Our
original reporting online began before 1999, but, with the origin of the
American Medical Emergency Xpedition, serving as their public outreach
media (before social media began) issues of international travel to Baja
Mexico, dovetailed with the racing community.
Road incidents began reflecting the new threat to travel. Cartel crime incidents began causing medical impacts.
Known online threats to international travel were reported by BajaRacingNews.com.
The
DEA, at the time, sent an undercover 'for-eyes-only', multi-multi-multi
page report on what they knew, directly to a representative of AMEX. Blast from our past reporting CLICK HERE
![[baja+crime+Untitled+5.jpg]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9u37oBHbUmbQSrs8nmxqiiR9RiXVBFZgvQq2LsoC6wSdqBALsUkZ6BnuBKrwAW9Dm7pbdQGy0z7WM2hX6pM7i20gN4l1qBvwzeJN5jqu1iEt2xhk67OWycbnwKE9Ms1r8c_eN/s1600/baja+crime+Untitled+5.jpg)
That's the only reason we knew the ACTUAL THREAT.
San Diego man's abduction a cautionary, Brutal Tale From May 6, 2008
By Tony Manolatos, S.D.UNION-TRIBUNE - FBI - Humberto Iribe, a Mexican national, received a 25-year sentence in August. Nine long years had passed since Rick Post was kidnapped, tortured and killed in one of the most brutal and bizarre cases on record at the San Diego FBI office. His body was never found. His father, Richard, had closely followed every development, but he was dying from cancer. FBI Agent Henry Nembach knew the old man wasn't in a giving mood, but there was an offer on the table. The last remaining defendant, a Mexican national from a wealthy family, told FBI agents he could lead them to the body. But Humberto Iribe had a price. He wanted at least five years knocked off his prison sentence. Post, a private investigator from Point Loma, was shot to death in 1998 on a Mexican hillside after he was beaten and tortured for three days in Tijuana. Authorities pieced together the grisly details through wiretaps, confessions and other evidence.
At the time: Cross-border kidnappings by the numbers San Diego County residents kidnapped and held in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach and Ensenada:
2008 (to May, year to date): 9
2007: 26
2006: 11
2005: 10
OFFICIAL SOURCE: FBI San Diego Office.
“They took pliers to the guy,” Nembach said. “He screamed through duct tape. He was on his knees begging for his life.” FBI agents haven't discussed the case until now. They finally did so not only because the final chapter has been written, but also because of the increasing lawlessness they're seeing 20 miles south of downtown San Diego. “There's a lot of Iribes in Mexico willing to kidnap Americans for money and kill them if necessary,” said FBI Agent Len Davey, who led the investigation with Nembach. The breakup of the Arellano Félix crime ring has created a culture of dueling drug lords fighting for pre-eminence. Their pursuit of profits has turned smugglers into hit men. It didn't take long for the FBI to connect the dots when cross-border kidnappings of San Diego County residents more than doubled last year. They're up again this year. FBI photos Kimberly Bailey lured Point Loma private investigator Rick Post (bottom) to Tijuana and ordered his murder in 1998. The Fallbrook woman was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years. John Krueger (center) of Clairemont, who worked for Post, received a 12-year prison sentence. “It's good business for the cartels,” Nembach said. “What we're seeing now is people getting picked up on this side of the border” and driven across. In the past, U.S. citizens who were kidnapped – typically businessmen of Mexican descent – were abducted in Mexico. Among the cases investigated and prosecuted in San Diego, nothing jumps off the page as much as the details in Post's file. FBI spokesman Darrell Foxworth called it the most egregious. In 2002, Kimberly Bailey of Fallbrook, who lured Post to Tijuana and ordered his murder, was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years. John Krueger of Clairemont, who worked for Post and brought Iribe into the fold, received a 12-year prison sentence in exchange for his testimony. In August, Iribe was sentenced to 25 years. It took three years to find him and negotiate his extradition. His charges also were contested and altered in the four years he was awaiting trial. Last summer, Nembach presented Iribe's offer to Post's father, who turned it down as soon as he heard it. “Why? What are we gonna get back?” Post, 87, said recently. “I asked all my relatives, and they felt the same way – no plea deal.” Nembach now supervises the organized-crime unit, and Davey manages the white-collar crime division. Both have been with the bureau for 18 years and both are fathers. “It was personal,” Nembach said. “We were dealing with his dad, and his children. It made a big difference.” Investigating thefts Bailey, the woman at the center of the case, used at least two aliases and called herself a homeopathic doctor. She lived on a sprawling avocado ranch she bought in 1997 