According to a recent Google News piece, this increase in crime has motivated Gov. Luis Fortuno to deploy National Guard troops to give local police the power they need to restore peace. This can seem like a contradiction, given ambivalence toward American troops, yet Puerto Ricans are desperate for a change.

One National Guardsman is manning a checkpoint in Puerto Rico and he equates it to being back in Iraq, save for the lush green surroundings and the lack of respect demonstrated by criminals. He noted that in Iraq, enemies are certainly trying to kill you, but will cooperate once captured. Those captured in Puerto Rico demonstrate a much different disposition.

Soldiers were initially dispatched to San Juan and other high-crime metropolitan areas. They were then sent to the mountains at the request of local mayors who were dealing with rising crime in their normally peaceful areas. Puerto Rico as a whole is on track once again for a bloody year.

In 2009, the island had 894 slain. By comparison, New York City has twice the population and only had 466 slain in the same year. Much of this violence is blamed on gangs who are battling over control of the cocaine and heroin trades. This island serves as a major transshipment point for those drugs that are bound for the United States.
 

A recent LA Times report examines two sides to the story. On the one hand, Arizona governor Jan Brewer (a Republican) is calling her state the gateway to America for any activities involving drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping and crime. Her predecessor (and Democrat) Janet Napolitano is now in charge of the country’s homeland security. She claims the state is just as secure as it has ever been.

The ongoing battle over border security is split down party sides. Republicans will not support any immigration bill unless the border comes under control. The current administration highlights U.S. border city crime is down, as well as illegal border crossings. Which side has more merit?

One senior senate aide was quoted as saying the aggregate crime statistics remain stable along the border. The challenge, however, is that a lot of crime on the border is not being reported, which means officials statistics cannot tell the whole story.

Last month, the administration agreed to dispatch 1,200 National Guard troops to the border and sought an additional $500 million for enforcement. Republicans from southern states, however, argue that this effort is barely enough.

The biggest problem is this issue of immigration and the impact it has on Americans in terms of drug trafficking and violence should not be a party issue at all, but one that all U.S. citizens should want to eliminate.

In all the arguments, however, neither party addressed the fact that the bigger issue is the demand for drugs in the U.S. that is driving the problem in the first place.

"The southern border is not only not secure, there’s a war in Mexico that’s bleeding over to America," Graham lectured Napolitano at one recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.

Napolitano, in an interview, expressed frustration about the Republicans’ singular focus on border security.

"Their position has evolved to be, we don’t even want to talk about immigration reform unless you secure — read: seal — the border," she said.
 

Over the course of 15 months, the Santana Drug Trafficking Organization was based in Reading and trafficked large amounts of drugs from such places as New York City. The location of Reading on the Route 222 Corridor made it a perfect location for drug traffickers, according to authorities.

One official was quick to highlight that drug traffickers, such as those within the Santana Drug Trafficking Organization, seriously miscalculated that they could operate without ever getting noticed. As a result, they sold drugs without fear and conducted a rather large business before it was broken apart in the raid.

The suspects involved in this raid worked to disguise the ring, packaging drugs at various locations. They also used cell phones and coded language in an effort to evade law enforcement.

Steven Santana, Jr., the prime suspect in the case, is set to spend at least 25 years in prison. The remaining suspects each face a minimum of 20 years to life behind bars. All individuals in the case could be fined $62 million as a result of their crimes.

Janice K. Fedarcyk, Special Agent in Charge of the Philadelphia Division of the FBI, noted that such drug investigations are designed to rid communities of criminal predators that destroy the safety and security of the area. They are also meant to send a clear message to law breakers that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are working together to bring them down.

According to a report by the AP, Guinea-Bissau had enjoyed relief from trafficking after international attention focused on the area and helped to bring trainers in to help police in the country better deal with the drug problem.

A number of uninhabited islands serve as convenient depots for South American drugs that transit through the country each year on their way to Europe. This practice was estimated to be valued at more than $1 billion in 2009.

"The drug trafficking has resumed again" in the country, reported Alexandre Schmidt, West Africa regional representative for the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime to the AP.

This problem is worth close attention as in this particular country, money emboldens military officers who have long been in the habit of removing elected leaders. The assassinations of the president and the head of the armed forces last year have barely been investigated.

Even amongst the chaos of the most recent coup attempt, the international community is helping to train judicial police officers to investigate the trafficking. While the size of the force will double to 160 officers, their reach is still limited to the capital and traffickers are able to conduct most of their business without detection.

According to a spokesman for the Ministry of Interior, 125 drug traffickers of various nationalities have been arrested with heroin, hashish and Captagon tablets during the period between mid-March and mid-May this year.
“This number includes 76 Saudis, 16 Yemenis, nine Pakistanis, four Syrians, four Iraqis, three Sudanese, three Egyptians, three Turks, two Omanis, one Kuwaiti, one Somali, one Eritrean, one Ethiopian and one Bangladeshi,” the spokesman told Saudi Press Agency.

“In several preemptive operations, 22 Saudis, 11 Yemenis, three Turks, two Omanis, two Syrians, a Somali, a Bangladeshi and an Eritrean were arrested while delivering drugs to drug pushers in the Kingdom. We also managed to seize over 3.5 million amphetamine tablets and around 1.5 tons of hashish in those raids,” the spokesman said.

He also noted that the smuggled amphetamine tablets were actually hidden in heavy equipment, wooden floor cavities, vehicles and imported basalt stones. Most of the hashish was seized out at sea and at the Kingdom’s borders.

The spokesman said that Saudi forces foiled attempts to smuggle 4.3 tons of hashish by foreigners from abroad. Trained animals have been used by some of these traffickers. In these attempts, four Iraqis, a Saudi and a Sudanese have been arrested.

