Sinaloa Cartel Moves its Meth Production to Guatemala

It is evident that meth production has moved south. South of Mexico that is, to Guatemala.

 This week, in the pacific coast port of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexican authorities made a seizure of 120 metric tons of aprecursor chemical needed to manufacture meth. It was destined to Puerto Quetzal, Guatemala.

• This brings the total to 675 tons of precursor seized inDecember alone, and every bit of it was being transported to Guatemala. 
•  For their part authorities in Guatemala have seized 7900 barrels of precursors in the year of 2011. That amounts to 1600 tons, out confiscating Mexico's 1200 for the same timeframe. 1600 tons is four times the amount seized in 2010.

• The five shipments seized in December originated in China then drop shipped in Mexico but headed for Guatemala for production.
•  The Lazaro Cardenas Port is known to be used by the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Knights Templar cartel is based in Lazaro Cardenas, however Los Zetas and Sinaloa cartels are the most active drug cartels in Central America, and reportedly Sinaloa has moved meth production into Guatemala on an industrial scale.


Typically when the ability of production is compromised there is a logistic shift. According to theUN Drug and Crime 2011 Report:

"When controls over precursors were strengthened in theUnited States, manufacture shifted to Mexico, as Mexico has responded withstrong counter-methamphetamine initiatives, manufacturing activities areincreasingly reported from countries in Central and South America."

• Carlos Menocal the Interior Minister of Guatemala stated tothe associated press that the Sinaloa Cartel has establish operations in Guatemala by forming an alliance with a gang led by Juan Alberto Ortiz Lopez,who goes by the moniker “Chamale”. Who was arrested in March but was considered the most important trafficker inGuatemala by the United States.

"What we have found is that Chamale has links to the Sinaloa cartel," Menocal said, “ Those links include coordinating theprocessing or "cooking" of meth”.

• "An analysis byGuatemala's intelligence indicates the laboratories were managed by Mexicans,"Menocal said. "They come to oversee the drug production process; Mexican chemists came to establish the formulas and local people talk about Mexicans who came and went, doing this work."

Guatemala, a poor, ill resourced country will be incapableto be a challenge to powerful cartels such as Sinaloa and Los Zetas. Zetas are said to control 75% of the countrywith regions literally abandoned by the government. It would appear that the only impedimentsthey would encounter are those from each other.

The Rest @ The BorderLand  Beat

A Mother Who Outed Ramon Arellano Felix

Contrary to popular myth, things do disappear off the web....Here is An Old Letter Originally published in 1997, for the record....

-Gochoa.

***************

Mrs. Maria Castaños sent a letter to Ramon Arellano Felix, the bloodiest of the brothers of the Tijuana Cartel, to ask him why he had murder her two sons. This letter was published in the weekly Zeta Tijuana by Blancornelas, the letter infuriated Ramon and led to the attack on the journalist on November 27, 1997.

******************

"From the first moment I heard of the fatal incident of my beloved sons I wanted to yell at him, ask him: Why such cruelty? Why the rage? What did they do wrong? What did they do to you, for you to kill them like that? How serious was it, that you could not forgive them? What led you to allow this?.

Now that you're on the edge of the scaffold, I said to myself: Do not let him go without knowing what my son used to say about him and what I think about.

My beloved son had loyalty. Do you know that word? He had loyalty Not Fear like everyone else around you, who say they will be with you until their deaths and they only looking for a way to stab you in the back like they way they did it to my sons.

I often used to tell him not to greet you. To look for a way of not being your friend, much less to work with you. And he, very confident replied: "Do not believe everything they say about him. He is good, he is righteous. He doesn't like bullies. He has a candle for all those who have fallen in battle. He is a good friend."

Can you believe the innocence or ignorance of my son?

With that candle story you were able to win the heart of my son. How far he was from knowing who you really are, you are a nest of betrayal, full of cowardice, an evil person afraid of loosing power, you're afraid, and you fear reflects on your atrocities.

He also said you gave him an opportunity to work, and he appreciated that you would helped him, and he was grateful.

You, Ramon, you know very well that my son was a victim of the problems and differences he had with Ismael Higuera Guerrero "El Mayel" and that he, my son, wanted to bring out the truth about the robbery. He want it to do it for the Spaniard to know that he was robbed, and my son was not the thief.

Ramon did you know that your brother Benjamin wanted to help my son with this problem, we ask Francisco Medardo León Hinojosa, "El Abulón" to make an appointment for my son to talk to Benjamin.

My son came to finalize the appointment with Benjamin and talk with El Abulón for three days, waiting and sending messages to El Abulón. But he El Abulón never did anything to finalize the appointment.

While Benjamin here in Tijuana. El Varilla was ordered to ignored my son so it will be no chance to fix things between my son and el Mayel.

Ramon: I have been told you laugh about killing my son, why you laugh about? Why not recognize and acknowledge that my son was a man of courage and your team was jealous and afraid because he stood out among them all?, They are nothing but cowards, they are just looking to sell you out now that you have a wanted poster of millions of dollars for you.

Ramon: If my son went to El Tiburón was for two reasons, I think. One because he believed in you and really wanted to fix things with words, the same way just like when el Mayel had asked him to leave and my son did. Another, because knowing you people he preferred to go and save the life of his other companions including his brother, and what a mistake he did because his brother was the first one who got killed. Ask El Lobo if those were the orders he got from El Varilla to killed my other son?.

Ramon what did you order your gunmen to do?

Ramon did you know Manuel the Spaniard and his team were the ones who benefit from this. They never gave anything to the family. They kept everything. Boats, planes, money, goods, all the equipment and the trafficking route that my son created.

You did them a great favor and you destroy my life. You and el Mayel know, that the Spaniard, made the problem big because one time when he was drunk he told my son he had fifty million dollars to fight against you.

My son paid for the rumor the Spaniard created. Ironies of life. Those who served you in a time of need you have killed them in cold blood without them ever having hurt you, your family, or your organization. You made a big mistake killing my son, because he was loyal to you! And the Spaniard, the one who said those things about you is happily working making more millions.

To the family of my son, without a father, without money, without an uncle and father to an empty life. To me, without my children, I'm dead in life, miserable and crying night and day because I once had some adorable children and my children were human beings.

I ask you in good faith and in memory of my son who was a real friend to you, to please ask the Spaniard to return what does not belong to him.

Chava and Arturo, you know who they are, they are the ones who work for the Spaniard here and in United States. Chava also kept a lot of money that used to belong to my son, you Ramon are the only one who can ask for that money. Me, I can't I'm a woman without support. Or is he supposed to keep the money as payment for the killing of my sons?

My son sent word to me eight days after. That you were cruel. After serving you, you abandon him. Such is the human being. Is the phrase that said ( Love your neighbor as yourself ) to difficult for you to follow. "

"You know that the day of the fatal incident my son work came in, it was a very strong investment, and that is the claim I'm asking the Spaniard to pay for, he doesn't wants to talk to me or to give me my son part of the deal.

Even after taking the money for the stolen goods my son should have had some good money left. They don't want to give us nothing. Thats not right, you got your money back and my sons are dead.

Ramon: I'm talking about the person you asked for help, the one who got you out of the city of Tijuana and out of the country, when you had the Cardinal Posadas Ocampo problem. The police, the radio, the press, the television and the Vatican was all over you.


He didn't think about it twice, leaving his family and children knowing the risk of getting arrested or killed if confronted by the enemy. Your goal was to reach Mexico City trough the United States with stops at three or four cities in that country. You asked him to go with you because you felt safe with him, and because he spoke good English and his name was clean. He carried out the dead to buy airline tickets, check into hotels, ordering food in restaurants and he remain next to you, even when this big problem had nothing to do with him. You owed that person some of your freedom and your life. He used to like you as a friend and he always believed in you.

