Feds arrest Delta baggage handlers in drug smuggling probe at Metro Airport

Federal agents toppled two drug-smuggling rings Thursday run by baggage handlers who allegedly imported marijuana and cocaine from Jamaica and Houston while working at Detroit Metro Airport.
Twelve people — including 10 Delta baggage handlers — were arrested early Thursday in an investigation dubbed "Operation Excess Baggage" and accused of exploiting weaknesses at several airports to run drug-smuggling pipelines since at least 2009.Complaints filed in federal court in Detroit describe intricate drug-smuggling rings that used crude tactics, an exotic locale and employee access to bypass security and transport hundreds of pounds of illegal drugs to Detroit's streets.
Nine people were arrested in Metro Detroit and made initial appearances in U.S. District Court in Detroit. They were ordered held until at least today. Two other suspects live in Texas and one in California.
The arrests follow an investigation that lasted more than a year led by investigators from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
"For those on the inside thinking about abusing their access to planes for money, think again," ICE director John Morton said. "We are watching. We are looking."
The defendants are accused of drug trafficking and facing charges that include conspiracy, possession with intent to distribute and illegal importation of narcotics.
Possible penalties vary by drug amounts. If convicted, the defendants face from five years to life in prison and up to a $10 million fine.
Delta suspended the baggage handlers without pay while the case is pending, said Susan Elliott, an airline spokeswoman.
"Delta does not tolerate employees found using their position for illegal activity," she said.
One drug-smuggling pipeline ran from Jamaica to Detroit; the second from Houston to Detroit. Both operated simultaneously, but were unrelated and involved different people, according to federal investigators.
The two pipelines used similar methods and exploited airport vulnerabilities, they added.
The Jamaica case dates to January 2010 when a federal agent there contacted another agent in Detroit about the seizure of about 53 pounds of marijuana stashed inside a suitcase bound for Detroit.
Federal agents let the plane depart for Detroit. When it landed, investigators searched all the luggage immediately and found approximately 35 pounds of cocaine and almost 284 pounds of marijuana, according to court records.The Jamaica case relied on several handlers in Detroit who were born in Jamaica.
The handlers used crude methods to identify drug-filled suitcases, according to court records. The luggage was marked with a red X, had white and black bags wrapped around the handles or zip ties.
Glenford Stephens, a Jamaican-born naturalized U.S. citizen working at Detroit Metro Airport, is accused of coordinating shipments into Detroit, according to court records. He reportedly paid fellow baggage handlers to remove luggage from the belly of jets landing in Detroit.
The bags, according to the records, were placed on domestic conveyer belts instead of international baggage belts to avoid detection.
Stephens, who lives in Lathrup Village, or others would then remove the bags and place them in vehicles, according to the court records.
Around the same time, investigators found that a different group of baggage handlers were transporting drugs from Houston.

