azmex update Sunday 5 April, 2009
Note: some of these do not necessarily have direct connection to drug wars
local feuds also play a big part
Ejecutan a 14 personas en Durango
En Michoacán, ejecutaron a siete; cuatro de ellos con el tiro de gracia y dos narcomensajes
SUN
Domingo, 05 de Abril de 2009
Distrito Federal-- A unas horas de que el gobernador de Durango demandó "blindaje federal" para enfrentar la violencia en la entidad, un levantón masivo se registró en el municipio de Suchil, cuando un grupo armado a bordo de al menos seis camionetas privaron de la libertad a 14 personas, entre hombres, mujeres y menores de edad, en el rancho El Alemán. Además, en el rancho Temazcal se llevaron a otras cuatro personas. En total, sumaron 18 los plagiados en esa demarcación. Los hechos se registraron la tarde del pasado jueves; sin embargo, fue confirmado hasta ayer cuando personal de la Dirección Estatal de Investigación y elementos de la Décima Zona Militar acudieron para realizar la investigación correspondiente. Por otra parte, Michoacán vivió uno de sus fines de semana más violentos, al ocurrir en unas cuantas horas siete ejecuciones. Casi al amanecer, a unos 150 metros del 82 Batallón de Infantería del Ejército, con sede en Lázaro Cárdenas, se encontró el cuerpo sin vida de un hombre a la orilla de la carretera. Casi al mismo tiempo, en Apatzingán, elementos de la Policía Municipal y fuerzas federales hallaron cuatro hombres ejecutados con el tiro de gracia y dos narcomensajes, uno de los cuales señala: "Señores de la autoridad: la lucha entre La Familia y Los Zetas es a muerte. Ustedes no se metan. Que se cuiden los que apoyan a Los Zetas". Por otro lado, la Procuraduría de Justicia dio a conocer que en la capital del estado se encontró una persona ejecutada; otra más en el municipio de Tacámbaro. En Sinaloa, en menos de 20 horas y en diversos puntos, seis personas fueron ejecutadas. En Guerrero fueron reportadas tres víctimas; dos estaban en la cajuela de un taxi, en Zihuatanejo. En Zacatecas, en el municipio de Chalchihuites, hallaron los cadáveres de dos jóvenes con impactos de bala.
Following looks like drug biz.
Hallan cadáver con mensaje de La Familia Michoacana
04 April, 2009 10:08 El Universal/El Diario de Sonora
Tamaño de la fuente:
Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán.-
Por cuarto día consecutivo en el puerto michoacano continuó el hallazgo de personas ejecutadas y con mensajes de advertencia de que eso les puede pasar a los que apoyen a los Z, firmado por La Familia Michoacana.
Alrededor de las 5:30 horas, personal militar que se dirigía a las instalaciones del 82 Batallón de Infantería del Ejército Mexicano, ubicado sobre el libramiento Sicartsa-La Orilla, se percataron de que a unos 150 metros del acceso principal de ese cuartel, se encontraba el cuerpo sin vida de un individuo, a la orilla de la carretera y frente a un negocio de herrería, por lo que dieron aviso a sus superiores.
De inmediato jefes y personal de tropa del 82 Batallón de Infantería, acompañados de agentes de la Policía Federal Preventiva que utilizan esas instalaciones como base, acordonaron el área. También llegaron elementos de la X Zona Naval Militar, así como patrullas de la Policía Municipal con varios uniformados, quienes dieron aviso del hecho al Agente del Ministerio Público del fuero común en turno, quien llegó para realizar el levantamiento del cadáver.
Se trata de un individuo de entre unos 25 a 30 años de edad, al cual a simple vista se le notaba el llamado "tiro de gracia" en la cabeza. Estaba vendado de los ojos con cinta canela, tenía cercenado el dedo pulgar de la mano derecha y estaba semi cubierto con una funda de asiento de automóvil.
Vestía bermudas de mezclilla de color gris-azul y estaba descalzo, solamente con los calcetines puestos.
El cadáver, en calidad de desconocido, fue enviado al Servicio Médico Forense para la práctica de la necropsia de ley correspondiente.
Desde la madrugada del miércoles 1 de abril a la de este sábado 4, suman ya ocho personas las ejecutadas en el puerto michoacano, entre ellas el ex alcalde priista de este lugar, Nicolás León Hernández, que este fin de semana fue sepultado en un panteón de la localidad.
“Levantan” a catorce en Durango; violencia recrudece en Michoacán
05 April, 2009 06:44 SUN/El Diario de Sonora
Tamaño de la fuente:
México, DF
Cuando un grupo armado a bordo de al menos seis camionetas privaron de la libertad a 14 personas, entre hombres, mujeres y menores de edad, en el rancho El Alemán. Además, en el rancho Temazcal se llevaron a otras cuatro personas. En total, sumaron 18 los plagiados en esa demarcación.
Los hechos se registraron la tarde del pasado jueves; sin embargo, fue confirmado hasta este sábado cuando personal de la Dirección Estatal de Investigación y elementos de la Décima Zona Militar acudieron para realizar la investigación correspondiente.
Por otra parte, Michoacán vivió uno de sus fines de semana más violentos, al ocurrir en unas cuantas horas siete ejecuciones.
Casi al amanecer, a unos 150 metros del 82 Batallón de Infantería del Ejército, con sede en Lázaro Cárdenas, se encontró el cuerpo sin vida de un hombre a la orilla de la carretera.
Casi al mismo tiempo, en Apatzingán, elementos de la Policía Municipal y fuerzas federales hallaron cuatro hombres ejecutados con el tiro de gracia y dos narcomensajes, uno de los cuales señala: “Señores de la autoridad: la lucha entre La Familia y Los Zetas es a muerte. Ustedes no se metan. Que se cuiden los que apoyan a Los Zetas”.
Por otro lado, la Procuraduría de Justicia dio a conocer que en la capital del estado se encontró una persona ejecutada; otra más en el municipio de Tacámbaro.
En Sinaloa, en menos de 20 horas y en diversos puntos, seis personas fueron ejecutadas.
La ola de violencia en Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, dejó tres muertes en las últimas horas, entre ellas dos mujeres.
Con esos dos crímenes llega a 25 el número de femenicidios registrados en el presente año en la ciudad fronteriza. Otras tres personas fueron asesinadas en los municipios Aldama, Cuauh-témoc y en la capital del estado.
En Guerrero fueron reportadastres víctimas; dos estaban en la cajuela de un taxi, en Zihuatanejo.
En Zacatecas, en el municipio de Chalchihuites, hallaron los cadáveres de dos jóvenes con impactos de bala.
La PGR intenta determinar el uso que pretende darle, indica la SIEDO
Cártel de Sinaloa, detrás del robo de material explosivo
Recientemente ha habido una serie de hurtos armados a almacenes, indican.
2009-04-05•M.P.
El cártel de Sinaloa está detrás del robo de material explosivo de una empresa minera trituradora de piedra en Durango, según se desprende de la indagatoria que realiza la Subprocuraduría de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada.
La Procuraduría General de la República trata de determinar el uso que pretende darle esa organización del narcotráfico a los explosivos que fueron hurtados con violencia por varios sujetos armados.
En febrero la Oficina de Alcohol, Tabaco, Armas de Fuego y Explosivos de Estados Unidos emitió un aviso a todos los integrantes de la industria de explosivos para que implementaran mayores medidas de seguridad ante el robo de material a mano armada en almacenes ubicados cerca de la frontera con México, a fin de impedir “que los terroristas y los que tienen la intención criminal de acceder a materiales explosivos”, los consigan.
