Tijuana Ten Tons of Marijuana

TIJUANA — News accounts Wednesday of the discovery of ten tons of marijuana inside an abandoned mechanic’s shop in eastern Tijuana had a surprising twist: The drugs had been confiscated before, they stated.

But hours later after reporters were called Tuesday to document the seizure carried by members of the Baja California State Preventive Police—the largest drug seizure so far this year in Tijuana—the agency’s top officer cautioned against jumping to any conclusions.

“It’s not up to us to say whether it had been confiscated or not,” said Marco Antonio Montoya. “That’s up to the PGR,” he said, using the initials of the Mexican attorney general’s office.

The commander’s statements put into question front-page headlines Wednesday in the city’s two main daily newspapers, El Mexicano and Frontera.

“Official sources confirmed to Frontera that all the drugs…found in the mechanic’s shop…already had been confiscated,” stated Frontera’s report. The rival El Mexicano newspaper described numbered packages with their weight marked on the outside.

The state agents who found the drugs on Tuesday were tipped off by an anonymous caller, Montoya said Wednesday. The marijuana was currently in the hands of the Mexican military, and the investigation would be carried out by the federal attorney general’s office, he said. Neither the military nor the attorney general's office commented on the seizure Wednesday.

 

Photo of one of the confiscated marijuana packets.

Despite grilling by members of the Tijuana press corps, Montoya remained firmly non-committal as to whether the drugs had been previously in the hands of a law enforcement agency: “I can’t confirm it, I can’t rule it out,” he said.

TV Over Internet

The Barry Diller-backed Internet company that challenges cable and satellite TV services by offering inexpensive live television online plans to expand beyond New York City this spring.

In the wake of a federal court ruling that tentatively endorsed its legality, Aereo will bring its $8-a-month service to Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and 18 other markets in the U.S., as well as to New York's suburbs.

A federal judge in New York ruled in July that the service doesn't appear to violate copyright law because individual subscribers are assigned their own, tiny antenna at Aereo's data center. That makes it analogous to the free signal a consumer would get with a regular antenna at home. Although the case is being appealed, Aereo is announcing expansion plans in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

Animals kill Four People in Park

Wild dogs maul and kill 4 people in Mexico City park

Wild dogs mauled and killed four people whose bodies were found over the past two weeks in a park on the edge of Mexico City, authorities confirmed Monday. In one case, a teenage girl frantically called her sister with her cellphone to plead for help as the attack took place.

Neighbors of the Cerro de la Estrella, a partly wooded, hilltop park surrounded by the city's poor and populous Iztapalapa district, found the bodies of a 26-year-old woman and a 1-year-old child in the area on Dec. 29, authorities in Mexico's capital said.

One of the victims, Shunashi Mendoza, was missing her left arm, and prosecutors said that both she and the boy had bled to death and been partially eaten.

Then on Friday visitors to the same park found the bodies of a teenage couple who had also bled to death.

"Experts have established that due to the gravity of the wounds, at least 10 dogs were involved in each attack," Mexico City prosecutors said in a statement.

Alejandra Ruiz, 15, and her boyfriend Samuel Martinez, 16, had gone to the park Friday afternoon.

The girl called her sister Diana Ruiz at around 7 p.m. pleading for help.

"Several dogs are attacking us, help me!" the girl screamed. The call then dropped.

Ruiz told Milenio Television she thought her sister was joking and she still doesn't believe her sister was killed by dogs despite the call.

"What kind of dog can tear the skin from your whole arm and leave just bone and if it was an attack dog why didn't it attack her neck?" Ruiz asked. "What's most shocking is that one of her breasts was mutilated."

She said she later visited the place of the attack and saw no pools of blood. "There needs to be a thorough investigation," she added.

Mexico City Public Safety Secretary Jesus Rodriguez warned against visiting the park and said all the dogs in the area will be trapped and checked to see if they were involved.

At least 100 police officers were scouring in search of wild dogs. They had trapped 25 dogs by Monday night, including 10 females, eight males and seven puppies. The animals had been living in caves and crevices in the park, prosecutors said.

Local newspapers published photos of the dogs. Several look like domestic pets, suggesting the dogs were abandoned animals or their offspring who had formed a pack or packs in the hilltop park.

Experts are testing the dogs' hair for traces of human blood and will also test their stomach contents, authorities said.

