The Enemy Within: Bribes Bore a Hole in the U.S. Border

Posted by DD Republished from New York Times

 By RON NIXON

 WASHINGTON — In 2012, Joohoon David Lee, a federal Homeland Security agent in Los Angeles, was assigned to investigate the case of a Korean businessman accused of sex trafficking. 

 Instead of carrying out a thorough inquiry, Mr. Lee solicited and received about $13,000 in bribes and other gifts from the businessman and his relatives in return for making the “immigration issue go away,” court records show. 

Mr. Lee, an agent with Homeland Security Investigations at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, filed a report saying: “Subject was suspected of human trafficking. No evidence found and victim statement contradicts. Case closed. No further action required.” 

 

A plea agreement for Joohoon David Lee, a homeland security agent, details his request and acceptance of a bribe from a Korean businessman.

 But after another agent alerted internal investigators about Mr. Lee’s interference in another case, his record was examined and he was charged with bribery. He pleaded guilty in July and was sentenced to 10 months in prison. 

 It was not an isolated case. A review by The New York Times of thousands of court records and internal agency documents showed that over the last 10 years almost 200 employees and contract workers of the Department of Homeland Security have taken nearly $15 million in bribes while being paid to protect the nation’s borders and enforce immigration laws. 

Bribes Take Different Forms Cash isn’t the only method of payment. Here are some other items that were given as bribes: 

Beltran Leyva Plaza boss "El Nito Amavizca" arrested with guns, cash and armored vehicle

Original article available at Excelsior
Translated by El Wachito

Agents of the State Public Security arrested in Hermosillo, Sonora, Rodolfo Lopez Ibarra alias "El Nito Amavizca", who was identified by the authorities as the Plaza Boss of Sonora for the Beltran Leyva Cartel, among the 12 priority objectives of the Federal Government and has extradition orders to the United States.

During a Mexican Government press released, the government claimed that "El Nito Amavizca" was arrested during the afternoon of Tuesday 27, of December in the Capital of Sonora, when the cartel liutenant was traveling in a road of downtown, on board a armored pick up truck, in posession of a .38 Super and thousands of dollars in a bag. 

DEA agent explains what it's like to infiltrate Mexican and Colombian drug cartels

Original article available at Global Post

Written By Ioan Grillo

Anti-drug agents are usually extremely cautious about spilling the beans on their secret world, which lies somewhere between espionage, police work and battlefield.

Agent Mike Vigil with a confiscated shipment of drugs /Via global post

 But here’s a rare inside look, offered by a veteran of the drug war. Mike Vigil, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s former chief of international operations, served more than three decades in the agency, including 18 years abroad, and more time than any other DEA agent in Mexico.

Now an independent consultant who still advises Mexican security forces, Vigil has detailed his work in a new memoir called “Deal.”

Vigil’s known as the agent who best infiltrated Mexico’s and Colombia’s violent cartels. And he lives to tell the tales.

The Golden Age of Drug Trafficking: How Meth, Cocaine, and Heroin Move Around the World

Original article available at LinkedIn
By Leo E.
Article dated 12 May, 2016

Diplomats and top officials from governments around the world gathered last week at United Nations headquarters in New York to discuss what to do about the global drug problem. Over the course of four days and multiple discussions, the assembled dignitaries vowed to take a more comprehensive approach to the issue than in years past — but they also decided to keep waging the war on drugs.

Colombian counter-narcotics police secure a cocaine production laboratory operated by FARC guerrillas in January 2012. (Photo by Mauricio Duenas/EPA) 

The "outcome document" adopted during the UN General Assembly's special session (UNGASS) calls for countries to "prevent and counter" drug-related crime by disrupting the "illicit cultivation, production, manufacturing, and trafficking" of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other substances banned by international law. The document also reaffirmed the UN's "unwavering commitment" to "supply reduction and related measures."

Mexico Drug War: Proposed Law of Internal Security Allows Military to Take Control

Posted by DD republished from Mexican Voices

Reforma: Denise Dresser* Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea

  

General Cienfuegos [Hundred Fires] just blackmailed the President of the Republic and Enrique Peña Nieto allowed himself to be blackmailed. A military command has just imposed itself over a civilian command and few people balked. Decades of tradition and constitutional practice that allowed Mexico to avoid militarization are now threatened by the empowered Army. It is persistent, obsessed with the power it has acquired and is going for more.
 
