Fear and Lying in Las Vegas Part V
The FBI paid thousands of tax dollars for billboards around Nevada asking the public for tips about the Mandalay Bay massacre on Oct. 1 to help the Bureau ‘find a motive’ for the mass shooting.
It was little more than expensive theater. The FBI had plenty of evidence but it simply chose not to follow up. And billboards are expensive to rent, especially in and around Las Vegas. A costly ruse.
This series ‘Fear and Lying in Las Vegas’ is mostly about what the FBI didn’t do, who and what it failed to look at in Las Vegas in the last six months since the shooting. While there are many theories about what happened in Las Vegas — and who did what — the True Pundit series has focused on presenting evidence the FBI ignored.
And asking why.
Even after seasoned intelligence veterans pleaded with FBI brass in Las Vegas and Washington D.C. to look at all the evidence.
That includes the actions of Brian Hodge, a person of interest identified by investigators who has somehow eluded the FBI’s Vegas crosshairs. Even though there is compelling evidence for Hodge, an Australian national living in the United States, to have been questioned. He never was interrogated, FBI sources said.
Background on Hodge can be found in Part IV and Part III of this series. We pick up the story here where those portions of the series stopped.
There is much more intelligence on Hodge the FBI has known and done little about. And the embattled Bureau wants to keep it that way. But that simply isn’t reality. Facts will get leaked by good agents who are frustrated with lies and bureaucrats.
Hodge began live Tweeting and Facebooking the Las Vegas massacre, claiming a host of unsubstantiated claims. But for investigators it was what Hodge did and where he was at the time of these communications that have proven the most intriguing, FBI insiders said.
Hodge left Los Angeles on September 30th for Las vegas and disabled the geo-locating feature on this Twitter account.
“Something you do to hide your location,” one FBI source confirmed. “This is a surveillance-avoidance tactic that is taught to bad actors.”
FBI insiders said Hodge Tweeted throughout the Mandalay Bay attack with the geo-locating feature on his account disabled, thinking his location would be masked.
Then at 2:43 am PST, Hodge Tweeted again from the Vdara Hotel where he had checked into after vacating Mandalay Bay.
But FBI sources said for this post on Twitter, Hodge has turned his geo-locating feature back on.
This intrigued investigators. What was Hodge trying to hide? Why else would he flip-flop his geolocation feature on Twitter? FBI sources said Hodge, however, failed to disable the same location feature on his Facebook account.
FBI agents have since amassed crucial data from Hodge’s cell phone that help fill in the blanks as to where he was during and after the attack. And it wasn’t where he said he was during numerous media interviews where Hodge maintains he was hiding in the bushes outside Mandalay Bay for three or four hours.
FBI agents learned he wasn’t even near the Mandalay Bay.
Hodge was ten miles north of the Mandalay Bay during the same time frame he claimed in media interviews to be hiding in the bushes, hiding in the Mandalay Bay’s kitchen and hiding out by the resort’s swimming pool area before he was “rescued by SWAT officers.”
Investigators began to focus on Hodge’s whereabouts for five hours after the shooting began. Their conclusions and evidence counter Hodge’s claims at almost every turn. And when investigators probed further, they uncovered disturbing intelligence that convinced then FBI brass would approve of a serious investigation into Hodge and other potential key players in the Las Vegas shooting.
“Hodge went to a lot of trouble to hide his activities,” one FBI insider said. “He was sophisticated but we have more tools.”
Hodge posted photos of Las Vegas SWAT officers on his Facebook account claiming they just rescued him and others from the bushes outside Mandalay Bay.
A closer analysis of the photos, however, revealed inconsistencies with Hodge’s stories. First, Facebook geolocation had Hodge pegged in Enterprise Nevada at the time of the post and not at the Mandalay. And second, the SWAT officers were photographed in the lobby of the hotel, not outside near the bushes. If Hodge were rescued outside, would Las Vegas Police bring him and others back into an active crime scene? They were evacuating the hotel at the time and during an interview with Australian media, Hodge said police directed himself and others to march down the street once they were rescued from the bushes, not re-enter a crime scene.
FBI agents said Hodge likely snapped these photos of his way out of Mandalay Bay hours previous to posting.
Hodge’s social media accounts have since been deleted or locked down but investigators were able to capture what they needed to compile a comprehensive timeline of where and what Hodge was doing after the shooting.
While he said he was hiding in the bushes for hours, law enforcement sources said Hodge was actually ten miles north at the Knotty Pine Motel, a far cry from the luxury of any casino hotel downtown.
Hodge’s cell phone and Facebook account had given him away, FBI insiders said. How could Hodge be hiding in the bushes outside the Mandalay Bay if he was 10 miles away?
Hodge’s entire narrative created during interviews with numerous Australian and British media had just collapsed. He wasn’t even at Mandalay Bay after he was presumably evacuated.
But what was Hodge doing at the Knotty Pine Motel in North Las Vegas?
Investigators wanted to know more. Did Hodge meet someone who was staying at this motel? They combed the records of receipts from the Knotty Pine and discovered the motel had two occupants registered on the night of the attack.
Enter German Torres Moreno who rented one of the rooms with his Mexico driver’s license. He was traveling with two other people at the time, according to records. Moreno rented the room at the hotel on Sept. 29th and then Oct. 1, checking out and skipping Saturday night. The trio returned on Sunday, the day of the attack, FBI sources said.
FBI obtained Moreno’s room registrations from Knotty Pine Motel.
Moreno was driving a green Ford with Mexican plates. Investigators traced the license plates and his Mexican driver’s license number to an address in Guanajuato, Mexico and specifically the City of Penjamo. This city has dealt with its fair share of Islamic State related issues, according the federal agents and news reports.
ISIS recruiter working out of Guanajuato bringing in US and Mexican fighters http://t.co/WflHZznEQx
— Michel Marizco (@BorderReporter) September 9, 2015
According to the informative site Publímetro, in 2015 Mexican Military Intelligence and agents of the Special Prosecutor’s Office for High Impact Crimes of the Attorney General’s Office of the State (PGJE) discovered an Islamic State recruiter in León, Guanajuato.
So who is Moreno and what was he doing traveling with two other Mexican nationals in Las Vegas the night of the attack? And why was Hodge presuambly meeting with him?
Who else was with Moreno?
Why would Hodge’s alibi of hiding after the shooting — which has since been proven a sham — try to cover his tracks at the Knotty Pine?
Veteran investigators had thought they found a smoking gun here. The investigation was starting to turn over serious leads.
But FBI brass would not allow agents to follow up.
They never interviewed Hodge and never pursued leads in a Mexican city and regions linked to international terrorism.
Was Hodge working with Moreno and Stephen Paddock, the FBI’s lone wolf who is credited with masterminding the entire massacre?
We likely will never know.
In fact, you were never supposed to even know this much.
And that might be proof enough in itself that this is in fact a smoking gun.
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[give_form id=”79809″]The Series: Fear and Lying in Las Vegas
Part 2
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