October 25h 2010

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“150,000 troops eliminate mere 0.2 per cent of drug production in Afghanistan”

 

 

October 24h 2010

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World's Most Dangerous Drug

 

 

September 17th 2010  

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WHAT OUR CHILDREN ARE DYING FOR IN AFGHANISTAN

 

In Afghan fields the poppies w. Between the crosses.

 

July  27th, 2010 

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Money Laundering and the Global Drug Trade Fueled by Capitalist Elites

 

When investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker broke the story four years ago that a DC-9 (N900SA) "registered to a company which once used as its address the hangar of Huffman Aviation, the flight school at the Venice, Florida Airport which trained both terrorist pilots who crashed planes into the World Trade Center, was caught in Campeche by the Mexican military ... carrying 5.5 tons of cocaine destined for the U.S.," it elicited a collective yawn from corporate media.

And when authorities searched the plane and found its cargo consisted solely of 128 identical black suitcases marked "private," packed with cocaine valued at more than $100 million, the silence was deafening.

But now a Bloomberg Markets magazine report, "Wachovia's Drug Habit," reveals that drug traffickers bought that plane, and perhaps fifty others, "with laundered funds they transferred through two of the biggest banks in the U.S.," Wachovia and Bank of America.

The Justice Department charge sheet against the bank tells us that between 2003 and 2008, Wachovia handled $378.4 billion for Mexican currency exchanges, "the largest violation of the Bank Secrecy Act, an anti-money-laundering law, in U.S. history 

 

July  22th, 2010 |

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Kyrgyzstan, America and the Global Drug Trade: Deep Forces, Coups d'Etat, Narcotics and Terror

 

Will the current crisis in Kyrgyzstan lead to greater instability, and perhaps an expansion of the current conflict in Central Asia? There are good reasons to be concerned. Deep forces, not adequately understood, are at work there; and these forces have repeatedly led to major warfare in the past.

The pattern of events unfolding in Kyrgyzstan is ominously reminiscent of how America became involved in Laos in the 1960s, and later in Afghanistan in the 1980s. American covert involvement in those countries soon led to civil wars producing numerous casualties and refugees. It will take strenuous leadership from both Obama in Washington and Medvedev in Moscow to prevent a third major conflict from breaking out in Kyrgyzstan.

I call the pattern I refer to “a Laotian syndrome” of coups, drugs, and terror, since it was first clearly illustrated by American interventions in Laos in the late 1950s and 1960s. The syndrome involves a number of independent but interactive elements whose interconnection in the past has not generally been recognized. What it reflects is not a single agenda, but a predictable symbiosis of divergent groups, responding to the powerful forces that the drug traffic creates.

 

July  17th, 2010 

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  Drugs for Europe: Protected by Powerful Western Interests, AfghanistanHeroin Transits Through Kosovo

 

Two years ago a joke was being circulated on the Runet that a heroin producer has recognized its distributor’s independence. It was about Afghanistan, which was to the first to recognize the independence of the Serbian province of Kosovo which had illegally separated from Yugoslavia.

Kosovo has since become a transit point for drugs, channelled from Asia to Europe.

A Serbian military analyst and an authoritative expert on the situation in Kosovo, Milovan Drecun says that, according to the Europol and Interpol, the largest amount of heroin is delivered to Europe from Afghanistan via Kosovo. According to some estimates, some 65% of all the world’s heroin is channeled through the former Serbian province; while 90% of all drugs that reach Europe are shipped via Kosovo. 

According to the Canadian detective Stewart Kellock, the Albanian drug mafia operates with the connivance of the United States. Mr. Kellock said in an interview that US diplomats prevent the detention in Kosovo of notorious drug traffickers 

 

July 17th, 2010

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Russia Says Afghan Drug Trade Threatens World Peace

   

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov said Sunday Afghan drug trafficking should be classified as a threat to international peace and security. The Russian Deputy Prime Minster made his remarks at an Asia security conference in Singapore.

Speaking to defense officials and analysts at an annual Asia security summit in Singapore, Sergei Ivanov, Russia's Deputy Prime Minister, said the Taliban and other extremists groups that control most of Afghanistan are supported by the illegal drug trade.

"Large part of the population of Afghanistan is involved in the cultivation and production of opium and opium products such as heroin," he said. "Narcotics have become the important source of financial support for insurgency groups including the Taliban and not only to them." 

