Four drug dealers and a money launderer have been jailed for a total of 16 years and three months. The men were arrested and put before the courts as part of Operation Parrot, a large-scale investigation carried out by Lancashire Constabulary's Serious and Organised Crime Unit (SOCU.) Appearing before Liverpool Crown Court, Mikki Wills, 22, of Belvedere Gardens, Stockport, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and was jailed for four years. Jamie Halsall, 28, of no fixed abode, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cocaine and possession with intent to supply heroin and was jailed for six years. Darren Simmonite, 49, of Sackville Road, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and was jailed for three years. Terrence Harrison, 54, of Sandstone Road, Sheffield, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to supply cannabis and was jailed for two years and three months. David Place, 41, of Tulketh Road, Ashton, pleaded guilty to money laundering and was jailed for one year. DI Simon Brooksbank, of SOCU, said: "This was a large scale organised crime gang who were based in Preston but who were also operating throughout Lancashire, Manchester and areas of Yorkshire. "They were a sophisticated group who attempted to frustrate police investigations with their advanced use of telephony systems, while laundering their money in a bid to hide the profits. This ultimately proved unsuccessful and they are now behind bars. "I am pleased with these sentences, which will go towards restricting the supply of drugs onto the streets of Preston." Operation Parrot was aimed at smashing a drugs ring which had been operating across Preston, with a supply chain that reached out into Stockport, Sheffield and West Yorkshire. The covert policing operation was carried out between 2009 - 2010, culminating in a series of raids being executed in November which resulted in the arrest of seven people. During the course of the investigation, officers seized significant amounts of cannabis, cocaine and heroin, with a total street value of over £350,000, along with substantial amounts of cash.

TAIWAN police say they've busted a drug smuggling ring responsible for transporting $66.06 million worth of narcotics to Australia, New Zealand and Japan. A total of nine suspects have been arrested, including the suspected leader of the ring, 40-year-old Fan Chu-lin, the Criminal Investigation Bureau said on Monday. "This is definitely one of the largest smuggling rings to be uncovered in many years," bureau official Yang Ming-chang said. Over a 10-year period, the group allegedly smuggled hundreds of kilograms of ecstasy and amphetamines from Hong Kong and China to Japan, New Zealand and Australia. It also smuggled large amounts of marijuana from Thailand and Holland into Taiwan. According to preliminary estimates, the drugs smuggled by the group over the 10-year period totalled at least $65.5 million, Yang said. If convicted, Fan could face a minimum 20 years in jail under Taiwanese law.

 World’s Most Wanted Man. The name thrown up most frequently, on account of how mystically elusive he appears to be, was one Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the head of Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and the biggest drug lord in Narcoville. Since he broke out (or “walked out” is the common consensus) of a maximum security prison in 2001, Guzman’s drug-trafficking empire has gone supernova, his estimated $1 billion personal fortune landing him a spot on the Forbes List as the 11th richest man in Mexico.

The Sinaloa Cartel controls more territory than any other drug-trafficking organization (DTO) in Mexico, distributing Colombian cocaine as well as domestically-produced marijuana, opium, and methamphetamine. The organization has successfully smashed its rivals’ operations in Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and other key smuggling hubs to the point where formerly powerful cartels are either hanging on for dear life or mere tributaries. Then there’s the 800-pound gorilla in the room – the fact that independent analysts and countless officials cite collusion between the Sinaloa Cartel and the federal government, which apparently prefers Guzman’s mob over the others. “El Chapo” – the nickname means “Shorty” – is routinely described as “el capo del panismo”, “capo” meaning drug boss and “panismo” referring to the current ruling party, the PAN, or National Action Party.

Mexico has seen the worst kind of action since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug-traffickers in 2006. Over 45,000 troops and federal officers have been deployed across the country in a US-funded crackdown, leading the DTOs to fight each other even harder over both cross-border traffic and a rapidly growing domestic market. In the resulting melee, former big names like the Tijuana and Juarez Cartels have taken serious losses; budding rivals like La Familia Michoacana and the Beltran Leyva Organization have come and gone, but the Sinaloa Cartel has only grown stronger. Its last major rival, the infamously violent Los Zetas, has made some gains but is taking a pounding from the Mexican military, which has made a slew of arrests and seizures against it. 

