Open for business: Gulf Cartel keeps moving marijuana

McALLEN — Despite more than three years of top bosses getting arrested or killed, the Gulf Cartel continues to be a major drug smuggling group that seeks to fill the appetites of drug users nationwide.

Like arteries to a heart, Interstate 69C/Expressway 281 and I-69E/U.S. 77, which connect the Rio Grande Valley to San Antonio, are the main roads that the organization uses to pump a steady flow of marijuana into mainstream America. The plant — which is grown illegally in Mexico, packaged and then smuggled across the Rio Grande — fetches about $200 per pound wholesale in South Texas. But that pricetag can double when the drug passes the Border Patrol’s Falfurrias and Sarita checkpoints, and it can go for up to $1,000 per pound when it reaches metropolitan areas across the nation. That price is further increased when the drug is sold at street level. In an effort to curb the drug smuggling through the highways, U.S. authorities have set up permanent checkpoints along the two main arteries leading to San Antonio.  

TARGET OF INVESTIGATIONS 
For years, the Gulf Cartel has been the target of investigations aimed at impairing its operations, said Will Glaspy, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s assistant special agent in charge in McAllen. Through their work with Mexican military and law enforcement agencies, the DEA has played a key role in the arrests of numerous key members of the Mexican drug trade, including kingpins of the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, Glaspy said. While the takedown of a kingpin hurts the organization’s operations, by design the criminal entity will shift power to a new boss quickly, thus continuing the cat and mouse game. “We will continue to put pressure on the Gulf Cartel throughout investigations, making seizures of drugs coming into our country and currency heading into Mexico to deprive them of their proceeds,” Glaspy said. “We will continue targeting and making arrest on those individuals who are in the command and control structure within the cartel.”  

THE GULF CARTEL 
The majority of the drugs trafficked in northern Tamaulipas and South Texas are under the control of one criminal organization: the Matamoros-based Gulf Cartel, which traces its roots to the 1930s, when it primarily dealt with local rackets in Tamaulipas and liquor and tobacco smuggling. As part of its rackets, the organization found a way to make money from smuggling poultry, grains and other goods when a profit could be made by skimping on customs tariffs. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Gulf Cartel began shifting its operations into the profitable smuggling of marijuana and cocaine making South Texas a major player in the illicit drug trade. While most scholars cite 2006 as the year former Mexican Felipe Calderón kicked off his war on drug cartels, its effects were not felt at the South Texas border until late 2009 and early 2010 since the focus of that war fell largely on the bloody streets of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. By early 2010, though, the tide of violence reached the Tamaulipas-Texas border as the Gulf Cartel severed ties with its muscle, the Zetas, setting off a ruthless feud that drew the attention of the Mexican military.  

DOMINO EFFECT 
Since the split with the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel has undergone another significant split as the factions loyal to legendary leader Osiel Cárdenas Guillén and his brothers have squared off against the operational leader of the Gulf Cartel, Jorge Eduardo “Coss” Costilla. During that struggle four cartel lieutenants were detained on the U.S. side of the border as they sought to avoid the lawlessness of Mexico in favor of relative safety in Texas. In this time period, the U.S. saw a few cross-border incidents, such as a double execution in 2010 in Brownsville, a September 2011 execution along the expressway in McAllen, and in October 2011, a failed kidnapping in the City of Hidalgo and a botched kidnapping in rural Hidalgo County in which a sheriff’s deputy was shot. The internal rivalry continued until early 2013, by which time most of the known bosses of the Gulf Cartel were either dead or captured, but the criminal organization continues to be the leading smuggling organization in the area. Although Mexican authorities assume Homero “El Orejon” Cárdenas — the leader for the Matamoros region — is the de-facto kingpin, it remains unclear whether he is in fact the boss of the organization.  

