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
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/18/business/18launder.html
Wachovia and U.S. Settle a Money Laundering Case
By REUTERS
Published: March 17, 2010
MIAMI (Reuters) — The Wachovia Bank, a unit of Wells Fargo & Company, has agreed to pay $160 million to settle accusations that it laundered Mexican drug money.
Under the agreement, Wachovia will forfeit $110 million, representing the proceeds of illegal narcotics sales that were laundered through the bank, the United States attorney’s office in the Southern District of Florida said.
The bank will pay an additional $50 million fine to the Treasury.
(snip)
//
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D02E1D61E3BF933A25754C0A96E9C8B63&pagewanted=all
Wachovia hires a Treasury insider to lift it out of its banking woes
By Eric Dash
Published: July 10, 2008
From his perch inside the Treasury Department, Robert Steel has wrestled with the troubles plaguing America’s financial industry. Now he will confront those problems up close at the Wachovia Corporation, one of the nation’s largest banks.
On Wednesday, Wachovia ended its six-week search for a new leader when it named Steel, the under secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, as its chief executive.
(snip)
Steel, a former vice chairman at Goldman Sachs, played a crucial role in formulating the Bush administration’s response to the running crisis in the mortgage markets. He also championed a controversial plan by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson Jr., a colleague at Goldman, to overhaul the financial industry’s regulatory apparatus.
(snip)
//
http://freerepublic.info/focus/f-news/1965976/posts
Duke bolsters legal team in fighting lawsuit (Duke Hires Jamie Gorelick)
The Herald-Sun (Durham) ^ | Feb 6, 2008 | By Ray Gronberg
Posted on Wednesday, February 06, 2008 1:14:50 PM by Ken H
DURHAM — Duke University has added a former deputy attorney general of the United States to the legal team that will defend it against a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by three members of the 2005-06 men’s lacrosse team.
Court papers filed this week indicate that Washington, D.C., attorney Jamie Gorelick will assist two Greensboro litigators in representing the school.
They’re also the attorneys of record for the Duke University Police Department, Board of Trustees Chairman Robert Steel, school President Richard Brodhead and numerous other university officials.
(snip)
//
wiki:
Robert King “Bob” Steel (b. August 3, 1951) is an American business leader and an expert on financial institutions and markets. In June 2010, he was named Deputy Mayor for Economic Development by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Previously, he had served as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance of the United States Treasury, as the last president and CEO of Wachovia Corporation, and as vice chair of Goldman Sachs.
(snip)
U.S. Treasury, 2006–08 ...
Wachovia/Wells Fargo, 2008–2010 ...
He is also a member of the Pew Charitable Trusts Task Force on Financial Reform, which advises the United States Congress on critical financial reform issues. In December 2009, he testified before the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. House and Senate regarding financial reform.[40] He is also a member of The FDIC Advisory Committee on Economic Inclusion (ComE-IN), which focuses on how to improve underserved and low- and moderate-income consumers’ access to the financial mainstream.[41]
Although Steel was appointed to his Treasury post by a Republican president, he does not regard himself as an ideologue, and has been occasionally criticized for his political independence. For example, although Steel hosted fundraisers at his home for John McCain,[5] columnist Bob Novak complained that Steel is “no Republican,” citing that he had worked with Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin at Goldman Sachs and made campaign donations in 2002 to Democrats from his home state of North Carolina.[42]