Free Republic

MEXICO CITY – A news reporter who wrote about violent drug crimes has been strangled in the northern Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Tuesday. El Tiempo de Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped Monday morning, said Ruben Lopez, spokesman for the state Attorney General's Office. Authorities found his body that night in a vacant lot in the state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. State authorities are investigating the murder. Lopez would not specify whether they suspected connections with organized crime. But Antuna had told his colleagues at the newspaper that he had received multiple telephone...

Related Story: Australia 'must prepare for cyber attack' SNIPPET: "More evidence is emerging of sophisticated attacks by criminals and foreign governments on Australia's computer networks. Government officials from the spy organisation ASIO, as well as federal police and computer security experts, have joined forces with the top-secret Defence Signals Directorate since July. The Cyber Security Operations Centre has found attacks on company information, apparently conducted by organised crime, which turn out to have national security implications."

Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana was murdered with eight .45 caliber shots the night of Friday, May 15, in a residence to the northeast of El Paso, Texas. The 37 year old man was the presumed leader of the Juarez cartel and a DEA informant. The killer was identified by police as Michael Jackson Apodaca, 18 years old, a member of the 111th Air Artillery Defense Brigade of the United States Army. Apodaca was asked to kill him. A rival organization, known as La Compania [The Company] contracted him and two other subjects to square away a debt. Four months later,...

Note: The following text is a quote: Remarks by Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden at the 78th Interpol General Assembly SINGAPORE ~ Monday, October 12, 2009 In Bucharest, a little over a year ago, my predecessor U.S. Deputy Attorney General, Mark Filip, joined by the Romanian Prosecutor General, announced criminal charges in a case that was emblematic of the evolution of transnational organized crime. That case charged that a racketeering enterprise in Romania joined forces with other criminals around the world -- including street gangs in Los Angeles -- to use the Internet to defraud thousands of people and...

Last week, Bertha Lewis, the chief-organizer at ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, cited Linda Tripp when she spoke about ACORN’s lawsuit against James O’Keefe, Hannah Giles and Breitbart.com at Washington’s National Press Club. ACORN’s lawsuit accuses O’Keefe and Giles, whose pimp and prostitute undercover operation captured ACORN workers, on video counseling them on how to cheat tax laws among other potential crimes, of violating Maryland law that requires two-party consent for electronic surveillance. Breitbart.com, the news website, is also named as a defendant for first posting the video. “It is illegal, as Linda Tripp will tell...

With the revelation that White House Director of Political Affairs, Patrick Gaspard, has close ties to Bertha Lewis and to ACORN, Matthew Vadum and Erick Erickson appear to be onto something significant. While the Gaspard matter needs further investigation before we form any hard conclusions, it certainly seems to confirm that President Obama’s ties to a whole series of ACORN-controlled organizations are neither minor nor by any means long-past. In fact, making use of what Erickson and Vadum have discovered about Gaspard, we can trace these links still further. There’s been a good deal of attention to ACORN of late,...

SNIPPET: "I guess it was inevitable. With the growth in SaaS (Software as a Service), it was only a matter of time before we saw CaaS - Crimeware as a Service. Criminal gangs are now offering services such as DDOS attacks, botnet rental, malware creation and electronic money laundering. And then there are the more exclusive, targeted services such as whaling to attack high net worth individuals and organisations. CaaS is one of the emerging threats associated with organised cybercrime, which is at the top of the latest Information Security Forum (ISF) Threat Horizon 2011 report." Permalink: http://www.infosecurityadviser.com/view_message?id=138

The sun is beating down as Elizabeth Padilla is laid to rest in the Garden of Eternity cemetery. She lies under a pane of glass. Her pretty face has been made up one last time. "Open your eyes, my darling," her mother cries. "There is something I wanted to tell you." "Princess," her sister wails. "I'll never forget the way you danced and sang." "Why you?" her mother screams. "You were so good." Elizabeth Padilla was 29 and had been a policewoman for eight months when she died. She was killed one Wednesday just before 1:30pm while on her way...

Mexico's violent drug gangs are increasingly kidnapping illegal migrants for ransom and forcing them to carry narcotics into the United States as they muscle into the lucrative trade of smuggling people across the border. Traffickers armed with automatic weapons are snatching weary Mexican and Central American migrants on both sides of the border and holding them in cramped houses with little water or food until families pay ransoms of up to $12,000.