STEADY CLIENTELE AND DIVERSIFICATION 
According to U.S. Border Patrol statistics, the Rio Grande Valley Sector has consistently rivaled the Tucson Sector in drugs seized. The fiscal year 2013 statistics are not yet available, but during that year, the agency saw an even bigger jump in marijuana and human trafficking, nearly doubling its apprehension rate, which came after drug trafficking organizations shifted their smuggling routes toward the Texas border. The second-most important money maker for the Gulf Cartel appears to be human smuggling, which RGV Sector statistics show yielded a jump from almost 60,000 apprehensions in 2011 to 98,000 in 2012 and to almost 150,000 in 2013. While the arrest of a top boss can spur a temporary decrease in production, criminal organizations quickly return to business to keep up with demand, said Alejandro Hope, a former Mexican intelligence official who is now the director for security at Mexican think thank IMCO. The demand for marijuana in the U.S. has climbed since 2007, when the number of users was at 14.5 million, to almost 19 million in 2012, Hope said. As long as the demand for marijuana and other narcotics remains high, drug traffickers will work to supply it. At the end of the day, the logistical structure needed to smuggle drugs across the border is not that complicated, but the volumes of drugs that are actually crossed are staggering and very difficult to quantify, Hope said.  

POWERFULL ALLIES 
The Gulf Cartel’s continued strength is due in part to its alliance with drug traffickers from the Sinaloa Cartel and the Knights Templar, formerly known as the Familia Michoacana. “Over time, there’s been a historical relationship between the Gulf Cartel, Sinaloa and the Knights Templar,” Glaspy said. “There’s always drugs that travel through the RGV that belong to other cartels. It’s all part of a business relationship.” Federal court records show an increase in prosecutions of methamphetamine smugglers, who are tied to the Gulf Cartel’s allies. The heavier presence of Sinaloan forces and their support to the Gulf Cartel in Tamaulipas is because of its leader, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman, who has a big interest in controlling the entire Mexican border, said George Grayson, a university professor at the College of William and Mary who has researched drug trafficking in Mexico and has written several books on the topic.

“El Chapo is playing nice,” Grayson said. “It’s out of convenience. Ultimately he is looking to control the entire border.”

Montitor

El Salvador 219 M90 Anti-Tank Grenades Maybe Slated for Los Zetas in Coahuila

MEXICO CITY - The President of El Salvador, Mauricio Funes, announced the discovery of 213 M90 antitank grenades, he said, were stolen from the Army and apparently were intended to Mexican cartel Los Zetas.

"All we know is that these weapons, as weapons of war, were destined for the  Los Zetas" through a Salvadoran drug gang recently dismantled, Saca said.

According to a news release released by the agency EFE, Funes said that it is likely that military or former military may be involved in the incident, "because somehow these weapons were taken from the Armed Forces."

The Salvadoran gang, Texis cartel he said, operated in the northwest region in Texistepeque, where last Tuesday, October 8, police and prosecutors found an arsenal in an underground storage tank in a house in the area of the Congo, about 50 miles northwest of San Salvador.

Last September the Salvadoran authorities captured somewhere between 12 to twenty Texis cartel members, including its top leaders, "that group is virtually removed, dismantled," said the president.

He added that the weapons were to be sent to Mexico via another network with "some connection with Salvadoran cartels, particularly Texis cartel"

This investigation will clarify how these weapons were going  to get there (to Mexico) through which network "with" some connection with Salvadoran cartels, particularly the Texis "he added.

However, he noted that the confiscation in their Central American country is still no guarantee that the Mexican cartels, particularly the Zetas cartel are operating and in El Salvador.

He warned: "All those involved in the operation of theft of these weapons of war from the armed forces in order to take them to a Mexican drug cartel (...) will be caught, will be prosecuted according to law."

The Los Zetas cartel is identified as one of the most bloodthirsty criminal groups in Mexico, also operates in some Central American countries. Consulted by El Universal, Lieutenant Colonel Luis Viera Santamaria, spokesman for the El Salvadorean Armed Forces said, "...that information from the investigation might point to Los Zetas as an organization that can use this material or might have an interest in it by the very nature of their structure allows them to make use of these grenades."

