A Deal with the Right Devil

How do you replace an El Chapo? Insert an El Mayo. The thing about arresting a drug lord is, it rarely makes any difference.

If, as expected, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada-Garcia replaces Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera—the kingpin arrested February 22, as head of Sinaloa—the close relationship between the U.S. government and the most powerful drug trafficking organization in the world seems likely to continue.

This relationship was revealed during the trial of El Mayo’s son, Sinaloa logistics coordinator Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla. Court documents show that, by the U.S. government’s own admission, a lawyer for the cartel served as an intermediary between the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and Sinaloa leadership. For nearly ten years, that lawyer, Humberto Loya-Castro, provided the DEA with information the defense characterizes as intelligence on rival cartels.

The arrangement, according to the defense, gave the cartel’s leaders immunity and free rein “to continue their narcotics trafficking business in the United States and Mexico without interference.” Other evidence reported by WhoWhatWhy and Narco News lends credence to the possibility that such a deal was in fact reached.

Drug kingpins tend to become unpredictable troublemakers, and El Chapo’s arrest may have been a way to get a more cooperative El Mayo in power. El Mayo tried to arrange a deal with the DEA in January 2009. That’s when Loya-Castro told the agency El Mayo wanted his son to cooperate with them to work off his pending drug charges...

http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/03/10/deal-right-devil/

DEA Case Threatens to Expose US Government-Sanctioned Drug-Running

The DEA affidavit focuses on the owner of World Jet, Don Whittington, and his brother, Bill — both of whom earned modest infamy as race-car drivers who were convicted and served time in prison for participating in a marijuana-smuggling conspiracy in the 1980s.

Federal agents this past November raided the offices of an aircraft brokerage and leasing company called World Jet Inc., based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

The raid, spearheaded by the US Drug Enforcement Administration, was launched on the heels of a DEA affidavit for a search warrant, which was filed in late October last year in federal court in Colorado as part of a case that is now sealed. The search-warrant affidavit was made available on the Internet after being obtained by a reporter for the Durango Herald newspaper.

The affidavit outlines allegations against several individuals accused by the DEA of participating in a narco-trafficking conspiracy. But that is not the big story here.

Instead, the real news is buried deep in the DEA court pleadings and confirms the existence of a US undercover operation that Narco News reported previously had allowed tons of cocaine to be flown from Latin America into the states absent proper controls or the knowledge of the affected Latin
American nations...

http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/bill-conroy/2014/01/dea-case-threatens-expose-us-government-sanctioned-drug-running

Uncle Sam: Money Launderer for Drug Cartels

via cato.org

U.S. Drug Agents Launder Profits of Mexican Cartels

WASHINGTON — Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.

The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are.

They said agents had deposited the drug proceeds in accounts designated by traffickers, or in shell accounts set up by agents.

The officials said that while the D.E.A. conducted such operations in other countries, it began doing so in Mexico only in the past few years. The high-risk activities raise delicate questions about the agency’s effectiveness in bringing down drug kingpins, underscore diplomatic concerns about Mexican sovereignty, and blur the line between surveillance and facilitating crime. As it launders drug money, the agency often allows cartels to continue their operations over months or even years before making seizures or arrests.

Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael S. Vigil, a former senior agency official who is currently working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, said, “We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren’t laundering money for the sake of laundering money.”

via nytimes.com

CIA Death Squad Responsible For Dumping 35 ‘Dead Zetas’ On Veracruz Highway

Last July, DeadlineLive.info reported that the CIA death squad known as ‘Los Matazetas’ (Killers of Zetas) was going to start a war against Los Zetas in the state of Veracruz.

By Mario Andrade
DeadlineLive.info
September 26, 2011

Last week, motorists in Veracruz, Mexico witnessed a gruesome scene where over a dozen armed men wearing face hoods created a road block and dumped 35 dead bodies at a busy highway. The armed men used two stolen commercial trucks to transport the bodies, then cleverly left the trucks and the bodies beneath an underpass in the town of Boca de Rio. The armed ‘sicarios’ then left a banner stating that the bodies were of members of Los Zetas and drove away with no police or military presence to stop them. Each dead body had the letter ‘Z’ carved.

via deadlinelive.info

How did 'the Zetas' drug cartel obtain weapons for criminal activity?

"Since Barack Obama took office in 2009, the commonly-accepted mantra of the Administration, and many within the major news organizations, is that the violence associated with Mexican drug cartels is fueled by guns that came from the United States due to its 'lax gun control laws.' Indeed, the dangerous 'Zetas' drug cartel obtained weapons in the United States for their criminal activity both in Mexico and throughout the American Southwest.

However, the manner in which the Zetas obtained those weapons directly contradicts the official Administration stance on the consequences of lax gun control laws.

The Zetas obtained their weapons through a little-publicized program implemented by the U.S. State Department called 'U.S. Direct Commercial Sales.' The program was intended to regulate the sale of U.S. firearms to other countries, and a direct commercial sale of a firearm requires an export license. However, as it has been demonstrated repeatedly with the Project Gunwalker Scandal at the ATF, honorable intentions often go terribly awry, particularly when widespread corruption infects a multiplicity of government agencies..."

http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-national/how-did-the-zetas-drug-carte...