NOT ONLY IS LA RAZA OCCUPIED LOS ANGELES A MEX WELFARE STATE
IN OUR BORDERS, IT IS ALSO ONE OF THE MANY GATEWAYS FOR THE MEXICAN DRUG
CARTELS!
Perhaps it has something to do with the Times'
near-monopoly on news in a one-newspaper town. Or maybe it's the paper's
historically cozy relationship with the city's political machine, which panders
to the Latino vote. (NO SEEMS TO REMIND THE ILLEGALS IT'S STILL ILLEGAL FOR
ILLEGALS TO VOTE!)
Media Miss
Cartels' War In U.S.
Posted 08/16/2010 06:58 PM ET
Media: As Mexico's drug war and Arizona's bid to
defend itself take center stage, the growth of cartels in Los Angeles is
another leg of the story. But to know about it you need to read Spanish.
Los Angeles and
its suburbs are in grave danger of becoming outposts for Mexican drug- and
immigrant-smuggling cartels, according to local law enforcement officials.
"We have detected the Gulf cartel and Los Zetas,"
Alvin Jackson, head of the Narcotics Division of the L.A. Police Department,
said in a recent interview. "They are operating on a middle and street
level."
In Mexico, the
Gulf and Zeta gangs are among the most violent, known for beheading opponents,
setting off car bombs and shooting up border cities from Tijuana to Matamoros.
In L.A., they've set up "distribution centers" not just in the slums,
but also the San Fernando Valley and on the well-heeled Westside near Santa
Monica.
Five other Mexican cartels — Sinaloa, Beltran-Levya, La Familia,
Arellano Felix and Carillo Fuentes — also operate in L.A. They're busy recruiting
gangs to carry on the same mayhem they're engaged in south of the border,
Jackson said.
Steven Martinez, who heads the FBI in Los Angeles, agreed with
Jackson's observations.
You'd think this would be news that merits front-page coverage
in, say, the city's newspaper of record, the Los Angeles Times. But it's not.
Jackson's and Martinez's assessments were reported in La Opinion, a
Spanish-language daily that has no English translation.
It's not that the Times doesn't cover the cartel war in detail
from Mexico. But when it comes to what's going on in Joe Friday's precincts,
something that might have some relevance to its readers, the paper is derelict.
Perhaps it has
something to do with the Times' near-monopoly on news in a one-newspaper town.
Or maybe it's the paper's historically cozy relationship with the city's
political machine, which panders to the Latino vote.
As illegal immigrants inundate the city and cartels come in
behind them, the City Council declares L.A. a sanctuary city and wastes time
boycotting Arizona for trying to beat back the same problems.
This is going to create serious problems down the road. L.A.
District Attorney Steven Cooley told the Washington (not the L.A.) Times that
gangs and drug traffickers may create gang- and cartel-controlled city
governments.
It's already evident, he said, along the 710 Freeway towards the
Port of Long Beach— a corridor that encompasses illegal-immigrant-majority
towns such as Bell, the city whose officials were caught feathering their nests
with million-dollar salary packages. The 710, by the way, has seen actual
cartel shootings.
*
MEXICANOCCUPATION.blogspot.com
M.E.Ch.A.
- Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest –
by force or by ballot box – and return it to Mexico.
*
LA RAZA…. “The Race”… one of the most powerful political
parties in the United States. A party for the expansion of the Mexican
occupation. A party virulently racist party for Mexican supremacy.
*
ZOGBY POLL
“In Mexico, a recent Zogby poll declared that the vast
majority of Mexican citizens hate Americans. [22.2] Mexico is a country
saturated with racism, yet in denial, having never endured the social
development of a Civil Rights movement like in the US--Blacks are harshly
treated while foreign Whites are often seen as the enemy. [22.3] In fact,
racism as workplace discrimination can be seen across the US anywhere the
illegal alien Latino works--the vast majority of the workforce is usually
strictly Latino, excluding Blacks, Whites, Asians, and others.”
*
GET ON JUDICIAL WATCH .org EMAILS!
*
M.E.Ch.A.
- Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the American Southwest –
by force or by ballot box – and return it to Mexico.
Judicial Watch Exposes Mexican Separatist School
Judicial Watch Exposes Mexican
Separatist School Is Academia Semillas del Pueblo Training the Next Generation
of Mexican Revolutionaries?
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/city/carrollton/stories/100706dnteximmigrationcops.32285f9.html (Washington, DC)
Judicial Watch, the
public interest group that investigates and prosecutes corruption, today
announced the release of a special report, Academia Semillas del Pueblo (Seeds
of the People Academy): Training the Next Generation of Mexican Revolutionaries
with American Tax Dollars. Judicial Watch’s report includes excerpts of new
documents obtained by Judicial Watch through the California Public Records Act
that highlight the school’s radical agenda. According to the report’s
introduction: “Academia Semillas del Pueblo is not much more than a training
ground for the Mexican reconquista movement, which seeks to conquer the
American Southwest – by force or by ballot box – and return it to Mexico.”
