Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...)

#1 | RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Fri Jun 16, 2023 11:48 am (Last edited: Fri Jun 16, 2023 11:53 am)

An Alien Haven in Southeast Texas?

A politically connected real estate firm seems to be tied to a local boom of undocumented immigrants.

About 50 miles northeast of Houston is headquartered a land development company called Colony Ridge. According to the Liberty County Sheriff�s Office, Colony Ridge has about 22,000 residents, and evidence suggests it serves as a sort of landing ground for people who have entered the country illegally...

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!

EdJames said Thank You!

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#2 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed May 03, 2023 9:13 pm

This explains some of the places they hide in plain sight.

Texas Manhunt, Murders Expose Hidden Population of Illegal Migrants
NEIL MUNRO3 May 2023130

The quintuple murder of Honduran migrants has exposed the expanding mid-Texas housing developments that are home to many illegal economic migrants, said a Texas-based investigator for the Center for Immigration Studies.

The murders took place in a so-called �colonia� of migrants� homes that sprawl across Liberty and San Jacinto counties. This settlement has created a home for some poor Americans � and a sanctuary for many tens of thousands of hard-working illegal migrants, plus a hideout for cartel outlaws, Todd Bensman told Breitbart News.

The cartel outlaws likely included the alleged gunman in the April 28 murders, Francisco Oropeza, Bensman said.

Bensman visited the area in 2022 for his new book, seeking to talk to local officials and police. Today, he spoke to locals and was told that a search of the gunman�s home showed:

This guy was an adherent of the cartel religion, known as Santa Muerta, and he had a big shrine in his master bedroom � The candles were still burning yesterday that he lit before because they burn for a long time � and it turns out that he had a tattoo on his shoulder � you can see it in the photos that the FBI put on about him � that means very likely he was involved in criminality, some kind of organized crime, because that is an underworld cult religion.

�This is a cartel town,� Bensman told Breitbart:

Evidence of cartel involvement dates to the earliest days of the illegal-alien settlement boom, to at least 2011 when federal, state. and local law investigators raided a Mexican drug cartel�s marijuana grow operation on 300 acres in Liberty County. They found explosives, 6,000 marijuana plant worker bunkhouses, and guard towers.

The Beaumont Enterprise reported in 2011:

�This operation was very elaborate and professional,� [Sheriff Rex] Evans said. �It�s not like a teenager growing some marijuana plants. It is a highly organized, very professional and very sophisticated system that even had its own drying system.�

The sanctuary colonia is described in Bensman�s 2023 book, OVERRUN: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History.

Colonias is a term for unorganized towns of poor migrant workers. Most are located along the Texas-Mexico border and are filled with low-wage agriculture workers. But the sprawling settlement north of Houston is too far north to be legally defined as a colonia, and it is more developed. For example, the new lots are often connected to local sewer and electrical lines, said Bensman.

The Liberty County colonia is off-limits for immigration enforcement agencies, and is avoided by federal agencies, and by the Texas media, Bensman said, adding:

When I was doing my reporting, I was knocking on doors, going house-to-house trying to get interviews with people. I needed somebody to just be willing to cooperate with me about their immigration status.

I went to one house and it was a woman with her kids, and after a few minutes of me explaining what I was after, and I was wit hthe Center for Immigration Studies, she gets her husband on the phone and the guy says, �I�m gonna fucking murder you. I�m going to kill you right now. � I�m coming over there right now. If you�re still there when I get there, you�re dead.� That�s how it is out there. It�s rough.

Nobody knows [how many residents are illegals]. But, anecdotally, I interviewed the superintendent of the school district, and he said �I�m not gonna sit here and tell you that these are really anything but illegal immigrants.� The vast majority of them are illegal immigrants.

I talked with the manager of a restaurant who said, �Yeah, you know, half of my employees are illegal. I pay them in cash, or they have fake social security cards.�

I did meet a couple of Americans � U.S.-born poor people that had bad credit and wouldn�t be able to buy property any other way � but even they say that �Almost everybody who lives around here is illegal.�

It�s a no-go zone for ICE [Immigration and Custom Enforcement] � it never shows up, all the Feds stay away from this area. It�s a safe zone for illegal immigrants. Nobody bothers them about it � it�s a sanctuary for illegal immigrants.

