Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Americans should eat more of these invasive animals, say experts

2025-03-19

[FoxNews] The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has released a list of five invasive animals that Americans can hunt, catch and cook.

Eating invasive species can help protect native wildlife by reducing the numbers and limiting the damage these species cause to ecosystems, FWS spokesperson Erin Huggins wrote in her list, which was published on the agency's website.

Fox News Digital spoke to various chefs and hunters to get their take on the flavor profiles of these invasive but "downright delicious" animals.

Check out these five.

1. NUTRIA
Native to South America, nutria are invasive inhabitants of the Gulf Coast, Atlantic Coast and Pacific Northwest, according to the FWS.

Also known by its scientific name of "Myocastor coypus," the semiaquatic herbivore has meat that is "lean, mild and tastes like rabbit," Huggins wrote.

Eric Cook, a New Orleans chef who owns Gris-Gris and Saint John restaurants, told Fox News Digital that nutria "is such a crazy invasive species" and was doing so much "damage to the land" that his group experimented with it on the menu.

"And it failed tremendously," he said.

2. NORTHERN SNAKEHEAD
The northern snakehead, or "Channa argus," is a sharp-toothed fish native to East Asia.

These air-breathing fish can live outside a body of water for several days and are able to wiggle from one freshwater habitat to another, according to the FWS.

Northern snakeheads were first found in a pond in Maryland in 2002; two years later, they were detected in the Potomac River, according to the FWS.

They've since been spotted throughout nearly all the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Commonly found in mid-Atlantic or southeastern U.S. waterways, the snakehead "is a meatier white meat, edging toward chicken," said Ryan Callaghan, MeatEater's director of conservation in Bozeman, Montana.

Huggins described the snakehead as having "firm, white and flaky meat."

"Try them in fish tacos, grilled or fried," she wrote. "Just make sure they don't bite you first."

3. GREEN IGUANA
The green iguana is arguably the most visible of all the invasive animals on the list.

Native to Central and South America, these cold-blooded invaders have made sunny South Florida their home away from home.

The large, plant-eating lizards thrive in South Florida's warm climate, enabling them to reproduce and become a regular sight for residents and visitors alike.

Darcie Arahill, a Florida-based angler and content creator of Darcizzle Offshore YouTube videos that teach the art of fishing, said that these iguanas "breed like rabbits" and are "here to stay."

"They don't eat any kind of meat, but because they're vegetarians, they threaten the native wildlife or the native plants and flowers that we have here in Florida," Arahill told Fox News Digital.

Iguanas also dig tunnels that erode seawalls, Arahill said.

She's harvested them and posted YouTube videos about how to cook them.

"Iguana is really good," she said.

Arahill, who lives along a canal, said she uses her bow and arrow to shoot them in her backyard. She said the tail is the "best part," but the bigger the lizard, the more meat there is on the legs.

Arahill likes to boil iguana meat in water with potatoes and carrots, almost like a stew, "to the point where the meat just falls off the bone."

Then she'll plate the stew on top of rice – "and I swear it is so good."

Arahill said iguana tastes like pulled pork.

"You don't know the difference," she said.

4. INVASIVE CARP
Another invasive fish is the carp.

Bighead, silver, black and grass carp species, native to East Asia, are collectively known as invasive carp.

"Invasive carp are fast-growing and prolific feeders that out-compete native fish and leave a trail of environmental destruction in their wake," according to the National Invasive Species Information Center's website.

"The four types of invasive carp currently found in the U.S. were imported into the country for use in aquaculture ponds. Through flooding and accidental releases, black, grass, bighead and silver carps found their way into the Mississippi River system."

Because the Mississippi River system serves as a "giant freshwater highway," this has given invasive carp species "access to many of the country's rivers and streams," the site also says.

MeatEater's Callaghan, who has some experience with bighead and silver carp, told Fox News Digital that the taste is "very mild to almost neutral."

He said they're zooplankton feeders, "so they don't have to work very hard."