Among the highlights of Judicial Watch’s special report: · Academia is led by
Mexican revolutionary radical Marcos Aguilar, who recently told an interviewer
with UCLA’s Teaching to change L.A.: “We don’t necessarily want to go to White
schools¼the White way, the American way,
the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own
destruction.” · Academia offers an 8th grade United States history and
geography class entitled, “A People’s history of Expansion and Conflict – A
thematic survey of American politics, society, culture and political economy;
Emphasis throughout on the nations the U.S. usurped, invaded and dominated;
Connections between historical rise of capitalism and imperialism with modern
political economy and global social relations.” · Academia is funded by the
Mexican reconquista organization “National Council of La Raza.” Moreover,
Aguilar previously served as a leader of M.E.Ch.A., a radical student-run
Chicano organization, while attending UCLA. According to M.E.Ch.A.’s official
statement of principles, “Aztlan (the American southwest) belongs to indigenous
people, who are sovereign and not subject to a foreign culture¼We
are a union of free pueblos forming a bronze Nation.” · According to Academia’s
original charter application, the school targets “communities [that] are highly
self-identified as Latino.” English instruction for Academia’s students does
not begin until the fourth grade. “Marcos Aguilar’s school seems to be
brainwashing school children with Mexican separatist, anti-American, Marxist
propaganda, and getting American taxpayers to pay for it,” said Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton. “How could the Los Angeles Unified School District agree
to fund this sham of a school with tax dollars?”
To read a
copy of Judicial Watch’s new special report, visit www.judicialwatch.org. ..........................
PROMINENT
RACIST MEXICAN MEMBERS OF LA RAZA and M.E. Ch. A:
“IF
THEY’RE SUPPORTING LEGISLATION THAT DENIES THE UNDOCUMENTED DRIVER’S LICENSE,
THEY DON’T BELONG IN OFFICE, FRIENDS. THEY DON’T BELONG HERE!”
9.
Antonio Villaraigosa, Chair of MEChA (student wing of Aztlan movement) at UCLA,
former CA assemblymember, former CA Assembly speaker, currently Los Angeles
City Mayor, and formerly Councilman at Southwest Voter Registration Project
Conference in Los Angeles, 6/1997 "Part of today's reality has been
propositions like 187 (to deny public benefits to illegal aliens, 1994),
propositions like 209 (to abolish affirmative action, 1996), the welfare reform
bill, which targeted legal immigrants and targeted us as a community. That's
been the midnight. We know that the sunny side of midnight has been the
election of a Latino speaker - was the election of Loretta Sanchez, against an
arch-conservative, reactionary hate-mongering politician like Congressman
Dornan! Today in California in the legislature, we're engaged in a great
debate, where not only were we talking about denying education to the children
of undocumented workers, but now we're talking about whether or not we should
provide prenatal care to undocumented mothers. It's not enough to elect Latino
leadership. If they're supporting legislation that denies the undocumented
driver's licenses, they don't belong in office, friends. They don't belong
here. If they can't stand up and say, 'You know what? I'm not ever going to
support a policy that denies prenatal care to the children of undocumented
mothers', they don't belong here."
GLORIA
MOLINA, RACIST MEXICAN SUPREMACIST IS NOW ON THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS. A HUGE PORTION OF THE COUNTY’S REVENUES ARE PAID OUT TO ILLEGALS.
LOS ANGELES COUNTY CALCULATES THAT THE TAX-FREE MEXICAN UNDERGROUND ECONOMY IS
ABOUT $2 BILLION PER YEAR AND GROWING FAST.
“I’M
GONNA GO OUT THERE AN VOTE BECAUSE I WANT TO PAY THEM BACK!”10. Gloria Molina,
one of the five in Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors at Southwest Voter
Registration Project Conference, 6/1996 "This community is no longer going
to stand for it. Because tonight we are organizing across this country in a
single mission, in a plan. We are going to organize like we've never organized
before. We are going to go into our neighborhoods. We are going to register
voters. We are going to talk to all of those young people that need to become
registered voters and go out to vote and we're are politicizing every single
one of those new citizens that are becoming citizens of this country. And what
we are saying is by November we will have one million additional Latino voters
in this country, and we're gonna march, and our vote is going to be important.
But I gotta tell you, there's a lot of people that are saying, 'I'm gonna go
out there and vote because I want to pay them back!' And this November we are
going to remember those that stood with us and we are also going to remember
those that have stood against us on the issues of immigration, on the issues of
education, on the issues of health care, on the issues of the minimum
wage."
“LONG
LIVE OUR RACE!”11. Vicky Castro, former member of Los Angeles Board of
Education at Southwest Voter Registration Project Conference, 6/1996 "Que
viva la raza, que viva la raza (long live our race)! I'm here to welcome all
the new voters of 18 years old that we're registering now in our schools.
Welcome, you're going to make a difference for Los Angeles, for San Antonio,
for New York, and I thank Southwest for taking that challenge. And to the
Mechistas (MEChA students) across this nation, you're going to make that
difference for us, too. But when we register one more million voters I will not
be the only Latina on the Board of Education of Los Angeles. And let me tell
you here, no one will dismantle bilingual education in the United States of
America. No one will deny an education to any child, especially Latino
children. As you know, in Los Angeles we make up 70% of this school district.
