Latest news with #firearmstrafficking
Yahoo
18 hours ago
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mexican boxer Chavez Jr. deported from US over alleged cartel ties
Former champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has been detained in Mexico after deportation by the United States to face shock charges of involvement with a drug cartel, Mexican authorities said Tuesday. The son of boxing icon Julio Cesar Chavez stands accused of serving as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, which Washington designated a foreign terrorist organization this year, and of trafficking firearms and explosives. Acccording to Mexican media, which claim to have had access to the case files, Chavez, 39, was allegedly a "hitman" used to punish members of the cartel. "He hangs them (and) grabs them like a punching bag," the Reforma newspaper reported, citing testimony in the prosecutor's documents. The Attorney General's Office has withheld details of the indictment. Chavez was handed over Monday and transferred to a prison in Mexico's northwest Sonora state, according to information on the country's National Detention Registry. "He was deported," President Claudia Sheinbaum told reporters, adding there was an active arrest warrant for him in Mexico. US authorities arrested Chavez in July for being in the United States illegally. They also said he was wanted in Mexico for alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel, one of six Mexican drug trafficking groups designated as terrorist organizations by the United States. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees US immigration enforcement, said Chavez had entered the United States legally in 2023 on a tourist visa that was valid until February 2024. He applied for permanent residency in April, 2024 "based on his marriage to a US citizen, who is connected to the Sinaloa Cartel through a prior relationship with the now-deceased son of the infamous cartel leader Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman," DHS said in its July 3 arrest announcement. His extradition comes as US President Donald Trump cracks down on immigrants as part of a promise to deport millions of people. - Boxing legacy - Chavez's arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Los Angeles occured four days after his lopsided loss to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul before a sell-out crowd in California. Once a top-rated boxer, Chavez won the WBC middleweight world title in 2011 and successfully defended it three times. But his career has also included multiple suspensions and fines for failed drug tests. Homeland Security said that in addition to the active warrant in Mexico, Chavez had criminal convictions in the United States, including for possession of an assault weapon, in January 2024 in Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that police said they had found Chavez in possession of two AR-style hard-to-trace "ghost" rifles. DHS in its announcement had expressed astonishment that the administration of Trump's predecessor Joe Biden had not prioritized Chavez's deportation. "Under President Trump, no one is above the law -- including world-famous athletes," DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in the announcement. After his US arrest, the boxer's defense team sought to prevent his prosecution in Mexico by filing multiple legal appeals, which were rejected by the Mexican courts. Julio Cesar Chavez Sr, now 63, was a world champion in three weight divisions, and held various title belts from 1984 to 1996. sem/axm/mlm/st
The Guardian
05-06-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Supreme court strikes down Mexican government's suit against US gunmakers
The US supreme court on Thursday spared two American gun companies from a lawsuit by Mexico's government accusing them of aiding illegal firearms trafficking to drug cartels and fueling gun violence on the south side of the US-Mexico border. The justices, in a unanimous ruling, overturned a lower court's decision that had allowed the lawsuit to proceed against firearms maker Smith & Wesson and distributor Interstate Arms. The lower court had found that Mexico plausibly alleged that the companies aided and abetted illegal gun sales, harming its government. The companies had argued for the dismissal of Mexico's suit, filed in Boston in 2021, under a 2005 US law called the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act that broadly shields gun companies from liability for crimes committed with their products. The Boston-based first circuit court of appeals decided in 2024 that the alleged conduct by the companies fell outside these protections. 'Mexico alleges that the companies aided and abetted unlawful sales routing guns to Mexican drug cartels. The question presented is whether Mexico's complaint plausibly pleads that conduct. We conclude it does not,' liberal justice Elena Kagan wrote for the supreme court on Thursday morning. The case came to the supreme court at a complicated time for US-Mexican relations as Donald Trump pursues on-again, off-again tariffs on Mexican goods imported into the US. Trump has also accused Mexico of doing too little to stop the flow of synthetic drugs such as the opioid fentanyl and migrant arrivals at the border, even though Mexico has stepped up efforts to prevent migrants from reaching the border in recent years. Mexico had claimed that the companies have deliberately maintained a distribution system that included firearms dealers who knowingly sell weapons to third-party, or 'straw', purchasers who then traffic guns to cartels in Mexico. The suit also accused the companies of unlawfully designing and marketing their guns as military-grade weapons to drive up demand among the cartels. Mexico in the lawsuit sought monetary damages of an unspecified amount and a court order requiring Smith & Wesson and Interstate Arms to take steps to 'abate and remedy the public nuisance they have created in Mexico'. Gun violence fueled by trafficked US-made firearms has contributed to a decline in business investment and economic activity in Mexico.
CBC
04-06-2025
- General
- CBC
York Region police charge 23 people with more than 300 drug and firearms offences
Police say 23 people face a total of more than 300 charges after an investigation into fentanyl and firearms trafficking across York Region and elsewhere in the Greater Toronto Area. York Regional Police say the investigation dubbed Project Chatter began in October 2024, when they received a report about an individual who was involved in drug trafficking across the GTA. Police say the probe concluded with the execution of 15 search warrants in Richmond Hill, Toronto, Ajax, Mississauga and Niagara Falls. Investigators say they seized 32 illegal firearms and a large quantity of drugs, including more than 700,000 doses of fentanyl. They also seized more than $130,000 in cash and $18,000 in US in cash. Charges against the 23 suspects include drug trafficking, possession of prohibited weapons and organized crime activities.
