• New drug smuggling trend: teenage couriers

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    By Tony Shin and Monica Garske
    NBCSanDiego.com

    Federal agents in charge of monitoring drug smuggling along the U.S.-Mexico border say more and more teenagers are getting involved in the smuggling trade – and may even be at risk for recruitment.

    According to federal agents, many suspected teen smugglers have been caught this year at the San Ysidro border trying to cross into the U.S. with drugs secretly taped to their bodies.

    Agents say both American and Mexican children as young as 12 years old are being recruited by cartels as drug mules. And, these days, marijuana is no longer the drug of choice.

    “It shocks me and saddens me that kids are getting involved. It doesn’t shock me that cartels will use whatever method they need,” said Jose Garcia, a deputy special agent for ICE Homeland Security Investigations.

    Garcia says his agents have been focusing on teen drug smugglers since 2009.

    So far, Garcia says cartels have recruited kids outside schools, arcades and malls from the South Bay to Poway, and as far east as Mountain Empire.

    Social media has also been used to entice potential teen smugglers.

    “We’ve even had one recruited by someone they know on Facebook,” said Garcia.

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    The special agent says teens can carry as much as six kilos of drugs hidden under their clothing. The money they get if they make it across the border is minimal compared to the risk they take.

    “The lowest (payment) is $50 and the highest we’ve heard is about $500. But the average is somewhere between $75 and $300,” explained Garcia.

    The cartel recruiters tell the kids that because they are minors, they won’t get in serious trouble.

    However, Garcia says that selling point is misleading.

    “The truth is if they are arrested with narcotics, especially hard narcotics, they're going to have two felonies on their record,” said Garcia.

    Last year, a record 190 teens – ages 18 and under – were caught smuggling drugs along the San Diego County-Mexico border, according to federal investigators.

    So far this year, the number is down to 128, but Garcia says there are still disturbing new trends.

    While marijuana was once the main drug being smuggled by teenagers, now it’s meth.

    Also, recruiters used to target mainly teenage boys, but now they’re targeting young girls.

    "If you look at the way that some females are dressed, it's hard to detect, they're wearing skinny jeans and tight tops and they still manage to hide it on them so the untrained eye wouldn't pick up on it," explained Garcia.

    To help combat the teen drug smuggling trend, agents have formed a special outreach program that travels from school to school, warning kids about the dangers of drug smuggling.

    Agents also warn parents to be alert and aware of their teens’ cash flow. Agents say that if a child suddenly has a lot of money and parent don’t know where it came from, it could be a red flag.

  • Investigation finds no evidence AG Eric Holder knew of 'Fast and Furious' gun-running sting

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    U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry was killed during a shootout with Mexican bandits south of Tucson, Ariz., in December 2010. Weapons seized afterward were later linked to Operation Fast and Furious, an ATF effort to trace the flow of weapons to Mexican drug cartels.

    By Pete Williams
    NBC News

    A long-awaited report on the U.S. government’s controversial gun-trafficking operation known as “Fast and Furious” released Wednesday found no evidence that Attorney General Eric Holder knew of the botched effort to trace the flow of guns to Mexico’s drug cartels prior to its public unraveling in January 2011. 

    The report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz said there is "no evidence that ... Holder was informed about Operation Fast and Furious, or learned about the tactics employed by ATF in the investigation" before Congress began pressing him for information about it in early 2011.

    The Justice Department inspector general found no evidence that Atty. Gen. Eric Holder even knew about the operation that brought more than 2000 guns into Mexico. Fourteen federal law enforcement officials, however, are connected to the botched gun trafficking operation. NBC's Pete Williams reports.

    The inspector general did determine that the acting deputy attorney general, Gary Grindler, received a briefing about the ill-fated gun-tracing operation in March 2010, but that the briefing "failed to alert Grindler to problems in the investigation." 

    The report also concluded that the operation was "seriously flawed and supervised irresponsibly" by federal officials in Arizona, who allowed it to continue in hopes of scoring a big case against a gun-trafficking organization despite obvious problems. 

