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Posts Tagged ‘Mexican’

Drug War In Focus As Mexican President Visits U.S.
Felipe Calderon arrives at a time when criticism of his deadly drug war is increasing, his political party is faltering and the Mexican economy is attempting to claw its way back after the global economic meltdown of 2009.

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 by Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter June 26, 2008 11:00 a.m. PDT

Mexican cartel Los Zetas paramilitary surrogates attacked and slaughtered an American in Phoenix Ariz. Police say the attackers were dressed in black military like combat uniforms very similar to known Mexican cartel paramilitary gangs.

Phoenix papers report that 6 Mexicans killed a Phoenix man who was found dead by police in a local neighborhood home riddled with more than 100 bullets. Google or click on: They’re known as “Los ZetasThe WorldNetDaily is reporting that some are calling a Mexican drug cartel hit performed by members of the active Mexican Army.

According to early and sketchy reports a Phoenix Police Special Assignments Units heard shots coming from a nearby neighborhood and began to drive toward the noise Sunday. Detectives said once police gained entry into the home, they found the body of Andrew Williams, 30, shot numerous times, according to Arizona Daily News.

“We have seen an increasing amount of these type of violent crimes in the past five months,” Phoenix Police Sgt. Joel Tranter said. “We want the public to realize that these types of crimes will not be tolerated in Phoenix.”

Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said Tuesday on 550 KFYI-AM that he had acquired an internal memo identifying one of the suspects as a former member of the Mexican military, and he interviewed Mark Spencer of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association. The men were said to be wielding AR-15 assault weapons and wearing full body armor and black assault gear similar to uniforms worn by military and police tactical teams.

Detectives were alarmed to find more than 100 rounds of ammunition in the bullet-riddled home, along with marijuana and body armor, the Arizona Daily News reported. Just as more investigators appeared on the scene, they saw a suspicious red Chevrolet Tahoe driving through the neighborhood. As the officers gave chase three men jumped from the vehicle and ran, but police run them down and arrested them. Spencer said the men were intending to try and ambush the pursuing officers but had ran out of ammunition.

Daniel Garcia-Saenz, 24, Manual Garcia-Trejom, 25, and Rodolfo Madrigal Lopez, 19, each wore tactical clothing and Kevlar helmets and other weapons were found in the vehicle.

Police believe the hit was drug-related and are looking for three more suspects in the case.

This is but another example that the violence in Mexico has and is spilling over into the states, even through many politicians and even the ambassador to Mexico have said it was not happening. Google or click on: Mexican Drug cartels terror reaches deep into the U.S.

Drug-related violence has been escalating and reportedly is shifting from Mexico to U.S. border states since Mexican President Felipe de Jesus Calderon Hinojosa ordered troops to fight the cartels.

El Universal, a Mexico City-based newspaper, reported 38 people killed in Mexican drug cartels Tuesday, the highest number reported one a single day this year.

Eighteen of the deaths took place in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas, where 2,800 troops have been assigned to fight cartel trafficking and violence.

The newspaper reported more than 1,833 people have been killed in Mexico’s drug trade-related violence this year.

This Just In!: Check out the full story at: tyrannic.net MEXICO CITY (AP) Mexico decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin on Friday—a move that prosecutors say makes sense even in the midst of the governments grueling battle against drug traffickers. Prosecutors said the new law sets clear limits that keep Mexicos corruption-prone police from extorting casual users and offers addicts free treatment to keep growing domestic drug use in check. This Just In!: Check out the full story at: tyrannic.net Be sure to visit tyrannic.net for more news stories like this. Just Legalize (http is your source for marijuana news and gossip!

