The Cellar - Drug Wars tooooo close to home!

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Quote:

Drug gangs steal oil in Mexico

They sell the fuel through their own gasoline stations; sell it to unscrupulous manufacturers or trucking firms in Mexico; use it to pump up profits at front companies owned by the cartels; or sell it to foreign refiners on the international black market.

Last year, thieves stole an average of 8,432 barrels of petroleum products each day, enough to fill 39 tanker trucks. The thieves are leaving a trail of environmental devastation, with broken pipelines poisoning farm fields and leaking into Mexican rivers.

The number of illegal pipeline taps has more than quadrupled since 2004, from 102 then to 462 last year, despite renewed anti-theft efforts by Petroleos Mexicanos, the state-owned oil monopoly better known as Pemex. In 2008 alone, authorities arrested 528 people and seized 517 vehicles, Pemex said. Losses that year were $715 million; it has not released an estimate for 2009.

"It's a big problem and a continual thorn in their side," said David Shields, editor of Energia a Debate, an oil-industry magazine. "And the states that have drug trafficking have more problems with their pipelines."

The thieves use powerful drills and sophisticated valves to prevent any drop in pipeline pressure that might be detected by Pemex. They use hoses to fill fuel trucks with the stolen liquids. Sometimes they even take a more direct approach: hijacking tanker trucks full of fuel.

Since October, five American businessmen have pleaded guilty to importing stolen petroleum condensate, a raw ingredient for fuels.

Read more:

So they're diversifying as well. Very capitalist of them.

Drug Cops Bust Cancun's Mayor

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(Newser) – Mexico's drug war just got messier: Police have arrested Cancun's mayor for his alleged ties to organized crime. Gregorio Sánchez is a high-profile gubernatorial candidate whose arrest signals growing concern about the influence drug kingpins have on politicians, notes the Wall Street Journal. "Voters in Mexico are asking 'am I looking at a slate of candidates or a most-wanted list?'" a security expert says.

But Sánchez maintains he's innocent: "I've been illegally detained," he told his Twitter followers after his Tuesday arrest. "This is a blatant attempt to prevent Greg from being candidate and eventually governor," added his party's president.

Link

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Originally Posted by Cloud (Post 659814)

Immigration problems and issues have been hot topics long before the current drug violence in Cd. Juarez, which isn't very close to Arizona. Maybe we just need a new thread?

And of course I got jumped on for even making a comment about this. But thread drift is apparently just dandy.

I just don't see how you can look at the two issues as different, they are all quite connected. This was but the most minor of thread drift.

Any whoooo...

the New Yorker has a great article on the Drug Wars across the border in the latest issue, but it is not available on-line.

And the Atlantic did a really good one a few issues ago:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...f-mexico/7760/

There is another one about the people who function as the drug war executioners that gives a great view from inside the fight on the ground, but I can't seem to find it.

Immigration has always been a contentious issue, long, long before the War On Drugs. The violence in Cd. Juarez has almost nothing to do with Arizona's law. It's not immigrants who are shooting people in the streets and torturing and beheading people. It's not even happening in the US.

I will acknowledge some interrelatedness, but you can't just lump the two issues into a "Mexican problem." To you Northerners who don't own an atlas, Arizona is two states away.

I have been hearing some news that illegal immigrants are shooting people and worse.

http://www.examiner.com/x-24740-Huma...g-in-the-state

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This morning, a news article reported that an FBI expert specializing human trafficking in the U.S. says that 20 percent of the victims were Mexican women and Mexico is the number one foreign country sending victims of human trafficking to the U.S. One might have heard of Arizona's new immigration law and its outrageous racial profiling at least once by now. But, you may not have heard of the report on the "rape trees" in Arizona dessert border towns. Or, you might have heard of human trafficking by the Mexican drug cartels, but you don't know how nerve wrecking it is to live in a place like Phoenix, Arizona. As a matter of fact, unless you live in the state, you do not know what one has to face living in a state, where Mexican drug cartel is kidnapping everyone including U.S. citizens, in his or her neighborhood in Phoenix.

