Posted on 12/29/2011 11:17:13 PM PST by neverdem
‘Fast and Furious’ Linked to Immunity Deal Between U.S. and Sinaloa Cartel, Trafficking Defendant Alleges in Court Papers
A Mexican drug trafficker awaiting trial in a Chicago federal court claims that the notorious Sinaloa cartel received weapons from "Operation Fast and Furious" under an alleged immunity agreement that the U.S. government made with cartel leaders, in exchange for information on rival gangs.
The defendant in a trafficking case before the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Vicente Jesus Zambada-Niebla, also claims the immunity deal allowed the criminal cartel to "continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs" into the United States.
He wants the U.S. government to provide documents relating to the botched gun running sting operation along the southwest border, arguing that it would benefit his defense.
Operation Fast and Furious, which began in September 2009, saw the Phoenix office of the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives supervise the sale of guns to straw purchasers with the intent of tracing the guns to Mexican drug trafficking organizations and prosecuting their members. The ATF allowed about 2,000 guns to be sold in this manner.
The operation came under congressional scrutiny after it was linked to the December 2010 murder of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry at the hands of Mexican bandits.
An investigative report, spearheaded by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), found that most of the weapons provided to Mexican criminals under the operation were going to the Sinaloa cartel, arguably one of the world's largest drug trafficking organizations.
In a court pleading filed last July, Zambada-Niebla made the claims about an immunity deal.
"Mr. Zambada-Niebla believes that the documentation that he requests will confirm that the weapons received by Sinaloa Cartel members and its leaders in Operation 'Fast & Furious' were provided under the agreement entered into between the United States government and [a Mexican lawyer] on behalf of the Sinaloa Cartel that is the subject of his defense...," it said.
"Mr. Zambada-Niebla believes that the documentation will also provide evidence showing that the United States government has a policy and pattern of providing benefits, including immunity, to cartel leaders, including the Sinaloa Cartel and their members, who are willing to provide information against rival drug cartels."
The defendant argued that he is protected from federal prosecution for trafficking drugs into the U.S. between 2004 and 2009 under an alleged immunity deal struck between the U.S. government and Sinaloa leaders.
According to court documents, Zambada-Niebla claims that the immunity deal provided the cartel's leadership with "carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States" in exchange for information on rival drug cartels.
U.S. prosecutors deny the existence of such an immunity deal between the U.S. government and the cartel.
Nevertheless, the U.S. government last September filed a motion to invoke the Classified Information Procedures Act, which is aimed at assuring that national security information stemming from criminal cases – such as details associated with CIA operations – are not leaked to the public during court proceedings.
In a court pleading filed in September, U.S. prosecutors claimed that Zambada-Niebla's allegations about Fast and Furious have no merit.
"Defendant requests all information in the possession of the U.S. government related to an ATF investigation referred to as 'Fast and Furious'..." it said. "Defendants request related to Fast and Furious... and other unrelated matters are gratuitous and wholly unrelated to any legitimate discovery issues in this case."
Zambada-Niebla, who was arrested in Mexico in March 2009 and extradited to the U.S. eleven months later, is accused of smuggling tons of cocaine and heroin into the U.S.
He claims he was working on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, court documents show.
The defendant's pleading highlighted a July 2011 letter sent by Issa and Grassley to Attorney General Eric Holder, "suggesting that multiple United States agencies were employing as informants members of Mexican drug organizations."
"The evidence seems to indicate that the Justice Department not only allowed criminals to smuggle weapons, but that tax payers' dollars in the form of informant payments, may have financed those engaging in such activities," the pleading added.
THanks for the ping Mesta. This is a really big story.I hope others will check it as well.
No, you don’t have to wonder really. There is so much about this, drips and drabs, from money laundering to gunrunning and back again, BTW, this is not the first cartel member to make these charges. The other one’s case is under seal now.
This whole thing is very ugly, and it is not limited to Mexico. Look what is happening to Honduras.
Drug boss shocker: I was a DEA snitch
Chicago Sun-Times (IL) - Sunday, August 7, 2011
Author: BY FRANK MAIN ; Staff Reporter/fmain@suntimes.com
EXCERPTS
Most of the Sinaloa Cartel’s communications with the DEA were through a cartel lawyer, Humberto Loya-Castro, according to Zambada-Niebla. He says Loya-Castro fed information to agents about rival cartels starting before 2004. Criminal charges against Loya-Castro in San Diego were dropped in 2008 because of his cooperation, Zambada-Niebla says.