Fox speaks out about responsibility, collaboration, and legalization as a solution to the drug war raging in North and South America By Ms Sylence Dogood, Hemp News Staff Will the debate about the legalization and regulation of marijuana finally come to a breaking point? Will we actually see the freedom of choice to consume Cannabis restored? Not only are United States leaders beginning to talk drug law reform, but now the Latin American leaders are joining with the discussion. According to CNN, former Mexican President Vicente Fox and other members of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy have called for a renewed conversation between the United States and Mexico about the decriminalization and legalization of marijuana. Realizing that the “drug war” is raging and the escalating violence is not the way to continue, Fox wants to move the way of American alcohol prohibition and re-legalize marijuana, taking the power out of the hands of the black market. Fox believes that Mexico and the United States must work together in order to move the issue forward and away from violence. Seeing the evidence that prohibition has not been effective, he hopes to take the violence and control over drugs away from the cartels. Right now they are using the army to fight the drug war, knowing all the while that violence against violence will never solve the problem, when the market for marijuana in the United States continues. Cartels bring the drugs in and return with money …

The Laguna Journal has reported in the past that large amounts of cash from the Mexican drug cartel gangs whom are selling drugs on the streets of American cities are being smuggled back into Mexico.

In its last report, the US Department of Justice disclosed that 17.2 billion dollars in cash entered Mexico in only the past two years as a result of money laundering operations in their country. The report advised that Mexico and Colombia are the principal destinations of narco resources that operate in the US and that “the laundering of drug money is a global industry” with transnational organizations present in various countries.  

General Barry McCaffrey, ex-US anti-drug czar, urged a halt to the “hundreds of millions of dollars” smuggled into Mexico since, with those resources, the drug cartels acquire more force and power.  He warned that Mexico is in a national emergency.  The report, drawn up by the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), said that smuggling cash is a method used by traffickers to move profits from drug sales from the US market to the foreign supplier, mainly Mexico and Colombia.  It is estimated that those two drug countries launder between 18 and 39 billion dollars annually.  ”a large part is smuggled in bulk from the US over the southwest border,” the report said.

The Mexican Drug Cartels begin their take over of the Mexican Government by infiltrating the 71-year reign of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) by buying its officials and by contributing huge amounts of cash to their cause. When that didn’t work as well as they liked they went after the ultimate control of government by causing to be formed the new National Action Party, or PAN they than looked for and found a likely candidate that they felt they could control and as a result President Vicente Fox of the PAN, finally ousted the PRI in 2000.

As most new Mexican administrations in March, Fox declared that his administration was in a “head-on battle against corruption.”

“Together, we work for a Mexico full of justice, legality and democratic opportunities,” the president said.

Some recent photo’s were published in the magazine Quien which gave insight into the before and post-presidential life style and it has sparked outrage among many Mexicans.

“The photos show that he got rich during his six years in office, in a very shameless and cynical way,” Lino Korrodi, Mr. Fox’s former chief campaign fundraiser, said in one interview of the former president. Leading the chorus of disapproval, Mr. Korrodi claims that as a candidate Mr. Fox was a terrible businessman, permanently in financial straits and keeper of a simple house with servants paid for out of campaign funds.

Mr. Korrodi claims he raised millions for Fox through the very rich and known drug traffickers. His accusations have prompted calls by many for a congressional investigation into Mr. Fox’s apparently lavish new found wealth.

Hailed as a hero of democracy when he defeated 71 years of one-party rule in elections in 2000, Mr. Fox left the presidential office vilified by much of the press.

At best, he was accused of living in a fantasy world dubbed Foxilandia and of ignoring the need to shore up democracy. At worst he was charged with orchestrating an electoral fraud favoring his personal choice and colleague, the current president, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa who was to carry on the Fox traditions.

But the latest measurement of corruption by Berlin-based Transparency International found that more than 50 percent of Mexicans remain pessimistic about corruption and believe it will get worse. That number is believed to have risen to as much as 75 percent today.