The carp's bone structure is "probably the biggest reason they haven't taken off as a grocery store fish," Callaghan said. It "takes some practice to filet them efficiently and avoid the bones."

5. FERAL HOGS/WILD BOAR
Feral hogs or wild boars, known by their scientific name "Sus scrofa," are a "full-blown ecological disaster," Huggins wrote.

Native to Europe and Asia, these animals can be found in the Southeast, Texas, California and beyond.

Wild hogs can be found throughout Florida in a variety of habitats. Yet according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, they "prefer oak-cabbage palm hammocks, freshwater marshes and sloughs, pine flatwoods and more open agricultural areas."

These swine "eat a variety of plants and animals and feed by rooting with their broad snouts. They may disturb the soil and ground cover vegetation and leave the area looking like it has been plowed."

Danielle Prewett, a Texas hunter, chef and author of the cookbook "MeatEater's Wild + Whole," told Fox News Digital that hogs would "tear up all of the pastures" on her family's ranch — so she and her husband "built a huge trap" to catch them.

"That's one way to harvest these hogs," Prewett said.

As a food, Prewett said, hog gets a bad rap.

"I have never had a bad hog," she noted.

While "a lot of people have a lot of really negative things to say about hogs," Prewett said, she believes it mostly has to do with "how the meat is processed."

"I have never had a bad hog," a Texas hunter and chef told Fox News Digital. (iStock)
"Hogs have several glands, scent glands underneath their skin, and if you accidentally cut that when you're removing the hide and processing it, it can really tank the meat and make it smell and taste really, really terrible," Prewett said.

She said hog is "really delicious," but the flavor of every animal is "going to be based upon whatever it is that they're eating."

"If you're eating [hog from] somewhere where there's no good food source, they're going to taste differently and reflect that," she said.

Link

Government Corruption

If You Like Kash Patel, Wait ‘Til You See Donald Im

2025-03-02

[TennesseeStar] There was rightful rejoicing throughout the land when Kash Patel was sworn in as America’s next Director of the FBI on February 21. What a terrific story. A brilliant and dedicated public servant outrageously persecuted by a federal agency goes on to lead that very agency. But here’s a little secret: America has another Kash Patel waiting in the wings.

The other “Kash Patel,” whose life story bears remarkable similarities to Patel’s, is named Donald Im. Don’s dedication and love of country led him on a dual career path. One, to become an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in the DEA’s Special Operations Division, retiring after 31 years of service, and on a parallel path, retiring from the US Special Operations Command as a lieutenant colonel in the US Army Reserves after 27 years of service, with deployments to Afghanistan and Iraq, where he was the architect and designer of the Afghan Threat Finance Cell. He is one of America’s leading experts on money laundering and threat finance. He has testified in multiple venues before the House of Representatives on Chinese involvement in drug money laundering and fentanyl production, as well as the Senate on the use of shell companies by criminal organizations. If ever America needed a general in its undeclared war on China, Don Im is the ideal candidate.

Don, like Kash Patel, is a patriotic and outspoken son of persecuted Asian immigrants who came to this country seeking a better life. He rose through a remarkable career in law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the US military. In his case, Don’s father fled North Korea as a child after his own father had been executed by the North Korean Communists. The elder Im, along with his younger siblings, were saved from starvation by US Army soldiers conducting a patrol near the 38th parallel after a month-long treacherous march down to South Korea in the 1950s to evade the Communists. Don’s mother, born in Japan to Korean parents and whose cousins were killed in the bombing of Hiroshima, married his father while he was serving as a soldier for the Republic of Korea and detailed as a military policeman to the US Army’s 55th MP Company on the DMZ.

His father emigrated to the United States in 1967 and worked as a bartender to bring Don, his little sister, and mother to the States in 1970 and settled down in Adelphi, Maryland. They established a business there, which Don’s parents ran for a remarkable 49 years. They raised three successful children, Don being the eldest, and the youngest currently serving as a Maryland police officer.

