13 ms·
San Jose police union executive director charged with smuggling fentanyl into US
- vageli 4y agoThere is also the official press release on the DOJ site: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-jose-police-union-executive-charged-attempted-illegal-importation-fentanyl https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-jose-police-union-e...
- bdcravens 4y agoUnsurprising. Over 90% of the fentanyl seizures at the border aren't immigrants, but are Americans in American cars.
- vorpalhex 4y agoThe cartels have used Americans as mules since cocaine took off. Americans are less likely to be searched, and while more expensive to be bribed, this is usually better than getting the shipment lost.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoMight be stepping up efforts? Just came back to the US from Mexico (Yucatán) with partner and kids, had to make a drug dog walk (you walk at a steady pace as the drug dogs are exposed to you during the 10 meter walk) in the terminal.
- api_or_ipa 4y agoNot sure that's a drug dog. More likely simply a dog trained to sniff explosives. I know this because I've been made to walk the dog walk while unknowingly carrying things I should not have been carrying. The dogs never suspected a thing.
- mike_d 4y agoNot all dogs are trained on all drugs. I once met a dog that was only trained on various substances cartels use to mask the smell of drugs.
- timemct 4y agoI think that's been the practice for sometime now; we had to do the same thing at Puerto Vallarta's airport a few years back.
- sparrish 4y agoI had to do something similar in the Denver airport recently.
- notch898a 4y agoThey're really stepping up. Last year they dragged me into a hospital in cuffs and told the doctors to "inspect" inside my GI tract. That was a better part of a day affair along with a federal warrant and the works. A dog never even alerted (and even verbally told so by CBP, although the warrant lied and said otherwise). They also have a network of hospitals with staff openly hostile to tourists, who are fine acting even without a warrant or consent and a complaint to the state board results in the medical professional boards telling you that a patient has no right to deny consent even without a court order.
- whimsicalism 4y agouh, what? what was the lead up to this?
- notch898a 4y agoFew hours walking around in a border town and eating lunch from what I recall. When I crossed back there were a whole team of people working me over and HSI got involved. No idea what triggered them. When they found nothing they sent the debt collectors chasing me for the hospital bill, obviously that won't be paid so I look forward to the lawsuit. edit: to note I don't know If I'm actually going to be sued, just will definitely find it humorous if they do so.
- anigbrowl 4y agoI would guess that the very temporary nature of your trip looked like you were just there to collect something and come right back. None of which justifies the subsequent outcome. Good luck in your lawsuit.
- vorpalhex 4y agoThis almost sounds like a combo of bad profiling software that flagged you and then parallel construction using the dog as cover. If you have the time and all, definitely start throwing lawsuits and hit hard in discovery.
- 4y ago
- jnsie 4y agoHave had to do the drug dog walk the last few times I flew out of JFK. It seems to move lines much quicker and allows laptops, etc. to stay in bags going through the scanners. Think it's something we'll see more and more of, which is fine by me but they don't make much allowance for children who have no idea what is going on, in my experience (try telling two young kids that they have to walk side by side at a set pace and not touch the doggy)
- P_I_Staker 4y agoWhy are you fine with strong armed, authoritarian policies that target vulnerable populations while leaving the architects of death unharmed? The problem with poisoned drugs was created by doctors, corporations, the police, and politicians. Cartel king pins, plus smaller "mom & pop shops" (~$10ks-millions operations) play their role, but the vast majority of people caught will be stupid and/or desperate smucks, who have done practically nothing. These will be the people doing life sentences. The cartels leaders almost always get away (until maybe they die). The "mom & pop" shops I mentioned, often quite large in their own respect do get busted from time to time... however the majority of time in prison will be done by pawns, especially from these types of busts. Then the government spikes the ball and does a victory dance, while most of society is "fine" with it... yet things consistently get worse. More violence, more dirty money, corruption, overdoses, etc.
- jnsie 4y agoPlease don't twist my words. You know I didn't say anything of the sort and yours is a bad faith response. I will not engage.
- P_I_Staker 4y agoYou just did. You engaged. This is valid criticism, and not at all in bad faith.
