Feds Disrupt Iranian-Backed Plot to Bomb Israeli Embassy, Assasinate Saudi Envoy to USA

Agents from the FBI and DEA have reportedly disrupted a terror plot liked directly to Iran's Quds force that involved simultaneous attacks against the Israeli and Saudi embassies in Washington D.C.

Federal investigatos allege that an Iranian American identified as 56 year old Mansour Arbabsiar, a Corpus Christi TX used car salesman as the man who approached what he thought was a member of the Los Zetas cartel with a proposal to kill the Saudi ambassador to the USA and bomb the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C. in exchange for $1.5 million and an undisclosed amount of opium.

Arbabsiar and the informant met twice in Reynosa in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, across the border from McAllen, TX [interestingly, observers note that Reynosa is in territory still under control of the Gulf Cartel, but the accused was meeting with what he thought was an enforcer from the archrival Los Zetas- NANESB!] where Arbabsiar bragged that he had a cousin who was a high-ranking member of the Quds force of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and that they were being directed by senior-level officials of the Iranian regime.

The five count criminal complaint names Gohlam Shakuri, an Iranian based member of the Quds force still at large in Iran, as a co-conspirator in the plot. Arbabsiar and the informant negotiated a $1.5 million payment to carry out the attacks, with the accused wiring two seperate payments of $49,960 into a dummy FBI bank account. Arbabsiar also told the informant that his contacts in Iran couild provide Los Zetas with 'tons' of opium if they were interested.

Federal agents said they recorded a number of phone calls and meeting with the informant and Arbabsiar, some of the calls coming from Iran. In late September, when Arbabsiar was flying to Mexico City from Iran via Frankfurt, he was refused entry into Mexico by immigration officers at Arturo Beneitez international airport and was put on a flight to New York where he was taken into custody.

Not surprisingly, Iran has denied the charges against their regime, claiming the case is a 'prefabricated scenario' and propaganda against the Islamic regime.

Interestingly, even though Arbabsiar was taken into custody nearly two weeks ago, Attorney General Eric Holder's press conference announcing the disruption of the plot came a day before House Oversight and Government Reform Committee chariman, Darrell Issa (R- CA49) issued Holder a subpoena in regards to their ongoing Fast & Furious probe in which the ATF allowed firearms to be trafficked from the USA to Mexican drug cartels. In fact, one of the reporters brought up Fast & Furious during the press conference, only to have Holder dismiss it with a boilerplate statement about turning over the relelvant documents before walking out.

There is precedent for Iranian-backed groups co-ordinating attacks out of Latin America. In 1992, 29 people were killed when a truck bomb exploded outside the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires. A group with links to the Iranian back Hezbollah terrorist group and Iran called the Islamic Jihad organization claimed responsibility. The Isreali Embassy attacks were followed up by the 1994 bombing of the AMIA (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina) building in Buenos Aires, which killed 85 people. Argentine investigators believe that both operations were planned and financed in the Tri-Border area where the boundaries of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet near Iguazu Falls and where Hezbollah has been active over the last two decades. More recently, Mexican intelligence has been aware of a Hezbollah presence in Tijuana and Durango.

Boston Globe: Former Miss Iceland Was Tipster That Led FBI To Whitey Bulger's Santa Moncia, CA Condo

Anna Bjornsdottir after winning Miss Iceland in 1974- Pageantlover.com Photo

If Whitey Bulger was a cat person before his arrest, he probably isn't now.

A 57 year old yoga instructor and former Miss Iceland is reportedly the tipster who notified the FBI of fugitive Boston mobster Whitey Bulger's whereabouts, according to an article in the Boston Globe. The FBI captured the 81 year old former Winter Hill Gang leader with his 60 year old girlfriend Catherine Greig at their Santa Monica, CA condo in June of this year after 16 years on the run.