The director of ACORN in Ohio says neither she nor other employees of the social-justice group have ever offered to help pimps or prostitutes ply their trade in the state. But the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now and would-be clients in poor, black and Latino neighborhoods are paying a price nonetheless, said Amy Teitelman, the group's Ohio leader. ACORN, which says it has about 7,500 dues-paying members in Ohio and operates offices in Columbus, Cincinnati and Cleveland, has temporarily stopped offering help to clients in the wake of an undercover video shot by self-styled investigators. From conservative standard...

A July 2009 congressional report -- titled “Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?” -- accused ACORN of massive fraud, money laundering, and racketeering directed from the highest levels of the organization's management.

Border Crackdown Makes Farming in U.S. Forests Attractive; Cartel Links Suspected Marijuana growers, many believed to be affiliated with Mexican drug cartels, are aggressively expanding their illegal farming operations in the U.S., clearing land to plant pot in dozens of national forests from coast to coast. Illicit cannabis farms on public land first sprang up in California more than a decade ago and remain a serious problem in that state. But in the past two years, the U.S. Forest Service has documented a rapid expansion of the practice. Authorities have discovered pot farms in 61 national forests across 16 states...

Newly seated Justice Sonia Sotomayor has cast her first recorded vote on the Supreme Court, joining a dissent by three liberal justices to stop a pending execution in Ohio. The full court turned down the last-minute appeal from lawyers for Jason Getsy late Monday evening by a 5-4 vote. Getsy, 33 and a convicted hit man, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 8 a.m. Pacific time today.

Senate Seeks FCC Approval To Jam Prison Cell Phones Legislation aims to stop organized-crime members from using smuggled cell phones to conduct criminal activities from prison. By W. David Gardner InformationWeek July 15, 2008 04:00 AM With strong bipartisan support to permit the jamming of cell phone signals in prisons, the issue will head to the Federal Communications Commission, which has had longtime jurisdiction over wireless jamming and interference measures. The debate has received widespread attention this week in hearings conducted by the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. The Safe Prisons Communications Act, co-sponsored by Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and...

Situation Worsens Back Door Remains Open ByPaul L. Williams, Ph.D.thelastcrusade.org The Real Face of Obama's Open Immigration Policies Something bad is taking place at the border."We're seeing a lot of MS-13,” says Agent Mike Scioli of the U.S. Border Patrol. "They're typically known to be guns for hire, they're known to smuggle narcotics and human traffic across the border illegally."MS-13 stands for Mara Salvatrucha, the most violent street gang in the western hemisphere.Last week Border Patrol agents arrested two MS-13 members: one in Tucson and one in Nogales. The Nogales arrestee was identified by his tattoos - - the...

The Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systematic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate. Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN...

"The election fraud factory known as ACORN should be stripped of its jealously guarded tax-exempt status because it illegally spends taxpayer dollars on partisan activities, commits "systemic fraud," and violates racketeering and election laws, according to a congressional report unveiled yesterday. Republican investigators on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee found that by "intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities." "Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal...

A new congressional report accuses the radical activist group ACORN of organized criminal activities. I will have a full article here on the American Spectator website in the morning about it. The report, called "Is ACORN Intentionally Structured As a Criminal Enterprise?" comes from minority staff on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. The ranking member on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-California), is appearing on the "Glenn Beck Program" on Fox News today to discuss the report. The report, available here, contains information about the ACORN network's interlocking directorates, various unethical and possibly unlawful activities, and the shocking...

McALLEN – Three men already in federal custody have been linked to the kidnapping, torture and ransom of hundreds of Central American migrants in Reynosa, federal authorities said. Two Honduran nationals held on immigration charges in Willacy County recognized one of the suspected smugglers July 10 after he was booked into the county jail, according to a probable cause affidavit filed in their case. One of the detained immigrants told U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agents that he had met Oscar Humberto Hilton Romero, 31, of Honduras, in Guatemala and then followed him to a Reynosa stash house, where he...

On July 11th, PFC James Gonzalez told his family he was heading to Laredo to hang out with friends before returning to the Ft Hood. But on July 13th Gonzalez' commander called looking for the private. "They've asked what our thoughts are about him going AWOL. It just doesn't add up with the phone..it goes straight to voice mail. If he would have done it he would have contacted somebody," said Jason Gonzalez, who is James' brother. The Gonzalez family says the FBI called them to say the Army had received a call saying the private had been kidnapped. The...

