IRA gangs went on killing people for reasons varying from personal disputes to perceived slights to the IRA's authority to eliminating drug dealers who refused to pay protection money.

 

 In every instance, there were cover-ups by the IRA, intimidation of witnesses and the destruction of evidence. The IRA leadership -- of which McGuinness remained a very senior member -- was fully aware of the circumstances surrounding the murders but made efforts only to ensure its members were protected from the law. In the case of the latest murder, that of 21-year-old Paul Quinn, beaten to death by the south Armagh IRA after Mr Quinn had a confrontation with one of its members, the IRA leadership threw up a wall of silence around the killers. Gardai and the PSNI carried out extensive inquiries and established the identities of the men who murdered Paul Quinn but, aside from statements from the young man's family and friends, were unable to gather any admissions or evidence. The gang that beat Paul Quinn with iron bars wore head-to-toe protective suits and gloves and left no DNA evidence at the scene of the murder, a shed just south of the Border in Co Monaghan. The only case in which police on either side of the Border were able to gain a conviction in respect of a recent IRA murder -- despite massive intimidation and threats to murder witnesses -- was of south Dublin IRA boss Bernard Dempsey, who shot dead Liberties man James Curran, 42, in full view of customers of the Green Lizard pub in April 2005. Mr Curran was murdered because he had publicly "slagged off" Dempsey in another pub the previous Christmas for taking protection money from heroin dealers. Dempsey is the only IRA member to be convicted of murder in more than 40 cases since the IRA called its last ceasefire in August 1997. The IRA leadership -- and a large portion of working class people in south and north inner Dublin -- knew very well who shot dead another innocent local man, Joseph Rafferty, 29, a father of one in April 2004. Again no effort was made to identify the killer, a well-known IRA man and Sinn Fein member from the north inner city. He remains at large today. He murdered Joseph Rafferty because of a perceived slight -- a common reason among those killed since the ceasefire. In Martin McGuinness' back yard in Derry, two innocent local men were murdered by the IRA after, again, becoming involved in disputes with IRA members. Mark Robinson, 22, the father of a small baby, was also involved in a pub fight with another notorious Derry IRA man. An IRA gang armed with scaffolding poles and a butcher's knife ambushed him near his home in the Galliagh area on April 30, 2001, and stabbed and beat him to death. In October 2003, Jimmy McGinley, 23, a friend of Mark Robinson's, became involved in a confrontation with Derry IRA man Bart Fisher who stabbed McGinley once in the heart. Fisher was convicted of manslaughter and received three years after the Crown Prosecution Service dropped a charge of murder as no witnesses were prepared to testify. McGinley's family were subjected to threats and intimidation throughout Fisher's trial. The IRA and Sinn Fein leadership conducted a major cover-up and protection operation for the murderers of Belfast father-of-two Robert McCartney, 33, who was also beaten and stabbed to death by IRA members in Belfast in January 2005. No one was ever convicted of the murder. ANALYSIS pages 27, 28, 29, 30 Gerry Adams advised potential witnesses not to speak to police but to make statements to solicitors. About 70 IRA and Sinn Fein members witnessed events inside the bar before Mr McCartney was murdered in an adjoining laneway but none spoke to police and nearly all claimed to have been in the toilet as the events unfolded. The others who were murdered include: Gareth O'Connor, 24, disappeared while travelling through south Armagh on March 11, 2003. Gardai believe he was murdered by the IRA who concealed the killing by driving O'Connor's car into the Newry Canal, where it lay undiscovered for two years. Mathew Burns, 26, was sitting in his car when gunmen opened fire, killing Burns and injuring his brother at Castlewellan, Co Down, on February 21, 2002. He was murdered because of a vendetta against his family, which began over an incident in which children of a local IRA man vandalised Burns' mother's home. This escalated and reached a point where seven IRA men ambushed Burns but the champion kick boxer beat them all off. The decision was then taken to murder him. After his death, Sinn Fein sources hinted that Burns was killed because he was a drug dealer. He had no involvement in drugs and was a health fanatic. Seamus 'Shavo' Hogan, 47, was shot dead by an IRA hit squad as he emerged from the Transport Club in Crumlin on July 14, 2001. Shavo, who once was a close associate of 'The General', Martin Cahill, refused to pay protection money and suffered the consequences. Michael Magee, 34, was recovering from a savage IRA punishment beating at his home in Downpatrick on June 11, 2001, when a masked gang broke in and shot him dead at point-blank range Paul Daly, 38, was sitting with his 11-year-old daughter in his car near the nationalist Unity Flats in Belfast on May 4, 2001, when two gunmen approached and shot him. Daly was a known drug dealer who did not pay protection. Christopher O'Kane, 37, was shot dead outside a Derry pub on April 21, 2001. O'Kane was a small-time drug dealer who had a number of run-ins with local IRA figures. Bobby McGuigan, 36, the Lurgan, Co Armagh, father of a young son, was shot dead at point-blank range as he sat in his car on February 27, 2001. Republicans claim McGuigan was a drug dealer, but local people say he was murdered because of an argument with the local IRA boss. Kieran Smyth was found shot through the head at Curraha, Co Meath, on February 9, 2001. Originally from Mullaghbawn in south Armagh, he had been abducted then beaten and tortured for three days before being brought to farmland in Co Meath and his head bound in masking tape before being shot with a shotgun. It is believed a senior IRA man in south Armagh owed Smyth money from the sale of smuggled cigarettes and when Smyth pushed for payment he was murdered. Edmund