In full disclosure, Don and I have been close friends since we were young intelligence analysts in a DEA intelligence unit focused on Latin American drug money laundering. We hit it off immediately when we first met in October 1991. We would eventually collaborate in the production of intelligence products and conduct training assignments, teaching domestic and foreign law enforcement officers around the world on various aspects of money laundering intelligence and investigations.

As a young analyst in the 90s, before becoming a DEA special agent, Don wrote a seminal intelligence report on the warping effects of the drug trade on the Colombian economy. The report, titled Colombian Economic Reform: The Impact on Drug Money Laundering Within the Colombian Economy, was inadvertently released to the press and caused a firestorm, but led to Colombia enacting anti-money laundering laws and regulations. He helped target Pablo Escobar’s finances and after Escobar’s demise, Don targeted the Cali Cartel by identifying the Cartel’s leader’s financial and business operations for the first-ever Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) sanctions in late 1995.

Although our career paths diverged, Don would remain with the DEA until retirement, conducting undercover financial money laundering operations in New York City and South America. He initiated one of the largest money laundering prosecutions in history against HSBC Bank. He gradually rose through the ranks, with increasing positions of responsibility, becoming a subject matter expert in Chinese money laundering. Don, with a degree in economics, recognized the dangers of this Chinese menace as early as 2012 and strove to bring attention to it, briefing officials in the White House and Congress as early as 2017, long before most Americans were even aware of China’s role in the production and spread of fentanyl and other illicit drugs, which has taken an estimated 1.5 million American lives.

I put on my investigative reporter’s hat recently and interviewed Don over a couple hours. Talk about a wealth of knowledge about China and its role in international drug trafficking. His 30,000-foot perspective is one that does not view drug trafficking in isolation as a simple moral and social scourge. For China, it is central to maintaining the Communist Party’s dominance and China’s position in the world using unrestricted warfare tactics.

“The global drug markets have allowed Chinese provincial leaders access to cheap and abundant capital that would otherwise be insufficient from legitimate Chinese investments and loans,” he told me. Don noted that the global heroin, methamphetamine, cocaine, ecstasy, fentanyl, and marijuana trade generates estimated annual revenues of between one- to three-quarters of a trillion dollars, whereby China has been successfully tapping into this abundant source of easy capital through its worldwide diaspora networks and highly secretive organized criminal triads.

He said, “Drug money is one of their [China’s] primary sources of capital for growth and sustainment.” Drug money, he says, allows the Chinese to offset their expenditures on their military weapons technology industry. “Drug revenue,” he tells me, “has generally become China’s ad hoc bank.”

Don then becomes more expansive in his analysis, stressing that China views drug trafficking and organized crime generally as a key plank in its unrestricted asymmetric warfare against the West. He shows me a quote that he keeps on his phone from the late Chinese leader, Deng Xiaoping, who succeeded Mao Zedong. It reads: “As long as organized crime groups support national interests, the CCP is prepared to cooperate with them.”

China, he says, uses unrestricted warfare with all elements of society working in tandem to protect the Chinese Communist Party—including the government, the military, “private” corporations, state-owned enterprises, and organized crime groups. It is an all-of-society approach to maintaining the CCP’s power.

Link

-Short Attention Span Theater-

Pablo Escobar's 'cocaine hippos' attack Columbians as concerns over their numbers rise

2024-02-06

[GEO.TV] The children of late drug lord Pablo Escobar's illegal imports of hippopotamuses into Colombia in the 1980s have begun attacking humans.

Since there are no natural predators for these hippos in the South American nation, they have turned on humans, who are the object of their ferocious attacks, according to Wion.

"They're very, very dangerous. The hippos have started to attack people," one local was quoted saying to Fox News.

Others described the enormous hippos as "unpredictable and aggressive," and advised hiding fast in the hopes that they won't pursue you if you find yourself up against them.

One of the hippos from Escobar's collection passed away last year after being hit by a car. Emergency responders sent the car's driver for medical attention, but the hippo passed away immediately.

The hippos were introduced to Escobar's private zoo in Hacienda Nápoles in the 1980s. But since Escobar passed away in 1993, these animals have proliferated unchecked in the surrounding waterways and have spread, compelling Colombia's Ministry of Environment to classify them as invasive species because they pose a harm to the environment as a whole.

