Mexican drug traffickers are funneling cocaine to Italian organized crime, and some shipments are moving through Dallas.
"We've got some of the major cartel members established here dealing their wares in Europe," said James Capra, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas office.
Experts say warring cartels battered by unprecedented U.S. and Mexican government crackdowns are increasingly looking to Europe as an expansion market. Across the Atlantic, demand for cocaine is high and prices are up. A kilo sold for $20,000 in Dallas is worth up to three times as much overseas, experts say.
Mexican cartel operatives in North Texas "are dealing with Italy, Spain, you name it," he said. "They can operate their logistical center from here and coordinate between Mexico, Central America and Europe."
Italian capos are venturing to North Texas to get in on the action, says one mob expert.
"Places like Houston and Dallas are where these criminal organizations are most likely to invest their money," said Antonio Nicaso, an internationally recognized author and lecturer on Italian organized crime. "This is the right time, with the recession going on."
Dallas has long been a recognized distribution hub for drugs smuggled up the Interstate 35 corridor from Laredo. From here, narcotics head out across the country to Atlanta, Chicago, New England and elsewhere.
The revelation that the cartels are forming alliances with Italian syndicates came last year when the DEA revealed that the Mexican Gulf cartel, which supplies Dallas with cocaine, was working with New York associates of the powerful Italian 'Ndrangheta mafia.
Last August, the DEA arrested a Dallas County jailer accused of tipping off drug dealers to what appeared to be a small-time local narcotics conspiracy. The jailer, Brenda Medina Salinas, has pleaded guilty and is awaiting sentencing. As others pleaded guilty and court documents piled up, it became clear that the drug pipeline in that case reached all the way to Europe and the clandestine world of the Camorra.
The Naples-based Camorra traces its roots to the 16th century. Ruthlessly violent when they need to be, Camorra members often smuggle behind quiet business fronts. They're known to work across ethnic and political lines.
Relatively little is known about the local Camorra associate, other than that he had ties to Dallas, Houston and Mexico. The Camorra associate was not charged in the case because agents had not developed enough information to nab him when they were forced to act because of Salinas' leaking information to co-conspirators.
Agents learned the Camorra associate's name last May. That's when DEA agents monitoring a meeting between him and his local contacts asked Dallas police to pull over the Camorra associate's car and check his identity.
He had just met with Higinio "Gino" Hernandez, a 30-year-old flooring installer from Carrollton, and Altin Kore, a 32-year-old Dallas man also charged in conspiracy. Kore is charged in the case but is a fugitive. Hernandez has pleaded guilty.
The DEA began investigating the Hernandez network after being tipped by Italian authorities in the fall of 2007. Their wiretaps on Camorra associates in Italy revealed a Dallas cocaine supplier.
Higinio Hernandez was close to his brother Henry "Tito" Hernandez, 34, of Dallas, who has also pleaded guilty. A third brother, Luis, 35, has been charged but is a fugitive.
Henry and Higinio worked for years as flooring installer subcontractors for Carpet One in Southlake.
"They were leading a double life," said prosecutor Ernest Gonzalez in Plano. "They were doing flooring by day, and at night they were conducting these drug transactions."
It was obvious to those around them that laying floors was not their only source of income.
When they were arrested last fall, federal agents seized Higinio's Cadillac Escalade and Lexus IS30, as well as Henry's Escalade.
Henry and Luis kept snapshots of themselves partying in limos with friends, booze and women. They also had dealings in Cuba, authorities say.
"They didn't hide their money," Gonzalez said.
Authorities say Higinio's supplier in Mexico was half brother Rodolfo Lopez, 35, another fugitive charged in the case.
While living in the U.S., Lopez forged the relationship with the Camorra associate and dealt with cocaine producers in Colombia and elsewhere, authorities say. Lopez eventually relocated to Mexico, where authorities say he directed shipments to his brothers in Dallas.
