Dozens of Americans being murdered in Mexico - WHAT WILL IT TAKE??

We can only estimate the thousands of deaths of US citizens by illegal aliens on our own soil. The media fails to report them, the government ignores them. The murder of
David Hartley, on Falcon Lake in Texas and the subsequent beheading by those same cartels of the lead investigator in retaliation have thrown some attention on the threat to us all by the failed state of Mexico.

The Arizona Daily Star gives us some facts.

Forty-eight Americans were murdered in Mexico during the first six months of 2010

The tally doesn't include two Texans reported killed Sept. 30 in separate incidents in isolated areas of Tamaulipas,

A college freshman from Brownsville, Jonathon William Torres Cazares, was shot and killed after authorities say his public bus got hijacked on a highway in Tamaulipas.

State Department data shows at least three other Americans were slain this year in Tamaulipas. But no details were available. In much of Tamaulipas, the news media are no longer reporting on crime because of threats and violence against journalists carried out by drug traffickers.

Last year, 80 homicides of U.S. citizens were reported in Mexico, compared to 57 in 2008 and 35 in 2007.

At least 13 Americans have been slain in Ciudad Juarez in 2010, including an employee of the U.S. Consulate, Lesley Enriquez, 35, and her husband, Arthur Redelfs, 34.

State Department homicide statistics tell only part of the story: Many killings abroad never get reported.

Three U.S. citizens , all from New Mexico - were reported by Mexican authorities to have been abducted during a May wedding at a Catholic Church in Juarez. Their bodies were later found dumped in a pickup truck, but those three homicides do not appear to be included in the registry.

The State Department refuses to reveal the names of the victims, though consular officials are required to monitor investigations abroad that involve U.S. citizen victims and communicate with families. A State Department warning said four U.S. citizens had been murdered in Gomez Palacio in 2009-2010.

Many more killings of Americans have been reported in Chihuahua state, which includes Ciudad Juarez and borders El Paso. Sixteen U.S. citizens have been reported slain there so far in 2010 - 13 died in Juarez .

But here is where the double standard of Mexico, and too many of our elected officials really gets ironic. While Mexico and Obamanation turn a blind eye to the dangers and deaths of US Citizens by Mexicans, Mexico is in New York demanding (and getting it!) protection for their border jumping citizens here against harassment! None of them died! Mexico refuses to let us investigate the murder of David Hartley in Mexico and chops the heads off any Mexican investigator who tries! This has gone on so long, that now Mexicans are beheading people in our cities.

[snip]Police are investigating another assault on a Hispanic man in Staten Island as a possible hate crime — and the Mexican government is now getting involved as well.

“We will act decisively in order to protect our citizens and will actively promote that those guilty of these vicious attacks are brought to justice expeditiously. We are working hand-in-hand with local authorities on all levels,” said Consul General of Mexico in New York, Ruben Beltran in an email to the Staten Island Advance.

Beltran has asked the NYPD to “conduct a thorough investigation” of the alleged hate-crime cases. Beltran has offered “extensive cooperation and all the necessary support to ensure that justice is served.”

This latest incident has promoted the Mexican Consulate to post personnel in Staten Island until further notice. This move is an effort to safeguard the rights of individuals and effectively assist and provide information to the Mexican residents of this area.

Mexican officials have also created an information line that for immigrants to contact if they are afraid to contact authorities directly.

More than 11,000 gang members and their associates have been arrested over a three-year period.

And what is the cost to us for Mexico exporting its own criminals to our cities?

CNS news reports: U.S. taxpayers are spending at least $18.6 million per day to house an estimated 300,000 to 450,000 illegal immigrants who are incarcerated and eligible for deportation from the United States, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The cost per day for these prisoners is based on Justice Dept. incarceration cost estimates from 2001 and on the lower-end figure of 300,000 incarcerated deportable aliens, which means the actual expense today could be substantially higher than $18.6 million per day.

Mike Cutler, former INS agent and TV commentator has a message.

I am forced to once again ask, "What will it take?"

What will it take for our government to finally secure our nation's borders, especially the border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico?
I was angered, as I suspect many others were, when at first the news reports appeared shortly after the story broke that an American citizens had been killed on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake that indicated that Mexico was not willing to participate in the investigation, even calling into question the truthfulness of Tiffany Hartley, David Hartley's distraught wife.

Mexican officials also also refused to permit American law enforcement officials to enter the Mexican side of the lake in order to search for Michael Hartley's body.