The hippos began poisoning the water and soil and eradicating the local natural vegetation when their population reached 150. According to the officials, their excrement reduced the oxygen content of the water, degraded its quality, and killed a large number of fish.

Link

Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

Megagangs against the state. Why didn't the Kazan boys become a megagang?

2024-01-16

Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Dmitry Taratorin

[REGNUM] In Ecuador, the local underworld has challenged the official authorities. And declaring itself as a real alternative force, it requires “recognition.” This doesn't happen very often in Latin America. At one time, the legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar actually declared war on the Colombian government. He was killed in the end. But he showed that “it was possible.”

In Mexico, the bloody confrontation has been going on for years. One of the most striking and scandalous examples of the demonstration of the power of drug cartels happened not so long ago. The “Battle of Culiacan” took place on October 17, 2019. Then the military arrested the son of the head of the Sinaloa cartel, Guzman Lopez. But the response to this was immediately full-fledged hostilities - hundreds of militants attacked government and army targets using armored vehicles, grenade launchers and heavy machine guns. When the bandits took several hostages and began to threaten the neighborhood where military families lived, the authorities backed down. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador ordered the release of Guzman Lopez.

At the time it seemed like a sign of weakness. But exactly a year ago, Lopez was arrested again and sent to a bunk in the Altiplano maximum security prison.

What is the reason for such power and audacity of the Latin American underworld? Of course, it is not only and not so much the fault of hot blood, but above all the enormous resources that are at their disposal thanks to drugs. These two factors, plus the social problems of the continent, gave rise to such a phenomenon as cartels.

But they should not be confused with the mafia, and it, in turn, with such a phenomenon as megagangs. And although they all actively interact (primarily on the basis of the transit and sale of drugs), these phenomena have different genesis. And it is worth understanding it in order to understand when and under what circumstances they acquire such power that they risk waging wars with states. How they themselves become quasi-states. And why, for example, the Kazan boys would never become a mafia, but they could easily become megagangs.

In the 90s, a horror story called “Russian Mafia” became popular in the West. But, in fact, it did not exist and could not exist. The Russian underworld was initially very unique.

To understand its nature, it is worth turning to “Kolyma Tales” by Varlam Shalamov. In his time, thieves were a completely antisocial caste.

If we take the Sicilian Mafia or the Neapolitan Comorra, the Calabrian 'Ndrangheta or even the Japanese Yakuza, then these are alternative forms of socialization, and not at all a complete denial of the generally accepted human, as in the Russian case.

The mafia does not draw such a sharp line between itself and the world of “suckers” (frayers in the Shalamov period) or “chushpans” in the Kazan version. On the contrary, it acts as an alternative to the state institution for the establishment of order. She grows out of the Family. And this is very typical for Italy.

Until recently, the Yakuza generally had official offices. And they represented a kind of “samurai matrix” in a collapsed form and adapted to modern times.

The thieves, according to Shalamov, are “not people” at all. At the same time, it is extremely characteristic that they call themselves “people.” From which it clearly follows that others are not considered as such.

The thieves, according to Shalamov, are a “damned order.” They are hostile to all social institutions, including the family. They view suckers as completely alien, as pure food supply. And the state for them is an absolute enemy. That is why the famous “bitch war” happened, when the thieves who took part in the Great Patriotic War, as soon as they again found themselves in places not so remote, were harshly charged by their former colleagues for treason to the “order,” calling them “bitches.”

But it never occurred to anyone to charge the legendary Mafia boss Salvatore (Lucky) Luciano for actively facilitating the landing of American troops in Sicily in 1943. The logic of the Mafia was simple - Mussolini persecuted its members very harshly, so why not contribute to his overthrow.

But the Mafia, in principle, precisely because of its “family” genesis, does not see anything catastrophic in its interaction with the authorities (not only its corrupt members, but with its institutions). After all, Cosa Nostra (the name of the mafia in the States) is translated from Italian simply as “our business.” This is a kind of family business.