Bulger is facing prosecution on multiple counts of drug trafficking, extortion and his role in at least 19 homicides in Massachusetts, Florida and Oklahoma. Bulger operated the south Boston Winter Hill Gang throughout the 1970s and 80s while enjoying protection from the FBI thanks in large part to Agent John Connolly who was a childhood friend of Bulger's. Bulger also used his status as a confidential informant for the FBI to undercut operations of the rival Patriarcha crime family, only to step into the vacuum left behind when their leaders were incarcerated, under surveillance or in hiding.

Recent photos of Bulger (R) and Bjornsdottir (L)- AP

Greig and Bjornsdottir reportedly met while caring for the same stray cat on the grounds of their Santa Monica condo. The former model and Miss Iceland did not recognize the couple until a recent trip back to Iceland when she saw a televised bulletin put out by the FBI regarding the couple.

For 15 years, the FBI investigation into Bulger's whereabouts went almost nowhere. There were miscellaneous reports circulating that Bulger was hiding out in British Columbia or Costa Rica, but the last reputable sighting of him was at a London, England hotel in 2002. However, by shifting the focus to Bulger's travelling companion Greig and broadcasting bulletins during daytime TV shows, an arrest was made in less than a month.

Now, however, there's some concern over both Mrs. Bjornsdottir's safety and the integrity of the FBI's tipline for those who wish to remain anonymous. The former Icelandic beauty queen did not come forward on her how volition- details about her identity and personal life were leaked and then published in the Boston Globe.

While there are those in the media and law-enforcement who feel that Bjornsdottir is in no imminent danger owing to the fact that Bulger's few remaining friends and allies are dead or incarcerated, law enforcement can no longer guarantee her safety now that the Globe has published her personal information.

“They can’t guarantee her 100 percent safety going forward,” said former U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan. “It’s unnecessary publicity and unnecessary harassment.

“There is a huge risk to the (tipster) program, generally, to be able to cultivate informants if their identification is at risk,” added Sullivan, a partner in the Ashcroft Law Firm. “It has a chilling effect.”

When I first heard this story earlier today, I initially thought that Anna revealed herself as the tipster that broke the case on her own volition.

Now that it's becoming apparent this information was leaked by somebody other than Bjornsdottir, aside from the obvious questionable judgement the Globe had demonstrated in publishing her photo, most recent whereabouts and amount received from the reward money, there's also some serious questions regarding the FBI's ability to protect the identity of anonymous tipsters. Think about it- how many witnesses would be willing to come forward with information that could break a particularly difficult case wide open will have second thoughts now?

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.

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.

Borderline Psychosis- The Often Overlooked Northern Border Edition: GAO- Only 32 miles of Canadian Border 'Secure'; Smugglers Pipeline in Northern NY

Looking north from the Whitetail, MT border crossing- Mike Stebelton/ Daniels County Leader

A study released in February indicates that just over 32 miles of the nearly 4,000 mile US/Canadian border is considered 'secure' according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO).

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) states the threat of terrorism from the northern border is higher than from the southern Mexico border, given the large expanse of area with limited law enforcement coverage. DHS reports networks of illicit criminal activity and smuggling of drugs, currency, people, and weapons across the northern border.

The report focuses on whether federal agencies are working together to secure the vast stretches of the border owned by the federal government.

The study points out critical gaps in security along the U.S.-Canadian border that limit the ability of Customs and Border Protection to fully secure the border—gaps including a lack of interoperable communications systems and limited sharing of intelligence and information between local and federal officials.

U.S. Customs head Alan Bersin told a US Senate Subcommittee earlier this month that even though the Canadian border sees far fewer arrests than the US/Mexican border, the Canadian border is considered a 'more significant threat' by Customs and DHS.

Although certainly not marred by the bloody narco-violence like Mexico, there are concerns that radical Islamists would attempt to enter the USA through Canada to carry out attacks. In December 1999, an Algerian national was arrested at Port Angeles, WA after entering the country from Victoria, BC when a search of his vehicle turned up plastic bags filled with explosives and some homemade timing devices.

