Feds: Accused heroin trafficker to plead guilty to officer assault » Knoxville News Sentinel: "Antonio Perez Edwards has inked a deal with Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Ann Norris to plead guilty this morning to a charge of assaulting a federal officer with a deadly weapon.
Perez was being sought by officers on the FBI’s Safe Streets Task Force in June on warrants charging him with peddling heroin and oxycodone.
When agents boxed in Perez’s vehicle, he rammed Task Force Officer Mark Webber’s police vehicle, the plea deal stated. Webber was knocked onto Perez’s vehicle and rolled across it before falling to the street, injuring his shoulder, Norris wrote."
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
Wednesday, 15 September 2010
A contraband ‘trip’ from India to around the world - Mumbai - DNA
A contraband ‘trip’ from India to around the world - Mumbai - DNA: "“To tell the story of Coleridge without opium is to tell the story of Hamlet without mentioning the ghost,” wrote a critic. Obviously, he was not the only one among the great creative spirits to experience wild flights of fancy under influence. Early men discovered the strange properties of certain plants quite early and sought to give intoxication some legitimacy by associating it with religion. Bhang and ganja have been a part of Indian religious tradition for long. Social consumption was just the natural extension. But what was limited to a select few and to select occasions has broken free of confinement.
The democratisation of the use of drugs has spawned a roaring business enterprise. The trip contraband makes is a complex operation now, involving consumers, suppliers and the supply chain. With drug preferences and the consumer base changing, the business has been in transition.
But Mumbai, with its peculiar connect to all parts of the country, courtesy its vast migrant population, and significant user base, has remained a constant in the drugs map. It also remains a major transshipment point for traditional drugs by virtue of its accessibility by sea and illegal marine routes. But before zeroing in on Mumbai, it is pertinent to have an overview of the drugs scene in the country."
The democratisation of the use of drugs has spawned a roaring business enterprise. The trip contraband makes is a complex operation now, involving consumers, suppliers and the supply chain. With drug preferences and the consumer base changing, the business has been in transition.
But Mumbai, with its peculiar connect to all parts of the country, courtesy its vast migrant population, and significant user base, has remained a constant in the drugs map. It also remains a major transshipment point for traditional drugs by virtue of its accessibility by sea and illegal marine routes. But before zeroing in on Mumbai, it is pertinent to have an overview of the drugs scene in the country."
Monday, 13 September 2010
Ricky Hatton admits cocaine addiction and will enter rehab this week - mirror.co.uk
Ricky Hatton admits cocaine addiction and will enter rehab this week - mirror.co.uk: "Ricky Hatton will check into a rehab clinic this week after tearfully confessing to a year-long cocaine addiction.
The former boxing world champ was caught on camera snorting “industrial” amounts of cocaine during a sordid drink-and-drugs binge a fortnight ago.
Hatton admitted being hooked on the Class A drug in an emotional heart-to-heart with fiancée Jennifer Dooley yesterday.
He told her: “I’ve been an idiot and I’m so sorry and ashamed. I need and want to sort myself out.”
She was horrified to discover Hatton, 31, had seven lines of cocaine during a night out in Manchester.
The bloated ex-boxer then admitted he had been taking the drug for almost a year – beginning shortly after his last fight, when he was knocked out in two rounds by Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Hatton was caught on film taking out a wrap of cocaine hidden in his shoe before chopping up lines with a credit card in a hotel room.
He then expertly snorted the drug through a rolled up £20 note.
In addition to the seven lines of cocaine that night, he drank 11 pints of Guinness, four vodkas, two glasses of wine and several sambuccas.
But a source close to the retired fighter, who became a national hero as world light-welterweight king, said: “He’s now vowed to get himself clean. He’ll go into a rehab clinic very soon and he has the support of Jen and the rest of his family.”"
The former boxing world champ was caught on camera snorting “industrial” amounts of cocaine during a sordid drink-and-drugs binge a fortnight ago.
Hatton admitted being hooked on the Class A drug in an emotional heart-to-heart with fiancée Jennifer Dooley yesterday.
He told her: “I’ve been an idiot and I’m so sorry and ashamed. I need and want to sort myself out.”
She was horrified to discover Hatton, 31, had seven lines of cocaine during a night out in Manchester.
The bloated ex-boxer then admitted he had been taking the drug for almost a year – beginning shortly after his last fight, when he was knocked out in two rounds by Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao.