However, when 6 citizens of Mexico were allegedly assaulted in New York City- Mexican officials took to the streets of Staten Island, New York to patrol New York City streets to protect their citizens and were not blocked from doing so by the local government.

Trackback:

Beheadings become signature of Mexico's drug gangs

CUERNAVACA, Mexico - The preferred form of cruelty by drug cartel henchmen is to capture enemies and behead them, a once-shocking act that has now become numbingly routine.
Decapitations emerged alongside another gruesome tactic - dumping the bodies of rivals in vats of acid. Cartel goons have moved away from that method, however.

Justice - Mexico style - Beheaded in the USA...breaking!

Thanks to our friends at NAFBPO . for noticing this! Will the media or our elected officials ever notice???

Man arrested after decapitated body found in Chandler, Arizona

Oct. 11, 2010 - Fox News - Chandler police are investigating a weekend homicide after taking a suspect into custody. At approximately 5:30 a.m. Sunday, Chandler police were called to an apartment complex in the 300 block of West Fairview Street near Frye Road and Arizona Avenue for a decapitated man found inside a unit.

Officers found a Hispanic male in his 30s stabbed and decapitated. The man's head was found near the body.

Crisantos Moroyoqui, 36, is in custody facing charges of second-degree murder and hindering prosecution. According to police, Moroyoqui had been living near the victim and it appears they knew each other.

Sgt. Frank Mendoza said the victim, suspect and other people had been drinking earlier in the evening inside the unit. The police report indicates some of the men left for a casino and at that time the witnesses reported seeing the victim alive with Moroyoqui and three other individuals. An hour later men awoke to find the victim deceased.

A witness who lived with Moroyoqui alerted investigators to bloody shoes which provided probable cause for Moroyoqui's arrest. Moroyoqui is in the U.S. illegally.

Police are asking the public with help locating three suspects in this case. Juan David Campos Morales Aguilar, Hispanic male, 220 pounds with short dard hair and a thin moustache; Jose David Castro Reyes, Hispanic male, 25 years-old, with short hair and clean shaven; "EL JOTO", Hispanic male, with short spiked black hair and a goatee. They are believed to be traveling in a 2003 Red Ford Expedition with California plate 6FWR784. The Chandler Police Department is asking anyone with information to call 480-782-4130

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This won’t be the last of this kind of anarchy.

WAKE UP STUPID PEOPLE OF AMERICA!

Down Mexico way....More kidnappings than any where in the world...

Ciudad Juarez, named the MOST dangerous city in the world

More journalists killed than anywhere!

More beheadings than anywhere!

In Mexico, they’re using IED’s and rocket launchers! Twelve city mayors assassinated THIS year.

....drip,drip, drip....coming to your town.

We lost a Patriot - We will miss you, Mike Pierce

I arrived in Jarbidge, Nevada a couple days before Independence day, July, 2000 to attend what some have called the ‘Jarbidge Tea Party’. Eviro extremists and a misguided federal edict had isolated this small community by shutting off its access road in favor of the bull trout.
We gathered, with shovels in hand, to open that road.

Before long, Mike Pierce, who we knew on the web only as ‘redrock’, and his family joined our group at our camp after their long journey from St. George, Utah. My first impression was being grateful that we had a big, strong man in camp with us, on our side. After helping me set up a tent, the rest of us got to know ‘redrock’. He explained that he became interested in our Jarbidge posts on Free Republic, signed on as he looked out his window at Utah’s fabulous ‘red rocks’.

His strengths were more than braun. He was a devoted husband and father to his two young daughters, who he never missed a chance to give a history lesson to. A descendent of President Franklin Pierce, Mike knew our history and always taught us something we didn’t know.

More than that, he was a the kind of man, patriot if you will, who gave this country the greatness we were trying so hard to hang on to that day.
He served his country in Viet Nam as a medic. But unlike too many of his fellow servicemen of that era, he held no bitterness or ghosts of regrets from the experience. In our camp, he only spoke of hope, encouraging all of us to be ‘better’.

Morning came, but Redrock wasn’t in camp. A few more steps revealed that he was on the Jarbidge road, with shovels, crowbars, ropes and LOTS of muscle. He decided to get a head start on moving what was dubbed as ‘Liberty Rock’ ALL by himself! And he almost did, but saved the glory and celebration for the crowd of attendees for July 4th.

The Liberty Rock (L) was moved by volunteers of the Shovel Brigade, to open the Jarbidge (South Canyon) Road.

Mike Pierce, pictured below in blue shirt.

