National Intelligence Estimate Due in January

The U.S. intelligence community is near completion of a major assessment of the national security threat posed by international organized crime, according to administration officials and experts.

The National Intelligence Estimate, which could be finished as soon as January, was conceived more than two years ago to address the dangers posed by Eurasian criminal groups’ suspected infiltration of energy and other strategic markets.

But its focus broadened over time to include a wide swath of criminal syndicates and issues, from
drug-trafficking by Mexican cartels to the relationship between terrorism and organized crime, the officials and experts said.

“Globalization has done great things for organized commerce, but it’s also helped organized criminal groups to advance as well,” said one senior Justice Department official, who spoke in general terms about the threat.

The threat was underscored in recent weeks, as reports emerged of an FBI investigation into a major cyberattack on Citibank Inc., which Citibank denies. And the Justice Department announced drug charges in New York against alleged Al-Qaeda associates arrested in Ghana during a Drug Enforcement Administration sting.

NIEs are produced under a classified process and carry the full weight of the U.S. intelligence community’s judgment. The existence of the NIE on international organized crime has not been previously reported.

The assessments are compiled by the National Intelligence Council, a research arm of intelligence community that reports directly to Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair. The NIC incorporates in its estimates expertise from inside and outside of the federal government.

The estimate’s focus expanded over time as more agencies sought to reap the benefits of inclusion, including increased funding and more say in policy direction. In this case, the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State and Treasury contributed to the NIE, the officials said. The National Intelligence Council is expected to release a public overview of the threat assessment, increasing its visibility and impact, experts say.

“I think it’s going to open this field up to some serious academic research and funding,” said Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University. “We’re going to be focusing on a whole range of issues that we haven’t thought enough about, and connecting the dots on other issues.”

A sensitive subject: Russia

One effect of broadening the NIE is that it allows the Obama administration to sidestep the diplomatically sensitive issue of Russia, where authorities have long suspected that the tentacles of organized crime reach into the government.

In 2008, then-Attorney General Michael Mukasey gave a speech that identified as the top security threat organized criminals who control significant positions in the global energy and strategic materials markets, threatening U.S. geopolitical interests.

He never mentioned Russia. But as an example, Mukasey pointed to Semion Mogilevich, who is thought to be at the pinnacle of Russian organized crime and is said to have influence over large portions of the natural gas industry in former Soviet-bloc states. (Mogilevich is wanted in the U.S. on racketeering charges, and the FBI recently placed him on its Top Ten Most Wanted list.)

Russian control of energy supplies and transport networks is a security issue for the European Union, which relies heavily on Russian natural gas. But Russia controls the spigot for pipelines that service Central and Western Europe through the former Soviet state of Ukraine. Twice since 2006, Russia has cut off gas to Ukraine in payment disputes, affecting EU supplies.
Of further concern to intelligence analysts is the murky ownership of some middleman companies crucial to European energy supplies.

In 2006, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department’s organized crime unit was investigating the ownership of a Ukrainian energy trading company named Rosukrenergo AG, half owned by Russian state company OAO Gazprom.

In response to U.S. concerns about who ultimately controlled Rosukrenergo, company representatives met with the DOJ in Washington to disclose the ownership stake of a Ukrainian businessmen with ties to Mogilevich – the suspected organized crime figure on the FBI Most Wanted list, the Wall Street Journal reported.

There’s also the case of William Browder, a U.S. native and British citizen who founded Hermitage Capital Management, once the largest foreign investment fund in Russia but now accused in Russian courts of tax evasion. Hermitage has denied evading taxes. It has countered with allegations that a government-affiliated “criminal enterprise” siphoned off $230 million in taxes paid by Hermitage units. Browder has retained the law firm of former Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate.

Hermitage has filed an application for judicial assistance in the Southern District of New York federal court, asking the U.S. to compel access to information it says it needs to defend itself in Russia.

In a recent declaration filed in the case, Neil Mickelswaithe, a British solicitor and outside counsel to Hermitage, said the fund is the victim of a “criminal enterprise” in Russia spanning senior offices of the Russian Interior Ministry, the Russian Federal Security Service (the successor to the KGB), senior Russian tax officers, and certain Russian court judges and “numerous private individuals in Russia, some of whom have previous criminal convictions.”

In another high-profile case, U.S. authorities have long suspected billionaire Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s most powerful tycoons, of having ties to Russian organized crime. Deripaska, who made his fortune in the post-Soviet aluminum industry, is close to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, often traveling with him abroad. He presides over a business empire that spans metals, finance and construction.

Deripaska, who has denied any ties to organized crime, had been barred entry to the U.S. for years. But recently, the FBI made secret arrangements to allow him into the country to seek his assistance in an ongoing criminal probe, the Wall Street Journal reported. In two visits to the U.S. this year, Deripaska also met with executives of Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Co.

Putin and other Russian officials have raised the visa issue with their U.S. counterparts, and in the past Deripaska hired high-powered Washington lobbyists — including former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) — to make his case for entry into the U.S.

New approach more measured

The Obama administration, in contrast, has been careful not single out any country or group. Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, in a speech and in interviews given at the Interpol General Assembly in October, noted continuing threats posed by Mexican drug cartels, South Asian heroin-trafficking syndicates, and traditional crime families from Asia and Eastern Europe.
Ogden made no mention of strategic markets. The apparent shift in message is reflected in the intelligence estimate, officials said.

Under Mukasey, the Justice Department pushed for a finished product before President George W. Bush left office. After a draft NIE was circulated late in the Bush administration, officials in the departments of Homeland Security, State, Treasury advocated a broader sweep, officials said. The recommendations were ultimately passed on to the Obama administration.

“When the Justice Department first started working on the estimate, there was much more focus on energy issues,” said George Mason’s Shelley, who was first contacted in March by government officials involved in drafting the estimate.

“They asked me what I thought was wrong with it, and I told them they needed to broaden the scope and the geographical range. There’s a tendency to stovepipe too much. When you broaden the scope, you are able to see the diversity of the problem and the relationship amongthe different aspects of transnational crime,” she said.

The Obama administration has been actively highlighting fronts in the battle against international organized crime.

In November, the State Department and Immigration and Customs Enforcement co-hosted a symposium in Honolulu. The event drew attention to criminal networks that span East Asia, the Pacific and Latin America — and that engage in a broad range of criminal activity, including drug, gun and human trafficking, money laundering and corruption.

Earlier this month, officials from the departments of Commerce, Homeland Security and Justice, as well as the White House, met with entertainment industry executives to focus on intellectual property crimes. The connection between piracy and organized crime is well-documented, particularly in Asian countries such as China.

At the event, billed as the first of its kind, Attorney General Eric Holder called on the international community to respond.

“This is a problem that the United States cannot solve by itself,” said Holder. “We want to confront these nations, quite frankly, where too much of this occurs.”

Narco-trafficking also a danger

Violent Mexican cartels, responsible for thousands of killings south of the border, have emerged as a singular threat. Their vast drug-trafficking networks reach deep into the U.S., and law enforcement officials fear a scenario in which the cartels rent their smuggling routes to terrorists.

“If you were to ask me what is the biggest organized crime threat, I would say it’s more the cartels in general and other organized crime syndicates engaged in narco-trafficking and other illicit activities,” said David Luna, director for anti-crime programs at the State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. “They’re not just in our backyard, they’re actually in the U.S.”

The link between terrorism and crime is also of growing concern, officials said. The case of the three alleged Al-Qaeda associates charged in New York, who are believed to be in their 30s and originally from Mali, appears to show a direct link between the terror group and drug traffickers. Authorities long maintained that Al Qaeda and the Taliban profit from the heroin trade in Afghanistan. Michael Braun, who retired as DEA’s chief of operations last year, told The Associated Press the case was “the tip of the iceberg.”
Decade-long focus

The intelligence community’s interest in international organized crime dates back more than a decade. In the mid-1990s, intelligence officials began work on a separate estimate, with the help of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies, said Jim Moody, a former FBI Deputy Assistant Director who oversaw organized crime investigations.

The estimate, he said, “helped get rid of a lot of barriers to sharing information” between the intelligence and law enforcement communities and set priorities for developing intelligence on international criminal groups.

But its impact was curtailed by the events of Sept. 11, 2001. “Given the trauma that the country faced after the 9/11 attacks, international organized crime was relegated understandably to a second-tier national security priority” as the Bush administration redistributed resources to deal with terrorist threats, the State Department’s Luna said.

Officials said they hoped the estimate would cement international organized crime as top national security priority, motivate agencies to develop stronger policies and make an argument for increased funding.

Jay Albanese, former chief of the International Center at the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Justice Department, was cautiously optimistic.
“Estimates are a mixed bag,” he said, adding that international organized crime is neither easily quantified, nor easily defined.

