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To the Posters and Writers on this Forum,
Here is the link to the forum which the residents of Cameron County Precinct One, which includes The Town of South Padre Island and Port Isabel:
http://www.spiforum.org/spiforum/forumdisplay.php?f=6
Instead of Civil Disobedience, try to Communicate with them; ask them to hold precious this great responsibility of electing honest judges and politicians to monitor the Gates of Great Nation from the hordes willing to circumvent our laws with bribery and intrigue;
When you write on this forum, you are exchanging ideas with like minded Citizens; by asking those in Cameron County to help us with this, in my opinion, greatest National Security threat, you may actually help promote this as an important local political issue.
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Mexico's Zetas gang buys businesses along border in move to increase legitimacy
The Dallas Morning News ^ | 12/07/09 | ALFREDO CORCHADO
Posted on December 20, 2009 10:06:21 AM CST by AtlasStalled
The Zetas, Mexico's notoriously brutal group of paramilitary thugs, are expanding their role as bully businessmen along the Texas-Mexico border, branching out from traditional criminal enterprises such as extortion and drug trafficking and buying legitimate businesses, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say.
The group, which authorities say operates a weapons and drug distribution hub in North Texas, now calls itself "The Company" and has over the past year evolved from extorting businesses to owning them outright, the officials say.
"They own used-car lots on both sides of the border, restaurants, discotheques, liquor stores," said Robert GarcÃ*a, a detective with the Laredo Police Department and an expert on the Zetas. "Basically, anything anywhere that moves to and from the border, or anything and anywhere they can launder large amounts of money, the Zetas have a hand in. They even own a dog-racing track." * * * Investigators and civic leaders say the Zetas are trying to position themselves to become movers and shakers, even political players, in communities where they have a major presence. Authorities say their strongholds include Ciudad Acuña, Piedras Negras, Reynosa, Matamoros – where they were created – and Nuevo Laredo, their biggest base of operation. All five cities border Texas. * * * Also worrisome for U.S. law enforcement officials are ongoing efforts by the Zetas to corrupt U.S. authorities. In Laredo, federal authorities have launched an investigation into two Laredo police officers to determine whether they were on the payroll of the Zetas.
BINGO!
Oct 25, 2009 American Patrol Report---Savage Zetas, descendants of the Aztecs, known for beheading and dismembering their enemies, are integrating their primitive savagery into the US.
In his groundbreaking book, Wakeup Call from Mexico, Wilson Beck describes how the dark side of Mexico stretches back to the days of the Aztecs when hundreds of thousands of people were sacrificed and eaten each year. He says today many young men in Mexico are enamored with the idea of being descendants of the Aztecs.
Now, according to the Houston Chronicle, the brutal savage Zetas, known for beheading and dismembering their enemies, are tightening their grip on an area bordering Southern Texas.
Critics say our CIA and State Department are well aware of the dark side of Mexico and regularly brief U.S. presidents on the reality south of the border.
Despite this, President Bush and now President Obama have been secretly working to integrate the US and Mexico into a common political and economic unit.
“It is unfortunate that Mexico got off to such a bad start,â€
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Spring Break in Matamoros
http://www.spislandbreeze.com/articl...-shopping.html
Once again it is time for college students to come unaccompanied to South Padre Island for Spring Break.
Parents, colleges and students need to know that border towns are very dangerous places these days, including Matamoros. The above article is the latest evidence.
It is NOT safe for the kids to venture into Mexico after dark and maybe not even in the daytime. We don't even go over for lunch anymore and neither do our friends. We've lived in this area for many years and used to spend lots of time south of the border, but good judgment must prevail in these dangerous times.
If I had a college student, I would NOT let them come to SPI for Spring Break. Every year, there are sexual assaults and other incidents involving groups of males of Hispanic descent who find harassing young blond girls to be a kick.
Gangs of such young men come in from McAllen or San Antonio and terrorize the residents and businesses.
What a dangerous ritual Spring Break has become everywhere, but especially in this area.
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Re: Dangers of SPI Spring Break
I have to say that I don't feel that South Padre Island is dangerous, during Spring Break, or otherwise. From my perspective, the holiday is much tamer than it was 10 or 20 years ago.
There probably are some high school kids who get out of line, but that is mostly confined to the weekends.
As far as Mexico goes, yes, there has been increased violence in Matamoros, and, of course, an increase in kidnapping. That does not mean that the entire city is unsafe.
From what I have seen, the kidnpappings basically fall into two categories, 1. people who are kidnapped for a specific reason, amount of money, etc. because of who they are (in other words, the victims are known in some way to their kidnappers), and 2. 'express' kidnappings where the victims are made to give up valuables, or withdraw money from an ATM, and then released (basically a mugging).
The fact that they are not personally known in Matamoros, combined with the fact that kidnapping an American student would draw a great deal of attention, suggests to me that the people committing the first type of kidnappings would not target Spring Breakers. So far, I have not seen reports of Americans being targeted, much less students.
As far as robbery, or 'express' kidnapping goes, well, robbery has always been a problem in some parts of Mexico. It has also long been a problem in many cities in the US. The usual precautions of frequenting safer areas, traveling in groups and avoiding the display of cash, jewelry, etc. still work pretty well.
