Free Republic

The Italian mafia may have teamed up with the Islamic State to smuggle crude oil from the Middle East into Italy, an ongoing police investigation has suggested, according to The Times who cited a report by La Repubblica. The Italian daily noted that the police had found substantial amounts of Libyan and Syrian crude that were greater than some local refineries’ inventories, with sources connected with the investigation saying that crude, “should not have been there.” Yet the police have no evidence that the oil came from IS, or whether it came from another non-extremist group of traffickers, because the...

At least nine people died after being crammed into a sweltering tractor-trailer found parked outside a Walmart in the midsummer Texas heat, authorities said Sunday in what they described as an immigrant-smuggling attempt gone wrong.Thirty-nine were inside when rescuers arrived, and the rest were believed to have escaped or hitched rides to their next destination, officials said. Some of the survivors told authorities they were from Mexico, Homan said.[SNIP]...investigators were still gathering evidence from the tractor-trailer, which had an Iowa license plate and was registered to Pyle Transportation Inc. of Schaller, Iowa.

(CNN)Eight people were found dead in the back of a tractor-trailer parked at a Walmart lot in San Antonio, authorities said early Sunday.

LAREDO, Texas – Custom and Border Protection agents have located and seized nearly two tons of marijuana hidden in a shipment of lettuce. CBP said in a release that the seizure happened at the Colombia-Solidarity International Bridge on June 26, when an officer referred a tractor-trailer hauling lettuce for secondary inspection. After “a canine, non-intrusive and physical inspection” of the trailer, CBP said agents found and seized 5,754 packages containing a total of 3,707 pounds of marijuana. The marijuana had an estimated street value around $741,000. “This is truly an example of our CBP officers’ hard work, experience and dedication...

The deepest and most damaging penetration of the U.S. Defense Department by an enemy agent in recent history was pulled off by a spy working for the terror-sponsoring, drug-smuggling Castro regime. The spy’s name is Ana Belen Montes, known as "Castro’s Queen Jewel" in the intelligence community. In 2002 she was convicted of the same crimes as Ethel and Julius Rosenberg and today she serves a 25-year sentence in Federal prison. Only a plea bargain spared her from sizzling in the electric chair like the Rosenbergs.Promptly upon Montes’ conviction a Cuban spy named Gustavo Machin, who worked under diplomatic cover in...

DAMASCUS, Syria — First of two parts A Syrian trading company with close ties to the ruling regime smuggled weapons and military hardware to Saddam Hussein between 2000 and 2003, helping Syria become the main channel for illicit arms transfers to Iraq despite a stringent U.N. embargo, documents recovered in Iraq show. The private company, called SES International Corp., is headed by a cousin of Syria's autocratic leader, Bashar Assad, and is controlled by other members of the president's Baath Party and Alawite clan. Syria's government assisted SES in importing at least one shipment destined for Iraq's military, the Iraqi...

Three Turkish nationals — including a Montgomery County man — have been charged in federal court with conspiring to smuggle undocumented Turkish aliens into the United States for private financial gain, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Izzet Kurt, 53, of King of Prussia, Ozcan Kose, 34, of Rize, Turkey, and Oguz Kose, 35, of Rize, Turkey, were indicted by a grand jury --snip-- Upon the arrival, the government alleges, they were coached on how to avoid detection by U.S. Customs officials, and at times provided with fake IDs with the names of crew members.

TUCSON, Ariz. – U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Port of Sasabe arrested a Tucson man Wednesday for an alleged attempt to smuggle more than 100 pounds of marijuana worth an estimated $53,000.

A dozen current and former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and airport employees are facing charges related to an alleged cocaine-smuggling operation going back almost two decades. A federal grand jury in Puerto Rico indicted the defendants on February 8, and the U.S. Department of Justice announced the news on Monday. The defendants allegedly transported cocaine-filled suitcases through security at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Between 1998 and 2016, approximately 20 tons of cocaine made it through as part of the racket, according to the announcement. Drug mules would drop off the cocaine-filled suitcases at...

A career civil servant with that kind of money ought to be surprising, especially in lieu of his subsequent outreach efforts to proven Muslim Brotherhood outfits. UPDATE: During the years when Republicans controlled the levers of power, Johnson worked for a law firm that represented the Guantanamo Bay detainees — very vigorously. Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison attorneys went so far as to smuggle in materials to the detainees. “If I’d gotten caught passing war news to detainees,” one former DOD official said, “my security clearance would have been pulled.” This week has seen the release of many incriminating...

US Customs and Border Protection officers seized nearly two tons of marijuana packed in phony limes near the Texas-Mexico border last week, according to authorities. The 3,947 pounds of weed came through a commercial shipment of key limes in Pharr, Texas, on Jan. 30, officials said. The truck hauling the "produce" crossed the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge along the Texas-Mexico border near the Gulf of Mexico. Over 34,000 of the fake fruit packages were discovered by an imaging inspection system and narcotics K-9 team.

