NY Mayor Bloomberg Donates $150,000 to Pro Gun Control Virginia Politicians- After NYPD Cops Nabbed In Gunrunning Sting

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has opened up his checkbook for six Democrats running for the state office in Virginia ahead of Old Dominion's November 8th elections for state Senate and House of Delegates.

Bloomberg has donated $25,000 apiece to the campaigns of six Democratic candidates for the Virginia state Senate who share his strict beliefs on gun control, officials told the Daily News Friday.

The deep-pocketed mayor, who drew the ire of the Virginia attorney general when he ran gun stings there five years ago, will travel to Old Dominion to campaign for the candidates next week, the officials said.

What happens in the Virginia Legislature will directly affect the public safety of New Yorkers, said John Feinblatt, the mayor s Criminal Justice Coordinator.

Bloomberg was slammed by Virginia's then-attorney general - and now governor - Bob McDonnell for the 2006 stings.

The announcement comes a few days after 8 current and former NYPD officers were arrested by the FBI in a gunrunning sting where the officers are accused of trafficking in stolen property and purchasing guns from an undercover FBI agent before filing off the serial numbers.

The investigation into the conspiracy began in 2009, when an FBI informant was introduced to one cop, William Masso of the 68th Precinct, "as a person who could 'fix' the [informant's] traffic tickets," according to court papers obtained by the Post. But a law-enforcement official tells the tabloid that the probe was "totally unrelated" to the NYPD ticket-fixing scandal currently under investigation by the Bronx DA, who is expected to charge 16 officers soon.

In this case, the officers are accused of buying inoperable weapons, including an M-4 assault rifle, from an undercover FBI agent. They then allegedly filed off the serial numbers so they couldn't be traced, and transported them over state lines. Masso allegedly told his conspirators that they should carry their police badges, and if they ran into trouble with non-corrupt cops, to say they were cops working off-duty "delivering items purchased at auction."

"The criminal complaint lays out a scheme of brazen misconduct that include the illegal transportation of stolen cigarettes and stolen slot machines, the illegal transportation firearms, and the illegal transportation of defaced firearms," FBI's Special Agent in Charge, Diego Rodriguez, said in a statement this morning. "All of these crimes were seemingly committed for one simple reason: money. For their participation in the various schemes—cigarettes, slot machines, guns—the defendants were paid handsomely."

Interestingly, while the news of crooked NYPD cops allegedly trafficking black market guns with the serial numbers filed off was the most dramatic accusation made against them, the cigarette smuggling scheme the accused were reportedly involved in was their most lucrative.

The demand for cheap cigarettes in New York—which has the nation's highest tax levy, $6.46 a pack in the city—has fueled a burgeoning underground market that costs the city about $200 million a year and the state $525 million, city, state and federal officials said.

"Over the past decade we have seen a marked increase in contraband cigarettes coming into the greater New York area," Joseph Green, a spokesman for the ATF's New York office, said Wednesday.

The cigarette-smuggling operation actually made the defendants more money: Undercover investigators paid the defendants about three times as much money—about $92,000—for moving cigarettes than for the guns, the complaint said.

And unlike the guns the defendants sold in the federal sting operation, some of the 2.4 million cigarettes they allegedly smuggled appear to have made their way into the New York market, the complaint suggests.

According to recorded conversations cited by federal prosecutors, Mr. Masso was long familiar with cigarette smuggling. He told undercover investigators that he used to acquire cigarettes from a woman who bought them from Native American reservations and put bogus tax stamps on the cigarette boxes, a criminal complaint said.

He allegedly told the informant that he made $5,000 a week on the scheme and ruminated about again finding the woman and getting a tax stamp.

By May of this year, Mr. Masso and the group of officers and civilians he recruited allegedly had participated in the smuggling and sale of more than $600,000 worth of cigarettes, moving them from Virginia and New Jersey into the New York City area, authorities said. In one case, a group broke into box trucks in Virginia and stole the cigarettes, authorities said.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's felon-riddled gun control advocacy group has begun lobbying in earnest against national conceal-carry reciprocity legislation that has been working its way through Congress. Members of the organization claim the legislation would undercut state's rights, which is pretty interesting considering how much Bloomberg himself had attempted to influence firearms legislation in Virginia and Arizona.

Blue State Graft Watch: Maryland State Senator Won't Testify in His Own Defense in Corruption Trial

A 4-term Democrat state senator representing Prince George's county does not plan on testifying on his own behalf as his Federal corruption trial is coming to an end, according to his lawyers.

Attorneys for Currie had held out the possibility that he might testify, but it is rare for defendants in criminal cases to take the stand, and Currie and his defense team indicated that he will not.

The announcement in U.S. District Court in Baltimore by defense attorney Joseph L. Evans came during a full day of testimony in the trial, now in its fifth week. The 74-year-old senator is accused of taking bribes in exchange for a series of government favors for Shoppers Food Warehouse.

Currie has also been charged with making false statements to the FBI during an interview at the time of the early-morning raid of his home.

Instead, the defense has made the claim that Currie's memory and mental capacity has been diminished by injections of a drug called Lupron stemming from his 2008 treatment for prostate cancer.

In May 2008, the FBI searched his District Heights, MD home and seized documents pertaining to his consultation work with Shoppers Food Warehouse. Currie was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2010.

A federal grand jury has indicted Maryland State Senator Ulysses S. Currie, age 73, of Forestville, Maryland; and Shoppers Food Warehouse Corp. (SFW) executives—former president William J. White, age 67, of Annapolis, Maryland and Jupiter, Florida; and former vice president for real estate development R. Kevin Small, age 55, of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania—in connection with a scheme from 2002 to 2008 in which the supermarket chain allegedly paid Senator Currrie in exchange for using his official position and influence in matters benefitting White, Small, and the supermarket chain. In addition, a separate criminal information was filed against Shoppers Food Warehouse Corp., which has agreed to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement.

The 18-count indictment alleges that soon after Ulysses Currie became chair of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee in 2002, he asked to be placed on the payroll of Shoppers Food Warehouse Corporation and agreed to use his government office and authority to pursue specific state action to benefit his private employer. Chairman Currie allegedly signed contracts reflecting the cover story that he would provide services unrelated to his government office; failed to file legally required conflict-of-interest statements with the Maryland General Assembly’s Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics; and lied under oath on public financial disclosure forms filed with the Maryland State Ethics Commission for five consecutive years, in 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. Meanwhile, Chairman Currie caused to be introduced and voted on legislation to benefit the corporation and sought benefits on its behalf from state officials. The indictment alleges that Chairman Currie prepared a list of 12 specific projects in which he used his Senate office and influence to benefit the supermarket chain, and offered to bring “many more” government benefits in the future. Chairman Currie allegedly wrote that he was “in a unique position to assist” the supermarket chain “in expanding its mission and increasing its bottom line.”

The indictment alleges that Currie received payments of $3,000 per month beginning in February 2003, raised to $3,416.67 in July 2004, to $3,800 in June 2007, and ultimately to $7,600 per month in December 2007. In order to conceal his arrangement with White, Small and the corporation, the indictment charges that Chairman Currie did not disclose any income from the corporation on five separate annual ethics disclosures, from 2004 through 2008.

In a separate deferred prosecution agreement, Shoppers Food Warehouse was assessed $12.5 million in fines.

Borderline Psychosis Update- Mexican Kidnap Victims Held in N.L. Jails; Cartels Luring Border Lawmen to Dark Side; Sofia Vergara Cameo at Drug Raid?

TEXAS: An increasing number of police officers on the US side of the border are being influenced by organized crime from south of the border, a recent Houston Chronicle article reports.

Nine South Texas lawmen have been charged or sent to prison in the past 16 months for using their badges to sneak drugs or guns through the U.S.-Mexico border region from Laredo to Brownsville.

The lawmen's downfalls, an indication of growing corruption prosecutions, are all linked to Mexico's lucrative drug cartels, which long have sought to infiltrate not only federal border guards but local officers patrolling U.S. towns along the Rio Grande.

"I thought we knew these people like the back of our hand," said Laredo police investigator Joe Baeza. "But then again, if you look at the back of your hand every five years, it changes."

Laredo officer Orlando Hale hyperventilated when federal agents showed him photographs of him meeting with a supposed cocaine trafficker he aided by escorting loads through the city, court records show.

So began a nightmare for Hale, whose parents are law-enforcement veterans.

He was convicted by a jury and got 24 years.

Others who got busted include police officers, deputies and constables, as well as one high-ranking official, Sullivan City's police chief.

None of the corruption cases appears to involve the classic cartel threat of offering "silver or lead," the practice of demanding the target "take our money and live, or turn us down and die." The tactic has devoured police departments in Mexico.