In the past I have posted articles about Somalians in America attacking medical workers and throwing rocks at a homosexual. Expect this violence to rise as they are now forming gangs in Minneapolis. Immigration built this country but endless mass immigration is destroying it.

I once had a minor medical procedure done in Mexico. The doc wanted to be paid in cash, and I obliged. Then I asked for a receipt. What followed was Keystone Cops. It took a while for me to realize I was being stupid. By asking for a receipt in the double economy of Mexico I was asking the doc to sign a confession to the tax police. He was right, I was wrong, and I learned something about the underground economy in socialized medicine. Welcome to Mexico, friends, where the people are warm and wonderful, the drug gangs ruthless...

Bakersfield Police Lt. Hajir Nuriddin is worried. You can see it on her face and on the faces of Capt. Joe Bianco and Sgt. Joe Aldona as the trio gathers in the basement of police headquarters. Gang-related shootings in Bakersfield have spiked in the first half of this year, Nuriddin says. And to make matters worse, witnesses, street-level informants, and even anonymous tip lines have fallen all but silent. "Has our city become desensitized by the violence that is occurring right in front of our eyes?" Nuriddin asks.

Here is a video report this morning giving new details on the murder of Florida couple Byrd and Melanie Billings, the couple with 16 children - many of them adopted and with special needs. An eight suspect has been arrested, and this report says CBS News has confirmed that the DEA is investigating possible drug ties to the crime. CBS also reports that the Billings may have been having financial problems, and had actually sued their own son for child support after taking in their son's child. No link is made between that and the crime. An interview with the...

CORPUS CHRISTI — A man was sentenced to 17.5 years in federal prison Thursday for his involvement in an illegal immigrant smuggling conspiracy that resulted in the deaths of three people in Duval County. Frank Garcia, 30, of Pasadena, pleaded guilty of transporting illegal immigrants from Mexico into the U.S., according to a news release from U.S. Attorney Tim Johnson. On Nov. 24, Garcia delivered a van carrying eight people to smugglers outside Concepcion, according to the release. Garcia then drove a lead vehicle while the van followed. During law enforcement’s pursuit of the vehicles, the van crashed and caught...

The president of the union representing 12,000 Border Patrol agents on Thursday disputed arguments from Obama administration officials that the U.S. and Mexican governments are gaining the upper hand in the battle against drug cartels...

ZAPATA COUNTY - Zapata County residents say their backyards are becoming the new stomping grounds for organized crime. "No one should be living here. As bad as it is, no one should be living here," says Angie Botello, who lives in San Ygnacio. The historic town sits on the river's edge in the rolling brush lands of Zapata County. Angie Botello is another one of the 800 people who call San Ygnacio home. She tells us, "There's a lot of smuggling that goes on here. A lot of people that cross all the time. All kinds of drugs. A lot...

17 June 2009 INVOLVEMENT IN CRIME PLACES THE TERRORIST ENTERPRISE AT RISK... ...and involvement in terrorism similarly endangers the criminal enterprise. Either way it's a win-win situation if you are in law enforcement or counter-terrorism. This at least is my initial reaction to the case of the Global Jihad and the phone phreaks in the Philippines.

A former general for the Texas Mexican Mafia is pleading guilty to federal racketeering charges and admits ordering the slayings of five people. As part of the plea deal, Joe “Pancho” Pena, is agreeing to 40 years in prison. Sentencing won’t occur until August. The San Antonio Express News reports Thursday that Pena briefly oversaw street operations for the notorious prison gang. The killings he ordered by the gang’s hit squad occurred from 2003 to 2005.

FBI is advising law enforcement officers across the country that a Texas cell of Los Zetas — an increasingly powerful arm of the Mexican Gulf Cartel drug trafficking syndicate — has acquired a secluded ranch where it trains its members to “neutralize” competitors in the United States.

The interests of Floridians — not political parties — should be paramount as candidates jockey for position in the state’s 2010 elections. The dominos officially began tumbling this week when Gov. Charlie Crist announced, to no one’s surprise, that he’ll run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by Mel Martinez. Crist, who has vied for four statewide offices in the past 13 years, was immediately endorsed by state Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer. While anointing his friend (who installed Greer as chairman in 2007), the GOP boss said he would work to limit primary contests for governor and the...

