US Drug Arrests Link Trafficking to Terrorism

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has unveiled several indictments it says demonstrate a “growing nexus” between drug trafficking and terrorism.
The DEA and a U.S. attorney in New York City Tuesday announced the arrests of four people charged with involvement in deals to sell illegal drugs in order to buy weapons for Hezbollah and for the Taliban.
Two people were arrested Monday in Bucharest, Romania, where they are awaiting extradition to the United States. Two others were detained in the Republic of the Maldives and have been transported to the United States.
The nationalities of the suspects were not specified.
One of the detainees is charged with arranging the importation of heroin into the United States in hopes of financing weapons purchases for Hezbollah. Two others are accused of involvement with the same conspiracy, arranging for the purchase of military-grade weaponry on behalf of Hezbollah.
The fourth detainee is accused of selling heroin to a DEA confidential source and arranging for the sale of six AK-47 assault rifles and an additional amount of heroin to the same source, who claimed to represent the Taliban.

 

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Drug Czar in completely over his head in scary new expanding drug war

Today, I was pleased to join my colleagues from throughout the Administration to announce the first U.S. strategy on transnational organized crime (TOC) in fifteen years. The Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime provides a comprehensive plan that will, in part, help us build on our progress to further reduce drug use in the United States and disrupt drug trafficking and its facilitation of other transnational threats.

Remember, this is the guy that declared an end to the War on Drugs, saying that we have to focus on treatment, yet who just hired a military general for Deputy Director of Supply Reduction.

And now the Office of National Drug Control Policy is getting heavily involved in major new expanded efforts to “Combat Transnational Organized Crime.” Really?

Not that he has a clue as to what’s going on there…

“You can read the full strategy (pdf) and a fact sheet on the strategy (pdf).”

Um, no. Those are links to the International Strategy for Cyberspace. Interesting, but has nothing to do with the ONDCP or transnational organized crime.

The actual strategy is available here, and it’s a doozy. A real ratcheting up of the international war on drugs and, following the UNODC lead, tying drug control to all international crime.

The vagueness of the language and the way drugs and crime and terrorism are conflated is quite frightening.

Along emerging trafficking routes, such as the transit route through West Africa to Europe, criminal networks are spreading corruption and undermining fledgling democratic institutions. Due to the enormous profits associated with drug trafficking, the illegal trade is also a way to finance other transnational criminal and terrorist activities.

To diminish these threats, we will continue ongoing efforts to identify and disrupt the leadership, production, intelligence gathering, transportation, and financial infrastructure of major TOC networks. By targeting the human, technology, travel, and communications aspects of these networks, we will be able to monitor and gather intelligence to identify the full scope of the TOC networks, their members, financial assets, and criminal activities. We will continue ongoing efforts to enhance collaboration among domestic law enforcement agencies and our foreign counterparts in order to strengthen our ability to coordinate investigations and share intelligence to combat drug trafficking and TOC. Continued use of economic sanctions under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act) to pursue transnational drug organizations will enhance our ability to disrupt and dismantle TOC networks. The Kingpin Act also may be used to prosecute persons involved in illegal activities linked to drug trafficking, such as arms trafficking, bulk cash smuggling, or gang activity. Enhanced intelligence sharing and coordination among law enforcement and intelligence agencies, the military, and our diplomatic community will enable the interagency community to develop aggressive, multi-jurisdictional approaches to dismantle TOC networks involved in drug trafficking. [...]

By disrupting and dismantling the world’s major TOC networks involved in drug trafficking, we will be able to reduce the availability of illicit drugs, inhibit terrorist funding, improve national and international security, and bring TOC networks to justice.

Yep. Just wrap the entire crime, terrorism and drug issues into one major international war, with no understanding of the underlying causes or economic factors.

There’s also a reference to the administration looking to increase its asset seizure efforts, both abroad and at home. Not good.

 

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Arrests tied to major Mexican drug cartel

Ten people were arrested last week as part of a lengthy investigation related to a notorious Mexican cartel that brought narcotics into San Diego County, authorities said Monday.

A total of 23 people have been arrested locally since the probe began in January 2010, said Amy Roderick, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The ring was bringing large amounts of methamphetamine and other drugs into the county for distribution across the southeastern United States, San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said.

It had ties to La Familia Michoacana, a violent cartel based in Michoacan, Mexico.

