De War on Drugs in Mexico #4 - Hoe lossen we de oorlog op?

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Senate report: HSBC 'allowed drug money laundering'

A US Senate probe has disclosed how lax controls at Europe's largest bank left it vulnerable to being used to launder dirty money from around the world.

The report into HSBC, released ahead of a Senate hearing on Tuesday, says huge sums of Mexican drug money almost certainly passed through the bank.

Suspicious funds from Syria, the Cayman Islands, Iran and Saudi Arabia also passed through the British bank.

HSBC said it expected to be held accountable for what went wrong.

The report into HSBC was issued by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, a Congressional watchdog that looks at financial improprieties.

It also concluded that the US bank regulator, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, failed to properly monitor HSBC.

Miami office

Many of HSBC's breaches of US anti-money laundering relate to its use of bearer share accounts. Under the rules for these accounts, ownership of shares and the income they incur can be passed from person to person in secrecy.

HSBC's US subsidiary HBUS had opened more than 2,550 accounts for bearer share corporations.

These businesses are commonly set up in tax havens such as the British Virgin Islands.

Most of the bearer share accounts - some 1,670 - were opened at the Miami office of HBUS.

At their peak, these Miami accounts held $2.6bn of assets and generated annual revenues of $26m.

The report highlights the case of Miami Beach hotel developers, Mauricio Cohen Assor and Leon Cohen Levy.

The father and son used HBUS accounts opened under the names Blue Ocean Finance Ltd. and Whitebury Shipping Time-Sharing Ltd. to help hide $150m in assets and $49m of income.

The pair were jailed for 10 years for criminal tax fraud and filing false tax returns in 2010.

'Held accountable'

The year-long inquiry, which included a review of 1.4 million documents and interviews with 75 HSBC officials and bank regulators, will be the focus of a hearing on Tuesday at which HSBC executives are scheduled to testify.

These will include HSBC's chief legal officer Stuart Levey, who joined the bank in January and was previously one of the top officials on terrorism and finance at the US Treasury Department.

In a memo released ahead of the hearing, HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver said: "It is right that we will be held accountable and that we take responsibility for fixing what went wrong.

"As well as answering the subcommittee's questions, we will explain the significant changes we have already made to strengthen our compliance and risk management infrastructure and culture," he said.

A separate HSBC statement said its executives will offer a formal apology at the hearing.

"We will apologise, acknowledge these mistakes, answer for our actions and give our absolute commitment to fixing what went wrong," the bank said.

Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the sub-committee, spoke of a "polluted" system that allowed black-market funds to move through the US banking system.

In 2010, Wachovia agreed to pay $160m as part of a Justice Department probe that examined Mexican transactions.

Last month, ING agreed to pay $619m to settle US government allegations that it violated US sanctions against Cuba and Iran.

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Douane vindt 150 kilo cocaïne tussen cacaobonen

De douane heeft in de Amsterdamse haven ongeveer 150 kilogram cocaïne gevonden, verstopt tussen een lading cacaobonen. De straatwaarde van de drugs is ongeveer 12 miljoen euro.

De container met de cacaobonen en de cocaïne kwam uit Peru, zo liet het ministerie van Financiën weten. Vermoedelijk had een criminele organisatie de drugs tijdens het transport uit de container moeten halen. De cocaïne is inmiddels vernietigd.

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Op vrijdag 20 juli 2012 00:37 schreef Papierversnipperaar het volgende:

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Maar die andere 500 ton hebben ze niet gevonden.

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Trade minister Lord Green 'failed to halt flow of drugs cash' as HSBC boss

US Senate report shows that Lord Green was warned about money laundering linked to Mexican drugs cartels

Trade minister Lord Green is under intense scrutiny after it emerged that HSBC continued to operate hundreds of accounts with suspected links to Mexican drug cartels, even after Green and fellow executives were told by regulators that HSBC was one of the worst banks for money laundering.

The revelations, contained in a US Senate report, raise further questions about Green's stewardship of the bank and come as he prepares to play an important role at the Olympics by using the Games to secure contracts for British business.

