Posted on 02/03/2010 10:08:44 AM PST by AuntB
WYOMING -- A man arrested late last week as police confiscated 330 pounds of marijuana, as well as cocaine, from a home in a Wyoming neighborhood, may have Mexican drug cartel connections, court records show.
Francisco Javier Rivera-Hidalgo, 29, was arraigned Monday in Wyoming District Court on marijuana and cocaine delivery charges.
Court notes used by Judge Pablo Cortes to set bond indicated "Mexican drug cartel connections" and "extreme flight risk (immigration hold)."
Officers with the Metropolitan Enforcement Team, a local drug unit, and Wyoming Police searched two houses Thursday in Wyoming as part of an ongoing investigation.
G0203 Hidalgo.jpgFrancisco Rivera-HidalgoRivera-Hidalgo was arrested at the first house, 1125 Rathbone SW, where police found 11 pounds of marijuana, three grams of cocaine and two guns. That search led police to a second home, where a much larger cache of drugs was discovered.
Police found all the remaining marijuana at that house, as well as about two kilograms of cocaine. Officers estimated the drugs were worth about $500,000.
Court records show Rivera-Hidalgo, held on a $2.5 million bond, needs a interpreter to communicate for upcoming court hearings.
A man snowblowing a driveway near the Rathbone home said he knew Rivera-Hidalgo.
"I didn't have any idea he was involved in that," said John English. "He's a good guy. But you never know. "
English said he had worked with Rivera-Hidalgo years ago at a local factory.
This item came up in Medford,(sanctuary city, state) Oregon news....no mention of the arrested names, but they got the machete....
Just after 5:30 p.m. a intoxicated man called police saying he had been robbed by a group of people. One person among them was armed with a machete, Central Point Sgt. Jeff Britton said.
When police arrived at Pfaff Park, they found 43-year-old James Newell with a small cut on his hand.
He told police a group from a nearby home in the 200 block of North Seventh Street had robbed him.
He was taken to Providence Hospital in Medford to be treated for the cut on his hand.
Police are not certain what caused the cut. They did seize a machete found at the home on North Seventh Street.
"We have a detective on scene trying to piece together what happened," Britton said.
No one had been arrested late Tuesday, Britton said.
http://www.mailtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100203/NEWS/2030324
Note this is Wyoming, a city in Michigan, not Wyoming the state.
Noted.
MORE
Man accused of cartel murder-for-hire in Texas border city faces rare trial in open court
[snip]LAREDO, Texas (AP) The cherub- faced 23-year-old nicknamed “Cheeks” on trial in this Texas-Mexico border city was a midlevel thug working for drug cartel hit squads, authorities say, but the rare public airing of charges has offered a glimpse into the Mexican Gulf Cartel’s U.S. operations.
But Gerardo Castillo Chavez indicted in 2008 under the assumed name “Armando Garcia” and known as “Cachetes,” or “cheeks” in Spanish for the chubby jowls he sported in early photos before his incarceration took his case to trial, pleading not guilty and delighting border law enforcement officials who want the operations exposed.
The 15 others indicted with Castillo reached plea deals to avoid going to trial. All were accused of being members of the Gulf Cartel, which set up operations in Laredo and began battling in 2001 with rival Los Chapos for control of the lucrative transportation route that cuts from Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, through San Antonio, Dallas and into the Midwest.
Prosecutors accuse the cartel’s feared enforcers, known as “Los Zetas,” of killing at least seven people in Laredo during a seven-month spree in late 2005 and early 2006. The Zetas rented safe houses, moved drugs and money, and committed kidnappings and assassinations for the Gulf Cartel in Laredo, prosecutors and law enforcement said in interviews and court records.
In at least one killing, hit squad leader Gabriel Cardona Ramirez drained the blood of a victim to offer a toast to Santa Muerte, an unofficial saint considered the patron of drug lords, according to court documents. Cardona is serving a life term after pleading guilty to state and federal charges.
Reta was 13 when he was recruited by the cartel and has admitted to killing 30 people, saying in a 2006 police interview that he felt like Superman after a successful hit and was showered with cash and a luxury car by cartel bosses.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-drug-war-cartel-trial,0,1191530.story
Francisco Javier Rivera-Hidalgo...
Yeah, I think I read somewhere that "Francisco Javier Rivera" is the second-most popular boy's name in Wyoming, after "John"...
ping
Defund the cartels ... legalize drugs.
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