In many of these situations, security men faced stiff resistance. The spokesman noted that there were eight incidents of armed resistance, resulting in a policeman and six drug smugglers being injured.

As this type of money transferring goes on, it eludes detection and continues to fund vast criminal operations. The study attempts to explore the ways in which illicit drug-trafficking profits make their way from the United States to Mexico or Columbia in an effort to determine how best to interrupt the process.

One of the major flaws often cited in the offensive against cartels is the failure or inability of the Mexican government to pierce intricate money-laundering operations. President Felipe Calderon launched the offensive when he took office in December 2006.

John Morton, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant secretary, acknowledged that the U.S. and Mexican governments have not done enough to slow the consistent flow of dirty money.

"Simply arresting people won’t be a full solution," Morton said. "We have to completely undermine the organizations as businesses, and to do this we have to identify, seize and forfeit their profits."

According to this study, the cash brought into Mexico is contained in amounts small enough for an individual to carry and in large amounts big enough to fill shipping containers. Local dealing operations gather their revenue, which is then consolidated in cities that serve as “collection points” before they are moved to the border and broken up for cross-border transport.

In Mexico, 75 percent of the formal and informal economy works through cash transactions, enabling cartel bosses to launder their profits with all-cash purchases or large transactions of land, luxury hotels, car dealerships and more without detection.
 

United States federal authorities have named Coke one of the world’s biggest narcotics traffickers. According to a grand jury indictment out of the U.S. district court in New York City, Coke has trafficked in marijuana, cocaine and weapons since the 1990s. Golding’s Minister of Justice, however, never signed the extradition papers, citing illegally obtained evidence.

According to news stations in the area, downtown businesses shuttered their doors in fear of widespread violence when rumors swept through Kingston that Golding had approved the extradition request. CVM News reported that streets were jammed with traffic as residents fled downtown.

“This has consumed too much of our energy, and led to paralysis that must be broken,” Golding said in a late-night televised apology to the nation. “I regret the entire affair.”

Coke is the alleged leader of the “Shower Posse” gang, which rules an inner city neighborhood called Tivoli Gardens, an area that Golding represents in Parliament. Coke has close ties to the ruling Labor Party, is supported by the neighborhood and is credited for keeping peace in the area.

“The prime minister has yielded to considerable political pressure brought upon him by the American government and press,” said Miami lawyer David Rowe, who has represented Jamaican drug dons. “Jamaica must renounce violent crime and narcotics trafficking if it is to re-enter the international community of nations. Cocaine and guns are not a future for Jamaica’s youth.”
 

Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid is also charged with laundering millions of dollars through the now bankrupt Lehman Brothers investment firm. This successful extradition is a major catch for U.S. law enforcement, while it also targets the corrupt political system in Mexico.

According to John P. Gilbride, special agent-in-charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, Villanueva Madrid “abused the trust placed in him by the citizens of Quintana Roo when he facilitated drug trafficking and money laundering across international borders.”

Villanueva Madrid was once a powerful player who held court along the fabled Riveria Maya. Now 61 years old and known in Mexico as “El Chueco” or the “Crooked One”, he has been charged with accepting a total of $19 million in bribes, or as much as $500,000 for each time he had his police and government staff allow cartel smugglers to move Columbian cocaine on speedboats and tanker trucks from the beach ports into the United States.

The former political leader has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail. His capture and removal from Mexico is expected to put a dent in the workings of the Juarez Cartel, which has for two decades been one of the country’s most violent drug smuggling organizations, specializing in Colombian cocaine.
 

The two powerful countries have been accused of launching biological warfare on poppy fields in Afghanistan in an effort to hinder the opium crop. This accusation stems from a mysterious disease that has emerged on a number of poppy plants in the country that is leaving them yellow and withered and limits the amount of opium resin that can be sold and processed into heroin.

Some farmers have reported a drop in yields as high as 90 percent and are pointing the finger. Officials in both countries strongly deny any involvement in the situation.

Early assessments of the situation show half the crop in northern Helmand is affected, while a fifth of the fields in the province’s south have been impacted as well. Symptoms have also been spotted in Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan.

Afghanistan grows roughly 90 percent of the world’s opium and according to the United Nations this disease will contribute to a significant drop in the opium harvest. To date, allies have spent billions of dollars trying to cut opium cultivation, but rejected crop spraying as an option due to fears that they would be robbing farmers of their livelihood and create additional opposition.

Anti-drug strategies led by the British have included attempts to wean farmers from opium and on to other crops, such as wheat, saffron and fruit. The British are now fighting these most recent accusations as they fear the Taliban will use such rumors to alienate farmers from Nato troops.

The accused has been identified as Abdoulaye Coulibaly. Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) officials caught Coulibaly near the departure gate of IGI’s terminal 1D just minutes before his Spicejet flight was set to take off for Hyperabad. Coulibaly was already issued a boarding pass for the flight, but was subdued before it left the gate.

CISF sleuths brought Coulibaly to the terminal and subjected him to a thorough checking. He was found to have hidden the contraband in a music system he was carrying, according to officials commenting on the case. The total heroin is worth more than $1.1 million dollars.

Coulibaly’s travel plans would have included reaching Hyderabad and then traveling on to Dubai. Officials noted he also had a ticket to fly to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia from Dubai on Sunday. According to officials in the area, this is a new drug trafficking route recently discovered. Officials are now investigating whether or not Coulibaly had smuggled drugs through this route earlier as well.

Now that this route has been identified as a key focus for cartels, closer monitoring and investigations are likely. Drug traffickers will either become more skilled at concealing themselves and their activities or find others means by which to travel.