Not exactly this model, but smaller unmmaned ultralight planes are smuggling drugs into U.S.

The Public Security Secretariat (SSP) of Mexico announced yesterday that the cartels have adopted a new way of sending cocaine to the U.S.: by ultralight unmmaned planes. Each plane weighs about one hundred pounds and can carry a hundred kilograms of drugs. According to Francisco González, Undersecretary of SSP , the cartels now have this new technology using planes powered by an ultralight engine. The drones are very cost effective, very economical and can not be detected by radars. Also, have the ability to land on vacant lots or any possible field clearing.

Once the drugs are on U.S. soil , illegal traffickers who operate in the U.S. take the drugs and leave the aircraft. González explained that the operation is extremely profitable. First, because ultralight planes are cheap – most are homemade. Then, a kilo of cocaine, worth $ 8000 in Mexico, jumps to $ 30,000 when it comes to the USA.

According to González, the drug is purchased at $ 1700 in Colombia. At that price, each flight of ultralight earns $ 2 million to the Mexican drug traffickers, according to calculations by the SSP.

The supremacy of undetected small narco drones at the south border could be imitated by terrorists, said analysts.

Intel goldmine: Now arrested Texas-born drug lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "the Barbie". Photo: AP

In a statement to the Mexican police, the drug lord Edgar Valdez Villarreal, aka “La Barbie”, arrested on Monday revealed details of the origin of the war between cartels in Mexico. He said the widespread confrontation between criminal gangs began because of the war for the control of illegal drug trafficking in Ciudad Juárez, the main transit route for cocaine into the U.S.
According to Valdez, the cartels had previously a non-aggression agreement signed by the major drug kingpins in 2007, but the agreement was breached by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, strong man of the Sinaloa cartel.  Chapo Guzman wanted the control of Ciudad Juarez and began executing members of the Juarez cartel, led by Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.
In his testimony, the drug kingpin “la Barbie” did not hide his disgust by the cartel Los Zetas, allegedly responsible for the massacre of 72 immigrants last week. According to Valdez, the Zetas are a “danger” to other criminal organizations in Mexico, for “not respecting the agreements.” “Neither the mother wants them.”

Police parade with his his major arrest "La Barbie". Photo: AP

Valdez also said he hid the man who shot the Paraguayan soccer striker Salvador Cabanas, that was playing for the mexican team America. According to “La Barbie”, José Jorge Balderas Garza, known as “JJ”, who in January gave a shot in the head of Paraguay in a bar in the Mexican capital, is his friend.

“I put him in an office for three months,” he said. Researchers suspect that Valdez had ordered killed the soccer player because Cabañas had an affair with actress Arleth Terán, drug dealer’s girlfriend.

A Mexican judge ordered Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez, believed to be one of the country’s top drug bosses, held for 40 more days of investigation, the federal prosecutor’s office said on Saturday.

Valdez, a 37-year-old Texan who was arrested outside Mexico City late last month, is the highest-ranking suspected drug cartel leader captured alive since the country’s drug war erupted in late 2006.

The extended detention period allows prosecutors more time to build their case against Valdez and seven other people who were arrested at the same time.

Valdez had been a contender to take over the Beltran Leyva cartel. A violent struggle for control of the gang erupted after its leader, Arturo Beltran Leyva, was slain in a shootout with Mexican forces in December as some members sided with Valdez against Beltran Leyva’s brother.

U.S. authorities have placed a $2 million bounty on his head and want Valdez to stand trial on charges that he masterminded the smuggling of tonnes of cocaine into the United States. Mexican officials have not said whether they will hand Valdez over to the United States or try him first in Mexico.

Valdez will be held in the headquarters of the Mexican Federal Police in Mexico City during the extended detention period, the prosecutor’s office said in a news release.

