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ATF Purposely Allowed Drug Cartels To Buy And Smuggle Thousands Of Assault Weapons

Posted by JacobSloan on March 23, 2011

article-0-0D507149000005DC-632_468x574In a secret program called “Fast and Furious”, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms knowingly let thousands of assault rifles (such as AK-47s) “walk” across the border into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico — ATF planned to track the guns for intelligence purposes and “see where they ended up.” The weaponry in question has been used in a spree of deadly crimes, including the murders of U.S. government agents Jaime Zapata and Brian Terry. A whistleblower at ATF brought the matter to light, CBS News reports:

Mexico’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is asking the U.S. government for details about ATF’s “Fast and Furious” operations.

As our CBS News Investigation has revealed, “Fast and Furious” was a secret program under which, sources say, ATF purposely allowed thousands of assault rifles and other weapons from the U.S. into the hands of drug cartels in Mexico. Insiders call it letting the guns “walk.”

Documents…

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America’s Third War: ICE Agents Nab More Than 600 Alleged Gang Members In Raids On U.S. Cities

Posted by BananaFamine on March 6, 2011

Photo: Tiasma31 (CC)

Photo: Tiasma31 (CC)

Fox News reports:

“Hands on the car!! Hands on the car!!” “Guys! Come to the railing!! Come to the railing!!”

The urgent commands were coming from heavily armed agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. And the people quickly putting their hands up or onto the vehicle are not along the Mexican border, as one might expect with ICE, but in cities all over the country.

For the past two months, ICE, working with local law enforcement, nabbed hundreds of alleged gang members with transnational ties to major drug-smuggling cartels. Operation Southern Tempest had one goal: disrupt the dealing of cocaine, crack, meth and pot in American neighborhoods.

“These are not simply drug dealers,” ICE Director John Morton told Fox News. “We are talking about violent street gangs that are involved with everything from murder to theft to racketeering.”
Morton is announcing the results of his nationwide sweep through more than a hundred U.S.…

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Criminal Gang Of 100 Fake Monks Strikes In China

Posted by JacobSloan on August 16, 2010

Monks3 I wish this news went hand-in-hand with reports of a massive criminal gang of nuns in Italy. Via the Guardian:

Police in northern China faced an unexpected and unholy menace last week when more than 100 fake monks besieged their police station, a Chinese newspaper reported today.

Police from Baotou city, in inner Mongolia, told the North News that the incident began last Wednesday when what appeared to be a group of monks attacked a toll booth and escaped by bus.

Officers stopped the vehicle at a roadblock after a lengthy car chase and arrested 31 of the men – but the suspects fought back with steel bars and knives, allowing the rest to make their getaway on a double-decker bus.

The following day, more than 100 men, apparently monks, besieged the city’s Guyang police station to demand the release of those arrested.

They arrested 178 fake monks, confiscating the sticks, knives, fake medicines and…

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Chic Neo-Nazis In Mongolia

Posted by JacobSloan on August 6, 2010

The-groups-co-founder-rig-049The Guardian reports on the emergence of a neo-Nazi movement in Mongolia. The groups hate the Chinese and post disturbing videos on YouTube of women having their heads shaved against their will. The Nazi identification is surprising, to put it lightly, considering Mongolia’s own history, but the followers have definitely taken fascist fashion to a new level:

A new strain of Nazism has found an unlikely home: Mongolia.

Once again, ultra-nationalists have emerged from an impoverished economy and turned upon outsiders. This time the main targets come from China, the rising power to the south.

Groups such as Tsagaan Khass, or White Swastika, portray themselves as patriots standing up for ordinary citizens in the face of foreign crime, rampant inequality, political indifference and corruption.

Dayar Mongol threatened to shave the heads of women who sleep with Chinese men. Three years ago, the leader of Blue Mongol was convicted of murdering his daughter’s boyfriend, reportedly because…

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Wisconsin Court Forbids Prison Inmates from Playing Dungeons & Dragons

Posted by disinfogreg on January 27, 2010

nodandd

Nerds behind bars.The Volokh Conspiracy illuminates this tragic first-world problem.

In a decision issued today, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a Wisconsin prison’s rule forbidding inmates to play Dungeons & Dragons or possess D&D publications and materials [HT: Josh Blackman].

The prison’s rationale for the ban is that playing D&D might stimulate “gang activity” by inmates. But the government conceded that there is no evidence that Dungeons and Dragons actually had stimulated gang activity in the past, either in this prison or elsewhere. The only evidence for the supposedly harmful effects of Dungeons and Dragons were a few cases from other states where playing the game supposedly led inmates to indulge in “escapism” and become divorced from reality, one case where two non-inmates committed a crime in which they “acted out” a D&D story-line, and one where a longtime D&D player (not an inmate) committed suicide. Obviously, almost any hobby or reading material might lead people to become divorced from reality, or in rare cases commit suicide. And disturbed individuals could potentially “act out” a crime based on a scenario in almost any film or literary work. Should prisons ban The Count of Monte Cristo on the grounds that it might encourage escape attempts? Moreover, the “escapism” rationale conflicts with the gang argument. People who become engrossed in escapism and retreat from society are presumably less likely to become active gang members.

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For $65, Tourists Get Peek at Los Angeles Gangland

Posted by demineus on January 16, 2010

SFGate reports:

Only miles from the scenic vistas and celebrity mansions that draw sightseers from around the globe — but a world away from the glitz and glamour — a bus tour is rolling through the dark side of the city’s gang turf.

Passengers paying $65 a head Saturday signed waivers acknowledging they could be crime victims and put their fate in the hands of tattooed ex-gang members who say they have negotiated a cease-fire among rivals in the most violent gangland in America.

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Gangs In New York Talk Twitter: Use Tweets To Trash-Talk Rivals, Plan Fights

Posted by majestic on November 30, 2009

Is there no stopping the spread of Twitter? Now it’s a tool for gang warfare, at least accoring to tabloid newspaper the New York Daily News:

The city’s street gangs are becoming tweet gangs.

Manhattan’s young thugs have turned to Twitter, and the cops who track them are fast behind, the Daily News has learned.

It’s old-school crime meets new technology: attacks being plotted – and thwarted – 140 characters at a time.

One investigator recently warned parents and teens that the bastion of OMG and LOL has been infiltrated by violent crews waging turf wars.

A boy shot in the leg weeks earlier on Lenox Ave. may have been targeted because of a battle the Original Young Gangsters crew started on Twitter.

“It’s horrible,” NYPD Lt. Kevin O’Connor of Manhattan North’s gang intelligence unit told a forum in Harlem.

A basic search of the social-networking site for OYG or Jeff Mob, the gang based in the…