Mike wasn’t afraid of work or standing up for the people of this country, even before most realized the direction our government was taking us. The next year brought more bad news of private property rights being trampled by uncontrolled ‘regulations’. The farmers near Klamath Falls, Oregon had no water to irrigate after it had been shut off to them and the Klamath Falls Bucket Brigade was born. All the way from Utah, again, Mike drove to stand with his ‘neighbors’.

Above all, Mike was a diplomat, always attempting to bring disgruntled factions together. At Klamath, he spoke with the Sheriff and media and encouraged us all to be ‘our better selves’.

Mike Pierce was a father, husband, soldier, and an outstanding citizen. Having suffered many physical trials, including a broken neck from an injury many years ago , Mike always came out stronger. He started a new career shortly after starting his new family, becoming a long haul truck driver. On several occasions, when in our town, he would stop for a visit, and I prepared a vegan dinner which he preferred. Mike cared for the people around him and cared for his own health better than I, or most of us do.

Mike liked to tell a story about a woman he met on his way to Klamath Falls. A farmer was moving some equipment on the road and held up some traffic. A city girl was very agitated over being inconvenienced and remarked, “Why don’t those silly farmers get their food at the store like the rest of us!??”.

He laughed, but didn’t suffer fools well.

Mike battled, with his usual grace and valor, the illness that finally took him from us on Oct. 6, just a few days ago. When I think of Mike, I remember a song that he enjoyed so much, written and performed by a young girl for the Klamath Falls protest. It was written about such a man as Mike Pierce.

The Man Who Set the Water Free Written by Alex Schireman (age 13)

I read it in the papers I saw it on T.V.

The story ‘bout the man Who set the water free

It wasn’t Bunker Hill wasn’t Custer’s last stand

It wasn’t Gettysburg It was only one man

It happened ‘cross the mountains In Klamath County

I’m Proud of the man Who set the water free

My Grandpa was a farmer There’s some farmer left in me

‘cause I’m proud of the man Who set the water free

It wasn’t rocket science Didn’t take a Hercules

He saw the lake was full And he set the water free

It wasn’t Waco, Texas Not another Ruby Ridge

No guns or FBI It wasn’t that big

Nobody got killed Not even sucker fish

He overrode the computers And put water in the ditch

He wasn’t the Lone Ranger He wasn’t Robin Hood

He didn’t wait for lawyers To tell him that he could

I don’t know where he is I may never know his name

But I’ll raise my glass And toast him just the same

He’d never be convicted By a jury of his peers

They’d want to shake his hand And give him three cheers

When I have grandkids I’ll bounce ‘em on my knee

And tell ‘em of the man Who set the water free

Now God gave us choices God gave us brains

I don’t blame God ‘cause we didn’t get the rain

God made sucker fish They’re part of his plan

But God made farmers And gave ‘em two hands

Hands to work the ground Hands to sow the seeds

Hands to open up the gates And let the water go free

When the Judgement Day comes I hope there’s an override....

On those pearly gates to Heaven And that man floats right inside....

He didn’t build an ark Didn’t part the Red Sea

But I’m proud of the man Who set the water free

I read it in the papers I saw it on T.V.

The story ‘bout the man Who set the water free

It wasn’t Valley Forge Wasn’t Custer’s Last stand

Not the Alamo in Texas But I’m proud of that man

It happened on the lake In Klamath County.....

I’m proud of the man Who set the water free

My Grandpa was a farmer There’s some farmer left in me----

‘cause I’m proud of the man Who set the water free!

The Nexus: Immigration, Mexican organized crime, enviromentalism and the UN.

TheTownCrier has for years been talking about the unlawful use of our public lands, especially government designated 'wilderness areas' by armed illegal alien drug cartels.

Liberty and this nation succeeded because PROPERTY rights were the first and foremost protection. It will fail, as it has with every nation who couldn’t/wouldn’t protect its borders, because that protection has been abandoned by ‘those in the know’ of both parties. From planting and burning our national forests and parks to squatting in people’s houses in Portland, Oregon (this happens along the border all the time! Ask Sue Krentz...oh, that’s right, she’s trying to stay alive because of this same invasion only months after her husband was murdered by these invaders.)

Stephen Wilmeth, an Arizona rancher, knows all too well what this invasion has done to property along the Mexican border.

His recent article, 'Wilderness: Expansion and (Unlawful) Beneficiary Use' brings all the players together and explains how much of this incursion has happened. The threat is to our national sovereignty and is the result of not-so-unintended consequences to the greatest strength of this nation: Property Rights.

His article below is worth the read to everyone!