- HWR_14 4y agoI actually thought the economics worked out that lost shipments were kind of irrelevant. There was so much south of the border and so little (percentage-wise) needed to make it through to sate demand.
- anigbrowl 4y agoNot that expensive. This dumbass did it for the princely sum of 4000 pesos (~$220), then killed himself rather than face trial. He had 5 kids too. https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/us/von-nukem-suicide-drug-charges/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16/us/von-nukem-suicide-drug-cha...
- vorpalhex 4y agoThe wrong way to think about bribery is as a calculated payoff. Instead it's a spur of the moment thing. You are headed home, tickets already paid for, and then someone asks if you want to make a quick $200 real easy. This isn't always how it goes down, but you can imagine how an impulsive person may over react to a monetary reward and thus accept very little compensation. If you run the risk assessment, you aren't going to take the deal!
- anigbrowl 4y agoI guess. I'd be instantly suspicious, but he doesn't seem like a person of good judgment to start with. It's sad that he didn't have the wit or the character to plead guilty and try to straighten his life out for the sake of his family.
- thephyber 4y ago> I'd be instantly suspicious It’s their job to get extremely good at being less suspicious. The more rejections they get, the more they refine their approach, their appearance, their story, etc. I try to avoid giving credit to my ego for not falling for a scam/con (yet!) when capitalism and evolution are both optimized for finding efficient workarounds for any hurdle. Given enough attempts and enough time, capitalism will corrupt anyone and everyone.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- hgsgm 4y ago
- celdon25 4y agoDid you read the article? This wasn’t someone driving a car across the border.
- bdcravens 4y agoThat's not the point - the point is that motivated Americans are the ones driving the fentanyl epidemic.
- oh_sigh 4y agoOr maybe Americans are overwhelmingly trying to smuggle across border crossings because traditionally Americans get less inspection than non-americans, whereas non nationals choose other methods(tunnels, drones, boats, other non-border zone crossings, mail/parcels, etc).
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- scarface74 4y ago[flagged]
- anon291 4y ago[flagged]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- thephyber 4y agoYour observation is on point. People are strategically focusing our outrage. Political tribes need simple monsters/bogeymen. Their leaders (politicians, government officials, corporate leaders, and even police union executives) each use PR in different ways to focus their constituents’ attention.
- MarcoZavala 4y ago[dead]
- chrisco255 4y agoYou can't claim by that stat that 90% of the fentanyl is brought in by American citizens through regulated ports of entry. By the very nature of illegal smuggling via illegal border crossings, you can't even know what percentage of fentanyl smugglers or fentanyl supply is captured.
- cr1895 4y ago> You can't claim by that stat that 90% of the fentanyl is brought in by American citizens through regulated ports of entry. They quite literally did not make that claim.
- chrisco255 4y agoYeah they did, when they started it with "not surprising" implying that it was statistically likely.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kevviiinn 4y agoYou also can't know how much gets through legal border crossings. What you have posted is a non-statement
- bena 4y agoTheir claim is that of the fentanyl seized at the border, 90% of that is from Americans in American cars. The other 10% would be from other sources. That does not include: Fentanyl seized at locations other than the border. Which we would know about. Fentanyl manufactured in the United States. Fentanyl in hospitals and other regulated areas. Fentanyl not seized at all. So they aren't making a claim about all fentanyl. They are making a claim of a certain segment of fentanyl.
- ASalazarMX 4y agoTrue, because many of those smugglers also smuggle military-grade firearms back to Mexico. It's very risky, but also very easy money. Sometimes there are enhanced controls to detect smuggling, but I'd bet anything they have well-bribed moles who warn the smugglers when that happens.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoSo we're already at gig-smuggling now?
- alexchantavy 4y agoThere was another article posted here that said the cartel is now using a gig work like model to be more decentralized. Can't find it though.
- SilasX 4y agoMaybe California could prosecute them under the new rules about contractor misclassification!
- WJW 4y agoYou say "already" but offering random people money for doing crime is at least several centuries old.
