BY ADAM KREDO

Iran has illegally laundered billions of dollars through the Venezuelan financial sector and is currently stashing “hundreds of millions” of dollars in “virtually every Venezuelan bank today,” according to a former senior State Department official.

“It’s a huge blind spot in those trying to implement sanctions” on Iran, Roger Noriega, a former United States ambassador and assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Venezuela served as Iran’s closest Western ally under the late President Hugo Chavez, who allowed the rogue regime to establish a military and financial presence at the highest levels of the Venezuelan government.

Iran’s foothold in the country is expected to grow exponentially under the rule of Chavez’s likely successor, Vice President Nicolas Maduro.

Noriega and other experts warned House lawmakers at a Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday that Iran’s terrorist proxy Hezbollah is gaining power in Venezuela.

Hezbollah, which carries out terrorist attacks on Iran’s behalf, has helped ... Read More

It’s no secret that Venezuela’s chavista regime has in its ranks — and at the very top of its security forces — individuals who are accomplices in narcotrafficking. The clearest examples include the president of the National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello; former armed forces commander Henry Rangel Silva; the head of the Guiana province, Cliver Alcala Cordones; and the deputy interior minister, Hugo Carvajal. These members of the Cuban-managed regime are responsible for the transportation of tons of illicit drugs to Central America, the Caribbean, Mexico, the U.S., and West Africa.

In my recent testimony before the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Non-proliferation, and Trade, I denounced these criminal ties, which make the regime led by de facto President Nicolas Maduro a narcostate.

Conservative estimates indicate that drug trafficking from Venezuela to other countries since Chavez took power in 1998 has more than doubled. My sources tell me that representatives of the Sinaloa ... Read More

TESTIMONIO DEL EMBAJADOR ROGER F. NORIEGA

ANTE LA CAMARA DE REPRESENTANTES DE LOS ESTADOES UNIDOS

SUBCOMITE SOBRE TERRORISMO, ANTI-PROLIFERACION Y COMERCIO

COMITE DE ASUNTOS EXTERIORES

20 de marzo 2013, Washington D.C.

Señor presidente del subcomité, lo felicito a usted y a los demás miembros del subcomité por centrar su atención en la amenaza global que representa Hezbolá, y le doy las gracias  por haberme invitado a compartir mis puntos de vista sobre la creciente presencia de esta organización en las américas que ha introducido una amenaza a nuestro vecindario.

Este fin de semana pasado marcó el 21 aniversario del bombardeo en 1992 de la Embajada de Israel en Buenos Aires que terminó  con la vida de 29 personas. Dos años mas tarde, un coche bomba destruyó un centro judío en corazón de la capital argentina, acabando con la vida de ... Read More

TESTIMONY OF AMB. ROGER F. NORIEGA BEFORE THE U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NON-PROLIFERATION AND TRADE

“Hezbollah’s Strategic Shift:  A Global Terrorist Threat”

1:30 PM, Wednesday, March 20, 2013

2172 Rayburn House Office Building

Washington, DC

Mr. Chairman, I applaud you and other members of the Subcommittee for focusing attention on the global threat posed by the terrorist group Hezbollah and for inviting me to share my insights on that organization’s growing network in the Americas that carries this threat to our doorstep.

This past weekend marked the 21st anniversary of the 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which murdered 29 people and injured about 250 others.  Two years after that attack, the Jewish Community Center in Argentina’s capital city was leveled by another car bomb, leaving 85 persons murdered and hundreds more wounded.  Mr. Chairman, this is Hezbollah’s despicable legacy in the Americas.  And that ... Read More

BY JAN-ALBERT HOOTSEN

BADIRAGUATO, Mexico – Neat, freshly painted buildings and a renovated church line the central square. Shiny SUVs rest curbside. Some lack license plates, as if the law doesn’t apply. Mansions crown the surrounding hills.

Badiraguato, a town of 7,000 in Sinaloa state, shouldn’t have such wealth. It’s among the poorest municipalities in Mexico. But you’re better off not asking questions here.

This is a secretive place, hot and quiet in the Sierra Madre foothills. There’s an army barracks, but soldiers mostly stay inside.

