America's Mexican Border Wars

[Tosh Plumlee]

HOME | Masnoticias La Red del Norte, Chihuahua,Chih, México, 23 de 04 del 2009
Internacional Imprimir Mandar a un Amigo Comentar Lider del cartel de los "Arellano Felix" detenido. Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, alias "Dany" o "Martín" presunto lider del cartel de los Arellano Felix. Un presunto operador del Cartel de Tijuana fue detenido junto con seis presuntos cómplices en la frontera mexicana con Estados Unidos.

Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, alias "Dany" o "Martín", es señalado como el líder de una célula bajo las órdenes directas de uno de los nuevos líderes del Cartel de Tijuana, identificado como Fernando Sánchez Arellano, "El Ingeniero", informó en un comunicado la Secretaría de la Defensa Nacional (Sedena).

Godoy, presentado el jueves ante los medios junto con los seis presuntos integrantes de su célula, figura en la base de datos de la agencia antidrogas estadounidense DEA como uno de los nuevos rostros del Cartel de Tijuana, también conocido como de los hermanos Arellano Félix, señaló la Sedena.

"Dany" y sus seis cómplices fueron detenidos el martes en Tijuana, fronteriza con California y a unos 2.300 kilómetros al noroeste de la ciudad de México.

Las autoridades les decomisaron un arma larga, una corta, 900 kilos de marihuana y cuatro vehículos.

El Cartel de Tijuana, que ha sido señalado de haber sido dirigido por los hermanos Arellano Félix (siete hombres y cuatro mujeres), fue considerada hasta hace varios años de ser la organización más poderosa del narcotráfico.

La organización comenzó a debilitarse luego de la detención o muerte de algunos de los hermanos, aunque se mantiene en operación el cartel.

La Procuraduría General de la República ha identificado a "El Ingeniero" y a Teodoro García Simental, "El Teo", como dos de los nuevos líderes del cartel y por quienes ofrece una recompensa de 30 millones de pesos (unos dos millones de dólares).

La violencia del narcotráfico y el crimen organizado ha dejado más de 10.700 muertos desde que inició el gobierno del presidente Felipe Calderón en diciembre de 2006.

Fuente; nuevo herald (end(

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[Magda Hassan]

Oh, absolutely Tosh, hence the need for forums like this.

The trouble with the story is that there is no advertising revenue angle. A related product or service like Narcanon is a non-profit and can't afford to take out advertising on the MSM pages if they ever devoted an inch of column space to these stories. And its such a downer too. Much more interesting to have a story about Lindsay Lohan dating men again.

But please keep posting anyway and we will keep trying to get it to the mainstream.

[Tosh Plumlee]

El Chapo Guzman: the National Action Party's Drug Baron



Posted by Kristin Bricker - April 19, 2009 at 5:44 pm by Ricardo Ravelo, Proceso
translated from the original Spanish by Kristin Bricker

Beyond simply revealing an approximation of El Chapo Guzman's fortune, his inclusion in Forbes' list of billionaires is a blow in the media that brings attention to the immense fortune that the Sinaloa cartel moves through its financial network in Mexico and in the United States. In order to dismantle this organization, the businesses that were listed in DEA and Treasury Department press releases would have to be thoroughly investigated, which is something the National Action Party (PAN) administrations of Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderon have not done. It is estimated that drug trafficking money is linked to about 78% of legal Mexican activities.

Untouched by the PAN-led federal government--the Vicente Fox administration in particular, during which he escaped from the Puente Grande maximum security prison in Jalisco--Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera now leads the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the country, with large networks in South America, Central America, and the United States.

In an interview with Proceso in February 2005, then-president of the National Commission on Public Security, Jose Antonio Ortega Sanchez, referred to him as the "drug trafficker of the [Fox] administration." He said, "It is evident that [the drug baron] is being protected, because the PGR [Federal Attorney General's Office] always arrives late when it has information about where he can be found. It would seem that he is the drug trafficker protected by the authorities who are obliged to detain him." (Proceso 1476)

Now, Forbes Magazine's most recent report includes the Mexican drug baron in its list of billionaires. However, it's not the first time a drug trafficker has been included in the famed list. In 1989 the US publication included Colombian drug trafficker Pablo Escobar Gaviria.

Edgardo Buscaglia, a Columbia University professor of economics and law and an investigator for the Technological Institute of Mexico (ITAM), believes the Forbes report about El Chapo's fortune doesn't have a trustworthy methodology.

Buscaglia, who is also an adviser to the United Nations Institute for Training and Research, was asked, "In your opinion, what's the purpose of including a drug baron in the list of the world's richest men?"

"The Forbes publication is relevant as a blow in the media, but I think that the United States intelligence agencies are sending very clear signals to President Felipe Calderon that he should begin an investigation into the Sinaloa cartel and dismantle the network of fronts that are behind the capital that this criminal group moves. In the US they want the financial investigations to focus on both sides of the border."

The investigator explains that the United States' perception of Mexico is "grave and worrisome." Drug money is linked to 78% of legal Mexican activities. Moreover, "the Sinaloa cartel is not limited to Mexico. Rather, there are serious reports that it is present in 38 countries. That's why Mexico is seen as a dangerous exporter of violence and ingovernability."

He adds, "El Chapo Guzman can have millions of dollars or much more, but it is difficult to confirm it. A surprise isn't out of the question given the Forbes report's lack of solid data. But I insist that this is about a blow in the media. There are estimates of the amount of money the drug traffickers launder, but it hasn't been possible to prove how much earnings they really have."

"To calculate those values, we need an investigation into the financial and criminal map in these 38 countries' economic sectors, something which hasn't been done in a comprehensive manner," he says.

"So, the point of the Forbes publication was political pressure?"

"The message is clear: the Mexican government must destroy the entire protective network that securely manages the Sinaloa cartel's money--a network that could include politicians and businessmen; it must, for better or for worse, break those untouched financial networks, because if that doesn't happen, a brutal political blow could strike Calderon if the names of the businesses and the people linked to the Sinaloa cartel are made public outside of Mexico."

Buscaglia points out that the Forbes report lacks veracity because it only credits El Chapo Guzman with the alleged earnings from drug trafficking and not what he allegedly earns through the 25 criminal activities undertaken by drug cartels: human trafficking, piracy of intellectual property, the slave trade, extortion, and kidnapping, among others.

