Borderline Psychosis Update- Nieto & PRI win Signals Shift? Abandoned Arms Cache Found in Arizona; ATF Sought to Punish Fast & Furious Whistleblowers

MEXICO- With nearly 100% of the ballots in Mexico's presidential elections counted, Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute has named the PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto as the winner in last weekend's balloting. Accusations of vote-buying from the PRI, which were circulating a month ago, increased shortly before last weekend's vote.

The count by the country's electoral authority will almost certainly become the target of legal challenges by leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who alleges Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, engaged in vote-buying that illegally tilted millions of votes.

The accusations began surfacing in June, but sharpened early this week as thousands of people rushed to grocery stores on the outskirts of Mexico City to redeem pre-paid gift cards worth about 100 pesos ($7.50). Many said they got the cards from supporters of PRI prior to Sunday's elections.

Simply giving away such gifts is not illegal under Mexican electoral law, as long as the expense is reported to electoral authorities. But giving gifts to influence votes is a crime, though is not generally viewed as grounds for overturning an election.

Although both leftist candidate Manuel Lopez Obrador and the former ruling PAN Party candidate have accused the PRI of vote-buying, PAN's Josefina Vazquez Mota stopped short of questioning the legitimacy of the election's outcome. While Nieto had an estimated 39% of the vote and Obrador followed up with 31%, Mota came in third with about 25% of the votes.

Until being defeated in the 2000 Mexican presidential election by PAN's Vicente Fox, the PRI had ruled Mexico for more than 70 years. Since then, the PRI operated as an opposition party, coming within 5% of a true majority in both the Senate and Chamber of Deputies only a few years of their 2000 loss of the presidential election.

However, in some states where PRI has retained power, governors, mayors and other PRI politicians have been accused of accepting drug money to allow certain cartels to operate with little to no police interference and some governors are accused of having cartel gunmen as part of their security detail. Tamaulipas is a particularly egregious example, with three of their former governors- all PRI- being investigated by Mexican federal prosecutors this year for corruption, accepting bribes and money laundering while in office. Some of the most high profile atrocities in Mexico's ongoing narcoinsurgency- such as the machine-gunning of more than 70 migrants on a rural ranch or more than 100 young men pulled off of intercity buses by masked gunment only to end up in a mass grave- have taken place in Tamaulipas within the last 2 years.

Without going into any specifics during his presidential campaign, Nieto promised a shift away from outgoing President Calderon's militarization of Mexico's anti-drug trafficking campaign. While the Beltran-Leyva and La Familia Michoacana organizations were effectively brought down on Calderon's watch the country has seen nearly 50,000 killed nationwide since 2006 and upstart organizations like New Generation and Caballeros Templar fill the void in territory once held by the defunct organizations.

Some observers have remarked that a PRI and Nieto victory is in fact a victory for the more powerful drug cartels. Prior to the election, there were theories that the PRI was going to embrace a 'most favored cartel' policy where a government crackdown on certain organizations would continue in exchange for one cartel providing intelligence and operational details on their rivals.

ARIZONA- A hiker in Southeastern Arizona's Coronado National Forest discovered a garbage bag filled with semiautomatic rifles last month. After receiving a report of the discovery on Wednesday, June 20, the Pima County Sheriff’s Office determined that the rifles were found in Santa Cruz County, and notified the local sheriff’s office.

Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s deputies then went to the site and recovered what turned out to be a stash of AK-47 assault rifles.

Lt. Raoul Rodriguez said the rifles were “badly rusted” and had “obviously been there for quite some time.” Four rifle magazines were also recovered.

Rodriguez said the weapons were taken to the sheriff’s office and secured.

It is unknown exactly how long the weapons have been there for or whether or not they were part of the ATF's disatrous Operation Fast and Furious gunwalking program.

ELSEWHERE IN ARIZONA- Arizona's former US Attorney and the author of the Clinton-era ban on semiautomatic weapons ban is also one of architechts of the ATF's Arizona-based Operation Fast & Furious.

Shortly after the murder of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry on Dec. 15, 2010, Attorney General Eric Holder's deputy chief of staff, Monty Wilkinson, received an email from U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke telling him just that:

"The guns found in the desert near the murder(ed) BP officer connect back to the investigation we were going to talk about — they were AK-47s purchased at a Phoenix gun store."

It is an email that helps demonstrate that Holder, despite his congressional testimony — as vague, contradictory and misleading as it was — could not have been ignorant about Fast and Furious and its deadly consequences.

It also brings to light the name of Dennis Burke, a seldom-mentioned Obama campaign donor who oversaw Fast and Furious and helped convert it from a gun-interdiction to a gun-walking program.

Burke, who resigned shortly after the scandal became public, has long been a gun-ban architect for the Democratic Party.

As a lawyer for the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he was behind the ineffectual 1994 "assault weapon" ban that sunset in 2004. Burke was also the chief of staff for Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano for a number of years before she became the secretary of homeland security.

Burke also is an Obama donor, a prime consideration in the staffing of the Obama administration. Federal Election Commission records show that on Jan. 9, 2008, while working for Napolitano, Burke contributed $2,000 to Sen. Barack Obama's presidential primary campaign. Since 1997, according to FEC records, Burke has given $16,350 to Democratic candidates.

Burke would leave that Gov. Napolitano post to join the Obama transition team. He was soon rewarded for his many contributions, monetary and otherwise, when on July 10, 2009, the president nominated him to be the U.S. attorney in Arizona. The Senate confirmed him that Sept. 15.

In July 2010, Burke told the Arizona Capitol Times there had "clearly been direction provided already by President Obama and Attorney General Holder as to what they want to be doing."

That's an interesting statement, considering what Burke would do and how Holder and Obama would claim they were out of the operational loop.

The report bolsters some claims that the Department of Justice's gunwalking program that was repsponsible for hundreds of casualties in Mexico and the death of at least one Border Patrol agent was motivated at least in part by blaming the ongoing drug violence in Mexico on American guns to create public opinion in favor of more gun control.

In other Fast & Furious related news, excerpts from a House oversight memo dated May 2012 indicate that two ATF field agents turned whistleblowers were placed under the direct supervision of a senior ATF official who promised retaliation shortly after they went public.

When the ATF whistleblowers, Special Agents John Dodson and Pete Forcelli, went public last year, Scot Thomasson headed up ATF Public Affairs. According to an eyewitness, Thomasson stated "We need to get whatever dirt we can on these guys (whistleblowers) and take them down." Now, Grassley and Issa say the agents have been put under the charge of ATF's Scot Thomasson who is Division Chief of the Firearms Operations Unit.

Thomasson was also allegedly heard to have said "ATF needs to f__k these guys." And when asked if the whistleblower allegations were true, Thomasson purportedly said he didn't know and didn't care. The accounts are contained in a May 3, 2012 House Oversight memo attached to Congress' draft contempt report against Attorney General Eric Holder.

Dodson went public about the agency's controversial gunwalking tactics in an interview with CBS News in February 2011. He later testified before Congress along with Forcelli.

"It is difficult to understand why ATF leadership would put two of these courageous whistleblowers at the mercy of an individual who made such reckless, irresponsible and inaccurate comments about them 18 months ago," say the members of Congress in today's letter to the Inspector General. The letter also asks "what steps, if any, are being taken to ensure that Thomasson does not use his new position to engage in a campaign of retaliation along the lines he expressed a desire to conduct last year."