What my son didn't know is that you follow no rules, and you respect no man of courage. They didn't deserve to die, they deserved to live.

Ramon: My conclusion came to this:

First, what did you wanted to know that did you not know already.

Second, you think your group didn't have enough good reasons to do something like that to my son.

Third: Any problems you might have had with my son was not good reason for such cruelty.

Fourth: The kidnapping failed when El Lobo killed his brother and you couldn't ask for ransom money no more and because of that you acted like a savage with my other son.

Fifth: The most powerful reason I consider unforgivable is what you did with them and the raped of a family member, something my son never would have done because he had moral principles and very strong values to respect other human being.

I will finish this latter on today

Sixth: That only a deranged by jealousy and impotence of equal or better than them, we hated both me and my family, my King the greatest he had too much envy and anger, because his father from him The Fool is the example by always putting working, responsible, intelligent, studious. Having been in the best schools for their own merit and not money, or what their parents earned and especially not vicious either. And I think that does not forget, much less forgive that were better than him in every way, and this order gave Wolf: If the brother jump also puts you give because you Ramon did not have anything against the two.

Seventh: That rod only fueled the fire could have Ramon and you fell into their evil against my beloved children.

Eighth: That Rod and his brother, Spanish is combined to keep everything that came precisely at the time of the fatal accident and people like you serving him too, so he leaned on it.

I'm probably wrong, but you'd be the only thing that would get me out of doubt.

Ramon: I could tell which were the last words of my King?. I pray to God that saved him from the ignominy of which was being, abused physically and verbally. Is not that miracles do not exist?. How King implore me to you and your people and God, because Ramon, so cruel in you and your people, but you people just take orders and nobody has the courage to say that you do not agree with your methods.

Ramon: What cowardice committed with my Kings. We recognize that hurt were better than you and they could go far.

Ramon: I was scared and come to respect and recognition. Why are you that you were gay fellows who hurt them?

Ramon: You should make your memories, saying the reasons that led you to do much villainy. What was your ideal?. What was your reason?. What was the injustice that fought so viciously?. Why?. I'll tell you one thing. Have no value because you have always done your misdeeds covered in represent the state judicial authority and supported by them, you've always lying defenseless people. Do you think that's being brave?.

Ramon: Why not donate your brain for study by scientists and a brain that stores know cruelty when you had everything in life, parents, brothers, wives, children, money, power to kill in cold blood, having uncontrollable instincts .

Do you know Ramon? I remember when Tijuana was being overrun by Cholos and was stabbed to death in the colonies or city centers. You already worked here. They had been friends with court and you said you let them clean up the city of such people, that's how you get started and when you kill people for nothing, the court did not stop or you just named and that was in full revolution and I think there began to grow as a murderer untouchable.

Under the pretext of cleaning the city of Tijuana and the satisfaction of the authority, the difference was that the State Judicial stopped the cholos themselves murderers and you just never stopped, not because you had Arriagada, but for friendship brought with them, because at the beginning you never Amager. What?. If you do not let work the disappeared. Asked permission to kill a member of the organization and gave it if you did, if not, no.

I say to the sociologist Luis Astorga university researcher that there is no "black hole" in the arrival of the Tijuana Arellano here because there are many people alive who can tell you how it worked and who were the lords and masters, but by the amounts and not bringing bloodthirsty, and the arrangements that have always existed in the Federal Judiciary or the Federal Security then. In addition, Secret Service, which is then passed to the Judiciary and State, wonders why Tijuana, Tijuana because it was always the goal. Geographically it was the nearest border and San Luis Rio Colorado was a break, Mexicali and Tijuana, the end.

Now with the navigation can be Cabo San Lucas, La Paz, San Felipe, Ensenada and Tijuana by land.

Look Ramon, if the mother of the Wolf was deployed to the cynicism of demanding human rights when your child is a coward hired murderer and now even giving interviews to the media.

Alexander did not hesitate to say that his family believed in his integrity, when it belonged to the band's most bloody and is the brother of a multiasesino. What cynicism family.

I do not say that my beloved children themselves were victims of envy, injustice, cowardice of you and they do, my children, were men, not wimps. If not, let them ask the same Mayel, to you, Rod, at the same Jaws and The Wolf will qualify for the best as human beings and these, my kings, they were boss of bosses and lord of lords . Right, Spanish? At his young age.

I leave you with your reflection. You took the greatest thing that life had given me and left some children without a father as a father would be as much for them because it was, and I left her sad heart forever.

I tell you later. You have to pay for your mistakes in life. You do not deserve to die yet. That death is not your money or your punishment. May you live many more years and you know the pain of losing children, not parents, those do not hurt either.

Grieving mother.
M. Brown.

P. S. For me you can send me kill the time that you want, which I'm dead. Glad you gave my life in order to tell me the truth of the facts and that the name of my beloved children stay in the memory clean of my grandchildren. "

In 1997, Ramon Arellano ordered the execution of the daughter of Mary Brown, husband and newborn baby who was with her, the reason a letter his mother sent ZETA, where he claimed to have killed and fraud to two of his sons.

La Familia Michoacana Active in Austin, TX

The two men were returning to the small, one-story house in Northeast Austin from Alabama. Hidden in the back of their SUV was $110,000 in carefully wrapped bundles, money authorities said came from cocaine sales.

But responding to an informant's tip, federal drug agents found the men in the parking lot of a bar in Baton Rouge, La., where they searched the truck. As the officers pulled out the cash, the men grew terrified.

"I wish you would put me in jail," one of them said, according to a criminal complaint. "They are going to kill me over this missing money."

According to court documents, the money was destined for an Austin resident the couriers had reason to fear: Jose Procoro Lorenzo-Rodriguez, who authorities say is a local leader for Mexico's brutal La Familia cartel.

The raids that followed revealed that La Familia, a quasi-religious, hyper-violent group born five years ago in the mountains of Michoacán, used Austin as a base of operation to funnel large quantities of cocaine, marijuana and especially methamphetamine to places such as Atlanta and Kansas.

But in addition to providing a glimpse of the cartel's operations in Austin — at least four autonomous cells stretching from Round Rock to South Austin — the investigation revealed a crucial clue:

The men at the top of the Austin organization hailed from the same small Mexican town.

For more than three decades, the remote, desperately poor city of Luvianos, along with other neighboring towns in the mountains of central Mexico, has sent the majority of its northbound migrants to Austin, where they have worked as landscapers, opened restaurants and built a thriving community. One corner of Northeast Austin has been dubbed "Little Luvianos" by residents.

But Luvianos is also a prize coveted by Mexican cartels. Traffickers from the northern border — first the Gulf Cartel and later the Zetas — controlled the town until 2009, when La Familia won the region in a violent war.

Officials emphasize that the vast majority of Luvianos immigrants are law-abiding residents without cartel ties. But increasingly, authorities add, the cartel members who prey on Mexicans in Luvianos have begun to find their way to Central Texas.

"It's not surprising that (cartel members) are migrating to Austin as well," said Francisco Cruz Jimenez, a Mexican journalist who chronicled the recent history of Luvianos in his 2010 book "Narco-Land." "It's very natural that they look for communities where they have paisanos because they can go unnoticed."

Yet it's a development that local officials have been slow to acknowledge. Only last year Travis County joined the long-standing High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which coordinates and funds joint law enforcement efforts against organized crime groups. Other large Texas cities have been members for years.

As law enforcement agencies work to catch up, the Luvianos connection could hold important answers for officials trying to understand how and why La Familia set up shop in Austin. A thousand miles away, the sometimes bloody, often tragic history of Luvianos has become intertwined with Austin's future.

'A problem in Austin'

In 2008, more than 125 cities — including Des Moines, Iowa, and Dayton, Ohio — reported the presence of specific Mexican trafficking organizations in an annual Justice Department report. Austin was not one of the cities. That year, San Antonio, Houston and Dallas all reported that cartels dominated local drug distribution networks.

