US Customs and Border Protection Corruption?

I have a friend, now retired, who worked for the US Customs Service and handled internal affairs for both US Customs and occasionally was called in to assist internal affairs/OPR at the Border Patrol before they were all folded into the Department of Homeland Security. He told me that one in three US Customs Officers at the US/Mexico ports of entry were on the take from drug cartels. That was about a decade ago and I would be shocked if things changed since then.

There is a general sense among the great unwashed and unenlightened (which would include yours truly) that CBP has more corruption on the US/Mexico Border than they do on Canadian ports of entry. However people are transferred (the corrupt and the honest) and the lack of scrutiny on CBP on the Canadian Border may account in some measure for vast sea of narcotics entering the US from Canada these days.

Polygraph Failure

On Thursday, 11 March 2010, in testimony before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, it was disclosed that the failure rate associated with theCBP pre-employment polygraph screening program stands at 60 percent. New York Times correspondent Randal C. Archibold reports.

Over half of all US Customs Officers who took the polygraph failed. Were they terminated from employment? NO, They just went back to work.

(FOX News) A government watchdog report has identified a dramatic increase in documented corruption cases among U.S. border and immigration agents, finding nearly 150 have been arrested or indicted since 2005.  

In a trend one top lawmaker said puts national security "in jeopardy," the Government Accountability Office tracked the rise in corruption cases among Border Patrol, Customs and Border Protection, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The report, issued last month, found spotty standards in screening new applicants and keeping tabs on agents after they're hired. 

"In fiscal year 2011 alone, the DHS Inspector General received almost 900 allegations of corruption from within CBP and ICE," McCaul said.  

McCaul has long asserted the presence of Islamic extremists groups such as Hezbollah -- which has been found to be working in collaboration with Mexican cartels -- coupled with the prospect of a corrupt officer intentionally allowing these individuals into the U.S. could be catastrophic. 

"There is speculation that some applicants may have applied to work for CBP with pre-existing ties to drug cartels facilitating drug trafficking." YOU THINK SO?

With an estimated $40 billion in drugs crossing the U.S.-Mexico border annually, the battle against temptation is daunting. 

PAY for Customs and Border Patrol Agents

New agents are hired at the GL-5, GL-7 or GL-9 level depending on education and experience and are paid at a special salary rate for Federal law enforcement personnel. The base starting salary is GL-5 ($38,619), GL-7 ($43,964), and GL-9 ($49,029) grade levels, with excellent opportunity for overtime pay. (CBP.GOV)

At the princely sum of $3,200 per month, a newly minted Border Patrol Agent can wave one small load of drugs through the port of entry and make more than he makes all YEAR on the job. Corruption? WHY NOT?

Some uninformed people feel that raising the pay and required vetting (now in the works) may improve the situation at CBP. Others feel that the opportunities for corruption are just too vast.

Canadian-NY-Sinaloa Connection

Amilia Racine - Mob girlfriend
or a madona in need of a
manager now? You decide.

The City of New York is reeling with concern over who will supply their marijuana needs now that Canadian Citizen Jimmy Cournoyer (33) is in custody and headed for a long stay in the US. Not really. He's been in custody for almost a year. The trial is spinning up so USGOV is spitting out a few details of the case that the defense vigorously denies.

A friend wanted me to provide some after-the-fact coverage of this on the blog that you're reading. For more, go to nypost.com.

Cournoyer was a major player in West Coast Canadian hydroponic marijuana (BC Bud). He spent his money like a drunken French Canadian, on pretty women such as model/actress/companion, Amilia Racine (left); on fast cars; on yachts and on jet aircraft. He partied big with Hollywood royalty like Leonardo DiCaprio.

Amilia Racine - They never
used to make Canadians
like this. Just saying...

The US Attorney's Office believes that he trafficked about $1 billion (retail value) in BC Bud.

Amilia Racine may not be as innocent as she appears in the photographs here on this blog. Her brother, Mario, was second in command to Cournoyer according to government documents now made public.

Cournoyer supplied John Venizelos (LCN - Bonanno crime family) with marijuana products that he distributed to the needy New York City market. John Venizelos contends that he is not a drug dealer. He manages night clubs in New York City and a strip club (Crazy Horse Too) in Las Vegas, NV.

Amilia Racine - innocent victim?

The Hells Angels moved the marijuana from British Colombia to Eastern Canada and from there into New York State. Cournoyer, ever the entrepreneur, also used marijuana profits to purchase cocaine (for distribution in New York) from the Sinaloa Federation (Mexican drug cartel). Then again, it might just be a bad misunderstanding. Cournoyer and friends (including the lovely Amilia) may be innocent of the charges laid against them.

Jimmy Cournoyer’s lawyer, Gerald McMahon, promises a vigorous court battle. Venizelos’ lawyer, John Meringolo insisted that $100,000-plus found in his house by DEA agents isn’t drug cash. (nypost.com)

Since the embarrassment suffered by Joaquin Guzman Loera (El Chapo), who'd allegedly been supplying Cournoyer from his Canadian cocaine supply, he's vetting his suppliers more carefully. If you're driving around in a Bugati Veyron, Chapo will have his competitors sell to you...