“This puts those of us in the crime businsess at a severe disadvantage,” said Albanese, a criminologist and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University. “It’s very diffcult to say with any degree of accuracy how much we should be focusing on human-trafficking versus arms-trafficking.”

By Joe Palazzolo December 28, 2009
Mary Jacoby contributed to this report.

The Rest @ Main Justice









ThuglifeDFW

Central American Truck Theft Ringleader Sentenced

12/24/2009

HOUSTON—A Houston man who recruited others to steal and transport millions of dollars of truck tractors, trailers and other heavy equipment to Central America has been sentenced to prison, United States Attorney Tim Johnson announced today.

United States District Judge David Hittner sentenced Yuri David Melendez, 43, to a total of nine years in federal prison for his leadership role in the truck theft scheme and in an unrelated narcotics charge during a hearing today.

Melendez, who was convicted of conspiracy to export and transport stolen motor vehicles after pleading guilty, was sentenced to five years imprisonment, the maximum punishment under the law. In addition, Melendez was also sentenced today to 108 months in federal prison on an unrelated narcotics trafficking charge filed in federal court in Florida.

The Florida case was transferred to this district after Melendez was apprehended in this district and agreed to plead guilty to the narcotics trafficking charge pending in Florida. Judge Hittner ordered that the terms of imprisonment imposed on each count of conviction be served concurrently. Melendez was ordered to pay $815,951.91 in restitution and to serve a five-year term of supervision upon his release from federal prison.

Beginning in 2001, Melendez received requests from his contacts in Central America for stolen tractor trucks, trailers, tankers, and other heavy equipment.

• Melendez would then locate the requested equipment at various industrial and commercial sites in the Houston area and recruit co-conspirators to assist with the theft of the equipment.
• Once stolen, the equipment was transported south by Melendez’s recruits to staging locations near Edinburg, Texas. Melendez frequently accompanied the drivers in his own private vehicle on the way to Edinburg, serving as a guide and look-out for law enforcement.
• Once in Edinburg, other unidentified members of the conspiracy would arrange for transportation of the equipment across the border into Mexico.
• Drivers took the equipment to Melendez’s customers—most of whom resided in Guatemala and Honduras. Following delivery, Melendez’s contacts would pay him by wire transfer or cash delivery in Houston.
• Melendez managed to evade law enforcement for a number of years until early February 2009 when two of his recruits were arrested in possession of recently stolen tanker trucks.

In mid-January 2009, after receiving an order for two tanker trucks, Melendez sent Victor Antonio Garcia, 27, who had stolen equipment for Melendez in the past, to Reynosa, Mexico, to recruit Orlando Gonzalez Huerta, 29, as a second driver for the job.

Melendez then arranged for Garcia and Huerta to fly to Houston. The men stayed at a local motel while Melendez located two tanker trucks to be stolen.On the evening of Feb. 8, 2009, Melendez drove Garcia and Huerta to the Colorado Oil Company in Sealy, Texas, where the two broke through a chain link fence with bolt cutters.

Garcia and Huerta each drove a tanker truck out of the company’s compound south towards Edinburg and Melendez followed the pair in his private vehicle. Employees of the Colorado Oil Company reported the equipment missing. Using GPS tracking devices attached to the tanker trucks, officers with the Texas Department of Public Safety located and arrested Garcia and Huerta in Live Oak County, Texas.

Huerta identified Melendez in a photographic line-up and within days FBI agents located and arrested Melendez at his home in Houston.Investigating agents definitively linked Melendez and his conspirators to other thefts by viewing surveillance photographs taken at the Falfurrias checkpoint located north of Edinburg.

Since March 2007, the photographs revealed more than 20 pieces of stolen equipment passing through the checkpoint, typically during early morning hours. In each case, the stolen piece of equipment was accompanied by a vehicle associated with Melendez.

Since March 2007, Melendez and his co-conspirators were found to have transported more than $4 million of stolen equipment through the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint.Garcia, Huerta, and a third co-defendant, Rito-Jasso-Zorilla, 32, all of whom also pleaded guilty to conspiring to export and transport stolen motor vehicles and equipment, were previously sentenced to terms of imprisonment of between 24 and 51 months.

In the Florida case, Melendez admitted to attempting to purchase two kilograms of cocaine. The United States seized and has forfeited Melendez’s interest in $33,000 in cash.The investigation leading to the truck theft charges was conducted by the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety. The narcotics charges were investigated by the Drug Enforcement Administration. Assistant United States Attorney David Searle prosecuted the cases.

Source Houston FBI via Apostille

Dallas Gang Peace Summit

Mara Salvatrucha in Quebec Canada

Nobody would have blamed Maria Mourani for wanting to relax a little after her re-election last October. In one of the tightest races in Quebec, the Bloc Quebecois MP held on to her Montreal riding of Ahuntsic by less than 500 votes. But the ballots were barely counted when Ms. Mourani began packing her bags for a trip to El Salvador to seek out street gangs considered among the deadliest in the world.

While she is best known in Canada as a Member of Parliament for the separatist Bloc, Ms. Mourani has a Masters degree in sociology and worked as a parole officer before she was first elected in 2006. That was also the year her first book on street gangs was published, establishing her as an expert on the subject in Quebec. Her post-election trip to El Salvador has provided the heart of her second book, Gangs de Rue Inc. (Street Gangs Inc.), published last month in French.

In a recent interview, Ms. Mourani said her interest in street gangs stems from a commitment to protect children. There is a tendency outside Quebec to view the Bloc as a single-issue party, committed to Quebec sovereignty and nothing else. But Ms. Mourani, the party's assistant public-security critic, said the cause of children is as important to her as the struggle for sovereignty.

"The first victims of street gangs are the children, the teenagers," she said. "Just because I'm a Bloc MP doesn't mean I have no concern for Canadian children." (She is also passionate about the Middle East and last February had to apologize after distributing to her fellow MPs a pro-Palestinian email that included links to videos praising terrorist organizations.)

Ms. Mourani says her interest in El Salvador stemmed from the realization that the Central American country's notorious Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, and Pandilla 18 gangs were establishing a foothold in Canada. In Gangs de Rue Inc. she calls them "by far the most violent and most dangerous gangs in the world."

Her ticket into their world came in 2007 when she met the head of El Salvador's National Security Council, Oscar Bonilla, at a Montreal conference. "I told him, 'You know eventually I would like to go see the MS-13 up close.' He said, 'Whenever you're ready.' "

That moment came after last year's election. Mr. Bonilla found her a guide who had close contacts with gang members, and she immersed herself in the barrios of the capital, San Salvador. She travelled at her own expense, she said, and she introduced herself as Maria, a researcher, not as a Member of Parliament. "It would not be easy to go there as an MP," she said. "There are a lot of kidnappings of politicians for money."

Michael Chettleburgh, a street gang expert and president of the Toronto-based Astwood Strategy Corp., has not read Ms. Mourani's book, but he said her courage in meeting with the gangs is impressive. "As far as going down to Central America and talking to the gangsters, we're talking about some of the most dangerous, out-of-control places in the world," he said. "If she indeed immersed herself, she would have had to have very good contacts in the community." Last month, Christian Poveda, a French filmmaker who had spent years chronicling life in El Salvador's gangs, was murdered outside the capital. A police officer and four gang members were arrested in connection with his killing.

The Rest @ The National Post

Bolivia Buying Chinese Fighter Jets

Bolivia to buy Chinese jets, denies arms race

Bolivian President Evo Morales denied Saturday his country was engaged in a regional arms race, insisting the purchase of six Chinese light military aircraft would serve to fight drug trafficking.

"This purchase of aircraft does not threaten anyone, they're not for war," Morales said in anticipation of domestic and international criticism.

"The aircraft purchase is aimed at the fight against drug trafficking and not... any arms race," he added at a ceremony commemorating the 52nd anniversary of the Bolivian Air Force.

Bolivia plans to buy the Chinese K-8 Karakorum jets at a cost of 57.8 million dollars after a similar order of Czech planes was blocked by the United States amid a diplomatic spat with Washington after Morales expelled the US ambassador and US counternarcotics agents last year.

Morales had last year tried to buy six L-159 ALCA two-seater light combat aircraft, made with US components, from the Czech Republic for 58 million dollars, but the leftist leader disclosed in July that Washington had vetoed the sale.

The Rest @ MSN

Cartels Growing Marijuana in America

A dangerous trend: Mexican National marijuanna growers deposited in American in remomte terriane near their retail users, fully equipped for independent grow operations, armed to te teeth and willing to shoot it out with American Law Enforcement.

