UVF supergrass trial

 

Fourteen alleged members of the UVF, including one of its former leaders Mark Haddock, are due to appear at Belfast Crown Court on Tuesday for the start of the first so-called "supergrass" trial to be held in Northern Ireland for 26 years. The charges include the murder of leading UDA member Tommy English during a loyalist feud. Critics say the process being used is unsafe and unjust, while the police and prosecutors insist it is legally sound. Our Home Affairs Correspondent Vincent Kearney looks at the background to the case. The police bristle at the very mention of the word "supergrass" because of its association with a series of high profile trials in the 1980s. Hundreds of republicans and loyalists were convicted on the word of informers and suspects who agreed to give evidence against them in return for reduced sentences and new identities and lives outside Northern Ireland. There were claims that many also received financial rewards. The deals were arranged at a political level, approved by the Secretary of State, and the details were secret. No-one, not the defence teams, the relatives of victims, nor the accused, knew anything, and in many cases there were question marks over whether convicted informers actually served any time in prison at all. Credibility The trials were the largest in British criminal history. In one in 1983, 22 IRA members were given jail terms totalling more than 4,000 years. But 18 of them had their convictions quashed three years later, and the vast majority of the others convicted in a series of similar trials were also released on appeal. The system collapsed in 1985 because of concerns about the credibility of the evidence provided by the so-called supergrasses, with members of the judiciary complaining that they were being used as political tools to implement government security policy. The police and prosecutors say the trial starting today is based on an entirely different legal foundation. The investigation has centred around the activities of the UVF in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast New legislation introduced in 2005, the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act, enables an accused to enter into a written agreement indicating that they will help the prosecution by giving evidence against other criminals. Where this happens, the court may take this into account when passing sentence. The journey that led to the trial beginning today began with an investigation by the former Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan into the activities of the UVF in Mount Vernon in north Belfast. In January 2007, she published the results of Operation Ballast. 'Impunity' It was a highly critical report which said members of RUC Special Branch had allowed UVF informers to act with impunity, and that the gang may have been involved in up to 15 murders. Mark Haddock wasn't named in the report, but was referred to as Informant 1. Alarmed by the findings, the then Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Orde, asked the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) to take over Operation Ballast. Then, in 2008, two brothers, Robert and David Stewart walked into Antrim police station, admitting that they were members of the UVF, and their role in more than 70 offences. They offered to give evidence against a number of alleged former comrades under the teams of the 2005 legislation. The HET then spent more than a year debriefing them, and arresting suspects as they went along. But, despite being given additional funding, the investigation became too big for the team to handle. In December 2009, the case was given over to the PSNI. The investigation is now led by Crime Operations Department headed by Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris, and is now called Operation Stafford. As a result, just over four and a half years after Nuala O'Loan published her report, Mark Haddock and 13 others will appear in court on Tuesday. They will appear before a judge sitting without a jury because of fears of intimidation. Haddock and eight others are charged with the murder of Tommy English and a range of other offences. The remaining five face a range of charges, possession of firearms, kidnap and assault. The latest investigation into the Mount Vernon UVF began following a report by the former Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan Sealed containers The two chief prosecution witnesses, the Stewart brothers, have been held in isolation at Maghaberry prison, protected by a team of highly trained guards. Their food is brought into the prison in sealed containers to ensure they are not poisoned. They have admitted a total of 74 offences, but were sentenced to just three years each because the judge took into account their offer to testify. Their sentence was determined in open court, not secretly by the Secretary of State. The 2005 legislation contains penalties. If it emerges that the assisting offender is guilty of serious crimes they may not have admitted to, they are in breach of the agreement. If this is discovered after the trial, they can be re-arrested and charged with the additional offences. If they tell the truth but re-offend at a later stage, they can be re-arrested and charged. Supporters say this system is much more open and transparent than the discredited system used in the 1980s. Those on trial, and their families and supporters, insist that only the name has changed.

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Gang member sentenced to death in murder-for-hire scheme

 

gang member recruited in a murder-for-hire conspiracy was sentenced to death Thursday for killing a man who was set to inherit a family-run business in Rancho Dominguez, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office. Armando Macias, 35, of Lancaster was found guilty by a jury in April of one felony count of special circumstances murder with an allegation of murder for financial gain in the slaying of 44-year-old David Montemayor, the prosecutor's office said. Macias, who is the fifth defendant to be sentenced in connection with Montemayor’s murder since 2006, was also found guilty of kidnapping to commit robbery, possession of a firearm by a felon, street terrorism, attempted murder and two counts of conspiracy to commit murder, officials said. Macias, who has a prior strike conviction for voluntary manslaughter in 1993, also was slapped with several sentencing enhancements in connection with Montemayor’s murder. Prosecutors allege that in 2002, Montemayor’s sister Deborah Perna, 54, of Anaheim and her co-worker Edelmira Corona, 34, of Pico Rivera solicited the help of 44-year-old gang member Anthony Navarro of Canyon Country to kill Montemayor. Perna was jealous that her father intended to pass control of the family company to her brother, who she believed was stealing from the business, prosecutors said. Navarro recruited gang members Gerardo Lopez, 26, of Pacoima, Alberto Martinez, 33, of Castaic, and Macias in a kidnap-and-murder-for-hire scheme, prosecutors said. On Oct. 2, 2002, the men kidnapped Montemayor, a father of three, at the family business in Rancho Dominguez and headed to the victim’s home in Buena Park, where they were told he kept thousands of dollars in cash, prosecutors said. On the way, Montemayor, who only had one arm, managed to escape the car. But Macias shot him in the head as he fled, prosecutors said. Lopez also fired at Montemayor before the gang members raced off in their car, triggering a police car chase, authorities said. Police eventually stopped the vehicle and arrested Macias, Lopez and Martinez. Both Navarro and Martinez have been earlier sentenced to death for their role in Montemayor’s murder. Lopez, the other gang member, and Perna, the victim’s sister, were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, according to information from the district attorney's office. Corona, the co-worker, has pleaded guilty to manslaughter and is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 18. She faces a maximum of 22 years in prison, officials said.

READ MORE - Gang member sentenced to death in murder-for-hire scheme

Texas Syndicate's Valley head gets 20 years; 5 fellow gang members also sentenced

 

Six members of the Texas Syndicate prison gang — including its Rio Grande Valley leader — were sentenced to serve time in federal prison for several charges including racketeering, kidnapping and drug charges. Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa on Monday sentenced 40-year-old Jose Ismael Salas, the gang’s regional head, to 20 years in prison for drug and racketeering offenses, court records show. Salas originally pleaded guilty April 2, 2009, to two separate charges of possession with intent to distribute 6 kilograms of cocaine on Aug. 12, 2004, and a similar charge for 39 kilograms of marijuana on March 28, 2003. The charge alleged that the intent of the possession of the drugs was to further the goals of the criminal organization. Among the five other Texas Syndicate members who were sentenced was Fidel Valle, 45, who received a sentence of 10 years and six months in prison. Valle was described as the drug supplier for the organization. He entered a guilty plea July 28, 2009, to the charge of possession with intent to distribute 6 kilograms of cocaine. Court records show that Aug. 12, 2004, after speaking with Salas, Valle tried to sell the cocaine to other Texas Syndicate members but was stopped by authorities during a traffic stop. Also sentenced was Romeo Rosales, 41, who received 12 years and seven months in prison for the kidnapping of Amancio Pinales, who was abducted and eventually gunned down in Mexico on Aug. 12, 2004. Noel De Los Santos, 33, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in the March 20, 2003, murder of fellow gang member Crisantos Moran. According to information released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Moran had been ordered to kill a rival gang member from Peñitas, but after arriving there with De Los Santos and another member named Jose Armando Garcia, he failed to carry out the killing and was slain instead. Earlier this year, Garcia was given a life sentence. Two other Syndicate members were sentenced for a separate murder connected to the organization. Cristobal Hernandez, 31, and Arturo Rodriguez were sentenced to 10 and 20 years, respectively, for the murder of Marcelino Rodriguez in June 2007. The two men had aided a third man known as Raul Galindo, who shot Rodriguez in the back of the head. The two men then set the vehicle containing his body on fire. Rodriguez had been named in a sealed court document that had been provided to them by an employee at a law firm that was defending Rodriguez. The Texas Syndicate had sanctioned the death of Rodriguez.

READ MORE - Texas Syndicate's Valley head gets 20 years; 5 fellow gang members also sentenced

Nine people stabbed to death, five killed in a deliberately set fire and an innocent grandmother’s body shoved in the trunk of her own car.

 

These troubling deaths are just a portion of Winnipeg’s climbing homicide cases this year. As of Thursday, Winnipeg has 29 homicides recorded, well above last year’s total of 22. Winnipeg’s deadliest year on record was 2004 when there was 34. “The numbers are a lot higher than we would like to see,” said Const. Jason Michalyshen, Winnipeg police spokesman. “It’s concerning to us, and it should be concerning to everyone.” The latest victim is Joseph Lalonde, 48, who was brutally beaten with a baseball bat. Two 15-year-old boys were charged with second-degree murder. A total of 10 youths have been charged in connection to the 2011 deaths. Michalyshen said it’s been a challenging year. “Our resources have been very busy making sure no stone is unturned, making sure that these investigations are investigated thoroughly, and arrests are made,” he said. Three cases are unsolved — Cara Lynn Hiebert, 31, was found dead in her home on Redwood Avenue on July 19; Baljinder Singh Sidhu, 27, was stabbed to death during a brawl on Osborne Street on Aug. 5; and 24-year-old April Hornbrook was found dead outside a building on Main Street on Aug. 27. Many violent crimes continue to occur in Winnipeg’s North End, a concerning stat for Coun. Harvey Smith (Daniel McIntyre). “The communities have to be working together and you don’t really have enough of that in the North End,” Smith said. “You have to have recreational activities, and ... I tend to think we should get more support for Citizens on Patrol.” Edmonton has the most homicides in Canada, with 34. Calgary has just three. “We’re very fortunate right now, but that could change before the end of the year,” said Calgary police Insp. Cliff O’Brien, who works in that city’s major crimes unit. O’Brien said there’s “no magical answer” for why the numbers are so low, but gave credit to the good work of officers and medical staff. Calgary police has a gang suppression team, who monitor entertainment districts, targeting known gang or organized crime members. “We have legislation here where we can kick people out if we can prove they’re associated with a gang,” he said. “That has helped us a lot.” O’Brien admits there’s a certain “element of luck.” “We’ve had those high rates before and I know that we will have those high rates again.”

