Money Laundering In The Colony Of Puerto Rico

[ricardocerromar]

There is “Money Laundering” going on in the colony of Puerto Rico by the colonialists of the Popular Democratic Party who favor ELA (The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico) and Congressman Robert Menendez is threatening to cancel or void the forthcoming plebiscite in August of 2012, where Puerto Ricans will decide their political status. Puerto Rico is actually a colony of the U.S. since 1898. The colony of Puerto Rico receives 22 Billion U.S. tax free dollars annually from American Taxpayers even when many of these Taxpayers are losing their homes and cars to the banks because of financial hardship. As you may know, Congressman Menendez is in dire need of at least $ 20 Million dollars for his political campaign for re election. According to many accounts, Mr. Menendez is willing to cancel the plebiscite in order for Puerto Rico to remain a colony of the U.S. if he receives payback from the colonialists, meaning that the U.S. Taxpayers will continue to support a colony in the Caribbean because Mr. Menendez is in urgent need of money for his campaign and he is willing let his constituents continue to pay to maintain a colony even though they are going through hard times. It is up to you to protest against Mr. Menendez’s actions in this respect.
Ricardo Marrero
Rio Grande, Puerto Rico

 

[waltky]

The next narco-haven?...

Is Puerto Rico becoming a narco-state?
December 16, 2011 : The island's murder rate, which will likely set a record this year, and a police force that a top official at the US Justice Department called 'one of the worst I've seen' both fit the definition of a narco-state.

With over 1,000 murders in Puerto Rico this year, some commentators have warned that the US territory is on the verge of becoming a "narco-state" that has been infiltrated by the drug trade. Amid this record high in homicides and lagging police reform, a recent article in the Puerto Rican newspaper El Nuevo Dia said that the US territory is on the verge of becoming a "narco-state." The article lists 15 characteristics of narco-states, as defined by the United Nations, and concludes that 12 of them apply to Puerto Rico. There is good reason for concern about Puerto Rico. The island is set to record the highest murder rate on record, beating the previous highest, which was 1994. In September, a top official at the US Justice Department called Puerto Rico's police force "one of the worst I've seen."

But not only is El Nuevo Dia playing fast and loose with the definition of a narco-state, it is blowing Puerto Rico's crime problem out of proportion. It's true that police suffer widespread corruption in their ranks, but not that drug traffickers have infiltrated state forces so deeply that they are dictating policy and openly backing politicians. Suriname is a good example of such a scenario, as is Colombia in the early 1990s. State institutions in Guatemala and Honduras, for example, have been supplanted by drug cartels to a far more serious degree than Puerto Rico.

It is a mistake to think that this recent surge of homicides in Puerto Rico came out of nowhere. Murder rates, which held steady at about 19 per 100,000 inhabitants since 1980, began to climb steadily after 2005. The third most violent year on record came in 2009, prompting Governor Luis Fortuno to deploy the National Guard on the streets. The current murder rate hovers at about 26 per 100,000, more than five times that of the US. Puerto Rico's high homicide rate is typically blamed on the fact that it has 270 miles of coastline and is nestled strategically between the US and the drug producing countries of South America. But there is little evidence that 2011's record wave of violence is because more drugs are passing through Puerto Rico northwards. Even the US Justice Department says that the "overall drug threat" to the island has "remained relatively consistent" in recent years.

The big change has to do with the island's domestic drug trade. Since two of Puerto Rico's most powerful drug traffickers, Angel Ayala Vasquez and Jose Figueroa Agosoto, were arrested in 2009 and 2010 respectively, their organizations have splintered. The instability means that it has become more important to control domestic distribution spots. As most of those places, known as "puntos," are based in the country's 332 public housing projects, this means the local gangs dedicated to protecting their punto have more incentive to respond aggressively to threats.

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[waltky]

Hezbollah & drug cartels money laundering scheme exposed...

US targets money laundering activity for drug cartels
Sat, Dec 31, 2011 - US President Barack Obama’s administration said that it was hitting two Lebanese-Colombian men and dozens of companies they run with sanctions for allegedly laundering money on behalf of Mexican and Colombian drug cartels.

