Lives and fortunes intertwined in GM town

ONTARIO, Ohio — When General Motors, the biggest employer in town, laid off 400 workers in December, it was like a boulder falling into a very small pond.

April and Rick Allison lost their jobs stamping out doors and other car parts. They plan to leave to find work.

Their departure means their landlord, Angelo Sorrenti, is worried about his business, so he's holding off buying a new pickup.

That hurts Graham's Auto Mall, which has laid off sales manager Steve Brown.

Now Brown can't make his regular contribution to the United Way.

The United Way has reduced donations to charities such as Friendly House's after-school and summer program for low-income children.

Friendly House is increasing its summer day camp fees. Single mom Pamela Hall worries if that keeps up, her 9-year-old daughter Courtney will have to stay home.

The struggles facing the people of Ontario and its neighboring communities show how the 400 layoffs ripple far beyond the gates of the GM plant, where 860 people still work. The stories reveal how job losses at a plant tear the web that binds the workers and their neighbors.

And Ontario is just one of 12 cities facing the bleak prospect that its GM plant will shut down in the next two years.

President Obama promises a stronger, healthier future for the restructured GM and Chrysler, but the White House acknowledges that it means downsizing. For Ontario and its 5,200 residents, already under strain, downsizing means losing the remaining 860 jobs.

"Something like this can devastate a little town," says Kim Hill, assistant director of research at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, Mich.

More layoffs will ripple across Richland County, where the recession already has led to a 13.1% jobless rate, well above the state's 11.1% and the nation's 9.5%. Situated between Cleveland and Columbus, the county's biggest community is Mansfield, an industrial city next to Ontario with a population of 50,000.

Ontario, a mix of farms and newly built suburban mini-McMansion subdivisions, has grown into a retail hub for the county with shopping strips and big-box stores. That's largelythanks to the GM plant.

Hill says that for every job cut at a stamping plant like the one here, three more could be lost as the facility no longer buys supplies or hires contractors for services, such as cleaning; retailers and restaurants see fewer customers; and local government receives less tax revenue.

Ontario officials are bracing for big drops in income and property taxes as jobs disappear and people leave. The largest chunk of the city of Ontario's revenue, about 44%, comes from a tax on wages. Revenue from the 1% tax — $3.7 million last year — goes toward police, street repair and other services, Mayor Ken Bender says.

About 40% of that tax was a product of jobs at the GM plant. This year, even before the plant shuts down, the city expects to collect at least $300,000 less.

Bender says the plant closing will have "a catastrophic effect" on the police force and other services. Already, the city has laid off eight people from a workforce of 56, including two police officers and two dispatchers.

Bender doesn't know how bad it will get, but he says less revenue and more layoffs are likely.

Politicians and area residents are petitioning GM to keep the plant open, but the company says the closing is final.

"There's not really any alternative," says GM spokesman Tom Wilkinson. "In order for the company to be viable going forward ... we need fewer plants. That's the reality."

Starting over

The Allisons moved to Ontario to work at the stamping plant five years ago when the auto parts maker where they worked in Dayton scaled back.

"When we came up here we were told it was the best plant. ... We felt safe coming up here," says Rick Allison, 30. "The fact that it was going to stay open for many, many years was another plus, but obviously, it did not turn out to be the truth."

They've been out of work since December, except for two weeks in April when the company called them back temporarily.

They are each eligible for a $45,000 buyout to leave GM, or they can take a chance that the 10 years they have in the company puts them high enough on the seniority list that they can transfer to another plant.

The uncertain future weighs heavily. With a newborn baby and three daughters under 12, do they gamble with GM to hang onto their health insurance? Or do they each take the buyout and cut their ties to the company?

"You want to make sure you are doing the best for your family, but you don't know that until things pan out eventually," says April Allison, 32. "I'm scared to death."

Either way, they know they won't be staying in Ontario.

"We're going to go back home and start over," says Rick Allison. "We had lives before GM; we'll have lives after GM."

'We have cut back'

As the Allisons prepare to start over elsewhere, their landlord, Angelo Sorrenti, is expecting more turnover in the 20 three-bedroom houses he rents out.