READ MORE - Nine people stabbed to death, five killed in a deliberately set fire and an innocent grandmother’s body shoved in the trunk of her own car.

Contract Killing On The Increase In Costa Rica

 

According to the Sección de Estadísticas del Departamento de Planificación del Poder Judicial (Statistics Section of the Planning Department of the Judiciary) the number of murders presumed by hired killers in 2010, went from 13 victims in 2009 to 40 in 2010, placing the La Carpio, Leon XIII, Los Cuadros y Guararí de Heredia as the places of highest incidence. Judicial authorities presume that organized crime groups, use this method to assert their interests in various criminal activities, as they are listed in order of importance: drug trafficking, gang revenge, robbery of drug traffickers (known as tumbonazos) and executions tied to the sale of illegal drugs. However, statistics show a slight increase in intentional homicides during the past year, compared to 2009, from 525 to 527 victims. The study found that the rate of homicide victims per 100.000 inhabitants remained virtually unchanged from 2009, settling at 11.5%. The existence of homicides associated with what is known as "error or omission," or those who were not the target and suffered mistaken identity or omission by the murderer, almost doubled in 2010 over 2009, for a total of 16 deaths. Also, the number of foreigners killed in the country increased by 7.6%, bringing the figure to 112 individuals, Nicaraguan and followed by Colombian nationals being the target. The use of firearms to commit homicide, again saw increases during 2010, bringing the total number to 319, which is equal numbers in 2008 and the highest throughout history. Good news for women as statistics indicate that the number of femicides dropped in 2010, from 15 victims in 2009 to 10 last year. However, the major cause of femicides continues to be attacks by cohabitants (60%) and spouses (40%). Contract or hired killing (sicario in Spanish) is a form of murder, in which one party hires another party to kill a target individual or group of people. It involves an illegal agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to kill the target in exchange for consideration, monetary, or otherwise. The hiring party may be a single person, a group of people, a company, or any other kind of organization. The hired party may also be one person, such as a hitman, or a group of people, or an organization. In most countries, including Costa Rica, a contract to kill a person is void, meaning that it is not legally enforceable. Any contract to commit an indictable offense is not enforceable. Furthermore, both the actual killer and the person who paid the killer can be found guilty of murder. Contract killing provides the hiring party with the advantage of not having to be directly involved in the killing. This makes it more difficult to connect that party with the murder. Throughout history and in many different parts of the world, contract killing has been associated with organized crime and also vendettas. For example, in recent United States history, the gang Murder, Inc., which committed hundreds of murders in the 1920s to the 1940s on behalf of the National Crime Syndicate, is a well-known example of a contract killer.

READ MORE - Contract Killing On The Increase In Costa Rica

Vallucos gang members get life in prison for 'ice pick' murder

 

Cameron Park man accused of stabbing and killing a woman with an ice pick will spend the rest of his life in jail. After two and a half hours of deliberation, a Cameron County jury sentenced Ernesto Berlanga to life in prison for the August 2005 murder of Patricia Salas. The two had been fighting when he stabbed her in the neck and then fled the scene. Prosecutors previously identified Berlanga as a member of the Vallucos prison gang. Berlaga was already serving a 25-year sentence for gouging the eye of a fellow inmate at the Carrizales-Rucker Detention Center back in 2006.

READ MORE - Vallucos gang members get life in prison for 'ice pick' murder

Many feared dead as security forces storm El Rodeo prison complex following clashes between rival gangs

Gunfights between government troops and inmates erupted again on Monday inside one of Venezuela's most notorious prisons, a week after at least 22 people were killed during fierce rioting.

As members of Venezuela's national guard continued an all-out assault designed to quell the rebellion, hundreds of anxious relatives remained camped outside El Rodeo prison complex, desperately seeking information about their loved ones.

At around 10.40am local time the sound of gunfire could be heard coming from inside the besieged prison, around 30 miles east of the capital Caracas. A helicopter circled overhead. Friends and relatives of prisoners, who have been keeping a vigil outside El Rodeo since last Thursday, accused government forces of committing atrocities as they sought to regain control of the unit.

One relative, whose brother and husband are prisoners but who refused to be named, claimed: "I saw from the hilltop that inmates who walked into the [prison's] patio with their hands up were being shot by the guards as they left."

Marlon Garcia, 36, a former convict, was among those waiting for news of his brother, a prisoner inside the El Rodeo 2 unit.

"The last we heard from him was Saturday morning. He told my sister he was OK, but we've been hearing gunshots on and off until last night [Sunday]," he said.

Osmely Bracho, 37, who lives on a hilltop near El Rodeo, said bullets from clashes inside the prison had hit her home, which overlooks the complex. "I had to run to the furthest room because the bullets reached the bathroom," she said.

Sheltering from torrential rain under the zinc roof of a nearby shop, Carmen Grajineras, said she had been unable to contact her nephew and cousin, both prisoners, since last Thursday afternoon.

Relatives said terrified inmates had contacted them on mobile phones, pleading with them to call in local human rights organisations.

Thais Lopez, whose 25-year-old husband, Leonardo Pimentel, had been imprisoned in the El Rodeo 2 wing, said the shooting had started at midnight last Thursday and had continued ever since.

"It has been like this for several days. They've been asking us to help them. They have no food, and the smell is unbearable," said Lopez, 25, who last spoke to her husband on Saturday afternoon. Lopez claimed her husband had told her that dead bodies inside the prison had started to putrefy.

"They have had the power cut off and they are asphyxiating them with tear gas bombs", she said, as another volley of shots rang out and she dived for cover into a nearby ditch outside the prison perimeter.

The flareup at El Rodeo began on 12 June, when at least 22 people were killed during clashes between rival gangs.

A preacher who was inside the jail complex trying to negotiate a truce was said to be among the dead.

Violence erupted again last Friday as thousands of security forces stormed the prison. Gun battles broke out inside El Rodeo, which was built in the late 1970s for around 750 prisoners but had until last week been home to at least 3,600.

Official information about what was happening inside El Rodeo remained scarce, but at least three people were reported to have died during initial confrontations on Friday.

In an interview with Venezuelan state radio on Sunday night, Tareck El Aissami, the country's interior minister, said around 2,500 prisoners had been transferred out of the unit and were "safe and sound" and in "perfect" health.

El Aissami said government officials were now working with a commission of relatives, informing them of "the measures that we have taken to safeguard the lives and rights of the prisoners". Families had been the victims of "terrible media manipulation", he claimed.

But speaking to reporters on Sunday, the head of Venezuela's National Guard, general Luis Motta Domínguez, painted a bleak picture of operations inside El Rodeo. "It was like the Vietnam war, the second world war," he said of Friday's assault, according to the Caracas-based El Nacional.

Relatives claimed that a fire, which swept through one of the prison's wings on Sunday, had been deliberately started by troops. Authorities said the fire had been the result of a short-circuit but relatives rejected that claim, pointing out that the prison's electricity supply had already been cut off.

Venezuela is home to some of the region's most violent prisons; squalid, overcrowded jails where guns and drugs are readily available and gangs are often able to operate with relative impunity.

A 2011 Human Rights Watch report described conditions in Venezuelan prisons as "deplorable" and "among the most violent in Latin America."

Last September, 16 prisoners were killed and 35 wounded during clashes between rival gangs in the Aragua prison, the group said.

Last week the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a statement urging the Venezuelan government to ensure its troops did "not directly commit attacks against the life or physical integrity of those in custody".

 

READ MORE - Many feared dead as security forces storm El Rodeo prison complex following clashes between rival gangs

Jailhouse rocks to reggae, sex, drugs and guns

ON THE outside, the San Antonio prison on Margarita Island looks like any other Venezuelan penitentiary. Soldiers in green fatigues stand at its gates. Sharpshooters squint from watchtowers. Guards cast menacing glances at visitors before searching them at the entrance.

But once inside, the prison for more than 2000 Venezuelans and foreigners, held largely for drug trafficking, looks more like a Hugh Hefner-inspired fleshpot than a stockade for toughened smugglers.

Bikini-clad female visitors frolic under the Caribbean sun in an outdoor pool. Marijuana smoke flavours the air. Reggaeton booms from a club filled with grinding couples. Paintings of the Playboy logo adorn the pool hall. Inmates and their guests jostle to place bets at the prison's raucous cockfighting arena.

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Jesus Guevara with his girlfriend Claudia Brito at the San Antonio prison. Photo: The New York Times
''The Venezuelan prisoners here run the show, and that makes life inside a bit easier for us all,'' said Fernando Acosta, 58, a Mexican pilot jailed since 2007. His cell mate, a Congolese businessman, had hired him to fly a Gulfstream jet that prosecutors accuse them of planning to use for smuggling cocaine to West Africa.

It is not uncommon for armed inmates to exercise a certain degree of autonomy in Venezuela's prisons. Prisoners with BlackBerrys and laptops have arranged drug deals, abductions and murders from their cells, police say, a legacy of decades of overcrowding, corruption and insufficient guards.

But San Antonio prison, renowned on Margarita Island as a relatively tranquil place where even visitors can go for sinful weekend partying, is in a class of its own.

Some inmates walk the prison grounds grasping assault rifles.

''I was in the army for 10 years; I've played with guns all my life,'' said Paul Makin, 33, a Briton arrested in Porlamar for cocaine smuggling in 2009. ''I've seen some guns in here that I've never seen before.''

Inmates say they owe their unusual privileges to fellow prisoner Teofilo Rodriguez, 40, a drug trafficker who controls the arsenal that awes Makin. Rodriguez is the inmates' leader - a ''pran'' as alpha prisoners are called. He also goes by the moniker ''El Conejo'' (The Rabbit), which explains the proliferation of the pran's trademark throughout the prison: paintings of the Playboy logo.

Venezuela's government recognises the problems within its prisons, where fighting between gangs controlled by prans like Rodriguez contributes to a high number of killings. Human rights researchers found that 476 prisoners - about 1 per cent of the prison population of 44,520 - were killed last year alone.

''The state has lost control of the prisons in Venezuela,'' said Carlos Nieto, director of Window to Freedom, which documents rights violations in the prisons.

At weekends, the ambience inside, bursting with spouses, romantic partners and some who simply show up looking for diversion, almost resembles the island's beach resorts.

