US Ranchers Get Murdered on Trafficking Routs

April 9, 2010

Along the border, fears are growing that the escalating drug violence in Mexico will spill into the United States.

Last month, a well-known rancher was murdered in southeastern Arizona. Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant did it.

The murder prompted governors in New Mexico and Texas to send forces to the border. This week, the Mexican government sent dozens of police and soldiers to the Juarez Valley to restore order.

For many on both sides of the border, the fear is very real.
'Arm Yourselves'

Last week, residents held a town-hall meeting in Fort Hancock, Texas — a sleepy agricultural town on the border, about an hour southeast of El Paso, that looks like the bleak set of No Country for Old Men.

A couple hundred people crowded into the grade-school gym to hear a chilling message from Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West.

"You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves," he said. "As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."

You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves. As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you.
- Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West

His warning was prompted by the killing of the Arizona rancher, and the spiraling violence a couple of miles away in Mexico in a region known as the Valley of Juarez. The notorious smuggling territory is being fought over by the Sinaloa and the Juarez cartels.

"One of the men that works for me had five people killed in front of his house over there [in Mexico] this past weekend," says Curtis Carr, who is a farmer and county commissioner. "And he's moving his family over here this week. It's serious over there. Whether or not it's gonna spill over here, I don't know."
Nobody knows.

'They Poked His Eyes Out'

The sheriff warned citizens to be alert and report strange vehicles on their streets. But at the same time, he said, don't succumb to fear.

"We haven't had anybody kidnapped here yet, but it could come," he said. "We haven't had anybody killed here, but that could come."

The violence in the Juarez Valley directly affects this little Texas town.

A couple of weeks ago, gunmen in the Juarez Valley killed the Mexican relative of a Fort Hancock high school student. When the student's family in Fort Hancock heard about it, they crossed the border at 10 a.m. to see the body, and took the student with them.

"By 10:30, they had stabbed the relatives that went with him, which included his grandparents, with an ice pick," says school superintendent Jose Franco. "My understanding is that the gentleman is like 90 years old, and they poked his eyes out with an ice pick. I believe those people are still in intensive care here in a hospital in the U.S."

Franco says the boy has isolated himself from other students so they won't ask him about the gruesome attack that he witnessed.

Tactics To Drive Out Rivals: Arson, Murder
The Valley of Juarez has a long history of human and drug trafficking. There's lots of open farmland for illicit activity. It's close to the city of Juarez, a major smuggling point. It's right across from Texas, with Interstate 10 only a few miles to the north.
And the river, the Rio Grande, is no deterrent.

Veteran Border Patrol agent Joe Romero stands on a levee overlooking the international river — which this time of year is but a trickle.

"You can literally walk across the river — and some times of the year not even get wet," he says. "And with the ease with which you can literally cross the border here from one side to the other, this made it very lucrative and appealing to anybody trying to smuggle in whatever contraband they had."

In recent years, the Department of Homeland Security has put up 44 miles of tall fencing across from the Juarez Valley, and doubled the number of Border Patrol agents. As a result, marijuana seizures in this area have fallen 97 percent in the past four years.

But none of this has dampened the drug mafias' vicious competition to dominate the Juarez Valley.

Farmers In Esperanza Flee To Juarez

Esperanza is one of several farm towns in the Juarez Valley terrorized by the narco-war. Last week, traffickers are believed to have torched two houses there and killed the occupant of one. A large bloodstain on the back door of one house marks the spot where the owner was executed.
More than 50 people were killed in the Juarez Valley in March.
Arson and murder are the tactics being used to drive out rival traffickers, as well as the general population.

Along a highway, eight members of the Villareal family stand, their bags packed, waiting for the bus. They say they're all afraid because of the killings. There's no security, no work anymore, and farmers have abandoned their fields.

You know it's bad when people are fleeing for safety to Juarez — the most murderous city in the hemisphere.

The Rest @ NPR




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US Mexico Partner to Reduce Arms Trafficking

Monday, April 5, 2010

US Acts to Combat Arms Trafficking in Western Hemisphere
US Department of State
Outlines programs to strengthen partnerships and combat illegal activities
Fact Sheet

U.S. Acts to Combat Illicit Trafficking in Arms in the Western Hemisphere
“We’re acting boldly, we are acting swiftly, and we are acting in concert to combat threats that are endangering the safety and security of citizens across the Americas.”

