Posts Tagged ‘smuggle’
Want that burrito with red chile, green chile or smack?
Henry Marin was assigned to provide courthouse security, but in 2010 prosecutors say the Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy strayed.
He poked his head out of his courtroom doors, according to an indictment, and spotted a woman who was there to sneak him a package. Marin waved her over. The woman told him she had been instructed to hide the special delivery inside a burrito.
“OK … no problem,” the deputy said as he allegedly accepted the hand-off.
Inside that bean-and-cheese burrito was heroin that prosecutors say the deputy intended to smuggle into the courthouse jail.
On Wednesday, Marin, 27, surrendered to fellow deputies at the sheriff’s South Los Angeles station. He pleaded not guilty to charges of bringing drugs into a jail and conspiracy to commit a crime.
The charges against him are the latest in a string of prosecutions and internal affairs investigations that have targeted corrupt sheriff’s deputies and other department staff for delivering contraband behind bars, and helping fuel a lucrative drug trade behind bars.
Three sheriff’s guards have been convicted and a fourth fired in recent years for smuggling or attempting to smuggle narcotics into jail for inmates…
In Marin’s case, prosecutors allege that at least two other unnamed individuals conspired with him. According to the indictment, one of those individuals contacted the other to discuss using a deputy to get narcotics into the Airport Courthouse jail…
How do you think drugs get into any jail in the country? Homing pigeon?
You can only carry illegal substances into a lockup via folks who are there via established procedures: visitors, staff and law enforcement. The latter two are most often used as mules because they’re most likely to have experience with bribes in the first place.
Gunrunning scandal uncovered at the ATF
Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry
In late 2009, ATF was alerted to suspicious buys at seven gun shops in the Phoenix area. Suspicious because the buyers paid cash, sometimes brought in paper bags. And they purchased classic “weapons of choice” used by Mexican drug traffickers – semi-automatic versions of military type rifles and pistols…
Jaime Avila was one of the suspicious buyers. ATF put him in its suspect database in January of 2010. For the next year, ATF watched as Avila and other suspects bought huge quantities of weapons supposedly for “personal use.” They included 575 AK-47 type semi-automatic rifles.
ATF managers allegedly made a controversial decision: allow most of the weapons on the streets. The idea, they said, was to gather intelligence and see where the guns ended up. Insiders say it’s a dangerous tactic called letting the guns, “walk…”
CBS News has been told at least 11 ATF agents and senior managers voiced fierce opposition to the strategy. “It got ugly…” said one. There was “screaming and yelling” says another. A third warned: “this is crazy, somebody is gonna to get killed.”
Sure enough, the weapons soon began surfacing at crime scenes in Mexico – dozens of them sources say – including shootouts with government officials…
Then, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. The serial numbers on the two assault rifles found at the scene matched two rifles ATF watched Jaime Avila buy in Phoenix nearly a year before. Officials won’t answer whether the bullet that killed Terry came from one of those rifles. But the nightmare had come true: “walked” guns turned up at a federal agent’s murder…
Hours after Agent Terry was gunned down, ATF finally arrested Avila. They’ve since indicted 34 suspected gunrunners in the same group. But the indictment makes no mention of Terry’s murder, and no one is charged in his death…
RTFA for a more detailed account.
The Justice Department says the ATF has never knowingly allowed the sale of assault weapons to suspected gunrunners. But, then, that’s what government lawyers always tell government spokespeople to say. Deny, deny, deny.
When you do something really stupid and deadly, you surely don’t want to admit to the possibility of guilt or responsibility. Especially if you’re paid to prevent crime.
Thanks, Tom
Snakes on a plane? Try a crocodile!
A small airliner crashed into a house, killing a British pilot and 19 others after a crocodile smuggled into the aircraft in a sports bag escaped and started a panic. The plane came down despite no apparent mechanical problems during an internal flight in the Democratic Republic of Congo…
A lone survivor apparently relayed the bizarre tale to investigators.
The crocodile survived the crash, only to be dispatched with a blow from a machete…
The plane was on a routine flight from the capital, Kinshasa, to the regional airport at Bandundu when the incident unfolded, on August 25. It crashed into a house just a few hundred feet from its destination. The occupants of the property were outside at the time.
According to the inquiry report and the testimony of the only survivor, the crash happened because of a panic sparked by the escape of a crocodile hidden in a sports bag.
One of the passengers had hidden the animal, which he planned to sell, in a big sports bag, from which the reptile escaped as the plane began its descent into Bandundu.
A report of the incident said: “The terrified air hostess hurried towards the cockpit, followed by the passengers.”
The plane was then sent off-balance “despite the desperate efforts of the pilot”, said the report.
Hey, it happens to ferry boats all the time.
“Look! A nude bathing beach.” Splash.
Earn money from home – ship illicit military gear to Russia
They said parcel post would accept it
A Wisconsin woman who thought she had landed a job shipping clothing to Russian orphans inadvertently found herself at the center of an international weapons smuggling ring, unwittingly sending stolen sniper scopes, night-vision goggles and military gear to Russia, according to police.
Police say the woman, who received the work-from-home job offer through a Website, was likely a patsy in a scheme to ship sensitive equipment purchased with stolen credit cards.
Police, now working with the FBI, would not identify the 44-year-old woman from Ripon, Wisc., and said they had not yet determined who was behind the smuggling ring or fraudulent job offer. A phone number associated with the woman’s address listed in the search warrant was disconnected.
“If ‘ABC Arms Dealer’ in California sends a package with a rifle scope directly to Russia that is going to raise a red flag and likely get stopped and searched,” Capt. Bill Wallner of the Ripon Police Department told ABC News.com. “But a package being sent from a private citizen in Wisconsin might not get searched. That’s why they were using her. They were paying her to change the packaging and address labels.”
Har!
I’m still sort of surprised she hasn’t been shipped off to Gitmo by Homeland Insecurity.
Two women arrested after attempt to smuggle body onto plane
Two women have been arrested on suspicion of trying to smuggle the body of a dead relative onto an easyJet flight to Germany.
The pair were reported to have told staff at Liverpool John Lennon airport that the 91-year-old man was asleep, after pushing him into the terminal in a wheelchair and covering his face with sunglasses.
The alleged attempt to get the man on board a flight to Berlin ended in their arrest on suspicion of failing to give notification of death.
Police are investigating claims the women ferried the body in a taxi from their home in Oldham, Greater Manchester.
EasyJet said two women passengers had arrived at the airport on Saturday to check in for the EZY 7223 flight to Berlin, “with an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair”. Its statement added: “On arrival at the airport, staff were immediately concerned about his health and the first aid team were called. It was then discovered the passenger was in fact deceased and the police were called.”
Har! Where’s Monty Python when you need ‘em?