Prisoners barbecue meat while sipping whisky poolside. In some cells, equipped with air conditioning and TV satellite dishes, inmates relax with wives or girlfriends. The children of some inmates swim in one of the prison's four pools.

Prisoners boast that they built these perks themselves, with their own money. And while San Antonio can hardly be considered safe - a grenade attack in the infirmary killed seven last year - the inmates argue that compared with other Venezuelan jails, peace often prevails here.

''Our prison is a model institution,'' said Ivan Penalver, 33, a convicted murderer who preaches at the prison's evangelical Christian church.

In parts of the prison, there is even something approaching everyday life.

''I find it hard to explain what life is like in here,'' said Nadezhda Klinaeva, 32, a Russian serving a drug trafficking sentence in the women's annex. ''This is the strangest place I've ever been.''

 

READ MORE - Jailhouse rocks to reggae, sex, drugs and guns

the director and 11 officials at a prison in northern Mexico have been charged with helping 17 inmates escape through a tunnel starting in the prison's laundry room.

The federal prosecutor's office says the director and 11 officials at a prison in northern Mexico have been charged with helping 17 inmates escape through a tunnel starting in the prison's laundry room.
The prosecutor's office alleges the prison officials in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas, helped the inmates escape through a hatch hidden underneath a washing machine. The tunnel emerged outside the prison's grounds.
The officials were also charged Friday with gang involvement in connection with Tuesday's jailbreak. They were brought before a judge who will decide their case.
Security at state prisons is notoriously lax. Jailbreaks are common and inmates are often found to be directing criminal operations from behind bars.

READ MORE - the director and 11 officials at a prison in northern Mexico have been charged with helping 17 inmates escape through a tunnel starting in the prison's laundry room.

Ruben Pinuelas running a prison yard for the Mexican Mafia.

Ruben Pinuelas was a rising star in the criminal underworld. By the time he turned 24, he'd left his small gang in El Centro behind, got busted for auto theft, stabbed an inmate and moved on to bigger things: running a prison yard for the Mexican Mafia. 
His reign at California State Prison, Corcoran's Substance Abuse Treatment Facility lasted only a year. But it was the bloodiest year in the institution's history. The young leader had his hand in at least 10 attempted murders, and officials say they averaged a stabbing a day while Pinuelas controlled Facility C.
His story serves as a window into the power that criminal street gangs wield, even from behind bars, and the great lengths local authorities will go to keep these people in check.
"The gang culture is very, very violent," Kings County Gang Task Force Supervisor Andrew Meyer said. "They rule through fear, violence and intimidation. When they wind up in prison, they all form up together under a unified ruling body that controls their yard."
This unified body is known as a mesa, or table. It's a group of respected gang members who control the flow of money and narcotics in and out of the yard. And the head of a table, the "shot caller," gets a percentage from every transaction.
"The person running the yard has a lot of power," Meyer said. "He makes money without ever lifting a finger. Contraband goes for 10 times street value inside a prison. So these guys end up very wealthy."
Pinuelas was given control of Facility C after the previous shot caller was moved to a different prison. From the day he started, he showed a knack for keeping records and moving drug money around, so authorities had a hard time tracking it.
What he lacked, though, was subtlety.
Any time someone questioned his authority, Pinuelas lashed out. It is against the gang code to disobey orders, Meyer said, but Pinuelas went after everyone. He even had people stabbed who owed him money and paid late, investigators said.
The prison Investigative Services Unit began looking into the rise in attacks in the facility, but Investigator Ryan Couch could never directly link the hits to Pinuelas.
Until April 3, 2007.
That day, two inmates assaulted another out on the yard. The attackers, Aldrin Trejo and Louis Jimenez, continued to beat the man until they were covered in blood. They only stopped hitting him when correctional officers threatened to shoot, investigators said later. Though no weapons were found, the victim's wounds were consistent with a knife or sharp object.
But it was the location - the yard - where the attempted murder went down that surprised everyone.
"An attack on the yard is incredibly public," Deputy District Attorney Sarah Hacker said. "The assailant takes the risk of having correctional officers witness it. It also locks down the yard and limits a gang's ability to communicate and make drug transactions. Only a shot caller could have taken that kind of risk and ordered it."
Couch and the other investigators decided to search Pinuelas' cell. What they found was a wealth of information, more than 100 handwritten notes detailing extensive gang business - the good records Pinuelas was known for.
"He liked to keep his writing around," Meyer said. "We found lots of stuff in his files: lists of drug transactions, money owed, nicknames for gang members, parole dates, everything. Their entire chain of command was written down for us."
And among the files was a two-page note written by Pinuelas ordering the murder of his victim, identified by authorities only as "Inmate Villalobos."
The resulting investigation spanned more than three years and involved people from the Kings County District Attorney's Office, the Gang Task Force and the prison's Investigative Services Unit. They even enlisted help from the Department of Justice to examine the documents and compare handwriting samples, a news release said.
"It was worth it to send a message," Meyer said. "We're not going to let these people operate without any consequences. I doubt this will deter them, but I sure hope it does."
What they discovered was a power struggle for the mesa. Inmate Villalobos had been watching Pinuelas shed blood left and right and decided to do something about it. He, a loyal gang soldier, wrote to the gang leaders and asked for permission to take over and do things right.
Those loyal to Pinuelas warned him in advance. The leaders told Villalobos to do nothing, to let it slide. Pinuelas was told the same, but instead decided to make an example of the man in front of everyone on the yard, Meyer said.
Ultimately, Villalobos survived. And for living through such a violent assault, he was promoted in the gang as an "ideal soldier," investigators said.
Pinuelas was paroled in 2008, just nine months after the assault. He did not face charges until he was arrested in September 2010, along with Trejo and Jimenez for their role in the attempted murder.
They were charged with conspiracy to commit murder, attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon by a prisoner. They also faced special enhancements for performing these acts to benefit a criminal street gang and for being previous one-strike offenders.
The jury trial lasted three weeks before coming back with a guilty verdict on all counts.
"It was a culmination of several years' investigation and so much hard work," Hacker said. "At that moment, I knew no matter what the outcome was, that good would prevail. I knew it in my bones. It was the best moment of the trial."
Pinuelas, Jimenez and Trejo were sentenced on Friday to each spend 60 years to life in prison. It served as a major victory for local law enforcement.
"I knew these guys had a certain amount of power, but not how much," Meyer said. "It's pure evil all around. To a magnitude I never suspected. The violence in our institutions is out of control. And it all spills out onto the streets. I hope this sends a message that we will continue to work cases like these."

READ MORE - Ruben Pinuelas running a prison yard for the Mexican Mafia.

The threat of the rising Mississippi River has prisoners at Angola State Prison racing to make sandbags and finish other preparations.

And longtime Angola Warden Burl Cain has readied plans to evacuate thousands of the prisoners in a matter of days. Cain told reporters Thursday that if predictions hold the river surrounding the prison farm will reach unprecedented levels soon.

As cattle grazed on the thousands of acres which encompass Angola, a race to fill sandbags was underway by prisoners.

"We're gonna have more water than we've ever dealt with before," said Cain.

Water from the bulging Mississippi has already reached an interior levee encircling the prison camps.

"The worst case scenario is if the levee breaks," Cain stated.

As it stands now, he will begin evacuating most of the 5,200 prisoners to other state run prisons on Monday.

"The ones we keep would the ones that might pose some sort of extreme threat to the public."

The prison intentionally breached a levee to relieve pressure and prevent overtopping and unthinkable consequences.

"It's a big bowl with a 12 mile levee around the whole farm and so there's no way to get water out of here other than evaporate or pump it out or let it run through the levee," Cain stated.

The interior levee was raised after the 1997 river crisis. The water that has invaded prison property and crept up next to the levee is already over 50 feet. Without the improvements to the levee, Cain said he would already be dealing with a flooding crisis.

"They told us if we didn't build a new levee we would lose Angola within 20 years."

The Angola ferry which many of the prison's employees rely on is out of commission because of high water which has basically swallowed the road leading to it.

Three quarters of the 18,000 acre prison farm is surrounded by the Mississippi River, and by May 23rd the river is expected to reach 65.5 feet.

"Picture that water 10 feet or 11 feet higher than it is today and look at that [prison] camp and you'll see that it would be inundated if the water came through...I'm very prayerful, I'm not certain of anything, but I'm pretty certain," he further stated.

Prison Camp "C" next to the levee will not be evacuated. Cain said hundreds of prisoners are needed to continue the flood protection work.

"We will keep this camp because we have to work on the levee."

And ultimately, Cain believes the higher levee will prevail against the rising water.

"We think we can weather this storm…..We're very experienced flood fighters and I have more resources than the Corps has because I have all these inmates," he said.

Cain added that New Orleans Sheriff Marlin Gusman is sending him buses on Friday to aid in the planned evacuation of prisoners.

READ MORE - The threat of the rising Mississippi River has prisoners at Angola State Prison racing to make sandbags and finish other preparations.

Inmates at a prison near Venezuela's capital freed the prison director and 14 other hostages Thursday and ended an eight-day standoff over conditions at the jail.

Inmates at a prison near Venezuela's capital freed the prison director and 14 other hostages Thursday and ended an eight-day standoff over conditions at the jail.
The prisoners released the last of their hostages after talks led to an agreement by government officials to provide medical services, set up a library and remove a national prisons administrator from his post.
The hostages left El Rodeo II prison in ambulances. The inmates had initially taken 22 people hostage April 27 but freed seven earlier this week during the negotiations with authorities.
Deputy Interior Minister Edwin Rojas confirmed that officials had complied with one key demand: removing a national prisons administrator and opening an investigation into accusations he was involved in corruption.
As part of the agreement, six inmates were also taken to a hospital outside the prison to be checked for possible tuberculosis cases.
The uprising in the prison near Caracas erupted after a sick inmate who apparently had tuberculosis was taken to another lockup where he was not given medical treatment, said Humberto Prado, a rights activist who leads the organization Venezuelan Prisons Observatory.
Prado criticized the inmates' tactics but said the prisoners decided to take hostages in part because they had been demanding medical care for a month and had not received any response from authorities.
Last year, 20 inmates with tuberculosis and AIDS died in Venezuelan prisons due to a lack of medical care, and eight more have died this year of the same causes, Prado told The Associated Press.
Venezuela's 30 prisons were designed to hold a total of 15,000 inmates, but the prison population is more than double that size. Chronic delays in court proceedings contribute to the problem.
Violence is common in the severely crowded and understaffed prisons, where inmates are able to obtain firearms and other weapons with the help of corrupt guards.
During 2009, 366 deaths were reported at Venezuela's prisons, according to figures kept by Prado's group. Some of the victims were killed using firearms.

