US Military Commander Detained in Iraq

BAGHDAD – The commander of a US military prison in Iraq has been detained by military police and is under investigation pending a possible court martial, a military spokeswoman said Thursday.  

Lieutenant Colonel William Steele will face a hearing before a panel of officers to decide whether he should face charges, Lieutenant Colonel Josslyn Aberle told AFP in Baghdad, without specifying the charges.

“He has been detained and is now in Kuwait. His current status is that he is in confinement and waiting for his Article 32 hearing. All other details will be released soon, including the charges against him,” she said.

According to the website of the US television network NBC, citing a statement from the US army, Steele could be prosecuted for “aiding the enemy” and having improper relationships with his translator and another Iraqi woman.

Other charges involve the improper use of military funds, disobeying orders, illegally holding on to classified material and keeping pornography, it said.

The military in Iraq was not able to immediately confirm this.

Prior to his arrest, Steel was the commander of Camp Cropper, a major US detention facility outside Baghdad, the smaller of two remaining coalition prisons in Iraq which between them hold almost 18,000 suspected insurgents.

Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein, who was executed on December 30 after being convicted by an Iraqi court of crimes against humanity, received medical treatment there but was not held there permanently.

Information obtained from AFP

Mexico City – Drug Trafficking Organizations are a Business

MEXICO CITY – Drug traffickers are waging a highly effective publicity campaign in Mexico that began with a chilling show of brutality in Acapulco: two police officers’ heads, streaming with blood, were stuck on metal spikes outside a downtown building with a fluorescent cardboard sign. “So that you learn to respect,” it read in thick black letters.

The spectacle a year ago in the Pacific resort set off a ghoulish trend among the drug lords battling for billion-dollar smuggling routes into the United States. They’ve since left a trail of bodies and bloodstained notes across Mexico, with a goal of spreading fear — a sense of dread so deep that rivals, police, witnesses and even President Felipe Calderon won’t dare cross them.

Regular citizens used to be left out of this calculation as organized crime groups quietly settled scores between themselves.

No longer. The drug gangs now publish newspaper ads, and tack threatening notes to corpses with ice picks or tape them to trash bags filled with body parts for public display. They’re even using the Internet, posting a video on YouTube that showed the apparent beheading of an alleged hitman.

“Before long, they’re going to have their own TV program, ‘Narconews,’ where they drag out their dead for show,” drug expert Jorge Chabat joked grimly.

Drug-related killings using corpses as message boards have been carried out in a dozen Mexican states in the past year — an indication, experts say, that Mexico’s rival Gulf and Sinaloa cartels hope they can frighten the population to the point that Calderon will retreat from his nationwide military crackdown.

In many areas, it’s working: Police are resigning in record numbers, newspapers are censoring themselves, and witnesses rarely expose themselves to a justice system seen as inefficient and corrupt.

“Without a doubt, this is part of a strategy by organized crime to terrorize the population and destabilize the government,” said Nuevo Leon Deputy State Attorney General Aldo Fasci Zuazua, whose state bordering Texas has seen nearly three dozen drug-related killings since January, including one threatening the top state prosecutor with a message stuck to a corpse with an ice pick..

Drug lords have long used grisly killings and torture tactics to communicate with rival gangs and police. The former Amado Fuentes Carrillo cartel in Ciudad Juarez used to cut off the fingers of snitches and shove them down their throats. Others who crossed drug lords were given a “Colombian necktie,” in which the victims’ tongues were pulled through their slashed throats.

Now such messages go straight to the public.

In Calderon’s home state of Michoacan, The Family, a shadowy group believed allied with the Gulf cartel, took out a newspaper ad saying it wanted to stop kidnapping, robbery and the sale of methamphetamines in the state. The ad blamed violence on a rival gang and depicted The Family as entrepreneurs trying to mind their own business.

“Perhaps at this time people don’t understand us, but we know that in the most affected regions, they understand our actions,” it said, adding: “People who work at any decent activity have no reason to worry.”

The group delivered a similar message in much more grisly fashion last year, rolling five heads across a dance floor in a Michoacan town with a note that said The Family “doesn’t kill innocent people, only those who deserve to die. Everyone knows that.”

