The Wackenhut Group was formed in 1954 by former FBI Agent George Wackenhut and three FBI partners William Stanton, Kenneth Altschul, and Ed Dubois, Jr. to provide security services. Given its government ties, the company began working in cohort with the CIA and DEA including William Casey and Frank Carlucci. During the McCarthy era, Wackenhut claimed to have compiled ‘files’ on 4 million Americans accusing them of ‘communist activities.’

Clients included US Customs and Border Patrol. In 2003, they changed their name to the GEO Group and began operating prison systems. The GEO Group contracts with ICE running their detention centers.  August 13^th, the Colorado AG sued the GEO Group for not observing a public health order regarding a detainee who tested positive for Tuberculosis.  The GEO Group claims the person was released from the detention facility with medication but refuses to identify the person.

February 2026, the GEO Group faced major scrutiny and a Supreme Court setback over allegations that it forced civil detainees at its Aurora, Colorado facility to perform janitorial work and daily maintenance for $1 a day or no pay under threat of solitary confinement. 

Colorado law states that unannounced health inspections by the public health authority every three months are necessary to monitor for human rights abuses.  The GEO Group has failed to comply with the law and is suing Colorado claiming federal law supersedes the state and no inspections are permitted. But the GEO Group is not a federal agency, it is a contractor and publicly traded entity.

Activists and detainees have documented severe medical neglect, rotten food, and overcrowding inside facilities in New Jersey and the Aurora center in Colorado. It recently lost a class action lawsuit filed in 2014 for ‘forced labor.’

Dr. George Zoley, founder and recently returned CEO of GEO Group took over the position when the previous CEO, David Donahue, abruptly left in March 2026 after replacing the previous CEO, Brian Evans, in 2024. The GEO Group heavily financed the Trump campaigns and stands to gain significantly from Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Since Donahue left, the share price of GEO Group has risen 104%. It operates as a REIT.

Does the GEO Group still maintain files on target individuals who speak out against their policies and agenda? Do they surveil illegally? 

ICE

ICE has recently used its ‘administrative subpoena’ authority to demand social media platforms provide information on persons deemed nefarious given they make negative comments about ICE. These investigations are not of illegal immigrant accounts but every day American citizens who have committed no crime. Providing them with this information would be a crime because the agency does not have surveillance authority over every single American – their stated purpose and authority lies very specifically with illegal immigrants. ICE is operating outside US law.

The ICE detention facilities are being compared to the WWII internment camps set up to house the Japanese. 120,000 Japanese – two-thirds of which were American citizens were rounded up, their assets abandoned and forfeited. Forcibly detained by an FDR EO in 1942. Armed guards, watch towers, barbed fencing, it was no different than East Berlin under the Soviets. There were no criminal charges, no rights, identity was the sole reasoning. The same logic and rights employed by ICE today against legal Americans and legal green card holders.

It wasn’t until the Supreme Court ruled against the illegality of racial discrimination that the Japanese were freed in 1944. Left without jobs, money, homes, cars. Nothing. The attitude today is no different. “IF you haven’t done anything wrong, you have nothing to fear.” Just ask the Ukrainian conscripts forcibly removed from their homes. Just ask the East Berlin Germans. And yet, here we are repeating mistakes in the name of ICE.

A very controversial arrest was made of a family of three who were outed by a former Iranian CIA operative, Masih Alinejad.  Their crime? The father’s mother was a spokesperson for the 1979 US Embassy in Iran captivity of 52 Americans during the height of the Iran Revolution wherein the Western Coup Leader, the Shah, fled and the Ayatollah came into power. By and thru the sovereignty of the people.

Masih is well-known for her pro-Jewish stance and her radical views of her own country. She considers herself a ‘feminist.’ While her resume is relatively small, it is curious how she supports herself. On record working for the US Agency For Global Media which includes Voice of America, she apparently writes a weekly blog. The Agency is nothing more than a propaganda tool of government intel. Alinejad wrote in her memoir that she got her start in journalism with the help of Marjan Sheikholeslami who embezzled $7.4 billion before fleeing to Canada in 2019, divorcing her husband and remarrying her accomplice. Not exactly a stellar resume line.

In 2022, three former Soviet members of the gang, Vor Zakone, were convicted of a murder-for-hire plot to assassinate Alinejad. Vor Zakone was formed from prisoners and persons thrown in gulags in the Soviet Union in the 1930’s. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Vory Gang splintered with some joining the Russian Mafia. Some members are Jewish. Their main source of income is ‘money laundering.’

The Russian Mafia acts as a high-level, sophisticated service provider, broker, and intermediary. Rarely do they venture into the US, even more rarely do they conduct assassinations. The trial lasted only two weeks before convictions amidst no evidence to support any Iranian involvement despite media insistence.

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Helena Glass is Former CPA & Series 7, with emphasis in Real Estate and Financial Planning. Two brains in one: former Bronze Sculpter and Danseuse. Visit the author’s blog. 

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

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