READ MORE - Inmates at a prison near Venezuela's capital freed the prison director and 14 other hostages Thursday and ended an eight-day standoff over conditions at the jail.

400 prisoners are locked up in their cells 23 hours a day because they are in fear of being killed in jail.

A growing gang culture in prisons has forced authorities to take drastic measures to ensure the safety of those under threat.

The director general of the Irish Prison Service, Brian Purcell, admitted yesterday there were now more than 900 prisoners under protection in the nation's jails.

He acknowledged there was a problem with gang culture in society that was also being reflected behind prison walls.

But he denied claims made by delegates at the annual conference of the Prison Officers Association in Kilkenny that the gangs were taking control of the system.

He said prisoners had to be kept under protection because of threats to their security.

This was not an indication the prisons were unsafe but a measure of what the prison service was doing to ensure inmates were not harmed.

Mr Purcell said between 340 and 370 prisoners were kept in their cells for 23 hours a day and then allowed to exercise on their own for the other hour.

"If we didn't have the lock-ups, there would be an increasing risk," he said.

But the vast majority of the protected prisoners was subject to a regime that was similar to that experienced by most of the prison population, he said.

He revealed members of 10 to 12 different gangs were held in the prison system.

This meant that the different factions had to be kept apart, as far as possible.

Association president Stephen Delaney said there were 60 protected prisoners in Dublin's Mountjoy jail, including members of nine different factions, and this created significant problems for staff there.

Overall, there are about 4,500 people in custody and 5,500 in the system, including those on temporary release, according to Mr Purcell.

Projections for the next three to four years push the figures up to 7,000 in the system.

He said there were additional prison spaces due to come on stream in Mountjoy and Dochas next year, and the service was also looking at other options.

But he said no definite decisions on future prison building could be made until the Thornton Hall project review committee made its recommendations, which are due to be delivered to Justice Minister Alan Shatter by July 1.

Overcrowding

He said Thornton Hall had been a key plank in the strategy to deal with overcrowding in the past, and that the committee had to come up with some other solutions to that problem.

Mr Purcell said there were about 150 assaults by prisoners on staff in a year.

"Given the type of people we deal with, this is not a huge number but every assault must be deplored," he said.

He noted there were also 760 assaults by prisoners on other prisoners in a year, slightly over two a day. "We have 1.4 million prisoner bed nights in our jails on an annual basis, so two assaults a day is a relatively low number," he said

READ MORE - 400 prisoners are locked up in their cells 23 hours a day because they are in fear of being killed in jail.

suspected Aryan Brotherhood prison gang member got hold of a cell phone and called a friend to break him out of a minimum-security conservation camp in Nevada City, Calif

One day last summer, a suspected Aryan Brotherhood prison gang member got hold of a cell phone and called a friend to break him out of a minimum-security conservation camp in Nevada City, Calif.

Once free, 36-year-old Jeffory Shook --"one of the most violent and dangerous suspects we've encountered in a long time," a sheriff in Placer County, Calif., once called him -- began a four-week crime spree, stealing cars and leading officers on dangerous chases through four counties.

No one was hurt in Shook's escape. But San Francisco police officer Bryan Tuvera was killed in a December 2006 encounter with a camp escapee. Tuvera's partner returned fire, killing the escapee.

While those escapes were unusual, the decision to let violent convicts serve part of their time working under light guard in neighborhoods and rural communities is not, according to an investigation by the Record Searchlight of Redding, Calif.

At any given time, at least 800of the California camps' 4,000-plus inmates, or one in five, have violent criminal histories. This contradicts state officials' claims that only "carefully-screened," non-violent, low-risk inmates are allowed inside the state's 41 minimum-security conservation camps.

California's experience may presage a problem for other states, which increasingly rely on low-security solutions for the nation's burgeoning inmate populations.

According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, prison populations in recent years have swollen to more than 1.5 million inmates, more than double the number imprisoned in 1990.

Federal and state authorities opened 155 new minimum-security facilities between 2000 and 2005 to accommodate some of the growth. The number of medium-and maximum-security sites has held steady.

Eight months after Shook's escape, California officials have done nothing to change their policies.

Harriet Salarno, chairwoman of Crime Victims United of California, said it's disturbing that inmates with violent pasts are being placed in situations where "they can easily escape," she said. "They should be within the prisons' walls."

The Record Searchlight's analysis of primary offenses of conservation camp inmates between 2005 and 2010 shows:

-- At least 20 percent of camp inmates at any given time had been convicted of violent crimes such as robberies, car jacking, assaults or altercations with police.

-- More than 200 inmates had been convicted of violent crimes against police. Some crimes involved firearms or left officers injured. More than 30 inmates had been convicted of injuring or killing someone in police chases.

-- Fourteen were convicted of voluntary and involuntary manslaughter. Officials pulled another inmate from camp after he was charged with murder; he was convicted and is back in prison. He'd been in camp while serving time for a lesser charge, a prison spokeswoman said.

-- Two inmates had been convicted of kidnapping. Four had been convicted of hostage taking.

-- Fifteen had been convicted specifically of committing street-gang related crimes.

The camps' growing numbers of violent inmates raise alarms with some lawmakers, who say California's state and local officials have become reliant on cheap labor and fire protection.

While yellow-clad, paid state firefighters hold the hoses and drive fire engines, orange-garbed inmate fire crews do much of the grunt work, cutting fire lines with hand tools and falling burned trees with chain saws. In the off season, they pick up trash along the state highways, cut fire breaks and fill sandbags at floods.

California inmates work an average of 10 million work hours per year, saving taxpayers more than $80 million annually, prison officials said.

Still, "these are the same people who we're putting an ax or a chain saw in their hands," said Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko.

The state corrections department website paints a very different picture of the typical camp inmate.

"Only minimum custody inmates -- both male and female -- may participate in the Conservation Camps Program," the department's website says. "To be eligible, they must be physically fit and have no history of violent crime including kidnapping, sex offenses, arson or escape."

Pressed last month about the newspaper's findings, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation representatives repeatedly denied that violent inmates were placed at the camps.

"My understanding is ... if inmates are considered violent they're not allowed," said spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

The officials questioned whether the newspaper's interpretation of violent or dangerous crimes fit with the state's legal definition of what constitutes a dangerous inmate.

According to prison officials and inmate classification documents, prisoners qualify for camps through a point system designed to promote good behavior and weed out dangerous offenders.

Adult inmates selected for camp have average sentences of less than two years, and they spend an average eight months in camp, officials say.

The corrections department's own inmate classification records indicate an inmate can gain faster camp placement if there's a "shortage of camp qualified inmates."

But fire camp commanders soon may face a labor shortage. To reduce prison overcrowding and trim the state's budget, Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this month signed a law that will shift the lowest-risk inmates -- like many of those serving sentences at the camps -- to the custody of the state's 58 counties.

Jim Nielsen, a Republican assemblyman and former president of California's Board of Parole and Prison Terms, said budget cuts might prompt prison officials to place dangerous inmates in fire camps -- especially if the safest inmates are sent back to local jails.

"Whatever we've got now," Nielsen said, "it's only going to get vastly worse."

READ MORE - suspected Aryan Brotherhood prison gang member got hold of a cell phone and called a friend to break him out of a minimum-security conservation camp in Nevada City, Calif

Flanagan had close ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a race-based state-wide organization that operates inside and outside of state and federal prisons located throughout the state of Texas and the United States.

31-year old  Lufkin, Texas, woman was sentenced yesterday by U.S. District Judge Marcia Crone to 15 years in federal prison for her role in a double homicide that took place in Nacogdoches, Texas, in August 2007.

April Flanagan pleaded guilty on November 29, 2010, to committing a violent crime in aid of racketeering activity, the object of which was a conspiracy to murder David Clyde Mitchamore Jr., and to acting as an accessory after the fact in the murder of Christy Rochelle Brown. 

According to the evidence and testimony presented in court, Flanagan had close ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a race-based state-wide organization that operates inside and outside of state and federal prisons located throughout the state of Texas and the United States. 

The ABT enforces its rules and promotes discipline among its members, prospects and associates through murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, assault, robbery and threats against those who violate the rules or pose a threat to the enterprise. 

Members, as well as ABT associates and prospects, are required to follow, without question, the orders of higher-ranking members.  These so-called “direct orders” typically task the ABT member or associate to “discipline” the offending individual with physical force.

According to court documents, David Mitchamore, aka “Super Dave,” an ABT member, and his girlfriend, Christie Rochelle Brown, were murdered as a result of a “direct order” by ABT members because of Mitchamore’s failure to repay an outstanding debt he allegedly owed to an ABT member.   The bodies of Mitchamore and Brown were discovered in Nacogdoches County on August 10, 2007.

READ MORE - Flanagan had close ties to the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas, a race-based state-wide organization that operates inside and outside of state and federal prisons located throughout the state of Texas and the United States.

The Texas Syndicate's golden rule is as simple as it is merciless: Betray us and you're dead.

