With your life:
"US slammed over casino attack; Mexican leader puts partial blame on drug demand" August 27, 2011|By William Booth, Washington Post
MEXICO CITY - President Felipe Calderon yesterday charged that the US government, along with American drug consumers and gun dealers, was partly responsible for the deaths of 52 people killed in an arson attack at a casino in Monterrey....
Neither Calderon nor the Obama administration provided evidence that the assailants were part of a major drug trafficking organization. The attackers remained at large and their identities and affiliations unknown.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
But critics in Mexico were raising questions about the unregulated proliferation of casinos and the failure of the Calderon government and Monterrey officials to adequately monitor these businesses or inspect their buildings to make sure they are not hazardous fire traps.
Have you considered that, Massachusetts lawmakers?
Sports betting, nightclubs, casinos, and cantinas - businesses that deal in a lot of cash - are often used by criminal gangs to launder money. They are also frequently targeted by extortionists.
Or that?
A security camera captured images Thursday afternoon of a dozen assailants pulling up in four vehicles to the front doors of the Casino Royale and entering the entertainment complex, which offers bingo and betting on sports and horse racing....
I'm glad I don't gamble.
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"Police officer held in deadly casino fire" September 03, 2011|Associated Press
MONTERREY, Mexico - Federal police arrested a state police officer in connection with last week’s arson fire at a casino that killed 52 people in northern Mexico.
Uh-oh! An INSIDE JOB!
Of course, the biggest drug-runners and money launderers are intelligence or law enforcement agencies.
The officer was caught in a surveillance video inside an SUV outside Casino Royale, presumably connected to the attack, said Assistant Attorney General Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas.
The officer is in custody of federal investigators, Salinas told a news conference late Thursday.
Five alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel were arrested Sunday in connection with last week’s fire in Monterrey, called one of the worst attacks in Mexico’s five-year drug war. Police have said at least 12 people were involved.
Related: Mexican Oil Siphoning Story Stinks
Yeah, "former" military, blah, blah.
Also see: AmeriKa's War on Mexico
WTF you mean the US GOVERNMENT ARMED THEM?
That must be the FAULT Mexico is finding.
Agents are investigating whether the attack was in retaliation for not paying extortion money.
Gunmen last week ignited gasoline at the entrance to the Casino Royale. Terrified customers and employees ran deep inside the building. Many were found dead from smoke inhalation in offices and bathrooms.
Also Thursday, the brother of Monterrey Mayor Fernando Larrazabal was detained for questioning as part of a corruption investigation launched after he was seen taking wads of cash inside an unidentified casino just days before last week’s deadly arson attack.
The authorities are always the worst offenders, yet it is the citizen who must pay with either their life or by surrendering their civil liberties on the altar of the drug war.
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Related: Jewish Supremacists Own Gambling
They seem to be at the bottom of mo$t things, yeah.
Another guy who took a gamble -- and won:
"Pilot in border drowning case found not guilty on 1 count" September 03, 2011|By Juan A. Lozano, Associated Press
HOUSTON - A federal jury found a Department of Homeland Security pilot not guilty yesterday of lying about his alleged role in the drowning of a would-be illegal immigrant swimming across the Rio Grande toward Texas but could not reach a verdict on three other similar counts.
Gotta love that AmeriKan justice.
Jurors acquitted James Peters on one count of making false statements to federal investigators looking into the 2005 drowning death of Carlos Delgadillo Martinez. A judge declared a mistrial on the three other counts of the same charge.
Prosecutors accused Peters, 41, of lying about flying his helicopter low in an attempt to force Delgadillo and another person back to Mexico. Officials say the force of the turbulence from the helicopter’s rotor blades made Delgadillo lose his grip on an inner tube.
But defense attorneys tried to create doubt in the jurors’ minds by suggesting that surveillance video prosecutors said showed Peters flying over Delgadillo and the other person was not clear, that it did not indicate how far above the men the aircraft was, and that it presented no proof anyone drowned.
The jury indicated several times during its deliberations, which began Wednesday, that it could not reach a unanimous verdict on all four counts. Yesterday, US District Judge Sim Lake resisted prosecutors’ efforts to have jurors continue working, saying they had deliberated extensively.
Peters, who had faced up to five years in prison if convicted, cried after the judge read the verdict. After the jury left the courtroom, he hugged his wife and three friends, including two other Homeland Security pilots.
“He’s relieved,’’ said Thomas Berg, one of Peters’s attorneys. “He’s hoping the government will dismiss the other counts and this nightmare can be over.’’
Federal prosecutors said they respected the jury’s verdict and told Lake they would let him know by late next week if they planned to retry Peters on the three undecided counts or drop those charges....
Not that I'm a big fan of illegals; however, he sort of forgotten in this story, huh?
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Some lives must be more important than others.
Related: Drug war sparks exodus of affluent Mexicans (By Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post)
Better not try swimming over.
"2 Mexicans deny charges of terrorism over tweets" September 05, 2011|By Mark Stevenson, Associated Press
MEXICO CITY - Think before you tweet.
I don't tweet. It's all out here.
A teacher-turned-radio commentator and a math tutor sit in a prison in southern Mexico, facing possible 30-year sentences on allegations of terrorism and sabotage in what may be the most serious charges brought against someone using a Twitter account.
I'm too busy fuming away here to do that.
Prosecutors say the defendants helped cause a chaos of car crashes and panic as parents in the Gulf Coast city of Veracruz rushed to save their children because of false reports that gunmen were attacking schools.
But when the government and media do it to start a war or something, it's okay.
Gerardo Buganza, interior secretary for Veracruz state, compared the panic to that caused by Orson Welles’s 1938 radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds.’’ But he said the fear roused by that account of a Martian invasion of New Jersey “was small compared to what happened here.’’
Martians in Mexico?
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Others have a more earthly concern:
Oil workers missing off stormy Mexico coast
"Search crews work as storm closes in
VILLAHERMOSA - Authorities on Mexico’s Gulf coast prepared for Tropical Storm Nate’s arrival, as air and sea search teams hunted for 10 oil workers missing since abandoning a disabled research vessel in stormy waters. Nate was picking up speed yesterday, the US National Hurricane Center said. Forecasters said the storm would approach the coast today, just below hurricane strength. Mexico’s state oil company, Petroleos Mexicanos, had two ships searching for the missing workers, employees of Geokinetics Inc. of Houston (AP)."
Haven't seen or heard about Nate since.