and traveled the world in search of endangered medicinal plants. She wanted to convert her Fallbrook ranch, known as “The Last Seed,” to greenhouses for her plants. The property was guarded by iron gates, security cameras and floodlights. A secret room was built in the basement. Besides harvesting avocados, Bailey owned a mail-order business called Astro Pulse, which sold devices that emitted radio waves. The FBI calls the units “black boxes.” Bailey, who claimed they cured cancer, named them “bio-frequency devices” and “E-machines.” She took out ads in alternative health magazines and sold each device for $1,500. They cost $200 to build. The business brought Bailey as much as $100,000 a month, Nembach said. But some employees were stealing from her – including skimming checks from the company post-office box – which is why Bailey hired Post in the late 1990s. Their relationship quickly turned romantic. Post, who was divorced, owned and operated Intellisource, and Astro Pulse became his biggest client. K.C. ALFRED / Union-Tribune Kimberly Bailey owned a mail-order business that sold devices that Bailey claimed cured cancer. Post was paying Krueger about $15 an hour to help investigate the employee thefts. Krueger felt slighted, even though he had been stealing checks from Bailey. He wanted Post out of the way, the agents said. He told Bailey that Post was ripping her off and cheating on her. Bailey, who had suspected Post was stealing, snapped. She wanted someone who would kidnap, torture and kill her lover – if necessary. Krueger had a name in mind. While working at a store called the Spy Factory, which sold secret recording devices, police radios and other equipment, he got to know client Humberto Iribe. Krueger had talked to Iribe about marketing E-machines in Mexico, but this time, he called to arrange a meeting with Bailey in San Diego. The three met in summer 1998 at the food court in Horton Plaza “and conspired to kidnap Post and have him interrogated in Mexico,” according to an FBI synopsis. The plan was carried out, and five months later, Post was still listed as a missing person. But Krueger thought investigators were closing in, and he worried that his accomplices would give him up. He wanted immunity in exchange for his story. So he hired a lawyer who contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office, which called the FBI. Nembach and Davey questioned Krueger over the phone, but he wouldn't identify himself or Post. Both agents scoured recent missing-persons cases and whittled their list down to Post. All 12 agents in the organized-crime division questioned Post's friends and family. When Nembach and Davey knocked on Krueger's door, they didn't know he was the anonymous caller. He immediately said he wanted to talk to his lawyer – the same woman who set up the conference call. “Cha-ching!” Nembach recalled, smiling. “We knew he was the guy. We had the keys right there.” Recording the details Soon, agents were at Bailey's door. She wasn't home, but a woman named Svetlana Ogorodnikova was. In yet another bizarre turn, agents immediately recognized her as an ex-KGB operative. Ogorodnikova had served 11 years in prison for seducing former FBI Agent Richard Miller, a Valley Center resident, into passing a secret document to the Soviet Union in 1984. She and her husband met Bailey in Mexico after Post was killed. A friendship blossomed, and Bailey hired the couple to move into her home and run her avocado ranch. Ogorodnikova said Bailey had told her everything. At the FBI, her involvement didn't play well. Most of the supervisors had no use for her. They knew she would have no credibility with a jury. If the agents wanted her as a witness, she would have to wear a wire. So Ogorodnikova recorded a nine-hour conversation she and her husband had with Bailey on a road trip. Bailey spilled just about everything. She said she had waited inside a pharmacy in Tijuana as two of Iribe's Mexican associates abducted Post, who was waiting in his car. He was held in an abandoned house. When Bailey saw him, he was in a shower stall, duct-taped to a chair. Bailey and Iribe interrogated him while Iribe beat him. Post quickly confessed to sleeping with other women, but he never admitted to stealing. Iribe repeatedly struck Post with blows to the face. “I thought his head was going to fall off,” Bailey is heard saying on the wiretap. Iribe then pulled out a pair of pliers. He pinched the tips of Post's fingers until he screamed. Post tried to fight back. He tried to escape, too. “They told me he got out of . . . the bindings three times one night, and they said: 'This is dangerous for us. We don't like staying up all night watching this guy,' ” Bailey said. Post's time was just about up. “Humberto said he's already seen our face, we have to kill him,” Bailey said. “He said, 'What do you want us to do?' And I said, 'Do what you have to do.' ” She called Iribe fearless. “He's from a culture where you kill people and put 'em in the desert and nobody ever knows,” she