Mexican drug museum running out of room

Mexico's museum of drugs is quickly running out of room for the contraband seized from the Drug Cartels by Mexican authorities.
San Fransisco Gate

Mexico City - — When the Mexican military opened its Museum of Drugs in 1985, there were only a couple of dusty display cases in a small cramped room.[...]

How the situation has changed. The museum is now housed in spacious suites at Mexico's version of the Pentagon, but its curators say they are running out of room for all the contraband they would like to showcase.[...]

The museum is open to Mexican officials, visiting diplomats and graduating army cadets, who tour the exhibits to learn about their only real enemy, the drug cartels. Occasionally the brass lets a journalist have a look, but the greater public is not permitted.

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Exclusive: Al Qaeda linked to rogue air network: U.S. official

Al Qaida Airlines!
You want it , we got it !
Cocaine , maryjane , Opiums ,heroins , Suicide bombers and crazy ass Pilots !
A free goat with every large shipment ! and fun suicide belts for the Kids !
Call now at 1-800-Allahknowsbest (SarcOff)



TIMBUKTU, Mali (Reuters) - In early 2008, an official at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a report to his superiors detailing what he called "the most significant development in the criminal exploitation of aircraft since 9/11."

The document warned that a growing fleet of rogue jet aircraft was regularly crisscrossing the Atlantic Ocean. On one end of the air route, it said, are cocaine-producing areas in the Andes controlled by the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. On the other are some of West Africa's most unstable countries.

The report, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, was ignored, and the problem has since escalated into what security officials in several countries describe as a global security threat.

The clandestine fleet has grown to include twin-engine turboprops, executive jets and retired Boeing 727s that are flying multi-ton loads of cocaine and possibly weapons to an area in Africa where factions of al Qaeda are believed to be facilitating the smuggling of drugs to Europe, the officials say.

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has been held responsible for car and suicide bombings in Algeria and Mauritania. Gunmen and bandits linked to the group have also stepped up kidnappings of Europeans, who are then passed on to AQIM factions seeking ransom payments.

The aircraft hopscotch across South American countries, picking up tons of cocaine and jet fuel, officials say. They then soar across the Atlantic to West Africa and the Sahel, where the drugs are funneled across the Sahara Desert and into Europe.

An examination of documents and interviews with officials in the United States and three West African nations suggest that at least 10 aircraft have been discovered using this air route since 2006. Officials warn that many of these aircraft were detected purely by chance. They warn that the real number involved in the networks is likely considerably higher.

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Germans bust Hizbollah cocaine smuggling ring

German authorities have busted a cocaine smuggling ring they suspect is funneling money to Hizbollah.

This is just another example of a terrorist group selling drugs to infidel states in order to raise money for the jihad. The Local

German investigators are uncovering the drug-smuggling business of the Syrian-backed Lebanese militant organisation Hezbollah, moving cocaine from Beirut into Europe via Frankfurt airport.

A report in Der Spiegel magazine this weekend said initial suspicions that Hezbollah was raising funds by smuggling cocaine were raised in May 2008 when around €8.7 million in cash was found in the luggage of four Lebanese men at Frankfurt airport.[...]

The magazine says the suspicion is that family members have been regularly moving millions of euros raised in the European cocaine trade, via Frankfurt to Beirut. Those receiving the money in Lebanon are said to be members of a family with contacts with the highest levels of Hezbollah command including leader Hassan Nasrallah.

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U.S. prosecution links drugs to terrorism

So we are going to Bring Detained Al Qaida personnel to the States , and prosecute them ? for drug Smuggling ?
I don't think bringing any Al Qaida , or "Muslim Insurgent" Type individuals here for a trial , Is a Good Idea .
The best trial for them should be the Battle Field !

....L.A.Times
Reporting from Washington - Three men alleged to be Al Qaeda associates were charged Friday with conspiring to smuggle cocaine through Africa -- the first U.S. prosecution linking the terrorist group directly to drug trafficking.

