Former head of elite 'corruption-proof' unit accused of passing info to drug cartels
Wall Street Journal Nov 22, 08 7:26 AM CST
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The former chief of Mexico's anti-drug operations has been arrested on suspicion of taking massive bribes from drug cartels, the Wall Street Journal reports. Noe Ramirez, accused of pocketing $450,000 for passing information on investigations to drug kingpins, is the highest-ranking official arrested so far in "Operation Cleanup," the Mexican campaign to root out corruption that has already fingered 35 high-ranking law enforcement officials.
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Nearly 200 American cities affected by cartels
Los Angeles Times Nov 17, 08 8:40 AM CST
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Mexico’s drug violence has been creeping northward into the US for the past several years, and officials now say that cartel-related crime has hit 195 American cities spanning every state except Vermont and West Virginia, the Los Angeles Times reports. Atlanta has emerged as a trafficking hub, but the kidnappings, deaths, and related violence have spread from Honolulu to Boston.
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Top anti-drug agents accused of passing information to traffickers
Los Angeles Times Oct 28, 08 10:48 AM CDT
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Two senior officials from an elite Mexican anti-drug unit have been arrested and charged with spying for drug cartels, the Los Angeles Times reports, and dozens of agents have been fired following a tip-off from a captured informant. Prosecutors say the officials leaked information to the gangs they were supposed to be targeting in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars a month.
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Crackdown aimed at drug, human trafficking
Los Angeles Times Oct 21, 08 3:10 PM CDT
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Mexico agreed yesterday to deport Cubans passing through the country to reach the US, the Los Angeles Times reports. Increased US patrols in the waters between Cuba and Florida have smugglers using land routes through Mexico to transport would-be immigrants. Mexican authorities have arrested 2,000 undocumented Cubans this year, three times more than last year and 10 times more than 4 years ago.
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Cole picked up alive after grandpa crossed Mexican drug cartel
Las Vegas Review-Journal Oct 19, 08 5:25 AM CDT
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A 6-year-old Nevada boy kidnapped by men believed linked to a Mexican drug cartel has been found in “extremely good condition” walking on a Las Vegas street. Some 100 detectives had been working 12-hour shifts to find Cole Puffinburger, who was abducted from his Las Vegas home Wednesday by men claiming to be police, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal .
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Police target 'person of interest' as search for Cole continues
Las Vegas Review-Journal Oct 17, 08 3:15 PM CDT
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A 6-year-old boy’s kidnapping is tied to "significant amounts of money and drugs," the Las Vegas Review-Journal reports. Police say some of the boy's family are involved in illegal drugs, and are seeking a "person of interest," the Associated Press notes, as the nationwide search for Cole Puffinburger continues. Two men abducted Cole from his home Wednesday morning.
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Body of newspaper editor found as violence continues
Los Angeles Times Oct 11, 08 10:06 AM CDT
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Mexican gangs battling over drug routes to the US show no signs of easing up on the mayhem, the Los Angeles Times reports. In a spasm of violence over the last 2 days, gunmen raked patrons of a bar in Chihuahua and killed 11; a newspaper publisher was shot to death and dumped on a roadside; two federal agents and two suspected smugglers died in a highway shootout; and 13 people were shot to death in Tijuana.
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City's rampant drug war threatens residents
Los Angeles Times Sep 30, 08 12:07 PM CDT
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A dozen bodies were found piled up near an elementary school in a working-class Tijuana neighborhood yesterday, signaling a rare instance of the city's rampant drug war spilling over into a residential area. Police found a bag full of severed tongues nearby and a message indicating the violence was between rival cartel groups, reports the Los Angeles Times .
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Nationwide initiative a key step in border drug war, authorities say
Los Angeles Times Sep 18, 08 8:31 AM CDT
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US officials arrested 175 suspected Mexican drug traffickers this week in raids in a dozen states, the LA Times reports. Prosecutors believe the suspects are part of the violent Gulf cartel, considered to be a driving force in Mexico’s escalating drug wars. The raids were part of a 15-month DEA investigation that has netted 507 arrests and the seizure of more than $60 million.
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People alter habits to guard against risk of violence
New York Times Aug 31, 08 1:38 PM CDT
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The effects of the wave of violent drug crime in Mexico--one paper puts this year’s related deaths at 2,682--have seeped into everyday life in the once-pacific country, the New York Times reports. “You have to be more careful with everything these days,” says a watchdog. Some are thinking twice about going to local restaurants, while others take measures like bulletproofing their cars.
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Los Angeles Times Aug 30, 08 12:38 PM CDT
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As drug violence soars in Mexico, casualties are spreading to the Yucatan peninsula, a major tourist destination and spring break hot spot. Twelve decapitated bodies were found near the popular ruins of Chichen Itza this week, the Los Angeles Times reports. That's because a government crackdown has heightened “a kind of civil war among drug cartels,” said a drug-trafficking expert. And that violence is spilling over from the usual frontlines along the US border.
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Smuggling's a cinch
as officials look to immigration, drugs
Los Angeles Times Aug 10, 08 7:00 AM CDT
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Thousands of powerful automatic weapons used by drug cartels in Mexico have been traced back to US shops, and little is being done to curb the guns’ flow southward, the Los Angeles Times reports. More than 90% of guns taken at the border and picked up after clashes come from the US; last year, 2,455 traced weapons originated here.
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Plants worth hundreds of millions thriving
amid Sequoias
CNN Aug 9, 08 7:14 AM CDT
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Mexican drug cartels are growing hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of marijuana in the thick of California’s Sequoia National Forest, CNN reports. Hours on foot from the nearest road, pot gardens flourish with as many as 10,000 plants, irrigation systems created by daming mountain creeks, and their own armed guards. Pot production has intensified in the area as border control has made it harder to smuggle marijuana into the country from Mexico, says a drug enforcement agent.
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Asset forfeiture: an ugly side of the drug war
Economist Jul 13, 08 5:42 AM CDT
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What would you do with a few million in drug money? Last year, state and federal authorities seized about $2 billion from Mexican smugglers. The feds have to put any seized money into a dedicated fund, but the rules are looser for states. In Texas and Georgia, for example, sheriffs and district attorneys get to keep any seized loot for their departments. The Economist takes a look at the issue and the sometimes iffy purchases that result.
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