It’s the heart of drug country, home to Mexico’s most powerful criminal syndicate: the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

For well over a century, local farmers have harvested marijuana and opium in the rugged mountains surrounding Badiraguato. Since the 1980s, the Sinaloa cartel has acted as their Wal-Mart, transporting the mind-bending cargo north with quasi-corporate efficiency, and distributing it to a narcotics-craving United States market.

Ever since former President ... Read More

BY KEEGAN HAMILTON

The rumor started Thursday afternoon when the newspaper Prensa Libre reported that several narcos were killed during shootout in Guatemala’s remote Petén region. Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez said one of the corpses was “physically very similar” to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, top boss of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. Other outlets, including the unfiltered drug war diary Blog del Narco, spread the word on Twitter, piquing the interest of the international press, and sending Mexican and Guatemalan officials scrambling to confirm the powerful drug lord’s purported demise.

The rumor was soon thoroughly debunked. There was no shootout, let alone one that claimed the life of the modern day Pablo Escobar. (Lopez, the Interior Minister, later apologized for the “misunderstanding” and blamed contradictory reports for the confusion.) Not only is El Chapo still very much alive, his legend has grown larger than ever. Already a billionaire according to Forbes, the Sinaloa capo has supplanted Osama bin Laden as ... Read More

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalan authorities launched a search Friday in a remote, rural area where residents reported a gunbattle between drug gangs and said one of the dead resembled Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.

Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla told local media that government planes were flying over the area to see if they could spot the scene of the confrontation.

But officials stressed they had not yet found any bodies or even confirmed a shootout happened.

Bonilla told The Associated Press Thursday that police and soldiers also would search on foot in the Peten province, near the border with Mexico.

Authorities initially said they were investigating whether Guzman was one of at least two men killed in the remote area, but later Thursday backtracked and said they had only received reports of a battle from local people.

Government spokesman Francisco Cuevas first told Guatevision Television that two drug gangs had clashed ... Read More

The Mexican military says it has captured the man accused of being the security chief for Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s most wanted drug lord.

A military spokesman said Jonathan Salas was arrested without a shot being fired in north-western Sinaloa state.

Three helicopters and at least eight navy vehicles surrounded Mr Salas.

Last year, the governor of Sinaloa mistakenly announced that Mr Salas, who is also known as The Ghost, had been killed in a clash with the Navy.

Mexican prosecutors accuse Mr Salas of being the man tasked with guarding Joaquin Guzman, the fugitive leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Joaquin Guzman, known as “El Chapo”, or “Shorty”, was arrested in 1993.

But he has been in hiding ever since he escaped from his maximum-security prison in a laundry basket in 2001.

The US State Department has offered a reward of up to $5m (£3.2m) for information leading to Shorty Guzman’s arrest.

Mr Salas was detained on ... Read More

BY JOSEPH KOLB

An overhaul of a U.S. military program aimed at helping Mexican security forces fight the war on drug cartels is raising concerns that U.S. training could fuel human rights abuses — and even be exploited by the cartels themselves.

But officials with the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM), which has trained Mexican military officials in anti-insurgent and intelligence-gathering techniques for the past decade, say not to worry.

The concerns, and the assurances, come after outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta set up a new special operations headquarters to train Mexican forces. The team will reportedly help Mexico track drug cartels much like U.S. teams have tracked Al Qaeda. It will still be run under the umbrella of USNORTHCOM.

Capt. Jeff Davis of USNORTHCOM, in an interview with FoxNews.com, played down the significance of the new designation — saying the mission will remain the same as it has and will not involve U.S. Special ... Read More

“Depending on what happens in Venezuela, there may really be an opportunity for a transition there,” incoming U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate hearing Thursday, alluding to the expectation that Hugo Chavez may soon lose his bout with cancer. Unfortunately, at this very moment, Mr. Chavez’s cronies are doing whatever is necessary to hold on to power indefinitely. The most Mr. Kerry may be able to do is convince Mr. Chavez’s successors to end the dangerous alliances with drug traffickers, Iran and Hezbollah that pose a growing threat to U.S. security.

