Free Republic

Thirty-seven Republican House members are challenging the two-year prison sentence being served by a U.S. Border Patrol agent for his conduct in the arrest of a drug-smuggling suspect, while a dozen other lawmakers are pressing Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to explain his role in the botched “Fast and Furious” weapons investigation. In a letter Thursday to President Obama, the 37 members — led by Rep. Duncan Hunter of California — described the prosecution of Agent Jesus E. Diaz Jr. as “unfair and excessively disproportionate” and suggested it set a “dangerous precedent” that could place other agents and the...

The U.S. House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Subcommittee plans to hear testimony Wednesday on the frightening Mexican drug cartels who are attempting to establish strong footholds throughout the United States. GOP presidential candidates are speaking out against the drug cartels and transnational organized crime gangs who use extreme violence and threats at a time when the Obama Administration released its International Organized Crime Strategy. "Make no mistake," Perry said. "What we are looking at south of the border is nothing less than a war waged by these narco-terrorists. They are spreading violence in American cities and selling poison to our...

Aerial surveillance missions such as this one are part of Gov. Rick Perry's multifaceted law enforcement effort, which has operated along Texas' portion of the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico border for five years. Unique to Texas, and put in place because of what Perry said was inadequate enforcement by the federal government, the operation is designed to marshal the forces of dozens of state, federal and local entities in a cooperative "boots-on-the ground" offensive in border counties. The Republican governor has repeatedly cited the law enforcement effort as a display piece in his presidential campaign, while warning that drug violence from Mexico...

North Korea detains 2 Japanese for alleged drug smuggling BY YOSHIHIRO MAKINO CORRESPONDENT 2011/04/21 SEOUL--Two Japanese men are being held in North Korea for allegedly trying to smuggle narcotics into China while doing maintenance at a canned food factory in the northeastern city of Raseon. Sources said the North Koreans detained three Japanese nationals in March, but one was allowed to return home. One of the detainees is in his 40s from Tokyo. The other, in his 30s, is from Chiba Prefecture. North Korean authorities are, sources said, demanding a large amount of money to bail the men out. The...

Drug Travels From Africa To Indianapolis In 48 Hours. Most residents of Indianapolis, including many in the law enforcement community, have never heard of the drug called khat...over the past three years, hundreds of pounds of the drug have been sold on the streets of Indianapolis, mostly to people of African descent... Khat is a plant that grows plentifully in east Africa, specifically in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. Users chew the leaves of the plant to release a compound called cathinone, which is considered a "schedule 1" amphetamine and hallucinogen under U.S. law... traffickers used cell phones and sophisticated code...

Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization has become increasingly reliant on organized crime, including cocaine smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan's federal court. The charges filed against three alleged al-Qaeda associates by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan is the latest chilling evidence of a convergence between terrorism and organized crime. Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were snatched in Ghana on Wednesday by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting and shipped to New York, where they arrived on Friday to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and providing material support...

Crucial border security programs are on the chopping block under a government spending bill proposed by Republicans, who have long called for strengthening security along the notoriously violent and porous southern border. The hypocritical move essentially puts Republicans on the same page as Democrats on a contentious issue that has long been the source of partisan battles. President Obama’s proposed 2011 budget, ... reduces the number of Border Patrol agents along the Mexican border by 180 and cuts $226 million in funding for an electronic “virtual fence.” The Republican government spending bill introduced just days ago slashes $600 million from...

The Dutch government has frozen all contacts with Iran in protest over the hanging of a Dutch-Iranian woman. The Dutch foreign ministry said it was "shocked, shattered by this act by a barbaric regime". Sahra Bahrami, aged 46, was hanged for drug smuggling early on Saturday, Iranian officials said. Her family accuses Tehran of fabricating the case against her after she was detained for taking part in anti-government protests in 2009.

Remember about a couple of years ago when news of drug smugglers using so called “semi-submersibles” was all the rage? Those craft can almost completely submerge themselves to evade interception. Still, the vessels don’t go all the way underwater and can be spotted from ships or aircraft and have been intercepted a number of times. Since then, the high seas cat-and-mouse game between governments and drug smugglers has become more intense now that the cartels have built actual submarines. It sounds like these vessels are capable of staying underwater long enough to warrant the use of P-3 subhunters to find...

PHOENIX — Found tottering alone in the desert with their ribs visible and their heads hung low, horses play a back-breaking, unappreciated role in the multibillion drug smuggling industry.Mexican traffickers strap heavy bales of marijuana or other illegal drugs to the horses’ backs and march them north through mountain passes and across rough desert terrain. With little food and water, some collapse under their heavy loads. Others are turned loose when the contraband gets far enough into Arizona to be off-loaded into vehicles with even more horsepower. “We would pick up 15 to 20 horses a month, and many more...

The conflict that raged throughout the former Yugoslavia was met by a wall of silence when it came to important issues. These important issues apply to America and the United Kingdom supporting Islamists in a brutal civil war in Bosnia and then installing a new nation by ignoring international law in Kosovo. Also, is it credible to believe that the vast majority of major news agencies and national governments did not know about thousands of Islamists in Europe who were sent to slit the throats and behead Orthodox Christians? Shoeless Holbrooke sits with Muslim Albanian gunmen that ran the organ...

Following the fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen boating on Falcon Lake Thursday, Texas law enforcement agencies are asking visitors to the popular freshwater fishing spot to stay clear of the Mexican side of the international body of water. A 30-year-old man was shot in the head by Mexican gunmen, officials said, after he and his wife navigated their Jet Skis past the international boundary in what officials say was a sight-seeing trip to Guerrero Viejo, Tamaulipas. Authorities have not found the man's body, but he is presumed dead. Officials allege the attackers were armed Mexican pirates, who continued shooting...

EDINBURG — Six people accused of a February drug-related slaying faced capital murder charges Thursday morning. The sextet of suspects are allegedly part of a local drug smuggling group that ordered a hit of one of their own after he allegedly stole a load of marijuana delivered to a customer in February, investigators said. Hidalgo County sheriff's deputies found Gilberto Aguilar beaten and shot to death on Feb. 6 in a remote field north of Palmview. Investigators believe Aguilar was kidnapped, beaten with brass knuckles and fatally shot after he stole a load of marijuana. Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño...

By HOUSTON CHRONICLE Posted: July 27, 2010, 6:53 AM CDT July 27, 2010 HOUSTON — It took five hours and four minutes, but a suspected drug trafficker finally surrendered the spoils: 85 condoms of cocaine he allegedly swallowed and intended to smuggle from Houston to France. Housrou Kedji is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court Friday after being caught as he tried to board an Air France flight leaving Bush International Airport. He is charged with two counts of drug-trafficking. The 42-year-old citizen of the African nation of Togo gave up 2.2 pounds of his illicit cargo while sitting...

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.

U.S. border patrol agents Friday found a crude tunnel, apparently used for smuggling, underneath the concrete-lined Rio Grande River near El Paso, Texas. The discovery came as authorities were investigating suspicious activity in the city storm drain system and came upon a juvenile from Mexico with 200 pounds of marijuana.

West Africa is becoming a new source of income for al Qaeda. So the U.S. is attacking the problem with some unique tactics. That includes putting sanctions on two senior military commanders of the African nation Guinea-Bissau. Air force chief of staff Ibraima Papa Camara and former navy chief of staff Jose Americo Bubo Na Tchuto were accused of being "drug kingpins" and key members of a drug smuggling operation that moves cocaine from South America to Europe and the Persian Gulf, via Guinea-Bissau. The sanctions freeze any assets the two men have in the United States, and prohibit Americans...

ZAPATA - Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. says a Mexican Military Helicopter was seen crossing into U.S. airspace around 3:30 Sunday afternoon. A number of witnesses including a justice of the peace reported the helicopter as it hovered over Zapata County. The witnesses say the helicopter was flying pretty low. This is the second time this month a Mexican Military helicopter has crossed into South Texas. The first was a over Falcon Heights, about 14 miles from Roma. Witnesses there say the chopper hovered over a home that used to belong to a drug dealer before flying back to...

Lingerie model runs one of world's largest drug gangs, according to police Angie Sanselmente Valencia, a former lingerie model, is believed to be heading one of the world's largest drug gangs. By Ben Leach Published: 7:42AM GMT 24 Feb 2010 An international arrest warrant has been issued for the 30-year-old, who is suspected of recruiting beautiful women and using them to move drugs to Europe and North America. Many of these women are believed to be other lingerie and glamour models who compete in international beauty pageants, whom Valencia describes as "unsuspicious, beautiful angels". She is thought to be on...

Police seize 5,000 amphetamine-based ‘Yaba’ pills, often referred to as "Hitler's drug," at Ben-Gurion airport; “It allows Thais to work for two days straight,� senior police source explains. A dangerous and addictive drug that was originally developed by Nazi scientists to boost the endurance of Axis soldiers, and which causes users to become aggressive and violent, is being smuggled into Israel from Thailand in ever-larger amounts, The Jerusalem Post has learned. In Thailand, the methamphetamine-based drug is known as “Yaba� (crazy medicine), and in the West, it is often referred to as “Nazi Speed� or “Hitler’s drug.�

SANAA, 24 January 2006 — A Yemeni man repatriated last year from the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, appeared before a state security court in Sanaa yesterday charged with drug trafficking. Karama Saeed Khamsan, 33, was accused of traveling to Pakistan to secure the delivery of two tons of hashish for $533,000 for a Yemeni partner. The consignment was due to be smuggled across the Arabian Sea to the southern Yemeni province of Al-Mahra and then through the porous borders to Saudi Arabia. It was not clear from the court documents whether the shipment had been delivered. It...

Condemned Briton's 'Heartbroken' Family Beg For Compassion from China The family of Akmal Shaikh, the British man condemned to death in China, have made a last-minute appeal to the Chinese authorities to show mercy. By David Eimer in Beijing 28 Dec 2009 Akmal Shaikh, a British national who is facing the death penalty in China for possession of heroin Photo: AFP/GETTY Mr Shaikh is due to be executed in Urumqi at 10.30am Tuesday morning local time for heroin smuggling. "We're here to plead for clemency and we hope the Chinese government shows compassion. His life is in their hands now,"...

A "GENERATIONAL shift" has pushed demand for cocaine to unprecedented levels, giving Australia the dubious honour of being the world's most lucrative market for the illicit drug. International drug cartels are specifically targeting Australia, where a kilo of the drug now fetches $190,000. An internal report by the Australian Federal Police has warned that international drug cartels are now specifically targeting Australia for cocaine shipments. Seizures of the drug have grown by 20 per cent since 2003. In the US a kilo of cocaine is worth $30,000 to $35,000. The high Australian street value has sparked increased interest from overseas...

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — A 30-year-old man was arrested Thursday on a host of charges after a bag of cocaine “shot out” of his backside in a gas station, according to an affidavit released Friday. Investigators said they got a tip that cocaine was being transported in a brown Cadillac in the area of Interstate 95 and Midway Road, and investigators found the vehicle Thursday morning at a gas station at Midway and Glades Cut-Off roads. The affidavit gave this account: A man was pumping gas into the vehicle, and a drug sniffing dog smelled narcotics in the vehicle and...

New York, NY (AHN) - New York City Police busted a the manager of a Bronx pizza parlor that was delivering a side order of cocaine with their pizzas, calzones and heroes. They also arrested five other employees of John's Pizza on Westchester Avenue for delivering cocaine to customers, sometimes the drugs were hidden inside pizza boxes. But not all the drug sales were delivered to customers. Some customers came from as far away as Connecticut for take-out pizza boxes filled with up to $40,000 worth of cocaine to go. New York's Special Narcotics prosecutor reportedly said investigators conducted surveillance...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.fbi.gov/congress/congress09/mueller032509.htm Congressional Testimony Robert S. Mueller, III Director Federal Bureau of Investigation Statement Before the Senate Judiciary Committee March 25, 2009 Good morning Chairman Leahy, Senator Specter, and Members of the Committee. I am pleased to be here today. As you know, we in the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have undergone unprecedented transformation in recent years, from developing the intelligence capabilities necessary to address emerging terrorist and criminal threats, to creating the administrative and technological structure necessary to meet our new mission as a national security service. Today, the FBI is a...

Entire South African Airways crew arrested for drug smuggling - TWICE in one month By SAM GREENHILL 17th February 2009 The entire crew of a South African Airways flight has been arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling - for the second time in a month. Fifteen members of the flight crew, including the pilot, were detained yesterday at Heathrow airport after customs officers found five kilos of cocaine in a bag. They were being held by officers after the class A drug, with an estimated street value of £250,000, was discovered as the crew tried to clear customs following a...

The entire crew of a South African Airways flight have been arrested on suspicion of drug smuggling - for the second time in a month. Fifteen members of the flight crew, including the pilot, were detained today at London's Heathrow after customs officers found five kilos of cocaine in a bag.  They were being held by officers after the class A drug, with an estimated street value of £250,000, was discovered as the crew tried to clear customs following a 12-hour flight from Johannesburg. Bob Gaiger, spokesman for HM Revenue and Customs, said the drugs were discovered after the...

The men and women of the U.S. Border Patrol guarding the Southern land border come into constant contact with drug and human smugglers, criminals and migrants. Every so often, they even encounter Mexican military personnel making unauthorized incursions across the border into the United States. The most recent Mexican military incursion occurred last week on the Tohono O’odham Indian Reservation in Arizona. According to reports, the Mexican soldiers crossed the border in a military vehicle and held a Border Patrol agent at gunpoint before escaping back to Mexico. While the agent who was temporarily detained by the Mexican soldiers was...

What's worse, the cartels have now forged alliances with American street gangs, giving these drug cartels a deep reach into American life and through that alliance with our gangs that gives them control over most of the $300 to $500 billion American drug trade, the largest in the world. These cartels have become a global crime corporation with an international reach of illegal franchises spanning the world. The ability of these Mexican drug cartels to operate with complete disregard for the law on both sides of the border – trafficking in drugs, weapons, humans, terrorists, prostitution, and money laundering is...

Mexican soldiers and civilian smugglers had an armed standoff with nearly 30 U.S. law enforcement officials on the Rio Grande in Texas Monday afternoon, according to Texas police and the FBI. Mexican military Humvees were towing what appeared to be thousands of pounds of marijuana across the border into the United States, said Chief Deputy Mike Doyal, of the Hudspeth County Sheriff's Department. Mexican Army troops had several mounted machine guns on the ground more than 200 yards inside the U.S. border -- near Neely's Crossing, about 50 miles east of El Paso -- when Border Patrol agents called for...

State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has been indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to possess with the intent distribute cocaine, federal and state authorities said at a news conference at SLED headquarters this afternoon. According to the indictment, beginning in 2005 — before he was elected state treasurer — Ravenel conspired with Michael L. Miller to possess with intent to distribute cocaine. If convicted, Ravenel faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million. The Charleston Republican raised millions of dollars to unseat long-term Democratic incumbent Grady Patterson in November. He...

Everyone in Amado, Arivaca and other small communities south of Green Valley agrees that something must be done to stem the smuggling of illegal immigrants and drugs through the area. But most think it should be done closer to the U.S.-Mexico border — not 30 miles to the north, where the Border Patrol has proposed building a permanent checkpoint on Interstate 19. "There's this feeling that if you're against the checkpoint, you're against the Border Patrol," said Stewart Loew, a lifelong resident who manages his family's Agua Linda Farm near Amado. "That's not true. They have a very difficult job...

It seems the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, overseen by Johnny Sutton from his throne in San Antonio, has a PR problem when it comes to dealing with drug smugglers. In the high-profile case of the two Border Patrol agents in Texas who are now serving long prison terms for shooting a drug smuggler in the rear end, conservative media outlets are proclaiming that Sutton’s office showed special favor to the smuggler in order to ruin the lives of the agents. Likewise, in the House of Death mass murder case, an informant was shown special consideration...

Family members of agent Ignacio Ramos, California Minutemen and Arizona bikers protested in front of the federal courthouse Wednesday afternoon. In Washington, D.C., Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, released a vitriolic statement chastising President Bush for not pardoning the agents. And the U.S. Attorney's Office retaliated, issuing a lengthy list of what it described as "myths" surrounding the case, which has become a cause celebre among conservative activists. Former agents Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean surrendered at 1:30 p.m. to the U.S. Marshal's office inside the federal courthouse in downtown El Paso, officials said. They were handcuffed and will be...

*** NOTE*** Take your blood pressure medication before viewing this report... McCaul Releases Report on Border Violence (Tuesday, October 17, 2006) Today, U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (TX), Chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, released a report on border violence in the Southwest. The report examines the alarming rise in the level of criminal cartel activity, including drug and human smuggling, along the Texas-Mexico border and its effects on Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies. The report also looks at what steps are being taken to counter the threat, and the significance of these issues pertaining...

LA VILLA, Texas - A former police officer about to face trial on drug charges and five alleged members of a violent drug gang escaped from a privately run federal jail near the Mexican border by overpowering a guard and cutting through at least four fences, officials said Wednesday. More than 60 local and federal law-enforcement officers using helicopters and bloodhounds were searching near the East Hidalgo Detention Center, a facility owned by a Lafayette, La., company about 20 miles north of the border. A four square-mile security perimeter was set up around the area during the initial investigation but...

Illegal marijuana production is surging on the North Coast and across the state as a result of rising dominance of Mexican crime families over the state's underground pot economy. Scores of Mexican nationals are being sneaked across the border to grow, guard and harvest marijuana gardens inside California because tightened border security has crimped smuggling of Mexican-grown pot into the state, according to local, state and federal drug agents. Mexican-controlled operations now account for as much as 70 percent of all the marijuana cultivated in the state's rural regions, including the North Coast, the agents said. Agents say tightened U.S.-Mexican...

EL PASO, Texas - The union representing U.S. Border Patrol agents has set up a legal defense fund for two agents convicted earlier this year of wounding a suspected drug smuggler and then trying to cover up the shooting. The National Border Patrol Council, the union that represents nearly all Border Patrol agents, launched the fund this week to help former agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean pay for an appeal and provide some money for their families. The men were suspended without pay after their 2005 arrests and fired after a federal jury convicted them in March. Union...

Nearly two week ago, NBC’s Andrea Mitchell suggested hard-line Communist Raul Castro really did have a soft spot for capitalism. “Raul has been in charge of the military and the economy,” Mitchell explained to the August 2 “Today” show audience, calling Fidel’s younger brother “politically hard-line but more open than his brother to free enterprise, including foreign investment.” She might be on to something, after all. “Federal prosecutors in Miami were prepared to indict Raul Castro as the head of a major cocaine smuggling conspiracy in 1993, but the Clinton Administration Justice Department overruled them, current and former Justice Department...

Dug by hand with the help of rogue mining engineers to link warehouses on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border, it was the longest, deepest and boldest drug smuggling tunnel found to date. But before the Mexican gang had even punched through a concrete floor to emerge opposite a washroom in a distribution depot in Otay Mesa, California, a crack law enforcement team with expertise honed in the hunt for Osama bin Laden was on their trail. Little known outside police circles, the Tunnel Task Force came to light with the January 24 discovery of the passageway that was used...

PHOENIX, Ariz. -- Gov. Janet Napolitano said Wednesday that she signed an executive order to expand the Arizona National Guard's presence at the state's porous border with Mexico to support federal efforts to combat undocumented immigration and other border problems. The governor also said she would veto a bill in the Legislature requiring her to send troops to the border, but wants lawmakers to pass a proposal to pay for the expanded National Guard role. She said the Legislature's pending bill requiring additional deployment as a result of her declaration last summer of an immigration emergency in four border counties...

