Then, The Deadly Drug Cartels

Map of Mexican Drug Cartel Territories Intel Report 2015

DEA report and map of major cartels and areas of dominance in Mexico.  The DEA identifies the major cartels as a total of eight.  C.J.N.G is identified as  the cartel with the most significant growth.

MEXICO Drug Cartel Map Oct 2015..BB2015

Cartel killer convicted after detailed confession, but authorities can’t prove any links

Once Jose Manuel Martinez acknowledged a vast killing spree that included nine people in California, officials set out to decide whether the self-described cartel enforcer actually carried out the horrific crimes.

Details the 53-year-old Martinez provided confirmed his claims. He described with remarkable accuracy the victims’ clothes, body positions and the caliber of bullets he fired, investigators said.

“He was spot on almost 100 percent of the time,” Tulare County’s Assistant Sheriff Scott Logue said.

On Tuesday, a judge in central California accepted a guilty plea from Martinez that will put him behind bars for the rest of his life.

Yet confirming his ties to Mexican drug cartels couldn’t be independently determined, Logue said, because Martinez refuses to name them.

“It’s not like you can go to a business front door and ask if Jose worked for you,” Logue said. “There were whispers for a long time.”

Martinez was arrested in 2013, acknowledging a violent career that he said involved more than 30 killings across the country. Martinez will be sentenced next month to life in prison without the possibility of parole under the terms of a plea deal that removes the possibility of the death penalty.

The deal came on the same day a preliminary hearing was set to begin to determine if Martinez would stand trial.

Tulare County District Attorney Tim Ward said prosecutors were pleased about resolving the case. No relatives of victims disagreed with the decision to offer the deal, he said.

Martinez also pleaded guilty to a count of attempted murder of a 17-year-old.

In court, Martinez answered “guilty” to each count read aloud by Judge Brett Alldredge.

Nathan Leedy, an attorney in the county public defender’s office who represented Martinez, declined to comment outside of court.

Last year, Martinez pleaded guilty in Alabama to killing a man for making derogatory remarks about Martinez’s daughter. He was given a prison sentence of 50 years.

In California, he was charged with killing people in Tulare, Kern and Santa Barbara counties between 1980 and 2011. The victims ranged in age from 22 to 56.

Investigators say that in 1980, Martinez shot a man who was driving to work with three other people in the vehicle. Martinez was accused of shooting another man in bed early one morning in 2000 while the man’s four children were home.

Martinez had lived at times in Richgrove, a small farming community in central California about 40 miles north of Bakersfield. He was arrested shortly after crossing the border from Mexico into Arizona and began to disclose details of his past while facing the case in Alabama.

“After he confessed to it, it was just like opening up the floodgate,” Tim McWhorter of the Lawrence County Sheriff’s Office in Alabama said at the time.

Martinez also is facing two murder charges in Florida.

26 Missiles Fired From Russian Warships in the Caspian

Russia launched the missiles Wednesday morning from four ships in the Caspian Sea nearly 1,500 kilometers (around 930 miles) from their 11 targets, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin in a televised meeting.

Russian (4) warships fire cruise missiles into Syria

AFP: Russian warships joined in strikes in Syria with a volley of cruise missile attacks Wednesday as Russian President Vladimir Putin pledged his air force would back a ground offensive by government forces.

Ships from the Caspian Sea fleet launched 26 cruise missile strikes that hit 11 targets over 1,500 kilometres away in Syria, Moscow said.

Putin said Russian efforts “will be synchronised with the actions of the Syrian army on the ground and the actions of our air force will effectively support the offensive operation of the Syrian army”, at a televised meeting with Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The Russian leader, however, also stressed the need for cooperation with a US-led coalition fighting Islamic State jihadists, saying that without cooperation from the US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, the intervention was unlikely to work.

Russian forces have struck 112 targets in war-torn Syria since last week launching a bombing campaign that Moscow says is targeting the IS group, Shoigu told Putin in the televised briefing.

“Strikes have hit 112 targets from September 30 until today,” Shoigu said. “The intensity of the strikes is increasing.”