MICHIGAN: Drug traffickers flying in private aircraft have taken to making their drops at small, rural and sometimes unstaffed airports along some border states.

The bust by federal agents didn't happen on the southwestern border. It was in Michigan's rural Thumb region next to a soybean field. The remote airport here in Sandusky offers a smooth runway at any hour to anyone who needs it, a perfect landing spot for brazen drug smugglers who can cross the Great Lakes from Canada in minutes.

Beefed-up enforcement along the Mexican border has made smuggling more challenging for criminal cartels using the major southern routes, but drugs continue to flow across the porous northern border through airstrips like this one as officials look for new ways to fight back.

Tracking rogue planes at low altitude with their transponders off is “like trying to pick a needle out of a haystack,” said John Beutlich of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, who oversees air and marine operations from Washington state to Maine.

“Shoot, we're just a big cherry to pick and didn't realize it,” said Joe Allen, manager of the Sandusky airport, 145 kilometres northeast of Detroit.

He installed a fence to keep cars from meeting planes at the runway, but the property is not staffed at night. Border agents could offer just two signs asking people to call an 800 number if they see something unusual.

Canada is a significant source of high-quality marijuana and the amphetamine Ecstasy. More than 2 million doses of Ecstasy were seized on the northern border in 2009 compared to just 312,000 in 2004, the Drug Enforcement Administration said, offering a snapshot of what's popular and what gets confiscated.

Most shipments come by road. But the 2009 flight from Ontario to Michigan, the subject of a recent federal trial, provided insight into drug operations that use small planes. Officials don't know how frequent such flights are but consider the vulnerability alarming.

Matthew Moody and nephew Jesse Rusenstrom, both from Amherstburg, Ontario, were the couriers captured that night in Sandusky. Their job was to enter the country through Detroit, meet the Canadian plane and deliver the drugs to others in the U.S. They also put 27 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $500,000 on the return flight to Guelph, Ontario.

Matthew Moody and nephew Jesse Rusenstrom, both from Amherstburg, Ontario, were the couriers captured that night in Sandusky. Their job was to enter the country through Detroit, meet the Canadian plane and deliver the drugs to others in the U.S. [In addition to the 79kg of pot and 400,000 ecstacy pills they had flown in and were apprehended with] they also put 27 kilograms of cocaine worth more than $500,000 on the return flight to Guelph, Ontario.

It was just one in a series of shipments. Mr. Rusenstrom said he met the drug plane at least 10 times at other tiny airports in the Thumb region — Marlette, Ray, Lapeer — as well as in Greenville in western Michigan and an airport in Pennsylvania. The pilot activated runway lights from the cockpit, a standard practice in aviation.

Mr. Rusenstrom, testifying at the trial of an accomplice, Robert “Romeo” D'Leone, said hundreds of airports were studied on Google Maps.

“We would go around looking for airports, seeing if there was fences or cameras,” the 21-year-old told jurors.

Mr. D'Leone, who lives in the Toronto area, stopped his trial and pleaded guilty on April 14. Mr. Rusenstrom and Mr. Moody co-operated, pleaded guilty and were recently sentenced to time served in custody. The U.S. still wants to extradite four others in Ontario who are accused of major roles, including the pilot.

Some jurors were alarmed by the revelations during the D'Leone trial.

“You always hear Homeland Security has an eye on everything. It's surprising that airfields aren't manned 24 hours,” Robert Simpson, 47, told The Associated Press.

The Sandusky airport has spent $2,000 on cameras and hopes to install more.
“We're outside radar,” Mr. Allen, the manager, said, running his finger over a map of Michigan's Thumb. “You can come and go as you please. You don't even have to file a flight plan.”

The minimal help he received from border authorities — warning signs — had to be fixed before he posted them: They referred to suspicious boats, not planes.

[What is it with Homeland Security and thinking signs are the answer!?- NANESB!]

NEW YORK: Another locale popular with smugglers and organized crime on both sides of the border is the Akwesasne Indian Reservation just outside of , which straddles the borders between New York State, Quebec and Ontario along the St Lawrence River.

