Mexico: "El Thread"

[zonarob]

This is called a narco song. How do I say song in Spanish I forget?

cancion.

[algunz]

Alchemy, when real life drama gets more play in a tv series than in the news, that means nobody cares. This breaks my heart.

[Starraven]

Welcome Mexico thread! I wondered why u were in the Coachella section. <3

[Alchemy]

Alchemy, when real life drama gets more play in a tv series than in the news, that means nobody cares. This breaks my heart.

Don't feel heartbroken, my dear Gunz. There is so much violence in the world, and misery, that could be on the news. But even if it is more important than, say, Kim Kardashian's wedding, the news isn't really the right venue for the scale of drug violence in Mexico. As crazy as that may sound... You couldn't just report on it or list what has happened. Breaking Bad is focused on a bunch of stuff, rather than just Mexico's drug violence, but I think it's a more promising thing than a news round-up, or even a news special. I think what Americans need, in terms of Mexican drug violence, are things like tv shows and movies that explore this, because it makes a bigger impact on the end. Not so much that Americans are tv crazy, but that narratives would do more justice. With American concerns, the news is usually enough... but for foreign things, even as close as Mexico, I think you need to build sympathy and empathy with Americans first... and stories seem to be the best way to do that.

[I'dDoItAllAgain]

You also have Breaking Bad touching on the Juarez drug violence, and the cartels themselves. That's just entertainment, but it does depict an accurate picture (although, they talk about El Paso being dangerous, which isn't the case at all)...

So you think the portrayal of danger and violence in El Paso was exaggerated but the one of Juarez is somehow completely accurate?

There's always been drug-related violence, not only here in México, but in the US too. While it's true that we've seen more violent episodes recently, this is only in certain cities and periods.

Some people make it seem like we encounter a shooting in every corner when going out, when in fact, we go about our lives quite normally.

[koryp]

The internetz is real, yo!

MEXICO CITY — Mexico's Zetas drug cartel appears to be launching what might be one of the first violent campaigns by an organized crime group to silence commentary on the Internet.

The cartel has already attacked rivals, journalists and other perceived enemies. Now, the target is an online chat room, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, that lets users comment on the activities of the Zetas and others in the city on the border with Texas.

Already, three apparent site users have been slain, and another man's decapitated body was found Wednesday with what residents said was a banner suggesting he was killed for posting on the site. Chat room users said they couldn't immediately confirm the victim's identity, because people post under aliases.

Despite such precautions, the Zetas could be tracking users from clues they leave online, experts warned.

A female chat room user was found decapitated in September with a similar message as the one found Wednesday and at the exact same spot, with a message signed with the letter "Z," which refers to the Zetas.

"I don't know of anything like this having happened anywhere else in the world," said Jorge Chabat, an expert in safety and drug trafficking at the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics in Mexico. "It is certainly new and worrisome. ... It is a frontal confrontation against the public; it is not just a confrontation with the government anymore."

Matt Harrigan, chief executive of the San Diego, Calif.-based security firm Critical Assets, said it would be relatively easy, with the money the Zetas have from running drugs, to track down website users.

"If you're a Mexican cartel with hundreds of millions of dollars, there certainly are security experts in Mexico or former hackers, or whoever they are, that I'm certain they're for hire," he said.

[I'dDoItAllAgain]

More often than not, the victims are opposing cartel members.

The messages are just to scare people off.

[fatbastard]

In Nuevo Laredo, 23 corpses found on grisly day in Mexican drug-cartel war
By William Booth, Published: May 4
MEXICO CITY — In a bold public display of the gang violence sweeping across northern Mexico, residents in the border city of Nuevo Laredo awoke at dawn Friday to find nine corpses of men and women hanging from a bridge at a busy intersection just a 10-minute drive from Texas.

A few hours later, authorities discovered 14 headless bodies wrapped in plastic bags, stuffed into a sport-utility vehicle in front of a Mexican customs agency. The 14 heads were later placed in plastic-foam coolers and left by armed men on a crosswalk beside the city hall, according to the attorney general in Tamaulipas state.