Instead, interviews and court records and testimony show the South Texas cases often involve one officer at a time pulled to the dark side by friends, family or associates offering quick cash.

Hale, 28, is to be released from prison in 2032.

He claims he was set up by fellow officer Pedro Martinez III, whom he knew since childhood. Martinez testified against Hale as part of a plea deal and got six years.

Martinez's father, who died in a suspicious suicide, was apparently a drug dealer who lured his son into the business.

Martinez drove his squad car to escort what he thought was 44 pounds of cocaine. The drugs were a sham. The dealers were federal agents and government informants running a sting.

Such tricks have worked repeatedly.

Pharr police officer Jaime Beas was busted for using his vehicle to escort a load of cocaine and for his involvement in a scheme to ship a grenade, semiautomatic rifles and body armor to Mexico.

Authorities went after Beas when he was turned in by an uncle in the military who said he repeatedly was approached about equipment.

As for the Border Patrol, it's been reported that as many as one in 100 agents are presently under investigation for corruption of misconduct.

ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS: Although she probably had an airtight alibi, actress Sofia Vergara made an appearance of sorts after agents from the FBI and DEA raided a used car lot and three different homes in the El Paso, TX area earlier this year.

Luxury watches, diamond jewelry, 20 vehicles, 30 firearms, framed "Scarface" pictures and an autographed nude photo of actress Sofia Vergara were among numerous items seized by federal agents as part of a drug cartel investigation.

Recent filings in U.S. District Court in El Paso detail a treasure-trove seized by FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration agents in a series of raids on used-car lots and homes in the El Paso area in February.

The wife and parents of defendant Alejandro Melendez are asking in documents that some of the goods be returned, claiming that they were bought years before any alleged criminal activity.

Melendez is accused of belonging to a marijuana and cocaine trafficking group linked to the Sinaloa drug cartel, federal agents said. Melendez is owner of Budget Auto Sales, one of three Alameda Avenue car lots raided in February by the FBI and DEA El Paso Strike Force.

Federal agents raided the Budget Auto Sales car lot and a $653,000 home in the 5500 block of Woodgreen Drive in the Upper Valley, documents stated. The home is listed in property tax records as belonging to Alejandro Melendez.

While the authenticity of the signature of the Vergara photo wasn't immediately confirmed, the FBI and DEA claim that the Vergara fanboys were members of the Juarez cartel.

CHIHUAHUA: Four people, including two Americans were killed earlier this week when gunmen opened fire on an SUV in Juarez.

The four were riding in a blue Dodge Durango with Texas plates peppered with gunshots from assault rifles Friday evening on Eje Vial Juan Gabriel and Zaragoza boulevard, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said.

An official with the U.S. Consulate in Juárez confirmed two of the dead were U.S. citizens. They were identified as Pablo Noe Williams, 19, and his mother Rosa Williams, 35, and are listed as being from Kansas.

A spokesman for the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said the young man was from El Paso. The other people killed were Alberto Nieto Nieto, 24, and Alma Yesenia Flores, 21.

NEW MEXICO: On the heels of the arrest of the mayor and police chief of the border village of Columbus, NM on weapons trafficking charges, two former law enforcement officers turned whistleblowers have claimed that the FBI and Texas Department of Public Safety have ignored their findings on sweeping corruption in Southern New Mexico and the El Paso, TX area.

Two former law enforcement officers allege that they cannot get anyone to investigate allegations that the Mexican drug cartels have corrupted U.S. law officers and politicians in the El Paso border region.

Greg Gonzales, a retired Doña Ana County sheriff's deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a rancher and former New Mexico state livestock investigator, said that instead of arrests and prosecutions of suspects, their whistle-blowing activities have resulted only in threats and retaliation against themselves.

Both men were confidential sources for the FBI in El Paso and assisted with investigations over an 18-month period.

Gonzales and Dutton allege that the FBI dropped them after "big names" on the U.S. side of the border began to surface in the drug investigations.

Gonzales and Dutton said both or either one of them helped with federal investigations that were successful, including the arrest of Special FBI Agent John Shipley. Shipley was convicted of weapons-related charges after a weapon he sold someone turned up in Chihuahua state at a scene where a firefight took place between Mexican soldiers and drug traffickers.

However, they said, they are concerned that other serious allegations have not found their way to court.

"One of the street gangs that works for the Juárez cartel put a hit out on FBI Special Agent Samantha Mikeska, and I told the FBI as soon as I heard about it," Dutton said. "We also had information on campaign fundraisers and parties in La Union that the cartel held for officials from New Mexico and El Paso. A lot of important people were at those parties, such as bankers, judges, and law enforcement officers."

Mikeska is a high-profile agent whose investigations of the Barrio Azteca gang led to prosecutions of gang leaders. The gang, which has members in West Texas and New Mexico, is linked to the Carrillo Fuentes drug cartel.

Gonzales said a U.S. law enforcement officer was suspected of selling to a street gang with Juárez drug cartel ties a list of U.S. Marshals that included their telephone numbers.

"With their number, the gang was able to 'clone' the agents' cell phones and intercept their calls," Gonzales said. "That way, they would know when one of the agents was trying to serve an arrest warrant against one of their members."

Dutton and Gonzales said small aircraft regularly drop drug loads on ranches or other properties along the U.S.-Mexico border, and that some U.S. law officers escort the loads to the next stop.

The two whistle-blowers said that drug cartels have managed to obtain computer access codes to U.S. surveillance systems that let them see where and when Border Patrol agents are monitoring the border.

They also alleged that drug cartels have given big donations to politicians, which are unreported, to influence appointments of key law enforcement officers.

As a former livestock inspector andDutton also claimed that drug smugglers would often try to sneak contrabad into the USA from Mexico by using saddles and tack equipment.

NUEVO LEON: Police officers in a suburb of Monterrey repotedly allowed kidnap victims to be held in local jails while their abductors negotiated a ransom with their families, according to state prosecutors.

The scandal at the northern prison came to light this week when state and federal police freed two kidnapping victims from jail cells in Juarez. Investigators believe that the victims were abducted by the extremely violent Zetas cartel and that the officers were working for the Zetas, Domene said.

Four police officers from Juarez, a suburb of the city of Monterrey, are being held pending further investigation, said Jorge Domene, the security spokesman for Nuevo Leon state.

Local police in northern Mexico have often been bribed or threatened to work for drug gangs by providing them with information, protecting their activities or detaining and turning over members of rival gangs.

VERACRUZ: Police and Mexican Marines in the Gulf state of Veracruz have discovered an additional 32 bodies barely two weeks after gunmen halted traffic as they dumped 36 corpses in the middle of a busy highway during rush hour in what was apparently a gruesome and brazen challenge to the Zetas.

Just two days after the Mexican government unveiled a plan to lay down the law in the state of the same name, police and marines found the bodies in three separate areas of the city, the Navy said in a statement.

The bodies were in homes around the port as the military conducted operations under the new "Safe Veracruz" program, the statement said. Twenty bodies were found in one house that was searched after a tip from naval intelligence.

While the bodies found this week in housing developments in Veracruz have yet tp be conclusively identified, officials say that most of the bodies dumped on the highway in Septmeber had been identified as having a criminal background and associated with Los Zetas.



ELSEWHERE IN VERACRUZ: A spokesman from Mexico's Navy said that Marines had arrested nine Zetas who had escaped from prison last month. During the raid, they came across detailed information documenting bribes paid out to at least 18 municipal police officers throughout the state.

MEXICO CITY: Two severed heads were found on a street adjacent to Mexico's defence ministry in Mexico City on Monday. A statement left at the scene suggested the gruesome display was from a fairly obscure organization known as 'Hands With Eyes', an offshoot of the Beltran Leya cartel.

Anti-Social Club Episode of Borderline Psychosis- 53 Killed After Gunmen Torch Monterrey Casino; NM Police Chief Admits Cartel Ties; Iraqi Connection?

UPDATE 8/31: Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson was reassigned to a lesser post in the Justice Department on Tuesday in the wake of further fallout from the Fast & Furious investigation. US Attorney for Minnesota B. Todd Jones was named as acting director after Melson's departure- a permanent head for the ATF would need to be confirmed by the US Senate.



Also on Tuesday, the US Attorney for Arizona resigned effective immediately. US Attorney Dennis Burke stepped down two weeks after testifying before a House Oversight Committee regarding Fast & Furious, which Burke was in charge of as the state's US Attorney.





NUEVO LEON: At least 53 people were killed when eight gunmen burst into a casino in the northern industrial center of Monterrey, doused the place with gasoline and ignited a fire that trapped dozens of patrons and gamblers.

With shouts and profanities, the attackers told the customers and employees to get out. But many terrified customers and employees fled further inside the building, where they died trapped amid the flames and thick smoke that soon billowed out of the building.



