-from sunstar.com-

POLICE Regional Office (PRO) Soccsksargen director German Doria last week announced the arrest of two most wanted crime syndicates operating in General Santos City and other parts of the Central Mindanao region.

Doria, who presented the suspects before the local media at the Regional Disaster Center office in Camp Lira, said the successful police operations that led to the arrest of the suspects were products of painstaking surveillance operations.

Those arrested were Dennis Aliesen, Roberto Berano and Roderick Landreo. All are reportedly members of the Saway Boys headed by Dennis Aliesen alyas Polpoy.

They are reportedly engaged in robbery-holdup and carnapping activities. “They are also guns for hire,” Doria said.

Doria added that Landreo has a pending warrant of arrest for the murder of Tahir Abubakar.

The three were arrested in Barangay Labangal while reportedly having a pot session.

In a separate police operation, three members of the Adam drug syndicate were also nabbed in a buy bust operation in Tupi, South Cotabato last week.

Collared were Adam Piang Dali and his common law wife Rose Magsayo and Abdulah Dali.

Four other members of the Adam drug syndicate allegedly managed to escape during the said police operations.

PRO intelligence chief Willie Dangane said Dali is number one in the watch list of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency and was arrested twice already for drug pushing.

All suspects presented last week are already appropriated charges in court.

-from chattanoogan.com-

Police officers patrolling in the Hixson area of town made a large drug bust over the weekend.

An officer observed a traffic crash that turned out to be a hit and run. After attempting to stop the suspect vehicle, a short pursuit ensued and ended in the apartment complex at 4518 Hixson Pike.

The suspect jumped from the vehicle and lead officers on a short foot pursuit before being apprehended. After a search of the vehicle, officers found a large amount of narcotics and money.

Police recovered several cell phones, 10 ounces of powder cocaine and one once of crack cocaine. There was also over $10,000 in cash.

-from observer.guardian.co.uk-

By Mark Townsend

Organised crime in the UK is increasing rapidly, with firearms and drugs easily obtained by underworld syndicates which are also moving into child pornography to swell profits, a government report reveals tomorrow.

The first analysis of the threat of criminal gangs to the UK by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca) adds that corruption remains a problem in the criminal justice system and that, far from reforming offenders, prison now forms the ‘basis for many later criminal collaborations’.

In an alarming picture of the influence of major crime networks, the report admits the internet and the skill of syndicates in keeping one step ahead of police and security services mean the threat of organised criminals to the UK is ‘increasing in both scope and complexity’.

Set up last February to target Britain’s biggest gangsters, Soca’s assessment warns that UK criminals are ‘unlikely to have difficulty in acquiring a firearm should they wish to do so’. It adds that demand for firearms remains high, with criminals able to procure weapons from the internet or through the post easily and with reasonable safety.

Although attempts to crack down on child pornography have intensified, the report concludes that the number of active sex offenders in the UK remains unknown. However, evidence suggests numbers are growing, with the internet ‘increasing the scale and reducing the risk’ to perpetrators.

As the market has grown, intelligence reports reveal that major organised criminal networks are starting to move into child pornography. Recent trends monitored by police include the growing use of ‘morphing’, where images of children are altered by computer technology, while advances in internet technology have allowed ‘real-time video coverage of abuse shown simultaneously to a number of viewers’. The US remains the host country for most illegal websites, although in the past year Japan has witnessed a sharp growth.

The report also notes with concern that the continued fall in the price of drugs indicates that measures to reduce the trade in illegal narcotics are failing. Average street prices of heroin have fallen from £70 a gram in December 2000 to £49. The cost of a gram of cocaine fell from £65 to £40 over the same period, while the price of ecstasy pills dropped from £9 to £4.

Over the past year, intelligence officials recorded a growing number of trafficked prostitutes from Lithuania and Africa, notably Nigeria, entering the UK. Street prices for illegally imported prostitutes are currently running at between £2,000 and £3,000. Elsewhere, attempts to smuggle illegal immigrants into the UK are still being made through the French ports of Calais, Coquelles and Dunkirk, with Moscow, Kiev, Istanbul, Sarajevo and the Balkans identified as key points en route to the UK. The number of criminal gangmasters involved in finding work for illegal immigrants in the UK stands at 10,000.