After ignoring the story for the better part of 18 months, a Fortune article released before last week's conetmpt vote in the House of Representatives attempted to depict Special Agent Dodson and other whistleblowers as disguntled malcontents and troublemakers.

Busy Beltway Thursday- Supreme Court Upholds Key Obamacare Provision; House Finds Holder in Contempt

In a surprise ruling, the Supreme Court upheld President Obama's signature healthcare law on Thursday morning by a 5-4 margin. Chief Justice Roberts had ruled that the individual mandate in Obamacare was unconstitutional under the Commerce Clause. However, he ruled that the mandate could be considered a tax despite Obama and the Democrat's insistence that the mandate wasn't a tax when they were trying to sell the public on it back in 2009.

Via Scotusblog and Legal Insurrection:

“In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters. Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.”

In even simpler terms, it's a tax for existing, basically. Using this ruling as precedent, there really would be nothing from stopping Congress from imposing a recurring annual 'Not Buying a Chevy Volt' surtax on any new vehicle purchased in the USA- including a Chevy Volt because only Volts with a certain VIN number are exempt.

While the decison may seem to vindicate Obama and the Democrats who supported it at first, the estimated $1.75 trillion pricetag means that the Democrats have passed the largest tax increase in American history durin a timeframe when the national unemployment rate was never less than 8.1%. The [rather tortured- NANESB!] definition of the mandate as a tax means that it can be struck down or eliminated in Congress with a simple majority instead of a supermajority. This also makes one wonder if the numerous Obamacare waivers the Administration passed out could be considered 'tax cuts for the rich'? Also, will any of the 800,000 or so illegal immigrants that he just gave totally-not-amnesty-amnesty to this month recieve waivers?

Reaction from both sides was immediate, with Obama taking the opportunity to hawk campaign t-shirts and reassure Americans how awesome his new tax was while reading from a prepared statement earlier today. At the same time, Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney's campaign raised nearly $2 million dollars from online donations within hours of the Supreme Court's decision.

Meanwhile, the House of Representatives went ahead with a scheduled vote to find Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress over the ATF Fast & Furious gunwalking scandal on Thursday afternoon.

The vote follows a roughly 16-month investigation by the chamber’s House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into the failed gun-running sting known as Fast and Furious -- run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a division of the Justice Department led by Holder.

Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., filed two subpoenas over that period requesting additional information. But he has more recently focused on information related to a February 2011 letter to Congress that falsely claimed the ATF was unaware the operation involved the underground sale of the assault weapons.

“Today, a bipartisan majority of the House of Representatives voted to hold Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt for his continued refusal to produce relevant documents,” Issa said after the vote. “This was not the outcome I had sought and it could have been avoided had Attorney General Holder actually produced the subpoenaed documents he said he could provide.”

In December 2010, US Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was killed by heavily armed smugglers in a shootout near the US/Mexico border in Arizona- two of the weapons recovered at the scene were traced back to Fast & Furious. Attorney General Holder originally testified that no gunwalking took place under Fast & Furious before later admitting that ATF Field agents were ordered to allow more than 2000 firearms to be smuggled into Mexico by straw purchasers, losing track of all of them. In addition to Brian Terry's death, numerous guns from Fast and Furious have been turning up at hundreds of crime scenes in Mexico. Many on the House Government Oversight Panel requested more documents from Holder regarding gunwalking during often-contentious hearings, but in a move many saw as designed to shield Holder from further oversight scrutiny, President Obama invoked executive privelege on certain DOJ documents and correspondence.

One school of thought out there is that the sole purpose of Fast & Furious was to create more anti-gun sentiment and pass additional gun control laws after saturating an already volatile Mexico with weapons that could be traced back to the USA. This was dismissed by some in the media as being the stuff off kooky black helicopter conspiracy tinfoil hat brigades. Yet nearly every Democrat on that spoke on the House floor Thursday took the opportunity to call for additional punitive gun control laws here in the USA, despite the fact that the DOJ orchestrated arms trafficking already violated several laws on the books.

After a lengthy and incoherent diatribe by former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and a walkout by the Congressional Black Caucus, the measure to find Holder in contempt passed on the House floor by a 255-67 margin, with at least 17 Democrats breaking from their party to vote on their contempt vote.

Last week's vote in the House oversight committee to bring the contempt vote to the floor of the house passed along

Supreme Court Upholds Provisions of Arizona's SB1070 Immigration Law

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld a provision in Arizona's controversial SB1070 that allowed state and local officers to enquire about a suspect's immigration status but struck down other provisions that included requiring all immigrants to obtain or carry immigration registration papers, making it a state criminal offense for an illegal immigrant to seek work or hold a job and allowing police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants without warrants.

The portion of the law allowing city, county or state police in Arizona to investigate the immigration status of an individual detained or questioned if there is reasonable suspicion that individual is in the country illegally is expected to face additional challenges from civil liberties and open borders activist groups.

After the Supreme Court announced their ruling, the Obama Administration and the Department of Homeland Security would suspend existing agreements with law enforcement in Arizona, issuing a directive to Homeland Security to ignore many of the calls they might get from police and sheriff's departments in Arizona.

Federal officials said they’ll still perform the checks as required by law but will respond only when someone has a felony conviction on his or her record. Absent that, ICE will tell the local police to release the person.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said the court’s decision frees police up to perform immigration checks. In anticipation of the ruling, she issued an executive order calling for guidance to be issued to every police department on how to fairly carry out the law.

On Monday the administration officials also said they are ending the seven 287(g) task force agreements with Arizona law enforcement officials, which proactively had granted some local police the powers to enforce immigration laws.

The task forces, named for the section of law that allows them, have proved popular among many localities but have been a political headache for the Obama administration, with immigrant-rights groups saying they led to abuses.

In July 2010, US District Judge Susan Bolton issued an injunction against the implementation of many parts of SB1070, but permitted one that included making knowingly harboring illegal immigrants a crime to remain. A few weeks prior, the Department of Justice had filed a lawsuit against the Grand Canyon State over SB 1070.

Interestingly, the state of Rhode Island had similar laws implemented via executive order from then-governor Carcieri, but Little Rhody never drew the wrath of the Obama Administration or open-borders activists like Arizona's SB1070 did. On the flip side, a Vermont state trooper was accused of racial profiling and Gov. Shumlin ordered an internal investigation after the trooper arrested two illegal immigrants who were passengers in a speeding car in September 2011.

Arizona's SB1070 ruling is one of two decisons from the Supreme Court- after much buildup and anticipation, the justices are expected to rule on 0bamacare later on this week.

Borderline Psychosis- Gunmen Open Fire, Kill 11 at Rehab Center; Police, TV Stations Targets in Matamoros Grenade Attack; Feds Allege Zetas Ponied Up Cash for Oklahoma Horse Ranch; Slain Agent's Family Sues DOJ

COAHUILA- Eleven people were killed and another ten people were wounded after gunmen entered a drug rehabilitation center in Coahuila and opened fire earlier this month. Citing state prosecutors, NotiMex reported that armed men entered the Your Life on the Rock rehab center in Torreon and fired more than 60 rounds at around 10 PM local time before fleeing.

Gangs have frequently targeted rehabilitation centers throughout Mexico since 2009 with at least 66 people killed since then.

The motive for Sunday's shooting was not immediately clear. Several factors have made rehab centers targets, said Edgardo Buscaglia, an expert on organized crime and president of the Mexico-based nonprofit Instituto de Accion Ciudadana (Citizen Action Institute).