Gun Smuggling from Mexico to the US

Rev. Jesse Jackson (Famous American racial advocate) recently suggested on MSNBC that the 500+ murders in Chicago in 2012 were attributable to firearms smuggled 1,300 miles from Mexico to the Windy City.

Rev. Jackson: "These guns come from the suburbs and from Mexico." The advocates of gun control keep ranting about firearms being shipped wantonly from the US to Mexico.*

*While it has always been debatable how many of Mexico's weapons come from America, we do know that well over 2,000 were delivered to the drug cartels courtesy of the US Department of Justice through Operation Fast & Furious and that those firearms were the source of over 300 deaths in Mexico.

Officially, Mexico's homicide rate in 2008 was 2.4 times greater than that of the US.** Brazil's homicide rate is 4.2 times greater. However, those statistics are artificially lowered for the sake of reporting, because the real numbers would be shocking and would deter tourism. The body count from President Calderon's war on drugs that everybody in Mexico knows to have been an abject failure, is now estimated at 120,000. That's a far different number than the artificially low "official" number - 50,000.

**The homicide rates as reported in the 2011 Global Study on Homicide, conducted by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime shows that the latest reportable numbers come from 2008.

However, there is cause for hope and change that will improve the Mexican economy yet again. Because of soaring firearms prices in the US due in large part to efforts by both President Obama and Vice President Biden to promote a 'run on firearms' in stores, many cartels are planning to ship firearms north. There is a market in the US now that was not there in the past. Both Los Caballeros Templarios and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion are in the process of buying more firearms from sources in the former Soviet Union and China principally with the intent to satisfy the demand generated by President Obama's policies.

Even though many Americans feel that tougher laws will prevent smuggling, the tough laws now in place don't stop thousands of TONS of methamphetamine and cocaine from being shipped from Mexico into the US today. If you can ship a ton of meth, you can ship a ton of AK-47's. Where many Americans would not purchase drugs, the lure of inexpensive (compared to prevailing rates in gun stores) firearms and 7.62x39 ammunition opens up an entirely new market.

The US could solve this budding problem by not artificially increasing the 'street price' of firearms, but the Obama Administration doesn't see it that way. Their concept of "gun free zones" is backfiring with unintended consequences. 

Minarets in Mexico

Eid al-Fitr celebrated in Mexico City

Over five million Arab and Persian Muslims currently live in Europe, a continent of 740 Million people. And it's interesting that in Germany there are more kabob shops than there are establishments serving wienerschnitzel. Or so it would appear. South America alone has over twenty Million Arab and Persian Muslims (and a few Berbers), most of whom are generally assimilated. (http://latinarabia.com) 

The Arab Muslims in Europe seem to be more angry and agitated than their more bucolic cousins in Mexico and further south in "the Southern Cone".

Torres y Minarete de Agua Caliente
(Tijuana, BC, Mexico)

There are Arab Muslims who support the weapons needs of the cartels. Walid Hassan comes to mind, the arms merchant who provides AK-47's and RPG rockets and rocket launchers to Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación. However, Walid is the exception, not the rule.

Most Mexicans simply don't like Muslim people who are not assimilated into the culture and they are not bound by the US obsession with political correctness. So Muslims either find themselves going along to get along, or they're 'moved along'. Other than the sleeper cells placed by unfriendly governments in Mexico with an eye toward causing harm to the US, neighbor to the north, most Muslims - to include Middle Eastern people in general, who settle there want to get away from the turmoil at home.

La Resistencia (Cárteles Unidos)

Juan Carlos Nava Valencia

Cárteles Unidos took a fairly big hit when  the Mexican Federal Police arrested Victor Manuel Torres Garcia (El Papirrin) in Michoacán almost two years ago now. At that time there were two branches of Cárteles Unidos. Victor Torres ran one branch and Juan Carlos Nava Valencia (El Tigre) ran the other. When the federal police arrested Ramiro Pozos Gonzales (El Molca) last September, it left Juan Carlos Nava in command.* 

*His brother, Oscar Orlando Nava Valencia (El Lobo) has been in US Custody in Texas for some time now.

Citizens of this municipality, you are notified that from 

this day forward los Caballeros Templarios are present in 

Jose Azueta (Zihuatanejo)... Establishing the people's order 

and tranquility. "Thank you"

The Apatzingan Plaza was disrupted by arrests two years ago, but the disruption was only temporary and cooperative efforts between Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT) and La Resistencia/Cárteles Unidos got the plaza back on its feet quickly. At the time the LCT methamphetamine output was significant enough that they needed Cárteles Unidos to move at least a portion of it into the United States. 