said. “And believe me, you take one look at Humberto and you know he's that kind of person.” Later, Bailey asked Ogorodnikova if she could introduce her to a hit man. She was worried Krueger was talking and she wanted him killed. “I felt insulted,” Ogorodnikova told the agents. “I do what I did, but I'm no murderer.” A few days later, an FBI agent posing as a hit man met Bailey at the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina on Harbor Island Drive. A hidden camera rolled as Bailey gave the agent $10,000. Indictments were issued four months later, in April 2000. With Bailey and Krueger behind bars, the agents turned their sights on Iribe. The final suspect Three years later, Davey and Agent Alfonso Villegas traveled to Houston to pick up Iribe. They were on a commercial airplane when Mexican police brought him aboard. Iribe, who spoke English fluently, sat handcuffed between the agents in the back row. Before takeoff, he was confessing. According to an FBI document laying out the confession, Bailey initially paid Iribe $10,000. A day or two after the kidnapping, she gave him about $40,000 to have Post killed. He was shot and buried by Iribe's associates. On the plane, Iribe said he could produce the body. He was extradited on a maiming charge because Mexican authorities wouldn't release him until the U.S. Attorney's Office agreed to drop charges, including murder, that carry a life or death sentence. He had studied the extradition agreement. So Iribe confessed to killing Post but told Davey, “I didn't maim him.” “He's a very cocky guy,” Davey said, still sounding incredulous. “He was just telling me this stuff.” Iribe was eventually charged with conspiracy and attempted kidnapping. His trial, in May 2007, lasted two days. After the prosecution finished questioning its first witness – one of Post's sons – Iribe pleaded guilty. The son testified that his father left behind all of his clothes, suitcases and prescriptions. He was 16 when his father disappeared. Four years passed before the family held a simple graveside service for Post. There was no casket or urn. Post's father and children were there. Nembach and Davey were there, too.""
“He's from a culture where you kill people and put 'em in the desert and nobody ever knows”.
So called non-profit (they weren't) racing and Baja travel oriented message boards at the time, actually DELETED the information to protect 'the racing business'.
BajaRacingNews.com
is going back in time, again, to report on those scum bags to expose
the truth behind 'the message boards'. STAY TUNED>>>
Grossly, today those message board people are the hallowed race community people, when in actuality they were and are perpetrators of crimes against women. One 'racing media-photographer', was well known for his 'underskirt' pictures that he circulated among the message board users. STAY TUNED>>>
When the 'Hall Family', a McMillin racing support group of (serving the racing interests of the McMillin building company of San Diego) friends failed to get the information, because of the information being deleted on the for-profit message boards and 'industry-idiocy', they decided to travel in the middle of the night and were promptly made the most prominent victims of the "black commandos".
The
black commandos are out-of-control criminals who dress like swat cops
and perp killings, mass murder and strong armed theft.
Their vehicle was stolen and they were kidnapped to the middle of nowhere, under the threat of death.
-Interestingly,
while re-researching for this article we discovered google has scrubbed
much of this incident from their data...researching-
This is were things get really weird, maybe McMillin Development, SCORE International or the Hall Family paid google to make it go away...?
Our reporting from 2007 to January 11, 2012:
Don't
drive at night, unless you are willing to risk everything. Including
your LIFE.
Hall family incident, McMillin Housing/Racing Company 'friends'
CLICK HERE Very brief liner notes on the story
""Live to Tell: Kidnap on Highway 1 48 Hours:
A Family Returning from Vacation in Mexico (they were 'vacationing' providing free race services provision for the McMillin racing team [multi-multi-multi $$$ racing outfit, based in National City, CA], they were hauling a McMillin trailer with the actual McMillin racing pre-runner inside, Yes, it was stolen too!) is Ambushed, Kidnapped as they Approach U.S. Border Originally Posted 2010 Jan 01
What
if someone wants you dead - but you live to tell? A family returning
from vacation in Mexico is ambushed and kidnapped at gunpoint as they
approach the U.S. border. Now, they recount their terrifying brush with
death, and their improbable escape to safety. Divinia Hall: When I was a
kid, I had a strange fear of being kidnapped. That always scared me. It
always freaked me out that there might be somebody that wanted to take
me and I'd never see my family again. We were headed home from a family
vacation in Mexico. Family trips to Mexico have always been wonderful.