El organismo advirtió que “recientemente ha habido una serie de robos armados de lugares de almacenamiento de explosivos en México, a lo largo de la frontera suroeste de Estados Unidos, por lo que desea recordar a todos los licenciatarios y permisionarios federales de explosivos la importancia de la seguridad en sus lugares de almacenamiento”.
La PGR informó ayer que un juez federal dictó auto de formal prisión contra tres presuntos integrantes de una célula del Cártel de Sinaloa que opera en Durango y Coahuila, quienes están relacionados con el robo de material explosivo en una trituradora de piedra.
Se trata de Mauro Murbato Montellano, El Chemo, Juan Pablo Gloria Pacheco, El Juan, e Israel Gloria Pachecho, El Isra, quienes serán enjuiciados como probables responsables de los delitos de posesión de armas de fuego y cartuchos de uso exclusivo del Ejército, así como almacenamiento sin permiso de explosivos y artificios regulados por la Ley Federal de Armas de Fuego y Explosivos.
Los indiciados fueron detenidos el 18 de febrero pasado por elementos del Ejército, en el paraje “El Picacho”, del municipio de Torreón, Coahuila, mientras custodiaban los explosivos robados por miembros del cártel de Sinaloa.
El 17 de febrero un grupo armado ingresó con camionetas en la compañía minera trituradora de piedra Cribissa, del municipio de Lerdo, de donde sustrajeron 20 kilogramos de material
explosivo, un delito por el que las autoridades federales iniciaron la averiguación previa PGR/SIEDO/UEITA/021/2009
Operativo del Ejército en Sinaloa
Más de nueve kilos de explosivos plásticos y cargadores de diferentes calibres fueron asegurados por elementos del Ejército en Culiacán, Sinaloa.
La vocería del Operativo Conjunto-Culiacán-Navolato-Guamúchil-Mazatlán informó que el material fue localizado en una bodega ubicada en andador Narciso y Brasiles.
El sitio fue detectado en un operativo realizado por elementos del 24 Regimiento de Caballería Motorizado, en atención a denuncias anónimas.
El personal castrense decomiso una camioneta Chevrolet Express Van, modelo 2008 y un auto tanque para gas, con capacidad de 47 mil 500 litros.
Se localizaron 14 envoltorios de pólvora negra, cuatro tubos y dos envoltorios con explosivo P.E. 4, el cual, se dijo, es explosivo plástico británico de uso militar.
De igual manera incautaron un tubo con trinitrotolueno, TNT, una bolsa de ixtle con material explosivo ANFO la cual es usado en minas y 17 tramos de cable coaxial.
Se presume que con ello grupos de narcotraficantes pretendian realizar ataque terroristas.
Con información de Iván Pedraza.
México. Ignacio Alzaga
Monday, December 12, 2011
AZMEX STARR COUNTY 2-4-09
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
On the borderline of good and evil
The people of Starr County, Texas, aren't shocked much by the drug-related arrests of a sheriff and other prominent citizens. With Mexico as a close neighbor, it comes with the territory.
By Scott Kraft
7:24 PM PDT, April 2, 2009
Reporting from Rio Grande City, Texas -- When the Starr County sheriff was led away in handcuffs for accepting bribes from a bail bondsman back in 1998, the county pinned his star on his chief deputy, Reymundo "Rey" Guerra. It wasn't long before Guerra was restoring the shine to the badge.
Unlike his predecessor, Guerra was affable and approachable, a beefy man with a gray-flecked mustache who rarely carried a gun. He and his wife were regulars at the peach-brick Catholic church in tiny Rio Grande City. When the city needed a favor, the mayor said, "I could always just pick up the phone and call Rey." The county judge, a close friend, said, "You couldn't ask for a better person."
Guerra coasted to two election victories and was unopposed for a third in November. A souvenir from the campaign remains on a billboard on the edge of town: "Starr County has a sheriff. Re-elect Reymundo 'Rey' Guerra."
But, somewhere along the way, something went wrong. Some here lay the blame on the frailty of human nature; it could happen anywhere, they say. Others, though, blame the county itself: a smugglers' Shangri-La with deep cross-border ties and tight-lipped residents.
As the billboard says, Starr County has a sheriff. But he's no longer Rey Guerra.
Starr County shares 78 rugged miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, wedged between one nation's ravenous demand for drugs and another's bountiful supply. The illegal drug trade blows across here like the hot winds that rattle the mesquite thickets, carrying shipments of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs to points north. A recent crackdown on drug trafficking in Mexico has kicked up that wind, and U.S. authorities report drug seizures are up significantly across southern Texas.
Starr County has more in common with its neighbors to the south than to the north. The population, at 80,000 and growing, is 97.5% Latino, and Spanish is the first language for most residents.
But unlike in Mexico, and bucking the worldwide trend, local businesses in Starr County are booming. Unemployment is half what it was a decade ago, sales tax revenue is up and the median income is rising. New stores, restaurants and theaters have been opened, and a new high school is under construction.
Illicit gains from the drug trade seem to play at least some role in that renaissance.
"Certainly, the underground economy exists and affects our stores," said Ruben Villarreal, the energetic mayor of Rio Grande City, the county seat. "But how much? No one can gauge it."
Since the Rio Grande became an international border in 1848, contraband has poured across the water, into and through Starr County. Whether the product was tequila, cattle or dope, smuggling was part of the local landscape, like cowboy hats and giant belt buckles.
"People come and spend money over here, and if they have a bagful of 20s, we don't ask where they got it," said Alonzo Alvarez, a retired high school teacher who had Guerra in his history class back in the 1970s. "That's not our job. This kind of thing has been around here for years."
Ralph G. Diaz, special agent in charge of the FBI office in San Antonio, has worked this patch of border off and on for three decades. "It's almost cultural," he explained. "Throughout their entire lives, folks have watched this kind of activity pass through their communities, basically unimpeded. They come to accept it."
The enormous amounts of money involved have been a particular temptation for at least a few who wear uniforms here and elsewhere along the 2,000-mile border.
The drug traffickers "feel they can buy law enforcement," said Tim Johnson, the U.S. attorney for southern Texas. "And sometimes they can."
Sheriff Guerra's troubles appear to stem from his friendship with Jose Carlos Hinojosa, who lived across the border in Miguel Aleman and, at 31, is much younger than the 52-year-old sheriff. It's not clear how they met, but the FBI has identified Hinojosa as a member of Los Zetas, the paramilitary enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel, which is one of Mexico's most violent drug-trafficking organizations and controls drug transshipment corridors in the Rio Grande Valley.
Three years ago, one of Guerra's deputies received an unusual request from the sheriff. Guerra asked the deputy to give Hinojosa, whom he introduced as an investigator for Mexican law enforcement, the name of an informant who had tipped off authorities to a drug stash house, according to the FBI. Suspicious, the deputy quietly reported the incident to federal authorities, who folded it into an ongoing investigation of the Gulf cartel. A year later, the FBI began monitoring both Hinojosa's and the sheriff's cellphones.
In October, the U.S. attorney's office issued a 19-count indictment that accuses Hinojosa, Guerra and two dozen others of conspiring to smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana and cocaine through Starr County. Among those charged were a postal worker, a construction foreman and a local businessman who was a member of the county hospital's board of trustees and of the county tax assessment board.