McCoy, 28, was sitting in a bar at Dunmurry in south Belfast when three gunmen walked in and shot him in the head and stomach on May 29, 2000. McCoy was a Catholic who associated with Protestant drug dealers. Nicholas 'Mad Nicky' O'Hare, 34, was shot dead in Dundalk on August 19, 2000. O'Hare was a former INLA man heavily involved in criminality. He was believed to have been murdered by the IRA in retaliation for the killing of a Dundalk man, Stephen Connolly, three weeks earlier. Patrick Quinn, 32, was also accused of being a drug dealer after his murder on September 29, 2000, as he sat drinking in the Depot Bar in Magherafelt, Co Derry, though his family and friends strongly denied the claim. Joseph O'Connor, 26, was a dissident republican who was shot dead near his mother's home in the Ballymurphy estate in west Belfast on October 13, 2000. The IRA never admitted the killing, which local people said was carried out because O'Connor was running a smuggled cigarette racket in competition with the local IRA. Trevor Kells, 35, was a Protestant taxi driver who answered a call to Ardoyne on December 5, 2000, and was shot dead by two gunmen. It was a sectarian murder apparently in retaliation for Kells' suspected involvement in a loyalist assassination in the Seventies. Joseph Foran, 38, had been a partner in crime of PJ Judge, who was previously shot dead by the IRA in 1996. He was sitting in a car in Finglas with his girlfriend when two gunmen approached and shot him dead on February 26, 2000. Again local sources say Foran was shot by the IRA at the behest of his rivals in the local drugs trade. Thomas 'Tomo' Byrne, 41, married with one young son, was shot dead as he enjoyed a drink with friends at O'Neill's pub in Summerhill in Dublin's north inner city on April 30, 2000. The same IRA man who ordered the killing of Gerard Moran is believed to have murdered Byrne. Tomo Byrne was said by local people to have beaten the IRA gangster in a pub fight several months earlier. Brendan 'Speedy' Fagan, 24, was a drug dealer in Newry who knew he was under threat from the IRA when he was shot dead in a local pub on May 9, 1999. As two gunmen approached him he shouted: "It's the Provies." Fagan bought drugs from Dublin dealers, including members of John Gilligan's gang. Paul 'Bull' Downey, 37, was a close associate of 'Speedy' Fagan's, whose body was found on south Armagh roadside June 13, 1999. Charles Bennett, 22, had joined the IRA after the ceasefire and was accused of being a police informant. He was abducted, tortured and then taken to waste ground in west Belfast and shot through the head on July 25, 1999. Eamon Collins, a 45-year-old ex-prisoner, was beaten and stabbed on January 27, 1999, because he wrote a brutally honest book, Killing Rage, about his role as part of the murderous IRA's south Armagh brigade. Brendan 'Bap' Campbell, 30, was another small-time Belfast drug dealer, who was shot dead on February 9, 1998, as he left a Lisburn Road restaurant with his girlfriend. Bobby Dougan, 34, was a prominent south Belfast loyalist who was shot dead by the IRA on February 10, 1998. Sinn Fein was suspended from the Stormont parliament for two weeks after ballistics tests showed a gun used in both murders was an IRA weapon. Kevin Conway, 30, was found hooded and shot through the head on February 17, 1998, in farmland at Aghalee on the western outskirts of Belfast. Local people said the IRA carried out the killing as a result of a personal dispute with an IRA member. Gerard Moran, 35, from Rory O'Connor House, Hardwicke Street, in north central Dublin, was shot dead while delivering takeaway food in Drumcondra on November 21, 1998. Moran's death was ordered because he had taunted IRA figures in the north inner city. Andy Kearney, 33, was involved in a fist fight with a notorious north Belfast IRA man. The IRA man sent an armed gang to Kearney's seventh-floor flat in the New Lodge area on July 20, 1997. They overpowered Kennedy tied his hands behind his back, dragged him out on to the landing and shot him three times in the legs. They then tore out the telephone and disabled the lift so Kearney's girlfriend had to run down 16 flights of stairs to raise help. He bled to death. During the period of the first IRA ceasefire from June 1994 to February 1996, it carried out other killings. Michael Mooney, 34, was shot dead as he sat drinking with friends in a Belfast city centre bar on April 28, 1995. Again he was a drug dealer who refused to pay the IRA for protection. Anthony Kane, 29, was shot dead by a lone gunman as he sat in a car with his wife outside a west Belfast church where his aunt's funeral was taking place on September 5, 1995. The reason was again refusing to pay protection. Paul 'Saul' Devine, 35, was shot six times in west Belfast on December 12, 1995. He was a known criminal who had previously carried out robberies and other crimes, passing part of the proceeds to the IRA, but had apparently stopped paying. Francis Collins, 40, was a former IRA member who was shot dead on the night of December 18, 1995, at the chip shop he ran in Belfast's New Lodge area. It is believed he had been in a dispute with a local IRA boss. It was falsely claimed in justification that he was a drug dealer. Christopher 'Sid' Johnston, 38, was shot dead at his home in south Belfast on December 19, 1995. At the time he was on bail for possession of £250,000 worth of cannabis. Again, non-payment was the reason. Martin McCrory, 30, was sitting in his flat on December 27, 1995, when two men burst in and shot him at point-blank range with a shotgun. His inquest heard he was a recreational drug user, but not a supplier. It is believed he had had an argument with local IRA figures. Eric Shorthall, 23, was a drug addict and petty thief from Ballyfermot who may have inadvertently robbed a man closely associated with the IRA. He was shot while out walking on Crumlin Road on November 25, 1995. Ian Lyons, 31, was shot dead by two gunmen who approached his car as it was parked outside his girlfriend's house in Lurgan, Co Armagh, on January 2, 1996. A notorious local IRA man was responsible. It is believed the IRA man had demanded money from Lyons, who had refused.