More power with the "Internal Security Law" initiative that seeks to give legal protection to what the military does illegally. With the proposal to suspend individual guarantees without controls, without transparency, without civil surveillance over the military. Generals that grow as civilians shrink. Soldiers increasingly present, in place of police officers less and less professionalized. Mexico heading for a state of exception in which the exception becomes the rule.
 
Because general "A Hundred Fires" threatens military mutiny if he doesn’t get the constitutional coverage he needs to remain on the streets. Because after years of war, 52,000 deployed soldiers, 84 regional operations to "reduce violence", the deployment of 75 security posts, 213,000 dead, a creepy lethality rate in which the army kills 8 people for every 1 wounded, 12,408 complaints to the CNDH [National Human Rights Commission] and the involvement of military commanders in Tlatlaya and Ayotzinapa, the general needs laws that cover up his wrong doings. Laws that protect him and other high commanders. Laws that prevent the Prosecutor General or the international community from demanding accountability one day. And since he knows that is possible, he announces that if he doesn't get them, he’ll return to the barracks, knowing the fear that inspires. He incites military disobedience to produce civil protection.

But what’s behind the demand to "regulate the use of force" is permission to apply it unconstitutionally. To give powers to the Army that it shouldn't have. To centralize power and weaken federalism after criticizing governors and municipal presidents for not exercising it properly. To militarize Mexico in a stealthy, cheating way. Peña Nieto himself admitted it by declaring that "the Army performs investigative functions and works as Attorney General." This is a voluntary assignment of civilian power to military power to fill the gaps the police and criminal justice system have not been able to fill. The gaps that should lead to the central question: Who should be in charge of the country's public security? The Army or the police?

The answer should not even be debated. The answer lies in the honesty, strength, regulation and professionalization of civilian authorities. From there, laws, resources, budget allocations, and constitutional reforms should begin. But in the last two administratioins, both Calderón and Peña Nieto have shown where their preferences are, where their commitments are. Not with those in blue, but rather with those in green. Not with the patrol cars, but rather with the tanks. The evidence is in the growth of the budget for the Army vis a vis the decrease in what the federal government destines to municipal and state police. The civilian authorities are destroying the possibility of police professionalization, creating a vicious circle: since there are no good police officers we need the Army, but as long as we use the Army we will never professionalize the police.
 
And Enrique Peña Nieto allows this because he is timorous, weak, because of his fear of losing power if the Army doesn't support him. Because of the fear he faces with so many homicides, so many disappeared, so many graves, and the international and historical judgment they will invite. To protect himself, he’s prepared to make unacceptable concessions to General Cienfuegos and his people. He’s willing to violate the Constitution and make legal what no civilian president has allowed because of the dangers involved. A situation from which there won’t be a return or will happen after many more are dead, disappeared, tortured or illegally executed. It’s endorsing - through Congress and its initiatives - a self-coup. Because instead of returning the Army to the barracks, the government is allowing the country to be held hostage.

 *Denise Dresser is a Mexican political analyst, writer, and university professor. After completing undergraduate work at The College of Mexico, she earned her Ph.D. in Politics at Princeton University. She is currently a faculty member in the Department of Political Science at the Autonomous Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), where she teaches courses such as Comparative Politics, Political Economy and Contemporary Mexican Politics. She has taught at Georgetown University and the University of California. In December 2015, she was decorated as a Knight of the Legion of Honor by the French government.

In Mexico Violence and Death do not take a Christmas Holiday

Posted by DD, material from The Guardian, El Diario de Coahuila, and PanAmPost

 Mexico’s plague of drug-gang related violent death showed no sign of let-up on Christmas Day –

 
In the western state of Michoacan six severed human heads were found about 8:30 AM   in Jiquilpan, a municipality near the state of Jalisco – a region that has become a battleground for competing drug gangs in recent years.

Officials in the Attorney General’s Office said that the crime was most likely carried out by organized crime cells operating in the area.  According to José Martín Godoy Castro, the Attorney General of Michoacan, "criminal activity in the Sahuayo-Jiquilpan geographical area is due to the fact that there is no predominance of a delinquent group, but rather a dispute between several who seek territorial control ".