In a sign that Russia was ramping up its involvement, Shoigu said that four Russian warships had hit sites in Syria on Wednesday with cruise missiles.

“In addition to the air force, four warships of the Caspian flotilla have been involved,” Shoigu said, adding that the warships had carried out 26 cruise missile strikes against 11 targets.

A military spokesman told Russian news wires that the strikes from the warships had hit positions of IS and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

Rockets in the darkness

A video released by the Russian defence ministry showed rockets being launched from a ship in darkness and traced their route to Syria over Iran and Iraq.

Russia began air strikes in Syria a week ago following a request by long-standing ally President Bashar al-Assad.

Moscow insists it is hitting IS and other “terrorist” targets, but the US and its allies fear that Moscow is aiming to bolster Assad’s regime.

Putin also said that French leader Francois Hollande had suggested a possible plan to get Assad’s forces to combine efforts with the Western-backed Free Syrian Army, the main moderate opposition group fighting the Damascus regime.

A Hollande aide later denied he had said any such thing. “The president spoke of the necessary presence of the Syrian opposition around a future negotiating table. The rest is not a French idea,” he told reporters in Strasbourg.

“During my last visit to Paris, French President Hollande expressed an interesting idea according to which, in his opinion, it might be possible to at least try to unite the efforts of the government troops of president Assad’s army and the so-called Free Syrian Army,” Putin said.

A member of Hollande’s entourage denied that he had suggested an alliance between the groups.

Putin met with Hollande and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss a peace plan for Ukraine in Paris last Friday.

Meanwhile:

EXCLUSIVE: Russian jets ‘intercept’ US predator drones over Syria, officials say

FNC: Russian fighter jets shadowed U.S. predator drones on at least three separate occasions high above Syria since the start of Russia’s air campaign last week, according to two U.S. officials briefed on this latest intelligence from the region.

“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times,” said one official.

Both officials said that the incidents took place over ISIS-controlled Syria, including its de facto headquarters in Raqqa, as well as along the Turkish-Syrian border near Korbani. Another occurred in the northwest, near the highly contested city of Aleppo.

The U.S. military’s MQ-1 Predator drone is not a stealth aircraft.

“It is easy to see a predator on radar,” said one official.

The Russians have not attempted to shoot down any of the U.S. drones, but instead have flown “intercept tracks,” a doctrinal term meaning the Russians flew close enough to make their presence felt, according to one official.

One other official said, “the Russians flew very close, but did not impede the drone flight.”

“The first time it happened, we thought the Russians got lucky. Then it happened two more times.”

– U.S. official briefed on intelligence

Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook, traveling with the defense secretary in Europe leading up to a NATO ministerial meeting in Brussels Thursday, said the Pentagon is open to more military-to-military talks with the Russians. No immediate date has been established to conduct the next round of talks, according to one defense official.

This development comes as Russia has moved some of its Mi-24 gunships and transport helicopters from an air base along the Mediterranean to another air base outside Homs, roughly 100 miles away. Russian ground forces, hundreds of Russian marines — as well as four BM-30 Smerch rocket launchers capable of firing cluster munitions, mines as well as high explosive warheads — are now in position to strike, but there is no evidence they have done so according to multiple defense officials. Infantry fighting vehicles and more a conventional artillery battery has also been seen by the intelligence community.

All these movements demonstrate the Russians are forming a “protective belt” around Latakia, the stronghold of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and are carrying out airstrikes against anti-Assad rebel forces, some backed by the CIA, to protect both regime and Russian interests, including a Russian naval base in Tartus established in the 70s.

The Pentagon maintains the vast majority of strikes from its forward operating base at Bassel al-Assad airport in Latakia including some 30 fighter/bomber jets have been against Syrian opposition forces and not ISIS, and one official pushed back on Russian defense ministry claims on the number of strikes the Russians have launched.

“The Russians carried out only one half or at best a quarter of the strikes they claim to have conducted,” said a senior military official.

Over the past weekend, Turkey claims that Russia on two separate occasions violated its airspace. Despite Turkish pressure on NATO and top US government officials calling the action “unprofessional” and a “provocation” two senior US military officials downplayed the incident.

