Gunwalker’s Cousin: ‘Moneywalker’?
Operation Fast and Furious and other alleged gunwalking operations run out of the Department of Justice have provided thousands of weapons to Mexican drug cartels, which have been traced to the murders of hundreds of Mexican nationals and two U.S. federal agents. It is a contender for worst political scandal in American history, despite a concerted effort by media to minimize or even apologize for the damage done.
The scope of the scandal may have gotten significantly worse. Reports have emerged that while the FBI and ATF were arming cartels, the DEA was laundering and smuggling millions of dollars in drug profits:
Undercover American narcotics agents have laundered or smuggled millions of dollars in drug proceeds as part of Washington’s expanding role in Mexico’s fight against drug cartels, according to current and former federal law enforcement officials.
The agents, primarily with the Drug Enforcement Administration, have handled shipments of hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal cash across borders, those officials said, to identify how criminal organizations move their money, where they keep their assets and, most important, who their leaders are. …
Agency officials declined to publicly discuss details of their work, citing concerns about compromising their investigations. But Michael S. Vigil, a former senior agency official who is currently working for a private contracting company called Mission Essential Personnel, said, “We tried to make sure there was always close supervision of these operations so that we were accomplishing our objectives, and agents weren’t laundering money for the sake of laundering money.”
Another former agency official, who asked not to be identified speaking publicly about delicate operations, said, “My rule was that if we are going to launder money, we better show results. Otherwise, the D.E.A. could wind up being the largest money launderer in the business, and that money results in violence and deaths.”
Those are precisely the kinds of concerns members of Congress have raised about a gun-smuggling operation known as Fast and Furious, in which agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives allowed people suspected of being low-level smugglers to buy and transport guns across the border in the hope that they would lead to higher-level operatives working for Mexican cartels. After the agency lost track of hundreds of weapons, some later turned up in Mexico; two were found on the United States side of the border where an American Border Patrol agent had been shot to death.
Understandably, DEA officials are trying to quash any comparisons between the DEA’s “Moneywalker” operation and the Gunwalker scandal already enveloping the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, Treasury, and the White House.
It would be very interesting to discover whether the cartels “paid” for the money laundering services provided by DEA and whether or not any of the funds potentially received by DEA ended up in 0′s campaign funding operation. Hummmm….now who could possibly object to that?
I too am wondering how many cartel front companies will appear on campaign contribution lists and what was the going price of the DOJ.
“When the nation’s cops have become criminals, where can you turn?”
Only a revolution could return America to being a land of law. These agencies are the ones who want to disarm us before that happens.
We are so screwed.
Who wudda thunk it!!!!! Nah! It can’t be true!!
There is NO way that the scope of these two cluster-?%**S could have occurred without the knowledge of both the POTUS and Holder … no way. Issa needs our prayers, along with all those on the front lines of this investigation. This is serious as a dose of clap … and a hundred times more deadly. Just ask the cartels.
My suspicion is that if this thing is fully investigated they will find that the legal investigations are just a cover for influential people in the government making money by participating in the drug trade.
I think you nailed it, 95rogkhgf.
While I have no proof, and what I think is pure conjecture at this point, Occam’s Razor would suggest the simplest explanation. I believe the simplest is that someone high in the DEA/DOJ/ATF decided this was a nice way to skim money for either private gain or for covert operations that lost their funding. The Lawyers at DOJ providing cover for everything.
If this was just a mistake, and some guns and money got away and we learned nothing, then classified briefings to congress would alleviate the suspicion of corruption. The denials and cover-ups point toward something more sinister. I can forgive incompetence, but I cannot and will not forgive corruption. I fear the case points more to the latter than the former. Now, the fictional advice “follow the money” is needed in real life.
That, or Warren Zevon was in trouble…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwXMkfeH95k
Between ‘Fast and Furious’ and now ‘Moneywalker’ it looks like Obama and Holder DOJ crafted a comprehensive and successful stimulus package for drug traffickers.
Univision picked up the story yesterday, “Investigarán a DEA por presunto lavado de dinero”
http://noticias.univision.com/estados-unidos/noticias/article/2011-12-06/nvestigam-a-dea-por-lavado-de-dinero-carteles-mexicanos#axzz1fr3FZZ7K
Remember, there was $10M in the stimulus package for Project Gunrunner…our tax dollars were used to fund this drug running, money laundering, gun running scam with our hard earned tax money. Another waste of our money you can add to Solyndra, Lightsquared, Sunpower, and all the other waste in government and payoffs to his bundlers…and he wants MORE money!!!! I don’t THINK so!!!! Throw the bums in JAIL and throw away the key. I knew Holder was scum from day 1..can you say “Marc Rich?” Obama will never get rid of him because he is Obama’s firewall…they are “bros” from the hood and they have each other’s back.