"not just any group can use them,"he said, alluding to the military origin of los Zetas as structure created by former members of the Mexican Army.  "It is a war material for the exclusive use of the Armed Forces

Viera continued, "The Attorney General of El Salvador requested assistance from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tabaco and Firearms (ATF), a Federal institution in the United States to determine the source of the weapons. The prosecution has asked the ATF to collaborate to determine both source and to help investigate in determining who would be the target." 

ElUniversal,  Lavoz

Four Mexican Drug Cartels Operate in Panama

Panama • Local media reported about four Mexican drug trafficking groups are operating in Panama, using the country as a base for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to Mexico and the United States.

The presence drug trafficking sicarios from Mexican drug cartels are not only detected on the streets of Panama but many have been left behind in Panamanian prisons for the crimes they've committed.

According to intelligence reports cited by the newspaper La Prensa, the Gulf cartel, Beltran Leyva, Los Zetas and Juarez Cartel are the drug trafficking organizations identified as present in Panama. The information indicated that there are 2,500 foreign prisoners incarcerated in Panamanian jails, between 90 and 100 are Mexican nationals, all charged with drug offenses, confirmed by Angel Calderon, Panama's Director of Prisons to La Prensa.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka La Barbie,  when captured in September 2010 in an operation in Mexico's capital said: "all the drugs we transported into Mexico came from Colombia through Panama." In 2007, Valdez Villarreal was mentioned in Panama for the first time when an intelligence report associated the operation with the Beltran Leyva cartel. At that time La Barbie was listed as "Boss and security coordinator" of drug deliveries from Colombia that were transported through Panama.

Public Ministry sources consulted for this report indicated that, at the request of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and Interpol, they had investigated in Panama between 2007 and 2008, to determine whether the Beltran Leyva had accounts or assets in the country, but the inquiries were fruitless.

The paper outlined several episodes in the last seven years in which there were crimes directly linked to cartel members. In one of these incidents,in 2007, a Sinaloa Cartel cell was dismantled. 16 Mexicans and 3 Panamanians were arrested with the interception and ultimate seizure of their boat loaded with 19.4 tons of cocaine in the Pacific Ocean.

A week after that large vessel seizure, authorities captured two other members of the cartel with 200 kilos of cocaine and 2.5 million in cash they were intending to bury in the residence in the capital.

While from Los Zetas, in 2009, they seized three cars with drug compartments loaded with cocaine crossing at the Paso Canoas border with Costa Rica. in 2010 four suspected Juárez cartel members were captured at the Tocumen international airport with drugs in their suitcases with false bottoms. 

Sicarios
Besides the activities of drug trafficking, Mexican cartels have also left the country samples of their brand of cruelty by eliminating those who betray or act contrary to their interests.

A local intelligence report  in late 2012, seen by La Prensa, said: "A group of Mexican hitmen were in Panama, and Mexican agents lost track them in Paso Canoas".
According to this information, suspected Sinaloa cartel sicarios " were looking for several members of the opposing Los Zetas cartel operating in Panama and Central America,"
According to the report, this group of gunmen also had several "jobs" in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Colombia and Honduras.

The agents believe that the Sinaloa cartel and Los Zetas have been taking their war to Central America and to meet this objective, each side tries to "disappear" people who washed their drug money.

Another report from the Homicide Division of the Directorate of Judicial Investigation (DIJ) of the National Police indicates, that between 2009 and 2012, 20 Mexicans were killed in Panama linked to drug trafficking cases.

Furthermore, an analysis of the Integrated Criminal Statistics broken down between 2007 and 2012, 4,099 homicides occurred in the country of Panama.

Of this total, 45 murders were credited to cases that involved drug trafficking, 127 mafia style executions, 135 were settling scores and 309 were attributed to gangs. Also according to this report, the homicide rate in Panama rose from 13.0 to 18.0 per 100,000 inhabitants during the same period of time.