Residents accustomed to violence in Nuevo Laredo erupted in fear and disgust on social media networks. One tweet read: “We have no law in Nuevo Laredo. Welcome to the Jungle!” A car bomb exploded in front of a police station last month, followed by a gun battle between Mexican soldiers and gangsters.

A Web site devoted to news about narco-violence published photographs of the nine victims — five men and four women — swinging from the bridge, the corpses bloody and bearing marks of torture. Some had their pants pulled down to their ankles.

There was a banner hung beside the bodies on the bridge, and its profanity-laden message boasted that “in this way I am finishing you all off.” It also said that one victim “cried like a woman giving birth.”

It was unknown who left the bodies hanging from the bridge or whether the 14 decapitated corpses found later were a response. Local police and state security officials reported no motives or arrests.

“It appears there is a really awful fight going on for the control of Nuevo Laredo,” said Raul Benitez Manaut, a drug policy scholar.

The city is an important gateway for smuggling drugs and people north to the United States, and for shipping bulk cash and weapons south to Mexico. Nuevo Laredo is a battleground between the Gulf Cartel and its former enforcers, the Zetas.

...

[ialvarado2]

Who watch the presidential debate?

[Tubesock Shakur]

Goddamm.....

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...-years/100299/

[fatbastard]

Drug Cartel Barbecues U.S.-Owned Potato Chip Company

By RANDY KREIDER | ABC News –

8 hrs agoEmailShare17PrintRelated ContentDrug Cartel Barbecues U.S.-Owned …

Mexican authorities arrested four alleged members of the Knights Templar drug cartel after a series of firebomb attacks on a potato-chip company owned by the U.S. food company PepsiCo, the first attack on an American multinational firm in Mexico's ongoing drug war.

Five warehouses and parking lots owned by the popular Sabritas brand were attacked over the weekend in the states of Michoacan and Guanajato. Witnesses said masked men had thrown firebombs and incinerated warehouses and dozens of delivery trucks. No one was injured in the bombings, according to authorities.

The attorney general of Guanajato, Carlos Zamarippa Aguirre, alleged that the men arrested had confessed that the motive of the attacks was extortion. Aguirre said the suspects gave false names but were identified by fingerprints and at least one, the alleged cell leader, was already wanted on charges of kidnapping.

Emails that circulated in Michoacan, however, suggested the attacks may have been revenge attacks by members of the Knights Templar who believe that Mexican authorities use the snack-food trucks to spy on the cartel. The company has nearly 15,000 delivery trucks in Mexico, many featuring a smiley face and the slogan, "You can't eat just one." Cheetos, Fritos, Ruffles and Doritos as well as Sabritas potato chips are sold under the Sabritas name in Mexico.

Pepsico released a statement Sunday that emphasized the company's trucks are used only for company business. "We repeat that in accordance with our code of conduct, all of our operations are carried out in the current regulatory framework and our vehicles and facilities are used exclusively to carry our products to our customers and clients," said the statement.

The company also said that it was already taking steps to "restore operations" and that the safety of employees is always its highest priority.

The Knights Templar drug cartel is a relatively small and new entrant in Mexico's drug war, and is active in the Pacific coast states of Michoacan and Guanajato. Formed two years ago as an offshoot of Christian-tinged La Familia Michoacana cartel, the "Caballeros Templarios" model themselves on the original Knights Templar, a Christian military order established in Europe 900 years ago and active in the Crusades.

The original Knights Templar, known for white tunics with large red crosses, fought to protect Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem and to recover the mythic Holy Grail, from which the disciples of Jesus supposedly drank during the Last Supper.

During initiation ceremonies, recruits to the drug cartel wear helmets similar to those worn by medieval knights and common in Mexican Easter ceremonies. Cartel members swear blood oaths and are issued Templar rulebooks. The cartel issued a very public call for a ceasefire during Pope Benedict's visit to Mexico in March.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

...

