcement could see his bitcoin wallet.

“Lo and behold, he had $60 or $70 million worth of bitcoins right there next to us,” MaGruder told CNBC in an interview. 

The evidence was enough to convince the investigators they were on the right track. As he exited Zhong’s lake house, MaGruder told CNBC he thought to himself, “This is incredible. I think we found our guy.”

The first visit allowed the investigators to obtain a federal search warrant for Zhong’s home, McAleenan said. McAleenan, MaGruder, and Thompson returned with an enormous team of officers on Nov. 9, 2021.

Before the officers raided the house, McAleenan had to explain to Zhong that he wasn’t really trying to help him. He was trying to convict him.

“I said, Jimmy, you know me as ‘Trevor.’ I’m actually Trevor McAleenan. I’m a special agent with IRS Criminal Investigation, and we’re here to execute a federal-approved warrant on your house,” McAleenan said.

“And he kind of had this look like, ‘Am I being punked?’” McAleenan added.

At that moment, another officer slid a device known as a “jiggler” into Zhong’s laptop, causing the cursor to continually move and giving law enforcement access to the password-protected contents of the computer, McAleenan said.

Officers flooded into the home, cracking open every crevice in search of evidence. McAleenan said in an upstairs closet, they found a popcorn tin with a computer hidden inside that held millions of dollars worth of bitcoin.

Using sniffer dogs trained to detect electronics, McAleenan said they found a safe buried in concrete under some basement floor tile. Court documents said the safe contained precious metals, stacks of cash and physical bitcoins minted in the early years of crypto. They also found a wallet with bitcoin from the original hack of Silk Road in 2012.

Zhong was busted.

“Really late at night we were able to say we were successful,” McAleenan said. “We found the evidence that we were looking for. And the house lit up. I mean, every agent on the site cheered.”

As they sorted through the evidence, agents discovered something else about the unusual Mr. Zhong. He was, in crypto slang, an “original gangster,” or OG.

Investigators discovered that as far back as 2009, the year bitcoin was invented, Zhong was among a small group of early coders who worked to develop and perfect the technology. He was a smaller contributor than some of the other OG players who have since become famous in the bitcoin community, McAleenan said. But investigators concluded that he made contributions to the original bitcoin code and offered ideas to the early developers on key topics like how to reduce blockchain size.

In other words, a hacker who had been involved in the development of bitcoin itself went on to become one of the biggest bitcoin thieves of all time.

“He is one of the, as we dubbed it, the original gangsters, OGs, as far as bitcoin core software developers,” McAleenan said. “He had been in this space for quite a while.”

The irony of Zhong’s role in the history of bitcoin is emblematic of the culture that built the cryptocurrency in the first place, said Nathaniel Popper, author of “Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money.”

“Everybody came to this for their own reason,” Popper told CNBC. “And it was, as a result of that, a very sort of eclectic and eccentric group of people.”

“Bitcoin was always shot through with irony,” Popper said. “Yes, there was something ironic about a bitcoin proponent stealing bitcoin from another bitcoin proponent. But I think that was also in some ways a part of what defined bitcoin.” 

Zhong was charged with wire fraud. After pleading guilty, he was sentenced to one year and a day in federal prison. Zhong, now 33 years old, began his sentence at the federal prison camp in Montgomery, Alabama, on July 14, 2023.

In the end, Zhong didn’t get to keep the stolen bitcoin. The U.S. government seized those assets. Officials opened a process that allowed victims of the hack to apply to get their bitcoin back, according to a forfeiture document CNBC reviewed.

Nobody came forward to claim the loot. That’s not surprising, given that users of Silk Road in 2012 were largely drug dealers and their customers. The federal government simply sold off the stolen bitcoin and will keep the proceeds. Some of the revenue generated will likely be shared with the Athens-Clarke County Police Department, in recognition of the local officers’ help in the case, according to the IRS-CI.

As he left the courthouse after his sentencing on April 14, CNBC attempted to question Zhong about his role in the crime. Zhong covered his head with his coat and left without saying a word. 

