Update on Massacre of Polygamists in Mexico

[smac97]

Court Orders Mexican Drug Cartel to Pay Mormon Families $4.6 Billion After Desert Massacre

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A Mexican drug cartel must pay an offshoot Mormon community roughly $1.5 billion for their involvement in the gruesome murder of three women and six children in November 2019, a U.S. court ruled Thursday. The families alleged that the Juarez cartel massacre—one of the worst in the history of Mexico’s “drug war”—constituted terrorism. Under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, such financial reimbursements are automatically tripled, bringing the total settlement to a whopping $4.6 billion. 

Not sure why the journalist is referencing a "settlement."  The result was obtained not by a settlement between the parties, but by a judgment.

Quote

Family members of the deceased, who were all U.S. citizens, filed the lawsuit in a North Dakota courtroom against the Juarez cartel and one of its subgroups, La Linea, after the highly-publicized massacre in the Mexican border state of Sonora. 

The case is unique for being one of the first to try a drug cartel in its entirety as the defendant.

The cartel did not have representation at the trial, nor did it respond to a published summons, according to the Bismarck Tribune. It’s unclear how American authorities intend to make the Mexico-based cartel pay, but the government can freeze assets of terrorist organizations on U.S. soil, if they have any, and use the funds to pay the victims.

Drug cartels, like pretty much every other organization in the world, must still work within financial systems.  There is no way for them to have a purely "cash" business (as in physical bills of various denominations).  Sooner or later (usually sooner), both physical cash and electronic monetary transfers (like Venmo) will need to hit a bank account.  Some of those banks are likely going to be in the U.S. and/or otherwise subject to orders from American courts.

The next steps will involve private investigators, forensic accountants, and further legal proceedings in which the plaintiffs' attorneys will connect particular bank accounts to the defendants, which accounts can then be frozen and/or liquidated.

No amount of money can compensate for the great evil that was done here, but hitting a drug cartel's wallet is sometimes the only means a private party has.

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The 2019 murders of the Mormon families was one of the most dramatic cases of civilian casualties in Mexico’s drug wars in recent memories, which was amplified by their U.S. citizenship and connections to the Mormon church. The families are decedents of a polygamist sect of fundamentalist Mormons that moved to Mexico from the U.S. around 100 years prior.

But on November 4 2019, Christina Langford Johnson, 29, Dawna Langford, 43, and Rhonita Miller, 30, were driving through rural Sonora in three SUV’s along with 14 children, when they ran into alleged members of La Linea. In the ensuing attack, the three women were killed, along with 8-month-old twins, a 2-year-old, and three other children between 10 and 12. Several burned to death inside of the vehicles. Five of the seven surviving children were also shot, although they lived after trekking through near-freezing temperatures in search of help.
...

The surviving children are some of the beneficiaries of the lawsuit, filed by the Miller/LeBaron family and the Johnson/Langford family. The judgement document provides a chilling step by step picture of the massacre, and the reasons behind it.

The plaintiffs alleged that the day before the killings “100 heavily armed individuals had a meeting … at the ranch of the criminal organization known as La Linea or the Juarez Cartel. The main objective of this criminal organization was to take back the territory of Agua Prieta which at that time belonged to the Sinaloa cartel.”

During the meeting, “the order was [given] to shoot ... at anyone, be it a civilian, police officer, just anyone.”

The next day, the families left in a caravan for the United States and encountered the cartel in two areas near the town La Mora, Sonora. After having car problems, the caravan was separated and in two different attacks, the cartel killed nine people.

In the aftermath of the massacre, Mexican authorities arrested 31 people allegedly connected to La Linea and the Juarez cartel, although only seven have been charged with the homicides, according to the family of some of the victims.

More information here:

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The family members of the victims filed a lawsuit accusing the Juarez cartel of carrying out the November 2019 attack in Mexico as retribution for their public criticism and protests against the cartel. Cartel members fired hundreds of rounds of ammunition into vehicles and then set them on fire. Mexican authorities said in 2020 that the mastermind of the attack was one of 17 people arrested.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Clare Hochhalter’s award will be automatically tripled under federal Anti-Terrorism Act, increasing the amount to $4.6 billion. The government can freeze assets of terrorist organizations, but it’s unclear if the U.S. Treasury Department holds any cartel assets.