top bike-club enforcer nicknamed "Mr. 187'' after the state penal code number for murder was gunned down Saturday in front of stunned spectators.

 

Despite a heavy police presence at a Hells Angels funeral Saturday, a top bike-club enforcer nicknamed "Mr. 187'' after the state penal code number for murder was gunned down Saturday in front of stunned spectators. Multiple sources told this newspaper the victim was Steve Tausan, a notorious sergeant-at-arms for the Santa Cruz chapter of the club suspected of killing another biker years ago. Sources said the incident Saturday was an inter-club squabble set off when Tausan punched a fellow biker and the biker retaliated by shooting him. A photographer for this newspaper saw other Hells Angels jump the shooter. Police declined to comment, saying only that there had been a shooting at the Oak Hill Cemetery. The funeral at the cemetery was for fellow Hells Angel Jethro Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the club, who was shot in a Sparks, Nev., casino by a member of the rival Vagos club. Townsend told a reporter that shortly after Pettigrew was killed that he had received death threats. Police and Santa Clara County Sheriff's Office are now guarding the Hells Angels headquarters in San Jose, as well as other locations where bikers gather.

Hells Angels and Bandidos club members ''own nightspots in Thailand tourist centres that have become popular haunts for bikies worldwide

 

Australian bikies with dubious reputations are now infiltrating Thailand and gang members have opened businesses on Phuket, reports an Australian newspaper. Hells Angels and Bandidos club members ''own nightspots in Thailand tourist centres that have become popular haunts for bikies worldwide,'' reports the Courier-Mail newspaper, which is based in the northern Australian state of Queensland. Members of the Bandidos - who acquired four new chapters in Indonesia during ''Bandidos Bali Bike Week'' earlier this year - are looking to set up business as far afield as Japan, a Queensland police source told the newspaper. Thailand was significant as a source of chemicals for drug manufacture and trafficking and scrutiny of the travels of Gold Coast bikies' travel would show ''a lot of trips'' to the country, the officer said. ''A lot of them are looking into Thailand - it gives them the opportunity to source pharmaceuticals. Hells Angels and Bandidos have got premises in Thailand. ''Of course, the Finks [another prominent bikie club] can't be left behind and they're looking too.'' The newspaper names one bar in Patong and another on Koh Samui as having been purchased by bikies with Hells Angels connections. The newspaper report on bikie connections on Phuket and in Asia is part of a series on the activities of Australian gangs at home and overseas. It's titled 'Bikie Inc, Organised Crime on the Glitter Strip.' Some have been involved in alleged property scams on Phuket, the report says. Danish, British and Norwegian bikie gang members have also been connected to the activities of Australian gang members, the report adds. Phuket expat motorcycle riders have always distanced themselves from gang activities and drugs and drawn the distinction between bikers and ''bikies.''