[Mugwog]

Well at least that cartel has a cool theme going

[fatbastard]

(Reuters) - In February 2008, Mexican authorities told the CEO of HSBC Holdings Plc's Mexico unit that a local drug lord referred to the bank as the "place to launder money," U.S. prosecutors said on Tuesday, as they announced a record $1.92 billion settlement with the British bank.

Lax money laundering controls at HSBC allowed two cartels - one each in Mexico and Colombia - to move $881 million in drug proceeds through the bank over the second half of the last decade, according to prosecutors and federal court documents.

So rampant was the practice, prosecutors said, that on some days drug traffickers deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars at HSBC Mexico accounts. To speed things along, the criminals even designed "specially shaped boxes" that fit the size of teller windows at HSBC branches, according to the documents.

Prosecutors said a multi-year, multi-agency probe into such transactions revealed how HSBC had degenerated into the "preferred financial institution" for drug traffickers and money launderers. And on Tuesday, that culminated in a far-reaching deferred prosecution agreement with HSBC.

An HSBC spokesman declined to discuss specific transactions or clients. But as part of the agreement, the bank acknowledged major lapses in compliance and ignoring red flags. It also acknowledged enabling clients to avoid U.S. sanctions that prohibit dealings with countries such as Iran, Libya, Sudan, Myanmar and Cuba.

The bank agreed to take steps to fix problems, forfeit $1.256 billion, and retain a compliance monitor. It also agreed to pay $665 million in civil penalties to resolve regulatory actions by the U.S. Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Reserve, the Treasury Department and others.

"We accept responsibility for our past mistakes. We have said we are profoundly sorry for them, and we do so again. The HSBC of today is a fundamentally different organization from the one that made those mistakes," HSBC Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver said.

The settlement, the largest penalty ever paid by a bank, had been expected.

In November, the bank told investors its penalty could exceed $1.5 billion. And many of the details of the bank's lapses that allowed shadowy money to sluice through HSBC were contained in a U.S. Senate investigative report in July.

HSBC shares closed up 0.6 percent in London on Tuesday, and its Hong Kong-listed shares were up about 0.25 percent by late morning on Wednesday.

MONEY LAUNDERING AND WASHING MACHINES

Top U.S. law-enforcement officials, standing sternly at a news conference in Brooklyn, New York, gave new details on Tuesday of how the bank was used. They pointed to flow charts decorated with green dollar bills showing how cartels used HSBC accounts to move money through Mexico, Colombia and elsewhere.

In one type of money-laundering transaction, the documents show how millions of dollars of drug money flowed through HSBC as Colombian drug cartels used the so-called Black Market Peso Exchange to convert U.S. dollars to Colombian pesos.

In a multi-step laundering process, middlemen - referred to as peso brokers - used U.S. dollars from drug cartels to buy consumer goods such as washing machines and then exported them to Colombia, where they were sold, according to the documents and a source familiar with the situation. Part of the sale proceeds, now in Colombian pesos, was then given back to the drug cartels, the documents show.

Other transactions involved Mexican drug cartels, prosecutors said.

After the February 2008 meeting with Mexican authorities, HSBC conducted an internal inquiry that found a small number of Mexican clients accounted for a large percentage of the U.S. dollars moving through HSBC, according to the documents, which include a "statement of facts" that HSBC has agreed to.

A significant sum ultimately was traced to the city of Culiacan in the rugged Mexican state of Sinaloa, home to one of Mexico's powerful drug gangs that is directed by the country's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the documents show. In 2001, Guzman escaped from a maximum security prison in a laundry cart.

HSBC closed the suspected accounts, but the bank kept accepting dollar deposits in Sinaloa. Between 2006 and 2008, HSBC's Mexican unit moved $1.1 billion from Sinaloa to the bank's U.S. branches, according to the documents.

Drug cartels earn an estimated $60 billion a year from trafficking in the United States, according to the United Nations. Half of that money is routed back to Mexico to pay off politicians, fund private arsenals and fuel violence that killed more than 60,000 people over the past six years.

Loretta Lynch, the U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn, said that compliance at HSBC was "woefully inadequate."

HSBC's compliance employees were vastly outnumbered, according to prosecutors. Less than a handful of bank employees, for example, were charged with reviewing 13,000 to 15,000 suspicious alerts generated monthly, they said.