Guerra was accused of removing obstacles to the drug-smuggling operation in exchange for thousands of dollars, in $5,000 cash payments, as well as gifts of rib-eye steak and shrimp. In one case, the indictment alleges, Guerra helped produce fake lease documents for a house where the cartel was keeping marijuana and cocaine with a street value of about $800,000.
In telephone conversations taped by the authorities, a voice identified as that of Guerra referred to Hinojosa's associatesas sobrinos, or nephews, and they called him tio, uncle, according to the FBI. He warned Hinojosa that there were "birds on the wire" and that their phones might be tapped.
Toni Treviño, an assistant U.S. attorney in Texas, said Guerra's help for Hinojosa, "who is not a run-of-the-mill drug trafficker," had endangered the sheriff's fellow law enforcement officers and "put the interests of his sobrinos above the interests of those who depend on him in this community." She told a judge at a bond hearing that Guerra used his position to help the Gulf cartel "operate almost unfettered in the Starr County area."
Guerra's attorney, Philip H. Hilder, a former federal prosecutor and onetime area coordinator of the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, contends that the sheriff believed Hinojosa was working for "legitimate Mexican law enforcement." He argues that his client was a victim of bad blood between local and federal authorities.
"Let's just say there is a lot of mistrust, and I think that a certain amount of friction may have led to Mr. Guerra being targeted in this case," Hilder said.
A trial date has been set for May. If convicted of conspiracy to possess marijuana and cocaine with intent to distribute and two related charges, Guerra could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison and a $4-million fine.
Guerra has been free on $100,000 bond since Christmas Eve. He is confined to his ranch home on a lovingly landscaped estate of cactus, mesquite and palm trees at the bend of a gravel road here. A grand archway at the property entrance bears his family name, in tall capital letters, and a large Texas star made of pebbles is embedded in the concrete driveway. Guerra's movements are monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet, and he is forbidden from receiving visitors or talking on the telephone.
The arrest of prominent citizens accused of being involved in the drug trade doesn't really shock folks in Starr County that much anymore; it's part of living on the border. Though "the good people far, far outweigh the bad people," as the mayor put it, it is not unusual for a federal indictment to include a member of the Chamber of Commerce or a person connected to the county's elite.
Mario Mascorro, another defendant in the Guerra case, was a member of the county hospital board, his name set in gold-colored letters on a plaque next to the front door. Mascorro was also involved in a business deal with the county administrator, among others, to purchase FM radio frequencies.
Still, the news of Guerra's arrest was unsettling for the people of Rio Grande City, a community of 17,000 on its namesake river. Civic leaders tried to square the charges with the man they knew -- a lifelong resident, the husband of a librarian and lay leader at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
"I find it very hard to believe that some of these charges placed against him are true," said Judge Eloy Vera, the county administrator.
Guerra "didn't live the life of Riley here, ever," said Alvarez, the retired teacher, who remains close to Guerra. "He was a local kid with a high school education who made good. My personal opinion is that he's an honest person, and they don't have a case against him."
Guerra went to services every Sunday at Immaculate Conception, nestled in a leafy area next to the county courthouse. The pastor, Amador Garza, ministers to a flock of 5,000 families and oversees the church elementary school. (Among those indicted with Guerra were the fathers of five pupils at the school, he said.)
"It takes a lot not to despair," Father Garza said the other day with a sigh. "I have not forsaken him. He is still my friend and parishioner. I still see his wife every day at mass. But personally, and professionally as well, I think the full weight of the law should come down on him if he did this."
Like Guerra, Garza grew up on the border. Over the last decade in Starr County, he has railed against the drug trade -- and accused city, county and school officials of looking the other way.
Garza addressed an open message to drug traffickers from the pulpit recently. "I hope you are living comfortably with your families because you are destroying the very fabric of other families," he said. Later, in private, he added: "We've already lost the border to the Gulf cartel."
In fact, the priest often complained to Guerra that local officials were either willfully ignorant or in the pocket of the cartels. "We had some differences of opinion about that, and I was very direct with him," Garza said. "He always heard me out."
The Starr County sheriff and his 39 deputies work out of a windowless rectangular bunker on the highest point of land in Rio Grande City. Seven Tahoe SUVs, purchased as part of a federal grant, were parked on the street outside recently, waiting to be stenciled with the sheriff insignia. Another new gift from Washington, a mobile "sky box" with high-tech equipment to monitor the border, was on display at the Starr County Fair, near a dusty ring where judges handed out ribbons to children parading their goats.
Sgt. Ismael Sandoval, head of special operations for the sheriff's office, pondered the legacy of his former boss. "What kind of sheriff was he?" the sergeant said. "We don't want to hurt the man because as far as we know he hasn't done anything."
He paused.
"All I can tell you is he was a real good sheriff."
Guerra's predecessor, Sheriff Eugenio "Gene" Falcon Jr., served just under two years in prison for taking bribes to refer inmates to a bail bondsman who was an FBI informant. Falcon now works as an administrative assistant to Judge Vera.
"I was raked over the coals pretty good for that," Vera said. "But we all deserve a second chance."
Guerra resigned immediately after his arrest. His name remained on the November ballot, unopposed, and he officially stepped down a second time after the election.
Now Rene Fuentes, Guerra's chief deputy, wears the silver star on his starched white shirt.
scott.kraft@latimes.com
On the borderline of good and evil
The people of Starr County, Texas, aren't shocked much by the drug-related arrests of a sheriff and other prominent citizens. With Mexico as a close neighbor, it comes with the territory.
By Scott Kraft
7:24 PM PDT, April 2, 2009
Reporting from Rio Grande City, Texas -- When the Starr County sheriff was led away in handcuffs for accepting bribes from a bail bondsman back in 1998, the county pinned his star on his chief deputy, Reymundo "Rey" Guerra. It wasn't long before Guerra was restoring the shine to the badge.
Unlike his predecessor, Guerra was affable and approachable, a beefy man with a gray-flecked mustache who rarely carried a gun. He and his wife were regulars at the peach-brick Catholic church in tiny Rio Grande City. When the city needed a favor, the mayor said, "I could always just pick up the phone and call Rey." The county judge, a close friend, said, "You couldn't ask for a better person."
Guerra coasted to two election victories and was unopposed for a third in November. A souvenir from the campaign remains on a billboard on the edge of town: "Starr County has a sheriff. Re-elect Reymundo 'Rey' Guerra."
But, somewhere along the way, something went wrong. Some here lay the blame on the frailty of human nature; it could happen anywhere, they say. Others, though, blame the county itself: a smugglers' Shangri-La with deep cross-border ties and tight-lipped residents.
As the billboard says, Starr County has a sheriff. But he's no longer Rey Guerra.
Starr County shares 78 rugged miles of the U.S. border with Mexico, wedged between one nation's ravenous demand for drugs and another's bountiful supply. The illegal drug trade blows across here like the hot winds that rattle the mesquite thickets, carrying shipments of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs to points north. A recent crackdown on drug trafficking in Mexico has kicked up that wind, and U.S. authorities report drug seizures are up significantly across southern Texas.
Starr County has more in common with its neighbors to the south than to the north. The population, at 80,000 and growing, is 97.5% Latino, and Spanish is the first language for most residents.
But unlike in Mexico, and bucking the worldwide trend, local businesses in Starr County are booming. Unemployment is half what it was a decade ago, sales tax revenue is up and the median income is rising. New stores, restaurants and theaters have been opened, and a new high school is under construction.
Illicit gains from the drug trade seem to play at least some role in that renaissance.