From Dallas, the cocaine was taken to Houston, where the Camorra associate operated a scented candle export business. It took about a month for the cocaine, smuggled amongst the candles, to make the voyage across the Atlantic to Italy.
Major ports attract Italian organized crime syndicates, which operate in at least 19 U.S. cities, according to the Justice Department's latest Drug Threat Assessment.
The Hernandez case is considered somewhat of an anomaly among law enforcement. Federal agents for years have said that the mafia has no significant grip here.
Still, after a lull, mob influence nationwide seems to be increasing, experts say. Much of their work is partnering with the Mexican distributors and Colombian producers and supplying Europe with cocaine.
It's a good time to expand to Europe, as crackdowns on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border have made smuggling cocaine into Texas increasingly difficult. In the past year, authorities have arrested more than 500 Gulf Cartel and 750 rival Sinaloa Cartel members here and in Mexico.
Extraditions of Mexican narcos to the U.S. for prosecution are on the rise under President Felipe Calderón, who has deployed military troops to quell violence in border towns.
Still, a downside to dabbling in international markets is the increased scrutiny by a larger net of law enforcement agencies – which is what stopped the Hernandez ring.
Last spring, DEA agents in Dallas learned that a meeting was to take place between Higinio and the Camorra associate. On May 15, agents set up surveillance at a Chili's restaurant on Knox Street in Dallas.
It was not a pleasant meeting for Higinio. DEA agents were watching as the Italian poked a finger in his chest. The cocaine they were selling wasn't pure enough, he told Hernandez. Customers were complaining. After the meeting, Higinio reached out to his brother, Henry, to see if his own supplier, Moises Duarte, could get purer powder. But agents were forced to swoop in before any more cocaine made it to Italy.
The reason: Brenda Salinas. The 23-year-old befriended Henry Hernandez and Duarte on the club scene in Dallas, and eventually dated both men.
As a jailer with Dallas County, she had access to law enforcement databases. In July, when agents learned that she was feeding both men information, DEA agents felt they had to act. They arrested Duarte and set up stings on his cohorts.
So far, nine defendants – including Salinas – have pleaded guilty. Among them is an Albanian financial consultant from Dallas. He has ties to an ex-stockbroker being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with an alleged pump-and-dump stock scam.
According to the DEA, the investigation is ongoing.
Thanks to Jason Trahan
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Top FBI Agent in Chicago Testifies that U.S. Marshal Admited He "Made a Huge Mistake"
Chicago's top FBI agent testified today that a deputy U.S. marshal accused of leaking secrets to the mob admitted to federal lawmen that he "made a huge mistake."
Robert Grant is the special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office. He testified in the trial of John T. Ambrose, who's on unpaid leave.
Grant says that Ambrose made the admissions in an emotional confrontation.
He says Ambrose initially denied the allegations, then decided he wanted to cooperate and admitted he was friends with people he shouldn't have been.
The 42-year-old Ambrose is charged with leaking information about a key witness in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation - the biggest Chicago mob case in years.
The trial is now going into its second week.
Thanks to WBBM 780
Robert Grant is the special agent in charge of the FBI's Chicago office. He testified in the trial of John T. Ambrose, who's on unpaid leave.
Grant says that Ambrose made the admissions in an emotional confrontation.
He says Ambrose initially denied the allegations, then decided he wanted to cooperate and admitted he was friends with people he shouldn't have been.
The 42-year-old Ambrose is charged with leaking information about a key witness in the FBI's Operation Family Secrets investigation - the biggest Chicago mob case in years.
The trial is now going into its second week.
Thanks to WBBM 780
Monday, April 20, 2009
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitgerald Testifes at Trial of Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose
U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald 
testified today that the carotid artery in Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose’s neck was pulsating with stress when he was told in 2006 that he was suspected of leaking sensitive information to the mob.
Fitzgerald and Robert Grant, director of the FBI’s Chicago office, confronted Ambrose after getting him to come to the FBI’s office on a ruse.