-Gochoa

Published: Sunday, Sep. 20, 2009 - 12:00 am

Amid dense scrub oak and manzanita high above the Coloma Valley in El Dorado County, the marijuana growers were stocked to subsist in the steep, unforgiving terrain.

They had seedlings, fertilizer and drip irrigation for thousands of high-grade plants. They had solar power, cookware and months of food. And they had a tiny, protective figurine: Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of Mexican drug traffickers.

With a month to go in the growing season, California is shattering records for pot seizures stemming from raids on illicit marijuana gardens. And authorities blame intricate Mexican drug networks that seek remote growing sites, supply and arm workers, and harvest and traffic the product.

They are tilling vast gardens in forests, on public lands and even close to tony suburban homes near Sacramento.

Authorities say the large gardens – law enforcement officials call them "grows" – supply high-potency pot that is trafficked across the country.

Authorities have found no direct link to the ruthless Mexican cartels blamed for 11,000 killings and a virtual civil war south of the border. But they are encountering heavily armed people willing to shoot it out to defend their cash crop.

"They used to just dump everything and run," said Lassen County Sheriff Steve Warren, who had two officers shot in June when workers at a pot garden opened fire as they approached.

"The change we're seeing now is they're holding their ground. We don't know if it's a cartel thing and people in another part of the world are saying you have to stand and fight. But they're doing it."

Plant seizures from outdoor marijuana grows, found in 40 of 58 California counties last year, exceeded the next closest state – Washington – by eight times.

So far this year, the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting – a California task force of nine state and federal agencies – has seized about 4 million plants, a 1.1 million increase over last year's record haul.

"I think they're growing more and we're finding more," said Michelle Gregory, special agent for the state attorney general's Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. "We would like to say that we find 50 percent of the grows, but honestly we don't know how much we miss."

Authorities this year recovered 76 weapons and arrested 64 suspects, almost all of them Mexican citizens. Gregory said those detained included people who were smuggled acoss the border, laborers who were kidnapped to work the grows and others recruited and hired locally.

Authorities also have raided extensive indoor gardens run by Asian gangs and routinely encounter home-grown pot farmers. Yet they say Mexican networks by far dominate the outdoor grows, of which 70 percent are on public lands.

Authorities have no evidence of Mexican-grown pot ending up in California's medical marijuana dispensaries.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Gordon Taylor said authorities "have not seen any direct link" to notorious cartels in Mexico, including the Sinaloa, Tijuana, Juárez and Gulf cartels, and other violent networks known as La Familia and Los Zetas.

"That doesn't mean the link isn't there. We just haven't seen it to date," said Taylor, who investigates marijuana grows in rugged terrain from the lower Central Valley to Oregon. "But there is no question that drug-trafficking organizations from Mexico, not necessarily tied to a cartel, are bringing up people, crossing into the United States illegally, and using them to grow marijuana in California."

Though authorities this year have eradicated marijuana crops worth up to $16 billion, most raids lead authorities to low-level laborers or supply-dropping "lunchmen" who seem to have little idea who the bosses are.

By the time an El Dorado County narcotics SWAT team, reached the freshly watered mountain pot garden above Coloma, the workers had fled, leaving only the figurine of Malverde and a mystery of whom they worked for.

The mustaschioed folklore character, a purported early 1900s bandit, was once seen as a mascot for the Sinaloa cartel. His image has been adopted by other traffickers and is revered at a shrine in the Pacific Coast city of Culiacán.

The Rest @ Thae Sacramento Bee

Najibullah Zazi Arrested in Denver in Anti-Terrorism Investigation

DENVER (Reuters) - Federal agents on Saturday arrested a Colorado man who had been under surveillance as part of an anti-terrorism investigation that came to light in a series of New York City raids this week, a spokeswoman for his attorney said.

The suspect, Najibullah Zazi, 24, a native of Afghanistan said to work as an airport shuttle driver in Colorado, was taken into custody along with his father after three days of questioning by the FBI in Denver, said Wendy Aiello, a spokeswoman for attorney Art Folsom.
Aiello said both men were taken to a local county jail for booking.

FBI agents entered Zazi's residence in suburban Aurora, Colorado, on Wednesday afternoon with a search warrant.

The entire three-story apartment building was roped off with yellow crime-scene tape, and authorities put black screens over the building's windows to prevent onlookers from seeing inside.

A house a few miles away was likewise cordoned off later in the day for what a local law enforcement source said was a search related to the anti-terrorism investigation.

The questioning of Zazi, who authorities suspect of sympathizing with al Qaeda, came days after he traveled to New York City.

He was stopped by authorities on September 10 while driving a rental car on the George Washington Bridge, which connects New York city with New Jersey, but later returned to Colorado.

Early on Monday, a joint anti-terrorism task force carried out a series of raids in an area of the Queens borough of New York where he had visited over the weekend.

(Writing by Dan Whitcomb, editing by Eric Beech)

The Rest @ Reuters

Maryland IDs MS-13 Recruiting Patern

Published: 09/17/2009

Prosecutors and police on Tuesday pressed Maryland lawmakers to make it easier to put gang members convicted of crimes behind bars for longer sentences, saying a 2-year-old state statute aimed at doing so had proven all but useless.

Lawmakers, including House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Anne Arundel) who sat in on the hearing and asked an usually large number of questions, probed law enforcement officers for specifics on how the Maryland Gang Prosecution Act had failed.

They also seemed split on whether changes were needed. Del. Victor R. Ramirez (D-Prince George's) and others questioning if more draconian sentencing guidelines could inadvertently snare less violent teenagers charged as gang co-conspirators. And House Judiciary Committee Chairman Del. Joseph F. Vallario, Jr. (D-Prince George's), said the legislature did not want to get so specific in setting sentences that it risked undercutting judges' prerogative to order prison terms best fitting circumstances of crimes.

In the course of the hearing, Montgomery County State's Attorney John McCarthy also released some interesting statistics about gang activity:

Last year, Montgomery County prosecuted 524 cases against gang members. In the county, there are now roughly 40 active gangs, and some 1,600 identified gang members, he said.

So far this year, suspects arrested in five of the county's 10 homicides have been gang members.

McCarthy said he believes the high percentage of killings tied to gangs this year is an anomaly. But he and others said the recruiting years for gangs across the state are now 6th, 7th and 8th grades. By the time teens enter high school, McCarthy said police in Montgomery have identified 20 to 25 incoming freshmen, on average, in each school as known members of MS-13, or Mara Salvatrucha.


The Rest @ Corrections.com

Mexico Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Resigns

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Felipe Calderon removed his attorney general yesterday to try to revamp a war against drug cartels that have resisted an army campaign to defeat them.

Calderon told reporters that Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, who spearheaded the government’s fight against drug trafficking, had resigned and would be replaced by a little-known former legal official.

A crackdown by thousands of troops and federal police has been unable to suppress turf wars between rival cartels that have killed more than 13,000 people since Calderon took power in late 2006.

Calderon has staked his presidency on his war on drugs, but cartels are killing about 20 people a day in Mexico — often after torturing them — and traffickers have infiltrated many state and municipal police forces.A large deployment of troops in the city of Ciudad Juarez, on the border with Texas, has not slowed a wave of drug killings there.About a dozen hooded gunmen burst into a drug rehabilitation clinic in Ciudad Juarez last week, lined up patients and shot 17 of them dead in a gang killing.Medina Mora will be replaced by Arturo Chavez, a former official in the attorney general’s office, Calderon said.

Despite making big drug seizures and capturing some cartel leaders, security forces have been unable to catch Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, the head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Mexico’s most-wanted man, Guzman escaped from jail in a laundry van in 2001.

The Rest @ Stabroek News

Cartel Sergio Saucedo,Trafficker, Money Launderer, Executed by Cartel

September 9th, 2009 EL PASO, Texas —

A body found with its severed arms crossed and placed on its chest in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, was identified by authorities Wednesday as a Texas man kidnapped from his home.

Sergio Saucedo, 30, was kidnapped from his Horizon City house outside El Paso last Thursday. His mutilated body was found Tuesday in the Mexican border city across the Rio Grande, said El Paso County Sheriff’s spokesman Jesse Tovar.

“It’s apparent that the spillover has occurred,” Tovar said of the drug violence plaguing Juarez and much of Mexico.

Saucedo, who has a long criminal record including convictions for drug possession and money laundering, was kidnapped by three men, investigators said. His wife told deputies the men broke into the house, bound Saucedo with duct tape and carried him out the back door to the driveway, where he was stuffed into a dark sport utility vehicle with no license plates.
Witnesses reported hearing at least one gun shot and said Saucedo struggled with his attackers as he yelled for help.

