Cockburn on the Calif latino swing / US narco laundries

As most would agree, drug addiction is a health-care issue. How would you respond if you had a heart attack and the Police arrested you?

Banks are basically above US law when it comes to money laundering:



On the subject of money laundering: When will the United States do its part?

Calderón's belated initiative to counter money laundering through limitations on cash limits is laudable, but again, the key may lie on the U.S. side, where most of the money is being made in the first place.

As Martin Woods, formerly of Wachovia, put it: "“If you don’t see the correlation between the money laundering by banks and the 22,000 people killed in Mexico, you’re missing the point."
Woods is referrring to anks like Wachovia, for which he headed a anti-money-laundering unit 2006-2009, but quit in disgust when it became clear that his bosses didn't like what he found: That drug gangs were using the bank to funnel billions to Mexico.


Why not indict the bastards? That's the tricky part: According to an excellent investigation by Bloomberg a few weeks back,

"No big U.S. bank... has ever been indicted for violating the Bank Secrecy Act or any other federal law. Instead, the Justice Department settles criminal charges by using deferred-prosecution agreements, in which a bank pays a fine and promises not to break the law again.‘No Capacity to Regulate’Large banks are protected from indictments by a variant of the too-big-to-fail theory.Indicting a big bank could trigger a mad dash by investors to dump shares and cause panic in financial markets, says Jack Blum, a U.S. Senate investigator for 14 years and a consultant to international banks and brokerage firms on money laundering."



The United States, then, in addition to being responsible for much of the drug consumption that fuels Mexico's "drug war," and of putting in place very few obstacles to selling the assault rifles and guns used to kill Mexican police, civilians, and drug rivals, for fear out of financial panic blocks a full indictment of the criminal wrongdoings of big banks such as Wachovia, meekly asking them pay merely a small fine and to promise not to do it again...

It has often been noted that the key to win Mexico's "drug war" is found in the United States and its policies, and the absurd banking laws of the latter country only throws more fuel on that argument.

AGUACHILE blog

Amen! Woods nails it....

The Calderon govt bragged that an intensive fourteen month investigation led to the capture of Sr.La Barbie (born El Paso TX).

But it's TOTAL CACA DE VACA. Turns out the murderous capo was pulled over for speeding and then more or less turned himself in without incident. And speaking of official BS, 1200 engineers and former senator Mike Gravel, have signed off on a report asserting that the WTC towers were brought down from within by set charges. (One of them wasn't even struck by a plane!) Try connecting THOSE dots to the planes...

[www.rawstory.com]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2010 07:09PM by Uncle Mort.

I read somewhere that among his other crimes, he was in Mexico illegally (he's a U.S. citizen) and can be deported. (This would save the trouble of having him extradites. He faces major charges in the U.S.) So I'm wondering if he didn't leave the country every 6 months to keep his tourist visa, and, if he did, would they deport him for working without having an FM3? He does have a Houston lawyer representing him. As for his being picked up, with his convoy, for speeding. The gov't says that the federal police were in the area of his home in Mexico State as part of a larger operation to catch him, but that as a matter of policy they did not inform the federal police in patrol cars who they were looking for. So maybe it was random, but not as random as all that.

Interesting report on the federal police on NPR this afternoon.
The Mexican federal police announced last week that it was firing 3,200 officers — or 10 percent of the national force — as unfit for duty as Mexico struggles to wage its war on drug cartels.

The violent border city of Juarez provides some insight into the troubles besetting the national police force. Recently, hundreds of federal cops took to the streets of Ciudad Juarez in an extraordinary demonstration to accuse their commanders of corruption and colluding with the criminals they are supposed to be fighting.

The images were striking, even in this embattled city of Mexico's savage cartel war. On Aug. 7, some 250 irate blue-uniformed federal cops gathered in the parking lot of the hotel where they live and began punching their comandantes on live TV.

The protesting cops told TV cameras their commanders were forcing the rank and file to extort common citizens, and if the officers resisted, they were framed for bogus drug crimes.

“We’re not all thieves; we’re not all corrupt,” a policeman in a ski mask told a cameraman. “There are those of us who like our work.”

Misconduct Continues Under Federal Forces

The federal police were supposed to be the cavalry that rode into Juarez last April to restore law and order.

They replaced the disastrous deployment of the Mexican army in Juarez. For the past two years, homicides soared, as did human rights abuses by the military.

Late last week, the State Department said it was withholding $26 million of U.S. security aid to Mexico, until that country does more to investigate and prosecute human rights crimes by its security forces.

There was a major conflict between the dirty police and the officers who were losing their lives.

- Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission

It appears the federal police have continued the misconduct of the soldiers they replaced. Since May, 50 of 60 complaints received by the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission for abuse of authority are against the federal police for theft, extortion, kidnapping and murder.

One of those grievances comes from Ruben Martinez, a burly 47-year-old body-shop owner and former boxer. He claims a federal police lieutenant and captain tried to shake him down, and when he refused to pay, they arrested his 20-year-old son, Ruben Jr., a student at the Juarez Technical Institute.

“They asked for $500 the first time, $1,000 the second time,” he says. “And then they didn’t come back. That’s when they took away my son.”

Martinez says federal police entered his body shop on April 22, planted two packages of marijuana, then arrested his son for drug trafficking. Ruben Jr. remains jailed. His father says the police asked for a Ford Expedition in return for his son’s freedom.