Since then, Austin officials have learned that as many as four cartels operate inside the city. Law enforcement agencies have arrested human smugglers connected to the Zetas, targeted local prison gang members connected with the Gulf cartel and conducted numerous raids on La Familia members. The Drug Enforcement Administration says members of the Beltrán-Leyva cartel also operate within Austin.

Local drug agents now say that though Austin has long been home to cartels and cartel-affiliated traffickers, better intelligence sharing among agencies and increased cartel activity have brought the problem to the surface.

"We've been a little slow to recognize" the cartels' local growth, said Michael Lauderdale, the head of the city's Public Safety Commission. "We're starting to feel the consequences of that benign neglect."




The July raids, part of a larger nationwide sweep that resulted in more than 1,000 arrests, confirmed the trend.

"If they busted four cells, you have a problem in Austin," said Phil Jordan, a retired federal agent and former director of the Department of Justice's El Paso Intelligence Center, which tracks drug trafficking networks along the border.

The cartel presence in Austin has sparked concerns about the possibility of increased organized crime violence, already experienced in small doses by cities such as Dallas.

Drug war experts predict that bloody outbreaks of violence in Austin are unlikely because it's bad for cartel business.

Jordan said any future cartel violence in Austin is likely to be isolated and targeted against rivals. "It won't be a shootout at the OK Corral," he said. "They try to do it in the quietest way possible. They don't want to create a hysteria."

Yet Austin already has a history of Luvianos-related drug violence. In 1992, a Luvianos man was fatally shot and dumped in the Colorado River. Prosecutors charged three men from Luvianos in the killing.

"These men came charging into (the dead man's home) with guns blazing," Travis County Detective Mark Sawa said at the time. "We believe they were looking for some marijuana that was just smuggled in."

A 2009 Austin murder also bears the marks of a cartel killing. Officials say the suspect is from the Luvianos area.

'Narco town'

Stroll through the small, bustling main plaza in Luvianos and you're likely to hear residents sprinkle their conversations with references to nightclubs on Riverside Drive and taquerias on Cameron Road. Immigration to Austin began in the 1970s, according to local residents, driven by deep poverty and a lack of opportunity in the rural, mountainous region. Since those first migrants landed in Austin to work in construction and open restaurants, money sent home from Austin has helped keep the Luvianos economy afloat, paying for quinceañeras, weddings and retirements.

The municipality of 25,000 is part of a region called the Tierra Caliente, or Hot Lands, which straddles the borders of Michoacán, Guerrero and the state of Mexico. The location inside an inhospitable and hard-to-access region of central Mexico has made it attractive to Mexican crime groups. The region has a light police presence: As recently as 2010, only 40 officers patrolled the hundreds of tiny pueblos in the municipality belonging to Luvianos, according to author Cruz.

And crucial to the cartels, the region around Luvianos is crisscrossed with unmapped backroads that lead to the largest port on Mexico's Pacific coast, providing access to ships offloading Chinese precursor chemicals used in the production of methamphetamine.

According to Cruz, the region today produces Mexico's highest quality marijuana and is home to the nation's most productive methamphetamine laboratories. "It was very natural that Luvianos turned into a narco town," Cruz said.

Cruz said the region was initially controlled by cartels from northern Mexico, whose leaders built luxurious homes in the hardscrabble town and paid for road paving to allow better access for their expensive vehicles and the heavy trucks ferrying drug loads.

Soon after La Familia formed in neighboring Michoacán in 2006, its leaders set their sights on Luvianos, which they considered their natural zone of influence, according to Cruz. What followed was a brutal war between La Familia and the Zetas, which reached its height in the summer of 2009, with daily gunbattles and dozens of killings, according to local reports. La Familia emerged triumphant and has since dominated the region, according to Mexican law enforcement.

The cartels have terrorized residents, enforcing nighttime curfews and beating civilians found outside their homes when convoys transport drugs or precursor chemicals.

"They controlled Luvianos," Cruz said. "You have an army of poor people who have either been immigrating or scratching out an existence in the fields. Then came the cartels, who arrived with money, and they hooked the local population, using them as transporters, a workforce for the labs and assassins."

Local Luvianos gangsters have also begun to rise through the ranks. According to the Mexican attorney general's office, La Familia's leader in Luvianos is a man named Pablo Jaimes, who gained notoriety after gunning down three police officers in the nearby city of Tejupilco in 2008 . Mexican authorities are hunting for the man.

At the beginning of September, seven La Familia gunman were killed in a firefight with police in Luvianos. Last week, Mexican police arrested one of the original founders of La Familia just outside the town, which police described as a haven for cartel leaders as they fight a splinter group, the Knights Templar .

A stronghold for La Familia

After making the trip north, most immigrants from Luvianos and its surrounding towns have landed in a small area of Northeast Austin near Reagan High School, filling a string of moderately priced apartment complexes.

Several restaurants and businesses have been started by Luvianos natives, and three days a week residents can board a bus at a record store on Cameron Road for a direct trip to Tejupilco, a regional capital next to Luvianos. In the middle of the neighborhood, residents walk past an idyllic mural of Luvianos, complete with the quaint gazebo that dominates its central square and the emerald Nanchititlan mountains that ring the city.

For longtime Austin residents from Luvianos, the appearance of La Familia in the city is a painful reminder. "Many people come to live here because they have fear" of La Familia, said one Luvianos-born business owner who has been here since 1985. The man did not want his name used because he feared retaliation against his family in Mexico. "Here, people aren't so scared because there have not been threats. And if the government hears about (cartel members) they grab them up."

Greg Thrash, who was named the resident agent in charge of the Austin DEA office three years ago, said decades of immigration from Luvianos to Austin have made it easier for La Familia to set up shop locally. "Austin is a stronghold for La Familia; we know that," said Thrash, who led the effort to bring Austin into the federal drug trafficking program. "I believe it's generational and familial. They will deal with those they feel comfortable with. That's why you see the presence in certain parts (of the United States), because of family."

Such ties were evident during the July Austin bust, which netted about three dozen suspects who face a range of charges in federal court, including conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. Among them were three men in Alabama who also were from the Luvianos region and received drug shipments from Austin, according to drug task force agents there. In 2009, local agents arrested four people with ties to the cartel as part of another nationwide bust.

According to the DEA, La Familia has operated at least four cells in Austin, each independent and unaware of what orders the others were receiving from cartel bosses in Luvianos. "It was very compartmentalized," Thrash said. The operation was also lucrative, according to Thrash, who said millions of dollars were moved through Austin stash houses. According to a sprawling, 44-suspect indictment, members of the group made several wire transfers to Luvianos.

A DEA chart outlining the structure of the organization identified four men arrested in the recent roundups as cell leaders: Lorenzo-Rodriguez, Jose Luis Jaimes Jr., Alexandro Benitez-Osorio and Jesus Sanchez-Loza. All four have pleaded not guilty to charges including conspiracy to launder money and to distribute controlled substances. They are being held without bail at area jails.

Lawyers for the four either refused to talk on the record or did not respond to requests for comment. One lawyer said the charges against the group were overblown.

The group smuggled drugs in both traditional and innovative ways, Thrash said. In addition to using private vehicles to cross the border in Laredo, he said, the group used FedEx to ship methamphetamine to Austin — on at least one occasion inside a children's book.

Agents seized 30 kilograms of liquid methamphetamine in mini Heineken kegs, a troubling trend for drug agents because liquid drugs can be more difficult to detect than powders or pills.

The ringleaders of the four Austin cells drove inconspicuous vehicles and apparently spent little money locally. "All the money goes back to Mexico," Thrash said. Several members of the group were family men, living with their young children and wives. And Jaimes included his wife in drug trafficking trips, according to pretrial testimony.

