No government in the world can compete with the black market in financial compensation for police officers. – Guitherisms
City Hall Plotters Accused in Gun-Smuggling Scheme
Even in a border town where smugglers have moved contraband to and from Mexico for generations, no one here expected the mayor, the police chief and a town councilman to be accused in an international gun-running scheme.
Federal agents last week arrested the men along with seven other people for allegedly conspiring to smuggle hundreds of semi-automatic weapons into Mexico. […]
The mayor, Eddie Espinoza, allegedly served as a so-called straw buyer for 22 pistols, and he leased an apartment in a gated El Paso, Texas complex that was used to store weapons, according to the indictment.
Police Chief Angelo Vega allegedly bought bullet-proof vests and other body armor to be smuggled, participated in a cash pickup in Albuquerque, and twice called federal agents to try to intercede on behalf of a village councilman, Blas Gutierrez, according to the indictment. Mr. Gutierrez is also accused in the smuggling scheme.
It’s tempting to think that the corruption of police, government and military is something you find in other countries, but that our system is stronger, somehow immune.
This is just an example of some who were caught.
As long as the drug war makes the black market so obscenely profitable, there’s no way we can prevent this and other situations like it from proliferating.
Ending the drug war is essential to saving the integrity of government entities and our criminal justice system.
“…saving the integrity of government entities and our criminal justice system.”
That’s pretty funny, Pete.
Should have read “… essential to restoring integrity…”
And, as usual, Al Giordano and his crew of authentic journalists are asking the hard questions…and offering damning answers:
ATF’s PR Gun Busts Perpetuate Drug-War Fairy Tale – by Bill Conroy
Enough to make you ralph when you realize how cynically it was done. From an internal ATF memo:
“Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week … the bureau should look for every opportunity to push coverage of good stories. Fortunately, the CBS story has not sparked any follow up coverage by mainstream media and seems to have fizzled.”
People are effin’ DEAD because of this deliberately planned idiocy of allowing proven murderers to buy those weapons, and this is how the top leadership of ATF wants to spin this tragedy. This is how the average Mex is viewed from the lofty perches of their bureaucratic parapets: as a less than a fungible. Toilet paper would have more value in their eyes. Does anyone honestly think for a moment that they would be any less callous about an Anglo cannabis consumer being gunned down?
kaptinemo, that article makes me wonder if ALL ATF people are corrupt and self serving, like Ms. Stahl in the series “Sons of Anarchy”.