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Wednesday 23 November 2011

Mexico army seizes Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman drug lord's $15 million

 

Mexico's army seized nearly $15.4 million from the organization of the country's most powerful drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, officials said Tuesday, marking a rare financial blow to cartels. The seizure was revealed the same day U.S. border police revealed the third discovery in a week of drug-smuggling tunnel under the border with Mexico. In Mexico, the military said it found the cash was found in a vehicle on Nov. 18 in the northern border city of Tijuana and that it was linked to Guzman's operations. The haul marked the second-largest cash seizure by the military since President Felipe Calderon sent the country's armed forces out to battle drug cartels in 2006, the statement said. Some $26 million was captured in September 2008 in Culiacan, the capital of Guzman's home state of Sinaloa. Only on msnbc.com 'Grateful to be alive': Teen rescues woman from fire Mexicans cross US border to sell their plasma Chinese consumers say: Fix this fridge or sledgehammers coming Black Friday 'flash mobs,' sit-ins urged Look out kids, here comes the 'Wolf Daddy' Move to ban alleged insider trading faces pitfalls Will Gingrich's comments haunt him? About 45,000 people have died in the conflict in the last five years and the government has captured or killed dozens of top level drug smugglers.

Monday 21 November 2011

Dubai Police foiled a plot to smuggle 130kg of the drug in wooden palettes through Jebel Ali Port.


Smugglers busted with heroin haul
Dubai cops seize huge $18m stash bound for Europe in Jebel Ali Port


Heroin with an estimated street value of Dhs65 million ($18m) has been discovered in Dubai on its way to Europe.

Dubai Police foiled a plot to smuggle 130kg of the drug in wooden palettes through Jebel Ali Port.

General Abdul Jalil Mahdi, head of the Anti-Narcotic Department in Dubai Police, said: “We received information from outside the country that a huge drug smuggling operation heading to Europe was coming through Dubai, hidden in a container from Pakistan. “The container was first shipped from Qasim port in Pakistan back in July, it then went to Oman, Morocco and Nigeria.

“For unknown reasons the owners then decided to return the container and it came to Jebel Ali Port,” he said.

“We X-rayed the cargo which showed it was clean, but we were still suspicious so searched it manually. One of our men found the drugs inside. It was expertly hidden.” Mahdi said the drugs were destined for Europe and Dubai-based officers are now working with Pakistani authorities to track down the gang behind the operation.

“This is an international gang. We are cooperating with Pakistani authorities to arrest the leaders. It is one of the biggest drug smuggling operations uncovered in Dubai this year,” he added.

Dubai Police said just two days before the heroin was discovered they had received information from Spanish authorities, who had thwarted a sizeable drugs operation in the same way. “The X-ray machines struggle to detect the heroin because iron filings were also packed in the shipments. This operation is a new achievement for Dubai Police in their war against drugs,” Mahdi added.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, two Pakistani men appeared at Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance yesterday where they denied smuggling heroin which was found in a shipment of onions. The court heard that the men allegedly concealed the narcotics in sacks of vegetables in a container, which came from Karachi to Jebel Ali Airport in Dubai.

The case was adjourned.

Friday 18 November 2011

eight Iranians and two Pakistanis were sentenced to death for smuggling 2.5 tonnes of hashish.

In a landmark verdict by the Khorfakan Criminal Court on Monday, eight Iranians and two Pakistanis were sentenced to death for smuggling 2.5 tonnes of hashish.


Another Iranian accused was served with 10 years in jail followed by deportation. Three others, aged 11, 14 and 17, also Iranians, were ordered to be deported. They are the sons of the kingpin of the gang and owner of the boat. The verdict is open to appeal in 15 days, a source at the court told Khaleej Times.

Presiding judge of the three-bench court Ahmed Saeed Al Naqabi ordered the confiscation of the seized contraband and the boat the suspects had used to transport the hashish, which was hidden in bags of flour kept under fishing nets.

According to court records, the case dated to January this year when the Sharjah Police arrested the gang of 14 and seized the hashish after they attempted to smuggle the contraband through Khorfakan coast in Sharjah, which lies close to Fujairah.

Code-named ‘Eastern Storm’, the joint operation was conducted by the anti-narcotics wing of the Sharjah Police Department, the Coast Guard, the air wing of the police and the anti-narcotics section of Fujairah Police. “The seized drugs were packed inside flour bags and stashed at the bottom of the boat under the fishing nets,’’ police said.

