The Guardian: How Wachovia Bank laundered billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels. And the slap on the wrist that resulted from their getting caught.
UPDATE: WSJ: Dozens found in mass grave in Mexico.
Tagged: Cartel Wars RSS Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Jehuda
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Jehuda
LAT: “The narcos rule our lives.”
I do hear things are pretty bad across Mexico with the ongoing cartel wars, but some areas are worse than others…
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Jehuda
Arizona Sheriff Deputy shot with AK-47 after traffic stop.
I was afraid this would happen; for quite some time, actually.
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Jehuda
…of the nascent anti-Arizona movement.
People throw the term “fascism” around too easily these days. Arizona has been the corridor of choice for Mexican illegal aliens for about a decade now. If it’s crawling with Nazis, why did they wait so long to implement their “your papers, please” regime? Or did all the Nazis move in right after Janet “The System Worked” Napolitano move out?
Arizonans have a very good reason to support this new law in large numbers: illegal immigration isn’t just about the movement of people and contraband across the border anymore. In less than a decade, it’s evolved into one more battleground of the Cartel Wars.
Thus, Arizonans are rightfully afraid; and more Americans should be afraid for them, but it seems some people are too busy trying to let everyone know how open minded and tolerant they are, compared to Arizonans, to realize that some very bad stuff is going on at the border. That’s bad stuff that can only spill over into the U.S. before too long.
That was the irony of the refried bean swastikas. There are organizations in Mexico right now terrorizing and killing anyone who dares get in their way, much like the one that made swastikas so infamous some 70 years ago. That’s what Arizona is reacting to. Not Mexicans in and of themselves.
UPDATE: …and the Stupidity: Arizona Iced Tea faces calls for a boycott…even though the company is based in New York.
MORE: A robust round-up, at Instapundit.
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Jehuda
Report: Mexican Cartels Using IED’s: “STRATFOR says the cartels are making more IEDs everyday. Right now, experts don’t think they’ll try to use them here in the U.S. But they’re not ruling anything out.”
Damn. The Cartel Wars get worse – and bigger – every day.
Thanks to Dr. Fiancee for the tip. Dr. Fiancee blogs about crime and national security news here. Be nice to her and pay her blog a visit.
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Jehuda
BorderReporter: Person of interest identified in Krentz killing. “The U.S. Border Patrol is looking for this man.”
If you have any interest in Mexico’s Cartel Wars – and you should regardless of where in the U.S. you live – you should keep up with BorderReporter.
Frankly, I should cover the Cartel Wars more myself; but since I hear first-hand accounts of its consequences from friends and family in Mexico every week, it’s sometimes to painful for me to write about.
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Jehuda
Brutal: “They came in and put up a sign in the plaza telling everyone to leave or pay with their own blood.”
I wish it were an April Fool’s joke, but it’s not. I hear bad things are going on from friends and family back in Mexico. Really bad things…
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Jehuda
NYT: The bulletproof vest as fashion statement.
Personal armor doesn’t make you cool. You’re cool if your job requires that you wear personal armor. It’s two different things.
I’d bet good money that people who have to wear bulletproof vests out of necessity – be it for work or just as an insurance policy – don’t think it’s that cool.
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Jehuda
WSJ: Gunmen kill Mexican sailor’s family to avenge druglord’s death.
This is a whole new level of brutality and cowardice…
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Jehuda
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Time: Mexico’s Evangelical Narcos.
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Jehuda
NYT: Mexican Cartels Lure American Teens as Killers.
Mexican Cartels Lure American Teens as Killers
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Jehuda
Rusty Fleming: Kidnapped From the Border.
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Jehuda
NYT: Drugs won the war?
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STRATFOR: When the Mexican Drug Trade Hits the Border.
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Jehuda
I just heard on the radio that during a State visit in Mexico City Hillary Clinton said the U.S. shares the blame for Mexico’s drug cartel violence.
I can’t say I’m surprised by Hillary’s attitude and words. This is a cheap way of ingratiating herself to the Mexican government; and in the measure that demand for drugs in the U.S. fuels drug traffic from south of the border, I guess she’s partially right.
But I lived in Mexico for many years; and I know that if only Mexican society – as expressed through its laws, government and culture – was less classist, statist, and more for upward social mobility, maybe the number of Mexicans choosing to pursue a career in the drug trade would be much smaller. Of course, Hillary won’t say that during a state visit. But I wonder if she at least considered it before opening her mouth.