Many Americans have left the area, partly because of the crime and because the schools have filled with the children of migrants.

The colonia is also a big revenue generator for local businesses because it is expanding past 50,000 lots.
https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2023/0...legal-migrants/

It is reasonable to concur where Conscience does not forbid a Compliance; for Conformity is at least a Civil Virtue.
But we should only press it in Necessaries, the rest may prove a Snare and Temptation to break Society.
But above all, it is a Weakness in Religion and Government, where it is carried to Things of an Indifferent Nature, since besides that it makes Way for Scruples, Liberty is always the Price of it....William Penn

EdJames and Sanguine said Thank You!

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#3 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Sun May 07, 2023 10:28 am

more on these 'colonias'...

Texas Massacre Happened in America�s Largest Illegal Immigrant �Colonia� � and Major U.S. Media Won�t Say So
How at least 50,000 illegal immigrants have changed once-rural East Texas hinterlands for the worse

By Todd Bensman on May 1, 2023

https://cis.org/Bensman/Texas-Massacre-Happened-Americas-Largest-Illegal-Immigrant-Colonia-and-Major-US-Media-Wont

AUSTIN, Texas � A Mexican national is on the run after slaughtering a family of five Hondurans next door, including an 8-year-old child, in a small Texas town a two-hour drive east from here called Cleveland.

American news media report the murdered parents had asked their next-door neighbor to stop firing his semi-automatic rifle at 11 p.m. on April 29 because they were trying to put a baby to sleep. Two other children survived under the bodies of their parents, who died shielding them.

But what no media has yet reported is that this horrific crime happened in what is regarded as America�s largest settlement of illegal immigrants, one literally exploding in population amid a U.S.-government fomented mass migration border crisis. In Liberty County, and now spreading into neighboring San Jacinto County where the massacre occurred, old-timers have been fleeing a new diversity of violent crime, murder, all-night weapons firing, and cartel drug trafficking that has boomed alongside the population. Indifferent U.S. immigration enforcement agencies leave this area to itself.

The land development company Terrenos Houston has successfully marketed
owner-financed lots to tens of thousands of presumed illegal immigrants who cannot
qualify for traditional bank loans. Owners then build shelters and homes of various kinds.
Photo by Todd Bensman.

My recently released book, Overrun: How Joe Biden Unleashed the Greatest Border Crisis in U.S. History, dedicates a chapter of reporting to this massive illegal immigrant �colonia� as a warning to America about the coming consequences of an unfettered mass migration event now in its third unmitigated year that has already seen more than five million foreign nationals settle into U.S. towns and cities. Following are edited excerpts from the chapter �Forever Impacts�.

* * *

�The originals� of Liberty County, Texas � the self-descriptor of lifelong Anglo residents like Jimmy Rollins, who trace their lineage to early settler families � have mostly fled what they regard as ruinous, irredeemable change.

Settlement in the county wilderness some 40 miles northeast of Houston dates to the 1830s and 1840s and boomed a bit when an oil field was discovered there in 1925, but still didn�t much change the cherished small-town closeness, long lonely country lanes through uninterrupted timberland, the hunting and fishing subsistence lifestyle, and tiny high school graduating classes.

Until very recently, the loggers, train mechanics, ranchers, and state prison workers made their homes in and around Liberty County�s quaint old townships carved out of dense pine forests with names like Plum Grove, Cleveland, Dayton, and Splendora. They raised each other�s barns and dug one another�s wells.

Now 72, Jimmy Rollins was still farming near Dayton when I met him in May 2022. Just like his father, who was born and lived until he was buried at age 95 in Plum Grove, Rollins recalled riding a horse every Sunday to church and to school as a kid, �barefoot until junior high�, and he raised his own family much the same way, by farming and following a rural country code of life.

�It was all country people. We got our meat out of them woods there. They was behind in time, but everybody pretty much knew everybody,� Rollins recalled. �I enjoyed living here.�

Not anymore.

A vast jumble of single- and double-wide trailers on low stilts, hand-hewn shacks made of leftover construction material, and parked motor homes has quickly overtaken tens of thousands of Liberty County acres and eradicated its rural way of life. The community is named �Colony Ridge�. Upwards of 50,000 mostly Spanish-speaking Latinos, maybe more � nobody knows, really � are living on some 30,000 homestead lots they purchased in recent years over some 35 square miles from �Houston Terrenos�, the land development company started by an �original� named William Henry �Trey� and his brother John Harris a decade earlier.

