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An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels. Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S. www.businessinsider.com...
These arms deals are known as Direct Commercial Sales [DCS]. Each year, the State Department issues a report tallying the volume and dollar amount of DCS items approved for export. According to an analysis of the DCS reports, some $1 billion in defense hardware was approved for export to Mexico via private U.S. companies between fiscal year 2004 and fiscal year 2007 — the most recent year for which data was available. Overall, during the same period, a total of some $3.7 billion in weapons and other military hardware was approved for export under the DCS program to all of Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to the military hardware exports approved for Mexico, some $3.8 billion in defense-related “services” [technical assistance and training via private U.S. contractors] also were approved for “export” to Mexico over the same four-year period, according to the DCS reports. Following is a sample of the types of arms shipments approved for export to Mexico through the DCS program during fiscal years 2006 and 2007 alone: $3.3 million worth of ammunition and explosives, including ammunition-manufacturing equipment; 13,000 nonautomatic and semiautomatic firearms, pistols and revolvers at a total value of $11.6 million; 42 grenade launchers valued at $518,531; 3,578 explosive projectiles, including grenades, valued at $78,251; Various night-vision equipment valued at $963,201. narcosphere.narconews.com...
Why Chicago?
It's the transportation hub of America. The city is located within a day's drive of 70 percent of the nation's population, and is crisscrossed by major interstate highways and railway lines. Chicago is also a huge drug market in its own right. Some 86 percent of people arrested in Cook County in 2012 tested positive for at least one illegal narcotic — the highest percentage of any big U.S. city. With his monopoly in the city, Guzmán doubled wholesale heroin prices, thus cutting profit margins for street dealers. That fueled greater competition for turf and exacerbated Chicago's epidemic of gang violence. "It used to be honor among thieves," said Harold Ward, a former gang member turned anti-violence campaigner. "Now, it's by any means necessary."
On October 26, 2009, a teleconference was held at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. to discuss U.S. strategy for combating Mexican drug cartels. Participating in the meeting were Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer, acting ATF Director Kenneth E. Melson, Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michele Leonhart, Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Robert Mueller and the top federal prosecutors in the Southwestern border states.
en.wikipedia.org...:_Operation_Fast_and_Furious www.washingtonpost.com...
One of the nineteen guns Mexican authorities said they found at the hideout of Joaquin Guzman aka El Chapo, after his January 2016 capture, was associated with the Fast and Furious operation. The Justice Department confirmed that the .50-caliber rifle was bought in July 2010 in a straw purchase by someone not known to the ATF at the time, and stated the weapon was not associated with any other crime. In a letter to Congressional leaders, Assistant Attorney General Peter Kadzik, head of the Justice Department's legislative affairs office, wrote, "ATF and the department deeply regret that firearms associated with Operation Fast and Furious have been used by criminals in the commission of violent crimes, particularly crimes resulting in the deaths of civilians and law enforcement officials."
en.wikipedia.org...
In 2008, it was reported by DEA and Justice Department officials that radical Islamic groups such as Hamas, and Hezbollah have become associates of the Mexican drug cartels including Sinaloa. Hezbollah had been involved in the tri border region of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina; viewing the US as a financial source. Using the drug cartel routes, Hezbollah was able to smuggle drugs and people into the US. Hezbollah maintains sleeper cells and training bases in Mexico. They have also helped the drug cartels make explosives. ...According to reports by the House Homeland Security Committee in 2012, the “Southwest border has become the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration into the United States.” The report explains that the presence of Hezbollah in Latin America is partially due to a large Lebanese diaspora. Hezbollah and Venezuela maintain close ties. Sinaloa has also recently been found using a Middle Eastern honor system of financial transfer known as Hawala, in order to launder drug proceeds. www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org...
The campaign, dubbed Project Cassandra, was launched in 2008 after the Drug Enforcement Administration amassed evidence that Hezbollah had transformed itself from a Middle East-focused military and political organization into an international crime syndicate that some investigators believed was collecting $1 billion a year from drug and weapons trafficking, money laundering and other criminal activities.
Over the next eight years, agents working out of a top-secret DEA facility in Chantilly, Virginia, used wiretaps, undercover operations and informants to map Hezbollah’s illicit networks, with the help of 30 U.S. and foreign security agencies.
...
But as Project Cassandra reached higher into the hierarchy of the conspiracy, Obama administration officials threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way, according to interviews with dozens of participants who in many cases spoke for the first time about events shrouded in secrecy, and a review of government documents and court records. When Project Cassandra leaders sought approval for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, officials at the Justice and Treasury departments delayed, hindered or rejected their requests.
www.politico.com...
Hezbollah at the Border
In 2008, there was an increase in the number of boats arriving on the North coast, ferrying people from all over the world seeking to enter the United States illegally via Guatemala and Mexico. Nationals of countries without Honduran visa requirements, especially Ecuador and Colombia, were involved in schemes to transit Honduras, often with the United States and Europe as their final destination. Foreign nationals have successfully obtained valid Honduran identity cards and passports under their own or false identities.” Over the past three years, nearly 57,000 people have been apprehended in this country illegally with Honduran identification. Over 49,000 were from Guatemala and over 38,000 from El Salvador, home of the MS-13 narco-terror gangs.
Hezbollah establish training base in Nicaragua
Iran has established a training base in northern Nicaragua near the border with Honduras that is used by Hezbollah, Israel Radio reported Thursday.
Son Of The Former President Of Honduras Sentenced To 24 Years In Prison For Conspiring To Import Cocaine Into The US
Joon H. Kim, the Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced today that FABIO PORFIRIO LOBO was sentenced to 288 months in prison for conspiring to import coc aine into the United States. LOBO pled guilty on May 16, 2016, before U.S. District Judge Lorna G. Schofield, who imposed today’s sentence. LOBO’s father, Porfirio Lobo, served as president of Honduras between 2010 and 2014.
Top U.S.-Backed Honduran Security Minister Is Running Drugs, According to Court Testimony
The Honduran minister of security, who was intimately involved in solidifying the 2009 coup, is tied up in drug trafficking, according to testimony from a Mexican drug-trafficker-turned-DEA-informant in U.S. court. In November 2016, as the world’s attention was fixated on the surprise election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, two nephews of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro were found guilty on drug trafficking charges.
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: intrptr
Roger that.
In 'completing' my ebook the other day, I decided its best to refer to the lot of it all as the Wars of Drugs, as what I learned is you really cant even put any of the wars coup d'etats starting back around 1840 into proper perspective without the narcotics angles.
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
a reply to: MOMof3
Everyone needs to stop worshiping these psychopathic war mongering, mass murdering, drug running, citizen imprisoning, family obliterating, environment destroying, economy wrecking, nation devastating POS' is how I roll my peace engines.
originally posted by: MOMof3
a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
So what? Everybody got the wars they want. We are forever in the muck in the Middle East and n Africa.
Why should I care about Chicago if the people who live there don’t.
Obama is history
You conspiracy theorists are always looking back and miss the shenanigans happening in Real Time. These are not boring times.
originally posted by: IgnoranceIsntBlisss
While at the other end the Dem's act like they LOVE the Mexican's and the rest that flow from south of the border, yet this wide open borders policy to keep the drug corridor wide open (never mind the other modes of imperialism the past 70 years that DNC+RNC are equally guilty of down there) has bombed out all those little nations no wonder so many so desperate to
get here. But insisting it stay wide open in every sense ensures a perpetual cycle of devastation of every variety.