What he doesn't doubt is that in Mexico the Sinaloa cartel and El Chapo have enjoyed full impunity. They don't feel harassed or even bothered by the Mexican government's actions. That's why Guzman's financial network, as well as the impunity he enjoys, are the primary supports of his power and strength.

Buscaglia has studied organized crime's behavior in 84 countries, including Afghanistan, Kosovo, Colombia, and Guatemala. His claims are echoed in reality: since his escape from the Puente Grande, Jalisco, prison on January 19, 2001, Joaquin Guzman Loera has consolidated one of the most solid criminal enterprises in existence. The investigator calculates that its presence could span up to 50 countries.

The eight years of PAN regimes in Mexico--from December 2001 to December 2009--have been the most profitable for Guzman Loera from a criminal and financial point of view. The PGR and the Ministry of Public Security (SSP) consider him to be the most powerful drug baron in Mexico.

Rise to Power

As soon as he felt freedom on the afternoon of January 19, 2001, El Chapo Guzman sought refuge with the Beltran Leyva brothers--currently his bitter rivals--and received support from about emblematic figure in drug trafficking: Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada.

Months after his escape, Guzman Loera hatched on of his most ambitious plans to consolidate his narco-enterprise project, which hasn't been without betrayal and death. In order to achieve it, the drug baron had to break his old ties with the Juarez cartel and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, the boss of the organization headquartered in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua.

Said plan was put together in Monterrey, according to a letter signed by a Beltran Leyva deputy, which was annexed in the criminal investigation PGR/ SIEDO/ UEIDCS/ 013 /2005 and sent to the President in October 2004.

That document reveals that El Chapo Guzman convened his partners in a business meeting in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada Garcia, Juan Jose "El Azul" Esparragoza Moreno, and Arturo "El Barbas" Beltran Leyva attended the meeting.

In a key part, the letter says, "About three months ago, in the city of Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, a meeting occurred between various people with links to organized crime.... The reason for the meeting was to plan the murder of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes (murdered in September 2004), and once he was executed, to try to incriminate another opposing group, which would be Los Zetas, the objective of these actions being in part to end the Carrillo Fuentes family's hegemony over that cartel or organization..."

Guzman Loera's other plans consisted in wiping out Los Zetas and declaring war on the Tijuana cartel.

It all went according to plan: Rodolfo "the Golden Boy" Carrillo was executed, serious attacks began against Los Zetas, and according to intelligence sources, the information that El Chapo Guzman gave to federal authorities "turned out to be key" in detaining Benjamin Arellano Felix and "cutting off the head" of that era's most terrible criminal group.

From 2001 to present, El Chapo Guzman has not only consolidated the Sinaloa cartel, his organization, as the most prosperous in the country. He's also been impossible to arrest, despite the fact that Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora and Secretary of Public Security Genaro Garcia Luna have said that they won't stop chasing the Sinaloa drug baron.

Despite said persecution, El Chapo Guzman takes public walks and, since the end of the Fox administration, there have been public references that he is accustomed to dine in fine restaurants in Jalisco, Sinaloa, Coahuila, and Chihuahua, where when he enters the building other diners' cell phones are confiscated to prevent them from calling the police.

For example, in mid-2006, security cameras in the city of Durango detected El Chapo Guzman when he was driving a four-wheeler. According to municipal authorities, the drug baron was wearing work-out clothing. On that occasion a persecution was begun, supposedly to detain him, but the narco was lost in traffic.

The images obtained from the cameras allowed the PGR to see the Sinaloa cartel boss' new face. It was confirmed that he underwent plastic surgery to change his appearance: his cheeks were trimmed, his skin was tighter, and the wrinkles around his eyes were gone.

Network Without Borders

Even though Mexican and US authorities have not been able to quantify Mexican cartels' true earnings, they have identified, beginning in 2000, part of the financial structure that serves drug trafficking interests through alleged money laundering operations.

Since 2000, for example, the US Treasury Department has issued various alerts about just over a thousand people who, according to its reports, are in Mexico and linked to drug trafficking.

The Treasury Department reports state that there are businesses such as Nueva Industria de Ganaderos de Culiacan S.A. de C.V., property of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada--El Chapo Guzman's primary partner--that are currently promoted by the federal government and that during the Fox administration received support from the Ministry of Economy through the Small and Medium Enterprise Fund (Pymes in its Spanish abbreviation).

According to a report from the US Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), issued in August 2008, from 2000 to mid-2008, the US government registered 121 businesses "that have served as fronts for laundering drug trafficking money."

The Mexican government has repeatedly stated that those reports lack credibility, that there is no evidence that the businesses mentioned as part of the "money laundering machinery" are implicated in illicit activities.

According to the OFAC report, said companies are primarily dedicated to importation, exportation, consulting, currency trading, services, mining and transportation, as well the pharmaceutical, real estate, and food industries.

Information obtained from the PGR shows that, of the 121 businesses in the Treasury reports, 48 belong to the Tijuana cartel and 34 to the Arriola Marquez family (located in Chihuahua and a Juarez cartel partner), while 25 more are linked to El Mayo Zambada and his family.

While in Mexico the blows to Sinaloa cartel's financial structure haven't been convincing, since 2007 the United States has put the spotlight on Joaquin Guzman's main partner: Ismael Zambada Garcia.

That year, and as a result of a 20-month-long DEA investigation, the Treasury Department linked six businesses to Zambada's money laundering activities. They are: Establo Puerto Rico, S.A. de C.V.; Jamaro Constructores S.A. de C.V.; Multiservicios Jeviz, S.A. de C.V.; Estancia Infantil Niño Feliz S.C.; Rosario Niebla Cardosa, A. en. P.; as well as Nueva Industria Ganadera de Culiacan.

The Treasury Department also identified Mexican national Margarita "La Emperatriz" Cazares Salazar as one of the key Sinaloa cartel figures dedicated to money laundering. Later the PGR had to admit it.

The investigations in the United States into this criminal group and its boss, El Chapo, began to show results. They now include names of people who make up a complicated financial network that operates in both countries.

With his power and influence, Guzman Loera sidestepped control mechanisms through an intricate operations network in currency exchange houses and banking institutions that allowed him to acquire 13 planes to put them to work in his organization trafficking cocaine between Colombia, Venezuela, Central America, Mexico, and the United States.

After the Treasury Department confirmed said operations, in mid-2007 the PGR put together the investigation dossier PGR/ SIEDO /UEIORP /FAM /119 /2007, still active, in which it was revealed that the Sinaloa cartel bought the planes through the Puebla Currency Exchange House.