Saucedo’s body was found dumped in the street late Tuesday with his severed arms placed on top of a cardboard sign on his chest, said Arturo Sandoval, spokesman for a regional prosecutor’s office in Juarez. He said the killers stuffed plastic bags into Saucedo’s mouth and taped his eyes.
The sign was immediately removed and authorities have not revealed what it said. Drug cartels often leave messages with victims they kill.

Ciudad Juarez is Mexico’s deadliest city with more than 1,300 drug-related killings this year.
El Paso investigators believe Saucedo was killed in Mexico, but a specific motive for the kidnapping and killing remained unclear Wednesday, Tovar said.

Court records show Saucedo, who has used various aliases, had been convicted of money laundering, possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, trafficking marijuana and other drugs in Texas and Oklahoma. Tovar said investigators were not aware of a specific connection to any particular drug gang in Mexico.

Saucedo’s case is among a handful of drug-related kidnappings reported to federal authorities in recent years, said Andrea Simmons, an FBI spokeswoman in El Paso. While none Simmons knew of had previously ended so violently, Saucedo’s kidnapping isn’t the first sign of cartel violence in El Paso.

• In May, a Juarez cartel lieutenant and U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement informant was shot eight times in front of his east El Paso house.
• A fellow cartel lieutenant and informant, along with two other men and a juvenile, have been arrested on capital murder charges in that case. At the time, authorities and experts said Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana was the highest ranking cartel member to be killed in the United States.
  

The rest @ blog Taragana

Lewsiville, TX Police Heads up

Some New Tags showed up last week in Central Lewisville, TX, North East of the Dallas Fort Worth Airport.

MS-13 and Southside tags Locos tagged a single Street in North Lewisville.

-Gochoa

Extradition of Minors Cotributes to Gang Activities

The week of 29 June 2009 saw two very interesting developments in Mexico, with the continuation of a third very important economic indicator.First, remittances from the United States to Mexico continue to drop.

In the first six months of 2009, we have seen remittances drop by 19.9%, compared to the first half of 2008. This decline represents some US$1.9 billion dollars.A new vigilante group has emerged.

The “Mata Zetas” is one of the latest of the so-called splinter groups we’ve seen surface. At the end of June, when police discovered three bodies in Cancun, they also discovered a note that read: “We are the new group, Mata Zetas, and we are against kidnapping and extortion and we are going to fight against them in all of the state for a cleaner Mexico."

Just a few days later, police arrested eleven members of a separate splinter group known as “La Contra”. Mexican authorities suspect this group has formed to fill gaps opened by arrested members of the Los Zetas and La Familia.

• Analysis:After petroleum exports, remittances make up the largest source of foreign currency in Mexico. And from January to April, total remittances added up to US$7.3 million. This number continues to drop as a direct function of the economy.

Indirect effects, however, may be seen in Mexico, where individuals who relied on these remittances have little option but to turn to organized crime to pay the bills.Consider three converging realities.

• Last year, 17,772 minors were deported from the United States to Mexico. It is likely that many of them landed in a crime-controlled municipality.
• Between 60 and 65% percent of all Mexican municipalities suffer from organized crime infiltration. This adds up to about 1,500 cities.
• Finally, there are a reported 980 zones of impunity across the country. Also called “criminal enclaves” the political leadership is either directly involved in organized crime, or is somehow compromised. We’re not surprised by the presence of La Contra and Mata Zetas. We expect more such groups to surface before the end of the year.

The Rest @ Samuel Logan and Security in Latin America

MS-13 Watch: Providing Services to Other Criminals

This author, who has a long history of journalism in South and Central America as well as other places recently wrote this status of interational gangs, especialmented de La Mara, MS-13

-Gochoa


Tuesday July 7, 2009
How Gangs Threaten Us All

For those interested in exploring one of the greatest internal and transnational threats to the United States, there is a new book out today by Samuel Logan, This is For the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America’s Most Violent Gang.

The book traces the history of Brenda Paz, a young Honduran who joins MS-13 and eventually becomes the most effective police witness against the organization, before she was killed. But besides the individual story, the book shows just how powerful and ruthless the MS-13 has become. Given that it now has chapters in thousands of cities across the United States, and maintains its transnational structure through the clan structure in Central America, the gang (or mara in Spanish) presents a significant challenge.

But it is not just a local law enforcement issue. It is truly a transnational threat that can destroy countries. Yesterday I heard Carlos Castresana Fernandez, head of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (Comision Internacional Contra la Impunidad en Guatemala-CICIG) discuss the serious problems of the organized criminal networks operating out of Guatemala.

He noted how the already-disturbing situation in Guatemala had gotten dramatically worse in the past three years and Mexican and Colombian cartel operatives, particularly Los Zetas, moved in and took control of local criminal operations.

The cartels were aided and abetted in their takeover efforts by the local gangs, primarily MS-13. On Guatemala’s northern border with Mexico, Castresana Fernandez said, the organized criminal groups and gangs are the only authority, in the face of the complete absence of the
state. “Maras plus organized crime has proven deadly,” he said.

That is the reality on the ground in much of Central America. The gangs are increasingly moving from local criminal operations, coordinated with their partner gangs in the United States, to move illicit products like stolen cars, methamphetamine and weapons, into the muscle for the drug cartels.

The consequences, as Castresana Fernandez noted, is that already weak and corrupt police forces and militaries are simply overwhelmed or bought, allowing the gangs to grow in power both in their home countries and in this country. The richer they become the bigger threat they become, both here and south of our border.

The book offers an inside look at how the gangs operate at granular level. For those of us who spent time with the gangs (I did for a Washington Post series in 1998), it is a harrowing and accurate description of the amazing and disturbing world that gang members inhabit. It also places the development of the gangs and the recruitment of gang members in its proper context of displacement, social dislocation and family separation that has helped define the Central American immigrant narrative.

I am not one who worries a great deal about the use of Hezbollah or other terrorist groups of gang-controlled pipelines to enter the United States. With embassies in Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua etc. all willing to issue valid travel documents to them, it is hard to see why they would bother with the riskier and more vulnerable method of moving over the land border clandestinely.

But it is clear that these gangs and cartels are, in their own right, becoming increasingly strong transnational threats, and that they offer other services to Hezbollah and other groups that would be useful-drug trafficking routes, protection of the pipelines they use etc. To understand why the gangs are a threat, this book is a good place to start

-by Doug Farah

The Rest @ Douglas Farah

Two Maras ( MS-13 ) in Woodbridge, VA Convicted of Murder

By Amanda Stewart
Published: June 17, 2009

A jury in U.S. District Court in Alexandria recently found two gang members guilty of killing a Woodbridge teen believed to be in a rival gang.

After a trial last week, the jury found Rafael Parada-Mendoza, 22, and Gabriel Hosman Perez-Amaya guilty of killing 19-year-old Christian Argueta in front of Springfield Mall on Dec. 2, 2007.

The two men were each convicted of conspiracy to commit murder in aid of racketeering, murder in aid of racketeering, attempted murder in aid of racketeering, use of a firearm during a crime of violence causing death and possession of a firearm by an illegal immigrant.

According to prosecutors, Parada-Mendoza and Perez-Amaya were both illegal immigrants from El Salvador and members of the criminal street gang Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13.

According to court documents, Parada-Mendoza and Perez-Amaya were outside of the Cerro Grande restaurant at Springfield Mall around 2 a.m. Dec. 2, 2007.

They saw Argueta and another man, who prosecutors say were members of rival gang Southside Locos, sitting in a car outside the restaurant.

Parada-Mendoza and Perez-Amaya flashed gang signs and Argueta and the other man got out of their car.

Then Parada-Mendoza pulled out a handgun and shot Argueta, according to prosecutors.
The other man was able to escape unharmed.

According to prosecutors, the men murdered Argueta to increase their position in MS-13 and recounted the killing at a gang meeting hours after Argueta was shot.Parada-Mendoza and Perez-Amaya face a mandatory sentence of life in prison when they are sentenced in federal court Sept. 11.

Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.

The Rest @ Inside Nova.com

Drug Trafficing Organizations Move Operations to the Pacific

June 20, 2009 12:00
The beaches on the Southern Pacifc Coast of Mexiso have become the new transfer point for cartels bringing in drugs from The South.

-Federico Gochoa

SALINA CRUZ, Mexico - If you know what's good for you, fisherman Teodoro Contreras says, you stay away from certain places after the sun sets on the beaches of Mexico's southern coast. From the resort city of Acapulco to the Guatemalan border, this is Mexico's "Cocaine Coast," the main destination for drug-carrying speedboats, airplanes and even submarines that are switching to the Pacific Ocean to avoid increasingly numerous patrols in the Caribbean Sea.

"There are boats out there, trucks, people doing things they shouldn't be doing," Contreras said, waving at the curving shoreline near Salina Cruz. "People coming right up on the beach and catching rides to who-knows-where. You mind your own business at night."


