Free Republic

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnamese police say they have seized 53 king cobras from a car in Hanoi and arrested the driver. Officer Dang Van Hanh said Monday the live snakes were taken to a wildlife rescue center near the capital where they treated before being released into the wild.

SAN DIEGO -- A reserve deputy with the Imperial County Sheriff's Department has been arrested on suspicion of smuggling illegal immigrants into the U.S., officials said. Elizabeth Hernandez, 23, of El Centro, was arrested Wednesday after being spotted by Border Patrol agents smuggling three illegal immigrants past a checkpoint on Highway 86 near Salton City, prosecutors said. The three were in the trunk of Hernandez's personal car, according to prosecutors. She was wearing her uniform and carrying her department-issued firearm, court documents indicate. Hernandez admitted to agents that she has smuggled immigrants about eight times and has been paid more...

... The rise in smuggling has helped sustain Congo's violent insurgencies. But it also now threatens to taint the precious metal, much like so-called "blood diamonds" from Africa did at the turn of the 21st century. ... Besides, gold smuggling is more lucrative, providing margins as high as 30% on sales. "I keep getting new orders every week," says Mr. Buzima, flipping through paperwork on his office table. "It's a changing environment and we have to follow suit." The World Gold Council also is adapting, and last year the mining trade group published guidelines for miners to keep conflict gold...

In a case that’s rocked the beleaguered Department of Homeland Security (DHS), two officials assigned to crackdown on corruption at the agency have been indicted for ordering the falsification of records—including active criminal probes—to obstruct an investigation into crooked federal agents. The case comes out of Texas and it is quite serious. A special agent in charge of DHS’s Office of Inspector General (OIG), Eugenio Pedraza, directed agents to engage in a scheme to falsify documents in open criminal investigative case files, including numerous probes in which DHS employees were suspected of participating in the illegal smuggling of undocumented aliens...

The Polonium Diversion At least a dozen people have been contaminated by the rare radioactive isotope Polonium 210. The list includes Alexander Litvinenko, the ex-Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB who died from a dose of Polonium 210 in London on November 23rd; Andrei Lugovoi, a former colleague of Litvinenko in the KGB, who met with Litvinenko at the Pine bar of the Millennium Hotel in London the day he became ill, November 1st; Dmitry Lugovoi, Lugovoi’s business associate, who also attended that November 1st meetings; 7 employees of the Millennium Hotel; Mario Scaramella, an Italian security consultant, who dined with...

A militant Islamist leader whose forces have just conquered two-thirds of the West African state of Mali vows to launch holy war against the West. Omar Ould Hamaha, the military commander of Ansar Dine, or "Defenders of the Faith", which has scored a stunning victory in Mali against the failed state's armed forces, now controls a region larger than France which includes three paved runways that could be used to fly in weapons or drugs. He said: "Even if they (western forces) don't come here, when we have finished conquering France, we will come to the USA, we will come...

<p>The battle to retake Mali's north from the al-Qaida-linked groups controlling it began in earnest Saturday, after hundreds of French forces deployed to the country and began aerial bombardments to drive back the Islamic extremists from a town seized earlier this week.</p>

Former FBI agent missing in Iran photographed in Guantánamo jumpsuit By Barney Henderson 8:44PM GMT 08 Jan 2013 The family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iran in 2007, have released pictures of him dressed in an orange jumpsuit like a Guantánamo Bay prisoner, as they continue to hold hope that he is still alive.

Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation "Fast and Furious" to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales. PICTURES: ATF "Gunwalking" scandal timeline In Fast and Furious, ATF secretly encouraged gun dealers to sell to suspected traffickers for Mexican drug cartels to go after the "big fish." But ATF whistleblowers told CBS News and Congress it was a dangerous practice called "gunwalking," and it put thousands of weapons on the street. Many were used in violent crimes in Mexico. Two were found at the murder...

The Second Hamas-Israel War of Nov. 10-21 inspired a mighty debate over rights and wrongs, with each side appealing to the large undecided bloc (19 percent of Americans according to CNN/ORC, 38 percent according to Rasmussen). Is Israel a criminal state that has no right to exist, much less to deploy force? Or is it a modern liberal democracy with the rule of law that justifiably protects innocent civilians? Morality drives this debate.To any sentient person, it is obvious that Israelis are 100-percent justified to protect themselves from wanton attacks. A cartoon from the First Hamas-Israel War of 2008-09 symbolically...

NEAR LA JOYA — A Texas Department of Public Safety sharpshooter opened fire on an evading vehicle loaded with suspected illegal immigrants, leaving at least two people dead. A Texas Parks and Wildlife Department game warden attempted to pull over a vehicle suspected of smuggling immigrants Thursday afternoon along Farm-to-Market Road 2221. A DPS helicopter was called in to assist in the pursuit and a sharpshooter opened fire on the evading vehicle — a policy permitted by the agency. Once the smuggler's vehicle stopped along FM 2221 near Mile 7 Road, troopers found three people shot inside, DPS spokeswoman Katherine...

While negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program are at a standstill, news this week indicates that Iran is clearly losing the economic battle. As in other cases, currency problems in Iran may contribute to an unpredictable and destabilizing political outcome. Iran’s currency fell by more than 18 percent against the dollar on Monday and another 8 percent on Tuesday, marking a new low in Iran’s continuing economic crisis. The figures are grim: a sheaf of rials worth ten thousand dollars a year ago would be worth about $3,750 Monday and $3,500 Tuesday; on Wednesday, there were protests in the bazaar.Short of...

March 24, 2009 Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/pr/2009/March/09-nsd-264.html Irish Trading Firm and Its Officers Charged in Scheme to Supply Iran with Sensitive U.S. Technology WASHINGTON – An Irish trading company and three of its officers have been charged with purchasing helicopter engines and other aircraft components from U.S. firms and illegally exporting them to Iran using companies in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Among the alleged recipients of these U.S. goods was an Iranian military firm that has since been designated by the United States for being owned or controlled by entities involved in Iran’s nuclear...

Missing a Father in Iran Daniel Levinson June 22, 2008 It has been 471 days since my father, Robert "Bob" Levinson, went missing in Iran -- more than the 444 days that 52 American diplomats were held hostage after they were seized in Iran in 1979. These past 15 months have brought my mother, four sisters, two brothers and me nothing but grief and sadness. We are no closer to finding answers than we were when our father disappeared March 9, 2007, on Kish Island, Iran. He was on a private business trip, and I emphasize "private" because, although he...

Authorities in Arizona unearthed a sophisticated 240-yard drug-smuggling tunnel stretching into Mexico that included engineered support beams, lights and ventilation. The six-foot-high corridor ran from a store in an abandoned strip mall near Yuma to an ice shop across the border in San Luis Rio Colorado. It provided a direct link to the US for Mexican drug cartels. The Mexican Army also found a second, incomplete, tunnel under a bathroom sink in Tijuana that stretched more than 200 yards into San Diego, California. The diggers had not yet reached the surface when authorities shut it down.

The demand for cheap cigarettes in Europe is fueling the manufacture and consumption of illicit tobacco at unprecedented levels. A report, released on Wednesday (20 June) by Philip Morris International (PMI), says Europeans smoked more than 65 billion illicit cigarettes in 2011. Of those, more than 12 billion were consumed in Spain, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Cyprus and Malta. Western and central EU countries consumed a combined total of 36.5 billion. But in Spain alone, cigarette contraband jumped by 300 percent in 2011 compared to 2010. In Greece, illicit consumption increased five-fold compared to 2008. “Despite efforts by law enforcement authorities...

McALLEN — Federal jurors Thursday convicted a San Juan man in an immigrant smuggling case involving a 16-year-old girl with whom he tried to have sex. Pedro Salazar, 56, was convicted Thursday of conspiracy and harboring illegal aliens in U.S. District Court in McAllen. Jurors spent less than three hours deliberating the verdict following a two-day trial. Prosecutors said a group of three illegal immigrants from El Salvador and Guatemala fled a two-vehicle accident Feb. 24.After the group hid in the brush for a few hours, they wandered down a road, where Salazar passed and asked if they needed help....

routine traffic stop resulted in the discovery of a human trafficking operation, according to law enforcement officials. Fairfax County police pulled over a white Ford E-350 with Texas plates on Interstate 66 on Wednesday and found 19 people jammed inside the van, including 18 illegal aliens, charging documents said. Police called in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who charged two people with transportation of illegal aliens. Sixteen of the passengers were from Guatemala. The 17th, an unaccompanied 11-year-old girl, was from El Salvador. Overloaded vans are dangerous, experts say. In April, nine illegal immigrants were killed when a Chevy...

A mother in Texas has been arrested for allegedly using her children and teenage sister to smuggle narco cash from Dallas to Mexico. After pulling over Betzabeth Perez-Torres, 23, in a Mercedes Benz in Combes en route to Brownsville, an officer noticed the three children in the car were fidgeting. The officer became suspicious when Perez-Torres told the children to stop fidgeting and to keep their coats on. The officer eventually discovered the children had cash in plastic bags wrapped around their waists and hidden by the coats. The two younger children, aged 2 and 6, are said to have...

The sixth season of Locked Up Abroad premiers tonight on National Geographic Channel. The modern day morality play tells the true-to-life stories of persons arrested in foreign countries (usually for smuggling drugs) and thrown in prison. My favorite episode of the series appeared last season. It featured Brigene Young, who was a 20-year old South African barmaid when she got caught up in a heroin sting in Mauritius, the island nation roughly 1,250 miles off the southeast coast of the African continent. The gullible young woman was offered an all-expenses-paid holiday to the tropical island by a guy she met...