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Agents Shocked as Cartel Boss Involved in Torture Death of DEA Colleague Slips Away

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Photo Credit; Reuters

Photo Credit; Reuters

Mexican and U.S. authorities are scrambling to find a 60-year-old former drug lord — who was behind the brutal killing of an American agent nearly two decades ago — following his recent, and unexpected, release from a Mexican prison.

Rafael Caro Quintero walked out of Jalisco State prison shortly after midnight on Aug. 9 — a free man on a legal technicality, a decision which drew international condemnation and which the White House warns could lead to the release of other drug criminals in Mexico.

Security guards were assigned to follow Quintero after his release, but the former cartel boss was able to shake them after only 10 minutes, a source familiar with the events told FoxNews.com.

As both governments now try to figure out a way to re-apprehend and detain Quintero, outrage continues to build in the U.S., with current and former federal drug agents vowing to seek justice. The turn of events already threatens to deeply damage ties between the U.S. and Mexico. Attorney General Eric Holder has contacted his Mexican counterparts about the release, the Justice Department confirmed to FoxNews.com this week.

The case of Quintero, for U.S. agents, is personal. Quintero spent the last 28 years locked up for the 1985 kidnapping and killing of American DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena. He was originally sentenced to spend 40 years behind bars.

Read more from this story HERE.

5 Bodies ID’d as Those of Kidnapped Mexican Youths

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Photo Credit: CNN

Photo Credit: CNN

At least five of the bodies found this week in a shallow grave near Mexico City are those of teens who were kidnapped from a bar three months ago, Mexico’s attorney general said Friday.

The announcement appears to shed light on a crime that jolted the capital city: The kidnapping of 12 youths from an after-hours club during daylight on the morning of May 26.

Authorities on Thursday said they found a clandestine mass grave east of Mexico City. On Friday, the federal attorney general said the grave — a shallow grave covered by concrete at an eco park in a state neighboring Mexico City — contained 13 bodies.

Five of them were those of youths who’d been taken from the Mexico City club, the attorney general said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration Considers Plan to Bolster Mexico’s Southern Border

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Obama administration and Mexican government officials recently discussed creating a three-tier security system designed to protect Mexico’s southern border from drug and human traffickers, according to U.S. officials.

The border control plan calls for U.S. funding and technical support of three security lines extending more than 100 miles north of Mexico’s border with Guatemala and Belize. The border security system would use sensors and intelligence-gathering to counter human trafficking and drug running from the region, a major source of illegal immigration into the United States.

According to the officials who discussed the U.S.-Mexican talks on condition of anonymity, the Mexican government proposed setting up three security cordons using electronic sensors and other security measures along the southern Mexican border, along a line some 20 miles from the southern border, and along a third security line about 140 miles from the southern Mexican territorial line.

The plan would be funded in part through the Merida Initiative, a U.S.-led anti-drug trafficking program that has involved nearly $2 billion in U.S. funds.

Border security was a major topic during the visit to Mexico last month by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Thomas Winkowski, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Assistant Secretary Alan Bersin.

Read more from this story HERE.

Feds Upset Over Release of Mexican Drug Lord who Ordered DEA Agent’s Killing (+video)

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsA Mexican court’s releasing of a drug lord who killed a Drug Enforcement Administration agent in the 1980s is sparking outrage this weekend among U.S. law enforcement officials.

Rafael Caro Quintero, who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for ordering the 1985 killing of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, was released earlier this week by a Mexican court that overturned the conviction, saying he had been improperly tried in a federal court for state crimes.

The Justice Department said it found the court’s decision “deeply troubling.”

“The Department of Justice, and especially the Drug Enforcement Administration, is extremely disappointed with this result,” the agency said in a statement.

The Justice Department also said it “has continued to make clear to Mexican authorities the continued interest of the United States in securing Caro Quintero’s extradition so that he might face justice in the United States.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Mexican Cartels Hiring US Soldiers as Hit Men

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Photo Credit: Fox NewsMexican cartels are recruiting hit men from the U.S. military, offering big money to highly-trained soldiers to carry out contract killings and potentially share their skills with gangsters south of the border, according to law enforcement experts.