Obama's newly nominated "drug czar" is Seattle Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske. And just like a real czar, the drug czar, whose formal title is director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, can destroy rights instantly, and he can set the stage for additional harm. Before the dark days of the Clinton administration, few federal government officials had done more to damage Second Amendment rights than William Bennett, the so-called "drug czar" under President George H.W. Bush. In March 1989, Bennett set off a national panic by pushing the first Bush administration to ban the import of so-called "assault...

The law finally caught up with an alleged gang member who police say held down his 7-year-old son while a fellow gang-banger tattooed the boy's belly with the group's insignia. Police say 26-year-old Enrique Gonzales held down his 7-year-old son while another gang member tattoed the group's insignia on his belly. Fresno cops arrested Enrique Gonzalez, 26, at hotel in the Sierra foothills and booked him for investigation of mayhem, child abuse, false imprisonment, battery, participating in a criminal street gang and committing a crime for the benefit of a gang, Police Chief Jerry Dyer said. Gonzales, a member of...

British Prime Minster Gordon Brown, speaking on crime for the first time in nearly two years, announced plans Tuesday to clamp down on rampant organized crime. The Times of London disclosed a month ago that police had identified 2,800 organized crime gangs, almost three times more than had been previously divulged. The Times reported increasing concern over the inability of the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) to reduce big organized crime. "We face new kinds of crime, especially knife crime, organized crime, e-crime and identity theft, and now the new challenge of preventing what happened in previous recessions, where burglary...

Saturday 5/2/09 El Espectador (Bogota, Colombia) 5/1/09 At dawn today Colombian authorities intercepted another vessel transporting 21 illegal aliens near San Andres Is., on the Caribbean. The Colombian flag “Antonita” was headed toward Nicaraguan shores and aboard were eight Somalis, six Eritreans, one Ethiopian and six Bangladeshis. Their two Colombian smugglers were also arrested. This is the third time within the last two weeks that Colombian officials have intercepted vessels transporting illegal aliens in the Caribbean; the total for these two weeks has now reached 89. Officials said that in each instance the vessel’s destination was Nicaragua’s coast as a...

WESLACO — The two men charged through the door with automatic weapons in hand, their faces covered. The door to 1020 S. Missouri Ave. was left unlocked, police said, and the 58-year-old woman was inside with the teenage man who lives with her. The masked invaders threatened the woman and the 18-year-old at gunpoint, then blindfolded them and loaded them into the criminals' silver Chevrolet four-door car and took off just after midnight Tuesday, police said. Neighbors said they only heard the car doors slam - no screams or any sounds of a struggle. The captors drove around in the...

Deep inside a heavily guarded military warehouse, the evidence of Mexico's war on drug cartels is stacked two stories high: tens of thousands of seized weapons, from handguns and rifles to AK-47s, some with gun sights carved into the shape of a rooster or a horse's head. The vault nestled in a Mexican military base is the government's largest stash of weapons — some 88,537 of them — seized from brutal drug gangs. The Associated Press was recently given rare and exclusive access to the secure facility. ... It's less clear how cartels are getting military-grade weapons. Amid the shelves...

SELLS, Ariz. – The reputed head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against U.S. law enforcement, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said. Such a move by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted man, would mark a turn from the cartel’s previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations north of the border – either with American law enforcement officers or fellow traffickers. Local police and federal agents in Arizona said they recently have received at least two law enforcement alerts focused on Guzman’s reported orders that...

In March, federal and regional authorities shut down a central Florida shoplifting ring, arresting 21 suspects - all illegal immigrants - who were paid up to $300 a day to steal baby formula. The group stole $17.5 million worth of formula, according to the Polk County Sheriff's Office, which had 40 detectives assigned to the case.

Josh Meyer for the Tribune newspapers reports that Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman "has instructed his army of associates to use deadly force if necessary to protect their increasingly contested trafficking operations, even against U.S. law enforcement": "Reports of Guzman's recent activities, gathered through U.S. informants, wiretaps and other means, have prompted a flurry of warnings to local, state and federal authorities in border states. They said they have been instructed to use extreme caution when confronting people suspected of smuggling drugs and illegal aliens north from Mexico, or ferrying weapons and cash south from the United States,...