One of the boldest displays yet was a video posted on YouTube this month. It showed a man in his underwear, tied to a chair with a “Z” written on his chest — an apparent reference to the Zetas, former military operatives who now are Gulf cartel hitmen. The video, which was picked up by newspapers across the country, called on Mexicans to “do something for your country, kill a Zeta.”

Someone off-screen interrogates the man about the Feb. 6 killing of five Acapulco police officers and two secretaries, punching him repeatedly until he says he participated in the attacks. Then he’s shown being strangled by using metal rods to twist a cord around his neck. The video then shows his headless body.

Anyone can post a video on YouTube; there was no way to confirm the video’s authenticity or determine made it. Police have not found a body.

Steve Robertson, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency special agent who worked for 17 years on the U.S.-Mexico border, said the publicity campaign is only the latest tactic traffickers are using to control their turf.

“The drug trafficking organizations are a business, and like any successful business, they are using the latest toys, like e-mail, cell phones or Blackberries,” he said. “They use fear to control their area and intimidate citizens into not becoming involved and cooperate with law enforcement.”

28 Arrested in Florida Online Sex Sting

Law enforcement officials in Polk County Fla., arrested 28 men for soliciting sex with minors after setting up a weeklong sting operation in a suburban home where undercover officers communicated with the alleged predators over the Internet. Three of the 28 people who were arrested told authorities they worked for the Walt Disney Company, which owns and operates several theme parks in the Orlando area including Walt Disney World. Among the other arrested suspects were a volunteer for the Orlando Boys and Girls Club and a student at the University of Florida.

Those arrested ranged in age from 17 to 55. Each arrived at the suburban house apparently believing they were going to meet with an underage girl.

Instead, they were met by a house full of armed detectives working a sting led by the Orlando County Sheriff’s Department, which conducted its second operation in less than a year to target internet crimes against children.

The operation was concluded and the arrests announced late Sunday. The 28 people were booked into the Polk County Jail on a variety of sex-related charges.

“These deviants came to the undercover location to have sex with a child,” the Polk County sheriff, Grady Judd, said in a statement. “We stopped them.” “I don’t know any other way to say this,” he added. “We will not tolerate anyone preying on our children. We will not allow these criminals’ behavior to escalate to kidnapping or murder.”

The sheriff’s office said that, according to national statistics, 1 in 7 children say that they have received an online solicitation; 1 in 11 has received an aggressive online sexual solicitation; and 1 in 3 has been exposed to unwanted sexual images on line.

The elaborate sting operation involved about 50 officers from a variety of local, state and federal law-enforcement agencies, including the Rocky Mount Police Department in North Carolina and the Florida attorney general’s office.

In a week’s time, the detectives communicated with about 250 people from as far away as California and England.

A spokeswoman for Disney told The Associated Press that it is the company’s policy to take accusations of sexual misconduct by its employees seriously, and that if the accusations prove to be true, the company will take “appropriate action.”

The sheriff’s department allowed reporters and photographers from several news agencies to witness the sting operation, conducted at a house on a cul-de-sac that was staffed around the clock for a week.

A reporter for The Orlando Sentinel who was at the house described the officers’ operation as “fairly simple: Create a fake profile of a girl or boy, enter an Internet chat room and wait for a message.”

Some of those who contacted the fictitious girls and boys wanted to chat for a couple of days, the Sentinel said, while others got “straight to the point,” arranging to meet them for sex.

Those people were directed to the Orlando home.

A videotape of the scene, posted on the Sentinel’s web site, shows Jonathan K. Thompkins, a 19-year-old food preparation worker from nearby Melbourne, Fla., being arrested after he appeared at the house, apparently expecting to go skinny dipping with a 13-year-old girl.

When he was met by investigators at the front door instead, Mr. Thompkins is heard on the tape saying “I knew it.”

Mr. Thompkins told reporters that he went to the home with plans to meet with the girl and “just to go into the pool, and whatever happens, happens.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he told them. “My mom raised me better.”

A spokeswoman for the sheriff’s department, Donna C. Wood, said it may conduct another such sting.