The six men are yet to be identified and their bodies have not been found.   The heads were transferred to the Forensic Medical Service for analysis.

More news on these deaths should be forthcoming shortly as 5 suspects in the murder and decapitations were arrested last night (Dec. 26).  The arrests were made as part of the investigation of the severed heads when "an abundance of Federal Ministerial Police went neighboring municipality of  Sahuayo.  

As they passed through Isabel la Catolica street in the Popular colony, they detected a white Nissan van and a red motorcycle, and when they approached they were attacked by firearms by the occupants of a nearby building.   As reported in El Diario de Coahuila;

"Faced with the refusal of the aggressors to stop the shooting, the officers entered the site and subdied five people, two women and three men.

"Inside the truck were found two knives with blood stains, so they were packed for expert analysis in order to determine their correspondence with the events recorded on Christmas day  in Jiquilpan".  .

Also confiscated from the detainees at the site were  two AK 47 rifles, caliber 7.62; An AR-15 gun, .223 caliber; Three short weapons (two 9 mm caliber and one .38 Special), plus a .22 caliber weapon,  and garments with blood stains.

OTHER CHRISTMAS DAY ATROCITIES

In another two separate incidents, also on Christmas but in other regions, a total of 16 people were killed in gun-related violence presumed to have been motivated by drug-related violence.

Of the 16, seven people were massacred  as they gathered to celebrate Christmas in the municipality of Atoyac de Alvarez, in the southern state of Guerrero. The victims included five men from the same family, as gunmen enter the house where the victims were gearing up to celebrate Christmas.  Three brothers, their father and their uncle were shot dead according, to AP. A married couple who had been invited to lunch with the family were also killed.

Out of the seven that were killed, two were municipal police officers and one a state police officer, according to state security spokesman Roberto Alvarez Heredia. Preliminary investigations suggest that the gunmen were motivated by revenge and had attempted to target only one individual but eventually ended up killing bystanders.

In Chihuahua state, authorities said nine people were killed during Christmas Day violence, according to AFP. Five of those were in Ciudad Juarez, including three women who showed signs of having been tortured.

While much of Mexico’s drug violence goes unreported, official data say more than 170,000 people have been killed and 28,000 reported missing since 2006.

–

MERRY CHRISTMAS

POSTED BY ALL THE STAFF OF BORDERLAND BEAT

Christmas is a time for family and even though most of us have never met in person, we consider all of you readers and followers of BB as family and wish you a MERRY CHRISTMAS.

From my house to yours..............

                                                               

                                                                                       Abrazos, Chivis

"El Chueco" leaving U.S. prison after only 3 1/2 years

Guest Reporter for Borderland Beat

He gained fame as the epitome of Mexico’s political corruption and narco collusion.  His motto was

“Don’t bring your bullshit, in this state I am in command”, his moniker is “El Chueco” meaning crooked, not for his character but his asymmetrical facial appearance, the result of  a paralysis.  He is Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, who yesterday left the United States prison system for extradition returning him to Mexico, to serve another 22 year incarceration.  

The former governor of the Mexican state of Quintana Roo who admitted  conspiring to launder money, in a New York drug case,  was sentenced in June of 2013  to just under 11 years in prison, but only served 3 ½ years behind bars in the United States.

Villanueva Madrid, was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Manhattan to 10 years and 11 months after pleading guilty. His original charges included the importation of hundreds of tons of cocaine.  He has been jailed since 2001, mostly in Mexico, where he was charged with similar crimes.

On June 21, 2007 Villanueva Madrid, was arrested moments after he was released from the maximum security prison of El Altiplano in Almoloya de Juarez, Mexico. Villanueva was released from the prison and immediately re-arrested for extradition to the U.S.

12 Members of some of Tijuana's most prominent families arrested for money laundering in an operation where the DEA participated

Original article available at Jornada ABC
Translated by El Wachito
Prior recommended reading: PAN politician arrested in San Diego

The arrest of prominent members of the society of Tijuana, including the arrest of PAN politician Luis Torres Santillan, who took possession of his post last December 1st, brought attention to Fernando Beltran, who is the favorite businessman of Governor Kiko Vega, due to the fact that they share family and work links.