The boom began without letup about a decade ago when Houston Terrenos, on Spanish-language media platforms with international reach, began marketing lot purchases with its unique �owner-to-owner method� that didn�t require traditional bank loans, proven job history, or Social Security numbers.

A significant portion of the new population that bought Terrenos lots are illegally present, according to the settlers themselves, local police, school officials, teachers, and other residents. In 2020, analyst Chuck DeVore of the Austin-based Texas Public Policy Foundation think tank dubbed Colony Ridge �the fastest-growing Hispanic population in the United States and one of the fastest growing school districts�. DeVore figured the population of these communities is projected to reach as high as a quarter-million people, a significant percentage not legally present in the country.

Liberty County and its booming Colony Ridge development make for an apt, emblematic harbinger of the kind of change that sudden explosive growth in illegal alien population can portend for citizens and residents already living in receiving communities as a result of the Biden border crisis.

Quality of Life in Liberty County

As a former Plum Grove mayor, city councilwoman, apartment real estate developer, and proud original, Leanne Walker has waged an unremitting legal and political �war� to contain the ongoing Terrenos Houston development. She refers to this enemy as �the Kraken�, a multi-armed Octopus-like sea monster of Scandinavian sailing mythology that would drag ships to the bottom.

�I was born and raised by the forest, by the most salt-of-the-Earth people you could meet, by an original,� she told me. �My father was an original. His mother was an original. We�re all on the same land. We are called the originals of Plum Grove.�

Walker�s grievances and stories of battle with �the Kraken� are far too long to recount here, such as whether the rapid pace of development floods the towns during hard rains and allegedly poisoned rivers and the Gulf of Mexico with raw human waste.

But almost as offensive to the originals than the clear-cutting, traffic jams, and floods they blame on the ever-sprawling Colony Ridge is that the newcomers make for bad neighbors.

�The amount of gunfire that is out there would blow your mind. I have a video you can listen to on New Year�s Eve. It sounded like Falluja,� Walker recounted, moving on to, �The loud Mexican music they play from Thursday night to Sunday. They all put their music on the same f***ing station and turn it up. Our homes at one o�clock in the morning doing this ...,� Walker said, using her hand to thump the table like a drum. �And that�s why the originals all left.�

A Frightening New Diversity of Crime

Before all the change, crime mostly consisted of a few white country meth-heads, two local police investigators who work in the area told me privately.

-- excerpt, rest at link above --

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#4 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Sun May 07, 2023 12:33 pm

Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #10
This is inexcusable.

Informational links follow:

https://reduceflooding.com/tag/trey-harris/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...outheast-texas/

https://abc13.com/liberty-county-texas-b...itions/1063411/

Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God!

EdJames said Thank You!

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#5 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Sun May 07, 2023 1:38 pm

Quote: Tinker wrote in post #11
Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #10
This is inexcusable.

Informational links follow:

https://reduceflooding.com/tag/trey-harris/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...outheast-texas/

https://abc13.com/liberty-county-texas-b...itions/1063411/

Interesting tidbit from the second link:

Texas in general, and its Governor Greg Abbott in particular, have a reputation for stringency on immigration. It would certainly be odd had state authorities turned a blind eye to the apparent malfeasance at Colony Ridge. Interestingly enough, Dolcefino found that the Harris family has contributed $600,000 to Governor Abbott�s campaigns.

An email to Abbott�s press office was left unreturned.

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

Sanguine said Thank You!

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#6 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Sun May 07, 2023 1:39 pm

Quote: EdJames wrote in post #12
Quote: Tinker wrote in post #11
Quote: Sanguine wrote in post #10
This is inexcusable.

Informational links follow:

https://reduceflooding.com/tag/trey-harris/

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/...outheast-texas/

https://abc13.com/liberty-county-texas-b...itions/1063411/

Interesting tidbit from the second link:

Texas in general, and its Governor Greg Abbott in particular, have a reputation for stringency on immigration. It would certainly be odd had state authorities turned a blind eye to the apparent malfeasance at Colony Ridge. Interestingly enough, Dolcefino found that the Harris family has contributed $600,000 to Governor Abbott�s campaigns.