“The Russians flew along the border and we still don’t know for sure what happened.”

At least one of the alleged incidences occurred in Turkey’s Hatay Province.

In 1939, land belonging to Syria and the Assad family in the northwest, along the Mediterranean bordering Latakia where the Russia has established an air base, was annexed by Turkey. Syria has never recognized the action and the two countries have been bitter enemies ever since.

 

UN Criminals Tied to the Clintons

Reuters did not go nearly far enough on this given the additional connections, but never fear, this blog site has previously posted how these criminals are tied to the Clintons.

NOT TO ARCHIVE NOT TO ARCHIVE NOT TO ARCHIVE
Ng Lap Seng with Bill Clinton in Washington.

To validate, at least the Daily Beast is on the case as of October 7th.  They do a deeper dive and those details are here.

Chinese Billionaire Arrested in UN Bribery Case Has Clinton Links

Today mega-rich Ng Lap Seng is charged with conspiracy to bribe a UN official with more than $500,000. But in the ’90s he used a proxy to send over $1 million to the DNC and the Clinton campaign—and visited the White House 10 times.
One name the Clintons cannot be happy to see back in the news is Ng Lap Seng.

Ex-U.N. General Assembly president, five others charged in U.S. in bribe scheme

Reuters: U.S. authorities charged a former president of the United Nations General Assembly, a billionaire Macau real estate developer and four others on Tuesday for engaging in a wide-ranging corruption scheme.

John Ashe, a former U.N. ambassador from Antigua and Barbuda who was general assembly president from 2013 to 2014, was accused in a complaint filed in federal court in New York of taking more than $1.3 million in bribes from Chinese businessmen, including developer Ng Lap Seng.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who announced the arrests of Ashe and the other defendants, said the investigation could result in more charges as authorities examine whether “corruption is business as usual at the United Nations.”

“If proven, today’s charges will confirm that the cancer of corruption that plagues too many local and state governments infects the United Nations as well,” Bharara said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is “shocked and deeply troubled” by the allegations, said his spokesman, Stephane Dujarric. The U.N. had not previously been informed of the probe, Dujarric said, but would cooperate if contacted.

The case followed the Sept. 19 arrest of Ng, 68, and an assistant, Jeff Yin, 29, for falsely claiming that $4.5 million they brought into the United States from China from 2013 to 2015 was meant for gambling or buying art, antiques or real estate.

Both men are charged in the latest case. Bharara said authorities continue to examine the funds connected to Ng, who prosecutors say has a $1.8 billion fortune, much of which he earned on developments in Macau.

According to the complaint, Ng, through intermediaries, paid Ashe more than $500,000 for telling the U.N. secretary general that a yet-to-be built multibillion-dollar U.N.-sponsored conference center in Macau was needed.

The intermediaries included Francis Lorenzo, 48, a deputy U.N. ambassador from the Dominican Republic, and Yin, who told authorities that Ng viewed the conference center as his legacy and made payments to get U.N. action on it, the complaint said.

Ashe, 61, also received more than $800,000 from Chinese businessmen to support their interests within the U.N. and Antigua, and kicked some of the money to Antigua’s then-prime minister, the complaint said.

The complaint said those bribes were arranged through Shiwei Yan, also known as Sheri Yan, chief executive officer of a New York-based non-profit, and Heidi Hong Piao, also known as Heidi Park, its finance director.

The unnamed non-profit matches the description of the Global Sustainability Foundation. And while the complaint did not name the prime minister, Baldwin Spencer held the post at the time.

The foundation and Antigua and Barbuda’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to requests for comment. Spencer could not be reached.

The complaint said Ashe solicited bribes in various forms, including payments to cover a family vacation to New Orleans and the construction of a $30,000 basketball court at his house in Dobbs Ferry, New York, the complaint said.

From 2012 to 2014, more than $3 million from foreign governments and individuals was deposited in bank accounts controlled by Ashe, who spent the money on his mortgage, BMW lease payments and Rolex watches, the complaint said.