One of the most serious issues for Soca remains corruption, and it recorded ‘a number of instances where UK law enforcement officers have acted corruptly and colluded with criminals,’ although precise details are not given. Despite attempts to eradicate corrupt relations between serious criminal figures and figures throughout the criminal justice system, the report adds that syndicates remain adept at using the ‘corruption of insiders … to monitor law enforcement actions and techniques’.

Countries pinpointed as posing a particular threat to the UK because of their criminal interests include Turkey, which continues to play a pivotal role in the supply and processing of heroin. London-based Turks are responsible for disseminating the drug, which is mainly cultivated in Afghanistan, to secondary distribution centres, usually Liverpool and Birmingham. Most heroin arrives from the ports of south-east England such as Harwich, Dover and Felixstowe, with half of the UK trade shipped from the Netherlands after being driven overland from Turkey.

The Netherlands and Spain remain the main entry points to Europe for Colombian cocaine, again with most shipped into the UK via south-east ports.

Armed robberies seeking ‘cash-in-transit’ targets reached 837 last year with the most infamous occurring last February with the organised attack on a facility in Tonbridge, Kent, that yielded a haul of £53m.

-from ohio.com-

CLEVELAND - The Avengers are revving up again in northeast Ohio.

The motorcycle gang, once crippled by undercover police work, has started a chapter in Huron County, according to authorities and the gang’s Web site.

The move comes six years after 19 members of the gang’s Elyria chapter, as well as the national president of the club, were convicted of federal drug and conspiracy charges.

Police say the new chapter emerges as motorcycle gangs are growing. As thousands of outlaw bikers from the “Easy Rider” years grow gray, they are being replaced by younger, meaner members, authorities say.

“They’re becoming more organized, more sophisticated and more violent,” said Steve Cook, a police detective in Independence, Mo., and an expert on motorcycle gangs.

In Toledo, more than 25 members of the Outlaws gang have been convicted in the last two years of drug and weapons charges. In Indiana, investigators have raided several homes of the Sons of Silence gang.

The Avengers have a respected name among national biker gangs, because they “refuse to be pushed around by anyone,” Cook said.

The club may be operating in a former bar in Clarksfield Township, in the eastern part of Huron County, said county Sheriff Richard Sutherland.

County auditor’s records show that Howard Dick, a member of the Avengers, bought the former bar in April for $35,000 on a land contract.

Dick, 56, was convicted in 2000 of racketeering and sentenced to 33 months in prison. A telephone message seeking comment was left at a number for a Howard Dick in Nova, which is about 15 miles outside Clarksfield.

The national Web of the Avengers Motorcycle Club, lists chapters, in Michigan, Ohio, Florida, Indiana and West Virginia and on the island of Malta. It bears the motto “Don’t Mistake Kindness For Weakness.”

The Web site welcomes the new Huron County club, but does not list an address or a phone number for it. The Avengers have five other clubs in Ohio: in Columbus, Toledo, Tiffin and two in the southern part of the state.

In 1995, law enforcement officers received a break when an Avengers member sold eight pounds of marijuana to an undercover Lorain County sheriff’s deputy.

The member agreed to become an informant and helped an undercover detective join the club. The Avengers liked the officer so much, they wanted to elect him as a high-ranking officer. He refused and months later, they were arrested.

Those sentenced to prison, including Dick, have been released.

-from troymessenger.com-

By Bill Clower

The Pike County Sheriff’s Department and 12th Judicial Drug Task force arrested four men Thursday night in two unrelated drug busts at the same apartment complex.

Pike County Sheriff’s Department investigator Bob Williamson said officers arrived at an apartment complex at 10794 Highway 231 South with a search warrant for the residence of Eric Demond Hobdy, 24, Tevis Hobdy, 21, and Julius Darell Fenn, 18.