The area's unique geography and patchwork of jurisdictions on both sides of the border has had the attention of smugglers and bootleggers since Prohibition. In more recent years, local residents will either run contraband across the border themselves- either in snowmobiles during wintertime or motorboats when the St Lawrence is navigable- or charge landing fees to smugglers for using their property.

Illegal immigrants, hydroponic marijuana and Ecstasy are usually smuggled into the USA from the Canadian side while illegal firearms, cocaine and untaxed tobacco or alcohol make their way north. Some estimates say that 20% of Canadian grown marijuana smuggled into the USA moves through the Akwesasne/St Regis reservation.

While there are some cigarette factories on the US side of the reservation, the sale of tax free cigarettes on reservation stores has caught the attention of groups like the 'Ndrangheta, Hells Angels and Bulgarian Mafia who will often purchase cigarettes in bulk then turn around and sell the untaxed cigarettes in high tax municipalities like New York City, Montreal or Toronto.

Terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah and the Real IRA have also raised funds through trafficking untaxed cigarettes in the last decade.

Borderline Psychosis Complete W/ Alligator Filled Moats- Ranch Hands Massacred in Guatemala; Gulf Cartel Underboss Arrested; Cartel's AZ 'Expressway'

TEXAS: I find it noteworthy that while President Obama was telling us on how secure America's southern borders are between one-liners during a campaign stop in El Paso earlier this month, the brass casings were still hot from a bloody shootout between the Mexican Marines and drug traffickers in which 13 were killed (most of them suspected Zetas) on an island in a lake straddling the USA/Mexico border.

The Mexican naval secretariat confirmed the shootout at a Zeta encampment on an island on the reservoir used by the Zetas to stage marijuana loads to be transported by boat into the United States. The island is located less than two miles northeast of Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, Tamps., across the border from Falcon Dam.

The bloody fight ensued on Mother’s Day when marines were patrolling the area in boats when they found the camp, officials said in a statement released Monday.

Upon seeing the marines, Zeta gunmen opened fire. A dozen cartel members were killed in the battle. One marine died, as well.

Officials noted no arrests after the shootout, but said they seized 19 firearms, including a Barrett .50-caliber sniper rifle and a 5.56 mm machine gun. Marines also seized gun magazines, ammunition, protective vests and other field equipment that was transferred to Reynosa.

Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez said he learned of the deadly shootout when member of the local media contacted him late Monday morning. Had Mexican officials alerted their U.S. counterparts to the shootout, Gonzalez’s deputies would have been able “to react accordingly,”

The shootout capped a busy week along the northern Tamaulipas border for Mexican marines, who killed two suspected cartel gunmen Saturday afternoon in Valle Hermoso, about 25 miles south of Brownsville. Marines also seized weapons and a vehicle Thursday in Matamoros, and rescued a kidnap victim Wednesday in Camargo, across the border from Rio Grande City.

ELSEWHERE IN TEXAS: Border Patrol agents in rural Starr County found nearly 3000 pounds of marijuana in a van with Dish Network markings that they stopped and searched.

U.S. Border Patrol agents reported tha the seizure happened in the rural Starr County community of La Casita on Wednesday, April 20th.

Court records were not immediately available but Border Patrol agents reportedly spotted a Dish Network van exiting a brushy area near the Rio Grande River.

Working on a tip that are drug smugglers are now using counterfeit vehicles from well-known companies as a cover, Border Patrol stopped the van.

Border Patrol agents reported immediately noticing a strong odor of marijuana.

Investigators looked inside and found 100 bundles with close to 3,000 pounds of marijuana worth $2.3 million dollars inside.

Vehicles with counterfeit commercial markings have become increasingly popular with smugglers over the past few years, leading to the occasional moments of hilarity such as this:

In another case, a truck painted with DirecTV and other markings was pulled over in a routine traffic stop in Mississippi and discovered to be carrying 786 pounds of cocaine.