Hells Angel member killed at San Jose funeral for fellow biker

 

Hells Angels member was fatally shot Saturday at the San Jose funeral for a fellow biker who was killed last month at a Nevada casino, police said. The victim, who police have not identified, was shot shortly before 1 p.m. and taken to a hospital where he died about an hour later, said San Jose police spokesman Jose Garcia. No suspect has been arrested and the shooting remains under investigation. The shooting occurred at the funeral for Jeffrey Pettigrew, 51, president of the San Jose chapter of the Hells Angels, authorities said. The service was held at the Oak Hill Funeral Home & Memorial Park and drew an estimated 4,000 people. Pettigrew was attending a motorcycle festival last month when he was shot four times in the back by a member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang during a brawl at a casino in Sparks, Nev. Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez of San Jose was arrested on suspicion of murder. Ten Vagos members were arrested earlier this month on suspicion of drug trafficking and a rash of violence during law enforcement raids throughout the Inland Empire. Garcia said he couldn't speculate whether the San Jose shooting was related to rivalries between the motorcycle gangs. Anticipating a large turnout, police were in the area around the cemetery as a precaution, patrolling and helping with traffic. Garcia declined to say whether police were at the funeral. "We had no credible information suggesting there would be violence," he said.

A PLANNED bid for freedom by Melbourne identity Tony Mokbel has been sensationally scrapped.

Tony Mokbel is expected to use a legal loophole to try to beat charges against him. Supplied

Mokbel was expected to use a police stuff-up to try to get off drug charges he has already admitted.

Police sources yesterday revealed that Mokbel's lawyers would try to use a legal loophole to beat charges against the notorious gangland boss.

Mokbel would have been the first of many criminals and suspects hoping to take advantage of a recent admission by Victoria Police that officers routinely failed to swear an oath when signing affidavits.

The embarrassing blunder could render any evidence gained from affidavits used to execute search warrants, bug telephones or install listening and tracking devices unable to be used in prosecutions.

The legal team was expected to seek an adjournment in the sentencing process to allow it to check the veracity of documents used by Victoria Police to gather evidence against Mokbel.

But Mokbel's lawyer Peter Faris QC appeared before the Supreme Court this morning and said they no longer wished to proceed with an application for an adjournment.

No reason was given for the change of plans.

A plea hearing for Mokbel will now go ahead on Tuesday.

Mokbel, 45, pleaded guilty in April to drug charges relating to him masterminding his drug gang while he was on the run in Victoria and Greece.

Bugging and tracking his phones enabled Purana taskforce detectives to work out where Mokbel had fled to - resulting in him being arrested in the Definia seaside cafe near Athens in 2007 after 15 months on the run.

Forensic accountants attached to Purana were able to establish that Mokbel made about $100 million through his gang, which he called The Company.

Company members were involved in the manufacture and distribution of very large quantities of amphetamines and trafficking ecstasy and cocaine.

The Company was formed largely to finance Mokbel's escape from Australia and pay for his life as a fugitive in Australia and Greece.

In a deal between his lawyers and prosecutors, outstanding drug charges were dropped in return for him pleading guilty to trafficking a large commercial quantity of methylamphetamine, trafficking a large commercial quantity of ecstasy and urging an undercover operative to import a commercial quantity of ecstasy.

His fear of being charged over one or more underworld murders prompted him to disappear near the end of his March 2006 drug trial.

He fully expected to be convicted on the cocaine smuggling charge, telling close associates he would cop it and do the five years he expected to be jailed for.

What he couldn't stomach was the thought of a life sentence for murder.

He was sentenced in his absence to a nine-year minimum term from the 2006 drug trial. With time served before sentencing, he would be eligible to be released in February 2014.

IT was a former Icelandic beauty queen who scooped the $A2.1 million reward for tipping off the FBI to the whereabouts of feared Boston gangster James "Whitey" Bulger, it has been revealed.

In this courtroom sketch, James "Whitey" Bulger stands during his initial appearance in a federal courtroom in Boston in June. Source:AP

Bulger, who is charged with 19 murders in the 1970s and '80s in Boston, was arrested in June in Santa Monica, California, where he had been living under an assumed name with long-term girlfriend Catherine Greig.

The FBI has steadfastly refused to disclose the identity of the tipster, again declining to comment to AFP, but the Boston Globe says it was Anna Bjornsdottir, a 57-year-old graphic designer and yoga instructor.

Bjornsdottir, who was crowned Miss Iceland in 1974 and starred in that year's Miss Universe competition, tipped off police after recognising Bulger, 81, on the television news, reports said.

She is said to have befriended Greig, 60, in Santa Monica after the two women took a shared interest in a local stray cat.

The Boston Globe reported that Bjornsdottir, star of B-movies More American Graffiti and The Sword and the Sorcerer, moved to the LA area in the late 1970s with her first husband, rock star Jakob Magnusson.