Of 600,000 -- 400,000 are Latinos, and our parents are not heard and they're
going to be heard because in Los Angeles, San Antonio and Texas we have just
classified 53,000 new citizens in one year that are going to be felt in
November!"
“I
STARTED THIS VERY QUIETLY BECAUSE THERE ARE THOSE THAT IF THEY KNEW THAT WE
WERE CREATING A WHOLE NEW CADRE OF BRAND NEW CITIZENS IT WOULD HAVE TREMENDOUS
POLITICAL IMPACT.”
*
THE
FIGURES BELOW ARE DATED. NOW MEX GANG MEMBERS ARE NEARLY ONE MILLION STRONG.
ACCORDING
TO CA ATTORNEY GENERAL, KAMALA HARRIS, NEARLY HALF OF ALL MURDERS IN CA ARE BY
MEX GANGS!
*
Lou Dobbs
Tonight
And there are some 800,000
gang members in this country: That’s more than the combined number of troops in
our Army and Marine Corps. These gangs have become one of the principle ways to
import and distribute drugs in the United States. Congressman David Reichert
joins Lou to tell us why those gangs are growing larger and stronger, and why
he’s introduced legislation to eliminate the top three international drug
gangs.
Lou Dobbs Tonight
Monday, February 11, 2008
In California, League of United Latin American Citizens has
adopted a resolution to declare "California Del Norte" a sanctuary
zone for immigrants. The declaration urges the Mexican government to invoke its
rights under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo "to seek third‑nation neutral
arbitration of ....disputes concerning immigration laws and their
enforcement." We’ll have the story.
*
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
characterizes Mexican occupied Los Angeles as “the Mexican gang capital of
America.”
“From the house, Maria "Chata" Leon, an illegal immigrant, her family and associates controlled drug and gang activity on the street for years, police said.”
Can you help me understand how Maria the illegal Mexican
drug dealer was permitted to “control the drug and gang activity on the street
for years”?
From the Los Angeles Times
Avenues
gang bastion is demolished
City officials tear down the Satellite House on Drew
Street, from which Maria Leon's family allegedly controlled gang and drug
activity in Glassell Park. Residents say the area has gotten safer.
By Sam Quinones
February 5, 2009
The two-bedroom stucco house at 3304 Drew St. in Glassell Park was once the center of one of the most menacing drug marketplaces in Los Angeles.
From the house, Maria "Chata" Leon, an illegal immigrant, her family and associates controlled drug and gang activity on the street for years, police said.
During at least two raids at the house, according to court documents, officers found guns and drugs as well as surveillance cameras, laser trip wires and a shrine to Jesus Malverde, a Mexican folk hero whom drug traffickers have made their patron saint.
Known as the Satellite House, for the enormous black satellite dish that once stood in the driveway, the home "was a terrifying monument to the power of the Avenues gang" that dominated the two blocks of Drew Street, said City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.
But all that was history Wednesday morning.
As police and city officials looked on, a Caterpillar excavator took a bite out of the roof, then ate its way through the rest of the structure, and a half-hour later the Satellite House was rubble.
In 2007, Delgadillo's office -- using its TOUGH program to go after houses used as gang hangouts -- won a lawsuit to close the house as a public nuisance.
When the owners -- who city officials allege are straw men covering for Leon and her family -- didn't make repairs, the city's Building and Safety Commission approved plans to demolish it.
Eusterbio Renteria watched the destruction of the house that he said was the source of much family pain. "They should have done this 10 years ago," said Renteria, who has lived on Drew Street since 1972 and watched two of his sons join the gang, using the house as a hangout.
His son Carlos is in prison. According to a law enforcement report, he was heard on a surveillance tape requesting that a friend send him a photo of the Satellite House because he wanted to tattoo it on his body.
A few yards away, Los Angeles Police Officer Steve Aguilar also watched the demolition.
"It feels good," said Aguilar, who patrolled Drew Street for five of its worst years and recently became a detective in another part of the city. "It's been a long time in the making."
The 12-square-block enclave around Drew Street was among the city's most dangerous for years, police said.
Hooded gang members lurked behind parked cars and on apartment balconies, police and residents said. At night, tires squealed and gunshots echoed while neighbors huddled in their homes.
Some years, the street accounted for up to 20% of the violent crime in the 30-square-mile Northeast Division, police said.
For such a small area, Drew Street absorbed more than its share of city resources.
Police used special task forces, undercover drug operations and constant patrols to attack the gang problem. Drew Street's graffiti-scarred trees were regularly trimmed to give cops better visibility. Graffiti removers visited daily, to negligible effect. Street lights were covered with bulletproof glass.
Still, a stubborn culture of criminality reigned, largely because of a web of families from Tlalchapa, Guerrero, in the Tierra Caliente, a region of Mexico known for its violence. Police estimate that members of dozens of these extended families belonged to the Avenues gang and had built a network that proved hard to dismantle.
The neighborhood drew wider attention after a wild shootout between police and gang members last February.
The incident started when a car full of Drew Street gangsters allegedly shot and killed a former Cypress Park gang member outside an elementary school. Police later spotted the car on Drew Street. Maria Leon's son, Daniel, fired an assault rifle at the officers, who fatally shot him. Two others were arrested and charged with murder.