Video footage showed workers continuing to remove bodies well into the night.



Monterrey Mayor Fernando Larrazabal said many of the bodies were found inside the casino's bathrooms, where employees and customers had locked themselves to escape the gunmen.



In an act of desperation, authorities commandeered backhoes from a nearby construction site to break into the casino's walls to try to reach the people trapped inside.

The attack took place on August 25th. The following day, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning and the Mexican government offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.4 million) for information leading to any of the assailants in the Casino Royale attack.



On Monday night, Federal Police in Monterrey announced that they had arrested five suspects and were still seeking the whereabouts of two more. Authorities believe a likely motive in the casino attack is nonpayment of extortion money and the five detained suspects are said to be members of the Zetas. Surveillance footage of the suspects filling up five gallon canisters of gasoline at a gas station not too far from the Casino Royale was shown at the conference announcing the arrests Monday.



The attack shocked and angered many Mexicans because instead of career criminals, the victims were mostly middle aged women who frequently visited the casino to play bingo.



MEXICO CITY: 21 of Mexico's 31 senior federal prosecutors abruptly quit earlier this month. Mexican press outlets report this as being the single biggest mass resignation of federal officials in recent history.

The office announced late last month that in Morales' first 100 days on the job, 462 prosecutors and other officials had been dismissed and 111 more were facing criminal charges involving a range of infractions, including fraud, theft, abuse of power and falsification of documents. An additional 386 employees were in the process of being dismissed.



Rosa Elena Torres Davila, a senior official in the attorney general's office, made Monday's announcement and said the resignations were tendered on Friday. They included the top federal prosecutors in some of Mexico's most violent states where drug traffickers have intimidated local authorities and killed thousands of people in cases that have largely gone unprosecuted. They also included the top federal prosecutor in the capital, Mexico City, which is a federal district with a status similar to that of a state.

Attorney General Marisela Morales declined to cite specific reasons behind the mass departures



CALIFORNIA: Local, state and federal law enforcement officers raided an Iraqi-Chaldean social club in San Diego County and arrested 60 men in a multi-agency investigation dubbed 'Operation Shadowbox'. The social club had been a source of complaints from both neighboring businesses claiming drug dealing and prostitution were rampant and wives of some patrons said that their life savings was being gambled away at the club.



More ominously, members of the club were alleged to have purchased drugs and explosives from the Sinaloa cartel. Marijuana was sold out of the club while methamphetamine smuggled in from Mexico would be forwarded to a sister organization in Detroit.

Since January, the DEA and El Cajon police have purchased narcotics, firearms, improvised explosive devices and pharmaceuticals from people at the club, Sprecco said. In April, an undercover operative was shown a hand grenade and was told more were available from a Mexican military source. Suspects in the investigation reportedly arranged narcotics shipments from El Cajon to Detroit.



During the course of the investigation, operatives discovered a suspected association with the Sinaloa Cartel, a Mexico-based drug trafficking organization, and the Chaldean Organized Crime Syndicate, which began in Detroit in the early 80s and has been linked numerous crimes, including murder, arson and kidnapping, Sprecco said.



The investigation resulted in the seizure of drugs including more than 13 pounds of methamphetamine, more than four pounds of ecstasy and pharmaceuticals and about 3,500 pounds of marijuana, Sprecco said. Authorities confiscated more than $630,000 and three luxury cars.



Officers seized 34 firearms, including semi-automatic rifles and four explosive devices, which were processed with the help of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's Bomb Squad and the FBI, Sprecco said.

The city of El Cajon has the second-highest Chaldean population in the United States after Detroit- the San Diego suburb is home to about 47,000 Iraqi Chaldeans, many of them having immigrated there before the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in their native Iraq.



NEW MEXICO: The former police chief of the small New Mexico border town of Columbus has pleaded guilty to trafficking firearms and tactical gear across the border into Mexico on behalf of enforcers for 'La Linea'- a gang of enforcers for the Juarez cartel.

As a participant in the conspiracy, Vega conducted counter-surveillance, used a village-owned Ford F150 truck to transport firearms from the country, pulled over a car of ATF agents at La Linea's request, and tried to get ATF agents to return firearms to Gutierrez after they were seized, Spitzer told the court.



And on Feb. 10, Vega purchased thousands of dollars in body armor, boots, helmets and clothing, including a bulletproof vest for a La Linea leader, whose name was not mentioned in court.



Vega had previously pleaded not guilty to taking part in the conspiracy, in which he and his co-defendants allegedly purchased about 200 firearms - including AK-47-type pistols, weapons resembling AK-47 rifles, but with shorter barrels and without rear stocks, and American Tactical 9 mm caliber pistols - from Chaparral Guns in Chaparral and smuggled them to members of the Juárez-based La Linea cartel between January 2010 and March 2011.



In raids, law enforcement seized 40 of the AK-47 type pistols, more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition and 30 high-capacity magazines before they crossed the border, and found another 12 firearms in Mexico that were traced back to the defendants. Three others were found on three dead individuals in an SUV in Juárez, and others were found at a narcotics bust there, according to federal prosecutors

Former police chief Angelo Vega faces up to 35 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. The village's former mayor- Eddie Espinoza- and village trustee- Blas Gutierrez- have already pleaded guilty for their role in the weapons smuggling case.



Since the arrests, the small 4-man police department has been disbanded and the area is patrolled now by the Luna County Sheriff's Department.

Blue State Graft Watch Update- State of Michigan Grants Kwame Kilpatrick Parole

The jailed former mayor of Detroit is likely to start his 24-month parole starting next month, a Michigan parole board ruled last week.

After another month behind bars, Kwame Kilpatrick is likely off to Texas to start his 24-month parole.

The ex-mayor of Detroit, who kept his nose and record clean while in state custody after violating probation, was approved for parole Friday with release set for sometime after July 24. A move to Texas to reunite with his wife and three sons was part of the plan submitted at his parole hearing, said his lawyer, James Thomas.

Officials added two special requirements to his parole: that he pay his outstanding restitution to the City of Detroit and that he establish and maintain a payment schedule with his parole officer.

Kilpatrick resigned as mayor in September 2008 after pleading guilty to two felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. Last year, the Democrat former mayor was sentenced to 5 years prison for violating the terms of his probation that was part of his 2008 plea arrangement.

The two term mayor is also facing federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud, extortion and obstruction of justice- some of the charges carry a prison term of up to 20 years each.

Blue State Graft Watch: Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich Guilty on 17 of 20 Corruption Charges in Second Trial

Former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was found guilty on 17 of 20 counts of corruption at the Federal Courthouse in Chicago Monday afternoon.

This was the former governor's second trial. In 2010, Blagojevich was found not guilty on 23 of 24 charges faced, with the jury finding that the former Land of Lincoln governor guilty of lying to the FBI.

CHICAGO—A federal jury on Monday found former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich guilty of 17 counts of corruption, including trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by President Barack Obama.

The jury found Mr. Blagojevich not guilty on one of 20 corruption counts in his second trial and deadlocked on two other counts. The verdicts came more than two years after Mr. Blagojevich, 54 years old, was arrested by federal agents.

The verdict was a victory for U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who initiated "Operation Board Games" just a few months after Mr. Blagojevich took office. In the hours after the then-governor's arrest, Mr. Fitzgerald said he had "interrupted a political corruption crime spree" and that Mr. Blagojevich had "put a for-sale sign on the naming of a United States Senator."

Mr. Blagojevich is the second consecutive Illinois governor to be convicted of corruption. Gov. George Ryan is currently serving a 6½-year sentence.

Unlike his first trial, in which the former Chicago congressman escaped conviction on 20 of 21 counts, Mr. Blagojevich testified for seven days at his second trial. He said his intent was to use the seat as leverage to pass legislation that would have benefited the residents of Illinois.

Blagojevich appointed Roland Burris to fill President Obama's then vacant senate seat in late 2008- an appointment that came after federal investigators recorded a call between the two where Burris was offering to raise funds for the governor in exchange for the Senate seat.

Borderline Psychosis- Calderon Meets with Critics; Mexican Army Finds Cartel's Homemade 'Tanks', La Familia Unravels

MEXICO CITY: Mexican president Felipe Calderon took the unusual step of meeting with peace activists and victims of Mexico's drug violence in a televised meeting called 'Dialogue for Peace', but defended his hard-line strategy of using the military to crack down against the drug cartels.

[Poet-activist Javier] Sicilia demanded Calderon apologize for carnage that has left an estimated 40,000 dead, and demanded a change in the government's anti-crime strategy. But Calderon, flanked by Cabinet officials, repeated once more that it would be wrong to alter the basic thrust — a military-led campaign against the country's powerful cartels.

