Not Just Any Family Business
Nov 1st, 2006 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Immigration, Organized Crime, Politics
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THE BORDER REPORT
I'm watching the Feds' preening over the bust of 44 people in little Bowie, Ariz., earlier this week and it's got me worried.
You'd have thought it was the Juárez Cartel and the entire Carrillo Fuentes family they'd popped from the noise they made.
Their excitement alone is cause for concern. From the charges filed, they have evidence of smuggling since 2001. If it took them five years to bust a Mexican migrant smuggling ring, what can we expect from our federal government when it comes to the narco-trafficking organizations, the weapons smugglers, and the organizations moving los famosos Other Than Mexicans, the exotics who aren’t merely coming here for jobs at your local restaurant?
That's disturbing ... why make such a fuss over what was little more than a small-time organization?
Save that for the big cases.
Unless of course, you don't have any big cases pending. That is something I hear time and again from federal agents - a lack of prosecution on major cases in Arizona.
This in spite of the fact that Arizona is one of the busiest corridors for drug and migrant smuggling along the 1,951-mile border with Mexico.
Are you really telling us that this group was that important?
I can only conclude that there isn't anything better coming down the pipe anytime soon.
The voiced indictments by a plethora of local and federal officials from Cochise County to Phoenix, had little bearing in reality. That's another trend that I've noticed in recent stories about federal busts.
In one story, Sheriff Larry Dever tells the crowd of reporters the arrest will bring an end to the fear residents in Bowie have felt "for decades."
Well, if they were afraid for decades, why wasn't the family arrested in the 1980s or 90s?
In a separate story, we're told the smugglers were using guns to intimidate illegal immigrants.
In the indictment, I see a lot of Section 8 and 18 charges - smuggling and money laundering charges. I don't see any charges brought up for hostage-taking. The intimidation of migrants is mentioned only in passing to demonstrate conspiracy. This makes me think the Feds don't have any illegal migrants to show as material witnesses.
Before anybody gets excited, let me stem this late night rant with the notion that it looks like the Feds did a great job in taking down this organization.
There are 31 pages of wire transfers ranging from $500 to $2,000 per transaction. I haven't tallied it up but it's got to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So, yes, good job bringing the organization down.
But if this is the Bust of the Year, man do they have a lot more work to do.
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