Since then, police and other law enforcement agencies have focused intensely on Drew Street.
In April, Maria Leon was arrested by federal agents and charged with illegally re-entering the country. The mother of 13 had previously been convicted of felony drug, firearms and child endangerment charges in three separate cases dating back to 1992.
In June, hundreds of heavily armed police and federal agents stormed into the neighborhood and arrested 28 people in an attempt to root out the Avenues gang members who had ruled the area with near-impunity.
A sweeping indictment named 70 defendants -- mostly connected to the Drew Street clique of the larger Avenues gang. Of those named, 26 were already in custody.
In December, suspected members of the Drew Street clique, Guillermo Hernandez, 20, and Carlos "Stony" Velasquez, 24, Leon's nephew, were arrested and charged with the Aug. 2 killing of Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who lived in Cypress Park.
Residents and police say things have calmed down considerably on Drew Street.
But neighbors are still afraid to talk openly for fear of retaliation.
"It's notable how it all got better," one resident said. "You don't see the guys in the street. There's no races, no noise at night. That anxiety, that desperate feeling of wanting to leave -- it's gone."
Violent crime -- which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- has dropped significantly in recent years, according to LAPD statistics. On Drew Street and the immediate surrounding neighborhood, the number of violent incidents has fallen from 98 in 2000 to 26 last year.
Recently, police solved a robbery of a nearby store largely based on information collected from residents. "That wouldn't have occurred a year or two years ago," said Capt. Bill Murphy of the Northeast Division.
Teachers at nearby Fletcher Drive Elementary School find their students better rested now that gunshots and police helicopters don't wake them at night, said Maria Manzur, the school's principal.
"There's a more calming effect throughout the school," she said.
On Wednesday, police and city officials were eager to cast the drop in neighborhood crime and the demolition of the Satellite House as a sort of Drew Street victory.
But some residents fear that the gang culture hasn't been entirely uprooted in a neighborhood crowded with apartments and poor people.
They also fear that police will eventually be drawn elsewhere.
But Police Chief William J. Bratton tried to allay those fears Wednesday. His department is hiring 1,000 new officers, he said, and many are expected to be placed in highly stressed neighborhoods such as Drew Street.
"We have never left," he said. "We're here to stay."
February 5, 2009
The two-bedroom stucco house at 3304 Drew St. in Glassell Park was once the center of one of the most menacing drug marketplaces in Los Angeles.
From the house, Maria "Chata" Leon, an illegal immigrant, her family and associates controlled drug and gang activity on the street for years, police said.
During at least two raids at the house, according to court documents, officers found guns and drugs as well as surveillance cameras, laser trip wires and a shrine to Jesus Malverde, a Mexican folk hero whom drug traffickers have made their patron saint.
Known as the Satellite House, for the enormous black satellite dish that once stood in the driveway, the home "was a terrifying monument to the power of the Avenues gang" that dominated the two blocks of Drew Street, said City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo.
But all that was history Wednesday morning.
As police and city officials looked on, a Caterpillar excavator took a bite out of the roof, then ate its way through the rest of the structure, and a half-hour later the Satellite House was rubble.
In 2007, Delgadillo's office -- using its TOUGH program to go after houses used as gang hangouts -- won a lawsuit to close the house as a public nuisance.
When the owners -- who city officials allege are straw men covering for Leon and her family -- didn't make repairs, the city's Building and Safety Commission approved plans to demolish it.
Eusterbio Renteria watched the destruction of the house that he said was the source of much family pain. "They should have done this 10 years ago," said Renteria, who has lived on Drew Street since 1972 and watched two of his sons join the gang, using the house as a hangout.
His son Carlos is in prison. According to a law enforcement report, he was heard on a surveillance tape requesting that a friend send him a photo of the Satellite House because he wanted to tattoo it on his body.
A few yards away, Los Angeles Police Officer Steve Aguilar also watched the demolition.
"It feels good," said Aguilar, who patrolled Drew Street for five of its worst years and recently became a detective in another part of the city. "It's been a long time in the making."
The 12-square-block enclave around Drew Street was among the city's most dangerous for years, police said.
Hooded gang members lurked behind parked cars and on apartment balconies, police and residents said. At night, tires squealed and gunshots echoed while neighbors huddled in their homes.
Some years, the street accounted for up to 20% of the violent crime in the 30-square-mile Northeast Division, police said.
For such a small area, Drew Street absorbed more than its share of city resources.
Police used special task forces, undercover drug operations and constant patrols to attack the gang problem. Drew Street's graffiti-scarred trees were regularly trimmed to give cops better visibility. Graffiti removers visited daily, to negligible effect. Street lights were covered with bulletproof glass.
Still, a stubborn culture of criminality reigned, largely because of a web of families from Tlalchapa, Guerrero, in the Tierra Caliente, a region of Mexico known for its violence. Police estimate that members of dozens of these extended families belonged to the Avenues gang and had built a network that proved hard to dismantle.
The neighborhood drew wider attention after a wild shootout between police and gang members last February.