Authorities contend that in the past decade, members of the Texas Syndicate, which is the state's original prison gang, have carried out at least 50 murders, solved or unsolved, in addition to countless extortions, kidnappings, robberies and assaults. Bodies have turned up all over Texas, with dozens of the gang's members and associates prosecuted in Austin, Dallas and Houston.
Thousands of the gang's members are locked up in state and federal prisons, but even more are on the streets today, their wrath chilling. Just this January, three were sentenced in the Rio Grande Valley to life without parole.
At the heart of that case: A Syndicate gangster turned federal informant was taken to Hooters by his buddies. After dinner, they drove to a sugar-cane field and shot him in the head.
A member in Dallas was similarly shot, then rolled in a carpet and stuffed in a car that was set ablaze. He had violated an order to end an affair with another member's mother.
Yet another, nicknamed Third Eye for a scar on his forehead, was shot in Houston as he sat outside a strip joint in his black Ford Mustang.
He was suspected of snitching, and bragging at a nightclub about being a member.
The Latino gang long has provided a blueprint for gangs of all races climbing into the major leagues of crime. It was the first Texas prison gang to embrace such Italian mobster traditions as strict rules and harsh discipline.
Among the Syndicate's main rules: Once you join, you are in for life and the gang comes before your blood family, God or anything else.
Despite changes that have come since the Texas Syndicate was founded in the 1970s, authorities said the state's original prison gang has dwindled in size but remains a significant threat.
On the streets as well as in the prisons, it is suspected of having approximately 3,800 confirmed or suspected members, although it is unclear how many are still active in the gang.
The Syndicate claims not to kill innocent people, but does go after those who betray them. Especially those who betray them.
Most are retribution hits on their own members, associates or rivals, according to authorities.
"It is the person you trust the most who will be whacking you," said a Texas Department of Public Safety lieutenant who supervises the major gang squad and has spent much of his career investigating Latino gangs.
Snitch's heroin death
Among the Syndicate's more infamous killings — for which a ranking member was executed by the state of Texas in 2009 - is the case of a gang member wrongfully suspected of being a snitch. He was held down in the so-called "Texas Syndicate Tank" by Syndicate soldiers in an El Paso jail and injected with heroin that had been smuggled inside.
"We don't harm innocent people, man," contends Mike Mendoza Jr., 32, a second-generation Texas Syndicate member from Baytown who is serving life in prison for murder.
"We don't tolerate none of our members who do that," Mendoza said in a face-to-face interview at a state penitentiary about 25 miles outside Huntsville. There also have been numerous instances of extortion, kidnapping, robberies and murders, both sanctioned and not sanctioned by the gang.
Mendoza, who has been an enforcer for the Syndicate, went out on his own when he stabbed a Baytown man who was not a Syndicate enemy. Mendoza had been drinking, and the two had an argument that quickly escalated.
"In that indictment all you see is drug dealers getting robbed, ex-members getting killed. … Respect is given when respect is given to us," Mendoza said of the federal case that snared him.
He killed Isaac Benavidez, 26, in an attack that a state prosecutor who is now a judge described as "an absolutely senseless, cold-blooded killing" in which the victim was "gutted like a deer."
Mendoza claimed he was defending himself because Benavidez had a gun.
Cartel subcontractors
One of the most common Syndicate-sanctioned crimes is the drug business. They work as subcontractors for Mexican cartels to enforce and transport drugs on U.S. soil.
The Syndicate's other crime of choice is home invasions, ripping off dealers by smashing down doors and stealing their dope and cash.
Hits are sanctioned against fellow gangsters by a majority vote of other members in a prison unit or city.
"When Moses came down from Mount Sinai, he had only Ten Commandments. These folks have 22," federal prosecutor Robert Wells Jr. told Valley jurors in a case in which three Syndicate members got life. "Violate any one of them and you're subject to death."
Authorities contend they have crippled the gang by sending key leaders, soldiers and associates to prison in the past decade. More than 40 have been indicted in federal courts. They were often taken down with the help of members who betrayed the gang at the risk of death.
"Many cooperating witnesses are Texas Syndicate members that have been ordered to be killed by the Texas Syndicate, placed in the witness-protection program, or are otherwise at risk of harm if their identities are disclosed," notes a document filed by prosecutors in 2007 in Houston when Mendoza and others were convicted.
Mendoza offers no excuses for his life in the Syndicate.
"I done lost everything for it," said Mendoza, who grew up in Baytown and goes by the street name Barney. "Even though they are considered criminals and that kind of stuff, the ones I grew up with, it was all about respect."
Mendoza's biological father - a man he never knew - was also in the Texas Syndicate.
Sitting behind protective glass and screening, Mendoza said that as a teenager he thought he would one day be a Marine and wear a dress-blue uniform to make his mother proud. Not the prison whites worn by an inmate.
"It just didn't work out. The street gangs caught up with me," said Mendoza, who while in prison used ash, shampoo and a needle to ink his first Syndicate tattoo.
'Nothing like it was'
Arnold Darby, 62, is one of the few white men ever accepted into the Syndicate and one of the oldest survivors from the original Syndicate soldiers.
He said that while old-school gangsters were known for keeping a low profile, a new breed is more brash and willingly draws the attention of law enforcement.
"The class and character of the members they bring in now is nothing like it was," said Darby, who has two murder convictions, including killing an ex-member who testified for the government.
Despite the influx of young members who have their own style, Darby said the Texas Syndicate remains a force.
"There is no one in the Texas prison system who does any time who doesn't know you better show some respect to them," Darby said during an interview at another state prison near Huntsville.
Law enforcement officials and Syndicate members said that the newer generation is more likely to turn their backs on tradition and take deals in exchange for leniency.
Hard case, hard time
Mendoza said he won't take a deal and wants nothing to do with those who will.
Because he is a member of the Syndicate - considered by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to be one of a dozen especially dangerous gangs - he serves his time under the harshest conditions in the prison system.
He is locked in a cell by himself 23 hours a day for his entire sentence.
In Mendoza's case, that means forever. Unless he renounces his membership and tells everything he knows - which he says he won't.
"Why would I run and put my tail between my legs? I did this to myself."

READ MORE - The Texas Syndicate's golden rule is as simple as it is merciless: Betray us and you're dead.

victim’s death was ordered by “a very powerful prison gang called the 'suranos,'” Spanish for the South Gang.

The trial of an Oregon State Penitentiary inmate accused of killing another prisoner got underway in Marion County Circuit Court .

Isacc Creed Agee, 33, is on trial for what prosecutors say was his part in the slaying of Antonio Barrantes-Vasquez inside the victim’s cell on Feb. 14, 2008.

Agee is charged with aggravated murder and could face the death penalty if convicted in Barrantes’ death.

During his opening statement, Matt Kemmy, a Marion County deputy district attorney, showed the jury a picture of the victim, saying the Barrantes had been asleep in his cell when Agee and another inmate, James Demetri Davenport, assaulted him.

“They were in their cell waiting for the chance to kill Mr. Barrantes,” Kemmy told the jury about the pair.

Davenport was sentenced to life in prison.

In his opening statement, Jeffrey Jones, Agee’s defense attorney, told jurors that he and his client were not contesting much of the evidence in Barrantes’ death.

He also told the jury the evidence will show that the victim’s death was ordered by “a very powerful prison gang called the 'suranos,'” Spanish for the South Gang.

READ MORE - victim’s death was ordered by “a very powerful prison gang called the 'suranos,'” Spanish for the South Gang.

The final three members of the Black Guerrilla Gang have pleaded guilty in federal court, wrapping up cases against 21 members what authorities described as a violent group responsible for money laundering, drug dealing and attacks inside Maryland prisons.

Police said they used pre-paid debit card accounts to deal drugs beyond prison walls.

“This case reflects an unprecedented commitment by the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to combat crime and corruption in state correctional facilities," Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein said in a statement. "An intensive investigation that included wiretaps on contraband prison cell phones resulted in evidence that BGF leaders ran the gang while incarcerated in state prisons.

"The crimes included extorting protection money from other inmates and using contraband cell phones to arrange drug deals, approve robberies and arrange attacks on cooperating witnesses," Rosenstein said. "In addition, gang members persuaded corrupt correctional officers to participate in the gang’s criminal activities by smuggling drugs, tobacco, cell phones and weapons into prisons.”

The arrests exposed corruption in prsion -- a guard was charged with helping deal drugs -- and revaled a handbook endorsed by an educator as promoting empowerment but described by authorities as a guide, or a "constitution," for gang life. The gang also had ties to an outreach group devoted to getting troubled youths off the streets.

Here is a previous story by The Sun's Justin Fenton exposing alleged activities of a corrections officers:

Items hauled out of a corrections officer's apartment before she was indicted in a gang racketeering conspiracy appear to connect her to a who's who of Baltimore criminals.

Authorities say Alicia Simmons, an employee at the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, is associated with the Black Guerrilla Family, the gang accused of directing a criminal enterprise from inside prison with the help of corrections staff. In a June 22 raid on her Pikesville apartment, agents seized the BGF "constitution," gang codes written in Swahili and paperwork related to its top leadership.Simmons, 34, also was in possession of letters, inmate ID cards, debit cards and other correspondence linked to some of the city's most notorious criminals. There's a letter from Kevin Gary, the Tree Top Bloods member known for his tinted red contact lenses, and another from Isaac Smith, convicted in the firebombing of a North Baltimore community activist's home.

She also had inmate identification cards in the names of Johnny "J.R." Butler and Calvin "Turkey" Wright, recently convicted for running a violent east-side drug ring connected to at least two killings; and Ronnie Thomas, better known as "Skinny Suge," the producer of the infamous "Stop Snitching" videos.

The search warrant and accompanying affidavit peel back another layer of the complex world of prison corruption that the Drug Enforcement Administration has been investigating for years, leading to a racketeering indictment this week.

Simmons is accused in the affidavit of helping smuggle heroin and cell phones through the prison's laundry system, allowing gang members to fight one another, and attempting to sniff out informants, including spying on federal agents as they met with a high-ranking gang member. The items in her apartment suggest her criminal ties go beyond the BGF.

Special Agent Edward Marcinko, a DEA spokesman, said her potential connections to other criminal enterprises were being investigated.

The Black Guerrilla Family is described by the DEA as the largest and most powerful prison gang in the state, with a presence in every facility and a top-down paramilitary structure that encouraged extortion and violence to further its goals. Already, the case has revealed how leaders used a handbook called the "Black Book" to spread its message while placing members to work with city school children and violence intervention programs as a front for recruiting.

Few details about Simmons' role in the BGF were revealed in the indictment unsealed this week. But the search warrant affidavit for her vehicle and Pikesville apartment, in the first block of Stockmill Road, adds additional perspective while raising questions about employee discipline within the prison system.

Federal agents appear to have focused on Simmons earlier this year, when a source told agents that they had personally observed her smuggle marijuana, crack cocaine and heroin into the protective custody unit of the Maryland Correctional Institute in Jessup in 2007, according to documents compiled by DEA Task Force member William Nickoles, a city police officer.

A second source said he had received a pound of marijuana from Simmons, and knew of a BGF commander who received 20 grams of heroin from her and other officers every two to three days. That source said that in December 2009 Simmons allowed BGF members into an area where they assaulted another inmate, and that she did not report the assault until the gang members were finished. She was removed from her shift as a result of the incident and suspended five days.

Agents also learned that Simmons was being disciplined by the Division of Correction for fraternizing with a former inmate over Facebook. She received a midlevel punishment that did not result in a suspension.

Prison officials have pointed to their cooperation with the DEA in bringing the indictments and said they should put the agency's "few bad apples" on notice that they will be caught. But Simmons' activities were well-known in the prison for years, according to informants who spoke to the DEA, and she continued to work as a guard despite the infractions.

