“A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime” competes for top journalism award
Los Angeles (CA) – Investor News correspondent Aitana Vargas just walked the red carpet at the LA Press Club 64th Annual Awards Gala, which is being held at the Sheraton Universal Hotel in Universal City tonight and honors journalism and editorial excellence across Southern California in 2021.
The reporter is competing for one of the night’s top awards for her months-long multi-part investigative series: “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime.”
“Today I’m celebrating First Amendment rights and Hadari’s failed efforts to silence the truth, including her alleged involvement in COVID-19 schemes with Marc Lubaszka,” the award-wining journalist said from the red carpet. “I hope tonight is also a memorable moment for their many victims, some of whom have been demanding justice for several years.”
Vargas’s work exposes Hadari Oshri’s participation in alleged PPE scheme
The journalist’s special report exposes Israeli entrepreneur Hadari Oshri’s participation in an alleged joint PPE scheme with gold broker Marc Lubaszka, whose gold IRA investment company, Aurum Advisors, was investigated by the FBI about ten years ago.
In 2012, Lubaszka fled to South America as his IRA venture was going under, but he has never been charged with a crime despite his victims’ calls for justice.
Vargas’s long-form series delivers a powerful and detailed account of the Oshri-Lubaszka partnership at the onset of the pandemic and their efforts to sell some $500M worth of nonexistent PPE using the broker’s now defunct private jet company, Fly Private X. The couple’s COVID-19-related operations were also linked to convicted Texas businessman Arael Doolittle, who was ordered earlier this year to serve a 54-month sentence for PPE fraud.
During the pandemic, Oshri also used Trade Safe Pro, LLC to sell PPE on social media platforms –including Facebook– as Lubaszka partnered with Texas-based DJ and rapper Dylan Raw to open a new gold company: Buy Gold Brightly. In the meantime, Oshri and Lubaszka shared and ran their operations from a luxurious beachfront property in East Malibu.
Hadari Oshri desperately tried to stop the release of Vargas’s exposé
In June 2021, a few weeks after the release of part one of Vargas’s series, the reporter was served with court papers aimed at stopping the publication of her investigation.
But Oshri’s meritless legal effort to silence the correspondent’s work was thrown out by a Los Angeles judge in September 2021, and Oshri will have to pay Vargas’s legal fees as ordered by California’s powerful anti-SLAPP statute, which protects First Amendment Rights.
In Oshri’s non-sense petition against the award-winning correspondent, the Israeli accused the journalist of being a “desperate,” “very dangerous woman” and “a corrupted reporter” without any proof. Oshri also referred to the Spaniard as “Miss Dicks” (Miss Vergas) and “My Dicks” (Mis Vergas) and fabricated a baseless theory that didn’t fly with the court.
“Hadari’s legal case against me is a clear example of the Streisand Effect: By trying to silence her involvement in an alleged PPE scheme, she only brought more attention to it,” the reporter said.
Hadari Oshri’s attorney, John Tamborelli, intimidated Vargas into quitting her investigative series
According to court documents, during 2021, the Spaniard was pressured multiple times into quitting her investigative work. Investor News had access to a cease-and-desist email that Oshri’s former attorney, John Tamborelli, sent her in February 2021 demanding that she stop reaching out and talking to sources. The email also threatened legal action against the reporter and one of her sources did they fail to comply.
Tamborelli was following orders from Oshri, whose email featured some memorable statements to the reporter and her source:
“You (Aitana) are putting your hands in places that is not belong to you !!!!!
You (Aitana) GOT to stop !!!!!
Also you you cucumber !!”
In a second email that Oshri sent to Vargas and her source the same day, the entrepreneur stated:
“This is officially !!! Attaching my new business as an opportunity what the fuck you contacting this guy Robert 80 years old Man that is doing my taxes !!!
You are crossing all the lines
Where should I serve your lawsuit Ariana
And Qucomber !!”
The journalist didn’t reply to any emails that Oshri and Tamborelli sent that day.
Exclusive documents obtained by this outlet also show that in June 2021, Tamborelli wanted one of Vargas’s sources (Fergal Furlong) to instruct her to remove all the information related to Oshri or Tamborelli and any articles mentioning Tamborelli, Oshri and Lubaszka, including the first part of Vargas’s exposé, which gave a voice to the victims of one of Lubaszka’s prior gold schemes for which he was never prosecuted by law enforcement nearly a decade ago.
The reporter took to social media to announce that she was not a party to the settlement agreement and would not be taking down any content. About two weeks later, Oshri filed against Vargas.
In response to Tamborelli’s cease-and-desist email and continued demands, the National Writers Union (NWU) sent him a letter demanding that he stop all intimidation attempts towards the female reporter.
“Hadari Oshri cornered me in every single possible way she knew how. Yet she failed,” Vargas said. “Fear tactics only work for so long, don’t they?”
Read the notice of ruling on the anti-SLAPP motion here.
**This story is being updated as more information becomes available.
Read here Part I, Part II, Part III and Part IV of “A Special Report: The Harrowing Impunity of White-Collar Crime.”
Send your news tips to: aitana_investigations@protonmail.com. All emails are checked for legitimacy, malware and malicious scripts and reported to law enforcement if necessary.
Have you been SLAPPED? Contact the newsroom at info@investornews.io and share your story with us.
RELATED COVERAGE
Read 2019 court case against Hadari Oshri exposes her dodgy, aggressive legal maneuvers.
Read Hadari Oshri’s losses mount up as she fails again to silence her victims.
Read Hadari Oshri loses anti-SLAPP court battle against journalist Aitana Vargas.
Read The Legal Bullies Club – The SLAPPers: Featuring Hadari Oshri.
Read Hadari Oshri sued for copyright infringement in 2017.
Read Hadari Oshri deactivates LinkedIn account following PPE exposé.
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