The result is a breathtaking level of corruption. A large percentage of Mexico’s federal law enforcement has been fired for corruption by the Calderon administration or killed by the Mexican drug cartels. In the last year alone, the federal government has fired hundreds if not thousands of Federal Judicial Police and local police for suspected offenses that included theft, extortion, guarding drug shipments–and even murder.  ” But everyone involved in the effort against the Mexican drug trade says there remains massive corruption. One DEA agent whom was asked about corruption in Mexican law enforcement pulled out a thick file full, he said, of information about commanders still in power who are suspected by the U.S. of facilitating the transport of drugs into this country. Former Mexican Attorney General Antonio Lozano said drug money fuels industries and distorts competition. It is not an equal trade partnership when American business people are competing against enterprises that have extraordinary access to illegal capital. Corruption is so deeply embedded in the society that there’s no prospect of eliminating or even curbing it anytime soon.

“Unfortunately, corruption seems to be part of our DNA,” said political analyst Jorge Chabat.

“What we have discovered … is that this is not endemic,” said Eduardo A. Bohorquez, executive secretary of Transparencia Mexicana, or Mexican Transparency. “It’s more epidemic.”

For Bohorquez, whose agency measures corruption in Mexico, “Corruption is the abuse of the public trust to gain a private benefit. You take a mandate from a public group and act on your own behalf.”

But other experts say the problem goes far beyond that, extending from the ordinary citizen to high reaches of government. They say most Mexicans have become accustomed to paying bribes and to the notion that the average police officer will try to shake them down in some way.

“The state has come to be seen as a giant pyramid with the most influential people at the top and everyone else below them also benefiting from bribes, tips, patronage or misappropriations of funds and resources. This particular version of ‘trickle-down economics’ developed its own set of norms and public expectations,” he explained.

One of Fox’s predecessors former Mexican President Mario Villanueva Madrid, was reported to be under investigation for his helping to facilitate the smuggling of drugs, particularly cocaine, up from Columbia, up to the Yucatan peninsula, then into the USA.

The United States has a long history of supporting crooked regimes in Mexico, praising their efforts to cooperate with our drug eradication programs, while our corporate interests loot the country’s coffers, hand in hand with Mexico’s elite.

Of course the rumors and charges of corruption and complicity in the drug trade by the Salinas government become well known even though there were hushed up, brushed aside by US officials in the Bush (the first) and Clinton administrations. As one Mexican paper, The daily El Financero, reported, “…up to 95 percent of the people working in the attorney generals office had been bribed by the Gulf Cartel, run by Juan Garcia Abrego.”

By the time Carlos Salinas left office, he and his brother Raul had looted the country of all the money they could get their hands on. Using the recently bailed out and US owned Citibank to launder massive amounts of illicitly gained drug profits; the two brothers amassed an estimated $6 billion dollar fortune between them both.

Raul Salinas was arrested in Mexico City for murder in February of 1995. While his brother Carlos enjoys the life of a jet- setting playboy, enjoying the plunders he accrued while in office.

However it was not long after Calderon took office he started responding to the unlimited amounts of U.S. government money available to his country should he cooperate and become a puppet of the CIA. It boiled down to the U.S. could offer more than the Mexican Drug cartels could so Calderon was groomed to get the Mexican government certified so the U.S. government could funnel hundreds of millions into the Calderon government coffers in the form of the Merida Initiative.

Just today according to the National Association of Former Border Patrol officers government leaders reached a new stage in the narco-war.  The leaders of Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and Panama agreed to create a united front against narcotrafficing drug cartels.  In a four-hour summit meeting, the presidents of those countries stressed that organized crime represents a danger to social stability and democratic government.  They resolved to compile the existing bilateral and multilateral agreements for combating organized crime and, in the near future, to shape them into a unified legal instrument open for signing onto by other countries in the region.



Responding to this story, one reader ventured the opinion that it was lamentable that those countries feel the need to organize against narco bands which already have a higher level of organization than the affected countries.  He asserted that the real risk to those countries is the internal corruption of each.

Editors note: Michael Webster’s Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide,  in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He has published articles for MaximsNews, which  is associated with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 135 countries. Many of Mr. Webster’s articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.Mr. Webster is America’s leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Mr. Webster publishes the on-line newspaper the Laguna Journal and does investigative reports for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies.