Man casually leaves $1 million at hotel (Mexican visitor tied to money laundering)

San Antonio Express News ^ | 06/03/2011 | Susan Carroll

[Responsibility2nd]

A well-dressed Mexican man checked into the ritzy Westin Oaks Hotel last week, bringing with him a large, black rolling suitcase and a gym bag packed with nearly $1 million in cash.

For at least two days, the man came and went from the Galleria-area hotel room like any tourist, shopping in Houston’s mega-mall, dining in local restaurants and even taking in a movie, authorities said.

All the while, federal agents watched him, acting on a tip that the man was tied into money laundering for a drug trafficking organization.

As he went to check out May 26, federal agents confronted him in the hallway outside his room. They asked him to step into another hotel room where they’d coordinated their stakeout.

The man seemed “shocked,” and complied, bags in tow, said Michael Booker, an assistant special agent in charge with the federal Homeland Security Investigations in Houston. He didn’t act surprised to find the money in the bags, agents said, but he did play dumb rather well.

“He immediately said, ‘I don’t know anything about the money. It was given to me, and I was told to deliver it,’” Booker said.

And, offering agents little to go on, he walked away from the money and the hotel room. Booker said they didn’t have enough to hold the man.

“Unfortunately, it’s not illegal to carry around large sums of money,” Booker said. “We do have laws on the books for bulk-cash smuggling, but you have to meet certain criteria.”

Booker said agents suspect the money was laundered drug proceeds that were headed back to Mexico.

He said the man, who was in the U.S. on a valid visa, said the money was to be delivered to someone in Houston, but didn’t provide information on the drop-off. So HSI agents were left with the luggage, packed tight with $20 and $10 bills, totaling $995,020.

The cash will end up in the National Treasury Forfeiture Fund, which is used to support crime-fighting efforts, said Gregory Palmore, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman.

Booker said HSI agents were taken aback that the man was so casual carrying a million dollars. He had no locks on the luggage, and the cleaning staff came in and out of his room every day, Booker said.

“This was a well-dressed, clean-cut individual staying at a high-end hotel,” Booker said. “You never would have suspected it.”

[VRWCmember]

I think it is still possible to be pro-law-enforcement, anti-decriminalization of drugs, and at the same time embrace the bill of rights and ALL of the protections from government tyranny asserted therein.

You know, things like "... nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

It should go without saying that if the government cannot ESTABLISH that laws have been violated then it cannot seize property (including large amounts of cash). And suspicion or even "common sense" is not an adequate burden of proof.

The funny thing is you will call me a Ron Paul Losertarian on this thread while others will call me a statist for my position that we still need to enforce our drug laws.

[Dilbert San Diego]

This doesn’t pass the smell test.

They had enough evidence that this guy is involved in a drug gang or with criminals to do surveillance and have a stake-out. They had that evidence, but then don’t have evidence to arrest the guy? But they do have evidenc to keep the money?????

Something is left out of the story. How can you have enough evidence to keep someone under surveillance, waiting for your chance to arrest them, but at the moment of truth, he can just walk away because you don’t have enough to hold him?

At a bare minimum, what a waste of police resources, if they truly didn’t have the evidence they needed before they went on the stake-out.

[Dilbert San Diego]

This doesn’t pass the smell test.

They had enough evidence that this guy is involved in a drug gang or with criminals to do surveillance and have a stake-out. They had that evidence, but then don’t have evidence to arrest the guy? But they do have evidence to keep the money?????

Something is left out of the story. How can you have enough evidence to keep someone under surveillance, waiting for your chance to arrest them, but at the moment of truth, he can just walk away because you don’t have enough to hold him?

At a bare minimum, what a waste of police resources, if they truly didn’t have the evidence they needed before they went on the stake-out.

[Liz]

Had a million in cash on him that could not be accounted for? Coulda been a document broker---there's millions to be made off all the "impoverished" illegals violating our borders, needing documents to get on the US gravy train. Read on.

Illegal Manuel Mejia Ordonez ordered to repay $3M in Calif employment fraud
San Francisco Chronicle | June 26, 2010
FR Posted June 26, 2010 by artichokegrower

A former Marysville resident has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay back $3 million in fraudulently obtained unemployment compensation. US Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner said 31-year-old Manuel Mejia Ordonez was sentenced to eight years and one month in prison for conspiracy to commit mail fraud and identity theft. (Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...

QUESTION How does a citizen of Mexico make $3 million in unemployment claims? A. By establishing multiple identities. The fraudster, Manuel Mejia Ordonez, got eight years for conspiracy to commit mail fraud........and identity theft.

===============================================

Illegal Jose Madrigal, the Washington state rapist, had some 30 identities.

=================================================

REFERENCE Hayward, California woman charged in mass thefts of IDs
Henry K. Lee / Copyright San Francisco Chronicle. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Oakland Police Dept Mug Shot: Mishel Caviness, Hayward, accused of
running a large-scale operation devoted to stealing people's identities.

HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA -- A Hayward woman has been charged with numerous felony counts for allegedly running an identity-theft operation that created fake Social Security and California identification cards, checks and credit cards. Mishel Caviness, 40, was arrested after an investigation by Oakland police and the U.S. Secret Service.

The probe began when an Oakland city employee reported in January that someone was fraudulently cashing her checks, according to police Officer Ryan Goodfellow and court records. Caviness was identified with the help of surveillance-camera footage from Bay Area stores, police said.

A search of her apartment on the 21000 block of Foothill Boulevard in Hayward last week uncovered a printing operation capable of making fake checks and credit cards, police said. Also found were 900 blank credit cards, personal information belonging to as many as 1,000 people, blank checks and computers, police said.

Alameda County prosecutors charged Caviness with forgery, identity theft, forgery of a driver's license and grand theft. She has a previous conviction for welfare fraud and told police that she is disabled and unemployed. She is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin in lieu of $325,000 bail.

SOURCE http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/16/BAPP1JGPTT.DTL#ixzz1MotxGM5R Page C - 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

========================================

July 21, 2006----BERGEN RECORD, NJ

Texans accused of selling counterfeit IDs (impoverished illegals "here for a better life" pay several thousand $$$ for fake ID's)

Pelcastre brothers, Angel and Jorge, Dallas, Texas, were a walking threat to US national security, expert document forgers who, for a few thousand dollars, could give anyone a new identity, NJ L/E authorities said. The Texas brothers were a "one-stop shop" for a myriad of fake US documents, including birth certificates, Social Security cards, driver's licenses----for any state in the US------ passports and resident alien cards, said state police.

The Texas brothers turned a NJ hotel room into a business office and were readying a massive cache of fake Social Security cards for delivery to a local NJ identity broker. Officers happened upon two cars bearing Texas plates in a NJ hotel parking lot. Authorities wouldn't identify the NJ hotel by name for fear it would spark retribution. The Drug Interdiction Task Force regularly runs checks.

The Texas brothers were followed to a NJ office supply store nearby where they purchased computer supplies. Officers then followed the Texans to a NJ storage facility in Secaucus, NJ, where the Texans loaded several boxes into a car. One of them stood lookout. Authorities approached the Texas brothers when they returned to the NJ hotel and questioned them separately.

The Texas brothers consented to a search. Police recovered laminating sheets with built-in security features, pages of blank documents waiting for fake names and information, finished documents, computers and software to create the fake IDs. All told, the haul was worth about $500,000 on the street when sold to "impoverished illegals." Police also recovered $6,000 in cash, which was the first payment from a NJ fake document broker for a shipment of 500 phony Social Security cards. ####

[SJSAMPLE]

Suspicious, sure.

Proof?
I guess that’s where your reasoning falls apart.

The WO(S)D is a complete failure.
You use the word “surrender”, but really it’s just a matter of STOPPING the goddamned thing.

[Hulka]

My son is a Border Patrol Agent in Arizona and you just accused him of being in on a “scam.”

Perhaps you are unaware that each night he and his brother Agents wage war on the cartels. He and his peers are deadly serious as it is a deadly war, with the cartels getting more and more violent and migrating this violence north into America and increasingly directing that violence towards the Agents.