Background information on La Barbie.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal (born August 11, 1973) also known as La Barbie, is a Mexican-American drug trafficker who worked a few years for the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel as a lieutenant. In early 2010 he separated from the Beltrán-Leyva brothers and attempted to create his own cartel. Valdez is also the primary operator of the executioner gang called Los Negros. On August 30, 2010, he was arrested by the Mexican Federal Police.

Valdez originates from Laredo, Texas,^[7][8] where he was a high school football standout. Then he started selling marijuana on the streets of Laredo.^[9][10] Valdez’s nickname, La Barbie, came from his football coach at United High School^[11] and references his light complexion and green eyes, similar to that of a Ken doll. Other nicknames he is known by are “El Comandante” and “El Guero“.^[6]

Valdez’s first arrest came at 19 in Texas, where he was charged with criminally negligent homicide for allegedly running over a middle school counselor with his truck while speeding down a Laredo street. He was never indicted.^[12] After leaving Texas for Mexico, police say Valdez quickly rose through the ranks of the Sinaloa Cartel, working as Arturo Beltrán Leyva’s bodyguard. Living illegally in Mexico, Valdez built up a life of luxury, with homes in expensive neighborhoods.

According to the chief investigator, Officer Felipe Curi, the suspect acquired drugs from a major narcotics trafficker in Paraguay and had the main function of transporting the drug to a scheme of criminal gangs involving the construction business and the business of insurance, called by the police as the drug trafficking entrepreneurs.

” The suspect was responsible for brokering the purchase of drugs. This large dealer of Paraguay gave him the drugs and the suspect delivered the narcotics to the major brazilian drug traffickers, to large suppliers who went to Ponta Pora to negotiate these shipments and bring the drugs to Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Brasilia and cities in the South, “he said. According to the officer, the suspect alone moved about three tons of marijuana and 50 kilograms of cocaine base paste every single week.

The sheriff said the suspect also recluted corrupt officials, acquiring realø estate/wealth and recruiting people to his criminal organization. The suspect Waldemar was wanted by…READ MORE HERE (in portuguese)

The abductors, who were not apprehended in Tuesday night’s rescue, were seeking between $8,000 and $10,000 from relatives in Florida for each of the five men and one woman they had been holding in a series of safe houses, Notimex said.

The Cubans said they arrived in Cancun on a raft and were picked up from the streets of Cancun by men in a pickup truck, the news service said.

The Yucatan Peninsula, particularly the municipalities of Cancun, Isla Mujeres and Cozumel, is a major landing point for smugglers who bring Cubans into Mexico and take them to the U.S. border.

“It’s a major receiving dock for things coming from the Caribbean,” said Samuel Logan, founding director of Southern Pulse, an online information network focused on Latin America. “It’s a pretty important reception point.”

Some get killed or kidnapped by the cartels/gangs, but many illegal migrants still attempt to enter to the U.S.

Human smugglers charge up to $10,000 per person to transport them by boat from Cuba, usually from the westernmost province of Pinar del Rios, and then overland in Mexico to the U.S. border.

Mexican and Cuban officials estimate that up to 10,000 Cubans are smuggled into Mexico each year, the online Diario de Cuba publication said Wednesday.

The Cancun area has become more popular with human smugglers in the past decade because the 135-mile-wide Yucatan Channel is not heavily patrolled by the U.S. Coast Guard as other parts of the Caribbean Sea. Most U.S. interdiction efforts occur in the Straits of Florida between Cuba and Florida.

Cuban smugglers have been working with drug-trafficking organizations in the Yucatan area, particularly the Beltran-Leyva and Zetas cartels, authorities say. Lately, officials say, the Cuban smugglers have been branching out into trafficking cocaine from Colombia.

The Noticaribe online publication said in November that a group of Cuban migrants had reported being tortured in Cancun by abductors who demanded $10,000 from family in Miami, Florida.

Of the 34 killings in the Cancun area in 2007, Noticaribe said, many of them were Cubans involved in human trafficking.