"Certainly, the underground economy exists and affects our stores," said Ruben Villarreal, the energetic mayor of Rio Grande City, the county seat. "But how much? No one can gauge it."
Since the Rio Grande became an international border in 1848, contraband has poured across the water, into and through Starr County. Whether the product was tequila, cattle or dope, smuggling was part of the local landscape, like cowboy hats and giant belt buckles.
"People come and spend money over here, and if they have a bagful of 20s, we don't ask where they got it," said Alonzo Alvarez, a retired high school teacher who had Guerra in his history class back in the 1970s. "That's not our job. This kind of thing has been around here for years."
Ralph G. Diaz, special agent in charge of the FBI office in San Antonio, has worked this patch of border off and on for three decades. "It's almost cultural," he explained. "Throughout their entire lives, folks have watched this kind of activity pass through their communities, basically unimpeded. They come to accept it."
The enormous amounts of money involved have been a particular temptation for at least a few who wear uniforms here and elsewhere along the 2,000-mile border.
The drug traffickers "feel they can buy law enforcement," said Tim Johnson, the U.S. attorney for southern Texas. "And sometimes they can."
Sheriff Guerra's troubles appear to stem from his friendship with Jose Carlos Hinojosa, who lived across the border in Miguel Aleman and, at 31, is much younger than the 52-year-old sheriff. It's not clear how they met, but the FBI has identified Hinojosa as a member of Los Zetas, the paramilitary enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel, which is one of Mexico's most violent drug-trafficking organizations and controls drug transshipment corridors in the Rio Grande Valley.
Three years ago, one of Guerra's deputies received an unusual request from the sheriff. Guerra asked the deputy to give Hinojosa, whom he introduced as an investigator for Mexican law enforcement, the name of an informant who had tipped off authorities to a drug stash house, according to the FBI. Suspicious, the deputy quietly reported the incident to federal authorities, who folded it into an ongoing investigation of the Gulf cartel. A year later, the FBI began monitoring both Hinojosa's and the sheriff's cellphones.
In October, the U.S. attorney's office issued a 19-count indictment that accuses Hinojosa, Guerra and two dozen others of conspiring to smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana and cocaine through Starr County. Among those charged were a postal worker, a construction foreman and a local businessman who was a member of the county hospital's board of trustees and of the county tax assessment board.
Guerra was accused of removing obstacles to the drug-smuggling operation in exchange for thousands of dollars, in $5,000 cash payments, as well as gifts of rib-eye steak and shrimp. In one case, the indictment alleges, Guerra helped produce fake lease documents for a house where the cartel was keeping marijuana and cocaine with a street value of about $800,000.
In telephone conversations taped by the authorities, a voice identified as that of Guerra referred to Hinojosa's associatesas sobrinos, or nephews, and they called him tio, uncle, according to the FBI. He warned Hinojosa that there were "birds on the wire" and that their phones might be tapped.
Toni Treviño, an assistant U.S. attorney in Texas, said Guerra's help for Hinojosa, "who is not a run-of-the-mill drug trafficker," had endangered the sheriff's fellow law enforcement officers and "put the interests of his sobrinos above the interests of those who depend on him in this community." She told a judge at a bond hearing that Guerra used his position to help the Gulf cartel "operate almost unfettered in the Starr County area."
Guerra's attorney, Philip H. Hilder, a former federal prosecutor and onetime area coordinator of the federal Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, contends that the sheriff believed Hinojosa was working for "legitimate Mexican law enforcement." He argues that his client was a victim of bad blood between local and federal authorities.
"Let's just say there is a lot of mistrust, and I think that a certain amount of friction may have led to Mr. Guerra being targeted in this case," Hilder said.
A trial date has been set for May. If convicted of conspiracy to possess marijuana and cocaine with intent to distribute and two related charges, Guerra could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison and a $4-million fine.
Guerra has been free on $100,000 bond since Christmas Eve. He is confined to his ranch home on a lovingly landscaped estate of cactus, mesquite and palm trees at the bend of a gravel road here. A grand archway at the property entrance bears his family name, in tall capital letters, and a large Texas star made of pebbles is embedded in the concrete driveway. Guerra's movements are monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet, and he is forbidden from receiving visitors or talking on the telephone.
The arrest of prominent citizens accused of being involved in the drug trade doesn't really shock folks in Starr County that much anymore; it's part of living on the border. Though "the good people far, far outweigh the bad people," as the mayor put it, it is not unusual for a federal indictment to include a member of the Chamber of Commerce or a person connected to the county's elite.
Mario Mascorro, another defendant in the Guerra case, was a member of the county hospital board, his name set in gold-colored letters on a plaque next to the front door. Mascorro was also involved in a business deal with the county administrator, among others, to purchase FM radio frequencies.
Still, the news of Guerra's arrest was unsettling for the people of Rio Grande City, a community of 17,000 on its namesake river. Civic leaders tried to square the charges with the man they knew -- a lifelong resident, the husband of a librarian and lay leader at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church.
"I find it very hard to believe that some of these charges placed against him are true," said Judge Eloy Vera, the county administrator.
Guerra "didn't live the life of Riley here, ever," said Alvarez, the retired teacher, who remains close to Guerra. "He was a local kid with a high school education who made good. My personal opinion is that he's an honest person, and they don't have a case against him."
Guerra went to services every Sunday at Immaculate Conception, nestled in a leafy area next to the county courthouse. The pastor, Amador Garza, ministers to a flock of 5,000 families and oversees the church elementary school. (Among those indicted with Guerra were the fathers of five pupils at the school, he said.)
"It takes a lot not to despair," Father Garza said the other day with a sigh. "I have not forsaken him. He is still my friend and parishioner. I still see his wife every day at mass. But personally, and professionally as well, I think the full weight of the law should come down on him if he did this."
Like Guerra, Garza grew up on the border. Over the last decade in Starr County, he has railed against the drug trade -- and accused city, county and school officials of looking the other way.
Garza addressed an open message to drug traffickers from the pulpit recently. "I hope you are living comfortably with your families because you are destroying the very fabric of other families," he said. Later, in private, he added: "We've already lost the border to the Gulf cartel."
In fact, the priest often complained to Guerra that local officials were either willfully ignorant or in the pocket of the cartels. "We had some differences of opinion about that, and I was very direct with him," Garza said. "He always heard me out."
The Starr County sheriff and his 39 deputies work out of a windowless rectangular bunker on the highest point of land in Rio Grande City. Seven Tahoe SUVs, purchased as part of a federal grant, were parked on the street outside recently, waiting to be stenciled with the sheriff insignia. Another new gift from Washington, a mobile "sky box" with high-tech equipment to monitor the border, was on display at the Starr County Fair, near a dusty ring where judges handed out ribbons to children parading their goats.
Sgt. Ismael Sandoval, head of special operations for the sheriff's office, pondered the legacy of his former boss. "What kind of sheriff was he?" the sergeant said. "We don't want to hurt the man because as far as we know he hasn't done anything."
He paused.
"All I can tell you is he was a real good sheriff."
Guerra's predecessor, Sheriff Eugenio "Gene" Falcon Jr., served just under two years in prison for taking bribes to refer inmates to a bail bondsman who was an FBI informant. Falcon now works as an administrative assistant to Judge Vera.
"I was raked over the coals pretty good for that," Vera said. "But we all deserve a second chance."
Guerra resigned immediately after his arrest. His name remained on the November ballot, unopposed, and he officially stepped down a second time after the election.