"The people who go there are usually involved in buying or selling drugs," he said. "We're talking about urban gangs or youth gangs that are in charge of delivering these drugs to the final consumers in the urban markets."

Some of them may have talked with police, drawing ire from former associates, he said. Others may be targets for rival gangs seeking revenge.

"They kill them because these kids are either witnesses for the authorities or ... some of those kids may be working in the selling of drugs. Adversary groups kill them in the same ways they kill politicians working for the adversary groups," he said. "Once you work for different organized crime groups, it's very hard to get away from it."

By 2010, drug dealing inside rehab centers had become so rampant in northern states like Chihuahua that most of them had simply shut down.

TEXAS- The family of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent slain in Mexico last year has filed a wrongful death suit against the DOJ this week.

Two of the weapons recovered at the scene of Zapata's killing and the wounding of his partner, Victor Avilla, were traced back to Texas. A Baytown, TX man was sentenced to 8 years for buying one of the guns- an AK47 variant- through a straw purchaser.

In documents obtained by CBS news, it was learned that the man, 30 year old Manuel Gomez Barba, was under surveillance for 6 months before the weapon turned up at the shooting of Zapata and Avilla.

Documents indicate ATF opened its case against Barba, entitled "Baytown Crew," in June of 2010. During the investigation, court records state Barba recruited straw purchasers and "facilitated the purchase and exportation of at least 44 firearms" including assault rifles. On August 20, 2010 Barba took delivery of the WASR-10 semi-automatic rifle later used in Zapata's murder, obliterated its serial number, and sent it to Mexico with nine others just like it. Nearly two months later, on Oct. 8, 2010, ATF agents recorded a phone call in which Barba "spoke about the final disposition of ... firearms to Mexico and also about the obliterating of the serial numbers before they were trafficked." Barba told straw purchasers the guns were destined for the Zeta drug cartel.

This has led to speculation that there have been ongoing concurrent 'gunwalking' operations similar to Fast & Furious that have been taking place outside of Arizona, although the ATF and Justice Department deny it.



JALISCO- A surveillance video from January of this year showing heavily armed local police officers barging into a hotel and taking away three men was released by Mexican prosecutors last week.

However, instead of making an arrest, the video shows that the police in Lagos de Moreno were carrying out a kidnapping on behalf of one of the drug gangs. The three men being shown taken out of the hotel and stuffed into a police truck later turned up dead, killed by asphyxiation and blunt-force trauma.

Before entering the hotel, the video shows the police truck pulling up in front of the hotel followed by a civilian truck. One of the policemen approaches the civilian vehicle that came in behind the police truck and is given what appears to be a list. Video from the hotel's interior shows the officers approaching the reception desk and asking what room the men on the list are staying in. After handcuffing the men and taking them out of the hotel, the local officers wait patiently as the victims' luggage and vehicle are taken before driving off behind the stolen truck and the truck that followed them to the hotel.

While the kidnapping and murder occurred in January, and the faces of several officers were clearly seen on the videos, the officers were not detained until June 6, when soldiers and state police raided a local police station. And they still have not been formally charged with any crime.

"It took time to obtain the video tapes, to do the investigation, and to get the arrest warrants," said Jalisco state prosecutor's spokesman Lino Gonzalez said Thursday. "We didn't have the information."

Gonzalez said that so far, seven policemen and officials of the municipal police force of Lagos de Moreno have been detained pending charges.

There are still mysteries surrounding the case, including whether the gunmen thought the victims were members of a rival drug cartel. The victims were from the northern state of Coahuila, where the hyperviolent Zetas cartel has been battling the Sinaloa cartel, allies of Jalisco Nueva Generacion.

Gonzalez said the victims, before checking into the hotel, had been briefly detained by police at the local jail for a minor infraction. They paid a fine and were released. But while in custody, "They said something indiscrete," Gonzalez said. "Apparently they said something like 'We're from Coahuila, and we're part of the mafia.'"

It's not unusual in Mexico for detainees to boast about their connections, hoping to press corrupt police to release them.

This time, however, it backfired.

"Apparently, somebody at the jail heard the comment, and reported it to the real criminals," Gonzalez said.

Jalisco state Attorney General Tomas Coronado told local media the men had claimed to be Zetas.

He said it has never been proved the men were gang members. They may have just been in Lagos de Moreno collecting the rent on a ranch, and they are being treated simply as victims.

Investigators believe the gunmen giving police instructions are affiliated with the recently-formed and rapidly expanding New Generation cartel. Since 2009, the New Generation has been engaged in bloody turf battles with Los Zetas, La Familia Michoacan and now the remnants of La Familia that make up the Knights Templar.

Although widespread corruption and complicity on the part of local police throughout Mexico has been alleged by observers in both Mexico and the USA even before the narco-killings began spiraling out of control, this is thought to be one of the first times such clear-cut evidence of local policemen working hand in hand with drug gangs was caught on vide.

TAMAULIPAS- No injuries were reported after a series of grenade attacks rocked the border city of Matamoros over the first weekend in June. Two earlier attacks targeted an auto dealership and a municipal police station. A thrid device was found at the Televisa studios in the southwest side of the city, but authorities managed to clear the area before disposing of the device.

On Monday, El Nuevo Herald reported that two more grenade attacks targeting a high school and college campus took place in the early morning hours of Monday. Eyewitnesses said that classes weren't in session yet and that there were no reports of injuries.

The attacks had prompted state and local police to shift from patrolling with one or two people per vehicle while on patrol to moving about the city in convoys. Matamoros is directly across the border from Brownsville, TX and the US Consulate issued a travel warning to Americans south of the Border shortly after the attacks.

A few days after the Matamoros grenade attacks, 14 dismembered bodies were left in an abandoned bus adorned with a narco banner addressed to Los Zetas outside the city hall in Ciudad Mante, some 250 miles south of Matamoros and the US-Mexico border.

ELSEWHERE IN TAMAULIPAS- Two former state governors are being sought for questioning after federal prosecutors in Mexico issued a detention warrant for the politicians.

Tomás Yarrington Ruvalcaba and Eugenio Hernández Flores are named in a detention warrant in connection with money laundering and organized crime, two officials with the Mexico Attorney General’s Office — known by its Spanish abbreviation PGR — independently confirmed to The Monitor. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, as they are not authorized to discuss the matter publicly

Although neither individual has been charged with a crime, Mexican law allows for detention and questioning of up to 40 days before charges can be filed.

Although Yarrington has denied any wrongdoing and claims the detention orders are politically motivated, Mexican authorities have arrested one of Yarrington's business associates for laundering bribe money allegedly paid by the Gulf Cartel to look the other way for operations in Tamaulipas. According to Mexican prosecutors and a civil suit filed in Federal Court in Corpus Christi, TX Yarrington and his associates invested in Texas real estate and used a number of shell companies to launder cartel payoffs, including a luxury condo in South Padre Island, TX.

The complaint accuses Yarrington of using ill-gotten money to buy a condo on South Padre Island, using a third party to buy the $450,000 property.

The condo is owned by Napoleon Rodriguez, owner of Ferretera Industrial Rodriguez, a hardware supply company that has been contracted by the city of Matamoros and state of Tamaulipas to supply paint and lights, the complaint states. The upscale, 1,946-square-foot unit is halfway up the 29-story high rise, with sweeping views of the Gulf of Mexico and Laguna Madre.

In late May, charges were filed against fugitive Mexican businessman and contractor Fernando Alejandro Cano Martinez for conspiracy to commit money laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud. Although Yarrington denies any ties with Cano, the indictment alleges that Cano facilitated the payment of bribes from the Gulf Cartel to state and local officials in Tamaulipas since 1998.