The $650 to $700 monthly rents he collects supplement the income on his homebuilding business, Arcangelo Builders, which has taken a bad hit since the economy tanked last fall.

Sorrenti, who built homes that sold for up to $500,000, went from putting up five houses a year and employing nine people to building none this year and laying off seven workers.

Now, he's working on smaller jobs he wouldn't have taken a year ago, such as remodeling kitchens and bathrooms.

The plant closing comes in an already tough time for Richland County home sales. Latest figures show 87 homes sold in June, down from 113 the same month last year. The average sale price fell to $78,015, down from $92,364 in June 2008.

"This is the slowest period I've ever experienced in the last 28 years," says Sorrenti, 51.

So he is scaling back. He was thinking about replacing the pickup he bought at Graham's Auto Mall eight years ago, but now that's out.

"We have cut back in all areas of our life," he says. "If everybody does that, we'll be hurting more and more in our community."

Even so, he is upbeat about the place that became his home when he left Italy 38 years ago.

"I have seen this happen in the early '80s, when many factories closed," Sorrenti says. "But believe it or not, we've been able to re-adapt going through these difficult times, which is why I tend to have a positive outlook for us."

Fear of the unknown

At Graham's in Mansfield, where the mainstay of the business for 40 years has been GM cars, sales are down 25% for the first five months of 2009 from the same time last year, says general manager Kenneth Williams.

As more customers like Sorrenti hold off car purchases, Graham's has laid off three workers out of 165 in January. One was Steve Brown, a sales manager who's been in the car business for 20 of his 49 years.

He spends his days looking for jobs online at home in Savannah, a rural spot 20 miles from Mansfield.

Brown says he never expected to be out of work so long. He's applied for 30 jobs but says local businesses, reacting to GM's problems, are not hiring.

Unemployment benefits, savings and his wife's job as a manager at a plastics manufacturer will pay their bills through the end of the year.

"What if this time next year, I'm still out of work?" he wonders. "Unemployment is gone. It's the fear of the unknown."

His plans for a comfortable retirement have crumbled. He and his wife of 28 years have lost more than a third of their 401(k) retirement savings in the recession.

"We were doing it right. ... I wasn't going to be a burden to anybody," he says. "It turned out nothing like we've been planning."

He and his wife spend only on necessities: food, house payments, utilities and insurance. His charitable giving was one of the first things to go. His donations to the United Way used to come out of his paycheck.

"We can't do it right now," he says.

'We can't be negative'

The United Way of Richland County has seen fundraising suffer for three years as GM's troubles and the recession have put more people out of work. Donations fell from $1.9 million in 2007 to $1.7 million in 2008. Executive director Skip Allman expects an even bigger drop this year.

That means the 27 charities the United Way funds will receive less money.

Friendly House received $239,000 from the United Way this year, $31,000 less than last year. The drop meant director Terry Conard had to raise the fee for the 10-week summer day camp to $30 from $10 last summer.

The program, which provides tutoring, swimming lessons, games, and arts and crafts for kids under 18, is a life-saver for Pamela Hall. She doesn't have to worry about paying a babysitter or leaving her daughter Courtney, 9, on her own while she is at work.

Hall worries that she won't be able to afford any more fee hikes for the day camp.

"There's a lot of low-income families that can't afford it, not even $5 or $10," says Hall, 39. "I don't know that I'll be able to send my daughter. I'm a single mom trying to make things work."

The Allisons used to give to the United Way during drives at the plant. Now, their charitable giving is on hold, too, as they dismantle their life in Ontario.

United Way's Allman expects the trickle-down effect from families like the Allisons leaving the area will touch every corner of the county.

Right now, everyone feels as if they are in a boat, riding out the gales and hoping the waves will let up.

"We don't know how bad it can get," Allman says. "Of course, we can't be down. We can't be negative. It's a luxury we don't have ... We've never had to come together like this."