The incident started when a car full of Drew Street gangsters allegedly shot and killed a former Cypress Park gang member outside an elementary school. Police later spotted the car on Drew Street. Maria Leon's son, Daniel, fired an assault rifle at the officers, who fatally shot him. Two others were arrested and charged with murder.
Since then, police and other law enforcement agencies have focused intensely on Drew Street.
In April, Maria Leon was arrested by federal agents and charged with illegally re-entering the country. The mother of 13 had previously been convicted of felony drug, firearms and child endangerment charges in three separate cases dating back to 1992.
In June, hundreds of heavily armed police and federal agents stormed into the neighborhood and arrested 28 people in an attempt to root out the Avenues gang members who had ruled the area with near-impunity.
A sweeping indictment named 70 defendants -- mostly connected to the Drew Street clique of the larger Avenues gang. Of those named, 26 were already in custody.
In December, suspected members of the Drew Street clique, Guillermo Hernandez, 20, and Carlos "Stony" Velasquez, 24, Leon's nephew, were arrested and charged with the Aug. 2 killing of Juan Abel Escalante, a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who lived in Cypress Park.
Residents and police say things have calmed down considerably on Drew Street.
But neighbors are still afraid to talk openly for fear of retaliation.
"It's notable how it all got better," one resident said. "You don't see the guys in the street. There's no races, no noise at night. That anxiety, that desperate feeling of wanting to leave -- it's gone."
Violent crime -- which includes homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault -- has dropped significantly in recent years, according to LAPD statistics. On Drew Street and the immediate surrounding neighborhood, the number of violent incidents has fallen from 98 in 2000 to 26 last year.
Recently, police solved a robbery of a nearby store largely based on information collected from residents. "That wouldn't have occurred a year or two years ago," said Capt. Bill Murphy of the Northeast Division.
Teachers at nearby Fletcher Drive Elementary School find their students better rested now that gunshots and police helicopters don't wake them at night, said Maria Manzur, the school's principal.
"There's a more calming effect throughout the school," she said.
On Wednesday, police and city officials were eager to cast the drop in neighborhood crime and the demolition of the Satellite House as a sort of Drew Street victory.
But some residents fear that the gang culture hasn't been entirely uprooted in a neighborhood crowded with apartments and poor people.
They also fear that police will eventually be drawn elsewhere.
But Police Chief William J. Bratton tried to allay those fears Wednesday. His department is hiring 1,000 new officers, he said, and many are expected to be placed in highly stressed neighborhoods such as Drew Street.
"We have never left," he said. "We're here to stay."
SMALL TOWNS, BIG GANGS TAKE OVER
CENTRAL VALLEY OF CALIFORNIA
Law enforcement officials are trying to crack
down on the urban problems that have begun to spread into the Central Valley.
By Tim
Reiterman
Los Angeles
Times Staff Writer February 24, 2008
DELANO
Here in the birthplace of Cesar Chavez's nonviolent farm labor movement, a 14-year-old who aspired to become a policeman is cut down by gunfire on his front porch. In the farm town of Merced, billed as the gateway to Yosemite, an armed gang member shoots an officer after a vehicle stop -- the first police slaying in the city's 118-year history. And in Red Bluff, which prides itself on its Victorian homes, rodeos, hunting and fishing, a teenage gangster pumps seven bullets into another high school student outside a party. Along the 450 miles of the Central Valley, an explosion of gang violence in recent years has transformed life on the wide, tree-lined streets of California's agricultural heartland. As jobs and relatively affordable housing in the fast-growing region have attracted families from the Los Angeles and San Francisco Bay areas, law enforcement officials say, some have brought gang ties with them, aggravating the valley's home-grown street crime. "What we are seeing is a migration of gangs from larger cities . . . to more rural areas," said Jerry Hunter, who oversees state Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown's anti-gang units. "The gang activity . . . is a huge crisis for those communities." The spread of gang violence has strained police resources and rendered some playgrounds and streets off limits. Bullets have shattered the peace in parks and strip malls. Some graffiti cleanup crews in Stanislaus County have bulletproof vests or police escorts. Lifeguards in Turlock no longer sport traditional red or blue swimwear -- those gang colors might provoke gunfire. Schools in many places have adopted anti-gang dress codes, and rumors of impending gang attacks sometimes scare students from classes. Fear has silenced witnesses to gang crimes. Up and down the valley, task forces have been formed as evidence mounts that street hoodlums are committing homicides, robberies and car thefts and trafficking in drugs. Some communities have taxed themselves to pay for more police. Local, state and federal sweeps have produced thousands of arrests -- but tens of thousands more gang members remain on the streets, authorities say. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has appointed former Sacramento U.S. Atty. Paul Seave as his anti-gang chief, hoping to improve the effectiveness and collaboration of state agencies that spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to prevent and combat gang violence. And Brown has declared the gang problem a top priority, likening it to domestic terrorism. His office is providing local agencies with expertise, intelligence and agents for raids. The Central Valley contains eight of the 22 counties that had the most gang-related homicides in 2005 and 2006, Seave said. And annual California Department of Justice figures show that the number of valley gang killings has accelerated, as has the number of law enforcement agencies reporting such crimes. In 1997, 50 gang-related homicides were reported, compared with 80 in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Gang violence came with startling brutality to the Tehama County town of Red Bluff, at the northern reaches of the Sacramento River. After a 17-year-old Sureño gang member repeatedly shot a 16-year-old Norteño gang member outside a house party, rumors of an attack on a local high school caused many students to stay home. The young gang member was sentenced last year to 25 years to life in prison for the 2006 shooting. "This is a small town, and . . . we're not used to those types of things happening," said Greg Ulloa, the county's juvenile probation chief. "But it is getting worse." The lower end of the valley has long been known as the Mason-Dixon Line of California's major Latino gang rivalry. But now clashes between the Sureños, or southerners, and the Norteños, northerners, have migrated through the state. "In the eastern part of the county, families are moving in from the L.A. basin," said Kern County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Whiting. The gang members who come with them, he said, "are small fish there, but they can be bigger fish here." The North-South conflicts are particularly pronounced in Delano. It is territory claimed by the Norteños, whose traditional strongholds are farming communities and who have adopted as their insignia a version of the United Farm Workers Union's Aztec Eagle symbol. But the town has Sureños too and is only seven miles from that gang's turf in McFarland. One night last year, 14-year-old Steven Fierro, a freshman at Delano's Cesar Chavez High School, was standing outside his tidy tract home with his older brother and two of his brother's friends when they were strafed by rifle fire from a car. Steven was killed and the others wounded in what police say is an unsolved shooting rooted in the gang rivalry. Steven's mother Isabel keeps a small, candlelight shrine inside her front door to remind her of a son she describes as good-hearted, loving and not a gang member. He wanted to be a policeman, she said, and hoped to buy a bigger house and nice car for his mom, who works in a horticultural facility. She left Steven's room untouched -- with his video games, baseball photos and paintball gun. "Maybe this way I'm thinking he has gone off to school and will be back," she said, weeping. "The same night they killed my son, they killed me also." Police, school officials and community groups say gang violence cannot be curtailed without prevention and intervention. Some towns teach parents to be on alert for signs, such as red or blue clothing, shoes and handkerchiefs, that their children might be drifting toward gangs. Other towns have stepped up recreational activities to keep youngsters busy. Even when law enforcement agencies record successes against a gang, members often move elsewhere, as some may have done after crackdowns on Fresno's Bulldogs gang. It has an estimated 6,000 members. Police in nearby Selma are now seeing Bulldogs, with their dog-paw tattoos, standing on street corners literally barking warnings when squad cars approach. There have been drive-by shootings in midday, and police say one crime witness was wounded by gang members who shot through her front door. The rise of gang violence "has caught us off guard and shocked our community," said Selma Police Chief Tom Whiteside, noting that the town of about 24,000 had five gang homicides in the last three years. "Today, gang crime is probably No. 1 on everyone's radar screen in the valley." Selma voters overwhelmingly approved a half-cent sales tax in November that will allow its police force to nearly double in the next decade. The Bulldogs have adopted the red theme and menacing mascot of Cal State Fresno's athletic teams, sometimes blurring the visual lines between gang members and others. "An Hispanic group occasionally will be in a compromising position at a mini-market or walking down the street . . . because they are wearing . . . Bulldog-related clothing," said Fresno Police Sgt. Bill Grove. "It poses problems for law enforcement as well. . . . We come into contact with known gang members and they claim they are just fans of the teams." University officials say they will not surrender their mascot to gangs. "By changing our name, it would reward them," said Paul Oliaro, vice president for student affairs. A striking case of mistaken identity visited Atwater, 200 miles to the north. A Fresno State student, home for the weekend several years ago, was jogging in her red school T-shirt when someone yelled at her for wearing Norteño colors and fired five shots from a car, narrowly missing her. "Gang members do not heed borders," he said. "Gang members move here but do not cut their ties."
...............................
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Drug
crackdown has little effect on money laundering
In many cases, the network that turns ill-gotten gains
into legal tender, crucial to operations and lavish lifestyles, continues to
spin unhindered.
By Tracy Wilkinson
December 22, 2008
Reporting from Mexico City — For a B-team, Los Mapaches sure seemed to be living it up. The soccer club from the small town of Nueva Italia in western Mexico had the finest vehicles, new uniforms every game and unusually high salaries.
Little wonder, then, when the team's owner was arrested and accused of laundering millions of dollars for one of Mexico's most powerful drug gangs.
The team was one of many covers, federal prosecutors allege, that Wenceslao Alvarez, alias El Wencho, used to hide and move millions of dollars for the so-called Gulf cartel.
In the Mexican government's bloody, 2-year-old war on drug traffickers, one component of the trade remains largely untouched: money laundering. The network that helps turn ill-gotten gains into legal tender is a crucial linchpin that enables traffickers to live large, expand their operations deep into the U.S., pay off cops and politicians and buy increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
"You can arrest thousands of [traffickers] but if you don't touch the financial enterprises, the business just goes on . . . and becomes more violent," said Edgardo Buscaglia, an expert on organized crime who has advised both the United Nations and Mexican officials.
Until the government goes after traffickers' cash, Buscaglia and other critics say, the networks will continue to grow and fortify themselves, no matter how many state security forces are thrown at them.