More than a ton of marijuana valued at more than $1.6 million was found near Jacumba after smugglers abandoned two vehicles at the border, according to federal officials. A U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent was patrolling O'Neil Valley less than a mile from the border around 8:30 a.m. Tuesday when he spotted a pair of SUVs traveling along a road, said Agent Kurstan Rosberg. The drivers turned around and went back to the border, where they abandoned the SUVs and climbed over a 4-foot-high vehicle barrier and escaped, Rosberg said. Agents found 2,055 pounds of marijuana in 102 bundles,...

WASHINGTON - A south Texas rancher, Texas sheriffs, an Arizona district attorney and other law enforcement representatives urged Senate committee members Wednesday to heed their warning: The porous southern border of the United States is a national security risk. Witnesses told Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, at a hearing on border violence that without cooperation from Mexico, combined with federal support from the United States, the situation at the border will continue to deteriorate. Cornyn focused the hearing on recent reports of Mexican military incursions into the United States, increasing border violence...

Traffickers find a perfect cover in legitimate cargo passing through NUEVO LAREDO, MEXICO - The five bridges spanning the green waters of the Rio Grande bustle with more than 21,000 cars, trucks and buses every day. This border town — and its American sister city across the river — see more than $100 billion in commerce rumble through every year. They're known as "Los Dos Laredos," and few dispute the towns are one of the great NAFTA success stories. But U.S. drug agents say that free trade with Mexico has had an ugly and unintended consequence: Just as legitimate business...

Mexican authorities on Friday announced the capture of a top Mexican drug smuggler wanted in the United States for cocaine trafficking and money laundering and who was included among the 40 most-wanted fugitives in the world. Oscar Arriola Marquez, leader of the Arriola Marquez cartel, was arrested on Thursday in the northern state of Coahuila, one of three states where the organization is based, Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said. “He is one of the drug traffickers most sought after in the United States” and among the 40 most-wanted fugitives in the world, Cabeza de Vaca said. Mexican authorities...

The U.S. Border Patrol has warned agents in Arizona of incursions into the United States by Mexican soldiers "trained to escape, evade and counterambush" if detected -- a scenario Mexico denied yesterday. The warning to Border Patrol agents in Tucson, Ariz., comes after increased sightings of what authorities described as heavily armed Mexican military units on the U.S. side of the border. The warning asks the agents to report the size, activity, location, time and equipment of any units observed. It also cautions agents to keep "a low profile," to use "cover and concealment" in approaching the Mexican units, to...

Police in Colombia say they have found a half-built submarine in a warehouse in a suburb of the capital Bogota (2,250 metres (7,500 ft) above sea level,). Police chief General Luis Ernesto Gilibert said Russian documents were found alongside the partially-completed vessel. He said the 30 metre (100ft) vessel would have been capable of carrying huge quantities of cocaine or heroin. He speculated that, once completed, the submarine would have been disassembled and taken by lorry to to Colombia’s Pacific or Caribbean coast. When police raided the warehouse in the suburb of Facatativa they found the building equipped with closed-circuit...

NEWARK - Nearly four dozen leaders and associates of an international criminal enterprise have been charged in six indictments - forty-three of them were arrested over the weekend in New Jersey and other states - with running a smuggling ring that brought large quantities of counterfeit cigarettes, millions of dollars in high-quality counterfeit U.S. currency and drugs into the United States through Port Newark and other domestic ports, U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Christie announced. The indictments, including three racketeering indictments, charge 57 individuals. Of those, several were arrested beginning on Friday as they arrived in Atlantic City to attend a...

    MOSCOW, July 27 (Xinhuanet) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin told the country's military and law enforcement officers Wednesdayto take preemptive actions in fighting terrorism, which he said remains a major threat to the world.     "Your activities in this area should be preemptive in nature," Putin told top military, law enforcement and security officers at a meeting in the Kremlin, the Interfax news agency reported.     "We perfectly understand how serious the tasks are that face Russia's law enforcement and security agencies," primarily police and interior forces, Putin said.     The recent attacks in London, Egypt and in Russia's Caucasus region show...