We're been going for as long as I can remember. Chris Hall: Divinia and
Tyler were asleep in the back seat. For some reason, Tyler always sits
behind his mom and Divinia always sits behind me. It's- they've done it
their whole life, I don't know why. We were on the toll road. You could
see the lights of San Diego. A police car turned on their lights - the
red and blue lights and the siren - and I looked back. I said, "Crap
Deb. We're getting pulled over." Debra Hall: I heard sirens at the same
time I felt the truck kind of jerk over to the side and I asked him,
"Were you speeding? What have you done?" He said, "No I wasn't
speeding." At that point we were probably a mile and half as the crow
flies from the border. We were so close to being home. We've been
pulled over by police before. It's never really been a big deal. So he
pulled over. The policeman walked up to the window. He didn't even get a
chance to really talk to him - Chris: And he put a gun straight to my
forehead right here. Told me to get back in the truck. Debra: At that
same exact second, another car came around and blocked us in. It
happened so incredibly fast. Divinia: So at that point there was
nowhere we could go. They really trapped us in. Chris: I looked in the
mirror and could see probably eight, 10 guys. Debra: There were eight
to 10 gunmen. Divinia: There's men surrounding our truck. Chris:
They're all dressed the same in a, kind of a military type. Debra: Very
precise in their movements. All the other guys except for that first
one had their faces covered. They just had this portion of their eyes
showing. Divinia: They all had guns with silencers on 'em… They told us
to put our heads down and shut up… I remember my brother saying, "Oh
God, no, please no."""
Live to Tell, from the producers of "48 Hours Mystery", is the provocative limited-run series, which features unfiltered, first-hand accounts from extraordinary individuals who came face-to-face with death but refused to give in.
"KIDNAP ON HWY 1, "Live to Tell", from the producers of "48 Hours Mystery," is the provocative limited-run series, which features unfiltered, first-hand accounts from extraordinary individuals who came face-to-face with death but refused to give in. In November 2007, Chris and Debra Hall, along with their children, Tyler and Divinia, were driving back to California from Mexico, when they saw police lights gaining on them. When the family pulled over, a man in a police uniform approached and suddenly put a gun to Chris' head. Drug gangs in Mexico are known to steal police uniforms as a way to trap their victims and moments later the family was ambushed by a second car of gunmen. They were only a few miles from the U.S. border.
Now the Hall family recounts their terrifying brush with death in "Live to Tell: Kidnap on Highway 1," to be broadcast on Saturday, Jan. 2 at 10 p.m. ET/PT. As the kidnappers drove them onto a dirt road in the mountains outside Tijuana, they began asking about a race car. While in Mexico, Chris and Tyler worked as part of a pit crew at the Baja 1000. But when Chris explained that there was no race car, the men ransacked the family's trailer and then took them further into the dark mountains. The gunmen put the family in a ditch and threw sleeping bags over them. "At that point I thought this was it. Execution style to the back of the head, all of us laying here. We were gonna die," says Divinia, who had survived a school shooting six years earlier. Would luck be on her side twice? Suddenly, as the Hall family lay hugging in the ditch, the men drove away. Ultimately the Halls crawled through the brush in the night to a house where a woman took them in and called police for help.
Despite her assurances that they could trust these officers, the family could not help but fear they were in trouble all over again. But the authorities rushed them to the border. For the moment they were safe, but with the gunmen in possession of their drivers' licenses - and their address - it would take time for their fears to subside, although they will carry the traumatic events of that night with them forever."
Too bad the racing community didn't want the public seeing that this threat was KNOWN and REPORTED.
CBS Reporting on Baja Mexico CLICK HERE
AP-
""Mexico Crime Wave Has Tourists On Edge January 7, 2008 / 8:58 AM / AP Assaults on American tourists have brought hard times to hotels and restaurants that dot Mexican beaches just south of the border from San Diego. Surfers and kayakers are frightened to hit the waters of the northern stretch of Mexico's Baja California peninsula, long popular as a weekend destination for U.S. tourists. Weddings have been canceled. Lobster joints a few steps from the Pacific were almost empty on the usually busy New Year's weekend. Americans have long tolerated shakedowns by police who boost salaries by pulling over motorists for alleged traffic violations, and tourists know parts of Baja are a hotbed of drug-related violence. But a handful of attacks since summer by masked, armed bandits - some of whom used flashing lights to appear like police - marks a new extreme that has spooked even longtime visitors. Lori Hoffman, a San Diego-area emergency room nurse, said she was sexually assaulted Oct. 23 by two masked men in front of her boyfriend, San Diego Surfing Academy owner Pat Weber, who was forced to kneel at gunpoint for 45 minutes. They were at a campground with about 30 tents, some 200 miles south of the border. The men shot out windows of the couple's trailer and forced their way inside, ransacked the cupboards and left with about $7,000 worth of gear, including computers, video equipment and a guitar. Weber, who has taught dozens of students in Mexico over the last 10 years, plans to surf in Costa Rica or New Zealand. "No more Mexico," said Hoffman, who reported the attack to Mexican police. No arrests have been made.
