Free Republic

TIJUANA, Mexico – Mexican federal police arrested two suspected gang leaders Monday, delivering another big blow to a brutal drug cartel that terrorized the border city of Tijuana for several years. The capture of Raydel Lopez Uriarte and Manuel Garcia Simental apparently wipes out the existing leadership of the cartel headed by Teodoro Garcia Simental, who was captured last month. Teodoro and Manuel Garcia are brothers. Lopez, known as "El Muletas," and Garcia, known as "El Chiquilin," were arrested Monday in La Paz, a city in the southern end of the Baja California peninsula, said Amy Roderick, a spokeswoman for...

A second reputed Hispanic gang member was arrested in connection with the shooting death of a 14-year-old black girl that police have described as a hate crime. Jonathan Fajardo, 18, was believed to be the gunman who opened fire on a group of black youngsters on Dec. 15 as they stood on a narrow street in the Harbor Gateway area, police said. Cheryl Green was killed and two other girls and a boy were wounded. Green was not a gang member. Family members said she wanted to be a doctor. Fajardo was arrested Thursday at his home in neighboring Carson,...

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Carlo Gambino are long gone. Murder Inc. is out of business. Las Vegas has been so cleaned up it resembles Disneyland. And Havana? Forget about it since Castro took over. But Albert “Chinky” Facchiano, at 96, is still standing. And like Michael Corleone in “The Godfather III,” he is still very much involved in the family business, according to the FBI. At an age when most people are long retired and happy just to be alive, the reputed mobster was indicted earlier this year in Florida and New York. He is...

CHICAGO - The reputed mob boss known as "Joey the Clown" lived up to his nickname Tuesday, making wisecracks in court as he pleaded not guilty to conspiring in the slayings of 18 people. "Joey," whose real name is Joseph Lombardo, had spent nine months on the lam from federal agents before the hearing. Federal Judge James B. Zagel asked if he had seen a doctor lately. "I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was — what do they call it? — I was unavailable," rasped Lombardo, who appeared in an orange prison jumpsuit and leg...

CHICAGO - A reputed mob enforcer who has been the focus of a nationwide manhunt since federal prosecutors unsealed racketeering-murder charges against the alleged top echelon of the Chicago underworld was arrested Friday, the FBI announced. Frank "The German" Schweihs, 75, was captured without incident when agents swooped down on an apartment he had recently rented in Berea, Ky., a hilly area 40 miles south of Lexington. Schweihs was one of two defendants who slipped away just before federal prosecutors in April unveiled the long-sealed indictment against reputed Chicago mob boss James Marcello and 13 others in the FBI's Operation...

MEXICO CITY - Mexican agents arrested a former medical student who seized control of the remnants of the Juarez cartel, the country's attorney general said Monday, shedding light on a split within what was once Mexico's most powerful cocaine smuggling gang. Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, captured in a shopping mall in Mexico City on Nov. 11, is accused of overseeing an organization that moved up to 5 tons of Colombian cocaine a month into Mexico and on to the United States. Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said that since late 2004, Garcia Urquiza was responsible for as much as 20...

NEW YORK - A Taliban-linked drug lord who allegedly sought to poison U.S. streets with millions of dollars of heroin in a deadly "American jihad" has become the first person extradited from Afghanistan to face federal charges, officials said Monday. Haji Baz Mohammad, one of the world's "most wanted, most powerful and most dangerous" drug kingpins, had helped finance the Taliban by selling opium since 1990, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Karen Tandy said. "In return, the Taliban protected Mohammad's crops, his heroin labs, his drug transportation labs and his associates," Tandy said after a conspiracy indictment was unsealed accusing Mohammad...