According to the investigation, that financial institution used the triangulation of operations in which over 70 businesses participate. In that way they were able to wire USD$12,951,785 to fourteen United States companies that are dedicated to acquiring and insuring aircraft.

According to the investigation, the architect of the triangulation scheme was Pedro Alfonso "El Piri" Alatorre Damy, also known as Pedro Barraza Urtusiastegui or Pedro Alatriste Davalos, who was imprisoned in 1998 for money laundering during Operation Milenio, which shed light on the cartel run by Armando and Luis Valencia. After obtaining his freedom, El Piri returned to his adventures and became involved in the Sinaloa cartel's financial operations.

The cost of drugs has varied according to its quality and, more importantly, transportation. If a shipment is dropped off close to the border, it has a higher cost than if it were unloaded in a different territory. But according to the book, "El Negocio: the Mexican Economy Trapped by Drug Trafficking by journalist Carlos Loret Mola (Grijalbo Publishing, 2001), a kilo of marijuana costs a thousand dollars on the wholesale market.

However, Loret estimates that "the value can reach up to US$2,500 amongst wholesale distributors--that is, those who purchase large quantities in order to later sell them at retail in the streets and neighborhoods in the United States."

"The market conditions for coca growers are similar: in South America a kilo of coca goes for USD$2,500 in rural areas, while amongst distributors it can be sold for up to $45,000.

"And heroine? A gram of the stuff, very low quality, can be bought on Mexican streets for about ten dollars. But if it crosses the border, it can cost up to $318.

Edgardo Buscaglia says that in order to discover how much the mafias of the world earn, it is necessary to have access to their financial maps. "In Mexico this investigation must be done. It is fundamental for dismantling the networks and to end the complicity that has allowed organized crime to rule."

[Tosh Plumlee]

