Inmate accounts frozen over alleged money laundering

Orange County Register ^ | October 18, 2004 | AP

[LNewman]

SACRAMENTO – Suspecting that drug money may have been laundered through the state's toughest prison, officials at the Department of Corrections have frozen the inmate trust accounts of 14 Mexican Mafia members, a newspaper reported Sunday.

The Sacramento Bee said the action followed an audit released in early September in which investigators found that two members of the Mexican Mafia housed in Pelican Bay State Prison's Security Housing Unit, or SHU, each had more than $20,000 in their accounts. Two others had more than $10,000, and seven more had accounts ranging from $1,700 to $5,200.

[LNewman]

These are the accounts that friends and family members use to deposit funds for incarcerated relatives to purchase items from the prison canteen. However, the article says Mexican Mafia inmates typically send cash back OUT to friends and relatives in sums ranging from a few hundred to several thousand dollars.

[cryptical]

If they can't win the War on Drugs in Pelican Bay's SHU, what makes anyone think that it can be won on the streets of America?

[monday]

"If they can't win the War on Drugs in Pelican Bay's SHU, what makes anyone think that it can be won on the streets of America?"

Stupidity is the main reason. Of course greed is also a reason many in law enforcement want to keep drug prohibition. They are making too much money the way things are.

[freepatriot32]

you forget the biggest reason the wosd is being fought the god like power over who lives and dies that the war gives the gestopo in this country and the virtual immunity to all murder charges, how many times have police kicked in the wrong door in the middle of the night and shot an unarmed man woman or even child full of holes then walked away scot free?You or I being piece of s#%t peons in the eyes of the police and prosecuters would at a minimum face the death penalty for doing even 10 percent of what cops and dea agents do daily throughout the country without any charges being filed.