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The Battle of Juarez is showing signs that the good guys are not prevailing. The Juarez newspaper, El Diario de Juarez, has cried uncle in its mixed stance of reporting the progress of the war. In the front page editorial that appeared recently, the editor waved the white flag and asked the cartels publicly what they want from him. The murder of a photographer and another reporter in the recent past are hitting far too close to home for him to continue to be a brave purveyor of the truth.

In a city ravaged by nearly 7,000 deaths since 2006 and the loss of as many as 40% of its businesses, the fear of the cartels is not a surprise. The only question the El Diario should have asked is should it be uncle or tio and should it be capitalized?

Can any American imagine the chaos that would occur in the United States if a city the size of Detroit had experienced the loss of 40% of its businesses and suffered twice the number of casualties that occurred on 9/11? Similarly, can any logical American buy the administration’s premise that border cities are safer than they have been in years?

Numbers never lie, but liars are gifted with numbers, right? Perhaps the logical place to be looking these days is not in the cities, but in the country where conflicting governmental policies and agendas have created physical voids now overrun with lawlessness.

The symptoms are not new

Retired Border Patrol officer, Zack Taylor, has a simple, logical point. “Nature abhors a vacuum. In the case of wilderness on the border, when you lock out or prohibit ordinary law enforcement activities in an area you invite illegal activity and create a safe haven for the criminal to operate.”

Mr. Taylor’s point is best exemplified not on the Mexican border, but in places inland like the Mendocino National Forest in California. How long ago did we first hear fragmented stories about the growth of marijuana businesses in those remote, federally controlled lands? It was years ago and that problem hasn’t gone away. In fact, within the last week Americans have been exposed to more news coverage of the same topic in California and Colorado many miles from the border. The question must be asked, “Where else is it happening and what is causing the problem?”

The answer to what is causing the problem is simple. The environmental movement and the cooperating and coordinating policies of federal land management agencies have created geographical vacuums where illegal activities are allowed to exist and expand. In the case of the most dangerous vacuums, those near the border, control has been seized by Mexican drug cartels. In the case of inland voids, the operational control is shared variously, but cartel influence there is expanding alarmingly.

The most dangerous sector

The most dangerous Border Patrol Sector is the Tucson Sector. Not long ago, the Tucson Sector was known as the sector where not much happened. It was in El Paso and San Diego that bad things happened.

A change in that situation started when then Border Patrol Chief David Aguilar and El Paso Sector Chief Sylvestre Reyes conceived the idea of “Hold the Line” that returned Border Patrol agents to the border. It was there, where in Reyes’ words, “(they) could look the illegals in the eyes” that they successfully stemmed the flow of illegals that were taking over El Paso.

The Hold the Line success carried over into a similar operation in the urban centers of southern California. It was there that the El Paso lessons were combined with stadium lighting and other high tech gadgetry to stem that tide of illegal immigration.

"Few could have predicted that the agenda of the environmental movement and the actions of the federal land management agencies would create a perfect conduit for the pipeline of drug flow into the United States."

It was in southern Arizona where similar actions failed. When the tactics were tried at Nogales, the illegal immigrants found the security of wilderness and administrative safe havens which allowed them to evade CBP surveillance and interdiction. Human and drug smuggling routes were altered and the El Paso, San Diego, and Yuma Sectors were no longer the preferred points of entry. That remains the case today.

Over the last 10 years, the Tucson Sector has had more investment by CBP than any other sector, but the facts suggest that progress has not only failed to match the success of other sectors the conditions have deteriorated. In 2009, nearly half of marijuana interdiction on the entire American border occurred in the Tucson Sector. Total drug flows were up and 2010 deaths among illegals will surpass the record death toll of 2005 when 282 bodies were found. This is all at a time when human smuggling is down dramatically.

The wilderness connection

The Fraternal Order of Police has for a number of years published a list of the 10 most dangerous parks. Consistently, Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument directly on the Mexican border has been named the most dangerous “park” and it has become the poster child for the danger posed by border wilderness areas. The wilderness danger, though, is no longer just on the border.

Places like Lake Mead and Saguaro West (near Tucson) are now in the annual listings of areas that pose the most danger to the American public. Whereas the former doesn’t have wilderness the latter does. Both have large expanses of territory that make it difficult to maintain a constant law enforcement presence. Taylor’s “vacuum” bubbles up yet again and illegal activity fills that vacuum . . . every time.