Hillary also attributed the Mexican Cartel Wars to America’s “inability to stop weapons smuggling into Mexico”. Now she didn’t have to say that: there is clear evidence showing that the weapons the drug cartels are acquiring are coming from elsewhere. I chalk it up to an innate drive to push for drug control.
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Jehuda
Cartel activity reported in Houston and “plaguing” Atlanta.
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Jehuda
WSJ’s Bret Stephens: In Praise of Mexico’s War on Drugs.
Bret – as some of you may or may not know – was raised in Mexico. He has a unique perspective on the topic that will be hard to find elsewhere in American journalism.
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Jehuda
Have you come across your local Mexican drug gang yet?
H/T: The Corner
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culpering355
CBS News reports: Mexico’s federal AG seems to think so, although more than 1,000 people have been killed in the first eight weeks of this year.
In an interview with the AP, Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora said “the world’s most powerful drug cartels are ‘melting down’as they engage in turf wars and fight off a nationwide government crackdown.”
Wishful thinking?
Cross posted at culpering355.wordpress.com.
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Jehuda
[T]he impact of violent Mexican criminals stretches far beyond Mexico itself. In recent weeks, Mexican criminals have been involved in killings in Argentina, Peru and Guatemala, and Mexican criminals have been arrested as far away as Italy and Spain. Their impact — and the extreme violence they embrace — is therefore not limited to Mexico or even just to Latin America.
RELATED (Via Instapundit): Oh, and what is your role in all this? Endure more gun control! Eric Holder wants a new assault weapons ban.
You know. Because all those weapons in the hands of the Mexican drug cartels can’t possibly come from anywhere else, can they?
Lame…
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Jehuda
Mexico is now the kidnapping capital of the world?
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Jehuda
Austin Bay at Strategypage says reports of Mexico’s imminent collapse are greatly exaggerated. Yes, the Cartel Wars are rough, but Mexico is far from a failed state. And at any rate, that’s not what the recently released JFCOM report said anyway.
That would explain why on my last visit to Mexico I didn’t see any signs of impending anarchy.
(H/T: Instapundit)
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Jehuda
Mexico as bad as Pakistan? “In terms of worse-case scenarios for the Joint Force and indeed the world, two large and important states bear consideration for a rapid and sudden collapse: Pakistan and Mexico.”
Didn’t seem to me that way when I was there last month, but what do I know?
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Jehuda
Via Instapundit: Fabius Maximus has two new reports on Mexico’s deteriorating security situation in the midst of the Cartel Wars.
Meanwhile: The Border Reporter wonders why more Americans are not worried yet.
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Jehuda
The L.A. Times site has posted dramatic surveillance video of three Mexican hitmen raiding a jewelry store in Mexico’s third largest city; and making quick work of a security guard, a police commander from a nearby town, his wife, and one more person.
They took no money or jewelry. They just wanted to show what they could do to an exemplary police commander.
Great. Just in time for my Christmas trip to that nearby town. (UPDATE: to clarify, the murders happened in 2007, but the video was not released until last week).
UPDATE: By the way, the L.A. Times has collected its stories on the Mexican Drug War here. You can click here for my posts related to the topic. And there’s always the inimitable Border Reporter, who does his very own investigative reporting.
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Jehuda
STRATFOR follows up on the arrest of noted Mexican hitman Jaime “El Hummer” Gonzalez Duran, and finds cause for U.S. authorities to worry:
While the arrest of Gonzalez Duran and the seizure of the huge arms cache in Reynosa have taken some killers and weapons off the street, they are only one small drop in the bucket. There are many heavily armed cartel enforcers still at large in Mexico, and the violence is spreading over the border into the United States.
Give it a read.
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Jehuda
Mexico’s drug cartel wars heat up with the arrest of their very own Man with the Golden Gun.
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Jehuda
Talk about Infernal Affairs
: Mexican drug cartels allegedly placed moles in Mexico’s Attorney General’s office and maybe even in the U.S. Embassy.
It has been a bad year for Mexico and its drug war. If true, the moles would partly explain why.
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Jehuda
The latest fad among Mexicans of means: bulletproof clothes.
Meanwhile, more and more Mexicans have to live side-by-side with horror stories like this one.