Green, chief executive of HSBC between 2003 and 2006 and executive chairman from 2006 to 2010, has declined to comment on the report. Last night Labour shadow Treasury minister, Chris Leslie, wrote to Green, who is in the running to become the next governor of the Bank of England, demanding to know when he became aware of the problems raised in the report and the steps he took to remedy them.

Leslie writes: "It is a matter of significant public interest that you also have the opportunity to explain what, if anything, you were aware of during your time at the bank."

The Senate report quotes emails, copied to Green, that created alarm in the higher echelons of the bank. They show that in 2005 Green was alerted that HSBC had potentially breached sanctions relating to Burma and that its Mexico arm had fabricated its anti-money-laundering activity. More damningly, evidence is emerging that HSBC's lax controls continued to allow money laundering and other dubious transactions even after Green and his colleagues were made aware of the problems and pledged to take action.

In February 2008, Paul Thurston, HSBC Mexico's chief executive, warned the bank's group chief executive, Michael Geoghegan, that the country's banking regulator, CNBV, and its financial intelligence unit (FIU), had unearthed "multiple compliance concerns".

An email copied from Geoghegan to Green soon after noted: "This is most disturbing and we will need to have the most thorough of investigations." In a follow-up email, copied to Green, Thurston said that the FIU was deeply concerned about money laundering at the bank. "HSBC has historically, and continues to have, a worse record than the other banks, so we have become a focus of attention," Green was informed. "The new head of the FIU has told us that his staff have told him that HSBC has been the most difficult bank to obtain accurate and timely data from for the past four years."

Despite these concerns, all 675 HSBC accounts that the CNBV suspected of money laundering, and had demanded that the bank close, remained open months later, in December 2008. The Senate report also said Green was briefed personally on HSBC's role facilitating transactions for Iranian banks and companies. Such transactions were subject to strict regulations imposed by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces American sanctions.

HSBC had installed a computer system to identify payments involving Iran so they could be vetted. But HSBC's US arm, HBUS, had concerns some of the Iranian transactions were not being identified. Green demanded action. On 20 June 2005, David Bagley, HSBC's head of compliance, who has now resigned, noted that Green wanted confirmation that the "agreed arrangements in relation to Iranian payments had been put in place". Bagley confided in a colleague that he was unable to give that confirmation and the Senate report found: "The vast majority of the Iranian transactions… were sent… without disclosing any connection to Iran."

In 2010, HSBC hired an outside auditor, Deloitte, to identify and review "Office of Foreign Assets Control sensitive transactions" at HBUS between 2001 and 2007. It identified that the bank had processed almost 25,000 transactions involving Iran and assets in excess of $19.4bn. The majority were undisclosed transactions that should have been identified and vetted. On 24 September 2007, HSBC group compliance issued a group circular letter announcing the bank's decision to exit Iran. But internal bank documents show that every month hundreds of Iranian transactions continued to surface at HBUS during 2008 and 2009.

Former Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, Lord Oakeshott, said: "Unlike Bob Diamond, Stephen Green was a thoughtful banker in holy orders. But if even he couldn't stop these scandals, banks like HSBC and Barclays aren't just too big to fail, they are clearly too big to control." HSBC has apologised and has said reforms have now been put in place.

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Drugscriminelen uit Latijns-Amerika gebruiken de meest creatieve trucjes om drugs Europa binnen te smokkelen. Maar hun laatste truc is eigenlijk heel simpel. Ze smokkelen via West-Afrika. En dat kunnen ze vaak ongestraft doen. Over dit onderwerp hebben we West-Afrika correspondent Bram Posthumus aan de lijn in Radio 1 Sportzomer.

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Decriminalise it?

We look at Portugal's drug decriminalisation 10 years on.

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In 2001, Portugal became the first country in Europe to abolish criminal charges for the personal possession of drugs. Ten years later, Portugal has not become the "tourist drug haven" that many feared it would. In fact, not only did drug use decrease in certain age groups, but so did the number of drug-related deaths and HIV infections among users.

Several other countries are considering decriminalisation, and many Latin American leaders have begun to challenge the US-led “War on Drugs”. With many calling the US policy a failure, we examine if a similar model can be successfully implemented in the US.