Death toll soars for Americans in Mexico

111 U.S. citizens were killed in Mexico last year, nearly half of them on or near the Texas border, as the country's gang-fueled violence worsened, according to the U.S. State Department.
The recently released reports don't specify how or why the Americans were murdered, nor does it name victims. But 80 percent of them were killed in border states where narcotics violence is worst - 39 alone in Ciudad Juarez, which shares the Rio Grande with El Paso, and other nearby towns.
The impact on U.S. citizens visiting or living in parts of Mexico has steadily worsened since President Felipe Calderon deployed the army and federal police in late 2006 in an as yet unsuccessful attempt to crush the rising reach of the gangs.
The number of U.S. victims last year was more than triple the toll in 2007. Over a four-year period, 283 Americans were reported murdered, according to State Department figures.
In the same lapse, more than 35,000 Mexicans have been killed, including about 15,000 last year. The Mexican government says most were gangsters. But hundreds of innocent civilians also have been killed.
"Bystanders, including U.S. citizens, have been injured or killed in violent incidents in various parts of the country, especially, but not exclusively in the northern border region, demonstrating the heightened risk of violence throughout Mexico," the latest State Department travel warning observes.
The warning notes that most of the country, including major beach resorts, remains safe.
"There is no evidence that U.S. tourists have been targeted by criminal elements due to their citizenship," advises the travel warning, which was issued last week. "Nonetheless, while in Mexico you should be aware of your surroundings at all times and exercise particular caution in unfamiliar areas."
Victims of underworld
Many residents along the border have dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship. Some of the murdered Americans may have spent most of their lives in Mexico. Other American border residents frequently cross south of the line to visit friends and family in troubled Mexican towns and cities.
Better than half of the 2010 U.S. victims were killed in Juarez and in Tijuana, which borders San Diego. Both cities are tumultuous binational communities that have become primary underworld battlegrounds.
Among the Americans slain in Juarez last year were Lesley Enriquez, a civilian employee at the U.S. Consulate there, and her husband Arthur Redelfs, an employee of the El Paso County jail. U.S. investigators have arrested members of the Aztecas, a transborder gang that works with the Mexican criminal organizations, in the killings.
In early November, U.S.-born Eder Andres Diaz, 23, and naturalized American Manuel Acosta, 25, both students at the University of Texas at El Paso, were gunned down in Ciudad Juarez. Both were living in Juarez while attending the university.
Not counted in the tally is David Hartley, a 29-year-old oil company employee who disappeared in September after reportedly being attacked by gunmen as he and his wife jet-skied in Mexican waters of Lake Falcon.
His wife said she saw him fatally shot in the head, but Hartley's body has never been recovered. Then again, neither have the bodies of perhaps several thousand Mexicans who have simply disappeared in the violence.
While counseling caution on those traveling in much of Mexico, the U.S. government's warning strongly urges against non-essential travel to Tamaulipas, the state that borders Texas from Laredo to the Gulf Coast.
The warning also emphasizes that Monterrey, Mexico's third largest city, has become risky as well for "local and expatriate communities."
"Local law enforcement has provided little to no response," the warning notes of Monterrey's violence. "In addition, police have been implicated in some of these incidents."
The American toll so far this year includes Brownsville native Jaime Zapata, an agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who was killed in a February ambush on the busy highway connecting Mexico City to the south Texas border.
Body count rises
A dozen alleged members of the Zetas have been arrested in Zapata's killing.
Zapata was slain little more than two weeks after South Texas-based Christian missionary Nancy Davis, 59, was fatally shot by suspected gangsters near San Fernando, a Tamaulipas farm town 80 miles south of the border at Brownsville.
The town of San Fernando has been a well-identified center of terror since August, when 72 mostly Central American migrants were slaughtered at a rural warehouse outside the town.
Despite government vows to pacify the region following that massacre, the gangsters retained control of it. In recent months, the thugs reportedly have kidnapped and murdered highway travelers and others, burying their remains in a farm village.
So far, 183 bodies have been pulled from clandestine graves near San Fernando this month as officials investigate a long running gangster operation that included pulling travelers from buses.

 

France and Italy have thrown down the gauntlet over Europe's system of passport-free travel

France and Italy have thrown down the gauntlet over Europe's system of passport-free travel, saying a crisis of immigration sparked by the Arab spring was calling into question the borderless regime enjoyed by more than 400 million people in 25 countries.

Challenging one of the biggest achievements of European integration of recent decades, Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi also launched a joint effort to stem immigration and demanded European deportation pacts with the countries of revolutionary north Africa to send new arrivals packing.

The French president and the Italian prime minister, at a summit in Rome, opted to pile the pressure on Brussels and the governments of the other 25 EU states, demanding an "in-depth revision" of European law regulating the passport-free travel that takes in almost all of the EU with the exception of Britain and Ireland.

Prompted by the influx to Italy of almost 30,000 immigrants, mainly from Tunisia, in recent months, the two leaders warned that the upheavals in north Africa "could swiftly become an out-and-out crisis capable of undermining the trust our fellow citizens place in the free circulation within the Schengen area".