The accusations against Yarrington- dubbed 'The Yarrington Affair'- and could factor into Mexico's tightly contested Presidential election this summer. Yarrington's membership in the PRI was suspended a few weeks ago.

In 2010, Mexican newspaper Reforma published an article identifying one of then-Tamaulipas state governor Eugenio Hernandez Flores' bodyguards as a reputed member of the Zetas.



OKLAHOMA- Federal agents conducted simultaneous raids on a sprawling horse ranch south of Oklahoma City and New Mexico racetrack earlier this month on suspicion prominent horse owners were using racehorse breeding to launder profits from the los Zetas drug trafficking.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday accused Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, a key figure in the Zetas drug operation, of setting up a horse operation that a younger brother operated from a ranch near Lexington, Okla., south of Oklahoma City. Millions of dollars went through the operation, which bought, trained, bred and raced quarter horses throughout the southwest United States, including the famed Ruidoso Downs track in New Mexico.

“This case is a prime example of the ability of Mexican drug cartels to establish footholds in legitimate U.S. industries and highlights the serious threat money laundering causes to our financial system,” said Richard Weber, the chief of the IRS' criminal investigation unit.

Seven of the 14 people indicted were arrested, including Jose Trevino Morales and his wife, Zulema. Another Trevino brother was also charged.

Prosecutors asked that no bond be set for Trevino fearing he would either flee or intimidate witnesses. Neither Trevino nor his lawyer, Tony Lacy, commented, and a lawyer for Zulema Trevino said he knew little about the case.

The indictment describes how the Trevino brothers and a network quietly arranged to purchase quarter horses with drug money at auction and disguise the source of the funds used to buy them so that the Zetas' involvement would be masked. They would often pay in cash, or use fake names, which helped keep the owners and the money a secret.

Since 2008, the operation racked up millions of dollars in transactions in California, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas, prosecutors said.

The operation, Tremor Enterprises LLC, started small, but worked in plain sight. Some horses carried names with drug references, like Coronita Cartel. Over time, the horses and the operation earned a place on some of the most elite stages in the industry. One horse named Mr. Piloto won a $1 million prize at Ruidoso Downs on Labor Day 2010, going off at odds of 22-1. Another named Tempting Dash won the Dash for Cash at Lone Star Park racetrack in Grand Prairie, Texas.

During the raids Tuesday, dozens of federal agents swarmed the New Mexico racetrack, wearing bulletproof vests and collecting evidence. At least two horses were taken away. Shaun Hubbard, general manager of the Ruidoso Downs Race Track and Casino, said the track officials know little about the raid but they are cooperating with federal authorities.

Seizure warrants were issued for 41 horses deemed the operations' most valuable, in an effort to prevent their being taken to Mexico. Among those was Mr. Piloto. The government sought an order to ensure the care of 384 other horses at the ranch, which sits among rolling hills about 40 miles south of Oklahoma City.

The director of the Oklahoma Quarter Horse Racing Association said Jose Trevino showed up a few years ago and quickly earned a reputation for always paying his bills and shelling out handsome prices for some of the top horses in the country.

“They were also recognized for taking care of their business. They paid their bills and didn't cause any trouble. You didn't have a food vendor or veterinarian calling to say they couldn't get these guys to pay their bills. They were good citizens in the horse industry,” Debbie Schauf said.

She said it was common for buyers based out of the country to pay cash for horses, but that several transactions were noteworthy for their value.

“It didn't raise a lot of eyebrows when these guys came to the sales and started paying cash. What raised eyebrows was the quality of the horses they were buying and the amount of money these mares cost,” Schauf said.

A US Magistrate Judge was less than impressed with the prosecution's case against one of the accused, ordering that 20 year old Raul Ramirez be released on $10,000 bond at the federal courthouse in El Paso this week.

In recent years, drug cartels and other criminal enterprises have gotten increasingly creative when it came to laundering the profits from their illegal activity. in addition to at least one former governor of Tamaulipas under investigation for using proxies to launder bribe money from the Gulf cartel through real estate holdings in Texas while others have used perfume sales, pecan farming and even a screenplay for the proposed prequel to The Passion of the Christ.



MEXICO CITY- A panel of Mexican judges approved the extradition of Sandra Avila Beltran to the USA on one of two charges filed against her by the Department of Justice.

Avila Beltran- who is sometimes known in Mexico as 'The Queen of the Pacific' and the niece of incarcerated narco Godfather Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo who is serving a 40 year prison sentence for the 1985 murder of a DEA agent. Avila Beltran's courtship of Colombian Juan Diego Espinoza strengthened ties between her family's Sinaloa cartel and Espinoza's Norte Del Valle cartel.

The three federal appellate judges said Sandra Avila Beltran could be tried outside of Mexico, but only on one of the two charges prosecutors sought.

Avila cannot be tried for the seizure of more than nine tons of U.S.-bound cocaine off a vessel in Mexico's western port of Manzanillo because a Mexican judge acquitted her in that case in December 2010. An appeals court upheld the verdict last August.

Previous requests to extradite the high-profile suspect have been denied twice by a panel and then by a judge, who argued that the confiscation of the nine tons of cocaine would inevitably be part of the foreign trial.

But the judges on Thursday ruled that Beltran has to answer to a charge stemming from several seizures in Chicago in 2001 that amounted to 100 kilograms of cocaine. The 2004 indictment in the Southern District of Florida does not specify Beltran's role in the drug-dealing case.

Mexico's Foreign Relations Department must re-file the extradition request to leave out the charge related to the Manzanillo seizure.

Avila Beltran has been in custody since 2007 and is currently incarcerated in Nayarit where she was being held on separate charges of money laundering. She was transferred to the Pacific coast state last year after it was discovered prison officials were allowing her to get botox treatment while at Mexico City's Santa Martha Acatitla women's lockup. The warden and head doctor were immediately fired over their preferential treatment of La Reina Del Pacifico.

NUEVO LEON- The Mexican Navy is quickly backpedalling from claims that they had the son of fugitive billionaire Sinaloa cartel head Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman in custody after arresting 23 year old Felix Beltran Leon in suburban Guadalajara on Thursday.

Guzman, who was paraded before cameras after his arrest, is a used car salesman and his wife, mother and lawyer provided the media voting credentials, a driver's licence and childhood photos of him as proof.

After it was learned Mexican troops had arrested the wrong man, Mexican officials blamed the DEA for providing them with faulty intelligence while the DEA denies the charges. Guzman was also on display before the media in front of a table with bundles of cash worth more than $130,000 and weapons- including grenades- reportedly seized by from his residence.

Ms. Pacheco showed The Associated Press what she said were her husband’s voting credential and driver’s license. The man arrested bears only slight resemblance to a photograph of Mr. Guzman’s son recently issued by the U.S. Treasury Department.

There is total confusion,” said Mr. Beltran Leon’s lawyer Veronica Guerrero,“... which is having a serious effect on their personal and family situation.”

Ms. Pacheco said the couple and their 1-year-old were sleeping in their home in Zapopan, a suburb of the western city of Guadalajara, when marines kicked in the door and arrested her husband and his half-brother, 19-year-old Kevin Daniel Beltran Rios.

Authorities identified Beltran Rios as an alleged member of the Sinaloa Cartel.

The men were found with a grenade launcher and four grenades, two assault rifles, two pistols and $135,000 in cash, the navy said. Pacheco said there were no drugs or guns, but the family did have the cash because of a recent home sale.