Born into poverty, for “El Chapo” Guzman the drug trade was an easy route to otherwise unattainable wealth (opium and marijuana have been big business in fertile Sinaloa since the early 20th century) and as a young man he became an apprentice of Pedro Aviles Perez, one of the first generation of big-time Mexican traffickers. Ambitious and savvy, Guzman took over what became the Sinaloa Cartel when the legendary Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo (“the Godfather”) was busted in 1989. Four years later, Guzman was arrested and sentenced to twenty years for drug-trafficking and bribery, but on the eve of being extradited to the US in 2001, he miraculously escaped from Puente Grande maximum security prison in Jalisco. The most famous breakout in Mexican history purportedly occurred “A-Team”-style in a laundry cart, the wheels greased by $2.5 million worth of bribes for prison officials. 

Guzman’s escape took place early in the presidency of Vicente Fox, the first PAN administration after the 70-year PRI regime was thrown out in 2000. Every Mexican administration since the 1970s is said to have had its preferred drug lord. Whereas the PRI supposedly favored the Gulf Cartel in the ‘90s, the arrival of the PAN saw a shift of allegiance to the cartel with the closest ties to the party. Soon after leaving Puente Grande, Guzman called a meeting of top capos to plot the future of the Mexican drug trade, going after the then-dominant Gulf organization (now an ally) and later breaking a long-held truce with the Juarez Cartel, leading to a violent turf war in the border city of the same name. The goal was expansion and dominance, and Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel has been a juggernaut ever since.

“El Chapo” has taken on near-mythical status; rumors fly about his latest whereabouts and activity, or how hundreds of guests – including local politicians and police – raised their glasses when he married for the third time in 2007. For ordinary Mexicans, he is the personification of the intense “narco-violence” plaguing the country, which has gotten much, much worse since Calderon turned up the heat. The president’s apologists (and there are very few) claim that the PAN backs Guzman under the notion that it’s better to live with one all-powerful cartel and then negotiate peace. But Calderon leaves office next year, almost certainly handing over the reins to the PRI, and the cartel war goes on unabated between the Sinaloa Federation (Guzman and his allies) and a loose coalition of Los Zetas, the Juarez Cartel, and other DTOs.

Guzman commands significant respect (and fear) among Mexico’s downtrodden as a self-made man who stuck several fingers up to the authorities, particularly in his native Sinaloa where country songs portray him as a Robin Hood-type figure, albeit with AK-47 replacing crossbow. He has myriad political and business connections and the financial clout to buy new ones. His current rumored hideout is in the northern state of Durango.

There’s a theory brewing in Mexico, however, which says that Calderon is now so unpopular after five years of socially-devastating policy that he has not only cost his party next year’s election, but risks going down as one of the country’s worst ever presidents (which the average Mexican will tell you is no easy feat). After Bin Laden’s death hit the headlines, many domestic observers suggested that Calderon’s only option to salvage his legacy and leave office on a high is to pull an Obama “black-ninja-gangster” moment (as Bill Maher would say) and take Guzman down. The Colombian government pulled off a similar coup with Pablo Escobar in 1993, which had absolutely no effect on the cocaine trade but at least gave the impression that Colombia could kick some tail.

But just as one can question whether Bin Laden’s death really meant anything beyond retribution for 9/11, it’s uncertain what taking down “El Chapo” would do for Mexico’s Drug War. The major DTOs regularly go through internal upheavals where factions split off and go to war with one another, or one capo makes a power play to take control of the organization, leading to yet more bloodshed. The Sinaloa Cartel has long been considered the most stable of the Mexican DTOs, largely on account of Guzman’s iron hand. For that reason, “El Chapo” may be too valuable to simply wind up as trophy kill.

At some stage, the Mexican government will have to declare an endgame in the Drug War, or civil protests like the 100,000-strong March for Peace in Mexico City in May, and subsequent “Peace Caravan” that culminated in Juarez/El Paso, will become increasingly politicized. While obviously blaming the drug cartels as much as the politicians, many Mexicans resent the fact that their country has become a war zone due to the mores of US anti-drug and pro-militarization policy. As for Calderon – facing savage criticism at home – it’s likely that he didn’t expect the cartel war to get this bloody or drag on for so long. Yet while his own public decries his policies, Calderon continues to receive the green light from the Obama administration for further zero-tolerance. One might imagine the rhetoric from Washington if Hugo Chavez had deployed 45,000 troops to do the job of the police in Venezuela – allusions to military dictatorship, Soviet-style authoritarianism, not to mention “human rights abuses” would be rampant, and probably followed by an excuse for US intervention.

