Mexican Army Arrests Top Tijuana Cartel Lieutenant (BC)
7 November 2011
CNN US
Authorities have arrested a top lieutenant of the Arellano Felix cartel, the Mexican defense ministry announced Monday.
Juan Francisco Sillas Rocha, 34, "is considered one of the most violent subjects responsible for countless killings," defense ministry spokesman Col. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo told reporters.
Sillas, also known as "The Wheel," has been one of the key lieutenants in a brutal turf war over drug-trafficking territory with the Sinaloa Cartel, the defense ministry said in a statement.
Last year he ordered the kidnapping of three women who were related to one of the rival cartel's leaders, the defense ministry said.
Authorities arrested him in Tijuana Saturday. They presented him to the media Monday.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Organization has said the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix Organization, also known as the Tijuana Cartel, is "known for its violence and ruthlessness."
Source: [articles.cnn.com/2011-11-07/americas/world_americas_mexico-cartel-arrest_1_arellano-felix-cartel-sinaloa-cartel-tijuana-cartel?_s=PM:AMERICAS]
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Would-Be Killeen Bomber Gets Additional, Harsher Charges (TX)
11 November 2011
GSN Magazine
The 21-year-old man who was arrested in July for plotting an explosives attack on a restaurant near the U.S. Army base in Killeen, TX, was slapped with additional charges that could net him a prison term of more than 100 years.
Federal prosecutors in Texas said on 8 Nov. that a federal grand jury in Waco had indicted the soldier on new charges in connection with the July plot.
He was charged with one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction; one count of attempted murder of officers or employees of the United States, two counts of possession of a firearm in furtherance of a federal crime of violence; and two counts of possession of a destructive device in furtherance of a federal crime of violence, said prosecutors.
The six-count indictment alleges that on 27 July 2011, he planned to make and detonate a bomb to kill military personnel at an unspecified restaurant and shoot any survivors of the blast. He is also alleged to have had a .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun to use in the aftermath of the explosion.
At the time of his arrest last July, he was absent without leave (AWOL) soldier from Fort Campbell, KY, had a gun and instructions on how to build a bomb and bomb-components, said the FBI. Court documents also allege that he intended to detonate the destructive device inside the restaurant, which was a favorite of soldiers from Fort Hood. The soldier was nabbed after he tried to buy bulk black powder in the same Killeen gun store where another Army Major had bought the gun he used in a bloody attack on Fort Hood in 2009.
The soldier was initially indicted last August on possession of a destructive device and unregistered weapons charges. While those charges remain in effect, prosecutors said they would make their case on the new counts.
He remains in federal custody and if prosecutors are successful, he could face up to life in a federal prison on the WMD charges; up to 20 years on the attempted murder charges; a mandatory 30 years for each destructive device charge and a mandatory five year term on the firearms charges, according to the FBI.
Source: [www.gsnmagazine.com/node/24964?c=military_force_protection]
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Calif. Budget Cuts Threaten To Cut Elite Special Agent Units (CA)
10 November 2011
KABC News
RIVERSIDE, Calif. (KABC) -- From drug kingpins to serial killers and sexual predators, California's secret crime-fighting special agents go after the worst of the worst.
Some of the elite agents even protected the then-Attorney General, now-Governor after a drug cartel threatened to kill him. So why are these agents now being pulled off our streets?
. . . .
But cuts to California's state budget are eliminating two elite, statewide law enforcement bureaus: 171 special agents are about to be laid off.
But it's their fight against Mexican drug cartels that worries these agents the most.
So why are these special agents being laid off?
"We're dumbfounded. It makes no sense at all, it doesn't affect the state budget," said the president of the Association of Special Agents.
California's final budget made $71 million in what is known as "allocated cuts" to the state's Department of Justice.
That means these two bureaus, these particular agents, get the ax.
"This is unprecedented," said the director of Division of Law Enforcement, state Dept. of Justice. "I believe it is a threat to public safety.
"I believe the attorney general should be able to allocate funding within her own department," said the director.
But that is not the way the state legislature and the Governor crafted the cuts.
"They opted to specifically target us. And by the way, no other state enforcement agency was cut," said the agent.
Some suspect the cuts are political payback by the governor because the agents' two unions did not endorse him in the race for governor.
Eyewitness News caught up with him Thursday.
"I don't understand this 'allocated cuts' business," said the governor.
He wouldn't answer questions about possible political payback, but seemed to signal there may be room for compromise.
"Someone will have to show that to me, because within a budget there's always flexibility to move things around," he said.
The governor was the state attorney general in 2009 when he announced a take-down of the Sinaloa drug cartel.
"A tremendous body blow to the Sinaloa cartel," he said at the time.
"That was my operation, I was the undercover officer that infiltrated the Sinaloan drug cartel, befriended them," said an undercover agent.
Eyewitness News has confirmed the Sinaloa drug cartel put a hit out on the man who is now governor soon after that bust.
And it was agents from the now-gutted Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement that then protected him around the clock.
Source: [abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news/state&id=8427903]
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