According to police, they were tipped off by an informant that a gang in a boat laden with drugs was on their way to the UAE in an effort to find a buyer.

On landing near Khorfakan, a police official managed to make contact with a gang member and convinced him that he was keen on buying the drugs. Negotiations continued over many days until the kingpin was convinced of the offer and a deal was struck.

The suspects agreed to deliver the contraband at an appointed time and place. Meanwhile, the police tracked the location of the boat and a team launched a raid and arrested the suspects who gave up without putting up a fight.

The haul was the second biggest seizure of its kind after an earlier incident in 1991 when officials foiled a bid to smuggle in three tonnes of hashish. An international gang of smugglers was arrested in what was known as the ‘Khorfakan Operation’.

Information provided by Dubai Police about suspect transit passengers led to the arrest of two people who were trying to smuggle narcotics to other countries.



The first passenger, H.C.S., was an African woman travelling to Kuala Lumpur via Dubai airport with 2,590 grams of methamphetamine that she was hiding in the lining of her suitcase.

Malaysian authorities thanked Dubai Police for sending information about her which led to her arrest while she was trying to smuggle the drugs into Malaysia. Police had noticed she looked scared and confused during her transit stop.

A European who was transiting through Dubai airport was reported to the Kenyan authorities for acting suspiciously during his stay at the airport. M.L.U. arrived from Sao Paulo and was leaving for Benin via Dubai and Nairobi.

Alfredo Aleman Narvaez, aka El Comandante Aleman, a leader of 'Los Zezas' drug cartel in San Luis Potosi state, was arrested

Alfredo Aleman Narvaez, aka El Comandante Aleman, a leader of 'Los Zezas' drug cartel in San Luis Potosi state, was arrested by the army in Fresnillo as a result of a military intelligence operation. Mexico City, Mexico. 17th November 2011

Tuesday 15 November 2011

private jets waved through customs and immigration checks

Home Secretary Theresa May (Pic:PA)

Home Secretary Theresa May (Pic:PA)

THERESA May was fighting for her job last night after damning new documents fuelled the scandal of lax security at our borders.

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Leaked emails showed that thousands of private jet passengers were allowed into the UK without going through immigration or customs.

They also revealed the Home Secretary relaxed checks at airports on at least 2,500 occasions this summer.

And the Mirror can reveal passport applications are being secretly subjected to a controversial new “postcode lottery” trial scheme.

The High Risk Applications scheme is based on fraud statistics. Staff were given a list of postcodes to check against every new passport application or renewal. Applicants in areas deemed to be higher risk face several weeks additional delay in getting their passports.

In London, the only areas which get virtually no checks are postcodes that begin with WC and EC – the most central and prosperous areas. Meanwhile applications from women aged 50 and over are often waved through.

A source said: “It’s a classic Tory policy, and it discriminates against those they deem to be living in ‘poor’ areas.

“The whole thing smacks of elitism and snobbery. A lot of people are very unhappy with the process.”

These revelations come on the day ousted Border Agency official Brodie Clark gives evidence to MPs on how he was pushed out by Mrs May.

Brodie Clark (Pic: DM)

Borders boss Brodie Clark

Labour yesterday released the leaked emails showing UK Border Agency staff were told NOT to check passengers arriving in the UK by private jets – at the instruction of the Home Office.

From March 2, 2011, anyone on a private charter did not have to show their passports and could avoid customs. Figures show there are between 80,000 to 90,000 private flights each year, carrying two to three passengers.

The emails show an unnamed official at Durham Tees Valley Airport warned the UK Border Agency that the policy was putting the UK’s security at risk.

He said that staff “continue to feel uneasy about an instruction that is at odds with national policy and is creating an unnecessary gap in border security which, if exploited by the unscrupulous, could bring the Agency into disrepute”.

He also warned there was no way of checking if the number of people arriving in the country was the same as they had been advised.

His manager at the UK Border Agency’s Border Force said the “no checks policy” was part of a “new national strategy”.

In a further blow to Mrs May, other leaked documents showed how Britain’s borders were abandoned on hundreds of occasions over summer.

The Home Secretary ordered a pilot scheme, which ran from July to October this year, under which Border Agency staff could relax checks on passengers. It meant people arriving from the European Economic Area did not have the biometric chip in their passport checked, while children under 18 could be waved through.

These “level 2 checks” were used on at least 2,600 occasions. The relaxed regime was used to speed up queues at immigration control.

According to an email from a Border Agency Border Force official, the checks were relaxed 100 times in the first week of the trial and more than 260 times in the sixth week.

