Teddy Bears Resort to Life of Crime
July 7th, 2009 by Russ
DEA agents and New York City’s finest were shocked last weekend to find yet another segment of society corrupted by the War on Drugs — Teddy Bears. In a raid on a Bronx safehouse, police and federal agents uncovered over 44 lbs of heroin and $150,000 in cash trafficked by the customizable bedtime friends known as Build-A-Bears.
According to one onlooking neighbor at the raid site:
My daughter has one of those toys. I’m very surprised something like that was going on right here and I’m especially surprised it was a Build-A-Bear.
While the news certainly comes as a shock to the community that calls the bears home, one wonders whether we might have seen this coming earlier. After all, these bears are so diverse in the way they choose to live their lives. There are firefighter bears, surgeon bears, even subprime mortgage-lending bears. Is it any wonder that some of these bears turned to the high-risk, high-reward lifestyle of smack trafficking?
In this economy, trying to eek out a living as a high school musical bear or a bear on a military pension just isn’t possible the way that it was in the halcyon days of beardom. A bear has got to make ends meet, just like anyone else.
Some will argue that these bears, as couriers, were just bit players; pawns in a game played by weathered New York City drug traffickers. And every single Build-A-Bear caught up in this mess will have his day in court. But before they go out and summon their fancy lawyer bears and publicity bears, they’ll have to own up to the part they had to play in this operation. Yes, these bears were built for a purpose. They were designed and raised as heroin mule bears. But does your build determine your fate? Does not every bear ultimately choose his or her own destiny?
Perhaps the most famous bear of all, Winnie the Pooh, once said:
People who don’t Think probably don’t have Brains; rather, they have grey fluff that’s blown into their heads by mistake.
Even bears with grey fluff upstairs should have known better on this one. Thanks, Pooh.
Mexican National Hangs Ten, Loses Twenty-Four
June 9th, 2009 by Rick
Maybe he didn’t want to hike across treacherous American terrain to smuggle in marijuana, but a 30-year old Mexican man was thinking outside the box when he decided to get on a surfboard and paddle to the land of opportunity, bringing with him, 24 pounds of herb.
As with any Wile E. Coyote plans cooked up by drug traffickers, the would-be surfer was seen paddling about 200 yards off Imperial Beach by U.S Border Patrol agents. Seeing that the gig was up, he tossed a blue duffel bag containing an estimated $74,400 worth of pot into the ocean, which eventually washed ashore.
British Woman Sentenced to Life in Laos Drug Court
June 4th, 2009 by RussThe tendrils of US drug enforcement reach across borders, over oceans, and even into the legal affairs of foreign nations. When British national, Samantha Orabator was caught concealing a pound and a half of heroin in a Laotian airport last August, her life was nearly forfeited because of a US campaign to toughen drug standards in Asia’s ‘Golden Triangle.’
Only spared execution because she was pregnant, this week’s ruling by a Laotian court imposed the second most stringent possible sentence, life imprisonment. In other words, posession of a pound and a half of a particular opiate extract, nearly cut short the life of a 20-year old girl. Rapists, murderers, and war criminals seem to have better odds of parole in certain parts of the world, than those attempting to profit from unsanctioned substances.
One could chalk up this legal disparity to the oddities of a foreign, facist culture. In actuality, much of the motivation for Laos’ draconian drug policy comes in the form of US dollars. In 1993, Laos was ‘certified for narcotics cooperation ‘ with the US State Department. In return for showing erradication of opium crops and increasing crackdowns on drug trafficking, Laotian officials received training from American drug police as well as millions of dollars to fund the ramping up of their anti-narcotics operations.
In other words, if the Laotian government showed leniency to those convicted of non-violent drug crimes, they could lose an important source of foreign aid.
Meanwhile, the United States drives the demand for about a quarter of the world’s consumed heroin. Instead of acting to reduce demand internally, it has strong-armed, threatened, or outright bribed other nations to impose disastrously incongruous and disproportionate laws that have destroyed tens of millions of lives.
AZ Border Patrol Agents Seize 300 Pounds
June 4th, 2009 by Rick
On May 29, nine smugglers from Guaymas, Mexico, carrying bundles of marijuana in backpacks, were arrested by Border Patrol agents from the Wellton station, near Aztec, AZ. Pings on a radar from a roving surveillance system first discovered at least seven of the smugglers, trekking the popular but dangerous route — at least 60 miles from the border.
Initially three smugglers were arrested and then the other six were tracked down by Border Patrol. On June 1st, the Yuma County Narcotics Task Force was called in and after an investigation the suspects were booked and charged with possession and intent to distribute.
Nearly 300 pounds of the marijuana were seized, a street value of $116,160.
Cocaine Smuggling Becomes Sneakier
June 3rd, 2009 by Rick
Police intercepted a 26-year-old Argentine woman carrying two suitcases at the Santiago airport in Chile, ready to board a flight to Spain. The police suspected, and later confirmed, that the woman was trafficking cocaine. In and of itself, not particularly noteworthy, but this bust was unique due to the fact that she had no cocaine in the suitcases — the cocaine was the suitcases.
The travel bags, heavier than the items inside them, were made from a substance combining cocaine with resin and glass fiber. An officer assigned to the case, Detective Leandro Morales said that a chemical process could extract the cocaine.
It’s no surprise that smugglers are begining to think out of the box when it comes to moving their product. This constant game of cat & mouse with law enforcement keeps traffickers finding new ways to conceal and transport their goods. For instance, back in February, in Mexico City, a pick up truck sitting in a shipping container from Colombia, was seized and later found to have side panels and a bumper fused with fiberglass and cocaine.
One wonders if this is the same international crew that shipped dinner plates made from cocaine to Barcelona back in March.