Retired Border Patrol Sector Chief, Gene Wood, believes strongly that the border wilderness and safe haven corridors have had a profound effect on expansion of the drug trade. “We are continuing to recognize the impact these border corridors have had on not only Arizona, but the entire United States. When you interdict nearly half the marijuana intercepted across this country on just this border section, you must realize the implications of that. This border area has become the preferred point of entry. It is not only dangerous it has become an open wound in the American fight against drugs. It has affected the entire nation.”

Joe Dreyfuss, a fifth generation Arizonan, hosts a radio talk show from Tucson on Sunday evenings. In a recent show, Mr. Dreyfuss commented on hunting in the Chiracahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona. “I have hunted a particular area in those mountains on and off for 30 years and I will no longer hunt there. Local friends (ranchers) know where two permanent (drug) spotter locations are on a particular ridge and those guys are armed with night vision and automatic weapons. I will not hunt under conditions like that.”

Similar comments are made by a growing number of folks. Former Chief of Flight Operations, Border Patrol, Richard Hays, talks similarly about the Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge area. “I used to hunt down there and love that country, but I wouldn’t hunt there now on a bet. It is overrun with cartel activity. It is a dangerous place.”

The observations of Taylor, Wood, Dreyfuss, Hays and others who have lived their lives and spent entire careers on the border are attempting to sound the alarm, and yet the lessons are being ignored by the leadership that represents the folks who are most affected.

In New Mexico, wilderness legislation introduced by Senators Jeff Bingaman and Tom Udall include border areas that duplicate Arizona conditions. If CBP enforcement activity is altered and constrained, there is every reason to believe that the same corridor expansion will occur on those lands. The Taylor vacuum will be introduced and the cartels will find the seam.

Federal land management connection

Few could have predicted that the agenda of the environmental movement and the actions of the federal land management agencies would create a perfect conduit for the pipeline of drug flow into the United States. The designation of wilderness seemed like an honorable and harmless endeavor except to the few Americans who were unfortunate enough to have duties, responsibilities, and private property rights in its footprint. Congressional leadership agreed and federal legislation was enacted.

Meanwhile, the drug trade was moved from Columbia to Mexico. The turf war that ensued escalated as the corridor growth into the lucrative United States market was developed. The urban centers were the initial ports of entry but that changed when American wilderness areas were discovered. The corridors created there allowed unlimited expansion of business and the turf war erupted into a revolution to control drug movement. Juarez became one of the primary battle grounds.

Today, the environmental groups and the cartels have a continuing mutual interest in the land. The wilderness areas and the large federally managed lands offer opportunities for each. To the environmental camp, the designation of wilderness remains the gold standard for preserving lands into perpetuity. To the cartel camp, the designation of wilderness is continuing to be the gold standard for delivering drugs across the border onto American sovereign territory.

“The Arizona Class corridors have created direct access onto sovereign American soil for the drug cartels while the United States Congress has played politics”.

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Two 5-gallon backpack sprayers were used to spray pesticides directly on the buds of marijuana plants, California officials said. Toxic chemicals are just one of the problems in national forests, where drug cartels have infiltrated to grow illegal crops

This photo is from a few years back,but ties well into the above article. The irony seems lost on the liberals and McCain wing of the GOP, who claim to 'protect the environment', while pushing for more 'wilderness' (Thank you UN agenda 21!), and more illegal immigration year after year.

Mexican pot cartels sully U.S. forests, parks Wilderness areas polluted by toxins, pesticides used in marijuana trade Oct. 2008

PORTERVILLE, Calif. — National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals used to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said. The grow sites have taken hold from the West Coast's Cascade Mountains to federal lands in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

Seven hundred grow sites were discovered on U.S. Forest Service land in California alone in 2007 and 2008 — and authorities say the 1,800-square-mile Sequoia National Forest is the hardest hit.

Weed and bug sprays, some long banned in the U.S., have been smuggled to the marijuana farms. Plant growth hormones have been dumped into streams, and the water has then been diverted for miles in PVC pipes. Rat poison has been sprinkled over the landscape to keep animals away from tender plants. And many sites are strewn with the carcasses of deer and bears poached by workers during the five-month growing season that is now ending.

"What's going on on public lands is a crisis at every level," said Forest Service agent Ron Pugh.[snip]

Armed Mexican Cartels take more US land, resources

All over this nation this summer!!