We revealed last week that officials warned Mrs May the easing of border checks could lead to a rise in child trafficking.

Mrs May admits to bringing in the pilot scheme without informing MPs. But she claims that Mr Clark went further by extending it to include passengers from outside Europe.

Mr Clark, who resigned last week, denies he acted without ministerial authority. His testimony to the Commons select committee could prove very damaging to Mrs May.

Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said last night: “This is startling new information about the scale of the borders fiasco.

“Ten days on there are even more questions than answers about what on earth was going on at our borders.

“Last week the Home Secretary told us no one had been waived through without checks. But these documents show passengers on private flights weren’t even seen.

"Last week the Home Office wouldn’t admit to having figures about how often checks were downgraded. Now we know those figures exist and that checks were downgraded 260 times in one week alone.

“The Home Secretary needs to show she is capable of sorting this fiasco out rather than making it worse.”

Last night, the Home Office refused to comment on the trial.

The UKBA said: “It is not true that we don’t carry out ­passport and warnings checks on private flight passengers and will deploy officers to airfields where we have concerns.”




Sunday 13 November 2011

Rio de Janeiro’s most wanted drugs baron who controlled the drug trade in South America’s biggest favela with fear and intimidation for 30 years has been arrested

Pictures showed Lopes, 35, looking anguished in handcuffs as he was led to an armoured vehicle by heavily-armed police
Rio de Janeiro’s most wanted drugs baron who controlled the drug trade in South America’s biggest favela with fear and intimidation for 30 years has been arrested after a high risk undercover police operation.  Photo: AP
Antonio Francisco Bonfim Lopes, known as Nem, was captured after being discovered hiding in the boot of a car stopped at a roadblock, as police surrounded the sprawling Rocinha shanty-town in an attempt finally to wrest back control of the area.

Pictures showed Lopes, 35, looking anguished in handcuffs as he was led to an armoured vehicle by heavily-armed police following his arrest at around midnight on Wednesday.

Brazilian police said the man driving the car had claimed to be a Congolese diplomat in an attempt to avoid the vehicle being searched before the occupants offered a bribe of one million Brazilian reais (£357,000) for police to let them go.

Residents of Rocinha and wealthy neighbouring districts alike were gripped by fear amid concerns that the operation could lead to open street battles between police and criminal gangs armed with machine guns, assault rifles and grenades.

Twelve families were reportedly forced from their houses in the night by gang members who wanted to use them as hideouts, while children who attend schools in the area were being excused from lessons.

UK border checks are 'a bad joke', whistleblower claims

 

Under-pressure staff are said to be relying on false data and "massaging" official figures to mask the full extent of the immigration chaos at Britain's borders. The whistleblower, a middle manager who does not want to be identified, said UKBA staff lack the resources to track down asylum seekers. As a result, it is claimed, complicated immigration cases are being abandoned to save time, while detention centres employ a "one in, one out" policy that sees low-risk detainees released to allow more dangerous foreigners to be locked up. The whistleblower said British border checks had become "haphazard" and "a bad joke". "The whole place is a basket case," he told The Sunday Times (£). "Asylum seekers run rings around us and we are virtually powerless to do anything about it. It is depressing."

Drug Smuggling Accused Border Guard Baljinder Kandola At Loss For Words At Trial

 

