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NASATV American astronaut Scott Kelly returns to the International Space Station at the end of a spacewalk in which he and fellow American Timothy Kopra helped move a stalled rail car back into place outside the space station, on Monday. ByMikeSchneider The Associated Press ORLANDO,FLA. TwoAmeri- can astronauts helped move a stalled rail car back into place outside the Inter- national Space Station on Monday, quickly finishing the primary job of an un- planned spacewalk before moving on to other house- keeping tasks. NASA's one-year space- man, Scott Kelly, and as- tronaut Timothy Kopra took just a little more than a half-hour to release brake handles on the rail car and help guide it 4 inches back into place. The rail car needed to be moved so a cargo ship filled with nearly 3 tons of food and supplies could dock at the orbiting space lab on Wednesday. "I see motion!" Kelly said after the astronauts released the brake handles and a robotics officer in Mission Control sent a com- mand to move the rail car. "Good news! It appears to have reached the work site," astronaut Mike Hop- kins in Mission Control told the spacewalkers a short time later. The spacewalk more than 250 miles above Earth was just scheduled last Friday. The rail car is part of the station's mobile trans- port system, which is nor- mally used to transport people and equipment, in- cluding the station's big robot arm. After engineers on the ground confirmed the rail car was latched in place, Hopkins told the space- walkers, "It's in a good con- fig. Well done!" With their primary task completed, Kelly and Ko- pra split up to work on sep- arate tasks of routing ca- bles along the space sta- tion. Kopra also retrieved some tools stored on the side of the station for a fu- ture spacewalk. Finished with their work, the astronauts returned in- side the space station more than three hours after the start of their spacewalk. Hopkins praised the as- tronauts for performing the spacewalk on such short no- tice. "This is a team effort," Kelly said. The Progress cargo ship filled with food and supplies launched from Kazakhstan about four hours before the spacewalk began. It was the seventh space- walk of the year. Kelly is on a one-year mission that's due to end in March. Kopra arrived Tuesday, launching from Kazakhstan with Russian and British colleagues. Astronauts help move stalled rail car during spacewalk NASA By Colleen Long The Associated Press NEW YORK The Van Dyke Money Gang in New York made off with more than $1.5 million this year — but it wasn't in gunpoint rob- beries or drug running, it was a Western Union money order scheme. In New Jersey, 111 Neighbor- hood Crips used a machine to make dozens of fake gift cards for supermarkets, pharmacies and hardware stores. In South Florida, gangs steal identities to file false tax returns. These aren't members of an organized Mafia or band of hackers. They're street crews and gangs net- ting millions in white-col- lar schemes like identity theft and credit card fraud — in some instances, giv- ing up the old ways of mak- ing an illicit income in ex- change for easier crimes with shorter sentences. "Why would you spend time on the street slinging crack when you can get 10 years under federal mini- mums when in reality you can just bone up on how to make six figures and when you get caught you're do- ing six months?" said Al Pasqual, director of fraud security at the consulting firm Javelin Strategy and Research. Law enforcement offi- cials say they see increas- ingly more gangs relying on such crimes. This year, more than three dozen sus- pected crew members have been indicted in separate cases around the country. Grand larcenies in New York City account for 40 percent of all crime last year — compared with 28 percent in 2001. About 5 percent of Americans na- tionwide have experienced some kind of identity theft, with Florida leading the country in complaints. New York Police Com- missioner William Bratton wrote in an editorial in the city's Daily News last week that white-collar crime was being committed by gang members "to an astonish- ing degree." Crews recruit bank ac- count owners to help cash phony checks, they pay off crooked employees who skim credit card informa- tion using hand-held read- ers, and they buy identities online. Pasqual said for some, it was a replacement for other crime. "For some it's a supplement. They're earn- ing the money to grow the other side of their business, using white-collar crime to fund gun running. For a lot of them this becomes their day to day. They travel the country when they get re- ally good at it." A task force created by federal officials in Florida has charged more than 400 people with causing more than $140 million in losses — including more than 60 charged three weeks ago — and officials say increas- ingly those arrested are gang members. It's an organized crime — but not "Organized Crime," said Bill Maddalena, assis- tant special agent in charge of the white-collar branch of the Miami FBI office. "They're very well orga- nized. They have to recruit people to help steal devices, cash the checks." And because gang mem- bers are engaging more in fraud, there are fewer turf wars. "There's still an element of violence," Maddalena said. "There's less head-to- head competition. They're attacking the government." This violence can be more directly related to the crime, not like a drive- by shooting over a turf war that injures dozens. A post- master killed over a key to open the P.O. boxes in Flor- ida. In a Manhattan case, authorities found a scrap of paper in the pocket of a gang shooting victim that had the identification of an- other person. "There's often violence surrounding the crime, but not necessarily in commit- ting the crime," said David Szuchman, chief of the in- vestigation division at the district attorney's office in Manhattan. As officials crack down on one type of scam, crim- inals move on to the next. Gang members learn the craft from each other — but many are also millennials, "raised in a computer age, and they know how to use it," said Lt. Greg Besson of the NYPD's financial crimes task force. The nation's largest po- lice department has re- vamped how it responds to financial crimes after offi- cials started noticing street crews with recoded credit cards. Now, the grand lar- ceny division brings in de- tectives from the gang unit and other divisions to work together. The Outlaw Gangsta Crips in Brooklyn made about $500,000 this year in a paycheck fraud scheme that involved obtaining a legitimate paycheck and then using the information to create and quickly cash phony checks before they were taken down. But they also robbed check-cashing stores and were charged with conspiracy to kill two people, authorities said. Most cases are pending. In Union County, New Jersey, the 111 Neighbor- hood Crips made tens of thousands in fake tax re- turns — and four of the 12 indicted this summer were also charged with murder and attempted murder in separate incidents. Their cases are pending. The Van Dyke crew oper- ated out of a public hous- ing development. Their scheme, uncovered this year, stretched along the East Coast, as far as north Boston and as south as Washington. They recruited bank account holders and then used more than 350 accounts to deposit fake money orders. A dozen sus- pected gang members and associated were arrested and charged by federal of- ficials with bank fraud and aggravated identity theft. A trial for some of the defen- dants is scheduled for early next year. ORGANIZED CRIME Street gangs migrate from drugs to white-collar crimes TUESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2015 REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM | NEWS | 5 B