Bulger, an Irish-American whose life inspired a gritty Hollywood movie, pleaded not guilty to the string of murder charges at a court appearance in July.

Police found some $A823,000 in cash and a "fairly big arsenal" of weapons in Bulger's modest apartment after his arrest, law enforcement sources said.

Greig, who is accused of helping to shield Bulger during his time on the run, was indicted by a federal grand jury and faces up to five years in prison and a $US250,000 fine if convicted.

Bulger was the inspiration for Jack Nicholson's character in The Departed, the 2006 crime film directed by Martin Scorsese and also starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon.

Bulger and Greig had lived for years under the pseudonyms Charles and Carol Gasko.

In addition to accusations that Bulger murdered mob rivals, potential witnesses and others who threatened him, prosecutors accuse him of a crime spree spanning into the 1990s that included extortion, money laundering and, at one point, running guns to Northern Ireland's IRA militants.

51-year-old man, who police believe to be a high-ranking member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang, was questioned

 

Firearms, drugs, cash and fireworks have been seized during a raid on the Sydney home of a bikie member, police say. Officers from the NSW Gangs Squad allegedly found three rifles, a shotgun, fireworks, more than $17,000 in cash and a variety of drugs and drug paraphernalia when the they raided the Mt Druitt house in Sydney's west on Monday. A 51-year-old man, who police believe to be a high-ranking member of the Rebels outlaw motorcycle gang, was questioned on Tuesday night.

triple kidnapping and murder case involving the Pittsfield chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club

file photoDavid Chalue, left, Adam Hall, center, and Caius Veiovis, right. The three were arrested and charged with murder and kidnapping in connection with the disappearance of three men in a case against a Hell's Angels member. Hall and Veiovis denied the charges Tuesday in Berkshire Superior Court 

 Two of the three men indicted last week in a triple kidnapping and murder case involving the Pittsfield chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle club entered innocent pleas at their arraignments Tuesday in Berkshire Superior Court.

Adam Lee Hall, 34, of Peru, andCaius Veiovis, 31, of Pittsfield, each denied all charges at separate arraignments.

Hall, Veiovis and a third man, former Springfield resident David Chalue, 44, of North Adams, were indicted by a Berkshire grand juryon three counts each of murder and kidnapping, and four counts of intimidating a witness.

The three are charged with kidnapping and then killing three Pittsfield men, David Glasser, 44, Edward Frampton, 58, and Robert Chadwell, 47. The three were last seen Aug. 28 at the Pittsfield apartment where Glasser and Frampton lived.

Police allege that Hall, considered a sergeant at arms with the local Hells Angels branch, plotted to kill Glasser to prevent him from testifying against him in another case. Police said they believe Frampton and Chadwell were killed because they were present when Glasser was taken. 

This panel of undated photos released Sept. 6, 2011 by the Berkshire District Attorney's Office shows Robert Chadwell, left, Edward Frampton, center, and David Glasser. The men were found buried on private property in Becket on Sept. 10. (AP Photo/Berkshire District Attorney's Office)

A fourth man, David Casey, 62, of Canaan, N.Y., was charged with three counts of being an accessory to murder, accessory to kidnapping, and accessory to intimidating a witness. Each of those charges are considered after the fact. Prosecutors allege that Casey used construction equipment to help bury the three bodies in Becket.

 

At Tuesday’s arraignment, Judge John Agnosti ordered each to be held at the Berkshire County House of Correction without the right to bail. They are each due back in court for pre-trial hearings on March 28. 

Chalue and Casey are expected to be in court for arraignments later this week. 

Iranians allegedly plotting the terrorist attack tried to hire the notorious Zeta’s drug cartel to carry it out.

 

 The suspects offered $1.5 million and “multi-ton” quantities of opium as payment. This case illustrates that we live in a world where borders and boundaries are increasingly irrelevant. According to the criminal complaint the Iranian suspect wanted to hire the Zetas because the cartel had access to military grade weaponry including explosives.  "I think the Zetas have the reputation of being the most ferocious and violent drug cartel in Mexico and so this Iranian agent may have thought the Zetas will do anything, that they’re cold blooded killers, and they’re capable of pulling something like this off." said Howard Campbell, author of the "Drug War Zone. The Zetas are behind some of the most brutal and brazen killings in Mexico including grenade attacks in public places, a casino fire in Monterrey that killed dozens of people and the murder of a U.S. federal agent working in San Luis Potosi. His partner was wounded. The suspect named in the criminal complaint traveled to Mexico on several occasions to work out the details of the terrorist attack.  A source says one meeting happened in Reynosa on the Texas border. In the end, he was not dealing with the violent Zetas but a drug trafficker who is paid informant for the US government.