FOUR GROUPS IN THE ISTHMUS
A recent report from the Attorney General of Mexico states that in the country eight drug cartels currently operating, who have partnerships in 16 countries in the Americas, from Canada to Argentina.

According to the Mexican intelligence document, there is evidence that at least four of these drug cartels have operations in Panama.

Research maps of Mexico's drug trafficking identifies the cartels as the Pacific, Gulf, Los Zetas, Los Arellano Felix, La Familia Michoacana, the Knights Templar, Beltran Leyva and Juarez.

The report notes that the Pacific cartel expanded its presence to 13 countries of the continent: Canada, United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina and Venezuela.

The Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas, are two of the most vicious and territorial organized crime groups who operate in nine countries: United States, Guatemala, El Salvador, Panama, Colombia and Bolivia.

Also documented was the presence of Los Zetas in Honduras, Argentina, Brazil, while there are traces of Gulf cartel in Belize, Costa Rica and Peru.

The rest of these groups also  contribute to criminal activities in some of these countries, but not the same level as the others. For example, the once-powerful members of the Arellano Felix cartel, are present only in the United States and Peru, while Juarez Cartel is in U.S. territory and keeps its alliances in Colombia, as well as Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and reaches to Argentina.

The Knights Templar, who emerged from La Familia Michoacan in 2011,does operates on U.S. soil, but they are also involved in Colombia, Costa Rica and Guatemala.
The tentacles of the Beltran Leyva stretch to their own network in the United States, and also Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama and Colombia.

La Prensa reported assassinations or executions in Panama in recent years are related to these criminal groups transferring some of their operations to Central America.  Panama is considered a transit country for drugs to move from Colombia through several routes to the United States.

Cartels and Gangs Involved with Drug Transit Through Panama

https://twitter.com/#!/K_Mennem 

Valle de Colombia Cartel
-Colombian cocaine trafficking group
-One of the most active Cartels in Colombia
-Is responsible for bringing much of the cocaine from South America to Mexico

FARC
-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia
-Ties to communist Cuba, Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, the ETA of Spain, and other Marxist movements
-Aligned with the remnants of the Tijuana Cartel and the Juarez Cartel for cocaine shipments
-Claims to only supply drugs to support their political movement
-Known for high profile kidnappings

Rastrojos
-Colombian cocaine trafficking group
-Partners with the Sinaloa Cartel and the Juarez Cartel for cocaine supplies
-Ariel routes from Eastern Colombia and Southwestern Venezuela for shipments
-Sea routes from the Pacific Coast of Colombia
-Former members of Norte de Valle who are partnered with Ejercito Revolucionario Popular Antiterrorista Colombiano. (Led by Pedro Oliveiro "Cuchillo" Guerrero and Daniel "El Loco" Barrera

Urabenos
-Colombian cocaine trafficking group
-Remaining members of army members of the AUC
-Positioned along the Panama border
-Aligned with the Gulf Cartel for cocaine trafficking

Los Paisas
-Colombian cocaine trafficking group
-3rd generation Medellin based group
-Beltran-Leyva organization in Mexico is a major cocaine buyer from the group

Cartel de Sinaloa
-Major Mexican drug trafficking organization
- Also known as the Sinaloa Cartel, Pacific Cartel, Guzman-Loera Organization, the Federation, and the Golden Triangle.
-This cartel was formed in 1989.
-El Chapo Guzman is the leader of the Sinaloa cartel.
-El Chapo has been featured in Forbes and other lists as one of the richest and most powerful figures in the world.
-The cartel now controls the complete border from Tijuana to western Juarez
-Feuds include fighting with the Tijuana Cartel, the Los Zetas, the Juarez Cartel, and the Beltra-Leyva Cartel.
-Claims are often made that the Mexican government favors the Sinaloa cartel over others. Recent claims have been made that the US Federal Agents have favored Sinaloa as well.

