DRUG WAR ON U.S. / MEXICAN BORDER

Title click. Submitted by R L.

http://www.thewesterner.blogspot.com/
The Westerner
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
These are a little old, didn't get them posted before they shut me down on 5/31.

FLE

Border Agents, Lured by the Other Side The smuggler in the public service announcement sat handcuffed in prison garb, full of bravado and shrugging off the danger of bringing illegal immigrants across the border. “Sometimes they die in the desert, or the cars crash, or they drown,” he said. “But it’s not my fault.” The smuggler in the commercial, produced by the Mexican government several years ago, was played by an American named Raul Villarreal, who at the time was a United States Border Patrol agent and a spokesman for the agency here. Now, federal investigators are asking: Was he really acting? Mr. Villarreal and a brother, Fidel, also a former Border Patrol agent, are suspected of helping to smuggle an untold number of illegal immigrants from Mexico and Brazil across the border. The brothers quit the Border Patrol two years ago and are believed to have fled to Mexico. The Villarreal investigation is among scores of corruption cases in recent years that have alarmed officials in the Homeland Security Department just as it is hiring thousands of border agents to stem the flow of illegal immigration. The pattern has become familiar: Customs officers wave in vehicles filled with illegal immigrants, drugs or other contraband. A Border Patrol agent acts as a scout for smugglers. Trusted officers fall prey to temptation and begin taking bribes....
Mexico crime wave takes ten more lives Ten people were found shot execution style, including three beheaded bodies, in 24 hours of drug-related warfare in northern Mexico, the Juarez prosecutor's office said Wednesday. A local police officer's head was found inside a plastic bag with a note warning the Sinaloa drug cartel: "so you know we're not playing around." It was signed by La Linea, a rival drug group fighting for control of this city on the US border, the office said. On a blanket spread over a bridge in nearby Chihuahua, 360 kilometers (215 miles) south of here, were scribbled the names of several local police officers and a threat -- "these guys are next," the prosecutor's office added. The ten bodies found late Tuesday and Wednesday included two in Ciudad Juarez, two in Loma Blanca, two in and around Durango, two on roads leading to Chihuahua, one in Casa Grandes, and one in Ignacio Zaragoza, the office added in a statement. One of two decapitated bodies found in Durango was topped by a pig's head and laid out in a cemetery, it added. The violence came after seven federal police officers were killed Tuesday in a shootout with drug traffickers in northeastern Culiacan, the Public Safety Ministry said, adding that a criminal was also killed in the firefight....
Mexican Police Fleeing Drug Cartel Assassins The escalating violence by Mexico’s various drug cartels has taken a heavy toll on Mexico’s police forces in recent months, with the month of May proving especially brutal. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down in May, along with many other police and soldiers. “Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die,” reported the Associated Press on May 19. Ciudad Juarez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, has been one of the worst hit cities along the U.S.-Mexican border. The AP story notes: “Police who take on the cartels feel isolated and vulnerable when they become targets, as did 22 commanders in Ciudad Juarez when drug traffickers named them on a handwritten death list left at a monument to fallen police this year. It was addressed to ‘those who still don’t believe’ in the power of the cartels. Of the 22, seven have been killed and three wounded in assassination attempts. Of the others, all but one have quit.” “These are attacks directed at the top commanders of the city police, and it is not just happening in Ciudad Juarez,” Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz said at the funeral of the latest victim, police director Juan Antonio Roman Garcia. “It is happening in Nuevo Laredo, in Tijuana, in this entire region,” he said. “They are attacking top commanders to destabilize the police force.” More than 1,100 lives have been taken in the wave of narcoterror so far this year. The cartels have become more brazen, even attacking with machine guns and hand grenades in full daylight in public venues....
9 men killed as Juárez violence continues Violence continued to rage Wednesday night and Thursday in Juárez as at least nine more men were shot dead and the ankle of a 7-year-old girl was nearly severed in a shooting that wounded several members of her family. Four unidentified men were shot and killed when shooters unloaded 84 rounds Thursday afternoon outside a butcher shop in the Division del Norte area of the city, state police said. In addition, a double homicide occurred near the community of Barreales outside Juárez. Before dawn Thursday, two unidentified men who had been shot several times died outside the emergency room of the general hospital. In a separate incident, it was unclear whether the family of a girl, identified by police as Berenice Alanis Mata, was targeted or merely caught in the crossfire Wednesday night when 35 shots were fired in the Praderas de los Alamos neighborhood. Television news aired graphic video of Berenice and relatives driving up in private vehicles and bleeding heavily at Clinica 66 medical center....