In Sicily and the southern regions of Italy, criminal communities acted as substitutes for the state due to its inability to control certain regions and/or zones of human activity.

Everything was different with us. Beginning with Peter the Great, the state sought complete control. Zones where there would be space for the formation of some semblance of a mafia simply did not arise.

Therefore, by the way, initially the word “thief” in Rus' meant a rebel, a person who went against the state system itself and everyone who is loyal to it. And the one who simply steals was called a “thief.”

Mega gangs are another matter. Here they could theoretically have developed in the 90s. A couple of decades earlier, they began to appear in the United States. The most serious ones are in Los Angeles. The prefix mega indicates that the gang has more than 10 thousand members. There they consist mainly, again, of Latinos and blacks, between whom there are permanent wars. However, there are also white ones. The most famous is the “Aryan Brotherhood”, which arose as an intra-prison association, but has long since acquired serious influence outside. However, this is a dynamic process - someone’s star rises in the criminal sky, and someone else’s falls.

But it is characteristic that most of the megagangs were formed on the basis of street gangs, from guys “from the area”, just as in the case of the boys from the most popular series of last year. Many people even “sew on” it in about the same way, if not tougher.

For example, in Mara Salvatrucha (one of the largest and most brutal mega-gangs) this is called a “jump in”, when brutal blows are rained down on the newcomer from all sides for a period of time determined by the elders. Mara Salvatrucha was originally created by immigrants from El Salvador. But now, when, according to various estimates, there are from 50 to 100 thousand people in it and it operates in several countries, there is no need to talk about monoethnicity. And here we come to the important difference between such structures and the same mafia. Megaband is a new identity. Mara Salvatrucha's code of honor is simple: "You live for God and Mother, and you die for the Gang."

So, why didn’t “Universam”, “Hadi Taktash” or “Tyap-Lyap” reach the same level? Fortunately for ordinary Russian citizens, they simply didn’t have time.

To form a megagang, you need a special breeding ground: a ghetto atmosphere, a lack of real social elevators and trust in authorities, a large number of passionate boys, plus a resource for development and growth (most often drugs).

And the first four components were adjusted for Soviet specifics. A resource in the form of money from “protected” businesses also appeared in the early 90s. And the state at that time practically “gone away.” But unlike Latin America or Italy, the power vacuum was very short-lived. The state returned too quickly, interrupting the process of building criminal empires and forming alternative identities.

However, this does not mean that the threat has been removed once and for all. The notorious AUE (an organization whose activities are prohibited in the Russian Federation) has all the prerequisites and generic characteristics in order to, in the right case, develop into a fan of mega-gangs. Perhaps this seems fantastic to residents of megacities who did not live in the 90s. Therefore, the story of the “boys” Marat and Andrey is just a well-constructed film script for them. And the events in Ecuador are simply something from a completely different bloody and exotic life.

But the Chief Prosecutor of the Holy Synod, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, once told the writer Dmitry Merezhkovsky in order to dispel his illusions: “Russia is an icy desert through which a dashing man wanders.”

The phrase may seem overly pessimistic. However, let's reformulate it slightly: when a power vacuum is formed in Russia, it gives rise to an icy desert, from which a dashing person emerges with the most evil intentions. Does this sound more realistic?

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Seventy of Pablo Escobar's 'cocaine hippos' are FINALLY being moved to zoos in India and Mexico

2023-03-03

[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] The Colombian government will transfer 70 of Pablo Escobar's hippopotamuses to a zoo in Mexico and another in India

The Medellín Cartel kingpin purchased four hippos - including three females - in the 1980s for his own zoo at his estate, Hacienda Napoles

The hippo population has grown to around 150, posing a threat to residents and the ecosystem in the central northwestern department of Antioquia

Link

-Obits-

We lost a great American yesterday morning.

2023-02-15

[Coffee or Die] Maj. Gen. Gary Harrell, a legendary Delta Force leader, is being remembered as a quiet professional who lived a daring life of service and sacrifice during America’s shadow wars.