In his statement to the judge before sentencing, Zhong said having billions in stolen bitcoin made him feel important. 

Zhong’s attorney, Michael Bachner, says the theft never actually damaged the U.S. government.

“The government has certainly not been hurt by Jimmy’s conduct whatsoever,” Bachner told CNBC. “If Jimmy had not stolen the coins and the government had in fact seized them from [Silk Road operator Ross Ulbricht] they would have sold them two years later in 2014 as they did with other coins.”

At that point, the government “would have gotten $320 a coin or made somewhere about $14 million,” Bachner said. “Now, as a result of Jimmy having them, the government has gotten a $3 billion profit.”

Zhong asked for no jail time because he was concerned about the fate of Chad, his 13-year-old dog. Zhong has had a difficult life. On the autism spectrum, Bachner said he was severely bullied at school. And he found solace over the years in an online community where he could deploy his computing skills. 

As for the original crime against Jimmy Zhong — the bitcoin theft in Athens that led him to the 911 call in March 2019 — that crime has never been solved. The perpetrator remains at large.

Zhong’s dog, Chad, is staying with a friend.

CNBC

Nigeria’s naira plunged the most in almost four months to an unprecedented level in the official market as the West African nation’s move to a more flexible exchange rate puts pressure on the currency.

The naira weakened 8.9% to 848.12 to the dollar in the official market on Tuesday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The drop was the most since June 20. The currency was little changed at 1,052 a dollar on the street, according to Abubakar Mohammed, chief executive officer of the Forward Marketing Bureau de Change Ltd.

The Central Bank of Nigeria eased foreign exchange controls in mid-June after newly elected President Bola Tinubu criticized the bank’s monetary policy measures and pledged an end to the nation’s multiple exchange-rate regime. That saw the official rate plunge 40%, briefly aligning with the illegal market before the spread began to widen again. Until Tuesday, the official rate stayed near 800 to the dollar even as the street rate weakened past 1,000 naira.

“Illiquidity persists in the market in the absence of central bank intervention, ”Tajudeen Ibrahim, head of research at Chapel Hill said by phone.

The widening premium between the official rate and the parallel market “indicates that the exchange rate has not been setting a clearing price,” the central bank said on Monday after it scrapped restrictions put in place eight years ago to manage demand for dollars.

Nigeria, Africa’s biggest crude producer, has been struggling to boost supply of dollars for years after falling oil revenue left its foreign-exchange reserves in a perilous state. That prompted authorities to stop selling foreign currency to importers of products such as rice, vegetables and chicken in a bid to encourage local production.

The move only pushed demand for dollars to the unauthorized market.

Oil prices surged on Wednesday as tension escalated in the Middle East after hundreds were killed in a blast at a Gaza hospital, sparking concerns about potential oil supply disruptions from the region.

Brent crude futures advanced $1.69, or 1.9%, to $91.59 a barrel at 0347 GMT. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) futures were up $1.84, or 2.1%, at $88.50 a barrel.

In earlier trade, both benchmarks gained more than $2 to touch their highest levels in two weeks.

Markets factored in risk premiums after about 500 Palestinians were killedin a blast at a Gaza City hospital on Tuesday that Israeli and Palestinian officials blamed on each other.

Jordan then cancelled a summit it was to host with U.S. President Joe Biden and Egyptian and Palestinian leaders.

"The cancellation of a summit between Biden and Arab leaders reduces the likelihood of a diplomatic solution to the Israel Hamas conflict," Vivek Dhar, an analyst at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, said in a client note.

Markets are nervous about a threatened Israeli ground offensive in Gaza.

"A long occupation looms as the scenario that pushes Brent oil futures above $US100/bbl because it raises the risk that the Israel Hamas conflict expands and potentially draws in Iran directly," Dhar said.

Biden is set to visit Israel on Wednesday to show support for the country in its war with Islamist militant group Hamas. The White House said he will make clear he does not want the conflict to expand.