Now Rene Fuentes, Guerra's chief deputy, wears the silver star on his starched white shirt.
scott.kraft@latimes.com
AZMEX NARCO ARMS 1-4-09
Legal U.S. Arms Exports May Be Source of Narco Syndicates Rising Firepower
Wednesday, 01 April 2009
SecurityCornerMexico.com Recommended READING: Mexico's Perception of the United States' Corruption in the following areas: Defense Department, GANG BANGERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES (Video by You Tube) The War on Drugs, ILLEGAL DRUGS CONSUMPTION, Health Care, Public Safety, Police, Enforcers on the WRONG Side of the Law (You Tube Video) Politics, Academics, Corporate Practices, Sex, Journalism, Sports, with "gate" suffix, Televangelist. Sex in the Catholic Church, Olympic games
Posted by Bill Conroy - March 29, 2009
More Than $1 billion In Private-Sector Weapons Exports Approved For Mexico Since 2004
Mainstream media and Beltway pundits and politicians in recent months have unleashed a wave of panic in the nation linking the escalading violence in Mexico, and its projected spread into the U.S., to illegal weapons smuggling.
The smokescreen being spread by these official mouthpieces of manufactured consensus is that a host of criminal operators are engaging in straw (or fraudulent) gun purchases, making clandestine purchases at U.S. gun shows or otherwise assembling small caches of weapons here in the states in order to smuggle them south of the border to the “drug cartels.”
The Obama administration is now sending hundreds of additional federal agents to the border in an effort to interdict this illegal arms smuggling to reassure an agitated middle-America that Uncle Sam will get these bad guys. The cascade of headlines from mainstream media outlets printing drug-war pornography assures us in paragraphs inserted between the titillation that the ATF’s Operation Gunrunner and other similar get-tough on gun-seller programs will save America from the banditos of Mexico.
To be sure, some criminal actors in the U.S. are smuggling small arms across the border. But the drug war in Mexico is not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns. The drug trafficking organizations are now in possession of high-powered munitions in vast quantities that can’t be explained by the gun-show loophole.
At least one report in a mainstream media outlet deserves credit for recognizing that trend.
“[Mexican] traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals,” states a recent story in the Los Angeles Times. “The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government's 2-year-old war against drug organizations. …” Narco News, in a report last December [“Juarez murders shine a light on an emerging Military Cartel”] also examined the increasing militarization of narco-trafficking groups in Mexico and pointed out that U.S. military-issued ammunition popped up in an arms cache seized in Reynosa, Mexico, in November 2008 that was linked to the Zetas, a mercenary group that provides enforcement services to Mexican narco-trafficking organizations.
So where are these military-grade weapons really coming from?
Rather than address that valid question head on, the mainstream media, and now even the Obama administration, have been attempting to paint lipstick on the pig, trumpeting, in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the “courageous efforts undertaken by [Mexican] President Calderon.”
And the “courageous” Mexican President Felipe Calderon, for his part, redirects the blame for the Mexican narco-organization’s increasing firepower back to the U.S.
In a story published by the Associated Press in late February of this year, Mexican President Calderon is quoted alleging the following:
We need to stop the flow of guns and weapons towards Mexico. Let me express to you that we've seized in this two years more than 25,000 weapons and guns, and more than 90 percent of them came from United States, and I'm talking from missiles launchers to machine guns and grenades.
But no matter how hard Calderon and U.S. officials try to disguise the pig, it still oinks.
A Narco News investigation into the flow of arms across the U.S. border appears to lead right back to the systemic corruption that afflicts a vast swath of the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon and this nation’s own embrace of market-driven free-trade policies.
The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons —are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.
“As in other criminal enterprises in Mexico, such as drug smuggling or kidnapping, it is not unusual to find police officers and military personnel involved in the illegal arms trade,” states an October 2007 report by the for-profit global intelligence group Stratfor, which Barron’s magazine once dubbed the Shadow CIA. “… Over the past few years, several Mexican government officials have been arrested on both sides of the border for participating in the arms trade.”
Counting Commerce
The U.S. State Department oversees a program that requires private companies in the United States to obtain an export license in order to sell defense hardware or services to foreign purchasers — which include both government units and private buyers in other countries. These arms deals are known as Direct Commercial Sales [DCS]. Each year, the State Department issues a report tallying the volume and dollar amount of DCS items approved for export.
The reports do not provide details on who the weapons or defense services were exported to specifically, but do provide an accounting of the destination countries. Although it is possible that some of the deals authorized under the DCS program were altered or even canceled after the export licenses were issued, the data compiled by State does provide a broad snapshot of the extensive volume of U.S. private-sector arms shipments to both Mexico and Latin America in general.
According to an analysis of the DCS reports, some $1 billion in defense hardware was approved for export to Mexico via private U.S. companies between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2007 — the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, during the same period, a total of some $3.7 billion in weapons and other military hardware was approved for export under the DCS program to all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In addition to the military hardware exports approved for Mexico, some $3.8 billion in defense-related “services” [technical assistance and training via private U.S. contractors] also were approved for “export” to Mexico over the same four-year period, according to the DCS reports.
That means the total value of defense-related hardware and service exports by private U.S. companies to Mexico tallied nearly $5 billion over the four-year window. And that figure doesn’t even count the $700 million in assistance already authorized under the Merida Initiative [Plan Mexico] or any new DCS exports approved for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 [which ends Sept. 30].
Following is a sample of the types of arms shipments approved for export to Mexico through the DCS program during fiscal years 2006 and 2007 alone:
• $3.3 million worth of ammunition and explosives, including ammunition-manufacturing equipment;
• 13,000 nonautomatic and semiautomatic firearms, pistols and revolvers at a total value of $11.6 million;
• 42 grenade launchers valued at $518,531;
• 3,578 explosive projectiles, including grenades, valued at $78,251;
• Various night-vision equipment valued at $963,201
A troubling revelation about the DCS program, which has direct relevance to the drug war in Mexico, is contained in a fiscal 2007 report issued by the State Department. That report summarizes the results of the State Department’s Blue Lantern end-use monitoring program for DCS exports.
That Blue Lantern report found that "the Western Hemisphere (especially Latin America and the Caribbean) continues to be a region with a high incidence of unfavorable cases involving firearms and ammunition." The unfavorable finding indicates that fraud may have occurred and those cases "may be subject to civil enforcement actions or referred to law enforcement for criminal investigation."
For the entire DCS program, and this is a disturbing figure, of the 634 Blue Lantern cases closed in fiscal year 2007, a total of 143, or 23 percent, were deemed “unfavorable."
The Blue Lantern report does not mention specific transactions in detail, but does provide case-study examples. One included in the report indicated that a Latin American firearms dealer acted as a “front company for another Latin American company.”
“[The] owner admits that [the] company exists only on paper…,” the fiscal year 2007 Blue Lantern report states. “[The] host country authorities had temporarily suspended the firearms import licenses to [the] parent company because of its link with small arms smuggling to gangs in [a] third country.”
Given Mexico’s strict gun laws with respect to private individuals, it is likely most of the DCS program defense hardware approved for export to that nation was directed toward the military or law enforcement agencies. But it is precisely that fact which should be raising some alarm in Washington.
Mexico, by Calderon’s own admission, is dealing with a serious corruption problem within the ranks of Mexican law enforcement.
From a December 2008 report in the Los Angeles Times:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday said his government was making strides against corruption but warned that graft remained a threat to the nation's efforts against crime.