Cárteles Unidos had/have clandestine methamphetamine laboratories of their own but arrests of leadership both in LCT/LFM and the occasional raid on labs that are not paying off sufficiently to the police (or are denounced by rival drug kingpins to the police/army) caused the cartels to cooperate in trafficking across Mexico and into the United States. Both cartels have significant holdings in Avocados and produce in the same region and worked together through the US Customs/CTPAT route discussed before on this blog.

Today La Resistencia exists because their methamphetamine labs and their distribution routes inside the US still exist. It's an odd mix of different cartels including the Millennium Cartel/Valencia Cartel and an assortment of outcasts from the Sinaloa Federation. With the leadership on the ropes, they have dropped below the radar to rebuild. Never fear, there are other actors in Mexico for MEXGOV and their American cousins to focus on. But they're not gone.

Victor Manuel Torres Garcia currently awaits his fate, wondering whether or not he'll do the rest of his life in a Mexican prison or a prison in the United States. The future is not bright, Victor.

FARC - In Mexico and Beyond

Not JUST in Colombia

Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—Ejército del Pueblo (FARC-EP) and Coordinadora Continental Bolivariana (CCB) are stashing currency in Mexico these days. When you consider how many check points there are manned by the Federal Police, SEDENA, SEMAR and other Mexican State and Local Police entities that search diligently for such as currency, it would seem improbable, but it's true.

This is NOT money laundering. It's currency storage for contingency operations. Reliably, the FARC stash in Tijuana consists of $200 million in old US $100 bills (called Pequeños Franklin) The currency is buried in Pelican 1640 Cases  with dehumidification modules introduced before the cases were sealed air-tight. As I understand it CCB's currency stash in Northern Mexico is located in Ensenada and is no more than $30 million. Though I'm not completely confident of that number.

Once buried, they are exceptionally reluctant to touch the money because it represents flexibility in the future when times get bad. 2012 was not kind to FARC and most of their charismatic leadership was arrested or killed. However, when you understand how these things work in the real world, the organization persists in very much the same way as a cancer in remission.

Examples of this persistence can be found with the Arellano Felix Cartel, pronounced dead by AUSA Laura Duffy so that she could get the promotion to US Attorney-Southern District of California -- and they disbanded the AFO Task Force. It's just as bad as Presidente Calderon pronouncing La Familia Michoacan (LFM) Finished in 2011 -- and today they control Michoacan, Gurrero, Colima and much of Southern Jalisco (reorganized as Los Caballeros Templarios (LCT).

Future Leaders of FARC

While it is true that FARC is essentially a group of peasants who are not content with their treatment by the Colombian government, it doesn't mean that they are stupid nor that their children are stupid. Children are the future of the world and the bright and promising ones in FARC receive scholarships and travel to Ivy League schools in the US, elite schools in Europe and the better schools in Brazil and Mexico where they learn how to run businesses at the feet of the great and near great. 

Regus Office Building, Reforma, DF, Mexico

Guillermo León Sáenz Vargas (aka Alfonso Cano), killed in 2011, was an educated man and came to Marx and FARC from the University of Colombia. He was one of the most important men in FARC and when the Colombian Army killed him, President Juan Manuel Santos declared that it crippled FARC - maybe for good. While it's true that Sáenz had been killed, the seeds that he sewed internationally remain invisible to this day. 

FARC is not only peasants with AK-47's in the Colombian mountains. It (the seeds of Sáenz) sit behind mahogany desks in high-back leather chairs in high rise offices in Panama City, San Diego, Mexico City, New York and Rio, encased in glass. Their walls are graced with law and finance degrees from the finest learning institutions in the world. Sometimes they return to Colombia, having been "washed" internationally and with their credentials from Goldman Sachs, Halliburton, Citi, and JP Morgan, they are seated at the top of Colombian government as decision makers.

These children of Sáenz may not share his Marxist fever, but they understand money and that is the underpinning of all governments, businesses and movements.

USGOV loves to lecture MEXGOV

As an example of USGOV problem solving expertise, the only thing that we need to examine in any depth is the proposed tax hike, as a response to the so-called fiscal cliff that they've tumbled over as of January 1, 2013.

MEXGOV officials should take note of this when the USGOV is lecturing them on why things don't work very well in Mexico. The US has borrowed US$16 trillion and don't have any functional way to pay off the debt.

Even all the money generated annually by narcotics sales in the US wouldn't begin to put a dent into the debt picture that the US faces. (yes, Europe is worse off and China is in trouble)

All of the high-handed platitudes handed down from USGOV officials are rendered moot by their decision making and implementing expertise when it comes to their national finances.

In Mexico everyone is required to pay something in national tax. In the US, apparently only half of its citizens pay tax -- the other half don't -- which would seem to me to be a vote buying scheme (but nobody asked me). What do I know? Due to its importance to the Mexican national economy, the maquila industry has two important presidential decrees that directly stimulate this sector by decreasing the tax rate to 17.5% of its taxable income. This maximum rate of 17.5% covers both the income tax and business flat tax.