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Posts Tagged Mexico
Agent: I was ordered to let U.S. guns into Mexico
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News, Threat Watch on 14/Jun/2011 20:25
(CBS News)
WASHINGTON – Federal agent John Dodson says what he was asked to do was beyond belief.
He was intentionally letting guns go to Mexico?
“Yes ma’am,” Dodson told CBS News. “The agency was.”
An Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms senior agent assigned to the Phoenix office in 2010, Dodson’s job is to stop gun trafficking across the border. Instead, he says he was ordered to sit by and watch it happen.
Investigators call the tactic letting guns “walk.” In this case, walking into the hands of criminals who would use them in Mexico and the United States.
Documents show the inevitable result: The guns that ATF let go began showing up at crime scenes in Mexico. And as ATF stood by watching thousands of weapons hit the streets… the Fast and Furious group supervisor noted the escalating Mexican violence.
One e-mail noted, “958 killed in March 2010 … most violent month since 2005.” The same e-mail notes: “Our subjects purchased 359 firearms during March alone,” including “numerous Barrett .50 caliber rifles.”
Dodson feels that ATF was partly to blame for the escalating violence in Mexico and on the border. “I even asked them if they could see the correlation between the two,” he said. “The more our guys buy, the more violence we’re having down there.”
Video here:
How is it the weapon industry’s fault? Do they blame the auto industry for all of the car accidents in Mexico?
Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 3/Jun/2011 16:56
Protective Intelligence Lessons from an Ambush in Mexico is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
On the afternoon of May 27, a convoy transporting a large number of heavily armed gunmen was 
ambushed on Mexican Highway 15 near Ruiz, Nayarit state, on Mexico’s Pacific coast. When authorities responded they found 28 dead gunmen and another four wounded, one of whom would later die, bringing the death toll to 29. This is a significant number of dead for one incident, even in Mexico.
According to Nayarit state Attorney General Oscar Herrera Lopez, the gunmen ambushed were members of Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel. Herrera noted that most of the victims were from Mexico’s Gulf coast, but there were also some Guatemalans mixed into the group, including one of the wounded survivors. While Los Zetas are predominately based on the Gulf coast, they have been working to provide armed support to allied groups, such as the Cartel Pacifico Sur (CPS), a faction of the former Beltran Leyva Organization that is currently battling the Sinaloa Federation and other cartels for control of the lucrative smuggling routes along the Pacific coast. In much the same way, Sinaloa is working with the Gulf cartel to go after Los Zetas in Mexico’s northeast while protecting and expanding its home turf. If the victims in the Ruiz ambush were Zetas, then the Sinaloa Federation was likely the organization that planned and executed this very successful ambush.
SCOTUS upholds Arizona immigrant hiring law
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News on 26/May/2011 17:45
“
The Supreme Court ruled Thursday to uphold Arizona’s law that penalizes companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
In a 5-3 vote, the court concluded that federal immigration law doesn’t prevent the state from revoking the business licenses of companies that violate state law.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion that the court had come to its decision because “the state’s licensing provisions fall squarely within the federal statute’s savings clause and that the Arizona regulation does not otherwise conflict with federal law.â€
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55763.html#ixzz1NV8RceHI
U.S. Border Patrol to its agents: stop arresting illegal aliens to “keep illegal immigration numbers down”.
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News, Threat Watch on 10/May/2011 18:53
“The U.S. Border Patrol has told its agents to stop arresting illegal aliens crossing the border from Mexico to keep the illegal immigration numbers down, Arizona Sheriff Larry Dever tells Newsmax.
He also charges that Attorney General Eric Holder is “holding hands with the ACLU†to protect illegal aliens from prosecution, says illegals are committing “heinous crimes†across America every day, and calls claims that the federal government should be solely responsible for controlling illegal immigration “balderdash.â€
Dever is sheriff of Cochise County, which shares an 83-mile border with Mexico, and he says his Border Patrol sector is responsible for half of all illegal aliens caught trying to enter the country and halt the narcotics entering the United States.”
Smugglers Guide Illegal Immigrants With Cellphones
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 9/May/2011 22:17
John Moore/Getty Images A member of the Arizona National Guard on duty at the border. So-called coyotes are using technology to help avoid patrols.
NOGALES, Ariz. — “A group of migrants was hustling north through the southern Arizona desert the other night when one of their cellphones vibrated with a text message. “Watch out,†it warned. “Things are hot up ahead. Take cover in the bushes.â€
Some border crossers are getting help from smugglers who track patrols from afar and send texts on how to avoid them.
