FSN News: Special Report
January 10, 2013
With little opposition, the Mexican Senate ratified this week the nomination of Eduardo Medina Mora as Mexico’s new ambassador to the United States. In a presentation to the Senate’s foreign affairs commission broadcast on the Congress Channel, Medina sketched out his views on the parameters, problems and promises of the Mexico-U.S. relationship. A longtime mover and shaker on Mexico´s political scene, Medina touched on immigration, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), migrant remittances, arms trafficking and drug legalization. Notably, he did not speak about outstanding environmental issues between Mexico and the U.S. per se.
“Few problems are as complex in the relations with the U.S. as this one,” Medina said of the immigration question.
According to the lawyer by profession, Mexican diplomats will have to keep careful tabs not only the progress of immigration reform in Washington, but ongoing initiatives at the state level as well. He said cross-border collaborations were needed to improve the repatriation process of Mexican nationals, especially women and children. In a long-range analysis of migration trends, Medina predicted relatively less of his countrymen (and women) will relocate to the U.S. in the future due to a drop in fertility rates among Mexican women and the looming end of Mexico´s demographic bonus of a young, plentiful labor force. In Medina´s estimation, however, the U.S. will still need to continue “importing people to keep growing.”
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label drug war - Fast and Furious. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drug war - Fast and Furious. Show all posts
Jan 11, 2013
Oct 1, 2012
Univision: The untold story of what 'Fast and Furious' wrought in Mexico
CS Monitor: Sunday evening, Univision airs an investigative report on how the botched 'Fast and Furious' program resulted in a deadly toll in Mexico when US authorities allowed guns to 'walk' across the border.
By Patrik Jonsson. Sept. 29, 2012
ATLANTA. When a journalist for Univision asked President Obama last week why he hasn’t fired Attorney General Eric Holder over the “Fast and Furious” gun walking fiasco, the reporter, it turns out, had an inside scoop that added urgency to the question.
At 7 p.m. on Sunday, Univision says it’ll air a blockbuster investigation detailing the impact of the deeply flawed gunrunning investigation, which operated between October 2009 and January 2011.
The Spanish-language channel says the “Aqui y Ahora” program will expose the true deadly toll of a covert program in which US officials allowed more than 2,000 high-powered rifles to “walk” into the hands of violent Mexican cartels. Expecting American interest, Univision will caption the program in English. Read more.
5 Things You Didn't Know About Operation Fast and Furious
ABC: By GERARDO REYES and SANTIAGO WILLS
The U.S. government's botched Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation left a trail of bullets and bodies in Mexico. In a special investigation by Univision News, which aired Sunday night, several new revelations came to light. Here are five worth knowing.
1. Fast and Furious Guns Used in Infamous Massacre
Mexican military reports show that at least three guns from North America were used in the Salvarcar massacre in 2010. A total of 15 people died in that incident, most of them teens. They were gunned down by the Juarez cartel, which mistook the group for rival Sinaloa cartel members. According to one document, the weapons entered Mexico illegally through a border point near Columbus, New Mexico.
Read more.
The U.S. government's botched Fast and Furious gun-trafficking operation left a trail of bullets and bodies in Mexico. In a special investigation by Univision News, which aired Sunday night, several new revelations came to light. Here are five worth knowing.
1. Fast and Furious Guns Used in Infamous Massacre
Mexican military reports show that at least three guns from North America were used in the Salvarcar massacre in 2010. A total of 15 people died in that incident, most of them teens. They were gunned down by the Juarez cartel, which mistook the group for rival Sinaloa cartel members. According to one document, the weapons entered Mexico illegally through a border point near Columbus, New Mexico.
Read more.
Sep 8, 2012
Mexico arrests suspect in killing of U.S. border agent
By Associated Press, Published: September 7
MEXICO CITY — Mexican federal police announced Friday that they have arrested a suspect in the killing of U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry, the slaying at the center of the scandal over the botched U.S. gun-smuggling probe known as Operation Fast and Furious.
Jesus Leonel Sanchez Meza is one of the five men charged with killing Terry in December 2010 during a shootout in Arizona near the Mexico border. One is on trial in Arizona and the other three remain fugitives. Sanchez was arrested Thursday in Sonora state.