“He is making this a national call to arms,” Ms. Wood said of Sheriff Grady. “Knowing him, he will do another one sometime, but hopefully he’ll give our officers a break before then.”

Article posted by the New Yrk Times on April 2, 2007

Training future mobsters?

Two accused members of a notorious New York crime family turned a strip club into a training ground for mobsters, prosecutors told the jury on Thursday in closing arguments in a Mafia extortion trial

Salvatore “Fat Sal” Scala, 64, an accused Gambino crime family captain, and Thomas “Monk” Sassano, 61, an alleged soldier in Scala’s crew, both face extortion charges in Manhattan federal court.

Prosecutors said the men used the VIP Club to host lavish parties for business associates and extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from the club.

“Scala and Sassano used that club as a junior varsity” to groom future mobsters, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Elie Honig, referring to a training squad of a high school sports team.

Defense attorneys countered that the men were protecting legitimate business interests as investors in the VIP Club.

If convicted, Scala faces a maximum of 60 years in prison and Sassano faces 40 years.

Honig said the then-owner of the club, Frank Marcello, sought help from the Gambino crime family to protect it against other members of organized crime. Marcello died in 2002.

Scala installed several underlings in bogus jobs at the club, prosecutors said. They conducted mob business, including one they called “the bathroom extortioner” for using the lavatory to collect payments.

Sassano was brought in to do Scala’s bidding after Scala was sent to prison on an unrelated extortion charge in 2001, prosecutors said.

Biweekly payments of thousands of dollars were funneled up to Scala to “keep the peace,” according to prosecution witness, Steve Aslind, a club co-manager.

Defense attorneys Ronald Rubenstein and Lindy Urso said the club’s financial woes were not due to ties to organized crime but because the club’s managers failed to pay taxes and one ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in gambling debts.

Info provided by Reuters

Paris Hilton going to Jail ?

Thursday prosecutors will ask a judge to revoke Paris Hilton’s probation in a reckless driving case, a move that could lead to a jail term.

Following an investigation into whether the hotel heiress and reality tv star violated terms of her probation by driving last month on a suspended license.

“We’re confident we have sufficient evidence to prove that her license was suspended and that she had knowledge of that suspension,” said Nick Velasquez, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office. He declined to elaborate on the evidence, citing an ongoing investigation.

Hilton could face up to 90 days in jail if a judge finds she violated her probation, Velasquez said. A hearing was set for April 17, but Hilton attendance is not required.

In January, Hilton pleaded no contest to alcohol-related reckless driving stemming from a Sept. 7 arrest in Hollywood and was sentenced to 36 months’ probation, alcohol education and $1,500 in fines.

Hilton was pulled over on Sunset Boulevard on Feb. 28. Police said they saw her blue Bentley Continental GTC speeding with its headlights off. She was ticketed for misdemeanor driving with a suspended license.

Hilton’s spokesman Elliot Mintz said at the time that she wasn’t aware that her license was suspended. He declined to comment Thursday.

Ukraine – Row team arrested for illegal entry to country

Ukrainian border guards arrested Belarus’s national rowing team Tuesday for illegally entering the country on a flotilla of eight boats.

The border guard service said a coast guard vessel was dispatched to intercept and detain 10 rowers who had crossed into Ukrainian waters on the border with Transdniestria, a region of ex-Soviet Moldova controlled by separatists.

Team members told officials they were unaware they had crossed the border in the southern Ukrainian region. They now face charges in court.

News reports said the Belarussians had been invited to train for the world championship in Transdniestria as reservoirs in their ex-Soviet state, further north, were still covered in ice.

China – Brothers jailed for eye surgery scam

A Chinese court has upheld jail terms for two brothers, acting as surgeons, whose cataract laser treatments resulted in nine people having their eyes surgically removed, Xinhua news agency said Monday.

Judges at Suzhou Intermediate People’s Court, in eastern Anhui province, issued a final ruling that the two had been rightly convicted of illegally practicing medicine and should serve their jail terms of five and six years.

The problems began in December 2005, when the two operated on 10 patients at Suzhou City Hospital.

“Nine of the patients who had the surgery were infected with the Bacillus pyocyaneus in the eyes that day, which eventually led to the removal of their eyes,” Xinhua said.