Rick Binetti, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, said the agency has improved its screening processes and has been working with law enforcement agencies. He said he could not comment on Simmons' personnel records.

When agents searched the cells of three BGF leaders in 2009, the inmates were removed "under the ruse that they were summoned to the warden's office." After the searches, two of the members - Eric Brown and Ray Olivis - were removed from the general population and indicted. But the third man, Jonathan Braverman, was not.

Suspecting he was a cooperating informant, BGF members ordered a "hit on sight" on Braverman. Law enforcement officials visited Braverman - under the guise that they were attorneys - in June 2009 to advise him of the threat, and noticed Simmons "in close proximity to the interview area." By the next day, an informant was relaying to federal agents that Simmons had advised several inmates and BGF members that the DEA had visited Braverman and that he was an informant.

Agents served the search warrant on her home on June 25, and an inventory of seized items was unsealed this week. Included among the items were letters from inmates soliciting phone calls and favors, and newspaper articles about crime and the BGF case. They also found:

* An envelope from federal inmate Kevin Gary, a Tree Top Piru Bloods leader who last year received 30 years in prison after admitting to witness intimidation, ordering gang members to rob drug dealers and unsuccessfully arranging a murder. The envelope was addressed to Simmons' apartment, and contained a photograph of Gary and a letter.

* A copy of the BGF Constitution, a copy of BGF codes and Swahili words and their meanings.

* Federal inmate cards in the names of Calvin Wright, Johnny Butler, Dieon Scruggs, Lejuanna Walker, Darrick Frayling, and several others. Butler and Wright were sentenced recently to life and 35 years, respectively, in federal prison in connection with their heroin ring. They still face charges in the 2007 torture and killing of Sintia Mesa, who police say was killed over a drug debt.

Scruggs was charged in February with posing as a Federal Fugitive Task Force officer last fall; Walker was convicted in May and received 12 years in prison for his role in a Baltimore County drug ring.

* "Green Dot" prepaid debit cards, which authorities say are the currency of the prison system, in the names of various inmates including Fonda White and Jeffrey Fowlkes. White, a former prison guard, and Fowlkes, her incarcerated lover and BGF gang member, pleaded guilty to extorting thousands of dollars from prisoners and their relatives.

READ MORE - The final three members of the Black Guerrilla Gang have pleaded guilty in federal court, wrapping up cases against 21 members what authorities described as a violent group responsible for money laundering, drug dealing and attacks inside Maryland prisons.

Algerian court has jailed two former harbour-masters of the port of Algiers for criminal association and signing contracts in breach of the law,

Algerian court has jailed two former harbour-masters of the port of Algiers for criminal association and signing contracts in breach of the law, press reports said Thursday.


The two men, Bourouai Abdelhak and Ali Farrah, were respectively sentenced to six and four years in prison. They were also convicted of wrongfully distributing benefits.
In all, 10 people were accused in the case, of whom six were jailed and four were acquitted.

The verdict, against which defence lawyers said they would appeal, arose from the illegal practice of handing out contracts to private cargo handling firms to work inside the port.

Port managers had been operating in breach of regulations for a decade, according to the prosecution.

READ MORE - Algerian court has jailed two former harbour-masters of the port of Algiers for criminal association and signing contracts in breach of the law,

Two men wanted in connection with a double stabbing early Saturday morning that left one man dead and another wounded were captured Wednesday at a relative's home in Cincinnati,

Two men wanted in connection with a double stabbing early Saturday morning that left one man dead and another wounded were captured Wednesday at a relative's home in Cincinnati, and police are now interviewing the suspects.

Warrants had been issued Saturday charging 32-year-old Glenn Cross Jr., of Kearneysville, with murder for the fatal stabbing of 21-year-old Andre Jackson, of Martinsburg. Additional warrants were issued Saturday charging 34-year-old Thomas Anthony Grantham Jr., of Martinsburg, with malicious wounding and attempted murder in connection with the stabbing of the second victim, 26-year-old Jacques Taylor, of Martinsburg, who survived the attack. Grantham also is accused of attempting to run over Jackson with his vehicle, which resulted in the attempted murder warrant being filed.

The attack occurred early on April 23. Deputy U.S. Marshal Michael P. Ulrich said in a news release that the two murder suspects allegedly hunted down Jackson and Taylor after a verbal altercation in the parking lot of the Brickhouse Bar and Grill off Mid Atlantic Parkway in Martinsburg.

Jackson and Taylor were followed until they stopped on Rock Cliff Drive, when they were assaulted with knives. The victims were found in the 1900 block of Rock Cliff Drive after the double stabbing by members of the Berkeley County Sheriff's Department and West Virginia State Police, but the suspects had fled prior to the arrival of police.

As a result of the vicious stabbing, Jackson ultimately succumbed to his wounds and Taylor was taken to City Hospital.

Grantham and Cross will be charged as fugitives from justice in Ohio and will eventually be extradited back to West Virginia.

The Berkeley County Sheriff's Department was contacted by the U.S. Marshals Service at about 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in regard to the suspects' arrests by the Southern Ohio Fugitive Apprehension Strike Team.

After being notified of the arrests, Sgt. T.E. Boyles and Deputy Michael P. St. Clair, investigators with the Berkeley County Sheriff's Department, departed immediately to travel to Ohio, Berkeley County Sheriff Kenneth "Kenny" Lemaster Jr. said late Wednesday night.

The investigators will be tasked with collecting evidence and interviewing the suspects. While in Ohio, they will work with authorities there and with the Berkeley County Prosecuting Attorney's Office to bring the suspects back to West Virginia, Lemaster said.

On Monday, the Mountain State Fugitive Task Force, a local U.S. Marshals Service-led fugitive task force, was asked to assist with the apprehension of Cross and Grantham. The investigation conducted by members of the task force and area law enforcement developed a lead that Grantham and Cross were staying with family in the Cincinnati area, Ulrich said in the news release.

READ MORE - Two men wanted in connection with a double stabbing early Saturday morning that left one man dead and another wounded were captured Wednesday at a relative's home in Cincinnati,

Drug cartels and their affiliated gangs are among those increasingly seizing control of Mexican prisons and practicing "self-rule," prison

Drug cartels and their affiliated gangs are among those increasingly seizing control of Mexican prisons and practicing "self-rule," prison observers say.

The Los Zetas drug cartel has the run of the prison in Saltillo, 190 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas, in what is known as "autogobierno" or self-rule, USA Today reported Thursday.

It dates back decades and forms of it exist in correctional facilities the world over, the newspaper said.

A report from the National Human Rights Commission shows self-rule on the rise, being practiced in 37 percent of Mexican prisons, up from 30 percent in 2009.

The report defines self-rule as inmates being permitted to manage internal functions "such as controlling keys, organizing activities (and) cleaning and overseeing dormitories, among others."

Security experts say self-rule exists mostly in state-level facilities and grew out of decades of corruption, neglect and underfunding.

"It's an expression of the enormous corruption that there is in these kinds of public security fields," said Vicente Sanchez, a professor at the College of the Northern Border in Tijuana.

In Saltillo, self-rule is in the hands of the Los Zetas, one of the most powerful and violent of Mexico's drug cartels.

Mexico's war on the cartels has seen hundreds of members imprisoned, but once incarcerated cartel members often take over a prison and continue involvement in their drug operations, officials said.

Self-rule, "Means having total control over an inmate population," along with "the ability to communicate with the outside without restrictions," said David Ordaz of Mexico's National Criminal Science Institute.

READ MORE - Drug cartels and their affiliated gangs are among those increasingly seizing control of Mexican prisons and practicing "self-rule," prison

Troops in Venezuela surrounded a jail where inmateswere holding 22 hostages, including the prison director, to protest against an alleged tuberculosis outbreak.

National guard units with helmets and shields blocked access to the Rodeo II prison in Guatire, just outside the capital Caracas, as officials attempted to negotiate a peaceful end to the two-day siege.

Prisoners seized the director, Luis Aranguren, and 21 other officials on Wednesday after an inmate with tuberculosis-type symptoms was taken to another jail for medical tests.

They demanded a medical inspection of the facility, which holds 1,200 inmates in cramped cells, and complained that their warnings of a possible epidemic over the past four months had been ignored even after the disease allegedly killed an inmate.

The deputy interior minister, Edwin Rojas, was due to visit the jail to talk to the hostages and try to broker an end to the stand-off without bowing to what authorities called kidnap pressure.

Holding hostages was "not the most adequate way" to make grievances known, said Rojas. The prisoner who was removed for medical tests had pneumonia, not tuberculosis, and a medical team was on stand-by to enter the jail once hostages were freed, the minister added.

"We believe in peaceful dialogue, in peaceful coexistence and the respect of human rights, not only of the prisoners but also of those who work in the prison system."

The prisoners, in messages sent via their families, said they feared reprisals and wanted guarantees for their safety. Relatives were due to read on TV a letter from prisoner leaders elaborating on demands and grievances.

The government has promised to build new, humane prisons but most of Venezuela's 48,000 inmates languish in old, degraded facilities. Humberto Prado, head of the Prisons Observatory watchdog, said the system was designed to hold only 12,500. Conditions are primitive and violence is rife, with hundreds killed every year.

In a tacit pact with authorities some gangs had started strangling rivals, rather than shooting or stabbing them, so the deaths could be registered as suicide, Prado wrote in the newspaper Tal Cual.

Carlos Nieto, head of another watchdog group, A Window for Freedom, said the fact a mass hostage taking could last for days showed that prisoners rather than authorities controlled jails.

READ MORE - Troops in Venezuela surrounded a jail where inmateswere holding 22 hostages, including the prison director, to protest against an alleged tuberculosis outbreak.