In this episode of The Stream, we speak to Terry Nelson of the Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Dr. João Goulão, Portugal’s National Drugs Coordinator, and Roger Morgan of the Coalition for a Drug-Free California.

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'CIA regelt de drugshandel in Mexico'

De Amerikaanse inlichtingendienst CIA en andere internationale organisaties bestrijden de drugshandel niet, maar proberen die juist te 'managen'. Dat beweert een woordvoerder van de staat Chihuahua in Noord-Mexico.

Beschuldigingen over medeplichtigheid aan drugshandel zijn niet nieuw als ze uit de mond komen van activisten, academici of voormalige ambtenaren. Maar dat een woordvoerder van de autoriteiten zo'n uitspraak doet, is uniek.

Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, woordvoerder van de staat Chihuahua, die grenst aan het Amerikaanse Texas deed zijn uitspraken onlangs tegenover een verslaggever van de Arabische nieuwszender Al Jazeera. Volgens de woordvoerder is het niet de bedoeling om de drugshandel daadwerkelijk uit te roeien, 'want dan zitten de bestrijders zonder werk.'

Onzin
De CIA in Washington wil niet rechtstreeks reageren op de beschuldigingen en verwijst naar een officiële website. Functionarissen uit Chihuahua, inclusief de burgemeester van Juarez, noemen de uitspraken van de woordvoerder onzin. Volgens de burgemeester wordt goed samengewerkt tussen Mexicaanse en Amerikaanse diensten. De VS voorzien Mexico onder meer van helikopters, wapens en trainingen om de drugshandel te bestrijden.

Kevin Sabet, een voormalig adviseur van het Witte Huis, stelt dat beschuldigingen aan het adres van de CIA gestaafd moeten worden met bewijs. De beweringen van Villanueva zijn misschien een manier om aandacht te vragen voor zijn regio, zegt Sabet. 'Dat is begrijpelijk maar niet productief of op de realiteit gebaseerd. Samenzweringstheorieën over de CIA hebben we zo langzamerhand al genoeg gehoord.'

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Drugskartel betaalde bewindsman

De Mexicaanse generaal Tomás Ángeles Dauahare kreeg in de tijd dat hij staatssecretaris van Defensie was maandelijks een half miljoen dollar van een drugskartel. In ruil daarvoor speelde hij geheime informatie door van de inlichtingendiensten over de strijd tegen de kartels.

Dat staat in de aanklacht van het Mexicaanse Openbaar Ministerie tegen de generaal, die in mei is gearresteerd.

Meest gezochte crimineel
Volgens het OM werd Dauahare betaald door het kartel van de broers Beltrán Leyva. Hij zou hen onder meer informatie hebben geleverd over de verblijfplaats van hun grootste concurrent Joaquín Guzmán El Chapo, de leider van het kartel van Sinaloa. El Chapo is al tien jaar de meest gezochte crimineel in Mexico en de Verenigde Staten.

Generaal Tomás Angeles Dauahare was van 2006 tot 2008 staatssecretaris in de regering van president Calderón. Daarnaast is hij militair attaché geweest op de Mexicaanse ambassade in Washington, belast met de coördinatie van de strijd tegen de drugskartels. Op het moment van zijn arrestatie was hij adviseur van Enrique Peña Nieto, die 1 juli de presidentsverkiezingen won.

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Fascinated US awaits trial of Mexican drug cartel's 'Queen of the Pacific'

Sandra Ávila Beltrán's expensive lifestyle is alleged to have been funded by drug activities of the Sinaloa gang

She is glamorous, sexy and has a taste for Botox and the high life – even while in prison. But the remarkable career of Sandra Ávila Beltrán, an alleged Mexican drug lord, looks set to end in an American jail.

Ávila was last week extradited to the United States, where she faces charges related to a vast network of drug trafficking and the shadowy power of the infamous Sinaloa cartel. She arrived in Miami at the end of last week destined for a Florida courtroom.