In March 2009, Loya-Castro arranged for Zambada-Niebla to meet DEA agents at a Sheraton Hotel in Mexico City, according to the court filing.
Zambada-Niebla says he gave the U.S. drug agents information about rival cartels and, in return, was assured that a pending indictment against him in Washington, D.C., would be dismissed and that he would be immune from further prosecution.
(snip)
The indictment against Zambada-Niebla charges him and about three dozen other defendants with conspiring to import tons of cocaine and “multi-kilo” quantities of heroin to Chicago and elsewhere between 2005 and 2008. He is being held under high security in a federal lockup in downtown Chicago.
Zambada-Niebla claims that his cartel’s criminal activities were sanctioned by the regional assistant for the DEA in South America — as well as by the general director of the DEA for Mexico and DEA agents in several Mexican cities including Monterrey, Hermosillo and Mexico City. He says in the court filing that agents from the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement were involved, too.
He also says that DEA officials tipped Loya-Castro about U.S. and Mexican investigations, allowing top Sinaloa Cartel leaders such as Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman-Loera and Zambada-Niebla ’s own father, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, to avoid capture.
Those men, also charged in the Chicago case, remain fugitives. Guzman-Loera is considered one of the world’s top drug kingpins.
“The United States government and its various agencies have a long history of providing benefits, permission and immunity to criminals and their organizations to commit crimes, including murder, in return for receiving information against other criminals,” Zambada-Niebla ’s court filing says. “Perhaps no better example is the celebrated case of Whitey Bulger, the Boston crime boss and murderer, who, along with other members of criminal organizations, were given carte blanche by the FBI to commit murders in order to receive information about the Italian mafia and other criminal organizations in the New England area.”
Bulger, 81, was arrested June 22 in California after 16 years on the lam. His FBI handler, former Boston FBI agent John Connolly Jr., was convicted of racketeering and obstruction of justice in 2002 for warning Bulger in 1994 that he was going to be indicted. Bulger is accused of killing 19 people.
As with Bulger, the U.S. government turned a blind eye to the crimes the Sinaloa Cartel committed, Zambada-Niebla says in his court filing.
Zambada-Niebla is seeking documents to show whether Sinaloa Cartel leaders received weapons as part of their alleged cooperation with U.S. agents.
http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2009/August/09-ag-824.html
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Ten Alleged Mexican Drug Cartel Leaders Among 43 Defendants Indicted in Brooklyn and Chicago as Part of Coordinated Strike Against Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations
http://www.justice.gov/opa/documents/chapo-mayo-indictment.pdf
(details at links)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2796575/posts
Obama and the Sinaloa Cartel
To the Point News (with permission) ^ | 21 October 2011 | Dagny D’ Anconia
http://www.npr.org/2010/05/19/126906809/mexico-seems-to-favor-sinaloa-cartel-in-drug-war
Mexico Seems To Favor Sinaloa Cartel In Drug War
U.S. federal agents allegedly cut a deal with the Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed it to traffic tons of narcotics across the border, in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to documents filed in federal court…
The allegations are made by Vicente Zambada-Niebla, a top ranking cartel boss extradited to the U.S. last year on drug charges. He is a close associate of Mexico’s most wanted man, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and the son of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada-Garcia…
The deal allegedly began with Humberto Loya-Castro, a Sinaloa cartel lawyer who became an informant for the D.E.A. after a drug case against him was dismissed in 2008.
According to the motion, the deal was part of a ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, where the U.S. helped finance and arm the Sinaloa cartel, through Operation Fast and Furious, in exchange for information that allowed the D.E.A. and FBI to destroy and dismantle rival Mexican cartels. Operation Fast and Furious is the failed Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives anti-gun trafficking program which allowed thousand of guns to cross into Mexico.—Fox News
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18608410?source=most_viewed
Documents: Feds allegedly allowed Sinaloa cartel to move cocaine into U.S. for information
By Diana Washington Valdez / El Paso Times
Posted: 08/04/2011 08:30:37 AM MDT
Thanks very much for the post; ping; thread. BUMP-TO-THE-TRUTH!