Calderon’s rival in the 2006 Mexican presidential race, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in recent open letter published in the Mexican newspaper Por Esto! and addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, is even more blunt in his assessment of the extent of corruption within the Calderon regime.
You surely know that all of this began when a group of about 30 traffickers of influence and corrupt politicians, using the cover of so-called neoliberal economic policies, took control of the Mexican State, as well as a good part of national and so-called public goods. And these policies of pillaging that has enriched a minority in an exaggerated and obscene manner, in a way that has not occurred in any other part of the world, has condemned the Mexican people to exile and survival.
And that corruption is not limited to Mexican law enforcement. Sources provided Narco News with a PowerPoint presentation prepared for the DEA that indicates the following:
Between Jan 2000-Dec 2006: More than 163,000 military members were criminally processed during former president Vicente Fox’s 6 years term of office. The majority of the crimes were: [the list includes abuse of power, homicide, embezzlement, kidnapping, bank robbery, illegal possession of firearms and health crimes [essentially organized crime].
Another slide in that same DEA PowerPoint presentation states that the Mexican military reported an average of 1,200 desertions per month in 2006.
And it should not be ignored that the Zetas, one of the most violent drug-organization groups in Mexico right now, was founded by former elite Mexican special-operations troops — many of whom received some training in the United States.
[The two most recent DCS reports can be found at these links: FY2006 and FY2007.]
The Elephant in the Room
A former senior U.S. Customs Inspector, who asked that his name not be used, provided the following reaction when presented with the DCS data:
I would agree entirely [that] DCS (and DoD gifted, as opposed to DCS sold) weapons are obviously the simplest explanation for the massive rise in the number of fully automatic weapons, grenades, rockets, etc., obtained by the narcotics gangs. … That is to say, they are obtaining their weapons from their own, Mexican, government, by various illegal means.
… The Mexican government has a long and well-documented history of corruption at all levels, from city to federal. Most of the weapons being "displayed" [in the media] are simply not available for sale to American civilians, particularly including the grenades — both 40mm and hand types. …
… The source of these weapons can be easily traced by ATF. … All foreign sales must be reported to ATF prior to shipment, just in case the government wishes to hold up a shipment to a particular country, etc. Tracing the serial numbers would be easy, with US government assistance, of course.
But that assumes the Mexican government, and our own government, really want to trace those weapons. A November 2008 report in the San Antonio Express News, which includes details of the major weapons seizure in Reynosa, Mexico, that same month involving the Zetas, reveals the following:
Another example of coordination problems occurred this month. Mexican authorities in Reynosa across the border from McAllen, seized the country’s single largest stash of cartel weapons — nearly 300 assault rifles, shoulder-fired grenade launchers and a half million rounds of ammunition.
But weeks later, Mexican authorities still have not allowed the ATF access to serial numbers that would help them track down the buyers and traffickers on the U.S. side.
To be sure, cartel corruption and intimidation of Mexican law enforcement at every level and in every agency has caused some dysfunction.
A former DEA agent, who also asked not to be named, says the shipment of military-grade weapons to the Mexican government under the DCS program, given the extent of corruption within that government, is essentially like “shipping weapons to a crime syndicate.”
At least one individual with long connections to U.S. intelligence agencies is convinced that the corrupt transfer of arms between the Mexican military and narco-criminals in Mexico is more than theory.
Tosh Plumlee is a former CIA contract pilot who flew numerous missions delivering arms to Latin America and returning drugs to the United States as part of the covert Iran/Contra operations in the 1980s, according to public records. After becoming troubled by those government-sanctioned missions, Plumlee decided to take his concerns to Congress.
Plumlee was eventually called to testify before Congress on a number of occasions, only to find that the Congressional committees hearing his testimony ordered it classified — which meant if Plumlee later spoke about it publicly, he would be violating the law.
Plumlee, however, still has deep contacts in the spook world, some of whom, it seems, want him to bring some information forward concerning the nature of the drug war in Juarez, Mexico. As a result, Plumlee says he recently made a journey with individuals he described as “sensitive sources” to a small warehouse in Juarez — located just across border from El Paso, Texas. Plumlee says he agreed to accompany the sources because he is currently doing research for a book he is writing about the drug war.
Plumlee says it was clear to him that the warehouse was not part of a Mexican military operation, yet it was packed with U.S. military weapons — including grenades, grenade launchers, LAW anti-tank weapons [essentially high-tech bazookas], M16 rifles and night-vision equipment.
Plumlee says his sources indicated that the U.S. weapons in that warehouse — as well as another warehouse located elsewhere in Juarez that he did not visit — were now under the control of a narco-trafficking organization, which had obtained the munitions from corrupt elements of the Mexican military.
Plumlee concedes he does not know why he was allowed to step inside that warehouse and later walk out alive. All he can say for sure is that he was being used to get the information out and suspects that those weapons have since been relocated.
As incredible as Plumlee’s story sounds, it cannot really be surprising that there would be stores of weapons in clandestine warehouses in a city like Juarez, which, since the beginning of 2008, has produced about 2,000 of the estimated 7,000 murders in Mexico’s bloody drug war. And whether anyone chooses to believe Plumlee’s information or not, it is clear he has a long history of being a player in the netherworld of black operations, and might well be trusted by some players who still engaged in that dark art.
Mike Levine, a former DEA agent who has years of experience participating in dangerous undercover operations overseas, says Plumlee is who he claims to be. Levine now hosts a radio show in New York City on a Pacifica Radio station [the Expert Witness Radio Show] and Plumlee has appeared on that show several times over the years.
Here’s what Levine has to say about Plumlee’s credibility:
Before I invited Tosh to come on the air, because his story was so incredible, I vetted him through government agents, all of whom said he is the real thing. I have a copy of the air map he turned over to a San Diego Weekly newspaper, bearing notations of all his drug flights, which first sold me on the guy.
After he had made many revelations on-air in New York, and mainstream media continued to ignore him, Congress was apparently listening. I had been told by my own sources that agencies like CIA were regularly recording our show. (I used to remind them, on air, to make sure they pressed the red button to record.)
So Tosh calls me one day in around 1997 and says that Congress had asked him to testify about his experiences, in closed-door session. I told him, "If you do that, they are going to do nothing but classify your testimony making it illegal for you to tell your own story."
And that, indeed, is what did happen, according to Tosh.
Could it be that Plumlee was used as a type of message in a bottle because, like has happened so many times in the past history of this nation, the normal chain of command and our politicians in Washington, D.C., simply don’t want to hear the truth, don’t want to risk rocking the boat of international relations with Mexico or interrupting the free-trade flow of a multi-billion dollar “legal” arms business?
After all, if our government had to concede that the Mexican military is so wracked with corruption and beyond the control of Mexican President Calderon that it cannot be trusted to control its own weapons, then how can U.S. cooperation with Calderon’s government have any hope for success in what many would argue is an already ill-conceived drug war?
In fact, if that is what we are now confronting in Mexico, it is likely that U.S. cooperation with Calderon’s government, when it takes the form of U.S. weapon shipments, is likely only going to fuel further bloodshed and put U.S. agents and operatives now in the field assisting in those efforts at grave risk.
Narco News did seek to get comment from officials at both the Department of Justice and the Department of State about the issues raised in this story. To date, those queries — both by phone and e-mail — have been met with dead silence.
Stay tuned ….