Border Governors Head to Mexico As Violence Rises Governors from both sides of the border are meeting in Mexico City to push for more crime-fighting and border security amid unprecedented violence in Mexico. The governors of California, Texas and New Mexico planned to offer support to Mexican President Calderon on Thursday for his crackdown against the drug trade, in which he has deployed more than 20,000 federal troops across Mexico. Cartels have responded with increasingly bold attacks against police and other security officials. On Tuesday, seven federal officers were killed in a shootout at a suspected drug safe house. Beyond policy talks, it's not clear what the U.S. governors and the governors of the six Mexican states will be able to accomplish, because many of the actions they are seeking require congressional approval....
ABC Reality Show Will Chronicle Work of Border Agents A new reality show, led by executive producer Arnold Shapiro of "Big Brother" fame, will give viewers an inside look at a day in the life of border patrol agents working to stop illegal smuggling and immigration. ABC has ordered 11 hours of "Border Security USA," which is said to be the first multi-episode television series to be shot in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The show, based on the Australian series "Border Security: Australia's Front Line," will include security screeners at a New York airport, a Coast Guard boat off Puerto Rico and border patrol in Texas, the newspaper reported. Some plots in the episode include customs agents finding a human skull sent through the mail and a Coast Guard boat chasing cocaine smugglers. "We're showing everyday heroes who are risking their lives to protect us," Shapiro told The Hollywood Reporter. "Every mode of transportation to get into the country, we have covered." Shapiro told the newspaper they were free to tape the day-to-day efforts, but were asked to keep several tactics used by border agents confidential....
Jesus Statue Made of Cocaine Seized in Laredo A drug dealer named The Spider is wondering why his Jesus Christ still hasn't appeared in Dallas. Thanks to an unusual bust by federal agents in Laredo, they're not going to connect. Drug traffickers mixed as much as six pounds of the illicit white powder into a paste and used it to make a regal statue of the Christian savior, complete with painted-on flowing hair and a gold cape. Smugglers were likely hoping the statue, which could be worth as much as $30,000 on the streets, would be dismissed by border guards as just another of the hundreds of plaster representations hawked to borderland tourists. But a dog trained to sniff out drugs confirmed it was anything but another religious memento....
Report says courts can handle terrorism cases Two former federal prosecutors say that when it comes to handling accused terrorists, the best way is the old way: Put them on trial in civilian courts, not military tribunals. A report examines 123 terrorist cases from the past 15 years, and the study's two principal authors say that the courts were able to produce just, reliable results while protecting national security. The report comes at a time when the Bush administration's system of military commissions remains mired in delays. Whether the case is the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 or the East African embassy bombings in 1998, judges, juries, defense attorneys and prosecutors are able to get the job done correctly, they say. Although the justice system is far from perfect, it has proved to be adaptable and has successfully handled a large number of important and challenging terrorism prosecutions, said New York lawyers Richard Zabel and James Benjamin of the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld....
Customs inspectors charged in NY drug probe Two federal customs officers were arrested Wednesday, accused of taking bribes in exchange for letting large quantities of hashish and counterfeit watches and sunglasses into the country through Kennedy Airport. The two U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers were among seven people charged as a result of a long investigation into corruption at the airport. Federal prosecutors said the probe had already resulted in the convictions of more than 20 people including distributors and overseas suppliers. Walter Golembiowski, of Bethpage, N.Y., a supervisory Customs and Border Protection officer, and Officer John Ajello, of Hicksville, N.Y., were charged with bribery conspiracy and narcotics importation. Prosecutors said Golembiowski, 65, regularly accepted and solicited bribes from 2004 to this year in exchange for permitting shipments of contraband to pass through Customs without inspection. Ajello, 51, also accepted bribes, in one instance asking for $80,000, a charging document said....

Posted by The Westerner at 5:42 PM