Mexican pirates shoot US jet skier near border on Falcon Lake, Texas - CSMonitor.com

Mexican pirates shoot US jet skier near border on Falcon Lake, Texas - CSMonitor.com: "Mexican pirates after a US jet skier was shot Thursday and his fleeing wife chased onto the US side of a border lake.

The shooting on Falcon Lake, part of the Rio Grande watershed near Zapata, Texas, follows a months-long surge in attacks by drug-cartel-linked pirates on US boaters who have crossed into Mexican waters. It is the first instance in which an American has been hurt.
'Piracy on Falcon Lake is an incredible story, especially when Somali piracy has been so much in the news,' says Robert Chesney, a national security and terrorism expert at the University of Texas School of Law, in Austin. 'It's amazing to think that it's actually happening on the Texas border.'"

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Fifteen alleged members and associates of the Raza Unida prison and street gang were indicted

Fifteen alleged members and associates of the Raza Unida prison and street gang were indicted in Houston, Texas for trafficking in significant quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine and possessing firearms unlawfully and during the commission of drug trafficking offenses.

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John Phillip Hernandez was one of the main members of an organization of 23 people who purchased 339 weapons in a 15-month period.

John Phillip Hernandez was one of the main members of an organization of 23 people who purchased 339 weapons in a 15-month period. At least 40 of these weapons have been recovered in Mexico and three have been found in Guatemala, according to court documents.Hernandez was sentenced after pleading guilty in July to one count of making a false statement to a federal firearms licensee.Buying weapons is legal in Texas, but the purchaser must fill out a government form that indicates whether the purchaser plans to keep the gun for himself or give it to a third party. Hernandez claimed the guns were for himself.U.S. District Judge David Hittner said Hernandez, 26, merited a stiffer sentence. “The defendant’s actions strengthened the drug cartels by arming them with arsenals that let them continue their criminal conduct,” Hittner said, and led to the killings of eight people in Mexico.

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