On the Bloody Border: Mexico's Drug Wars

By Tim Padgett / Juarez

Pedro Rojas is the sort of wealthy Mexican who's usually in control of his world. "I don't panic or scare easily," says Rojas, a business owner and rancher from the Mexican border city of Juárez. But last year narcos, or drug traffickers, moved into his upscale neighborhood--punks in cowboy attire and sparkling pickup trucks buying expensive homes. Rojas and his neighbors were awakened at night or horrified in broad daylight by assault-rifle fire and the screaming of tires as cars raced away after kidnappings. One afternoon, local children watched as a pickup rammed down the door of a house, sparking a gun battle that left four people dead in the street. Out at Rojas' ranch, the situation was worse. The drug gangs, whose trafficking route for marijuana, cocaine and heroin passes near a cluster of haciendas that includes Rojas', demanded protection money from the ranchers. When they balked, the gangs burned down the ranch houses, then abducted and executed one of Rojas' best friends.
Since then, the gangs have dumped the severed heads of other victims in front of suburban town halls. So Rojas (not his real name, which he asked to be changed for security reasons) took his family across the Rio Grande to live in an apartment in El Paso, Texas. "I feel fearful, impotent," he says. Worse, he adds, is the realization that the police in Juárez not only are incapable of stopping gangs but are "working with them. Our police institutions have been overrun by narcos. Changing that will take many years and some very big cojones." (See pictures from the streets of Juarez.)
It has taken many years for Mexico to finally make that admission, decades in which the country's powerful and violent drug cartels have been allowed to terrorize far too many neighborhoods in too many cities like Juárez. Summoning his army to fill in for unreliable cops, Mexican President Felipe Calderón has brought the fight to the gangs, but their furious backlash has left more than 7,000 Mexicans murdered since the start of last year — almost 2,000 in Juárez alone. Still, through the fog of the drug war, especially on the bloodied border, it has become clearer to see what needs to be done to rein in the drug-related crime that, as President Barack Obama said in a visit to Mexico this month, is "sowing chaos in our communities" — both American and Mexican. For starters, Juárez Mayor José Reyes Ferriz, who has received death threats from the gangs, is trying to purge the city's corrupt, 1,600-member police force and hopes to build a more professional department twice the size. "We have no choice left," he tells TIME.
Mexico's recognition that it has to reform its law-enforcement system coincides with a belated U.S. confession. An insatiable demand for drugs north of the border, the Obama Administration concedes, together with rampant smuggling of guns and laundered drug profits into Mexico, is just as responsible for the crisis. Obama is sending 500 new federal agents to the border this year to snare more weapons and money moving south, and last week he appointed a border-policy czar, former federal prosecutor Alan Bersin. The U.S. Administration also intends to put more emphasis on reducing demand by expanding programs like drug courts that mandate rehab.
Solutions on the Front Line
In El Paso, which is receiving a stream of Juárez exiles like Rojas, plenty would like to see an even broader shift in policy. The city council recently voted unanimously to ask Washington to consider legalizing marijuana, whose casual use is widely considered no more harmful than that of alcohol. The move would seriously crimp the drug cartels' cash flow, estimated at more than $25 billion a year. El Paso's mayor vetoed the resolution, but "the discussion is changing," says council member Beto O'Rourke, who insists the U.S. has for too long relied too heavily on military aid to producer and trafficker nations and on stiff sentences for drug possession at home. "If you live on the border, you see that the old drug-policy emperor has no clothes."
The border suffers the bulk of the drug war's carnage — and perhaps because of that, it's where some of the freshest ideas for fighting the war can be found. A tragic wisdom has emerged at this dusty junction of developed and developing worlds. On one side of the Rio Grande is Juárez, whose maquiladora assembly plants fuel dreams of modernity but which is now one of the hemisphere's most dangerous cities. On the other side is El Paso, which is one of the U.S.'s safest communities (16 murders last year, compared with Juárez's 1,600) but which nonetheless knows that its future is linked to that of Juárez. "Washington and Mexico City need to know the solutions to this crisis are here on the front line," says Lucinda Vargas, head of the community-development organization Plan Estratégico de Juárez.
Juárez civic leaders like Vargas have long called for the kind of Mexican police and judicial reform that both countries are only now starting to make a priority. Meanwhile, Americans like El Paso County sheriff Richard Wiles want the U.S. to renew the assault-weapons ban that George W. Bush and the U.S. Congress allowed to expire in 2004. If it doesn't, they fear, the few Black Hawk helicopters that Washington ships to Mexico's antidrug warriors won't make up for the thousands of AK-47 rifles and even rocket-propelled grenades pouring into the hands of the gangs. "It's a shame," says Wiles, "that it's taken so many killings in Juárez to make Washington consider that."
See pictures of Culiacan, the home of Mexico's drug-trafficking industry.
See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.
El Paso itself has been relatively unscathed by the drug wars, in part because the cartels don't want to jeopardize their trafficking corridors on the border's U.S. side. Still, cartel-associated violence is beginning to reach into U.S. cities from the Sun Belt to the Pacific Northwest. Attorney General Eric Holder, who visited Mexico City in April with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, has called Mexico's drug savagery a "national security threat."
A long-term antidrug strategy doesn't need the sort of hysteria that has had some in Washington comparing Mexico to failing states like Pakistan. "Obama needs to throw a bucket of cold water on that kind of rhetoric," says Tony Payan, a Mexico expert at the University of Texas at El Paso. "He needs a Mexico approach for the next 20 years, not 20 days." Mexico is making some progress. Juárez saw violence spike last year when at least three cartels started a pitched battle for its valuable trafficking turf. (Most of the drugs from Mexico enter the U.S. through Juárez.) Spin-off crimes like kidnapping and extortion mushroomed as well. But the city has been safer since Reyes agreed in March to let 5,000 army troops and 2,000 federal cops take over police duties for the time being. Just before Holder and Napolitano arrived in Mexico, federal agents captured an alleged top boss of the Juárez Cartel, Vicente Carrillo Leyva. Juárez's murder rate dropped from a horrific 10 per day in the final months of 2008 to just five in March. The gangs are lying low for now, and the city's 1.5 million people are venturing back out to the streets. Waiters at the ornate Kentucky Club are thrilled to see visitors walk in again for the bar's famous Rio Grande margaritas. (See pictures of the fence between the United States and Mexico.)
The level of violence is still shocking. Close to the Kentucky Club, heavily armed police escort an ambulance ferrying a gang member with bullet wounds to a hospital and sit guard in case his rivals try to come in and finish him off. "You watch what's happening, and you burst into tears," says Vargas. "Your spirit lives in the gutter." Severed heads are often left on roadsides and at police stations; the bodies they were once attached to are sometimes hung from bridges and overpasses. A mass grave holding nine corpses was recently discovered outside the city, and in November students found seven bullet-torn bodies outside their elementary school. The next month, the narcos even began extorting Christmas-bonus money from teachers, warning they'd kidnap pupils unless they were paid.
It is not only obvious gang members who have died in the mayhem. More than 50 Juárez cops were murdered in 2008; in February the police chief resigned after the gangs made good on a threat to murder an officer every 48 hours until he stepped down. Among those killed was the director of police operations, assassinated by more than 100 heavy-caliber bullets. The sad reality, however, is that too many of Juárez's police die not in the noble line of duty but because they moonlight for gangs. Last month federal cops arrested a Juárez police captain for allegedly detaining people on the cartels' hit lists and then delivering them to their executions. And the rot goes even higher: in 2008, Calderón's former federal antidrug czar was arrested and charged with allegedly taking $450,000 to feed intelligence to the Sinaloa Cartel. (He denies it.)
Hitting a Hornet's Nest
Mexico's drug plague is a product of both its authoritarian past and its new democratic present. When it ruled Mexico as an elective dictatorship, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) accommodated but regulated the drug cartels. But after the PRI lost the presidency in 2000 and its quasi-control of the cartels broke down, those groups split into more vicious gangs like the Zetas, a band of former army commandos who now head the Gulf Cartel. Cities from Nuevo Laredo to Cancún were soon reeling from turf battles. The Juárez Cartel, once Mexico's most powerful, is better known today for its bloodthirsty enforcers, La Línea (The Line), believed responsible for a wave of murders of young women in Juárez since the 1990s.
When Calderón was sworn in as President in December 2006, the carnage had become too much to ignore. He began a military offensive against the gangs that now employs some 40,000 troops. Calderón's supporters insist the brutal counteroffensive by the gangs is a sign that they were rattled. Critics call the relentless violence proof that Calderón took a baseball bat to a hornet's nest but wasn't ready for the hornets — and point out that the Mexican army is not particularly well trained for the urban-guerrilla nature of drug wars. Either way, by last year Washington had become alarmed at Mexico's slaughter: Congress approved $400 million in aid for Mexico's drug war, the first installment of what is supposed to be a three-year, $1.5 billion package known as the Mérida Initiative.
See pictures of Mexico's drug wars.
See pictures of Mexico City's police fighting crime.
The Mérida plan provides hardware like helicopters and intelligence technology. But only a third of the cash is directed at the more important software of police reform. It is police officers, not soldiers, who staff the kind of investigative bodies that bring down organized crime. Says Payan: "This effort is doomed to fail if it's not accompanied by effective [Mexican] cops, and Washington isn't treating that as a large enough piece of the puzzle yet." Reyes agrees. "The U.S. needs to assure that police forces along the border are sufficiently robust," he says, "precisely so they'll be the first line of defense for the U.S."
American officials say privately they're waiting to see whether reform programs like that of Reyes are serious and whether other Mexican mayors and governors will finally join the effort. Juárez's mayor, who is shadowed by six assault-rifle-toting bodyguards, has ousted half his old police force through drug tests, polygraphs and other "confidence exams." Under his pact with Calderón, Reyes now has to recruit more than 2,000 new cops, who, he says, will be among Mexico's best paid and educated. (Aside from a starting annual salary of $9,000 — twice the usual pay for a local cop in Mexico — they'll receive subsidized housing and other perks.)
But changing a police culture can take years, and Calderón can't keep soldiers on Mexico's streets forever. Time rode with a nighttime patrol of federal military and an antigang unit called Lobos (Wolves) through some of Juárez's more dangerous barrios. Residents hailed the convoy as it sped through the canyon-like streets, but some had misgivings about the exercise. As the soldiers and police hauled suspected gang members into a patrol wagon, one woman noted that it wasn't exactly a display of due process. "I don't know if this is our answer either," she said as the patrol stopped outside her bodega. Human-rights complaints are on the rise, and the gangs have even bankrolled public protests against the military operations this year.
It's not just U.S. weapons that are moving south. Many of the thugs being picked up by the military are from the Barrio Azteca gang, which is based in El Paso but whose members are recruited to work for La Línea in Juárez. That makes it all the more urgent for U.S. law enforcement to sap Barrio Azteca's strength on the U.S. side. Six Azteca bosses were recently convicted in El Paso on federal racketeering charges. Sheriff Wiles, a Democrat, believes that this attention to localized border strategies is deepening under the Obama Administration and Napolitano, who was governor of Arizona, a border state. "Our input is more of a priority now," he says. Before unveiling its new border-security plan in March, the Administration held conference calls with local law chiefs like Wiles. Until this year, the El Paso region had only seven agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to interdict weapons-smuggling. Under the Administration's new plan, it could have as many as 50.
Still, until Juárez's crisis finally lifts, there are plenty in El Paso who will demand more and "weigh in on national policy," as O'Rourke, the city-council member, puts it. Talk of legalizing marijuana is growing; the U.N. Commission on Narcotic Drugs in March heard prominent drug researchers argue that cannabis should be sold legally and taxed like tobacco. Ernesto Zedillo and César Gaviria, former Presidents of Mexico and Colombia, respectively, have said the same. And Mexico's Congress is again debating decriminalization of marijuana use, after backing off the issue a few years ago under intense pressure from the Bush Administration.
In the short term, of course, legalization of marijuana — let alone any other drug — is not going to happen. That explains why Juárez is such an interesting laboratory. More industrious than the border Gomorrah of Tijuana to the west but grittier than the pin-striped boardrooms of Monterrey to the east, the city has long been a Mexican forerunner: it was the site of the Mexican Revolution's first military victory, the nation's first maquiladoras and the first opposition mayor during the PRI's long rule. Can it now take a lead in the drug wars by pioneering police reform? "This is our opportunity," says Rojas, who is thinking of returning to Juárez soon. "I think we're taking the right road."
It will be a long one.

