Blog dedicated to reporting on Mexican drug cartels
on the border line between the US and Mexico
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Friday, December 14, 2012

Narcos New Pot Catapulting Cannons and JP Morgan Money Washers for Los Zetas

Borderland Beat

Smugglers use cannon to hurl marijuana over U.S.- Mexico border

(Reuters) - Mexican smugglers used a new pneumatic-powered cannon to propel cans packed with 85 pounds (38kg) of marijuana into the air and over a fence at the Mexican border near San Luis, Arizona, authorities said on Wednesday.

"We haven't seen this before," said Kyle Estes, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman. "We've seen catapults, but nothing like this before. That's for sure."

He estimated the marijuana's value to be at $42,500.
The plot was foiled when U.S. Border Patrol agents discovered the 33 pot-filled cans last week before they could be picked up by smugglers in an area about 500 feet from the border fence, on the United States side, Estes said
Agents searching the area about 200 miles southwest of Phoenix recovered a carbon dioxide tank used to propel objects from the cannon, he said.
Smugglers have become increasingly inventive in trying to move contraband into the U.S. in light of stepped up efforts to crack down on border smuggling, Estes said.
U.S. authorities have added more fencing, agents and technologies including unmanned surveillance drones to tighten security along Arizona's border with Mexico in recent years.
Drug traffickers have responded with a variety of ruses including strapping marijuana loads to low-flying microlight aircraft and hurling it over the border fence using medieval-style catapults. No one was arrested in connection with the latest.
Thirty Mexican Cartel members Charged in Major Drug Probe, Officials say
Thirty members of a violent Mexican drug cartel active in bringing illegal narcotics to Southern California have been charged after a two-year undercover investigation, officials in San Diego announced Friday.

The 30 are members of the La Familia Michoacana cartel and an offshoot of the cartel known as the Knights Templar Cartel, officials said. The two rival groups, which engaged in a bloody turf battle, are responsible for smuggling large amounts of methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine into the United States.

Search warrants were served this week in San Diego, Riverside, Orange and Los Angeles counties, under the investigation dubbed Operation Knight Stalker. In San Diego County, 12 cases have been filed against 28 defendants, Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis said.

"This operation gives you a window into the continuing large-scale drug trafficking that continues to plague San Diego County across the U.S.-Mexico border," Dumanis said.
The structure of drug cartels is "constantly changing, but operations like this one cripple their ability to do business," Dumanis said.

The search warrants this week resulted in the seizure of more than 1,000 pounds of methamphetamine, 200 pounds of cocaine, 320 pounds of marijuana, 28 pounds of heroin and $200,000 in cash, officials said at a morning news conference.

Involved in serving the warrants were officers from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, a Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department task force, the U.S. Border Patrol and the San Diego County district attorney's office.

Fifteen of the 30 charged have been arrested, others are being sought, officials said. LATimes

Sinaloa Cartel Bought Narco Plane Via HSBC Bank
The Sinaloa Cartel reportedly used its HSBC bank accounts to transfer money for the purchase of a turboprop aircraft, painting a picture of the kind of financial transactions the cartel was able to carry out, thanks to lax international banking controls.

According to a report by Mexico's Attorney General's Office which is apparently based partly on Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) findings and was seen by national newspaper El Universal, the Sinaloa Cartel bought the Super King 200 aircraft in 2007. It was later seized by Mexican authorities in December 2007 in the capital of Morelos state, in central Mexico. At the time the security forces said it had been used to transport a nearly two ton cocaine shipment from Venezuela to Mexico.

The dollars used to purchase the plane were originally deposited by two front companies -- Grupo Rahero SC and Grupo ETPB -- in two HSBC accounts in the Cayman Islands. The cash was then transferred to another US-registered company, Insured Aircraft Title Service Inc., in  Oklahoma City.

HSBC has faced an in-depth investigation into how its lax regulations allowed Mexican criminal groups like the Sinaloa Cartel to launder billions of dollars. According to El Universal, documents presented to the federal court in the Eastern District of New York, which is handling the lawsuit against the British bank, include a particularly damning affirmation by HSBC's Mexico CEO. The CEO reportedly says he has heard a recording of a drug trafficker calling HSBC Mexico "the best place to launder money." 

The purchase of the aircraft later seized in Morelos is just one example of the transactions that the Sinaloa Cartel were likely able to carry out, thanks to the bank's weak enforcement of regulations. El Universal reports that the aircraft was one of 13 purchased by the Sinaloa Cartel, used to ship cocaine between South and Central America. The cartel ended up transferring close to $13 million to 14 aircraft companies based in the US. 
The HSBC lawsuit recently culminated with a $1.9 billion settlement.
 