While one former Indo-Canadian border guard got five years for his part in a drug smuggling ring – another is currently on trial for his part in a different operation that brought millions of illicit drugs into Canada. Baljinder Kandola, a former Canadian border guard who was charged with being part of a cocaine-smuggling ring, was at a loss for words during much of his testimony on Tuesday to explain why he risked so much to help a millionaire auto-parts importer for nothing in return. Under cross-examination by Crown counsel James Torrance, Kandola said he agreed to wave his co-accused Shminder Singh Johal and associates in his three automotive companies through the border, helping them avoid inspection, reported the Province newspaper. Kandola — who worked at the Pacific Highway crossing from July 2001 until his arrest on Oct. 25, 2007 — admitted he made unauthorized use of Canadian Border Services Agency databases to come to the conclusion Johal had been subjected to inspections over the years unfairly. “He asked if I was able to wave him through,” Kandola told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Selwyn Romilly, who is hearing the case without a jury. “It would save him time and money, and he wouldn’t be harassed.” Torrance reminded Kandola of his testimony a day earlier, when he said he was risking his job, his pension and his standing in the Sikh community by breaking his oath to protect Canada’s borders. “What was [Johal] offering you in return?” asked the prosecutor. “He didn’t offer me anything,” replied Kandola. “In my mind he was bringing auto parts into Canada.” Torrance asked, “This [waving Johal through] was definitely something you shouldn’t do?” “Yes,” agreed the witness. “Then why would you want to help a successful millionaire businessman?” Kandola replied: “I don’t know, I’ve asked myself the same question.” Torrance turned to Kandola’s illegal use of the databases to come to the conclusion Johal was unfairly harassed. A “lookout” had been placed on Johal’s border crossings after a tip from the RCMP. “Did you not consider [Johal] was previously suspected of smuggling cocaine?” asked Torrance. “No,” said Kandola. “That was all cleared up by your queries [into the databases]?” “I guess so,” replied the defendant. Torrance then meticulously went through Kandola’s phone, text and CBSA database records to show that he called Johal to let him know when he was in position to wave him through the border and when the “lookout” was on or off during the wee hours of Feb. 10, 2007. Asked if he was paid by Johal when they met at a 7-Eleven store the next day, Kandola denied it. Kandola was arrested on Oct. 25, 2007, shortly after he waved through a car driven by Herman Riar that contained 208 kilograms of cocaine. Riar pleaded guilty to drug smuggling and was sentenced last year to 12 years in prison. Kandola and Johal have pleaded not guilty to charges of drug smuggling, illegal firearms, conspiracy and bribing an official. The trial in New Westminster is scheduled to last three more weeks.

Thursday 10 November 2011

John Philip Stirling, 60, is in a Florida jail after U.S. authorities allegedly seized 400 kilograms of cocaine from his vessel

Phil Stirling, shown here in 2000, told U.S. authorities there’s nothing wrong with cocaine trafficking, and said the States should mind its own business.
 

Phil Stirling, shown here in 2000, told U.S. authorities there’s nothing wrong with cocaine trafficking, and said the States should mind its own business.

Photograph by: RIC ERNST, PNG

A self-described drug smuggler who walked away unscathed from two high-profile drug busts in B.C. has landed himself in hot water south of the border.

John Philip Stirling, 60, is in a Florida jail after U.S. authorities allegedly seized 400 kilograms of cocaine from his vessel on Oct. 18.

According to U.S. court documents, Stirling, in an unprompted outburst while being transported to a detention centre, said there was nothing wrong with cocaine trafficking and that the U.S. should mind its own business.

“He further remarked that if Canada didn’t have such high taxes, they could get legitimate jobs,” said the affidavit.

Stirling’s defiant comments did not come as a surprise to retired RCMP Sgt. Pat Convey, who spent years chasing the man.

“That sounds like our man, Mr. Stirling,” said Convey, reached at his Vancouver Island home.

Stirling was a “big, flamboyant, boisterous guy who enjoyed taking chances,” said Convey. “That’s what he was about. He was a drug trafficker. I think he’s been that all his life.”

Stirling — who had admitted to The Province in 2002 that he started smuggling dope when he was 16 — was skippering the Atlantis V when it was spotted on a routine patrol by the U.S. Coast Guard about 400 kilometres north of Colombia on Oct. 17.

When inspectors boarded the ship, they allegedly found 358 packages of drugs — mostly cocaine, but also some heroin and methamphetamines.

Stirling and his crew — fellow Canadians Thomas Arthur Henderson and Randy Wilfred Theriault, Colombian Jose Manuel Calvo Herrera and Italian Luigi Barbaro — were arrested and charged.

According to Barbaro’s statement, the ship departed from Santa Marta, Colombia, and was headed to Australia.

Stirling, who was sentenced to five years in jail in the 1980s on cocaine-related charges, had been arrested twice before in similar circumstances.

In a highly publicized case, Stirling was caught by U.S. authorities off Washington’s Cape Alava in 2001 with 2½ tonnes of cocaine, worth more than $250 million, aboard the Western Wind.

He was turned over to the Canadians. Later, he claimed he was an RCMP informant and that he was transporting the cocaine for the Hells Angels. No charges were laid.

Stirling was again arrested in 2006 after authorities found 155 bales of marijuana aboard a vessel near Vancouver Island. The charges were stayed.

Convey believes Stirling might finally get the reckoning he has eluded in Canada.

“The Americans play a different game from us, and quite frankly, our system leaves a hell of a lot to be desired,” he said.

“If they proceed with the case and they got him with the many hundred kilos [of cocaine], he’s going in for a long time.”




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