Until now, most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment has ignored the growing body of evidence that homegrown narco-traffickers in Colombia, Central America and Mexico have teamed up with Hezbollah to conduct criminal operations on our doorstep. What’s worse, this narco-terrorist alliance is aided and abetted by the governments of Venezuela and Iran. To put it bluntly, ... Read More

BY CHRIS KRAUL

CARTAGENA, Colombia — Under cover of a moonless night in early July, the crew took no more than five minutes to load more than a ton of cocaine on a motorboat beached on a deserted shore of the Guajira peninsula in northeastern Colombia. Equipped with three 200-horsepower engines, the “go-fast” craft then roared off toward the Dominican Republic, the first stop on the drugs’ way north.

But they’d been detected long before. Informants working for a top-secret group of Colombian agents, trained and equipped by U.S. counter-narcotics agencies, had penetrated the smugglers’ inner circle. They knew where the dope was loaded — and where it was headed.

A few hours later, Dominican police were waiting as the boat approached the eastern shores of Hispaniola. The captain, desperate to escape, beached the boat but was killed in a shootout. Police later recovered 1,690 pounds of cocaine, and authorities in Colombia guessed ... Read More

Testimony of Ambassador Roger F. Noriega

Before the United States House of Representatives

Committee on Homeland Security

Subcommittee on Oversight

Friday, November 16th, 2012

Mr. Chairman, I applaud the Subcommittee for your continued efforts to study and expose the evolving threats to the U.S. homeland that are developing beyond our borders – including the menacing cooperation between narcotraffickers and the Islamic terrorist group Hezbollah in our hemisphere.

Mr. Chairman, there is a growing body of evidence that this narcoterrorist alliance in our neighborhood is aided and abetted by the governments of Venezuela and Iran – two regimes bound together by a relentless hostility against U.S. security and interests.

To put it bluntly, this is not just criminal activity – it is asymmetrical warfare.  How is it being waged?

Hezbollah conspires with drug-trafficking networks in Mexico and Central and South America as a means of raising funds, sharing tactics and “reaching ... Read More

Testimonio del Embajador Roger F. Noriega ante la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos

Comité de Seguridad Nacional

Subcomité de Supervisión

Señor Presidente del Comité, aplaudo los continuos esfuerzos del Subcomité por estudiar y exponer las amenazas al territorio de los EE.UU. que se desarrollan mas allá de nuestras fronteras y su constante evolución – incluyendo la preocupante cooperación entre el narcotráfico y el grupo terrorista Hezbollah en nuestro propio hemisferio.

Señor Presidente del Comité, hay un creciente cuerpo de evidencia que comprueba que la alianza narcoterrorista que se desarrolla en nuestro vecindario cuenta con la complicidad de los gobiernos de Irán y Venezuela – dos regímenes vinculados por su implacable hostilidad contra la seguridad y los intereses de los EE.UU.

Para decirlo sin rodeos, esto va mas allá de la actividad criminal – se trata de una guerra asimétrica. ¿Cómo se está librando?

Hezbollah conspira con las redes del narcotráfico en ... Read More

MEXICO CITY – The head of Mexico’s organized crime unit stepped down on Thursday, just weeks after announcing that members of his team had been charged with having links to the nation’s most powerful drug cartel.

Jose Cuitlahuac Salinas, head of the unit in the attorney general’s office, resigned for “personal reasons,” a spokesman for the office said.

Attorney General Marisela Morales has accepted his resignation, which was effective immediately, he added.

Salinas will be replaced by Rodrigo Archundia Barrientos, an expert on kidnappings at the organized crime unit, Morales said in a statement.

On October 17 Salinas said the Mexican government had charged seven officials, including three members of his unit, with passing information on government raids and investigations to the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted man.

Salinas himself was not being investigated, the spokesman at the attorney general’s office said.

Mexico’s powerful drug cartels are suspected of spending millions of dollars ... Read More

MEXICO CITY

Mexico’s army arrested a lieutenant to Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman who they believe ordered the killing of anti-violence activist Nepomuceno Moreno, authorities said Sunday.

Mexico’s defense department said Jesus Alfredo Salazar Ramirez was arrested in Huixquilucan in Mexico state on Thursday, and that there is an arrest order for him issued by a court in Texas for intent to distribute cocaine.

A department statement called Salazar one of Guzman’s most important lieutenants, and alleged that he ran drug planting, production and trafficking operations for the cartel.