Also supporting oil prices, U.S. crude stocks fell by about 4.4 million barrels in the week ended Oct. 13, according to market sources citing American Petroleum Institute figures on Tuesday. That was much steeper than a 300,000 barrel draw that analysts had forecast.

Official U.S. government data is due later on Wednesday.

On the demand side, China's economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter, official data on Wednesday showed, suggesting a recent flurry of policy measures is helping to bolster a tentative recovery.

China's official data also showed that the country's oil refinery throughput in September hit a record daily rate, up 12% from a year earlier as refiners increased run rates to cater for strong demand for transport fuel over the Golden Week holiday and improving manufacturing.

But analysts sounded cautious on China's economic growth as the real estate sector remains a drag.

"The September data likely guarantee that China will hit its 'around 5%' growth target this year. That said, it will struggle to better it. The economic recovery is still in its infancy," Moody's Analytics economist Harry Murphy Cruise said in a note.

Meanwhile, U.S. retail sales increased more than expected in September, spurring expectations of another interest rate hike by the Federal Reserve by year-end. Interest rate hikes to curb inflation can slow economic growth and reduce oil demand.

Venezuela's government and its political opposition on Tuesday agreed to electoral guarantees for 2024 presidential elections, paving the way for possible U.S. sanctions relief that could eventually boost oil supplies.

Reuters

Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its results viewing portal is to enhance election transparency and not a result collation or transmission system.

INEC director of ICT, Paul Omokore, gave the clarification in his presentation titled, “The role of BVAS, IReV for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo governorship elections” at a two-day capacity workshop for journalists in Akwanga, headquarters of Akwanga Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

Omokore called on journalists and members of the public not to confuse uploading of polling unit results to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), with electronic transmission of results.

He said INEC Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is only used to upload pictures of polling unit results on form EC8A to IReV, which does not translate to electronic transmission of results.

He said, “Form EC8A is the result that we collated at the polling units. We use BVAS to snap this form and upload the same thing to the IReV portal for public viewing. This is not a collecting system. It does not tally a system. What it does is to snap the EC8A which is the result at the polling unit and upload the same to the public view. That is all.

“I know that 70 per cent of the populace think that the others have collected the figures. No! All it does is snapping the EC8A that the presiding officers have collected all the scores of the parties, signed and stamped and then sent this same picture to the IReV for public viewing. That is all. So, it is not a collecting system.”

Daily Trust

Babachir Lawal, a former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), says Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) won the 2023 presidential election.

Lawal, in a statement on Tuesday, said Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), came second, while Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) came a distant third in the poll.

“I have resisted the temptation to engage in the contemporary political discourse since the February 2023 election faux pas,” the statement reads.

“I did this for two reasons; the first being that as an active player in the drama, I needed time to analyze and digest the data that led to the outcome(s), so I could arrive at an informed decision; the second, being that the rainy season had just set in and it was necessary that I focused my attention on my farms which are the mainstay of my livelihood.

“The current topical issues for political discourse and inquiry are whether or not Bola Tinubu won the presidential election and/or that he was a priori, qualified to participate in the election given his murky biodata as is now being publicly unveiled daily in an avalanche.

“My answer to the first inquiry is that regardless of whatever INEC or Appeal Court said or did, Bola did not win the election.

“Right from the start of the campaigns, Bola knew he was not going to win the election in a free and fair contest so he decided to go by all means.

“Available factual data as aggregated from several independent sources indicate that Obi got the majority votes while Atiku came second. Bola came a distant third in the number of votes scored.

“My answer to the second inquiry is that given the now unfolding deluge of uncomplimentary information about who or what he actually is, ordinarily, sound ethics and morality should have convinced him to voluntarily excuse himself from participation in the election.”

“RESIGN AND GIVE ATTENTION TO YOUR HEALTH”

The ex-SGF called on Tinubu to resign as president to attend to his health.

Lawal said six months into Tinubu’s administration, Nigerians have realised that what they have is not what they deserve politically.

