Without Financial Backup, Officials Have Stopped Prosecuting Federal Cases SIERRA BLANCA - As they walk through the front door, visitors to the Hudspeth County sheriff 's office in this broke and scruffy high-desert town get punched by the overpowering odor of marijuana. During a recent week, the sheriff stored about 5,000 pounds of pot, contraband seized at the nearby U.S. Border Patrol checkpoint from the parade of road trippers, occasional celebrities and other outsiders ordered to stop there as they buzz through West Texas. [continues 1641 words]
As California's outdoor marijuana growing season nears its end for 2012, drug officials are reporting a sharp decline in crop seizures for the second year in a row. The latest figures show that local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are on track to eradicate an estimated 1.5 million plants from outdoor gardens - mostly on public land - down from a decade high of about 7.3 million plants in 2009. This year's seizure total would be the lowest since 2004, when a little more than 1.1 million plants were eradicated, according to federal Drug Enforcement Administration statistics. [continues 722 words]
Julio Ledezma had been chief of police in La Junta, a town of 8,700 in northern Mexico, for barely three months when a pair of strangers paid him a visit. They said an aide to the mayor had sent them, and they bore gifts: a briefcase stuffed with cash and a truck for Ledezma's personal use. In return, the new chief was to distract federal police at security checkpoints with fake calls for assistance. The diversion would allow drug traffickers to drive through the area without inspection. [continues 1355 words]
Business Owners, Law Enforcement Officers, Journalists and Other Professionals Are Among Those Seeking Asylum in the U.S. -- Even When It Means Sitting in Jail. The Juarez police lieutenant was recovering from three gunshot wounds, the result of an assault by hit men for a drug cartel. His name was on a death list brazenly posted at a monument for fallen peace officers. Lt. Salvador Hernandez Arvizu didn't like his odds of surviving in Mexico. So he fled his hospital bed, hoping to take refuge in the U.S. [continues 1483 words]
A veteran customs inspector recently arrested in Texas on drug charges helped traffickers smuggle about 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the country over five years, according to a court document filed last week. The inspector, Jorge A. Leija, 43, allowed smugglers to drive cars loaded with cocaine through his entry lane at the Eagle Pass border crossing, about 140 miles southwest of San Antonio, without inspection, according to testimony by an unnamed Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Mr. Leija was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars from January 2001 to October 2006, the agent said at a bail hearing on Thursday in Federal District Court in Del Rio, Tex. [continues 370 words]
