Mexican drug cartels outsourcin' meth production to Malaysia

waltky

Wise ol' monkey
Feb 6, 2011
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Okolona, KY
Looks like Mexican drug cartels outsourcin' their meth production...
:confused:
Mexicans busted for making meth — in Malaysia
4/24/2011 - Men allegedly worked in a factory where police found $15 million in methamphetamine
From age 6, each of the Gonzalez brothers learned to make bricks, trudging like nine little chicks behind their father every day before dawn to work in his dusty hilltop brickyard. Three years ago, three of them in their 30s and 40s quit the backbreaking work, saying they had a better opportunity abroad. Now, having escaped the Mexican drug war that leaves dead bodies on the streets of their city of Culiacan almost daily, the brothers face the gallows in Malaysia, standing trial on Wednesday for allegedly working in a factory where police found $15 million in methamphetamine. If convicted, they face Malaysia's mandatory sentence of death by hanging for drug trafficking.

The case raises questions about a connection between their home state, Sinaloa, the cradle of Mexico's drug trade, and a country more than 15,000 kilometers (some 10,000 miles) away that is a regional production hub for meth. While authorities say there is no direct evidence to tie the Sinaloa cartel, Mexico's most powerful, to meth production in Asia, they wouldn't be surprised by such a link. "If you look at trends, then you see that these organizations are fanning out," said a U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico who couldn't be named for security reasons. "They are popping up everywhere."

Only a month after leaving Mexico, the brothers — Jose Regino, 33, Luis Alfonso, 43 and Simon Gonzalez, 36 — called home during a family birthday party. Their relatives thought they were calling with congratulations. Instead the brothers told them they were under arrest. The family hung up stunned, and searched for Malaysia on their globe. "If I had been asked to go I would not have gone," brother Ismael Gonzalez said as he dragged a wheelbarrow filled with dark clay at the brick yard, his bare feet caked in mud. "I say they had no idea what they were getting into."

Malaysia has increasingly become a regional production hub for methamphetamine production, according to the U.S. State Department 2011 International Narcotics Control report. Most labs so far have been financed or operated by Singaporean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Thai or Iranian traffickers. Mexican drug cartels have long-standing ties with Asian suppliers to obtain methamphetamine precursor chemicals, but they have not been known to be involved in production in that part of the world. U.S. officials, however, suspect the Sinaloa gang is seeking market share in Asia.

More Mexicans busted for making meth
 

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