— President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are committed to combating threats to the citizens of the Americas. As narco-trafficking and associated crime and violence continue to rise throughout the region, the United States has implemented programs to strengthen partnerships with the states of the Western Hemisphere to combat illicit trafficking in arms.

Training
· In 2009, the United States, Canada, and the Organization of American States (OAS) hosted the Western Hemisphere’s first customs and law enforcement officials meeting in Vancouver to discuss practical approaches and best practices for combating illicit trafficking in firearms.
· In 2009, the United States hosted a workshop in Belize on combating arms smuggling in Central America. The workshop aimed to increase states’ capacity to more effectively address the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms and adopt an operational action plan among the seven Central American states. A South American workshop is expected to take place later in 2010.

Tailored Assistance

· The United States has offered technical assistance to all states in the hemisphere, outlining available U.S. small arms and light weapons-related assistance programs to combat illicit trafficking. Programs are being designed to address the specific needs of individual states.
· As part of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, the United States is partnering with Caribbean states to develop programs that address requests for technical assistance to help tackle trafficking in firearms throughout the region.
Marking and Tracing

· The United States signed eTrace agreements with all seven Central American states and 14 of the 15 Caribbean states. eTrace is a web-based firearm trace request submission system that provides for the electronic exchange of criminal gun data in a secure environment. Expanding eTrace participation throughout the hemisphere is a priority for 2010, including the introduction of a Spanish version of the eTrace software.

· The United States provided the OAS a $1 million grant to supply marking equipment to states in the region in order to increase hemispheric capability to trace firearms and identify illicit trafficking routes and suppliers.
Stockpile Management

· The United States has assessed and offered stockpile management and destruction assistance to a number of states in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the destruction of aging and unsafe stockpiles, states are avoiding the potential disaster of an explosion, ensuring an increased level of safety for their citizens. Examples include the following:

· As part of the Merida Initiative in Central America, the United States has provided a grant for $1.3 million to the OAS for a program that will offer stockpile management and destruction assistance to the seven Central American countries.

· The United States has provided a $450,000 grant to the United Nations’ Regional Center for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean to build up the capacity of several Caribbean governments in firearms stockpile management and destruction.
——————————

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, March 25, 2010; distributed by America.gov, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.

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On Twitter

EL PASO, TEXAS (BNO NEWS) -- Authorities announced on Thursday the arrest of seven people charged after a kidnapping in El Paso and a murder in Mexico's Ciudad Juarez.

Those arrested include three Mexican nationals and four Americans linked to the posession of 100 kilograms of marijuana and the murder of Sergio Saucedo in Ciudad Juarez in September, 2009.

In August 2009, Border Patrol agents seized 670 pounds of marijuana hidden inside a tractor-trailer rig driven by Joey Albert Ashley, 39, and Manuel Hernandez, 46. David Vazquez, 42, and David Calleros, 26, were responsible for loading the marijuana into the tractor-trailer rig in El Paso.

After the loss of the marijuana load, Rafael Vega, 26, Cesar Obregon-Reyes, 21, and Omar Obregon-Ortiz, 21, kidnapped Sergio Saucedo from his home in Horizon City, Texas. The kidnapers took Saucedo to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, where he was murdered and mutilated in retaliation.

“The charges of kidnapping and murder should send the clear message that such violence will not be tolerated in the United States. We will aggressively prosecute all provable acts of violence committed within our jurisdiction, and those engaged in such acts will be severely punished,” U.S. Attorney John E. Murphy said after the arrests were announced.

“These arrests demonstrate that when spillover violence does rarely happen in our city, law enforcement makes every effort to bring to justice those people who committed these crimes,” said FBI Special Agent in Charge David Cuthbertson.

The Horizon City kidnapping incident that occurred in September of 2009 was a high profile case that received national attention.

Upon conviction, Vega, Omar Obregon and Omar Obregon could be sentenced to life in federal prison; if they are convicted of the kidnapping or murder for hire, the law provides that they shall be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. Ashley, Hernandez, Pena and Calleros face between five and 40 years in prison if convicted.

