The Americas Post - This was the last face ever seen by a minimum of 75 murder victims

Police in northern Mexico have captured a suspected member of the Zetas drug cartel, who confessed to killing at least 75 people, authorities announced Monday.

Elizondo was captured Jan. 20 in the town of Salinas Victoria, but authorities postponed announcing his arrest in order to verify details of his confession, state Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said.

Domene said the 35-year-old suspect told investigators he had worked in the region over three years and that his duty was killing members of the rival Gulf drug cartel en route to the towns of Cerralvo and General Trevino.

Elizondo and other gunmen last January started pulling passengers off buses as they arrived at Cerralvo’s bus station, Domene said. They were among at least 92 bus passengers the Zetas are accused of killing in three attacks in January and March 2011.

Elizondo was famous “for torturing, maiming and then killing his victims,” Domene added.

Last year, authorities in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas exhumed 193 bodies from unmarked graves in the town of San Fernando. Security forces were led to the site by Zetas who confessed to kidnapping and killing bus passengers in the area.

The exact motive for the bus abductions is undetermined. Prosecutors  suggested the gang may be recruiting at gunpoint or killing suspected rivals aboard the buses.

Northeastern Mexico has been inflamed by a turf war between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas since their 2010 division.  Over 47,000 people have been killed nationwide since President Felipe Calderon launched his December 2006 crackdown against drug traffickers.

The Center for International Policy, a Washington think tank,  reported Monday that $872 billion in proceeds from crime flowed out of Mexico between 1970 and 2010.

The Americas Post - Chevron managers could end up in Brazilian prison

Brazilian prosecutors are planning to file criminal charges against Chevron Corp within the next several weeks, adding the possibility of prison time to an $11 billion civil lawsuit for a November oil spill offshore.

The federal court filing in Campos, Brazil, will probably include a criminal indictment of Chevron Brazil CEO George Buck and other staff, Brazilian government officials have revealed.

Transocean Ltd, whose rig was used in the operation, and some employees in Brazil will also be charged, according to the officials.  A judge will then decide whether to accept the charges and move ahead with indictments.

Buck and Chevron acted in a “careless and irresponsible way,” said one official who investigated the 2,400-barrel spill.  He admitted it is unlikely that people facing charges will be arrested soon or be prohibited from leaving Brazil. As the case advances however, those measures could be applied.

The charges would come more than a month after a Federal Police investigator submitted a report saying Chevron and Transocean took “unacceptable” risks in the Frade oil field off Brazil’s southern coast, and recommended that 17 individuals be indicted.

Police and prosecutors alleged that Chevron knew it was drilling in a high pressure area and that rock structures above the reservoir were fragile, factors that should have prompted more caution.

“This well could not and should not have been drilled,” the Federal Police said in a December 20 report.

Chevron denies taking undue risks and says Brazilian authorities approved drilling plans.  Oil from the leak did not reach shore and was less than 0.1 percent of BP’s 4.9 million barrel Gulf of Mexico spill in 2010. The Frade leak was also much smaller than several previous spills in Brazil by Petrobras.

The Americas Post - This bridge is covered, but what about the other 1,600 kilometers?

Colombia and Peru have agreed upon a plan to combat criminal organizations on their common border, the defense ministers of the two countries announced to the press after a Wednesday meeting in Bogota.

“Colombia and Peru have decided to aggressively confront organized crime which respects no borders, such as drug trafficking and illegal logging and mining,” said Peruvian Defense Minister Alberto Otalora.  He spoke at a press conference accompanied by his Colombian host and counterpart, Juan Carlos Pinzón.

“Organized criminals on our borders are hereby notified that Colombia and Peru, as of this moment, will increase joint activities not only to combat organized crime, but to achieve concrete results in the shortest time possible,”  Otálora said.

In addition, Peru agreed to lead the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) on the issue of combating transnational crime.  For Peru, “crime has no boundaries” and therefore is seeking cooperation with “brother countries”, said Otalora.

The Peruvian Minister announced “a new era of defense relations between our countries”, while stressing the traditional “good relationship” between the two nations.

Pinzon said, for his part, that “the relationship of Colombia and Peru is not only friendly and formal, but means a permanent presence of Peruvian officers working with Colombian officials, and the presence of Colombian officers working with the Armed Forces of Peru” .

The ministers agreed to take joint action against criminal groups in the border area ”in the coming months”.

Security operations will be accompanied by social initiatives for the people on both sides of the 1,600 km long border,  the Colombian minister stressed.

To assess the situation, the two ministers agreed to meet again in March at the border, and hope that this meeting will also be attended by Minister of Defence of Brazil, Celso Amorim.

Industrial cooperation in defense matters was another issue discussed.

“Colombia has been experiencing major developments in its military industry, and is fully prepared to offer it to friendly countries, like our Peruvian brothers,” said Pinzon.  He mentioned that Lima has already made “small” purchases from Colombia, but gave no more details.

Luis Alberto Cabrera Sarabia, alias “The Architect,” was killed Friday during an air and ground operation in Canatlan, Durango state. The action began with a firefight at a ranch, army spokesman general Ricardo Trevilla announced at a news conference.

According to Trevilla, he was “one of the main lieutenants of Joaquin Guzman Loera alias ‘El Chapo.’”

Another gunman died in the raid and 11 others were arrested, Trevilla said. Three soldiers were also wounded.

The army said Luis Alberto Cabrera Sarabia took over as assistant to the fugitive head of the Sinaloa drug cartel after his brother, Felipe Carbrera Sarabia or “The Engineer,” was detained in December.