He is also accused of ordering the November 2011 killing of Moreno, a 56-year-old sidewalk seafood vendor who became one of the most visible faces of Mexico’s anti-crime movement after his 18-year-old son Jorge Mario disappeared.

Saying masked police had snatched his son, Moreno pleaded his case directly to President Felipe Calderon last month in a meeting with members of poet Javier Sicilia’s ... Read More

The most wanted men in Mexico are tumbling. Will crime follow suit?

IN MARCH 2009 the Mexican government published a list of 37 men believed to be running drug gangs. The alleged bandits were named and rewards of up to 30m pesos ($2m) each were offered for their capture. The government’s normally stodgy official gazette listed the villains by their nicknames: Monkey, Beardy, Taliban and so on. It was a risky decision: the list could have become an embarrassment if its members had remained free.

But most have not. Three and a half years on, security forces have arrested 16 of them and killed seven. Two more have been murdered by rivals. That leaves just 12 at large–though among them is the leader of the Sinaloa “cartel”, Joaquín Guzmán (known as El Chapo or “Shorty”), who is the most wanted of all.

On October 7th the marines killed the latest target, Heriberto “The ... Read More

MEXICO CITY – Mexico has charged seven officials, including three members of the country’s organized-crime unit, with providing information on government raids and investigations to the country’s most powerful drug gang.

Cuitlahuac Salinas, head of the organized-crime unit, said on Wednesday the seven were accused of passing information to the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted man.

Salinas said federal and local officials were part of the probe. One of the three accused from the organized-crime unit had also worked at the Supreme Court, he added.

Mexico’s powerful drug cartels are suspected of spending millions of dollars a year to corrupt officials, but charges are not common and officials are rarely convicted.

Guzman has made the Sinaloa cartel the country’s most powerful drug-trafficking organization since he escaped from prison in a laundry van in 2001.

In July, Mexico charged three generals, two of them retired, with having ties to cartels in what was ... Read More

SAN DIEGO –  The daughter of one of the world’s most sought-after drug lords didn’t share information that might lead to her father’s capture after she was detained on an immigration violation, a U.S. official said Tuesday.

Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman Salazar, 31, was charged Monday with fraud and misuse of visas, three days after authorities arrested her at San Diego’s San Ysidro port of entry, the nation’s busiest border crossing.

The official said Guzman Salazar has been “a dead end” in the search for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the elusive leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an investigation that has not been made public.

Border inspectors interviewed Guzman Salazar for about a half-hour, during which time she volunteered that Guzman was her father and that she was six months pregnant, the official said. She didn’t say why she offered the information but the official speculated ... Read More

Mexican marines may have killed the leader of the brutal Zetas drug cartel in a gun battle in northern Mexico, in what would be one of the biggest victories yet in the government’s six-year war on organized crime.

The Navy said late on Monday there was “strong evidence” Heriberto Lazcano had been killed in a firefight with marines in the northern state of Coahuila on Sunday afternoon.

If the death of Lazcano, alias “The Executioner,” is confirmed, he would be the most powerful capo to fall in President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive on the gangs.

The Zetas, considered one of the two most powerful drug gangs in Mexico, have perpetrated some of the most sickening acts seen in the country’s drug war that has killed about 60,000 people during Calderon’s term.

Two suspected Zetas gang members who attacked the marines with grenades from a moving car were killed in the gunfight and initial forensic ... Read More

BY E. EDUARDO CASTILLO

A senior U.S. official says there is strong circumstantial evidence that Mexican federal police who fired on a U.S. embassy vehicle, wounding two CIA agents, were working for organized crime on a targeted assassination attempt.

Meanwhile, a Mexican official with knowledge of the case on the Aug. 24 ambush confirmed on Tuesday that prosecutors are investigating whether the Beltran Leyva Cartel was behind the attack.

The Mexican official said that is among several lines of investigation into the shooting up of an armored SUV clearly marked by diplomatic license plates on a rural road near Cuernavaca south of Mexico City. Federal police, historically known for infiltration and corruption by drug cartels, have said the shooting was a case of mistaken identity as officers were looking into the kidnapping of a government employee in that area.

“That’s not a ‘We’re trying to shake down a couple people for a traffic violation’ sort ... Read More