The complaint only charged Ashe with tax offenses, which it said are not covered by any diplomatic immunity he enjoys.

The U.N. general assembly presidency is a ceremonial one-year post paid for by the home country.

Bieber Brian, Lorenzo’s lawyer, said his client “maintains that he acted in good faith at all times and believed in the integrity of what he was told by those involved.” Ng’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said his client committed no crime.

Yin’s lawyer had no immediate comment. Lawyers for the others could not be immediately identified.

PRIOR INVESTIGATIONS

Ng, also known as David Ng, heads Macau-based Sun Kian Ip Group, whose foundation arm lists several ambassadors to the U.N., including Ashe, as holding leadership positions.

In China, Ng sits on several government committees and belongs to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, an advisory body to the Beijing government.

Ng’s name previously surfaced in U.S. investigations into how foreign money might have been funneled into the Democratic National Committee before the 1996 elections, when it was working to re-elect President Bill Clinton.

Ng, who was never charged, stopped coming to the United States from 1996 to 2000 amid the probe, prosecutors have said.

More recently, in 2014, Ng was subpoenaed in a U.S. foreign bribery investigation, a source has said, after his name surfaced in litigation involving billionaire Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp (LVS.N).

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn also have brought sealed charges against another individual linked to Ng, Yin’s lawyer Sabrina Shroff said at a Sept. 28 hearing. The status of any Brooklyn-based investigation was unclear on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond and Joseph Ax in New York; Additional reporting by Jon Stempel, Michelle Nichols and Louis Charbonneau in New York and Farah Master in Hong Kong; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

 

Netanyahu Cancel Merkel Summit Due to Attacks

Earlier today, Palestinian rioters attacked & beat an Israeli woman after stopping her car on the way to Jerusalem.

Embedded image permalink

Terrorists Arrested

IDF: The ISA, IDF and Israel Police have arrested members of the cell that perpetrated the shooting attack that killed 2 Israeli civilians on October 1. Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife Naama Henkin were murdered in front of their 4 children, the oldest of whom being 9 years old. The detainees have been transferred for investigation by the ISA and have admitted their involvement in the murder of the Henkins.

The cell – affiliated with Hamas in Nablus – numbered five terrorists, each of which had a defined role. One terrorist checked the route. Three terrorists were in the attacking vehicle – a driver and two attackers. The cell commander was not in the vehicle. Several additional suspects have been arrested on suspicion of aiding the cell.

The cell commander was Raeb Ahmed Muhammad Alivi, born in 1978, and active in Hamas’s military wing. He recruited the members of the cell, instructed them and provided them with weapons.

Members of the cell included:

Yehye Muhammad Naif Abdallah Haj Hamed, born in 1991, a resident of Nablus. A Hamas member, he carried out the shooting in this attack and has been active in others.

Samir Zahir Ibrahim Kusa, born in 1982, a resident of Nablus. A Hamas member, he drove the attacking vehicle.

Kerem Lutfy Fathi Razek, born in 1992, a resident of Nablus. A Hamas member, he set out on the attack armed with a pistol but was mistakenly wounded by his colleague during the carrying out of the attack.

Zid Ziad Jamil Amar, born in 1989, a resident of Nablus. A Hamas member, he checked the route.

Cell members said that on the evening of the attack, two of them traveled on the route and selected the point from which they would open fire. Afterwards they collected the other members, one of which checked the route. Upon hearing that the route was clear, the cell set out, identified the Henkins’ vehicle and opened fire. After the Henkins’ vehicle stopped, two cell members left their vehicle and fired again from very close range.

After carrying out the shooting, the terrorists fled toward Nablus.

The cell members also said that they had been involved in two shooting attacks in recent weeks, neither of which resulted in casualties, including the 30 August attack near the entrance to Kedumim.

The investigation of the cell members is continuing.

From CNN:

 

(CNN)Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed Monday to take strong action and defeat what he called a “wave of terror.” In a statement, Netanyahu said Israel is increasing its anti-terror operations with thousands of police in Jerusalem and more soldiers in the West Bank.

The move comes after a rise in violence over the past five days.