Hatton was caught on film taking out a wrap of cocaine hidden in his shoe before chopping up lines with a credit card in a hotel room.
He then expertly snorted the drug through a rolled up £20 note.
In addition to the seven lines of cocaine that night, he drank 11 pints of Guinness, four vodkas, two glasses of wine and several sambuccas.
But a source close to the retired fighter, who became a national hero as world light-welterweight king, said: “He’s now vowed to get himself clean. He’ll go into a rehab clinic very soon and he has the support of Jen and the rest of his family.”"
Sunday, 12 September 2010
Sergeant Smack lays to rest once and for all the insidious Rumour That Would Not Die about heroin trafficking at the time of the Vietnam conflict
Sergeant Smack is the fitting title of a book that centres on Ike Atkinson, a successful US Army Master Sergeant who parlayed street smarts into a brief career as one of the world's leading heroin peddlers, followed by a lifetime behind bars.
Atkinson was the brains and operator of the Thailand end of a heroin epidemic that swept across North America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, even infecting and crippling US troops in the Vietnam war.
More importantly, this book - breathlessly subtitled The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and His Band of Brothers - is the gold standard describing this important niche of history of both the US and Thailand.
Seasoned crime reporter and author Ron Chepesiuk has done what no predecessor bothered.
He has put the solid facts of an important era down in black and white. He has wiped out a dozen myths, uncovered important information and made it impossible for future historians to gild the lily, and let a good story overwrite the facts.
Most spectacularly, Sergeant Smack lays to rest once and for all the insidious Rumour That Would Not Die about heroin trafficking at the time of the Vietnam conflict - the cadaver connection.
Chepesiuk eviscerates the ridiculous rumour of smuggling heroin inside the bodies of US servicemen killed in the Vietnam War. Over the years, but particularly in the very early 1970s, dozens of officials and newsmen spent thousands of hours trying to track down this sensational allegation. Sergeant Smack even details its origin, in a careless remark by a panicked assistant district attorney in Maryland.
The myth of the cadaver connection has survived, and is still seen. The 2007 movie American Gangster about the fictional life of the real criminal Frank Lucas revived it.
In the movie, Denzel Washington plays Lucas, who very fictionally flies to Thailand for a few days, travels to the heart of the Golden Triangle to arrange some heroin shipments in the bodies of dead GIs, and flies back home.
In real life, Lucas is now a legend in his own mind. His real part in the heroin epidemic was as a dealer in the US, supplied by the Ike Atkinson gang.
When Lucas dies, his epitaph should read: "He fooled the world into believing the cadaver connection."
To a reader at this end of the heroin connection, Sergeant Smack's most interesting sections deal with the opaque Thai involvement in the trade.
Much work remains, but Chepesiuk is the first important writer to reveal the main supplier to the US smuggling gang, Luchai "Chai" Ruviwat.
A Thai-Chinese businessman who invested with Atkinson in the GI hangout Jack's American Star Bar, Luchai remains a shadowy figure. Lured to the US where he was arrested and imprisoned for years, Luchai is still something of a ghost, who no doubt could shed much light on the men in green and in high places who made the heroin trade possible between the Golden Triangle and Bangkok.
Corruption "was just a part of doing business", reports this book, and foreign embassies routinely reported involvement in the heroin trade by senior military, police, government and "the most respected Thai families".
Example: A prominent hotel in central Sukhumvit Road was built on piles of peddled heroin.
But the US military had no moral high ground. Atkinson's team bought, sold and transported heroin from the green cocoon provided by the US military uniforms they wore. Ostensibly employed by the US government and taxpayers, Atkinson's organised group included chiefs, workers, spotters and drug mules.
In fact, the best you could say is that the US military tried to police itself.
In June 1975, after years as a kingpin, Atkinson received his first sentence for drug smuggling - but continued to run his gang from inside prison.
Chepesiuk details the long, tortured task of law enforcement to bust the Atkinson ring. A key event came in mid-1975 when a hapless military customs agent in Bangkok accidentally discovered a huge heroin stash in a teak-furniture shipment by US Army Sgt Jasper Myrick - a front-page story in the Bangkok Post, but a milestone in busting the kingpin and his band of brothers.
Atkinson's operation ended in a combination of arrests and the 1976 US troop withdrawal from Thailand, but the Thai connection merely evolved. The US busted and jailed the chief supplier to the military ring, Luchai. He was only a cog in the supply chain controlled by senior Thai officials - although described apocryphally by US anti-drug agents as Mr Big.
