GANGLAND GODFATHER

3-minute video which asks whether the Mexican government is "favoring" the country's most powerful drug gang, the Sinoloa Cartel.  full-blown war going on just South of the border in Cuidad Juarez. Investigators believe that most of the killings are the result of a turf war between the Sinoloa cartel and a rival gang, "La Linea". According to Al Jazeera, "The Sinoloa Federation is responsible for 45 percent of the drug trade in Mexico", but the government is only going after the small fish. Why? And, why hasn't Obama asked his "drug fighting" partner, Mexican President Felipe Calderon, what the heck is going on? First, a little background: The Sinaloa cartel, is headed by the country's most famous druglord, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Here's a clip from AOL News:"El Chapo -- "Shorty" in Mexican slang -- controls the Sinaloa cartel, named for the northern Mexican state from which many of the country...

Thirteen alleged members of a British gang that carried out Europe’s biggest “boiler room” fraud have been arrested. The gang swindled at least £20 million out of victims by persuading them to buy shares in a company that had never traded. Police traced at least 80 victims, but believe the gang cheated hundreds. The alleged leader was known to operate from Barcelona, a location favoured by boiler-rooms, so called because of the pressure to sell. Ambitious young people are promised what appear to be glamorous jobs in Spain selling shares, but soon realise they are working for fraudsters. A 28-year-old Briton, said to be the head of the gang, was arrested in Sweden on suspicion of conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to launder money. City of London detectives arrested eleven other people in Northumbria and one in Manchester.Spanish police, working with their British counterparts, last week raided a flat and garage, and seized a Bentley Continental, a Ferrari and a Maserati,...

man in his 20s was killed Saturday night in South Los Angeles in what was believed to be a gang-related shooting, authorities said.The victim was in the 950 block of East 22nd Street when he was approached by two men, who asked him where he was from, Los Angeles Police Lt. Sam Rhone said. One of them then shot the man in the upper body.The shooting victim was transported to County-USC Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The L.A. County coroner’s office has identified the man but would not release his name, pending notification of next of kin. No other information was available. [Updated 1:50 p.m.: At least 23 homicides have been reported within one mile of 950 block of East 22nd Street by L.A. County coroner's officials since January 2007, according to data collected for The Times' interactive Homicide Report. The most recent was the Jan. 12, 2010, death of Oscar Becerril-Rios, 31, who died two days after he was hit in the head with a 2-by-4 at 17th Street and Hooper ...

The 27-year-old was one of the first on the scene at the Asda supermarket in Robroyston, Glasgow, when Carroll, 29, was shot dead on January 13.It’s now emerged cops issued him with the Osman warning – given to the public when their lives are in danger – based on intelligence gathered last week.A gangland insider revealed: “Green was told that his life was in serious danger and that he should take precautions. “Cops dish out these warnings all the time. But this was different. Often rivals let the police know about a ‘plot’ just to noise up their enemies as they know they have an obligation to pass on the information. “This WASN’T one of those occasions – high-level intelligence has indicated Green is next in the firing line.” The warning comes a month after a plot to kill another enforcer, John McCabe, was foiled.Cops arrested the 47-year-old when they discovered he was to be targeted by hitmen at a party in Glasgow’s west end.Officers got lucky when they stopped him in his car and...

The spouse of the alleged streetgang leader who survived last week's hit at his Old Montreal clothing store was quietly released on bail late yesterday afternoon.This was a couple of hours after 41-year-old Cheryl Bailey balked at conditions not to communicate with Ducarme Joseph.After refusing the bail conditions, Bailey was scheduled for a bail hearing this morning.But she apparently changed her mind later and decided to go along with the conditions and was released at the end of the day.The crown did not object to Bailey's release on bail so long as she accepted standard bail conditions such as depositing a thousand dollars, respecting a curfew and not communicating with Joseph except in emergencies related to their five children. Bailey and Joseph are accused of possessing a prohibited weapon - a silencer. The charge dates back to last fall and are unrelated to last week's shooting that killed two people and injured two others.Joseph is being held pending ...

Jose Antonio Medina Arreguin, known as the ‘King of Heroin’ and as ‘Don Pepe,’ was arrested Wednesday in the western Mexican state of Michoacan, according to Mexico’s Public Security Ministry. Medina Arreguin, 36, allegedly exported into the US some 200 kg of heroin per month, which according to Mexican police had a monthly street value of about $12 million. He also dealt in methamphetamines. Medina Arreguin led his own organisation, but he ’shared logistics’ with the La Familia Michoacana cartel, the authorities said. He was said to be in charge of producing, selling and transporting the drugs to the US, and was in contact with the main poppy producers in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero. He was active in Michoacan and used the route Tijuana-San Diego-Los Angeles to distribute the drugs, the authorities said. Medina Arreguin was expected to be extradited to the US.

Vivian Blake, 54, a former top leader of the Jamaican Shower Posse, which U.S. prosecutors said was responsible for 1,400 drug-related killings in this country in the 1980s, died last Sunday in Kingston, Jamaica. He had been taken to the University Hospital of the West Indies complaining of breathing problems, said Ruel Rainford, the senior director of administration and operations. Dominique Blake said her father had been suffering from kidney failure and diabetes. Since his release from prison in the United States 14 months ago, he had been living in Jamaica. He grew up in poverty in West Kingston and earned a scholarship to St. George's College, a private high school. He first traveled to New York as part of a cricket team in 1973 and stayed there, establishing the American affiliate of the Shower Posse in Brooklyn. There are differing accounts of how the gang got its name. Some believe it derived from a phrase used by Edward Seaga of the Jamaican Labor Party, wit...

Ducarme Joseph, which is his real name, has been officially advised three times by police that there are contracts out on his life, but the 41-year-old has laughed them off, saying he has no fear.But he's also an involved father of at least five children, and is a familiar face in the neighbourhood where they attend school. "Oh yeah, Kenny is the real deal," said one lawyer who represents organized crime members. "And now he's a big hero among the Haitian criminal element in Montreal."Joseph has boasted that he never pays for anything, once pouring the remains of two champagne bottles on the ground, and he punched out a tow-truck driver who tried to tow his Porsche when it was illegally parked downtown.He has also bragged to police that he knows people in politics who are more powerful than the Montreal police chief and boasted that no one would ever put him in jail.But he's there now, after being picked up following a dramatic daytime shooting in which...