[Tosh Plumlee]

Sammy....You might already have this... if so tell Danny to stay cool and stay down...this is overshadowed by the flu news.......I'll catch up to ya later... T

Attacks kill 7 Mexican police in Tijuana

• • AP – Forensic workers carry the body of one of four police officers, who were killed when gunmen opened fire …
    
  
  

1 hr 9 mins ago
TIJUANA, Mexico – Seven police officers were assassinated in about an hour's time in what authorities said Tuesday was a coordinated effort that followed months of relative calm in a border city stricken by drug-fueled violence. Three officers were injured.
Municipal police detained three or four people after Monday night's attacks, said Jose Manuel Yepiz, spokesman for the Baja California state attorney general's office. He did not have additional details.
After four officers were killed by gunfire outside a convenience store, police scanners hummed with "narcocorridos," or drug ballads. One voice threatened over the airwaves that 30 officers would be killed.
One officer was shot dead in each of three attacks that followed, including one at a police station, Yepiz said.
The killings come as Mayor Jorge Ramos intensifies an effort to rid the police department of corrupt officers.
The city has fired 248 police officers accused of corruption since Ramos took office in December 2006 and about 130 others are suspended pending review for possible dismissal, said Julian Leyzaola, the city's public safety secretary. The city has 2,160 officers.
Leyzaola said in an interview last week that about 15 Tijuana police officers had been killed on the job during Ramos' administration.
Nine police officers were killed last year in neighboring Playas de Rosarito, a city of 130,000 people, including about 14,000 U.S. citizens, Mayor Hugo Torres said. Seven or eight were involved in drug trafficking, he said.
Monday's killings were one of the most brazen since a period of bloodshed that claimed more than 400 lives in the last three months of 2008. According to U.S. and Mexican authorities, Tijuana is a battleground for two drug traffickers — Fernando Sanchez Arellano, heir to the notorious but enfeebled Arellano Felix cartel, and Teodoro Garcia Simental, a renegade lieutenant who broke away in April 2008 in a shootout that killed 14 people.
Nationwide, Mexico's drug violence has claimed more than 10,700 lives since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon launched an anti-drug campaign. About 45,000 soldiers have been deployed to drug-plagued areas.

[Magda Hassan]

Private-sector Arms Sales to Mexico Sparsely Monitored by State Department


Posted by Bill Conroy - April 5, 2009 at 11:45 am
Only Three Inquiries Targeting Firearms Exports Conducted Since 2007


The Department of State has weighed in officially on whether the sale of military weapons to Mexico through U.S. private-sector arms exporters might be a source of the high-caliber firearms now being employed by drug trafficking organizations in the bloody drug war south of the border.
The response is not very reassuring.
The U.S. State Department oversees a program that requires private companies in the United States to obtain an export license in order to sell defense hardware or services to foreign purchasers — which include both government units and private buyers in other countries. These arms deals are known as Direct Commercial Sales [DCS].
According to an analysis of the DCS reports, some $1 billion in defense hardware was approved for export to Mexico via private U.S. companies between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2007 — the most recent year for which data was available.
U.S. officials in recent months have attributed the rising firepower of Mexican narco-syndicates — who now are in possession of military grade firearms and explosives — to smuggling rings being supplied through fraudulent purchases at gun shows, gun stores and from gun dealers inside the United States. But the magnitude of military hardware flowing into Mexico legally through the DCS program, coupled with the well-documented, extensive corruption within the Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, has prompted concerns that the DCS program itself may well be a major source of the U.S. military munitions now in the possession of narco-trafficking groups.
[See prior Narco News story, “Legal U.S. arms exports may be source of narco-syndicates rising firepower” for more details.]
Narco News recently presented the following questions to the State Department concerning the DCS program:
1. Given that the DCS program is subject to criminal manipulation [as evidenced by the Blue Lantern report] and given that there is a well-documented history of narco-corruption within Mexican law enforcement and the military, is the Department of State concerned that a major source of the weapons now being used in the escalating bloodshed in Mexico's drug war may in fact be the DCS program itself?
2. If so, are there any actions being taken by the Department of State to address that situation?
3. If it is not a concern, why not?
4. Finally, given the documented evidence of corruption within Mexican law enforcement and the military, is it fair to say that DCS weapons exports represent a far bigger and far more easily accessible source of arms for Mexican criminal organizations than do weapons obtained from private citizens in the U.S.?
[The State Department’s Blue Lantern program is designed to provide end-use monitoring for DCS exports. The fiscal year 2007 Blue Lantern report, the latest available publicly, reveals that a total of only 705 end-use checks were initiated on approved DCS exports worldwide while some 81,000 “license applications and other export requests” were acted on by the State Department during that year.]

