A former high-ranking US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who was stationed in Mexico before retiring in 2007 was arrested on Friday on suspicion of conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the US.
Richard Cramer was arrested at his home in Green Valley, Arizona, 40km south of Tucson, and appeared before a federal judge, who denied bail.
No one answered the phone at Cramer’s home on Friday and it was unclear whether he had a lawyer.
The charges stem from a US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) investigation dating back to 2006.
Authorities say Cramer helped a large-scale drug trafficking organization move cocaine into the US, a criminal complaint made public on Friday said.
The complaint said that Cramer provided members of a drug smuggling organization with information from confidential law enforcement databases that told them whether one of their members was a government informant.
The complaint also said Cramer and the smuggling organization invested about US$400,000 in a 300kg shipment of cocaine. The cocaine was shipped from Panama and went through the US en route to Spain, where it was seized in June 2007.
An informant told DEA agents that Cramer had “very powerful friends” among DEA agents in Mexico and a strong relationship with one particular member of the smuggling organization, the complaint said.
The complaint also said that during an August 2007 meeting, a member of the smuggling organization convinced Cramer to retire from ICE and begin working directly for the organization in drug smuggling and money laundering.
The case is being handled by the US Attorney’s Office in Miami, where federal prosecutors say the majority of the acts occurred.
Authorities said Cramer would be extradited to Florida.
Cramer was the former resident agent in charge of the ICE office in Nogales, southern Arizona, said agency spokesman Vincent Picard, who did not know how long Cramer worked there or how many agents he oversaw.
“It’s a criminal complaint, not a conviction,” Picard said.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
TENSIONS HIGH: For more than half a year, students have organized protests around the country, while the Serbian presaident said they are part of a foreign plot About 140,000 protesters rallied in Belgrade, the largest turnout over the past few months, as student-led demonstrations mount pressure on the populist government to call early elections. The rally was one of the largest in more than half a year student-led actions, which began in November last year after the roof of a train station collapsed in the northern city of Novi Sad, killing 16 people — a tragedy widely blamed on entrenched corruption. On Saturday, a sea of protesters filled Belgrade’s largest square and poured into several surrounding streets. The independent protest monitor Archive of Public Gatherings estimated the
Irish-language rap group Kneecap on Saturday gave an impassioned performance for tens of thousands of fans at the Glastonbury Festival despite criticism by British politicians and a terror charge for one of the trio. Liam Og O hAnnaidh, who performs under the stage name Mo Chara, has been charged under the UK’s Terrorism Act with supporting a proscribed organization for allegedly waving a Hezbollah flag at a concert in London in November last year. The rapper, who was charged under the anglicized version of his name, Liam O’Hanna, is on unconditional bail before a further court hearing in August. “Glastonbury,
RSS