Police said they became suspicious because the truck carried the markings of DirecTV and several of its rivals. An 800 number on the truck's rear to report bad driving referred callers to an adult sex chat line.

Of course, there are concerns that more competently 'cloned' vehicles with EMS, fire or law enforcement markings could be used by smugglers to evade scrutiny from police and the Border Patrol or terrorists to gain access to otherwise secure areas.

CALIFORNIA: A former US Intelligence agent told An ABC affiliate in San Diego that the Shi'a Muslim terrorist group Hezbollah is setting up shop across the border in Mexico.

The former agent, referring to Shi'a Muslim terrorist group Hezbollah, added, "They certainly have had successes in big-ticket bombings."

Some of the group's bombings include the U.S. embassy in Beirut and Israeli embassy in Argentina.

However, the group is now active much closer to San Diego.

"We are looking at 15 or 20 years that Hezbollah has been setting up shop in Mexico," the agent told 10News.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, U.S. policy has focused on al-Qaida and its offshoots.

"They are more shooters than thinkers … it's a lot of muscles, courage, desire but not a lot of training," the agent said, referring to al-Qaida.

Hezbollah, he said, is far more advanced.

"Their operators are far more skilled … they are the equals of Russians, Chinese or Cubans," he said. "I consider Hezbollah much more dangerous in that sense because of strategic thinking; they think more long-term."

Hezbolah has operated in South America for decades and then Central America, along with their sometime rival, sometime ally Hamas.

Now, the group is blending into Shi'a Muslim communities in Mexico, including Tijuana. Other pockets along the U.S.-Mexico border region remain largely unidentified as U.S. intelligence agencies are focused on the drug trade.

"They have had clandestine training in how to live in foreign hostile territories," the agent said.

The agent, who has spent years deep undercover in Mexico, said Hezbollah is partnering with drug organizations, but which ones is not clear at this time.

He told 10News the group receives cartel cash and protection in exchange for Hezbollah expertise.

"From money laundering to firearms training and explosives training," the agent said.

For example, he tracked, along with Mexican intelligence, two Hezbollah operatives in safe houses in Tijuana and Durango.

Hezbollah has already established a presence in the tri-border region of South America, where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay converge around Iguazu Falls. Mexico has also been home to a number of Lebanese migrants for the past century- some of whom have alerted Mexican and American intelligence to the possibility of Hezbollah operating in Mexico.

In recent years, the DEA has claimed that Hezbollah has utilized the same network of drug traffickers, gun runners and document forgers that the Mexican cartels use.

ARIZONA: An 18-month investigation by the DEA, Arizona Department of Public Safety and Tribal Police has resulted in 25 arrests and highlighting the scope of the Sinaloa cartel's operations along the Mexican border in Arizona's Tohono O'Odham Indian Reservation southwest of Tuscon.

The vast Sonoran desert is the expressway for drug smugglers to get their goods into the U.S.

DEA agent, Todd Scott says, "You've got a clear line of sight all the way here to the roads that they coordinate with smuggling loads on. Continue that way a little further that way and you've got Mexico."

Scott stood on a spot known as a spider hole. It's on the Tohono O'odham Nation where you can easily see 10 miles out on a clear day, "It allows you to observe law enforcement whether it's border patrol or TOPD , DEA anybody operating in this area from this position," says Scott.

This is where Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel hides surveillance teams. People live there 30 to 60 days at a time.

Scott says they act as air traffic controllers, "The smuggling loads come across in either human mule trains or vehicles and the scouts here use night vision goggles or binoculars coordinate those movements of those loads with the radios."

AP Photo/ Matt York

ELSEWHERE IN ARIZONA- *GILA BEND*: Two Border Patrol agents were killed in Gila Bend earlier this month when their vehicle collided with a Union Pacific freight train while pursuing suspected drug traffickers.

