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- CJNG Uses "Grenade-Walker" Against Police- 2 Years After Being Smuggled for CDS
- M-12, Brother of "El Mayito" Arrested in a Safehouse in Juarez
- Narcoleaks: How can seized and destroyed cocaine exceed what is produced?
CJNG Uses "Grenade-Walker" Against Police- 2 Years After Being Smuggled for CDS Posted: 17 Oct 2013 10:53 PM PDT Borderland Beat  Backstory: The following is from WSJ report of September 2011: Mexican authorities on Tuesday confirmed the capture of Jean Baptiste Kingery, an American citizen accused of smuggling grenades across the border to help arm drug cartels. U.S. officials said earlier that Mr. Kingery had been arrested in late August at his home in Mazatlan, in the Pacific-coast state of Sinaloa, but Mexican police only confirmed the arrest Tuesday. Mr. Kingery, from Arizona, allegedly purchased components to make hand grenades and other weapons in the U.S. and smuggled them across the border for use by the Sinaloa Cartel, one of Mexico's major drug-smuggling outfits, Mexican officials said in a news release.  U.S. officials briefly had Mr. Kingery (at left) in custody in June 2010 but let him go after just a few hours, fueling an ongoing battle between prosecutors and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. That followed a failed plan to use Mr. Kingery in a sting operation in early 2010. The Justice Department and Congress are investigating the series of missteps in the case, which is similar to the botched "Fast and Furious" program that allowed suspected smugglers to buy thousands of U.S. firearms. The mistakes made in the Kingery case helped force the ouster last week of Kenneth Melson, the acting director of the ATF, and Dennis Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, U.S. officials said. Mexican officials said Mr. Kingery's arrest came after they broke up another grenade-smuggling ring in Baja California in April, which eventually led federal police to Mr. Kingery's hideout. The following was reported today, this from CBS: CBS News has learned of a shocking link between a deadly drug cartel shootout with Mexican police last week and a controversial case in the U.S. The link is one of the grenades used in the violent fight, which killed three policemen and four cartel members and was captured on video by residents in the area. According to a Justice Department Significant Incident Report (see as image below) filed Tuesday and obtained by CBS News, evidence connects one of the grenades to Jean Baptiste Kingery, an alleged firearms trafficker U.S. officials allowed to operate for years without arresting despite significant evidence that he was moving massive amounts of grenade parts and ammunition to Mexico's ruthless drug cartels. "Grenade-walking" part of "Gunwalking" scandal New evidence in ATF's mysterious grenade smuggler case Complete coverage of the gunwalking scandal The gun battle took place last week in Guadalajara. Authorities say five members of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel used at least nine firearms and ten hand grenades against Mexican police. If one of the grenades was supplied with the help of Kingery, as believed, it adds to the toll of lives taken with weapons trafficked by suspects U.S. officials watched but did not stop. The Kingery case was overseen by the same Arizona U.S. Attorney and ATF office that let suspects traffic thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels in the operation dubbed Fast and Furious. The strategy was to try to get to the cartel kingpins, but it was halted after CBS News reported that Fast and Furious weapons were used by cartel thugs in the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry on December 15, 2010. Weapons trafficked by other ATF suspects under surveillance were used two months later in the cartel murder of Immigration and Customs Agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico on February 15, 2011.
On Wednesday, ATF told CBS News it has "no information" about the Kingery connection to last week's gun battle in Mexico. As CBS News previously reported, documents showATF began watching Kingery in "2004 related to AK47 purchases" he was believed to be trafficking to Mexico. In 2009, ATF also learned Kingery was dealing in grenades; weapons of choice for Mexico's killer cartels. Documents show they developed a secret plan to let him smuggle parts to Mexico in early 2010 and follow him to his factory. Some ATF agents vehemently objected, worried that Kingery would disappear once he crossed the border into Mexico. That's exactly what happened. Kingery resurfaced several months later in 2010, trying to smuggle a stash of grenade bodies and ammunition into Mexico, but was again let go when prosecutors allegedly said they couldn't build a good case. In 2011, Mexican authorities finally raided Kingery's factory and arrested him -- they say he confessed to teaching cartel members how to build grenades and convert semi-automatic weapons to automatic. The Justice Department has not provided an update on whether it's trying to extradite Kingery to the U.S., and an ATF spokesman said on Wednesday that he doesn't know the status of his case. Sources:WSJ-CBS-DOJ  | ||
M-12, Brother of "El Mayito" Arrested in a Safehouse in Juarez Posted: 17 Oct 2013 06:28 PM PDT Borderland Beat Jose Fidel Núñez Meza is identified as the brother of Mario Nuñez Meza, M-10, "El Mayito" and brother of Amado, 'M-11.' All are members of the same cartel, but M-10 was arrested a few months ago inside a hotel room, while the second is still at large. The authorities indicated during the presentation of the M-12 today that he was in the command structure of the Sinaloa Cartel.   An article in Milenio online said Jose Fidel Núñez Meza was the plaza boss in ciudad Juarez and also that the alleged drug dealer was part of a group called "The emes", nicknamed "the M-12", although initially identified him as "the M-11", who is actually Amado Nuñez Meza and is a fugitive.  Jose Fidel Núñez Meza, is the brother of Mario Nuñez Meza, alias 'El M-10' or 'El Mayito', an alleged local leader of the cartel Sinaloa and was arrested just over a month ago on the border, in a hotel of the La Avenida Tecnológico. "El Mayito" is being investigated for the 23 narcofosas in Durango where at least 350 bodies were found. The brothers Mario, José Fidel, and Amado (the latter a fugitive) are the ringleaders of a cell for the Sinaloa cartel that operates in the northern states of the country and they are accused of killing 300 people. Diario, Rednoticias, Mexirojo, Milenio,  | ||