800 inmates escaped on Friday from two Tunisian prisons after fires were set in cells

800 inmates escaped on Friday from two Tunisian prisons after fires were set in cells, the official news agency said.
Soldiers and security forces quickly fanned out in a search of the fugitives and at least 35 were caught within hours, TAP said, citing military sources.
TAP reported that 522 inmates from the prison in Kasserine escaped after a fire in two cells, and another 300 inmates escaped from the Gafsa prison.
The two towns are both in Tunisia's center-west region, some 150 kilometers (about 95 miles) apart. Personnel at the prison in Gafsa were on strike at the time, likely making the mass exodus by inmates easier.
The North African nation has been hit by social unrest since the country's long-time autocratic ruler was ousted Jan. 14 in an uprising.
Some 11,000 inmates escaped from Tunisian prisons shortly after Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled into exile. Of those, several thousand have been caught and nearly 2,000 turned themselves in after the Justice Ministry warned the escape could worsen their cases, TAP reported.
Earlier, in the capital Tunis, police fired tear gas at hundreds of Islamists protesting what they said were offensive comments toward Islam by two teachers.
Protesters chanted "God is Great," and carried banners including one reading "We do not pardon those who insult the prophet."
Several hours of peaceful protest degenerated when some demonstrators sought to take on police, who immediately fired tear gas.
The demonstration on the main Avenue Bourguiba was the latest since Ben Ali was brought down, hounded out of the country by protesters angry over unemployment, corruption and repression.
Tunisia's uprising prompted protests around the Arab world.

READ MORE - 800 inmates escaped on Friday from two Tunisian prisons after fires were set in cells

111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, nearly half of them on or near the Texas border

111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, nearly half of them on or near the Texas border, as the country's gang-fueled violence worsened, according to the U.S. State Department.
The recently released reports don't specify how or why the Americans were murdered, nor does it name victims. But 80 percent of them were killed in border states where narcotics violence is worst - 39 alone in Ciudad Juarez, which shares the Rio Grande with El Paso, and other nearby towns.
The impact on U.S. citizens visiting or living in parts of Mexico has steadily worsened since President Felipe Calderon deployed the army and federal police in late 2006 in an as yet unsuccessful attempt to crush the rising reach of the gangs.
The number of U.S. victims last year was more than triple the toll in 2007. Over a four-year period, 283 Americans were reported murdered, according to State Department figures.
In the same lapse, more than 35,000 Mexicans have been killed, including about 15,000 last year. The Mexican government says most were gangsters. But hundreds of innocent civilians also have been killed.
"Bystanders, including U.S. citizens, have been injured or killed in violent incidents in various parts of the country, especially, but not exclusively in the northern border region, demonstrating the heightened risk of violence throughout Mexico," the latest State Department travel warning observes.
The warning notes that most of the country, including major beach resorts, remains safe.
"There is no evidence that U.S. tourists have been targeted by criminal elements due to their citizenship," advises the travel warning, which was issued last week. "Nonetheless, while in Mexico you should be aware of your surroundings at all times and exercise particular caution in unfamiliar areas."
Victims of underworld
Many residents along the border have dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship. Some of the murdered Americans may have spent most of their lives in Mexico. Other American border residents frequently cross south of the line to visit friends and family in troubled Mexican towns and cities.
Better than half of the 2010 U.S. victims were killed in Juarez and in Tijuana, which borders San Diego. Both cities are tumultuous binational communities that have become primary underworld battlegrounds.
Among the Americans slain in Juarez last year were Lesley Enriquez, a civilian employee at the U.S. Consulate there, and her husband Arthur Redelfs, an employee of the El Paso County jail. U.S. investigators have arrested members of the Aztecas, a transborder gang that works with the Mexican criminal organizations, in the killings.
In early November, U.S.-born Eder Andres Diaz, 23, and naturalized American Manuel Acosta, 25, both students at the University of Texas at El Paso, were gunned down in Ciudad Juarez. Both were living in Juarez while attending the university.
Not counted in the tally is David Hartley, a 29-year-old oil company employee who disappeared in September after reportedly being attacked by gunmen as he and his wife jet-skied in Mexican waters of Lake Falcon.
His wife said she saw him fatally shot in the head, but Hartley's body has never been recovered. Then again, neither have the bodies of perhaps several thousand Mexicans who have simply disappeared in the violence.
While counseling caution on those traveling in much of Mexico, the U.S. government's warning strongly urges against non-essential travel to Tamaulipas, the state that borders Texas from Laredo to the Gulf Coast.
The warning also emphasizes that Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city, has become risky as well for "local and expatriate communities."
"Local law enforcement has provided little to no response," the warning notes of Monterrey's violence. "In addition, police have been implicated in some of these incidents."
The American toll so far this year includes Brownsville native Jaime Zapata, an agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was killed in a February ambush on the busy highway connecting Mexico City to the south Texas border.
Body count rises
A dozen alleged members of the Zetas have been arrested in Zapata's killing.
Zapata was slain little more than two weeks after South Texas-based Christian missionary Nancy Davis, 59, was fatally shot by suspected gangsters near San Fernando, a Tamaulipas farm town 80 miles south of the border at Brownsville.
The town of San Fernando has been a well-identified center of terror since August, when 72 mostly Central American migrants were slaughtered at a rural warehouse outside the town.
Despite government vows to pacify the region following that massacre, the gangsters retained control of it. In recent months, the thugs reportedly have kidnapped and murdered highway travelers and others, burying their remains in a farm village.
So far, 183 bodies have been pulled from clandestine graves near San Fernando this month as officials investigate a long running gangster operation that included pulling travelers from buses.

READ MORE - 111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, nearly half of them on or near the Texas border

Drug gangs and their hitmen -- groups such as the Aztecas and the Mexicles -- often continue their battles behind bars in the city, located across the border from El Paso, Texas and right at the heart of Mexico's raging drug war.

Where tensions run high, walls have climbed higher to try to stop rival Mexican gangs from taking the blood-stained chaos from the streets of Ciudad Juarez with them into prison.
Drug gangs and their hitmen -- groups such as the Aztecas and the Mexicles -- often continue their battles behind bars in the city, located across the border from El Paso, Texas and right at the heart of Mexico's raging drug war.
"The (six-meter, 20-foot) walls went up in late 2009," prison spokesman Hector Conde told AFP.
"Before, there were only chain-link fences that inmates would jump over pretty easily. There were riots all the time," often leaving dozens dead and requiring helicopter-backed security operations to break them up, he said.
Conde declined to enter the block housing members of the Aztecas, a notorious gang of hitmen for the Juarez cartel.
"Some of the Aztecas were just moved to another facility recently, so these guys are really aggravated. They could carry out reprisals if you go in there," he warned.
Across the way, out of sight, were members of the Mexicles gang. They work for the Sinaloa cartel led by Mexico's most famous fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman.
Officials blame the Juarez and Sinaloa cartels for most of the violence in Juarez as they fight for control of the lucrative drug trafficking routes into the United States.
Last year, 3,100 people died in violent attacks in this northern city of some 1.2 million -- roughly 60 each week on average.
A surge of drug-related violence has left almost 35,000 people dead in Mexico since the government of President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on the cartels in 2006, according to official figures.
The murder rate climbed to more than 10 a day in Juarez in February 2009, prompting Calderon to deploy more than 5,000 troops to the city. Things were calmer for a few months but the killings soon picked up again.
Some of the murders are particularly gruesome, decapitated bodies, corpses hung from bridges. Children, even pregnant women, have been among the dead but most are young gang members.
With factory salaries starting at less than $50 a week, the financial lure of the drug gangs is huge in Juarez -- one of the main thoroughfares for the cocaine that feeds the ever-strong US market.
Physical separation may help prevent jailed gang members from starting riots, but critics warn against maintaining gang labels behind bars.
"That gives them territory inside the prison and makes it an extension of what is happening outside on Ciudad Juarez streets," Gustavo de la Rosa, from the Chihuahua state human rights commission, told AFP.
The gangs work with military-style organization and often control the jails imprisoning them, he said.
After checking no one was listening, a guard told AFP there were around 2,400 inmates at the prison, 700 of them Aztecas housed in one block.
The prisoners were separated based on tattoos linking them to their gangs: the Aztecas with pyramids and Aztec symbols and the Mexicles sporting skulls and their gang name, said prison pastor Victor Martinez.
Tensions were lower in his section of the jail, which the prison authorities had decided was the best place to house convicted evangelical Christians.
"I feel safer here than on the streets or other parts of the prison," said Otoniel Lucero Pena, a 46-year-old in for trafficking marijuana. He said he had never belonged to a gang.
Prisoners such as Pena gained most from the wall, Martinez said.
Five years ago, the Aztecas tried to make some of the evangelical prisoners work for them. When they refused, they attacked them, Martinez said.
"They started to beat drums to signal the start of a riot or clash. Then they jumped over the metal fence of the Christians' sector, where there were 140 prisoners at the time. They killed three of them but the others managed to escape to the women's area."

READ MORE - Drug gangs and their hitmen -- groups such as the Aztecas and the Mexicles -- often continue their battles behind bars in the city, located across the border from El Paso, Texas and right at the heart of Mexico's raging drug war.

"El Piolin" Now Under Higher Security

The man accused of leading the attack that left a Brownsville ICE agent dead is now under higher security.

Julian Zapata Espinoza, also known as El Piolin, was being held by the agency that oversees federal investigations in Mexico, but late last week he was handed over to federal police.

A judge signed the order saying the move was done for safety reasons and to ensure that Zapata Espinoza remained in custody while authorities continue investigating the case against him.

Zapata espinoza is accused of leading the group of Zetas that carried out the murder of ICE Agent Jaime Zapata back in February.

Agent Zapata and his partner were ambushed along a highway in San Luis.

 

READ MORE - "El Piolin" Now Under Higher Security

jail inmate in Arizona said he attacked a guard so he wouldn't be freed and become an assassination target for members of a drug cartel, authorities said.

Alexandro Guerrero, 26, awaiting release from the Pinal County Adult Detention Center April 17, punched a detention officer in the face and continued hitting and kicking him to the ground, The Arizona Republic reported Tuesday.

Pinal County Sheriff's Office spokesman Tim Gaffney said the Yuma inmate, who was serving time for an outstanding failure-to-comply warrant, told authorities at one time he was involved with a drug cartel in Mexico known as "Los Zetas."

Guerrero said the gang labeled him a snitch and put out a "hit" after hearing he had leaked information about them to an unnamed law enforcement agency, Gaffney said.

"This criminal brutally assaulted one of our finest detention officers because he had a death threat against himself and he believed he would be killed by the cartels upon his release. Our deputies and detention officers already have a very difficult job and it is made tougher by the impact of drug and human smuggling," Pinal Sheriff Paul Babeu said.

The detention officer suffered a broken nose and a wound requiring numerous stitches, the newspaper said.

Guerrero was booked back into the detention center on three counts of aggravated assault on a detention officer and is being held on a $50,000 cash-only bail.

READ MORE - jail inmate in Arizona said he attacked a guard so he wouldn't be freed and become an assassination target for members of a drug cartel, authorities said.