An email to Abbott�s press office was left unreturned.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J. R. R. Tolkien

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#7 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Jun 14, 2023 3:00 pm

Apparently Michael Yon is exploring Colony Ridge...

Click through to watch video...

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#8 | RE: Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Jun 14, 2023 3:03 pm

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#9 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Fri Jun 16, 2023 1:31 pm

Quote: Tinker wrote in post #1
An Alien Haven in Southeast Texas?

A politically connected real estate firm seems to be tied to a local boom of undocumented immigrants.

About 50 miles northeast of Houston is headquartered a land development company called Colony Ridge. According to the Liberty County Sheriff�s Office, Colony Ridge has about 22,000 residents, and evidence suggests it serves as a sort of landing ground for people who have entered the country illegally...

This video is worth watching....

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#10 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Fri Jun 16, 2023 10:01 pm

Terrenos Houston Demanda
Terrenos Houston Lawsuit
News
es_MXSpanish
https://www.terrenoshoustondemanda.com/en/

TOGETHER
We are many united with a purpose. To stop the abuse of Terrenos Houston and Colony Ridge against all communities. Victims of this company and surrounding communities affected.

THE POWER OF MANY
If you have suffered damages after buying from Terrenos Houston and Colony Ridge, you are not the only one. With your story we will help many others going through the same.

THE TIME IS NOW
Don't let time pass you by. Take the bull by the horns now, tell your story, and with many others we will come up against Terrenos Houston and Colony Ridge.

YOU DESERVE RESPECT
We know there are many people who have gone to Terrenos Houston with the idea of having a new home in Texas. They've instead encountered land that floods and even their payments disappearing.
-
Say Enough to the Abuse from Terrenos Houston and Colony Ridge!

Ezekiel 7
Website created by the people for the people. We are an army! Your donations big or small help us continue our mission and spread the word.

Inundaciones Terrenos Houston
Have you had problems with Terrenos Houston and Colony Ridge?

You and your family are not the only victims of this company. In fact, they have many investigations and legal cases against them. They have a history of abuse against their clients and their lack of proper sewage management is wreaking havoc on the communities around the grounds. Causing problems for families who have lived on these lands for generations and flooding their own lands.

TELL US YOUR STORY
Cases that have been reported on Houston Land include:
Payments Being Stolen
There are clients who are making their payments and yet the Colony Ridge company claims that they have not done so and proceeds to repossess their land to keep it or sell it to others.
Flooding
Lack of drainage planning has caused flooding for residents and flood problems for surrounding communities that have been in that territory for generations.
Intimidating
They have intimidated the surrounding communities with lawsuits and other practices when they have tried to resolve the situation of the waters with garbage that have reached their homes.
Inhumane Conditions
Many in the community have complained about poor garbage management, lack of potable water in cases, high crime rates, and roads in very poor condition.
It's Time Liberty County to Be Free! #FreeLiberty
Send us your story.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J. R. R. Tolkien

EdJames and Tinker said Thank You!

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#11 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Aug 09, 2023 6:50 pm

Illegal Alien Housing Community Strains Local Resources

Cleveland ISD is starting the upcoming school year with six new schools and more than 12,400 students�double the student population of just three years ago.
https://texasscorecard.com/local/illegal...ocal-resources/
Ryan Hughes | August 9, 2023

A housing development outside Cleveland, Texas, just north of Houston, is populated primarily by illegal aliens and putting strain on the local school district.

�Colony Ridge Communities� is a land development project that markets land to illegal aliens through loan loopholes and is one of the largest settlements of illegal aliens in the country.

In the 2019-2020 school year, Cleveland Independent School District only had 6,584 students. As the current school year begins, the number of students has nearly doubled to more than 12,400.

At the district�s back-to-school convocation, Superintendent Stephen McCanless said the district has enrolled 1,092 new students in the past weeks and more students are expected to be registered in the next few weeks.

The district has hired 1,498 staff members since the 2021-2022 school year, and due to the limited capacity of the Cleveland High School gym, the district almost did not hold the back-to-school convocation. To accommodate these students, the district built six new schools.