Official Deflection

In response to the Narco News query, Jason Greer, public affairs officer for the Bureau of Political-Military Affairs at the Department of State, provided a long, jargon-laden response via e-mail. That response failed to answer directly the questions submitted by Narco News, though it did contain two revelations of note. [To view the State Department’s entire response, go to this link.]
First, Greer confirmed that the State Department since January 2007 initiated only three Blue Lantern end-use inquiries involving the export of firearms to Mexico. Greer adds that one of those cases came back with a favorable finding, one unfavorable and one case is still pending.
That means over the course of 2007, 2008 and the first three months of 2009, the State Department program set up to monitor potential DCS fraud only examined three export deals. In fiscal year 2007 alone, according to the DCS report released by the State Department, a total of some $240 million in military hardware was approved for export to Mexico — and that doesn’t even include the additional hundreds of millions of dollars in exports likely approved since then.
In the case of the one “unfavorable” finding, Greer explains that a U.S. firearms exporter had “submitted eight separate license requests based on a single purchase order.”
Greer continues:
The value of that order and the collective value of the license requests exceeded $1 million and therefore met the requirements for Congressional notification. … All eight license requests were returned without action requiring the applicant to submit one export license request for the total value of the transaction ….
And the end result of that misstep for the exporter, according to Greer, is that the export of the weapons “was subsequently approved following Congressional notification.”
With that strong defense of the State Department monitoring of the DCS program, Greer declares without ambiguity:
None of the Blue Lantern inquiries concluded during this time indicate the diversion of U.S. Munitions List items to illicit or unauthorized end-users in Mexico.
Do you feel assured?
If not, then this part of Greer’s response will do little to relieve your agitation:
In addition, all firearms licenses approved by [the State Department] for commercial resale in Mexico are exported to the Ministry of Defense (MOD), Mexico. The MOD is the import authority for firearms and is also responsible for licensing of Mexican firearms dealers. Upon receipt of the firearms, the MOD transfers the firearms to the end-user authorized on the [State Department-issued] export license.
The Mexican Ministry of Defense, of course, oversees the Mexican military. In fact, a reading of Mexico’s firearms law reveals that the Defense Ministry has a monopoly on approving and overseeing all licenses, sales, transport and storage of arms and munitions in Mexico, whether for private-sector players or other government units — including municipal, state and federal law enforcement units.
So, if you are a smart narco-trafficker, and they are smart, it might pay to spread some money and influence around Mexico’s Ministry of Defense to assure the necessary diversion of firearms to your cause.
One former DEA agent describes the situation this way:
The Mexican military has always been a problem. If all those weapons are going through the Mexican Defense Ministry, then there’s your answer right there [as to where the narco-syndicates are obtaining their high-caliber weapons]. … What do you think happens if anyone complains to the Mexican military that they did not get all the weapons they ordered?

The Evidence

It’s worth noting that the Mexican military, like law enforcement agencies in Mexico, has a long history of being tarred with charges of official corruption. Following is a sample of that troubling track record.
• Sensitive documentation provided by law enforcement to this committee states:
"[William Robert “Tosh”] Plumlee was a former deep-cover military and CIA asset from 1956 to 1987 with a long history of CIA activities in Central America, Cuba, and Mexico."
… Mr. Plumlee confirmed to this Committee the existence of Operation Whale Watch and Operation Watchtower, drug smuggling operations involving the CIA, U.S. military, with knowledge of the National Security Council. He mentioned drug flights from Central America to the United States for the CIA, with stops at places he marked on maps that he provided to[/url][url=http://toshplumlee.info/pdf/sengaryhart.PDF]Senator Gary Hart and Staff.
Plumlee testified under oath that there was close cooperation between Mexican and U.S. government personnel in drug smuggling (there is other evidence in later testimony from XXXXXX. which confirms sections of Plumlee's testimony. This defies comprehension. Plumlee described his undercover activities to this Committee, including the practice of the Mexican police and its military protecting drug traffickers, something that will be described in considerably more detail in later testimony. — Transcribed summation of tape of 1991 Congressional testimony of former CIA contract pilot William Robert “Tosh” Plumlee
[A link to full testimony, which was classified sensitive by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, can be found here.]
[B]• While a great deal of the corruption plagues the law enforcement agencies in Mexico, the Mexican military and other institutions are also vulnerable to the corrupting influences of the narcotics trade. — 1997 Congressional testimony of Thomas A. Constantine, DEA administrator[/B]
• … Despite increased intelligence efforts targeting the command and control and identifying the leaders of the Carrillo-Fuentes organization, key lieutenants have not been apprehended in Mexico. For example, Eduardo Gonzalez-Quirarte has been identified as a key manager for the Carrillo-Fuentes organization along the border. He is responsible for arranging shipments of cocaine across the border and ensuring that money is transferred back into Mexico. He has links to corrupt elements of the Mexican military and the law enforcement community, which makes him a significant leader in future Carrillo-Fuentes operations. [B]— 1998 Congressional testimony of Donnie Marshall, DEA Chief of Operations[/B]
[B]• According to an extensive classified report by the Drug Enforcement Administration and other intelligence assessments, the arrest last year of the former official, [Mexican] Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, followed secret meetings between Mexican Army officers and the country's biggest drug mafia, officials say.[/B]
Exactly what transpired remains unclear. But the officials say there is growing evidence that military officers discussed a deal to let the drug gang operate in exchange for huge bribes, and that some such arrangement may have been in place before the gang's leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, died after extensive plastic surgery last year. — March 1998 story in the New York Times
• The Mexican military also has experienced narco-related corruption within its ranks. — February 2000 Congressional testimony of William Ledwith, DEA chief of international operations
[B]• The investigation ultimately revealed the involvement of corrupt Mexican law enforcement elements, military and public officials, in the execution of [DEA special agent Enrique “Kiki”] Camarena's murder. — May 2000 Congressional testimony of William Ledwith, DEA chief of international operations[/B]
• In interviews, four senior U.S. officials, a senior Mexican intelligence official and three independent analysts all expressed concern about the expanding role of the Mexican military in the drug war. … 
"Corruption is more serious in the Mexican military than just about any other Latin American military," said a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. "The reason is not that the Mexicans are any more venal; it's that we're talking about huge amounts of money because drugs flow into Mexico and that makes them more vulnerable." — December 2005 story in the Dallas Morning News
• The Mexican army has experienced thousands of desertions in the last few years. According to an investigation of the newspaper Reforma, between 2001 and 2006, the army has lost an average of 30,000 members per year. Although the rate of desertion has decreased to 17,000 in 2007, this is still a very significant number; especially considering where these soldiers go after leaving the armed forces[B]. — May 2008 blog entry on the Foreign Policy Association Web site[/B]
• A list of over 20 military agents allegedly for hire was found in one of the Beltrán Leyva brothers' safe houses in Culiacán, Sinaloa.
The information that was in a house belonging to Alfredo "El Mochomo" Beltrán Leyva, detained this past January 21, reveals that the Sinaloa [narco-trafficking] clan had in its possession files from the Assistant Attorney General's Office for Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SIEDO in its Spanish initials) and from the Sinaloa Attorney General's office about investigations that were in process. — October 2008 story published by Narco News (a translation of a story published by the Mexican newspaper Reforma)