If the Mexican drug cartel wars and their increasing effect on the U.S. are new to you, you can catch up with the grim developments here, here, and here.
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Jehuda
As the Mexican drug cartels acquire more power, some members of the Mexican elite have to leave their own country just to stay alive.
Poetic justice? Perhaps. Their refusal to create a more open society with opportunities for all Mexicans is partly responsible for Mexico being on the edge of anarchy.
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Jehuda
As more and more of their government officials fall under the control of drug gangs, can Mexico be saved from itself?
RELATED: Portrait of a small Mexican town under drug cartel rule.
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Jehuda
Egregious omissions:
If Feds can’t – or won’t – prosecute easy, big cases like this one, what possible chance will they ever have of bringing this place under even a semblance of control?
Indeed. Give it a read.
Mexico is too close to the U.S. for anyone to think that drug cartel violence is of no consequence north of the border. In fact, as I have mentioned before, Mexican drug cartel hits have already crossed into the U.S. and will likely only intensify. If you live on the border, you know what I’m talking about and odds are you’re more worried than I am.
I keep thinking someone is on the take here, on our side.
RELATED: law enforcement can’t possibly be a priority in Mexico if the going wage for a cop is this low. And believe me, that is the standard for cops across much of Mexico.
Garbage in, garbage out.
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Jehuda
Recourse to the law is a rarity in Mexico, as Mexico’s judicial system is not only antiquated but practically useless (although efforts to change this are being implemented).
Historically, those most affected by the defective judicial system have been the poor, who are often the ones who pay when Mexican law does what it does best – aside from indulging in prosecutorial inaction – namely punishing scapegoats. Mexico’s poor were also typically those most commonly victimized by crime.
And in Mexico’s Old-World-clinging, classist society that was all right with the Mexican elite. But in recent months it’s become clear that no one is safe from drug-related crime in Mexico. Mexican society is being rattled by drug cartels from top to bottom. Now the Mexican middle class is clamoring for an end to violence, to the tune of hundreds of thousands of individuals peaceably demonstrating across Mexico yesterday. But isn’t this too little too late?
It is difficult to justify Mexico’s circumstances. Mexico is not a poor country. If it were, it wouldn’t have been home to ten of the world’s billionaires in 2007. If only the Mexican elite had allowed decades ago for an open society offering opportunity for everyone – through the establishment of fair laws and institutions – instead of counting on American demand for cheap labor to absorb Mexico’s poor, sub-employed, and unemployed, maybe so many Mexicans wouldn’t be tearing Mexico apart as they fight for a share of the $40 billion drug trade.
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Jehuda
Several dead bodies have been found near a Mexican tourist hangout. Traditionally, such places have been insulated from the crime and violence of the drug cartels. But those days are seemingly gone.
I go to Mexico at least once a year; and it was a bit of a heartbreak to see last winter for the first time ever that suburban cops are wearing bullet-proof vests every day as part of their uniform.
Not sure what’s going to happen, but from what I’m told (1) it gets worse every day and (2) government officials – out of greed or fear – are in on the criminal activity.
Historically, Mexico as a whole will descend into some sort of violence while the U.S. moves along with its business as usual. However, the violence is often the result of civil war or something akin to it. And nothing like that has happened since the 1920′s.
But this time, the violence is directly connected to the U.S through its demand for illicit drugs. And that’s not all: the cartel violence has already crossed our borders; and it’s probably just getting started.
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Jehuda
A few months back, I read about a home invasion in Phoenix that proved to be a Mexican drug gang hit job carried out in U.S. territory. There was some concern that the incident was the beginning of a trend.
Seems such concern was – no pun intended – right on target.
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Jehuda
A police commander from Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency has been busted in Southern California on drug trafficking charges. I fear that as long as Mexican government officials continue receiving “offers they can’t refuse” this sort of thing will only become more common.
But how many U.S. Border agents are on the take, I wonder? I keep thinking that the Ramos and Compean case, all misconduct aside, would have never gotten beyond a mere disciplinary proceeding if it wasn’t for someone wanting to get even with the two agents, who remain sentenced to 12 years in prison for shooting a fleeing Mexican drug runner on the butt and then covering up the shooting.
Speaking of irregularities in law enforcement, The Shield returns for its final season on Sept. 2. Only on FX.