Early Thursday, U.S. Border Patrol agents Edward Rojas Jr. and Hector Clark were stationed near Gila Bend, on assignment with a task force, when they got a call about marijuana smugglers moving toward Interstate 8.

Even veteran officers talk about the adrenaline rush that comes with such a call, which causes a sort of tunnel vision. Rojas and Clark sped west on a frontage road parallel to railroad tracks, slightly ahead of a freight train going in the same direction at over 60 mph.

The conductor and engineer would later tell investigators that they sounded the locomotive whistle several times. Suddenly, the agents' vehicle turned left onto a private rail crossing, immediately in front of the 4,600-ton train.

Agents Clark and Rojas were the first Border Patrol agents killed in the line of duty since the December 2010 shooting of Brian Terry outside of Nogales, AZ. After the wreck, deputies from the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office recovered 300 pounds of marijuana and detained eight suspects a few hundred yards from the crash site.

*PHOENIX*: The DEA is refusing to turn over a cache of semiautomatic rifles seized in a raid earlier this month to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms when a routine check on some of the weapons revealed that they were obtained under the ATF's watch as part of Operation Fast & Furious.

The federal drug agents discovered the AK-47-type assault rifles wrapped in cellophane and hidden inside two giant trash barrels. Agents believe the confiscated weapons were heading to drug cartels in Mexico. Problem is, a serial number on at least one of the weapons traces back to the ATF.

The DEA arrests took place on April 13 and the DEA has expressed an interest in keeping the seized weapons as evidence in their own case and separate from the now infamous Fast and Furious investigation.

Agencia Guatemalteca Noticias Photo

GUATEMALA: At least 27 people were massacred at a ranch in the restive northern Peten province along the borders with Mexico and Belize last weekend.

The massacre, which stretched from Saturday into Sunday, took place on a coconut farm in the lawless region of Peten province, a porous region on the Mexican border known as a gateway for drug trafficking.

It was one of the worst mass killings since the end of Guatemala's 36-year civil war in 1996, authorities said.

Police were investigating a link between the ranch killings and the murder of Haroldo Leon, the brother of one of Guatemala's biggest drug kingpins, Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon, who was killed in 2008.

Local reports said the ranch belonged to Haroldo Leon, who was gunned down with three of his body guards in another part of Peten early Saturday.

Hours later, heavily armed members of Mexico's Los Zetas drug gang raided the ranch, tying up their victims before killing them and then writing in blood threatening messages on the walls of the house, cops said.

One of the messages read, "Salguero, we're coming for you." Police did not say who Salguero was.

Police said that the victims - including two women and children - worked at the farm.

Late Sunday, authorities said they found one survivor of the massacre, who had pretended to be dead. Cops didn't release any other details about the survivor.

Authorities in Guatemala arrested a former member of the Kaibiles, a special operations unit of the Guatemalan Army, in neighboring Alta Verapaz province after coming across information left behind in a recently abandoned Zetas encampment in the same province where the ranch massacre took place. Hugo Gomez Vazquez was arraigned in court and charged with obstruction of justice, kidnapping, extortion and accesory to murder. The prosecution presented a recording of a telephone conversation where Vazquez was apparently negotiating a ransom after the abduction of a relative of the ranch's owner who was later killed and decapitated prior to last weekend's massacre.

Three other Guatemalan nationals suspected of involvement in the massacre were arrested in the city of Quetzalenango on Saturday.

Investigators are also looking into ties between the owner of the ranch, Otto Salguiero, and Mexico's Gulf Cartel. Peten's location along the porous borders with Mexico and Belieze make it an attractive venue for smugglers. Guatemala's president declared a state of siege in nearby Alta Verapaz province in late 2010 after the Zetas began infiltrating the region and setting up staging areas and clandestine airstrips.

AP Photo, Marco Ugarte

TAMAULIPAS: Mexican federal police arrested a leading member of the Gulf cartel after raiding his birthday party at a ranch in Reynosa, Tamaulipas.