- mike_d 4y agoMost of the guns smuggled into Mexico from the United States are status guns. Think unique guns you'd find in popular video games, gold plated, old west revolvers and antiques, etc. Practically it is much easier for cartels to buy thousands of rifles from Africa or the Middle East than to try and get them across the border from the US. Handguns are trivial to source directly from Chinese factories producing Glock and 1911 knockoffs. Heck, you can order every part individually to assemble a Glock directly from Wish.com if you know what to search for.
- 4y ago
- Scoundreller 4y agoDoesn’t that suggest using Americans as your mules is the riskiest? Ima think most volume is moved via cargo or tunnels.
- fauxpause_ 4y agoIt does not suggest that. Sending with non Americans may simply be so likely to fail that it’s not worth trying.
- olivermarks 4y agoBizarre thread. The Sinaloa and Jalisco cartels run China origin fentanyl in California. It is an enormous, industrial scale operation.
- olivermarks 4y agoI had a young relative I chased around to try and get clean for years before he OD'd on opioids in a bay area Air BnB with his girlfriend. He would order laminated 'diving certificates' with drugs encased in them by mail, and other postal deliveries that were clearly really drug shipments. There is little reason for mules when 18 wheelers are bringing in hidden drug shipments from Mexico and the postal service are delivering deadly drugs from India as was the case with the San Jose police union dealer.
- TulliusCicero 4y agoNo, the relevant stat would be % likelihood of being caught for Americans vs non-Americans. Even if 90% of the people caught are Americans, if the number of Americans actually doing the smuggling outnumber non-Americans 20x, then that means they're lower-risk.
- bruceb 4y agoWhere does this stat come from? At the border or border checkpoint? These are very different.
- MrBuddyCasino 4y ago[flagged]
- Apocryphon 4y agoHave you seen her picture?
- jimbob45 4y agoHowever, the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Northern District of California said from July 2019 onward, officials intercepted and opened five of the shipments So one shipment a year? It took four years to make a case? I know police cases take time but...this seems less like justice and more like she didn't pay off the right person.
- Scoundreller 4y agoThey don’t really check every package. > She is alleged to have had at least 61 shipments mailed to her home from October 2015 to January 2023 from countries/regions, including Hong Kong, Hungary, India, and Singapore. The mailing documents were labeled as “Wedding Party Favors,” “Gift Makeup,” or “Chocolate and Sweets.” TBH, this sounds like most electronic gizmos I order off aliexpress et al. But I think detailed records are only kept by customs on int’l courier packages, not postal service parcels.
- MisterBastahrd 4y agoOf course they don't. I've been a cigar hobbyist since the early 90s. Cuban cigars have been mostly to completely illegal in the US for the entire time, but with the advent of the widespread use of web pages, we started to get better and better access to the Cuban supply via overseas retailers. These retailers know full good and well that these cigars are contraband here in the states. But some of them were extremely lazy and would just ship entire pallets of merchandise. I'd guess that about 70-80% of the product bought overseas and shipped here actually got to the buyer. The rest were virtually all on these pallets where you'd have to be a complete idiot not to spot them.
- notch898a 4y agoI would be astonished if customs even finds it useful to appropriate any budget for seizure of Cuban cigars. It wouldn't surprise me if they let them through because it's less work than filling out the seizure paperwork. Everyone knows it's a measure that achieves nothing, and not even the rabid anti-drug people are going to give them an attaboy for finding tobacco, and the political will to do anything meaningfully further with the embargo is withering.
- maicro 4y ago[flagged]
- swayvil 4y ago[flagged]
- pvarangot 4y ago[flagged]
- ConanRus 4y ago[dead]
- johnea 4y agoThe ONLY thing that will EVER stop the cartels, and the overdoses, is LEGAL SUBSTANCE purchasing. The few modern efforts, of say Oregon, only eliminate criminal charges for posession. This will do NOTHING to defund the cartels, or stop the overdoses due to unknown strength/dosing.
- cowpig 4y agoDo you think that the Sackler family has had a positive impact on overdoses in the US?
- pstuart 4y agoThe Sackler's were unscrupulous dope peddlers. The whole premise of Oxycontin was a lie: specifically that it lasted longer than it did; combined with actively pushing the medication for cases where it wasn't necessary helped set up the crisis. That said, there will always be demand and that demand would be better served if not criminalized. These drugs should be made available for legal purchase but we need to find ways to incentivize minimizing the sale and consumption of such. I fail to see the difference between letting an adult drink themselves to death vs doping themselves into oblivion. The former is both legal and acceptable whereas the latter is not; but they're effectively the same.
