Drug Cartels are Everywhere

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Registered: 03-26-2003
Drug Cartels are Everywhere
1
Fri, 10-23-2009 - 8:34am

Imagine my surprise when I learned on the news last night that one of these busts happened in a neighborhood not far from where I live. A quiet, family-oriented suburban neighborhood. From the home in this neighborhood they removed an arsenal of guns and many pounds of meth that was being produced right there. None of the neighbors were suspicious, but the man next door said "it's not pleasant finding out you lived next door to a house that could have blown up at any time."

We've known about dangerous drug people around our area for several years now. Last year the police found a Hispanic man on the side of the road with his head removed.  They also disovered a Hispanic man hanging from a highway overpass by his neck. Police said these were classic drug gang behaviors.


It makes me angry because my county used to be quiet and safe. Now we all walk looking over our shoulders because crime has become all too common. And from reading this article, it's all across the country.
Largest US sting on drug cartel arrests 300-plusAP

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and SEAN MURPHY, Associated Press Writers Elliot Spagat And Sean Murphy, Associated Press Writers – Fri Oct 23, 2:00 am ET


OKLAHOMA CITY – In the largest single strike at Mexican drug operations in the U.S., authorities arrested more than 300 people in a sting that demonstrates an upstart cartel's vast reach north of the border.


The tentacles of "La Familia" extend coast to coast and deep into America's heartland, with arrests announced Thursday in 38 cities from Boston to Seattle and from St. Paul, Minn., to Raleigh, N.C.


Mexican police say the gang uses religion and family morals to recruit. The gang has hung banners in towns saying they do not tolerate drug use, or attacks on women or children.


One of the gang's alleged recruiters, detained last spring, ran drug rehabilitation centers, helping addicts to recover and then forcing them to work for the drug gang or be killed, according to Mexico Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna.


La Familia is rarely mentioned in the same breath as the handful of other Mexican gangs that control the flow of drugs into the United States, fueled by Colombian cocaine suppliers. The Sinaloa, Juarez, Gulf and Tijuana cartels have roots that go back many years, even decades.


But in its short history, La Familia is believed to have emerged as the biggest supplier of methamphetamine to the United States and, increasingly, a peddler of cocaine, marijuana and other drugs.


Complaints that were unsealed across the country portray an organization that spread deep into Middle America, down to small-time sales.


La Familia is known as unusually violent, even by Mexico's standards.

After the arrest of one of its leaders in July in Mexico, the cartel launched an offensive against federal forces, killing 18 police officers and two soldiers over a weekend. In the worst attack, 12 federal agents were slain and their tortured bodies piled along a roadside as a warning for all to see.

"They are one of the most violent, if not the most violent, cartel in Mexico right now," said Michael Braun, who retired as the DEA's chief of operations last year.

La Familia operates methamphetamine "superlabs" in Mexico that produce up to 100 pounds of the drug in eight hours, a sharp contrast to small-time labs in the United States that have supplied American addicts, said Braun.


The arrests in places such as Atlanta, Dallas and Los Angeles suggest that its U.S. distribution network is sophisticated, said Scott Stewart, an analyst at the Stratfor consultancy in Austin, Texas, who follows the Mexican drug trade.


 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_re_us/us_drug_war_arrests

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Registered: 03-18-2000
Fri, 10-23-2009 - 11:48am

More info........


>"The arrests were made on Wednesday and Thursday in 38 cities, with major distribution rings the focus in Dallas, Atlanta and Seattle. The raids were part of a larger push against La Familia, Project Coronado, which had led to about 900 arrests in the past four years, Mr Holder said.


Authorities seized more than $US32 million ($A34.6 million) in US currency, 1.2 tonnes of methamphetamine, 2 tonnes of cocaine and 7.3 tonnes of marijuana. More arrests are expected.


As the raids were carried out in the United States, the Mexican authorities arrested six members of the cartel, including two mid-level commanders, in the towns of Taretan and Morelia.


None of those arrested in the US were major figures in the upper echelons of the organisation, law enforcement officials said. The suspects ran the gamut from people who oversaw city distribution networks to street-level dealers and gun smugglers. The authorities said the sheer number of arrests would seriously disrupt the cartel's distribution system.


US President Barack Obama and his Mexican counterpart, Felipe Calderon, have vowed to co-operate against deadly drug cartels.


But despite deploying 50,000 troops in a nationwide crackdown on drug gangs, Mr Calderon has so far failed to stem Mexico's spiralling drug violence, which has killed about 14,000 people since late 2006."<


From........ US strikes blow against Mexican drug cartel


http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-strikes-blow-against-mexican-drug-cartel-20091023-hded.html

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