The passport-free travel system known as the Schengen regime was agreed by a handful of countries in 1985 and put into practice in 1995. Since then it has been embraced by 22 EU countries as well as Norway, Switzerland and Iceland, but spurned by Britain and Ireland. It is widely seen, along with the euro single currency, as Europe's signature unification project of recent decades.

But like the euro, fighting its biggest crisis over the past year, the Schengen regime is being tested amid mounting populism and the renationalisation of politics across the EU.

In other setbacks to borderless Europe, Germany, France and other countries have been blocking the admission of Bulgaria and Romania to Schengen in recent months, while the arrival of thousands of Middle Eastern migrants in Greece has fed exasperation with Athens's inability to control the EU's southern border.

The Franco-Italian move, following weeks of bad-tempered exchanges between Paris and Rome over how to deal with the Tunisian influx, is the biggest threat yet to the Schengen regime.

"For the treaty to stay alive, it must be reformed," Sarkozy said. Berlusconi added: "We both believe that in exceptional circumstances there should be variations to the Schengen treaty."

They sent a joint letter to the European commission and European council chiefs, José Manuel Barroso and Herman Van Rompuy, urging proposals from Brussels and agreement on a new system at an EU summit of government heads in June.

The commission said it was drawing up new proposals, tinkering with the current system, to be unveiled next week. But it has resisted, with the support of most EU governments, intense Italian pressure to label the arrivals from north Africa an emergency.

Under European law the border-free regime can be suspended only for reasons of national security, routinely invoked in recent years by member states hosting major international sporting events such as the World Cup or the European football championships, where individual countries contend with a huge, one-off influx of foreigners.

Sarkozy and Berlusconi insisted the rules be changed to allow more restrictions on freedom of travel. A new deal was "indispensable", they said. The June summit should "examine the possibility of temporarily re-establishing internal frontier controls in case of exceptional difficulty in the management of the [EU's] common external frontiers".

This, however, would clearly not be in the interests of Italy, which fears an end to the hostilities in Libya could spark an even bigger exodus. In that event, the letter said, the EU should provide "mechanisms of specific solidarity" including the distribution of immigrants among member states.

This will prove extremely divisive and will be rejected by countries such as Germany and Sweden, which have much higher numbers of asylum seekers than Italy, less restrictive immigration policies, and little sympathy for Italy's plight.

The concerted Franco-Italian initiative also called for accords between the EU and north African countries on repatriating immigrants, a policy certain to spark outrage among human rights groups, the refugee lobby, and more liberal EU governments.

Promising strong support for the democratic revolutions sweeping the Maghreb and the Middle East, Sarkozy and Berlusconi added: "In exchange we have the right to expect from our partner countries a commitment to a rapid and efficacious co-operation with the European Union and its member states in fighting illegal immigration."

Tuesday's move followed weeks of feuding between Rome and Paris over the Tunisian exodus. Furious at the failure of other EU countries to "share the burden", the Italians granted visas to the immigrants enabling them to move elsewhere in the EU. The Germans and the Austrians complained. The Belgians accused Rome of "cheating" on the Schengen rulebook. The French government promptly closed a part of the border with Italy briefly, re-erecting passport controls to halt trains.

But Berlusconi and Sarkozy, seeking to curry favour with the strong far-right constituencies in both countries, sought to bury their differences by urging the rest of Europe to buy into their anti-immigration agenda.

French president and Italian prime minister want to curb passport-free EU travel after row over north African immigrants

Nicolas Sarkozy and Silvio Berlusconi are expected to call on Tuesday for a partial reintroduction of national border controls across Europe, a move that would put the brakes on European integration and curb passport-free travel for more than 400 million people in 25 countries.

The French president and the Italian prime minister are meeting in Rome after weeks of tension between their two countries over how to cope with an influx of more than 25,000 immigrants fleeing revolutions in north Africa. The migrants, mostly Tunisian, reached the EU by way of Italian islands such as Lampedusa, but many hoped to get work in France where they have relatives and friends.