- amdolan 4y agoPushing addiction and pushing treatment are two very different things.
- sobkas 4y ago> Do you think that the Sackler family has had a positive impact on overdoses in the US? It's better to use prescription drugs than mystery substance available on the streets. At least you know what you are taking.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- anon291 4y agoOpioids have been a scourge on every society in which they have proliferated. They have their uses but there is no example in history of a place with legal opioids not having overdoses and dependency issues.
- anigbrowl 4y agoThe Washington Examiner is leaving out several salient facts. - the Police Officer's Association address was used to ship out packages to customers in the US, and Segovia operated her drug business partly out of the office; there's photographic evidence for both, taken from her whatsapp communications (which she turned over to investigators) - she discussed police business with her supplier(s) - at least one of her customers died of an overdose - after she was first contacted by investigators, she carried out an elaborate attempt to frame her housekeeper https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23732642-segovia-complaint https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23732642-segovia-com...
- kevviiinn 4y agoTFA mentions both of the first two points but not the last two
- function_seven 4y ago> after she was first contacted by investigators, she carried out an elaborate attempt to frame her housekeeper Not only that, but she continued to make purchases! For all the dumb things she did prior to that contact (using her own addresses and a phone that's trivially associated with her), continuing to make buys while you know damn well you're being watched is just breathtakingly stupid. I don't get it.
- samstave 4y agoSo youre telling me, all I need to do to get a seat on the San Jose California Police Union, is to not frame my housekeeper for my illegal drug smuggling empire, which certainly NEVER involved any of the upstanding cops in the actual police dept? - My father was a cop in Oakland in the '70s... He resigned after he witnessed OPD murder several people. His famous quote was "Once you're looking for 'bad' everywhere - pretty soon, thats all you can see'" -- When I grew up in the 80s in Lake Tahoe (we moved from Oakland to Tahoe in 1979) -- the cops were known to have been outcasts from San Jose CA for being the worst offenders, and were pushed back to Tahoe as 'punishment' (in the same way that Catholic priests are 'punished')... We knew that the Tahoe cops were jerks, and it was widely known they were all San Jose rejects... Anyway, I got caught in a bit of legal trouble in 7th grade (was taking boats out for joy rides and leaving them on beaches)... And the 'detective' who found me was later found out as being on Escobar's pay roll.... In the 1980s, Escobar was flying in tons of cocaine to truckee and south lake tahoe, and this cop, and the dad of a kid I went to school with were the guys who were funneling all that coke to Vegas and Reno...
- zeruch 4y agoThis towns police dept has long been an incompetent lot (while not anywhere nearly as bad as say, NOLA or Baltimore, they are still fairly boorish and prone to overreach) and prone to such stellar missteps as how it handled the Floyd protests in town (e.g. https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/sjpd-maims-activist-who-trained-officers-on-implicit-bias/ https://www.sanjoseinside.com/news/sjpd-maims-activist-who-t...)
- thephyber 4y agoI live in SJ, have police in my family, and have talked to police neighbors. SJPD has fewer officers per resident than any other major city. We have somewhere between 30% - 50% the number of sworn officers as San Francisco. SJPD is underfunded and surrounding cities are all better paying for officers. The officers that continue to work there mostly live many hours away and are required to work pretty high overtime hours. My personal assessment is California Prop 13 (from around 1979) is at fault. It has starved the city’s funding, which makes SJPD uncompetitive against neighboring cities. Additionally, the city is a residential base for lots of the companies in the neighboring suburbs. In the late 2000s, the mayor at the time was very worried about the retirement costs of the department and made the comp package much less appealing/competitive for new hires/transfers than existing officers. This creates an exodus of experienced officers and means that we get worse recruits than other cities. Not trying to justify the unprofessional actions, but to add some factual color behind the recent history that got us to where we are.
