Tag Archives: mexico

Why the DEA’s Private Plane Was Forced Out of Mexico

The latest setback to U.S. anti-narcotics efforts in Mexico came earlier this month, when the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was forced to remove its flagship plane from the country for the first time in some 30 years.

According to a report by Reuters, Mexican officials revoked the plane’s parking space in a hangar at the Toluca airport about 25 miles outside of Mexico City. The plane, a Beechcraft twin-turboprop King Air, can carry about ten passengers and was often deployed for elite-level ops in Mexico and Central America.

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Trump suggested launching missiles into Mexico to destroy cartels’ drug labs, former defense secretary says

  • Former defense secretary Mark Esper said Trump suggested missiles to wipe out Mexico’s drug cartels.
  • He suggested shooting missiles at drug labs in Mexico at least twice in 2020, Esper said.
  • Esper recounted the exchange in his memoir, excerpts of which were published by The New York Times.

Former President Donald Trump suggested launching missiles into Mexico to destroy cartels’ drug labs, the former defense secretary Mark Esper wrote in his upcoming memoir, according to The New York Times.

Several excerpts from Esper’s book, “A Sacred Oath: Memoirs of a Secretary of Defense During Extraordinary Times,” were published by the Times on Thursday. The memoir will be published on May 10.

Esper, who served as defense secretary from July 2019 until November 2020, wrote in the book that Trump had become increasingly unhappy about drugs coming through the Mexican border.

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Chinese immigrant in money-laundering ring: Didn’t know $24 million I picked up was from cartels

Sui Yuet Kong got 40 months in prison for her role in a Chinese operation moving U.S. drug proceeds to China, then to the Mexican cartels that sold the drugs in Chicago and New York.

When she got busted after picking up $24 million in parking lots from strangers in Chicago and New York over more than a year, a Chinese immigrant involved in a money-laundering scheme told federal investigators she never suspected she was helping launder drug proceeds.

According to federal prosecutors in Chicago, though, Sui Yuet Kong was part of a “relatively small network of Chinese expatriate money brokers and couriers based in Mexico and the United States [who] have come to dominate international money-laundering markets” and launder drug money.

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Why the mafia are taking care of everyone’s business

Organised crime is already giving food parcels to the poor in Italy and Mexico. For the cartels and syndicates, this crisis is an opportunity

Pestilence presents a moment of great opportunity for many businesses.

Consider the speed at which contracts are put out to tender to meet extraordinary needs. Consider the ability to move goods and money without all the normal checks or legal and bureaucratic protocols. Plague is a boon for the commercial class.

The art of profit is based on exploiting need, and no one has perfected that dark art better than organised crime. The Covid-19 pandemic is already demonstrating this. With their usual business acumen, criminal organisations have, in recent decades, invested in a number of companies that have turned out to be very relevant to the present crisis: multi-service businesses (catering, cleaning or disinfection), industrial laundries, transport, funeral homes, waste collection, food distribution – and the health. All of these sectors have become fundamental to our survival over recent weeks, and will probably remain so for a good while.

In Italy, police have already raised the alarm about mafia cartels’ investment in the production and distribution of “epidemic kits”, comprising masks, hand sanitiser and latex gloves. These products are today almost impossible to find, and the sudden overwhelming demand (surely destined to continue over the coming months) has caused prices to skyrocket.

For the Calabrian mafia, the ’ndrangheta, this would be familiar territory: for years it made capital investments in the pharmaceutical and healthcare products sectors. In March 2016, it was revealed that the ’ndrangheta had been working aggressively to establish itself in medical and pharmaceutical industries across Lombardy – which became Italy’s Covid-19 “Ground Zero” – even dispatching cartel operatives and their relatives to qualify in medicine, nursing and pharmacology.

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U.S. probe into Mexican drug cartel yields 750 arrests — Diamond Bar, ATL, NYC

Agents also seized more than 20 kilograms of drugs and $20 million in cash from the cartel, the Justice Department said.

DEA agents move in on a residential house during an arrest of a suspected drug trafficker on Wednesday in Diamond Bar, California. Federal agents fanned out across the U.S. after a six-month investigation aimed at dismantling the upper echelon of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known as CJNG.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Wednesday announced more than 750 arrests after a six-month investigation targeting Mexico’s violent Jalisco New Generation Cartel, known as CJNG.

The Drug Enforcement Administration-led operation, called “Project Python,” is the largest to date in U.S. efforts to take down the notorious drug dealing organization now considered one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico and known for brutal kidnappings and murders in that country.

In addition to the nationwide arrests, agents seized more than 20 kilograms of drugs and $20 million in cash. Officials say the cartel has hubs in Los Angeles, New York, Houston, Chicago and Atlanta and is a major presence on the Southwest border.

“CJNG has contributed to a catastrophic trail of human and physical destruction in Mexico,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczowski. “It is the most well-armed cartel in Mexico. Its members willingly confront rival cartels and even the security forces of the Mexican government. CJNG is responsible for grisly acts of violence and loss of life.”

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