Los Zetas
-Created in 1999 by former special forces deserters who used their skills to work for cartels.
-A major Mexican and Guatemalan drug trafficking organization
-Split from their main employer the Gulf Cartel in early 2010
-They turned from an armed wing into a full fledged drug trafficking organization
-The currently control the Nuevo Laredo corridor into Southwest Texas.
-They have spread their territory stretching from the Texas border to Guatemala.
-They have seized control of much of the human smuggling industry into the US, from Central America all the way into Texas. They are believed to be responsible for the massacre of 72 Central and South Americans in northern Mexico.
-They are currently fighting with the Gulf Cartel mainly, as well as the Sinaloa and La Familia cartels.
-The group is a favorite target by the Mexican and US Government because of their ruthless behavior

Mara Salvatrucha - MS -13
-Central American/ Los Angeles street gang
-They have been known to be employed in Southern Mexico, and in the United States to carry out hits, as well as move large amounts of drugs onto the streets by cartels
-They are involved in human smuggling into Mexico from Central America.
-They also share drug distribution and smuggling into Mexico and Central America

Barrio 18 ( M-18)
-Central American / Los Angeles street gang
-Began as a Mexican and Mexican American street gang in LA
-Now more prominent in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala
-Bitter rivals of MS-13
-Ties with the Los Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel are suspected

El Perrones
-El Salvador drug trafficking organization
-Transit drugs from Panama to Guatemala
-Most prominent Salvadorian trafficking group

Texis Cartel
-El Salvador based drug trafficking organization
-Leaders are prominent and respected businessmen
-Profit off of controlling drug transit routes

El Mendozas
-Guatemalan drug and contraband trafficking organization
-Believed to have brought the Los Zetas into Guatemala as hired guns
-Highly connected to Guatemalan government
-Many members are believed to have fled to Belize

El Lorenzanas
-Guatemalan drug and contraband trafficking organization
-Ties to the Sinaloa Cartel
-Many members believed to be in Belize

El Leones

-Guatemalan drug trafficking organization
-Former cattle rustlers and car thieves
-The group was attacked by the Los Zetas in 2008
-Their territory is now believed to be run by the Zetas

Milenio  

hell on earth blog panama, For more on Central American countries and the drug war read

hell on earth belize, hell on earth ms-13, hell on earth mexican cartels what the hell is going on

La Familia Michoacana busted in Fontana, CA - 107 pounds of meth.

107 pounds of meth in Fontana -Bloomington
5 kilos of cocaine and a half pound of heroin

 Doug Saunders, San Bernardino Sun

A state task force arrested four suspected members of the La Familia Michoacana Mexican cartel and seized 107 pounds of methamphetamine, five kilos of cocaine and a half pound of heroin at a home in Fontana.

A task force known as Inland Crackdown Allied with the state Attorney General’s Office conducted the operation Tuesday night that netted the arrests, drugs and more than $27,000 in cash, authorities said.

Suspected cartel members Jesus Armando Cardena-Selem, 25, Fontana; Ramiro Gill, 40, Fontana; Sergio Mercado-Vasquez, 32, Fontana; and Juan Gabriel Angulo-Cabrera, 37, Fontana were booked into the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine for sale and transportation of a controlled substance for sale.


The undercover investigation that began in September identified the four men as suspected members of the drug trafficking organization operating in Southern California, authorities said.

Authorities say the four suspects in a Dodge Caravan and Honda Pilot arrived at a predetermined meeting place at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday in Bloomington where undercover agents conducted a “buy bust” sting, purchasing 10 pounds of “meth” and then arresting the suspects.

“A search warrant was served at a Fontana residence where agents discovered the rest of the drugs seized,” special agent Steve Utter said at a news conference in Riverside on Wednesday. “The total street value of the narcotics seized is over $5,916,800.00.”


Federal authorities are reviewing the case to determine whether federal prosecution is possible too, Utter added.

In August, federal and local law enforcements agents arrested eight people as part of a three-year investigation into the Mexican Mafia, La Familia drug cartel and the notorious street gang, Florencia 13.

U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California, Andre Birotte, said the August arrest was the single largest crackdown since the 1990s.