On Thursday, an Israeli couple were shot and killed in the West Bank in front of their four children, officials said. Five people were arrested Monday in the shooting, lsrael’s Securities Authority spokesperson said in a statement.

Israel’s Security Authority said those arrested were members of a cell affiliated with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Nablus and admitted their involvement in the shooting.

On Saturday, a 19-year-old Palestinian attacked and killed two Israelis with a knife in Jerusalem’s Old City, according to authorities.

Police say they killed the attacker in a gun battle. He was identified as Mohannad Shafik Halabi from near Ramallah, in the West Bank.

On Monday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy was shot and killed when riots broke out in Bethlehem in the West Bank, the child’s uncle and eyewitnesses told CNN.

The teen was walking from school with friends and tried to hide when they saw the clashes but a sniper shot him in the chest, eyewitnesses said.

The IDF said rioters in the area had attacked security forces in recent days with rocks, Molotov cocktails and IEDs. They pledged an investigation into the boy’s death.

“We are allowing our forces to take strong action against those who throw rocks and firebombs,” Netanyahu said adding that there are no restriction on the action of Israeli security forces.

“The police are going deeply into the Arab neighborhoods, which has not been done in the past. We will demolish terrorists’ homes,” Netanyahu said.

Oh Look, a Second Hillary Email Server

WashingtonPost: Datto’s work on the Clinton e-mail system became public Tuesday when the Republican chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee sent the company a lengthy letter seeking information about the role it and other firms played in managing the Clinton e-mail system.

Datto was hired to provide backups for the Clinton e-mail accounts starting in May 2013 by Platte River Networks, the Colorado-based tech firm hired earlier that year by the Clinton family to manage the system after Hillary Clinton concluded her term as secretary.

Senator Ron Johnson and a small committee is on the case.

Second IT firm agrees to give Clinton’s server data to FBI

WASHINGTON

Hillary Clinton hired a Connecticut company to back up her emails on a “cloud” storage system, and her lawyers have agreed to turn whatever it contains over to the FBI, a personal familiar with the situation said Tuesday.

The disclosure came as a Republican Senate committee chairman, Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, also asked the firm to turn over to the committee copies of any Clinton emails still in its possession.

There were conflicting accounts as to whether the development could lead to recovery of any of Clinton’s more than 31,000 personal emails, which she said she deleted from her private server upon turning over her work-related emails to the State Department, at its request, in December 2014.

Congressional Republicans have voiced skepticism as to whether the 30,940 business emails that the Democratic presidential candidate handed over represented all of those related to her position as secretary of state. The FBI is separately investigating whether Clinton’s arrangement put classified information at risk but has yet to characterize it as a criminal inquiry.

Datto Inc., based in Norwalk, Conn., became the second data storage firm to become entangled in the inquiry into Clinton’s unusual email arrangement, which has sparked a furor that has dogged her campaign. In August, Clinton and the firm that had managed her server since June 2013, Colorado-based Platte River Networks, agreed to surrender it for examination by the FBI.

On Friday, Clinton’s attorney, David Kendall, and Platte River agreed to allow Datto to turn over the data from the backup server to the FBI, said the person familiar with Datto’s storage, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Datto said in a statement that “with the consent of our client and their end user, and consistent with our policies regarding data privacy, Datto is working with the FBI to provide data in conjunction with its investigation.”

The source said, however, that Platte River had set up a 60-day retention policy for the backup server, meaning that any emails to which incremental changes were made at least 60 days prior would be deleted and “gone forever.” While the server wouldn’t have been “wiped clean,” the source said, any underlying data likely would have been written over and would be difficult to recover.

Since Clinton has said she deleted all of her personal emails, the configuration might complicate any attempt by FBI forensics experts to resurrect emails from the backup. However, Bloomberg reported recently that the FBI has recovered some of Clinton’s emails, apparently from the server they seized from Platte River.

In laying out facts gathered by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which he chairs, Johnson offered the first public confirmation that Clinton or her representatives had arranged for a backup of her email server after she left office in early 2013.