It is too late to impeach Obama but if he is re-elected the GOP has no choice but to GO FOR IT!!!! As for Holder….do it NOW!!!
not only are your comments right on mark , regarding the government’s wasteful spending of our tax dollars , all at a time when the american’s are seeing their standard of living sinking like the titanic. the vanishing american middle class are losing their jobs, homes, and future.the administration has squandered tax money and has raised our debt to un-sustainable levels, that unless something is done soon future generations of american’s will also have lower expectations of their standard of living as “night’s rolling in, it’s cold as sin, here on the welfare line.” there is no doubt your profile name says it all-”enough already” couldn’t have said it any better !
Sounds like it’s time for “GHOSTBUSTERS.”
Dr. Shalit
Chicago politics (if I included corruption in this statement, it would have sounded like it came from the Department of Redundancy Department, so I left it out) carried out at a national level.
Who could think anything different COULD happen.
Dude, ATF and DEA have been corrupt as hell for years. It’s time to just get rid of them. In a free society, the ATF would be a convenience store next to 711 (buy your alcohol, tobacco and firearms here!) and the DEA wouldn’t even exist. Heck, even if you believe in drug prohibition, it’s pointless to have an agency that has one specific task and will put itself out of business if that is taken care of.
When the the GOP start talking about this in the debates. And I dont mean skirting around the edges. If one of these candidates wants to win, they need to push this topic of corruption, and F&F in particular, to no end. Why haven’t they put the gloves on and come out swinging yet?
Why haven’t they put the gloves on and come out swinging yet?
Because many of them are complicit and those that aren’t cannot be sure who is.
I can think of a few other things: The race card maybe, Dems control the Senate…..
ATF? Corrupt.
DEA? Corrupt.
DOJ? Incompetent? Nope, corrupt.
Ok. So tell me again where Obama his getting his $900 million for his election campaign? PACOPAC?
At least Capone had principles(he refused to rat on the corrupt politicians and judges in Chicago). This Chicago Mob. Not.
This is simply an example of the regulators being captured by the industry.
As I stated on another forum, I believe that at least 50% of the elected officials and beaurocrats in Washington are on one or all of the cartel’s payroll. I also believe that a much highrer percentage of border state officials are on that same payroll.
This is a belief, I cannot prove it.
Yet
I agree with you; I’ve been saying the same thing for years. Living in Tucson, a border city, the evidence of money laundering is as clear as mountain water. And, as for criminal corruption in the highest echelons of government, claro!! How do you suppose Janet Napalitano got her current job? Old Nappy was on the inside all the while she sat in the AZ governors chair; can’t prove it, but everyone can smell it.
It’s time to shutdown the ATF and DEA. There is no point in “reforming them.” One is an agency that tends to unconstitutionally regulate three perfectly legal things and the other is an agency with one very specific mission; if you think the DEA would ever let itself be too effective at drug law enforcement, you’re an idiot. Shut them down, fire all of their employees except the field agents and transfer their field agents to Customs and Border Protection for a 2-3 year probationary period to serve as new border patrol agents.
There’s a Paladin out there somewhere. Hope he / she shows up sooner rather than later.
red 6
What’s next? HUD sponsored crack houses? DMV roadside liquor stands?
Watch Solyndra turn out to be the laundromat.
It looks more and more that the DoJ is an Organized Crime Syndicate.
I am beginning to think it’s no longer a case of hyperbole to refer to our country as a proverbial banana republic. This is all so utterly ridiculous it isn’t funny.
Hey, this is the know nothing, stonewalling, laws are for the little people, the silly people administration. Yup, those Ivy League attorney’s at law, bar certified federal department heads, can’t find their ass (or didn’t read the memo) with both hands when X marks the spot, but they’re gonna run a national health care system and get stellar mortality rates. Yup, looks like Florida just got a hospital payment waiver for Medicare reimbursements to get those senior citizen presidential votes in the Viagra state. They must be getting ready for the great baby boomer die off.
Lets not beat around the bush. This All about guns. Everything these scumbags do revolves ultimately about guns. It is guns that give these pieces of shit their power. It is guns that they fear. It is guns that they must if they are to take over my country have in order to rule with an iron fist. It is guns that they must take from the populous in order obtain that absolute power. It is guns they understand like none other are the real power behind anything. It is guns this system of government now lives by. It is guns that they use to enforce everything.
And it is guns in the hands of We The People that they fear most.
Any thing else is a cheap side show.