Colombia Busts Ring Linked to al-Qaida

By JOSHUA GOODMAN
Associated Press Writer

BOGOTA, Colombia

Colombia has dismantled a false passport ring with links to al-Qaida and Hamas militants, the acting attorney general said Thursday after authorities led dozens of simultaneous raids across five cities.

The gang allegedly supplied an unknown number of citizens from Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and other countries with false passports and Colombian nationality without them ever stepping foot in the country, the attorney general's office said in a written statement.

The counterfeited passports were then used to facilitate their entry into the United States and Europe.

Nineteen people were arrested in Thursday's raids, carried out in collaboration with U.S. authorities, the attorney general's office said. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota were not immediately available for contact.

An undisclosed number of those arrested are wanted for working with al-Qaida, the international terrorist organization headed by Osama Bin Laden, and the militant Palestinian group Hamas, said acting Attorney General Jorge Armando Otalora.

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Drop house bust reveals 'wretched' conditions
BY JONATHAN ATHENS, SUN STAFF WRITER

Yuma County officials may be taking legal action against a Foothills man after U.S. Border Patrol agents raided an alien drop house at an apartment complex the man owns.

Yuma sector Border Patrol agents Friday morning, acting on a tip, raided an alien drop house at 702 S. Riebe Ave. and arrested 25 illegal immigrants there.

During the bust, the agents detected a foul odor and discovered a 30-yard-long trench filled with raw sewage running along the back of some of the apartments, said Rick Stacks, county environmental health manager.

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Rollover spills pot across I-8
BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, SUN STAFF WRITER

A vehicle being pursued by the U.S. Border Patrol rolled over Friday morning, spilling 940 pounds of marijuana across Interstate 8.

California Highway Patrol Officer Eric Price said El Centro sector U.S. Border Patrol agents attempted to deploy a spike strip 3.2 miles east of Gordon's Well Road to stop the 2003 red Jeep Wrangler.

The driver, a 19-year-old man from Los Algodones, Baja Calif., took actions to avoid the spike strip by going into the median but overcorrected and crashed, spilling the load of marijuana over the area. The accident occurred at 6:59 a.m. PST.

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Builders of drug tunnel get warning
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN DIEGO — Those associated with the longest and one of the most sophisticated tunnels ever discovered along the U.S.-Mexican border may be in grave danger, U.S. officials said Friday.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it had received intelligence that the Mexican drug cartel behind the tunnel had threatened the lives of people who had used it or were involved in the passageway's design or construction.

The agency appealed to those whose lives were at risk to seek out U.S. officials at Mexican border crossings and pledged to do everything possible to protect them.

More than 2 tons of marijuana were found inside the tunnel discovered this week, which ran about 2,400 feet from a warehouse near the airport in Tijuana, Mexico, to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa industrial district.

As deep as 90 feet below the surface, authorities found a tunnel floor lined with cement, lights that ran down one of the hard soil walls, a groundwater pump and pipes that circulated air, he said. An adult could stand in the 5-foot-high shaft.

"Given the sophistication of this tunnel, it's clear that the people responsible have significant resources at their disposal," said Michael Unzueta, special agent in charge of the agency's investigations in San Diego. "There is no doubt that an organization like this will take whatever steps necessary to protect their interests, including taking human lives."

It remained unclear how long the tunnel had been in operation, but Lauren Mack, a Customs spokeswoman, said the agency was bringing in a team of professional miners to analyze the soil and determine the passageway's age.

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Week of incidents strains U.S.-Mexican relations
By Mark Stevenson
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MEXICO CITY — It has been a trying week for Mexican-U.S. relations, with a tense border confrontation between U.S. agents and apparent drug traffickers, a Mexican group's offer to print maps of the Arizona desert for illegal migrants and an exchange of terse diplomatic notes.

The administration of Mexican President Vicente Fox has its share of quarrels with other countries, but this promised to be one of the trickiest — involving the country's northern neighbor and largest trading partner at a time when the U.S. Congress is debating immigration reform.

For Mexico, migration to the United States is a mainstay of the economy. U.S. officials, on the other hand, see the issue in terms of national security and border safety.

"The situation is very sensitive, because the points of tension are very sensitive," said political scientist Oscar Aguilar Ascencio.

Not coincidentally, those issues have come to loggerheads just as Mexico enters the campaign season for its July 2 presidential election.

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Linking U.S. soldiers to border fray 'ridiculous'
Jake Rollow
El Paso Times

U.S. law enforcement officials scoffed Thursday at suggestions made by a Mexican diplomat that U.S. soldiers disguised as Mexican troops helped drug traffickers during a border standoff Monday near Sierra Blanca.

Mexico's foreign relations secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez's suggestion of U.S. military involvement came the day after U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza issued a strongly worded statement asking the Mexican government to "fully investigate" Monday's border incident.

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Border chief: Mexican army likely involved
Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

The national head of the Border Patrol, Chief David V. Aguilar, said that despite denials from Mexican authorities, the men in uniforms in a border standoff Monday near Sierra Blanca might very well be Mexican soldiers.

"They were wearing military-style uniforms, driving military-style vehicles, carrying military-style weapons, but we didn't apprehend them. We don't know what they are. Sheriff (Leo) Samaniego feels they were (Mexican soldiers). I would have a tendency to agree with him," Aguilar said.

The standoff, between state troopers and armed and uniformed men in a Humvee, occurred in the Neely's Crossing area in Hudspeth County. The men on the Mexican side of the river were protecting a drug load in SUVs fleeing back to Mexico. No shots were fire.

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Border Patrol chief draws attention to violence against agents
By Louie Gilot
El Paso Times

The national head of the Border Patrol, Chief David Aguilar, said he wanted the American public to be aware of the violent reality his agents live in.

"I want to make sure that the American public understands what is happening on the Southern border," he said during a press stop in El Paso Friday.

Agents have been shot at, hit by rocks and recently victimized by "flaming rocks," Aguilar said. The rocks are wrapped in cloth, dipped in gasoline, lit and hurled over the border at agents. One agent in San Diego was hit by a flaming rock and the rocks have ignited brush fires, also near San Diego.

Aguilar said that "When the time comes for our officers to take action," he wanted the American public to understand what the agents are up against.

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Night of patrol shows holiday lull ending for border agents
By ABE LEVY
Associated Press Writer

LAREDO, Texas (AP) -- Brian Fredregill cranks up a heat-sensor scope mounted outside his Border Patrol pickup, eases into the cab and stares at the monitor.

It's a chilly night in late January. A two-thirds moon beams overhead. Only about an hour into his shift, the only thing to emerge is a lone, grazing deer.

But when six white dots move like a centipede across the screen, he focuses the camera and the forms take shape. "Bodies! Bodies!" he announces on the radio.

The chase begins.

And with it, the gradual end to the yearly lull in arrests of illegal immigrants at this common crossing point along the Texas-Mexico border. It's a scene played out across the 2,000-mile border each year around this time, as tens of thousands of immigrants attempt to return illegally after spending the holidays with family and friends.

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Drug tunnel's on hot-potato property

Otay Mesa lot has had many tenants, owners
By Leslie Berestein
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
Photo - JOHN R. MCCUTCHEN / Union-Tribune

The warehouse on Siempre Viva Road in Otay Mesa never had much luck attracting long-term interest, until recently.

The building where federal agents discovered a long and highly sophisticated cross-border drug tunnel this week has had a long history of short-term tenants, according to its developer. The property on which it sits also has changed ownership several times in recent years, property records show.