Public Notices

Dead body found in old ‘Russian mob dumping ground’ in Upstate NY

The remains of a dead body were recently found stuffed in two duffel bags and stashed behind an Upstate New York home in a wooded area described by state police as a decades-old Russian mob dumping ground.

Last month, residents on Ulster Heights Road in Ellenville, NY had seen FBI investigators digging in the backyard of a home for two days. News 12 confirmed with the FBI that they were conducting a homicide investigation when they unearthed two duffel bags filled with human remains.

Federal prosecutors revealed the man they found had been shot to death.

A neighbor who spoke to News 12 said an agent told them the FBI was following up on a tip about a cold case tied to the Russian mob. New York Daily News also reported that a state police spokesman described the wooded area as a possible decades-old mob dumping ground.

Though the FBI has not confirmed the identity of the recovered body yet, News 12 has reported that the family of Brooklyn man Shehroz Tokhirov believes the remains are of their loved one who disappeared after allegedly going into business with two men to sell high-end watches.

The NY Daily News reported that in a criminal complaint written by an FBI’s Eurasian Organized Crime Task Force agent, 43-year-old Tokhirov and his son met suspect Shlomo Patchiav, 42, and an accomplice on June 17 to discuss selling the high-end watches.

The complaint details that Patchiav and his accomplice began to demand $500,000 from Tokhirov.

Tokhirov, left his apartment the morning of June 25 in an attempt to pay part of the debt Patchiav and his associate said they owed him.

He was never seen or heard from again.

Tokhirov left his apartment that morning with about $100,000 in cash, withdrew $10,000 from his bank account and issued a $20,000 bank check to the accomplice. He also also visited a notary the same day with the accomplice where Tokhirov signed a statement saying he would give up his Mercedes the debt was not repaid by 11:59 p.m.

Later that day, Patchiav’s cohort, according to the complaint, purchased a Chevy Malibu and was caught on video buying large duffel bags.

Public Notices

Japan just found 7,000 islands it didn’t know it had

Japan has recounted its islands – and discovered it has 7,000 more than it previously thought.

Digital mapping by the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) recently found there to be 14,125 islands in Japanese territory, more than double the figure of 6,852 that has been in official use since a 1987 report by Japan’s Coast Guard.

However, the GSI this week stressed that the new figure reflected advances in surveying technology and the detail of the maps used for the count – it did not change the overall area of land in Japan’s possession.

It said that while there is no international agreement on how to count islands, it had used the same size criterion as the previous survey 35 years ago.

That entailed counting all naturally occurring land areas with a circumference of at least 100 meters (330 feet).

The new number does not include any artificially reclaimed land.

The islands surrounding Japan have been at the heart of several territorial disputes.

Japan lays claim to the Russian-held southern Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, a dispute that dates to the end of World War II, when Soviet troops seized them from Japan.

Japan also says it has a historical claim to the uninhabited Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, which it currently administers, but China has repeatedly challenged that claim.

Meanwhile, Japan and South Korea remain locked in a more than 70-year dispute over the sovereignty of a group of islets known as Dokdo by Seoul and Takeshima by Tokyo in the Sea of Japan, which Korea calls the East Sea.

Public Notices

Yosemite National Park to partially reopen after 3-week closure

Yosemite National Park will begin to reopen Saturday with limited access and hours, the US National Park Service has announced. The park remains closed today.

The popular park, nestled in the Sierra Nevada mountains, was closed because of a series of damaging storms that have swept across the region in recent weeks.

Public Notices

Charles and Camilla

Britain’s King Charles III and his wife, Queen Camilla, have been married since 2005. They reportedly met at a polo match in 1970 and became friends when Charles was a prince.

When Charles joined the Royal Navy in 1971, Camilla married cavalry officer Andrew Parker Bowles.

Charles married Diana Spencer in 1981 but then admitted in 1994 that he had been having an extramarital affair with Camilla. Diana confirmed his infidelity and her own the following year.

Camilla got a divorce in 1995, and Charles and Diana divorced in 1996. Camilla all but vanished from public life at the time as public and media support swung behind Diana.

In 1999, Clarence House embarked on a program to reintroduce Camilla to the public with a carefully orchestrated first appearance with Charles outside the Ritz Hotel in London.

Six years later, their decades-long love story culminated in a wedding that had the consent of Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II. Camilla was confirmed as Charles’ official consort and future queen.