The rise of this Pacific route shows how smugglers continue to evade and adapt, even as the Mexican government pours resources into an unprecedented crackdown on the major cartels. More than 10,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderón launched the offensive in late 2006.

The trafficking has spilled into some resort cities, leading to shootouts in Acapulco and the appearance of "narco-banners" with threatening messages in Huatulco. The violence has not targeted tourists, however, and no tourists have been hurt.
About 69 percent of cocaine shipments moved through the eastern Pacific in 2007, up from 50 percent in 2005, the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center said in a report released in December.

The traffic has only increased since then, leading to some spectacular busts of boats in the 300-mile stretch between Acapulco and the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, near Guatemala. Much of that shoreline looks like the edge of a postage stamp: scalloped, with coves that are perfect for smuggling.

Police say they are also catching more members of the rival Gulf Cartel, including its elite enforcers known as the "Zetas," as they shift to the southwestern coast from their traditional turf on the eastern coast.

On Wednesday, federal agents arrested three Zeta suspects and freed a businessman kidnapped in the town of Juchitán.

• "Most of the cocaine is now going through the Pacific side, so that (coast) has become a point of attraction for all kinds of criminal groups," said Carlos Antonio Flores, a crime expert at the Center for Economic, Administrative and Social Research, a Mexico City think tank.
  
• Military checkpoints and navy trucks full of heavily armed troops have become a common sight in the 130-mile-wide Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
  
• On one recent afternoon, cars, trucks and motorcycles drove slowly through a mobile X-ray machine manned by federal police on Highway 190. The machine looked like a crane with a boom that arced over the highway.
  
• A few miles down the road, Mexican immigration agents were searching northbound buses, looking for Central American migrants and drug couriers.
• At another checkpoint farther on, stone-faced soldiers questioned motorists about their destinations and used mirrors with long handles to check under cars.
  
• Last year, the Mexican navy caught a submersible boat as it approached the area carrying 5.8 tons of cocaine.
• A shrimp boat was caught with 3.3 tons of coke, and in January, the navy caught a fishing vessel with a 7 tons on board.
• On June 8, Mexican forces near the resort of Huatulco caught a "go-fast" boat with traces of cocaine on board and four new 250-horsepower engines apparently destined for outfitting other smuggling boats.
• Two other suspected drug boats were seized from a warehouse near Salina Cruz last month.

In Acapulco, 16 drug traffickers and two soldiers died in a shootout on June 7. Investigators suspect the traffickers were a cell directing smuggling operations along the coast for the Sinaloa Cartel.

Part of the change in routes is due to production patterns, Flores said. Coca-leaf cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia increased 16 percent from 2006 to 2007, but the biggest increase was in the Pacific and central regions of Colombia, the United Nations said in its latest World Drug Report.

Meanwhile, better radar coverage, more patrolling by Caribbean countries and better cooperation with the United States have made it harder to get drugs through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, said Scott Stewart, vice president of Stratfor, a global intelligence-consulting firm in Austin.

Smugglers have adapted by bringing the drugs to Central America, then using light airplanes or go-fast boats to race across the Mexican border and drop their bundles into the water, where they are picked up.

"It's smaller shipments making smaller jumps," Stewart said. "They'll take smaller boats to pop around the isthmus. They can take short-range aviation. . . . They're really quite resourceful."

To help fight the traffickers, the Mexican Senate took the dramatic step of allowing Mexico's military to participate in an April 19-May 7 naval exercise with the United States. Mexico has avoided joint exercises with the United States ever since the 1846-48 Mexican-American War.

"It was the first time we have ever allowed that, and it was precisely because of this threat," said Felipe González, chairman of the Senate Committee on Public Safety. "Our navy needs to get more knowledge so they can detect and stop these criminals."

Reach the reporter at chris.hawley@arizonarepublic.com.

The Rest @ News12 (AZ)

Mutli- Agency Gang Sweep in Northern Nevada

RENO, Nev. - A total of 37 foreign nationals with ties to violent street gangs in this area are facing deportation this morning following a three-day enforcement operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).The arrests were made as part of an ongoing initiative by ICE's National Gang Unit called "Operation Community Shield."



As part of the initiative, ICE partners with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies across the country to target the significant public safety threat posed by transnational street gangs.ICE received assistance with the operation from

• the U.S Marshals Service;


• the Sheriff's offices in Carson City and Douglas County;


• the Nevada Department of Public Safety Adult Probation Division;


• and from the Regional Gang Unit comprised of officers from the Reno and Sparks police departments and the Washoe County Sheriff's Office.

"This operation shows our collective resolve to attack and dismantle the street gangs that are threatening our neighborhoods," said Daniel Lane, assistant special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations that oversees the agency's operations in Reno. "ICE will continue to use its unique immigration and customs authorities to target these organizations and combat the violence and intimidation they use to hold our communities hostage to fear."

All of those taken into custody during the operation were arrested on administrative immigration violations and will be placed in deportation proceedings. They will be held in ICE custody and scheduled for a hearing before an immigration judge.

Many of the aliens arrested during the operation have criminal records, including prior convictions for assault, drug violations, burglary, arson, domestic violence, and battery on a peace officer.

Among them was a 27-year-old Salvadoran national with ties to the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang who previously served time in Nevada State Prison for battery with a deadly weapon.

• The gang arrests occurred in Reno, Sparks and Carson City.


• The vast majority of those taken into custody are from Mexico, but the targets also included gang members and gang associates from El Salvador and Nicaragua. ICE agents say those arrested are linked to eight different street gangs operating in the area, including the South Side Locotes, the Tokers and the Infamous Soldiers."The Regional Gang Unit appreciates the efforts to remove violent gang offenders from our streets," said Reno Police Department Deputy Chief Jim Johns. "These efforts make our neighborhoods safer for all of our residents.""Operation Community Shield" is a force multiplier that allows for overlapping jurisdictions to provide each other with the most current and aggressive intelligence to target crime," said Carson City Sheriff Ken Furlong. "This type of inter-agency cooperation and joint response helps to eliminate barriers, create efficiency and produce positive results."Since Operation Community Shield began in February 2005, ICE agents nationwide have arrested more than 13,000 gang members and associates linked to more than 900 different gangs. More than 150 of those arrested were gang leaders.The National Gang Unit at ICE identifies violent street gangs and develops intelligence on their membership, associates, criminal activities and international movements to deter, disrupt and dismantle gang operations by tracing and seizing cash, weapons and other assets derived from criminal activities.Through Operation Community Shield, the federal government uses its powerful immigration and customs authorities in a coordinated, national campaign against criminal street gangs in the United States. Transnational street gangs have significant numbers of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a connection to the border.To report suspicious activity, call ICE's 24-hour toll-free hotline at: 1-866-347-2423 or visit http://www.ice.gov/.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

The Rest @ Border Fire Report

$1.4 Billion Sinaloa Meth Lab Shut down

17 June
Based on this and other news, we can expect the Mexican Meth Supply to be further reduced. Street prices will go up and new local labs will move to meet the supply.

-Federico Gochoa


By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO – 4 days ago

BADIRAGUATO, Mexico (AP) — The Mexican Navy gave reporters a firsthand look Tuesday at what they described as one of the largest methamphetamine labs ever found in the country, with enough ephedrine to produce more than 40 tons of the drug.

The smell of chemical solvents was overwhelming at the remote mountaintop site in the northern state of Sinaloa, where Navy personnel on patrol last week stumbled across an enormous holding tank they initially thought might be used to water a marijuana plantation.

Instead, the tank fed water to a pair of enormous sheds where sailors found 49,640 liters (13,000 gallons) of ephedrine, a chemical used to make methamphetamine. That is enough to produce 40.2 metric tons of the drug, or about 309 million individual doses.

The members of the Navy patrol found drums, barrels and other chemicals used in the process at the site, located on a dirt road miles from the nearest town.

"This is one of the heaviest blows to the drug traffickers in this administration ... as far as synthetic drugs are concerned," said Vice Admiral Jorge Humberto Maldonado, who estimated that the precursors were enough to produce methamphetamine worth $1.4 billion in street value.

That would make it larger than the May seizure of more than 8 tons (almost 8 metric tons) of finished methamphetamine at a clandestine drug lab in the western state of Michoacan.

• In 2006, Mexican officials seized more than 19 tons of a similar precursor chemical, pseudoephedrine acetate, at a Pacific coast port.
• Mexico subsequently banned almost all legal uses of pseudoephedrine, but traffickers have apparently found other illegal routes to get the material.
• On Tuesday, Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million, the country's biggest seizure of the substance.
• The Navy was carried out the Thursday bust in Mexico's so-called Golden Triangle, where traffickers long have operated. But was no immediate indication which drug cartel ran the facility.

