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

Oregon Sheriff warns Public land off limits to Citizens

Mexican drug cartels, armed and dangerous, have occupied so much land in So. Oregon and No. California that the local citizenry is warned to stay out for their own safety.

Hunters warned to look for signs of pot grows, avoid confrontations

If you find an illegal pot grow, you should 'leave,' 'consider yourself lucky'

September 25, 2010- Medford, Oregon

[snip]Deer hunters will be taking to the woods en masse next weekend during the middle of the marijuana harvest season, and police are warning hunters to steer clear of any suspected gardens for their own safety.

Already this season, two bowhunters have reported confrontations with armed guards from suspected marijuana gardens on public land in southern Jackson County, which law enforcement officials say has become a growing area for Mexican drug cartels. Hunters who stumble upon features such as irrigation pipes, manually widened game trails, garbage piles or even the smell of cooking tortillas should steer clear and avoid confrontations that could prove dangerous.

"You need to turn around and leave and consider yourself lucky," Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. "If you push the issue, you might get yourself in a situation you'll regret."

Hunters or anyone who believe they have stumbled upon a marijuana garden are urged to take notice of their location and leave quickly by retracing their steps.

Oregon Hunters Association has offered a reward of up to $200 for anyone with information leading to the arrest and conviction of people responsible for marijuana gardens or other damage to public lands.

More than 180,000 hunters are expected to take to the woods. About half of Oregon is public land, with the vast majority of it federally owned.

OSP Lt. Darin Lux said Mexican drug cartels have taken advantage of good growing conditions and water availability on federal lands in Southern Oregon and Northern California to cultivate large marijuana plantations, with a definite increase in activity the past three years.

"There's a lot of profit, and it brings a greater need to protect that profit," Lux said. "That's when the arms come in."

Medford police Lt. Tim Doney, a member of the MADGE team, said the confrontations between bowhunters and suspected garden guards occurred during the start of the bowhunting season in late August and the first week of September.

In one case, a bowhunter told MADGE detectives he heard gunshots strike a tree just above his head, and then he was confronted by a man carrying an assault-type rifle who told him to leave, Doney said.

MADGE received a secondhand report of a similar confrontation in the same area.

Two Jackson County SWAT team members shot and killed a man Aug. 11 at a marijuana growing operation deep in the woods. A Jackson County Grand Jury ruled the shooting was justified.

Winters said authorities so far have pulled about 125,000 plants from 30 different gardens throughout a seven-county area of Southern Oregon and Northern California this year.

In these cases, police have noticed that game trails were widened near the gardens and that PVC piping was used to irrigate the plants, Winters said.

Some signs of nearby gardens included walls of cut brush on trails, the pungent smell of marijuana, piles of garbage and piping. Because the caretakers often live at the garden sites, the smell of cooking could be a warning sign.

"There's no way to know until you're almost into one of these, so there's no preventative way to act," Winters said.

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More smoke and mirrors by the GOP

The new 'Pledge' has NOTHING to fix the immigration problem or enforce the LAW.
Tea Party people......Are you going to let the established GOP keep screwing us or are you going to shed these open border hack leaders like Armey, Whitman, McCain and the out of touch fools who designed this phony 'Pledge'????
You ALL despise the democrats when they pull this shady stuff, when will you STOP defending the GOP for doing the same???
Some of the GOP are hijacking the Tea Party movement, which will destroy it. Most of them don't like you any better than the democrats do! You are being USED!

House Republicans Pledge to ‘Establish Operational Control of Border,’ But Say Nothing about Border Fence, Worksite Enforcement or Amnesty
Thursday, September 23, 2010 http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/75709

[snip] The Republicans in the U.S. House of Representative released “A Pledge to America” today, laying out agenda items they plan to pursue if they take control of Congress, that commits the party to “establishing operational control of the border” but makes no mention of border fencing, enforcing immigration laws at the worksites of employers who hire illegal aliens or whether the party under any circumstances would grant any form of amnesty to foreign nationals currently living in the United States illegally.

By contrast, the 2008 Republican Platform, approved by the delegates at the 2008 Republican National Convention, committed the Republican Party to completing a border fence, enforcing immigration laws at the worksite and opposing an amnesty.

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PHONY CHRISTIANS

It's not just pandering politicians you need to purge, it's the leaders of your so called 'Christian' churches like the Catholics, Mormons and Lutherans who aid and abet the illegality of immigration that you need to deal with!

Illegal alien convicted of raping his foster mom in Virginia

(Understand this....the CHURCH set up foster care for an 18 year old ILLEGAL alien gangbanger! THEY broke the law!)

Arturo Lopez Photo: Henrico County Police Dept.

On Wednesday, Arturo Lopez, 18, was convicted of abducting and raping his foster mother in Henrico County, last April. She testified that she mentioned concerns to church people and Lutheran Family Services, which had placed Lopez with the family.[snips]

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/sep/23/illegal-immigrant-convicted-raping-henrico-foster—ar-521671/

Doctrinal divide confronts Mormons on immigration

By Jeremiah Stettler The Salt Lake Tribune

[snips]Here in Utah, the push toward tougher immigration laws has become increasingly tangled in Mormon doctrine as divided Latter-day Saints defend their politics by pointing to conflicting interpretations of what Jesus would do. But other Mormons see it differently and point to doctrine to back it up.

Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo, maintains the arguments against tougher immigration laws overlook several key Christian tenets — precepts that came off of Mount Sinai with Moses. Thou shalt not bear false witness (to get a job or government services). Thou shalt not steal (people’s identities). Thou shalt not covet (thy neighbor’s home or job or country).

They touch on holy writ’s repeated call for honesty (“Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just ... think on these things,” Philippians 4:8 teaches), on the importance of justice (“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,” Galatians 6:7 admonishes) and on the LDS instruction to abide civil law (“We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them,” Doctrine and Covenants 134:1 states).

Herrod says his position also has been shaped, in part, by a doctrine found in Acts 10 and Romans 2: “God is no respecter of persons.” In other words, God doesn’t pick favorites. Would it really make sense, Herrod asks, for God to “reward those willing to break the law over those who are willing to stand in line and do the right thing?”

“We are actually discriminating against ten of millions of people around the world who are trying to get to the country legally,” he says. “They are following the law.....I can’t, in my wildest dreams, believe that the church would come out and say illegal immigration is OK,” he says. “That would completely violate all the basic doctrines of the church.”