Williamson said when officers entered the apartment, the three men were sitting around the kitchen table apparently playing poker. They were surround by drugs and drug paraphernalia, including scales, bags of powdered cocain, and cash.

According to Williamson, the operation run by the three men was one of the major supplier of powdered cocaine to Pike County, and Thursday’s bust was the culmination of a lengthy investigation.

“This is a significant arrest as far making an impact on the distribution of cocaine,” Williamson said.

A search of the apartment yielded guns, about 12 ounces of powdered cocaine, a small amount of marijuana and several thousand dollars in cash.

All three men were arrested without incident and transported to Pike County Jail. They face a variety of drug-related charges, including possession and trafficking of cocaine.

After the arrest of Eric, Tevis and Fenn, officers got a lucky break when another man anted for drug indictments, William Keith Austin, arrived at the apartment complex, apparently to make a drug sale at another residence.

Williamson said Austin, seemingly unaware of the search going on nearby, parked his truck and knocked on a neighboring apartment’s door. Not getting an answer, he returned to his truck, wrote a note, and placed it on the apartment’s door.

Austin, 42, is well known to the Sheriff’s Department, having already served time for drug offenses. He was recognized almost immediately by several deputies and was taken into custody.

A search of Austin’s vehicle revealed several ounces of Methamphetamine, liquid Ecstasy, and a bag of assorted prescription pills including Viagra.

Austin was also transported to the Pike County Jail and faces charges of distributing Methamphetamine and trafficking, among other charges.

-from commonvoice.com-

By Jim Kouri

A ranking member of the violent Mexican Mafia gang was arrested near Laredo, TX, on Thursday by federal agents while he attempted to smuggle into the US 12 aliens hidden in the back of a tractor-trailer.

Jorge Antonio Espinoza, 40, from Laredo, was in federal court Friday morning where he was charged with attempting to transport illegal aliens into the United States. Espinoza was denied bond and is expected to remain in federal custody pending his next hearing scheduled for Aug. 4.

Customs and Border Protection inspectors discovered the smuggled aliens when Espinoza tried to pass through the checkpoint located near Interstate Highway 35 near Laredo. The aliens were found hidden in the back of the tractor-trailer during the secondary inspection process.

“Individuals who seek to threaten the safety of our communities, such as members of violent street gangs, will be sought out and brought to justice,” said Alonzo Pena, special agent-in-charge of Immigration’s Office of Investigations in San Antonio.

“Espinoza is a smuggler who has no regard for human life. He attempted to transport 12 people inside a refrigerated tractor-trailer where they could have suffered severe medical complications,” he said.

Espinoza is one of the captains of the “Mexican Mafia” that operates in Laredo. His criminal history ranges from possessing drugs to escaping from prison.

The immigrants discovered inside the trailer were citizens of Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. All 12 remain in custody pending the outcome of their immigration cases.

This arrest is the latest law enforcement action under Operation Community Shield, a nationwide ICE anti-gang initiative to disrupt, dismantle and assist in criminally prosecuting violent gangs by employing the full range of law enforcement authorities available.

Operation Community Shield was launched in February 2005 targeting MS-13 gang members, and was expanded in May 2005 to target all gangs.

An ICE assessment identified that most gang members were foreign-born, in the United States illegally, had prior criminal convictions, and/or were involved in crimes that made them subject to ICE’s extensive immigration and customs authorities.

-from wdam.com-

Authorities arrested 22 people and seized drugs, weapons, cars, cash and a house in a sting in Tylertown on Thursday.

Officials said they spent six months investigating the drug trade in Walthall County before the arrests.

The raid netted about 3 ounces of marijuana, 9.9 grams of crack cocaine, almost $5,000 in cash, four vehicles and numerous guns.

Authorities also seized a house and 3 acres of property.

-from cbs4.com-

Ft. Lauderdale Police made a substantial marijuana bust at a plant nursery Saturday evening thanks to an anonymous tip. Police arrested three people in connection with the marijuana seizure and claim the suspect were planning to load the plants into a U-Haul truck in order to transport them to another location. Authorities say they received an anonymous tip that led to the discovery. The incident is still under investigation.