The Navy also reported Tuesday that it had detected a shipment of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks aboard a freight ship at the Gulf coast port of Progreso. The Navy did not provide an immediate estimate of the amount of cocaine found, but said it had been detected in an X-ray inspection of the shipment.

Also Tuesday, police found the bodies of seven young men who were beaten or shot to death in the state of Durango in northern Mexico.

At least three of the bodies had bullet wounds. The others appear to have been beaten to death.
Investigations into the case are continuing, but the style of the killings suggested the involvement of drug gangs.

An employee of the state prosecutor's office, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the bodies were found on a street in the city of Gomez Palacio.

And in the western state of Michoacan, three suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with local police in the city of Uruapan. State prosecutors said the shootout occurred Tuesday after police got a report of kidnappers fleeing in a truck and attempted to stop them.
More than 10,800 people have been killed by drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide crackdown on organized crime in late 2006.
Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report

The Rest @ The Associated Press

Marlon Osorio of MS-13 Found Guilty of Murder

A 26-year-old Mara Salvatrucha gang member was found guilty of two counts of murder and 10 counts of attempted murder in a two-day shooting spree in the San Fernando Valley, officials said today.

Two years ago, Marlon Osorio approached people he thought were rival gang members, asked where they were from, then opened fire, Deputy L.A. County Dist. Atty. Paul Nunez said in a statement.

A Los Angeles jury found Osorio guilty of the first-degree murder of Nelson Ramirez, who was shot five times while he sat in his car in Van Nuys, and Jessie Garcia, who was shot in Canoga Park. Both victims were killed Aug. 7, 2006, the same day Osorio attempted to kill four other people.

A week later, Osorio fired on seven others in North Hills, including one woman who suffered a collapsed lung after being shot in the back, Nunez said.

Osorio was found not guilty on one count of attempted murder.

The jury is scheduled to return Monday to Judge Curtis Rappe’s court for the penalty phase of the capital murder case, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Mara Salvatrucha, a Latino gang also known as MS-13, began in Los Angeles more than two decades ago and is believed to have tens of thousands of members in several countries.
-- Corina Knoll

More @ the LA Times

Cultura Narco

TIJUANA, Mexico – There likely won't be a hit ballad about drug runner Enrique Solis Mejia. Too bad, but the dumb chump arrested by soldiers with a truckload of marijuana doesn't rate as much of a hero in a country obsessed with its narco-culture.

Still, at a recent news conference at the army base here to show him off, a journalist/singer gave it a shot with something like: Oh they caught him in his big truck With a load of dope, They took him down, took him down Gone forever, poor Enrique.

Journalists fell over laughing (soldiers held it in) because everyone understands the depth to which the narco-world has penetrated Mexico's pop culture.

The drug environment is so ubiquitous in Mexico, a new vocabulary invades the lexicon, beginning with narcocultura. Narcocorridos are ballads about the cartels and adding the prefix "narco" describes everything from soap operas to sellers who offer drugs and soft drinks on corners.

Drug traffickers become icons, popularized through songs, movies and the media, because they are flamboyant, charitable, often evade capture or die in stunningly brutal ways that, with each telling, become more surreal.

Mexico's most wanted drug fugitive, Joaquin (El Chapo) Guzman, made Forbes magazine's list of billionaires earlier this year, his estimated worth of $1 billion (U.S.) putting him in spot No. 701.

In March, Forbes senior editor Luisa Kroll commented that, "unfortunately ... Guzman could not be reached for comment."

Every drug lord has a nickname, and "El Chapo" means stocky. He's been on the run since 2001, when he escaped from prison, apparently in the back of a laundry truck. The legend grows. A failure to claim the $5 million reward on his head since 2001 speaks to Guzman's continued grip on the narco-world.

Thought to be head of the Sinaloa Cartel, one of the oldest in the country, he reportedly continues to rake in billions in drug revenues from his unknown whereabouts, just as he apparently did from jail.

There's more to narco pop culture, however, than meets the eye, History has taught Mexicans not to trust authority, and drug gangs embody that sentiment. People find their heroes in the lucha libre wrestling ring or in the narco-world.

There's a crossover between songs about narcos and the tough lives of impoverished people who struggle to support families, and often pay a price at the hands of the police.

In his 2002 book, Narcocorrido: A Journey into the World of Guns, Gangs and Guerrillas, author Elijah Wald examined songs about drug lords, police battles and shootouts, as well as those about events in communities. He includes "Massacre at El Charco," sung by the popular Parjaritos del Sur.

It's about 11 indigenous farmers gunned down in a church, allegedly by soldiers, in the Guerrero mountain region of Ayutla in 1998. "What happened at El Charco, we'll never forget," say lyrics that are blunt about the murder of innocents.

The narcocorridos tell of drug lords who come from small towns themselves and understand the misery of the people. While sympathy for narco kings has eroded in recent years with the all-out carnage from drug wars that impacts in civilian killings, that attitudinal shift has not impacted narco-culture.

The Robin Hood tradition is old in Mexico, most famously in Jesus Malverde, a bandit from Sinaloa state who was hanged in 1909. It's said drug gangsters now pray to "the angel of the poor" like a patron saint, asking for protection for a cocaine run or a hit.

Visitors bring flowers and leave poems at his grave in the Sinaloa city of Culiacan.
The narco-world is mysterious, bizarre and, at its core, fascinating – at least as portrayed by pop culture.

Take Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Is he dead? Supposedly. The head of the Juarez Cartel checked into an exclusive private hospital in the north end of Mexico City in 1997 for a little plastic surgery – a 14-hour plastic makeover – with liposuction thrown in.
A new look, a new man, a new life.

However, complications arose in recovery when, according to reports, a bodyguard either smothered him with a pillow or a relative slipped a lethal dose of something into his IV.

Perhaps. But just as fervently believed is the legend the "Lord of the Skies" is alive and enjoying an estimated $25 billion in career profits.

More @ The Star

Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed ( Carlos Bledsoe ) Arrrested for the Deaths of two Soldiers

June 2, 2009

FBI Little RockContact: Special Agent Steve Frazier (501) 228-8403

Arrest of Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed

Little Rock Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Browne issued the following statement:
"On June 1, 2009, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammed, formerly known as Carlos Bledsoe, was arrested by the Little Rock, Arkansas Police Department for the murder of Pvt. William Long and the attempted murder of Pvt. Quinton Ezeagwula, two soldiers in the United States Army at an Army Recruiting Office in Little Rock.

"Muhammed is presently in custody and will face state charges related to the incident.
"The FBI is also investigating this incident, which may result in additional federal charges and prosecution.

As the investigation remains active, the FBI will not make any public statements about the status of the investigation of Muhammed. All information regarding the case is being shared between the FBI, the Little Rock Police Department, and state and federal prosecutors."

Source Little Rock FBI Office

Robert Beltran Burgos Captured in Sinaloa

The Secretary of Defense reported today that military personnel assigned to the Military Zone based in Culiacan, Sinaloa, Performing patrols in response t0 complaints about the presence of armed men on board luxury vehicles in the Salduero Culiacan, detained Robert Beltran BURGOS (a ) "THE DOCTOR" lieutenant of Joaquin Guzman Loera (a) "El Chapo Guzman."

The importance of this arrest is that BELTRAN BURGOS served within the structure of the organization "Guzman Loera, the functions that once made ALFREDO BELTRAN LEYVA (a)" THE MOCHOMO "and subsequently VICENTE ZAMBA FOG (a)" THE VICENTILLO "in the plaza of Culiacan, Sinaloa. He is an operator directly subordinate to Joaquin Guzman Loera (a)" El Chapo Guzman, "and ZAMBA ISMAEL GARCIA (a)" THE MAYO ZAMBA.

Their position within the criminal organization was to be responsible for
receiving and transmitting orders issued directly by Joaquin Guzman Loera (a) "El Chapo Guzman" to other members of this drug organization.

BURGOS BELTRAN, had a network of informants who warned of the operations undertaken by the Federal Government against the organization "Guzman Loera" in several places in the country.

He coordinates a group of fourteen lawyers for legal support to members of his criminal organization.

During his detention, officiaks secured three firearms, a Hummer vehicle, over $ 3,200,000.00 (THREE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND PESOS MN), over 350,000.00 Dlls. (Three hundred and fifty thousand U.S. dollars), communication equipment and various documents.

With the arrest of Robert Beltran BURGOS (a) "THE DOCTOR" will significantly affect the operational capacity and safety of the organization "Guzman Loera.

The inmate was secured and made available to the Agent of the Public Prosecutor's Office of the Deputy Attorney Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime, the Attorney General.