The involvement of three American soldiers in separate incidents, including a 2009 murder that led to last week’s life sentence for a former Army private, underscore a problem the U.S. military has fought hard to address.

“We have seen examples over the past few years where American servicemen are becoming involved in this type of activity,” said Fred Burton, vice president for STRATFOR Global Intelligence. “It is quite worrisome to have individuals with specialized military training and combat experience being associated with the cartels.”

The life sentence handed down in El Paso District court July 25 to an Army private hired by the Juarez Cartel to be the triggerman in a 2009 hit in this border city is the most recent case.

Michael Apodaca, 22, was a private first-class stationed at nearby Fort Bliss Army Base and was attached to the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade when he was recruited and paid $5,000 by the Juarez Cartel to shoot and kill Jose Daniel Gonzalez-Galeana, a cartel member who had been outed as an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Apodaca, who was the triggerman in the May 15, 2009, hit, was sentenced in El Paso District Court July 25.

Read more from this story HERE.

Oil Giant Halliburton Pleads Guilty to Destroying Crucial Evidence About the Deadly Deepwater Horizon Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

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Photo Credit: EPAHalliburton Co has agreed to plead guilty to destroying computer test results related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Thursday.

The government said Halliburton’s guilty plea is the third by a company over the spill and requires the world’s second-largest oilfield services company to pay a maximum $200,000 statutory fine.

Halliburton also agreed to three years of probation and to continue cooperating with the criminal probe into the April 20, 2010, explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

The company said in a statement Thursday night that it had agreed to plead guilty ‘to one misdemeanor violation associated with the deletion of records created after the Macondo well incident, to pay the statutory maximum fine of $200,000 and to accept a term of three years probation.’

The Justice Department has agreed it will not pursue further criminal prosecution of the company or its subsidiaries for any conduct arising from the 2010 spill, Halliburton’s statement said, adding that federal officials have also ‘acknowledged the company’s significant and valuable cooperation during the course of its investigation.’

Read more from this story HERE.

While We Consider Amnesty, Mexico’s Draconian Immigration Laws Have “Zero Tolerance”

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Photo Credit: National Review Until 2011, when it passed reforms, Mexico had among the most draconian immigration laws in the world. Guatemala has criticized Mexico for initiating construction of a fence along its southern border.

Mexico has zero tolerance for illegal immigrants who seek to work in Mexico, happen to break Mexican law, or go on public assistance — and zero tolerance for any citizens who aid them.

In Mexico, legal immigration is aimed at privileging new arrivals who have skill sets that will aid the Mexican economy and, according to the country’s immigration law, who have the “necessary funds for their sustenance” — while denying entry to those who are not healthy or would upset the “equilibrium of the national demographics.” Translated, this apparently means that Mexico tries to withhold legal residency from those who do not look like Mexicans or do not have the skills needed to make money.

If the United States were to treat Mexican nationals in the same way that Mexico treats Central American nationals, there would be humanitarian outrage.

In 2005, the Mexican government published a Guide for the Mexican Migrant — in comic-book form. The pictographic manual instructed the country’s own citizens on how best to cross illegally into, and stay within, the United States. Did Mexico assume that its departing citizens were both largely illiterate and unworried about violating the laws of a foreign country?

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NIH Spends $3 Million To Study Health Risks of “Dating” Mexican Prostitutes

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Photo Credit: APJust how dangerous is it to your health to shack up with a Mexican hooker? That’s the question at the heart of a five-year, $3,029,663 study by researchers at the University of California San Diego funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The five-year study is taking the first-ever look at the love lives – and sexually transmitted diseases – of 200 prostitutas mexicanas and their “non-commercial” male partners.