Dubbed the "Queen of the Pacific" due to her allegedly immense influence on drug supply routes, Ávila is one of the most colourful figures to emerge in recent years from Mexico's narcotics industry and the appalling violence that has cost as many as 60,000 lives there since a government offensive began in 2006. "She is a very interesting figure. She is the first really sexy drug capo to get media attention. She was glamorous and vain and there has been a fascination with her because she is female," said Howard Campbell, an expert on the Mexican drug trade at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Mexicans have long been fascinated with Ávila, who is the subject of a famous drug ballad, or narcocorrido, sung by a band called Los Tucanes de Tijuana. "The Queen of Queens" features the line: "The more beautiful the rose, the sharper the thorns."

Ávila is famed for her taste for fashionable clothes and is rumoured to have a doctor visit her in jail in Mexico to administer her Botox injections. She has complained that prison rules that stop her having food delivered to her cell from nearby restaurants are an infringement of her human rights. She is also believed to be the inspiration behind a popular Mexican TV soap opera, La Reina del Sur, about a beautiful young woman caught up in the dangerous world of the cartels.

However, the real life Ávila is not that young any more. Her exact age is uncertain – she is believed to be in her early 50s – but she has spent nearly all of her life in and around the murky world of the cartels. She is suspected to be a third-generation drug trafficker, having been born into a family with extensive connections to the drugs trade. She is the niece of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, an infamous Mexican drug godfather currently serving a 40-year jail sentence.

Using family or marital connections and her feminine charms, Ávila is thought to have risen up the ranks of the Sinaloa cartel by specialising in money laundering. But it was a dangerous world – both of her husbands have been assassinated.

If falling for the Queen of the Pacific could be potentially lethal, it is also a lucrative career move. Investigators believe that her love affair with Colombian drug trafficker Juan Diego Espinosa provided a vital link between that South American country and the Sinaloa cartel. It also allegedly gave Ávila control of the narcotics flowing from Colombia to Mexico's Pacific coast ports, thus earning Ávila her now famous nickname and funding a lifestyle of luxury cars and dining in fine restaurants.

Much of the fascination with Ávila is because of her sex. The drugs trade is often seen as being dominated by macho men and fuelled by testosterone, but experts say women have always played a key role in the Mexican drugs business.

Last year Mexican media reported that Enedina Arellano Félix had become the country's first female cartel leader by taking charge of the Tijuana organisation. That phenomenon is seeping into popular culture too. In the latest Oliver Stone movie, Savages, glamorous Mexican actress Salma Hayek plays a ruthless female drug lord.

Ávila has everyone's attention now. After years on the run, she was arrested in Mexico in 2007 and eventually convicted on money laundering charges, despite claiming that she was just a simple housewife who sold clothes to make money and dabbled in real estate. However, the court ruled that there was insufficient evidence for a drug trafficking conviction.

The American authorities have sought her extradition ever since. Ávila battled hard against the move, not least through a vociferous media campaign. She has written a book and even gave an interview in 2009 to an American TV journalist, Anderson Cooper, when she blamed the Mexican government for allowing the drugs trade to flourish. "It's obvious and logical. The government has to be involved in everything that is corrupt," she said.

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...as much as 1/3 or more of the US economy is now illicit drug money...

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'Breaking' DOJ and CIA dealing drugs in America

After decades of almost total silence, certain aspects of the national media have finally started to report on the fact that various aspects of the government have been the majority source for illicit drug dealing in the US.

Thursday was host to bombshell, “breaking” news as TheBlaze journalist Jason Howerton decided to take credit for a story that is neither breaking, nor surprising. At least, not for those of us that have been following this and closely related stories for quite some time.

According to Howerton, the situation formerly spun as a “botched” gun running scandal, known as Fast & Furious, that has since seen 5 ATF agents take the fall for, “isn’t what you think it is.” Instead, according to the journalist, “It wasn’t about tracking guns, it was about supplying them — all part of an elaborate agreement between the U.S. government and Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa Cartel to take down rival cartels.”

For those of you that happened to have caught the daily Glenn Beck radio program Friday morning, fill-in host Joe “Pags” Pagliarulo decided to parade Mr. Howerton and his story as if it were the biggest thing since sliced bread, for the entire first hour of the show. Despite the fact that this exact story had already been reported on over a year ago by InfoWars.com. Not to mention the fact that investigators and journalists have been reporting on various aspects of these and similar circumstances, quite frankly, since at least the 80's, even seeing Pulitzer Prizes emerging over the circumstances.

