Free Republic

Defendant Alleged to Have Prohibited Financial Transactions Related to Drug Cartel A dual U.S.-Mexican citizen had her initial appearance in federal court in the District of Columbia Wednesday on charges related to her alleged involvement in five business entities designated by the Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) as providing material support to the international narcotics trafficking activities of the Mexican narcotics trafficking organization known as the Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG).Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Special Agent in Charge William Bodner of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) Los Angeles Field Division made the announcement.Jessica Johanna Oseguera Gonzalez,...

<p>An 18-year-old man is being held without bond on a capital murder charge after Houston authorities say he fatally shot two brothers in an ambush attack from a rooftop. Marlon Valdez was being held Monday in the Harris County jail after appearing before a judge a day earlier who denied bond for the Mexican national. Authorities say Valdez was atop an abandoned home Thursday and armed with a semi-automatic rifle when he fired on a group of people as they arrived to settle a lingering feud with another group. Police Chief Art Acevedo previously said the "coward shot these young people like they were deer." Authorities say brothers Josue and Maximo Aguilar were killed and two others wounded.</p>

MISSION — For some elementary school students, the familiar ice cream truck jingle apparently meant an easy way to buy drugs. Police are stunned that children in the third grade were buying pot from an ice cream truck driver, whom they arrested Thursday afternoon. The driver, police said, was selling $5 and $10 bags of marijuana to students coming out of O’Grady Elementary School at the intersection of Farm-to-Market Road 495 and Holland Avenue. Customers included third-, fourth- and fifth-graders. “I can’t visualize any of these kids that age smoking marijuana,” Mission police Chief Leo Longoria said. “It’s a scary...

SAN DIEGO - A Chula Vista man suspected of leading a methamphetamine trafficking ring that used juveniles to sell or smuggle the drug was in federal custody Monday after being charged in a two-count indictment, authorities said. Jorge Arreola-Gomez was among 19 people named in the indictment unsealed Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office alleging that the defendants used numerous couriers, many of them teenagers, to smuggle methamphetamine across the U.S.-Mexico border. An investigation led to the seizure of more than 140 pounds of methamphetamine, more than $25,000 in cash, a firearm and 20 pounds of pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant...

A driver who was allegedly drunk when he struck and killed a California Highway Patrol officer last weekend pleaded innocent to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, authorities said. Domingo Esqueda, 20, could face up to 16 years in prison if convicted of killing motorcycle officer John Bailey, 36, who was married and had four children. Esqueda was arraigned Tuesday in San Bernardino County Superior Court in Victorville. Authorities say Bailey was driving home to Adelanto Saturday night when he pulled over another motorist for investigation of drunk driving on Interstate 15 near Hesperia. Bailey was talking with the motorist on the...

A suspect is in federal custody after passengers say he threatened an infant and tried to charge the cockpit of an airplane en route to Honolulu. No air marshal was aboard, but seven passengers tackled and subdued him. Passengers say the man's strange behavior started just a couple hours after Northwest Flight 91 took off from Los Angeles. "He came up to first class several times, and at one point he really startled me... He came up to my left shoulder, and he got right in my face and he said something in Spanish -- he said something about medicine,...

(CBS/AP) Charges are being filed against the driver of a bus that caught fire near Dallas while carrying people fleeing Hurricane Rita. The driver is being charged with criminally negligent homicide in the deaths of 23 passengers.

ICE DEPORTS 116 MEXICAN NATIONALS ON WEEKLY FLIGHT Two men wanted on murder charges in Mexico were aboard this flight CHICAGO - Two men wanted by the Mexican government on murder charges were two of 116 Mexican nationals deported last Friday by U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as part of its weekly removals. Nearly half of those removed, 52, had criminal convictions for violations ranging from homicide and sexual assault to drug possession and burglary. This large number of removals in one week reflects the national trend of increased deportations as ICE pursues its objective of restoring integrity to...