Another lawyer, Heriberto Rangel Mendez, said the government planted the weapons.

Ms. Pacheco said her husband works at Autos Pacheco, a used car dealership that gunmen attacked in May, killing one man. The target was a customer looking at cars, not the business, Ms. Pacheco said, though media reports said the dealership owner was killed.

“We’ve never had any links to drug traffickers,” Ms. Pacheco said. “He’s not the person they say he is.”

The blunder could prove costly to Calderon's PAN party in the upcoming Mexican elections. Under Mexico's constitution, the presidency is limited to one 6-year term, so Calderon can't run for re-election. Recent polls show PRI candidate Enrique Pena Nieto extending his lead over PRI candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota and the PRD's Andres Manuel Obrador.

Anti-Social Club Episode of Borderline Psychosis- 53 Killed After Gunmen Torch Monterrey Casino; NM Police Chief Admits Cartel Ties; Iraqi Connection?

UPDATE 8/31: Acting ATF director Kenneth Melson was reassigned to a lesser post in the Justice Department on Tuesday in the wake of further fallout from the Fast & Furious investigation. US Attorney for Minnesota B. Todd Jones was named as acting director after Melson's departure- a permanent head for the ATF would need to be confirmed by the US Senate.

Also on Tuesday, the US Attorney for Arizona resigned effective immediately. US Attorney Dennis Burke stepped down two weeks after testifying before a House Oversight Committee regarding Fast & Furious, which Burke was in charge of as the state's US Attorney.


NUEVO LEON: At least 53 people were killed when eight gunmen burst into a casino in the northern industrial center of Monterrey, doused the place with gasoline and ignited a fire that trapped dozens of patrons and gamblers.

With shouts and profanities, the attackers told the customers and employees to get out. But many terrified customers and employees fled further inside the building, where they died trapped amid the flames and thick smoke that soon billowed out of the building.

Video footage showed workers continuing to remove bodies well into the night.

Monterrey Mayor Fernando Larrazabal said many of the bodies were found inside the casino's bathrooms, where employees and customers had locked themselves to escape the gunmen.

In an act of desperation, authorities commandeered backhoes from a nearby construction site to break into the casino's walls to try to reach the people trapped inside.

The attack took place on August 25th. The following day, Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared three days of mourning and the Mexican government offered a reward of 30 million pesos ($2.4 million) for information leading to any of the assailants in the Casino Royale attack.

On Monday night, Federal Police in Monterrey announced that they had arrested five suspects and were still seeking the whereabouts of two more. Authorities believe a likely motive in the casino attack is nonpayment of extortion money and the five detained suspects are said to be members of the Zetas. Surveillance footage of the suspects filling up five gallon canisters of gasoline at a gas station not too far from the Casino Royale was shown at the conference announcing the arrests Monday.

The attack shocked and angered many Mexicans because instead of career criminals, the victims were mostly middle aged women who frequently visited the casino to play bingo.

MEXICO CITY: 21 of Mexico's 31 senior federal prosecutors abruptly quit earlier this month. Mexican press outlets report this as being the single biggest mass resignation of federal officials in recent history.

The office announced late last month that in Morales' first 100 days on the job, 462 prosecutors and other officials had been dismissed and 111 more were facing criminal charges involving a range of infractions, including fraud, theft, abuse of power and falsification of documents. An additional 386 employees were in the process of being dismissed.

Rosa Elena Torres Davila, a senior official in the attorney general's office, made Monday's announcement and said the resignations were tendered on Friday. They included the top federal prosecutors in some of Mexico's most violent states where drug traffickers have intimidated local authorities and killed thousands of people in cases that have largely gone unprosecuted. They also included the top federal prosecutor in the capital, Mexico City, which is a federal district with a status similar to that of a state.

Attorney General Marisela Morales declined to cite specific reasons behind the mass departures

CALIFORNIA: Local, state and federal law enforcement officers raided an Iraqi-Chaldean social club in San Diego County and arrested 60 men in a multi-agency investigation dubbed 'Operation Shadowbox'. The social club had been a source of complaints from both neighboring businesses claiming drug dealing and prostitution were rampant and wives of some patrons said that their life savings was being gambled away at the club.

More ominously, members of the club were alleged to have purchased drugs and explosives from the Sinaloa cartel. Marijuana was sold out of the club while methamphetamine smuggled in from Mexico would be forwarded to a sister organization in Detroit.

Since January, the DEA and El Cajon police have purchased narcotics, firearms, improvised explosive devices and pharmaceuticals from people at the club, Sprecco said. In April, an undercover operative was shown a hand grenade and was told more were available from a Mexican military source. Suspects in the investigation reportedly arranged narcotics shipments from El Cajon to Detroit.

During the course of the investigation, operatives discovered a suspected association with the Sinaloa Cartel, a Mexico-based drug trafficking organization, and the Chaldean Organized Crime Syndicate, which began in Detroit in the early 80s and has been linked numerous crimes, including murder, arson and kidnapping, Sprecco said.

The investigation resulted in the seizure of drugs including more than 13 pounds of methamphetamine, more than four pounds of ecstasy and pharmaceuticals and about 3,500 pounds of marijuana, Sprecco said. Authorities confiscated more than $630,000 and three luxury cars.

Officers seized 34 firearms, including semi-automatic rifles and four explosive devices, which were processed with the help of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department's Bomb Squad and the FBI, Sprecco said.

The city of El Cajon has the second-highest Chaldean population in the United States after Detroit- the San Diego suburb is home to about 47,000 Iraqi Chaldeans, many of them having immigrated there before the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in their native Iraq.

NEW MEXICO: The former police chief of the small New Mexico border town of Columbus has pleaded guilty to trafficking firearms and tactical gear across the border into Mexico on behalf of enforcers for 'La Linea'- a gang of enforcers for the Juarez cartel.

As a participant in the conspiracy, Vega conducted counter-surveillance, used a village-owned Ford F150 truck to transport firearms from the country, pulled over a car of ATF agents at La Linea's request, and tried to get ATF agents to return firearms to Gutierrez after they were seized, Spitzer told the court.

And on Feb. 10, Vega purchased thousands of dollars in body armor, boots, helmets and clothing, including a bulletproof vest for a La Linea leader, whose name was not mentioned in court.

Vega had previously pleaded not guilty to taking part in the conspiracy, in which he and his co-defendants allegedly purchased about 200 firearms - including AK-47-type pistols, weapons resembling AK-47 rifles, but with shorter barrels and without rear stocks, and American Tactical 9 mm caliber pistols - from Chaparral Guns in Chaparral and smuggled them to members of the Juárez-based La Linea cartel between January 2010 and March 2011.

In raids, law enforcement seized 40 of the AK-47 type pistols, more than 1,500 rounds of ammunition and 30 high-capacity magazines before they crossed the border, and found another 12 firearms in Mexico that were traced back to the defendants. Three others were found on three dead individuals in an SUV in Juárez, and others were found at a narcotics bust there, according to federal prosecutors

Former police chief Angelo Vega faces up to 35 years in prison and a $750,000 fine. The village's former mayor- Eddie Espinoza- and village trustee- Blas Gutierrez- have already pleaded guilty for their role in the weapons smuggling case.

Since the arrests, the small 4-man police department has been disbanded and the area is patrolled now by the Luna County Sheriff's Department.