Money-laundering is the process of concealing the origin of illicit drug profits by funneling them into businesses (legitimate or fake), real estate and financial institutions.
Estimates vary widely, but as much as $20 billion is laundered and stays in Mexico annually, with up to four times that amount continuing to other destinations, experts and Mexican officials say.
Some of the money is stuffed in suitcases and walked across the border into Mexico, or hidden in cargo containers and shipped. But investigators also suspect international courier services are moving the cash.
Banking controls are notoriously lax in Mexico, making it easier for money to be wired or deposited into accounts, then spent on goods or services. All-cash transactions are common, especially for big-ticket items such as mansions, and Hummers and armored BMWs, and to pay the legions who work for the drug mafias. The money also is increasingly being sunk into artwork, gems, gold and commodities.
Blacklisted
Every year, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklists scores of individuals and companies, most of them Mexican or Colombian, believed to be involved in money-laundering or other activities supporting drug-trafficking networks.
Rarely has the Mexican government acted on the information. Mexican authorities cannot easily confiscate traffickers' property and assets, a practice common in the U.S. and one that helped give the Colombian government an upper hand in cracking that country's cartels.
"It is a very powerful tool against narco-traffickers because it hits their interests -- their purchasing power and their ideal way of life," Colombian Vice Minister of Defense Sergio Jaramillo Caro said during a recent meeting here of Latin American public security officials. A new law that would give Mexicans that authority has been passed only in Mexico City; a national version is languishing in Congress.
The two main agencies that investigate and prosecute suspected money launderers are hamstrung and underfunded. The Finance Ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit and the attorney general's office are required to communicate with each other in writing, a clumsy process, and they are not allowed access to federal police reports, financial records or other key databases to build organized-crime cases.
The case of the Mapaches (Raccoons) was more exception than rule. Federal agents arrested El Wencho in October while he was in Mexico City at the headquarters of a top soccer club. In addition to the Mapaches, El Wencho's holdings included car dealerships, an avocado export firm, hotels and restaurants, prosecutors say.
The alleged money-laundering operation, which authorities say extended into six U.S. states and parts of Central and South America, came to light in September as part of a U.S. federal indictment that named top leaders of the Gulf cartel and led to the arrests of more than 500 people in the U.S., Mexico and Italy.
An estimated $7.6 million of El Wencho's assets were seized by U.S. authorities in Atlanta and other U.S. cities, according to a senior Mexican official who did not want to be named because such investigations are kept secret until a formal indictment is issued. Mexican and U.S. agents spent a year tracking El Wencho's movements through tapped telephones and other surveillance, the official said.
The official said the soccer team was more of a "whim" and not particularly effective at laundering large amounts of money because it was too junior. It may have been a way for El Wencho to curry favor in Nueva Italia, a typical ploy of traffickers who do good works for their hometowns as a way to buy loyalty and protection.
Shrouded in secrecy
Mexican officials say their financial system is relatively unregulated, shrouded in secrecy laws and so complex that it is difficult to penetrate. But critics wonder if politicians blanch at changing those laws because too many of the country's elite would be implicated.
They note that the interior minister, the second most powerful person in the Mexican government, once helped defend a prominent banker who was acquitted in one of the few high-profile laundering cases to reach the courts.
There is also a general, if unspoken, tolerance of laundered money among many Mexicans, who reason that if the dollars have passed through other hands, it no longer is dirty money.
"It has been relatively useless to try to determine the amounts of money being laundered in Mexico," President Felipe Calderon told Congress last month. An official report that Calderon submitted to lawmakers said the Finance Ministry had detected 60,000 suspicious financial transactions in the 12-month period ending in June. But only 0.5% ended up in court.
A handful of money exchange houses are being prosecuted, but the gradual dollarization of the Mexican economy has diminished the role of exchange houses in suspect transactions, experts say.
Five years ago, Mexican authorities arrested accused money-launderer Rigoberto Gaxiola. Yet, from prison, he continued to wash money for traffickers from Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexican drug-running, as recently as summer, U.S. and Mexican officials say. At that point, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklisted Gaxiola along with 17 associates, including his wife and three children, and 14 of his businesses. However, the Mexican government has not made further arrests, shut down the businesses nor announced any other sanctions.
Efforts to obtain comment from officials of the Financial Intelligence Unit or from investigators with the attorney general's office were unsuccessful.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, worry that money-laundering operations could have deeper security implications.
"Once you've set up the scheme, you can launder anything," a senior U.S. law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. "Human slavery, arms trafficking -- even terrorists."
December 22, 2008
Reporting from Mexico City — For a B-team, Los Mapaches sure seemed to be living it up. The soccer club from the small town of Nueva Italia in western Mexico had the finest vehicles, new uniforms every game and unusually high salaries.
Little wonder, then, when the team's owner was arrested and accused of laundering millions of dollars for one of Mexico's most powerful drug gangs.
The team was one of many covers, federal prosecutors allege, that Wenceslao Alvarez, alias El Wencho, used to hide and move millions of dollars for the so-called Gulf cartel.