The real problem is, nothing about these circumstances are truly new, despite decades of charades by the totally controlled mainstream media and more recently with Joe “Pags” desperate attempt to sell his Glenn Beck audience the laughable notion that this issue does not transcend the Obama administration. In addition to the fact that they failed to mention why the “government” is arming one cartel over another. In addition to the obvious attempt at demonizing American gun ownership, the answer there also happens to be just as old as the rest. All you have to do is ask Wall Street.

Even emerging mainstream truth-telling hero Ben Swann of KXIX FOX 19 Cincinnati immediately ran a local piece Thursday evening, (shown in the attached video) after potentially being fooled into giving credit to TheBlaze for breaking the horrifying and devastating news in the so-called national press. One has to give credit, nonetheless, to Mr. Swann for having the courage to report on this and so many other stories few in the press dare touch.

Despite the establishment prompted misconception that much of what can be found on the internet is questionable and can be chalked-up to mere conspiracy “theory,” although one does have to have a reasonable sense of discernment, knowledgeable and credible investigators, including various officials, have been able to put the pieces together over the last few decades. This includes figuring out much more than just the history of government funded drug dealing and they've added their findings, documents and documentaries to the internet, fully implicating high-ranking members of the federal government, Justice Department and the CIA for various and notable drug related epidemics that have sprung up over the years. Unfortunately, in some cases, this has gone even as high as the President and/or Vice President of the United States itself.

Since even prior to the 50's, marijuana, LSD, cocaine, heroine, then more recently crack and methamphetamine related drugs, including many others, can all be attributed in various ways to government funded programs and covert operations, leading to Thursday's bombshell information.

Surprisingly to many, if it weren't for “government” (aka “elite” family) backed and/or funded operations like these, the vast majority of illicit drug related epidemics throughout the years wouldn't have even existed. In some instances including the very drugs themselves.

One epidemic in particular, the infamous crack-cocaine epidemic of the 80's is now known to have been almost solely devised, funded and operated by the CIA and its assets as a tool to, not only fund CIA covert operations, but also to infiltrate and devastate the inner-city, African-American and minority populations of the US. A widely-known elite family goal since at least the abolition of slavery.

Perhaps one of the more sinister aspects of this self-perpetuating war on the poor and minority populous has to do with the fact that many of the same individuals and so-called elite families making these decisions also happen to have ties or ownership rights to the private prison industry that houses most of the individuals that happen to get caught up in this elaborate, official game of cat and mouse. One that funnels billions of dollars per year into the hands of its owners, as they rake in the goods from all sides of the game, aka the totally fraudulent “War on Drugs.” An operation that has witnessed more blacks convicted and imprisoned in the US than was imprisoned in South Africa during, what's known as, “Apartheid.” It really boils down to modern day slavery.

Quite possibly the most shocking aspect of the so-called War on Drugs, however, has to do with the fact that crack-cocaine scandal in particular does stretch all the way to the White House. First, with then Vice President George H.W. Bush, then in conjunction with Bill Clinton, both working together during Iran-Contra to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the Unites States through Mena, Arkansas, via CIA asset Manuel Noriega in Panama, while Clinton was still Governor of Arkansas. An incredible situation that is so grand and such a tough pill to swallow that most will blindly dismiss these totally proven circumstances as just a conspiracy theory to avoid having to come to terms with what this actually means. Something that starts to only scratch the surface of a problem that becomes almost too large and too frightening to wrap people's minds around.

Some investigators have gone as far as saying the situation has gotten so far out of hand that as much as 1/3 or more of the US economy is now illicit drug money that is mostly laundered through the Wall Street banking system, with certain banking hierarchy making business decisions while having full knowledge of the circumstances and actually being behind much of the operation themselves. The kingpins, if you will. Our politicians are merely the pawns.