Needless to say, painting “El Chapo” as the drug trade’s Bin Laden is far easier for both media and politicians than addressing the more crucial issues of drug law reform and vast consumer demand, factors that feed men like Guzman. For Mexico, there are also huge questions to be asked about why an estimated 450,000 citizens have turned to the incredibly risky drug trade for employment in the first place. The North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, has devastated Mexican agriculture and driven many small farmers to grow opium and marijuana in its place. Meanwhile, in the cities, unemployed youth join street gangs that ultimately work for the DTOs, providing muscle in exchange for guns, cars and cash.

Mexico needs to find a way out. With nearly 40,000 lives lost and violence continuing to swell in trouble spots like Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, something has to give. The inevitable return to power of Mexico’s old guard, the PRI, next year may see more of a willingness to negotiate with the cartels, but just as the death of Osama Bin Laden is really just a footnote in the “War on Terror”, the capture or killing of “El Chapo” would only lead to more massacres in Mexico’s own never-ending war.

The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.
In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.
In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States.
Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges.
His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers.
Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico's mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government.
If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.
Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"
"They cut guys to pieces," he said.
The victims are likely among the hundreds of people found in mass graves in recent months, he said.
In the vicinity of the Mexican city of San Fernando, nearly 200 bodies were unearthed from pits, and authorities said most appeared to have died of blunt force head trauma.
Many are believed to have been dragged off buses traveling through Mexico, but little has been said about the circumstances of their deaths.
The trafficker said those who survive are taken captive and eventually given suicide missions, such as riding into a town controlled by rivals and shooting up the place.
The trafficker said he did not see the clashes, but his fellow criminals have boasted to him of their exploits.
Killing 'for amusement'
Former and current federal law-enforcement officers in the U.S. said that while they knew Mexican bus passengers had been targeted for violence, they'd never before heard of forcing passengers into death matches.
But given the level of violence in Mexico — nearly 40,000 killed in gangland warfare over the past several years — they didn't find it tough to believe.
Borderland Beat, a blog specializing in drug cartels, reported an account in April of bus passengers brutalized by Zeta thugs and taunted into fighting.
"The stuff you would not think possible a few years ago is now commonplace," said Peter Hanna, a retired FBI agent who built his career focusing on Mexico's cartels. "It used to be you'd find dead bodies in drums with acid; now there are beheadings."
Even so, Hanna noted, killing people this way would be time-consuming and inefficient. "It would be more for amusement," he suggested. "I don't see it as intimidation or a successful way to recruit people."
Hidden behind designer sunglasses and a whisper of a beard, the trafficker interviewed by the Houston Chronicle talked at a restaurant's back table. He had silver shopping bags filled at Nordstrom, but seemed anything but a typical wealthy Mexican on a Texas shopping trip.
As a condition of the interview, he asked that he be referred to only as Juan.
He has worked as a drug-trafficker in Northern Mexico for more than a decade, he said, but has grown tired of gangsters running roughshod over each other and innocent civilians.
Juan, who has worked with the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, the two major drug organizations that control territory along the South Texas-Mexico border, said that back home, he sleeps with a semiautomatic rifle by his bed and a handgun under his pillow.
"It is like the Wild West. You can carry a gun and you are Superman," he said of gangsters and killing at will. "Like everybody says, it is out of control now. We have to put a stop to it."
A recent U.S. Senate report contends the Zetas are the most violent of Mexico's cartels. Its members are believed to be responsible for the recent killing of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who was shot on a Mexican highway.
'They brag about it'
Just on Thursday, authorities in Mexico said they arrested members of the Zetas and seized 201 automatic weapons, 600 camouflage uniforms and 30,000 rounds of ammunition.
"I am not defending the Sinaloa or the Gulf Cartel," Juan said of the Zetas' main rivals. "I earn more money with the Zetas, but I know the (crap) they do," he said. "They brag about it."
With the recent killing of the ICE agent and perhaps other attacks, the Zetas also are breaking the golden rule for Mexican traffickers: Don't kill Americans, he said. It brings too much heat.
If the Zetas are crushed, violence will lessen, he said, and Mexico's older cartels will go back to the older way of doing business - dividing up territory and agreeing not to clash with each other.
Death toll has exploded
Mike Vigil, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration agent who was the chief of international operations, said Mexican gangsters used to understand that violence should be used sparingly.
"They love brutality," Vigil said of the Zetas. "They do not care whether you are a police officer, a trafficker or an innocent bystander.
"The drug-trafficking organizations are eventually going to have to deal with the Zetas."
The death toll has exploded since Mexican President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006 and dispersed military troops throughout the country to fight the cartels. The resulting battles have wrought carnage among local politicians, soldiers, gangsters and civilians alike.
As for the military, Juan said, "They are not helping," noting that the soldiers, like the gangsters, seem to kill whoever they want.
He also discussed some of the finer points of drug trafficking.
Checkpoints no problem
"We don't hide it," he said, telling stories of openly off-loading tractor-trailer rigs of cocaine in parking lots. "These are not lies. Everybody in Mexico knows it."
Even the checkpoints Mexican officials operate along the highways between Central Mexico and the border do not pose much of a problem, Juan said.
The trick, he confided, is to send someone in advance to bribe a commander so a drug load won't be bothered.
"It is better to tell them," he said. "It will cost you more if they catch it."
Tries not to be flashy
As for how he's been able to survive a decade, Juan said the secret is not being greedy or flashy enough to draw attention from other gangsters, who these days show no hesitation to cut down rivals.
He said he can quickly size up in a bar or cafe who is likely to be a trafficker, from the money they spend to the way they talk, sit or eat.
"You can tell in a restaurant or anywhere - that guy is moving dope," Juan said.
Other keys to longevity in the business: knowing your place in the Mexican under­world's hierarchy and not giving the impression you are making more money or interested in taking a chunk out of another gangster's livelihood.
"You keep doing the work you do," Juan said. "Stay at your level."

