Special Report
20 Biggest Crime Stories of the Year
December 13, 2019 7:08 pm
Last Updated: January 15, 2020 2:38 pm
Largest darknet child pornography website takedown
> Date: Oct. 16
More than 330 people were arrested in mid-October following an international takedown of one of the world’s largest child pornography websites, and reportedly the first one to accept bitcoin in exchange for content. Federal officials seized over 8 terabytes of child pornography, equal to about 10,000 full CD-ROMs. The operation reportedly saved nearly two dozen children worldwide from abusive situations. Arrests connected with the takedown spanned 23 states and Washington D.C. as well as 11 countries.
Saugus High School shooting
> Date: Nov. 14
Sixteen-year-old Nathaniel Berhow came to Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, the morning of Thursday, Nov. 14 and pulled out a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol. Berhow killed two of his classmates and injured three others before turning the gun on himself. He died from the self-inflicted wound the following day. The mass shooting is one of hundreds that were carried out in 2019.
Former CIA agent sentenced to 19 years for China espionage
> Date: Nov. 22
Probe opened on opioid makers
> Date: Nov. 26
Six pharmaceutical companies are under federal investigation and face potential criminal charges for their role in the opioid crisis. Federal prosecutors are working to determine what, if any, laws were broken in connection with shipments of mass quantities of opioid painkillers.
The companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, Mallinckrodt, Johnson & Johnson, Amneal Pharmaceuticals, and distributor McKesson Corp. One company, Ohio-based Miami-Luken Inc, shipped 3.7 million hydrocodone pills between 2008 and 2011 to a pharmacy in a small West Virginia town of only about 400 people.
According to the most recent data for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, of the more than 70,000 drug overdose deaths in 2017, more than two-thirds involved an opioid. Such drug-related deaths were six times more common in 2017 than in 1999, according to the CDC.
Pensacola Navy base shooting
> Date: Dec. 6
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