St. Paul police gang investigators had been tracking violence involving the 18th Street gang for more than a year when new information deepened their resolve: 11 girls were to be "jumped in" to the gang

St. Paul police gang investigators had been tracking violence involving the 18th Street gang for more than a year when new information deepened their resolve: 11 girls were to be "jumped in" to the gang April 18.

They executed 17 search warrants on homes of people associated with the gang, but police decided to take a different approach from arresting them all, said Cmdr. Paul Iovino, who heads the gang unit.

Instead, police invited the teens and young adults, along with their families, to an informational meeting last Thursday at the Neighborhood House, a West Side social services agency.

"The message was, 'Parents, your kids are involved in gang activity, and it's not acceptable and won't be condoned in the city of St. Paul,' " Iovino said Tuesday. Various community organizations were on hand to talk about resources for getting the young people out of gang life, he said.

As for the girls who were supposed to be initiated into the gang, Iovino said, "To the best of our knowledge, we think we did thwart it."

Gang unit investigators heard April 6 from a St. Paul middle school about information that someone had given a counselor, according to an affidavit in support of a search warrant. Two women, ages 18 and 20, had plans to "jump in" 11 girls to the gang April 18 (Iovino said the number 18 holds significance to the gang), the affidavit said.

One concern was the potential for gang members to "sex in" new female gang members, Iovino said.

READ MORE - St. Paul police gang investigators had been tracking violence involving the 18th Street gang for more than a year when new information deepened their resolve: 11 girls were to be "jumped in" to the gang

Mexican police have freed 51 migrants who had been abducted and were being held by criminals in the north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

Mexican police have freed 51 migrants who had been abducted and were being held by criminals in the north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.
'Among those rescued there were 14 Guatemalans, two Hondurans, two Salvadorans, six Chinese and 27 Mexicans,' Mexican authorities said late Monday.
They victims were being held against their will in Reynosa, Mexico, across the US border from McAllen, Texas.
A total of 119 people have been rescued in Tamaulipas over the last week.
From April 1-19, police found 34 mass graves in Tamaulipas holding remains of 177 bodies, including several people believed to have been passengers forced off buses by the criminal gang Los Zetas.
Criminal gangs reportedly rob and extort migrants, induce them to smuggle drugs into the United States or force them into service for the gangs. Many are killed.
Also Monday, police found 17 bodies in a mass grave in the city of Durango, raising to 75 the death toll in the area in recent weeks.

READ MORE - Mexican police have freed 51 migrants who had been abducted and were being held by criminals in the north-eastern Mexican state of Tamaulipas.

South African Airways hostess Elphia Dlamini, 42, was caught by a sniffer dog after she flew to Heathrow from Johannesburg.

stewardess who tried to smuggle £300,000 of cocaine into the UK in her bra and knickers has been jailed for seven years.

South African Airways hostess Elphia Dlamini, 42, was caught by a sniffer dog after she flew to Heathrow from Johannesburg.

She said her lover told her to do it or she wouldn't see her son again, Isleworth crown court, South West London, heard.

Judge George Winstanley said the amount was significant and would cause misery to addicts.



Read more: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2010/09/27/jail-for-hostess-who-smuggled-cocaine-in-her-bra-and-knickers-115875-22590280/#ixzz10m1xNrqB
Go Camping for 95p! Vouchers collectable in the Daily and Sunday Mirror until 11th August . Click here for more information

READ MORE - South African Airways hostess Elphia Dlamini, 42, was caught by a sniffer dog after she flew to Heathrow from Johannesburg.

Australian on death row for drug smuggling must be executed in line with his original sentence, rejecting appeals for mercy from Australian police.

Indonesian prosecutors said Monday an Australian on death row for drug smuggling must be executed in line with his original sentence, rejecting appeals for mercy from Australian police.

Presenting their response to the appeal of Scott Rush, 24, against his death sentence, prosecutors said no new material had been presented to warrant a more lenient punishment.

"We disagree with the appeal made by the defence lawyers," prosecutor Ida Bagus Made Argitha Chandra told the Denpasar district court.

He dismissed testimony for the defence by two top-ranking Australian police officers that Rush was only a "courier".

"We don't differentiate the roles," he said, adding that "drug smuggling is a serious threat to the image of Bali" as a tourist destination.

"Narcotics are a big danger and a transnational crime and the accused should be severely punished."

Rush was a member of the so-called Bali Nine gang of Australians who were caught in 2005 trying to smuggle 8.3 kilogrammes (18 pounds, five ounces) of heroin into Australia from Bali.

Former Australian Federal Police commissioner Mick Keelty and current Deputy Commissioner Mike Phelan appeared on Rush's behalf at the Bali court earlier this month.

Keelty said Rush -- who had a life sentence upgraded to death after an earlier appeal -- was not a leader of the plot and did not deserve to be sent to his death, probably by firing squad.

Phelan noted that it was Rush's first drug offence and as such would face "less than 10 years" if convicted in Australia, which does not have a death penalty.

No date has been set for a ruling on the appeal.

READ MORE - Australian on death row for drug smuggling must be executed in line with his original sentence, rejecting appeals for mercy from Australian police.

6,900 prisoners (eight per cent of the jail population) suffer from the most severe disorders of schizophrenia and psychosis

Figures from the Sainsbury Mental Health Centre say that 6,900 prisoners (eight per cent of the jail population) suffer from the most severe disorders of schizophrenia and psychosis

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1297445/JONATHAN-AITKEN-Yes-prisons-people-shouldn-t-But-Ken-Clarke-them.html#ixzz0umR6l8NX

READ MORE - 6,900 prisoners (eight per cent of the jail population) suffer from the most severe disorders of schizophrenia and psychosis

unhappy men and women are not criminals in the ordinary sense, but sufferers from mental illness.

unhappy men and women are not criminals in the ordinary sense, but sufferers from mental illness.

Instead of being subjected to the hugely expensive process of criminal justice and imprisonment – a process likely to make their condition worse – they should receive medical treatment for mental illness in hospitals or secure care homes.

No one knows this better than those at the sharp end – the fellow prisoners of mentally disturbed inmates and the prison staff who have to deal with them in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations.



I spent a few days of my seven months as a prisoner in the hospital wing of HMP Elmley in Kent.

It was almost the worst period of my sentence. Screams from the disturbed occupants of the neighbouring cells at night were one problem. Another was the behavioural abnormalities of about 15 inmates collectively known as ‘The Fraggles’ (from the TV series Fraggle Rock).

One of these sad characters, with a rolling-eyed twitch in his face, addressed me aggressively on my first morning over breakfast.

‘I know who you are! You’re General Custer. I know what you did to those Cree Indians,’ he shouted. He kept this
up for four days, incessantly giving deranged military salutes to ‘General, sir’ (i.e. me).

I met another troubled character in the showers. His body was criss-crossed by angry red scars. ‘I can see you’re looking at me mars,’ he grunted (that’s slang for scars).

‘Can’t really miss them, can I?’ I replied.

‘No, yer can’t,’ he said in an affable tone, ‘but don’t worry, I don’t do violent. I done ’em on meself. But I’m all right when I take me pills.’

As I got to know the mars man better, he told me he was a schizophrenic who had been in and out of prison for years.

READ MORE - unhappy men and women are not criminals in the ordinary sense, but sufferers from mental illness.

Lurigancho Prison, which is the worst of the worst,Joran van der Sloot is found guilty of murder in Peru, he certainly won't be living the life of luxury

Joran van der Sloot is found guilty of murder in Peru, he certainly won't be living the life of luxury he's accustomed to.

"He'll be put in Lurigancho Prison, which is the worst of the worst," Michael Griffith, senior partner at the International Legal Defense Counsel, tells AOL News. "They should have a sign above the door there saying, 'All those who pass this way leave all hope behind.' "

Griffith has counseled and represented clients in more than 40 countries on a variety of charges. His most renowned case, involving an American incarcerated in a Turkish prison, was the basis for the film and book "Midnight Express."

Having visited more than two dozen foreign prisons, Griffith says Lurigancho is in a world of its own.

"There are 35 guys in a room there," he says. "They don't have beds, they go to the bathroom on the floor and the showers run once a week for 15 minutes. Fifty percent of the inmates have AIDS or tuberculosis, and you can die from eating the food."

READ MORE - Lurigancho Prison, which is the worst of the worst,Joran van der Sloot is found guilty of murder in Peru, he certainly won't be living the life of luxury

Los Aztecas or Barrio Azteca, a group founded by Mexicans living in Texas in the 1980s.

Hispanic gangs that formed in the United States as a way of protecting themselves from racist attacks in the 1980s, are now playing a fundamental part in the drug trade. The gangs – which have expanded in number and territory - are now being employed by large drug trafficking organisations. They are now active in distributing narcotic drugs at a retail level as well as working as violent foot soldiers in the war to control the trafficking routes not only in the US but also throughout Latin America.

These gangs, which now have large followings in US cities, Phoenix, Los Angeles and El Paso, have spread to Latin America due to the policy of deporting suspected gang members to their country of origin. The majority of deported gang members have no real family support apart from their gang affiliations. This has caused the US street gangs to grow and prosper in Latin American countries as they take advantage of less adequate law enforcement and their geographical proximity to drug smuggling routes.

Members of these street gangs are merciless, many of them having grown up in the violent gang culture in impoverished US cities. These youngsters are some of the most vulnerable members of society; most are very young when they are recruited, come from very poor backgrounds and in many cases are addicted to drugs. They are treated as dispensable by the major drug cartels that have outsourced and now employ them to do their dirty work because it gives them an extra level of insulation from law enforcement.

One of the major street gangs that have integrated itself into the illicit drug trade is Los Aztecas or Barrio Azteca, a group founded by Mexicans living in Texas in the 1980s. They grew rapidly and expanded to the Mexican side of the border taking a foothold in the violent city of Ciudad Juarez. Los Aztecas now take orders from the Juarez Cartel and have been implicated in many recent assassinations linked to the drug trade. Many of the members consider themselves genuine Aztec warriors decorating themselves with tattoos of original Aztec symbols such as plumed serpents or the Aztec calendar. They also abide by a strict code that says that gang members must not consume “magic water” (heroin) because they might reveal secrets of the organisation and that they must not rob the people who live in the area that they control.

READ MORE - Los Aztecas or Barrio Azteca, a group founded by Mexicans living in Texas in the 1980s.