“But this, notwithstanding, I believe he still has time and opportunity to save himself this public humiliation and embarrassment to his person, both locally and internationally by resigning so that he can give more attention to his health,” he said.

“After all, no one knows about the truism of these severely embarrassing and humiliating exposures about his person than the man himself.

“Leadership is all about integrity; sound pedigree, trustworthiness, and the ability to unite and instil hope and confidence in the people one seeks to lead. In these qualities, most Nigerians are in total agreement that Bola has them in very very short supply indeed.

“But now, six months down the line, the chicken has come home to roost as Nigerians have come to the realization that we have not got what we deserve politically.

“Confusion and despondency are now all over the nation as no one trusts the government to do what it says it will do.

“No one trusts the leader, and no one trusts appointees who are appointed as rewards for their roles in the election or who had in the past helped him in his life.”

Lawal also alleged that the appointments made by Tinubu were compensations to those who helped him to get into office.

“Bola the President and his group are now in government and are in full control of Nigeria’s vast resources and opportunities. They are enjoying their offices while Nigerians languish in insecurity, poverty, and hopelessness,” he said.

“It seems more like he is rewarding people who supported him to get the Presidency at all costs. This band of appointees that Bola is assembling into his government don’t care about Nigeria at all.”

The Cable

All Progressives Congress (APC) says Babachir Lawal, a former secretary to the government of the federation (SGF), needs “counselling” because he is “disconnected from reality”.

The ruling party was reacting to a statement by Lawal where he claimed that Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), won the presidential poll.

He said President Bola Tinubu, who was declared as winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), came “a distant third”.

In a statement on Tuesday, Felix Morka, APC spokesperson, said the former SGF is peddling “gibberish” because Obi lost the election.

“Clearly, the defeat of his principal, Peter Obi, at the poll has done incalculable damage to Lawal’s psyche and his capacity for rational thought as evident in his analysis based entirely on the figment of his warped imagination rather than on hard facts and figures,” he said.

“A clear sign of his disconnect from reality was his reference to the election held in May 2023, rather than February.

“We challenge Babachir Lawal to give a detailed breakdown of his so-called ‘aggregated facts sourced from independent sources,’ which he claimed proved that Obi won the election or forever remain mute.

“That he did not provide these facts to help Obi prove his case before the Presidential Elections Petitions Court is a massive disservice if not betrayal of his political principal.

“Babachir Lawal ought to have known that running a jaundiced commentary on a matter before the Supreme Court is the height of irresponsibility.

“But he is still nursing bitterness and vindictiveness over his failed dream of running on a joint ticket with Tinubu.”

Morka described Lawal as a “lightweight” individual who has failed as a politician in Adamawa.

“Despite his legendary failure as a politician, former President Muhammadu Buhari in deference to diversity appointed him to the high office of SGF where he was unceremoniously sacked on account of very poor performance and dishonorable conduct,” he said.

“A man like Babachir Lawal is in no position to offer an opinion on the competence of Tinubu’s appointees.”

The APC spokesperson said Lawal should mind his farm “and stop constituting himself into a needless distraction”.

The Cable

There was palpable fear at Apalokun village in the Iwerele, Iwajowa Local Government Area of Oyo State, as many persons were reportedly killed in a clash between Operation Burst, Oodua Peoples Congress, Amotekun, Soludero and a group of Fulani herdmen.

Investigations by our correspondent revealed that a group of Fulani herdsmen invaded a farm in the community with their cattle and grazed on it, a situation which led to the demise of the owner of the farm during the argument.

Also, crops worth thousands of naira were destroyed in the process.

The unfortunate incident, which happened on Saturday, October 14, had thrown the entire community into a state of panic.

An informed titled chief in the community, who did not want his name in print, said, “Security operatives, comprising Operation Burst, OPC, Amotekun and Soludero, were informed to restore peace in the area but they were ambushed by Fulani herdsmen, killing yet-to-be-identified persons while scores were injured.