Two guns found at the scene were bought by a member of a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation. Critics have knocked U.S. federal authorities for allowing informants to walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with weapons, rather than immediately arresting suspects.
In Operation Fast and Furious and at least three earlier probes during the administration of President George W. Bush, agents in Arizona employed a risky tactic called gun-walking — allowing low-level “straw” buyers in gun-trafficking networks to leave with loads of weapons purchased at gun shops. The goal was to track the guns to major weapons traffickers and drug cartels in order to bring cases against kingpins who had long eluded prosecution under the prevailing strategy of arresting low-level purchasers of guns who were suspected of buying them for others. Read more.
Aug 29, 2012
American Community In Mexico Disappointed By American Drug Policies
Huffington Post: Andrew Burmon.
This post is part of the HuffPost Shadow Conventions 2012, a series spotlighting three issues that are not being discussed at the national GOP and Democratic conventions: The Drug War, Poverty in America, and Money in Politics.
Michael Haskett has been busier since Mexican police discovered two vans full of dismembered bodies sitting near Lake Chapala in May. According to Haskett, who runs the Vida Alarms safety and emergency response service, that horrific discovery frightened many of the American expats living nearby, who had long worried about the incursion of narco-violence on their sunny idyll.
"Some of them were just deciding that they'd thought about this for a long time and there was finally catalyst," says Haskett. "Some of them were afraid to see their own shadow."
American retirees and tourists had historically flooded into the lakeside communities of Chapala and Ajijic, which boast affordable housing and excellent medical services, as well as perpetual spring temperatures, but locals say that flow has begun to slow. Though these idyllic communities -- all colorful main streets and aging monasteries -- sit well away from the drug corridor, Jalisco's expats are beginning to feel the effects of U.S. drug and gun policies. Read more.
This post is part of the HuffPost Shadow Conventions 2012, a series spotlighting three issues that are not being discussed at the national GOP and Democratic conventions: The Drug War, Poverty in America, and Money in Politics.
Michael Haskett has been busier since Mexican police discovered two vans full of dismembered bodies sitting near Lake Chapala in May. According to Haskett, who runs the Vida Alarms safety and emergency response service, that horrific discovery frightened many of the American expats living nearby, who had long worried about the incursion of narco-violence on their sunny idyll.
"Some of them were just deciding that they'd thought about this for a long time and there was finally catalyst," says Haskett. "Some of them were afraid to see their own shadow."
American retirees and tourists had historically flooded into the lakeside communities of Chapala and Ajijic, which boast affordable housing and excellent medical services, as well as perpetual spring temperatures, but locals say that flow has begun to slow. Though these idyllic communities -- all colorful main streets and aging monasteries -- sit well away from the drug corridor, Jalisco's expats are beginning to feel the effects of U.S. drug and gun policies. Read more.
Aug 3, 2012
Justice Department shrugs off Fast and Furious report
LA Times: Officials say they have moved ahead with reforms to prevent problems like those with the ATF's Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation.
Richard A. Serrano. WASHINGTON — Top Justice Department officials largely dismissed a new House Republican report on the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, saying Tuesday that they have moved ahead with major reforms to prevent future incidents of U.S. firearms being lost and smuggled across the border into Mexico. Read more.
Richard A. Serrano. WASHINGTON — Top Justice Department officials largely dismissed a new House Republican report on the Fast and Furious gun-tracking operation, saying Tuesday that they have moved ahead with major reforms to prevent future incidents of U.S. firearms being lost and smuggled across the border into Mexico. Read more.
Jul 22, 2012
'Violence and Barbarism' in Retrograde United States
La Jornada: Worldmeets.US original translation by Douglas Myles Rasmussen
See Spanish Original.
The mass murder that occurred during the first few minutes in a Colorado theater yesterday - where an armed gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 50 - brought forth voices of condemnation and solidarity in the society and political class of the United States, from the nation’s president, Barack Obama, who declared five days of national mourning as a sign of respect for the victims of this act of senseless violence, to his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, and has rekindled the perennial debate about the need to regulate arms trade in that country.
This massacre is the bloodiest event since the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, where 33 people died as a consequence of two attacks with firearms by a student there. Unfortunately, acts like that at a university campus and this one at a movie theater are not isolated events: 13 years later, the memory of the infamous April, 1999 slaughter at Columbine High School - also in Colorado - is still fresh. At Columbine, fifteen students were killed.