The owner of the Los Angeles-based Numero Uno supermarket chain was convicted today of participating in a racketeering enterprise that was involved in a host of illegal activities, including solicitation of murder, bribery of a public official, harboring illegal aliens and tax violations. George Torres, 52, an Arcadia resident who has been in custody since he was arrested after being indicted two years ago, was found guilty of 55 felony counts, including racketeering, “honest services” mail fraud and wire fraud, conspiring to harbor illegal aliens, and a host of tax charges. The jury determined that Torres solicited the February 1994...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.ice.gov/pi/nr/0904/090410elpaso.htm April 10, 2009 ICE deports former drug cartel top lieutenant to Mexico Criminal alien was wanted in Mexico for organized crime and drug charges EL PASO, Texas - A former high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel criminal drug organization, who was wanted in Mexico for organized crime and drug-related activity, was deported Friday by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. José Manuel Garza Rendon, 56, was transferred to Mexican authorities in the morning April 10 at the middle of the Stanton Street Bridge at the El Paso Port of Entry. He...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A senior US senator cautioned Monday against deployments of national guard troops to the US border with Mexico, saying such a move would be "premature and possibly counter-productive." In remarks prepared for a special hearing in the Texas border city of El Paso, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also warned against the alarmist tone of a US debate over drug violence in Mexico. "The idea of dispatching the national guard to the border is premature and possibly counterproductive," he said. His remarks echoed those of senior administration officials who in recent days...

From the original 31 members, the Mexican organized criminal faction Los Zetas has grown into an organization in its own right, operating separate from the Gulf Cartel and just as violent Between the first of the year and mid-March, 2009, the Mexican criminal organization most commonly known as "Los Zetas" has been busy. Members of this group have been linked to a death threat delivered to the president of Guatemala, a grenade thrown into a bar in Pharr, Texas, the death of a high-ranking military general in Cancun, and a fair share of the organized crime-related deaths registered this year...

Jose Reyes Ferriz, mayor of the Mexican border city of Juarez, presides over what may be the western hemisphere's most dangerous town, certainly the hardest hit by Mexico's drug-war terror. Since the start of last year, Juarez has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders. Reyes this month requested thousands of federal army soldiers to rein in the violence, which has subsided for the moment — giving him a chance to rebuild Juarez's corrupt police force. He talked with TIME's Tim Padgett this week about his police reform, drug-cartel death threats against him and comparisons of Juarez to Baghdad. (See pictures of...

WASHINGTON – When it comes to shoring up the U.S.-Mexico border, the Obama administration won't take yes for an answer. Key members of Congress want to spend more. The president is saying no thanks. Last week, the administration unveiled a plan to redeploy as many as 500 customs, immigration, border and firearms agents to the Southwest border – not by hiring, but by shifting them from other, mostly unspecified, duties. They won't come from the northern border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured Congress. Beyond that, she would say only that they'll come from "less urgent activities" – a red...

A Border Patrol agent patrolling the US-Mexican border in San Ysidro was brutally attacked by a group of four male assailants illegally entering the U.S.... The agent was able to approach one of the suspects, while the other three returned to Mexico. ......struck the agent in the face with a closed fist. While the agent attempted to gain control of the combative assailant, the three suspects in Mexico began throwing rocks at the agent..... The 30-year-old assailant in custody is currently facing charges for assaulting a federal agent and reentering the U.S. as a prior deportee. The attack took place...

Link only, per FR copyright and posting policy

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - An "insatiable" appetite in the United States for illegal drugs is to blame for much of the violence ripping through Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday. Clinton acknowledged the U.S. role in Mexico's vicious drug war as she arrived in Mexico for a two-day visit where she discussed U.S. plans to ramp up security on the border with President Felipe Calderon. A surge in drug gang killings to 6,300 last year and fears the violence could seep over the border has put Mexico's drug war high on President Barack Obama's agenda, after...

LOS ANGELES -- Supporters say George Torres is a hardworking and generous immigrant entrepreneur who built a grocery-store chain serving some of the region's toughest neighborhoods. Government prosecutors allege Mr. Torres is a criminal who over the past 20 years has used murder, theft and intimidation to build his business empire. Those two views of the 52-year-old Mexican national who grew up in Los Angeles will clash during a federal-court trial scheduled to begin on Tuesday. Prosecutors accuse Mr. Torres of heading a racketeering scheme since the 1980s, using money and force to battle rivals and expand his business enterprises....