- zeruch 4y agoThen it begs the question, if SJ is so underfunded and police overworked, how it manages to be a comparatively safer city than other comparable metro areas? It almost begs the question about not needing more Police, but better supporting services adjacent to it to address the things cops aren't trained sufficiently and/or otherwise suited for. I've known plenty of great LEOs growing up in the area, but I've encountered (especially in the last 20 years) an almost caricatured level of clowns wearing the uniform. It's soured me on LEOs in general, and certainly the police management in SJ as a practical thing. After the utter bungling of the protest handling, including the refusal to fire Jared Yuen and the keystone kops moment with the Sanderlin rubber bullet shooting, it just became impossible to defend this circus. As far as funding goes, SJPD in recent years got a 41M punch up, so I'm not sure how it's so underfunded.
- hinkley 4y agoI had an ex from podunk midwest and one of her town's claims to fame was that the sheriff chaired the local DARE chapter until he got arrested for running a meth ring. I guess life is easier when you can arrest your competitors instead of just shooting them, but I don't have any idea how nobody narced on him to the feds (or at least their lawyer) for that long. But then police were organized crime before police were police. To this day I don't know why the Pinkertons still exist as a corporate subdivision name instead of being fully absorbed to distance from that profound emotional baggage. (Opinions colored by roommates' future BIL being murdered by cops in broad daylight in Chicago for DWB+autism, then moving to and dealing with Seattle PD's corruption/brutality problems)
- whimsicalism 4y ago> DWB Driving while black or am I just making up acronyms?
- whaleofatw2022 4y agoNope that's about right
- hinkley 4y agoBlack + autistic + in Chicago is a bad, bad combination. Illinois has more problems than Mississippi wrt to racial justice. For a blue state that's pretty fucked up, but then it's only about 55% blue. I think Chicago is currently winning the competition with NYC for number of convicted mayors as well. Clearly not something anyone should be proud of, but here we are. That whole Eliot Ness/Capone kerfuffle was Chicago, not NYC. See also Valentine's Day Massacre. > others have said that members of the Chicago Police Department who allegedly wanted revenge for the killing of a police officer's son played a part. - Wikipedia
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Mountain_Skies 4y ago
- throwayyy479087 4y agoThis is how the cartel works in Mexico - don't bother hiding, just take over the power structures. I wonder if she's connected to them. This is a bad sign.
- notch898a 4y agoBrah this has been happening since at least the Contra affair
- jeron 4y agoFunny you say that, as the journalist who broke the Contra affair was from the Mercury News, a San Jose newspaper
- Drunk_Engineer 4y agoIn other words, Regulatory-Capture ( https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp https://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/regulatory-capture.asp).
- zoklet-enjoyer 4y agoAnd just like a typical cop, she tried to frame someone for her crimes https://www.thedailybeast.com/san-jose-cop-union-exec-joanne-segovia-tried-to-blame-drug-bust-on-housekeeper-feds-say https://www.thedailybeast.com/san-jose-cop-union-exec-joanne...
- p0pcult 4y ago[flagged]
- speakfreely 4y ago[flagged]
- uoaei 4y agoIndeed, your kneejerk hostile emotional reaction to mere words is hampering a productive way to discussion.
- speakfreely 4y agoIt wasn't hostile. I was pointing of the futility of the saying in the general. There are useful discussions to be had on the subject, but they don't start with "ACAB".
- p0pcult 4y agoDo you have a substantial counterpoint, or did my tone offend you?
- speakfreely 4y agoI don't think your tone affects anybody who isn't emotionally reactive. It's not the first time I've seen an outburst on the internet, so please don't spend too much time concerned for my well being. To your point: sure, I would posit that the police officers who stopped the Nashville shooter would not qualify as bastards based on their publicly available work.
- p0pcult 4y ago"To what degree should we defund the police? And how else might we limit their power?" are perfectly germane ways forward with a discussion. I'll start: qualified immunity. Make police carry malpractice insurance. No more civil forfeiture. No military surplus. It's a negotiation. I start at one extreme (defund), you start at another (status quo). We meet in the middle.
- qgin 4y agoIn my hometown when I was growing up, the longtime sheriff was convicted of drug trafficking. It made me wonder how often law enforcement is directly involved in the drug trade.