Something to Fret Over: Feds Raid and Shut Down Gibson Guitars Over Imported Wood- Rival Company & Democrat Donors Untouched

Country singer Kellie Pickler flaunting contraband Gibson acoustic guitar at 42nd CMA awards in Nashville- Marsaili McGrath/Getty Images Entertainment

On Thursday, Aug 24th, agents from the US Fish & Wildlife Service raided Gibson Guitar corporation's Nashville, TN facilities, seizing massive quantities of wood and unfinished guitars. This is the second such raid on Gibson's Tennessee facilities in less than two years- in November 2009 federal agents seized files, documents and Madagascar rosewood used in the fabrication of guitars.

At first blush, this appeared to be a case of regulatory busybodies arbitrarily singling out a particular business for scrutiny. Like the 2009 raid, Gibson CEO Henry E. Juszkiewicz insisted his company was in compliance with both US and international laws regarding the harvesting and importing of rosewood.

The most recent raid apparently centers around the Department of Justice's interpretation of an Indian law (reportedly if the wood was finished by Indian workers are required in order for it to be legal).

However, last week enterprising bloggers took a look at the political contributions Gibson CEO Henry E. Juszkiewicz made over the last few election cycles on watchdog site opensecrets.org. The guitar company's CEO gave over $12,000 in contributions to GOP candidates as well as the Consumer Electronics Association, a PAC that contributed $92,000 to Republicans (Although the CEA also gave more than $70,000 to Democrats).

When warrants as ridiculous such as these are issued and executed, there appears no other reason than because the company or individual at hand is being targeted, not because there is any sort of wrongdoing. As a company, Gibson is a legendary. They’ve done nothing wrong, except, apparently, deigning to have a Republican CEO.

The plot thickens, however.

One of Gibson’s leading competitors is C.F. Martin & Company. The C.E.O., Chris Martin IV, is a long-time Democratic supporter, with $35,400 in contributions to Democratic candidates and the DNC over the past couple of election cycles. According to C.F. Martin’s catalog, several of their guitars contain “East Indian Rosewood.” In case you were wondering, that is the exact same wood in at least ten of Gibson’s guitars.

The Gibson facility wasn’t raided over allegations of tax evasion, charges of embezzlement, or even something as drab as child labor. Not even close. It was raided over what the DOJ deems an inability to follow a vague domestic trade law in India (one that apparently the Indian government didn’t seem too concerned about enforcing) regarding a specific type of wood. Not illegal wood, just wood with obscenely specific procedural guidelines.

It's worth noting that C.F. Martin & Co has not had the same visit from the Feds that their GOP-donating competitors at Gibson have received twice in less than two years.

Keep in mind this is the same Justice Department that allowed American guns to be smuggled to Mexican cartels, decided to sue Arizona after their state legislature passed SB1070 and declined to pursue a voter intimidation and civil rights violation case against the New Black Panther Party after members were videotaped wielding truncheons outside a Philadelphia polling station in the 2008 elections.

With any other Attorney General aside from Eric Holder, I would simply assume this was a case of anal-retentive bureaucrats and regulatory busybodies attempting to prove their relevance. However, this is the Department of Justice under Holder, so it's very difficult to see anything aside from Chicago-style politics in play as far as Gibons and C.F. Martin & Co are concerned.

UPDATE 8/30: In an even more curious development, Doug Ross' Director Blue blog was among the first to detail the political donations from CF Martin & Co. For a few hours on Tuesday afternoon, the blog had disappeared altogether before reappearing later on. Not just the post on the Gibson raid, but the entire blog.

UPDATE 8/31: In an interview on KMJ radio on Wednesday, CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said that he was told by government officials that his company's legal troubles would go away if he used Madagascar labor instead of US Labor at his factory.

[Hat tip: Dana Loesch; Director Blue; All American Blogger]

Borderline Psychosis Update- Fast & Furious Twin in Fla?; PEMEX Files Suit Over Stolen Oil; If a Tree Falls in the Woods, did the Zetas Cut it Down?

NEW MEXICO The former mayor of the small border town of Columbus, NM pled guilty to multiple counts of weapons smuggling four months after his arrest.

Eddie Espinoza, 51, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, three counts of smuggling firearms from the United States and three counts of making false statements.

Former NM mayor admits to gun smuggling: krqe.com

Federal documents state the group smuggled more than 200 guns from New Mexico to the streets of Cíudad Juárez and Palomas, Chihuahua. The documents further state that at times the group used unmarked police cars registered toColumbus to smuggle the guns across the border. Agents had been following the illegal operation for more than a year.

Espinoza is the fourth person to plead guilty in this case so far. Earlier this month, the village board voted to eliminate the four-man police department as a cost-cutting measure. The Luna County Sheriff's Department will be responsible for patrolling the area now. In another development on the Columbus case, the El Paso US Attorney's office recently took over the case from the New Mexico US Attorney, although the Justice department has been tight lipped about the reasons behind the switch.

  ARIZONA: Recently leaked memos from the Arizona Deparment of Public Safety confirm that Hezbollah has established ties with some of the Mexican cartels in establishing smuggling routes and warn that the terrorist organization may be stockpiling heavy weaponry south of the border.

As evidence, it points to the 2010 Tijuana arrest of Hezbollah militant Jameel Nasr, who was allegedly tasked with establishing a Hezbollah network in Mexico and South America. The memo also recalls the April 2009 arrest of Jamal Yousef in New York, which exposed a huge cache of assault rifles, hand grenades, explosives and anti-tank munitions. According to Yousef, the weapons were stored in Mexico after being smuggled from Iraq by members of Hezbollah. The memo warns that consequences of partnerships between Hezbollah and Mexico's drug partnerships could be disastrous for Mexico's drug war, given Hezbollah's advanced weapons capabilities — specifically their expertise with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). It notes that some Mexican criminal organizations have started using small IEDs and car bombs, a marked change in tactics that indicates a relationship with Islamic militants

Hezbollah is already active in the tri-border/Iguazu region of South America where the borders of Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. Some experts, while aware of Hezbollah's presence in Mexico, claim that while the organization may have no immediate plans for attacking the USA, the terrorist organization raises funds through criminal activity in Mexico and the USA. FLORIDA: A possible counterpart to the ATF's Phoenix-based Fast & Furious has come to light in Florida in recent weeks. Guns from a suspected trafficker in Florida under surveillance by the ATF had begun turning up in Puerto Rico, Honduras and Colombia in 2010.

At the center of the operation is 63-year-old Hugh Crumpler III, a well-known Central Florida bass fishing guide and tournament pro. He and 10 others have been charged -- six of whom were in the country illegally. Nine, including Crumpler, are scheduled for sentencing next month in federal court in Orlando. The other two are fugitives and are believed to have fled the country. Crumpler, who lives in Palm Bay, has admitted to selling the guns and knowing most of them were going out of the country to places such as Honduras, according to court documents. Records show three guns Crumpler bought were used in crimes in Puerto Rico, one just nine days after he bought it. Another gun was used in a homicide in Colombia 66 days after he bought it.

The reports prompted a letter from Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R- FL9) to the ATF enquiring about the scope of Operation Castaway and whether or not the agency allowed any weapons to be 'walked' to Central America or Colombia.

NUEVO LEON: A few weeks ago, Reuters ran a special report titled If Monterrey Falls, Mexico Falls highlighting how the northern industrial center has largely been spared the bloody narco-violence spasming the rest of the country so far, but how that is changing. If there's any merit to using Mexico's main industrial center as a barometer, then Mexico's problems have only just begun, as the violence in the city has escalated with gunmen massacring 17 people at a bar in the city last weekend.

