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US IL: Customs Cops Tipped Drug Ring: U.S.
URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v04/n1481/a10.html
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Votes: 0
Pubdate: Wed, 20 Oct 2004
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2004 The Sun-Times Co.
Contact: letters@suntimes.com
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Natasha Korecki, Staff Reporter
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)
CUSTOMS COPS TIPPED DRUG RING: U.S.
Two Midway Airport customs officers were accused Tuesday of giving out
confidential computer data to dealers of an international drug ring,
including details on whether the feds were tailing them.
Federal prosecutors say the two used their positions at Midway -- and
previously at O'Hare Airport and other locations -- to access private
databases and tip off drug cell leaders who allegedly smuggled cocaine,
marijuana and heroin from Mexico and distributed the drugs in Los Angeles,
Texas and Chicago.
The agents were charged along with 18 others in a complaint unsealed
Tuesday. Eleven people were arrested in Chicago, four in Colorado and
California; five others are still fugitives.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer Jaime Garcia, 27, of the 4600
block of South Laflin in Chicago was arrested at Midway Airport Monday
night, and the second officer, Alma Teran, 28 of the 3800 block of South
Honore in Chicago, was picked up at her home Tuesday morning.
At one point in the investigation, authorities seized $330,000 in cash from
Garcia's home, according to a criminal complaint. The feds later tapped
phones to capture conversations between drug dealers and Teran or Garcia.
Teran and Garcia appeared in court Tuesday, along with the other suspects,
where they were told what they were charged with and later released. Teran,
wearing a white T-shirt with "Madd Dog" written on the back, dabbed tears
from her eyes as prosecutors outlined the charges. Garcia sat in the jury
box with his hands clasped over his face.
Elissa Brown, special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, said Teran and Garcia cleared criminal background checks when
they were hired in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Both previously worked at
O'Hare Airport.
The two are now on paid leave from posts that earned between $30,000 to
$50,000. If they are indicted by a grand jury they will be fired, Brown
said.
If convicted, all charged face 10-year minimum sentences without parole and
maximum of life in prison.
Forty times from 2003 to 2004, Garcia accessed confidential information from
the Treasury Enforcement Computer System, a confidential government
database; Teran called up privileged information from the National Crime
Information Center about 12 times this year.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Meza said members of the drug organization
asked Teran and Garcia to run their names and addresses to see if they were
being investigated. Garcia also ran his own name and address.
Garcia allegedly had frequent contact with Jose Urena, 28, and Lino Iniguez,
37, who were also charged and accused of being the leaders of the Chicago
drug cell. Iniguez remains a fugitive.
Meza said it is still unclear what Garcia and Teran got in exchange for
their help.
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald called the alleged involvement of customs
agents "disturbing," but said their arrests send a message to others.
"People working in sensitive law enforcement positions need to see that the
[government] will go after this and that people will be in handcuffs, led
away from work and face life imprisonment and 10-year mandatory minimums,"
Fitzgerald said.
From the Chicago faction of the organization, the government seized four
guns, 140 kilos of cocaine -- with a street value of about $3 million -- a
kilo of heroin, three tons of marijuana and more than $350,000.
The investigation started with a 2003 rural traffic stop in Texas, which led
to wiretaps in Los Angeles and Chicago, said Richard Sanders, special agent
in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"It is a major seizure and a big blow to the cell that we investigated
here," Sanders said.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake
***********************
Mark
Sign on my front door
___________________________
Notice posted.
This is not a peanut free zone!
The use of adult beverages, tobacco products, sugar,
salt, caffeine, high fat foods and firearms (when necessary)
is encouraged on these premises.
Jack-booted government thugs without warrants
will be shot upon entry.
Have a nice day :-)
____________________________
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Karl Rove's White House " Murder, Inc."
By Wayne Madsen .
Online Journal Contributing Writer .
OCT, 2004- On September 15, 2001, just four days after the 9-11 attacks,
CIA Director George Tenet provided President [sic] Bush with a Top Secret
"Worldwide Attack Matrix"-a virtual license to kill targets deemed to be a
threat to the United States in some 80 countries around the world. The Tenet
plan, which was subsequently approved by Bush, essentially reversed the
executive orders of four previous U.S. administrations that expressly
prohibited political assassinations.
According to high level European intelligence officials, Bush's counselor,
Karl Rove, used the new presidential authority to silence a popular Lebanese
Christian politician who was planning to offer irrefutable evidence that
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon authorized the massacre of hundreds of
Palestinian men, women, and children in the Beirut refugee camps of Sabra
and Shatilla in 1982. In addition, Sharon provided the Lebanese forces who
carried out the grisly task. At the time of the massacres, Elie Hobeika was
intelligence chief of Lebanese Christian forces in Lebanon who were battling
Palestinians and other Muslim groups in a bloody civil war. He was also the
chief liaison to Israeli Defense Force (IDF) personnel in Lebanon. An
official Israeli inquiry into the massacre at the camps, the Kahan
Commission, merely found Sharon "indirectly" responsible for the slaughter
and fingered Hobeika as the chief instigator.