Personally, I do not feel apprehensive about going to Mexico. I use caution when I go, as always.
There is a lot of fear and misinformation circulating. I do not understand the purpose of public hand-wringing about SPI or Mexico being dangerous, anymore than I understand the people who are constantly carrying on about "drug dealers," on SPI. Perhaps some find that type of discussion titillating or salacious, but I do not, because I feel it is misleading.
Finally, I will say that I find it a little odd that you refer to "unaccompanied college students." They might be younger than you or I, but they are adults, nonetheless. I don't like the crowds of Spring Breakers, but I especially dislike the crowds of killjoys, Carrie Nations and spoil sports that the Spring Breakers bring out of the woodwork.
This article talks about concerns of the violence spreading across the border.
http://www.spislandbreeze.com/articl...valle-gun.html
In this one, Brownsville officials say "if you don't have business in Mexico, it's best not to go." They are also worried about the violence spreading across the border.
http://www.spislandbreeze.com/articl...nt-mexico.html
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SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas — Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection crews recovered bundles of marijuana that washed ashore on South Padre Island Thursday afternoon.
The Coast Guard received a report from a good Samaritan Thursday that black bundles had been seen washing up on the beach.
Coast Guard Station South Padre Island launched two 33-foot Special Purpose Craft-Law Enforcement boats at 2:00 p.m. Thursday and located eight bundles of marijuana, weighing approximately 800 pounds, at beach access six at 4:30 p.m.
The Coast Guard transferred the marijuana to Customs and Border Protection officers.V
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Two days after Mexican marines and alleged cartel members engaged in a firefight at a popular shopping mall, officials have yet to release any official information about the case.
While eyewitness accounts vary, they all agree that the shooting took place at approximately 7 p.m. at the Plaza Fiesta Matamoros shopping center at the intersection of Calle Sexta and Boulevard Cavazos Lerma.
Cpt. Benjamin Mar, media director for the Navy Secretariat in Mexico City said they had not received any specific information regarding the firefight but did state that marine infantry units were operating in the city of Matamoros.
"At the moment we don’t have any official information," Mar said.
The Mexican Attorney General’s Office also stated that they didn’t have any information regarding the shooting.
Reportedly, the shooting occurred between Mexican soldiers and the occupants of a four-door pickup and the occupants of a black Cadillac Escalade, eyewitness said.
Adding to the confusion, some witnesses said that the occupants of the two SUVs were shooting at each other before the marines got involved.
According to Mauricio, a teenager who was at the shopping center with some friends at the time the shooting started said he heard the shootings as he walked out of the mall and ran back inside looking for cover. The teen refused to reveal last name for fear of retaliation.
"They were shooting inside back and forth there were a lot of soldiers and other guys on the floor. I don’t know if they were dead or not," he said
Mexican media organizations are reporting that the shooting left a 19-year-old dead and injured two other males ages 31 and 15.
View this page in desktop browser mode.
» Click here for more stories [mobileÂ*edition] »
Copyright © 2010 Freedom Communications, Inc.
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Mexican army soldiers and federal police guard the perimeter around the meeting site where officials discussed the ongoing wave of violence in the border state of Chihuahua in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Wednesday.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said Tuesday that he was asking Homeland Security Secretary to send resources and 1,000 more troops to the Texas border as violence escalates in northern Mexico.
Officials: Mexico drug cartel violence spills into U.S.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexican drug cartels are shipping more than massive quantities of drugs north of the border. Increasingly, they're also exporting bloody mayhem.
Seeking to stem the growing influence of the Sinaloa cartel within the United States, federal agents arrested more than 50 suspects in raids Tuesday night and Wednesday morning at different ends of the country. The raids capped a 21-month operation by the Drug Enforcement Administration that rounded up 755 suspects and seized more than $59 million in criminal proceeds.
MEXICO: 1,000 killed in drug violence so far in '09
"These cartels will be destroyed," Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday at a press conference announcing the arrests.
The overnight roundup by DEA and state and local police included arrests in California, Minnesota and the Maryland suburbs of Washington.
Holder called the cartels a threat to national security, adding, "They are lucrative, they are violent, and they are operated with stunning planning and precision."
The attorney general also suggested that re-instituting a U.S. ban on the sale of assault weapons would help reduce the bloodshed in Mexico, where last year 6,000 people were killed in drug-related violence.
Increasingly, U.S. law enforcement officials see cartel violence spill into the United States, often as far away as Phoenix and Atlanta.
As he discussed the problem, Holder spoke briefly in Spanish, pledging continued cooperation with Mexican authorities who have increasingly come under direct fire from the heavily armed drug gangs.
U.S. officials have a responsibility to make sure Mexican police "are not fighting substantial numbers of weapons, or fighting against AK-47s or other similar kinds of weapons that have been flowing to Mexico," Holder said.
DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart said the raid showed the tentacles of the crime syndicate had spread far across the U.S. — not just to major cities like Washington and Los Angeles, but to quiet, smaller communities like Stow, Ohio, which the cartel allegedly used as a conduit to funnel drugs around the country.
