The secret world of methamphetamine users and dealers

 To grasp the significance of the Pennsylvania attorney general’s bust of a suspected major methamphetamine trafficking network with Bucks County ties, first you must understand the insular world of its users and distributors.
Meth, as it’s commonly known, isn’t a drug typically sold on street corners, but has a loyal following among mostly longtime users and dealers who operate largely in secret, according to those in law enforcement.
Typically the drug is made in small batches in small labs in out-of-the-way places. Often users will make the drug mainly for their own use, and sell some to feed their habit for the powerful and highly addictive synthetic stimulant, drug agents say.
The people who make and sell meth tend to be older, white men living in rural or suburban communities with an established customer base, law enforcement officials say. Like the people they sell to, dealers and distributors find the drug hard to resist, and many return to selling it after they’ve been arrested and served prison time, the drug agents say.  READ MORE HERE....

 MUG SHOT.  LARGELY IN SECRET WOELLERT

"operate largely in secret" is key, may be more so in a lovely little town like Santa Barbara.  They are in secret and in some of the most enchanting areas, who would ever guess?  They ingratiate themselves as if they can be the best until they start jonesing.  The courts, rehab do little to end the vicious cycle they are locked into.     

Sheriff’s Detectives Arrest Six

MUG SHOT.

STAY OFF THE PIPE BOEFF  

Rescued cat tests positive for methamphetamine 

3/18/13 SANTA BARBARA, Calif.  Deputies found nearly 2,000 pounds of marijuana and a panga style fishing boat on Arroya Camada Beach in Santa Barbara Sunday

What is happening with Michael Stinchfield?  The Santa Barbara businessman is charged with 13 felonies

3/25/13 Infamous Local Slumlord Busted for Burglary Santa Barbara – Dario Louis Pini, 63.

OXYCONTIN ARRESTS - SEATTLE AND LOS ANGELES - DEA LINK
2/28/13 Massive West Coast OxyContin Sweep

3/20/13 Sens. Leahy and Paul Introduce Bill to Undo Mandatory Minimum Sentencing

3/6/13 The upcoming trial in Houston of Rudi Dekkers for drug trafficking  has been pushed back and may now never happen, according to a lawyer close to the case.  3/8/13 Who Killed Hugo Chavez?

1/22/13 Lethal batch of super-strength ecstasy blamed for deaths of FIVE young people

 Inside Mexico's drug war: Heart-wrenching images of poverty and violence capture true misery of a country ravaged by cartels

Jenni Rivera's Connections

The following Madcow article is significant and would be huge if media was doing it's job:
EXCLUSIVE: Drug Traffickers Own Jenni Rivera Death Plane
Posted on December 12, 2012 by Daniel Hopsicker

WHO REALLY OWNED THE PLANE WHOSE CRASH KILLED JENNIE RIVERA?

50-year old Christian Eduardo Esquino-Nunez is the owner—at least, on paper—of Starwood Management LLC, the Las Vegas aviation charter company which is the registered owner of the crashed Lear jet.  
It is, at best, a legal fiction.
Virtually nothing about him should be taken at face value.  And with good reason: he lives in a web of international intrigue.

One example: Eduardo Esquino-Nunez was part of a conspiracy last year to smuggle Moammar Khadafy’s son, Saadi Gaddafi, into Mexico.
He was contacted, he said, by a representative of a Canadian developer who asked for a Mexican-registered aircraft charter to North Africa.

ONE MONTH LATER:

Explosive report claims that singer Jenni Rivera was involved with DRUG CARTELS before she died in plane crash  10 January 2013 By DAILY MAIL REPORTER  

Singer and reality star Jenni Rivera had ties to one of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels before she was killed last month in a plane crash, a shocking report has claimed.
A witness reportedly came forward with claims that the Mexican-American performer, known as 'La Diva de la Banda,' was connected to the Beltran-Leyva cartel, which is regarded as one of the country's most feared criminal syndicates.

* Thanks to everyone that stops by.  We have an illness in the family and have not been able to do any blogging lately, hope to be back before long.

One of FBI's most wanted arrested in Mexico

Mexico arrests Jimmy Kimmel look-alike and suspected murderer on most wanted list.

The Killer of His Daughter's Mother.  A cunning American boy becomes a Mexican Cartel soldier and East L.A. executioner.

How Jose Saenz, one of FBI's Ten Most Wanted, was caught after 14 years

This Official Record was collected from a Law Enforcement agency on 11/18/2011.

Hit Man Trained by Mexican Cartels

Sigreda Fernandez

Wikipedia   +  FBI   +    CAPTURED    +   ten most wanted    +

Read more:  

Nov 27, 2012 SLO:  Another panga boat found in same area as last three

Treasury Designates Ibarra Cardona Drug Trafficking Organization

Action Targets Major Methamphetamine Precursor Import Network

Mexico's Drug War Is Changing Childhood  

Police narrowly cheat death after 'mobile meth lab minivan' explosion is caught on camera

Sheriff’s Department Receives $130,000 Grant for DUI Enforcement Campaign

UCSB Burglars Busted

VIDEO

She defied Mexico's powerful drug gangs, who twice tried to gun her down

Maria Santos Gorrostieta - Astonishing HERO of Mexico's Undeclared War

They got her in the end.

MEXICO, D.F. -- The former mayor of Tiquicheo, Michoacan, Maria Santos Gorrostieta Salazar, 36 years old, was found dead Thursday morning in a vacant property in the Cuitzeo municipality (county).
Previously, Gorrostieta had suffered two attacks. one on October 15, 2009, when she was ambushed along


with her husband, Jose Sanchez, who died in the attack. She was wounded in the incident.
The other attack took place in January, 2010, when, after taking part in a public event in Altamirano City, Guerrero, she was attacked and wounded by individuals who were carrying assault rifles.

Enemy of Mexico’s drug cartels

Obit of the Day                  

The Third Strike of a Presidenta

Borderland Beat

New Frontier of the Drugwar: Prescription Drugs

SAVAGES: America's backyard

Three-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone tackles the drug war in

America's backyard

Stone has a terrifying and convincing thesis as to why the film has to be set in America, with American characters: "The point," he says, "is that wars come home, they come home to roost. And there are connections: one of the two main guys has come home from Afghanistan and Iraq, and he's brought all that with him, what I think are new levels of cruelty and combat technology we have out there."

The thriller Savages is in the same brutal, druggy realm of Natural Born Killers, but Stone has evolved in the past decade and a half, and the new film has a deeper, more complicated perspective. The violence isn't a kick. It's horrifying, senseless. Amid the mayhem, you think, "It didn't have to go down this way."   Why does it? Business.

Oliver Stone's film, Savages, with  Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Taylor Kitsch,  Blake Lively ,
Salma Hayek, Benicio del Toro,  John Travolta ,  Demián Bichir...   C A S T
Dirty, Rotten, (Industrialized) ‘Savages’!

Salma Hayek’s Fierceness Is The Only Reason We Will Be Seeing Savages

Hayek had plenty to draw from in the lives of 

Griselda Blanco and the "La Reina del Pacífico" (Sandra Ávila Beltrán).

(Still at large though are such notorious female narcos as Ana Cristina Aguirre Monje)

The film is based on a book with the same name by Don Winslow, but while the book was released to acclaim, the film was released to mixed reviews.  The consensus is that the performances, with the exception of Blake Lively, are riveting. 

"How liberated from an agenda is this movie? 

Savages will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on November 13, 2012.  

WILL SAVAGES INFORM THE REST OF THE COUNTRY 

ABOUT THIS LITTLE SLICE OF AMERICAN BACKYARD? 

 Are homespun entrepreneurs/Pharma V the Mexican drug cartels coming to a turf near you?  Presidential contender Romney knows what American addicts have known for years, send the uninsured to a nearby hospital emergency room.  Some addicts go bi-weekly and are well known by staff.  "Yes every medic and ER doc knows... "  

Why not ask them?

"Drug addiction should be treated as a potentially fatal illness and not a crime"

Russell Brand

Been fighting extradition from Mexico since 2007

'Queen of the Pacific' 

Mexican officials extradited the suspected drug trafficker known as the 'Queen of the Pacific' to the United States on Thursday.

Sandra Avila Beltran was handed over at the Toluca airport outside Mexico City to U.S. Marshals who took her to Miami to face federal cocaine-trafficking charges, the attorney general's office said.

She told the cops she was just an innocent housewife

 who dabbled a little in the rental market.

  

* * * * * *
Imagine this: You're out drinking when the bartender lets you know it's last call. But you're not quite ready to go home yet – in fact, you'd actually like a few more drinks. 
Illegal little houses: The dangerous underground club scene of South LA

33 arrested in Anaheim gang crackdown ~ More than 250 law enforcement officers target the Eastside Anaheim gang at 54 locations in Orange County and elsewhere.
A year-long investigation into one of Anaheim's most entrenched street gangs has resulted in 33 arrests and the seizure of dozens of guns, a crackdown that comes on
 the heels of weeks of street protests triggered by the fatal police shootings of two men. LATimes August 11, 2012

Southland body armor business is going ballistic
With strong international sales bolstering steady U.S. law enforcement demand, Cerritos body armor makers Stephen and Jana Armellino 
strive to maintain innovations in design and materials.