The Bismarck Tribune reported that the cartel did not respond to a published summons or have representation at a trial in North Dakota in March.

I was wondering how the federal court worked this.  Normally, an American court does not acquire jurisdiction over a party until it (the party) is formally served with the lawsuit (the "Complaint"), typically in-person delivery of the printed document along with a "Summons" telling the defendant what it needs to do moving forward. 

There are circumstances in which a defendant cannot be located, or else deliberately evades attempts to serve the Complaint.  In such circumstances the court - as an alternative to acquiring jurisdiction via formal "in-person" service of the paper Summons/Complaint - can instead authorize the plaintiff to publish a "Notice" of the lawsuit in a newspaper (and, these days, online). 

The courts recognize that the likelihood of the defendant seeing such a "service by publication" notice is very low, and so generally require the plaintiff to first demonstrate its efforts to affect an "in-person" service of the paper documents.  Once the court is satisfied with these efforts (and/or satisfied that the defendant is evading service), it will authorize "service by publication," which is apparently what happened here.

From the first article above: "The case is unique for being one of the first to try a drug cartel in its entirety as the defendant."  It won't be the last, I bet.

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The surviving family members include two widowers of women killed who were working in North Dakota at the time the suit was filed. Their lawyer said various family members were living in the state and working in the oil industry while traveling back and forth to Mexico.

“We went into a United States courtroom in North Dakota seeking some acknowledgement of and measure of justice for the trauma inflicted on our family and we received it,” said David Langford, the husband of one of the victims.

My condolences to the families of the victims.  

It is mildly gratifying to see some justice done.  Hopefully the authorities in Mexico will do their jobs well in terms of criminal prosecution of the participants to the murders.

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

18 minutes ago, Obehave said:

I can see how the government can take someone's personal assets after proving someone is a member of a drug cartel, but someone in a drug cartel would just steal or make more money from drugs to get what they wanted.

Can I steal all your money? I mean, it can’t really hurt you. You can just make more.

[smac97]

21 minutes ago, Obehave said:

I'm not so sure about that.  I've heard stories about huge warehouses used to store cash money and other tangible assets those people use as "money".  Works of art, cars, jewelry and gold, for example.  They don't seem to need to use any bank accounts.

Back in the day criminal organizations used all sorts of "front" businesses to launder money, to make it appear to have been earned by legitimate means.  

Much of the current success of Las Vegas is attributable to the Mob back east going there and setting up casinos to launder their ill-gotten booty (and, of course, to make gobs of money from the unwise people who indulge in gambling).

These days, cash - bills of various denominations - are quickly going downhill in terms of overall prevalence of use.  And the more we shift to a "cashless" society, the more we rely on electronic transactions.  Those transactions will often necessarily go through legitimate banks.  There are alternatives, of course, such as cryptocurrency.  

21 minutes ago, Obehave said:

I can see how the government can take someone's personal assets after proving someone is a member of a drug cartel, but someone in a drug cartel would just steal or make more money from drugs to get what they wanted.

Nice that a "Mormon" community will get $4.6 billion, though, before taxes.

Well, we'll see.  The attorneys will likely get a huge chunk (33-50%) of whatever money comes in.  And getting the money will itself be a very expensive endeavor.  But a $4.6 billion Pot of Gold makes the effort worthwhile.

Thanks,

-Smac

[strappinglad]

Gee, a drug cartel owes you money, and if they refuse to pay your lawyers will send them... a strongly worded letter!

The order of serious consequences goes : 1. you owe the cartel money

                                                                       2. the cartel owes you money

 

[smac97]

1 minute ago, Obehave said:

I understand and agree with your points but I don't see drug cartels going cashless anytime soon except when using other tangible assets. 

More and more people are using electronic means to purchase illicit substances.  See, e.g., here:

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Millennials, the much-maligned generation of supposedly tech-savvy ingrates born sometime in the 1980s or 90s, frequently find themselves on the receiving end of poorly thought out criticism.