The message, signaling the presence of the Border Patrol, was sent by a smuggler watching the group’s progress through binoculars from a hillside on the Mexican side of the border, members of the group said later. It was part of what border officials and immigrant activists say is an emerging trend in illegal border crossing — the use of what is being called the cybercoyote.
“I’ve crossed eight times, and this is the first time they’ve directed me with my cellphone,†said Sandra Silva, 30, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, who was on her way to Phoenix. “It’s like a guide through the desert.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/09/us/09coyotes.html?_r=1&partner=rss&emc=rss
Arizona Sheriff: “Don’t drink the Kool-Aid and buy into this ‘border is secure’ nonsense.”
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 9/May/2011 18:50
“For the secretary of homeland security to say the border is more secure than ever, well, I’ve been there forever and there was a happier time than what it is today. We have a long, long way to go.
“Don’t drink the Kool-Aid and buy into this ‘border is secure’ nonsense.
“There’s a bad element in the mix of the aliens that are crossing that border and they don’t stay there, they move into communities throughout the country. And every day there are travesties and heinous crimes being committed by those people. If we don’t stop it at the border, it’s just going to continue to grow.â€
[Arizona Sheriff Larry] Dever recently told Congress that in one district in Texas, illegals are allowed to be caught crossing the border 14 times before being charged with a felony, and federal smuggling charges are not considered unless at least six illegal aliens are being smuggled into the country.”
Countering Global Insurgency
Posted by Gary in Threat Watch, Training on 21/Mar/2011 17:09
From: Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen
Countering Global Insurgency
Since the United States declared a global “war on terrorism†following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, some analysts have argued that terrorism is merely a tactic, thus a war on terrorism makes little sense. Francis Fukuyama’s comment that ” the war on terror” is a misnomer… terrorism is only a means to an end; in this regard, a war on terrorism makes no more sense than a war on submarines†is typical. This view is irrelevant in a policy sense (the term “war on terrorism†is a political, not an analytical, expression) but nonetheless accurate. Indeed, to paraphrase Clausewitz, to wage this war effectively, we must understand its true nature: neither mistaking it for nor trying to turn it into something it is not. We must distinguish Al Qaeda and the broader militant movements it symbolizes—entities that use terrorism—from the tactic of terrorism itself. In practice, as I will demonstrate, the “war on terrorism” is a defensive war against a worldwide Islamist jihad, a diverse confederation of movements that uses terrorism as its principle—but not its sole—tactic.
– Excerpt from,  Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen  -2010
Two of the seven kidnapped state police officers released in Monterrey.
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 15/Mar/2011 22:16
“Two of the seven state police officers kidnapped last week near Monterrey, the capital of Mexico’s Nuevo Leon state, have been released, a State Investigations Agency, or AEI, spokesman said.
The officers, who were tortured and beaten, were found early Sunday in Contry, a neighborhood in the southern section of Monterrey.
The two officers were thrown out of a moving vehicle, eyewitnesses said.”
ICE Agent’s attack: Gun supplier was U.S. Marine
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News, Threat Watch on 15/Mar/2011 22:04
“One of three men arrested and linked with one of the guns used in the murder of a U.S. federal agent in Mexico was part of the U.S. military and received training on weapons.
Ranferi Osorio, 27, spent eight years in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq and Afghanistan before retiring in 2009, said his ex-wife Valeria Rojas in a statement issued on Wednesday before the federal court case. He supported his family by buying and selling firearms, but had no license or authorization for such trade.
Ranferi Osorio, like his younger brother Otilio, 22, is accused of possessing firearms with altered serial numbers. They were under investigation which took an unexpected turn on Friday 25 February when ATF agents in Dallas were notified that one of the serial numbers of guns used in the murder of Zapata, was related to Otilio Osorio.
Although he had apparently erased the serial number of the gun, it could still be detected on the gun using modern laboratory techniques. The ATF decided to proceed and the three suspects were arrested on Feb. 28 in Lancaster, a suburb south of Dallas.
On 15 February, the ICE agent and his partner Victor Zapata Avila, were shot as they drove along a road in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi. Zapata died in the attack and Avila was injured.”
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/notas/750863.html
They’re not Fast, but they are Furious
Posted by Jack Sinclair in Law, News, Threat Watch on 15/Mar/2011 22:02
NOW ARE THEY FURIOUS? The Attorney General of the Republic, still headed by Arturo Chavez Chavez, decided to conceal details of the investigation that began from the failed operation Fast and Furious, in which agents of the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) deliberately allowed around two thousand high-caliber arms to enter Mexico in order, for the moment, to not generate more friction with the government of the United States.
