Fast and Furious: The Ball Still Rolls

Even though Attorney General Eric Holder refuses to release the documents which will likely prove that he lied about the Fast and Furious scandal, we do learn a little more about this iconic ATF activity directed by the Obama Administration every day.

The latest revelation is that one of those guns the ATF allowed to be sold to the Mexican Drug Cartels was used to kill a Mexican Police Chef. 

The LA Times read  that some internal Department of Justice records showing that a high powered rifle allowed to "walk" was used to kill a Mexican police chief in the state of Jalisco earlier this year. The bulk of the Fast and Furious weapon sales were orchestrated on the cartel side by Nicolas Balcazar Lopez aka El Bronco, a police commandant turned narco. Oddly enough, he lived in Jalisco until the Mexican Government arrested him last year. He's been awaiting trial in Mexico City, but nobody expects that the matter will be tried anytime soon.

Luis Lucio Rosales Astorga, the police chief in the city of Hostotipaquillo, was shot to death January 29, 2013 when gunmen intercepted his patrol car and opened fire. His wife  was with him in the car at the time. She was injured. One bodyguard was killed in the car and a second one was injured. 

Local authorities said eight suspects in their 20s and 30s were arrested after police seized them nearby with a cache of weapons — rifles, grenades, handguns, helmets, bulletproof vests, uniforms and special communications equipment. The area is a hot zone for rival drug gangs, with members of three cartels fighting over turf in the region. 

A semi-automatic WASR rifle, the firearm that killed the chief, was traced back to the Lone Wolf Trading Company, a gun store in Glendale, Ariz. The notation on the Department of Justice trace records said the WASR was used in a “HOMICIDE – WILLFUL – KILL –PUB OFF –GUN” –ATF code for “Homicide, Willful Killing of a Public Official, Gun.” 

The WASR used in Jalisco was purchased on Feb. 22, 2010, about three months into the Fast and Furious operation, by 26-year-old Jacob A. Montelongo of Phoenix. He later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, making false statements and smuggling goods from the United States and was sentenced to 41 months in prison. 

Court records show Montelongo personally obtained at least 109 firearms during Fast and Furious. How the WASR ended up in the state of Jalisco, which is deep in central Mexico and includes the country’s second-largest metropolis, Guadalajara, remained unclear. 

After the shooting in Jalisco, local officials said some of the suspects confessed to two other shootouts in the area, including one that left seven people dead, all part of the continuing feud by rival cartel members.

Cartels Arming Americans - Cartels with MANPADS

The headline reads like this: Mexican drug cartels reportedly dispatching agents deep inside US

Associated Press and carried by Fox News

CHICAGO – Mexican drug cartels whose operatives once rarely ventured beyond the U.S. border are dispatching some of their most trusted agents to live and work deep inside the United States -- an emboldened presence that experts believe is meant to tighten their grip on the world's most lucrative narcotics market and maximize profits.

...A wide-ranging Associated Press review of federal court cases and government drug-enforcement data, plus interviews with many top law enforcement officials, indicate the groups have begun deploying agents from their inner circles to the U.S. Cartel operatives are suspected of running drug-distribution networks in at least nine non-border states, often in middle-class suburbs in the Midwest, South and Northeast. 

"It's probably the most serious threat the United States has faced from organized crime," said Jack Riley, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office.

It's not news to anybody who follows the drug trade, but it was apparently new enough for the Associated Press to run a story on it.

What they fail to mention is that the cartels are also running AK-47's:

AK-74's and RPK-74's:

RPG-7's (both the launcher and rockets):

Into the United States to buyers who are concerned about government tyranny and feel as though they need to have something to shoot back when DHS shows up. I personally discount many of the conspiracy theories, but what I do or don't do doesn't matter.

Los Caballeros Templarios (was La Familia Michoacan) and The Sinaloa Federation (Chapo/Mayo Faction) have also recently acquired Chinese FN-6 man portable air defense systems (MANPADS), also referred to as shoulder-launched surface to air missiles (SAM's). Those same MANPADS have recently also shown up in Syria in the hands of rebels, indicating wider proliferation than the Chinese are comfortable taking public credit for.