The three suspects, who were charged in federal court in New York, are believed to be from Mali and were arrested in Ghana during a Drug Enforcement Administration sting. Although U.S. authorities have alleged that Al Qaeda and the Taliban profit from Afghanistan's heroin trade, the case is the first in which suspects linked to Al Qaeda have been charged under severe narco-terrorism laws, federal officials said.

The 18-page complaint describes a convergence of mafias and terrorists in northwest Africa that has caused increasing alarm among European, African and U.S. investigators.

Cocaine traffic has risen sharply in West Africa in recent years. Exploiting states that are weakened by corruption, poverty and violence, Latin American mafias have made the region a hub for moving cocaine across the Atlantic and into the booming drug markets of Europe.

Al Qaeda in the Maghreb -- a North African ally of Osama bin Laden's organization -- has muscled into the lucrative cocaine smuggling routes of the Sahara, according to Western and African officials. It existed for two decades under other names before declaring allegiance to Bin Laden in 2006.

Al Qaeda in the Maghreb finances itself partly by protecting and moving loads along smuggling corridors that run through Morocco into Spain and through Libya and Algeria into Italy, according to the complaint and Western investigators.

"We've known about this for a long time, but this is the first actionable thing we've done in response to it," DEA spokesman Rusty Payne said.

The stakes are high because of the potential for Al Qaeda in the Maghreb to use cocaine profits in attacks on the West.

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The drug war in Mexico

Click the image to go to the interactive map

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Mexican drug cartels smuggling drugs through US trucker program

Mexican drug cartels have been targeting truckers part of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism in order to smuggle drugs into the US. Truck companies part of the program are allowed to quickly pass through the border. Now Mexican drug cartels are either bribing or threatening the truck drives to smuggle drugs across the border.

From Washington Times

The government keeps the list of participants secret, citing national security and trade secrets. But some of the 9,500 companies that are part of the system advertise their membership to drum up business, making them targets for smugglers, who can then threaten drivers or offer them bribes.

More than half of all U.S. imports now come from companies in the program, called the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. Mexican trucking companies make up only 6 percent of global membership in the system, but they account for half of its 71 security violations during the past two years.[...]

"The basic vulnerability for a truck driver remains the 'plata-or-plomo' dilemma," Mr. Flynn said, using Spanish shorthand for taking a bribe or a bullet.

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Drug raid turns into 9 hour Wii marathon

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U.S. Targets Afghan Drug Lords With Taliban Ties

Why only the ones with Taliban Ties ? I'm sure all the drug lords are tied to the Taliban , Just another war on drugs that will go on for ever , you kill one another will take his place !

Fox News
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has created a target list of 50 Afghan drug traffickers with ties to the Taliban to be captured or killed, The New York Times reported on Monday.

Citing interviews with two U.S. generals in a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report to be released this week, the Times said the strategy is aimed at disrupting the flow of drug money used to finance Taliban insurgents.

The addition of drug lords on the "joint integrated prioritized target list" reflects a major shift in counternarcotics strategy and means the traffickers will be given the same target status as militant leaders.

"We have a list of 367 'kill or capture' targets, including 50 nexus targets who link drugs and the insurgency," a general reportedly told the committee staff, the Times said.

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Hidden Drug Stash Found in Jackson's House

Now that he has been dead for a bit , I will say that Michael jackson was a freak !
Of all the things he was we now find out he was a major drug abuser ! this ultimately led to his death , ( At the Hands of his Doctor ).
It is a sad story but , Where is Michael's nose ?

TMZ
Law enforcement sources tell us Dr. Conrad Murray kept a stash of drugs -- including the powerful anesthesia Propofol -- hidden in his closet at Michael Jackson's home.

Sources say when the LAPD first searched Jackson's home the night he died, they did not turn up Propofol or many of the other drugs that were in Jackson's house.

Dr. Murray talked to the LAPD the following Saturday and the information he supplied triggered another, broader search warrant. Cops returned to the house the following Monday and discovered "various drugs" secretly stashed in a closet in the guest room where Dr. Murray was staying.

Here's the amazing thing ...law enforcement sources say Dr. Murray himself told LAPD detectives about the closet when he was interviewed the Saturday after Jackson's death.

