Federal Agents in the News
Federal agents ...
shine and federal “revenuers” pursued bootleggers through the hills, an attorney for the Eastern District of Tennessee in Greeneville says he couldn’t remember the last federal prosecution of a moonshiner.\
“Modern-day moonshining is the manufacture of methamphetamine,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregg L. Sullivan says. “Tennessee is in the top five states nationally.” Ms. Sutton discovered her husband in his green Ford Fairlane. “He called it his three-jug car,” she told the APAP, “because he gave three jugs of liquor for it.”
Surge In Number of Chinese Arrested at Arizona Border
Arizona - There appears to be a surge in the number illegal immigrants from China attempting to sneak across the U.S. border.
Several groups of illegal immigrants from China have been arrested in southern Arizona in recent days, part of an increasing trend that U.S. Border Patrol agents said Monday was being fed by smugglers recruiting tourists to Central and South America.
The arrests included two Chinese found among a large group of migrants who entered the county from Mexico on Friday. Three more Chinese were found Saturday, a group that included four Chinese was captured Sunday and four more were arrested early Monday.
All were discovered close to the border near Nogales, Ariz.The Border Patrol has seen a small but significant rise in the number of Chinese caught after entering Arizona from Mexico, agent Colleen Agle said. Between Oct. 1, 2008, and the end of August, agents captured 261 illegal immigrants from China in the patrol’s Tucson sector in southern Arizona.
Just 30 Chinese were caught in the same area during the federal fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, 2008.
Sweep Strikes Blow Against Mexican Cartel
MEXICO - Federal agents arrested more than 300 people in a two-day sweep of the methamphetamine-trafficking operations of Mexico’s La Familia drug cartel, a fast-growing group the government said has reached
deep into the U.S.
Prosecutors in New York, Dallas and dozens of other cities unveiled indictments against some of the senior leadership of La Familia, which means “the family” in Spanish and is one of Mexico’s newer cartels.
The sweep and indictments culminated a 44-month operation during which the Justice Department arrested about 1,200 people and seized nearly 12 tons of drugs as well as $32.8 million in U.S. currency, Attorney General Eric Holder said. Officials said they disrupted La Familia cells across the U.S., including distribution hubs in Texas, Kansas, Georgia and New York.
“While this cartel may operate from Mexico, the toxic reach of its operations extends to nearly every state in the country,” Mr. Holder said, adding that La Familia was notable for its “sheer level and depravity of violence.” In July, after the arrest of several La Familia leaders, authorities in Mexico discovered the bodies of 1111 slain Mexican law-enforcement officers.
While both violence in Mexico and the flow of drugs into the U.S. continue, Mr. Holder said, “I think we’re having an impact.”
A mong those indicted was Servando Gomez Martinez, accused by authorities of being the cartel’s operations chief.
A grand jury complaint filed by U.S. prosecutors against Mr. Gomez Martinez said he and others attended a La Familia meeting in January in the cartel’s home base of Michoacan state to discuss distribution of methamphetamine. The complaint said Mr. Gomez Martinez -- who is at large -- gave a recorded statement to a local TV station in July claiming responsibility for kidnapping operations and battling Mexican police and prosecutors.
Associated Press
Drug Enforcement Agency Special Agent Stephen Azzam, right, speaks as San Bernadino County Sheriff Rod Hoops listens Thursday, as arrests in an operation against the La Familia drug cartel are announced.
U.S. officials said Thursday in Washington that the cartel controls every facet of trafficking -- from making the drugs in labs to distributing them in the U.S. The cartel has moved some manufacturing to Central America because of pressure in Mexico.
“One of the things that makes them unique is how they employ the use of religion,” said one Drug Enforcement Administration agent involved in investigating La Familia. Cartel leaders are known for claiming assassinations were ordered by God.
Agents said cartel leaders used a religiously tinged Robin Hood-type philosophy to gain local support for their drug operations, claiming to protect residents from violent cartels, and saying they steal from the rich to