|
:latin
america
||| BRAZIL. Machine
guns capable of shooting down planes are the most sought-after
by criminal groups
Military
arms in gangs’ hands
||| It is said that the
arsenals of the Bolivians are the main source of arms
confiscated by the authorities. ||| The machine guns are
sent from Bolivia to Paraguay and enter Brazil via the
border. ||| Due to the seriousness of the matter, the
police asked several authorities for help in the
investigations.
EFE News
Service
RIO DE JANEIRO – At least nine machine guns belonging to
the Bolivian army have been seized from Rio drug gangs
so far this year, according to Brazilian police
officials cited Monday by the daily O Globo.
According to the press report, the Czech-made ZB.30
machine gun, which is capable of shooting down airplanes,
has become one of the most sought-after weapons by the
criminal groups that control drug trafficking in the
poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro.
The main source of the arms of this kind seized in
police operations against drug gangs in Rio are the
arsenals of the Bolivian army, according to police
sources consulted by O Globo. The sources say that the
machine guns are sent from Bolivia to Paraguay and enter
Brazil via the border city of Foz de Iguaçú.
Besides the nine machine guns seized this year, another
10 were confiscated by police last year.
All of them, O Globo says, were marked with the shield
of the Bolivian army. The weapons can fire 500 rounds
per minute and have a range of 4,875 feet.
The seriousness of the matter forced the Rio police to
ask the Federal Police, the military and Brazil's Abin
intelligence service for help in the investigations.
"The exchange of information has been constant. I can
say that in the hands of the drug traffickers, or of
anyone, those machine guns are very dangerous," said
Carlos Oliveira, head of the Rio police drug squad.
High-ranking police from Brazil and Bolivia have already
met in La Paz to determine a way to fight weapons
smuggling and they are currently negotiating an
agreement.
O Globo reported that the Brazilian police received
information that at least 40 of those machine guns were
diverted from just one Bolivian army garrison.
The daily added that the Brazilian police also seized
rifles that were manufactured by the Spanish firm Santa
Bárbara and sold to the Bolivian Interior Ministry in
1989.
This is not the first time that the Rio police have
found military weapons from the armed forces of Brazil
and neighboring countries in the hands of drug
traffickers.
In the 1990s, grenades and FAL assault rifles stolen
from Argentine military garrisons were found by
Brazilian police. |||
|||
MEXICO. Over assassination attempts
Top crime fighters resign their posts
EFE News
Service
MEXICO CITY
– Two key figures in the battle against organized crime
left the Attorney General's Office within days of each
other amid rising violence that has claimed more than
2,600 lives this year.
Government officials confirmed that Deputy Attorney
General José Santiago Vasconcelos, a 20-year veteran of
the AG's office, had left.
Vasconcelos, the target of several failed assassination
attempts, was responsible for the extraditions of more
than 100 criminals.
Among the drug lords whose extraditions were authorized
by Vasconcelos were Osiel Cárdenas, leader of the Gulf
cartel, and Héctor Palma, a senior figure in the Sinaloa
organization.
Vasconcelos decided to "retire" in light of "the
restructuring that President Calderón authorized
Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora to carry out," a
source said on condition of anonymity.
The deputy attorney general's departure occurred three
days after the resignation of his successor as head of
the office's organized-crime bureau, Noe Ramírez. |||
||| CUBA.
Due to migration control
Over 20,000 people expelled since ’06
EFE News
Service
HAVANA – More than 20,000 Cubans living "illegally" in
this capital have been forced to return to their
hometowns since 2006.
The newspaper said Law 217 was enacted in 1997 to
regulate and control migration to the capital, but the
flow of people has not stopped and 46 "illegal"
settlements have sprouted in the 15 municipalities of
Greater Havana.
The figures cited by Juventud Rebelde were provided by
local government official Luis Carlos Góngora.
Officials have not been able to determine the number of
people who have arrived in the capital in recent years
in search of a better life and economic opportunities.
Góngora said the problem of the illegal settlements has
been studied and the idea was "to try to keep them from
growing," adding that it would probably be dealt with
"in the long term" because Havana had more pressing
problems.
Havana has just over 2.2 million people, nearly 20
percent of the population of the communist-ruled island,
of whom some 700,242 were born in other provinces. |||
BRIEFS
At least
seven people were injured Monday in the first
Santiago Metro accident in 35 years, authorities said.
The accident occurred at the Príncipe de Gales station
on the Metro's Line 4 when a train on the way to the
repair yard slammed into the back of another train
filled with passengers. The crash prompted the immediate
evacuation of the passengers and the suspension of
service on Line 4, which runs through several
communities in the eastern and southeastern sectors of
the Chilean capital. EFE
A Texas judge who presided over the custody battle
between Chere Lyn Tomayko and her ex-husband
criticized Costa Rica's decision to grant refugee status
to the U.S. woman wanted by the FBI, the Costa Rican
press reported Monday. "She is wanted by the United
States and apparently is not going to be punished. They
(the Costa Rican government) decided the U.S.
authorities were in the wrong and that Mrs. Tomayko was
the only one to be believed," William Harris said in an
interview with the San José daily La Nación. EFE
At least nine people died in a clash over land in
the Caribbean region of Honduras, police said.
Prosecutors at the crime scene said "nine people lost
their lives" in the incident on Sunday, National Police
spokesman Héctor Mejía told Tegucigalpa's HRN radio. Six
people died inside a house set on fire by peasants,
while the three others killed were apparently
farmworkers, Mejía said, adding that the number of
wounded was unknown. EFE
A 10-year-old boy died and seven other children were
treated for dehydration after their hiking group
became lost over the weekend in the desert of Mexico's
Baja California state, officials said. The members of
the 34-person group, which included three adults, were
rescued between Saturday night, when they got lost,
state emergency services chief Alfredo Escobedo said.
EFE P
|