    No one in Arizona, at ATF headquarters in Washington or at the Justice Department acted to end the operation until two weapons that were allowed to flow into Mexico were found at the scene of a shootout where a federal border agent, Brian Terry, was killed in December 2010.

    "Fast and Furious" was an attempt to trace the flow of guns from the US into Mexico.  ATF agents were instructed to allow suspected gun runners for the Mexican cartels to take guns into Mexico, because local ATF officials and local prosecutors believed they could then follow the weapons to the cartel higher-ups in Mexico.  It didn't work that way, and roughly 2,000 guns were lost, most of them AK-47-type rifles, the report said.

    Even after two of the trafficked guns showed up at the scene of Terry's death, senior ATF leaders did little to find out what went wrong.  Instead, the report said, Kenneth Melson, then the acting ATF director, seemed more concern that agents were leaking information to the news media about the botched operation.

    Read the full report

    Holder, in a statement issued immediately after the report's release, said its "key conclusions are consistent with what I, and other Justice Department officials, have said for many months now," that senior Justice Department officials were unaware of the "flawed strategy and tactics" that dated back to the administration of George W. Bush and made no effort to "cover up information or mislead Congress about it."

    Holder also announced that Melson, who was transferred out of the top job at the ATF last year, was retiring, effective immediately. A second Justice Department official, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Jason Weinstein, has resigned. The report said Weinstein failed to tell Attorney General Holder about problems with the Fast and Furious operation. 

    In all, 14 current federal employees were singled out in the report for potential disciplinary action.

    The report's publication seemed to do little to end the bitter rivalry between Holder and Rep. Darrel Issa, the California Republican who was among the first to question the Fast and Furious operation.

     "It is unfortunate that some were so quick to make baseless accusations before they possessed the facts about these operations -- accusations that turned out to be without foundation and that have caused a great deal of unnecessary harm and confusion," Holder said in his statement.  

    "I hope today's report acts as a reminder of the dangers of adopting as fact unsubstantiated conclusions before an investigation of the circumstances is completed," he said. 

    In his own statement, Issa said, "Contrary to the denials of the attorney general and his political defenders in Congress, the investigation found that information in wiretap applications approved by senior Justice Department officials in Washington did contain red flags showing reckless tactics and faults Attorney General Eric Holder’s inner circle for their conduct.

     "It’s time for President Obama to step in and provide accountability for officials at both the Department of Justice and ATF who failed to do their jobs," Issa said.

    Politically charged partisan dispute
    The operation has become a politically charged partisan dispute heading into the November elections, with congressional Republicans charging that the Obama administration has withheld documents that would show the involvement of senior government officials, including Holder.

    On June 28, the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to hold Holder in contempt of Congress for failing to disclose internal Justice Department documents in response to a subpoena – the first time that sanction has been imposed on a sitting member of a president’s Cabinet.

    The department’s inspector general spent more than a year investigating the so-called “gun-walking” scandal  – in which agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, commonly known by the ATF acronym, in Arizona allow suspected gun runners to take guns into Mexico. The Fast and Furious operation was part of a broader initiative known as Project Gunrunner. 

    Local ATF officials and local prosecutors believed they could then follow the weapons to the cartel higher-ups in Mexico.  It didn't work that way. Thousands of guns were lost and only lower-level straw buyers of the weapons were ever arrested. 

    Two of the weapons turned up at the scene of a shootout where a federal border agent, Brian Terry, was killed on Dec. 14, 2010, near the Mexico border, though those guns were never tied directly to his death. 

    A Mexican legislator, Humberto Benitez Trevino, claimed last year that weapons that crossed the border during the attempted sting have been linked to the deaths or wounding of at least 150 Mexican civilians, but did not provide any supporting documentation or say how that number was calculated.

    Pete Williams is NBC News justice correspondent; NBC News Projects Editor Mike Brunker also contributed to this report.

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  • NYT: Feds bust U.S. horse racing operation allegedly bankrolled by drug cartel figure

    By msnbc.com staff

    In one of the most audacious money-laundering schemes of all time, a senior member of Mexico’s Zetas drug cartel used several associates and relatives to purchase a 300-acre ranch in Oklahoma and build a successful quarter horse racing and breeding operation, the New York Times reported Tuesday.