Mexican drug cartel and human trafficking in Arizona

According to one report, the trees on the U.S. side of Mexico and U.S. border are littered with women's undergarments. Mexican drug cartels and coyotes are believed to rape women and children once they entered the U.S. territory to control and intimidate them. After acquiring control over the victims, the drug cartels are forcing these women and children into prostitution. As the economic downturn in the U.S. is causing high unemployment rate, less number of people are trying to cross the border. Also, as Mexican authority pushes back against drug trafficking, drug cartel finds human trafficking and kidnapping more lucrative than drug trafficking. Rape trees are the trophies of coyotes and the drug cartels to mark their brutal conquests by exploiting women. What is worse, law enforcement officials testify that it was becoming more visual and common in the Arizona soil.

Phoenix the world's number two kidnapping city

Thanks to the Mexican drug cartel and coyotes. Phoenix, as of 2009, became the world's number two city of kidnapping while the world's number one city was, of course, Mexico city. And the drug cartels were increasing its turfs by victimizing U.S. citizens. Coyotes and drug cartels have kidnapped U.S. citizens for ransom and tortured or raped them. Though opponents of the new Arizona bill argue that the general crime rate in Arizona actually decreased between 2006 and 2009, crimes committed by Mexican drug cartels actually increased during the same period. One report stated that the police received 366 kidnapping in 2008, which was an increase from 359 in 2007. But, the police estimates that twice that number go unreported.

This was just after a very quick search...

Here is another one about the relationship between the issues.

http://www.drugaddictiontreatment.co...ars-intensify/

I think they have just done a better job of walling off the issue at the points where the major US cities reach out and touch major Mexican towns along the border and the more unpopulated areas of no man lands become the superhighways for drugs and illegal immigration.

Are they related? sure. But I feel immigration is a much broader issue. And my concern is primarily on the border violence a stone's throw away from my home and the repercussions for my town.

All the immigrants are causing all the drug problems.

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Originally Posted by TheMercenary (Post 659963)

I have been hearing some news that illegal immigrants are shooting people and worse.
...

Fail.

I have been hearing some news that legal citizens are shooting people and worse.

I have been hearing that outer space aliens have been shooting people with lazer rays and worse! I did! I heard it! I've been hearing it! We need tough legislation! :eek:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cloud (Post 659975)

Are they related? sure. But I feel immigration is a much broader issue. And my concern is primarily on the border violence a stone's throw away from my home and the repercussions for my town.

Understood.

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Originally Posted by Shawnee123 (Post 659993)

I did! I heard it! I've been hearing it! We need tough legislation! :eek:

This makes me laff. :)
Disclaimer: Completely detached from current thread topic, or how it may evolve.

Warnings set up in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

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(KFYI News) The situation with cross-border violence and drug smuggling has gotten so bad along Arizona's southern border with Mexico, that the U.S. Government has set up warnings in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge miles from the border, in effect, closing that part of the park to tourists.

Opponents have said the action has, in effect, ceded that part of Arizona back to Mexico.

Proponents say the level of violence from drug cartels has gotten so bad, that the barricades are necessary to protect American citizens.

One New Mexico congressional candidate had earlier proposed placing land mines along the border, but he now says he wasn't serious.

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The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has closed a portion of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge south of the Garcia Road to public use. Garcia Road runs east/west parallel to the international boundary about one mile north of the line. This area is about 3500 acres in size. Our concern for public safety is paramount. The situation in this zone has reached a point where continued public use of the area is not prudent.
The Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge has been adversely
affected by border-related activities. The international border
with Mexico has also become increasingly violent.
Assaults on law enforcement officers and violence against
migrants have escalated. Violence on the Refuge associated
with smugglers and border bandits has been well documented.
Many of these activities are concentrated at, or near, the
border. The concentration of illegal activity, surveillance and law
enforcement interdictions make these zones dangerous.

Link

Not a large area, but not a good direction either.

Quote:

Originally Posted by classicman (Post 663599)

Warnings set up in Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.

Link

Not a large area, but not a good direction either.

So, the US Fish and Wildlife Service (federal government -the one you say is not doing enough) is doing its job at the Wildlife Refuge. Perhaps an over-reaction on the side of safety, but good for the feds.

Look, mine the Goddam borders and be done with it. Until the Mexicans get the picture that we are serious there is no hope.

Adopt the same policy they have for all illegals and the issue will be on neutral ground.