Earlier this month, Berlusconi's government outraged several EU governments, including France, by offering the migrants temporary residence permits which, in principle, allowed them to travel to other member states under the Schengen agreement. An Italian junior minister said on Sunday that Rome had so far issued some 8,000 permits and expected the number would rise to 11,000.

Launched in 1995, Schengen allows passport-free travel in most of the EU, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland. But the documents issued by the Italian authorities are only valid if the holders can show they have the means to support themselves, and French police have rounded up or turned back an unknown number of migrants in recent days.

On 17 April, Paris blocked trains crossing the frontier at Ventimiglia in protest at the Italian initiative. "Rarely have the two countries seemed so far apart," said Le Monde in an editorial on Monday.

Yet, with both leaders under pressure from the far right, French and Italian officials appear to have agreed a common position on amending Schengen so that national border checks can be reintroduced in "special circumstances". According to a report from Paris in the Italian daily La Repubblica, the two countries would also press for an increase in EU assistance to those countries that have to cope with immigrant influxes – a key Italian demand.

On Saturday, Berlusconi's spokesman said: "Agreement has been reached." Indications of a deal have prompted outrage from the French opposition. Harlem Désir of the Socialist party said: "Sarkozy and Berlusconi are disgracing Europe."

A joint initiative would certainly be an historic departure for two countries that have long been regarded as among the most fervently "European".

Schengen is seen as the EU's most significant integration project after the euro. Now both are under pressure, a sign of the tensions eating away at the union.

Sarkozy, low in the polls and hoping for re-election next year, is threatened by the Front National and its leader, Marine Le Pen, who calls for the total scrapping of Schengen. Berlusconi, whose poll ratings have also been sliding, is dependent for his majority in parliament on the xenophobic Northern League, one of whose leaders, Roberto Maroni, is Italy's interior minister.

Even before the exodus from Tunisia, gains by far-right, anti-immigrant parties in north Europe had put Schengen under strain. Centrist parties in Germany, Austria, Belgium and the Netherlands have all tried to appease the far right by threatening to re-erect national border controls.

EU interior ministers are to meet on 12 May to try to resolve the issue. A joint Franco-Italian demand would need to be endorsed at the EU level.

It has been framed against a background of mutual exasperation with Greece over its difficulties in policing its frontier with Turkey, an EU external border thought to be the main crossing point into the union for clandestine migrants. Seaborne migration to islands such as Lampedusa, though highly visible, accounts for only a fraction of the total number of illegal entries.

Italy, however, is concerned that an end to the hostilities in Libya could prompt a renewed surge in attempted crossings by people who would not necessarily want to move to other EU states. Alfredo Mantovano, the junior interior minister responsible for immigration, said "the number of people involved could be 50,000".

 

Thai-Cambodia fighting disrupts border ties

Rocket-propelled grenades and fierce shelling marked the start of a new round of conflict at a normally peaceful stretch of the disputed border and sent them fleeing from their villages on Friday, killing at least 11 soldiers on both sides in two days of clashes.

They will never know who is to blame for breaching a fragile ceasefire agreed two months ago after fighting 150 km (90 miles) away. Those caught up in the worst border fighting in two decades fear ties with their neighbors, many of whom are blood relatives, may never be the same.

"They are like our brothers and sisters, we have no reason to fight. We don't know what happened, we don't know why it happened but we're all scared," said Wanchai Chaensit, 48, a rubber farmer who fled his village 3 km from the clashes.

Wanchai sits with his wife and three children at a village school 30 km away from the conflict zone, cross-legged on a sheet of cardboard under a plastic sheet tied to the side of his small tractor. This makeshift camp has become his home for the past two days and he fears the fighting will not be over soon.

"Even here, we don't feel safe. We left the village as soon as we heard the loud explosions. I hope the two governments can have dialogue and end this. We all live in peace with our neighbors and never expected this to happen."