Narcoleaks: How can seized and destroyed cocaine exceed what is produced? Posted: 17 Oct 2013 08:42 AM PDT Borderland Beat  ‘Obama’s lies about the international cocaine trade’ October 16, 2013 – In 2011, a small group of journalists and researchers from Italy, led by journalist Giovanni Augello and researcher Sandro Donati, author of studies on cocaine production and trafficking for the association Libera, monitored the global seizures of cocaine. The rest of the team consisted of Ilaria Roberta Sesana, Monica Caboi, Lorenzo Bagnoli and Christian Giorgio. 365 days, over 100 different sources.The monitoring was carried out daily, from January 1 to December 31, 2011. Information on cocaine seizures was collected from over 100 different sources. Media coverage was compared with official data issued by government agencies of countries most affected by trafficking. Throughout 2011, the team worked tirelessly, collecting data on more than 5,000 major drug operations that had led to significant cocaine seizures. The record year of cocaine seizures. Analyzing the data, we estimated that cocaine seizures of high purity had totaled over 774 metric tons in 2011. After the record year of 2005, when 769 metric tons of cocaine were seized (according to UNODC data), seizures had kept a constantly lower level. In recent years, however, seizures started to steadily rise again: 708.782 metric tons in 2007, 727.174 in 2008, while the cocaine seized in 2009 amounted to 738.937 metric tons. In addition to the 774 metric tons of cocaine seized in 2011, Narcoleaks also kept track of the drug sunk at sea or destroyed by narcos (about 21 metric tons); of coca leaves ready to be processed that had been discovered and destroyed by the police forces in clandestine drug laboratories in Colombia, Bolivia, and Peru (equivalent to 25-30 metric tons of cocaine) and, finally, of the amount of cocaine estimated by investigators performing judicial inquiries completed during the year in various countries and referable to 2011 (over 400 metric tons).
Methodology. Throughout 2011 we gathered information on cocaine seizures from news articles and official press releases. We only took into account the cocaine seizures above 10 kilograms. All dubious cases were discarded. Every single detail was checked (e.g. name, age, and origin of suspects arrested by the police forces; license plate, model, color of vehicles used in crime, etc.). We catalogued information on seizures that took place on ships, submarines, at airports and in many other different ways, without ever taking into account seizures of small quantities. In numerous cases, the dispatch confirmed the high purity of the cocaine seized. On many occasions, it was even possible to distinguish the sealed packages. We also contacted several experts to ask for their opinion. Disagreement with official data. On December 7, 2011 our team published a press releaseto announce that the quantity of cocaine seized had surpassed the amount of cocaine produced. Our research showed, in fact, that data on the quantity of cocaine confiscated by police forces worldwide exceeded the U.S. and UN official estimates of cocaine production. This can only mean that cocaine production is underestimated by the international bodies. ByDecember 31, in fact, cocaine seized during the year had exceeded 774 metric tons. The official reports by the U.S. State Department, instead, estimate the annual production to be about 700 metric tons. How can seized and destroyed cocaine exceed what is produced? Where is the mistake? In the press release, Narcoleaks also pointed out the existence of other inconsistencies in official data, and asked the U.S. President Barack Obama several questions, that the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) publicly answered on its website. However, we were not persuaded by these official replies, and with another press release we refuted each and every point. No response came after our reply. Obama’s responsibility. The first press release by Narcoleaks was titled ‘Obama’s lies about the international cocaine trade’. We don’t think that President Barack Obama has direct responsibility for managing the data, but we believe that he has the responsibility to control them and to make sure that they are true. Moreover, President Obama, as a member of the United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations (SFRC), addressed in detail, in December 2005, the issue of counter drug trafficking, working to produce the official document ‘Plan Colombia: Elements for success’. President Obama knows what we are talking about, but despite everything he has continued to sign documents that tell a truth that has already been proved false by the collected data. The objective of Narcoleaks. Since the beginning we knew that this was going to be an extraordinary challenge. We worked without retribution to prove a point: that governments worldwide are not doing enough to tackle the criminal economy. But also that, above all, they don’t want to do enough. We did this in a somehow original way. Cocaine is the illegal substance that generates the highest returns for worldwide mafias. It can be easily monitored, since its production is geographically circumscribed, and it has an enviable global market. The discovery of this inconsistency in the official data had the sole objective of contributing to truth about international drug trafficking. We don’t have financial sponsors. We didn’t take any position on the possibility of legalizing drugs. Ours was only a journalistic work.  Effects of our study.During the days when we released the results of our research, there was little attention from the media, despite the interest aroused in the White House offices. Some local media have covered the topic, but the combination of drug and mathematics has originated some sort of mental disconnect. However, since we have continued to work on the issue, we have noticed that the following annual reports released by the U.S. Department of State and by UNODC have undergone some changes that have made them hard to compare with those from previous years. Data on estimated production has essentially disappeared, or is difficult to calculate relying only on data provided by the reports. No secrets. We didn’t break any rule, nor we did leak any classified document. To conduct our research, we didn’t look for any whistleblower. We only used our head and documents that are available to anyone. Nothing else. We haven’t received any award, or pat on the back, or compliment. Most of the journalists from big media outlets who contacted us vanished after asking their editor for permission. Nobody wants to set foot on this minefield, although we have always left the door open to anyone who was curious. We don’t rule out the possibility that our data can be wrong or not correct. However, to this day no one has proved us the opposite of what we showed. But moving this project forward has proved to be too onerous for young journalists like us. This is why we have decided, for the time being, to suspend the activities, until when we have the necessary strength to take up this matter again. Silence is the hardest weapon to defuse. Giovanni Augello October 16, 2013 Rome, Italy |
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