BROWNSVILLE, Texas – The Gulf Cartel made $38 million smuggling illegal aliens during last year’s immigration surge, taking advantage of the situation to smuggle tons of drugs with little intervention by authorities. The quantification of the cartel’s involvement was made in a report by the top law enforcement agency in Texas.
As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) had prepared the report to inform lawmakers about the border surge, the potential for terrorists, and the funding needs of the agency. The report had initially been leaked by the Houston Chronicle; however that publication mainly focused on the cost of having an increased number of troopers in South Texas instead of the scores of criminal activities listed in it.
Emilio Parodi writes: Beyond nice wines, warm beaches, and sultry women, Italy is well-known for something less savory — the mafia. It is interesting to understand how such a powerful “machine” managed to enter society in such a strong and meaningful way, but more importantly to grasp its role alongside the central government of Italy. On the one hand, it is easy to state that the mafia and the corrupt economic system it functions within are wrong and unproductive for the country. On the other hand its presence may be of help to a country’s economy, something that is especially true in the case of Italy.
Russian president Vladimir Putin and his long-time ally Victor Ivanov, who is currently head of Russia’s narcotics agency, have been implicated in helping run a drug smuggling and money laundering ring in St Petersburg in the 1990s. The allegations were made by ex-KGB officer Yuri Shvets who spoke at the inquiry into the death Alexander Litvinenko yesterday.
Shvets testified in front of Ben Emmerson QC, expanding on a report he had compiled with fellow ex-Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, a few months prior to the latter’s death from polonium poisoning.
How can a citizen expect to have fair treatment by government if local attorneys get away with aiding in the alleged corruption of public agencies? I was asked this question by a resident of Idaho Falls, Idaho, who is currently being sued by a collection agency engaged in collection efforts — even though they were not licensed (a felony under Idaho law?) — against him.
WASHINGTON — A sophisticated IRS impostor scam has become so widespread that ruthless criminals even tried to bilk the top US tax fraud investigator out of money.
“I myself received one of these calls at my home on a Saturday,” Timothy Camus, deputy Treasury inspector general for tax administration, told a Senate panel Thursday.
DirecTV has been charged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) for misleading customers. The advertising in question was DirecTV’s 12-month discount package. The plan was advertised as costing only $19.95, but obscured from customers was the fact that a 2-year contract was needed to get deal. Even more astounding is that the FTC alleges that DirecTV charged customers for premium channels after a 3-month trial period, and DirecTV never told customers that they needed to cancel these channels in order to avoid being charged automatically.
Federal and state regulators are demanding the resignation of several employees at a German bank, along with a $1.45 billion penalty for helping countries avoid U.S. sanctions.
Regulators charged that Commerzbank “turned a blind eye” when it came to money laundering, helping countries like Iran, Sudan and Burma dodge economic sanctions, as well as aiding a Japanese company engaged in accounting fraud.
Editor’s note: This article is part two of a series. Part one is here.
In his book America on Six Rubles a Day, Yakov Smirnoff wrote that in Soviet Russia, they didn’t report plane crashes. They would instead build an airfield around the crash site and announce that the plane landed ahead of schedule. A more subtle approach is to make one doubt his own judgment with a rapid succession of simultaneous contradictory narratives, even if they merely project the Kremlin’s own methods.
Appearing as equal dots on the public radar, all these nonsensical chaff theories begin to compete for equal space and attention with the objective reality. For as long as the mystery continues, manufactured absurdities will be debated on equal terms with facts, trivializing the crime, dishonoring the victim, eroding the public trust, and minimizing the moral and emotional impact.
NEWARK, N.J. – (AP) — Federal prosecutors on Thursday announced the arrest of 10 members and associates of the DeCavalcante organized crime family, which has long been thought to be the real-life inspiration for HBO’s “The Sopranos.”
They’re listed on the criminal complaint with nicknames like “Knuckles” and “Whitey,” and they’re accused of plotting to commit murder, distribute drugs and promote prostitution.