Calderon also said he would like to be remembered for other things he has done during his administration, such as building hospitals, fortifying education and legal institutions, and his environmental initiatives. But the conservative president admitted he will "probably be remembered for [the drug war], and probably with much injustice."

The meeting, at Chapultepec Castle in Mexico City, was televised live and attended by other relatives of victims of drug-related violence.

May not be too often I get to say this, but Calderon is absolutely correct. The problem of corruption and emboldened narcocriminals killing with impunity simply does not go away if the president orders the troops to the barracks, and state and local police have often demonstrated that they are unwilling to take on the cartels- or even operate in concert with them.


TAMAULIPAS: Members of the Mexican military on patrol on the northwestern state last month discovered a pair of homemade 'tanks' reportedly belonging to Los Zetas.

The patrol came across the warehouse when they clashed with a group of armed men in the town of Ciudad Camargo, in the far northeastern state of Tamaulipas. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse.

"We found two home-made armored trucks in the warehouse, which belongs to the Gulf Cartel," the military source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The trucks were covered in steel plates one inch (2.5 centimeters) thick, strong enough to "resist the caliber of personal weapons the soldiers use," said the source.

The air-conditioned armored vehicles were equipped with portholes where snipers could open fire from and remain protected.

The home-made tanks are used in clashes with other drug cartels as well as to protect drug shipments.

In recent years, soldiers deployed in the northeastern Mexican border region have confiscated 109 home-made armored vehicles -- including one dubbed the "Popemobile" because it carried an armored cabin similar to that used to protect Pope Benedict XVI in foreign trips.

In May, police in the western state of Jalisco carrying out a sweep against the Los Zetas drug cartel discovered an armored vehicle large enough to carry 20 armed men and also equipped with weapons portholes.

The soldiers also found more than 20 big rigs in the warehouse that were apparently waiting to be up-armoured.

Over the last couple of years, the Mexican military has seized over 100 of these home made armoured vehicles- sometimes dubbed 'El Monstruo' by locals- designed to either attack rival gangs or protect high value shipments. The vehicles often cobbled together from dump trucks, garbage trucks or even heavy duty work trucks with inch-thick steel plating welded on. While the plating and strategically placed bulletproof glass make the vehicles nearly impervious to small-arms fire, they also are exceptionally slow and cumbersome, thus largely offsetting whatever advantage they'd provide in an assault with having to move it from point A to point B while maintaining the element of surprise.

ELSEWHERE IN TAMAULIPAS: The Houston Chronicle published a report earlier this month citing an unnamed cartel operative who claimed that Los Zetas had kidnapped passengers from buses running along Mexican National highway 101 through Tamaulipas and forced some of the abducted passengers into death matches with each other while raping and killing others.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiator like fights to groom fresh assassins.

Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"

"They cut guys to pieces," he said.

The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.

Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.

The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.

The trafficker said he did not see the clashes, but his fellow criminals have boasted to him of their exploits.

Former and current federal law-enforcement officers in the U.S. said that while they knew Mexican bus passengers had been targeted for violence, they'd never before heard of forcing passengers into death matches.

But given the level of violence in Mexico — nearly 40,000 killed in gangland warfare over the past several years — they didn't find it tough to believe.

Borderland Beat, a blog specializing in drug cartels, reported an account in April of bus passengers brutalized by Zeta thugs and taunted into fighting.

"The stuff you would not think possible a few years ago is now commonplace," said Peter Hanna, a retired FBI agent who built his career focusing on Mexico's cartels. "It used to be you'd find dead bodies in drums with acid; now there are beheadings."

Even so, Hanna noted, killing people this way would be time-consuming and inefficient. "It would be more for amusement," he suggested. "I don't see it as intimidation or a successful way to recruit people."

While an outlandish anonymously-sourced story from an individual with a criminal background, the tale of forcing bus passengers into death matches would be consistent with autopsy findings that most of the 183 people pulled from the graves were killed by blunt force trauma, not gunshot wounds.

Earlier this month, Federal prosecutors in Mexico have charged 73 people in the mass killings, including at least seven police officers in the town of San Fernando.

MICHOACAN: Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas- aka "El Chango" (the monkey)- was arrested by Mexican federal police at a checkpoint in the state of Aguascalientes without incident this week. Vargas, who was the de-facto head of the cult-like La Familia Michoacana cartel after military raids resulted in the killing or capture of top members back in December, started out as a hitman for the Gulf cartel, but cast his lot with the quasi-evangelical La Familia cartel when they asserted themselves along Mexico's western coast and in their namesake state in recent years.

La Familia was reportedly financially struggling to the point where they couldn't afford to pay hitmen, while Vargas was soliciting help and manpower from one-time rivals Los Zetas. After La Familia shot down a Mexican Army helicopter in May. Acting on documents obtained in the raid where the helicopter was downed, Police raided a meeting in nearby Jalisco. Information from one of the suspects arrested in that meeting led to the arrest of Vargas. While Vargas' capture may very well be the death knell for La Familia, other organizations including one made up of former La Familia members displaced after the December army raids continue to operate openly in the state.

The remnants of La Familia had been fighting with another faction that had broken off to form another cartel called the Knights Templar, which like La Familia, portrays themselves as Robin Hood-esque figures protecting the people of Michoacan from the invasive designs of the police, military or rival drug gangs.

CHIHUAHUA: A CBS investigative report has discovered that an AK47-variant rifle allowed to cross the Mexican border from the USA as part of the ATF's disastrous Operation Fast & Furious was involved in the abduction and slaying of Mario Gonzalez Rodgriguez- the brother of Chihuahua's then-state attorney general Patricia Gonzalez Rodriguez. In a video filmed shortly before he was killed in 2010, Mario appears in handcuffs and flanked by masked gunmen while being forced to read a statement that his sister was working on behalf of La Linea cartel.

Police later arrested 8 members of the Sinaloa cartel, confiscated their weapons and found Gonzalez Rodriguez's body buried under a home under construction in Chihuahua.

ELSEWHERE IN CHIHUAHUA: The police chief for the embattled border city of Ciudad Juarez survived an assassination attempt on Thursday in downtown Juarez.

City officials said two men opened fire on Leyzaola and his motorcade while they patrolled La Chaveña neighborhood near downtown Juárez, an area known for crime.

Leyzaola's bodyguards returned fire and wounded one of the attackers, identified as Roberto López Valles, 24, officials said. The other attacker fled.

Authorities detained López Valles in connection with the ambush and seized a gun and a weapon's magazine at the scene.

A retired Mexican army officer, Police Chief Julian Leyzaola was sworn in as the city's police chief in March and vowed to crack down on organized crime operating in the city and purge corrupt officers from the Juarez police department.

TEXAS: Officers from the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement agencies were involved in a cross-border shootout outside the town of Abram, TX earlier this month.

The incident began about 6:30 a.m. Thursday, when U.S. Border Patrol agents spotted a Dodge Durango near the lightly populated border town of Abram, Texas, said Steve McGraw, director of the Department of Public Safety Director. He joined officials from Border Patrol and Texas Fish and Wildlife for a news conference Friday in Weslaco, roughly 250 miles south of San Antonio and just north of the river separating Mexico and the U.S.

Agents who gave chase found the truck abandoned on the banks of the Rio Grande, and a group of people on the Mexican shore unloading bundles of marijuana from rubber rafts, according to the Department of Public Safety.

Border Patrol agents say Mexican smugglers often use small, high-quality rafts to float drugs into U.S. territory, where they load them onto waiting vehicles to be taken farther north. Of late, however, smugglers wait with the rafts in American territory in case the vehicles are spotted and have to flee back to the river. There, they quickly put the drugs back onto the rafts and head back to Mexico to keep U.S. authorities from seizing the load.

The group threw rocks and shot "at least six" rounds at American agents, who responded by flooding the area with gunfire, the Department of Public Safety said. A U.S. Border Patrol boat was the first to arrive on the scene, followed by boats from Texas Parks and Wildlife and one belonging to the Texas Rangers, it said.

Authorities said they are still looking into how many Americans fired shots and what agencies they were from.

Three suspects on the Mexican side of the river were believed injured or killed, although authorities in that country were still working to confirm that. Two U.S. game wardens were treated for cuts and abrasions after being struck with rocks.

A video shot from a Department of Public Safety helicopter shows a blue raft with bundles of marijuana packed in plastic and burlap. Smoke is seen pouring from a small structure nearby, although what caused the fire is unclear.

U.S. authorities seized the Durango but found no drugs in it. They contacted authorities in Mexico, who seized about 400 pounds of marijuana on that side of the river and destroyed a raft left behind. No arrests were made.

The Texas Department of Public Safety, whose Rangers were involved in the shootout, said such an overwhelming response was standard given the United States' zero tolerance policy when guns are pointed at its authorities. Department officials previously said the Americans were under "heavy fire," but they've since backed away from that.