GM plants scheduled to close
City Plant status Population GM workforce
Pontiac, Mich. Closing by October (assembly) 66,095 1,470
Spring Hill, Tenn. On standby (assembly) 26,230 2,671
Wilmington, Del. Closing by end of July (assembly) 72,592 1,060
Grand Rapids, Mich. Closed (stamping) 193,396 912
Indianapolis Closing by Dec. 2011 (stamping) 808,466 762
Ontario, Ohio Closing by June 2010 (stamping) 5,200 860
Livonia, Mich. Closing by June 2010 (engine) 91,220 118
Flint, Mich. Closing by Dec. 2010 (North components) 112,900 646
Ypsilanti, Mich. Closing by Dec. 2010 (powertrain) 21,464 1,364
Parma, Ohio Closing by Dec. 2010 (components) 77,947 1,026
Fredericksburg, Va. Closing by Dec. 2010 (components) 22,818 81
Massena, N.Y. Closed in May (castings) 10,539 35

Police say bombers used JI methods

The National Police confirmed Friday's explosions in two Jakarta hotels were suicide bombs and the methods used bore many similarities to previous Jamaah Islamiyah (JI) attacks.

Police deputy chief spokesman Brig. Gen. Sulistiyo Ishak, however, said Monday that the police had not found a link between the bombers and JI, despite finding bomb materials similar to those found in a JI safe house in Cilacap, Central Java.

"We do not want to jump to any conclusion. The bomb materials have many similarities with the ones in Cilacap, and also the ones used in Bali during both Bali bombings," he said.

"However, we cannot confirm for now whether JI is behind the latest bombings or not."

Suicide bombers attacked the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in South Jakarta's Mega Kuningan district on Friday morning. The blast killed at least nine people and injured more than 50.

Sulistiyo refused to confirm recent media speculation on the identity of one of the bombers, identified only as "N".

Television stations have repeatedly shown a man carrying a backpack on his chest and lugging a suitcase through the lobby of the Marriott Hotel moments before the explosion on Friday.

The man has been identified as Nurdin Aziz, based on the Jakarta ID he held. He checked into room 1808 of the hotel, where the police found an undetonated bomb after the explosion.

Terrorism experts suspect that the bomber identified as Nurdin Aziz is actually Nur Said or Nur Hasbi, a member of JI splinter group led by fugitive Malaysian Noordin M. Top.

Nur Said's parents and brother were reportedly taken early Monday morning to Semarang to undergo DNA testing.

Nur's neighbor, Subawadi, said the neighbors knew Nur had studied at the Al Mu'min Islamic boarding school in Ngruki, Surakarta, an institution notorious for its graduates' involvement in previous suicide bombings.

However, the school's vice dean, Muhammad Sholeh Ibrahim, denied Sunday that Nur had graduated from the school.

"He was never one of our students," he said.

Another police spokesman, Sr. Comr. Ketut Untung Yoga Ana, told The Jakarta Post that detectives were finishing sketches of the bombers.

Ketut declined to say when the police would release the sketches.

Sulistiyo also did not discuss the methods used to bring the bombs into the hotels.

"Speculations about the bombs being assembled from inside the hotels were from the media, not officially from the police," he said.

Media reports have said the bombers stayed for a few days at the Marriott, taking bomb materials into the hotels piece by piece. Once the pieces were inside, the terrorists assembled the bombs in their rooms.

Nur Hasbi blew himself in Marriot's Syailendra restaurant, while the second bomber walked into the nearby Ritz-Carlton using an underground tunnel linking the two hotels, blowing himself up in the Ritz's Airlangga restaurant, Tempointeraktif.com reported.

The bomber managed to access the tunnel without difficulty because security was in disarray moments after the first bomb exploded.

The bombing at the Ritz Carlton killed three people, including the suicide bomber, while the bombing at the Marriot killed six, including the suicide bomber

Strategies to Avoid when Dealing with Debt

When dealing with a debt problem many people's first priority is to avoid declaring personal bankruptcy. As a result, they may jump at the first solution that comes their way. But some of these strategies can actually hurt you.