Gilberto Barragan Balderas "is considered one of the main leaders of the Gulf Cartel" and is the subject of a $5 million reward by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Ramon Pequeno, head of anti-drug operations for the federal police.

Barragan Balderas was allegedly in charge of the cartel's operations in Miguel Aleman, across the border from Roma, Texas. Police captured him at a party at a ranch near another border city, Reynosa, which is across from McAllen, Texas.

Police said the party was apparently in honor of Barragan Balderas' May 19 birthday. Two alleged associates were also arrested in the raid, which also netted an assault rifle and three pistols.

According to the DEA, Balderas' duties included obtaining advanced information regarding military and state police patrols and mobile checkpoints in order to protect drug shipments for both the Zetas and the Gulf cartel prior to the organizations violent 2010 split. Since then, he was supposedly tasked with defending the territory from any Zetas incursion.

The fact that the DEA has a US$5 million reward out for Balderas is a pretty good indicator that he wasn't exactly a small fry in the Gulf organization.

ELSEWHERE IN MEXICO: Not surprisingly, human trafficking continues to be a lucrative side business for many of the drug cartels.

Smuggling in decades past was the business of small independent operators who helped migrants cross once they reached the U.S. border. But evading U.S. authorities has become much more difficult with increased border enforcement in recent years. At the same time, Mexico's migrant routes have become much more dangerous, controlled by drug gangs that see new moneymaking opportunities in kidnapping and extorting those who cross their territory.

The harder the trip, the higher the price. Guatemalan officials, who estimate 300 to 500 undocumented nationals cross the border each day into Mexico, say those migrants are paying double what they did two years ago, as much as $10,000 for the hope of gaining work in the United States.

Unlike those running drugs, guns or other contraband, people smugglers lose virtually no upfront costs when migrants are intercepted by authorities or escape.

In the case of Mexico's southern border, no one can say exactly who the organized smuggling groups are. Some say that large transport rings operate separately from Mexico's brutal drug gangs, such as the Zetas or the Gulf Cartel, who stick to kidnapping and extortion.

Some say they are all in collusion, including authorities. Both local police and federal immigration agents have been arrested in recent raids on kidnapping operations in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas.

"It's clear that they're immigration agents, federal police, Zetas, maras, the whole gamut, along with local crime groups," said the Rev. Alejandro Solalinde, a Catholic priest who runs a migrant shelter in Oaxaca. "Those who make money off migrants are all part of the same mafia."

Added to all this is the fact that organizations like the Zetas or Gulf cartel will target the migrants transiting through territory controlled by them and extort them, hold them for ransom or press them into service as drug mules.

Crane Operators Rake in $400,000 Salaries on Ground Zero No-Show Jobs

A recent report by a major New York developer's group claims that a slew of phantom no-show or no-work jobs on construction sites around Ground Zero is costing taxpayers nearly $100 million dollars.

The Real Estate Board of New York claims that rules dating back to when the International Union of Operating Engineers Locals 14 and 15 were controlled by the Colombo and Genovese crime families in the last decade. Among the affected projects are the Freedom Tower, the nearby transit hub, the 9/11 memorial and surrounding streetwork.

Contractor and union sources confirmed that the eight tower cranes at the WTC site guarantee a bonanza for Local 14 operating engineers and the Local 15 specialists who fix them.

On one day in mid-March, for example, contractors said 56 of 204 Local 14 and Local 15 employees on site held no-work jobs.

The board compiled the statistics in the runup to contract talks with the operating engineers and all the city's construction unions, which start next month.

Many of the jobs are vestiges of an era in which the Colombo and Genovese crime families controlled Locals 14 and 15. Local 14 has been under a federal monitor since 2009.

One example is the full-time Local 14 "master mechanics" the contractor must hire whenever five pieces of heavy equipment or three tower cranes are in use.

With a $135,000 base salary, a master mechanic can make a staggering $405,000 a year with overtime that's guaranteed by six-day, 12- to 16-hour-a-day schedules. Welfare benefits, insurance and other costs hike the annual bill to $700,000 for that one mechanic.