Wednesday, 01 April 2009
SecurityCornerMexico.com Recommended READING: Mexico's Perception of the United States' Corruption in the following areas: Defense Department, GANG BANGERS IN THE UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES (Video by You Tube) The War on Drugs, ILLEGAL DRUGS CONSUMPTION, Health Care, Public Safety, Police, Enforcers on the WRONG Side of the Law (You Tube Video) Politics, Academics, Corporate Practices, Sex, Journalism, Sports, with "gate" suffix, Televangelist. Sex in the Catholic Church, Olympic games
Posted by Bill Conroy - March 29, 2009
More Than $1 billion In Private-Sector Weapons Exports Approved For Mexico Since 2004
Mainstream media and Beltway pundits and politicians in recent months have unleashed a wave of panic in the nation linking the escalading violence in Mexico, and its projected spread into the U.S., to illegal weapons smuggling.
The smokescreen being spread by these official mouthpieces of manufactured consensus is that a host of criminal operators are engaging in straw (or fraudulent) gun purchases, making clandestine purchases at U.S. gun shows or otherwise assembling small caches of weapons here in the states in order to smuggle them south of the border to the “drug cartels.”
The Obama administration is now sending hundreds of additional federal agents to the border in an effort to interdict this illegal arms smuggling to reassure an agitated middle-America that Uncle Sam will get these bad guys. The cascade of headlines from mainstream media outlets printing drug-war pornography assures us in paragraphs inserted between the titillation that the ATF’s Operation Gunrunner and other similar get-tough on gun-seller programs will save America from the banditos of Mexico.
To be sure, some criminal actors in the U.S. are smuggling small arms across the border. But the drug war in Mexico is not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns. The drug trafficking organizations are now in possession of high-powered munitions in vast quantities that can’t be explained by the gun-show loophole.
At least one report in a mainstream media outlet deserves credit for recognizing that trend.
“[Mexican] traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals,” states a recent story in the Los Angeles Times. “The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government's 2-year-old war against drug organizations. …” Narco News, in a report last December [“Juarez murders shine a light on an emerging Military Cartel”] also examined the increasing militarization of narco-trafficking groups in Mexico and pointed out that U.S. military-issued ammunition popped up in an arms cache seized in Reynosa, Mexico, in November 2008 that was linked to the Zetas, a mercenary group that provides enforcement services to Mexican narco-trafficking organizations.
So where are these military-grade weapons really coming from?
Rather than address that valid question head on, the mainstream media, and now even the Obama administration, have been attempting to paint lipstick on the pig, trumpeting, in the words of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the “courageous efforts undertaken by [Mexican] President Calderon.”
And the “courageous” Mexican President Felipe Calderon, for his part, redirects the blame for the Mexican narco-organization’s increasing firepower back to the U.S.
In a story published by the Associated Press in late February of this year, Mexican President Calderon is quoted alleging the following:
We need to stop the flow of guns and weapons towards Mexico. Let me express to you that we've seized in this two years more than 25,000 weapons and guns, and more than 90 percent of them came from United States, and I'm talking from missiles launchers to machine guns and grenades.
But no matter how hard Calderon and U.S. officials try to disguise the pig, it still oinks.
A Narco News investigation into the flow of arms across the U.S. border appears to lead right back to the systemic corruption that afflicts a vast swath of the Mexican government under President Felipe Calderon and this nation’s own embrace of market-driven free-trade policies.
The deadliest of the weapons now in the hands of criminal groups in Mexico, particularly along the U.S. border, by any reasonable standard of an analysis of the facts, appear to be getting into that nation through perfectly legal private-sector arms exports, measured in the billions of dollars, and sanctioned by our own State Department. These deadly trade commodities — grenade launchers, explosives and “assault” weapons —are then, in quantities that can fill warehouses, being corruptly transferred to drug trafficking organizations via their reach into the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the evidence indicates.
“As in other criminal enterprises in Mexico, such as drug smuggling or kidnapping, it is not unusual to find police officers and military personnel involved in the illegal arms trade,” states an October 2007 report by the for-profit global intelligence group Stratfor, which Barron’s magazine once dubbed the Shadow CIA. “… Over the past few years, several Mexican government officials have been arrested on both sides of the border for participating in the arms trade.”
Counting Commerce
The U.S. State Department oversees a program that requires private companies in the United States to obtain an export license in order to sell defense hardware or services to foreign purchasers — which include both government units and private buyers in other countries. These arms deals are known as Direct Commercial Sales [DCS]. Each year, the State Department issues a report tallying the volume and dollar amount of DCS items approved for export.
The reports do not provide details on who the weapons or defense services were exported to specifically, but do provide an accounting of the destination countries. Although it is possible that some of the deals authorized under the DCS program were altered or even canceled after the export licenses were issued, the data compiled by State does provide a broad snapshot of the extensive volume of U.S. private-sector arms shipments to both Mexico and Latin America in general.
According to an analysis of the DCS reports, some $1 billion in defense hardware was approved for export to Mexico via private U.S. companies between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2007 — the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, during the same period, a total of some $3.7 billion in weapons and other military hardware was approved for export under the DCS program to all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
In addition to the military hardware exports approved for Mexico, some $3.8 billion in defense-related “services” [technical assistance and training via private U.S. contractors] also were approved for “export” to Mexico over the same four-year period, according to the DCS reports.
That means the total value of defense-related hardware and service exports by private U.S. companies to Mexico tallied nearly $5 billion over the four-year window. And that figure doesn’t even count the $700 million in assistance already authorized under the Merida Initiative [Plan Mexico] or any new DCS exports approved for fiscal years 2008 and 2009 [which ends Sept. 30].
Following is a sample of the types of arms shipments approved for export to Mexico through the DCS program during fiscal years 2006 and 2007 alone:
• $3.3 million worth of ammunition and explosives, including ammunition-manufacturing equipment;
• 13,000 nonautomatic and semiautomatic firearms, pistols and revolvers at a total value of $11.6 million;
• 42 grenade launchers valued at $518,531;
• 3,578 explosive projectiles, including grenades, valued at $78,251;
• Various night-vision equipment valued at $963,201
A troubling revelation about the DCS program, which has direct relevance to the drug war in Mexico, is contained in a fiscal 2007 report issued by the State Department. That report summarizes the results of the State Department’s Blue Lantern end-use monitoring program for DCS exports.
That Blue Lantern report found that "the Western Hemisphere (especially Latin America and the Caribbean) continues to be a region with a high incidence of unfavorable cases involving firearms and ammunition." The unfavorable finding indicates that fraud may have occurred and those cases "may be subject to civil enforcement actions or referred to law enforcement for criminal investigation."
For the entire DCS program, and this is a disturbing figure, of the 634 Blue Lantern cases closed in fiscal year 2007, a total of 143, or 23 percent, were deemed “unfavorable."
The Blue Lantern report does not mention specific transactions in detail, but does provide case-study examples. One included in the report indicated that a Latin American firearms dealer acted as a “front company for another Latin American company.”
“[The] owner admits that [the] company exists only on paper…,” the fiscal year 2007 Blue Lantern report states. “[The] host country authorities had temporarily suspended the firearms import licenses to [the] parent company because of its link with small arms smuggling to gangs in [a] third country.”
Given Mexico’s strict gun laws with respect to private individuals, it is likely most of the DCS program defense hardware approved for export to that nation was directed toward the military or law enforcement agencies. But it is precisely that fact which should be raising some alarm in Washington.
Mexico, by Calderon’s own admission, is dealing with a serious corruption problem within the ranks of Mexican law enforcement.
