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.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not