In Colony Park, neighbors said they often saw numerous cars parked in front of the house on Bryonwood Drive, where one of those named as a cell leader, Lorenzo-Rodriguez, lived.

"They didn't talk to nobody," said a 55-year-old neighbor who lives a block from the 1,100-square-foot house, which has an appraised value of about $69,000 and is owned by a California man, according to county records. The man, after learning his neighbor was suspected of being a cartel member, said he didn't want his name used for fear of retaliation. "It surprised me when they got raided."

According to court documents, the threat of violence hung over the organization.

After the May Baton Rouge bust in which agents found the $110,000 destined for Austin, police let the men continue to Austin with a receipt for the forfeited money.

One of the men, Mark Rew, went to Lorenzo-Rodriguez's home and presented him with the paperwork. According to court documents, Rew was held captive throughout the day, both at the Colony Park home and at the nearby apartment of one of Lorenzo-Rodriguez's associates.

As dusk began to fall, Rew was brought back to the Colony Park home, where agents believed Lorenzo-Rodriguez was threatening him with a gun, according to court documents. Agents burst into the house, where they arrested the men and found cocaine, $8,000 in cash and a 9 mm pistol. Rew told agents he thought he was about to be killed over the seized money.

Street gangs a danger

Local officials and experts say large-scale cartel violence in Austin is unlikely. "It's a concern, but you have to go back to what they are using folks here for," Thrash said. "It's to move cocaine, methamphetamine to end cities." Cartels operating in the U.S. generally have avoided the kind of spectacular violence that marks their operations in Mexico. "They don't want to stir up U.S. law enforcement if they don't have to," said Ricardo Ainslie, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas who has studied drug violence along the border.

Sylvia Longmire, an independent drug war consultant for law enforcement agencies and author of "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars," said there is an important reason for the disparities in violence in the U.S. and Mexico: Much of the violence in Mexico is driven by the brutal competition for a limited number of highly coveted border entry points. Cartels, she added, will fight ceaselessly for border cities such as Juárez and Nuevo Laredo because once they control them, they can guarantee the flow of merchandise .

"Once they are here, the hard part's over and it's a complete shift in strategy and in the operators," Longmire said. "Cartels are not in the business of fighting over a corner. They let the street gangs do that."

That's what worries Lauderdale, of the city's Public Safety Commission. "What I think is the major threat in Austin is that they would use street gangs in the same way they do with the Barrio Azteca gang in El Paso and Juárez," he said, referring to a violent street gang responsible for many of the killings in Juárez in recent years.

Indeed, Austin police say they've observed a 14 percent jump in youth gang activity in the past year. "I think we're just on the starting edge of this kind of stuff," Lauderdale said.

Cartel violence is not unknown in Texas, especially in Dallas, where a series of shootouts have rattled local officials. In May, a Michoacán man was found guilty of the machine gun slaying of a Familia member, who was killed while he rode in a black Hummer in a Dallas neighborhood.

Austin also might have been the scene of a cartel-related execution two years ago. Police say that in December 2009, a man from a small town near Luvianos walked up to a taco trailer in South Austin and shot a 43-year-old worker, who was preparing food alongside his wife, after ordering some food.

A fingerprint the man left on a bottle of orange soda led police to Jose Rodriguez, who was later arrested in Illinois. Rodriguez, who is awaiting trial in Travis County on murder charges, used several aliases, according to police, including Pablo Jaimes, the name of La Familia's Luvianos leader and the hitman wanted for killing three police officers in 2008. Though Rodriguez was merely borrowing the name, investigators are looking into whether one of the arrested cell leaders in Austin is related to Jaimes.

It is unclear what effect the recent arrests have had on La Familia's organization in Austin.

"If you keep whacking at the organizations, you will weaken, dilute them," Thrash said.

But driving cartels out of Austin entirely is another question. The arrests "have had little or no impact on those organizations and their ability to bring drugs across the border," Longmire said. "These guys are so replaceable."

By Jeremy Schwartz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF


The Rest @ The Borderland Beat

Mexican Marines Engage Zetas in Fresnillo, Zacatecas, in day long Battle

A five hour long shootout between members of Los Zetas and Mexican Marines on Friday in the community of San José de Lourdes, Zacatecas left a toll of 15 gunmen dead and 17 arrested. San Jose de Lourdes, a community of 5,000 inhabitants, is located in the municipality of Fresnillo, where Los Zetas have created one of several strongholds in Mexico’s central altiplano, or high plains.

The Naval ministry (Semar) reported that the shooting began when a unit of Marines conducting operations in San José de Lourdes was attacked by a large group of gunmen from a safe house.

The shooting wounded six Marines, who were all reported out of danger.

The fighting began at 6:00am and as of 7:00pm Marines were still conducting house to house searches in search of more suspects in San Jose. Residents of the community reported a large amount of explosions from grenades and heavy weapons during the fighting.

Between 8:00am and 11:00am gunmen hijacked buses, large trucks and passenger vehicles and used them for “narcobloqueos”, or blockades, on the main roadways in and out of Fresnillo to obstruct vehicular traffic and limit the movement of authorities.

Shooting was reported in the afternoon in the important religious center and pilgrimage site of Platero, also in the municipality of Fresnillo, where the church of the Santo Niño de Atocha is located.

Units of Federal Police and Army troops reinforced the Marines, manning checkpoints and searching the central bus station and hotels throughout the municipality.

According to the statement from the Naval Ministry a large number of arms and ammunition and several vehicles were also confiscated during the operation.

Initially the fighting in San Jose de Lourdes was reported as a street to street battle that began when a Marine patrol intercepted a large convoy carrying over 250 Zetas, but this version of events was later denied by Zacatecas’ State Attorney General, Arturo Nahle Garcia.

In his statement Nahle Garcia explained that the number of 250 pertained to the number of armed Zetas believed to reside in the municipality of Fresnillo.

The Attorney General revealed that Los Zetas have a headquarters in Fresnillo and use the city as a center of operations. He stated that the criminal group is also present in other parts of the state.

“Without a doubt, Fresnillo is important to them (Los Zetas), they set up camp here 5 or 6 years ago and it is only recently that we have begun to fight them with the help of federal forces. It seems that previously their presence was tolerated.”

One of the Zetas killed in the battle with state police in La Lobera, Jalisco this past June 14, where the 6 young female Zetas recruits were captured, was a mid level Zeta commander based in Fresnillo.

“Comandante Ardilla”, Heriberto Centeno Madrid, led a cell of approximately 50 sicarios  (assassins)that operated out of Fresnillo and was considered one of the most dangerous men in Zacatecas at the time of his death.

It is not known if intelligence gathered at La Lobera and from the interrogation of the Zetas captured there led to the location of the safehouses attacked by the Marines in San Jose de Lourdes.

The Rest @ Borderland Beat

Chavez Protests Sanctions for Helping FARC

ARACAS — President Hugo Chavez challenged US President Barack Obama to prove US claims that four senior Venezuelan officials are involved in drugs and arms trafficking, as the foreign ministry formally protested US sanctions on the officials.

Washington on Thursday accused the Venezuelan officials of aiding the leftist Colombian guerrilla group FARC and put them on a list of narcotics kingpins subject to sanctions.

"I challenge president Obama to show proof of this outrage," Chavez told reporters at the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas.

The US move "is part of the Yankee empire's determination to place Venezuela one day on the list of failed states or ... countries that support terrorism," Chavez said.

Washington identified the men as Major General Cliver Alcala; ruling party lawmaker Freddy Bernal; Amilcar Figueroa, a delegate to the Latin American Parliament; and intelligence official Ramon Madriz.

Chavez said he spoke out to "defend the honor of these four compatriots who were unjustly named on the list."
Venezuelan authorities delivered a note of protest over the sanctions to the US embassy's charge d'affairs Kelly Keiderling on Friday, the foreign ministry said in a statement.

Relations have been tense between the two countries for years, and the countries have not exchanged ambassadors since late 2010.