Because of this America's politicians have become more important to the real ruling elite than ever, a large reason “President” Barack Obama enjoyed the first-ever billion dollar campaign in 2008, with massive amounts of Wall Street money pouring into his campaign coffers. Unfortunately for America, even if Obama doesn't win reelection in 2012, the “presumed” GOP nominee, Mitt Romney, is also enjoying the very same situation, but now starting to emerge as the new Wall Street favorite. This also gives credence to why no banking institution has seen justice for obvious violations that led to an economic crash Americans likely still have yet to see come to full fruition.

Once the so-called War on Drugs hit full stride in the late 80's and into the 90's it became the third largest industry in the US, with many major corporations still getting rich off the fake and very lucrative war today. In 2011 Reason.com reported Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitting that “legalization is “not likely to work” because “there is just too much money in it.” In fact, more money is spent in America on housing drug offenders and other non-violent “criminals” in prisons than what gets spent on education.

The average starting salary for a prison guard, for instance, is more than the average starting salary for a US university professor.

The US now houses the largest prison population on the planet, with over 2.5 million behind bars, the vast majority of which are in for non-violent, drug related offenses. Additionally, 1 in 3 black men will see the inside of a prison during their lifetimes. A 2011 Huffington Post article came to the conclusion that “African Americans make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population according to census data, but reportedly make up 40.2 percent of all prison inmates.”

The majority of the population, however, is made to believe that the drug war is merely a mostly random act of society. Politicians get to grandstand by acting tough by speaking tough on the war on drugs. At the same time the prison industrial complex is sold as a guaranteed growth industry and a solid investment platform, with a growing base of millions making their livings working within the system.

As just one example, British owned “G4S,” formerly known as “Wackenhut,” happens to be the worlds largest security and prison development and management organization, operating in the US and providing permanent guarding service, security officers, manned security, disaster response, emergency services, control room monitoring, armed security, unarmed security, special event security, security patrols, reception/concierge service, access control, emergency medical technicians (EMT) service and ambassador service.

Prior to the 2010 merger between American owned Wackenhut and G4S, the corporation had over 38,000 employees and enjoyed a 135% increase in profitability to a healthy 12% to 14% range, thanks to the War on Drugs.

To make matters worse, just as the War on Drugs began to hit its stride in the 80's, politicians were coerced into changing the laws surrounding drug offenses, especially stretching crack related sentences to surpass even rape and murder, in some cases. Federal laws were changed for even first time offenders to a mandatory ten year sentence, amazingly, without parole. Many thousands however receiving double or triple that, even if only accomplices. Despite hundreds of judges themselves around the country literally calling the situation unjust and inhumane and demanding the laws be changed, but powerless to do anything about it until they actually are. Sadly, most members of Congress don't even really know what the drug laws are, however.

Because of all this almost one million, mostly minority, children born to single mothers, now incarcerated due to the war on drugs, are being raised in foster care and state run facilities. This also serves to perpetuate the problem due to these children now being statistically higher risk individuals, themselves far more likely to fall prey to these and other criminal related circumstances than children raised in households with parents.

All these things combine to insure the money keeps rolling in from all angles, the minority population in the US continues to be demonized and victimized and that elite-owned, for-profit prisons remain full and profitable for a many years and seemingly decades to come.

Many would agree the most honest words ever uttered by former President George H.W. Bush was when he was quoted in December of 1992 telling journalist Sarah McClendon that “If the people knew what we had done, they would chase us down the street and lynch us."

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Op maandag 13 augustus 2012 16:01 schreef El_Matador het volgende:
ranzig fearmongering stuk.

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Op maandag 13 augustus 2012 16:14 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Het taalgebruik, de opmerkingen over "arme zwarten", de "president" enzo...

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Op maandag 13 augustus 2012 16:50 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Exact wat het zo dom en hypocriet maakt van deze website.

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Op maandag 13 augustus 2012 16:59 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Je schuldig maken aan dezelfde onzin waar je je vijanden -terecht- van beschuldigd is natuurlijk erg hypocriet. En dom, want je bereikt meer met objectievere neutralere met gedegen feiten onderbouwde repliek.

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Op maandag 13 augustus 2012 16:59 schreef El_Matador het volgende:

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Je schuldig maken aan dezelfde onzin waar je je vijanden -terecht- van beschuldigd is natuurlijk erg hypocriet. En dom, want je bereikt meer met objectievere neutralere met gedegen feiten onderbouwde repliek.