The Rest @ Wireupdate

FARC now has Strela and Igla ground-to-air missiles

The FARC and the Quest for Surface to Air Missiles

The Miami Herald today reports that the Colombian FARC has likely already fulfilled its long-time goal of purchasing surface to air missiles to be used against U.S.-supplied helicopters in Colombia.

The FARC has long placed a very high strategic priority on acquiring SAMs, going back to at least 2003. The commanders officially requested money from Libya and Nicaragua at that time to purchase the weapons because the insurgency was being so badly hurt by helicopters acquired by the military and police.

The helicopters allowed the military and police to extend their supply lines, increase mobility and pursue the FARC and other groups from the air, something that helped fundamentally shift the dynamics of the war.

It is not a good weapon to have in the hands of a terrorist organization that derives its revenue from cocaine trafficking, kidnapping and extortion.

The FARC is on the ropes militarily, and one of the few things that could give the group an immediate boost is the acquisition of SAMs.

Other terrorist groups have acquired the missiles, including radical Islamist groups that tried to down an Israeli jetliner.

The information on this case originates in a Peruvian court case, where 12 men are on trial for the illicit sales.The Peruvian prosecutors' records detail the sale of at least four Russian-made Strela and Igla ground-to-air missiles between May and October 2008 and another three in 2009, ``each one for the sum of 45,000 US dollars.''

They were sold by Jorge Aurelio Cerpa, a Peruvian air force official, and were delivered to Freddy Torres, an Ecuadorean who had been buying weapons for the FARC since 2007, according to the records. They and nine others were arrested and charged with collaboration with terrorism, and several have confessed.

Note the transnational nature of the arrangement. From corrupt Peruvian officials to a FARC middleman operating in Ecuador, to the FARC. Again, an Ecuadoran and Ecuador appear as vital pieces in the FARC's strategic resupply network, as outlined in the recent paper I co-authored titled Ecuador at Risk: Drugs, Thugs, Guerrillas and the Citizens' Revolution

It was not a one-off deal by Torres, but part of a long string of sales he helped engineer in order to keep the FARC well armed and lethal.

Peruvian army and police officers also sold Torres hundreds of hand grenades for up to $60 apiece, 40-50 heavy machine guns for $19,000 each and tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition, according to the records, first published by the La República newspaper in Lima.

Torres, who was arrested Dec. 19 on Peru's northern border with Ecuador, was paying $150,000 to $200,000 for arms deliveries ``every 15 or 20 days,'' a copy of the records provided to El Nuevo Herald showed.

The case shows how diversified the FARC has become in its acquisition of weapons, and how broadly it casts its net.

One can only assume that, while the black market is being worked, the supplies from friendly governments, particularly Venezuela, continue to flow as well.

All of this bodes ill for the conflict in Colombia, already in its 44th year. With new cocaine routes being opened to Europe via West Africa and the expansion of the Mexican cartels southward to deal directly with the FARC, the revenue stream to the organization is unlikely to diminish any time soon.

And that could mean decades more of costly and bloody conflict for Colombia.

POSTED BY DOUGLAS FARAH

Alleged Zeta Hitman Armando Garcia in Court

Alleged Zeta hitman in court

By KGNS News

Story Created: Jan 25, 2010

Security was on high alert Monday morning, at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Laredo during jury selection for an alleged Zeta hitman. Federal officers armed with high-powered rifles were stationed around the courthouse. 24-year old Armando Garcia is the suspect in a double murder, dating back to April third, 2006.Court officers told Pro 8 News the indictment against Garcia is sealed.He is charged with racketeering and conspiracy.The victims were 15 year old Mariano Resendez and his uncle, Jesus Maria Resendez who were traveling north on Zapata Highway when a black pickup truck pulled up and a gunman opened fire at them.Police found casings from an AK-47 and a 9 MM. at the scene.

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Mexican Army in Sinaloa

This was originally posted 21 December, 2009.










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National Intelligence Estimate Due in January

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A sensitive subject: Russia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New approach more measured

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Narco-trafficking also a danger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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