gang member that pleaded guilty to brandishing a firearm during a violent crime when he took part in a home-invasion robbery in Coronado was sentenced Friday to 25 years in federal prison on Friday.

Phillip McMillen, 40, admitted participating in a series of violent crimes on behalf of the Mexican Mafia, including attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, extortion and drug trafficking, Assistant U.S. Attorney John Parmley said.

McMillen also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit racketeering, and Parmley said McMillen was armed with a gun during the Coronado robbery and when he tried to kidnap a man in Chula Vista.

The defendant, a former member of a National City street gang, was swept up in a yearlong investigation led by the gangs section of the San Diego Violent Crimes Task Force.

McMillen, who entered his guilty plea last August, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Janis Sammartino.

Mexican authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of 46 suspected drug gang members in police operations across the country, with 36 of those arrested accused of being members of La Familia Michoacana and the remaining 10 part of the Zetas gang.

Mexico's Ministry of Public Security reported that the 36 suspected members of La Familia were arrested in the southern Mexican state Jalisco after police intelligence tracked the gang following a brazen attack on a federal police aircraft.

A land and air operation took place to capture the gang during a meeting they were having in the quiet village of Las Lomas. Upon arrival, police engaged in a shootout that killed 11 suspects and injured two police officers. Following the firefight, 36 members of the drug cartel were arrested.

Mexican authorities say the 36 men had been meeting to coordinate an attack on a rival criminal gang.

A huge haul of arms, some 21,000 rounds of ammunition and nearly 100 rifles and handguns, were seized at the scene.

The La Familia cartel has been weakened since a splintering off of its leadership in December 2010 saw the creation of spin-off drug gang "Los Caballeros Templarios". It is believed that at least 2,000 people have been displaced in southern Michoacan state due to factional fighting within the La Familia cartel.

"There have been over 600 members of La Familia detained by authorities in the last four years. With yesterday's operation, the number is now close to 700 members arrested from this criminal group. This is very relevant but, perhaps the most relevant is that the people who have been displaced by these criminals can now return to their communities," said Commissioner General of the Federal Police Facundo Rosas.

Authorities also on Saturday announced the arrest of 10 members of the notorious Zetas drug gang and the rescue of a kidnap victim in the tourist state of Quintana Roo. Federal Police said they seized a jeep and nearly 50 weapons at the scene.