“The matter is being investigated by the various security agencies in the state; you will also be updated at the appropriate time. The heads of the various security agencies have met with the relevant stakeholders, including the representatives of the Fulani and the community heads.”

An impeccable government source lamented that “Many people were killed. Our people started blaming former President Olusegun Obasanjo when he talked about our traditional rulers recently.

It’s time to find a permanent solution to this unreasonable killing and our obas have a big role to play.”

As of press time, all efforts to get the state Police Public Relations Officer, Adewale Osifeso’s reaction to the crisis were not successful as he neither picked up his calls nor responded to a text message.

Punch

At least 50 people, including women and children, were abducted and three others were killed in an attack by gunmen in Bagega, a mining village in Nigeria's northwest Zamfara state, residents said on Tuesday.

Kidnapping for ransom has become commonplace in northwestern Nigeria in recent years where armed gangs, often referred to locally as bandits, have targeted villages, schools, and travelers, demanding millions of naira in ransom and making it unsafe to travel by road or to farm in some areas.

The Zamfara police spokesperson did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the attack, which took place on Monday.

Residents told Reuters the gunmen had stormed the village on motorcycles, shooting indiscriminately and setting houses ablaze. Seven people were also injured in the attack.

The district head was among at least 50 people kidnapped, Abubakar, the village chief, said by phone on Tuesday.

Bello Yahaya, whose father was abducted, said three people were killed and two policemen were shot and wounded while trying to fend off the attackers.

"The injured officers, along with the other individuals who suffered various degrees of gunshot wounds, are currently receiving medical treatment while two critically injured victims have been referred to the Federal Medical Centre in Gusau," Yahaya said. Gusau is the state capital.

"As I speak with you now, an unspecified number of people have been abducted. There is panic and widespread fear among our people," Ismail Badamasi, a resident who managed to escape the assault, told Reuters by phone.

Nigeria faces numerous security challenges, including a 14-year Islamist insurgency in its northeast, separatist violence in the southeast, and frequent deadly clashes between farmers and herders in the central region.

President Bola Tinubu has yet to detail how he will tackle the insecurity. His economic policies have led to a sharp increase in the cost of living, angering citizens.

Reuters

After blast kills hundreds at Gaza hospital, Hamas and Israel trade blame as rage spreads in region

A massive blast rocked a Gaza City hospital packed with wounded and other Palestinians seeking shelter Tuesday, killing hundreds of people, the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. Hamas blamed an Israeli airstrike, while the Israeli military blamed a rocket misfired by other Palestinian militants.

At least 500 people were killed, the ministry said.

As rage spread through the region because of the hospital carnage, and with President Joe Biden heading to the Mideast in hopes of stopping the war from spreading, Jordan’s foreign minister said his country canceled a regional summit scheduled for Wednesday in Amman, where Biden was to meet with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi.

The war between Israel and Hamas was “pushing the region to the brink,” Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told state-run television. He said Jordan would host the summit only when everyone had agreed its purpose would be to “stop the war, respect the humanity of the Palestinians and deliver the aid they deserve.”

Biden will now visit only Israel, a White House official said.

The explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital left gruesome scenes. Video that The Associated Press confirmed was from the hospital showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital grounds strewn with torn bodies, many of them young children. The grass around them was strewn with blankets, school backpacks and other belongings.

The bloodshed unfolded as the U.S. tried to convince Israel to allow the delivery of supplies to desperate civilians, aid groups and hospitals in the tiny Gaza Strip, which has been under a complete siege since Hamas’ deadly rampage in southern Israel last week. Hundreds of thousands of increasingly desperate people were searching for bread and water.

Hamas called Tuesday’s hospital blast “a horrific massacre,” saying it was caused by an Israeli strike.

The Israeli military blamed Islamic Jihad, a smaller, more radical Palestinian militant group that often works with Hamas. The military said Islamic Jihad militants had fired a barrage of rockets near the hospital and that “intelligence from multiple sources” indicated the group was responsible.