They told Ambrose they were trying to catch a fugitive terrorist and needed his help. But their actual plan was to let him know he was a suspected leaker, show how seriously they took the security breach in the Witness Security Program and then have Ambrose speak to FBI agents.
"I understood this was the first compromise of the witness protection program," Fitzgerald testified in Ambrose’s trial on charges of leaking information from mob informant Nicholas Calabrese’s secret files.
The files were kept in a safe location where Calabrese was being held in 2002 and 2003 to provide information about mob murders. Ambrose guarded Calabrese on those occasions.
Fitzgerald said he and Grant asked Ambrose to meet them at the FBI headquarters near Roosevelt and Damen to get him away from the federal building downtown. They knew the FBI would ask him to surrender his gun and cell phone when he entered the building. They were concerned what his reaction might be to the investigation — since his own father was convicted in federal court in the 1980s in the Marquette 10 police corruption scandal, Fitzgerald said.
Sitting in a large conference room, Fitzgerald recalled Grant telling Ambrose that his fingerprints were on a secret Calabrese witness file.
"I remember he was very stressed," Fitzgerald said. "The carotid artery on his neck was throbbing."
Initially, Ambrose told Fitzgerald and Grant that he did not know what they were talking about.
Later, he said he would never sell out his badge — and did not take any money. But he did tell them he spoke about his witness security details with a family friend, William Guide, who also went to prison in the Marquette 10 scandal with Ambrose’s late father, according to Fitzgerald.
After Calabrese had visited the Chicago area in 2002 while under witness protection, Ambrose called Guide and told him, "I was working with a witness who was in the Outfit at a very interesting time," Fitzgerald testified.
Ambrose recalled that Guide answered, "Is there anything I need to know?" Fitzgerald testified.
Fitzgerald said Ambrose thought Guide wanted to know if Calabrese was giving up any information on reputed mob boss John "No Nose" DiFronzo.
Ambrose recalled telling Guide he did not know, Fitzgerald testified.
Ambrose then told Fitzgerald and Grant that he had spoken to Guide again after Calabrese’s second visit to Chicago in 2003 when he was taken around the Chicago area to point out crime scenes. Among those places was a parking lot near Sox Park where Calabrese said bodies were buried by the mob.
Ambrose allegedly admitted that he told Guide he took Calabrese to Sox Park — even though Ambrose did not handle that part of Calabrese’s security detail, Fitzgerald said.
Afterward, Ambrose said: "I broke all the rules... but I had no criminal intent," Fitzgerald said.
He also said, "I f----- up I shot my mouth off, but not like you think," Fitzgerald testified.
After the confrontation with Fitzgerald and Grant, Ambrose asked to meet with an uncle who works security for the federal courthouse downtown, as well as two top marshals officials.
He was allowed to speak to those three men. Then Fitzgerald left Ambrose at the FBI building and went back to the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago.
Fitzgerald said he sat in the spectators’ section of a courtroom where Gov. George Ryan was being sentenced in his corruption case. As he watched the sentencing, Fitzgerald took down the notes from his interview with Ambrose, he said.
Thanks to Frank Main
testified today that the carotid artery in Deputy U.S. Marshal John Ambrose’s neck was pulsating with stress when he was told in 2006 that he was suspected of leaking sensitive information to the mob.Fitzgerald and Robert Grant, director of the FBI’s Chicago office, confronted Ambrose after getting him to come to the FBI’s office on a ruse.
They told Ambrose they were trying to catch a fugitive terrorist and needed his help. But their actual plan was to let him know he was a suspected leaker, show how seriously they took the security breach in the Witness Security Program and then have Ambrose speak to FBI agents.
"I understood this was the first compromise of the witness protection program," Fitzgerald testified in Ambrose’s trial on charges of leaking information from mob informant Nicholas Calabrese’s secret files.
The files were kept in a safe location where Calabrese was being held in 2002 and 2003 to provide information about mob murders. Ambrose guarded Calabrese on those occasions.