Nevertheless, what the agency decided to avoid in its official press release is that the investigations taking place in the Justice sub-offices of Legal and International Affairs has, among its objectives, to establish not only which criminal organizations received the armament, but also if US citizens committed crimes that could be penalized and tried in Mexican courts.
They assure us that this is one of the objectives.
And, in face of the gravity of the issue, they say that there are instructions which, if a crime exists, will be carried out against whoever it may be so that the case doesn’t go unpunished and that, if it is proved that ATF agents actually permitted the illegal traffic, it will be sought to bring them before Mexican justice.”
Six Mexican police officers kidnapped in Nuevo Leon
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 11/Mar/2011 23:29
“Six police officers were kidnapped Friday in this northern Mexican metropolis, Nuevo Leon state authorities said.
Witnesses said several SUV-loads of men armed with assault rifles intercepted two state police vehicles at an intersection in Monterrey and forced the officers to surrender, said sources with the Nuevo Leon Security Council.
Bullet holes were found in the abandoned police vehicles.
The mass abduction came a few hours after two gunmen were killed and two others arrested in a clash with state police in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon’s capital, and followed the army’s arrest here Thursday of six traffic cops on suspicion of ties to organized crime.”
U.S. Raids Mexican Gang
Posted by Gary in News, Threat Watch on 9/Mar/2011 20:24
From: WSJ
Federal agents have arrested a number of members of the Barrio Azteca drug gang in Mexico overnight, after having tied the group to the killing of a U.S. consulate worker and her husband, according to people familiar with the case.
Drug Crime in Mexico
Track the increasing violence in an interactive map.
Lesley Enriquez and her husband were gunned down in March 2010. Mexican investigators said months later that a captured drug-gang enforcer claimed to have ordered the slaying because Ms. Enriquez allegedly helped provide visas to a rival gang. At the time, federal authorities said the motive for the killing was unknown.
The attack on the Enriquez couple came at almost the same time as a third killing in which the husband of a Mexican employee of the U.S. consulate was gunned down. That raised concerns that U.S. government personnel were being targeted in drug-related violence. Those concerns were revived last month when an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent was gunned down on a roadside in Mexico.
Ms. Enriquez was pregnant when she was killed. The couple’s infant daughter was in the car at the time of the shooting but was not injured. Police who responded to the crime scene found the child crying in the back seat.
Planning a Vacation in Mexico?
Posted by Gary in Threat Watch on 9/Mar/2011 17:18
Mexico’s drug war has claimed more than 31,000 lives since President Felipe Calderon took office.
Think the violence only reaches the drug runners?
Oct 22, 2010, Ciudad Juarez: Birthday Party Attacked Fourteen people, including a 13-year-old, are killed in a massacre at a Ciudad Juarez birthday party.
Agent: ATF partly to blame for Mexico Violence
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 7/Mar/2011 15:20
Watch this chilling and revealing news story.
From:Â CBS News
Agent: ATF partly to blame for Mexico violence
March 3, 2011 4:01 PM
An agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms claims the agency has a policy that allows guns to get in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels. Sharyl Attkisson reports.
ATF in Damage Control Mode over Gunwalker
Posted by Gary in Law, News, Threat Watch on 7/Mar/2011 15:12
ATF Memo from The Sipsey Street Irregulars
Public Information Officers:
Please make every effort for the next two weeks to maximize coverage
of ATF operations/enforcement actions/arrests at the local and
regional level. Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last
week and upcoming events this week, the bureau should look for every
opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS
story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and
seems to have fizzled.It was shoddy reporting, as CBS failed to air on-the-record interviews
by former ATF officials and HQ statements for attribution that
expressed opposing views and explained the law and difficulties of
firearm trafficking investigations. The CBS producer for the story
made only a feigned effort at the 11th hour to reach ATF HQ for comment.This week (To 3/1/2011), Attorney General Holder testifies on the Hill
and likely will get questions about the allegations in the story. Also
(The 3/3/2011), Mexico President Calderon will visit the White House
and likely will testify on the Hill. He will probably draw attention
to the lack of political support for demand letter 3 and Project
Gunrunner.ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week, in an effort
to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage
of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories
about ATF. The more time we spend highlighting the great work of the
agents through press releases and various media outreaches in the
coming days and weeks, the better off we will be.Thanks for your cooperation in this matter. If you have any
significant operations that should get national media coverage, please
reach out to the Public Affairs Division for support, coordination and
clearance.Thank you,
Scot L. Thomasson
Chief, ATF Public Affairs Division
Washington, DC