Detectives take down pot grow in Angeles Forest

Posted: 10/01/2010

A Los Angeles County Sheriff's detective pulls a marijuana plant from a plot growing in Cow Canyon of the Angeles National Forest, near Mt. Baldy, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2010. The team pulled about 650 plants ranging from seedings to 6-foot adult plants. No one was arrested. (SGVN/Staff photo by Watchara Phomicinda)

ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST - Decked out in fatigues and climbing gear, sheriff's detectives and U.S. Forest Service officers Friday took down an about 4-acre marijuana grow in Cow Canyon.

As a Sheriff's helicopter circled overhead, the 11-member Marijuana Enforcement Team pushed through a steep half mile of thick brush to access about three plots and destroy close to 650 marijuana plants growing near Mount Baldy.

"This stuff would go straight to the street. The excessive availability of marijuana on the street is just nauseating," said L.A. County Sheriff's Sgt. Mike Hannemann.

It's unknown how many pot grows are in the forest, but authorities are often tipped off by hikers, he said. The team goes on about one operation a week.

Photo Gallery

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Pot grow found in Angeles National Forest

A Los Angeles County sheriff's detective cuts a bud off a marijuana plant growing in Cow Canyon of the Angeles National Forest, near Mt. Baldy, on Friday, Sept. 30, 2010. The team pulled up about 650 plants ranging from seedlings to 6-foot adult plants. No one was arrested.
(SGVN/Staff photo by Watchara Phomicinda)

Parts of the grow site were terraced and plants were dotted through brush.

Makeshift reservoirs and black piping brought water to plants, some of which were about six feet tall. A tent was set up for shelter and items like shoes, drink cans, dish soap, instant noodle soup cups and other trash were strewn about.

Marijuana was hung to dry near the tent.

The creek that runs through the site was dammed and polluted by the pot growers, Hannemann said. The team suspected the person living there and maintaining the grow had fled just before the 8 a.m. arrival of the detectives.

A hand radio programmed to a Spanish talk station was left behind and was still on.

Chemicals at the site, such as fertilizer and rodent poison, pollute the forest and kill wildlife, detectives said. The pot growers are often armed and sometimes shoot animals for food and self-defense.

Drug cartels south of the border often run the grows, detectives said.

"It's mostly controlled by Mexican drug cartels who fund it and profit from it," said L.A. County Sheriff's Detective Scott Schulze.

Most people hired to stay at the site and maintain the plants are Mexican nationals paid by the cartels, Schulze said.

The team pulled all the plants and was about to have them flown out by helicopter. But a lightning strike from a passing thunderstorm west of the grow forced an early departure.

Smoke was seen but no fire was confirmed, a U.S. Forest Service official said.

Hannemann said a reclamation team from the Forest Service will return to clean up the site

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/crime/ci_16230504

Mexican Drug Cartels Operate In Tri-State

Cartels Establish Grow Operation In Rural Ohio

CLINTON COUNTY, Ohio -- The nation's drug war and Mexico's drug cartels are in our back yards, hidden in crops and hillsides throughout rural Ohio counties.Agents from the state Attorney General's Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation (BCI) have found huge pot farms, which they've dubbed "megafarms," during routine summer marijuana eradication programs.In the past three years, they've linked six of those megafarms to drug cartels, said Scott Duff, a special agent supervisor for the attorney general's narcotics division."We've seen an increase in some really, really large patches of marijuana that are generally controlled by Mexican drug cartels," Duff said.Of those six, four of the farms are linked to Mexico.Mexico's cartels are similar to corporations in that their funds are endless and they send "worker-bees" to cart their drugs and run their marijuana farms.When asked how agents and deputies are able to make the connection, Duff said the operations are similar."The style of the grows, the way they set their grows up, with campsites, they live among their grows," Duff said

.Authorities said the problem is they rarely catch anyone working at those campsites. They see evidence, tents, cooking and cultivation areas, but the culprits are long gone.Muskingum County deputies prosecuted seven men after a traffic stop in September 2008. A Crooksville patrolman and a Perry County deputy were investigating a hit-and-run crash involving seven Hispanic men in one car. The deputies said they smelled marijuana and saw what looked like marijuana. A drug dog then tipped officers to even more pot.Because deputies had found a large outdoor marijuana farm just that summer, they did a routine air search by helicopter to determine whether more grows were in the same vicinity as that traffic stop.They found more than 5,000 plants in neighboring Muskingum County, enough to fill four dump trucks. All seven men pleaded guilty to various marijuana possession charges. One man served time. Muskingum County is still investigating.Authorities got another break on Sept. 21. Eleven men, including their alleged ringleader, were arrested near Logan and Muskingum counties. It was a hunter who found the plants and called police.The men are being held without bond while agents determine who they work for and how they made their way to Ohio. All 11 suspects face charges of conspiracy to cultivate more than 100 marijuana plants, a crime punishable by at least five years and up to 40 years in prison if found guilty.In Clinton County this September, deputies and BCI agents found outdoor grows but couldn't link any of them to a particular suspect.Lieutenant Brian Edwards said, "95 percent of the time, the actual landowners, especially in the cornfields, have no knowledge its on their property. People just trespass and plant it.

