Tag Archives: Drug Cartel

CONFIRMED: The DEA Struck A Deal With Mexico’s Most Notorious Drug Cartel

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"El Vicentillo" being presented to the media in Mexico City on March 19, 2009.

“El Vicentillo” being presented to the media in Mexico City on March 19, 2009.

An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels.

Sinaloa, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.

There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be “the world’s most powerful drug trafficker,” coordinates with American authorities.

But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official.

Read more at Business Insider

Lawmakers call for probe into ‘botched’ ATF sting in Milwaukee

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WASHINGTON ––  Several members of Congress are calling for an investigation into an embarrassing series of blunders made by the Milwaukee arm of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives after a newspaper reported this week that the agency conducted a months-long undercover operation that cost taxpayers thousands of dollars and netted very few results.

“I am intent on getting to the bottom of the botched ATF sting in Milwaukee,” Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., told FoxNews.com Thursday night.

Sensenbrenner along with Sen. Charles Grassley, and Reps. Darrell Issa and Robert Goodlatte, have sent a letter to Acting ATF Director Todd Jones asking the agency to look into allegations reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The newspaper claims that the agency conducted a deeply flawed sting operation that resulted in a still-missing machine gun being taken from an agent’s car, thousands of taxpayer dollars being lost in merchandise and angry residents saying that ATF officials reintroduced crime into their neighborhood. The operation comes on the heels of the botched Operation Fast and Furious anti-gun trafficking program.

Read more at Fox News

“Drug cartels’ bank,” HSBC, to see no arrests

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(CBS News) As bank slogans go, they don’t come worse than this: “The preferred financial institution of drug cartels and money launderers.”

That’s a quote Tuesday in a U.S. Department of Justice report about HSBC Holdings, one of the largest banks in the world.

To avoid criminal prosecution, HSBC admitted Tuesday that it laundered more than $800 million for Mexican drug cartels, and covered up illegal transactions for Burma, Iran, Sudan, Cuba, and Libya.

Those nations were under banking sanctions because of human rights atrocities, terrorism, or — in Iran’s case — a nuclear program.

The British bank will pay $1.9 billion to the U.S. government, the largest such fine in history.

Read more at CBS News

Mexican hitman claims cartels bought guns from US Border Patrol

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By Robert Beckhusen / 09 November 12 for Wired

The testimony of a Mexican hitman turned US government witness has revealed some astonishing details of life inside Mexico’s criminal underworld. Most astonishing of all: claims that cartel assassins obtained guns from the US Border Patrol.

According to Mexican magazine Revista Contralinea, the testimony comes from a protected government witness and former hitman, who cooperated in the prosecution of a Sinaloa Cartel accountant by the Mexican Attorney General’s Office. The testimony details a series of battles fought by a group of cartel members attempting to drive out rival gangsters from territory in Mexico’s desert west. To do it, the group sought weapons from the US, including at least 30 WASR-10 rifles — a variant of the AK-47 — allegedly acquired from Border Patrol agents.

If true, it could reignite the debate over Operation Fast and Furious, the last time US authorities allowed guns to fall into the hands of Mexican gangsters. Two days after the election, Attorney General Eric Holder — who had been at the centre of allegations surrounding the scandal — is now talking like he might not stay with the administration for much longer. “That’s something I’m in the process now of trying to determine,” Holder said 8 November. ” I have to think about, can I contribute in a second term?”

Read more at Wired.co.UK

Pinal County forms posse

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AZ Family

The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office has created an anti-smuggling possee to target drug and human smuggling because the federal government has failed to protect the border.

The newly-formed posse will be armed and scattered throughout western Pinal County, where trafficking has been known to take place.

Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu said the posse will work with the county’s SWAT team in the desert to fight against Mexican drug cartels.

Read more at KTAR

Americans Shot in Mexico Were C.I.A. Operatives Aiding in Drug War

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By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD and ERIC SCHMITT / The New York Times

MEXICO CITY — The two Americans who were wounded when gunmen fired on an American Embassy vehicle last week were Central Intelligence Agency employees sent as part of a multiagency effort to bolster Mexican efforts to fight drug traffickers, officials said on Tuesday.

The two operatives, who were hurt on Friday, were participating in a training program that involved the Mexican Navy. They were traveling with a Mexican Navy captain in an embassy sport utility vehicle that had diplomatic license plates, heading toward a military shooting range 35 miles south of the capital when gunmen, some or all of them from the Federal Police, attacked the vehicle, Mexican officials have said.

The Mexican Navy said Tuesday in a statement that an American was driving the vehicle and that during the attack the captain, who was handling logistics and translating for the men, remained in the back seat calling for help on his cellphone.

Read more at Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Mexican Drug Cartels’ Stake in the U.S.: One Trillion Dollars

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New America Media—Editor’s Note: Recent media reports of money laundering activities involving U.S. banks and Mexico’s drug cartels point to a disturbing trend. NAM contributor Louis Nevaer says that everything taken into account, the amounts involved rival investments made by some of the U.S.’s largest trade partners.

The six-year War on Drugs that Mexican president Felipe Calderon has waged since 2007 has resulted in one consequence no one anticipated: Mexican drug cartels have sent upwards of $1 trillion to the U.S.

This staggering sum of money has been funneled through U.S. financial institutions, almost always in violation of U.S. laws, and at times even with the cooperation of American federal agencies.

In fact, if the Mexican drug cartels were a sovereign nation, they would qualify to be part of the G-20, ahead of Indonesia (GNP: $845 billion) and behind South Korea (GNP: $1.1 trillion). Yet, this is the cumulative sum of money that Mexican drug cartels have funneled through the U.S. economy.

A New York Times story published last month reporting that federal authorities busted a cartel boss accused of laundering $1 million a month pales in comparison to the hundreds of billions of dollars that drug organizations have moved through U.S. banks.