Mexican helicopters flying over Texas

 

Mexican military helicopters have been flying over Texas, a staging ground for missions into Mexico to fight drug traffickers, a Mexican official said. The San Antonio Express-News reports Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. said as many as 10 of the Mexican helicopters have been spotted flying over south Texas in daylight during the past 17 months. U.S. Federal and state agencies would not elaborate on the missions, the newspaper said. But a Mexican official with knowledge of the flights said, "Yes, I can tell you they exist, they are going on -- certainly for the last couple of years." Most of the helicopters have been sighted near Falcon Lake, where Mexican authorities are battling the Zetas cartel, the Express-News said. U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, who represents part of Harris County and is chairman of the Homeland Security Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, would not confirm details about the flights. "It is a highly sensitive, coordinated effort to take out the cartels that has been effective," McCaul said. "Beyond that, I don't want to compromise the operations or the safety of our agents." Catherine Frazier, deputy press secretary for Texas Gov. Rick Perry, said state law enforcement officials are not told in advance of the flights. "Failure to do so stirs up unnecessary concern among local people and could result in situations of mistaken identity or friendly fire, putting our peace officers and citizens in harm's way," she said.

Very Unusual' Drug Operation Found At Scene Of Lakewood Fire

 

Police are calling a drug-making operation found during a Lakewood fire last week one of the most unusual they've seen in decades. Home video captured the huge fire that leveled a home as explosions rocked the neighborhood. UNCUT: Fire Explodes At Lakewood Home UNCUT: Chopper 7 Over Lakewood Fire At first, police thought they were dealing with a meth lab, when they went inside and found what appeared to be equipment for illegal drug manufacturing. Then, they found bag after bag of scored and burned marijuana and what they say were the makings of a hashish oil factory. "(It's) very unusual," Lakewood police Lieutenant Chris Lawler said. "Even some of the people in our narcotics unit haven't seen this in a long time. ... It's very rare. I haven't seen it in my 20 years in law enforcement." Investigators say the suspect had pounds of marijuana and boxes of butane, and somehow set them on fire while making the oil. Hashish oil is a concentrated form of the active ingredient in marijuana. It's extracted through a process using highly flammable butane. "It's suspected that that was probably the cause," Lawler said. The suspect's father spoke with KIRO 7 on Friday night after his son was taken to Harborview Medical Center with burns over nearly 30 percent of his body. "I don't know what in the world my son was doing," James Rogers said Friday. "I think he was fooling around with some explosives or something he shouldn't have been." The suspect remains in the hospital; it's not clear when he'll be released or what charges he may face.

Drug couriers have started to smuggle hashish into Finland inside their bodies in small swallowable packets.

 

      According to the Customs, the first attempts to bring internally concealed hashish into the country were observed in 2008. In the past several months, however, the phenomenon has become markedly more common.       Customs Inspector Tero Virtanen explains that since last December more than a dozen individuals have been stopped and caught on arrival at Helsinki-Vantaa International Airport for trying to smuggle in hashish inside the body.       ”Most of them have been men between the ages of 20 and 35. They are professional couriers, and some of them have told the officials that they have made several successful runs to Finland before getting caught. Some of them have also performed deliveries to other Nordic countries.”       According to Virtanen, the Customs have confiscated more than ten kilograms of cannabis from the mules. The street value of the lot would have been in the region of EUR 100,000.       In addition to this, the officials have learned in the preliminary investigations about the importation of additional roughly 10 kg of hashish.       “Thanks to the couriers, several different criminal organisations have now been tracked down in Finland. At the receiving end of the chain there are around a dozen suspects and the spectrum of their nationalities is broad”, Virtanen notes.       The Customs believe that hash has been distributed, or was supposed to be distributed, across Southern Finland.       The amounts of cannabis that the couriers have swallowed in small packages have varied from half a kilogramme to a kilo.       The smugglers doing the ingesting of the small packages have been natives of Spain, Portugal, Morocco, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia.       Customs officials suspect that the smuggled substance has generally originated from Morocco and Spain.       One of the couriers told the authorities that his fee for the gig was EUR 700.       The use of this technique to bring in hashish is a new development: traditionally the internally concealed drugs smuggled into the country have been substances appreciably stronger than hash, such as cocaine and heroin.       “Larger hashish consignments are still brought in through other means, but this is a quick way to import narcotics. There will always be a ready market for cannabis”, Virtanen says.