One must also add to the list the violent events at the end of 2007, when a 19-year-old armed with an assault rifle killed eight people at a mall in Nebraska, as well as the string of bloody events in 2009: in March, the killing of 11 people in a series of shootings in Alabama; in April, the hostages that were taken at an immigrant center in the town of Binghamton, New York, which ended in the murder of 14 people; and the mass murder perpetrated by the Pakistani-American [Palestinian American, actually] psychologist Nidal Malik Hasan on a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 people died (12 soldiers and one policeman), with 31 seriously wounded. And in January of last year, a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, left six people dead and 13 wounded, one of whom was Representative Gabrielle Giffords. The list also includes a series of lesser shootings in many of our neighbor’s cities, which usually leave behind dead and wounded.
See Spanish Original.
The mass murder that occurred during the first few minutes in a Colorado theater yesterday - where an armed gunman killed at least 12 people and wounded more than 50 - brought forth voices of condemnation and solidarity in the society and political class of the United States, from the nation’s president, Barack Obama, who declared five days of national mourning as a sign of respect for the victims of this act of senseless violence, to his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, and has rekindled the perennial debate about the need to regulate arms trade in that country.
This massacre is the bloodiest event since the April 2007 shootings at Virginia Tech, where 33 people died as a consequence of two attacks with firearms by a student there. Unfortunately, acts like that at a university campus and this one at a movie theater are not isolated events: 13 years later, the memory of the infamous April, 1999 slaughter at Columbine High School - also in Colorado - is still fresh. At Columbine, fifteen students were killed.
One must also add to the list the violent events at the end of 2007, when a 19-year-old armed with an assault rifle killed eight people at a mall in Nebraska, as well as the string of bloody events in 2009: in March, the killing of 11 people in a series of shootings in Alabama; in April, the hostages that were taken at an immigrant center in the town of Binghamton, New York, which ended in the murder of 14 people; and the mass murder perpetrated by the Pakistani-American [Palestinian American, actually] psychologist Nidal Malik Hasan on a military base in Fort Hood, Texas, where 13 people died (12 soldiers and one policeman), with 31 seriously wounded. And in January of last year, a shooting in Tucson, Arizona, left six people dead and 13 wounded, one of whom was Representative Gabrielle Giffords. The list also includes a series of lesser shootings in many of our neighbor’s cities, which usually leave behind dead and wounded.
Jul 15, 2012
Grand jury probing death hears from witness to stun-gun shooting by US border officials
AP: SAN DIEGO — A man who saw an illegal immigrant from Mexico get shot with a stun gun by U.S. border authorities said he testified Thursday to a federal grand jury amid signs that prosecutors are considering criminal charges in the immigrant’s death after more than two years of silence on the politically charged case. Read more.
Jun 21, 2012
Attorney-general Holder in contempt over Fast and Furious, House decides
The Guardian: Congress is heading for a new showdown with the White House after Republicans took the rare step of voting to declare the attorney-general Eric Holder in contempt over a botched smuggling operation aimed at Mexican drug cartels.
The Republican-controlled House oversight committee, which has been investigating the sting operation along the Mexican border, voted 23 to 17 on Wednesday in favour of a recommendation to start proceedings against Holder for alleged contempt of Congress. Read more.
The Republican-controlled House oversight committee, which has been investigating the sting operation along the Mexican border, voted 23 to 17 on Wednesday in favour of a recommendation to start proceedings against Holder for alleged contempt of Congress. Read more.
Family of ICE agent slain in Mexico files wrongful death claim against US government
AP: WASHINGTON — The family of an Immigration and Customs agent slain in Mexico has filed a $25 million wrongful death claim against the U.S. government.
A pair of South Texas law firms representing the family of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata filed the claim June 14 and named ICE, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department as defendants. Attorneys for Zapata’s parents, Mary and Amador Zapata, named several supervisors at the agencies and FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder. Read more.
A pair of South Texas law firms representing the family of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata filed the claim June 14 and named ICE, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Justice Department as defendants. Attorneys for Zapata’s parents, Mary and Amador Zapata, named several supervisors at the agencies and FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General Eric Holder. Read more.