Authorities vowed to continue cracking down on the cartels to try and stop the drugs from being made and circulated in the United States.


“These drugs are poison,” said one undercover agent following the Wednesday’s news conference. “We’re the poison control, and we aim to stop this disease before it gets any worse.”
Daily bulletin

San Diego Flooded with Mexican Meth/Drug Detect Dog Detained

More than 70 percent of methamphetamine illegally trafficked into the U.S. passes through U.S.-Mexico border crossings in the San Diego area. That’s despite laws in both countries designed to crack down on the drug.

Customs and Border Protection agents at the San Ysidro Port of Entry face a tough balancing act. Facilitating international trade and travel on the one hand. On the other, trying to stop drugs and other illegal cargo from getting into the U.S.

In recent years, they’ve seen a dramatic increase in one particular drug. Methamphetamine seizures at San Diego’s ports of entry have risen by more than 300 percent since 2008.

San Diego has a long and troubled history with meth. During WWII, meth spread among many American service members stationed in the Pacific theater. When they came back to the U.S., primarily through San Diego, they brought their addictions with them.

And they helped spawn a domestic meth industry.

Joe Garcia, Deputy Special Agent In Charge for ICE Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, says “Gangs, biker gangs usually controlled the meth production and distribution, and Mexico used to provide the precursors.”

Precursors being the chemical ingredients that go into meth.

In the 1990s, San Diego became known as the meth capital of the country.

Rampant abuse led to several high profile crimes. There was the man who hijacked a tank and drove it down the highway. And the couple who scalded their four-year-old niece to death in a bathtub.

The damage caused by the highly addictive drug spawned a crackdown on domestic meth production. Garcia says with continued demand, and restricted supply, organized crime saw a big opportunity.

“Especially the Sinaloa cartel, has looked at this and said, “why are we the middle man? Why aren’t we producing this ourselves?”

Now, Garcia says, more than 80 percent of the meth seized in the U.S. is made in Mexico. And that’s despite Mexico’s own attempts to curb its production.

Much of that meth comes through San Diego in part because it’s home to the busiest land crossing between the U.S. and Mexico. More legal traffic tends to come with more illegal traffic.

But history and geography also play a role.

“One of the major criminal organizations working with meth has historically been based in the Pacific Coast area of Mexico, the Colima region, the so-called Colima cartel,” says David Shirk, an expert on Mexican drug trafficking at the University of San Diego.

In the late 90s, that cartel first established a major meth trafficking route north, 1,500 miles up the coast to the California border. Now, the powerful Sinaloa cartel controls the majority of the meth trade.

“So it makes a lot of sense that this would be moving through San Diego through the newly established, or newly consolidated networks of the Sinaloa cartel,” Shirk says.

Most meth comes across the border in passenger cars, in ever more elaborate hiding places. On a recent morning at San Ysidro, Customs and Border Protection Agents called in a mechanic to detach and then slice open the gas tank of a white Jeep Cherokee. Inside, they pulled out 23 packages of marijuana, some of them soaked in gasoline. In all, the stash weighed 52 pounds.

Heightened border security has made smuggling riskier, but the profits are extraordinary, says Assistant U.S. Attorney in San Diego, Linda Frakes.

“We’ve had expert testimony in our cases where the range is, at a conservative level, between $14,000 and $19,000 a pound when it comes into San Diego,” she says. “And that price pretty much doubles from what a pound is in Mexico to what a pound is in the United States just by crossing the port of entry.”

It’s very difficult to know just how much Mexican meth is making it through San Diego ports of entry, but public health workers say meth use in San Diego county is again on the rise.

Still, border authorities think part of the reason drug seizures have increased is because they’re doing a better job of detecting drugs.

The long lines at San Ysidro give drug sniffing dogs time to weave in and out of the cars and alert officers to hidden stashes. Powerful x-ray machines can spot packages hidden in secret panels and gas tanks.

Still, Agent Garcia is realistic about authorities’ chances of finally beating the traffickers.