From a December 2008 report in the Los Angeles Times:
Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Tuesday said his government was making strides against corruption but warned that graft remained a threat to the nation's efforts against crime.
Calderon’s rival in the 2006 Mexican presidential race, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in recent open letter published in the Mexican newspaper Por Esto! and addressed to U.S. Secretary of State Clinton, is even more blunt in his assessment of the extent of corruption within the Calderon regime.
You surely know that all of this began when a group of about 30 traffickers of influence and corrupt politicians, using the cover of so-called neoliberal economic policies, took control of the Mexican State, as well as a good part of national and so-called public goods. And these policies of pillaging that has enriched a minority in an exaggerated and obscene manner, in a way that has not occurred in any other part of the world, has condemned the Mexican people to exile and survival.
And that corruption is not limited to Mexican law enforcement. Sources provided Narco News with a PowerPoint presentation prepared for the DEA that indicates the following:
Between Jan 2000-Dec 2006: More than 163,000 military members were criminally processed during former president Vicente Fox’s 6 years term of office. The majority of the crimes were: [the list includes abuse of power, homicide, embezzlement, kidnapping, bank robbery, illegal possession of firearms and health crimes [essentially organized crime].
Another slide in that same DEA PowerPoint presentation states that the Mexican military reported an average of 1,200 desertions per month in 2006.
And it should not be ignored that the Zetas, one of the most violent drug-organization groups in Mexico right now, was founded by former elite Mexican special-operations troops — many of whom received some training in the United States.
[The two most recent DCS reports can be found at these links: FY2006 and FY2007.]
The Elephant in the Room
A former senior U.S. Customs Inspector, who asked that his name not be used, provided the following reaction when presented with the DCS data:
I would agree entirely [that] DCS (and DoD gifted, as opposed to DCS sold) weapons are obviously the simplest explanation for the massive rise in the number of fully automatic weapons, grenades, rockets, etc., obtained by the narcotics gangs. … That is to say, they are obtaining their weapons from their own, Mexican, government, by various illegal means.
… The Mexican government has a long and well-documented history of corruption at all levels, from city to federal. Most of the weapons being "displayed" [in the media] are simply not available for sale to American civilians, particularly including the grenades — both 40mm and hand types. …
… The source of these weapons can be easily traced by ATF. … All foreign sales must be reported to ATF prior to shipment, just in case the government wishes to hold up a shipment to a particular country, etc. Tracing the serial numbers would be easy, with US government assistance, of course.
But that assumes the Mexican government, and our own government, really want to trace those weapons. A November 2008 report in the San Antonio Express News, which includes details of the major weapons seizure in Reynosa, Mexico, that same month involving the Zetas, reveals the following:
Another example of coordination problems occurred this month. Mexican authorities in Reynosa across the border from McAllen, seized the country’s single largest stash of cartel weapons — nearly 300 assault rifles, shoulder-fired grenade launchers and a half million rounds of ammunition.
But weeks later, Mexican authorities still have not allowed the ATF access to serial numbers that would help them track down the buyers and traffickers on the U.S. side.
To be sure, cartel corruption and intimidation of Mexican law enforcement at every level and in every agency has caused some dysfunction.
A former DEA agent, who also asked not to be named, says the shipment of military-grade weapons to the Mexican government under the DCS program, given the extent of corruption within that government, is essentially like “shipping weapons to a crime syndicate.”
At least one individual with long connections to U.S. intelligence agencies is convinced that the corrupt transfer of arms between the Mexican military and narco-criminals in Mexico is more than theory.
Tosh Plumlee is a former CIA contract pilot who flew numerous missions delivering arms to Latin America and returning drugs to the United States as part of the covert Iran/Contra operations in the 1980s, according to public records. After becoming troubled by those government-sanctioned missions, Plumlee decided to take his concerns to Congress.
Plumlee was eventually called to testify before Congress on a number of occasions, only to find that the Congressional committees hearing his testimony ordered it classified — which meant if Plumlee later spoke about it publicly, he would be violating the law.
Plumlee, however, still has deep contacts in the spook world, some of whom, it seems, want him to bring some information forward concerning the nature of the drug war in Juarez, Mexico. As a result, Plumlee says he recently made a journey with individuals he described as “sensitive sources” to a small warehouse in Juarez — located just across border from El Paso, Texas. Plumlee says he agreed to accompany the sources because he is currently doing research for a book he is writing about the drug war.
Plumlee says it was clear to him that the warehouse was not part of a Mexican military operation, yet it was packed with U.S. military weapons — including grenades, grenade launchers, LAW anti-tank weapons [essentially high-tech bazookas], M16 rifles and night-vision equipment.
Plumlee says his sources indicated that the U.S. weapons in that warehouse — as well as another warehouse located elsewhere in Juarez that he did not visit — were now under the control of a narco-trafficking organization, which had obtained the munitions from corrupt elements of the Mexican military.
Plumlee concedes he does not know why he was allowed to step inside that warehouse and later walk out alive. All he can say for sure is that he was being used to get the information out and suspects that those weapons have since been relocated.
As incredible as Plumlee’s story sounds, it cannot really be surprising that there would be stores of weapons in clandestine warehouses in a city like Juarez, which, since the beginning of 2008, has produced about 2,000 of the estimated 7,000 murders in Mexico’s bloody drug war. And whether anyone chooses to believe Plumlee’s information or not, it is clear he has a long history of being a player in the netherworld of black operations, and might well be trusted by some players who still engaged in that dark art.
Mike Levine, a former DEA agent who has years of experience participating in dangerous undercover operations overseas, says Plumlee is who he claims to be. Levine now hosts a radio show in New York City on a Pacifica Radio station [the Expert Witness Radio Show] and Plumlee has appeared on that show several times over the years.
Here’s what Levine has to say about Plumlee’s credibility:
Before I invited Tosh to come on the air, because his story was so incredible, I vetted him through government agents, all of whom said he is the real thing. I have a copy of the air map he turned over to a San Diego Weekly newspaper, bearing notations of all his drug flights, which first sold me on the guy.
After he had made many revelations on-air in New York, and mainstream media continued to ignore him, Congress was apparently listening. I had been told by my own sources that agencies like CIA were regularly recording our show. (I used to remind them, on air, to make sure they pressed the red button to record.)
So Tosh calls me one day in around 1997 and says that Congress had asked him to testify about his experiences, in closed-door session. I told him, "If you do that, they are going to do nothing but classify your testimony making it illegal for you to tell your own story."
And that, indeed, is what did happen, according to Tosh.
Could it be that Plumlee was used as a type of message in a bottle because, like has happened so many times in the past history of this nation, the normal chain of command and our politicians in Washington, D.C., simply don’t want to hear the truth, don’t want to risk rocking the boat of international relations with Mexico or interrupting the free-trade flow of a multi-billion dollar “legal” arms business?
After all, if our government had to concede that the Mexican military is so wracked with corruption and beyond the control of Mexican President Calderon that it cannot be trusted to control its own weapons, then how can U.S. cooperation with Calderon’s government have any hope for success in what many would argue is an already ill-conceived drug war?
In fact, if that is what we are now confronting in Mexico, it is likely that U.S. cooperation with Calderon’s government, when it takes the form of U.S. weapon shipments, is likely only going to fuel further bloodshed and put U.S. agents and operatives now in the field assisting in those efforts at grave risk.
Narco News did seek to get comment from officials at both the Department of Justice and the Department of State about the issues raised in this story. To date, those queries — both by phone and e-mail — have been met with dead silence.
Stay tuned ….
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