Monterrey, a major industrial hub, has seen a spike of violence since the Gulf and Zeta cartels began fighting for control of drug traffic there two years ago. The medical examiner's official said his office has recovered 17 bodies, including those of women, from the crime scene. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record. Police sources would not confirm the number of dead people with The Associated Press and referred the AP to local prosecutors, who are not giving an official account of the shooting. Federal police spokesman Jose Ramon Salinas said that high-powered weapons used in the shooting indicated it might have been a drug cartel confrontation.

The uptick in violence in Nuevo Leon could be attributed to violence from neighboring Tamaulipas spilling over. MICHOACAN: As the cartels have begun expanding their operations into illegal logging, one mountain village is barricading itself in an attempt to preserve the nearby old growth forests.

Masked and wielding rifles, the men of this mountain town stand guard at blockades of tires and sandbags to stop illegal loggers backed by drug traffickers. Their defiance isn’t just about defending their way of life; it’s one of the first major challenges to the reign of terror unleashed by Mexico’s drug cartels. The indigenous Purepecha people of this town surrounded by mountains of pine forests and neat farmland took security into their own hands last month after loggers, who residents say are backed by cartel henchmen and local police, killed two residents and wounded several others. “There is no fear here,” said one young man, defiantly peering out between a red handkerchief pulled up to his dark eyes and a camouflage baseball cap riding low over his brow. “Here we are fighting a David-and-Goliath battle because we are standing up to organized crime, which is no small adversary.” Nearly all residents in the town of 16,000 in the southwestern state of Michoacan spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns. The Cheran rebellion is one of the few examples of a town standing up to drug cartels since President Felipe Calderon launched his crackdown on organized crime in late 2006, sparking a national wave of violence that has killed at least 35,000 people. Most Mexicans are too frightened to openly fight back against gangs that have terrorized the country with beheadings and massacres. Some towns in northern Mexico have emptied as cartels move in. The rebellion in Cheran caught the attention of the federal government, which deployed troops and federal police last week to patrol the outskirts of the town. “La Familia has the heaviest presence in the zone. Everything indicates that it’s them because they have the biggest presence, but we can’t say for sure,” said David Pena, a lawyer who has been representing the community in negotiations for protection with the federal government. Disputes over communal woods — between those who want to log indiscriminately and those who subsist on forest products — has long been a source of conflict in southwestern Mexico. The federal government has stepped up efforts against deforestation, conducting raids and shutting down illegal sawmills. But rogue loggers have become more violent as they align themselves with drug cartels, said Rupert Knox, a Mexico researcher at London-based Amnesty International, which has investigated the crisis in Cheran. “Illegal logging has gone hand-in-glove with criminal gangs. They have moved into that sphere and controlled it with extreme brutality and corruption of local officials,” Knox said. The animosity came to a head in Cheran when residents captured five illegal loggers on April 15 as their truck attempted to smuggle out illegally harvested wood. Two hours later, a convoy of armed men rumbled into the town to free the detained loggers, accompanied by local police, according to Pena and Amnesty International. One Cheran man was shot in the head and remains in a coma. But the townspeople, through force of numbers, managed to drive out the gunmen. In apparent reprisal, loggers shot and killed two Cheran men and wounded four others who were patrolling the woods on April 27. Angry Cheran residents stormed the local police headquarters, seizing 18 guns. They swiftly barricaded the town, piling sandbags and tires beneath plastic tents at several checkpoints along the main road. Young men with rifles keep track of residents venturing out and question anyone trying to get in. Classes have been suspended at the town’s more than 20 schools, which draw students from neighboring communities because both Spanish and the Purepecha language are taught. Instead, young boys hang out at the barricades, covering their faces with handkerchiefs and pretending to patrol with plastic toy guns. “Everything is paralyzed out of fear that this gang might attack the children,” said a soft-spoken man wearing a white bandana and a black wool cap at a checkpoint. The municipal police dissolved itself. Mayor Roberto Bautista Chapina reported the guns stolen but has otherwise stayed out of the dispute, trying not to inflame tensions. He said the Cheran men attacked the police chief and grabbed his gun. Community leaders and Interior Department representatives met Tuesday in the state capital of Morelia and agreed on a long-term security plan, Pena said. The government promised to set up two bases outside the town for army troops and federal and state police, who will patrol the hills and forests and meet weekly with Cheran leaders. Residents will be allowed to keep protecting the town on their own.

Among many observers, this is thought to be the most direct challenge to the cartels since the reported last stand of rancher and businessman Don Alejo Garza last year. It's also worth noting that as an organization, La Familia is pretty much finished thanks to infighting and it's leadership on the run or imprisoned with the rest of the organization reconstituting themselves into the Knights Templar. ELSEWHERE IN MICHOACAN: Speaking of the Knights Templar, Mexican Federal Police have arrested the man they claim oversees killings for the young organization. Javier Beltran Arco- aka 'El Chivo'- was arrested along with two lookouts in Michoacan this month. Also seized were two pounds of methamphetamine and three automatic rifles. At the Lazaro Cardenas seaport, officials also intercepted containers from Shanghai, China carrying 44 metric tons worth of chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine. TEXAS: PEMEX, Mexico's state run oil company, has filed a lawsuit against nine companies in the US District Court in Houston, TX last month. The suit alleges that the nine companies and two individuals named in the suit have either willingly or unknowingly received oil stolen from PEMEX pipelines.

Pemex said the suit is intended to "combat the theft and smuggling of gas condensate from its facilities in northern Mexico," including tanker trucks hijacked at gunpoint in northern Mexico. The thefts involved dozens of tanker-truck loads. The suit does not claim any of the U.S. firms participated in the actual robberies, but says some knowingly conspired to ship the stolen goods, while others unwittingly handled them. "All of the defendants have participated and profited, knowingly or unwittingly, in the trafficking of stolen condensate in the United States," the suit says, referring to a mix of oil liquids produced as a byproduct of natural gas wells. "Some of the defendants knew, or at least should have known, they were trading in, or transporting, stolen condensate," the suit says. "Others were ignorant that they were purchasing stolen goods. In either case, however, the defendants took possession of Mexico's sovereign property without right or title. All defendants are therefore liable for their individual usurpation of Mexico's patrimony." The lawsuit does not name a specific amount of damages being sought, but argues that the sued companies are liable for part or all of the $300 million in oil stolen since 2006. Pemex has "lost large amounts of its condensate, at times approaching 40 percent of the production of condensate from the Burgos Field," the suit says. A joint U.S.-Mexico investigation in 2010 found that smuggled oil stolen from Pemex was being transported across the border and sold to U.S. refineries. The Mexican government has said drug cartel members and other criminals are responsible for many of the oil thefts.

This would not be the first time organized crime in Mexico branched out into the theft and resale of stolen natural resources as the value of said resources went up. PEMEX, for its part, has claimed that a crackdown earlier this year has led to a decline in the amount of oil stolen from the national oil company's pipelines, but the thieves have been switching tactics as well as allegedly employing the cartels to help them smuggle and sell off the stolen product.