Here are five common approaches that you may want to avoid:

1. Only Paying Credit Card Minimum Monthly Payments

Paying the minimum on your credit card bill seems like a smart move for getting some relief but the way that interest is usually calculated, it actually means that your total debt amount will grow over time. Therefore, making minimum payments often makes the problem worse, not better.

2. Seeking Debt Relief from Friends or Family

Taking a loan from friends or family may sound like a great idea. But using a friend or a family member as your debt relief solution can lead to severely strained relationships. If there's no legal agreement, you may not feel the same pressure to pay it back, and your important relationships could easily be damaged if the other person doesn't get paid back as they feel they should.

3. Paying Off Debt with a High Interest Loan

While it may make sense to pay off all of your creditors and only have one monthly payment obligation, you always need to look at the fine print of the loan terms. Chances are the new loan may have a higher interest rate than your current average, so you will actually end up with more debt than you are carrying.

4. Credit Counselors with High Fees

Credit counselors can help you manage your debt, so you don't want to necessarily rule them out entirely. But, if a credit counselor asks for a high fee or asks you to pay upfront, be very wary as some unscrupulous credit counselors prey on people who are vulnerable because of their debt situation, and take people's money without actually helping.

5. Bankruptcy as a Debt Solution

Bankruptcy may be a viable debt relief solution, but it should really be your last resort. While it can erase some of your debt, it can't always relieve you from all of it. You could lose your car, your home, as well as other property in the process and it will hurt your credit report for years to come.

So, What To Do...

If you're burdened with seemingly insurmountable debt, it's important that you realize that help is available. Millions of people are having similar problems and are working through them successfully.

One of the best options that many people turn to is a service called Freedom Debt Relief, one of the nation's premier settlement agencies.

Debt settlement agencies negotiate with your creditors to reduce credit card debt, medical bills, and unsecured personal loans. They determine a reasonable monthly amount that you can afford to pay, and then negotiate with your creditors to get you a settlement and help you avoid bankruptcy.

In some cases, Freedom Debt Relief can negotiate a debt reduction of as much as 50%.

Freedom Debt Relief is currently offering free consultations. Their experts will help you explore your debt relief options and suggest a solution that could work for you.

Poll: Less faith in Obama's economic abilities

WASHINGTON — Qualms about President Obama's stewardship of the economy are growing, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, as Americans become more pessimistic about when they predict the recession will end.

At six months in office, Obama's 55% approval rating puts him 10th among the 12 post-World War II presidents at this point in their tenures. When he took office, he ranked seventh.

THE OVAL: Obama on health care

"His ratings have certainly come back down to Earth in a very short time period," Republican pollster Whit Ayres says.

White House adviser David Axelrod calls the "turbulence" predictable, given the nation's economic woes and Obama's ambitious agenda.

"People fundamentally like this president, and they believe he's smart and capable and strong and trying to do the right thing," Axelrod says.

The findings forecast the rough patch that probably is ahead for Obama if unemployment continues to increase, as the administration predicts.

Lower ratings could make it more difficult for him to prevail on his top legislative priority. The president met with doctors and nurses at the Children's National Medical Center on Monday as he pushed the House and Senate to pass health-care overhauls before leaving on their August recess.

Obama continues to be highly regarded personally. Two-thirds see him as a strong and decisive leader and someone who understands the problems they face in their daily lives. A majority says his administration "is creating a new spirit of idealism."

However, there is a widening disconnect between Obama's personal standing and support for the policies he advocates:

• By 49%-47%, those surveyed disapprove of how he is handling the economy, a turnaround from his 55%-42% approval in May. The steepest drop came from conservative and moderate Democrats.

• By 50%-44%, they disapprove of how he is handling health care policy.

• A 59% majority say his proposals call for too much government spending and 52% say they call for too much expansion of government power.

• Expectations of the economy's turnaround are souring a bit. In February, the average prediction for a recovery was 4.1 years; now it's 5.5 years.

• The administration's stimulus package isn't seen as a benefit by most whether viewed in the short term or the long term, in how it will impact the country or individuals. Only a third think it will help their own family's finances in the long run.