Delicia Lopez- Valley Monitor

ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS: Police in San Juan, TX discovered more than 1700 rounds of .50 cal BMG machine gun ammunition concealed in cases after attempting to pull over a truck driven by two illegal aliens earlier this month.

Police found more than 1,700 rounds of military-grade ammunition, commonly used by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, during a Monday evening traffic stop.

Investigators believe the load was headed to Mexico.

San Juan police stopped the driver of a Ford F-150 pickup near the intersection of “I” Road and Business 83 about 7:30 p.m. after an officer noticed the vehicle had a broken tail light, Sgt. Rolando Garcia said.

The driver, later identified in a federal court document as 34-year-old Miguel Angel Avendano-Reyna, drove into the parking lot of an H-E-B near the area before he and his passenger tried to flee on foot, police said. But two officers at the scene, including Garcia, were able to apprehend both of them after a short pursuit.

A search of the vehicle led to the discovery of 16 boxes and a black duffle bag under the truck’s back seat, Garcia said. Each container was filled with at least 100 rounds of .50-caliber ammunition.

The suspects had apparently picked up the load from an undisclosed residence in San Juan, and they had agreed to drop it off to an unidentified person in Hidalgo County for a payment of $250, officials said.

“This is something different for us. We usually get marijuana or other narcotics, but this type of seizure is big, especially with this type of ammunition,” Garcia said. The bullets were attached to a belt used for automatic weapons. “These have had confirmed kills in the military from as far as 3 miles away and it’s very destructive. It’s a very deadly round.”

The bullets are so powerful that they will go through bullet-proof vests and even armored vehicles and tanks, Garcia said.

San Juan police teamed up with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to continue investigating, Garcia said.

Avendano-Reyna and his passenger Jose Resendez-Olivares, 37, both are illegal immigrants who previously were deported a few months ago, according to federal court documents.

Avendano-Reyna, who admitted to authorities he knowingly possessed the rounds, was deported in September, while Resendez-Olivares, who claimed he helped load the boxes but didn’t know what was in them, was removed from the U.S. in November, documents show.

CENTRAL AMERICA: El Salvador's defense minister has asserted that Mexican drug traffickers are continuing to try and acquire high-powered weaponry through police and military forces in Central America.

Mexican officials have long said the most of the guns used by the cartels are smuggled in from the United States.

But Gen. David Munguia warns that the gangs have expanded into Central America are also trying to buy weapons there.

Munguia said Tuesday "there is a real threat," just days after his army arrested two noncommissioned officers and four soldiers accused of trying to steal 1,812 grenades.

The soldiers were allegedly trying to sell the grenades to gang members and drug traffickers in neighboring Guatemala, where Mexico's Zetas cartel has been active.

Earlier this month, Salvadoran military intelligence agents arrested a junior officer who deserted in December 2010 and was attempting to sell three M-16 rifles as well as uniforms to a civilian through to be an intermediary for drug traffickers.

Report: Fugitive Octagenarian Irish Mobster Whitey Bulger Arrested in California

Reports are circulating on the Wednesday night that 81 year old fugitive Winter Hill Gang leader James 'Whitey' Bulger was arrested in the Los Angeles area with his 60 year old girlfriend, Catherine Greig.

The two were arrested without incident, the FBI said. The FBI had been conducting a surveillance operation in the area where the arrest was made, Santa Monica police Sgt. Rudy Flores said.

Bulger- or "the guy who's picture is up at the Post Office" as he's been referred to for most of my adult life- was the leader of the Winter Hill Gang when he fled in January 1995 after being tipped by a former Boston FBI agent that he was about to be indicted. Bulger was a top-echelon FBI informant.

Over the years, the FBI battled a public perception that it had not tried very hard to find Bulger, who became a huge source of embarrassment for the agency after the extent of his crimes and the FBI's role in overlooking them became public.

Prosecutors said he went on the run after being warned by John Connolly Jr., an FBI agent who had made Bulger an FBI informant 20 years earlier. Connolly was convicted of racketeering in May 2002 for protecting Bulger and his cohort, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, also an FBI informant.

As head of the Winter Hill gang, Bulger would provide information to the FBI about the rival Patriarcha family out of Providence, RI while enjoying a degree of protection from the Boston office of the FBI thanks to former Agent Connolly.

Bulger had been on the run for the last 16 years and was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list for his suspected role in at least 19 murders. Since then, there has been sporadic reports of Bulger browsing bookstores in western Canada or dying of natural causes and being cremated in Central America. The last reliable sighting of Whitey Bulger was reportedly in London in 2002 when a British businessman who had met Bulger a few years prior saw the fugitive in a hotel gym.

Most recently, the FBI manhunt focused on Bulger's girlfriend, with TV bulletins showing Greig and Bulger together.

Bulger's younger brother William was elected to the state senate and President of UMass, while the FBI suspected he might've been aware of his older brother's criminal activities and may have sporadically been in contact with him.

Blue State Graft Watch: Former IL Secretary of State Employee Sentenced in Cash-for-Liscenses Scheme

Despite an ealier 8 year federal probe into an Illinois cash-for-drivers-licenses scheme that resulted in the criminal convictions of former Gov. George Ryan and a number of senior Secretary of state employees, cases of bribery and corruption continued at some Illinois licensing facilities.

Federal prosecutors allege James Howell, of Chicago, started pocketing bribes while working at a licensing facility in Bridgeview in 2006.

On Wednesday, Howell was sentenced in federal court to two years in prison for accepting bribes of $100 at a time for fraudulently issuing licenses to mostly Chinese nationals.

Howell was so busy taking bribes that he didn't have time to administer road tests for the bribe-paying applicants, so he simply filled out their test scores for them to ensure they passed, according to his plea agreement.

Howell was one of two secretary of state employees snared in an investigation into a Chinatown phony-licensing ring that has led to 19 convictions so far.

During the scheme, Howell and co-defendant Timothy Johnson, a former secretary of state employee, pocketed up to $10,000 in bribes between them, prosecutors said.

While working at the licensing facility at 9901 S. King Drive on the South Side, Johnson also took cash bribes with three other employees, sharing in $40,000 in all, prosecutors said. He pleaded guilty but has not yet been sentenced. The others haven't been charged.

After the bribery schemes came to light, the secretary of state's office ended up canceling the licenses of nearly 3,000 drivers, spokesman David Druker said Wednesday.

From the 1990s to 2002, the Illinois Secretary of State's office- which includes the DMV- was alleged to have sold phony licenses and vehicle registrations to unqualified drivers under Republican then-governor George Ryan. The ongoing scheme was busted up in a federal probe called Operation Safe Roads after the Feds approached two whistleblowers in the Illinois Secretary of State's office.

Detroit Area Postal Employees Charged With Accepting Cash, Lap Dances, Prostitutes in Bribery Probe

Five employees of the US Postal service have been indicted for accepting cash, cars, tickets to major sporting events, drinks and lap dances at a strip club, home improvements and trysts with $300 prostitutes in exchange for steering maintenance work on government vehicles towards garages owned by an unnamed contractor.

Much of the vehicle work was done in southeastern Michigan, although the government says the corruption stretched to Akron, Ohio, where one of the workers was transferred in 2007 to become manager of vehicle maintenance.

The contractor billed the Postal Service more than $13 million to fix vehicles over a seven-year period. There is no allegation that costs were inflated, said Scott Balfour, an agent with the Postal Service Office of Inspector General.

"The work was actually performed, from body work to engine work, anything that a normal garage would do," Balfour said. "This contractor influenced these people to direct work to the contractor. … They're not supposed to accept bribes."

The indictment says Bruce Plumb, 61, of Brownstown Township, Mich., accepted a variety of bribes, from drinks and lap dances at a strip club to a $3,000 brick patio at his home.

Balfour said the investigation began with tips from postal employees. He declined to say whether the contractor was cooperating with agents.

The Detroit Free Press detailed some of the allegations against Plumb and 4 others.

• Plumb accepted thousands of dollars in drinks and lap dances at a local strip club, got a $3,000 paver patio installed in his backyard and the contractor treated Plumb to visits from a prostitute and erectile dysfunction pills. He also got more than $8,000 in work done on a grandson's truck.

• Adams got more than $60,000 in cash, a 1997 Chevrolet Malibu; thousands of dollars in car parts and service; a $40,000 loan for the purchase of a condominium; tickets to Lions, Tigers, Pistons and Cleveland Cavaliers games; golf outings, and a $4,000 heating and cooling unit for his home.

• Robinson took more than $65,000 in cash, thousands of dollars in work on cars, a 2001 Chrysler minivan and a custom-modified, high-performance Ford Pinto.

• Holmes got more than $6,000 in cash.

