Free Republic

Iran this week restarted fuel exports to Afghanistan that had been disrupted by fighting between the Taliban and forces under the now deposed Afghan government, traders in Tehran and former U.S. officials say, with the Taliban now providing critical dollars to the sanctions-crushed Iranian economy from its lucrative narcotics operations. The burgeoning trade relationship between Tehran and the Taliban threatens to undermine key U.S. pressure campaigns against both. Iran has been cut off from the global market for the greenback by U.S. sanctions, and the Taliban’s willingness to trade with their neighbor gives Iran rare access to U.S. dollars it...

When Juan Granda ventured into Peru’s Amazon rainforest to score another illicit load of gold, he boasted that he felt like legendary Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. “I’m like Pablo coming ... to get the coke,” he told two co-workers in a text message in 2014. A 36-year-old Florida State University graduate who once sold subprime loans, Granda was no cartel kingpin. But his offhand comparison was apt: Gold has become the secret ingredient in the criminal alchemy of Latin American narco-traffickers who make billions turning cocaine into clean cash by exporting the metal to Miami. The previous year, Granda’s...

Narco-Villain “El Chapo’s” Arrest Packaged for Media Consumption Posted by Bill Conroy - March 1, 2014 at 4:25 pm Former DEA Supervisor Contends Guzman’s Capture Was An “Arranged” Event The recent capture of the notorious Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera, longtime leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa narco-trafficking organization, was not what it appeared to be, according to a former DEA supervisory agent who still has a deep network of contacts in Mexico. Guzman’s takedown, despite the media script portraying it as a daring predawn raid, was, in fact, an “arranged thing,” claims the retired DEA agent, Hector Berrellez, who led the...

If you wonder what’s wrong with Mexico–a nation that despite decades of economic and democratic reforms is often seen as a collection of stereotypes associated with drug-related violence–take a look into its judicial system. With one of world’s highest rates of impunity (estimated by Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission at 99 % in 2008), Mexico has a dysfunctional judicial system, marred by corruption, cronyism, incompetence and crime. Mexican Judges, notorious for letting criminals off the hook and releasing drug lords from prison, are rarely prosecuted or investigated. At best they are sanctioned or relieved from duties. Yet an exception to...

What good does it do for blogs like "the-tap" and others to bring you the truth if you question the very thing that yours eyes, ears, and mind are telling you?! I don't get it. Thank you Tap for giving me this outlet! I hope you don't mind me sharing this with your readers since it contains further VISUAL proof. It is not a very active blog so I wouldn't advise that your readers follow it expecting daily or even weekly updates. Look with your own eyes, people. As ludicrous as it sounds, Congress HAS placed a foreign King...

'El Chapo' and El Banco: What You Haven’t Been Told CRIME POLITICS-US media are celebrating the arrest of alleged Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, whose Sinaloa Cartel is thought to be the most powerful trafficker in the world and "a main combatant in a spasm of violence that has left tens of thousands dead in Mexico" (New York Times, 2/22/14). US Attorney General Eric Holder called the arrest a "landmark achievement": "The criminal activity Guzman allegedly directed contributed to the death and destruction of millions of lives across the globe through drug addiction, violence and corruption." But...

MEXICO CITY — The party that ruled Mexico for decades with an autocratic grip appears to have vaulted back into power after 12 years in opposition, as voters troubled by a bloody drug war and economic malaise gave its presidential candidate, Enrique Peña Nieto, a comfortable victory on Sunday, according to preliminary returns and exit polls. The victory was a stunning reversal of fortune for the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party, known as the PRI, which was thought to be crippled after its defeat in the 2000 presidential election ushered in an era of real multiparty democracy here. Buoyed by a...

Tombstone mystery in drug case San Bernardino County Sheriff's investigators are left with a mystery following the discovery of 24 cemetery headstones in the backyard of a Loma Linda home they were searching for evidence in a drug case Tuesday. One of the headstones was tentatively traced to Montecito Memorial Park in Colton, sheriff's spokeswoman Cindy Bachman said. But a spokeswoman for the cemetery's parent company said workmen found a headstone in place on the grave in question. Lisa Marshall, spokeswoman for Service Corporation International, said no markers were reported missing and that the company is cooperating with investigators. Deputies...

The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives sting operation named Project Gunrunner passed so many guns to border-crossing smugglers as bait to snag high-level Mexican drug cartel leaders — instead of intercepting them as intended — that one was used to murder U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December. Project Gunrunner had been whitewashed by a 152-page Justice Department Inspector General Review in November, before the Terry murder. But when bloggers including National Gun Rights Examiner David Codrea publicly exposed Project Gunrunner and its successor, Operation Fast and Furious, it delivered swift results. Immediately, half a dozen...

The Big Clubs in Mexico’s Drug War Aren’t Slipping Through the Gun-Show Loophole Another series of leaked State Department cables made public this week by WikiLeaks lend credence to investigative reports on gun trafficking and the drug war published by Narco News as far back as 2009. The big battles in the drug war in Mexico are “not being fought with Saturday night specials, hobby rifles and hunting shotguns,” Narco News reported in March 2009, against the grain, at a time when the mainstream media was pushing a narrative that assigned the blame for the rising tide of weapons flowing...