The US Treasury Department action on Thursday authorizes the seizure of any assets the four men may have in the United States and prohibits US citizens from doing business with them.

The four were targeted for "acting for or on behalf of the narco-terrorist organization the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), often in direct support of its narcotics and arms trafficking activities," the Treasury Department said in a statement.

The head of the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control described the four as "key facilitators of arms, security, training and other assistance in support of the FARC's operations in Venezuela."

The Rest @  AFP

Jean Baptiste Kingery Moinssonm in Mexican for Arms Trafficking

CNN) -- Mexican authorities have an American citizen in custody who they say is suspected of trafficking firearms and grenades to a major Mexican drug cartel.

According to Mexico's attorney general's office, Jean Baptiste Kingery Moinssonm was allegedly smuggling firearm and grenade parts into the country. Once the goods were in Mexican territory, Moinssonm allegedly assembled and sold the weapons to the Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican federal police took Moinssonm into custody in Mazatlan, a beach resort in the Pacific state of Sinaloa, authorities said.

According to a news release Tuesday from the attorney general's office, Moinssonm was the target of a joint investigation by Mexico's Anti-Organized Crime Unit (SIEDO) and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on suspicion of smuggling grenade components and firearm parts through the border cities of Calexico, California; and Mexicali, Baja California.

ATF officials were not immediately available for comment on the attorney general's statement.
The statement said Moinssonm allegedly bought grenade components and firearm parts in gun shops in the United States and through the internet, and the weapons subsequently would be smuggled into Mexico for sale there.

A Mexican judge issued an arrest and search warrant targeting an address in Mazatlan, where the suspect was living. Mexican federal police said they seized a Hummer truck, three .22 caliber rifles and two collectible firearms.

Mexican federal police said they searched five other addresses in Mazatlan tied to the suspect and found an active fragmentation grenade, gunpowder, parts for high-caliber rifles, bullets and grenade parts.

Last April 13, Mexican police detained two Mexican suspects in the state of Baja California who were in possession of 192 inactive grenades, eight bullet-proof vests, and multiple firearm parts.
The two suspects detained in Baja California blew the whistle on another American citizen who was detained August 11 in Mexicali, Baja California. That suspect, identified by the Mexican attorney general's office as Habib Sayb Mujica, is being held under a 40-day detention order issued by a judge.

Tuesday's statement from the attorney general's office said Mujica gave police information later used to capture Moinssonm in Mazatlan.

The Rest @ CNN

Jean Baptiste Kingery Moinssonm in Mexican for Arms Trafficking

CNN) -- Mexican authorities have an American citizen in custody who they say is suspected of trafficking firearms and grenades to a major Mexican drug cartel.

According to Mexico's attorney general's office, Jean Baptiste Kingery Moinssonm was allegedly smuggling firearm and grenade parts into the country. Once the goods were in Mexican territory, Moinssonm allegedly assembled and sold the weapons to the Sinaloa cartel.
Mexican federal police took Moinssonm into custody in Mazatlan, a beach resort in the Pacific state of Sinaloa, authorities said.

According to a news release Tuesday from the attorney general's office, Moinssonm was the target of a joint investigation by Mexico's Anti-Organized Crime Unit (SIEDO) and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on suspicion of smuggling grenade components and firearm parts through the border cities of Calexico, California; and Mexicali, Baja California.

ATF officials were not immediately available for comment on the attorney general's statement.
The statement said Moinssonm allegedly bought grenade components and firearm parts in gun shops in the United States and through the internet, and the weapons subsequently would be smuggled into Mexico for sale there.

A Mexican judge issued an arrest and search warrant targeting an address in Mazatlan, where the suspect was living. Mexican federal police said they seized a Hummer truck, three .22 caliber rifles and two collectible firearms.

Mexican federal police said they searched five other addresses in Mazatlan tied to the suspect and found an active fragmentation grenade, gunpowder, parts for high-caliber rifles, bullets and grenade parts.

Last April 13, Mexican police detained two Mexican suspects in the state of Baja California who were in possession of 192 inactive grenades, eight bullet-proof vests, and multiple firearm parts.
The two suspects detained in Baja California blew the whistle on another American citizen who was detained August 11 in Mexicali, Baja California. That suspect, identified by the Mexican attorney general's office as Habib Sayb Mujica, is being held under a 40-day detention order issued by a judge.

Tuesday's statement from the attorney general's office said Mujica gave police information later used to capture Moinssonm in Mazatlan.

The Rest @ CNN

Report of Hezbollah Base in Cuba

Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

Internet Hagnah

Shiite terror group to use operations center to launch attack on Israeli target in South America,
Hezbollah has established a center of operations in Cuba in order to expand its terrorist activity and facilitate an attack on an Israeli target in South America, Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera reported.

According to Yedioth Ahronoth, the attack is meant to avenge the death of Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyah. The organization alleges that Israel was behind his 2008 assassination.

• According to the report, three Hezbollah members have already arrived in Cuba with the purpose of establishing a terrorist cell there.
• The cell is to include 23 operatives, hand-picked by Talal Hamia, a senior member tasked with heading the covert operation.

The operation, titled "The Caribbean Case," was reportedly allocated a budget of $1.5 million. The Cuba base is to be initially used for logistics purposes, including intelligence collection, networking and document forgery.

Hezbollah has been active in South America for quite some time now, primarily in Paraguay, Brazil and Venezuela, the report notes.

The Rest @ YNET NEWS

Tres Letras Uno, Traficantes, Cero

Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, one of the purported top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization is about to go on trial in Chicago. He has alleged (see article below) that he had a "deal" with the US Government that allowed the Sinaloa cartel to operate in exchange for giving up information on rival cartels.

Only a traficante del sur would believe that the federal government would agree to such a "deal". It should surprise nadia that personas de las tres letras regularly gain information from one Traficante in exchange for hunting him down and prosecuting him last.

Vaya con Dios, Trabajadores de la ley del mundo

-Gochoa

********************************

Deal Allegedly Gave Sinaloa Bosses Immunity in Exchange for Providing Info on Rival Drug Organizations

The son of a heavy hitter in a powerful Mexican drug trafficking organization has filed explosive legal pleadings in federal court in Chicago accusing the US government of cutting a deal with the the “Sinaloa Cartel” that gave its leadership “carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States.”

The source of that allegation is Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla, the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada Garcia, one of the purported top leaders of the Sinaloa drug-trafficking organization — a major Mexican-based importer of weapons and exporter of drugs.

The top capo of the Sinaloa drug organization, named after the Pacific Coast Mexican state where it is based, is Joaquin Guzman Loera (El Chapo) — who escaped from a maximum security prison in Mexico in 2001, only days before he was slated to be extradited to the United States. Chapo has since gone on to build one of the most powerful drug “cartels” in Mexico.

With the death of Osama Bin Laden in May, Chapo (a Spanish nickname meaning “shorty”) jumped to the top of the FBI’s “Most Wanted” persons list. He also made Forbes Magazine’s 2010 list of “The World’s Most Powerful People.”

Zambada Niebla, himself a key player in the Sinaloa organization, was arrested in Mexico City in March 2009 and last February extradited to the United States to stand trial on narco-trafficking-related charges.

The indictment pending against Zambada Niebla claims he served as the “logistical coordinator” for the “cartel,” helping to oversee an operation that imported into the US “multi-ton quantities of cocaine … using various means, including but not limited to, Boeing 747 cargo aircraft, private aircraft … buses, rail cars, tractor-trailers, and automobiles.”

Zambada Niebla also claims to be an asset of the US government. His allegation was laid out originally in a two-page court pleading filed in late March with the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago.

The latest allegations being advanced by Zambada Niebla, who is now being held in solitary confinement in a jail cell in Chicago, are laid out in motions filed late this week in federal court. Those pleadings spell out the supposed cooperative relationship between the US Department of Justice and its various agencies, including DEA and the FBI, and the leaders of the “Sinaloa Cartel” — including Zambada Niebla.