One law enforcement source says: "The drugs were concealed...they weren't obvious." Among the stash -- Propofol, the drug authorities believe killed Michael Jackson.

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Zelaya accused of drug ties

This is the guy who Obama wants returned to power. Yahoo! News

BOGOTA – The regime that ousted Manuel Zelaya in Honduras claimed Tuesday that the deposed president allowed tons of cocaine to be flown into the Central American country on its way to the United States.

"Every night, three or four Venezuelan-registered planes land without the permission of appropriate authorities and bring thousands of pounds ... and packages of money that are the fruit of drug trafficking," its foreign minister, Enrique Ortez, told CNN en Espanol.

"We have proof of all of this. Neighboring governments have it. The DEA has it," he added.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Rusty Payne in Washington said he could neither confirm nor deny a DEA investigation.

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US to back Mexican war on drugs

The violence in Mexico rivals that of Afghanistan and the violence has already started to spill over north of the Rio Grande. NAtional Post

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. military is ready to help Mexico in its deadly war against drug cartels with some of the same counter-insurgency tactics used against militant networks in Iraq and Afghanistan, the top U.S. military officer said on Friday.

Navy Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, also said the Defense Department was moving quickly to provide the Mexican military with equipment, including helicopters, under a US$1.4-billion aid initiative.

"They have an urgent need. We all have a sense of urgency about this. And so we're all going to push pretty hard to deliver that capability as rapidly as possible," Adm. Mullen told reporters in a conference call as he returned from his first official visit to Mexico as Joint Chiefs chairman.

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Sex, drugs, islam. Iran's social decay

All I'm going to say is read the whole thing! Asia Times

Until very recently, an oil-price windfall gave the Iranian state ample resources to pursue its agenda at home and abroad. How, then, should we explain an eruption of social pathologies in Iran such as drug addiction and prostitution, on a scale much worse than anything observed in the West? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it appears that Islamic theocracy promotes rather than represses social decay.

Iran is dying. The collapse of Iran's birth rate during the past 20 years is the fastest recorded in any country, ever. Demographers have sought in vain to explain Iran's population implosion through family planning policies, or through social factors such as the rise of female literacy.

But quantifiable factors do not explain the sudden collapse of fertility. It seems that a spiritual decay has overcome Iran, despite best efforts of a totalitarian theocracy. Popular morale has deteriorated much faster than in the "decadent" West against which the Khomeini revolution was directed.

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Taliban earning between $200 & 300 million from opium trade

NATO can no longer turn a blind eye to the opium trade. Targeting the opium trade in AFghanistan will seriously affect the taliban's finances. You can defeat one with defeating the other. Indian Express

New Delhi: Linking prevailing security scenario with illicit opium cultivation in Afghanistan, United Nations said the Taliban are earning 200 to 300 million dollars annually from a surcharge it levies on illegal trade in that country.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates that "the Taliban have an annual revenue of between USD 200-300 million from a surcharge levied on illicit drug trade".

This was revealed by International Narcotics Control Board in its report for the year 2008. The report was released today.

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Top Mexico drug cop charged with working for cartel

No wonder the drug cartels have been able to run amok in Mexico. Reuters

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - The former head of Mexico's special organized crime bureau has been charged with selling information to one of the country's most powerful drug cartels, the attorney general's office said on Sunday.

Noe Ramirez, who stepped down as chief of the SIEDO federal investigation unit in July last year, was detained in November for allegedly receiving $450,000 for passing secrets to the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Mexico's top drug fugitive Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

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If Violence Escalates in Mexico, Texas Officials Plan to Be Ready

Should we start a pool on when this conflict will spread north of the Rio Grande? Fox News

As drug cartels continue to terrorize Mexico, Texas officials are planning for the worst-case scenario: how to respond if the violence spills over the border, and what to do if thousands of Mexicans seek refuge in the United States.

Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said a multi-agency contingency plan is being developed, and it will focus primarily on law enforcement issues, including how to handle an influx of Mexicans fleeing violence.

"At this point, what we're focusing on is spillover violence," Cesinger told FOXNews.com Thursday. "The immediate concern, if any, would be that."