"Clinton County farmer Steve Murphy leases hundreds of acres and said it's not uncommon to stumble upon those grows during harvest seasons. He said he doesn't like anyone "tromping around" his property.The eradication operations will continue next summer. In the meantime, state agents are investigating evidence left at many of the grows. They are extracting DNA and lifting fingerprints from those sites in hopes of connecting the worker bees to their ringleaders.

http://www.wlwt.com/r/25218948/detail.html

Eleven arrested in marijuana-growing operation linked to Mexican cartel

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Ohio Attorney General's Office

Hugo Ayala

A Columbus man portrayed as the ringleader and 10 Mexican nationals have been arrested and charged with cultivating two sizable plots of marijuana that could be linked to drug cartels south of the Rio Grande.

The arrests, involving marijuana-growing operations in Muskingum and Logan counties, were announced this afternoon by Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and other state, local and federal authorities.

More than two dozen law enforcement officers lay in wait yesterday and then descended on the operation near Adams Mills in Muskingum County, chasing and ultimately arresting 10 workers tending to the crop, officials said.

The man whom authorities say led the pot ring, Hugo Ayala, 40, was arrested by federal agents and Columbus police at his apartment on Clybourne Road on the North Side. Ayala is a legal U.S. resident. (Note: many of these Mexican growers have been found with USA issued Green Cards....and congress wants to give more of them out!)

A total of 2,500 marijuana plants were seized near the Muskingum River and from a plot near Zanesfield in Logan County. The plants carried a street value of about $5 million, officials said.

The investigation began four months ago when hunters stumbled across the-then young marijuana plants and a campsite in Logan County, said Sheriff Andrew Smith.

Ayala is believed to have shuttled his work crews from Columbus to their duties in the marijuana fields both east and northwest of the city, authorities said.

He and the others appeared in U.S. District Court in Dayton today and will have detention hearings on Thursday. The conspiracy to cultivate marijuana charges they face carry five to 40 years in prison.

Authorities said yesterday's arrests were unusual. While officials have located and large marijuana-growing operations in recent years, they seldom have made arrests of those cultivating the crops.

The marijuana picked yesterday likely was destined to be sold in Ohio, with profits perhaps returning to Mexican drug cartels, authorities said.

About 60,000 marijuana plants have been seized in Ohio this year, well above the 48,000 eradicated last year.

http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2010/09/21/Marijuana-fields-arrest.html?sid=101

We come in, take pictures - and then we get chopping'

Story Published: Sep 29, 2010 at 8:16 PM PDT

But on federal ground, deputies said they are increasingly finding gardens with connections to Mexican drug cartels.

“In the last 5 years we’ve seen a pretty good increase in cartel activity - and it’s active,” said Ewing. “I’m not prepared to give any numbers right now, but we’ve worked cartels this year.”

According to the U.S. Department of Justice’s National Drug Intelligence Center’s 2010 national drug threat assessment, the number of plants removed from public land grew more than 300 percent from 2004 to 2008, primarily from pot gardens operated by Mexican cartels.

So, is county law enforcement winning the battle against illegal marijuana?

LCSO said the battle is fifty-fifty, and although they wish they had more resources to dedicate to marijuana eradication, they remain optimistic that they hold the upper hand.

http://www.kval.com/news/local/104041913.html

Weed Wars: California marijuana vote closely watched south of the border

Posted at 09:13 AM on Wednesday, Sep. 29, 2010

Some of the most anxious observers of California's November vote to legalize marijuana for recreational use are ineligible to vote because they are located south of the border in Mexico.

Prop 19 proponents argue that the most nervous observers are the Mexican drug cartels, whose operations could be undercut by legal marijuana in the Golden State.

But leading political intellectuals in Mexico are also wondering whether the California vote will open the door to seriously considering legalizing marijuana in Mexico.

Tim Johnson, the Mexico City Bureau Chief for McClatchy Newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, recently wrote that Proposition 19 is a huge topic of interest in the country ravaged by drug violence.

His recent report described Prop 19 as a bellwether in Mexico as to whether legalizing pot may be seen as an answer to the country's deadly scourge - or perhaps a political affront to the United States.