Los Zetas is depleted, after the capture of four of its top leaders and the dismantling of about 40 cells in that organization in the state of Veracruz

 Los Zetas is depleted, after the capture of four of its top leaders and the dismantling of about 40 cells in that organization in the state of Veracruz in less than four months, officials in this port said. 

It is said most of the Zetas are hiding and are not operating, so there is clearly a drop in kidnappings, "levantones" and derecho de pizo or cuota charges in Veracruz and Boca del Rio, mainly. 

Military sources also believed that Los Zetas do not have enough people so their operations and finances are being depleted. 

But officials warn a reinforcement of assassins may come from Tabasco, Chiapas and Oaxaca. 

The dismantling of various cells of the criminal group, it was mainly due to the arrest of leaders and local police commanders who assure safety  to the Zetas. 

Sense August the Navy has arrested at least 30 members of various local corporations. 

In July, seven police officers were arrested Tuxpan by the Navy, and presumed to be involved in the death of a sailor. Among them was a second in command. 

A month later in Veracruz, the arrest of Francisco Bautista Carballo, "The Shark" and two of his accomplices, weakened the actions carried out by Los Zetas in the port and Boca del Rio in kidnapping and collecting derecho de pizo or cuotas. 

Another cell was dismantled on August 14, when the Navy arrested five members of the cartel involved in the death of four sailors in retaliation for the Navy operating in the state. 

In September, six Intermunicipal police officers from Veracruz-Boca del Rio were arrested for carrying out murders and kidnappings for Los Zetas. 

In addition, 74 members of this criminal group were also arrested, among them Karim Muñoz Castillo, the plaza boss from Tuxpan. 

At the end of the month Angel Manuel Mora, "Commander Devil," was arrested after a clash in Las Brisas, in the port of Veracruz. 

Mora served as an alleged chief hitmen in the urban area of ​​Veracruz-Boca del Rio, as well as the alleged person in charge to assure the safety of that criminal group in Ciudad Mendoza, Veracruz route. 

On Thursday, the Navy arrested 12 alleged members of the criminal organization Los Zetas, including the alleged new leader in Veracruz. 

In recent days, federal forces have killed seven suspected members of Los Zetas who have attacked military convoys. 

In the port of Veracruz, the patrols of the Army, Navy and state police are frequent. 

But the "hawks", are also in the look out. 

Iranian-American used-car salesman who believed he was hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million.

 

The United States on Tuesday accused Iranian officials of plotting to murder Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States in a bizarre scheme involving an Iranian-American used-car salesman who believed he was hiring assassins from a Mexican drug cartel for $1.5 million. The alleged plot also included plans to pay the cartel, Los Zetas, to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina, according to a law enforcement official. The plotters also discussed a side deal between the Quds Force, part of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Los Zetas to funnel tons of opium from the Middle East to Mexico, the official said. * The plot evidently was discovered at a very early stage. One wonders: How? Through intercepts of phone conversations or emails? Eric Holder, widely believed to be a dead man walking in Washington as a result of Fast and Furious, was front and center at today’s news conference. Holder was a prominent critic of essentially everything the Bush administration did to discover and combat terrorist plots. It would be interesting to know whether the intelligence triumph that Holder celebrated today was yet another example of the wisdom of the Bush administration policies that Obama, Holder and their ilk endlessly demagogued before they found it expedient to adopt them. * One remembers liberal assurances, when a Republican administration was trying to keep us safe from terrorist attacks, that diverse anti-American groups could never cooperate. Democrats went so far as to claim that Shia and Sunni Muslims–who in fact work together in furtherance of terrorist plots all the time, as, to take just one example, when Iran supports Hamas–could never cooperate against America or our allies. Today, assuming the Obama administration is being truthful, we have the spectacle of Iran’s mullahcracy paying a Mexican drug cartel to carry out terrorist attacks. Do radical Muslims really care about technicalities like drug dealing when it comes time to advance their interests? Of course not! On the contrary, this plot represented an alliance of the world’s two major proponents of beheading. * Assuming that the administration’s account is correct, Iran had little doubt that a Mexican drug cartel would be able to get men and weapons across the border to carry out a terrorist attack in Washington. Presumably they were right. One wonders what it will take to get liberals to take border security seriously. If the Mexicans had blown up a D.C. restaurant and killed 100 Americans along with the Saudi ambassador, would liberals finally have started paying attention to the border? I doubt it. * One little detail has gotten lost in most reporting: The alleged plot also included plans to pay the cartel, Los Zetas, to bomb the Israeli Embassy in Washington and the Saudi and Israeli Embassies in Argentina, according to a law enforcement official.

To the School Community: Due to the great insecurity we are living, and since authorities are not giving teachers, parents, students and the community in general the sufficient security

• 

Parents and teachers hang up a banner on the gates of a school in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco, Mexico on Monday. The banner reads in Spanish "To the School Community: Due to the great insecurity we are living, and since authorities are not giving teachers, parents, students and the community in general the sufficient security, we have decided to continue the work stoppage until security conditions are more favorable."