EU presented charges against four financial operators
Mexico City (13 December 2012). - The cartel Los Zetas used bank accounts in the largest cities in theU.S. to transfer funds used in the purchase of racehorses. The Justice Department filed charges Dec. 4 against four additional accomplices the Treviño Morales brothers , alleged leaders of Los Zetas cartel as part of the process started last June by the money laundering operation by acquiring horses. Two of the new defendants are Jovan Erick Lozano Díaz, "El Chucho," financial operator of the Zetas arrested Nuevo Laredo in June, and Gerardo Garza Quintero, who in March and April 2012 used an account opened by the latter at the bank JP Morgan Chase to transfer $ 600,000 from Mexico. 

JP Morgan Chase & Co. is the largest bank U.S., with assets estimated at 2 trillion 290 billion dollars. The 448 606 298 account was opened  at JP Morgan by Gerardo Garza Quintero on the March 2, 2012, and immediately received $ 250,000 of Integra Logistics Customs, a front company controlled by Lozano Díaz, who was designated by the Navy as the manager of laundering funds obtained by Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, the Z-40. In late April, $ 400,000 was deposited in the same account, including 90,000 in cash and 213,000 transferred by Lozano Díaz's wife. 

Upon receipt of funds, Garza issued company checks to Tremor Enterprises LLC, a facade of Treviño Morales in America. In these documents, Garza said  that money was for the purchase of the horses Fly Corona, and Feature Honor. 

The indictment was filed in the Western District Court of Texas in Austin, does not clarify the occupation of Garza Quintero but the name matches that of a broker in Nuevo Laredo, which operated in the patent office since 1994, and who died at age 51 in Laredo, Texas on July 31.

More accounts JP Morgan was not the only bank used for this operation. In the original indictment, filed in June, twelve accounts were secured and and detailed in the United States by Los Zetas as front companies, including six in Bank of America and five in Wells Fargo, which are the second and fourth largest financial institutions in the U.S.. The new indictment against Los Zetas also includes Alexandra Garcia Treviño, daughter of Joseph Treviño Morales, and brother of Miguel Angel as well as the Oklahoma ranch owner where in June nearly 400 horses were secured and Jesus Maldonado Huitrón, a trainer of Quarter Horses was arrested. Altogether, 19 people are on trial in this case, although the two most important, Michelangelo and Omar Trevino Morales, remain at large, while the ten detainees-some bail-including his brother Joseph, his wife Zuleima, businessman Francisco Colorado Cessa Veracruz and Carlos Miguel Nayen Borbolla.

Five Restaurant Workers Slain in Nuevo Laredo
A group of armed assassins killed five employees of a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo Thursday, including a woman eight months pregnant, officials said.
The attack occurred at the La Palma Restaurant, located on Alvaro Obregon in the center of the city.

An Army official said a group of armed men came specifically to attack the local restaurant employees.

This Thursday the mayor of Nuevo Laredo, Benjamin Galvan, gave his government report at the nearby Cultural Center of the city, which was heavily guarded by members of the police and army.

No one wanted to provide any details to help identify the group of assassins.



31 comments:

  1. The Rockefellers are the "Big Daddy"...All the drug cartels of Mexico may be wiped out but never these elite bankers & Oh yeah some CT cheerleaders had posted quite sometime back that they are not gangbangers, well if they don't like being called "gangbangers" then I bet they will be happy being called "shoe shine boys" of these elite bankers....lol.

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  2. Those crazy narcos. Improved and refined the last round of hydraulic catapulters, did we? Next they'll be shooting loads right into a courtyard of a fenced-in warehouse - when they really improve

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  3. Thanks JP Morgan Chase - I'm glad you are doing such a fine job monitoring potential money laundering. And now my fees are paying your legal fines. I'm out of there!

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  4. Sweet, just what I want, my weed shot out of a cannon, maybe it will help to remove all the pesticides that's trapped in those blocks of hay

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  5. Algo nuevo en nuevo laredo con el restaurane y los cinqo muertos, Havana

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  6. Banks just seemed to love to support thoroughbred racing for the Zetas. JP Morgan just took a dive in my opinion.

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  7. What I don't get is why you're saying its new. Maybe new to him, but this is nowhere near new. They've been doing this for 4-5 years. There's been articles about it before lol.