The northern states of Durango, Sinaloa and Chihuahua are known as the “Golden Triangle,” a key area of production of Mexican opium and marijuana.

The Americas Post - FARC may be weakened but they can still mess up your travel plans

Air operations in a wide region of southwestern Colombia were delayed on Saturday following an attack by FARC guerrillas against a radar antenna system key to commercial aviation, said that nation’s Civil Aviation authority.

One policeman was killed in the attack by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) launched on Friday night above Santa Ana, in the department of Cauca.  He had been guarding aviation facilities, officials said.

“Aeronautical communications in the southwest of the country have been disrupted temporarily by a terrorist attack against civilian facilities”, said a statement from Civil Aeronautics.

Although the FARC have been weakened by a military offensive bringing death to several commanders and the desertion of thousands of its fighters, the attack proved that the rebel group still has the capacity to carry high-impact operations.  The guerrillas fired homemade missiles, gas cylinders filled with explosives, and attacked troops stationed in the area with bursts of rifle and machine gun fire.

The radar damaged by the attack covers 300 kilometers and not only controls commercial flights,  but also supports the armed forces against drug trafficking in the southwest airspace.

“Repairing the radar will take several months.  We do not know whether to reduce the number of flights, but there will be delays, “said the director of Civil Aeronautics, Santiago Castro.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has demanded that the FARC release all hostages, suspend hostilities and lay down their weapons for negotiations, conditions that the guerrillas have rejected as a surrender.  He called the attack on the radar installation affecting thousands of travelers “the ultimate demonstration of weakness and despair” by the guerrillas.

The Americas Post - Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher speaks to congress. Photo Credit: CBP

The U.S. Border Patrol is preparing to implement tougher punishments on undocumented immigrants entering the United States from Mexico, to change the revolving door policy that has been in place for years.

Instead of simply being sent back across the border to try again, immigrants captured on the U.S. side will now face harsher consequences for illegal entry.  These range from inconveniences like being bused hundreds of miles away to distant border crossings, to aggressive prosecution for criminal offenses in the United States or by Mexican authorities upon their return.

Young, first-time illegal aliens may be allowed a “voluntary return” option without facing criminal consequences.   Repeat offenders and smugglers, however, will be singled out for felony prosecution in the United States.

The U.S. Border Patrol is more able to develop such individualized sanctions now that the number of illegal entries has fallen sharply,  from 1.6 million in 2000 to only 327,577 last year.  At the same time, the Border Patrol has grown to 21,000 agents with 652 miles of pedestrian fencing and vehicle barriers in place at busy crossing points.

The new approach will “break the smuggling cycle and deter a subject from attempting further illegal entries or participating in a smuggling enterprise” by imposing “ideal consequences to impede and deter further illegal activity,” according to U.S. Border Patrol Chief Michael Fisher.

A test program in the Tucson sector has already dramatically lowered the number of illegal immigrants released to Mexico without administrative or criminal penalties, says Border Patrol Tucson sector chief Rick Barlow.   Approximately 85 percent of illegal immigrants arrested on the U.S. side of the border were returned to Mexico without any penalty three years ago.  That figure has now been reduced to around just 10 percent of detainees.

The customized consequences are more expensive, the Border Patrol’s chief has admitted in testimony before Congress.   Lawmakers on Capitol Hill, however, have promised their budgetary support to meet the additional costs.

The Americas Post - Now Big Brother can see right through your clothes. Photo Credit: NYPD

It’s not just in the airport anymore.  The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is working in collaboration with the United States Department of Defense to control illegal firearms by deploying technology to detect concealed weapons carried by people walking down the street.

Using infrared rays, the system scans a “form of radiation emitted from the body” on a person carrying a gun on the city’s streets, New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly announced Tuesday at a State of the NYPD event.

Known as terahertz imaging detection, the technology functions on the basis that the rays cannot pass through metal, thereby creating a digital outline of any metal weapon gun people may be hiding.   It is reported to be capable of measuring energy radiating off a body from up to 16 feet away.

Kelly told attendees that the scanner would be used only when reasonable suspicious circumstances called for it and could decrease the frequency of stop-and-search incidents on the street.  The news, however, has raised concerns about privacy.

“It’s worrisome. It implicates privacy, the right to walk down the street without being subjected to a virtual pat-down by the Police Department when you’re doing nothing wrong,” the New York Civil Liberties Union’s Donna Lieberman told CBS New York.

According to NY Post reports, the scanners would be mounted on NYPD vans, with the rays aiming at people on the street.

The Americas Post - It doesn't look like much, but this boat carried over a ton of marijuana

Federal authorities captured a Mexican motorboat with over a ton of marijuana north of Los Angeles early Wednesday,  arresting 10 suspects in the latest of a growing number of West Coast maritime smuggling attempts.

U.S. Border Patrol agents found the 27-foot craft packed with numerous bales of marijuana on the coast of Ventura County shortly before dawn, according to a news release from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Authorities also impounded two vehicles in the landing area suspected of involvement in the smuggling attempt.

Four of those arrested arrived on board the boat, while the other six were detained in the landing area, the agency reported.

In recent years improved security along the United States border with Mexico has increasingly forced traffickers to smuggle drugs and illegal immigrants north by sea.  Between January and October of 2011, authorities recorded 26 maritime smuggling attempts in the greater Los Angeles area, including seven in Ventura County.  Since then, 10 further cases included two in Ventura County and one in Santa Barbara County.

In response to increased activity in the Los Angeles area, authorities have extended the use of marine patrols, land-based surveillance and collaboration with the Mexican government.