Officials said on Thursday that one of the companies was tied to an alleged drug kingpin who has been accused of running a money-laundering scheme on behalf of the militant group Hezbollah. The move blocks any assets in the US belonging to Lebanese-Colombian nationals Jorge Fadlallah Cheaitelly and Mohammed Zouheir El Khansa, and blocks Americans from doing business with them. Panamanian and Colombian authorities did not immediately return calls seeking comment.

The US Treasury Department said Cheaitelly leads a Panama-based drug trafficking and money laundering organization with operations as far as Hong Kong. El Khansa is seen as a key partner. The department also applied sanctions to nine people with ties to the men, and 28 entities in Colombia, Panama, Lebanon and Hong Kong.

The companies placed under US sanction include electronics stores, luggage outlets and several money-exchange businesses. Office of Foreign Assets Control Director Adam Szubin said the US was forcing a major money laundering network out of the international financial system, undermining its ability to help the cartels.

According to the Treasury Department, Cheaitelly has ties with Ayman Joumaa, who has been indicted in US federal court on charges of leading a drug conspiracy that provided income for Hezbollah, which has been designated by the US State Department as a terrorist organization since 1997. The Drug Enforcement Administration has alleged that Joumaa’s organization laundered money using 50 used car lots in the US. Cars were exported to Lebanon and West Africa.

Source

 

[waltky]

DEA helpin' cartels with their drug profits...

US Agents Helped Drug Traffickers Launder Millions
Tue Jan 10, 2012 - Mexico's government allowed a group of undercover U.S. anti-drug agents and their Colombian informant to launder millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday.

The Mexican magazine Emeequis published portions of documents that describe how Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a Colombian trafficker-turned-informant and Mexican federal police officers in 2007 infiltrated the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia's Valle del Norte cartel in Mexico. The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in the United States, Canada and China and smuggled and laundered about $2.5 million in the United States. They lost track of much of that money. In his testimony, the DEA agent in charge of the operation says DEA agents posing as pilots flew at least one shipment of cocaine from Ecuador to Madrid through a Dallas airport.

The documents are part of an extradition order against Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, a Colombian arrested in Mexico in 2010 on charges of supplying cocaine to Arturo Beltran Leyva. A year earlier, Beltran Leyva was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in the city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City. The documents show Mexico approved Poveda-Ortega's extradition to the United States in May, but neither Mexican nor U.S. authorities would confirm whether he has been extradited. Mexican authorities listed his first name as "Haroldo." In a statement issued late Monday, Mexico's Attorney General's Office said it cooperates with the United States in combatting money laundering and said the Poveda-Ortega case, like others of its kind, "are carried out strictly within the legal framework."

While the statement said that "coordinated money laundering investigations are carried out exclusively by Mexican authorities," it also noted that "sometimes, these investigations require specialized techniques to detect money laundering, which each agency carries out within its own jurisdiction." U.S. officials did not respond to requests for comment. The documents offer rare glimpses into the way U.S. anti-drug agents are operating in Mexico, an often sensitive subject in a country touchy about national sovereignty. On one occasion, the informant who began working for the DEA in 2003 after a drug arrest met with the girlfriend of a Colombian drug trafficker in Dallas and offered to move cocaine for their group around the world for $1,000 per kilo. In a follow-up meeting, the informant introduced the woman to a DEA agent posing as a pilot. The woman is identified as the girlfriend of Horley Rengifo Pareja, who was detained in 2007 accused of laundering money and drug trafficking.

Another scene described the informant negotiating a deal to move a cocaine shipment from Ecuador to Spain and minutes later being taken to a house where he met with Arturo Beltran Leyva. Beltran Leyva was once a top lieutenant for the Sinaloa drug cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. But he split from the cartel shortly after his brother was arrested in 2008, setting off a bloody battle between the former allies. Fractured cartels have led to an increase of drug violence in Mexico. According to several counts more than 45,000 people have been killed since late 2006, though the government stopped giving figures on drug war dead when the toll hit nearly 35,000 a year ago. On Monday, police in western Mexico found the bodies of 13 men at a gas station in the state of Michoacan.

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