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A former drug kingpin who received more than $300,000 from 2006 to 2008 to build a job-training center for people with HIV/AIDS instead used the funds to build a luxury strip club, a D.C. Superior Court jury found Monday. Cornell Jones and Miracle Hands, the nonprofit group Jones founded after serving nine years in prison on narcotics charges, falsified nine documents or statements to support grants worth $329,654, the jury decided after a four-day trial and seven hours of deliberation. Jones, once the king of the notorious Hanover Place NW open-air drug market, used much of those city funds for...

An alleged associate of a Mexican drug cartel has been charged in a conspiracy that distributed more than 100 kilograms of cocaine in the Philadelphia region, federal prosecutors said today. Prosecutors say it was Jorge Bautista-Banda’s job to launder the illegal drug proceeds, depositing the money in $8,000 increments at Center City banks. By depositing amounts less than $10,000, prosecutors said Bautista could avoid having to file currency transaction reports.

A chilling message from the cartels: Billboards with hanging mannequins warning cops to choose 'silver over lead' appear in Texas Two billboards along highways in El Paso, Texas were vandalized and had mannequins hanging off of themOne reads 'silver or lead' in Spanish which is taken to mean that police and business owners can either take drug cartels' bribes or dieWorries spreading that cartels that have ruled Mexican border towns with violence may be headed north Two frightening incidents of vandalism in El Paso near the Mexican border in Texas have been interpreted as warnings from drug cartels. In both...

EL PASO, Texas -- El Paso police are investigating two mysterious billboards that appeared just off I-10, each with a mannequin hanging from a noose. . “It’s not an advertisement,” said Mike Mons, regional manager for Lamar Outdoor advertising. The first vandalized billboard off I-10 had Plata o Plomo in large black letters which translates into silver or lead. It is usually a warning targeting police or government officials in Mexico. The warning: work with a cartel and take a bribe or get a bullet. The hanging mannequin was dressed in a suit and tie. “This symbol has historically been...

<p>Land Grab: The Bureau of Land Management plans a Bundy-like seizure of New Mexico land for a national monument that will restrict Border Patrol access and provide an open corridor for drug and human traffickers.</p> <p>In August 2002, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument Ranger Kris Eggle was killed in the line of duty. Allegedly the killers were drug smugglers crossing through the Arizona park, which shares a border with Mexico. Since Eggle's death, Organ Pipe has been called the most dangerous park in America.</p>

President Obama on Wednesday will declare a national monument in southern New Mexico, delivering a win for environmentalists but angering ranchers and local law enforcement, who say the land restrictions will end up creating a safe haven for drug cartels to operate within the U.S. Mr. Obama will declare about 500,000 acres as the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument. About half of that land is expected to be set aside as wilderness, meaning it will be closed to vehicles and construction.

President Obama on Wednesday will designate nearly half a million acres in New Mexico as a national monument, the latest in a series of executive actions intended to improve environmental protections of federal lands. The president will sign a proclamation establishing the Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument, the largest such designation of his presidency, during a ceremony at the Department of the Interior, the White House said Monday. It will be the 11th time the president has established a national monument during his term, and the largest designation in terms of land mass during his presidency.By contrast, former President...

Obama Administration is set to unilaterally designate a 600,000 acre national monument in New Mexico near the U.S.-Mexican border. The sanctuary, which will be called the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument, has drawn sharp criticism from law enforcement who say it will impede border security. "By creating this monument, President Obama is ensuring a pathway to get drugs into the country" Zack Taylor, Chairman of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers, told Breitbart Texas. The Obama Administration will ultimately control how much access Border Patrol agents will have to the land, including whether or not they will be...

Mexico’s government plans on Saturday to begin demobilizing a vigilante movement of assault rifle-wielding ranchers and farmers that formed in the western state of Michoacan and succeeded in largely expelling the Knights Templar cartel when state and local authorities couldn’t. The ceremony in the town of Tepalcatepec, where the movement began in February 2013, will involve the registration of thousands of guns by the federal government and an agreement that the so-called “self-defense” groups will either join a new official rural police force or return to their normal lives and acts as voluntary reserves when called on. The government will...