Source: Directorate General of Communications,
Secretariat of National Defense (SEDENA).

Joint Terrorism Task Forces

They are our nation's front line on terrorism: small cells of highly trained, locally based, passionately committed investigators, analysts, linguists, SWAT experts, and other specialists from dozens of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

When it comes to investigating terrorism, they do it all: chase down leads, gather evidence, make arrests, provide security for special events, conduct training, collect and share intelligence, and respond to threats and incidents at a moment's notice.

They are the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Forces, or JTTFs.

• The task forces are based in 106 cities nationwide, including at least one in each of our 56 field offices.
• A total of 71 of these JTTFs have been created since 9/11; the first was established in New York City in 1980s

Today, the JTTFs include more than 4,400 members nationwide—more than four times the pre-9/11 total—hailing from over 600 state and local agencies and 50 federal agencies (the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. military, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the Transportation Security Administration, to name a few).

The benefits of JTTFs? They provide one-stop shopping for information regarding terrorist activities.

• They enable a shared intelligence base across many agencies.
• They create familiarity among investigators and managers before a crisis.
• And perhaps most importantly, they pool talents, skills, and knowledge from across the law enforcement and intelligence communities into a single team that responds together.

Their contributions? More than we could possibly capture here, but JTTFs have been instrumental in breaking up cells like the "Portland Seven," the "Lackawanna Six," and the Northern Virginia jihad. They’ve foiled attacks on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, on the JFK International Airport in New York, and on various military and civilian targets in Los Angeles. They've traced sources of terrorist funding, responded to anthrax threats, halted the use of fake IDs, and quickly arrested suspicious characters with all kinds of deadly weapons and explosives.

Chances are, if you hear about a counterterrorism investigation, JTTFs are playing an active and often decisive role.

The task forces coordinate their efforts largely through the interagency National Joint Terrorism Task Force, working out of FBI Headquarters, which makes sure that information and intelligence flows freely among the local JTTFs and beyond.

And here's the final—and most important—thing you should know about these JTTFs: They are working 24/7/365 to protect you, your families, and your communities from terrorist attack. Resources:-

FBI Counterterrorism website- Inside the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 - The National Joint Terrorism Task Force - Terrorism cases past and present

Source FBI Website

$380,000 for Eliseo Barrón,s Killeer: Is it Guzman?

The Attorney General's Office offered a reward of $380,000 for help solving the homicide of reporter Eliseo Barrón, who was found dead in the state of Coahuila after being kidnapped from his home in the northern state of Durango, The New York Times reports.

The killing brings about a new scale of violence against Mexican journalists, adds BBC Mundo.

The leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquín "Shorty" Guzmán, threatened journalists by putting up signs within kilometers of where the homicide occurred. "Beware soldiers and journalists," one of the messages said.

The reward also generated criticism from some journalists, who claim it is discriminatory. According to El Diario of Ciudad Juárez, 51 unsolved killings of journalists have been registered in the country in the past nine years, and only in the case of Eliseo Barrón has an award been offered.

"Unfortunately, the [federal prosecutors] are not addressing the problem as a whole of aggression against journalists," one lawmaker said.

The Rest @ The knight Center, Universisty of Texas

Eagon Major Gang Summary

Thursday, 28 May 2009
More than 2,900 gangs boasting 73,650 members are criminally active in the East Region, according to the 2009 National Gang Threat Assessment published by the National Gang Intelligence Center and the National Drug Intelligence Center.

While the most active gangs working the East Region include the Crips, MS-13, Neta, United Blood Nation (UBN) and the Latin Kings, there are significant trends regarding growing gangs.

While the UBN and the Trinitarios are expanding in the area, it has been MS-13 that has captured the attention of law enforcement officials. Known as the most violent and deadliest gang in the United States, it is also the most organized.

Recent actions by law enforcement officials in the East Region have dented MS-13’s efforts toward stabilization, according to the report.

A review of four gangs either present or expanding in the area provides examples of both the violence and the commitment required by gang-life.

Displays of pride can contribute to expanding—and exposing—gang activity. This brief overview provides only a glimpse into four gang’s history, rituals, symbols, and philosophy:

United Blood Nation—UBN (Regional)

Colors:

• The gang’s predominant color is red, but members also wear black, green and brown. Members often wear apparel from the Chicago Bulls or Boston Red Sox to promote their traditional red color, and might even wear a baseball cap turned to the left, belt tips to the left, and a red shoelace on the left shoe.
• Members are known to place a bulldog tattoo, or three burn marks, on their right upper biceps.
• Beads in gang colors are often seen on member’s wrists or around their necks, and red bandanas are sometimes worn covering the mouth or neck, or displayed out of the back pocket.

History:

The Bloods are divided into two groups: the UBN or East Coast Bloods, and the West Coast Bloods. Although the groups do not consider themselves related, law enforcement efforts to address the group have been hampered by the name they share. UBN was founded in 1993 at Riker's Island by inmates Omar Porter and Leonard McKenzie. The gang was born of the need to protect members from the dominating forces of the Latin Kings and Netas.

The UBN is composed of mostly African-American street gangs, totaling between 7,000-15,000 members on the East Coast. The ages of gang members fall between 16-35 years, and female gang members are called “Bloodettes.”

Gang initiation for males can include cutting or slashing an individual, and females can be required to perform sex acts on male gang members.

Crimes: Funds for the gang are derived from the distribution of cocaine, heroin and marijuana. According to law enforcement officials in 10 states, the gang transports the drugs into and within their states.

The gang has expanded from their home base in New York and New Jersey to other areas in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Southeast regions.

Other Notes: Bloods communicate by hand signals, graffiti, and stacking. Bloods speak in code, and never pronounce the letter “c.” When corresponding, gang members cross out the letter “c” and replace it with the number 3, to show disrespect towards the rival Crips.

The 18th Street Gang

Colors: Blue and white. Many members of 18th Street wear a white t-shirt with brown or black pants. The most identifying tattoos include the number 18, represented in Roman numerals (XVIII), or the number 666.

Tattoos often adorn the entire body—even the visible areas of the forehead or eyelids.

History: 18th Street is one of the largest Hispanic street gangs in the United States. Formed in the 1960s, the gang began as the “Clanton Street Gang.” The gang limited membership to American citizens from a pure Hispanic background—those without citizenship or mixed background were forbidden to join the gang. Denied by Clanton Street, many habitual criminals still participated in illegal activities, were arrested and sent to juvenile detention facilities, where they formed their own gang, the 18th Street.

Sergeant Valdemar, who started the gang, lived on 18th Street, and they took the name as their own.

18th Street is primarily composed of Hispanics, but also includes African Americans, Caucasians, and Native Americans. The gang spread to other states for recruitment, the first gang to successfully expand. There is evidence of more than 30,000 18th Street gang members in North America.

Crimes: The gang’s criminal activities include auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, drug sales, arms trafficking, extortion, rape and murder for hire.
Other Notes: Tattoos and graffiti often include the words “dieciocho,” “sureno,” or “sur.”

MS-13

Colors: The colors for the MS-13 are blue and white. Clothing often includes a blue and white bandana, representing Salvadorian flag colors.

History: Born in the Pico Union area of southern California, the gang swiftly spread to El Salvador and ultimately to Canada. After the El Salvadorian civil wars in the 1980s, illegal immigrants found their way to California and formed MS-13 to protect themselves against existing Hispanic gangs. In the 1990s, federal authorities took aim at MS-13, deporting many key players back to El Salvador, where they flourished.

MS-13 has been blamed for intimidating the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. In 2004, warnings to governments to discontinue their targets on gangs were attached to the bodies of two dismembered males.

Months later, MS-13 gang members attacked a bus with 22 women and six children. All 28 passengers were found dead, butchered with machetes. Because of alleged ties to Al Qaeda, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has created an MS-13 National Gang Task Force, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has formed Operation Community Shield.

Crimes: Starting with extortion, robbery, burglary, drug dealing and prostitution, crimes have grown to include large-scale smuggling of narcotics, weapons and humans. The gang has also been labeled as a middleman between the Colombian drug cartels and La Cosa Nostra.

Other Notes: Members who have performed and earned a reputation within the gang receive a higher status. The leader, also known as “shot-caller” or “ranflero” is decided by the gang’s cliques. The gang has spread to 33 states and Washington D.C.; El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and Canada. Tattoos of “13,” “sureno” (Spanish for “southerner”), “M”, “MS”, or “Salvadorian Pride” in gothic font, are generally displayed across the chest area.
The Crips

Colors: Members are represented by wearing blue, including blue bandannas or rags. They are also often identified as wearing British Knights tennis shoes.