The retired two-star Green Beret general died early on Valentine’s Day in Johnson City, Tennessee, following a long battle with glioblastoma brain cancer.

He was 71 and had hunted Colombian cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, led an operation to free an American hostage from a Panamanian prison, and battled the nation’s enemies in Grenada, the Gulf War, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan during three decades of service.

"He was a strong, Christian patriot who loved his country and would’ve done anything for his country, until the day he died," his wife, Jennifer "Jenny" Harrell, told Coffee or Die on Tuesday. "That was foremost to him. He loved his military service, every minute of it."

Link

Caribbean-Latin America

Colombia captures its most wanted drug lord 'Otoniel'

2021-10-24

[DW] Dairo Antonio Usuga was captured in a jungle raid involving 500 police personnel and 22 helicopters. President Ivan Duque compared it to the fall of Pablo Escobar.

Colombian authorities said on Saturday they captured Dairo Antonio Usuga, the country's biggest narco.

Usuga, better known by his alias "Otoniel," is the alleged leader of the ~~violent~~ mostly peaceful Clan Del Golfo cartel, which had control of major cocaine smuggling routes through thick jungles.

COMPARED TO CAPTURE OF ESCOBAR
Colombia's President Ivan Duque compared Saturday's arrest to the fall of Pablo Escobar, the Colombian drug lord killed in a police shootout in 1993.

"This the hardest blow... to drug trafficking this century in our country," Duque said.

"Alias Otoniel was the most feared drug lord in the world, a murderer of police, soldiers, local activists," he added.

The arrest was "the biggest penetration of the jungle ever seen in the military history of our country," Duque said.

Duque urged other members of the cartel to turn themselves in or "feel the full weight of the law."

Usuga stands accused of various crimes, including drug trafficking, murder, extortion, kidnapping, conspiracy and illegal recruiting of minors. He was on the US Drug Enforcement Administration's most wanted list.

The US State Department had offered up to $5 million (€4.29 million) for information leading to his arrest or conviction in 2009. US and British authorities were also informed about the details of the arrest.

WHO IS 'OTONIEL' USUGA?
The 50-year-old was born in Necocli and was the seventh of nine children to a rural family. At age 18, he joined a Marxist guerilla group that was later disbanded.

In the 90s, he aligned himself with the Peasant Self-Defenders of Cordoba and Uraba (ACCU), which worked to protect farmers against guerillas, and was also linked to drug trafficking. Some of these paramilitary groups then became the Gulf clan.

Usuga took over the leadership of the clan from his brother, who was killed by the police in 2012.

He evaded arrest for many years. During this operation, about 500 coppers and 22 helicopters were deployed.

Link

-War on Police-

Leftist attack on ICE office in San Antonio may be a portent of worse to come

2019-08-15

[American Thinker] San Antonio's ICE office was hit with a barrage of bullets in the wee hours of the morning, mercifully striking no one, though there were people working in the specially targeted office.

Obviously, what happened was a political act, rooted in die-hard opposition to any enforcement of U.S. borders. According to the Washington Examiner, it was the fourth such act targeting law enforcement in just a few weeks:

Last month, protesters with Never Again blocked the entrances to ICE's national headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In mid-July, police in Tacoma, Washington, fatally shot an armed man after they said he hurled Molotov cocktails at an ICE building.

On July 12, a group of protesters in Aurora, Colorado, took down an American flag and two other flags from outside an ICE facility and raised a Mexican flag and a defaced "thin blue line" flag, which commemorates law enforcement.

Antifa is a likely suspect, given its open advocacy of violence and encouragement from some elements of the media, such as Fredo Cuomo. But there are others, from the list cited by the Examiner above, as well as a new investigative book coming up from Michelle Malkin, chronicling the funders of open borders. She describes it here.