My son has been injured taking down smugglers, and he and his peers are angry at Washington over a noneffective policy of not building a wall and tying their hands. They are very much motivated to end the smuggling. They are doing a job that many drug-users in the states will never understand and frankly, the drug-users cry the loudest for the WOD to end, as the cost of their drugs would then fall.

Fact.

So your comment that the “COPS” are in on some sort of “scam” is a direct insult of the men on the border, fighting daily and nightly, to keep the violence at bay and to protect this great nation.

The nearly 20,000 Border Patrol Agents are dedicated and focused and unafraid as they literally fight the cartels and, at times, the mexican army. Some Agents die, some get injured (like my son), but nonetheless, they all are willing to go out there and do their very best as they fight the WOD.

They are in no way part of a “scam” and to accuse them of this is an insult to the men serving and to those that died fighting this war.

[VRWCmember]

You show me 100 people walking around with a million bucks. Heck you show me TEN people with a million dollars in cash - who are not drug runners

What if it's $5,000 instead of a million? What if it's $10,000? What if it is $25,000? How about $60,000? What about $150,000? At what point does the amount of cash money being carried demonstrate that it is drugs? And who gets to make that call? Just because I don't want to "wave the white flag" in the war on drugs does not mean that I am as willing as you apparently are to wave the white flag in the continuing war to preserve our liberty. May your chains rest lightly upon your shoulders.

[WOBBLY BOB]

smoking SWAT-created crater...

[SJSAMPLE]

Nope.
This kind of thing happens far too often.

The Cartel knows that the police have the cash, and they look at it as a very small cost of doing business. Much worse cost incurred when you start executing your loyal employees.

[eastforker]

Acting on a tip they were watching the suspect. That was so they wouldn’t be watching the other guy that was moving 30 million out of another hotel.

[Hulka]

Yeah. . .that is why they had a press announcement on this.

[Presbyterian Reporter]

It appears the Mexican Drug Cartel just made a payment to Obama for his undying loyalty and persistant effort to keep the borders wide open.

How many other contributions have the Drug Cartel made to politicians to keep the border open?

[count-your-change]

“Since I posted this, I get to be first before the “they should have let the man keep the money” comments.”

They should have let him keep funeral expenses at least. When he goes back and says the money was grabbed he’ll have to bury a family member.

[Jack Hydrazine]

You don’t arrest the man, just the money.

[Hulka]

Nope.

Kill him, as it is easy to get another dummy to run the cash and drive home the point to the next dummy better be careful when protecting their assets.

Cartels do not have loyal employees that they forgive.

Life is cheap to them and taking a life is nothing to the cartels.

[thesharkboy]

Never a reply about the constitutionality of confiscating property from people without due process. Amazing, isn’t it, that some on this site just overlook our natural, God-given rights when convenient.

[biggredd1]

They should have done a bait and switch when he went to the movie. They could have then gotten the drop off person. Bait and switch is the same thing anthony wiener pulled with a dildo.

[DBrow]

“Unfortunately, it’s not illegal to carry around large sums of money,”...but whenever we catch someone with it, we take it and the owner must take us to court to get it back, unless we threaten them enough.

[Jack Hydrazine]

“At what point does the amount of cash money being carried demonstrate that it is drugs?”

It’s $11.00! Didn’t you know? Why eleven freakin’ dollars?

That’s the cost of a pack of cigarettes in New York City.

http://www.publicradio.org/columns/marketplace/business-news-briefs/2010/06/a_new_york_city_pack_of_cigare.html

Can law enforcement confiscate the $11.000 you are carrying to go by nicotine-on-a-stick? Of course they can! They can pretty much do anything they want these days! They can even forfeit your life and your dog’s if they so desire and not be held accountable.

[Hotmetal]

“Acting on a tip they were watching the suspect. That was so they wouldn’t be watching the other guy that was moving 30 million out of another hotel.”

or We’ll tell you where the $1M is when the van with the real money gets across the bridge.