It's a ridiculous requirement, REBNY says, because the manufacturer or crane owner does the repairs, not the contractor's master mechanics.

Instead, they are glorified shop stewards, a part-time job in most unions. With three required on site a day, that should cost about $6.3 million through 2013, the board says.

Master mechanic Carl Carrara Sr., identified as a Genovese associate, was charged in a 2003 racketeering conspiracy as the mob's point man in a no-show scam at the Museum of Modern Art.

He and six other master mechanics pleaded guilty that year in two cases that put much of Local 14 and 15's leadership behind bars.

Local 15 demands a similar piece of the action via "®maintenance engineers." They're required on site full time when a master mechanic is there and three major pieces of equipment are operating in case any machines need fixing.

"There is nothing for these guys to do," a World Trade Center construction supervisor said. Eliminating that requirement would save $7.5 million over three years at Ground Zero, REBNY says.

Then there's the Local 15 position of "crane oiler," a relic from the days when equipment needed frequent lubrication. An oiler is required on site when any tower crane is in use.

Today, the oiler simply fires up the crane at the start of work. With overtime, he can earn more than $100,000 a year.

And there's Local 14's "stationary equipment operator," with one assigned to each compressor, welding machine and spray fireproofer in use. With overtime, they pull down about $110,000 a year, REBNY estimated.

A World Trade Center construction supervisor who asked not to be identified said technology has reduced the job to two simple functions: "They turn the machine on in the morning and turn it off at night," the supervisor said. "They are basically non-essential."

REBNY wants the city to loosen the union's influence over who gets licensed to operate heavy machinery.

Now, only operators with city licenses can work here, and applicants must train with city crane operators - virtually all union workers. That gives the two locals a stranglehold on major projects.

"Locals 14 and 15 have the hammer. They have the power to shut down a job," said Steven Spinola, president of REBNY, which wants to be able to hire nationally licensed crane operators.

This certainly is not the first time a union padded a contract with a number of set-aside no-show jobs in the New York area, but this has been the most contested piece of real estate within the 5 boroughs lately.

Lining their pockets with money scammed from taxpayers? Look for the Union Label!

[Hat Tip: Labor Union Report; Lonely Conservative]

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]

Report: 81 Year Old Fugitive Whitey Bulger Dead, Cremated in Central America

Reports are circulating over the weekend that fugitive octigenarian extortionist, murderer and drug trafficker James J. 'Whitey' Bulger had recently died of a heart attack in Costa Rica and his girlfriend had the remains cremated.

A fugutive since December 1994 and on the FBI's 10 most wanted list since 1999, Bulger is wanted by the Justice Department and prosecutors in Boston for multiple counts of murder, drug trafficking, extortion and RICO viloations.

Throughout the 1980s, Bulger leveraged his relationship with FBI agent John Connolly and Massachusetts State Police Lt. Richard Schneiderhan as well as his own status as an informant to eliminate rivals or informants and consolidate power as his Providence, RI-based rivals in the Patriarca crime family were left reeling after a series of Federal indictments.

A year ago, FBI agents and police in British Columbia, Canada were canvassing bookstores around the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island in search of Bulger. So far, the FBI has remained skeptical regarding the latest rumor about Bulger's death and cremation in Central America.

Here is the official statement from the Boston FBI office, as delivered by Special Agent Gregory Comcowich:

“The FBI has no credible information to indicate that Bulger is deceased. Until the FBI receives credible verified information that he has died, the FBI will continue its fugitive investigation.”

As one of Whitey's victims put it: “If I were Whitey, this is exactly the story I’d want out there. Not only is he dead, but the body is gone.” But then again, considering that it was almost a year ago to the day that the Feds were looking for Bulger in Canada, this latest rumor could be a hoax pulled off by the remnants of the Winter Hill gang or Bulger himself.

[Hat Tip: Howie Carr; Friends of Ours]

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.