Based on previous research, UCSD scientists have been able to determine conclusively that the “non-commercial male partners” of Mexican prostitutes are very likely to pick up and spread their partners’ sexually-transmitted diseases, and may in fact be “significant drivers of HIV/STI acquisition and/or their re-infection.”

Begun in 2009, the Mexican prostitute study has already been receiving federal funding of over half a million dollars annually, and the $3 million price tag does not include the as-of-yet undetermined 2014 grant for the study’s final year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Amnesty Bill Passes Senate; Here are the RINO’s Who Voted for It (+video)

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Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty

By David Espo and Erica Werner. With a solemnity reserved for momentous occasions, the Senate passed historic legislation Thursday offering the priceless hope of citizenship to millions of immigrants living illegally in America’s shadows. The bill also promises a military-style effort to secure the long-porous border with Mexico.

The bipartisan vote was 68-32 on a measure that sits atop President Barack Obama’s second-term domestic agenda. But the bill’s prospects are highly uncertain in the Republican-controlled House, where party leaders are jockeying for position in advance of expected action next month.

Spectators in galleries that overlook the Senate floor watched expectantly as senators voted one by one from their desks. Some onlookers erupted in chants of “Yes, we can” after Vice President Joe Biden announced the vote result.

After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.

In a written statement, Obama coupled praise for the Senate’s action with a plea for resolve by supporters as the House works on the issue. “Now is the time when opponents will try their hardest to pull this bipartisan effort apart so they can stop commonsense reform from becoming a reality. We cannot let that happen,” said the president, who was traveling in Africa. Read more from this story HERE.

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Senate passes massive immigration bill – Here are the 14 Republicans who voted for it

By Jason Howerton. The Senate has passed massive immigration legislation that will offer a pathway to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, while promising border security in the future.

The vote was 68-32, far more than the majority needed to send the measure to the House. Prospects there are not nearly as good and many conservatives are opposed.

Vice President Joe Biden presided, and senators cast their votes from their desks, both steps reserved for momentous votes.

The bill, a priority for President Barack Obama, would amount to the most sweeping changes in decades to the nation’s immigration laws. After three weeks of debate, there was no doubt about the outcome. Fourteen Republicans joined all 52 Democrats and two independents to support the bill.

Here are the 14 GOP senators who voted for the legislation:

Marco Rubio (Fla.)

Lamar Alexander (Tenn.)

Lisa Murkowski (Alaska)

Kelly Ayotte (N.H.)

Jeffrey Chiesa (N.J.)

Susan Collins (Maine)

Bob Corker (Tenn.)

Jeff Flake (Ariz.)

Lindsey Graham (S.C.)

Orrin Hatch (Utah)

Dean Heller (Nev.)

John Hoeven (N.D.)

Mark Kirk (Ill.)

John McCain (Ariz.)

Read more from this story HERE.

Official Corruption in Mexico, Once Rarely Exposed, Is Starting to Come to Light

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

Andrés Granier has a sumptuous wardrobe and lifestyle. He has bragged about owning 400 pairs of shoes, 300 suits and 1,000 shirts, collected from luxury stores in New York and Los Angeles. His purchases barely fit in his several properties, scattered throughout Mexico and abroad.

A tape recording of Mr. Granier’s boasts, making him sound like a highflying corporate executive, was leaked to a local radio station last month. But his job title, until December, was governor of a midsize southeastern Mexican state, a position that currently pays about $92,000 a year after taxes.

“We go to Fifth Avenue and buy a pair of shoes; $600,” Mr. Granier is heard saying about one of his trips abroad. “I took clothes to Miami, I took clothes to Cancún, I took clothes to my house, and I have leftovers,” he added, saying, “I’m going to auction them off.” (The day after the recording was made public, he said that he had been inebriated while making those statements in October.)

But just as eye-opening as the extravagances of a public official — now under investigation after Mr. Granier’s successor discovered that about $190 million in state funds was unaccounted for, the state government said this month — is that they came to light at all in a country where state and local corruption, a serious drag on Mexico’s development, run deep and are rarely exposed.

Read more from this story HERE.