In the Mexican government's bloody, 2-year-old war on drug traffickers, one component of the trade remains largely untouched: money laundering. The network that helps turn ill-gotten gains into legal tender is a crucial linchpin that enables traffickers to live large, expand their operations deep into the U.S., pay off cops and politicians and buy increasingly sophisticated weaponry.
"You can arrest thousands of [traffickers] but if you don't touch the financial enterprises, the business just goes on . . . and becomes more violent," said Edgardo Buscaglia, an expert on organized crime who has advised both the United Nations and Mexican officials.
Until the government goes after traffickers' cash, Buscaglia and other critics say, the networks will continue to grow and fortify themselves, no matter how many state security forces are thrown at them.
Money-laundering is the process of concealing the origin of illicit drug profits by funneling them into businesses (legitimate or fake), real estate and financial institutions.
Estimates vary widely, but as much as $20 billion is laundered and stays in Mexico annually, with up to four times that amount continuing to other destinations, experts and Mexican officials say.
Some of the money is stuffed in suitcases and walked across the border into Mexico, or hidden in cargo containers and shipped. But investigators also suspect international courier services are moving the cash.
Banking controls are notoriously lax in Mexico, making it easier for money to be wired or deposited into accounts, then spent on goods or services. All-cash transactions are common, especially for big-ticket items such as mansions, and Hummers and armored BMWs, and to pay the legions who work for the drug mafias. The money also is increasingly being sunk into artwork, gems, gold and commodities.
Blacklisted
Every year, the U.S. Treasury Department blacklists scores of individuals and companies, most of them Mexican or Colombian, believed to be involved in money-laundering or other activities supporting drug-trafficking networks.
Rarely has the Mexican government acted on the information. Mexican authorities cannot easily confiscate traffickers' property and assets, a practice common in the U.S. and one that helped give the Colombian government an upper hand in cracking that country's cartels.
"It is a very powerful tool against narco-traffickers because it hits their interests -- their purchasing power and their ideal way of life," Colombian Vice Minister of Defense Sergio Jaramillo Caro said during a recent meeting here of Latin American public security officials. A new law that would give Mexicans that authority has been passed only in Mexico City; a national version is languishing in Congress.
The two main agencies that investigate and prosecute suspected money launderers are hamstrung and underfunded. The Finance Ministry's Financial Intelligence Unit and the attorney general's office are required to communicate with each other in writing, a clumsy process, and they are not allowed access to federal police reports, financial records or other key databases to build organized-crime cases.
The case of the Mapaches (Raccoons) was more exception than rule. Federal agents arrested El Wencho in October while he was in Mexico City at the headquarters of a top soccer club. In addition to the Mapaches, El Wencho's holdings included car dealerships, an avocado export firm, hotels and restaurants, prosecutors say.
The alleged money-laundering operation, which authorities say extended into six U.S. states and parts of Central and South America, came to light in September as part of a U.S. federal indictment that named top leaders of the Gulf cartel and led to the arrests of more than 500 people in the U.S., Mexico and Italy.
An estimated $7.6 million of El Wencho's assets were seized by U.S. authorities in Atlanta and other U.S. cities, according to a senior Mexican official who did not want to be named because such investigations are kept secret until a formal indictment is issued. Mexican and U.S. agents spent a year tracking El Wencho's movements through tapped telephones and other surveillance, the official said.
The official said the soccer team was more of a "whim" and not particularly effective at laundering large amounts of money because it was too junior. It may have been a way for El Wencho to curry favor in Nueva Italia, a typical ploy of traffickers who do good works for their hometowns as a way to buy loyalty and protection.
Shrouded in secrecy
Mexican officials say their financial system is relatively unregulated, shrouded in secrecy laws and so complex that it is difficult to penetrate. But critics wonder if politicians blanch at changing those laws because too many of the country's elite would be implicated.
They note that the interior minister, the second most powerful person in the Mexican government, once helped defend a prominent banker who was acquitted in one of the few high-profile laundering cases to reach the courts.
There is also a general, if unspoken, tolerance of laundered money among many Mexicans, who reason that if the dollars have passed through other hands, it no longer is dirty money.
"It has been relatively useless to try to determine the amounts of money being laundered in Mexico," President Felipe Calderon told Congress last month. An official report that Calderon submitted to lawmakers said the Finance Ministry had detected 60,000 suspicious financial transactions in the 12-month period ending in June. But only 0.5% ended up in court.
A handful of money exchange houses are being prosecuted, but the gradual dollarization of the Mexican economy has diminished the role of exchange houses in suspect transactions, experts say.
Five years ago, Mexican authorities arrested accused money-launderer Rigoberto Gaxiola. Yet, from prison, he continued to wash money for traffickers from Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexican drug-running, as recently as summer, U.S. and Mexican officials say. At that point, the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control blacklisted Gaxiola along with 17 associates, including his wife and three children, and 14 of his businesses. However, the Mexican government has not made further arrests, shut down the businesses nor announced any other sanctions.
Efforts to obtain comment from officials of the Financial Intelligence Unit or from investigators with the attorney general's office were unsuccessful.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, worry that money-laundering operations could have deeper security implications.
"Once you've set up the scheme, you can launder anything," a senior U.S. law enforcement official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of security concerns. "Human slavery, arms trafficking -- even terrorists."
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