Gangs are still believed to earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year tapping Mexico's vast, but largely unprotected, pipeline network We're seeing changes. They are tapping into (propane) pipelines. We've also found some double taps that the criminals use to inject water into the pipes to stop the detection of a loss of pressure," Pemex Chief Executive Juan Jose Suarez said during testimony before a congressional panel last week. Fuel thieves traditionally focused on stealing gasoline and diesel for sale on the local black market, but gangs increasingly have set their sights on crude oil. Pemex found 712 connections to its network last year, nearly double the number found the year before and five times the amount detected in 2005. Two crude pipelines were the most tapped nationwide last year with 191 illegal connections, up from only five in 2005. Pemex believes thieves siphoned off about 10,000 barrels of crude worth more than $700,000 every day last year. Officials say the crude most likely ends up with brickmakers and other industrial customers who use it as a substitute for boiler fuel. Privately they admit criminals may be smuggling the oil out of Mexico, given the relatively small size of the domestic market for industrial boiler fuel. Drug cartels, which extort protection money from fuel theft gangs who are often made up of current and former oil industry workers, are believed to provide the expertise to smuggle siphoned oil into the United States. Court papers indicate that Mexican and U.S. authorities believe the Zetas cartel helped one gang move up to $300 million in condensate -- a liquid byproduct of natural gas used to make plastics -- into Texas by bribing customs officials, using false transit documents and hiring middlemen to sell it to some of the world's largest chemical companies. A similar scheme with crude would be easy to replicate and hard to detect due to the huge size of the oil market. Pemex officials say the origin of the smuggled crude can be easily concealed by blending it with legitimately-obtained oil.

The companies named in the suit include Big Star Gathering LTD, F&M Transportation Inc., Western Refining Company LP, Joplin Energy LLC, Superior Crude Gathering Inc., Plains All-American [NYSE- PAA], TransMontaigne Partners LP of Denver, Colorado [NYSE- TLP], SemCrude LP of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and Saint James Oil Inc. of Sandy, Utah. MEXICO CITY: Another seemingly mundane avenue that various cartels have muscled into include movie piracy.

Led by the notorious La Familia and Los Zetas drug mafias, Mexican cartels now take a big cut of the hundreds of millions of dollars in bootleg disks sold in Mexico each year, according to U.S. officials and representatives of film studios and software manufacturers. “This is no longer a victimless crime. There is blood on the product,” said Federico de la Garza, managing director of the Motion Picture Association in Mexico City, whose own investigators work closely with the Mexican attorney general. Disk piracy and U.S. copyright violations are a challenge around the world, but in Mexico the sale of bootleg copies of “Toy Story 3” and Microsoft Windows XP are funding the powerful mafias whose relentless violence has left more than 35,000 Mexicans dead in the past four years. Mexico has become the pirate capital of Latin America, exporting so many bootleg movies to Central America, for example, that the major studios no longer bother to sell their products on the shelves there, according to industry watchdogs. And in Cancun or Monterrey or Tijuana, when you buy a bootleg Disney movie for the kids, it is as likely as not to bare a stamp that shows it was distributed by the Zetas (a stallion) or La Familia (a butterfly). Video piracy is ubiquitous in Mexico, where more than nine of 10 movie DVDs sold are counterfeits. Mexican authorities rarely seize products from street dealers or market stalls. U.S. officials in Mexico suspect many vendors give kickbacks to local authorities to allow them to operate.

While its likely that they aren't producing the bootleg DVDs themselves, the cartels usually make their money through taking over distribution routes and demanding protection money from vendors operating in territory they've taken over. BAJA CALIFORNIA: Mexican soldiers detained 58 people and seized an estimated US$160 billion worth of pot after stumbling across a massive 300 acre marijuana plantation in the northern part of the state last month. Mexican officials call it the largest seizure of marijuana on record and claim that the plantation had been operational for less than four months. Army officers said that the crop was discovered under canopies less than two miles off of Route 1, the main highway that traverses the Baja Peninsula. Although 58 people were taken into custody at the time of the raid, it appears that nearly twice as many people were working there. Although the territory was controlled by the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, that organization was one of the first organizations to have been undermined by President Calderon's stepped up attacks against the narcos. A spokesman for the Mexican Army's second region believes that Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman's Sinaloa cartel had a hand in setting up the massive plantation. TAMAULIPAS: At least 60 inmates managed to escape a state prison in Nuevo Laredo in a jailbreak that was thought to be orchestrated by Los Zetas, across the Rio Grande from Laredo, TX.

Seven prisoners were also killed during the escape, which the government said was preceded by a large-scale fight between inmates. Five employees of the prison, the Centro de Ejecución de Sanciones (CEDES), also deserted their posts. Thirty-five of the inmates were being jailed on federal charges. The escape marks the second time in eight months the city has seen a mass exodus of criminals from the prison. In December about 140 inmates escaped, which Cuellar attributed to a plan orchestrated by the Zetas to swell its ranks after suffering heavy losses throughout its ongoing battles against rival gangs and law enforcement. The sheriff could not confirm that today’s escape was part of a similar plan.

Between January 2010 and March 2011, more than 400 inmates have escaped from five prisons operated under the state's authority in Tamaulipas. [Hat tip: Correspondence Committee; Borderland Beat; Friends of Ours]

New York, Illinois Elections Officials Fail To Send Off Mail-In Ballots for Overseas Military Personnel In Time

According to a letter sent to the Pentagon by officials from the New York Board of Elections, absentee ballots for servicemen from all five boroughs of New York City as well as Putnam, Westchester, Erie and Niagara counties were not mailed off by the October 1st deadline.

The delay means approximately 50,000 people from New York City now in the military could miss their chance to vote because it can take two weeks for the mail system to deliver ballots to troops overseas. New York State allows for absentee ballots to be counted up to 13 days after Election Day, which is Nov. 2.

The delay also affects overseas voters from New York City's northern suburbs as well as Buffalo and Niagara Falls.

New York had initially gotten a waiver from the 2009 MOVE act because their primaries were relatively late (September 14), but on Wednesday the Justice Department brought a suit against the state of New York after it became clear that at least four counties missed the Oct. 1st deadline.

The Justice Department is also looking into similar reports from Illinois after the Director for the Illinois State Board of Elections Director said that not all of the state's 110 jurisdictions were compliant with the MOVE Act. Without the waiver, the ballots were supposed to be mailed by September 18th.

Now keep in mind that service members tend to vote Republican most of the time while the local, state and federal lawmakers and officials in jurisdictions that have been delinquent in mailing out the absentee ballots are universally Democrat- unelected Democrats in the Governor's mansion in both Illinois and New York, to boot.

So this more or less comes down to two possible explanations- the more sinister being that this is an effort by Democrat officials to disenfranchise uniformed members of the United States military. This would not be the first time the Democrats went out of their way to disenfranchise military personnel serving overseas [Just ask Houston, TX mayor (and Democrat gubernatorial candidate) Bill White- NANESB!]
The other, more 'benign' and plausible excuse would be sheer and utter jaw-dropping incompetence on the part of officials. In either instance, do you think that they've earned your vote?

[Hat Tip: Weasel Zippers, Lonely Conservative, Realwest at Correspondence Committee]

Obama & Holder Backpedalling From Civilian Trial for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?

After backing off of a Manhattan civilian trial for suspected 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Obama Administration and Justice Department may be backing completely away from the prospect of a civilian trial and have Mohammed go in front of a military tribunal.

Discussions on where to hold the trial have not concluded and the recommendation
has not been made formally to the president, officials told the Associated Press
on condition of anonymity.
The recommendation is expected to be put before Obama soon...

Look for detention facility for the trial to take place somewhere in Illinois as a favor to Obama's political allies and benefactors- this despite other states like Michigan practically begging for out-of-state prisoners to fill up nearly-vacant prisons in their state.