Thread: Now smuggling operations infecting northern border

Now smuggling operations infecting northern border
Criminal transport of humans, guns expands from Southwest

August 13, 2010

By Michael Carl
WorldNetDaily

The images of weapons stockpiles and drug-cartel mayhem may not be coming from Mexican and southern U.S. border cities much longer, according to experts who say the continuing criminal enterprises are moving north, and already have reached both Middle America and the nation's northern perimeter.

Americans for Legal Immigration President William Gheen says the extent and reach of the drug- and human-smuggling networks goes farther than most Americans realize.

"There are Mexican gangs and cartels operating in the United States in places that you wouldn't expect. The pictures that have come in over the last couple of years are disturbing," Gheen said,

"We've gone from a few weapons to body armor, grenades, automatic weapons, enough weapons to equip a small army. They're operating with well-operated supply lines that are bringing in weapons and drugs," he said.

Listen to an interview with Gheen: (At source link)

Former military intelligence analyst Sylvia Longmire agrees, saying that a lot of smuggling activity and weapons seizures now are taking place in America's heartland.

"The ATF made a major bust of a gang in Omaha, Neb., and another one in Lincoln, Neb. They had a bunch of rifles and pistols including a 50-caliber sniper rifle that they were planning to smuggle into Mexico," Longmire said.

"There are more than a dozen states where people are working for the cartels or on behalf of the cartels. They're buying high-powered weapons and sending them to Mexico," Longmire added.

The illegal-alien issue has focused attention on the nation's southern border, but Longmire explains that the focus on the South has prompted smuggling networks to move north.

"Considering the amount of attention that's being paid to the southwest border and all the concentrations of the Border Patrol and customs agents. We have a fence in certain parts and the amount of attention that's being paid to the southern border is insanely high," Longmire explained.

"On the northern border, we don't have millions of Canadians trying to come in across the northern border into Montana and North Dakota every year," Longmire continued.

Listen to an interview with Longmire:

"You can just take a boat, come down the river and just pull up to a dock on one of the Great Lakes and you're here," Longmire said.

"A lot of people don't realize that the northern border is far more porous and you have plenty of major cities along the northern border where people could come in and lay low and do what they want to do," Longmire said.

"If you have two brain cells together and you have that much interest in this country, why even bother going through Mexico when there are so many other ways you can get in that are considerably easier. If you're a terrorist, you go through the path of least resistance."

The northern border is apparently a new focus of the arms trade. The Yamhill Valley News-Register of McMinnville, Ore., reported in May that a major cache of weapons was found in a storage unit in Ferndale, Wash.

The alleged smuggler was listed in the complaint as Iranian illegal alien Hamid Malekpour, who sometimes uses the alias Oliver King.

Longmire reports that weapons smuggling from the north is increasingly common, but the purpose for Iranians to bring in weapons through Washington state is unclear.

"I can't imagine a domestic purpose for that."

However, Longmire can explain why some of the major Mexican cartels use the state.

"A lot of people don't know that Washington is one of four major border states that are the sources for weapons going to Mexico. Washington is the fourth most popular state for smuggling weapons into the United States to take to Mexico," she said.

Both Gheen and Longmire say that the coyotes are now bringing illegal immigrants into the U.S. from places other than Latin America.

"There are a variety of illegal-alien smuggling organizations working in Mexico. Some of them are cooperating with the cartels, some are working on their own. The routes to get into the U.S. are limited and sometimes they're shared by folks that are smuggling people," Longmire explained.

"It depends on who is being brought in. If you're a coyote bringing in Mexicans, Central Americans or South Americans, you're not going to charge as much. But if you're bringing in Chinese, you can charge a little more," Longmire said.

She said that the top dollars are being paid by countries associated with terrorism.

"If you're bringing in people from certain countries, whether it's Iraq or Somalia or etc., countries that are associated with terrorist activities, you're going to charge even more," Longmire said.

Gheen says that a lot of the people being smuggled are coming from China.

"A couple of years ago, Customs and Immigration Enforcement reported they had a number of Chinese in custody, but they couldn't send them back because China wouldn't accept them," Gheen said.

Longmire observes that the media reports of the cartels and the smuggling rings have been on the sensational side. However, she cautions people not to be taken in by the sensational.

Longmire said Americans need to focus on the activities that are actually taking place.

"There is a lot of the fear from the media reports that make people scared. Most people don’t need to worry about being drawn into the cartel activities. However, what people need to be concerned about is that many people who work for the cartels have been infiltrated into the U.S. for years now," Longmire explained.

"They're using our highways to get drugs from the U.S.-Mexican border throughout the United States. One of the largest meth labs ever busted in the United States was in a suburb of Atlanta and run by a one of the bigger Mexican cartels," she added.

"I believe another incident happened in 2009 in a well-to-do Alabama county where a sheriff came across five dead bodies. This is in a place where they may find five bodies in a year, but he found those in one day in this tiny, little Alabama town and it was because of Mexican drug activity," she said.

"Whether it's meth labs being run by drug cartels, or the selling of drugs on street corners by gang members. This is happening across the country. You can be living in a suburban community and there can be a safe house on a cul-de-sac around the corner from you," Longmire observed.

Longmire adds that this activity cuts at the very fabric of the United States.

"This happens in the United States in our own country and it affects the very fabric of our national security that this type of thing is going on under our noses and people have a right to know so they can work to make their community safer," Longmire said.

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Please check out the audio interviews on this article on the source page.

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http://www.alipac.us/article5562.html

WHY IS OUR GOVERNMENT ALLOWING THESE MEXICAN DRUG DEALRES TO GET AWAY WITH THIS S**T THE ONLY REASON I THINK OF IS BECAUSE SOMEBODY IN WASHINGTON IS GETTING A PIECE OF THE ACTION AND I WONDER WHO COULD THAT BE THIS KIND OF ACTIVITY WOULD NEVER BE TOLERATED IF THIS WERE AMERICAN CITIZENS DOING THIS KIND OF THING. ANYTHING THESE ILLEGAL ALIENS WANT TO DO, THEY ARE ALLOWED TO DO IT AND GET AWAY WITH IT. WHERE AS AMERICANS WOULD BE ARRESTED FOR DOING SUCH AS THIS.