By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The powerful Zetas drug cartel took another blow in San Antonio, Tex., says a report from local KENS5.com. A DEA bust recovered high quality cocaine and millions of dollared allegedly linked to the Zetas, the station reported. Authorities claimed the bust crippled a powerful drug operation in San Antonio ….
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com The tentacles of the Mexican cartels can be found throughout the U.S. The latest: 20 defendants — five of them suspected members of a Chicago cell of the violent Zetas Mexican drug cartel — were charged in major drug indictment in Chicago following a joint FBI-DEA investigation, Chicago’s US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com In case you’re keeping score, yes, the FBI still has far more agents than the DEA. But on the ice that didn’t seem to matter Saturday when the two agencies squared off at the Ashburn Ice house in Virginia to play a friendly game of hockey to raise money for the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A DEA agent who was shot in the head last week in Afghanistan during a mission remains hospitalized in suburban D.C., but is expected to survive, according to someone familiar with the situation. Special agent Joe Piersante, a member of the Fast Team (Foreign Advisory Support Team), was seriously wounded in…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Elio Lorenzana, on who’s head the U.S. government placed a $200,000 reward, was peacefully detained after a DEA-supported operation. The lede of the story, on the website InSight (tagline: “Organized crime in the Americas”), reads: “Guatemala has now captured more top-level drug traffickers in the past two years than in the…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com Three years after expelling US Ambassador Phillip Goldberg and the DEA, Bolivia’s populist president Evo Morales has made moves to warm ties with the US. But not so fast for the DEA, says a report from the Associated Press. Morales kicked US diplomats and law enforcement officias out of the country…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com The DEA’s commando style squads that were established during the Bush years to battle Taliban-linked drug traffickers in Afghanistan are operating in regions far beyond that war zone, field, according to the New York Times. The Times reports that the DEA now has five commando-style squads that have been “quietly deploying for…
By Danny Fenster ticklethewire.com After earning more than $9 million over the course of 15 years as one of the government’s highest paid informants in history, Carlos Sagastume unveiled his identity at the New York trial of international arms dealer Viktor Bout, reports the Associated Press. Bout’s month-long trial ended in a Manhattan federal court…