More Food for Thought

Despite the widely published mainstream media meme that 90 percent of the weapons being used by Mexican narco-criminals “are traced back to U.S. gun dealers,” it seems there is another part of that narrative that is not being communicated — likely because it undermines the meme itself.
Last week, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held a hearing in the field — in El Paso, Texas, located along the U.S. border with Mexico. In his opening statement for that hearing, Kerry conceded the following:
Only about one out of every four weapons seized by Mexican authorities last year was submitted to the ATF so they could be traced back to purchasers and sellers in the United States. The Mexican government should provide the ATF with fuller access to these weapons.
So our own State Department concedes that the military weapons being shipped to Mexico are filtered through the Mexican military and ample public record indicates that this military has a history of corruption, yet the State Department since 2007 has only conducted end-use monitoring investigations on a paltry three arms-export transactions approved for Mexico through the DCS program — which in fiscal 2007 alone was responsible for shipping more than a quarter billion dollars worth of military hardware to Mexico. Still, we are asked to accept the State Department’s assurance that all is well with the program and there is no record of arms being diverted from the Mexican military to drug trafficking organizations.
And now a U.S. Senator concedes that three-quarters of the weapons seized by Mexican authorities are never sent to the U.S. for tracing. So where do those weapons come from, and why is the Mexican government failing to “provide the ATF with fuller access to these weapons” as Kerry is encouraging?
On top of these puzzling dilemmas, we now discover from a recent report by the Washington Post that former military commanders are taking over local Mexican police commands and supplying them “with automatic weapons and grenades.”
From the Washington Post story:
The government is attempting to vet and retrain 450,000 officers, most at the state and municipal levels, employing lie detectors, drug tests, psychological profiling and financial reviews to weed out corruption and incompetence. Nearly half of the 56,000 officers vetted so far have failed.
The government is also forging agreements with each of Mexico's 31 states and its federal district, Mexico City, for the military to deliver automatic rifles, high-caliber ammunition, grenade launchers and fragmentation grenades to state and municipal officers who obtain federally mandated security clearances.
Are we to believe, in this drug war, that lie detector machines, psychological profiling and sparse Blue Lantern reviews are any match for the devil’s bargain that marks the narco-trafficking trade: "Plata o Plomo" — take the money or you’ll be plugged with lead?
Sandra Avila Beltran, born to a family of drug smugglers and married twice to former Mexican police commanders turned traffickers who have both since been assassinated, is now herself sitting in prison facing narco-trafficking charges in Mexico.
In a recent interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes, Beltran makes it clear, in her mind, that it is the narco-syndicates — empowered by the billions of dollars that flow from prohibited drug sales north of the Mexican border — that have the inside track in this war:
Large shipments of drugs can come into the Mexican ports or airports…. It’s obvious and logical. The government has to be involved in everything that is corrupt. … You’d have to wipe out the government to wipe out drug trafficking.
Stay tuned….

[Tosh Plumlee]

<H1 class=articleTitle>[size=12]Again for my protection and that of the Task Force working with the Mexican Army near Polamos Mexico and Columbus NM.

____________________________________________________
[/SIZE]</H1>T7odj 263MT: 1300

________________________________________________________
May 1st 2009 (draft for release to AP)

Drug smugglers from Mexico move to this side of the border as they flee the Mexican army






COLUMBUS, N.M. -- This dusty little border town with almost no visible means of support has been seeing something of a boom in the past year: Brand-new Lincoln Navigators and Cadillac Escalades with flashy hubcaps are parked just off the bleak main drag. Homes are selling quickly, sometimes for cash.
The source of this sudden wealth? An influx of Mexican drug smugglers, investigators say.
The smugglers are fleeing the Mexican army's occupation of the town of Palomas, on the other side of the U.S.-Mexico border fence, and settling in Columbus, where there has been a law enforcement vacuum. The four-man police force in Columbus has turned over seven times in three years because of scandal or apathy.
"We know the names of the people," said Luna County Sheriff Raymond Cobos, who is based in Deming, 35 miles away. "I know that if I were a person involved in criminal activity, whether it's drug-related, human smuggling related, I certainly would welcome the absence of police."
So far, Columbus has been spared any violence, even though the sheriff's investigators estimate 10 percent of the population of 2,000 may be involved in illegal activity.
"I would say greater," said resident Robert Odom. "If a person wanted to, they could make a good living in Columbus -- not legally, but they can make a lot of money if they are willing to risk going to jail." Ranches and farms in the area are the largest legitimate employers, along with the few shops and cafes in
town. Officially, the median income is less than $15,000 a year, a sum that is hard to reconcile with the sudden prosperity around town.
"There's a lot of people who don't work but have a lot of possessions," Odom said, adding that he often spots local teens driving fancy new cars. "They have hubcaps that cost more than my truck."
Real estate agent Martha Skinner, a former Columbus mayor, said she had her best year in 2008, selling about $500,000 in property in town, some to locals, some to Mexican buyers. The median home value in Columbus is about $52,000.
She said she had a few cash transactions where she couldn't help thinking, "Well, where did they get this money?"
Some residents and local officials say that without the illegal cash, the town might not survive.
Last month, Columbus got a new police chief, Angelo Vega, who said any illegal activity will be met with jail time. "This is a new day for Columbus," he declared.
In Palomas, the Mexican army took over law enforcement a year ago after the local police force was driven out by the drug dealers.
The Columbus police department has been in disarray too, plagued with unqualified officers and allegations of wrongdoing. One chief was arrested on gun theft charges that were later dropped, and two others were never certified police officers.
Working from a temporary trailer with wood paneling and cracked linoleum floors, Vega may be fighting an uphill battle. Around Columbus, some townspeople don't see a problem.
"Criminals don't live here," said Maria Gutierrez, the 48-year-old owner of the Pancho Villa Cafe, where menus include a wanted poster for the Mexican outlaw whose 1916 raid on the United States took place on this patch of desert. "The problem is in Palomas. It's serene here. It's tranquil here."
It is not clear whether the smugglers are legal or illegal immigrants, but local law enforcement authorities say that's not their business, it's the federal government's. And townspeople don't seem to care either way.
Odom said he suspects that the crime plaguing much of Mexico -- more than 10,700 people have been killed since Mexico's president cracked down on the drug trade after taking office in 2006 -- hasn't crossed into Columbus because the smugglers living here don't want to draw any heat from U.S.. authorities.
But the sheriff said things could erupt at any time.
"To me it's kind of like living in proximity to a refinery," Cobos said. "If you have gasoline fumes that you can't properly vent, or control, and you have them in a confined space, all you need is a spark."

