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