“They’re not going to go away, they’re going to do something else. But we’re trying to get them to go away from meth because meth just ravages any user.”

Drug-Sniffing Dog Arrested in DEA Sting Operation By Beta Dad

Kane, a detection dog and four-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol, has been placed under arrest without bail for his alleged involvement in a drug ring that has been operating in Mexico and Southern California for at least three years.  Through his lawyer, the six-year old beagle has denied all charges.

 The arrest took place early Thursday morning at a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol checkpoint in eastern San Diego County.  The DEA, working on tips from informants, used a car confiscated in an earlier drug bust to transport seven kilos of methamphetamine through the checkpoint.  When Kane was directed to inspect the car, he did not give a “positive alert,” even though, as the DEA agent who conducted the sting reported, “the car was slathered in meth.”  Officers of the SPCA immediately detained the dog.

“Apparently,” said the DEA agent in charge of the sting, who wishes to remain anonymous so he doesn’t get whacked by meth-slingers, “the cartel had somehow trained Kane to recognize the vehicles they use to smuggle drugs and let them pass without alerting the human agents.”

Kane’s trainer, Border Patrol agent Samuel Diaz, was shocked at the turn of events, and said that he couldn’t imagine what the drug runners could have offered Kane to sway him, since he had always been a loyal and dedicated crime fighter.  “We always rewarded him with playtime and affection when he found drugs,” Diaz said.  “I don’t know what more anyone else could have offered.”
 
But witnesses who were familiar with Kane’s personal habits were not as surprised.  Truco, a pit bull from the El Cajon neighborhood where Kane grew up, told reporters, “Nah, man…Kane changed.  He used to be all square and shit; and then all of a sudden he was walking around with these hot bitches, eating wet dogfood…we all knew something was up.  Plus, he got like crazy fat in the last couple months before he moved.”

In June, Kane moved into a luxury condo in a gated community in Eastlake with his girlfriend Baily, a chocolate lab.  She could not be reached for comment.

 Inserteyeroll,Kuow,Fav-Meth-Head,Fronteras desk,Press Herald

Houston Feds Charge 52 with Drug Conspiracy

Federal authorities here have arrested at least 13 of 52 people charged in an alleged conspiracy to sneak drugs into the United States. The Houston-based indictment accuses them of smuggling a large amount of marijuana, as well as money laundering. 

Indictment

Authorities declined to comment Wednesday on the arrests, which took place in the Rio Grande Valley. An indictment in which the names of people who have been arrested are made public, and the names of those who have yet to be caught are redacted, shows the number of defendants.

Here is what the Associated Press is reporting:

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Thirteen people have made their initial appearances in federal court in McAllen, among 52 named in an indictment alleging a wide-ranging drug conspiracy.

Those who appeared in court Wednesday were all charged with conspiring to traffic drugs and launder money, as well as other individual counts. The indictment, which originated in Houston, was partially unsealed. The case is the result of a two-year investigation by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Its targets include command structure, smuggling and distribution for a drug-trafficking organization that moved drugs from Mexico through Texas.
 Arrests were made Tuesday in the Rio Grande Valley, Houston and border counties near Laredo. Some of those named were already in custody and others who remain on the loose are believed to be in Mexico.

chronicle

Mexico Drug Wars Don't Scare Hotel Investors:

By Nadja Brandt - Sep 30, 2013 11:01 PM CT

Mexico’s oceanside resorts and Mayan ruins are luring more visitors from abroad even as drug violence plagues parts of the country. The resurgence is spurring a wave of new investment in the hotel industry.

Hyatt Hotels Corp. (H) is opening two resorts in Mexico later this year, and Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. (HOT) is planning to increase its luxury portfolio there by 50 percent. Blackstone Group LP’s La Quinta chain also wants to add hotels in the country to meet rising business demand as Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) and other companies open new factories

Hoteliers and investors are counting on a continued surge in tourism across Mexico, where gains in hotel room rates outpaced increases in the rest of Latin America even as the economy slowed this year. Travel growth is being driven by a rising middle class, expansion by business and visitors from countries including China who are undeterred by the violent crime gripping northern Mexico.