More than 5,300 people were killed in Mexico last year in connection to criminal activity, and some experts predict things will get worse. Along with Pakistan, Mexico was identified in a Department of Defense report last year as a country that could destabilize rapidly.

If that were to happen, officials are concerned that the drug violence could cross the Rio Grande into southern Texas.

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Canadian troops could target taliban's opium trade

It's about time, it's an open secret that the taliban sell opium to raise money for their jihad. In the taliban's eyes thepractice is a win-win situation for them because they make money off poisoning the populations of non-muslim countries.

But the taliban break the very first rule of any self-respecting drug dealer....don't get high off your own supply. I've heard and read that many taliban fighters are high as kites when they fight NATO soldiers. CBC

Canadian soldiers participating in the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan could soon be ordered to hunt down drug lords and attack the country's poppy trade, which is inextricably linked to the Taliban insurgency, Canada's top general says.

So far, Canadian soldiers have not been involved in anti-drug operations in Afghanistan, but that could change, said Walter Natynczyk, Canada's chief of defence staff.[...]

But Natynczyk said the ties between the drug trade and the insurgency are too strong to dismiss any longer, as profits or product often end up directly in the hands of fighters.

"Most times that we have operations, our soldiers, sailors and airmen have found drugs right there with Taliban," he said. "So the nexus between drugs and terror is very, very strong."

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US & British Navy seized up to $100 million worth of drugs

Up to $100 million worth of hashish was seized in the Arabian sea and Gulf of Aden by the US and British Navies. Most of the money would've gone to fund the taliban terrorist scum in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The taliban are huge exporters of drugs to Europe and Australia. It's part of their jihad, poision the populations of Western countries while they pay for it.Fox News

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The U.S. Navy says it and British forces have seized more than 20 tons of drugs smuggled along a "hash highway" through the waters of the western Indian ocean.

The Navy estimates the narcotics seized since October — mostly hashish — are worth $100 million. It said proceeds could have helped fund militants in Afghanistan.

The seizures occurred in the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Aden along a route the Navy calls the "hash highway" in a Monday statement. The area is also the frequent scene of attacks by Somali pirates.

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Karzai's Brother Linked to the Herion Trade?

According to informat Hajji Aman Kheri, who was arrested in 2002 for plotting to kill the Afghan Vice President, Afghan President Karzai's brother is linked to herion trafficking. US officials have approached President Karzai several times regarding his brother's links to the herion trade. But Karzai refuses to take any action until the US can produce any concrete evidence against him.

However, no full investigation has taken place because the administration prefers if the matter is dealt with a "hands-off approach". A catch 22 situation, Karzai demands evidence linking his brother to the herion trade but the administration won't conduct an investigation because of the political sensitivity of the matter.

The herion trade in Afghanistan is intimately linked with the taliban and other unsavory characters in the region. In my opinion, in order to win the war in Afghanistan NATO must disrupt the herion trade in order to deprave the taliban of one their primary sources of income.New York Times

WASHINGTON — When Afghan security forces found an enormous

cache of heroin hidden beneath concrete blocks in a tractor-trailer outside Kandahar in 2004, the local Afghan commander quickly impounded the truck and notified his boss.

Before long, the commander, Habibullah Jan, received a telephone call from Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of President Hamid Karzai, asking him to release the vehicle and the drugs, Mr. Jan later told American investigators, according to notes from the debriefing obtained by The New York Times. He said he complied after getting a phone call from an aide to President Karzai directing him to release the truck.

Two years later, American and Afghan counternarcotics forces stopped another truck, this time near Kabul, finding more than 110 pounds of heroin. Soon after the seizure, United States investigators told other American officials that they had discovered links between the drug shipment and a bodyguard believed to be an intermediary for Ahmed Wali Karzai, according to a participant in the briefing.

....

But the assertions about him have deeply worried top American officials in Kabul and in Washington. The United States officials fear that perceptions that the Afghan president might be protecting his brother are damaging his credibility and undermining efforts by the United States to buttress his government, which has been under siege from rivals and a Taliban insurgency fueled by drug money, several senior Bush administration officials said. Their concerns have intensified as American troops have been deployed to the country in growing numbers.[...]