• Gorski took $2,000 in cash; a 1999 Pontiac minivan; Pistons, Lions, and University of Michigan football tickets; and thousands of dollars in gift cards.

The indictments come around the same time as the Postal Service announced estimated losses exceeding $2.2 billion for the 2nd quarter of FY 2011. That's more than the $1.6 billion in losses for the same time during FY 2010 reported last year.

[Hat tip: Friends of Ours]

BipolarNational Borderline Psychosis Update- Cartels Going For Gold? Massacre Suspect Nabbed by Mexican Military; More Mass Graves Unearthed

I'm not sure how many people still buy the notion that firearms legally purchased in the USA at Wal Mart or Cabellas are single-handedly responsible for the narco-violence down in Mexico, but a couple of stories that broke this month can effectively bury that tired and dishonest talking point.

Mexican cartels and other criminal groups have been helping themselves to weapons caches left over from the numerous civil wars in Central America in the 1980s as well as military arsenals throughout the region.

The weapons run the gamut from assault rifles to anti-tank missiles, some of which the U.S. supplied during regional conflicts more than two decades ago. The slippage from military armories occurs regularly.

The feared Mexican organized crime group known as Los Zetas has stolen weapons from military depots in Guatemala three times in recent years, Guatemalan Deputy Security Minister Mario Castaneda told an anti-narcotics conference in early April in Cancun, Mexico.

In February, U.S. prosecutors unsealed a five-count indictment against a retired army captain from El Salvador for allegedly selling or offering C-4 plastic explosives, assault rifles, grenades and blasting caps to undercover agents.

U.S. diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to McClatchy Newspapers show that American envoys have repeatedly voiced concern over lax controls on military weapons depots in Guatemala and Honduras.

One cable from June 2009 carries a simple message line: "Rogue elements of Guatemalan military selling weapons to narcos."

The cable was sent after a narcotics raid on a warehouse south of Guatemala City on April 24, 2009, when agents clashed with "a number of heavily armed Zetas," leaving five agents dead. Inside the warehouse, the unit found 11 machine guns, a light antitank weapon, 563 rocket-propelled grenades, 32 hand grenades, eight landmines and abundant ammunition in crates with the seal of a Guatemalan military industrial facility.

U.S. defense analysts determined "with a high degree of confidence that many of these weapons and munitions came from Guatemalan military stocks," the cable said.

"The involvement of Guatemalan military officers in the sale of weapons to narco-traffickers raises serious concerns about the Guatemalan military's ability to secure its arms and ammunition," it added.

Moreover, it puts police tasked with confronting the cartels at a sharp disadvantage, the cable said, because they "now have to go up against weapons from Guatemala's own military."

Further piquing U.S. officials, Washington furnished some of the munitions.

That turned out to be the case in Honduras, where U.S.-supplied grenades and light anti-tank weapons turned up as far away as Ciudad Juarez, the narco-infested Mexican city on the border with Texas, and on Colombia's San Andres Island, an entry point for weapons going to drug-trafficking guerrillas

According to State Department documents, Mexico accounted for $177 million in sales of American-made weapons in 2009- exceeding Iraq or Afghanistan. Many of these sales were tracked by the state department as 'Direct Commercial sales' to the Mexican government.

To make things even more interesting, narco-watchdog blog Borderland Beat points out that the sale, storage and transportation of legally purchased firearms in Mexico is monopolized by the SEDENA- Mexico's Secretariat for National Defense. Yet despite this apparent monopoly, a substantial number of M-16 style rifles ordered from America in transactions brokered by Mexico's SEDENA and supposedly destined for state and municipal police agencies in Mexico simply 'disappear' only to turn up later at crime scenes in Mexico.

This, of course, is in addition to the privately purchased firearms on the US side of the border that the ATF had intentionally allowed to be illegally exported to Mexico by smugglers and straw purchasers. As far back as 2009, equipment from US Government inventory ranging from MRE's and night vision equipment to automatic rifles and jet engine parts were reported missing and turned up in places as far afield as Ciudad Juarez, Colombia and Iran.

Always looking for additional sources of revenue, Mexico's cartels have reportedly set their sights on that nations vast mineral deposits and the domestic and foreign mining companies tasked with unearthing those deposits.

As international metals prices surge, gunmen are attacking workers to steal valuable ores and equipment at often remote mining sites that have fallen under the gaze of drug gangs extending their reach into new criminal rackets.

Canadian miner Torex Gold Resources Inc halted drilling at its exploration property in the western state of Guerrero last month after assailants stole trucks. Mexican authorities blamed a drug cartel for illegally extracting iron ore at another site and exporting it to China.

Mexico is the 2nd largest producer of silver in the world and also has substantial deposits of gold, copper, iron ore, zinc and lead. Entering Friday morning, silver was trading at over $48 an ounce while gold was trading at record highs of $1534 an ounce.

Aside from Torex [TSX: TXG], International mining companies like New Gold [TSX: NGD] or Ternium [NYSE: TX] have operations in troubled areas like Michoacan, Guerrero or Durango.

Steel producers say they lost $240 million to thefts in 2010 and have seen the pace of robberies double so far this year, according to a Mexican industry association.

"They are robbing from companies' (iron ore) deposits or they are taking over the deposits completely," said Raul Gutierrez, head of the national steel chamber. "It makes it impossible to work there."

The wave of thefts has spilled out of an escalating drug war in Mexico, which pits an increasingly stretched military against brutal gangs warring over smuggling routes to the United States and other lucrative illicit businesses.

Deteriorating security is a mounting concern for investors, industry surveys show.

The lawlessness led to a slip in Mexico's ranking in the Fraser Institute's annual study of the top global mining destinations. Some 39 percent of companies surveyed this year counted violence as a "strong deterrent" for investment, versus 33 percent in Colombia, where a U.S.-backed offensive has in recent years quelled a cocaine-funded guerrilla conflict.

Iron ore mines in Mexico's western state of Michoacan have been besieged by the powerful La Familia (The Family) drug cartel that operates in large swathes of the state, extorting businesses and illegally mining material for export.

A captured money launderer belonging to La Familia confessed to exporting 1.1 million tones of iron ore last year to China through three established companies in Mexico, netting $42 million, according to the attorney general's office.

Companies are being forced to hire more guards or change the way they transport goods, with some shipping valuable metals by air instead of on dangerous highways.

"We spent 20 percent more on security last year," said Armando Ortega, vice president for Latin America at New Gold Inc, which owns the Cerro San Pedro gold mine in San Luis Potosi state. "There are miners that have suffered robberies of gold-silver dore bars or concentrates. The high prices make gold an attractive target for organized crime.

I was made tangentially aware of the various cartels interest in mining last year after investigators said a deadly car bombing in Juarez used the water gel based explosive Tovex, a popular replacement for dynamite with mining companies.

I've also been entertaining another theory regarding the cartels and mining. Aside from their lucrative drug smuggling and human trafficking activities, groups like La Familia Michoacana also reportedly engage in the extortion of already-existing businesses in territory they control, so who's to say this wouldn't include extortion against the various mining companies for continuing to operate in what the cartels consider 'their' territory?

Also, even though they would be making money hand over fist from both their criminal pursuits and their newfound interest in metallurgy, I'm wondering if stock manipulation of the various publicly-traded mining companies could be another source of revenue for them.

Think about it- how difficult would it be for the cartels to round up some hired guns to attack the miners, destroy equipment, rob the mines of concentrated ore, bullion or dore bars or cut off power and water to some of the more isolated facilities? And basically keep it up until the feasibility of operating that mine is in doubt? Even if they fail in closing down the mines outright, the cost of stepped up security precautions would eat into that company's profit margin pretty quickly, and by extension, their share price (at least if they're heavily invested in Mexico).

Shares of Torex slid in March when the company announced that it was temporarily suspending operations after company employees were attacked and company vehicles were robbed in Morelos. Since then, shares of the company on the Toronto Stock Exchange have levelled off as Torex resumed operations amid stepped-up security.

Exit question (however hypothetical): Who's to say that somebody with inside knowledge of the activities directed against the mining companies wasn't buying up shares when they were plummeting in value and will sell them once production resumes and the share prices bounce back?

TEXAS: Police in the border town of Brownsville are trying to determine who set up an IED along a stretch of US Highway 77 over the weekend. A passing motorist noticed the device and called police on Sunday afternoon. Authorities shut down the southbound lane of the highway for just under two hours while searching the area for any additional devices and disarmed the device using a remote controlled robot.

NEW MEXICO: A small aircraft believed to be smuggling narcotics crashed into Heron Lake, NM on Sunday morning. Aside from the pilot, there was no indication of whether or not there was anybody else on board due to the plane sinking to depths greater than 100 feet. However, within hours of police and searchers arriving, small packages of cocaine started to make their way to the surface.

