Ex-Tijuana mayor owns firearms cache in Mexico, a nation with strong gun control laws...

[spin]

Ex-Tijuana Mayor 'Awakened By Masked Men' During Alleged Weapons Raid
POSTED: 9:04 pm MDT June 5, 2011


TTIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- Soldiers swept into the compound of flashy gambling tycoon Jorge Hank Rhon around 3:30 a.m., hustling him and his family from bed. They left with a cache of arms and the powerful Mexican politician in custody.

Saturday’s raid was a bold strike against Tijuana’s former mayor, who has prospered through decades of never-proven suspicion that his family’s fortunes are linked to illegal drugs.

Troops found 40 rifles, 48 handguns, 9,298 bullets, 70 ammunition clips and a gas grenade, authorities said.

Mexican law limits ownership of large-caliber firearms to the military and requires licensing of most other guns. Violations can be punished by as long as 15 years in prison in some cases.emphasis added
http://www.kvia.com/news/28139396/detail.html

Ex-Tijuana mayor arrested on gun charges
by Elliot Spagat - Jun. 4, 2011 10:50 AM
Associated Press


TIJUANA, Mexico — Soldiers swept into the compound of flashy gambling tycoon Jorge Hank Rhon around 3:30 a.m., hustling him and his family from bed. They left with a cache of arms and the powerful Mexican politician in custody.

***snip***

His wife, Maria Elvia Amaya de Hank, said that after arresting several of Hank Rhon's security guards, the soldiers told her they were recovering arms intended solely for military use.

Amaya de Hank insisted all the weapons in the house had permits and demanded that her husband be released.emphasis added

"I am fully confident that our authorities will quickly resolve the painful affair and do it with transparency, for my husband has been incommunicado until now," she said in a statement Saturday.
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700141787/Ex-Tijuana-mayor-taken-by-troops-over-gun-cache.html

Ex-Tijuana mayor taken by troops over gun cache
Originally published Saturday, June 4, 2011 at 9:54 AM

Hank Rhon was mayor of Tijuana from 2004 to 2007, but lost in a run for Baja California state governor that year. He is a self-proclaimed billionaire who owns a dog track, a nationwide chain of off-track betting parlors and the Tijuana soccer team that last month won advancement into Mexico's top soccer league.

His supporters charged that the arrest was an effort to tarnish his once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of Mexico's 2012 presidential election and the 2013 vote for Baja California governor. Hank Rhon has been widely considered a potential candidate to try again to wrest the governor's office from the National Action Party.

"They want to finish off his chances in the election," said Edgar Velasquez, a 23-year-old dance teacher who wore a red T-shirt from Hank Rhon's failed 2007 campaign and was among a crowd of about 200 protesters outside the federal attorney general's office after the arrest.

But the PRI's president, Humberto Moreira, said he saw no evidence of a strike against his party. "I don't think it is part of a 'witch hunt,'" he said of the raid, speaking to reporters in the central city of San Luis Potosi.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2015232265_apltmexicotijuanaexmayor.html

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

1. An arms dealer?

His wife, Maria Elvia Amaya de Hank, said that after arresting several of Hank Rhon's security guards, the soldiers told her they were recovering arms intended solely for military use.

His supporters charged that the arrest was an effort to tarnish his once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, ahead of Mexico's 2012 presidential election and the 2013 vote for Baja California governor.


A candidate dealing in illegal arms??? Since Mexico gets all of its illegal military grade firearms straight from the shelves of US gun shops. Hank must have done some serious shopping.

;) :sarcasm:

[spin]

3. The corruption in the Mexican Government is largely the cause ...

of their problem with drug gangs.

Last month, National Public Radio (NPR) published new evidence that supports the prevailing theory in Mexico: that the Felipe Calderón administration favors the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization (DTO) in the war on drugs. According to NPR, the powerful Sinaloa DTO is weathering Mexico’s war on drugs far better than its competitors.

The NPR report highlights the role corruption has played in Mexico’s “rigged” drug war. The Mexican government officials, reporters, and residents that NPR interviewed all pointed to the Sinaloa cartel’s impressive ability to corrupt police and soldiers.

Mexicans and US officials were aware of the corruption problem even before NPR published its findings. The problem has been how to combat such widespread corruption.