"In another part of the country an operation took place in the state of Quintana Roo. The Federal Police have freed a person of 30 years who had been held prisoner by the gang since May 21. This operation arrested ten members of the criminal organization known as the Zetas, responsible for such offences as extortion, kidnappings and the sale of drugs," said Rosas.

Quintana Roo state is home to the tourist hotspot of Cancun, which attracts millions of U.S. and European tourists annually with its Caribbean beaches and proximity to Mayan ruins on the Yucatan Peninsula.

The Zetas, known for their brutality and blamed for some of the worst atrocities in Mexico's drug war, have been moving east towards the country's Caribbean resort cities such as Cancun, authorities say.

Iran threatened Saturday to allow the transit of illegal drugs through its territory to Europe if the West continues to criticize the Islamic nation for its practice of executing drug traffickers.
Mohammad Javad Larijani, the head of Iran's High Council for Human Rights, said Iran was sacrificing blood in fighting drug trafficking and suggested it is unfair that it is then condemned by the West for executing smugglers.
"Westerners have to either be Iran's partner in the fight against drug traffickers or we must think otherwise and, for instance, allow the transit" of drugs across Iranian territory, Larijani said in a comment posted on the judiciary's website Saturday.
He said such a move would reduce the number of overall executions in Iran by 74 per cent, "but the way will be paved for the smuggling of narcotics to Europe."
U.N. officials have in the past warned that a "heroin tsunami" could hit Europe if the drug interdiction by Iran is weakened.
Iran says it has lost more than 3,700 troops in the fight against drug traffickers and 11,000 more have been injured to date since 1979, when the Islamic Revolution brought hard-line clerics to power.
"Unfortunately, Western countries not only provide no assistance to Iran in the fight against drug trafficking, they condemn us every year for punishing drug smugglers," Larijani said.
Iran has also called on Europe to offer financial support to its fight against trafficking.
Iran lies along a major drug route between Afghanistan — which accounts for more than 90 per cent of the world's illicit opium and heroin production — and Europe.
Iranian authorities have taken several steps to stop trafficking, including the building of dikes and trenches along large portions of its roughly 560-mile (900-kilometre) border with Afghanistan. Officials also seize more than three tons of narcotics each day, according to official statistics.

After getting probation three times for marijuana convictions in New Orleans, a man moved out of the city — and landed a life prison sentence the fourth time around.

Cornell Hood II was sentenced Thursday in Covington as a repeat offender following his conviction on a charge of attempting to possess and distribute marijuana.

According to The Times-Picayune, Hood moved from New Orleans after he pleaded guilty in 2009 to two marijuana-related charges and received five years of probation. In 2005, he received his first strike — and five years of probation — after pleading guilty in New Orleans to possessing and intending to distribute marijuana.

Authorities said Hood's probation officer found about two pounds of marijuana during a routine visit to Hood's Slidell-area home on Sept. 27. Prosecutors charged him with possession with intent to distribute marijuana.

At Hood's one-day trial, the state's evidence included a digital scale and about a dozen bags that had contained marijuana before being seized from the house. Deputies also found $1,600 in cash and a student-loan application with Hood's name on it inside of a night stand.

A jury deliberated for less than two hours and convicted Hood of a reduced charge, which usually carries no more than 15 years' imprisonment. But Assistant District Attorney Nick Noriea Jr. then used Hood's past convictions on Thursday to argue that he was a career criminal.

Drug offenders in Louisiana are subject to life imprisonment after being convicted three or more times of a crime that carries a maximum sentence exceeding 10 years.

___

The ice cream parlor owner charged with selling cocaine from his popular shop has five drug-dealing convictions in New Jersey, prosecutors told Clarkstown Justice Howard Gerber, who refused to grant bail for Patrick Kilduff during a court appearance Friday.

A grand jury Monday will hear the Clarkstown police charges accusing Kilduff of selling cocaine and other drugs out of his Wally's Ice Cream Parlour.

A staple in the downtown business district for years before it was raided by police Tuesday, Wally's drew teenagers and parents with their small children. The store's front patio was a gathering place for customers on hot afternoons and warm evenings.

On Friday morning, Kilduff, 36, stood with his wrists shackled at the waist next to his lawyer, public defender Walter Sakowski. Kilduff didn't speak during the session.