And yet, like something out of a David Brooks wet dream, they seem to have once again one-upped themselves when it comes to cluelessness. You see, it turns out that the digital generation is using the payment app Venmo to buy drugs.

Like, illegal drugs. From drug dealers.

For those not in the know, Venmo allows users to easily send and receive payments — attaching little notes to each and every transaction. A typical use between friends might be splitting a check at a restaurant that won't accept multiple credit cards, or hitting your buddy back for some concert tickets he bought. It's incredibly convenient, and likewise incredibly popular.

It also keeps a record of every single transaction. Every. Single. Transaction.

LendEDU, which bills itself as "a marketplace for student loans and student loan refinance," wanted to see if youngsters these days were using the definitely not-anonymous payments app for purposes better left to cash. And oh boy will its findings leave you in a deep face-palm spiral.

"We commissioned an online survey of over 1,000 millennials to find out how many of them were using Venmo for drugs or gambling," reads the report. "The first question was asked to 1,217 millennials and read like this: 'Have you used Venmo to pay for drugs (ex. Marijuana, adderall, cocaine, etc.)?' Nearly a third of respondents, 32.6 percent, claimed that they have used Venmo for some type of drug."

That's right, close to a third of those surveyed admitted to using Venmo — which, again, keeps a record of each transaction — to pay for illegal drugs.

As a fellow millennial (hi guys!), I can only hang my head in shame. To my fellow 20/30-somethings reading this, do you really think anyone is fooled by that "leaf" emoji you keep attaching to semimonthly $60 payments?

Because no one is.

Electronic paper trails are here to stay.

1 minute ago, Obehave said:

News reports, TV shows and movies still show bags or briefcases full of cash money as their most common and preferred form of payment.  Very few accept checks or credit cards as forms of payment.  Bank transfers sometimes, yes, that happens sometimes, but still most often they want bags or briefcases full of cash money. 

I'm not sure about that.  See here:

Quote

Drug deals via apps

A NY Times report says that social media apps are now the primary way teenagers and young adults buy illegal drugs. Dealers create profiles containing enough clues to be recognized by their target market, and the deals are done in private messages.

Shortly after Kade Webb, 20, collapsed and died in a bathroom at a Safeway Market in Roseville, Calif., in December, the police opened his phone and went straight to his social media apps. There, they found exactly what they feared.

Mr. Webb, a laid-back snowboarder and skateboarder who, with the imminent birth of his first child, had become despondent over his pandemic-dimmed finances, bought Percocet, a prescription opioid, through a dealer on Snapchat. It turned out to be spiked with a lethal amount of fentanyl.

Mr. Webb’s death was one of nearly 108,000 drug fatalities in the United States last year, a record, according to preliminary numbers released this month by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Law enforcement authorities say an alarming portion of them unfolded the same way as his: from counterfeit pills tainted with fentanyl that teenagers and young adults bought over social media.

“Social media is almost exclusively the way they get the pills,” said Morgan Gire, district attorney for Placer County, Calif., where 40 people died from fentanyl poisoning last year. He has filed murder charges against a 20-year-old man accused of being Mr. Webb’s dealer, who pleaded not guilty. “About 90 percent of the pills that you’re buying from a dealer on social media now are fentanyl,” Mr. Gire said.

Emoji are one of the key clues used to signal the availability of drugs without alerting moderators and law enforcement. Posts are made, and then quickly deleted once people respond.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is running a public awareness campaign One Pill Can Kill.

“Drug traffickers advertise on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube. These advertisements are in disappearing, 24-hour stories and in posts, which are promptly posted and removed. Posts and stories are often accompanied by known code words and emojis that are used to market and sell illicit and deadly drugs on social media. These code words and emojis are designed to evade detection by law enforcement and by the preset algorithms used by social media platforms.

Prospective buyers contact drug traffickers on social media apps in response to their advertisements – either using direct messaging or by commenting on a post. Once contact is made, drug traffickers and potential buyers often move to an encrypted communications app like WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. Drug traffickers typically switch to these encrypted communications apps to arrange drug deals with prospective buyers.

After a deal is made, drug traffickers request payment using one-click apps like Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, and Remitly.