[Dawn Meredith]

Tosh: Do you think this swine flu scare is connected to the other problems in Mexico? A diversion? A way to slow down operations with drug buz there? Or just a cover story for something else that is occurring?

Dawn

[Tosh Plumlee]

I think its a little of both.., and I am not the only one who thinks that. Before this flu scare the crew operating inside Mexico was already having trouble getting their undercover findings out to proper personal who were, as they say, "The Gatekeepers-of the old Administration".

(I posted same on this information on this forum some weeks ago, because I knew some, in sensitive places, were monitoring this feed)

Relations with Mexico over this "Border War" and the escalations thereof, coupled with the drug policies of old, has caused a difference of opinions within the two party system of the United States, as well as between various factions within Mexico.... The Drug Cartes have embedded themselves so deep within the political atmosphere of Mexico that they can manipulate policy as well as Mexico's reality. These cartels have gained control of a majority of the media outlets as well as the party system of Mexico and to some degree infiltrated our political structure as well as our financial institutions.

We have some politicians in this country who do not want in depth investigations into the Cartels of Mexico, or the cut-out companies used in these illegal operations.., or the personal used in those various operations.. Our secret newly formed joint Task Force working a delicate matter with the Mexican Army, has uncovered direct associations with some officials on this side of the border as well as inside Mexico. This specialized unit was in process of bringing this sensitive intelligence information which they in cooperation with Mexico had obtained from their joint operations to an independent United States investigative committee, which was recently formed by the Obama Administration. Suddenly Mexico was faced with a flu epidemic, which has according to major press reports threatens the world. I do not doubt that there is a flu epidemic on the way... I question how it became one.

The mainstream Media refuses to cover the root cause of the real drug war in depth. However, they jumped all over this creeping epidemic overnight. The killings in Juarez were forgotten. The killings at major border crossings were on fire and escalating at a rapid rate. United States military hardware was being found in the Drug Cartels hands and being used to kill personal in the Mexican Army, as well as law enforcement on both sides of the border, not to mention the good elected politicians of Mexico who were trying to weed out corruption..

You asked me what I think. Well I think its a little of both. Who started this epidemic and why? Is it real? It very well could be . My question? Was it started on purpose to stop ongoing investigations which were forcing to the surface corrupt politicians on both sides of the border?

Sometimes we forget that there is a Shadow Government working throughout the world and it is a real epidemic. .., one which has been spreading for many years. In the weeks and months to come it will remain in the shadows while people worldwide die. Did the anonymous THEY start this epidemic? Who the hell really knows

[Tosh Plumlee]

Two French students, working on the real origins of bird flu, tortured, killed in London

By George Kadar – American Free Press August 2008

Two French biochemical students, Laurent Bonomo and Gabriel Ferez, were murdered by Israeli Mossad-British intelligence assassination teams on June 29, 2008. Both Bonomo and Ferez were studying at the prestigious London Imperial College researching the origins of bird flu and the link to the alleged vaccines.

The murders were first revealed by France’s Directorate for Internal Security, not by Britain’s Scotland Yard, making it likely that the students were French intelligence officers. London police arrested Daniel Sonnex, 23, and Nigel Edward Farmer in the killings.

A joint French-U.S. Intelligence anti-terrorist task force in Paris, headed by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former head of French intelligence Jean Crout�, for years has monitored the activity of the Israeli mercenaries. The patriotic American-French team has allegedly prevented various scripted terrorist attacks, i.e. false flags, on both the United States and Europe, with the planning of the attacks actually originating inside the compromised intelligence agencies of the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel and Germany, according to task force sources.

The two researchers had discovered that the alleged bird flu vaccine, H-7, which was designed to neutralize and stop the H5N1 avian flu virus, had been spliced using DNA to actually create a vaccine and an illness producing virus at the same time. The French students had also discovered that the bird flu vaccine, i.e. a virus, had links to U.S., British and Israeli laboratories associated with the noted Mossad agent, Dr. Philip M. Zackerie.

Israeli microbiologist Zackerie, known as “Dr. Zack,” worked for the U.S. bio-weapons lab at Ft. Detrick, Md., where he was photographed handling the strain of anthrax used in the post 9-11 attack according to published reports. He was a consultant at the FBI linked company Gilead Sciences Inc. of Boulder, Colo. Gilead Sciences has been linked to the 9-11 anthrax strain and to the bird flu vaccine.

The two French students, who had their apartment broken into one week before their brutal assassination, also had their lap-top computer stolen and their apartment fire-bombed.

The operation has been traced to a team of 10 Israeli Mossad and British MI5 agents. The two individuals currently under arrest in the United Kingdom were witnesses to the murders, according to task force sources,
and their lives are in jeopardy.

The assassination of Bonomo and Ferez happened just after the recent meetings that took place in Northern Ireland between President George Bush, former President Bill Clinton and current British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The two murders also may be related to the recent alleged assassination attempt on French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Ben Gurion International Airport in Israel.

Officially, an Israeli border patrol officer who was a member of the Druze community shot himself as Sarkozy and his wife were mounting the stairs to their plane. The man’s body then fell from the top of the building where he had been perched. Many believe he was an Arab patsy-to-be before the assassination attempt went awry.

Sarkozy was also aware of the bird flu treason and plans to use it against France as well as the Israeli Mossad hacking of French INTERPOL Internet portals using the U.S. National Security Agency and a headquarters in Amsterdam.

George Kadar is a Hungarian national living in England. He acts as one of AFP’s European bureau chiefs.

Re-produced Courtesy of American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003

www.americanfreepress.net/html/bio-chemists_murdered_149.html

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Last updated 02/05/2009