 

June 8th, 2010 

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Lehman Brothers Linked to Drug Money

 

 

Mario Ernesto Villanueva Madrid, former governor of the Mexican state that holds Cancun and dozens of other Caribbean beach resorts, has been extradited to New York on charges of accepting bribes from a violent drug cartel that smuggled hundreds of tons of cocaine into the U.S. and then laundering the bribe money through Lehman Brothers

 

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1,400 SF drug cases may be dismissed over scandal

 

 

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Illusions versus reality: NATO and Afghan opium

 

 

NATO and Russia have failed to reach a consensus in a tug of war over tackling the Afghan drug problem. The alliance has rejected Moscow’s appeal to eradicate opium poppy fields in the Islamic Republic

 

 

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France Alarmed Over Anthrax-Tainted Heroin in Europe

 

PARIS — The French health ministry issued a warning on Tuesday after eight people died and seven fell sick in two European countries from using heroin contaminated by anthrax.

"Since December 6, there have been 15 confirmed cases of anthrax among heroin users, 14 in Scotland and one in Germany," the ministry's General Directorate for Health (DGS) said in a statement.

"Eight people died," it said. "The likeliest source is heroin contaminated by anthrax spores." 

 

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Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade

The U.S. set the stage for the Afghan (and Pakistan) war eight years ago, when it handed out drug dealing franchises to warlords on Washington's payroll. Now the Americans, acting as Boss of All Bosses, have drawn up hit lists of rival, "Taliban" drug lords. "It is a gangster occupation, in which U.S.-allied drug dealers are put in charge of the police and border patrol."  

 Read more >>

Drugs brings more money to Mexico than oil

Iran says US, UK, Canada assist Afghan drug trade

A senior Iranian anti-drug official has accused the US, Britain and Canada of playing a major role in Afghanistan's lucrative drug trade.

On the sidelines of an anti-drug conference in Tehran, deputy head of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters Taha Taheri said that Western powers are aiding the drug trade in Afghanistan.

"According to our indisputable information, the presence of the United States, Britain and Canada has not reduced the dug trade and the three countries have had major roles in the distribution of drugs," IRIB quoted Taheri as saying on Thursday.  

Read more >>

Most of the drug shipments smuggled into the United States by the Mexican cartels are hidden in trucks that drive across U.S. border checkpoints in plain sight, with little fear of inspection, U.S. law enforcement officials tell ABC News.Only about 5 percent of trucks coming into the country from Mexico are inspected, according to U.S. officials.

“It is just too costly and too slow given the volume of trucks to actually try to stop and inspect each and every truck,” said Juan Zarate who dealt with the issue in the Geroge W. Bush White House as Deputy National Security Director.The number of trucks coming into the U.S. has steadily increased since the passage of NAFTA in 1993. Almost 3,000,000 loaded container trailers crossed at border checkpoints last year.“It does open up the potential for drug networks to take advantage, but I think it is something we have to find alternative ways of addressing,” said Zarate.

Any attempt to inspect all trucks crossing the border, “would have a hugely negative impact in terms of commercial traffic and trade between the United States and Mexico,” said Zarate, who also held the position of Deputy National Security Advisor for Combating Terrorism.“You would see lines like you wouldn’t believe,” he said.

The Mexican cartels’ fleet of 18-wheelers has long since replaced the Caribbean air drops and speed boats used by the Colombian cartels in the 1980’s and 1990’s, the era of “Miami Vice”.And major cities at interstate highway junctions, like Atlanta, have become important hubs for the Mexican cartels.

“Atlanta is a central trans-shipment point for pushing narcotics to some of the largest distribution cells in the United States,” said Rodney Benson, the Special Agent in Charge of the DEA office in Atlanta.Drug Agents Stakeout Truck Stops and Trail 18 WheelersInstead of tracking fancy sports cars at glitzy night clubs in Miami, federal drug agents now spend a lot of their time trailing behind huge 18-wheel trucks and conducting surveillance at interstate truck stops.

Flying over Atlanta’s “Spaghetti Junction,” the intersection of interstates I-85 and I-285, Benson pointed out the truck stops and warehouses where his agents have made major arrests and drugs seizures.“It’s also a major money collection point,” said Benson. “They do operate with a business-like efficiency,” he said.

Federal agents and local police say the Mexican cartels often rent homes in quiet, upscale suburban neighborhoods for their operatives. “You couldn’t build a better environment to camouflage this activity,” said Gwinnett County district attorney Danny Porter.In a major raid last week, aimed at the Atlanta operations of Mexico’s Gulf Cartel, police and federal agents raided 16 locations and arrested 21 people.

Nearby residents were shocked to learn their neighbors might be connected to the Mexican cartels.“Their daughter goes to school with my daughter,” said Amber Youngblood of Duluth, Georgia. “It makes you think twice about who your neighbors are,” she said.