Senate Candidate Kirk has Links to Terrorism By MARC LEVIN An Austin Review investigation has revealed that U.S. Senate candidate Ron Kirk is employing an anti-Israel activist who has defended terrorist groups and is friends with American Taliban John Walker Lindh. The Review has also learned that Kirk has received numerous campaign donations from individuals linked with terrorism and anti-Semitism, one of whom also violated U.S. export laws by shipping sensitive technology to Libya and Syria. Kirk's recently filed campaign report shows payments to a Steven L. Hyland, Jr. of: $1133.22 for "payroll expense" and three separate payments totaling $638.30...

Smuggling illicit drugs across the U.S border is a lucrative business. From hiding hundreds of pounds of cocaine or marijuana in vehicles, funneling it through tunnels under fenced areas or shipping it across the Florida coastline, drug dealers based in countries like Mexico and Cuba are pretty inventive in finding ways to get their contraband past border agents and into the United States. So inventive, in fact, that U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported that over the weekend, drug smugglers in Mexico used an air cannon to launch a pile of weed across the border into the U.S. According to...

The weekend report of a German-owned, Ukrainian-chartered ship carrying weapons to Syria should raise questions and alarm bells.  Der Spiegel reported that the Atlantic Cruiser, owned by the German company Bockstiegel, had been chartered by the Ukrainian White Whale company to pick up Iranian-origin cargo in Djibouti.  White Whale said the cargo was "mainly pumps and similar things," according to the German shipping agent.  However, the ship was refused entry for refueling at the port of Limassol, Cyprus after the crew told the Cypriots that the cargo was "weapons and munitions."  The Cruiser tried then to sail for Tartus, Syria,...

A retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer accused of smuggling narwhal tusks across the border pleaded guilty Wednesday in U.S. District Court to 10 money-laundering counts. Gregory Logan, 59, of St. John, New Brunswick, smuggled 250 tusks valued at $1.5 million to $3 million into Maine in false compartments in his vehicle, prosecutors said. Narwhals are medium-sized whales known for spiral tusks that can grow longer than 8 feet. They are protected by the U.S. and Canada.

Full Title: It's a Jungle in Calais all right but the desperate migrants menacing our truckers aren't the real problem - it's the ones we never see that you need to worry about Authorities say the French port is a no-go zone at night. And when you've been 28 hours in the cab of a truck, getting in and out of France, driving through the night, you're left in no doubt they are right. Calais is bandit country. Lawless. Ungodly. Inside the endless gates and fences, you made it. You are safe. Outside, you are a target.

Corroborating what Judicial Watch uncovered years ago, a U.S. military intelligence report discloses that Muslim terrorists are being smuggled into the country through Mexico. The government calls them Special Interest Aliens (SIA) and Latin American smuggling networks are helping them cross the border, according to information obtained from a U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) Intelligence dispatch. Located in Miami, Florida SOUTHCOM is one of nine unified combat commands in the Department of Defense (DOD). It’s responsible for providing contingency planning operations and security cooperation in Central and South America as well as the Caribbean. The internal assessment on SIA smuggling has...

The recent spate of ISIS-inspired terror attacks in Turkey and subsequent attempted coup, combined with foreign fighters’ incessant attempts to enter ISIS’s shrinking territory have kept Turkey’s border with Syria, once dubbed a “jihadist highway”, at the forefront of regional security issues. Has Ankara responded adequately to the international community’s demands to bring its 911-kilometer border with Assad’s regime under control, or are smuggling and border crossings by militants a continuing threat? Gasoline smuggling Earlier this year, gasoline smuggling from Turkey to Syria received international attention after Russia accused the Turkish government of facilitating contraband routes across the Syrian border....

Recent Iraqi military gains over the Islamic State have dried up oil revenues for the terrorist organization by up to 90 percent, according to a report by Iraqi News on Tuesday. Security sources from the ministry of oil said ISIS had been smuggling at least 50 vehicles full of oil everyday from oilfields in Qayyarah and Najma. The two sites stand south of Mosul—the largest ISIS stronghold and the third largest city in Iraq by population. But new offensives against the terrorist organization have reduced the smuggling rate to five vehicles a day. ISIS’ prices for the smuggled oil, which...

Human traffickers, who are finding increasingly creative ways to shuttle Central American migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border, have begun to use the Uber ride-sharing service. On June 10, five vehicles carrying 34 Central American migrants were apprehended while traveling together between the northern Mexican states of Zacatecas and Coahuila, said Segismundo Doguin, a Coahuila state official at the National Migration Institute (INM). Four of the vehicles were linked to the Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] platform, Doguin said, but it was unclear whether the human smugglers had hailed the drivers using the Uber app.