A federal police spokesman would not comment on the specifics of Martinez’s accusation; he said any citizen can make a complaint against the authorities, and it is up to the public ministry to determine whether charges should be filed.

Commanders Accused Of Collusion With Cartels

The police protesters made even more serious accusations. They say their bosses are in league with organized crime. In an unusually explicit interview broadcast on Milenio TV, an anonymous hooded policeman explains how it works.

“There are times when the commanders tell us on the radio, we won’t work today, don’t leave the hotel," he says. "Then there are reports of convoys of trucks that we believe work for the cartels carrying shipments through Juarez. We’re taken off the streets so that they can do their operations.”

During the mutiny, police dragged their commander, Salomon Alarcon, alias "The Shaman," out of his room and into the parking lot; he was later arrested. The Mexican newsweekly, Proceso, recently reported that "The Shaman" was the top cop on the payroll of the Sinaloa cartel, which is fighting the local Juarez cartel for control of the city.

NPR reported in May, quoting U.S. federal court testimony and local law enforcement officials, that corrupt federal forces assigned to Juarez use their authority to favor the Sinaloa cartel.

What likely prompted the police mutiny is a grim new development in the battle for Juarez.

The local Juarez cartel declared war on the federal police. The cartel has killed more than two dozen officers — gruesomely dismembering some — because of the belief that the federales are helping the rival Sinaloa gang.

Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, the longtime commissioner of the Chihuahua State Human Rights Commission, says patrol officers confided to him that they were upset that their commanders’ alliance with gangsters was getting them killed.

“And so the crooked police were not only taking money from the enemy, they were playing with the enemy. So there was a major conflict between the dirty police and the officers who were losing their lives.”

A federal police spokesman said the commanders in Juarez, including "The Shaman," are under investigation by the federal attorney general for corruption.

Meanwhile, the 250 mutinous police were all flown back to Mexico City to face charges of insubordination.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/10/2010 09:17PM by Imago.

Hey Big Phil, and if someone gave the person something to induce the heart attack the police would step in. Yes, addiction is a health problem but selling illegal drugs is not, it's a matter for the police.

Mass jail break in northern Mexico At least 85 prisoners have escaped from a jail in northern Mexico, close to the border with the United States.

Inmates used ladders to scale the fence of the prison at Reynosa in Tamaulipas state before dawn on Friday. The prison's director and guards are being questioned by state prosecutors, because of suspicions that some may have collaborated in the breakout. Many of the fugitives are reported to be members of Mexico's violent drug gangs.

This is not the first jail break this year in Tamaulipas state. Only last month, 40 inmates escaped from a prison in the nearby city of Matamoros.

Widespread corruption

Mexico's prison system is struggling to cope with an influx of violent offenders arrested in the government's campaign against the cartels. Many prisons are overcrowded and allegations of corruption are widespread.In July, prosecutors accused prison officials at a jail in Durango state of allowing inmates to leave the prison at night to commit contract killings, even providing them with weapons.

...BBC News



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2010 07:56AM by Uncle Mort.

This was in AP..

"He wasn't pulled over for traffic. He wasn't chased at all," Schaffer said. "From what I understand, an associate of Mr. Valdez was ordered at gunpoint to send him a message telling him to come meet."

Kent Schaffer is the Barbie's (Valdez)Texas lawyer. This is from the above cited AP report:

The Mexican government has said the arrest was the result of a 1 1/2-year investigation and a carefully planned raid involving agents specially trained abroad.
But a copy of the booking report obtained by The Associated Press and other media outlets Thursday indicates the officers who arrested him did not initially know who they had caught. The officers' report says they detained Valdez after chasing him in a suspicious three-vehicle convoy for several miles.
On Friday, Valdez's U.S. lawyer, Kent Schaffer, told The Associated Press that Mexican authorities lured Valdez to a business 10 miles from his ranch by having a detained associate call and ask to meet him. He said Valdez drove to the place, got out of the car and found himself surrounded.
Schaffer said Valdez told him the associate was forced to make the call at gunpoint.
"He wasn't pulled over for traffic. He wasn't chased at all," Schaffer said. "From what I understand, an associate of Mr. Valdez was ordered at gunpoint to send him a message telling him to come meet."
A federal police spokesman, who was not authorized by department rules to be quoted by name, said an associate of Valdez's apparently did call Valdez just before he was caught, but said that happened while police were tailing the associate's car in Mexico City.
When the associate noticed the police, he opened fire and was killed in the ensuing gunbattle near a major shopping center, the spokesman said.

Gee they looked like cops in a kinda sorta cop like car, except their faces were covered, so i let em in with no ID:

[www.cronica.com.mx]

And they emptied the chihuahua police armory. Empty holsters today for law enforcement. That'll make it easier to source the one that kills the next mayor, eleven assassinated already this year.

[www.globalresearch.ca]

Techno junk border fence doesn't work, will likely be junked:

[www.latimes.com]

Corruption is us: USA slips out of the top twenty, one worse than Chile.

[www.rawstory.com]

Why is this thread still on the Puerto Escondido board, when it has little or nothing to do with Puerto? Move it somewhere else!

Great analysis of Whitman's self destructing campaign & a hot tip for hammering the right over latino citizenship:
[www.counterpunch.org]



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/2010 02:43PM by Uncle Mort.

Gotta love the politicians. Grow a plant=go to jail!

........ (tech problem at tomzap)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/07/2010 07:49PM by Uncle Mort.