Sakowski and prosecutor Robert Trudell agreed the judge could not set bail based on Kilduff's New Jersey convictions. He also had a conviction for possessing hypodermic needles in Myrtle Beach. S.C.

Gerber told the lawyers that he couldn't consider setting bail because he didn't have Kilduff's entire criminal record.

"He has five felony convictions in the state of New Jersey," Trudell told Gerber on Friday, urging the judge to keep Kilduff in jail.

"If the court has an alternative or disagrees, the people request $250,000 bail," Trudell said.

Kilduff's record goes back to at least December 1998 when he and a New City man were arrested on drug-possession charges — 850 diazepam (Valium) pills in Mahwah, N.J. He also was charged as recently as 2007 with drug counts in New Jersey.

Kilduff was released from probation last summer on his latest New Jersey conviction, Rockland District Attorney Thomas Zugibe said.

If the grand jury doesn't return an indictment Monday, Kilduff will be brought back to court in the afternoon for a hearing on whether he still can be held. A felony indictment would move the prosecution from Town Court to the criminal court in the Rockland County Courthouse.

The attorney for a Bethel man facing federal charges for allegedly heading up a drug ring that sold steroids and marijuana argued Wednesday in court that his client is a family man who doesn't pose a danger to the community.

"My client is concerned, quite frankly, about his children and his ability to have contact with them," attorney Peter Schaffer said in an unsuccessful attempt to have Mark Mansa released from federal custody.

Mansa, 46, has been held by federal authorities since his arrest on Feb. 24 on several charges including conspiracy to distribute both marijuana and anabolic steroids.

Mansa, who authorities said was arrested during a $60,000 marijuana deal, pleaded not guilty to the charges Wednesday during his arraignment in U.S. District Court.

Federal prosecutors have said Mansa headed up an illegal enterprise, including selling steroids to area high school athletes, and Mansa bragged about his associations with police officers in several area departments.

Schaffer said in court Wednesday that while most area police departments have denied the allegations, "I think he does know police officers."

But, the attorney added, there are no indications or comments made by prosecutors to suggest Mansa would use those contacts to "create a danger to the community."

Schaffer added that some of Mansa's codefendants in the case who have been released from federal custody have a history of criminal convictions and ties to both the Hells Angels motorcycle gang and organized crime.

The attorney asked that Mansa, who he said has no prior convictions or ties to criminal organizations, be released on a $500,000 bond and be subject to electronic monitoring while the case is pending.

Special Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Vizcarrondo said Schaffer had not presented any new evidence in his bond-reduction argument that could be considered by the court.

Vizcarrondo also discussed the weight of the evidence against Mansa that was collected through "physical surveillance," "controlled purchases" of steroids and "law enforcement eyewitnesses" who are willing to testify in the case.

"There is nothing new here except for finger pointing at the other defendants," Vizcarrondo said in court.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Holly B. Fitzsimmons denied Mansa's bond request, stating there was nothing in the proposed release package that ensured Mansa would not pose a public danger.

Fitzsimmons said Mansa is charged with "very serious conduct" and if prosecutors are correct in their claims, he "engaged in a long period of time in a drug trafficking operation that his family and the community was apparently unaware of."

She added electronic monitoring would do little to prevent Mansa from continuing to engage in drug trafficking activities through the use of a telephone or other means.

"These offenses went on for too long and too far under the radar screen," Fitzsimmons said. "The court requires a lot more restrictions (for release) than I'm seeing here."

An international drug-smuggling operation centred in the Fraser Valley had nothing to do with the Hells Angels or any other B.C. gang, one of the convicted smugglers says.

Jody York said the scheme to move thousands of kilos of marijuana across the U.S. border was hatched by a few friends who grew up together in the Abbotsford area.

York and several other B.C. men are to be sentenced in a Seattle courtroom March 25 after working out a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney, who wants York behind bars for six years.

Washington state law-enforcement agencies have said that York's group, headed by convicted trafficker Rob Shannon, was working on behalf of the B.C. Hells Angels, a claim York denies. "We were never a gang or thought of ourselves as a gang. We were antigang. We hated most clubs and groups out there and never wanted to be a part of their drama or inner crap," York said in a letter to U.S. District Court Chief Judge Robert Lasnik.

