In a coordinated effort that crossed some 16 states, US law enforcement officials arrested 429 individuals Wednesday, all of whom are accused of participating in “smuggling and transportation networks” run by Mexican drug cartels. Speaking to reporters Thursday, US Attorney General Eric Holder called the raids a “very significant blow” to the capacity drug traffickers working within the United States. According to the New York Times, Holder also labeled the sting the “most extensive and successful” ever. And beyond the arrests made, the paper says $5.8 million in cash was seized along with 2,951 pounds of marijuana, 247 pounds of cocaine, 17 pounds of methamphetamine, 141 weapons and 85 vehicles.
The Washington Post’s coverage of the event, the apparent capstone of a 22-month inter-agency/cross-border investigation (“Project Deliverance”), adds that 2,200 individuals have been arrested in the US over the last two years, as part of the operation – among them Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, a notorious heroin trafficker from Sinaloa who was detained by Mexican authorities in late May [The LA Times says Castro Rocha’s extradition to Arizona is pending. He faces $4 million in fines and a life sentence.] Wednesday’s mass raids also included 15 people in the Washington, DC area, “charged with running a cocaine trafficking network that funneled drugs from Mexico to Virginia and three other states.”
Meanwhile, in Mexico Thursday, security forces announced the arrest of an important Zetas leader, Hector Raul Luna Luna. Luna Luna was detained in the city of Monterrey by Mexican security forces. But “in response, writes the BBC, “gunmen hijacked cars and temporarily set up at least 10 roadblocks in Monterrey.” Armed men also launched attacks on various Monterrey police stations following Luna Luna’s arrest.
Beyond the headline:
· The AP reports that Guatemala’s Constitutional Court has removed recently appointed Attorney General Conrado Reyes “amid allegations of corruption.” According to the wire service, the ruling means Reyes “must hand the reins of the Attorney General's Office back to an interim top prosecutor who was in charge before his nomination.” On Monday, Carlos Castresana cited Reyes’s appointment as one of the reasons for his resignation from the UN-backed CICIG. On the same day of the court’s decision, suspected gang members dropped off four human heads in front of the Guatemalan Congress and around other parts of the capital city, along with messages warning against a crackdown on organized crime.
· Also on drugs and security, Sec. of State Hillary Clinton finished her Lat Am / Caribbean visit with a stopover in Barbados Thursday. Clinton, participating in meetings that there with regional foreign ministers, announced the administration’s new $124 million Caribbean Basin Security Initiative. “We all know well that addressing transnational security challenges in the 21st century requires a comprehensive approach,” the AP quotes Clinton as saying. The Washington Post has more on the new US-funded security initiative in the Caribbean, a region the Obama administration now apparently refers to as the United States’ “third border.” The report emphasizes Clinton’s description of new security efforts in the Caribbean as an extension of other US-backed plans in Colombia, Mexico, and Central America.
· On the first of those countries, Just the Facts posts interesting new data and figures on the US military presence in Colombia. “The original July 2000 ‘Plan Colombia’ appropriation stated that a maximum of 500 U.S. military and 300 U.S. citizen contractor personnel could be in Colombia at any given time. This was changed in January 2002 to 400 military and 400 contractors, and increased again in October 2004 to 800 military personnel and 600 contractors,” says Adam Isacson. But data recently released by the State Dept. to Just the Facts shows “an appreciable downward trend in both military and civilian presence since the high points of 2005-2007.”
· Meanwhile, on electoral politics in Colombia, new poll numbers from Gallup and the Centro Nacional de Consultoría both give Juan Manuel Santos a commanding over Antanas Mockus one week before next Sunday’s runoff. Santos, according to Gallup, leads Mockus 66.5% to 27.4%. The Centro Nacional de Consultoría poll gives Santos a 60.8% to 28.3% edge.
· Also, a report from the AP looks at the sentencing of retired army colonel Luis Alfonso Plazas to 30 years in prison this week. Plazas was charged for his role in the disappearance of 11 people in 1985, following the storming of the Palace of Justice to retake it from leftist rebels.
· In Cuba, 74 opposition activists sent a letter Thursday to members of the US Congress, declaring their support for an end to the US travel ban on Cuba and an increase in US food exports to the island. “We share the opinion that the isolation of the people of Cuba benefits the most inflexible interests of its government, while any opening serves to inform and empower the Cuban people and helps to further strengthen our civil society,” the letter reads. Signers of the groundbreaking letter include dissident blogger Yoani Sánchez, the hunger striker Guillermo Fariñas, and Cuban human rights leader Elizardo Sánchez, and Oscar Espinosa Chepe. More from the BBC and the Havana Note.
· The Wall Street Journal reports on an end to electricity rationing in Venezuela. “We are now coming off of our electricity diet,” said Hugo Chavez, announcing the changes Thursday. Speaking of diets, the Economist has a piece critical of Chavez’s food policies in the country.
· And finally, another Economist report this week looks at citizen security policies in Brazil’s favelas. Focusing on Rio (and the famous shantytown, City of God, more specifically) the magazine says the area is experiencing “a renaissance” of sorts.
“Last year the police took control of Cidade de Deus—this time for keeps, they say. A force of 318 officers, backed by 25 patrol cars, is based in a new community-police station in a side street between two fetid, litter-strewn drainage channels. The result has been dramatic. In 2008 there were 29 murders in Cidade de Deus. So far this year there has been just one, and it involved a beating rather than a firearm, says José Beltrame, the security secretary in the Rio state government who is in charge of policing in the city. Other crime has fallen too.”
Interestingly, the piece adds that, under the city’s “pacifying police units,” “the police’s objective is not so much to abolish the drug trade as to drive the armed gangs from the streets, and thus to open the way for other branches of the state … The authorities are trying to consolidate security with legality and infrastructure” – what the Economist calls an “experiment, albeit a promising one.”
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