Tuesday’s rescue of the six Cubans came one week after Mexican authorities discovered the bodies of 72 migrants from Central and South America on a ranch in Tamaulipas state. Officials are investigating whether the Zetas cartel killed the migrants and for what reason. It’s possible the migrants refused to work for the cartel or were unable to obtain ransom money.

“Sometimes the Mexican organized crime group says, ‘The hell with it. We’re not going to deal with these people,’ and they kill them all,” Logan said.

Elements from the Mexican navy, army and state and local police made Tuesday’s rescue of the six Cubans after authorities received a…READ MORE HERE.

As we know, President Obama’s released last May his National Security Strategy. He then stated that the American people “face no greater threat or more urgent danger than a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon. And international peace and security is threatened by proliferation that could lead to a nuclear exchange.”

Amid continuing concerns over the threat of terrorists attempting to deploy weapons of mass destruction in random attacks the U.S. Domestic Nuclear Detection Office took further steps Tuesday to advance research into WMD detection.

Scientists’ teams that develop new technologies will be in the forefront of the effort funded by DNDO planners at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. All new contracts announced Tuesday focus on detecting shielded nuclear materials.

OSI Systems, Inc., a vertically integrated provider of specialized electronics for critical applications in the security and healthcare industries, said the new contacts were part of the Multiple Exploratory Research Program run by the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office.

Rapiscan Systems, OSI’s security division, is the direct beneficiary of the contracts. The work involves transformational research and development initiatives.

The company said DNDO wants “to enlist thought leaders to advance the country’s nuclear materials detection capabilities.”

With its team of scientists and engineers, Rapiscan has secured contracts that are incrementally funded for a total obligated value of $2 million with additional options for a total value of up to $12 million.

While all the contracts are specific about finding new ways of detecting shielded nuclear material, the company has been charged with developing a liquefied noble gas detector in collaboration with Yale University, a threshold activation detector, a human portable system and an aircraft inspection solution.

Rapiscan Systems President Ajay Mehra said the contracts were designed to enhance detection capabilities throughout the U.S. security networks. READ MORE HERE

Predator -drone- will be protecting U.S.-Mexico Border from any illegal activities.

The use of unmmaned aircraft -drones- and smaller aerial devices (as used in Afganistán) could be the future for the protection of any american country´s territorial waters and borders, without bigger expenses in border personnel.

Tomorrow the Department of Homeland Security will be expanding their use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) along the Southwest border to provide support and reconnaissance to Border Patrol Agents with the arrival of a new Predator-B aircraft upping Customs and Border Protection’s fleet of drones to seven aircrafts. As violence flares in Mexico’s drug war, DHS recently highlighted their efforts to secure the border noting that DHS has deployed historic levels of personnel to the Southwest border and that they have increased southbound inspections of vehicles and railcars to intercept cash and weapons that flow south to the cartels.

A press release issued late on Monday by DHS noted, “Since [March 2009], the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has doubled the number of personnel assigned to border enforcement security task forces; tripled the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers working along the U.S.-Mexico border; quadrupled deployments of border liaison officers; and begun screening 100 percent of southbound rail shipments for illegal weapons, drugs, and cash.”

The Obama administration has also recently authorized and provided funding for the…READ MORE HERE.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "the Barbie,'' is arrested by police officers in the state of Mexico, which borders the capital, Mexico City. (AP Photo/Public safety department)

Federal police in Mexico today said they had captured an alleged drug gang kingpin who faces drug-trafficking charges in the US and has been blamed for a vicious turf war in central Mexico.

The announcement came just hours after the government revealed that almost 10% of the federal police force had been fired this year as part of a campaign to root out corruption.

The arrest of Texas-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal – alias “La Barbie” – was the culmination of a year-long intelligence operation, the public safety department said in a statement.

The department said Valdez had been captured in the state of Mexico, which borders the capital of Mexico City.