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    The newspaper, citing current and former federal law enforcement officials, said Miguel Ángel Treviño Morales, one of the most wanted drug traffickers in the world,, bankrolled the prominent horse breeding operation, Tremor Enterprises, and used it to launder millions of dollars in drug money.

    The group won three of quarter horse racing’s biggest races, including the 2010 All American Futurity at Riudoso Downs in New Mexico with longshot Mr. Piloto, it said.

    Others involved in the plot were José Treviño Morales, 45, older brother of Miguel Treviño Morales, who is alleged to be No. 2 in the feared Zetas drug cartel, and Ramiro Villarreal, who helped select Tremor’s racing prospects, including Mr. Piloto, the Times reported.

    The scheme unraveled early Tuesday, according to the Times:

    The Justice Department moved against Tremor on Tuesday morning, dispatching several helicopters and hundreds of law enforcement agents to the company’s stables in Ruidoso and its ranch in Oklahoma. Jose Treviño and several associates were taken into custody and were expected to be charged later in the day, authorities said.

    An affidavit prepared before the raids said the Zetas funneled about $1 million a month into buying quarter horses in the United States. The authorities were tipped off to Tremor’s activities in January 2010, when the Zetas paid more than $1 million in a single day for two broodmares, the affidavit said.

    The New York Times became aware of Tremor’s activities in December 2011 while reporting on the Zetas. The Times learned of the government’s investigation last month and agreed to hold this story until Tuesday morning’s arrests.

    Click here to read the full story.

  • US-Mexico border not more violent, analysis finds

    By Mike Brunker, Investigations Editor, NBC News
    NBCNews.com

    While numerous U.S. officials have said violence along the U.S.-Mexico border fueled by drug trafficking poses an increasing threat to Americans, a review of data from more than 1,600 local and federal law enforcement agencies from California to Texas indicates that the violent crime has been declining for years.

    USA Today reported in Thursday's editions that a review of more than a decade of crime data for border communities in the four states that abut Mexico – California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas -- indicated that violent crime rates have been declining for years – even before the current U.S. security buildup began. The newspaper also found that U.S. border cities were statistically safer on average than other cities in their respective states, and had maintained lower crime rates than the rest of the nation.

    Numerous elected and law enforcement officials along the U.S. border have maintained  that violence associated with Mexican drug cartels, which has claimed at least 30,000  lives south of the border, is increasingly creeping into the U.S.

    Most notably, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in April 2010 that border violence has gotten so bad there have been beheadings out in the Arizona desert – a statement she was later forced to recant.

    And Texas Rep. Michael McCaul said during a recent congressional hearing. "It is not secure and it has never been more violent or dangerous than it is today. Anyone who lives down there will tell you that."

    Other news reports focusing on specific cities or communities have anecdotally challenged those assertions, but the USA Today analysis is believed to be the first comprehensive review of the crime data along the entire U.S.-Mexico border.

    Reporters Alan Gomez, Jack Gillum and Kevin Johnson spent four months reporting the story.

  • Amid gun lobby criticism, assault weapons reporting rule delayed

    By Michael Isikoff
    NBC News National Investigative Correspondent

    The White House, facing fierce criticism from the gun lobby, has delayed approval of a proposed rule that federal law enforcement officials say could help them stanch the flow of U.S. assault rifles and other high-powered weapons to Mexico’s drug cartels.

    The proposed rule, announced by Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms acting director Kenneth Melson on Dec. 20,  would require U.S. firearms dealers in four southwest border states to report multiple sales of long guns, such as semi-automatic assault rifles which are frequently purchased by so-called “straw buyers” for the cartels. Melson had said he expected the proposed “emergency rule” would receive approval in early January 2011.

    But the announced deadline date for White House approval, Jan. 5, has come and gone, leaving ATF officials bewildered and keenly disappointed. Some officials had expressed hopes  that President Barack Obama might even address the issue during his State of the Union speech Tuesday night as a positive step the administration was taking to address the issue of gun violence.

