Free Republic

"I was close to Chavez, but now he wants me dead." The million dollars from Chavez to Al Qaeda is just the tip of the iceberg in a long series of connections between worldwide terrorist organizations and the Venezuelan strongman, according to one of those who knows most about Chavez and the inside of his presidential palace: His former personal pilot. Major Juan Diaz Castillo is the man who flew the equivalent of Air Force One. In this interview with Venezuela's weekly news-magazine Zeta, he reveals formerly unpublished details of the operations that Chavez had him organize. By Maria Angelica...

Last night, a high-ranking leader of La Mara Salvatrucha, also known as MS-13, was arrested in New York for his alleged role in a conspiracy responsible for 11 murders.Joel Vargas-Escobar, also known as Momia, was indicted the District of Nevada and charged with racketeering conspiracy that involved 11 murders. Vargas-Escobar is also charged with two counts of murder-in-aid of racketeering and associated firearms charges. Vargas-Escobar – who previously had been deported to El Salvador and illegally re-entered the United States – had been a fugitive from justice for nearly four years.“The American people are safer following the arrest of yet...

The United States will pay a very low fee for them, but a high one for us. Over time, these actions, combined with the production already being generated by more than 40,000 inmates engaged in various workshops and labor under the Zero Idleness program, will help make our prison system self-sustainable. As of today, it costs $200 million per year. On this occasion, the U.S. has also sent us 23 MS-13 members wanted by Salvadoran justice, including two ringleaders. One of them is a member of the criminal organization’s highest structure. This will help us finalize intelligence gathering and go...

A federal judge who temporarily blocked President Trump’s bid to rapidly deport Venezuelan gang members via the 18th century Alien Enemies Act is facing an impeachment push — including by Elon Musk. Shortly after the judge’s temporary order was issued, Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) announced plans to file articles of impeachment against the judge, drawing praise from Musk. “Necessary,” Musk wrote on X after Gill revealed his plans to introduce articles of impeachment against the judge. Earlier in the day Saturday, US District Judge James Boasberg imposed a 14-day restraining order on Trump’s ability to use the 1798-era Alien Enemies...

MIAMI - The Biden administration’s plan to remove a Colombian rebel group from a list of foreign terrorist organizations barely caused a ripple outside Washington when the news broke this week. But in Florida, home to an estimated 150,000 Colombian American voters, it’s a different story. Biden’s policy is reverberating loudly among Democrats, leading some of the state’s top elected officials, strategists and activists to rail against the decision. “This is terrible. It’s bad policy. It’s bad politics,” said Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who’s Colombian American. Calling the news “outrageous,” Taddeo criticized the Biden administration...

An American contractor held hostage in Afghanistan for more than two years has been released in exchange for a convicted Taliban drug lord jailed in the United States, the White House said Monday, announcing a rare success in U.S.-Taliban talks since the militant group took power a little more than a year ago Mark Frerichs, a Navy veteran who had spent more than a decade in Afghanistan as a civilian contractor, was abducted in January 2020 and is believed to have been held since then by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network. He was traded for Bashir Noorzai, a Taliban associate convicted...

Colombia, which is America's strongest ally, has always had the most level-headed voters in the region. They've had two conservative parties, sometimes at once, and voters there have always rejected the crazy left, which in their case, is a Castro-grade revolutionary crazy grade of left, with Bill Ayers-types on steroids. They did, after all, fight a 60-year war against Marxist narcoterrorists, with only a few university wokesters defending them. So it was shocking news that on Sunday, Colombians went and elected just about the worst leftist of this stripe, a former M-19 narcoguerrilla named Gustavo Petro, president, turning one of...

Anonymous alleged “U.S. and congressional officials” told the Wall Street Journal this week President Joe Biden is planning to remove the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a nearly 60-year-old terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, from America’s list of designated foreign terrorist groups. The FARC, a communist group, has been responsible for a wide variety of human rights atrocities in Colombia since its founding in 1964 that include mass killings, kidnappings, child rape, forced abortions, the use of child soldiers, and one of the world’s most lucrative drug trafficking operations. The government of then-President Juan Manuel...

A North Carolina Spanish teacher and coach reportedly had a secret life and was killed during a shootout with a drug cartel last week, according to the police. Alamance County Sheriff Terry Johnson said Barney Harris along with a friend, Steven Alexander Stewart, shot and killed an 18-year-old member of the Sinaloa New Generation Cartel, which led to a shootout with other cartel members, local outlet WSOC-TV reported.... ...Harris, the head coach for his school’s men’s basketball and track team, was attempting to steal drugs and money from the cartel in a mobile home park in...

A Chinese national was sentenced today to five years in prison and ordered to forfeit more than $4.2 million for laundering drug proceeds generated by large-scale cocaine trafficking in the United States.Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney G. Zachary Terwilliger for the Eastern District of Virginia; Special Agent in Charge Wendy C. Woolcock for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Special Operations Division; Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey T. Scott of DEA's Louisville, Kentucky Field Division; Chief Jason Crosby of the Criminal Investigations Division of the U.S. Department of State’s...