That alleged relationship was cultivated through a Mexican attorney, Humberto Loya Castro, whom Zambada Niebla claims is a Sinaloa Cartel member and “a close confidante of Joaquin Guzman Loera (Chapo).”

From Zambada Niebla’s court pleadings, filed on July 29:

• [Humberto] Loya was indicted along with Chapo and Mayo [Zambada Niebla’s father] in 1995 in the Southern District of California and charged with participation in a massive narcotics trafficking conspiracy (Case No. 95CR0973).
• That case was dismissed on the prosecution’s own motion in 2008 after Loya became an informant for the United States government and had provided information for a period of over ten years.
• Sometime prior to 2004 [when George W. Bush was president], and continuing through the time period covered in the indictment, the United States government entered into an agreement with Loya and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, including Mayo and Chapo.
• Under that agreement, the Sinaloa Cartel, through Loya, was to provide information accumulated by Mayo, Chapo, and others, against rival Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations to the United States government.
• In return, the United States government agreed to dismiss the prosecution of the pending case against Loya, not to interfere with his drug trafficking activities and those of the Sinaloa Cartel, to not actively prosecute him, Chapo, Mayo, and the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel, and to not apprehend them.
• The protection extended to the Sinaloa leadership, according to the court filings, included being “informed by agents of the DEA through Loya that United States government agents and/or Mexican authorities were conducting investigations near the home territories of cartel leaders so that the cartel leaders could take appropriate actions to evade investigators.”
• In addition, the pleadings allege, the US government agreed not to “share any of the information they had about the Sinaloa Cartel and/or the leadership of the Sinaloa Cartel with the Mexican government in order to better assure that they would not be apprehended and so that their operations would not be interfered with.”

More from the July 29 pleadings:

• Zambada Niebla was a party to the agreement between the United States government and the Sinaloa Cartel and provided information to the United States government through Loya pursuant to the agreement.
• Loya arranged for Mr. Zambada Niebla to meet with United States government agents at the Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City in March [17th] of 2009 [after the Obama administration took power] for the purpose of introducing Mr. Zambada Niebla to the agents and for the purpose of his continuing to provide information to the DEA and the United States government personally, rather than through Loya.
• Loya’s federal case had been dismissed in 2008 [while Bush was still in the White House] and the DEA representative told Mr. Loya-Castro that they wanted to establish a more personal relationship with Mr. Zambada Niebla so that they could deal with him directly under the agreement.
• Mr. Zambada Niebla believed that under the prior agreement, any activities of the Sinaloa Cartel, including the kind described in the indictment, were covered by the agreement, and that he was immune from arrest or prosecution.

Zambada Niebla claims, in the court pleadings, that he attended the meeting in March 2009 at the hotel in Mexico City as scheduled, with Loya present, and while there, even though he was then under indictment in the US, was told by US federal agents that he would not be arrested and that arrangements had been made “at the highest levels of the United States government” to assure his immunity from prosecution in exchange for his cooperation in providing information on rival narco-trafficking groups.

However, Zambada Niebla contends he was double-crossed, despite the assurance of the US agents.

He alleges in his pleadings that government agents “were satisfied with the information he had provided to them” at the meeting at the Sheraton Hotel on March 17, 2009, and that “arrangements would be made to meet with him again.”

"Mr. Zambada Niebla then left the meeting,” the court pleadings assert. “Approximately five hours after the [hotel] meeting, Mr. Zambada-Niebla was arrested by Mexican authorities.”

Fast, Furious and the House of Death

Zambada Niebla’s pleadings also reference the controversial U.S Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) weapons-trafficking interdiction program Fast and Furious — an operation, now the subject of Congressional hearings, that allegedly allowed some 2,000 guns to be smuggled across the US/Mexican border under ATF’s watch. Zambada Niebla contends that Fast and Furious is yet another example of the US government’s complicity in the carnage of the drug war.

From Zambada Niebla’s pleadings:

• The United States government considered the arrangements with the Sinaloa Cartel an acceptable price to pay, because the principal objective was the destruction and dismantling of rival cartels by using the assistance of the Sinaloa Cartel — without regard for the fact that tons of illicit drugs continued to be smuggled into Chicago and other parts of the United States and consumption continued virtually unabated.
• Essentially, the theory of the United States government in waging its “war on drugs” has been and continues to be that the “end justifies the means” and that it is more important to receive information about rival drug cartels’ activities from the Sinaloa Cartel in return for being allowed to continue their criminal activities, including and not limited to their smuggling of tons of illegal narcotics into the United States.
• This is confirmed by recent disclosures by the Congressional Committee’s investigation of the latest Department of Justice, DEA, FBI, and ATF’s “war on drugs” operation known as “Fast & Furious.”

As a result of Operation Fast and Furious, the pleadings assert, about “three thousand people” in Mexico were killed, “including law enforcement officers in the sate of Sinaloa, Mexico, headquarters of the Sinaloa Cartel.”

Among those receiving weapons through the ATF operation, the pleadings continue, were DEA and FBI informants working for drug organizations, including the leadership of those groups.

“The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers’ dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities,” the pleadings allege. “…

It is clear that some of the weapons were deliberately allowed by the FBI and other government representatives to end up in the hands of the Sinaloa Cartel and that among the people killed by those weapons were law enforcement officers.

“… Mr. Zambada Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests [from the US government] will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation ‘Fast & Furious’ were provided under the agreement entered into between the United States government and [Chapo Guzman confidante] Mr. Loya Castro on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel that is the subject of his [Zambada Niebla’s] defense [regarding] public authority.”

The Zambada Niebla pleadings even reference the infamous House of Death case, so named by Narco News, which has published an exhaustive series of investigative stories on the mass-murder case dating back to 2004.

From the pleadings:

Mr. Zambada Niebla also requests … that the United States government produce material relating to the … “House of Death” murders, which took place in Juarez, Mexico, and were committed by United States government informants. As confirmed in the Joint Assessment Report [JAT] prepared by government authorities investigating those murders, agents of the United States government had prior knowledge that murders were going to be committed by their informants but did not take any measures to either inform the Mexican government or the intended victims, because government representatives determined it was moreimportant to protect the identity of their informants.

The informants were assisting the United States government in the investigations of major drug traffickers and the government determined that the killings of over a hundred Mexican citizens was an acceptable price to pay for enabling them to continue their narcotics investigations.

The Great Pretense Unmasked

In its response to Zambada Niebla’s claim that he was working under “public authority” as an informant or confidential source, US federal prosecutors don’t claim outright that he was not a US government asset.

They argue, instead, only that “the government denies that defendant [Zambada Niebla] exercised public authority when he committed the serious crimes charged in the indictment.”

In other words, even if Zambada Niebla was offered some type of deal in exchange for his cooperation, that deal did not extend to the specific acts he is accused of in the indictment against him.

Federal prosecutors also ask that the court order Zambada Niebla to produce, prior to trial, “evidence that a specific American official or officials with actual or apparent authority expressly authorized [him] to import multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and heroin into the United States, as charged in the indictment, or expressly assured [him] that these acts were not criminal, and that [he] reasonably relied on these communications.”

Narco News spoke with several former DEA and FBI agents about Zambada Niebla’s contention that he worked, in essence, as an informant for the US government. Not one of those former agents, who asked that their names not be revealed, considered it out of the realm of possibility that Zambada Niebla might have cut a deal with the US government.

In fact, one former DEA agent said that by making such a claim, Zambada Niebla was essentially putting his life in jeopardy by outing himself as an informant, an extreme move that would seem to indicate that at least he believes he had a deal in place.