The Kahan Commission never called on Hobeika to offer testimony in his
defense. However, in response to charges brought against Sharon before a
special war crimes court in Belgium, Hobeika was urged to testify against
Sharon, according to well-informed Lebanese sources. Hobeika was prepared to
offer a different version of events than what was contained in the Kahan
report. A 1993 Belgian law permitting human rights prosecutions was unusual
in that non-Belgians could be tried for violations against other
non-Belgians in a Belgian court. Under pressure from the Bush
administration, the law was severely amended and the extra territoriality
provisions were curtailed.
Hobeika headed the Lebanese forces intelligence agency since the mid- 1970s
and he soon developed close ties to the CIA. He was a frequent visitor to
the CIA's headquarters at Langley, Virginia. After the Syrian invasion of
Lebanon in 1990, Hobeika held a number of cabinet positions in the Lebanese
government, a proxy for the Syrian occupation authorities. He also served in
the parliament. In July 2001, Hobeika called a press conference and
announced he was prepared to testify against Sharon in Belgium and revealed
that he had evidence of what actually occurred in Sabra and Shatilla.
Hobeika also indicated that Israel had flown members of the South Lebanon
Army (SLA) into Beirut International Airport in an Israeli Air Force C130
transport plane. In full view of dozens of witnesses, including members of
the Lebanese army and others, SLA troops under the command of Major Saad
Haddad were slipped into the camps to commit the massacres. The SLA troops
were under the direct command of Ariel Sharon and an Israeli Mossad agent
provocateur named Rafi Eitan. Hobeika offered evidence that a former U.S.
ambassador to Lebanon was aware of the Israeli plot. In addition, the IDF
had placed a camera in a strategic position to film the Sabra and Shatilla
massacres. Hobeika was going to ask that the footage be released as part of
the investigation of Sharon.
After announcing he was willing to testify against Sharon, Hobeika became
fearful for his safety and began moves to leave Lebanon. Hobeika was not
aware that his threats to testify against Sharon had triggered a series of
fateful events that reached well into the White House and Sharon's office.
On January 24, 2002, Hobeika's car was blown up by a remote controlled bomb
placed in a parked Mercedes along a street in the Hazmieh section of Beirut.
The bomb exploded when Hobeika and his three associates, Fares Souweidan,
Mitri Ajram, and Waleed Zein, were driving their Range Rover past the
TNT-laden Mercedes at 9:40 am Beirut time. The Range Rover's four passengers
were killed in the explosion. In case Hobeika's car had taken another route
through the neighborhood, two additional parked cars, located at two other
choke points, were also rigged with TNT. The powerful bomb wounded a number
of other people on the street. Other parked cars were destroyed and
buildings and homes were damaged. The Lebanese president, prime minister,
and interior minister all claimed that Israeli agents were behind the
attack.
It is noteworthy that the State Department's list of global terrorist
incidents for 2002 worldwide failed to list the car bombing attack on
Hobeika and his party. The White House wanted to ensure the attack was
censored from the report. The reason was simple: the attack ultimately had
Washington's fingerprints on it.
High level European intelligence sources now report that Karl Rove
personally coordinated Hobeika's assassination. The hit on Hobeika employed
Syrian intelligence agents. Syrian President Bashar Assad was trying to
curry favor with the Bush administration in the aftermath of 9-11 and was
more than willing to help the White House. In addition, Assad's father,
Hafez Assad, had been an ally of Bush's father during Desert Storm, a period
that saw Washington give a "wink and a nod" to Syria's occupation of
Lebanon. Rove wanted to help Sharon avoid any political embarrassment from
an in absentia trial in Brussels where Hobeika would be a star witness. Rove
and Sharon agreed on the plan to use Syrian Military Intelligence agents to
assassinate Hobeika. Rove saw Sharon as an indispensable ally of Bush in
ensuring the loyalty of the Christian evangelical and Jewish voting blocs in
the United States. Sharon saw the plan to have the United States coordinate
the hit as a way to mask all connections to Jerusalem.
The Syrian hit team was ordered by Assef Shawkat, the number two man in
Syrian military intelligence and a good friend and brother in law of Syrian
President Bashar Assad. Assad's intelligence services had already cooperated
with U.S. intelligence in resorting to unconventional methods to extract
information from al Qaeda detainees deported to Syria from the United States
and other countries in the wake of 9-11. The order to take out Hobeika was
transmitted by Shawkat to Roustom Ghazali, the head of Syrian military
intelligence in Beirut. Ghazali arranged for the three remote controlled
cars to be parked along Hobeika's route in Hazmieh; only few hundred yards
from the Barracks of Syrian Special Forces which are stationed in the area
near the Presidential palace , the ministry of Defense and various
Government and officers quarters . This particular area is covered 24/
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