The White House says it believes that Ahmed Wali Karzai is involved in drug trafficking, and American officials have repeatedly warned President Karzai that his brother is a political liability, two senior Bush administration officials said in interviews last week.

Numerous reports link Ahmed Wali Karzai to the drug trade, according to current and former officials from the White House, the State Department and the United States Embassy in Afghanistan, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity. In meetings with President Karzai, including a 2006 session with the United States ambassador, the Central Intelligence Agency’s station chief and their British counterparts, American officials have talked about the allegations in hopes that the president might move his brother out of the country, said several people who took part in or were briefed on the talks.

“We thought the concern expressed to Karzai might be enough to get him out of there,” one official said. But President Karzai has resisted, demanding clear-cut evidence of wrongdoing, several officials said. “We don’t have the kind of hard, direct evidence that you could take to get a criminal indictment,” a White House official said.

“That allows Karzai to say, ‘where’s your proof?’ ”

It's hard to present proof when no investigations have taken place.

Neither the Drug Enforcement Administration, which conducts counternarcotics efforts in Afghanistan, nor the fledgling Afghan anti-drug agency
has pursued investigations into the accusations against the president’s brother.

Several American investigators said senior officials at the D.E.A. and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter. But White House officials dispute that, instead citing limited D.E.A. resources in Kandahar and southern Afghanistan and the absence of political will in the Afghan government to go after major drug suspects as the reasons for the lack of an inquiry.

“We invested considerable resources into building Afghan capability to conduct such investigations and consistently encouraged Karzai to take on the big fish and address widespread Afghan suspicions about the link between his brother and narcotics,” said Meghan O’Sullivan, who was the coordinator for Afghanistan and Iraq at the National Security Council until last year.

Read the whole thing.

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NATO to Target Herion Traffickers in Afghanistan

NATO wakes up and decides to start targeting herion traffickers in Afghanistan. It's well known that a lot of the money made from selling herion goes to the taliban and al Qaida so they may continue on fighting NATO in Afghanistan.

Cut off one of their money supplies. The Age

NATO forces in Afghanistan will step up attacks on drug lords and narcotics traffickers who are supporting a Taliban insurgency that has rebounded in the past year, according to the top US commander in Afghanistan.

General David McKiernan also warned on Wednesday that US forces can't copy a central element of military success in Iraq — recruiting local tribes to support them — because the Afghan tribal structure has been shattered by 30 years of war.

He made it clear that NATO's International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, was not going to eradicate poppy crops. Afghanistan is the world's top grower of opium poppies, which are processed into heroin.

But by drawing a clear link between the narcotics trade and the insurgency, General McKiernan was outlining what could be an important and expanding role for US and NATO troops as they seek to eliminate a source of money and weapons for the insurgency.

I would the herion trade and the insurgency are one in the same....

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Canadian Troops Seize Drugs & Weapons in Afghanistan

In a secret mission that included Canadian troops, American, British and Afghan, an unspecified amount of drugs, weapons and bomb-making material were seized. Unfortunately no terrorists were reported killed in the operation. National Post

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Canadian soldiers appear to have caught the Taliban off guard in a large multi-national operation in the lawless region of western Kandahar province where insurgents have usually felt relatively safe.

In a secret mission that started last week, but was only just now made public, Canadians joined forces with American, British and Afghan forces to drive into the notorious Maywand district, a centre of Afghanistan's opium industry.

Military officials won't reveal how many troops are taking part in the ongoing operation but say they have so far seized large quantities of bomb-making equipment and drugs.

....

"Narcotics, weapons, all the paraphernalia you would associate with insurgents we did find out there,"
said Canadian Maj. Fraser Auld.

The operation is officially called "Roob Unyip Janubi" - or "Southern Beast" in Pashto -- but soldiers have already dubbed it "Ruby Januby."

Military spokesman Capt. Chris Quinlan said troops believe the Maywand District is where a large amount ofbombs get made before being shipped to other areas of the country.

"So we certainly anticipate that seizing bomb making supplies in Maywand will have an effect on what will show up in Zhari in the future," he said.

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