President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday that the administration was launching an all out assault on Mexican drug cartels using the U.S. Military.  “As governments and nations focus on the Coronavirus, there is a growing threat that cartels, criminals, terrorists, and other malign actors will try to exploit the situation for their own gain and we must not let that happen,” Trump said. “We will never let that happen. Today the United States is launching enhanced counter narcotics operations in the western hemisphere to protect the American people from the deadly scourge of illegal narcotics.”“We must not let the drug...

Washington, DC ~ Wednesday, March 11, 2020 Remarks as Prepared for DeliveryGood afternoon, everyone.  Thank you for joining us.Today, we are announcing the results of Project Python, a multilateral interagency operation targeting the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, also known as CJNG.  This operation was led by the DEA, and on behalf of the Department, I want to thank Acting Administrator Dhillon for his strong leadership in the fight against transnational organized crime. And I want to express my appreciation for the courageous law enforcement professionals of the DEA – the men and women who, day in and day out, put...

President Donald Trump decided Friday not to officially designate Mexican cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, deferring instead to Mexico. “We will temporarily hold off this designation and step up our joint efforts to deal decisively with these vicious and ever-growing organizations!” Trump wrote on Twitter. The president said that although he was fully prepared to take the tough step against the cartels, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador asked him not to. Trump said he liked and respected President Obrador, who has been working with him to help stop the flow of migrants crossing the Southern border of the United...

Mexicans have endured a week of gas shortages as the government takes drastic action to combat narco fuel thieves. Several states in the center of the country, including the capital Mexico City, have seen hundreds of petrol stations closed and long lines at those left open. {snip} The government of Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, has cut off the gas supply in a number of key pipelines transporting fuel from refineries. The aim is take the fight to the "huachicoleros" as the fuel thieves are known. Many are affiliated with larger drug cartels, who for years have been...

A municipal police officer in Chihuahua who was kidnapped by cartel gunmen on October 18 was found murdered Wednesday after appearing in a forced interrogation video released on social media. A municipal police officer identified as Jesus Andrade Chagoya, 24, was found murdered early Wednesday morning in colonia Ex Agrícola San Antonio, Cuauhtémoc. Officer Chagoya was kidnapped by a group of gunmen in front of his residence after completing a shift and was later found in a vacant lot dressed in uniform with a gunshot wound to the head. Several hours later, a video was uploaded onto various social media...

Yesterday on Face the Nation, I responded to questions about the migrant separations from their children under the Trump Administration’s policy announced last month by trying to shift the focus to what drives these migrations in the first place – something that can’t be addressed by a simple band-aid piece of legislation paving the way for more lax border requirements.

Albanian-American roofer Florin Krasniqi has been living in Brooklyn and smuggling American guns into Kosovo to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army--this time for war against its erstwhile saviors, NATO and the UN. The KLA are the bin Laden-trained, Iran-backed narco-terrorists whose 1999 jihad against the Christian Serbs we helped fight, abetting secession and creating a mono-ethnic terror haven and future Islamic republic in Europe. Krasniqi, who raised $30 million from fellow Albanian-Americans to help finance the KLA's war, is the subject of a documentary by Dutch filmmaker Klaartje Quirijns, titled "The Brooklyn Connection," which will air Tuesday night at 10...

The Trump administration is slapping sanctions on Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami and accusing him of playing a major role in international drug trafficking. (snip) The U.S. is also sanctioning Samark Bello, a wealthy businessman connected to El Aissami who has held significant business interests in the U.S. The U.S. says Bello provided assistance or support to El Aissami’s trafficking activities.

Colombian voters rejected a peace deal with FARC rebels Sunday, in a surprise outcome that risks prolonging a 52-year-old armed conflict and plunges the country’s future into uncertainty. By a razor-thin margin of 50.25 to 49.75 percent, Colombians voted against the peace accord, in a Brexit-style backlash that defied pollsters’ predictions and left supporters of the deal in tears. After nearly six years of negotiations, many handshakes and ceremonial signatures, a ­half-century war that has killed 220,000 and displaced 7 million Colombians from their homes is not over.

The European Union could remove Colombian guerilla movement FARC from its list of known terrorists, pending the signing of the peace agreement between the group and the country’s government. EurActiv Spain reports.Ahead of a formalization of the deal between FARC and the Colombian government, the EU indicated that it could soon remove the group from its terrorist blacklist. “FARC currently sits on the list of terrorist organizations in Colombia,” confirmed European Commission spokesperson Maja Kocijancic today (26 September), adding that the EU “has strongly supported the Colombia peace deal”. […] The European Court of Justice last week recommended that Hamas...