With this book, author Chepesiuk has turned the corner from crime writer to historian. Sergeant Smack is not a "good read" or "worth having in your reference library". It is a vital and necessary source for anyone seeking to understand the intertwining of cross-border crime, recent Thai history, and the mixed emotions of the US military involvement in Thailand during the Vietnam War.
Atkinson was the brains and operator of the Thailand end of a heroin epidemic that swept across North America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, even infecting and crippling US troops in the Vietnam war.
More importantly, this book - breathlessly subtitled The Legendary Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson, Kingpin, and His Band of Brothers - is the gold standard describing this important niche of history of both the US and Thailand.
Seasoned crime reporter and author Ron Chepesiuk has done what no predecessor bothered.
He has put the solid facts of an important era down in black and white. He has wiped out a dozen myths, uncovered important information and made it impossible for future historians to gild the lily, and let a good story overwrite the facts.
Most spectacularly, Sergeant Smack lays to rest once and for all the insidious Rumour That Would Not Die about heroin trafficking at the time of the Vietnam conflict - the cadaver connection.
Chepesiuk eviscerates the ridiculous rumour of smuggling heroin inside the bodies of US servicemen killed in the Vietnam War. Over the years, but particularly in the very early 1970s, dozens of officials and newsmen spent thousands of hours trying to track down this sensational allegation. Sergeant Smack even details its origin, in a careless remark by a panicked assistant district attorney in Maryland.
The myth of the cadaver connection has survived, and is still seen. The 2007 movie American Gangster about the fictional life of the real criminal Frank Lucas revived it.
In the movie, Denzel Washington plays Lucas, who very fictionally flies to Thailand for a few days, travels to the heart of the Golden Triangle to arrange some heroin shipments in the bodies of dead GIs, and flies back home.
In real life, Lucas is now a legend in his own mind. His real part in the heroin epidemic was as a dealer in the US, supplied by the Ike Atkinson gang.
When Lucas dies, his epitaph should read: "He fooled the world into believing the cadaver connection."
To a reader at this end of the heroin connection, Sergeant Smack's most interesting sections deal with the opaque Thai involvement in the trade.
Much work remains, but Chepesiuk is the first important writer to reveal the main supplier to the US smuggling gang, Luchai "Chai" Ruviwat.
A Thai-Chinese businessman who invested with Atkinson in the GI hangout Jack's American Star Bar, Luchai remains a shadowy figure. Lured to the US where he was arrested and imprisoned for years, Luchai is still something of a ghost, who no doubt could shed much light on the men in green and in high places who made the heroin trade possible between the Golden Triangle and Bangkok.
Corruption "was just a part of doing business", reports this book, and foreign embassies routinely reported involvement in the heroin trade by senior military, police, government and "the most respected Thai families".
Example: A prominent hotel in central Sukhumvit Road was built on piles of peddled heroin.
But the US military had no moral high ground. Atkinson's team bought, sold and transported heroin from the green cocoon provided by the US military uniforms they wore. Ostensibly employed by the US government and taxpayers, Atkinson's organised group included chiefs, workers, spotters and drug mules.
In fact, the best you could say is that the US military tried to police itself.
In June 1975, after years as a kingpin, Atkinson received his first sentence for drug smuggling - but continued to run his gang from inside prison.
Chepesiuk details the long, tortured task of law enforcement to bust the Atkinson ring. A key event came in mid-1975 when a hapless military customs agent in Bangkok accidentally discovered a huge heroin stash in a teak-furniture shipment by US Army Sgt Jasper Myrick - a front-page story in the Bangkok Post, but a milestone in busting the kingpin and his band of brothers.
Atkinson's operation ended in a combination of arrests and the 1976 US troop withdrawal from Thailand, but the Thai connection merely evolved. The US busted and jailed the chief supplier to the military ring, Luchai. He was only a cog in the supply chain controlled by senior Thai officials - although described apocryphally by US anti-drug agents as Mr Big.
With this book, author Chepesiuk has turned the corner from crime writer to historian. Sergeant Smack is not a "good read" or "worth having in your reference library". It is a vital and necessary source for anyone seeking to understand the intertwining of cross-border crime, recent Thai history, and the mixed emotions of the US military involvement in Thailand during the Vietnam War.
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