In a briefing with reporters, the chief army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, said the army determined there were no air force, ground or naval attacks in the area at the time of the blast. He said radar detected outgoing rocket fire at the same moment, and intercepted communications between militant groups indicated that Islamic Jihad fired the rockets.

Hagari also shared aerial footage collected by a military drone that showed a blast that he said was inconsistent with Israeli weaponry. He said the explosion occurred in the building’s parking lot, and he noted that the death toll could not be confirmed.

Since the war began, the military said in a statement that roughly 450 rockets fired at Israel by militant groups had landed in Gaza, “endangering and harming the lives of Gazan residents.”

Islamic Jihad dismissed those claims, accusing Israel of “trying hard to evade responsibility for the brutal massacre it committed.”

The group pointed to Israel’s order that Al-Ahli be evacuated and its previous bombing of the hospital complex as proof that the hospital was an Israeli target. It also said the scale of the explosion, the angle of the bomb’s fall and the extent of the destruction all pointed to Israel.

Hundreds of Palestinians had taken refuge in al-Ahli and other hospitals in Gaza City in past days, hoping they would be spared bombardment after Israel ordered all residents of the city and surrounding areas to evacuate to the southern Gaza Strip.

Ambulances and private cars rushed some 350 casualties from the al-Ahli blast to Gaza City’s main hospital, al-Shifa, which was already overwhelmed with wounded from other strikes, said its director, Mohammed Abu Selmia. The wounded were laid onto bloody floors, screaming in pain.

“We need equipment, we need medicine, we need beds, we need anesthesia, we need everything,” Abu Selmia said. He warned that fuel for the hospital’s generators would run out within hours.

Before the al-Alhi Hospital deaths, Israeli strikes on Gaza killed at least 2,778 people and wounded 9,700, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, and nearly two-thirds of those killed were children. Another 1,200 people across Gaza are believed to be buried under the rubble, alive or dead, health authorities said.

More than 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, mostly civilians who were slain in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack. The assault also resulted in some 200 being taken captive into Gaza. Hamas militants in Gaza have launched rockets every day since, aiming at cities across Israel.

Hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets of major West Bank cities including Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, where protesters hurled stones at Palestinian security forces who fired back with stun grenades. Others threw stones at Israeli checkpoints, where soldiers killed one Palestinian, West Bank authorities said.

Elsewhere, hundreds of people joined protests that erupted in Beirut, Iraq and Amman, where an angry crowd gathered outside the Israeli Embassy.

In Amman, a palace statement said Jordan’s king condemned “the ugly massacre perpetrated by Israel against innocent civilians.”

The king “warned that this war, which has entered a dangerous phase, will plunge the region into an unspeakable disaster,” the statement said.

With tens of thousands of troops massed along the border, Israel has been expected to launch a ground invasion into Gaza, but its plans remained uncertain.

“We are preparing for the next stages of war,” military spokesman Richard Hecht said. “We haven’t said what they will be. Everybody’s talking about a ground offensive. It might be something different.”

Throughout the day Tuesday, airstrikes killed dozens of civilians and at least one senior Hamas figure in the southern half of the Gaza Strip, where the Israeli military told fleeing Palestinians to go. An Associated Press reporter saw around 50 bodies brought to Nasser Hospital after strikes in the southern city of Khan Younis.

The Israeli military said it was targeting Hamas hideouts, infrastructure and command centers.

An airstrike in Deir al Balah reduced a house to rubble, killing a man and 11 women and children inside and in a neighboring house, some of whom had evacuated from Gaza City. Witnesses said there was no warning before the strike.

Shelling from Israeli tanks hit a U.N. school in central Gaza where 4,000 Palestinians had taken refuge, killing six people and wounding dozens, the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said. At least 24 U.N. installations have been hit the past week, killing at least 14 members of the agency’s staff.

A barrage of strikes crashed into the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, leveling an entire block of homes and causing dozens of casualties, residents said. Among those killed was one of Hamas’ top military commanders, Ayman Nofal, the group’s military wing said. He is the highest-profile militant to have been killed in the war.