FIXING PROBLEMS

Prosecutors agreed to a deferred prosecution deal, which means that HSBC avoids being criminally charged. They also decided against charging any individuals.

Lanny Breuer, chief of the Justice Department's criminal division, defended the move, saying, "HSBC is paying a heavy price for its conduct."

Later, he said that while HSBC permitted itself to be an essential element in money laundering, it was not the mastermind. "They are not the Sinaloa cartel," he said.

HSBC said it had increased spending on anti-money laundering systems by about nine times between 2009 and 2011, exited business relationships and clawed back bonuses for senior executives. As evidence of its determination to change, it cited the hiring last January of Stuart Levey, a former top U.S. Treasury Department official, as chief legal officer.

Under the five-year agreement with the Justice Department, HSBC has agreed to have an independent monitor evaluate its progress in improving its compliance.

It also said that as part of the overhaul of its controls, it has launched a global review of its "Know Your Customer" files, which will cost an estimated $700 million over five years. The files are designed to ensure that banks do not unwittingly act as conduits for criminal funds.

There is already some evidence that the crackdown on HSBC has slowed the flow of illegal cash.

In 2009, HSBC began exiting a business that moves bulk cash through the global financial system and a year later, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency ordered the bank to improve its compliance.

Since then, the repatriation of U.S. dollars from Mexico has fallen to less than $5 billion in 2011 compared with $12 billion in 2008, according to Donald Semesky, a former Drug Enforcement Administration official who provided the data last month at an anti-money laundering conference in Washington.

(Additional reporting by Aruna Viswanatha in Washington, Jessica Dye in New York, Brett Wolf and Steve Slater in London and Lawrence White and Michael Flaherty in Hong Kong; Editing by Eddie Evans, Paritosh Bansal and Ken Wills)

...

[GuyInTucson]

Then, there is this...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1218358

An ex-Marine who survived dangerous patrols in Iraq and Afghanistan is now “chained to a bed” in a notorious Mexican prison after a road trip to Costa Rica went terribly wrong, his friends and family say.

A chorus of supporters are calling on the Mexican government to release Jon Hammar, 27, who was jailed in August for carrying an antique shotgun that he believed could be legally registered in Mexico.

Hammar, of Palmetto Bay, Fla., was headed to Costa Rica for a surfing trip to try and recover from post-traumatic stress after four years of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“The only time Hammar is not losing his mind is when he’s on the water,” fellow Marine veteran Ian McDonough, who was arrested with Hammar during the August incident but later released by Mexican authorities, told McClatchy newspapers.

Hammar and McDonough had stocked up a used Winnebago with surfboards and camping supplies and had just crossed the border from Brownsville, Texas into Matamoros, Mexico, where they were detained.

Hammar had registered the shotgun, a Sear & Roebuck model that once belonged to his great-grandfather, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials on the U.S. side of the border.

After being told by U.S. agents the shotgun posed no problem and could be reigstered in Mexico, Hammar and McDonough crossed the border, tried to declare the weapon, and found themselves separated and behind bars.

"The crux of it is the length of the barrel," his mother, Olivia Hammar, 46, told Reuters. "There's an old law on the books that says it can't be under 25 inches...It's a 2-foot barrel...It's strictly a technicality."

“It’s a glorified BB gun,” she said.

McDonough, who has Argentine residency in addition to his U.S. citizenship, was freed a few days after the Aug. 13 arrest and walked back to Brownsville.

But the nightmare was just beginning for Hammar, who on Aug. 20 was charged with carrying a deadly weapon and placed in a prison known as CEDES in Matamoros, a notorious facility heavily populated, and run, by Mexico’s dangerous drug cartels.

His parents have even received late night phone calls saying he would be killed if they failed to make thousands of dollars in payments into a Western Union account.

“He was housed in a wing controlled by the drug cartel,” said Eddie Varon-Levy, a Mexican lawyer hired by the family. He told Reuters the charges in Mexico appear to be an effort to “make an example out of the gringo."