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Mexican drug cartel suspect seized

Juan Carlos Hernández Pulido captured with ID cards of newspaper employee killed in May, navy claims

Mexican marines have captured a drug cartel suspect carrying the ID cards of a newspaper employee who was killed in May along with three photographers, the country's navy has said.

Juan Carlos Hernández Pulido, allegedly a local chief of informers for the Jalisco Nueva Generación drug gang, was detained on Friday in the Gulf coast port city of Veracruz as he handed out packets of drugs to a group of men, the navy claimed.

It said Hernández Pulido was carrying the ID cards of Irasema Becerra, an administrative worker at a local newspaper and the girlfriend of one of the dead photographers. Five other journalists have been killed in Veracruz state this year.

At the time, the killings had been thought to bear the hallmarks of the Zetas cartel; the victims were killed, dismembered and their bodies stuffed into black plastic bags dumped into a waste canal.

However, Hernández Pulido is allegedly linked to a gang allied with the Sinaloa cartel, which is fighting the Zetas for control of Veracruz and other states.

Elsewhere in Veracruz, the state prosecutors' office said seven members of a family, three adults and four children, were found dead at their home with their throats slit. The children were reportedly aged between three and 12 years old.

The bodies were found Friday in the rural hamlet of Manlio Fabio Altamirano, on the Gulf coast, by neighbours who smelled strange odours coming from the house. The family had been dead for about three days, prosecutors said.

Federal police announced on Monday they have sent 600 additional officers and 20 bulletproof patrol vehicles to the western state of Michoacán, where suspected drug cartel gunmen have attacked police and hijacked and burned trucks to block highways in recent days. Police said the units would be used in anti-drug operations, to set up checkpoints and prevent road blockades.

On Friday, five gunmen were killed when they opened fire on police from the hills around the city of Apatzingán.

In the northern Mexican state of San Luis Potosi, state police said the gunmen who killed the mayor-elect of the city of Matehuala on Sunday used assault rifles of the kind frequently wielded by drug gangs.

Edgar Morales Perez, of the Institutional Revolutionary party died in the attack along with an adviser who was travelling with him, but the adviser's wife survived. His party, known as the PRI, issued a statement on Sunday calling on authorities to investigate the killings and punish those responsible.

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Verdrievoudiging moorden Mexico sinds 2005

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Het aantal moorden in Mexico is sinds 2005 bijna verdrievoudigd. Dat blijkt uit cijfers van het bureau voor de statistiek die de regering heeft vrijgegeven.


Het is niet duidelijk hoeveel moorden te wijten zijn aan de oorlog tegen de drugs die president Felipe Calderón in 2006 afkondigde. Hij gaf toen de strijdkrachten opdracht met alle middelen een einde te maken aan de macht van de drugskartels.

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Mexican authorities find 11 corpses north-west of Acapulco

Reports in local media that messages signed by Knights Templar drugs cartel discovered alongside bodies

Eleven corpses showing signs of torture and execution-style gunshot wounds were found in south-western Mexico on Sunday, according to local authorities.

Ricardo Monreal, an official with the Guerrero state prosecutor's office, said the bodies were recovered in three different locations along the costal road north-west of the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.

He declined to confirm which cartel was believed to be responsible for the deaths, but local media reported that two "narco messages" signed by the Knights Templar cartel were found alongside the bodies.

The cartel, based in Michoacan state north of Guerrero, is the most bizarre cult-like group to have emerged since President Felipe Calderón declared war against Mexico's drug cartels in 2006.

The conflict has triggered a series of turf wars that have claimed more than 55,000 lives.

Propaganda from the Knights Templar blends a mix of Michoacan regionalism, Christianity and revolutionary slogans. It is one of the biggest traffickers of crystal meth to the United States and has an army of about 1,200 gunmen, according to a report by Mexico's military intelligence.

It is blamed for the worst attack on a multinational company in Mexico in recent years. In May, assailants torched more than 30 trucks and two Michoacan warehouses belonging to PepsiCo's Sabritas, a leading potato chip brand.