Packs of stray dogs roam the streets of parts of Iztapalapa, a massive and poor district on the eastern outskirts of Mexico City. Hundreds of thousands of spectators gather each Holy week in the Cerro de la Estrella park to watch a reenactment of the mock crucifixion of Christ.

Desert At Night Dangerous for Immigrants

Southern Arizona law enforcement officials say the desert's cold nighttime temperatures can be just as dangerous as scorching summer days for illegal immigrants.

U.S. Border Patrol agents say a group of 27 men, women and children was found last month in the mountains south of Sierra Vista.

They say about half of the group was taken to a hospital for treatment of possible exposure.

Border agents say dehydration is a leading cause of distressed people and deaths due to excess layers of clothing, rugged terrain and the false assumption that less water is needed during cold weather.

The Arizona Daily Star says many immigrants try to cross the desert during the winter holidays because they believe there's going to be reduced immigration enforcement.

Gov't spent $18 billion on immigration enforcement

The Obama administration spent more money on immigration enforcement in the last fiscal year than all other federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to a report on the government's enforcement efforts from a Washington think tank. The report on Monday from the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan group focused on global immigration issues, said in the 2012 budget year that ended in September the government spent about $18 billion on immigration enforcement programs run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the US-Visit program, and Customs and Border Protection, which includes the Border Patrol. Immigration enforcement topped the combined budgets of the FBI; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Secret Service by about $3.6 billion dollars, the report's authors said. Since then-President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986 — which legalized more than 3 million illegal immigrants and overhauled immigration laws — the government has spent more than $187 billion on immigration enforcement. According to the report, "Immigration Enforcement in the United States: The Rise of a Formidable Machinery," federal immigration-related criminal prosecutions also outnumber cases generated by the Justice Department. The 182-page report concludes that the Obama administration has made immigration its highest law enforcement priority. Critics are likely to bristle over its findings, especially those who have accused the administration of being soft on immigration violators. "Today, immigration enforcement can be seen as the federal government's highest criminal law enforcement priority, judged on the basis of budget allocations, enforcement actions and case volumes," MPI Senior Fellow Doris Meissner, a co-author of the report, said in a statement released with the report Monday. The report by MPI's Meissner, Muzaffar Chishti, Donald Kerwin and Clair Bergeron, comes amid renewed interest in immigration reform from Congress and the White House. In the immediate aftermath of the November election, congressional Republicans suggested the time was right to begin reform talks anew. President Barack Obama, who won a record share of Hispanic voters, renewed a previous pledge to make immigration reform a priority. In the lead up to the election, Obama made several administrative changes to the immigration system, including launching a program to allow some young illegal immigrants to avoid deportation and work legally in the country for up to two years. His administration also refocused enforcement efforts to target criminal immigrants and those who posed a security threat. And just last week, the administration announced a rule change to allow some illegal immigrant spouses and children of U.S. citizens to stay in the country while they ask the government to waive 3- or 10-year bans on returning to the United States. Immigrants who win the waiver will still need to leave the country to complete visa paperwork, but will be able to leave without fear of being barred from returning to their families for up to a decade. The rule, first proposed last year, goes into effect in March. Republican lawmakers have widely criticized the policy changes, routinely describing them as "backdoor amnesty." Many of those same lawmakers have said the border needs to be secured before reform can be taken up. According to the MPI report and Border Patrol statistics, in 2011 agents arrested about 327,000 people at the southern border, the fewest in nearly 40 years. The Homeland Security Department also removed a record 396,906 immigrants that year. In 2012, nearly 410,000 people were removed from the United States.

Just Love Her Bulges, Bad Girl What ya going to do

A woman and her husband were arrested on Thursday after they were caught trying to cross $87,965 into Mexico.
Mario Zuniga and his wife Olga Zuniga were crossing the Hidalgo Port of Entry when officers sent their car to a secondary inspection.
While at the second inspection, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers noticed a rectangular shaped object underneath her clothes.
After a pat down inspection, officers found the cash concealed under her clothing.
Zuniga was asked by Homeland Security Investigators why she was hiding the money.
She told officials that a man, who referred to himself as “El Gordo” went up to her at a store the day before and asked her to smuggle the money.
“El Gordo” told her that once she crossed, there would be a red taxi waiting for her on the other side of the border.
Zuniga was told that she would be smuggling $20,000 and that when she returned to the U.S. she was going to be paid at Whataburger. Hum (Whatawhopper).
Zuniga told officials that she knew what she was doing was wrong.

Deaths for 2011