The Embassy of Mexico in Washington D.C. did not immediately respond to a request from the Daily News about Hammar's case or why he wasn't turned back at the border.

After receiving the death and extortion threats, Hammar’s family made frantic calls to U.S. diplomats who were able to get the former Marine temporarily placed in solitary confinement.

In addition to fearing for his physical safety, friends and family are concerned that the extreme stress of the situation is taking its toll mentally.

"He's getting more and more hopeless," said Olivia Hammar.

Hammar, who spent four years in some of the most dangerous parts of Afghanistan and Iraq, had been honorably discharged and sought treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder. He had witnessed the death of a fellow Marine who was killed by a sniper's bullet in Falluja, Iraq, friends said.

Describing Hammar as a gentle and dependable man, fellow Marines were shocked to hear of his latest plight.

“It’s heartbreaking. This is a guy who I served with in numerous combat situations, and he was one of the best we had,” veteran Marine Sgt. James Garcia told McClatchy.

With few answers and their son facing up to 12 years in prison on the gun charge, his family is now calling on U.S. lawmakers to intervene with the Mexican authorities on their son’s behalf.

Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., the chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Hammars’ local representative, called the case “outrageous.”

“His family has described a very disturbing situation that includes their son being chained to a bed in a very small cell and receiving calls from fellow inmates threatening his life if they did not send them money,” Ros-Lehtinen said.

“The family wants their son back home, and I will do my best to help them,” she said.

There's also a "We the People" petition that has gained more than 8,000 signatures in just a few days.
U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla. took to the Senate floor Tuesday to urge the Mexican government to release Hammar immediately.

“The Mexican authorities, if it is against the law to take a gun in, even though he had already declared it at U.S. customs, the Mexican authorities could have … sent him back into the United States and told him, ‘Don’t bring your great-grandfather’s shotgun into Mexico,’” Nelson said.

“They have put a United States Marine, who has honorably served his country, in a Mexican jail since last August. Now, enough is enough,” he said.

[koryp]

So this was a thing this morning. Video was up on FB for 8 or so hours, and has now moved to the further bowels of the Interwebs. It's probably one of the top 10 most gruesome things I've ever seen. Story is it's a cartel beheading for some bullshit transgression. I'm really not wanting to go back to Mexico anytime soon, and that's kind of sad. I used to have loads of fun down there.

Oh and obviously NOT SAFE FOR LIFE/WORK/SCHOOL/SANITY/ETC

[lehorne]

I have heard some reliable, nasty stories the last few years. Husbands and sons watching their wife/mother being raped on the side of the road by uniformed gunmen, twenty or so mexicans gangbanging a fiance from Oregon, stolen SUVs and all clothing, etc. Go down there if you into that kind of thing and not just for the seeded hot sauce.

[locachica73]

My roommate talks about retiring and moving to Mexico. I keep telling him that it's a horrible idea, but he is convinced he could just get a crappy car and live a low profile. I just don't see it being a good idea. I wouldn't even visit if I were offered a free vacation.

[koryp]

It sucks really. There were so many great places to just disappear for a few weeks. You could find trouble, but most often, it was easy to be left alone once you got an hour or so from the border. Seems like that kind of flippancy today would just get you on a cell phone video as proof of life.

[ThatGirl]

My parents lived in Los Cabos for several years after my dad semi-retired. They ended up coming back to Canada because visiting there and living there are very different. The living costs, pollution, safety problems, politics, water, and hurricanes did them in.

[marooko]

It sucks really. There were so many great places to just disappear for a few weeks.

There still are, even more actually. Maybe even forever.

[footixy]

I go to mehico often...never ran into cartel shit..then again know where to go and watch your ass

It helps to have family that serve as guides there as well =p

[koryp]

There still are, even more actually. Maybe even forever.

See, that's the part I'm a little uneasy with. I don't mind taking the long route back to life and all that, but I'd like +200 odds on the likelihood of being alive.

[lehorne]

anyone know if K38s is within walking distance of Las Rocas hotel? I hear it's safe down there now.