The lake is located in a state park in Rio Arriba County, NM which abuts the Colorado state line.

ARIZONA: An Arizona gun dealer reportedly approached the ATF with concerns that firearms from his store were being funneled to criminals through straw purchasers. A Congressional investigation into the ATF's ill-advised 'Operation Fast & Furious' shows that agents encouraged him to continue the sales, despite the red flags raised.

The investigation into a federal operation that allowed Mexican drug cartels to acquire U.S. weapons escalated Thursday with new revelations that an Arizona gun dealer repeatedly expressed fears that his guns were falling into the "hands of the bad guys" but was encouraged by federal agents to continue the sales.

A series of emails released by congressional investigators showed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives encouraged the gun dealer against his better judgment to sell high-powered weapons to buyers he believed were agents for the drug cartels.

Employees of the dealer videotaped gun buyers — suspected "straw purchasers" who could legally buy the guns, though cartel members could not — exchanging money with other individuals on the dealer's premises.

In an eerie case of premonition, the gun dealer expressed fears that the guns he was selling could be used against U.S. border agents.

"I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys," the dealer, who has not been named, wrote in June 2010 to David Voth, the lead ATF case agent in Phoenix. "I want to help ATF with its investigation but not at the risk of agents' safety, because I have some very close friends that are U.S. Border Patrol agents in southern AZ."

Three guns sold to suspects who were part of Project Gunrunner have since turned up at the scenes of the deaths of two U.S. agents — in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi and near the Mexican border in Arizona.

"Not only were the ATF agents who later blew the whistle [on the investigation] predicting that this operation would end in tragedy, so were the gun dealers — even as ATF urged them to make the sales," Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a letter with the new emails to Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.

The Justice Department in its only official response to the congressional inquiry denied that the ATF "sanctioned" or "otherwise knowingly allowed" the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers, who then transported them to Mexico.

The new emails suggest that the Arizona gun dealer was seeking assurances from the ATF and the U.S. attorney's office that the company would not be held responsible if someone got hurt with guns that ended up in the hands of gunrunners.

Voth, the ATF agent, wrote to the dealer: "I understand that the frequency with which some individuals under investigation by our office have been purchasing firearms from your business has caused concerns for you. … However, if it helps put you at ease we (ATF) are continually monitoring these suspects using a variety of investigative techniques which I cannot go into [in] detail."

News reports in June 2010 that guns purchased in the U.S. were being found at Mexican crime scenes prompted the dealer to again express concerns.

"I shared my concerns with you guys that I wanted to make sure that none of the firearms that were sold per our conversation with you and various ATF agents could or would ever end up south of the border or in the hands of the bad guys," the dealer wrote, adding that the reports are "disturbing."

On "one or two" occasions when the dealer's employees videotaped a suspected straw purchaser exchanging money with another person, the ATF urged that the sale go forward, but the employees refused, Grassley said in his letter.

"In light of this new evidence, the Justice Department's claim that the ATF never knowingly sanctioned or allowed the sale of assault weapons to straw purchasers is simply not credible," Grassley wrote.

Congressman Darrel Issa (R- CA49), House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman has threatened ATF and Justice Department officials with contempt proceedings for not replying to subpoenas issued at the end of March.

ELSEWHERE IN ARIZONA: An Arizona Sheriff has alleged this month that the US Border Patrol is acting under a 'No Apprehension' policy in the Tuscon sector.

Cochise County Sherriff Larry Dever said that he had received hundreds of supportive e-mails from active and retired former Border Patrol agents confirming the policy, apparently implemented at times to keep apprehension number artificially low. Homeland Security secretary Janet Naploitano had recently cited lower border apprehension as proof the border was more secure under her watch.

“This is nothing new, during my career with the border patrol, this was done regularly,” said another email to Dever reviewed by FoxNews.com.

“By assigning agents to different tasks, locations, etc., the apprehensions can be increased or decreased dramatically,” wrote Dan McCaskill Jr., a retired Border Patrol agent who worked in the Anti-Smuggling Unit.

McCaskill went on to describe how, he said, apprehension numbers were regularly
manipulated to achieve various budget, equipment or manpower goals.

A second Arizona Sheriff, Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeau, had also testified before a
Senate Homeland Security Committee in support of Dever's claims.

The Tucson local of the National Border Patrol Council union also came out in support of Dever, and posted this message on their website after the FoxNews.com report.

“Sheriff Dever is right. We have seen so many slick shenanigans pulled in regards to 'got-aways' and entry numbers that at times it seems David Copperfield is running the Border Patrol. Creating the illusion that all is well and you can start having family picnics in the areas where we work has been going on far too long. Has there been improvement in some areas? Absolutely. Is the border anywhere near 'under control'? Absolutely not. Do some in management play games with numbers and cater to the wishes of politicians like Janet Napolitano and David Aguilar? Resoundingly, yes. Time for the foolish political games to stop.”

Instead of apprehending illegal border crossers, agents are reportedly advised from on high to 'TBS' (or 'Turn Back South') any illegal border crossers they detect, despite the same people attempting to cross as soon as 10 minutes later.

AUSTRALIA: A report from Australia's leading criminal intelligence body issued earlier this month has indicated that Mexican cartels are gaining a foothold Down Under.

The Australian Crime Commission report suggested that the Mexican cartels could account for as much as 50% of the cocaine imported to Australia and expressed concerns that the drug traffickers could resort to the same violent and brutal tactics used in Mexico to try and expand their influence.

Bordered by nothing but coastline and with cocaine fetching a higher price than in the USA (US$ 200 an ounce vs as little as US$30 an ounce in the USA), Australia is considered a lucrative growing market by the cartels. To that end, some organizations like the Sinaloa cartel have partnered with Australian branches of the 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) in Sydney and Melbourne to aid in smuggling, distribution and sales.

GUATEMALA: Police in Guatemala this week have arrested a suspected drug trafficker nicknamed 'The Patriarch' with suspected ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

71 year old Waldemar Lorenzana was arrested by local police and DEA agents outside of Guatemala City, although his three sons- all thought to be active in drug trafficking- are said to be still at large.

Lorenzana had been sought by the DEA since 2009 and a $500,000 reward was offered for information leading to his capture. The State Department is likely to request 'The Patriarch's' extradition to the USA.

Mexican cartels have stepped up recent efforts to set up shop in Central America where law enforcement is even less reliable. Los Zetas has reportedly successfully recruited members of the Kabiles special operations forces from Guatemala's military.

TAMAULIPAS: Forensic experts and Mexican soldiers are sifting through mass graves in northern Mexico, a month after armed men set up roadblocks and boarded buses travelling along National Highway 101 along the Gulf coast of Tamaulipas for the last several months, pulling off mostly young men. The abductions and carnage had left the normally busy highway in the norteastern corner of Mexico virtually deserted during the week before Easter when many American living across the border in Texas would be vacationing or visiting relatives.

So far, authorities have pulled 177 bodies out from mass graves outside of San Fernando- not far from where 72 migrants were massacred at a isolated ranch last summer. More disturbingly, hardly any of the bodies examined have shown indications that the victims were shot. Instead, Mexican investigators say it appears as though most of the victims were killed by blunt-force trauma and a sledgehammer was found at the crime scene.

The territory in which the slayings took place is being fought over by the Zetas and one theory is that the one of the cartels abducted bus passengers and attempted to press them into service as drug mules of sicarros (low-level gunmen), murdering those who refused.

Mexico's Navy issued a statement saying they had captured the suspected mastermind of the massacres of the immigrants in San Fernando as well as the more recent abductions from intercity buses earlier this month.

Omar Martin Estradad flanked by Mexican Marines- Marco Ugarte/AP Photo

34 year old Martin Omar Estrada Luna is thought to be the head of a northern Mexico branch of Los Zetas. Luna, aka 'El Kilo' grew up on the American side of the border in the Yakima Valley region of Washington state. Authorities in Tieton, WA remember Luna as a dropout who racked up a juevenile record before moving on adult felony charges of burglary and drug dealing. Luna was reportedly last deported in 2009, but those who knew him from his time in Tieton question whether or not he was competent enough to have risen through the hierarchy of one of the world's most notorious and ruthless criminal organizations so quickly.

Other members of a San Fernando based Zetas cell were detained by Mexican Marines and paraded before the media last weekend as well. In addition, at least 17 members of San Fernando's municipal police department were detained and charged by Mexico's federal attourney general's office for charges of protecting Luna and other Zetas, covering up the kindappings and in some instances directly participating in the murders.

ELSEWHERE IN TAMAULIPAS: Mexican soldiers reportedly acting on a tip freed at least 52 migrants from Central America who were being held captive in the border city of Reynosa. The cartels and other Mexican gangs will sometimes adbuct migrants heading to the USA transiting through Mexico and demand ransom from their families in America or the country of origin.

