Alta Verapaz, Guatemala a los Zetas Base Camp

Official: Zetas drug gang had base in Guatemala:

GUATEMALA CITY -- Guatemala's top security official says the Zetas drug gang from Mexico had set up an operations center in the border province of Alta Verapaz where the government declared a state of siege Dec. 19.

Interior Minister Carlos Menocal says a two-week-old military offensive against the cartel is making progress. In his words, "This is just the beginning."

Menocal said Monday that authorities have seized planes, vehicles and $40,000 in cash. He said the Zetas "had their base, their hiding place, their operations center in Alta Verapaz."
The Zetas initially began on Mexico's Gulf coast, but have extended their operations to other parts of Mexico and into Central America.

The Rest @ The Washington Post

Central American Truck Theft Ringleader Sentenced

12/24/2009

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source Houston FBI via Apostille

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

-Big Quacho

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

• Most MS-13 gang members are illegal aliens from El Salvador, but also include nationals from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and other Central and South American countries.
• With over 10,000 members, MS-13 gangs can often be identified by clothing or tattoos incorporating MS-13 or the number 13.
• Gang members have attacked and threatened law enforcement and committed a sting of ,rapes, assaults, break-ins, auto thefts, extortions, and frauds across the U.S.

MS-13 is one of several illegal alien gangs in the Dallas area.

We now know that some gangs are creating a “good neighbor” policy with other Latino street gangs in Dallas, such as Tango Blast, which is a combination of the Texas Syndicate, Mexican Mafia, and Latin Kings gangs. These dangerous gangs have been joining forces in manpower and drug trafficking, realizing that they can succeed more in their illegal activities if they join forces than by the continued blood rivals.

• Unfortunately, incarcerated gang members have been reorganizing in prison and once released, they band together to handle the security and sales for the drug cartels.
  

Gang members have long been engaged in retail drug trafficking, including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin. As I have mentioned previously,

• Dallas serves as a major drug distribution hub for national drug trafficking, by major Mexican trafficking organizations.
• In 2005, law enforcement officials estimated the illegal narcotic business in Dallas at roughly $10 million a day.
• The fallout of violence along the US/Mexico border in Laredo is in part a consequence of the lucrative drug trade in Dallas as drug cartels and gangs fight for I-35, also labeled the Drug Corridor by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In response to the rising gang violence in Dallas and across our nation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation Community Shield in February 2005 after a national threat assessment identified MS-13 as one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

Nationwide, ICE arrested 359 MS-13 members and associates, including 10 clique leaders in the first phase of Operation Community Shield. Building on this initial success, ICE extended Operation Community Shield to target all illegal alien gangs, netting about 2,390 arrests from roughly 240 street gangs, including about 920 from the violent street gang MS-13.

Since the crackdown began, much of the gang’s leadership has left Dallas. Additionally, since February 24, 2006, ICE and Dallas police have conducted joint missions of Operation Community Shield, resulting in the arrest of 44 Dallas-area gang members.

I am proud of the Dallas Police Department’s dedication and commitment to ending gang violence as they worked with ICE to crackdown and dismantle violent street gangs in the Dallas area.

Expeditious Removal for Illegal Salvadorans
It is a travesty that illegal alien gang members are here in the first place and an even greater travesty that they are often released after apprehension due to legal loopholes. Currently, an 18-year-old court order affords Salvadorans full deportation process, thus undermining DHS’ authority to apply expedited removal procedures. Issued in 1988, the court order, also known as the Orantes injunction, was designed to protect Salvadorans seeking refuge in our nation from a brutal civil war in El Salvador. However, times have changed. The civil war in El Salvador ended many years ago, and the nation now has a democratically elected government with a developing economy. Unfortunately, MS-13 and members of drug cartels continue to exploit these loopholes in our legal system to thwart our immigration laws and obtain release into our communities.

In response, I am pleased to cosponsor legislation introduced by Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) to close this legal loophole which allows thousands of illegal immigrants to remain in our country each month. The Fairness in Immigration Litigation Reform Act (H.R. 5541) overturns the Orantes injunction, thereby subjecting illegal Salvadorans to the same enforcement laws as other illegal immigrants. H.R. 5541 also establishes judicial guidelines for other present or future cases to ensure that no injunction unnecessarily interferes with the government’s implementation of the expedited removal program. This legislation is critical to implementing interior enforcement effectively and efficiently, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that illegal Salvadorans are not the exception to the rule of immigration law.

The whole thing from Deport Now

Gulf Cartel Appears To Be Expanding in Guatemala

Gulf Cartel Expanding Operations in Guatemala?
In Guatemala City, Guatemala .- The president of Guatemala, Alvaro Colom, said the Mexican Gulf Cartel exercises control in various regions of the country and concluded, following the killing of 17 suspected drug traffickers on Sunday, which now joins the western department Huehuetenango, on the border with Mexico.

"They want to monopolize the whole country," Colom told reporters before, while this group blamed the action on Sunday and warned that it will "take time" to recover the territories controlled by this organization.

• Jose Amilcar Velasquez, attorney general of Guatemala, for its part reported that the Attorney General's Office (PGR) of Mexico offered support research to clarify what happened.
• Velasquez said the Guatemalan prosecutor's office is investigating four areas, including the disputed territory between the Guatemalan and Mexican groups.
• Colom did a recount of the areas of Guatemala that have strong presence of drug traffickers and warned "They want everything, but where their strengths is in the north of Alta Verapaz, in Ixcán (Quiché-north), in Sayaxché (Peten-North) and it seems that they are also in Izabal (Caribbean), "he said.

Regarding Huehuetenango, where the massacre occurred on Sunday, the president said it was believed that drug traffickers had a small resence, but now there are indications that operate "in the entire region."

The dignitary said that the army, mobilized to the area after the events of Sunday, will remain in place "until they regain" the territory. He Said that another critical point is the region of Ixcán, because it is used for landing planes with drugs, so it announced efforts to strengthen surveillance in place.

He recalled that currently has no radar to detect aircraft

The Rest from Catdirtsez