Jun 12, 2012
DOJ pushes back on Darrell Issa contempt vote
Politico: A House committee will vote next week on holding Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt of Congress, a dramatic escalation in a months-long confrontation between Republicans and the Obama administration’s top law enforcement official.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California Republican Darrell Issa, is seeking a trove of documents detailing the Fast and Furious program — a botched operation by the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that provided thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of two U.S. agents — according to House Republican aides involved in the planning. Read more.
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, chaired by California Republican Darrell Issa, is seeking a trove of documents detailing the Fast and Furious program — a botched operation by the Justice Department and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives that provided thousands of guns to Mexican drug cartels, resulting in the deaths of two U.S. agents — according to House Republican aides involved in the planning. Read more.
Jun 1, 2012
Mexico left in the dark on Fast and Furious, ambassador says
latimes.com: WASHINGTON — The failed federal gun-tracking operation called Fast and Furious showed an "outstanding lack of understanding of how criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders," the Mexican ambassador to the United States said.
In a forum Thursday on Capitol Hill, Arturo Sarukhan complained that his government had been left in the dark about operations to stop gun smuggling at the border. He also revealed that his government was conducting its own official investigation into how some 2,000 U.S.-purchased firearms made it across the border and into the hands of drug cartels amid the escalating violence in Mexico.
"Mexico was never apprised how the operation would be designed and implemented," Sarukhan told officials at a forum hosted by the New Democrat Network, or NDN, a center-left think tank and advocacy organization, and the New Policy Institute, one of its sister organizations.
"Regardless of whether this was or was not the intent or the design of Fast and Furious," Sarukhan said, "the thinking that you can let guns walk across the border and maintain operational control of those weapons is really an outstanding lack of understanding of how these criminal organizations are operating on both sides of our common borders." Read more.
May 8, 2012
Texas gun-trafficking suspect sentenced
The Seattle Times: A judge has given a prison sentence to a fourth Texas man federal officials say was linked to a gun used in a U.S. agent's death in Mexico.
Otilio Osorio was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and other charges relating to a gun-running network. His brother, Ranferi Osorio, received a 10-year prison term for running the network. read more
Otilio Osorio was sentenced Monday to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy and other charges relating to a gun-running network. His brother, Ranferi Osorio, received a 10-year prison term for running the network. read more
Apr 6, 2012
Man Pleads Guilty To Gun Charges In Botched Probe
Fox News: "A man who bought two rifles found at the scene of the fatal shooting of a federal agent near the Arizona-Mexico border pleaded guilty Thursday to two felony charges in the federal government's botched gun smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
Authorities say Jaime Avila Jr. was a member of a 20-person ring accused of buying guns and smuggling them into Mexico for use by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Two AK-47 variants bought by Avila from a suburban Phoenix gun store were found in the aftermath of a December 2010 shootout that mortally wounded Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Arizona." read more
Authorities say Jaime Avila Jr. was a member of a 20-person ring accused of buying guns and smuggling them into Mexico for use by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Two AK-47 variants bought by Avila from a suburban Phoenix gun store were found in the aftermath of a December 2010 shootout that mortally wounded Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry near Nogales, Arizona." read more
Apr 5, 2012
Man accused in botched gun probe to change plea
Seattle Times: "A man accused of buying two rifles found at the scene of the fatal shooting of a federal agent near the Arizona-Mexico border is scheduled to change his plea Thursday in the federal government's botched gun smuggling investigation known as Operation Fast and Furious.
Jaime Avila Jr. faces charges of dealing guns without a license and making false statements in firearms purchases as an alleged member of a 20-person smuggling ring that's accused of buying guns and smuggling them into Mexico for use by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Avila had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges." read more
Jaime Avila Jr. faces charges of dealing guns without a license and making false statements in firearms purchases as an alleged member of a 20-person smuggling ring that's accused of buying guns and smuggling them into Mexico for use by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Avila had previously pleaded not guilty to the charges." read more
Mar 22, 2012
'Fast and Furious' probe: Chief suspect released more than once
LA Times: "Manuel Celis-Acosta, the chief suspect in the ATF’s "Fast and Furious" investigation who was caught but released at the U.S.-Mexico border in May 2010, was also stopped and released two months earlier while in possession of a Colt .38-caliber pistol purchased illegally under the gun-tracking operation.