One of the roughest Mexican drug cartels has allegedly been hiring a ruthless American gang to kidnap and torture those who cross the cartel inside the United States. The Sinaloa cartel reportedly hired MS-13 gang members to fly from Los Angeles, Calif., to St. Paul, Minn., to find the people who stole 30 pounds of meth and $200,000 from a stash house. Police say three MS-13 gang members kidnapped two teens who they believed stole the meth and cash. Then they tied them up and tortured them, even cutting one victim’s pinky with a scissor. The teens were eventually let...

Three enforcers hired by Mexico’s biggest drug cartel flew from Los Angeles to Minnesota last month, kidnapped two local teenagers, and then tortured them for hours at a house in St. Paul in an effort to recover stolen drugs, according to court documents reviewed by the Star Tribune. Acting under orders from the Sinaloa cartel, the three kidnappers were trying to determine who had stolen 30 pounds of methamphetamine and $200,000 from a stash house on Palace Avenue in St. Paul. Before the episode was over, they had issued death threats against the Minnesota pair and their families, demanding that...

Alleged enforcers for a Mexican cartel were reportedly involved in the kidnapping and torture of U.S. teenagers over methamphetamine in St. Paul, Minnesota, according to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press. The U.S. Attorney’s office omitted Mexican cartel involvement in their official press release on the case. The official press release was titled, "Four Indicted for Drug Trafficking Crimes Involving a Violent Kidnapping in St. Paul" and only identified the perpetrators as being from U.S. cities. There were no mentions of Mexico, cartels, or even a transnational criminal organization—the DOJ agency simply omitted the vital information amid national discussions of...

The disappearing act known as the congressional Fast and Furious investigation made a brief return to the stage recently when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder became unhinged during questioning by Representative Louis Gohmert (R). The trigger for his defiance was the mention by Rep. Gohmert of possible contempt charges over the Fast and Furious scandal. The AG’s admonition of “Don’t go there buddy,” started discussion as to why Holder reacted in such a strong manner. Sure, he’s hiding something, or someone, but are the White House, ATF, and the AG the only players? In June 2011, Rep. Darrell Issa’s initial...

Outmanned and outgunned, local law enforcement officers are alarmed by the drug and human trafficking, prostitution, kidnapping and money laundering that Mexican drug cartels are conducting in the U.S. far from the border. U.S. sheriffs say that securing the border is a growing concern to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, not just those near the U.S.-Mexico boundary.

'El Chapo' and El Banco: What You Haven’t Been Told CRIME POLITICS-US media are celebrating the arrest of alleged Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be the most powerful trafficker in the world and "a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico" (New York Times, 2/22/14). US Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest a "landmark achievement": "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption." But...

—If all goes well, drillers responsible for a shale-oil bonanza in Texas will soon cross the southern US border and extend the hydraulic fracturing boom to Mexico. But first the Mexican government, foreign oil companies or some combination of the two will have to neutralize some of the most savage gangsters in the world. Oil and gas were a key subtext of yesterday’s North American summit between Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and US President Barack Obama. Hoping to join the US and Canadian energy boom and invigorate the laggard Mexican economy, Peña has pushed...

MEXICO CITY—The head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican authorities at a hotel in Mazatlan, Mexico, The Associated Press has learned. A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman was taken alive overnight in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — The head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel who was the world's most powerful drug lord was captured overnight by U.S. and Mexican authorities at a condominium in Mazatlan, Mexico, The Associated Press learned Saturday, ending a bloody decades-long career that terrorized swaths of the country.A senior U.S. law enforcement official said Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman was taken alive overnight by Mexican marines in the beach resort town. The official was not authorized to discuss the arrest and spoke on condition of anonymity.

The world’s most notorious and powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, has reportedly been captured in Mexico. The head of the Sinoloa Cartel - nicknamed Chapo or "shorty" - was caught last night, according to the AP, at a hotel resort in Mazatlan in a joint US-Mexico operation. Forbes ranked Guzman 67 out of 72 on their list of the World’s Most Powerful People. With revenues believed to exceed $3bn, his Sinaloa cartel is easily the most powerful in Mexico, responsible for an estimated 25% of all illegal drugs that enter the U.S. via Mexico. While this may...

Snippet: "Iran and its terrorist proxy groups’ influence in Latin America remains a troubling security threat to the region and world, experts said at a congressional hearing on Tuesday."