But the chances of meaningful talks appear slim as both sides with huge pride at stake continue to blame the other for triggering the clashes.

Cambodia ramped up the rhetoric on Saturday, accusing Thailand of using cluster munitions and "poisonous gas" and seeking to take control two 12th Century Hindu temples claimed by both countries.

Thailand said the accusations were "groundless." It says the Ta Moan and Ta Krabey temples are in its Surin province, according to a 1947 map but Cambodia says the ancient, stone-walled temples are in its Oddar Meanchey province.

Calls by the United Nations and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, of which both countries are members, to find a lasting solution after four days of clashes in February have not been met as both countries disagree over how to settle the dispute.

At the village school in Prasat in Surin, scruffy-looking, bare-footed children played as scores of people queued for food at the makeshift camp. Some elderly people were treated for dehydration, family pets roamed and women dozed on straw mats.

Others fanned themselves with cardboard sheets in classrooms. Many of those evacuated were ethnic-Khmer, proficient in Thai and Cambodian dialects.

A cursory visit late on Saturday by the regional army commander, Lieutenant-General Thawatchai Samutsakorn, and dozens of troops helped ease the boredom in a camp with little to do but wait for a ceasefire.

But the five minutes the charismatic general spent dishing out food and smiling for the television cameras and his promise to protect Thailand's sovereignty did little to boost morale and failed to answer the key question on everyone's' minds.

"We've lived in peace for decades with Cambodians, we see them every day. Why are the soldiers fighting?" said Suthep Pringpom, 49.

"Who is causing this problem? I'm surprised it happened and I'm scared that this is the start of something bad."

 

Al-Qaeda envoy' Moganned killed in Chechnya

Russia has said that its forces have killed a senior Saudi-born al-Qaeda figure in the North Caucasus region.

Haled Yusef Muhammad al Emirat, described as al-Qaeda's chief envoy in the region, died with another rebel in a clash with troops in Chechnya.

Chechnya's president said the rebel, nicknamed Moganned, trained and funded insurgents, and planned acts of terror.

Russia is fighting against a low-level Islamist insurgency in several republics in the North Caucasus.

Russia's National Anti-Terrorist Committee said in a statement that Moganned was killed along with another militant in a raid on Thursday near the village of Serzhen-Yurt, in Chechnya's southern mountains.

It said that the militant has been operating in the North Caucasus since 1999 and that by 2005 he had emerged as the top liaison official with al-Qaeda, helping raise foreign funds, particularly from the Arabian Peninsula.

"Almost all acts of terror using suicide bombers in the last years were prepared with his involvement," a spokesman for the National Anti-Terror Committee said in a televised statement, according to AFP news agency.

The pro-rebel website kavkazcenter.com confirmed Moganned was killed on Thursday in a clash with security forces in Chechnya.

It said that at least two other militants had died in the attack.

Five Spanish agents escorted the 33-year-old Batista from Madrid to the Dominican capital over the weekend.

Dominican court has jailed the ex-wife of a reputed Caribbean drug kingpin for at least three months.
Leavy Nin Batista has been detained on suspicion of laundering money for her former husband's alleged trafficking network. No charges have been filed, but the Dominican legal system allows for preventive detention.

Five Spanish agents escorted the 33-year-old Batista from Madrid to the Dominican capital over the weekend. She was jailed Monday.

Batista's ex-husband is Jose Figueroa Agosto, captured last year in Puerto Rico on suspicion of shipping Colombian cocaine to the U.S. mainland.

Batista allegedly fled to Europe in 2009 with a fraudulent passport.