There is certainly a "Whack-a-Mole" element to all this, but when the transaction starts in an electronic way (as opposed to paying with paper currency), the likelihood of large cartels converting it into paper currency seems . . . unlikely.  Instead, they need to figure out a way to electronically launder it.

Thanks,

-Smac

[ksfisher]

11 minutes ago, Obehave said:

...TV shows and movies still show bags or briefcases full of cash money as their most common and preferred form of payment. 

You do realize TV shows and movies are works of fiction, right? 

 

12 minutes ago, Obehave said:

Very few accept checks or credit cards as forms of payment.

True.  I used to write personal checks to my dealer all the time, now he won't touch them.  He won't accept Visa because he says the transaction fees are too high.  This has left us working with a sort of barter system based on the looted Peruvian antiquities that I've managed to stockpile in my garage.

[smac97]

6 minutes ago, Obehave said:

Okay, apparently I was not up to date on how drugs are commonly purchased now.   That $4.6 million will probably come from the customers who paid with some electronic form of payment.  About 1/3 of money received by drug cartels, it seems.

With marijuana now considered to be a legal drug in many places, I wonder if drug cartels are still involved in the supply chain.  As far as I know maybe they supply only pills and powders now.

Drug cartels are still in the game.  Never underestimate the government's ability to screw things up via excessive regulation and taxation.  See, e.g., here:

Quote

Illegal Cannabis Market Continues To Thrive Because Of High Taxes On Legal Weed

The higher cost of legal weed is so significant that most users are continuing to buy from illegal sources.

By STEVEN CHUNG

onFebruary 2, 2022 at 5:47 PM

In 2016, California voters legalized the sale and use of cannabis in the state, with some exceptions. The problem is that the price of legal weed is so expensive that most people are still getting their weed illegally.

Why is the price of legal weed so … high? All kinds of state and local taxes which are passed on to the final user.

First, there is the general sales tax, which is on average 9%. And then there is the state excise tax of 15%. And there is a cultivation tax paid by licensed cultivators. Dispensaries will also pay a local business tax which is on average 7% (major cities charge around 10%). Lastly, there is a disguised excise tax from the federal government — Section 280E of the Internal Revenue Code prohibits business deductions against income for cannabis-related business activities.

So if you add it all up, somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of the price of legal weed goes to taxes.

And prices are likely to go even higher in the future. There will be additional regulations on growth and cultivation in order to minimize environmental damage and health risks, the costs of which will be passed onto consumers as well.

The higher cost of legal weed is so significant that most users are continuing to buy from illegal sources. Not only are they cheaper, they are also generally easier to obtain since some cities in California ban dispensaries.
...
Why has legalizing cannabis turned into a policy failure in California? Quite simply, the government wanted revenue in exchange for allowing people to use what many people still consider a harmful substance and possibly a gateway drug to something harder. The problem is that they got greedy and sought to profit a little too much from legalization. California already has one of the highest sales tax rates in the nation. Adding additional excise taxes and fees is a buzzkill.

The outcome is nothing new. In the case of cigarettes, states with high excise taxes are more likely to have a black market for them. This defeats the purpose of these taxes: raising revenue and discouraging smoking in general, particularly to minors.

Another observation is that people who constantly shout “legalize, tax, and regulate” only care about the legalize part.

I am ambivalent about drug policy.  It seems like an intractably "heads we lose, tails we lose" problem.

Thanks,

-Smac

[cacheman]

I'm wondering about the title of this thread referring to a "massacre of polygamists" Were any of the victims polygamists?  Most of them were children and I haven't seen any of the adults identified as polygamists. I know that some in their community practice polygamy. But I was under the impression that most don't.  Maybe @Navidadknows more.  

-cacheman 

[LoudmouthMormon]

On 7/8/2022 at 1:16 PM, Obehave said:

I understand and agree with your points but I don't see drug cartels going cashless anytime soon except when using other tangible assets.  News reports, TV shows and movies still show bags or briefcases full of cash money as their most common and preferred form of payment.  Very few accept checks or credit cards as forms of payment.  Bank transfers sometimes, yes, that happens sometimes, but still most often they want bags or briefcases full of cash money. 