The Baja California peninsula is known worldwide for clean and sparsely populated beaches, lobster and margaritas and blue waters visited by whales and dolphins. Surfers love the waves; fishermen catch tuna, yellowtail and marlin. Food and hotels are cheap. News of harrowing assaults on American tourists has begun to overshadow that appeal in the northern part of the peninsula, home to drug gangs and the seedy border city of Tijuana. The comparatively isolated southern tip, with its tony Los Cabos resort, remains safer and is still popular with Hollywood celebrities, anglers and other foreign tourists. Local media and surfing Web sites that trumpeted Baja in the past have reported several frightening crimes that U.S. and Mexican officials consider credible. Longtime visitors are particularly wary of a toll road near the border that runs through Playas de Rosarito - Rosarito Beach. In late November, as they returned from the Baja 1000 off-road race, a San Diego-area family was pulled over on the toll road by a car with flashing lights. Heavily armed men held the family hostage for two hours. They eventually released them but stole the family's truck. Before dawn on Aug. 31, three surfers were carjacked on the same stretch of highway. Gunmen pulled them over in a car with flashing lights, forced them out of their vehicles and ordered one to kneel. They took the trucks and left the surfers. Aqua Adventures of San Diego scrapped its annual three-day kayak trip to scout for whales in January, ending a run of about 10 years. Customers had already been complaining about longer waits to return to the U.S.; crime gave them another reason to stay away. "People are just saying, 'No way.' They don't want to deal with the risk," said owner Jen Kleck, who has sponsored trips to Baja about five times a year but hasn't been since July. Charles Smith, spokesman for the U.S. consulate in Tijuana, said the U.S. government has not found a widespread increase in attacks against Americans, but he acknowledged many crimes go unreported. The State Department has long warned motorists on Mexico's border to watch for people following them, though no new warnings have been issued. Mexican officials acknowledge crime has threatened a lifeblood of Baja's economy. In Playas de Rosarito, a city of 130,000, police were forced to surrender their weapons last month for testing to determine links to any crimes. Heavily armed men have patrolled City Hall since a failed assassination attempt on the new police chief left one officer dead. On Thursday the bullet-riddled bodies of a Tijuana police official and another man were found dumped near the beach. "We cannot minimize what's happening to public safety," said Oscar Escobedo Carignan, Baja's new secretary of tourism. "We're going to impose order ... We're indignant about what's happening." Tourist visits to Baja totaled about 18 million in 2007, down from 21 million the previous year, Escobedo said. Hotel occupancy dropped about 5 percentage points to 53 percent. Hugo Torres, owner of the storied Rosarito Beach Hotel and the city's new mayor, estimates the number of visitors to Rosarito Beach since summer is down 30 percent. In the city's Puerto Nuevo tourist enclave, which offers $20 lobster dinners and $1 margaritas, restaurant managers said sales were down as much as 80 percent from last year. One Saturday afternoon in October, masked bandits wielding pistols walked the streets and kidnapped two men - an American and a Spanish citizen - who were later released unharmed. Two people who were with them were shot and wounded. Omar Armendariz, who manages a Puerto Nuevo lobster restaurant, is counting on the new state and city governments to make tourists feel safer. He has never seen fewer visitors in his nine years on the job. "It's dead," he said.""
Nothing like death to get peoples attention.
AMEX (American Medical Xpedition) worked with the American Consulates at Tijuana and Los Cabos to promote Citizen Services and new cross-border medical protocols.
The
cross-border medical protocols were critical to the Board of
Supervisors of the County of San Diego. The board is the sole elected
representatives of the entire San Diego region.
These were critical services dealing with the new border between the USA and Mexico. When the 'Kraft incident' made the news, the County of San Diego Health and Human Services Department needed a negotiator between the health departments of the State of Baja California (Mexico) and the County of San Diego (USA).
Baja Racing News
early reporting helped get the word out of new citizen services for
medical emergencies and the rules needed to accomplish medical transfers
between the countries.
The "Kraft Accident" also is instructive of the reality of the risks of travel in Mexico. CLICK HERE
*Continuing work happens daily with the Emergency Medical Services Committee of the County of San Diego and related commercial and non-commercial interests*
*Developed with the Emergency Medical Services Division of the County of San Diego/ HHS Department.
*Served on the Emergency Medical Services Committee, of the County of San Diego.
*Special Thanks to the Citizen Services Division of the United States of America, State Department, Washington, D.C.
*AMEX Keeps Working - American Medical Emergency Xpedition (AMEX) is formed (1999) and now
addresses cross-border medical emergencies*
BajaRacingNews.com
Gary Newsome, Publisher
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