The revelation that officials twice declined to arrest their prime suspect shows that agents were keenly aware of Celis-Acosta’s activities yet repeatedly turned down opportunities to charge him with felony offenses and bring a quick end to the Fast and Furious probe. Instead, the investigation dragged on for months more, with the loss of about 1,700 U.S. firearms on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border." read more
The revelation that officials twice declined to arrest their prime suspect shows that agents were keenly aware of Celis-Acosta’s activities yet repeatedly turned down opportunities to charge him with felony offenses and bring a quick end to the Fast and Furious probe. Instead, the investigation dragged on for months more, with the loss of about 1,700 U.S. firearms on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border." read more
'Fast and Furious' Op Targeted FBI Informants
InSight Crime: "When Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) agents released suspected gun trafficker Manuel Fabian Celis-Acosta (pictured) in hopes that he would lead them to two cartel bosses, they did not know their targets were actually FBI informants.
Celis-Acosta was detained in May 2010 on the Arizona border carrying an AK-47 style drum magazine and documents pointing to arms sales and payments to an apparent hitman. According to internal memos made available to the LA Times, ATF agent Hope McAllister, lead investigator in the controversial Fast and Furious operation, wrote her phone number on a $10 bill for Celis-Acosta and released him. He had promised to help her catch two high-level Mexican cartel bosses, but he never contacted her again." read more
Celis-Acosta was detained in May 2010 on the Arizona border carrying an AK-47 style drum magazine and documents pointing to arms sales and payments to an apparent hitman. According to internal memos made available to the LA Times, ATF agent Hope McAllister, lead investigator in the controversial Fast and Furious operation, wrote her phone number on a $10 bill for Celis-Acosta and released him. He had promised to help her catch two high-level Mexican cartel bosses, but he never contacted her again." read more
Mar 19, 2012
Fast and Furious: Gun-tracking operation netted its top suspect, then let him go
latimes.com: "Federal agents stopped the main target of the ill-fated Operation Fast and Furious in May 2010. After they questioned him, he disappeared back into Mexico, and the program went on to spiral out of control." read more
Feb 3, 2012
Drug War Weapons Traffic: Slain border agent's family files $25M claim against U.S.
Slain border agent's family files $25M claim against U.S. – USATODAY.com: "The family of slain Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry filed a $25 million wrongful death claim Wednesday against the federal government, saying he was killed because U.S. investigators allowed murder weapons into the hands of criminals.
Terry died Dec. 14, 2010, when his special-operations unit got into a shootout with border bandits in a remote canyon area near Rio Rico. At the scene, investigators found two AK-47s that were traced back to a gun-smuggling probe by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives." read more
Drug War Weapons Traffic: US Attorney General Faces Renewed Criticism Over Mexico Gun Operation
Voice of America: "U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has faced a new round of Republican criticism over a controversial tactic in which U.S. authorities allowed gun buyers to move arms into Mexico, destined for drug cartels.
In testimony to Congress Thursday, regarding "Operation Fast and Furious" ... Holder said, "The tactic of not interdicting weapons, despite having the ability and legal authority to do so, appears to have been adopted in a misguided effort to stem the alarming number of illegal firearms that are trafficked each year from the United States to Mexico. ... to be sure, stopping this dangerous flow of weapons is a laudable and critical goal, but attempting to achieve it by using such inappropriate tactics is neither acceptable nor excusable."
In testimony to Congress Thursday, regarding "Operation Fast and Furious" ... Holder said, "The tactic of not interdicting weapons, despite having the ability and legal authority to do so, appears to have been adopted in a misguided effort to stem the alarming number of illegal firearms that are trafficked each year from the United States to Mexico. ... to be sure, stopping this dangerous flow of weapons is a laudable and critical goal, but attempting to achieve it by using such inappropriate tactics is neither acceptable nor excusable."
... The head of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, California Republican Darrell Issa, has accused Holder of protecting staff, deceiving the public and obstructing the panel's investigation.
At the hearing Thursday, he warned of possible congressional action to force the Justice Department to provide information to the committee." read more
At the hearing Thursday, he warned of possible congressional action to force the Justice Department to provide information to the committee." read more
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