""If they vote 'yes' to approve the full legalization of marijuana, I think it will have a radical impact in Mexico," Jorge Hernandez Tinajero, a political scientist at the National Autonomous University, told Johnson.

In a recent commentary in The Washington Post, former Mexican foreign minister Jorge G. Castañeda and historian and magazine publisher Héctor Aguilar Camín wrote that the California vote represents "almost the whole enchilada" for how Mexico should shape future policy on marijuana.

"We have believed for some time that Mexico should legalize marijuana and perhaps other drugs," they wrote. "But until now, most discussion of this possibility has foundered because our country's drug problem and the U.S. drug problem are so inextricably linked...As a result, the debate over legalization has inevitably gotten hung up over whether Mexico should wait until the United States is willing and able to do the same."

http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/09/29/2097378/weed-wars-california-marijuana.html

TOO MANY to list!

1. Marijuana 'Megafarms' Busted in Ohio; Ties to Mexican Drug Cartels ... AOL News - Sep 22, 2010 Authorities believe the pot plantations could have ties to Mexican drug cartels, which have been planting crops in the US in recent years. ...

2. SOMMER weeds out marijuana grow sites Curry County Reporter - Matthew Smith - 1 day ago The Southern Oregon Multi-Agency Marijuana Eradication and Reclamation team, ... sites that are part of a nationwide network run by Mexican drug cartels. ...

3. Lawmen locate pot harvesting from the air Tulsa World - Nicole Marshall - 6 days ago Tulsa police broke up a large indoor marijuana-growing operation Sept. ... Most noteworthy is a new trend in the last two years of Mexican cartels bringing ... Officials: Pot Busts Rise With Harvest‎ - KOCO Oklahoma City Busts rise as marijuana harvest begins in Okla.‎ - Alva Review-Courier

1. Up To 40K Pot Plants Seized In Alpine ‎ KCRA Sacramento - Sep 17, 2010 That person is believed to be connected with Mexican cartel marijuana growers, officials said. More than 7000 plants were seized during that operation. ... Pot plants worth $30 million uncovered in CA‎ - San Francisco Chronicle Alpine uncovers $30 million in pot plants‎ - Nevada Appeal Pot plants worth $30 million uncovered in CA‎ - KGET 17

2. Authorities: Cartels working in Dona Ana County ‎ Silver City Sun News - 2 days ago LAS CRUCES - Authorities confirmed Wednesday that two Mexican drug cartels have made their way into southern Doña Ana County. An ongoing investigation into ... 6:40am -- Authorities Confirm Cartel Presence in Dona Ana County‎ - ABQ Journal

3. U.S. Border Patrol Seizes More Marijuana ‎ Tucson Citizen - 1 day ago The vehicle, marijuana and driver were transported to Nogales Station for ... is filed under border issues, drug smuggling, mexican drug cartels, politics. ...

4. Governor Schwarzenegger Signs Bill to Reduce Marijuana Penalties ... ‎ Salem-News.Com - Bonnie King - 1 day ago You said the workforce will be stoned if we legalized marijuana and thus, ..... and by doing so take away the "king crop" from the Mexican drug cartels. ...

   Salem-News.Com

5. Pot, Prop. 19 and Mexico ‎ Seattle Times - Nick Miroff - William Booth - Sep 12, 2010 Much of the Mexican marijuana that reaches US consumers today is a ... and the homegrown trend already has cut into the earnings of Mexican cartels. ... Will Legalizing Marijuana End Mexico's Drug War? Well, 'Maybe Not'‎ - LAist (blog) Weary of drug war, Mexico debates legalization‎ - Seattle Times all 42 news articles »

6. Mexican Drug Cartel blamed for six marijuana operations in Green ... ‎ kjrh.com - Jason Grubbs - Sep 10, 2010 Agent Hale told 2NEWS his team has tied three cases from this year and another three cases from last year to the Mexican Drug Cartel. ...

   kjrh.com

7. 2 convicted of trading guns for drugs ‎ Atlanta Journal Constitution - Sep 15, 2010 ... of trying to trade a machine gun and assault weapons to an undercover agent posing as a Mexican cartel operative in exchange for cocaine and marijuana. ... Two Atlanta Men Convicted in Mexican Guns-Drug Swap‎ - GlobalAtlanta 2 Atlanta men found guilty of weapons, drug charges‎ - Atlanta Journal Constitution Two men convicted for trading guns for drugs‎ - Examiner.com