But, in the end, all of the former federal agents agree that unless Zambada Niebla has proof of his allegations that passes legal muster, he has little chance of prevailing — and at least one of those former agents said prosecutors would not likely have challenged him to produce such proof if they did not have a high degree of confidence that it does not exist.

A former FBI agent explained it this way:

• The U. S. Attorney General Guidelines for Informants requires that there be a written document called an “otherwise criminal activities memo” signed by both parties.
• This document spells out exactly what the informant is authorized to do and tells him that he may be prosecuted for any other illegal activities.
• This should be provided to the defense in discovery; however, it does not always happen. Some attorneys are not aware of this and do not ask for it in discovery and the government does not willingly give it up.

I suspect that the government did not provide this document to the defense and that is why they are demanding that he provide proof of his status. ... It would be very easy to prove what he was authorized to do by having the memo. [So] this may be a case of where the memo was never done….

The former DEA agent, who has extensive overseas experience, added:

• My instincts say he was an informant. It’s [Zambada Niebla’s pleadings are] an effort to “scare” or “frighten” the government to dismiss or reduce charges. Posturing, as it were. But there is a substantial risk for him. It’s pretty much a last ditch effort.
• Were it otherwise, the defendant would not want to be exposed as having cooperated with the government agents. However, he will have an enormous challenge proving his allegations.

… An agent [or US government agency would approve such a cooperative relationship with a narco-trafficker] … so the agent can snag a higher-level trafficker and garner the resulting awards, commendations and promotions. Sometimes, there is outright bribery or gifts of value.

It’s a win for the criminal informant because he may earn more money from trafficking and at the same time receive cash payments from the government for arrests he orchestrates. And that isn’t all: the informant’s own fear of arrest is reduced and he has a unique opportunity to effectively destroy his unwanted competition or archenemies.

And yet another DEA agent points out that “there is such an animal called an Attorney General-exempt operation, where the Attorney General of the United States [in the Zambada Niebla case, which allegedly dates back to at least 2004, it would have been the Bush administration’s Attorney General] could authorize that laws be violated [by an informant to advance a case].”

“This is usually done in money laundering investigations, however,” the DEA source said.
The other possibility, the former DEA agent adds, is that Zambada Niebla was tricked on an even deeper level, and was, in fact, not dealing with US law enforcement agencies, but rather a CIA intelligence operation.

“This would not be the first time CIA has used an informant and led them to believe it was an FBI, ICE or DEA operation,” the DEA source said.

If that is the case, the former DEA agent adds, Zambada Niebla’s case is sunk, since even if documents and other evidence exist to prove his allegations of US government complicity, that evidence would almost certainly be deep-sixed under claims of national security that would be invoked by that very same US government.

Stay tuned ….

The Rest @ Narcosphere

Hector Antonio Martinez Guillen Sentenced for Selling arms to the FARC

A former officer in El Salvador's Special Forces was sentenced to 31 years in prison after attempting to sell weapons to an undercover agent posing as a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC).

The U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia found Hector Antonio Martinez Guillen guilty of arms and explosives trafficking, charges which carry a minimum sentence of 30 years.

Martinez pleaded guilty earlier this year after being arrested following a sting operation carried out by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

The retired military officer sold the weapons and explosives in January 2010 to an undercover DEA agent who posed as a member of the FARC, the left-wing Colombian guerrilla group. He was subsequently arrested in Washington D.C. in November 2010, while attempting to smuggle a 20-kilo load of cocaine into the country on behalf of the FARC.

In late May, authorities in El Salvador arrested six members of the military charged with attempting to sell over 1,800 hand grenades to criminal gangs. That month, another former army lieutenant for trying to sell three M-16 machine guns. Similarly to neighboring Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador has huge stockpiles of military weapons, a legacy of a series of civil conflicts.

The Rest @ Insight Crime

20 Dead in Zetas - Gulf Shootout in Monterrey

t least 20 killed in Mexico bar, officials say

The attack takes place in the downtown of Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub hit by over a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.


Forensic workers load a truck with bodies after gunmen stormed into a bar in downtown Monterrey, Mexico, late Friday and killed at least 20 people. (Hans Maximo Musielik, AP / July 10, 2011)


By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Mexico City—
Gunmen targeting a rival drug cartel opened fire in a crowded bar in the northern city of Monterrey, killing at least 20 people and wounding several, authorities said Saturday.

The attack occurred late Friday in the Sabino Gordo bar in downtown Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub that has been buffeted by more than a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.

Authorities said most of the dead — four of them women — were bar employees. Mexican news reports said the toll rose to 21 after a wounded man died in a hospital.

The attack may have stemmed from a dispute over narcotics sales at the bar, officials said.

"The most probable line that we're following is that it was a direct attack against the establishment, rather than against the people who were enjoying themselves there," Jorge Domene, security spokesman for Nuevo Leon state, said in a television interview.

Monterrey, Mexico's richest city, was once known as a peaceful if uninspiring factory town. But the drug violence has turned it into something more like a Wild West outpost, with gun battles in the streets, brazen kidnappings and frequent slayings of police officers in outlying communities.

Some have expressed worry that if Monterrey is lost to violence, so is all of Mexico.

The government of President Felipe Calderon launched an aggressive, military-led campaign against drug traffickers in late 2006, a drive accompanied by furious fighting between drug gangs. About 40,000 people have died.

The latest carnage wasn't limited to Monterrey. In the northern state of Coahuila, next door to Nuevo Leon, the decapitated bodies of seven men and three women were found around the city of Torreon. The killings were attributed to clashes between the Zetas and traffickers based to the west, in the state of Sinaloa.

Also, 11 bodies turned up in the municipality of Valle de Chalco, in the central state of Mexico, outside Mexico City, in an attack believed linked to crime groups.

In the western state of Michoacan, federal police in recent days have battled hit men from a faction of the splintering La Familia gang. On Saturday, the government deployed 1,800 more federal officers to the crime-torn state.

The spate of bloodletting prompted Calderon's public safety spokesman, Alejandro Poire, to call a rare Saturday news conference to defend the government's strategy.

Poire said the violence was caused by "absurd" rivalries between criminal groups and not the crackdown, which faces rising public criticism as the toll climbs.

"The violence is not going to slow down by dropping the fight against criminals," he said.

The Rest @ Intermex

Drug Sub Captured with 2/5 Tons of Cocaine

The drugs were on the vessel sunk off the Caribbean coast of Honduras around two weeks ago by its four-man crew after the coast guard caught up with the suspected traffickers.

General Rene Osorio of Honduras said the semi-submersible sub had been carrying around 5 tons of cocaine and that half of the narcotics shipment was still on board.

Honduras is used by Mexican and Colombian cartels to traffic drugs to the United States. Mexican drug gangs have been moving into Central America since Mexico's government launched an army-led drive to crush them 4-1/2 years ago.

(Reporting by Gustavo Palencia; Editing by Eric Walsh)

The Rest @ Reuters

Guns at Tuscon Garage Sales

Earlier this week, the Justice Department said gun shops in four Southwest border states, including Arizona, will be required to alert the federal government to frequent buyers of high-powered rifles.

It's an effort to track the flow of guns into Mexico.

What if they're buying somewhere else where a background check and registration are not required?

On any typical summer Saturday morning in Tucson, you can drive through nearly any neighborhood and find a yard sale or garage sale.

You can get almost anything from these bargain bonanzas; from furniture to sporting goods, even weapons.

"If someone wants to sell a gun at a garage sale, it's their right to do so. It is what it is: personal property," said Tom Mangan, a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

While exploring one morning we found an East Side garage sale that had two rifles for sale.

"They've never been used," the owner informed us. He had all the papers of purchase and was ready to make a deal.

Anyone could buy them if they had the cash. No background check, no registration required. Even a convicted criminal could make the purchase.

"Certainly, selling them at a garage is their right to do so," Mangan said.