Mexico & U.S. Hold Hands, Promise Better Days Ahead
April 8th, 2009 by Rick
After two days of meeting with Mexican officials, Attorney General, Eric Holder said:
Cooperation between the United States and Mexico was stronger and fundamentally different than that which existed in the past.
Before meeting with the Mexican President, Felipe Calderón, AG Holder and Mexican Attorney General, Eduardo Medina-Mora, held an interview. Both admitted that the stakes were high for both countries in stopping the drug violence in Mexico. Both denied Pentagon reports that the drug war was pushing Mexico to becoming a failed state.
Mr. Medina-Mora said:
Mexico has never been a weak state. It is not today. It will never be in the future. We have faced even more difficult problems than this one. And it is relevant to put this in perspective.
Ironically enough, what is happening in Mexico already happened in Columbia with Pablo Esobar. He had either threatened or bribed his way to taking over the country. A group had turned into an army. At the time it was believed he was finally taken out by South American Security Forces, but it’s been known for some time that Delta Force had joined the hunt and managed to kill Escobar with a single sniper’s bullet. Escobar was taken out after he made the Forbes Billionaire list… ‘El Chapo’, a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico recently made that very list. May history soon be repeating itself?
He added:
What is at stake is the ability of Mexico to keep peace and tranquility for its citizens. That is why our objective is not ending drug trafficking. It is to remove power from these groups and remove their ability to seize and to kidnap our right to live in peace.
If their objective is not to end drug trafficking, then what is it? This is what keeps these organizations in business. If you cut them off from their drugs, then you cut them off from making money. It’s interesting to note that Mora was at one time the head of the CISEN, which is the Mexican equivalent of the CIA. If anyone should have intelligence that can lead them to the cartels, it’d be him. The timing of an American visit is not coincidental either, after a week that the Mexican President spoke out and said cartel drug money was going into Washington pockets.
AG Holder and and the Secretary of Homeland Security eventually met up with Mexican President Felipe Calderón. They talked about providing training to Mexican canine teams and enhancing coordination between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Mexican Navy. Apparently there is concern that by beefing up the land boarders, it will drive the illegal immigrants and drug smugglers to use the Pacific Ocean to get into the United States.
Ms. Napolitano said of the United States and Mexico, after the meeting with Mr. Calderón:
We are going to operate almost like a vise. We’re going to take out the cartels that have been plaguing our communities for far too long.
AG Holder added that they were sending 100 agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the southern boarders to stop the sale of “straw gun purchases” in which a background check is conducted on one person and they in turn give the guns to others. AG Holder also snuck in a comment about marijuana sales central to the drug trade, and is exploring ways lower the minimum amount required for the federal prosecution of possession cases.
The reality of the level of cooperation that now exists is fundamentally different from that which existed in the past. The current Mexican administration was in a fundamentally different place, and the possibilities of cooperation, as a result, are substantially greater, and they will show results.
Great. Things are fundamentally different, we get it. After countless kidnappings and deaths attributed to the drug trade, along with countless drugs actually making it into the United States and more and more criminal organizations popping up all over the United States, you finally decided to change things.
Mora concluded the interview by saying that all federal agencies involved with investigating and enforcing laws on organized crime were being used by both Mexican and U.S. investigators. Mora said that the Mexican government was upgrading it’s law enforcement infrastructure and technology oversee officers’ activities and detect irregularities — which Mora claims may be caused by “technical reasons or because of corruption.”
Great. Now Mexico can develop into a police state just like it’s Big Brother. They can develop tools to combat the threat of organized crime but then at the same time keep an eye on their citizens. It’s amusing that Mora mentions corruption. What they need to do is find out who within their governments are pocketing drug money in both countries, arrest them, lock them up in the same prisons that they helped keep full, throw away the key and then start changing laws and going after cartels and ending their reign of violence once and for all.
Drug-Peddling Oropeza Family Gets Locked Up
April 1st, 2009 by Rick
Oscar Oropeza, 47, of Brownsville, TX, was sentenced Monday to 15 years in prison for drug trafficking and money laundering. He is the third member of the Oropeza family to be sentenced in connection with a drug operation that has netted them $5 million since 2002. He also was ordered to forfeit the real estate where the family’s home and garden, car wash and trucking businesses were located in Harlingen and Brownsville.
Oropeza and his wife, Tina Marie, were arrested on May 31, 2007, in Saraland, Alabama, where authorities said they found ~84 kilograms of cocaine in a hidden compartment in their van. Federal agents investigating the family found that the drugs were placed in the van’s hidden compartments in Matamoros, Mexico, and then driven across the bridge into Brownsville by another family member.
Tina Marie Oropeza was sentenced to 10 months in prison and five years probation in November for conspiracy to launder money. The Oropezas’ daughter, Paulina Marie, was given six months in prison and five years probation for misprision of a felony. Charges against the couple’s son were dismissed.
Authorities say the smuggling ring moved cocaine and marijuana from Mexico to Alabama and Florida every two to three weeks. Oscar Oropeza would collect $700,000 to $1 million per trip after the delivery and was paid $1,300 per kilogram transported.
Anybody Missing Some Hash?
February 16th, 2009 by Perry
Because they just found more than three tons of it in the back of a potato truck, and I know I’m always misplacing my shit.
Smugglers apparently use potatoes because they are close in density to the processed hash. However, trying to mix 60 of the 50-pound bales into a truckload of potatoes was bound to be caught by even the laziest of Moroccan scanner monitors.
The effort is part of an international crackdown effort in the area (what it’s always called when they round up and hassle low-level nobodies and hope to make them snitch out their bosses) which has yielded 109 suspects.