French police stopped a train carrying Tunisian immigrants from Italy at the border.

 flood of North African immigrants is widening divisions among some of Europe's most powerful nations and adding to strains on the long-held dream of a united Europe.
Since January an estimated 26,000 Tunisians have fled unrest in their country for the shores of Italy, where officials say the burden of caring for these immigrants should be shared by the 27-nation European Union.
The Italians have taken the unusual step of issuing many of the Tunisians temporary residence permits and say that those papers allow the immigrants to go anywhere in a 25-nation zone that permits legal European residents to cross borders without a visa.
The Italian stance has infuriated Germany and France, the former colonial power where many of the Tunisians want to reunite with relatives, friends and co-workers.
Neither side is backing down, tensions are rising, and on Sunday French police stopped a train carrying Tunisian immigrants from Italy at the border. It was an unprecedented affront to Europe's cherished vision of visa-free travel in a united continent where in many places there is nothing to indicate a national border beyond a roadside welcome sign.
There was a large French border police presence on the Italian frontier Monday and officers were checking the passports of all Tunisians passing through, and their ability to support themselves.
In Germany, separated from Italy by Austria and Switzerland, Interior Ministry spokesman Jens Teschke said there would be "more intensive observation" of people entering the country, though he would not give specifics. He said there were still no formal controls on borders that have been visa-free.
The state interior ministry in Bavaria, which contains all of Germany's border with Austria, said that a system of spot checks near the borders that has been in place since the visa-free zone started has been stepped up somewhat, leading to more checks on roads, train stations within some 20 miles of the border.
"It's a bit easy for Italy to be generous with other people's territory," said Christian Estrosi, the mayor of the French city of Nice, near the Italian border, and a prominent member of President Nicolas Sarkozy's conservative UMP party. "What are the consequences of this? Italy, in the name of the EU, has made an incredible offer of hope" to North African immigrants. "This is not acceptable."
A host of other disputes are simultaneously threatening the grand project of European unity: On the same day the French stopped the train at the Italian border of Ventimiglia, a party that opposes the EU and financial bailouts for struggling countries made significant electoral gains in Finnish elections.
The True Finns may well play a role in a new Finnish government, jeopardizing the effort to stabilize the common euro currency by bailing out Portugal and other nations — perhaps the single most visible symbol of European unity.
In any event, political wrangling in Portugal may endanger its ability to negotiate the bailout that it says it needs. And in Greece, calls are growing louder for the country to ignore the financial strictures imposed on it by the EU and default on its debts instead.
While no single issue will sever the strong, deep ties between the nations of the EU, many observers see significant long-term damage to the idea of uniting vastly dissimilar cultures and economies in a single confederation.
France said it was justified in halting the train from Italy because there were pro-immigration activists on the train who threatened public order. In any event, French officials said, it would honor the Italian residence permits only if the immigrants could show they had enough money to support themselves.
The town of Ventimiglia said Sunday that it would find temporary shelter for the Tunisians who were aboard the train. It was not immediately clear Monday if all were still in the town, returning to other places in Italy or trying to get to France by other means.
Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni said the immigrants should be allowed to travel throughout the Schengen area.
"We have given the migrants travel documents, and we gave everything that is needed," Maroni said in an interview on Italy's Sky TG24 TV.
But Michele Cercone, a European Union spokesman, said the French appeared to be within their rights under the Schengen agreement to refuse entry to the immigrants. A temporary residence permit, Cercone said, is neither an EU passport nor and EU visa and does not grant people the right to move freely in the borderless Schengen area — the group of 25 European countries to which both Italy and France belong.
Cercone also said the Schengen agreement allows police checks along borders, so long as they are not systematic and do not amount to border controls. And people can be prevented from crossing a border for reasons of public security, he said.

Security agencies detained a Denmark flagged ship following information that two crew members onboard were planning to offload arms and ammunition at Raigad near Mumbai on Sunday night.

Security agencies detained a Denmark flagged ship following information that two crew members onboard were planning to offload arms and ammunition at Raigad near Mumbai on Sunday night.

Sources said Indian intelligence agencies were tipped off about the plans and the two crew members' names. Gangster Dawood Ibrahim's aides had offloaded explosives used in the March 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts at Raigad.

A coast guard vessel on patrol in area was sent to carry out a search operation on the ship following the tip-off.

