Posted on 04/24/2011 6:03:29 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
CULIACAN, Mexico — From age 6, each of the Gonzalez brothers learned to make bricks, trudging like nine little chicks behind their father every day before dawn to work in his dusty hilltop brickyard.
Three years ago, three of them in their 30s and 40s quit the backbreaking work, saying they had a better opportunity abroad.
Now, having escaped the Mexican drug war that leaves dead bodies on the streets of their city of Culiacan almost daily, the brothers face the gallows in Malaysia, standing trial on Wednesday for allegedly working in a factory where police found $15 million in methamphetamine. If convicted, they face Malaysia’s mandatory sentence of death by hanging for drug trafficking.
The case raises questions about a connection between their home state, Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexico’s drug trade, and a country more than 15,000 kilometers (some 10,000 miles) away that is a regional production hub for meth. While authorities say there is no direct evidence to tie the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico’s most powerful, to meth production in Asia, they wouldn’t be surprised by such a link.
“If you look at trends, then you see that these organizations are fanning out,” said a U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico who couldn’t be named for security reasons. “They are popping up everywhere.”
Only a month after leaving Mexico, the brothers — Jose Regino, 33, Luis Alfonso, 43 and Simon Gonzalez, 36 — called home during a family birthday party. Their relatives thought they were calling with congratulations. Instead the brothers told them they were under arrest.
The family hung up stunned, and searched for Malaysia on their globe.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
It appears not every country is a total sucker for immigrants like the U.S.
But let's keep doing what we've been doing, since it's working so well.
Are these Mexicans working legally in Malaysia?
Nope. Not even a little bit.
Boy, did they pick the wrong country to invade!
Well, they went to another country for economic opportunity and found it.
And after they swing from ropes, three more brick makers will take their places. Even a swift and certain death penalty for drug offenses hasn't thwarted Malaysia's booming meth industry.
yeah... bricklayers
US Border Patrol Weekly Blotter April 14--April 20
Border Patrol agents seized over 19,274 pounds of marijuana. Agents arrested eleven criminal aliens and eight gang members. There were eleven rocking incidents.
Alaska cop found to be illegal immigrant: Prosecutors
The Anchorage Police Department patrolman known as Rafael Espinoza is in truth a Mexican citizen named Rafael Mora-Lopez, said Karen Loeffler, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Alaska.
These guys are idiots on the Plane your customs declaration slip in Red at the bottom “Death to drug traffickers” and They mean it!
Doesn’t look like it.
Maybe the recuiters told them they would have new economic opportunities and have a swingin' time!
The War on Drugs is indeed a failure.
But in the alternative, what would you suggest?
Decriminalizing/legalizing drugs is not a good plan. It will lead to more mayhem in the streets and absolute “no-go” zones. It will look like those silly “futureistic” movies like “Freejack”
If they’d come here, they could have had free legal representation and an interpreter with possibly free room and board for a few years before being sent back home.
There was a time when drugs were legal in the US, a hundred years ago. Didn’t lead to chaos at all.
Remember, its the Washington Post....
Were they working there or not?
Typical WACOMPOST.
That's what happened when alcohol prohibition ended.
Everything was peaceful when Prohibition was in effect. All Hell broke loose when it was repealed.
The real problem the WOD has created is that there is so much money in contraband that the cartels are better funded and better armed than the governments they are under.
And it won't be that much longer before that is true here as well.
What's your solution to that? More of the same stuff we've been doing since the Anslinger Narcotics Act of 1937? Only a lot more?
This is not the same country as it was at the end of prohibition.
To suggest that complete repeal of the controlled substances act is not without repercussions is not going to cut it.
It’s not the same. Crack is not a bottle of Jack Daniels. LSD is not Courvoisier. And Ecstasy is not a bottle of Dom Perignon.
The things that were available 100 years ago were not products of our modern chemistry.
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