Fitzgerald said he and Grant asked Ambrose to meet them at the FBI headquarters near Roosevelt and Damen to get him away from the federal building downtown. They knew the FBI would ask him to surrender his gun and cell phone when he entered the building. They were concerned what his reaction might be to the investigation — since his own father was convicted in federal court in the 1980s in the Marquette 10 police corruption scandal, Fitzgerald said.
Sitting in a large conference room, Fitzgerald recalled Grant telling Ambrose that his fingerprints were on a secret Calabrese witness file.
"I remember he was very stressed," Fitzgerald said. "The carotid artery on his neck was throbbing."
Initially, Ambrose told Fitzgerald and Grant that he did not know what they were talking about.
Later, he said he would never sell out his badge — and did not take any money. But he did tell them he spoke about his witness security details with a family friend, William Guide, who also went to prison in the Marquette 10 scandal with Ambrose’s late father, according to Fitzgerald.
After Calabrese had visited the Chicago area in 2002 while under witness protection, Ambrose called Guide and told him, "I was working with a witness who was in the Outfit at a very interesting time," Fitzgerald testified.
Ambrose recalled that Guide answered, "Is there anything I need to know?" Fitzgerald testified.
Fitzgerald said Ambrose thought Guide wanted to know if Calabrese was giving up any information on reputed mob boss John "No Nose" DiFronzo.
Ambrose recalled telling Guide he did not know, Fitzgerald testified.
Ambrose then told Fitzgerald and Grant that he had spoken to Guide again after Calabrese’s second visit to Chicago in 2003 when he was taken around the Chicago area to point out crime scenes. Among those places was a parking lot near Sox Park where Calabrese said bodies were buried by the mob.
Ambrose allegedly admitted that he told Guide he took Calabrese to Sox Park — even though Ambrose did not handle that part of Calabrese’s security detail, Fitzgerald said.
Afterward, Ambrose said: "I broke all the rules... but I had no criminal intent," Fitzgerald said.
He also said, "I f----- up I shot my mouth off, but not like you think," Fitzgerald testified.
After the confrontation with Fitzgerald and Grant, Ambrose asked to meet with an uncle who works security for the federal courthouse downtown, as well as two top marshals officials.
He was allowed to speak to those three men. Then Fitzgerald left Ambrose at the FBI building and went back to the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago.
Fitzgerald said he sat in the spectators’ section of a courtroom where Gov. George Ryan was being sentenced in his corruption case. As he watched the sentencing, Fitzgerald took down the notes from his interview with Ambrose, he said.
Thanks to Frank Main
John "Bulldog" Drummond - It Ain't Pretty, But It's Real
Veteran Chicago newsman John Drummond was covering the trial of some mob henchman when they started giving the snap-brimmed, stogie-chewing reporter a hard time.
Drummond didn't miss a beat. "I turned around and said, 'Hey, we're trying to get your point of the story, but you guys aren't talking. I've got a camera guy down in the lobby. Let's settle it right now. We'll be glad to talk to you.'"
The ne'er-do-wells didn't take Drummond up on his offer. But during a broadcast career that spanned more than four decades, the straight-talking WBBM-Channel 2 reporter nicknamed "Bulldog" scored the inside scoop on many of the area's most notorious crimes and the thugs who often left behind their fingerprints.
In his second book, "It Ain't Pretty, but It's Real," Drummond shares more tales of murder and mayhem in a follow-up to "Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers," released in 1998, which sold about 5,000 copies.
"I felt when I finished the first one I still had a lot good stories to tell," said Drummond, 79, in his trademark baritone voice, before a book signing at the Villa Park library. "Our book has no fabricated quotations. It's all real."
It includes nearly two dozen colorful vignettes, beginning with the haunting 1972 kidnapping of a Hillside police officer who was killed in Villa Park. His murder led to technological advances in suburban police radio equipment.