(Wikipedia) FN-6 (FN = FeiNu, 飞弩, meaning Flying Crossbow), is a third generation passive infrared (IR) man portable air defence system (MANPADS). It was developed by China, and is their most advanced surface-to-air missile offered in the international market[citation needed]. Specially designed to engage low flying targets, it has a range of 6 km and a maximum altitude of 3.5 km. The FN-6 is in service with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and has also been exported to Malaysia, Cambodia, Sudan and Peru. Based on FN-6, China has developed a number of other MANPADS, such as HN and FY series, as well as other vehicle-based short-range air defense systems such as FN and FB series.

But before you express the slightest bit of alarm, the Obama Administration has shown a surprising degree of apathy in helping the Mexicans take these dangerous weapons (that can down nearly any aircraft) off the street.  Yes, it's a low priority. Or at least it is at the moment. Even though the Sinaloa Federation is unlikely to move them across the US-Mexico Border into the United States, Los Caballeros Templario (LCT) has no no such scruples. Blackmail, and retribution is a likely use for at least half of the one dozen FN-6 missiles that LCT has been vetted to have in their position. At least four travel with Servando (La Tuta) Gomez Martinez, current operational leader of LCT.

When the crap hits the fan, you can refer back here and know that you read about the warning on this lonely blog.

BATFE's Operation Fast and Furious sold firearms to cartels to demonstrate (erroneously) that America was arming the cartels, when the reality is quite different. Cartels are arming concerned Americans. And they are bringing a new dynamic to the game with MANPADS.

Drug Cannons and Drones

Multi-barrel drug cannon - for those who are serious about launching the
largest number of loads over the fence in the shortest amount of time.

The truck mounted home made cannon pictured below will fire a 30 pound projectile over the US/Mexico Border Fence. Usually it fires packets of marijuana, but you could also fire cocaine, methamphetamine or cocaine over the fence. Physics is no respecter of narcotics. In the past when the narcos needed to fire cocaine, it was packaged in a hard plastic container and because of the weight of the container, it would fire no more than ten pounds at a shot.

Marijuana Cannon - designed to defeat the Border Fence

Police told the Televisa network that the device was made up of a plastic pipe and a crude metal tank that used compressed air from the engine of an old car 

The apparatus fired cylinders packed with drugs that weighed as much as 13 kilos, police said. It was confiscated last week after US officers told Mexican police that they had been confiscating a 16px number of drug packages that appeared to have been fired over the border.

Before long, ambitious cartel members will begin to fly unmanned drone aircraft from Mexico into the US, packed with high value narcotics. Up to now, drone aircraft have been the prerogative of the Customs and Border Protection Service, and the narcos flew radar resistant ultralight aircraft across the fence, loaded with cocaine. Once landed, the small aircraft were abandoned.

That's changing along with changing technology. Drone aircraft technology has made it from the hangers of the world's superpowers into the garages of the powerful and very wealthy drug cartels. The concept is that drug drones could be reused and would not depend on a drug pilot flying an ultralight. Ultralight aircraft are more heavily influenced by weather than the larger and more robust drones that can drop a load of narcotics very accurately using GPS technology.

Working from US, European and Israeli designs, aeronautical engineers in Mexico and Latin America have been hard at work to find a drone that can be transported quickly by truck, launched and recovered and subsequently moved and has enough payload weight to meet the needs of their employers (Sinaloa Federation).

Anyone who can build a hobby aircraft successfully has all of the tools to ramp up the dimensions and integrate control technology to build a workable drone. In the case of Cartel Drones, the wings need to fold up so that it will fit in a semi-truck both before and after flight so that it can be serviced, reloaded and flown from another site.