In Gaza City, Israeli airstrikes also hit the house of Hamas’ top political official, Ismail Haniyeh, killing at least 14 people. Haniyeh is based in Doha, Qatar, but his family lives in Gaza City. The Hamas media office did not immediately identify those killed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to put the blame on Hamas for Israel’s retaliatory attacks and the rising civilian casualties in Gaza. “Not only is it targeting and murdering civilians with unprecedented savagery, it’s hiding behind civilians,” he said.

With Israel barring entry of most water, fuel and food into Gaza since Hamas’ brutal attack, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken secured an agreement with Netanyahu to discuss creation of a mechanism for delivering aid to the territory’s 2.3 million people. U.S. officials said the gain might appear modest, but stressed that it was a significant step forward.

Still, as of late Tuesday, there was no deal in place. A top Israeli official said his country was demanding guarantees that Hamas militants would not seize any aid deliveries. Tzahi Hanegbi, head of Israel’s National Security Council, suggested entry of aid also depended on the return of hostages held by Hamas.

More than 1 million Palestinians have fled their homes — roughly half of Gaza’s population — and 60% are now in the approximately 14-kilometer (8-mile) long area south of the evacuation zone, the U.N. said.

At the Rafah crossing, Gaza’s only connection to Egypt, truckloads of aid have been waiting to enter for more than a day. The World Food Program said it had more than 300 tons of food ready to cross into Gaza.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine uses US long-range missiles to strike Moscow-occupied territories

Ukrainian forces used U.S.-supplied long-range ATACMS missiles for the first time, inflicting heavy damage on two airfields in Russian-occupied areas, with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy saying on Tuesday that the weapons had "proven themselves".

The Ukrainian military had issued reports throughout the day about successful, high-precision strikes on airfields near Luhansk in Ukraine's east and in Berdiansk in the south, on the Sea of Azov, both under Russian control.

"Today, special thanks to the United States. Our agreements with President Biden are being implemented. Very accurately - ATACMS proved themselves," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

Ukraine had repeatedly asked the U.S. administration for ATACMS (Army Tactical Missile Systems). Kyiv pledged not to use them inside Russia's territory but said the powerful weapons would alter the course of the 20-month-old war.

Deploying the weapons would allow Ukrainian forces to disrupt previously unreachable supply lines, air bases and rail networks used by Russia in occupied territories, senior officials said.

Ukrainian Special Forces, without initially mentioning the ATACMS, said that nine helicopters, an air defence missile launcher, runways and other equipment had been destroyed, and heavy losses inflicted on Russian forces.

There was no official comment from Russia. But a Moscow-installed official in partially Moscow-controlled Zaporizhzhia region, which is home to Berdiansk, said that cluster munitions from the ATACMS missiles were found there on Tuesday.

Earlier, Rogov said that Russian air defences had ensured that a Ukrainian air attack near Berdiansk was not successful.

Zelenskiy's comments mark the first confirmed use in Ukraine of the ATACMS, which can fly up to 190 miles (310 km). The country's Defence Ministry promised on X, formerly Twitter, that there would be "more news to come".

"As you can see, it is now possible to hit targets impeccably, with great precision, giving the enemy no chance," Ukrainian Air Force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat told national television.

Kyiv's Western partners have been careful about supplying long-range missiles needed for its four-month-old counteroffensive, fearing it would provoke the Kremlin. It is not clear how many ATACMS missiles Ukraine has.

ATACMS are designed for "deep attack of enemy second-echelon forces," a U.S. Army website says.

A NEW CHAPTER

Ukraine's presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said a new chapter of the war had begun.

"There are no more safe places for Russian troops within the ... internationally recognized borders of Ukraine," he wrote on X.

Russian military bloggers commented on the attacks during the day, with Telegram channel Fighterbomber saying Russian forces had suffered losses of personnel and equipment in strikes carried out with ATACMS.