Darrell Murray is a retired highway patrolman with the Department of Public Safety who makes a little extra cash as a private gun dealer. He has his own bill of sale form to use when he sells a gun.

"Folks on their own, most responsible gun owners, are drawing up their own when they buy a gun from somebody," Murray said. " They get the serial number, how much they paid, the driver's license and the date it was purchased."

He and other dealers saw a spike in gun sales after Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. He also saw a similar boost after the Tucson shootings six months ago.

"They tend to do that when they think legislation is coming that would be hindering the purchase of firearms," Murray said.

No additional laws have been put in place.

Mayors Against Illegal Guns endorsed legislation to improve background checks on those trying to buy a gun.

In January, the group led by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg commissioned a sting operation at a Phoenix gun show. It illustrated the holes in the federal background check system and drew criticism from both sides.

If a gun shows up at a crime scene, it can be traced to the last register user. That's why it's in the best interest of the seller to have the gun registered to the new owner.

Some gun owners we talked to off camera say they want to avoid registering a gun because they think the government will take notice of their purchases. That's what makes private sales more appealing for them.

We spoke to a man who didn't want to be identified who bought a gun from a private seller years ago and plans to sell it at a garage sale.

"If I took it to a dealer or pawn shop I'd get $45 or $50. But at a yard sale I know I could get $150 easily," he said.

Back at the garage sale, we are certain at least one deal was made for at least one of the rifles. No background check, but no cash either. The customer decided to trade for another gun.

Finding a garage sale with guns requires some persistence and patience.

From our experience, some publications and websites don't allow the word "gun" in an ad. Sellers use other phrases, like ".22," ".30 cal" or "pea shooter."

They might also have everything else related to guns in the ad - i.e.: loader, powder, ammo, etc. - and you just have to fill in the blanks.

By Scott Kilbury

The Rest @ KOLD News 13

Terrorist Attack on Lewis-McChord in Seattle Stopped

he Department of Justice arrested and charged two American Muslims who conspired to kill US soldiers at a processing center for military recruits in Seattle. The men were identified as Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh. A third man, who acted as a paid informant for the FBI, was not identified. They planned on carrying out an armed attack on soldiers at a military center, just as Major Nidal Hassan did at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. So far, no links to external terror groups have been ascertained. From Reuters:

Abdul-Latif mentioned the 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, where an Army major is accused of killing 13 people, noting that "if one person could kill so many people, three attackers could kill many more," the informant told authorities, according to the criminal complaint...

The two men originally planned to attack the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state but then switched targets to the place where military enlistees are screened and processed, according to prosecutors.

Abdul-Latif developed an extensive plan of attack on the military centre, three miles south of downtown Seattle, and noted he wanted to attack people in the military, not civilians, the complaint said. He expressed little concern about dying in the planned assault, it added.

"Abdul-Latif explained that, in his view, murdering American soldiers was justifiable," the affidavit said. The two were provided weapons that were brought by the informant but had been rendered inoperable by law enforcement authorities.

Abdul-Latif provided the informant with $800 in cash to help buy the weapons and arranged to buy a bus ticket for Mujahidh to travel from Los Angeles to Seattle to participate in the attack, prosecutors said.

After being arrested, Mujahidh waived his legal rights and told FBI agents that the plot was to prevent US military personnel from going to Islamic lands and killing Muslims, the affidavit said.

The Rest @ The Long War Journal
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FARC Arms Trafficker "El Indo" Captured

Colombian authorities have captured FARC member and alleged arms and drug trafficker alias "El Indio," the brother-in-law of alias "Gafas," responsible for kidnapping three American contractors.

According to Director of Citizen Security Jose Roberto Leon Riaño, Aurelio Vasquez Serrano, alias "El Indio," was arrested while traveling towards Buenaventura, northwest of Cali on the Pacific Coast, on a public bus, with the alleged objective of "exploring drug trafficking routes," newspaper El Tiempo reported Thursday.

According to police, El Indio was an arms supplier for the FARC's 36th front, operating mainly out of the department of Antioquia, and 38th front operating mainly out of the Voyaca and Casanare departments, and also negotiated exchanges of cocaine for arms for the organization.

He is also a family member of FARC member alias "Gafas," currently serving 19 years in prison after being arrested in the military's Operation Checkmate, in which three U.S. contractors and the now infamous Ingrid Betancourt were rescued from the guerrilla organization.

El Indio was located by police after months of investigation, reportedly through a cell phone call he made from the bus, and has five arrest warrants against him for charges of terrorism, homicide, supplying weapons, extortion and drug trafficking.

The Rest @ Columbia Reports

Marco Antonio Guzman Captured

MEXICO CITY — Federal authorities detained a former police officer accused of leading the armed wing of the violent Juarez Cartel in northern Mexico, the government said Thursday.

Marco Antonio Guzman, who had several aliases including "El Brad Pitt," was captured Wednesday in the U.S. border state of Chihuahua along with two alleged accomplices, according to a federal police statement.

Guzman, 34, was brought to the Mexican capital Thursday and shown, handcuffed, to the news media.

Police said Guzman was involved in the June 15, 2010 car bomb explosion that killed a federal police officer and two civilians.

They also accuse him of being involved in drug-trafficking operations across Chihuahua. The state is one of the worst-affected areas of the drug war. It is the state of deadly Ciudad Juarez, where an estimated 3,100 people were killed in 2010 alone.

A federal official who was not authorized to speak on the record said Guzman's nickname "El Brad Pitt" comes from a disguise he wore when he served as a lookout for the Juarez cartel.

To go unnoticed, he tried to look like a tourist wearing his hair long, a baseball cap and a camera around his neck. According to the official, gang associates said Guzman looked like Pitt in a scene from the American film "Spy Game" about CIA agents, in which the actor wore a similar outfit.

The nickname apparently stuck.

Guzman had a $42,000 (500,000 pesos) reward for his capture, and may have been planning another such bombing; federal police said in a statement that he had been responsible for acquiring another load of explosives seized in Ciudad Juarez on April 25.

The Rest @ Huffington Post

Jalisco and Zacatecas, Mexico War

The Attorney General, Arturo Nahle Garcia, said that the violence was the results of a group of men calling themselves Carteles Unidos (United Cartels), who have recently made a presence in the region, and it appears that this criminal organization is fighting Los Zetas for control of the plaza.

At least six trucks were left abandoned near the edge of a dam which is located near the center of the town, and the state attorney general said that an investigation is in the process to find out what happened and to determine the identification of the dead sicarios.

The Secretary of Public Security, General Jesus Pinto Ortiz, and the director of the State Preventive Police, General Victor Manuel Bosque, were escorted by a significant number of troops from the state Preventive Police and the Mexican military conducted patrols around the streets of the town to reassure the residents that everything was in order.

General Jesus Pinto Ortiz confirmed that the situation was now under control, and it is so now up to the Attorney General to finish their work in order to determine the origins of the suspects that were killed.

He further indicated that there is a joint operation in place with the police in Jalisco to attempt to locate the suspects that fled in the direction of the municipality of Chimaltitán, Jalisco.

After the confrontation between the Zetas and the Carteles Unidos in Florencia de Benito Juarez, Zacatecas, the Mexican Army began operations throughout the state and in Jalisco.

In the municipality of Santa María de los Ángeles, Jalisco they located several vehicles said to have been used in recent battles, including what appears to be a compact version of the 2010 Zeta Monstruo.

The compact steel armored Monster 2010 has a top speed of 80 kph and presented the traditional side hatches as well as a modernized gun turret design. Although the vehicle was found in Jalisco, it is said to have been made in Tamaulipas and transported to Zacatecas were it was donated to a local Zeta cell. Reports indicate that the 2010 compact version of was the prototype for the 2011 design.

The vehicle, which could hold up to ten passengers, has four wheel drive, a tow hitch for transport, armor covered wheels, a stereo system, and satellite communication equipment.