Bernandino Hernandez/AP

Mexican kidnapping gang's leader arrested

 

The suspected leader of the Los Gitanos kidnapping gang, which operates across Mexico and abducted a number of businessmen, has been arrested, Nuevo Leon state officials said Tuesday. "Aaron Bosquez Montes, alias 'El Chico,' 28, was the leader of the Los Gitanos kidnapping gang and demanded ransoms that ranged from 20 million pesos ($1.5 million) to $4 million," Nuevo Leon Gov. Rodrigo Medina said. Bosquez Montes was arrested on Oct. 3 at the Mexico City international airport, Medina said. Twelve of the 15 members of the criminal organization, which had been collecting ransom payments for three years, have now been arrested, the governor said during an appearance at the Nuevo Leon State Investigations Agency, or AEI, headquarters. The gang staged at least nine kidnappings in Nuevo Leon, which is located in northern Mexico, reaping more than 52 million pesos (nearly $3.9 million) in ransom payments. Los Gitanos would conduct a "prior study of its victims" before kidnapping them, targeting "middle and upper class" businessmen and professionals, the governor said. The blow against the gang should "help us continue building confidence" among citizens, Medina said. Photographs of Bosquez Montes traveling overseas and recorded telephone conversations were released by officials. Authorities are asking victims of Los Gitanos to contact them and report the crimes. Kidnapping has become a widespread problem in Mexico in recent years, with gangs of different levels of sophistication targeting victims from various strata of society. In October 2010, Congress approved a bill that stiffens the penalties for kidnappers from 25 to 45 years behind bars when the victims are mutilated or if the criminals are retired or active-duty police officers, and from 40 to 70 years in prison if the victims are killed.

Spain health service chokes as austerity tightens

 

Medical suppliers haven't been paid for as much as two years, emergency rooms have been shut down and doctors in Catalonia have been told to accept a pay cut or 1,500 medical residents will lose their jobs. Spain's treasured public health care system has become the latest victim of the euro zone debt crisis. "We haven't been paid, but there's nothing we can do about it. We need the contracts, so we're just going to have to wait it out," said a representative for a cleaning company who did not want his or the firm's name used for fear of a backlash. The company, which says it is owed hundreds of millions of euros by the government of the Castilla-La Mancha region south of Madrid, is one of dozens of providers of everything from surgical swabs to disinfectants struggling to pay workers as Spain's regions delay payments to meet tight deficit targets. The debt-burdened autonomous regions' spending cuts are a tangible sign of the present and future pain as Spain works to meet ambitious deficit reduction goals pledged to the European Union in the midst of an economic downturn. Spain's political parties have kept their positions on the issue vague ahead of November 20 general elections, but even the most passionate defenders of the current system agree there is scope for cost savings and more efficiency. Spain's conservative opposition, the People's Party (PP), which is expected to win in November, will likely cut into social welfare programs the incumbent Socialists have left untouched. But even the Socialists now say they can find ways to reduce health spending without harming services. Examples include forcing car insurance firms to pay for the treatment of accident victims and sending foreign governments the bill when their citizens use Spanish hospitals. 900-DAY WAITS Multinational pharmaceutical firm Roche says the Castilla y Leon region north of Madrid is more than 900 days behind on its bills, which has raised fears here that the company could start withholding drugs for some hospitals as it did in Greece, which is fighting off bankruptcy. Spain's central government makes yearly transfers of income tax revenue to the country's 17 autonomous regions, which are in charge of administering health care and schools. But the regions are being forced to make drastic budget cuts after piling up debt during Spain's property boom, the collapse of which in 2008 sent the country into recession and unemployment soaring to more than 20 percent. As the regions squeeze spending wherever they can, what they owe to companies that provide health care services and products has risen 42 percent in a year to more than 4 billion euros, according to the Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology, known as Fenin. AT Kearney consultancy calculates the system's long-term deficit is 15 billion euros, a heavy burden for a government whose borrowing costs have soared in the euro zone debt crisis. Margarita Alfonsel, secretary general of Fenin, says small companies in her federation "are suffering to an alarming extent due to the liquidity squeeze." She said some will have to lay off staff or go into bankruptcy. The average number of days providers must wait for payment has risen in the past year to 415 days, from 285 days, she said. "It was unacceptable before. Now it's totally incomprehensible," said Joaquin del Rincon, Spanish representative of Boston Scientific, which provides medical and surgical instruments to Spanish hospitals. "We have to explain to our central offices that this is an ongoing problem in Spain made worse by the crisis," he said.