The U.S. government announced on Saturday afternoon that for the first time ever a fully operational submarine used by drug traffickers has been seized in the waters of South America. The craft, which could move multi-ton loads of cocaine, was seized in a jungle tributary of Ecuador leading to the Pacific Ocean by Ecuadoran authorities using Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence.

LOS ANGELES — The Southern California homes of dozens of white supremacists were raided Tuesday as part of a probe into a string of potentially deadly booby trap attacks targeting police officers, authorities said. Federal and local officers converged on 35 homes and took 16 people into custody in Riverside County for a variety of crimes, including weapons, narcotics and parole violations, Hemet police Capt. Dave Brown said. None of the arrests were directly related to the booby trap attacks that have plagued the small Hemet Police Department since New Year's Eve. "But we hope some (arrests) will lead us...

The Department of Defense requests $7.5 billion to support Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) for FY 2010. This represents an increase of 34 percent above the FY 2009 level of $5.6 billion. The Department also requests Congress continue to provide needed flexibility by appropriating these funds for two-year execution through September 30, 2011. The FY 2010 budget provides essential resources to maintain the accelerated growth of the Afghan National Army (ANA) force structure to a goal of 134,000 (122,000 trained and 12,000 soldiers in training) by December 2011 and to continue training and supporting the 86,800 Afghan National Police (ANP)...

The U.S. Department of Justice called the Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO) the “greatest organized crime threat to the United States” in their 2009 National Drug Assessment report. Last year the Mexican drug cartels killed close to 5,700 people. A war has been raging along the Mexico-U.S. border as DTOs continue to fight for territory. The conflict between rival gangs leads to near daily discovery of bodies by Mexican authorities and open firefights between the gangs and the Mexican police and military are bringing chaos to border towns. The conflict has also crept its way the U.S. through the involvement...

Mexico ousts hundreds of police commanders Government is cracking down on corruption By James C. McKinley Jr. NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE June 26, 2007 MEXICO CITY – Mexico purged 284 commanders from the top ranks of its federal police forces yesterday as part of the government's effort to contain corruption and halt an underworld war between drug traffickers. “We know Mexicans demand an honest, clean and trustworthy police force,” Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna said at a news conference. “It's obvious there are mafias that are acting to keep the situation from changing, to continue enriching themselves through...

Miami. Drug trafficking which starts in Colombia and passes through Venezuela on its way to the US and Europe is rising to "higher and higher levels" generating corruption that has reached the Venezuelan military, accuses the newspaper The Miami Herald. Confiscation of drugs in Venezuela has doubled in the last four years. In 2004 alone it reached 32 tons of cocaine and 12 tons of heroin, according to the newspaper, cited by DPA. "And there are growing accusations of corruption at the highest levels of the security forces, accompanied by an apparent official indifference", it said. The Herald quoted an...

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- Gunmen ambushed and killed an editor of the crusading weekly newspaper Zeta on Tuesday, the latest in a series of attacks against the newspaper's leadership. Masked gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire on Francisco Ortiz Franco as he left a clinic with his children, said Raul Gutierrez, spokesman for the state attorney general's office. Ortiz was struck by three bullets, Gutierrez said. The children, aged 8 and 10, were unharmed. In Mexico City, federal Attorney General Ramon Macedo de la Concha said he had no firm details yet about the incident, but he told reporters...

Ex-police employee guilty; Stole drugs and cash from evidence room"By Chris Conley January 21, 2004 When Kenneth W. Dansberry was running the Memphis police evidence room - and using his position to loot it of drugs and money - he grew so swamped with cash that stacks of it grew mold. Dansberry, 41, a former Police Department civilian employee, pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to a wide array of drug conspiracy and money laundering charges. U.S. Dist. Judge Bernice Donald, who received his guilty plea, called the magnitude of Dansberry's crimes "daunting." Fifteen alleged co-conspirators and two other property...

Driver's License Test for Schwarzenegger How he deals with the controversial law could determine whether divisive politicking returns. By Frank del Olmo Now that the recall has succeeded, the new California law allowing illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses will provide one of the first doses of political reality that Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger must face. How he handles it could determine whether his administration gets along well with the state's emerging majority or stumbles onto the same slippery slope of divisive ethnic politics that poisoned his mentor Pete Wilson's relations with Latinos. Schwarzenegger needs to rethink his opposition to the...

The Bush Administration seeks regime change in the wrong place — Iraq — while opposing regime change in the places where such a transition would make a huge positive difference — Russia, China and North Korea. Iraq's current regime is not close to developing nuclear weapons. Iraq is severely crippled, both militarily and economically, by international sanctions. If Saddam Hussein is removed from power, international sanctions will be lifted and Iraq will become a massive exporter of oil. Iraq has the second largest deposit of oil reserves in the world. Only terrorist Saudi Arabia has more oil than Iraq....