    Instead, Obama failed to discuss guns in his speech, and now some ATF officials are wondering whether the proposed emergency rule will take effect at all.  One official with knowledge of the issue said the delay may relate to questions raised by critics about ATF's legal authority to issue such a proposed rule on an emergency basis.

    “This is hugely demoralizing and embarrassing for ATF,” said one former agency official who has followed the debate over the rule closely, speaking on condition of anonymity.

    U.S.: Gun raids show cartels at work in Ariz.

    Reid Cherlin, a White House spokesman said the proposed rule is still “under review” by the Office of Management and Budget and declined to offer any guidance on when it might take effect, if at all. An ATF spokesman declined comment.

    U.S. law enforcement officials said the need for the rule was dramatically highlighted this week by federal indictments in Arizona alleging that networks of “straw buyers” – many of them working for the Sinoloa Cartel and other Mexican drug trafficking organizations -- had illegally bought hundreds of firearms from U.S. gun stores. Out of 700 firearms allegedly illegally purchased by one network between September 2009 and December 2010, more than 640 were bought at a single gun store, the Lone Wolf Trading Co., in Glendale, Ariz., according to one indictment.  Most of the weapons were AK-47s, purchased in bulk quantities of 20 to 40, often by the same buyer within days of a previous purchase. In each case, the buyers filled out federal firearms affirming they were buying the guns for themselves and underwent standard federal background checks.  In fact, according  to  federal authorities, they were buying the guns in order to smuggle them to Mexico, where many were later recovered from drug cartel operatives.

     ATF officials say the proposed rule would be an invaluable “intelligence” tool that would allow them to at least identify suspicious activity at gun stores along the southwest border. Currently, firearms dealers such as Lone Wolf Trading are required to report to ATF whenever somebody buys two or more handguns within a five day period. But they are not required to file such reports in the case of long guns, such as AK-47s, even though such assault rifles are now the “weapons of choice” for the Mexican cartels, officials say.  In this case, the Lone Wolf gun store “did nothing wrong” by selling the AK-47s in bulk quantities, although from a law enforcement perspective, the multiple purchases "kind of hit you on the smell test,” said one U.S. law enforcement official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. 

    The proposed rule has drawn strong e criticism from the National Rifle Association and gun industry groups, which have publicly urged members and supporters to file public comments expressing opposition to the White House Office of Management and Budget. (OMB, an arm of the White House executive office, must sign off on all proposed federal rules.)

    Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which represents the gun industry, said his group believes the proposed rule “won't assist law enforcement” and “will make it harder for firearms dealers to cooperate with ATF.”

    “The cartels that are using straw purchasers will simply modify their behavior,” he said. “Instead of sending one purchaser to buy five firearms, they’ll send straw purchasers  to five different stores — or they’ll simply recruit five straw purchasers to buy one gun at a time.”

    In addition, Keane said, “If ATF can ask for  this in these four states, they can ask for that nationwide and there’s no piece of information they can’t ask for.” 

    The uncertainty about the rule has fueled the disappointment of gun control groups that Obama has failed to take any action to press for tighter gun control measures, even after the recent shooting rampage in Tucson that seriously wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona. Many gun control advocates, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, had called on Obama to seize the opportunity to forcefully address the issue Tuesday night, pointing out that the president during the 2008 campaign had backed tougher measures, including reinstatement of the federal assault weapons ban.

    Obama’s failure to say anything on the subject drew criticism from Bloomberg and other gun control advocates Wednesday.

    “It’s depressing, but not surprising,” said Kristen Rand, legislative director of the Violence Policy Center, a group that advocates for gun control.

    Responding to the criticism, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs suggested Wednesday that Obama may address the gun issue in the future. 

    "I wouldn't rule out that at some point the president talks about the issues surrounding gun violence," Press Secretary Gibbs said aboard Air Force One on the way to an event with Obama in Wisconsin, according to the Washington Post. “I don't have a timetable or, obviously, what he would say."

    More reporting by Michael Isikoff