The Colony Ridge settlements are believed to have a population of 22,000, according to the Liberty County Sheriff�s Office.

Colony Ridge is partially funded by William Harris, a major donor of Gov. Greg Abbott, who gives yearly contributions of $300,000 to Abbott�s campaign.

Chris Russo, president of Texans For Strong Borders, told Texas Scorecard, �Just ten years ago, Cleveland ISD had a total enrollment of 3,818. This more than tripling of the student population is driven by the high number of illegal aliens flocking to Colony Ridge. And this doesn�t even tell the whole story. In addition to Cleveland ISD, there is a K-12 charter school system serving over 2,600 students (whose website is in Spanish) in the middle of the development that boasts of teaching students in English, Spanish, and Mandarin-Chinese.�

With Colony Ridge�s planned expansion, these numbers will likely increase even more over the next 10 years.-- excerpt, rest at link above --

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J. R. R. Tolkien

Tinker and EdJames said Thank You!

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#12 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Fri Aug 11, 2023 10:26 am

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#13 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Sep 06, 2023 12:23 pm

Drug Smuggler Caught with $650k in Cocaine Near Illegal Alien Housing Development
Experts warn this pattern will continue.

Sydnie Henry | September 5, 2023

https://texasscorecard.com/local/drug-smuggler-caught-with-650k-in-cocaine-near-illegal-alien-housing-development/

Northeast of Houston, Liberty County law enforcement captured and detained a drug smuggler armed with a handgun and carrying an estimated $650,000 worth of cocaine in a spare tire.

Local reports indicate that the Liberty County Sheriff�s Office is being �tight-lipped� about the investigation that began as a traffic stop.

According to Bluebonnet News, �A Ford Raptor driven by a Hispanic male was stopped for traffic violations by the Criminal Interdiction Unit for the Liberty County Sheriff�s Office at the intersection of SH 146 and SH 105 in Moss Hill.�

Todd Bensman, a senior fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, highlighted that this stop occurred, �In Liberty County Texas, 20 minutes drive from Colony Ridge, which is said to be the largest illegal immigrant community in America where law enforcement tells me Mexican drug cartels operate with relative impunity.�

Notably, �Colony Ridge Communities��the land development company responsible for providing loans for the construction of one of the largest illegal alien settlements in America�is funded by one of Gov. Greg Abbott�s major donors.

In the past, the development has been associated with the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels. In 2013, 300 acres of Liberty County lands were used to host the �largest and most sophisticated marijuana-growing operation� in U.S. history. The area broke another record in July 2021, when the Drug Enforcement Administration raided a multimillion-dollar methamphetamine manufacturing lab in Colony Ridge.

Some have compared the development to a colonia, which the Texas Attorney General defines as �substandard housing developments, often found along the Texas-Mexico border; where residents lack basic services such as drinking water, sewage treatment, and paved roads.�

The developers refuted this claim.

However, Texans for Strong Borders President Chris Russo told Texas Scorecard, �I recently photographed the Colony Ridge development from a helicopter and two things stood out to me: the scale of the expansion and the overall poor living conditions within the development. We saw many, many houses in terrible states of disrepair and yards littered with junk. The mix of living conditions is reminiscent of much of Central America.�

�In addition to the obvious concerns about illegal immigration and crime, it is clear that there is significant erosion and improper drainage that could result in further property damage for citizens whose homes are downstream of the development,� Russo added.

The development is also straining local resources as illegal alien children flood Cleveland ISD schools.

-- excerpt, rest at link above --

�We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent people.� ― George Orwell

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#14 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Sep 06, 2023 1:22 pm

Lovely. Just freekin' lovely.

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

- J. R. R. Tolkien

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#15 | RE: RE:Colony Ridge (Summary thread, add any Colony Ridge information here...) datum

Wed Sep 06, 2023 3:39 pm

Tine for a good old-fashioned death penalty for drug dealers.

It is reasonable to concur where Conscience does not forbid a Compliance; for Conformity is at least a Civil Virtue.
But we should only press it in Necessaries, the rest may prove a Snare and Temptation to break Society.
But above all, it is a Weakness in Religion and Government, where it is carried to Things of an Indifferent Nature, since besides that it makes Way for Scruples, Liberty is always the Price of it....William Penn

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