The arrests are part of a national U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration investigation called Project Delirium. Nationwide, there have been more than 1,980 apprehensions.

The arrests have disrupted the cartel’s distribution chain, from street sellers to middlemen to leaders in Mexico, said William R. Sherman, acting special agent-in-charge of the DEA in San Diego.

The District Attorney’s Office has filed charges against 12 of the defendants. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego is prosecuting other defendants.

Locally, the drug seizures included more than 200 pounds of methamphetamine and nearly 200 pounds of marijuana.

Three of the defendants were arraigned Monday in San Diego Superior Court.

Roberto Duran Buenrostro and Francisco Saucedo were both charged with possession of methamphetamine for sale and transportation of methamphetamine, said Deputy District Attorney Allison Campbell Fomon. Mayra Arroyo was charged with possession of methamphetamine for sale.

All pleaded not guilty. If convicted, Buenrostro and Saucedo each face a maximum penalty of four years and eight months in prison. Arroyo faces eight years.

 

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Crime reporter said to be probing editor's death killed in Mexico

Mexican crime reporter said to have been looking into the recent execution slaying of her editor was found dead Tuesday.

The body of Yolanda Ordaz de la Cruz was dumped on a street in the city of Veracruz on Mexico's eastern coast, two days after she was kidnapped by unknown assailants, according to the newspaper, Notiver. Several other news sites, citing an anonymous police source, said she had been beheaded.

Her killing seemed to consolidate Mexico's status as the most dangerous place in the Americas to work as a journalist, although a swirl of contradictory information surrounded the death.

Ordaz de la Cruz worked as a police reporter at Notiver, the largest-circulation newspaper in Veracruz, a bustling port on the Gulf of Mexico where violence has surged between powerful crime gangs battling over narcotics trafficking, extortion and migrant smuggling.

The newspaper was still shaken by the events of June 20, when gunmen smashed down the door to the home of deputy editor Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco and killed him, his wife and his son. Lopez Velasco wrote a column in Notiver that often touched on Mexico's criminal underworld.

Mexico's main newsmagazine, Proceso, reported on its website that colleagues of Ordaz de la Cruz said that she was looking into motives in the slaying of her editor at the time of her own death and that she'd received anonymous telephoned threats.

But the top prosecutor in the state of Veracruz, Reynaldo Escobar Perez, said in a news conference that while Ordaz de la Cruz may have fallen into the crosshairs of organized crime, her slaying was not related to her profession. He did not expand on the statement and refused to take questions.

An operator at the newspaper offices said no one was available to provide further information.

The local e-consulta.com website said a message was left next to Ordaz de la Cruz's body that said, "Friends also betray, sincerely Carranza."

The message appeared to link her killing to the earlier slaying of her editor.

Three days after her editor's killing, authorities announced that the culprit was Juan Carlos Carranza, alias "El Naca," described as a 33-year-old criminal wanted for robbery and murder. Authorities offered a $260,000 reward for his capture, but Carranza has yet to be taken into custody.

The bodies of five journalists have been found in June and July in Mexico. In addition to the two slain from Notiver, they include a journalist from a small Veracruz town, another from the state of Sonora in northern Mexico and one from Guerrero state on Mexico's Pacific coast.

Mexico's National Human Rights Commission says 68 journalists were slain between the year 2000 and March of this year, although press freedom groups note that some of the killings may not be related to their profession.

The Sonoran journalist, Pablo Ruelas Barraza, who was shot six times June 13, was reported to have served prison time for small-scale drug trafficking.

 

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The drugs, sold under such names as Cloud Nine, Ivory Wave and Blue Silk, have been compared to cocaine and methamphetamine due to their addictive characteristics.

The American Medical Association House of Delegates adopted policy supporting a national ban on the synthetic drug commonly known as bath salts.

The drugs, sold under such names as Cloud Nine, Ivory Wave and Blue Silk, have been compared to cocaine and methamphetamine due to their addictive characteristics. They are known to cause paranoia, hallucinations and violent behavior and have been blamed for the deaths of several people across the U.S. They are still legal in most states, though many states have taken steps in 2011 to change that.

Some states have passed emergency bans on bath salts. A bill was introduced by Sen. Charles Schumer (D, N.Y.) in February to classify methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) and mephedrone, chemicals commonly found in the drugs, as controlled substances.