Drummond shares his encounters with notorious horseman Silas Jayne, who among his long list of crimes was convicted of conspiracy in his brother's October 1970 fatal shooting in Inverness. Jayne long was rumored to be involved in the still-unsolved 1977 disappearance of candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach.
"He was a fascinating individual whether you liked him or not," Drummond said. "If you did him wrong, he believed in physical retribution, not litigation; he felt something had to be done and done ruthlessly."
Drummond also tells of other unsolved mysteries he covered, such as when 14-year-old Barbara Glueckert of Mount Prospect vanished in 1976 after attending a rock concert, never to be seen again. In a less notorious case, but just as mysterious, Arlington Heights couple Edward Andrews and his wife, Stephania, disappeared after leaving a cocktail party at the former Sheraton Chicago hotel in 1970. Their bodies still haven't been found.
Drummond, a kid from west-central Wisconsin infatuated with Chicago's big city tales and the lure of television, covered crime, politics and sports and had one-on-one's with presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
He was there when the city was rocked by the riots following Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination and the violence that erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as well as the federal 1985 Greylord indictment linking Chicago judges to corruption. But the former U.S. Air Force veteran and radio broadcaster is best known for his work in front of the camera sniffing out leads on the Chicago Outfit. He even came out of semiretirement for the recent Family Secrets trial.
Drummond said the terrorists and mentally ill subjects he's covered posed far more of a threat than the mobsters he's known.
"The Outfit was very well disciplined in its heyday," he said. "It would have been counterproductive to kill or assault a news reporter because it would have put too much heat on the mob. We sort of had diplomatic immunity."
Drummond not only covered colorful characters with true grit, in his checkered sport coats and on-air lexicons, such as "coppers" for police or boxing terms like "palooka," but made for an interesting story himself. He's even made cameos in movies such as, "The Fugitive," "Chain Reaction," and "Above the Law," in which he played himself.
Inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 1997, his artfully weathered face and delivery never changed during a period of blow-dried, cookie-cutter television personalities. He outlasted nearly two dozen news directors during his Channel 2 tenure, which began in 1969.
One of his favorite spots was the "Chicago Chronicles" series that ran three times a week on the 6 p.m. news and featured stories on everyone from a prize fighter to cabbie to bartender to mobster to stripper. His sign off was, "You won't read about them in the Chicago guidebooks or travel brochures."
Drummond left the daily grind in 1995, but "Bulldog" said he still has plenty of good stories to tell. He delayed promotion for his second book after his beloved wife, Carol, with whom he raised three children during their 48-year marriage, died in October after a 10-year cancer battle.
"I survived," he said when reflecting back on his storied career. "I think we tried to be fair, and I'm very serious about that. I always tried to get both sides."
Thanks to Christy Gutowski
Drummond didn't miss a beat. "I turned around and said, 'Hey, we're trying to get your point of the story, but you guys aren't talking. I've got a camera guy down in the lobby. Let's settle it right now. We'll be glad to talk to you.'"
The ne'er-do-wells didn't take Drummond up on his offer. But during a broadcast career that spanned more than four decades, the straight-talking WBBM-Channel 2 reporter nicknamed "Bulldog" scored the inside scoop on many of the area's most notorious crimes and the thugs who often left behind their fingerprints.
In his second book, "It Ain't Pretty, but It's Real," Drummond shares more tales of murder and mayhem in a follow-up to "Thirty Years in the Trenches Covering Crooks, Characters and Capers," released in 1998, which sold about 5,000 copies.
"I felt when I finished the first one I still had a lot good stories to tell," said Drummond, 79, in his trademark baritone voice, before a book signing at the Villa Park library. "Our book has no fabricated quotations. It's all real."
It includes nearly two dozen colorful vignettes, beginning with the haunting 1972 kidnapping of a Hillside police officer who was killed in Villa Park. His murder led to technological advances in suburban police radio equipment.