Governor Kiko Vega, the next Duarte, Padres, Moreina

According to Jesse Navarro, one of spokesman of the Fiscal Agency of San Diego, the investigation has been on going for almost a year and more people could be involved. He confirmed that an elevated bail bond of 5 million dollars was requested in order to guarantee that Torres Santillan attends all his court hearings, and according to Jesse, the 10 charges of money laundering could land him up to 15 years in prison.

Money launderers of Cartel de Sinaloa declared themselves guilty

Original article available at ZETA
Translated by El Wachito
Prior recommended reading: Sinaloans are laundering drug proceeds using currency exchange centers

Osvaldo Contreras Arriaga and Omar Ayon Diaz, owners and administrators of currency exchange centers in Tijuana, declared themselves guilty of supervising a drug trafficking operation and money laundering operation for the Cartel de Sinaloa in the border of Tijuana, Baja California and San Diego, California,

Osvaldo Contreras and Omar Ayon Diaz were arrested in Colombia

The young businessman were detained in Colombia last September of 2015, while on vacation, when the Interpol submitted a search and apprehension order by  petition of the United States government.

Mx. Army General: ""If you want us to go back to our bases, fine, I'll be the first to raise both my hands,"

Posted by Mica on  BB Forum republished from ABC News

Mexico's top military officer said recently  that the army is uncomfortable with the law-enforcement role it was given a decade ago when the government launched an offensive against drug cartels.

The defense secretary, Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos, said the army's presence was supposed to be temporary while new police forces were built, but that hasn't happened.

Many local police in Mexico are corrupt, poorly trained or unreliable.

"We would love the police forces to do their job ... but they don't," Cienfuegos said.

"Ten years ago it was decided that the police should be rebuilt, and we still haven't seen that reconstruction," he said. "To sum it up, there are a large number of deaths that shouldn't be happening, there is a lack of commitment on the part of a lot of sectors. This isn't something that can be solved with bullets; it takes other measures and there hasn't been decisive action on budgets to make that happen."

The army has both been the target of attacks by criminals but also has been accused of killing unarmed suspected cartel gunmen.

Cienfuegos said at a year-end meeting that the army needs clearer rules to govern its work in supporting civilian law enforcement, like rules of engagement and the appropriate use of force. Congress has been considering legislation, but has not yet passed it.

"If you want us to go back to our bases, fine, I'll be the first to raise both my hands," Cienfuegos said. "We didn't ask to be here. We don't like it here. None of us here today went go to school to chase criminals."

Decapitated heads found in Acapulco *Graphic content*

Original article available at ZETA

Translated by El Wachito

Four human heads were found in a cooler that was located in front of an Oxxo convenience store, in the community of Llano Largo, over the road Puerto Marques-Cayaco, according to the spokesman of the Coordination Group of Guerrero (GCG), Roberto Alvarez Heredia, who said that till this Monday, the human bodies have not be found.

An anonymous call to the emergency number 066, around 18:30 of last Sunday, alerted the authorities of the terrifying discovery, a cooler that had inside four heads, which belong to males between the ages of 25 and 30. 

The heads belonged to four males, and one of the heads was missing an eye and the superior right area of the skull was visible.

The Effects of the Disappearance of a Parent

By Edgar Avila | Translated by Valor for Borderland Beat

When violence knocked on the door of his house, it struck everyone equally, even the smallest in the family.

The disappearance of the head of the family left in the limbo any explanation that could be given to Marcos, 6, to call it somehow, because the fear left by the incursion of crime in his home still does not let them fully adhere back into their old daily life.

The father of the child, Juan Manuel, 28, was swallowed up by the land in the port of Veracruz, as well as the other 2,312 veracruzanos who only exist in the official figures of denouncements, but who were physically absent from their homes in the middle of a war between drug cartels, the official fight against crime and many other factors.

It was in 2013 when they never again heard from the man, although they discovered that the last time he was seen alive, he had been “detained” by alleged police officers, a version that they have not yet been able to verify.

“How do you explain to a child that his father is missing, that he isn’t dead, that he’s alive, but that he is not with us,” says his mother.  They have not yet found a way to tell him, because she doesn’t even known if her husband “went to heaven” or if he’s still in captivity.