"The misuse of bath salts containing MDPV, mephedrone and related substances has led to deaths and hundreds of calls to poison centers nationwide," said Edward L. Langston, MD, then a member of the AMA Board of Trustees and a family physician. "Some states have already implemented emergency bans, and others have introduced legislation to ban these synthetic substances. The AMA's new policy supports a national ban on bath salts containing these harmful compounds so that they cannot be misused."


Dr. Langston
The AMA has broad policy condemning illegal drug use. In reference committee testimony on June 19, Hugh Taylor, MD, a family physician from Hamilton, Mass., and a delegate for the American Academy of Family Physicians, supported policy relating specifically to bath salts. He said AMA policy refers to "illicit drugs," and bath salts are not considered illicit because they're legal in most states.

John Schneider, MD, PhD, a delegate for the Illinois State Medical Society, said the Illinois delegation agreed that the AMA needed specific policy relating to bath salts. "We feel this happens to be a particularly important item at the present time and deserves specific support from the AMA," said Dr. Schneider, an internist from Flossmoor.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, issued a warning about the substances in February.

Schumer, in a statement he released when announcing his bill, said the Office of the Attorney General and the Drug Enforcement Agency are investigating the effects of the drugs. But "we cannot afford to wait while convenience stores, online merchants and smoke shops continue to sell this synthetic drug to anyone in the country, including teens and children," he said.

The American Assn. of Poison Control Centers said May 12 that poison centers across the country had taken 2,237 calls regarding bath salts in 2011, up from 302 calls regarding the substance in 2010.

Mark Ryan, director of the Louisiana Poison Control Center, said the substances were the worst he had seen in his 20 years at the center. Louisiana is one of the states that has approved an emergency ban on the drugs.



 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 
Meeting notes: Public health

Issue: Increased awareness by physicians and the public of sickle cell disease and its treatment is needed.

Proposed action: A Board of Trustees Report called on the AMA to recognize sickle cell disease as a chronic illness; to encourage educational efforts on treatment and prevention; and to support newborn screening programs, genetic counseling and new research designed to speed the clinical implementation of new treatment. [Adopted]

Issue: Exposure to potentially harmful levels of mercury is prevalent in the population and has been implicated in a variety of secondary health effects such as cardiovascular morbidity, leukemia and reproductive toxicity. Approximately 188 cement kilns emit more than 11,000 pounds of mercury each year.

Proposed action: Direct the AMA to support modern and strict monitoring of mercury emissions from cement plants. [Adopted]

Issue: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported an increase in bloodborne infection transmissions caused by the shared use of fingerstick and point-of-care blood testing devices.

Proposed action: Encourage improved labeling of devices to make clear that multiple-use fingerstick devices made for single patients are intended for use only on single patients. [Adopted]

Issue: Pills are not easily identifiable by patients or physicians, which has led to harmful and sometimes fatal outcomes.

Proposed action: Strongly recommend to drug manufacturers that they put a consumer-friendly, unique identifier on the solid dosage forms and recommend that publishers of medication lists include a list of the identifiers. [Adopted]

Issue: Advertisers often alter photographs to enhance the appearance of models' bodies. Such alterations can contribute to unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image, particularly among children and adolescents.

Proposed action: Urge advertising associations to work with organizations that focus on child and adolescent health to develop guidelines discouraging the altering of photographs in a manner that could promote unrealistic expectations of appropriate body image. The focus should be on ads that appear in teen-oriented publications. [Adopted]

Issue: Transgender patients commonly undergo hormone replacement therapy, during which they experience continuously elevated levels of testosterone, estrogen or other hormones over a period of months, years or even decades. Effects of short and medium terms of treatment have been studied, but the effects of long-term use are unknown.

Proposed action: Direct the AMA to encourage research into the impact of long-term administration of hormone replacement therapy in transgender patients. [Adopted]

Issue: At one year postpartum, almost 25% of women retained at least 10 pounds of the weight gained during pregnancy, according to a 2007 study. Additionally, more than half of all obstetrician-gynecologists surveyed considered their training on weight management to be "inadequate" or "nonexistent," said a 2006 report.

Proposed action: Encourage physician referrals of pregnant and recent postpartum patients for nutrition counseling. The policy also directs the AMA to advocate for the extension of health insurance coverage for nutrition counseling among such patients.

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