Agents at Mexico City Airport Seize 585 Kilograms of Cocaine
Federal agents searching the cargo hold of a flight from Venezuela on Monday discovered at least 585 kilograms (1,290 pounds) of cocaine tucked inside 13 cardboard boxes - one of the largest cocaine seizures in the history of the Mexican capital’s airport.
Dogs trained to smell drugs led authorities to the discovery aboard Mexicana Airlines Flight 374, which landed at Benito Juarez International Airport from Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, according to a federal police spokesman.
A statement from the federal attorney general’s office said that 585 kilograms of cocaine had been divided carefully into 585 rectangular, plastic packets and stuffed inside the boxes, which had been sealed with tape bearing the airline’s logo.
The federal police spokesman said the seizure was 2005’s largest and local media said it could turn out to be the biggest in the airport’s history.
More: airportbusiness.com
Border agents seize $95,000 from driver going to Mexico
A man faces smuggling charges after officers in Hidalgo confiscated almost 95-thousand dollars from the vehicle he was driving to Mexico.
Customs and Border Protection Monday announced the seizure occurred Friday at the Hidalgo International Bridge.
At the bridge, 42-year-old Benjamin Vargas-Betanacio of Eagle Pass denied having more than $10,000 in cash -- claiming only $500.
But officers noticed oddities in the engine area of the vehicle he was driving and discovered bundles of cash totaling $94,520.
Vargas-Betanacio has been charged with bulk cash smuggling.
It's a federal offense not to declare currency
Chacon urges Mexico to focus on its own anti-drug efforts
Mexican authorities should be focusing more on anti-drug efforts in their own territory than worrying about the amount of illegal drugs smuggled into Mexico from Venezuela, a top government official said. “If they were to finish off the large drug cartels, no drugs would be flowing into Mexico,†Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacón said Tuesday.
Last week, Mexican prosecutors announced heroin shipments entering Mexico from Venezuela had doubled in the last year, and suggested that corrupt Venezuelan airport workers may be letting the drugs through.
The amount of heroin seized by law
County drug squad helps bust Mexico-Atlanta drug group
Undercover Fayette County drug agents played a role in a months-long investigation of a Mexican drug trafficking operation that netted 28 arrests Wednesday, authorities said.
The multi-state investigation also netted about 592 kilograms of cocaine, more than 40 pounds of methamphetamine and $8 million in cash, officials said. Multiple weapons and more than $1 million in cash was recovered in the metro Atlanta area alone.
The sting, called “Operation Long Whine,†also resulted in about two pounds of crystal methamphetamine — often referred to as “ice†— and the lab which was used
Fog closes Mexico City airport, disrupting 71 flights
A blanket of fog closed Mexico City's airport for several hours early Monday, disrupting 71 international and domestic flights during the travel industry's busiest season, the airport spokesman said.
Authorities shut down the airport from 5:10 a.m. until 8:32 a.m., said Jose Luis Uribe, airport spokesman.
Officials canceled seven domestic flights and diverted 11 domestic flights to airports in Acapulco, Guadalajara and Morelia to wait until the airport reopened.
"This is the season for blankets of fog," Uribe said. "But because it is also vacation time, it's a problem."
Soure: signonsandiego.com
Vinci sells stake in Mexico's SETA airport operator for nearly 38 mln usd
Vinci said it has sold its holding in Mexican airport operator SETA to Mexico's ICA for just under 38 mln usd, completing the French company's withdrawal from the country's airport sector.
SETA operated 13 airports in North and central Mexico, including Monterrey airport.
In April 2004, Vinci sold the indirect holding it had in the airports of southern Mexico for around 30 mln usd.
Soure: forbes.com
Mexico seeks rearrest of agents freed in drug case
Mexico is seeking to get back into custody five Mexican federal agents who were charged in the kidnapping of suspected drug hit men but released by a judge in September, officials said on Saturday.
Mexico arrested eight federal agents on Aug. 31, but a few days later a judge released five of them for lack of evidence.
"We totally respect the decision of the judge but we have appealed because we do not agree (with it)," an official in Mexico's attorney general's office said on condition of anonymity.
The appeal was filed in September,
US agents shot at, tension mounts on Mexico border
U.S. Border Patrol agents have come under fire twice along the Rio Grande in Texas in recent days amid rising tension on the frontier with Mexico, although no one was reported wounded, U.S. authorities said on Thursday.
A Border Patrol spokesman said unknown gunmen fired on agents on patrol in Brownsville, Texas, late on Wednesday. It was not immediately clear if the shots came from Mexico or from within the United States.
"Shots were fired, no one was injured and the FBI have taken the case over," Jose Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Border
Mexico Calls for Probe in Border Shooting
The Mexican government called for an investigation Friday into a shooting by two federal agents that left one person dead at the worlds busiest border crossing. A union representing the Border Patrol agent involved in the shooting defended the officers conduct.
The shooting took place Thursday afternoon after U.S. agents surrounded a sport utility vehicle that was under surveillance on suspicion of immigrant smuggling, police said.
The driver refused to get out, and when agents smashed the vehicles window with a baton, he accelerated in the direction of five U.S. agents blocking his
Agents patrolling Mexico's border facing more dangers
Those tracking smugglers of drugs and immigrants are being attacked at a growing rate
Assaults against U.S. Border Patrol agents nearly doubled along the Mexican border over the past year as patrols cracking down on drug trafficking and migrant smuggling encountered increasing resistance — including the use of rocks, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.
At least 687 assaults against agents were reported during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, up from the previous year's total of 354 and the highest since the agency began tracking assaults across the Southwest border in the late 1990s, according to
Local agents help Mexico in rescue
Border Patrol agents rescued a man from rising waters during the heavy rains Thursday.
A press release sent to the News-Herald from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Office of Public Affairs states that around noon Thursday the Border Patrol received a telephone call from Mexican authorities requesting assistance with the rescue of an individual in the Rio Grande.
According to the release, agents responded by launching the agency’s airboats into the “very high and rapidly†flowing river.
Once they located the man, who was clinging to a tree branch in the middle of the river, it was
