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​Investigators with the Drug Enforcement Agency helped a Mexican narcotics kingpin transfer million of dollars in illegal cash profits, the New York Times reports today.

 

The DEA program recalls a similar, much smaller scale operation first reported in the Voice last month in our article about government informant Angel Perez. The Voice article disclosed that Perez convinced U.S. Immigration and customs agents to move $500,000 in cash from the Dominican Republic to Miami and Puerto Rico. But, somehow, the smuggling operation didn't result in any arrests or even the identification of the source of the money.

The Times report, meanwhile, says that DEA agents got involved in the illegal scheme back in 2007 to infiltrate and take apart drug organizations in Mexico. The agents also helped the kingpin, Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, move a big shipment of cocaine from Ecuador through Dallas to Madrid. DEA agents posed as pilots offering to ship cocaine for $1,000 a kilo.

Rightly, the Times article asks the question of whether the DEA was "fighting or facilitating crime." And the conclusion? Well, in Timesian fashion, we don't get an answer. The article quotas a former federal prosecutor saying that stateside rules don't apply overseas, so law enforcement agencies "make up the rules as they go along."

"It's a slippery slop," Morris Panner tells the Times. "The United States could end up helping the bad guys more than hurting them."

As for the DEA, the Times got a statement defending the practice, and saying that the operation allowed "Mexican authorities to kill or capture dozens of high-ranking and mid level drug dealers."

The kingpin, Poveda-Ortega, evaded arrest for two years, before he was finally caught in November of 2010.

Is Illegal Immigration Destroying The Southwest United States? 19 Immigration Facts That Very Few People Are Talking About

Immigration is not a bad thing. In fact, the United States is a nation that is made up of immigrants. However, the truth is that rampant, unchecked illegal immigration is a really, really horrible thing and it is permanently destroying many areas of the southwest United States. The U.S. government has refused to control the U.S. border with Mexico for decades, and this has allowed millions of criminals, drug dealers and gang members to cross freely into the United States. Not only that, but our refusal to secure the border has allowed thousands (if not millions) of people that have very serious diseases into the country. After illegal immigrants arrive they either try to make a living legally (by directly competing with blue collar American workers and driving their wages down) or illegally by selling drugs or being involved in other kinds of criminal activity. The economic burden that these tens of millions of illegal immigrants has put on our system is almost incalculable.

The sad thing is that virtually all of this illegal immigration can be prevented. The U.S. military has completely sealed the border between North Korea and South Korea for the past five decades, and yet the U.S. government completely refuses to seal our border with Mexico which is actually a much bigger threat to our national security.

Army captures U.S. teen drug hitman in central Mexico

Edgar Jimenez, known as "El Ponchis," is believed to work for the South Pacific drug cartel in Morelos state, outside Mexico City, the army said on Friday.

The boy was caught late on Thursday as he boarded a plane in the city of Cuernavaca. He was traveling to the border city of Tijuana with two of his sisters, one of whom is believed to be the lover of one of the cartel's bosses, the army said.

"El Ponchis" made headlines last month as reports of his grizzly murders, including beheadings, surfaced. He acknowledged having killed at least seven people under the influence of drugs provided by a cartel leader, according to the army statement.

Every cop in town quits after Mexico attack

MEXICO CITY — The entire police force of a small northern Mexican town quit after gunmen attacked their recently inaugurated headquarters, according to local reports on Wednesday.

Los Ramones Mayor Santos Salinas said nobody was injured in Monday night's attack, during which gunmen fired more than 1,000 bullets at the building's facade, according to Noroeste newspaper's website. Six grenades, of which three detonated, were also flung at the building, the newspaper reported.

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Mexican Gunmen Kill Third Mayor in a Month as Drug War Escalates

Gunmen killed the mayor of a town in northern Mexico as he sat at his desk, the third politician slain in the past month as drug-related violence escalates.

President Felipe Calderon, in a statement yesterday, "energetically condemned" the murder of Alexander Lopez, mayor of El Naranjo in San Luis Potosi state. Officials didn't offer a motive or arrest any suspects, though Lopez was murdered in a part of the country disputed by rival drug gangs.

Arizona Sheriff: Border Patrol Has Retreated from Parts of Border Because It's ?Too Dangerous'

Sheriff Larry Dever of Cochise County, Ariz., one of four Arizona counties contiguous with the U.S-Mexico border, said Friday that the U.S. Border Patrol has pulled back from parts of the border in his and neighboring counties because manning those areas has become too dangerous.

"And you frankly have Border Patrolmen--and I know this from talking to Border Patrol agents?who will not allow their agents to work on the border because it is too dangerous," Dever told CNSNews.com in a videotaped interview. "Now what kind of message is that for crying out loud?"

Mexico: Prison guards let killers out, lent guns

Guards and officials at a prison in northern Mexico allegedly let inmates out, lent them guns and sent them off in official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 people last week, prosecutors said Sunday.

After carrying out the killings the inmates would return to their cells, the Attorney General's Office said in a revelation that was shocking even for a country wearied by years of drug violence and corruption.

BREAKING: MULTIPLE RANCHES IN LAREDO, TX TAKEN OVER BY LOS ZETAS

The bloodbath continues along our southern border and now word is coming in that Los Zetas, the highly trained killers formerly with the Gulf Cartel, have crossed into the United States and taken over at least two ranches in the Laredo, Texas area. I am receiving word that the owners of the ranches have evacuated without being harmed.

Mexican drug cartel threatens to harm U.S. police officers who bust drug shipments while off-duty

Mexican cartels added a new twist to the drug war this week by threatening to kill U.S. cops who seize their goods.

Nogales, Ariz., Police Chief Jeffrey Kirkham said his officers received threats a couple weeks ago after off-duty police busted a pot smuggling ring.

“America is based on freedom. We’re not going to be intimidated by the threats, but we are taking them seriously,” Kirkham told CNN.

“I’ve told my officers if they venture into that area off-duty to be armed,” he said…

Texas border towns fear violent spillover from Mexico

Texas law enforcement officials are bracing for a bloody weekend along the border, advising farmers to arm themselves as signs across northern Mexico point to a new escalation of violence after coordinated drug cartel attacks against the military this week...

Texas Town on High Alert as Mexican Town Across Border Braces for Cartel Gun Battle

Residents of a small Mexican border town under siege by at least one of the country’s most notorious drug cartels are fleeing into a tiny Texas community, which is on high alert and preparing for a surge of illegal immigrants should a street battle break out with another cartel – or if gunmen begin carrying out a threat to start killing the town’s children.

At least 30 residents of El Porvenir, located about four miles from the Texas border town of Fort Hancock, have crossed into the U.S. and asked for political asylum, telling authorities that they fear for their lives. Fort Hancock officials tell FoxNews.com that they consider the situation serious...

In Texas, fear follows Mexicans who flee drug war

When black SUVs trail school buses around here, no one dismisses it as routine traffic. And when three tough-looking Mexican men pace around the high school gym during a basketball game, no one assumes they're just fans.

Fear has settled over this border town of 1,700, about 50 miles southeast of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, epicenter of that country's bloody drug war. Mexican families fleeing the violence have moved here or just sent their children, and authorities and residents say gangsters have followed them across the Rio Grande to apply terrifying, though so far subtle, intimidation...

Mexican drug gang tells residents to leave town

Members of a drug cartel apparently intent on controlling a Mexican border town are threatening to kill residents or torch their homes, forcing some of the residents to flee into Texas to seek asylum, according to law enforcement authorities...