- ribs 4y agoShe’s not actually a cop, as far as I can tell. It’s a little weird that the union would employ a civilian for the job, but not unimaginable.
- whinenot 4y agoCheck her family relations. It's all about who you _ _ ow.
- wslh 4y agoJust an hypothesis: she was planted in the union because it was easier and faster than in the police. BTW, "The Departed" [1] is a great movie about this topic. [1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407887/
- anigbrowl 4y agoMaybe, but she might be just a solo entrepreneur. It's not hard to find dark markets if you're technically savvy, even before having the inside knowledge of someone adjacent to/involved with law enforcement.
- thephyber 4y agoMost likely, she is family of police. Officers don’t trust muggles. I have police in my family. Every vendor they employ (dry cleaner, tax assistance, plumber, locksmith, etc) comes from recommendations within the policing community. They don’t take a risk to trust strangers.
- aj7 4y ago$161,300 salary wasn’t near enough.
- retrocryptid 4y agoI was going to make a sparky comment about this story coming from the Washington Examiner, but then I saw this: https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-jose-police-union-executive-charged-attempted-illegal-importation-fentanyl https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndca/pr/san-jose-police-union-e...
- havblue 4y ago"Joanne is a professional and competent manager and contact. She is always informed of conditions which effect her group," a recommendation on Segovia's LinkedIn profile reads. The grammar police haven't been doing their jobs lately either...
- friend_and_foe 4y ago"okay sir. this is to figure out what your aptitude is good at, and get you a jail job while you're being a particular individual in jail" That movie does a fantastic job of demonstrating how copspeak is designed to hide the fact that they're stupid.
- throwaway128128 4y agoConvicted of drug dealing... and yet she's on paid leave. Taxpayer funded vacation.
- joekrill 4y agoCharged, not convicted. And we're (supposed to be) innocent until proven guilty in the US, so I'm guessing that's likely why she's on paid leave and not terminated.
- JoeAltmaier 4y agoBut, pictures! Guilty is pretty much a foregone conclusion
- thephyber 4y agoAFAIK, she is an executive for a labor union, not a government agency. This isn’t taxpayer-funded, it is labor union dues funded.
- Jasper_ 4y ago... who do you think pays the salaries and union dues of the SJPD?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- fernly 4y agoCoverage from the San Jose Mercury News, 3/29: https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/29/san-jose-poa-office-manager-charged-with-trying-to-import-fentanyl-analog/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2023/03/29/san-jose-poa-office-m... > SJPOA spokesperson Tom Saggau ... was shocked to learn about the allegations swirling around Segovia, who he has known as a beloved figure in the office for over 20 years. > “She was looked at as the grandma of the POA,” he said. “She’s the one who planned all the funerals when we had officers killed in the line of duty...
- jmspring 4y agoI'm not sure what it is with law enforcement in Santa Clara county... Just last year - https://sanjosespotlight.com/former-santa-clara-county-sheriff-found-guilty-of-corruption/ https://sanjosespotlight.com/former-santa-clara-county-sheri...
- esotericimpl 4y agoWhen will people learn, "those who work forces are the same who burn crosses" the cops have been corrupt since the days of the runaway slave.
- zapdrive 4y agoWhy is that whenever a woman (be it a scientist, politician or any other profession) achieves something, the gender is always mentioned in the headline. E.g. If she had single handedly caught the biggest smuggler, the headline would be "Female executive director of San Jose police union blah blah blah". But when it's something like this, the gender is often omitted.
- maratbn 4y agoDoes anybody know why she got charged only with attempting to smuggle when they have records of her actually smuggling since 2015?
- mike50 4y agoReal source required.
- cies 4y agoSome of those that work forces, are the same that burn crosses. -- RATM I'm in favour of near-full legalization. It's should be my right to get as high as I like. And seeing how many in public officials do drugs and do not voice in favour of legalization is just showing the how two-faced they are. This of Biden's son. Total tweaker. While his dad signed super tight anti-drug laws, that cause the imprisonment of many (mostly blacks): why is his son still free?
- hungryforcodes 4y agoI'm surprised. I thought it was only men that did bad things these days.