Citing two unidentified U.S. officials, CNN said Washington had secretly delivered ATACMS to Kyiv. The Wall Street Journal said Ukraine had fired the ATACMS for the first time on Tuesday.

Since starting a counteroffensive in June, Kyiv has frequently attacked military targets in Russian-occupied areas, but it has failed to liberate significant territory from Russian occupation.

Oleksandr Shtupun, spokesperson for Ukraine's southern group of forces, told national television that there had been no letup in Russia's week-old assault on the devastated town of Avdiivka in the east, with Ukrainian forces repelling 10 attacks.

Shtupun also said Ukrainian forces advancing southward to the Sea of Azov had registered "partial success" west of Verbove, one of a cluster of villages it is trying to capture.

The Ukrainian military said Russia was hoping to advance as far as possible towards the town of Kupiansk in northeastern Ukraine before winter.

** Two civilians killed in Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia - Ukraine officials

Two people were killed and at least four wounded after an apartment building was destroyed in a Russian air attack on the city of Zaporizhzhia, officials in the Zaporizhzhia region in Ukraine said on Wednesday.

"Search and rescue operations are ongoing at the site," Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia city council, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Yuriy Malashko, governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, said that eight apartments buildings were damaged in what he said was a Russian missile attack.

Malashko and Kurtiev posted photos of a five-storey building with windows blown out and the entrance destroyed and debris scattered around.

Earlier, a Moscow-installed official in the Russia-controlled parts of Zaporizhzhia, blamed the strikes in the city on Ukrainian forces.

The city of Zaporizhzhia is the administrative centre of the broader Zaporizhzhia region in southeast Ukraine, which is now partially controlled by Russia.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia’s Shoigu estimates Ukrainian counteroffensive losses

The Ukrainian military is continuing its attempts to attack Russian positions along the frontline, Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu revealed on Monday during a televised meeting with President Vladimir Putin and other top officials.

The continuous push by Kiev has been countered by Russia’s “active defense” and counterattacks, with the Ukrainian military failing to make any significant gains anywhere, Shoigu noted. Over the course of its counteroffensive initiated in early June, Ukraine has incurred significant losses, including the loss of “hundreds” of tanks, over 1,500 armored combat vehicles, and substantial personnel casualties, although Shoigu did not provide precise figures.

“The situation looks stable, solid. The troops are acting very professionally, exhibit heroism at many locations, displaying confidence not to only hold their positions, but to continue the realization of the plans we had outlined,” the minister concluded.

According to estimates cited by President Putin last week, Kiev’s forces have lost “over 90,000 people” so far during the counteroffensive. In recent days, certain Ukrainian officials have admitted the counteroffensive has apparently lagged behind schedule and might have gotten “stalled.”Putin, however, said on Sunday the Ukrainian push “has failed completely.”

** Russian forces destroy over 250 military helicopters in Ukraine operation

Russian forces have destroyed over 250 Ukrainian combat helicopters since the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday.

"In all, the following targets have been destroyed since the start of the special military operation: 491 aircraft, 251 helicopters, 7,953 unmanned aerial vehicles, 441 surface-to-air missile systems, 12,706 tanks and other armored combat vehicles, 1,163 multiple rocket launchers, 6,802 field artillery guns and mortars and 14,372 special military motor vehicles," the ministry said in a statement.

Ukraine’s army loses 270 troops in Kupyansk area in past day

Russian forces repulsed seven Ukrainian army attacks in the Kupyansk area, killing and wounding roughly 270 enemy troops over the past day, the ministry reported.

"The enemy’s losses amounted to 270 personnel killed and wounded, a tank, 10 armored combat vehicles and three pickup trucks. In counter-battery fire, the following targets were destroyed: two Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery systems and two Gvozdika motorized artillery guns," the ministry said.

Units of Russia’s battlegroup West supported by aircraft and artillery fire repulsed seven enemy attacks near the settlements of Ivanovka and Timkovka in the Kharkov Region and Nadiya in the Lugansk People’s Republic, the ministry said.

Reuters/RT/Tass