Drummond shares his encounters with notorious horseman Silas Jayne, who among his long list of crimes was convicted of conspiracy in his brother's October 1970 fatal shooting in Inverness. Jayne long was rumored to be involved in the still-unsolved 1977 disappearance of candy heiress Helen Vorhees Brach.
"He was a fascinating individual whether you liked him or not," Drummond said. "If you did him wrong, he believed in physical retribution, not litigation; he felt something had to be done and done ruthlessly."
Drummond also tells of other unsolved mysteries he covered, such as when 14-year-old Barbara Glueckert of Mount Prospect vanished in 1976 after attending a rock concert, never to be seen again. In a less notorious case, but just as mysterious, Arlington Heights couple Edward Andrews and his wife, Stephania, disappeared after leaving a cocktail party at the former Sheraton Chicago hotel in 1970. Their bodies still haven't been found.
Drummond, a kid from west-central Wisconsin infatuated with Chicago's big city tales and the lure of television, covered crime, politics and sports and had one-on-one's with presidents Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
He was there when the city was rocked by the riots following Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination and the violence that erupted during the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, as well as the federal 1985 Greylord indictment linking Chicago judges to corruption. But the former U.S. Air Force veteran and radio broadcaster is best known for his work in front of the camera sniffing out leads on the Chicago Outfit. He even came out of semiretirement for the recent Family Secrets trial.
Drummond said the terrorists and mentally ill subjects he's covered posed far more of a threat than the mobsters he's known.
"The Outfit was very well disciplined in its heyday," he said. "It would have been counterproductive to kill or assault a news reporter because it would have put too much heat on the mob. We sort of had diplomatic immunity."
Drummond not only covered colorful characters with true grit, in his checkered sport coats and on-air lexicons, such as "coppers" for police or boxing terms like "palooka," but made for an interesting story himself. He's even made cameos in movies such as, "The Fugitive," "Chain Reaction," and "Above the Law," in which he played himself.
Inducted into the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame in 1997, his artfully weathered face and delivery never changed during a period of blow-dried, cookie-cutter television personalities. He outlasted nearly two dozen news directors during his Channel 2 tenure, which began in 1969.
One of his favorite spots was the "Chicago Chronicles" series that ran three times a week on the 6 p.m. news and featured stories on everyone from a prize fighter to cabbie to bartender to mobster to stripper. His sign off was, "You won't read about them in the Chicago guidebooks or travel brochures."
Drummond left the daily grind in 1995, but "Bulldog" said he still has plenty of good stories to tell. He delayed promotion for his second book after his beloved wife, Carol, with whom he raised three children during their 48-year marriage, died in October after a 10-year cancer battle.
"I survived," he said when reflecting back on his storied career. "I think we tried to be fair, and I'm very serious about that. I always tried to get both sides."
Thanks to Christy Gutowski
Potential Gambino Crime Family Top Boss Sent to Prison
Nicholas "Little Nick" Corozzo, a high-level lieutenant in New York's Gambino crime family, is to spend 13 1/2 years in prison for murder, a judge has ruled.
Corozzo, 69 -- thought to have been in line to take over the mafia crime operation after Peter Gotti was sent to prison for life -- was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court for ordering the 1996 slaying of Luchese crime family associate Robert Arena that also left an innocent bystander dead, the New York Daily News reported Saturday.
Corozzo calmly accepted his sentence, but his daughter, Donna Paolino, cried, the newspaper said. Corozzo kissed his nephew Joseph Corozzo on the cheek as he left the courtroom.
Thanks to UPI
Corozzo, 69 -- thought to have been in line to take over the mafia crime operation after Peter Gotti was sent to prison for life -- was sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court for ordering the 1996 slaying of Luchese crime family associate Robert Arena that also left an innocent bystander dead, the New York Daily News reported Saturday.
Corozzo calmly accepted his sentence, but his daughter, Donna Paolino, cried, the newspaper said. Corozzo kissed his nephew Joseph Corozzo on the cheek as he left the courtroom.
Thanks to UPI
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