History: The Crips–the infamous rivals of the Bloods–were founded by a 15-year-old boy named Raymond Washington in 1969 in Los Angeles. The gang was named “Baby Avenues,” after their home turf of Central Avenue in East Los Angeles. Washington and fellow gang member Stanley “Tookie” Williams wanted to emulate the Black Panthers and further establish their gang as a dominant group. The “Baby Avenues Gang” evolved into “Avenue Cribs,” since most of the gang lived on Central Avenue. In the 1980s, the gang known as the “Crips” led efforts to sell crack cocaine, developing intricate networks. At the same time, the Crips were developing in Belize in Central America, and eventually traveled and established new gangs on the west and east coasts of the United States.

Crimes: Transportation and distribution of drugs, money laundering, assault, auto theft, burglary, carjacking, drive-by shooting, extortion, identification fraud, and homicide.

Other Notes: Female Crip members initiate into the gang by committing a crime in front of gang witnesses, during a process called ‘Loc’ing–In, or become Sexed-In, which is sex with several older members. They use the letter “c” instead of “b” to show disrespect to the Bloods. They often display a six-pointed star or pitchfork.

The National Gang Intelligence Center predicts national-level gangs, in conjunction with regional-level street gangs, will increase efforts to control local gangs.

The center predicts these efforts will culminate in an escalation of gang-related violence in the East Region. Intelligence also predicts the expansion of gangs in the East Region, with gangs spreading from urban communities into suburbia, and even into rural areas.

By Amy Burns

The Rest @ Loudoni.com

The film "Queen of the South" -- about a cocaine smuggler -- was slated to be filmed in Sinaloa on Mexico's northern coast but the film's director said he received threats and was forced to pull the plug on production, Variety reported.

"I've worked really hard to make this beautiful movie, but the safety of my family and my team comes first," Jonathan Jakubowicz told Variety. "Making this movie [would have] put us all at risk, not only in Mexico but in the U.S."

"The world should pray for peace in Mexico," the director said.

Jakubowicz allegedly received threats at his family's home in Los Angeles, the Independent (UK) reported.

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Hollywood has been a boon to Mexico's economy but some fear the recent surge of violence that has left 7,000 people dead in the past year alone will deter filmmakers from working in the country.

"Queen of the South" is about a woman in Mexico who heads to Spain following the murder of her boyfriend, a drug-runner. She gets heavily involved in a drug smuggling ring and then seeks revenge on the person who killed her former beau.


The Rest @ NBCDFW

Jarez Police Raids

US Deploys Forces Along the Mexican Border

Published April 3rd, 2009

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking April 2 at the Mexico / United States Arms Trafficking Conference, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, has vowed that "we will win" in the battle against Mexican-based narcotics cartels, whose violence has metastasized in recent years, claiming thousand of lives and spilling across the border, into American towns and states.

U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, have acknowledged in recent days that American demand for illegal drugs and easily obtainable American arms are fueling the expanding Mexican narco-war.

As Holder put it in Cuernavaca, the U.S. "shares responsibility for this problem and we will take responsibility by joining our Mexican counterparts in every step of this fight."

The Justice Department's next moves, Holder specified, will be to detail "100 new ATF personnel to the Southwest border in the next 100 days to supplement our ongoing Project Gunrunner.

Those Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents will be going to the Houston field office, where they will support Gunrunner Impact Teams (GRITs), expected to focus on firearms trafficking.

• So far, according to the Department of Justice, Project Gunrunner has resulted in approximately 650 cases by ATF, in which more than 1,400 defendants were referred for prosecution in federal and state courts and more than 12,000 firearms were involved.
• Recovery Act funding for Gunrunner will establish new three permanent field offices, "dedicated to firearms trafficking investigations," according to the DoJ. Those new offices will be in McAllen, TX; El Centro, CA; and Las Cruces, NM, with a satellite office in Roswell, NM.
• In addition, Holder said, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is adding 16 new positions on the border, as well as mobile enforcement teams, and the FBI is creating a new intelligence group focusing on kidnapping and extortion.

The latest additions mean that 29 percent of the DEA's domestic agents are now in its Southwest border field offices, according to the DoJ.

Holder called for an "attack in depth, on both sides of the border, that focuses on the leadership and assets of the cartel." Arrayed on the U.S. side of Holder's proposed attack in depth will be the Special Operations Division (SOD), a multi-agency task force headed by the DEA, whose mission is to "establish seamless law enforcement coordination, strategies and operations aimed at dismantling national and international narco-trafficking, narco-terrorists and other criminal organizations by attacking their command and control structure";

and various intelligence centers, such as the El Paso Intelligence Center and the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces Fusion Center, according to the DoJ. Holder likened the coming strategy to the "full-bore, prosecution-driven approach that the U.S. Department of Justice took to dismantle La Cosa Nostra -- once the most powerful organized crime group operating in the United States."

The Rest @ Government Security News Magazine

Al Qaeda, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) Linked

Interpol: Terrorist group Al-Qaeda could have links with the Central American gangsBy m3report

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERSVisit our website: http://nafbpo.org/Foreign News Report

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis.

You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.

La Hora (Guatemala City, Guatemala) 4/8/09

“Risk of links between gangs and Al-Qaeda is confirmed” -full translation-
Ronald Noble, Interpol Secretary General, said that the terrorist group Al-Qaeda could have links with the Central American gangs, also known as “maras”.

The official supported his hypothesis after analyzing a data base with names and data belonging to the international security organization.

Noble confirmed the risk of the relation between the two groups during the recent Interpol Americas’ International Conference which took place in the city of Vina del Mar, on Chile’s central coast.

According to the official, the information – not yet confirmed – reveals that there is contact between the terrorist activists and the gangsters who dedicate themselves to the traffic of drugs and people in the region.

Al-Qaeda has defined itself as an Islamic resistance group presumably led by the fundamentalist Osama bin Laden, to whom is attributed the intellectual authorship of the terrorist attack to the World Trade Center in 2001, among others of great magnitude.

(Guatemala’s) Secretary of Government, Salvador Gandara, indicated he is unaware of the information reported by Interpol, nevertheless he acknowledges the way in which the maras operate on Guatemala’s border in conjunction with the “narco-terrorist” groups.

The official pointed out that the gangs were initially formed by Central American immigrants residing in the United States, where they would defend the barrios where they belonged. Gandara maintains “Mara 18 was born in the jails and its name came from 18th Street in Los Angeles, it’s a most troubled barrio.”

Then came the mass deportations of Central Americans from the United States, and this way also the criminal groups entered the region. “They have also deported criminality”, he maintains.

The Secretary of the Interior did not confirm that there may exist links between the maras and the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, but that they do have them with the drug traffickers “who generate terror wherever they go.”

The official confirms that the maras are an executing arm which generates chaos and instability to facilitate drug and other illicit traffic in Central America.

Contrary to what Interpol has revealed, security analyst Sandino Asturias, believes that there is no relationship between the maras which operate in Central America and Al-Qaeda’s terrorists structures from the Middle East.

He asserts “Those statements lead to an over-evaluation of the organization and the reach which the maras have” He adds, “This aims to introduce a security agenda to the liking of the United States”. According to Asturias, “Al Qaeda does not represent a potential threat for Central America and Latin America, given that their objectives are different from those it has found in the world powers”

The Rest @ M3 Report via National Association of Former Border Patrol Agents

30 Saint Death Chapels Destroyed in Nuevo Loredo

Mexican federal authorities used bulldozers to bring down more than 30 chapels devoted to “Saint Death” - a figure that is worshipped by drug traffickers - in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, the daily Reforma reported Wednesday.The image of the saint is a skeleton dressed and adorned as a woman, and is not based on any particular Roman Catholic saint. Many criminals, but also people without a criminal record and even police officers, have taken it as their patron saint.

Although the figure is venerated by people from many walks of life, the saint has been adopted by drug gangs.

• In recent years, there has been a proliferation around Mexico in the construction of such chapels - varying in size from small shrines to larger buildings - from materials including brick, marble, iron and tiles.
• They use Roman Catholic symbolism and ceremonies, although the formal church rejects worship of “Saint Death” as a pagan tradition and the authorities have long removed the tradition from the list of the country’s religious associations.
• In Mexico City, there is even a sanctuary and a so-called bishop - a man with no known ties to drug trafficking - for worship of “Saint Death.”

According to the report in Reforma, the chapels that were destroyed in Nuevo Laredo were on an access road to the city. One was a two-floor building and featured a 2-metre-tall image of Saint Death.

The owner of one of the altars told reporters that he had spent some 13,700 dollars to build it and decorate it.“When you go in or out of Nuevo Laredo you see these chapels, which are most impressive, spectacular, but people constantly complain that they give the impression that this is a place for criminals,” an unidentified official source told the daily, to explain the decision.

The Rest @ Gangster