"As for working for the Hells Angels, nothing could be further from the truth. When I was involved, we wanted to stay as far away from them, due to a fight I had with a member in a night club. I just knew how they worked things. As for them or anyone else being involved with other people in this case, after I left, it is not, nor do I want to make it, my business.

Several members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang were arrested this week as part of a nationwide drug cartel bust.

Drug Enforcement Agency officers and a number of local, state, and federal agencies made the arrests. They called the Bandidos a ruthless crime organization and believe the gang has been receiving meth from Mexico drug cartels and were helping transport it and sell it here in the U.S.

The arrests come after an 18-month long investigation and are part of a nationwide sweep operation which began after ICE agent Jaime Zapata was killed in a roadside ambush in Mexico on February 11th. Fellow ICE agent Victor Avila was wounded in the attack.

Fighting between the Colombian rebel group FARC and the drug gang "Los Rastrojos" left at least 15 people dead, authorities said Friday.
Milton Benavides, a local government official, told the Terra news Web site the lengthy battle broke out Thursday in Argelia in northern Colombia. Benevides said authorities had confirmed nine people had died Thursday with six more killed overnight and Friday.
The Web site said local radio reported the death toll could rise to 20.
Meanwhile, Colombia Reports said El Tiempo reported FARC had released two more hostages -- Armando Acuna, a former councilman, Henry Lopez Martinez, a former marine. The pair were reunited with their families.
The BBC said FARC had freed another captive earlier in the week and may release two more Sunday.
The Colombian government has made release of all FARC hostages a pre-condition for any negotiations with the rebel group, which has been a thorn in the governments side for decades.


Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/02/12/15-die-in-FARC-drug-gang-battle/UPI-46091297490193/#ixzz1Dpqv2Ugi

Eight people were killed in a gun battle Saturday between police and criminals in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, while at least six died when a grenade exploded in Guadalajara. The attacks are the latest deadly violence gripping Mexico as the country's cartels struggle over turf and police and soldiers try to crush them.

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Fourteen+people+drug+gang+violence/4273491/story.html#ixzz1DppB5LlV

Michael ‘Sick Mick’ Farrell could be freed by Spanish authorities along with 12 others after it emrged ectasy pills were fake - Liverpool Local News - News - Liverpool Echo: "ONE of Merseyside’s most wanted men who was arrested in Spain on drug trafficking charges could now be freed.
Michael Farrell, 22, was wanted for questioning by Merseyside Police after a string of shootings across north Liverpool.
Farrell, also known as “Sick Mick”, was arrested on September 27 in Torrevieja, near Alicante, when the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) and the paramilitary Civil Guard targeted a 12 strong gang of Liverpool men and women suspected of supplying designer drugs to clubbers on the Costa Blanca and Ibiza.
But he and the gang could now be freed by the Spanish authorities after it emerged the 53,000 ecstasy pills they were allegedly going to sell were made of caffeine."

44-year-old woman from Cartuja de Monegros (population 350) in Huesca province has become the first case of indigenous malaria in Spain since the disease was eradicated a half century ago.
As the patient does not fall under the usual causes of contagion — foreign travel to an area where malaria is endemic, blood transfusion, organ transplant or a visit to an airport — epidemiologists have concluded that the culprit was an indigenous mosquito.
Aragon’s regional public health director, Francisco Javier Falo, played down the case’s importance, saying that the possibility of another infection is extremely low.

With his long-awaited biography, 'Life,' just days away from publication, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has been dropping some tantalising hints of what to expect -- and the book contains more than just Richards' love of the open G tuning.

Speaking to AnOtherMan magazine, the guitarist affectionately known as "Keef" has revealed that he frequently carried firearms when copping heroin at the height of his addiction in the 1970s. He said, "The first [gun] I bought was a Luger I picked up in the East Village in New York City. After that I went into rifles for a bit just because they go further."

He continued, "I've carried a piece or two now and again -- most of that was to do with the heroin business and being involved in, like, scoring. Especially in America, it bodes you well to be armed.

"A .38 Smith and Wesson Airweight revolver -- that is the f---ing gun. No safety [catch] on it."

Richards also makes mention of three-day drug-fuelled road trip around Britain with the Beatles' John Lennon -- but the details are understandably sketchy.

"What happened neither John nor I could ever remember," Richards said. "We must have been on something exceptional. There was one young lady with us at least, and a chauffeur because we were in no driving condition. And we were just playing sounds."