Posted on 08/17/2010 12:47:33 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN – The undercover officer walked cautiously through the home, searching for drugs. He’d grudgingly agreed to search the house, owned by a heroin-dealing witch. But now things were getting spooky.
At the end of a hallway, the narcotics detective found a pitch-black room filled with flickering candles and statues. He tried the light switch. It didn’t work.
So he moved closer, toward a table covered with candles. That was when he noticed the voodoo dolls, labeled with scraps of paper and stuck with tiny pins.
“And I pick up a voodoo doll – maybe I shouldn’t have, but I did – and on the piece of paper was my partner's name,” said the former detective, Robert R. Almonte, now the U.S. Marshal for Texas’ Western District. He showed the doll to his partner, who turned white. “Then I picked up another voodoo doll and that’s when it really struck me. Because my name was on that voodoo doll.”
Today, Almonte supervises about 195 deputy marshals across western Texas. But he hasn’t forgotten executing that search warrant during the 1980s, which sparked a lifelong interest in the religious beliefs of criminals, especially Mexican drug traffickers. He uses the information, gathered during numerous trips to Mexico and across the United States, to train law enforcement officers to recognize “red flags” indicating possible drug activity.
On Monday, more than 100 people gathered to hear Almonte speak at the Eyeglass-Nuevas Ópticas Border Violence Prevention Conference, hosted by the Rio Grande Valley Council, a nonprofit that provides substance-addiction services.
He paced back-and-forth across a stage at the McAllen Convention Center, animatedly describing – and often mocking – the saints, charms and rituals drug traffickers hold dear. Among them:
La Santa Muerte, the saint of death, has replaced Jesús Malverde as the most popular religious figure among Mexican drug traffickers, Almonte said. Often pictured as a skeletal version of the Virgin of Guadalupe, Santa Muerte worshippers leave money, alcohol and drugs as offerings. Drug cartels have built shrines to her.
Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, is the most popular officially recognized saint among criminals, Almonte said. Officials once intercepted a large statue of St. Jude in McAllen. Stuffed inside the statue, which was destined for Kentucky, was 30 pounds of marijuana.
Saint Ramón Nonato, who according to legend had his mouth padlocked shut to prevent him from proselytizing, is a favorite for traffickers praying others keep quiet about their crimes.
Traffickers also rely on good-luck charms, such as Scarface posters and pictures of Tweety, the yellow bird from Looney Tunes. Apparently traffickers find comfort in the idea that although Sylvester chases Tweety, he never catches the wily bird, Almonte said.
Criminals also buy into more laughable schemes, including candles which allegedly warn off police. If the ward-off-police candle fails, there’s also a good-luck-in-court candle.
“Even if they get arrested, do they say ‘Well, I guess this prayer stuff didn’t work, I’m not going to do it anymore,’” Almonte said. “No! Now they’re praying harder so that their case gets dismissed.”
Guess the perps didn't do the voodoo that they do very well.
If he’s still kicking around 20 years after finding his own voodoo doll, she must not have been much of a witch.
hmmm maybe we should print pictures of the post digested tweety bird and drop them like leaflets along the border.
Meth lab Tweety!
BFL
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Either National Geographic or Smithsonian did an extensive article about this just a few months ago; this is deadly serious and very dark, twisted stuff...these cartel dealers actually pray to “Holy Death”.
This is as far from Grace as a breathing human can get in my view, and these people have no concept of what awaits them.
i tawt i taw a road runner
In the heareafter, these devil-worshipping animals will go, I trust, to the one they put their faith in.
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