Exactly. Reagan = mouth breathing war mongering neanderthal moron. Obama = Super intelligent god like supreme being.
The American government has become a criminal enterprise.
The American government has become a criminal enterprise.
The American government has become a criminal enterprise.
The American government has become a criminal enterprise.
News stories keep saying “botched gun running sting operation.” It was a gun running operation, period. Not botched, and not a sting.
Certainly all POTUS since Bush 1, and most big wigs on both sides of the aisle are either bought off or blackmailed. There is simply no other way to explain the betrayal of US security and sovereignty, and the flagrant disregard for the will of the people, that has permeated our border and immigration policies, as well as the pathetic “War on Drugs.” Traitors all.
The List, Ping.
WTF are you talking about?
The known players are Obama's Justice Department (or as Eric Holder calls it, "The Department of 'Just Us'"), the ATF and the FBI.
Don't forget, Obama promised his friends that he was working on Gun Control "...under the radar..."
The list, Ping
Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list
http://www.nachumlist.com/gunrunner.htm
“In the Bulger case, didn’t the FBI also let a bunch of men that they new were innocent be sent to prison for about 19 years?”
http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2011/07/11/whitey-bulger-case-a-mixed-bag-for-fbi/
The sordid mess reads like a Hollywood script; and in fact provided the basis for the 2006 Oscar-winning film, The Departed. For victims of the Bulger-FBI cabal, however, the results were all-too real.
In fact, evidence that four men convicted of murder in Boston three decades earlier were in fact innocent, prompted a 2000 investigation by the House of Representatives. The inquiry was led by then-chairman of the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Dan Burton (R-IN); I was vice-chairman of the committee.
The committee’s investigation delved into how the FBI could allow men it knew to be innocent, could spend 30 years in jail. During the hearings, a former FBI agent, H. Paul Rico, who knew the men were innocent but did not intervene because of his connections to those responsible, was offered the opportunity to apologize for his role in sending the innocent men to prison. Rico declined, and callously replied, “What do you want, tears?”
Rico subsequently was indicted for his part in the 1981 murder of Roger Wheeler, allegedly carried out at the direction of Bulger and other gang members in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Local investigators complained the FBI tried to prevent them from solving the crime because it was protecting the mobsters responsible.
Rico would die before ever standing trial; but in 2007 a federal judge ordered the government to pay more than $100 million in damages to the wrongly-convicted men, two of whom died while incarcerated.
John Connolly, another former FBI agent connected to the Winter Hill Gang, was convicted in 2002 for racketeering. Just six years later, Connolly was convicted of second-degree murder for his part in tipping off Bulger to a witness in the case being built against him. Bulger and his associates had the witness killed.
Government fined $101 million over convictions
Judge finds FBI withheld evidence of 4 men’s innocence in 1965 murder trial
Upon second reading, the original arrest happened in March 2009, and extradition 11 months later (February 2010). So how would this guy know what was going on between the Depts of Just-Us, Homeland (in)Security, and the Los Zetas and Sinaloa cartels other than jail/prison rumors? What has this guy been doing for the last 20 months? Hmmm...
I was in FMC Rochester and I had been reading a book. I think it was called “None Dare Call It Treason” Lyndon LaRouche noticed it and went on to tell me that Bush 41 flew planeloads of cocaine for the CIA and that Noriega was the person who did more to eradicate drugs than anyone else.
Then I loaned him 25 cents for a bag of microwave popcorn and he still hasn’t paid me back. Twenty-plus years of prison vig that crazy bastard owes me.
I don’t miss the pen, but I sure miss talking to crazy LL.
A military stands-by and says nothing while its borders are infiltrated, why don’t you think about it for a while and get back to me. This administration is like the 3, 4 or 5 past administrations.
Was just talking to a Mexican American last night. He told me about visiting his home town down in deep central Mexico. Down past Mexico City. Apparently a cartel was moving into the town. So the Mayor or head local rival cartel leader, could not figure out which it was, basically gave guns to every citizen and told them they can shoot anyone threatening them. No questions. No jail time. They kept the new cartel out of the town. He also said, you would not believe the guns the people were given. Looks like Obama has turned Mexico into the ole Wild West. If only he was as generous with us.
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