U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents laundered millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday. With the help of Mexican federal police officers, the DEA agents and their Colombian informant conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China [...]
Five alleged members of a Mexican drug gang were tortured by Mexican police after being detained in the killings of two agents and a car-bomb attack in Ciudad Juarez. The abuse has become typical of the Washington-backed approach Mexico has been taking in its “war on drugs.” After the tortured men confessed, police have now dropped [...]
The entire police force in Mexico’s port city of Veracruz was dissolved on Wednesday, as the national army and navy took over security responsibilities. The disbanding of 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees is part of an effort to root out police corruption and start from scratch in the state’s largest city. Mexico’s drug cartels have [...]
Mexican soldiers exchanged gunfire with suspected drug cartel members just south of the Texas border on Saturday, ending in the death of 11 gunmen and one injured soldier. According to the U.S. Department of Defense, the gunfight began when Mexican soldiers on patrol were shot at from a building in the city of Valle Hermoso, about 30 [...]
In order to fight Mexico’s criminal drug cartels, Drug Enforcement Administration officials are themselves becoming criminals. Millions of dollars of drug proceeds have been laundered or smuggled by undercover American narcotics agents in an attempt to gain information on the tactics of the cartels. The D.E.A has shipped illegal cash across borders to find out [...]
Mexico’s over-reliance on harsh law enforcement and militaristic approaches to the drug war has resulted in a dramatic increase in violence and an unaccountable police and military force that is responsible for widespread human rights violations. Human Rights Watch this week released a report providing evidence that Mexico’s security forces participated in “more than 170 cases [...]
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) Wednesday issued a subpoena to Attorney General Eric Holder and other Justice Department officials over the gun-trafficking operation, dubbed “Operation Fast And Furious.” “Top Justice Department officials, including Attorney General Holder, know more about Operation Fast and Furious than they have publicly acknowledged,” said Issa [...]
Hundreds of Mexican soldiers and federal agents have raided casinos in the city of Monterrey, days after an arson attack on a gambling house killed 52 people in a country in which massacres and beheadings at the hands of drugs gangs are all too common. Five suspected members of the Zetas drug gang have confessed [...]
Former Mexican President Urges Truce With Cartels, Amnesty
Gunmen burst into a casino in Monterrey, Mexico, Thursday night, spraying the carpets with gasoline and setting it on fire. 53 were killed and the death toll is expect to rise. Drug cartels in Mexico’s violence-plagued north often threaten business owners for “protection” payments. It’s not clear yet who is involved in the attack but [...]