 Nationwide Drug Bust Includes SJC, LN

A Continuously Updated Global Display Of Major Drug Interdictions

Raging Panga!

July 28, 2012  Thirteen people were arrested early Thursday morning after U.S. Border Patrol and other authorities intercepted a Mexican panga-style boat carrying more than 6,600 pounds of marijuana along the Santa Barbara County coast.

About 1 a.m., border patrol agents observed the boat just off the shore of Las Flores Beach near Gaviota, according to the San Diego sector of U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents responded to the area and allegedly found the 27-foot boat with three outboard motors, which had come ashore.

A total of 300 bales of marijuana, totaling 6,620 pounds, were allegedly found on board, according to officials.  Read more:  COUNTY IN BRIEF    

 "Santa Barbara's Panga problem isn't going away anytime soon."  

Panga boats are commonly used to smuggle illegal drugs and people

KEYT PANGA NEWS (video) July 26, 2012

COAST GUARD NEWS

Mysterious Panga Boats Washing Ashore in Santa Barbara County
February 14, 2012

Man tied to drug smuggling panga sentenced to nearly 6 years in prison

A Panga in Trouble Could Be Trouble

Ongoing Maritime Invasion Leads To More Drug Busts

Pangas and Isthmuses

"Pangas-r'us" by John Thomas

 BREAKING BAD

Bad. bad girls

bad girl Francine Gabel Sheriff's Narcotics Detectives Arrest Six in Drug Bust bad, bad boys ~ William Paxson ~ Jerry Boeff ~ Paul Woellert ~ William Konrad ~ 

BAD GIRLS
Live fast, die young
Bad girls do it well
Live fast, die young
Bad girls do it well
My chain hits my chest
When I'm banging on the dashboard
My chain hits my chest
When I'm banging on the radio
Get back, get down
Pull me closer if you think you can hang
Hands up, hands tied
Don't go screaming if I blow you with a bang
Suki Zuki
I'm coming in the Cherokee
Gasoline
There's steam on the window screen
Take it, take it
Wheel's bouncing like a trampoline
When I get to where I'm going, gonna have you trembling
Yeah back it, back it
Yeah pull up to the bumper game

Popular Now in Crime 

"They have already completed several jobs," he said. "They have long or short weapons (...) They are accompanied by men and they get out down to do the job. "  

The armed wing of the Juarez drug cartel (La Linea), which operates on the border of Ciudad Juarez and El Paso is recruiting and training dozens of young, pretty women as sicarios (hired assassins), said a captured sicario hired by the criminal organization.

High-risk riches for Mexico's ‘narco wives’

"Cocaine Cowboys"The film explores the rise of cocaine and resulting crime epidemic that swept the American city of Miami, Florida in the 1970s and 1980s. The producers of Cocaine Cowboys use interviews with law enforcement, journalists, lawyers, former drug smugglers and gang members to provide a first hand perspective of the Miami drug war.
Also documented in the film is
the gangland violence associated with the trade. The interviewees in the film argue that Griselda Blanco, an infamous crime family matriarch, played a major role in the history of the drug trade in Miami and other cities across America. It was the lawless and corrupt atmosphere, primarily from Blanco's operations, that led to the gangsters' being dubbed the "Cocaine Cowboys".

                                                            Sandra Ávila Beltrán

                  The Mexican drug cartel queen who got Botox in prison

Beltrán (born 1960, Baja California, Mexico) is a Mexican drug cartel leader, dubbed "La Reina del Pacífico" (The Queen of the Pacific) by the media. She was arrested on September 28, 2007 and charged with organized crime and conspiracy to traffic drugs; Some charges were later dropped but she is still being held for possession of illegal weapons and money laundering, pending her extradition to the U.S.
Mexican and U.S. officials consider she was an important link between the Sinaloa Cartel in
Mexico and the Colombian Norte del Valle Cartel.

Homeland Security, Lieberman, Chaney, McCain, Palin, Tripp

Things that make you go hmmmmm...

video

Mexican Drug Wars Documentary part 1
SPUNOUT

Cinco de Mayo

Best Bets for Your Fiesta

M U S I C A

Festive around here.

Mint Juleps for Derby Day and Shooters for Cinco de Mayo Night.

135 years of horsing around