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  8. side of article is cutoff

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  9. WHICH CARTEL IS THE POOREST? IS IT THE KNIGHTS TEMPLAR GANG OR SOME OTHER INCONSEQUENTIAL CARTEL?

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    1. Khights templar are not a cartel they are a band of thives. Kidnapers.extortionist.rapist. malparidos

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    2. Knight Templar are gangbangers and not a cartel...El Chapo is very clever to use them as cannon fodder.

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  10. When I saw it was your post, i was relieved -Good post, fantastic compared to that stream of conscious literary experiment yesterday Any, negative word i may have written you Havana , i am sorry. U are fine

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  11. @10:41 AM - Jeeez I know, I see it. It's especially obnoxious cause it doesn't look like that in draft form at all. It looks normal and the adjustments thus far haven't worked. Blogger has as many quirks as a human beings.

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  12. I tell u, if it were safe storing what little money in my home, i'd feel better than having it in one of those criminal banks that no one seems to want to bitch enough about. They are a cartel all to themselves! Now they finance cartel racing!

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  13. Cannons with pnuematics like these is an advancement-believe it.

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  14. so whats the difference between 30 left dead in a mexico street and 30 left dead in a school in the U.S.?

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    1. Big difference white man always cOmmit genocides for no fucking reason . Nut heads. Mexicans have only done it for money. I have never seen a massacre in Mexico involving 20 kids maybe older people but never kids. Even among rats there is differences skumbags

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  15. Wow Havana, so much new info. All I can add is that as a top executive for B OF A, the cartels needed alot of help from bank employees to pull this off. I got a print out daily of large transactions, over 10k and I shut them down that day. Miami was the worst and the ex- CEO, KEN LEWIS, was always on my ass for shutting down the cartels and money launders. May he rot in Hell. This has been an open secret for 15 years. Between the US DRUG DEMAND, OUR INEPT GOVT. AND THE BANKS, GOD BLESS THE INNOCENTS OF MEXICO!

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    1. Nice try there "Top Executive". you have me so convinced. Also, for the record it's now $6,000, not 10,000.

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    2. Got, past tense... Not get....
      Shut them down that day.. Past tense
      Hence 10k not 6k

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  16. Have any more news on the restaurant in nuevo laredo with the pregnant girl? The Palme. They should just knock that shit off. Good bank update by the way but the margin is still whacked

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  17. Those catapulting techniques are old as shit i cant believe you just caught wind of it jajajaja

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  18. I am surprised nobody has asked or investigated if the laundered money of the Mexican drug cartels is invested back in Mexico or the USA through off-shore holding companies and into which legitimate corporations is the money invested.

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  19. sounds like narcos have been watching punkin' chukkin' and said: ohh chitt, mi querro tres la misma

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  20. America is being run by cartels the president is on puppet strings and can't do a thing.

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  21. See people I always told ya the us launders the money , there is no way Mexican Cartels can keep up without having some tO help them finance their dirty work. Us banks have always dOne this n yet people turn a blind eye to what American coporations m Banks do.

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  22. Finally mexico invented something that tops that ball in the cup game. I say keep the cartels, they are the only ones in that country making scientific advancements anyway. I cant wait to see what narco invention they come up with next. Hows that for cheerleading

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  23. Anonymous said...
    The Rockefellers are the "Big Daddy"...All the drug cartels of Mexico may be wiped out but never these elite bankers & Oh yeah some CT cheerleaders had posted quite sometime back that they are not gangbangers, well if they don't like being called "gangbangers" then I bet they will be happy being called "shoe shine boys" of these elite bankers....lol.

    They can be called "Banksters" or just "shit" same thing

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  24. thats rich, you are comparing an insane white 20 year old brat rich kid that murders little children to mexican sicarios that kill for a few medios to one is a regular happening and the other is a freak occurance.

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  25. "Big difference white man always cOmmit genocides for no fucking reason"
    Why dont you go read a book nobhead?Yeah man we commit genocide with the best and i hope your next motherfucker.Im fed up with this racist shit from Mexicans,your all racist argumentative fuckin losers all i ever see is Mexicans callin people names and whining about how badly done to they are?You made your own shit,you live with it.Stay in Mexico away from"whitepeople"who you hate whining bitch.

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  26. Really aren't very nice people judging from Mexican comments here.Hateful attitude to others,argumentative,racist,jingoistic,all you ever see on here is Mexican racism against us?All the fuckin time,guaranteed its going to be them.Not nice at all.Always blaming someone else for their own ills?Its sad,but appears to be true,they are not giving a very good example of themselves here.

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