Leonhart said the Sinaloa cartel has become one of the largest organized crime operations in the world.
"They've been hit hard, and their ability to spread death and destruction has been diminished" by the arrests, Leonhart said.
Last year, a sweeping corruption probe led to the arrest of a dozen high-ranking Mexican officials accused of collaborating with the Sinaloa group or its one-time ally, the Beltran Leyva gang. Those arrested include former drug czar Noe Ramirez, who is accused of taking $450,000 from Sinaloa.
The U.S. government has praised President Felipe Calderon's government for rooting out corruption at the top.
Yet over the many months the DEA's investigation proceeded, cartel violence on both sides of the border increased substantially.
The State Department issued a travel warning Friday, urging U.S. citizens traveling to Mexico to be aware of the increased threat of violence and kidnapping, especially along the border. The situation in Ciudad Juarez, which lies across the border from El Paso, is of special concern, the State Department cautioned.
It also issued an advisory on Spring Break in Mexico, where more than 100,000 U.S. citizens visit each year. The department warns of the increased violence along the border and advises revelers in Matamoros and Nuevo Progresso, popular destinations for spring breakers on South Padre Island, Texas, to "exercise commonsense precautions such as visiting only the well-traveled business and tourism areas of border towns during daylight and early-evening hours."
The advisory came as a U.N. official said the world risks losing decades of progress in drug control if it fails to counter the emergence of a criminal market of "staggering proportions,"
"I confess I feel somewhat frustrated," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, said following a meeting to commemorate a century of international work on curbing trafficking in opium and other drugs.
Countries should "take control of organized crime far more seriously. Otherwise the accomplishments generated over the past few decades could be undermined," Costa said of the threat from criminal syndicates spreading their reach across almost every continent.
International efforts to curb trading in opium and other narcotics began in 1909 in Shanghai, then China's main hub for the opium trade, with the meeting of the 13-country International Opium Commission.
The delegates meeting Thursday issued a "Shanghai declaration" lauding progress in controlling the trade in opium and its derivatives in the decades that followed that first meeting but urging stronger efforts to combat modern drug scourges.
"We must have the courage to look at the dramatic, unintended consequences of drug control: the emergence of a criminal market of staggering proportions," Costa said. He did not make any specific recommendations at the commemoration.
Countries have so far failed to implement anti-crime measures in a way that has had an impact on the drug trade, he added, describing efforts to curb use of the Internet for drug trafficking and other crimes as "inept to say the least."
The international opium commission did not put an end to opium trafficking in China, which persisted in the chaotic times leading up to the 1949 Communist revolution.
But its decision to begin trying to regulate the opium trade holds a special significance for China, a country whose appetite for the drug left it bankrupted and vulnerable to humiliating defeats by colonial powers.
In the 1950s, China largely eradicated widespread drug use, mostly of opium, along with prostitution and gambling.
But as social controls were loosened in the past several decades, the drug trade in China has flourished. Government statistics put the number of known addicts in China at 1.2 million, including 700,000 heroin users, more than two-thirds of them under the age of 35.
"The achievements made by the international community in drug control remain fragile with a strong possibility of reversing," said Chinese Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu.
The resurgence in drug abuse has brought with it rising rates of HIV infections, often due to sharing of needles. Last year, AIDS was the top killer among infectious disease, the government reported earlier this month.
In China, heroin and opium come from Burma and Laos and, to a lesser extent, Central Asian nations. Occasional reports say opium is also being cultivated in isolated parts of southern China. Ketamine and menthamphetamines are growing problems.
But the biggest source of opium globally, accounting for 90%, remains strife-torn Afghanistan, Costa said.
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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. . .And because it is a duck, in fact a duck infected with contagious cancers, we need to have the most vigilant of duck hunters guarding our border in Cameron County--not sell outs and collaboraters, or even laisse faire Col. Fanninites.
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Hired by Customs, but Working for the Cartels
New York Times ^ | 12/17/09 | RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Posted on December 17, 2009 10:05:19 PM CST by AtlasStalled
[L]aw enforcement officials [are] worried that Mexican traffickers — facing beefed-up security on the border that now includes miles of new fencing, floodlights, drones, motion sensors and cameras — have stepped up their efforts to corrupt the border police.
They research potential targets, anticorruption investigators said, exploiting the cross-border clans and relationships that define the region, offering money, sex, whatever it takes. But, with the border police in the midst of a hiring boom, law enforcement officers believe that traffickers are pulling out the stops, even soliciting some of their own operatives to apply for jobs.
“In some ways,â€
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http://www.spiforum.org/spiforum/showth ... 526&page=3
Why don't you tell South Padre Island and Cameron County Precinct One about how you feel towards their efforts in protecting our border with Mexico:
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They just don't get it, do they:
http://www.spiforum.org/spiforum/showth ... 361&page=2
Know your enemy--they are the ones who sent your job to China, Korea, and Mexico--they are the ones who let the cartel through the border who then sold your kid the meth which got him 18 years in prison because the federal judge wanted to make an example out of someone in the community, and the price of meth went up but availability did not go down--they are the ones letting them through for $50 a head to take your job for half the pay:
Tell them how you feel.