There's lots of crypto transactions too.  Darkweb financial transactions sound like bad scifi, but it's absolutely a thing.

From the delivery end, here's a common story:  Folks will cross the border illegally into the US, and pay for it by working for someone once they're in the states.  A family makes it across, but are separated along the way.

Someone hands the dad a backpack containing some cash, a cell phone, and two keys.  The cell phone gives them addresses - one key goes to an empty apartment stocked with some food, the other key goes to a bus locker or somesuch.  The bus locker has another backpack in it, the cell phone tells the person where to deliver the backpack.  Over time, new cell phones show up, new keys, new delivery instructions.  Some illicit sites are sort of like ordering from DoorDash.  "Cashless" will probably never happen, but absolutely there are electronic transactions happening all over the place in this industry.

Dad is told if the cops nab him, he's free to tell them everything he knows.  "Someone handed me this backpack, I haven't met a single human since."  It's basically impossible to find his handlers or bosses or whatever.  And with the decriminalization movement, he might not even spend a night in jail for dealing.  Maybe he'll get a court date, maybe he won't even catch a charge.

After the dad has "paid" for his family's ticket with his labor, maybe he's given a bus ticket to another state to find his family.  Or maybe they like him so much they just extend his contract another 6 months.  Maybe the mom and kids are safe, maybe they were sold into the sex trafficking world.  Depends on their age and sex.  Maybe dad will never find out.  Maybe there's a bust or someone dies, and the cellphones and backpacks stop coming, and dad is stuck in a city somewhere with an empty apartment, no food, and no clue where his family is.

My source is two different police agencies in Colorado, telling their stories to the community.

Edited July 12, 2022 by LoudmouthMormon

[mfbukowski]

On 7/8/2022 at 12:45 PM, Obehave said:

With marijuana now considered to be a legal drug in many places, I wonder if drug cartels are still involved in the supply chain.

No, they are not interested in making money, just being illegal and evil.   🙄   

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

There's lots of crypto transactions too.  Darkweb financial transactions sound like bad scifi, but it's absolutely a thing.

From the delivery end, here's a common story:  Folks will cross the border illegally into the US, and pay for it by working for someone once they're in the states.  A family makes it across, but are separated along the way.

Someone hands the dad a backpack containing some cash, a cell phone, and two keys.  The cell phone gives them addresses - one key goes to an empty apartment stocked with some food, the other key goes to a bus locker or somesuch.  The bus locker has another backpack in it, the cell phone tells the person where to deliver the backpack.  Over time, new cell phones show up, new keys, new delivery instructions.  Some illicit sites are sort of like ordering from DoorDash.  "Cashless" will probably never happen, but absolutely there are electronic transactions happening all over the place in this industry.

Dad is told if the cops nab him, he's free to tell them everything he knows.  "Someone handed me this backpack, I haven't met a single human since."  It's basically impossible to find his handlers or bosses or whatever.  And with the decriminalization movement, he might not even spend a night in jail for dealing.  Maybe he'll get a court date, maybe he won't even catch a charge.

After the dad has "paid" for his family's ticket with his labor, maybe he's given a bus ticket to another state to find his family.  Or maybe they like him so much they just extend his contract another 6 months.  Maybe the mom and kids are safe, maybe they were sold into the sex trafficking world.  Depends on their age and sex.  Maybe dad will never find out.  Maybe there's a bust or someone dies, and the cellphones and backpacks stop coming, and dad is stuck in a city somewhere with an empty apartment, no food, and no clue where his family is.

My source is two different police agencies in Colorado, telling their stories to the community.

I don’t understand why we let this go on.

Edited July 12, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[The Nehor]

39 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

I don’t understand why we let this go on.

We don’t collectively care enough to stop it or to find solutions to minimize it.

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

We don’t collectively care enough to stop it or to find solutions to minimize it.

Yet we are able to riot over pronouns.

 

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Yet we are able to riot over pronouns.

 

Our priorities are eclectic and generally very stupid.

[Avatar4321]

What is going to stop the cartels from killing the attorneys and plaintiffs and taking their money back?