Possible Drug Connection Moroccan teenager found dead on a roadside in Marbella

 

The National Police have identified a body which was found on the hard shoulder of the road between the Nueva Andalucía area of Marbella and Ronda on Monday as that of a 15 year old Moroccan boy who has been named by his initials, T.A. Despite the identification from finger prints there is no report of a missing person. It’s thought that his body could have been thrown from a moving vehicle as it passed the access road to the La Quinta urbanisation. The body, which was dressed in sports gear, was removed from the scene for autopsy as the investigation continues to determine the exact cause of his death. However reports indicate that he had suffered shotgun wounds to the face.

British man mugged in La Línea

 

Local police in La Línea de la Concepción have reported that last Sunday they arrested three local men, 17 year old J.Z.B., 20 year old L.M.L.F. and 22 year old J.R.P. in connection with a robbery with violence. The police were patrolling the Calle Gibraltar in the town at 0630am close to a discotec, when they were approached by an 18 year old British man who told them that his father was being beaten up in the Princesa Sofía park. On their arrival at the scene they saw a 63 year old British man on the ground, with injuries to his face and body. They called the health services and were told by the victim how three youngsters had attacked him and stolen his mobile phone, passport and tobacco. Local police informed the National Police and a search of the area found the three in the Bellavista district. Once back at the police station the three are reported to have confessed and the stolen items were found in their pockets.

Four people arrested for murder of Finnish woman in Mijas

 

Four people have been arrested in connection with a murder committed on the Costa del Sol this summer, after a body was found on an isolated property in Mijas last week. It’s believed to be that of 19 year old Jenna Lepomaki, a woman from Finland who arrived in Fuengirola for a holiday in June and was reported missing the following month after she failed to return home to her family. DNA testing is to be carried out to confirm the identification. She is reported to have travelled to the Costa del Sol at the invitation of friends she met on line and who paid for the trip. El País indicates that it has now emerged that she placed a complaint with the Spanish Civil Guard while in Spain for the threats her friends made against her after she refused to act as a courier to smuggle cocaine back into Finland from Spain. Investigations in Finland led Spain’s National Police to the property in Mijas, owned by a Finnish man, where the body was found, partially dismembered, wrapped up in a sleeping bag which was half covered over in a mound of leaves. Part of a missing arm was found inside a barrel which was being used by workmen working on site to renovate the swimming pool. Four Finnish nationals have been arrested in connection with the murder. The man who owns the Mijas property is in custody as a suspected accessory and, in Finland, the two friends she was travelling with in Málaga have also been arrested, as well as the mother of one of the two.

Dead Moroccan dumped on Marbella roadside

 

BODY found on a Marbella roadside with shotgun wounds to the face has been identified as a 15-year-old Moroccan boy. The youngster was found near the La Quinta urbanisation on the Marbella to Ronda road on Monday, with reports indicating he had been thrown from a moving vehicle. An investigation is now underway, with an autopsy being held to determine the cause of death. Despite being identified by his fingerprints, there is no report of a missing person. It comes as four people have been arrested in connection with the murder of a Finnish woman whose partially dismembered body was found at a villa in Mijas. Jenna Lepomaki, 19, is thought to have been killed after refusing to help smuggle cocaine between Spain and Finland.

alleged members of an organized network trafficking with weapons and drugs were arrested in Granada.

All the detainees are Spanish and are aged between 35 and 45.

The operation began several months ago focused on locating illegal weapons which had allegedly been sold by the network. The police also found sophisticated cannabis greenhouses where more than 2,000 plants were seized. The electrical supply to the greenhouses had been obtained illegally.

Thirteen properties in Granada province were searched, and more than €130,000 in cash, as well as 14 firearms, ammunition, and four high range vehicles were seized.

Polish woman arrested in Marbella for murder

 

POLISH woman was arrested in Marbella for her alleged involvement in a murder in Valencia in August 2009. The victim was Djordje Kenecevic, who was shot and burned inside his car in Almussafes (Valencia). The 49-year-old woman, identified as Danuta G.K. but also known as Renate B. and other identities, was arrested on the Palm Beach urbanization in Marbella. She had been identified as a suspect some months ago but was only located in Malaga last week after using one of her false identities to travel within Europe. She is a known drug smuggler and was wanted by the German authorities, according to press reports. She was set free with charges of covering up the murder, but later taken to prison under the orders of the National Court as there is also a request for extradition to Germany. The extradition process will have to wait, as the crime which she will have to respond for in Spain is more serious and carries a longer sentence. Djordje Kenecevic is believed to have been killed by members of the gang he belonged to. Most of them, like him, were sailors who took advantage of their work with Europe’s main shipping company to transport packages with up to five kilos of cocaine between European ports. The detainee is considered to have been one of the leaders of the organization, and is the second person arrested in this case.