The statement offered…READ MORE HEREdRUG

Flags of Bolivia and Brazil

Bolivia and Brazil reinforced their fight against drug trafficking with a five-day joint-training drill, using mainly air force surveillance, according to a Saturday statement by the Bolivian air force and a report of the castrist news agency Prensa Latina.

According to the source, the maneuvers, dubbed “First Operational Exercise BOLBRA I,” focused on border traffick, to monitor and detect of ships involved in drug-trafficking activities.

The two nations share a common border of more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), used by drug traffickers to place Bolivian cocaine on the Brazilian market.

The Bolivian adminsitration…READ MORE HERE.

Presidential candidate of the Workers' Party Dilma Rousseff greets supporters during a campaign rally in Rondonopolis, Brazil's Mato Grosso State.

Brazilian ruling party candidate Dilma Rousseff opened a 24-percentage point lead over her main presidential rival in an opinion poll on Saturday, staying on course win the October 3 election in the first round.

Career civil servant Rousseff has 51 percent support, against former Sao Paulo state governor Jose Serra’s 27 percent, according to an Ibope survey published in O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper.

Rousseff, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s former chief of staff, has overtaken Serra in his home state of Sao Paulo, which has the country’s largest electorate. She leads there 42 percent to 35 percent, the poll showed.

She has doubled her overall margin on Serra since the previous Ibope poll published on August 16, when she led 43 percent to 32 percent. She has taken a clear lead in three other polls as well.

Rapid economic growth this year and promises to continue with the policies of Lula…READ MORE HERE

President Calderon said Mexico is planning to tighten the noose around big-ticket cash purchases to curtail the flow of smuggled dollars and fight money laundering.

MEXICO CITY – President Felipe Calderon proposed sweeping new measures Thursday to crack down on the cash smuggling and money laundering that allow Mexican cartels to use billions in U.S. drug profits to enrich their criminal organizations.

Legislation introduced by the Calderon administration would make it illegal to buy real estate in cash.

The new laws would also limit the purchase of vehicles, boats, airplanes and luxury goods to 100,000 pesos in cash, or about $7,700. Violators could be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison.

Criminals here are increasingly using cash transactions to launder their vast profits, according to a senior Mexican official who investigates financial crimes but spoke on the condition of anonymity because of security protocols.

The Mexican official and his counterparts in U.S. law enforcement say that billions of dollars in cash are used to buy airplanes, ranches and businesses to circumvent new Mexican laws that require banks to report large cash movements.

“This illicit money is vital for the criminal. That is what they seek, this money. It is also vital to finance their activities,” said Calderon, who called the new money-laundering laws “unprecedented.”

Mexican drug cartels and their Colombian suppliers generate, launder and remove from the United States $18 billion to $39 billion each year, according to the National Drug Intelligence Center. Most of this money crosses the Southwest border in plastic-wrapped bundles of $20 or $100 U.S. bank notes, stashed in tires and engine compartments of cars and trucks.

“In the criminal world, cash is king, and in Mexico you have to go after the cash if you want to disrupt their operations,” said Jerry Robinette, a special agent in charge of the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agency in San Antonio.

A recent report by Douglas Farah, a consultant for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, concluded that “very little is effectively being done to either impede the movement of drug money into the formal economy or significantly reduce the flow of bulk cash across the U.S.-Mexico border.”

U.S. and Mexican agents seize no more than 1 percent of this southbound cash, according to an analysis by The Washington Post, based on figures provided by both governments.

If passed by the legislature, Calderon’s new money-laundering laws would upend common practice in Mexico, where many legitimate buyers and sellers prefer cash transactions to skirt tax bills.

As part of the $1.4 billion Merida aid initiative to Mexico, U.S. agents have trained their Mexican counterparts to detect and disrupt money-laundering operations.

The Mexican government in June announced strict restrictions on cash deposits and withdrawals made in U.S. dollars. Mexicans with bank accounts can deposit as much as $4,000 in cash per month, but…READ MORE HERE.