The US government’s efforts to establish teams of incorruptible Mexican police that they can trust with sensitive intelligence information have met fierce resistance from DTOs. The US Embassy has recruited meticulously screened Mexican Federal Police to its Sensitive Investigation Units (SIU). These police receive Special Forces training from the FBI and DEA in Washington to prepare them for key involvement in police and intelligence work. However, routine polygraph tests discovered that many of them had been bought by the DTOs. Those who couldn’t be bought were targeted for assassination: over a period of a few months in 2008, drug traffickers assassinated at least twelve high-ranking SIU police who worked closely with the US Embassy. In some cases, most notably that of Federal Police chief Edgar Millán, it was apparent that the drug traffickers had corrupted members of the officers’ security teams in order to obtain intelligence on their movements.
http://www.ssrresourcecentre.org/2010/06/15/mexican-governments-alleged-complicity-with-sinaloa-cartel-shows-that-money-fuels-drug-war-corruption/

Mexico’s Gun Problem Originating from Southern Boarder Not USA
Monday, April 4th, 2011 at 8:36 AM

FAIRFAX, Va. --(Ammoland.com)- Blaming America for Mexico’s problems has been something of a national pastime for Mexican politicians for many years.

True to tradition, Mexican president Felipe Calderon has been blaming Mexico’s astronomically high murder rate on Americans who buy drugs and who sell guns, rather than on the Mexican drug cartels who commit a vastly disproportionate share of those murders, and the historic corruption in Mexico, from which the wicked cartels have spawned.

However, an article published by the Mexico City newspaper La Jornada suggests that el Presidente might better serve the good people of his country by looking to his southern border, instead of al norte.

As explained in English by the Latin American Herald Tribune, “The most fearsome weapons wielded by Mexico’s drug cartels enter the country from Central America, not the United States, according to U.S. diplomatic cables disseminated by WikiLeaks and published on Tuesday by La Jornada newspaper. Items such as grenades and rocket-launchers are stolen from Central American armies and smuggled into Mexico via neighboring Guatemala, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City reported to Washington.”
http://www.ammoland.com/2011/04/04/mexicos-gun-problem-originating-from-southern-boarder-not-usa/

[lawodevolution]

2. Tough gun laws--I guess that means there is no violent crime down there in Mexico.

[spin]

4. The crime is so bad that a Mexican police chief wants more civialians to own firearms ...

7 killed in attacks in Mexican resort of Acapulco
By SERGIO FLORES, Associated Press – Tue May 31, 9:02 am ET

***snip***

Ramon Almonte, the Guerrero state police chief, said on Monday he will ask the federal congress to make it easier for common citizens to get permits for weapons to defend themselves.

***snip***

"When you fight someone and at least you have a 'piece,' the person who is attacking you might think twice," Almonte said. "We cannot go on the way we are."

At present, Mexico's constitution allows citizens to have one or two low-caliber guns in their homes, but they must get a permit from the Defense Department and the process is complicated. Almonte did not give specifics on how he would make it easier.

"Having a weapon should be a right, because the bad guys are few and we, the good guys, are many, so we can't allow ourselves to be held hostage by the few," Almonte said.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20110531/ap_tr_ge/lt_travel_brief_drug_war_mexico

[slackmaster]

5. All animals are equal in Mexico

But some animals are more equal than others.

[spin]

8. Jorge Hank Rhon owns a private zoo ...

His vast compound includes a private zoo which is home to rare tigers, bears and elephants. It once had 20,000 animals, five times as many as the famous San Diego Zoo over the border.

Mr Hank Rhon even brought the killer whale that starred in the "Free Willy" films to a marine park in Mexico.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/centralamericaandthecaribbean/mexico/8558003/Mexican-military-arrest-one-of-countrys-richest-men-Jorge-Hank-Rhon.html

[rl6214]

6. He must have been going to a lot of US gun shows

:sarcasm: thingy

Just in case it was needed.

[RSillsbee]

7. The usual suspects are unreccing the HELL out of this thread

Funny, none of them are sticking around to comment though

[spin]

9. Well the story is not proof that gun control works in Mexico. (n/t)

[lawodevolution]

10. Did they really find the guns or did they plant them there on him?

Gun control is a way to empower the police to force the people to do what they want.