“Security issues -- perceived or real -- travelers pay attention to, and they can impact travel,” Ricardo Suarez, a vice president of acquisitions at Stamford, Connecticut-based Starwood Hotels, said in a telephone interview. “But there is such strong economic growth in the country, it’s driving domestic travel and demand from the U.S. and, more recently, also from places like Europe, Russia and Asia.”

Hotel-room bookings for this year jumped 11 percent in Mexico as of July 25, compared with a 6 percent increase a year earlier, according to travel-services company Orbitz Worldwide Inc. (OWW) Growth in bookings in the Caribbean, Central America and South America, meanwhile, is slowing, Chicago-based Orbitz said.

Drug Violence
Travelers are heading to Mexico in increasing numbers even amid little relief from a years-long crime epidemic. In August, police found the decapitated bodies of 12 people who had been kidnapped from a Mexico City nightclub three months earlier. The most recent Mexican government data available, released in 2011, shows at least 47,500 people had been killed in drug violence in the country since former President Felipe Calderontook office in 2006 and vowed to crack down on the drug trade.

The figure may be higher, with the total number of violent deaths probably surpassing 60,000 since December 2006, according to data from the U.S. Department of State. Mexico had 24 homicides per 100,000 people in 2011, compared with 4.7 in the U.S. and 1.5 in Canada, according to the latest data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

“The number of kidnappings and disappearances throughout Mexico is of particular concern,” the State Department said in a July travel warning. It also cautioned tourists about gun battles between rival criminal organizations.

Coastal Resorts

Tourists receive massages in a beach of one of the hotels in San Jose del Cabo, in the state of Baja California Sur, Mexico Photographer: Omar Torres/AFP via Getty Images

Resort areas and tourist destinations in Mexico generally don’t have the levels of violence reported closer to the U.S. border and major drug-trafficking routes, the State Department said. In the warning, the department focused on 19 states and areas primarily in the northern and central parts of the country. Tourist resorts tend to be in coastal areas, such as in Cancun on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula or Cabo San Lucas on the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.


Tourists participate in a water aerobics class in the hotel pool at Pueblo Bonito Rose resort hotel located on Medano Beach, in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Photographer: Paul J. Richards/AFP via Getty Images

Violent crime has been one of a series of problems plaguing Mexico’s tourism industry in the past several years. Hotels, already affected by the U.S. and Mexican recessions as well as the drug wars, were hurt further by the outbreak of swine flu in 2009, said Fernando Garcia-Chacon, executive vice president at broker Jones Lang LaSalle Inc.’s Hotels & Hospitality Group.
Hotel Occupancies
In 2009, hotel occupancies in Mexico dropped to 50 percent and revenue per available room, an industry measure of occupancies and rates, fell to $49.73, the lowest level in at least seven years, according to data from research firm STR. In May of that year, occupancies slumped as low as 29 percent.

This year through July, occupancies recovered to an average of 61 percent, and revpar was at $74.49, according to Hendersonville, Tennessee-based STR.
Hotel demand in Mexico is increasingly coming from places not traditionally associated with travel to the country. Tourists from China are almost as numerous at Starwood’s Latin Americaproperties as those with a longer history of visiting the region, including Germans, Italians and the French, Suarez said.International visitors arriving in Mexico by plane rose 8.4 percent in the first seven months of 2013 from the year-earlier period, according to data from Mexico’s tourism ministry. Arrivals from China jumped 29 percent, while visitors from Russia increased 56 percent during the same period, according to the data. U.S. visitors made up 56 percent of total arrivals by air.

As travel demand has slowed in many parts of Latin America this year, “Mexico is helping mitigate some of this as it grows from increasing business activity as well as the return of the American vacationer,” Starwood Hotels Chief Executive Officer Frits van Paasschen said on a July 25 conference call.