-A convoy of gunmen in SUVs went on a rampage last week in the border town or Miguel Aleman, opening fire on the Tamaulipas State Police and local transit police headquarters and torching them before being driven out of the town in a running firefight with the Mexican Army. One civilian and an unpecified number of gunmen were killed in the attack according to local police.

According to the 8th Military Zone in Reynosa, the Zetas also attacked a military patrol along the Riberena highway prior to the attack in Miguel Aleman which prompted the mobilization of army troops toward the area.

Also prior to the arrival of the military, when Zetas arrived in town, they began shooting at the law enforcement headquarters and shot at the buildings and patrol cars as well as causing other damage, the Mexican law enforcement official stated.

The group then went around town shooting at and setting fire to a number of high-profile buildings along the city’s main avenue, including the Ford and Nissan dealerships, an Auto Zone store, a Stripes convenience store, a large furniture store and a used car lot.

During the rampage, one employee of the local Coca-Cola Co. bottling plant was killed as he drove to work. His name was not released pending notification of next of kin, the law enforcement official said. When military forces arrived toward the end of the rampage, a shootout ensued that left several gunmen dead on the street.

On Thursday, the Mexican Army was involved in a 3-way shootout when a patrol was resonding to sounds of gunfire from a shootout between gunmen from the Zetas and Gulf cartel. The shootout, involving Gulf and Zetas enforcers wearing body armour and travelling in a SUV, began in the early morning hours of the middle of the farming town of Arbacuz with six dead gunmen and an unknown number in custody.

DURANGO: In the northwestern corner of Mexico, Federal police and soldiers are exhuming another series of mass graves in the capital city of Durango (which happens to be named Durango). 87 bodies were pulled from a grave under a repair shop while 17 other decomposing bodies were found at a nearby hacienda.

GUERRERO: Four women and a teenage girl were found stripped, bound and with their throats slit in the popular resort city of Acapulco. Two of the bodies were discovered in a beauty salon located adjacent to an area known for drug dealing and prostitution while another body was discovered in a parked car and the 4th body was dumped in a street behind a church.

Investigators have not ruled out a possible connection with organized crime and prostitution in the murders. Some brothels or massage parlors in that part of the country sometimes operate under the guise of beauty salons.

[hat tip- Friends of Ours; Borderland Beat]

All American Borderline Psychosis- NM Mayor, Police Chief Charged w/Arms Trafficking; Sicarios Seeking Stingers Stung; US Agent Busted for Smuggling

NM drug raid nets police chief, mayor: fox11online.com

NEW MEXICO: The Mayor and Police chief of a small New Mexico border town as well as a village trustee were arrested for allegedly trafficking firearms into Mexico last month.

Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Police Chief Angelo Vega and city Rep. Jose Blas Gutierrez were arrested on allegations of firearm violations, stated the indictment that was released Thursday afternoon by the U.S. attorney's office in New Mexico.

Espinoza was charged with one count of conspiracy, three counts of making false statements in connection with acquisition of firearms and three counts of firearms smuggling.

Vega was charged with one count of conspiracy. Gutierrez was charged with one count of conspiracy, seventeen counts of making false statements in connection with acquisition of firearms and 19 counts of firearms smuggling.

Federal agents executed a search on the offices of the Columbus Police Department, Mayor Epspinoza's home, 7 other residences in Luna and Doña Ana counties as well as a business establishment. The raid has effectively shut down Columbus 4-man police department, with deputies from the Luna County Sheriff's department in charge of patrolling the area for the time being.

Besides being targeteed by a raid from Pancho Villa in 1916, Columbus has had a fairly tumultuous history with its police department in the recent past. According to a 2009 Los Angeles Times article, the dilapidated building that housed the police station was shut down because of a faulty lock on the door to the evidence room and two off-duty officers were suspended and another injured after a barroom brawl that left the small town's police force down to one man.

Last week, federal prosecutors charged that chief of police Vega was paid $20,000 in protection money and used police vehicles for smuggling firearms while using his police credentials to buy body armour and tactical equipment to re-sell to the cartels.

ARIZONA: An unnamed Border Patrol agent was arrested after colleagues discovered bundles of marijuana inside his marked patrol vehicle while on duty in the Yuma sector Tuesday.

The two agents reported the incident to a duty supervisor, and the agent and marijuana were subsequently turned over to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Border Patrol spokesman Kenneth Quillin said charges were pending in the case.

Corruption cases involving border police have increased in recent years as the U.S. government has ramped up recruitment in a drive to secure the southwest border with Mexico

A Washington Post report from 2010 detailed allegations of corruption against one Customs agent in El Paso, TX and her attempt to recruit other federal officers to participate in allowing drugs and illegal aliens to cross the border in exchange for bribes.

ELSEWHERE IN ARIZONA: Three Mexican nationals who identified themselves as members of the Sinaloa Cartel were charged on multiple weapons and narcotics conspiracy charges after attempting to purchase heavy weaponry. The three had indicated to informants that they were interested in Stinger missiles, a pair of AT-4 Anti Tank weapons.

The indictment alleges that David Diaz-Sosa, Jorge de Jesus-Castaneda and Emilia Palomina-Robles arranged to procure a military style arsenal for roughly $400,000 and made a down payment for the weapons using nearly 15 lbs of crystal methamphetamine and another $143,000 in cash in separate transactions. Court documents identify Diaz-Sosa and De Jesus-Casteneda as being in the country illegally while Palomina-Robles is a non-citizen resident.

The indictment also alleges that the men were going to divide up the weapons among themselves and smuggle them across the border into Mexico

CALIFORNIA: I mentioned this in passing earlier, but a Border Patrol agent in Southern California nabbed a van full of illegal aliens that were in United States Marine Corps uniforms. The white van itself featured a defaced US Government liscense plate, and the agent- a Marine veteran- became suspicious of the van's occupants when the driver didn't know the Marine Corps birthday and the occupants of the van were unfamiliar with the USMC 'Oo-RAH!' salutation. The arrest took place in the mountains along Interstate 8 at a checkpoint some 45 miles east of San Diego.

TEXAS: As it turns out, the Marines and their vehicles aren't the only ones who are being 'cloned' by smugglers- 28 year old Felipe Esperaza Cruz- a Mexican national- was arrested in Del Rio, TX after driving a fake Border Patrol truck loaded with 1500 lbs of marijuana across the border from Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila.

The government case contends that Esparza-Cruz entered the “United States without inspection through the City of Del Rio southbound tollbooth lanes.”

Once the truck entered the country ICE Agents ordered “mobile surveillance in order to verify the authenticity of the vehicle.”

Esparza-Cruz allegedly imitated a process used by Border Patrol when they deport illegal aliens back to Mexico using Border Patrol trucks. Luckily ICE agents observed the BP truck and were able to make the arrest.

“They’d just drive through without presenting themselves for inspection because no one questioned a Border Patrol vehicle,” officials explained.

In 2006, Border Patrol agents southwest of Tuscon, AZ came across a van in the desert that was painted to look like one of their vehicles. The drivers abandoned the vehicle after a short pursuit and fled back into Mexico, leaving behind some 30 immigrants locked in a cage the smugglers installed in the back of the vehicle. Over the past few years, smugglers and drug traffickers have also taken to applying realistic graphics to vehicles and trailers marked for Wal Mart, FedEx, DirecTV and others while moving contraband.

WASHINGTON D.C.- The Assistant special agent in charge of the ATF's Phoenix, AZ office is now cooperating with Congressional investigators in an inquiry stemming from the Bureau's 'Operation Fast & Furious'.

Special Agent George Gillett Jr was the one in charge or overseeing the day-to-day operations of Fast & Furious from the Phoenix office.

Gillett, who supervised the group running the Arizona component of Project Gunrunner, known as "Fast and Furious," initially dismissed those concerns and previously ordered ATF agents to avoid all communications with whistle-blowers who were cooperating with the congressional inquiries, several agents said in interviews.

Now, though, Gillett is talking. In a letter Friday to ATF management, Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, disclosed that Gillett was cooperating with a congressional inquiry and had participated in two preliminary meetings with investigators.

Gillett, who was named to the Phoenix field office's No. 2 post in June 2008, previously served as an ATF field supervisor in Los Angeles.

After repeated refusals by the ATF and the Justice Department to provide detailed information about the conduct of the Gunrunner investigation and how the guns found at the scene of Terry's death got into criminal hands, Gillett's decision to come forward is crucial, agency sources said.

Early on, Agent John Dodson came forward as a whistleblower after two weapons from the 'Fast & Furious' operation were found at the scene of a December 2010 Arizona shoot-out that killed Border Patrol agent Brian Terry.