His letter also cited internal emails recounting requests in late 2014 and early 2015 from Clinton representatives for Colorado-based Platte River Networks, the firm managing Clinton’s primary server, to direct Datto to reduce the amount of her emails it was backing up. These communications led a Platte River employee to air suspicions that “this whole thing really is covering up some shaddy (sic) shit,” according to an excerpt of an email cited by Johnson.

The controversy seems sure to come up on Oct. 22, when Clinton is scheduled to testify to a House committee investigating the fatal 2012 attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya. It was the panel’s chairman who first declared last March that she had “wiped” her server clean based on a letter from Clinton’s attorney.

Spokesmen for Clinton’s campaign declined to respond to requests for comment about Johnson’s letter Tuesday.

On May 31, 2013, four months after Clinton left office, the Clinton Executive Service Corp., which oversaw her email server contracts, hired Platte River to maintain her account. Its New Jersey-based server replaced the server in her New York home that had handled her emails throughout her tenure as secretary of state.

Several weeks ago, Platte River employees discovered that her private server was syncing with an offsite Datto server, he said.

When Datto acknowledged that was the case, a Platte River employee replied in an email: “This is a problem.”

Johnson said that “Datto apparently possessed a backup of the server’s contents since June 2013.”

Upon that discovery, Platte River “directed Datto to not delete the saved data and worked with Datto to find a way to move the saved information . . . back to Secretary Clinton’s private server.”

The letter also noted that Platte River employees were directed to reduce the amount of email data being stored with each backup. Late this summer, Johnson wrote, a Platte River employee took note of this change and inquired whether the company could search its archives for an email from Clinton Executive Service Corp. directing such a reduction in October or November 2014 and then again around February, advising Platte River to save only emails sent during the most recent 30 days.

Those reductions would have occurred after the State Department requested that Clinton turn over her emails.

It is unclear why Secretary Clinton’s representatives apparently directed (Platte River) to reduce the backup time period of her emails around the same time period or in the months following the State Department’s request.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, in letter to Datto

It was here that a Platte River employee voiced suspicions about a cover-up and sought to protect the company. “If we have it in writing that they told us to cut the backups,” the employee wrote, “and that we can go public with our statement saying we have had backups since day one, then we were told to trim to 30 days, it would make us look a WHOLE LOT better,” according to the email cited by Johnson.

In the letter to Austin McChord, Datto’s CEO, Johnson asked the firm to produce copies of all communications it had relating to Clinton’s server, including those with Platte River and the Clinton firm.” He also asked whether Datto and its employees were authorized to store and view classified information and for details of any cyberattacks on the backup server.

In an ongoing review of Clinton’s work emails, the State Department and intelligence agencies have found more than 400 containing classified information, including at least two declared “Top Secret,” the most sensitive national security data. Clinton has said none of the emails were marked classified during her tenure although some communications by their nature are classified at creation.

In other developments, the State Department is asking Clinton to search again for any emails, regardless of format, from the first two months of her tenure, according to a document filed Tuesday by the State Department in response to a lawsuit about her emails.

The request to Clinton attorney David Kendall, dated Oct. 2, comes weeks after the State Department obtained a series of emails that Clinton did not turn over despite her claim that she sent the agency all her work-related correspondence.

To the extent her emails might be found on any internet service and email providers, we encourage you to contact them.

Patrick Kennedy, under secretay of state for management

The chain of emails, dating from Jan. 10, 2009 to Feb. 1, 2009, were exchanged with former Gen. David Petraeus when he headed the military’s U.S. Central Command, responsible for running the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and mostly relate to personnel matters.

“These emails are now in our possession and will be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said last week. “Furthermore, we asked the IG to incorporate this matter into the review Secretary Kerry requested in March. We have also informed Congress of this matter.”

Clinton said she was unable to turn over emails she sent or received from late January to March 18, 2009, because she continued to use the AT&T Blackberry account she had when she was a senator. But after the Petraeus emails surfaced and showed she had not turned over emails sent or received on her new account, aides said said she could not turn over emails because they had not been captured on her private server.

Clinton’s campaign and Kendall did not immediately respond to questions about Johnon’s letter or the State Department’s new request.