It represents a downward slide, the Latin Americanization of U.S. politics. If you want to know how Colombia became a hellhole in the late 1990s when first Pablo Escobar and his M-19 leftist guerrilla allies waged a reign of terror on the country's judges, then the Cali cartel did its damage, then the FARC Marxist narco-terrorists made open warfare with the Colombia government, and now the ELN has made Colombia so miserable, look no farther than the leftist rhetoric coming from the pols, the press, and the university intellectuals. Together, they created the Petri dish from which terror attacks on government buildings could go off with such impunity.

Link

Syria-Lebanon-Iran

Al Arabiya documentary reveals Hezbollah’s drug trade, money laundering links

2018-11-29

[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] In a deep look into a "thriller" investigation, Al Arabiya’s exclusive documentary "Hezbollah’s Narco Jihad" discusses the involvement of the designated terrorist organization, Hezbollah, in the global drug trade and explains how it uses money laundering to substitute for its fund shortage.

From 2009 to July 2013, an estimated 7,000 people were killed in the Medellin mafia wars in Colombia, as different challengers sought to claim Don Berna’s criminal throne as head of the Oficina de Envigado (the Envigado office), and become the successor to the Medellin Cartel.

Until his death in Medellin in 1993, Pablo Escobar was the unchallenged head of the Medellin Cartel.

A former sicario of the Medellin cartel, who is also said to have been Escobar’s most loyal man, told Al Arabiya in its exclusive documentary that: "The cartel of Medellin was too powerful. It had an aircraft fleet of around 140, it had more than 3,000 hit men, and it had a cruel intelligence structure. They bribed people from the State, operated a lot of intelligence matters. It was a totally criminal organization, with a great deal of money, possessing many weapons and an elaborate infrastructure."

For two years after Escobar’s death, the Cali Cartel was able to continue operating with the same modus operandi, until the leaders, the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, were captured in 1995.

Then the Colombian underworld became fragmented, and now drug trafficking syndicates are eluding countering forces with new strategies.

The documentary explains that this meant working with the Italian Mafia in Europe, and tapping into the huge Brazilian and Argentinian markets in South America.

It also meant increased coordination between Colombian organized crime that had migrated to the Middle East, and known Hezbollah associates that had been in the Guajira region of Colombia for the past decade.

In October 2008, a joint endeavor by American and Colombian Sherlocks dismantled an international cocaine smuggling and money laundering ring that allegedly directed part of its profits to finance Hezbollah.

As the investigation progressed, the undercover agent got close enough to the cartel to serve as one of its money launderers. The agent laundered some $20 million, enabling the DEA to follow the money and map out much of the cartel’s operations.

The operation broke down before direct terrorism charges were filed.

While some claim the operation ended due to interagency squabbling, many government officials believe that the Obama Administration tamped down the investigation of Hezbollah for fear of jeopardizing the impending nuclear deal with Iran.

Leb was the Middle East’s leading producer of illicit drugs in the 1970s and 1980s, with cultivation taking place mostly in the northern Bekaa Valley, according to United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) figures.

American intelligence analysts believe that for years Hezbollah received as much as $200 million annually from its primary patron, Iran, along with additional aid from Syria.

But that support has diminished, the analysts say, as Iran’s economy buckles under international sanctions over its nuclear program and Syria’s government battles rising popular unrest.

Auditors brought in to scrub the books discovered nearly 200 accounts with links to Hezbollah and their classic signs of money laundering.

"Hezbollah’s Narco Jihad" takes the audience through the details of the organization’s drug trade and money laundering, reaching up to today’s reality stating that the same networks are still active.

Link

Government

William McRaven, commander of the Osama bin Laden raid, asks Trump to revoke his security clearance

2018-08-17

[SF Gate] One day after President Donald Trump stripped former CIA director John Brennan of his security clearance, the commander of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden said it would be an honor if the president would take away his own clearance next.

William McRaven, a retired four-star admiral who oversaw the 2011 Navy SEAL raid, directly addressed Trump in a Washington Post op-ed published online Thursday.