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French government under pressure over Marseille gun deaths

Marseille senator and mayor calls for army to deal with drug gangs after 19th gun-related death in the region this year

The French government is under growing pressure to contain Marseille's deadly drug wars after the 19th gun-related death in the region this year.

The latest casualty prompted a Socialist senator to call for the army to be sent in to control estates in the city.

As Marseille prepares to become European capital of culture next year, the growing problem of drug dealers setting scores with AK-47s has blighted its public relations drive. On Wednesday, a 25-year-old known to police over drug-trafficking, was hit with Kalashnikov-fire as he travelled in the passenger seat of a Renault Twingo in the north of the city. It was the 14th gun-related death connected to drug gangs in Marseille since the start of this year, the 19th in the region. A few weeks earlier another 25-year-old who had recently been released from prison died in hospital after he was shot in the south of the city. This year's Marseille gang deaths already exceed the figures for the whole of 2011.

The Socialist senator and mayor of two Marseille districts, Samia Ghali, warned: "It's now useless sending a coach of riot police to stop the dealers. When one is stopped, 10 more take up the flame. It's like fighting an ants' nest." She said faced with the heavy weapons used by the gangs, "only the army can intervene".

Her comments embarrassed the Socialist government, which is already under pressure over how to handle security on France's most restive estates. Manuel Valls, the interior minister, dismissed Ghali's comments: "Its out of the question for the army to respond to these dramas and crimes." He said there was no "enemy within" against whom the French army would go to war on its own territory.

The president François Hollande said: "The army has no place controlling neighbourhoods in the republic." He said it was up to the police to deal with the problem and promised reinforcements.

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Mexico, before and after Calderon's drug war

We all know that Mexico’s drug war has taken a horrific toll – an estimated 50,000 deaths since President Felipe Calderón launched the effort in late 2006. But how much did Calderón’s declaration change the crime rate? And now that president-elect Enrique Peña Nieto is set to take over in December, how much is likely to change?

Travelers might want to dip into “Drug Violence in Mexico,” a recent report by The Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. Though good statistics are often hard to come by in Mexico, authors Cory Molzahn, Viridiana Ríos and David A. Shirk have gathered a boatload of numbers, and they raise the idea that drug-related killings accelerated before Calderón declared war.

As the report notes, the Mexican government counted 12,903 drug-war killings (a.k.a. organized-crime homicides) in the first nine months of 2011, which brought the official total to 47,515 since Dec. 1, 2006.

If you add the 2,624 drug-related homicides reported by the Mexican daily Reforma from October through December 2011, that makes an estimated 50,139 drug-war deaths in five years and one month. (And there are all the killings of this year yet to be officially counted.)

Looking back, the TBI report suggests that drug-related violence may have begun to surge two years before Calderón took office.

To reach that conclusion, Ríos did some estimating, combining available crime figures with “a multiple imputation algorithm and Bayesian statistics” as part of her Ph.D. dissertation.

She found that in the calmer days between 2000 and 2004, drug-related killings were “probably limited to 3,000 to 4,000 cases annually” and that violence was in decline. But in about 2004, while Vicente Fox was still president, Ríos found, violence began to rapidly increase, especially in the states of Chihuahua and Michoacán.

In the state of Baja California (which includes Tijuana and the northern portion of the Baja peninsula), Ríos estimated between 284 and 350 drug-related killings per year from 2000-2006, compared with 250 officially tallied drug-war deaths in the first nine months of 2011.

In the state of Baja California Sur (which includes Los Cabos and the southern portion of the Baja peninsula), Ríos estimated fewer than 10 drug-related killings per year from 2000-2006. The official figure was 10 such killings for the first nine months of 2011.

As for Mexico’s president-elect, Peña Nieto, he does come with baggage. His party, PRI, was voted out of the presidency in 2000 after seven decades of uninterrupted rule, including allegations of deal-making with major drug traffickers in exchange for peace and payoffs. In a July interview with the L.A. Times, he disdained details, but said that “we will widen the fight on organized crime, fighting drug trafficking, but also put a special emphasis on the crimes that generate violence in society.… Sadly, what people today feel is fear, they feel frustration, they feel an absence of results."