A security official said, "A message was relayed through the radio frequency to all ships asking them about the presence of the two people whose names intelligence agencies had provided. MV Danica Sunrise, Denmark flagged vessel, that arrived in Mumbai on April 17, confirmed the presence of these two members in their team.''

The team boarded the Danish vessel anchored 2km off the Gateway of India. It carried a search of the vessel around 10.30 pm on Sunday apart from the interrogation of the crew members. In the next few hours, Anti-Terrorism Squad, immigration department, intelligence bureau and customs officials joined the coast guard team for inspection and interrogation that went on beyond midnight.

A source said, "No arms or ammunition were found. The vessel has been detained and further search and interrogation is being carried out." The two crew members were former British army soldiers.

U.S. Border Patrol agent was arrested Tuesday on narcotics smuggling charges,

U.S. Border Patrol agent was arrested Tuesday on narcotics smuggling charges, but the federal agency declined to release his name, a spokesman told CNN.
The agent, who was turned over to the Drug Enforcement Administration, was being held in the Yuma, Arizona, County jail, said Kenneth Quillin, supervisory border patrol agent.
The agent, who has three years' experience with the border patrol, was arrested after two other Border Patrol agents on Monday were patrolling along the U.S.-Mexico border and saw the suspect agent with "numerous bundles of marijuana inside a marked Border Patrol truck," Quillin said in a statement.
The agents reported the incident to a supervisor, and the suspect agent, along with the marijuana, was placed in the custody of the DEA, Quillin said.
Rodolfo Karisch, acting chief patrol agent for the Yuma Sector, said he was "proud of the swift and appropriate actions taken by the arresting agents."
"They knew the right thing to do and did it, as expected. They put honor first and are to be commended. This can not be said of the suspect," he said in a statement.
"I will not refer to the subject of this arrest as 'one of us.' By his alleged actions, he has tarnished our image," Karisch said in a statement. "We will pursue the prosecution of this individual to the fullest extent allowed by law."

Dominican police arrest 12 soldiers in alleged scheme to ship drugs to Canada in suitcase

Twelve soldiers assigned to combat drug trafficking in the Dominican Republic have been arrested in an alleged scheme to smuggle cocaine to Canada in a child's suitcase, a prosecutor said Monday.
Eight of the soldiers, including a lieutenant colonel and captain, were detailed to the national anti-drug agency at the airport in Puerto Plata while four were assigned to security duties at the airport terminal, said prosecutor Elvis Garcia. Two civilians who work there were also arrested.
A judge ordered all the suspects held pending an investigation into charges of drug smuggling, Garcia said.
The arrests stem from the discovery on March 23 of more than 33 kilograms (73 pounds) of cocaine in a child's suitcase. The girl was travelling with her parents and sister from Puerto Plata, about 240 kilometres (150 miles) north of Santo Domingo, to Toronto.
The parents were not detained. Garcia said investigators believe they may have been working with the smugglers but it hadn't been decided yet whether Dominican authorities would pursue charges against them.

Workers at Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant are using dye to try to trace the route of highly radioactive water flowing from a reactor into the sea.

Workers at Japan's quake-hit nuclear plant are using dye to try to trace the route of highly radioactive water flowing from a reactor into the sea.

The source of the leak was identified at the weekend as a 20cm (8in) crack in a concrete pit at reactor 2.

Earlier efforts to plug the hole using a highly absorbent polymer failed.

The plant's operator has been been struggling for more than three weeks to regain control after a huge quake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems.

The BBC's Roland Buerk in Tokyo says the emergency workers still face a dilemma of pumping water in to the reactors, to try to stop them overheating.

If they do, he says, the risk is that there is more contaminated water around the plant that could escape into the environment.

Japan's top government spokesman said the leak must be stopped "as soon as possible".

The cumulative effects of a possible long-term leak "will have a huge impact on the ocean", Yukio Edano told a news conference on Monday.

The authorities have said the radioactive material will rapidly dissipate in the sea and is not thought likely to endanger human health.