One narco that I spoke to who is familiar with this program said that it's a lot easier and less expensive than running a drug submarine - but the submarines carry a much more substantial narcotics load than the drones do. However, you can build and operate two dozen drone aircraft for the price of one submarine. The swarm effect also makes it unlikely that more than one at most will be apprehended by American law enforcement at any one time. The assembly line for narcotics drones is located in the Santa Fe District of Mexico City and near the Bombardier factory at Queretaro where aircraft factory workers can moonlight and double their money.

A rumor persists that NSA has collected a body of information on this narco drone effort, collected under RAGTIME, but it has yet to be confirmed.

Assist to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police

This is a very brief investigative primer for any Canadian authorities who are looking for Mexican cartel operators within their country. I doubt that any RCMP types will read this blog, but if they do, they can consider this.

Joaquin Guzman Loera (El Chapo) is running the majority of the Canadian Traffic from the Mexican side of things. There were cells of Los Caballeros Templario (based in Washington State, US) but now that they're allies, I'm lumping them into one big pot.

This is important to know, because Chapo is a micromanager. He didn't last as long as he has nor grow in both personal wealth and power through the hemisphere by being stupid. Which means that they won't be making mistakes that the bush league narcos make. 

If you're accustomed to working on Asian targets (who almost religiously follow the same low key profile), you're going to feel at home working on these cartels.

Automobiles - Don't expect to see these guys driving around in Ferraris. The vehicle of choice for running around and being cool is usually the pick-up truck. They will also drive nondescript sedans simply because they don't attract attention. However, because they're from Sinaloa for the most part, you will see "Sinaloa Crap" on the cars. Stickers, Virgin of Guadalupe or Santa Muerte statues. You need to learn the difference between the two. Regular Catholic Mexicans usually have the Virgin of Guadalupe icons on their dash. If you find anything to do with Senora de los Sombras, Nino Negro Santa or the Holy Death (Santa Muerte) (different names for the same saint), you have a narco on your hands.

Restaurants - Everyone wants food and culture that reminds them of home close at hand. They need a place to hide in plain sight and the leaders want to hold court. So you'll find some really good Mexican restaurants popping up. Remember, it doesn't need to be a hole in the wall because these cartels have a lot of money to spend. Look for Sinaloa, Jalisco or Michoacan style cooking. If you can't tell the difference between Sonora, Quintana Roo and Jalisco style cooking - do your homework. They will hang out where they are comfortable.

Homes - They will live well and they will live on land with a buffer around it. They will have ranches and those ranches will have runways cut on them. Expect over ten ranches in any area where the narcos are active. They'll set them up with equipment, barns, sorting pens for livestock, etc. and they will leave them dormant until they're needed. Usually one one will be active at a time. That's just how they roll. It's a shell game.

Clothing - The well healed narcos will dress 'Mexican upscale casual' - short hair, expensive dress shirt, usually worn outside (not tucked in), nice slacks and nice shoes. The Sinaloa Cowboys, who work on the ranches (bottom feeders) will dress the way that they did when they were home. Do some homework on those dress patterns. These guys won't deviate from what they are comfortable wearing.

Family Life - Most wealthy Mexican men have more than one wife. The wealthier and more powerful, the more wives. It's not uncommon for a narco to have one Casa Grande (the first wife) and half a dozen Casa Chicas (the subsequent girlfriend). Mexicans don't wear condoms so those women all have children. Alert your family support people to keep a sharp eye out for women from Mexico who apply for welfare benefits and aid for their children. They almost all will. Narcos have money but they are cheap in terms of spending that money on the Casa Chicas. This information can be exploited and it's possibly the best single method of finding out who the narcos are. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

Mexican Weddings - Track them, cover them, photograph the people who show up, collect license plate numbers. They are political affairs within the community and they are LARGE. It will help you to understand who is there. The important people will usually travel in Humvees or Suburbans. Some may be armored - but I'm not sure that they have a lot of armored vehicles in Canada. If you find one, the occupant is important.

Good Luck

If anyone wants more they can e-mail me. If you do e-mail me, please provide your RCMP/Law Enforcement affiliation because I will vet you before I contact you.