In the op-ed, McRaven, who retired from the Navy in 2014, described Brennan as "a man of unparalleled integrity, whose honesty and character have never been in question, except by those who don't know him."
I never personally "knew" Che, Pablo Escobar, Fidel, Saddam, Manuel Noriega, or Villa, but I'm pretty sure they were all scoundrels, similar to Brennan.
In this 2012 photo, Admiral William McRaven, commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), listens as President Barack Obama delivers his State of the Union address before a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. McRaven condemned President Donald Trump on Thursday for revoking the security clearance of former CIA chief John Brennan and asked that his be withdrawn as well.
Yet another confirmation of the failed 1986 Goldwater Nichols Reorg Act (separate budget). DoD lost control of these people whilst the Klingons quickly assumed control. Endless Klingon wars soon followed.
"Therefore, I would consider it an honor if you would revoke my security clearance as well, so I can add my name to the list of men and women who have spoken up against your presidency," McRaven said in the piece.
Huh er, really Admiral? Flag officers can be recalled at anytime. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe you were 'retired' vs discharged. Your clearance is a condition of employment and yes,....recall to active duty. If you cannot be recalled (say you defect, are convicted of a felony, or renounce your citizenship and move elsewhere), then perhaps you should immediately forfeit your pension. Be sure about what you're asking for, admiral, be very sure.

Courtesy of 746, Business Insider’s op-ed on the subject adds:

McRaven continued by describing the qualities of a good leader; characteristics he said he "hoped" that Trump would embody after becoming president.

"A good leader sets the example for others to follow," McRaven said. "A good leader always puts the welfare of others before himself or herself."

"Your leadership, however, has shown little of these qualities," McRaven said. "Through your actions, you have embarrassed us in the eyes of our children, humiliated us on the world stage and, worst of all, divided us as a nation."

McRaven retired from the Navy in 2014 after 36 years of service as a Navy SEAL. He was hired as chancellor of the University of Texas' school system in 2015. In 2017, McRaven announced he would leave the school, citing health concerns.

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Caribbean-Latin America

Powerful Venezuelan lawmaker may have issued death order against Rubio

2017-08-14

[MIAMIHERALD] One of Venezuela’s most powerful leaders may have put out an order to kill Florida Sen. Marco Rubio

The diminutive 13-year-old Republican U.S. Senator from Florida...
, a fervent critic of the South American country’s government, according to intelligence obtained by the U.S. last month.

Though federal authorities couldn’t be sure at the time if the uncorroborated threat was real, they took it seriously enough that Rubio has been guarded by a security detail for several weeks in both Washington and Miami.

Believed to be behind the order: Diosdado Cabello, the influential former military chief and politician from the ruling socialist party who has publicly feuded with Rubio.

At a July 19 Senate hearing, the same day he was first spotted with more security, Rubio repeated his line that Cabello -- who has long been suspected by U.S. authorities of drug trafficking -- is "the Pablo Escobar of Venezuela." A week ago on Twitter, Cabello dubbed the senator "Narco Rubio."

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Caribbean-Latin America

The 1970's Colombian "Queen of Cocaine" Murdered

2012-09-04

[Fox News]

Griselda Blanco, Colombia's infamous "queen of cocaine" of the 1970s, was murdered in the northwestern city of Medellin, police said.

Blanco, who spent two decades behind bars in the United States, was bumped off on Monday as she left a butcher shop in the western section of Medellin, the capital of Antioquia province.

The 69-year-old Blanco was shot twice in the head outside the shop in the Belen neighborhood by a hitman who sped away on a cycle of violence.

She was with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was not hurt in the shooting, police spokesmen said.

Blanco began smuggling cocaine into the United States before the rise of the Medellin cartel, led by Pablo Escobar and Carlos Lehder, and the Cali cartel, which was founded by brothers Miguel and Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, officials said.

Blanco came up with the idea of "exporting cocaine" to the United States and was known for not hesitating to kill anyone, including one of her husbands, who got in her way.

The narco, who was also known as "The Godmother," was a pioneer in establishing smuggling routes from Colombia into the United States.

Blanco was convicted of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States in 1985, served two decades in prison and was deported to Colombia in 2004.

The former narco kept a low profile since returning to Colombia despite once being considered one of the wealthiest women in the world.

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