I-43 Considered 'Pipeline' For Drugs
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. -- It might not surprise some people that Wisconsin is not immune to the international drug trade, but it might surprise some exactly which city is now on the radar of federal authorities....
...The scenic city on the shores of Lake Michigan was named by Readers Digest as the No. 1 place in the whole country to raise a family about 10 years ago.
Now, the National Drug Intelligence Center lists Sheboygan as one of some 200 cities where there's a presence of "Mexican drug trafficking organizations," Homeland Security said cartels are the biggest organized crime threat in the United States....
The drug cartel problem in Mexico is huge. The prize is enormous, but, the LOCAL USA authorities 'get it.' But, whatever you do, don't let the USA government regulate the gun trade. After all the NRA's 'Right to Exist' in the face of tens of thousands of deaths is far more important than protecting even our USA law enforcement and life itself !!!
Undercover DEA agents display the drugs seized.
Updated: 3:23 p.m. May 13, 2009
Feds seize $6 million of meth, disrupting Mexican pipeline (click title to entry - thank you)
2 Duluth homes were raided, 4 men arrested
By MARCUS K. GARNER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration seized 351 pounds of crystal methamphetamine, authorities announced Wednesday.
The bust, made earlier this week, had a wholesale value of about $6 million, and ranks among the largest takes of the dangerous drug — called “Ice” on the streets — in the Eastern United States, said DEA special agent in charge Rodney Benson.
John Spink/jspink@ ajc.com
The Drug Enforcement Administration seized approximately 351 pounds of Mexican crystal methamphetamine in Gwinnett County in the largest seizure recorded on the East Coast.
“This is the largest seizure of methamphetamine east of the Mississippi [River],” Benson said Wednesday at a press conference at the Richard B. Russell Federal Building in downtown Atlanta....
DEA: Bribes taint late Mexican drug czar (click here)
By DANE SCHILLER Copyright 2009 Houston Chronicle
May 13, 2009, 8:52PM
A highly trusted former deputy attorney general, who later became Mexico’s drug czar and was embraced by Washington until his death, is accused in a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration report of taking bribes from one of Mexico’s oldest narcotics trafficking cartels.
Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, killed in November in a mysterious plane crash over Mexico City, is among three senior federal law-enforcement officials named in an April 21-page DEA briefing on organized crime and drug trafficking south of the border.
Vasconcelos was never charged with a crime. The other two are being prosecuted by Mexico.
The report, prepared as a primer on drug cartels, does not say when, or how much money was allegedly taken by Vasconcelos, who spearheaded counternarcotics efforts for President Felipe Calderon and had similar duties as deputy attorney general over fighting organized crime for Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox.
He is alleged to have been snared by the Beltran Leyva organization, which the DEA report says is known to use bribery and assassinations to ensure its share of Mexico’s drug trade, and go “toe to toe” with larger syndicates....
Mexico drug violence rises on border despite army (click here)
By Julian CardonaReuters Monday, May 11, 2009; 1:39 PM
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) - Killings between rival drug cartels are rising again in Mexico's most violent city despite a massive army deployment that temporarily slashed the murder rate on the U.S. border....
...The 231 drug murders recorded in Ciudad Juarez in February dropped to 64 in March, the army says. But the number crept up to 81 in April and is already over 30 for the first week of May, according to police and media tallies.
Mexico's most-wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman is trying to drive out the Juarez cartel from the manufacturing city to control the prized smuggling route into the United States and dominate the lucrative local drug market, officials say....
Gunmen Kill Mexican Soldier (click here)
MONTERREY, MEXICO – Gunmen killed a soldier in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila, officials said on Tuesday.
The victim, identified as Victor Manuel Ruiz Rios, was a 22-year-old soldier assigned to the 33rd Infantry Battalion in Muzquiz.Ruiz’s body was found early Monday near the back wall of a high school in Torreon, the capital of Coahuila.
He had seven bullet wounds in the back, two in the back of the neck and one in the elbow.
The gunmen tied the soldier’s hands and placed him against the wall for a makeshift execution by firing squad, the Coahuila state Attorney General’s Office said, adding that the killers used 9 mm pistols....
Gunmen kill 9 in western Mexico, shoot horses
3 days ago
MORELIA, Mexico (AP) — Gunmen killed nine people in three separate attacks in the Mexico's drug-plagued western state of Michoacan, authorities said Sunday.
The state attorney general's office said gunmen broke into a ranch in a rural area and shot dead five employees, along with four horses and a bull....
...President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 45,000 troops to drug hotspots. More than 10,750 people have died in drug violence since then.