Obama "might make the policies more popular by being associated with him," says historian H.W. Brands of the University of Texas-Austin. "But it's almost equally possible that it will make him less popular by linking him with those policies."

The poll of 1,006 adults, taken Friday through Sunday by land line and cellphone, has a margin of error of +/– 4 percentage points.

£200 MILLION BOOST FOR UK MOTOR INDUSTRY

THE UK motor industry was given a huge boost yesterday when Nissan announced plans to invest £200million to build batteries for electric cars, creating 350 new jobs.

Gordon Brown and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson welcomed the good news for the Japanese firm’s plant in Sunderland during a tour of the site.

The factory, which shed 1,200 jobs in January, has beaten competition from other Nissan plants in Europe for the work. It is now a contender to manufacture the group’s new “greener” electric vehicles.

Mr Brown hailed the ­investment as “great news for the local economy”.

Mr Mandelson said a “low carbon economic area” would be established in the North-east.

It will include a training centre that will ­specialise in the manufacture and maintenance of ultra-low carbon vehicles.

Over the next two years, 750 charging points will be installed across the region.

DoCoMo develops solar-powered handset

TOKYO —

NTT DoCoMo has developed a solar-powered, waterproof mobile phone that will go on sale from September. The solar hybrid can be recharged with sunlight as well as electricity. Even if the battery has completely lost its charge, just 10 minutes of solar recharging via a panel on the phone’s body provides approximately one minute of talk time.

The handset comes with an 8-megapixel CCD camera that takes excellent photographs even dim lighting or when objects are moving. The waterproof body, resistant to water sprays from all directions and submergible to depths up to one meter, enables safe, carefree enjoyment of mobile communication and entertainment in the bath, kitchen, beach, rain or other environments where water is present.

Mexican Cartel Leaders, Associates Targeted in DEA Sting Effort

Today the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury announced coordinated actions against the Gulf Cartel/Los Zetas drug trafficking organization, now known as the “Company,” in the latest in a series of efforts by the U.S. government to neutralize and dismantle this violent cartel.

Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen, Jorge Eduardo Costilla-Sanchez, Heriberto Lazcano-Lazcano and Miguel Trevino-Morales, high-level Mexican leaders of the Company and 15 of their top lieutenants, have been charged in U.S. federal courts with drug trafficking-related crimes. Also today, the State Department announced rewards of up to $50 million, collectively, for information leading to the capture of 10 of these defendants, including the four leaders who were also specially designated as Narcotics Kingpins today by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).

“These indictments allege a stunning and sophisticated operation by the Company to move illegal drugs into our communities and cash back to Mexico,” said Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer. “We have learned that the most effective way to disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations is to prosecute their leaders and seize their funding. Today’s coordinated actions by the Departments of Justice, State and Treasury will serve not only to bring these individuals to justice, but also to significantly slow the flow of cash that is so vital to cartel operations. These actions are also the result of our strong partnership with Mexican Attorney General Medina Mora, Secretary of Public Security Garcia Luna and other Mexican officials. We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our brave Mexican colleagues in the fight against these destructive cartels.”

“Violent drug trafficking organizations represent a threat to the health and safety of people in Mexico and the U.S.,” said Acting Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Administrator Michele M. Leonhart. “These indictments and rewards prove our commitment to disrupting the cycle of drugs and associated violence that follow the cartels wherever they operate. I am especially proud of our DEA Houston and New York Divisions, whose investigations were the thrust behind the indictments of these offenders. With the help of the public, and in close coordination with the government of Mexico, they will be brought to justice.”

“Following on the heels of the President’s naming of Los Zetas as a drug kingpin organization in April, we are today targeting sanctions against four drug lords who are senior leaders in Los Zetas and the Gulf Cartel,” said OFAC Director Adam J. Szubin. “We remain committed to using all tools at our disposal to assist President Calderon in his courageous efforts against Mexico’s deadly narcotics cartels.”

Today, an indictment was unsealed in the Eastern District of New York charging Miguel Trevino-Morales with operating a continuing criminal enterprise, international cocaine distribution and firearms violations. The indictment also contains a $1 billion forfeiture allegation. If convicted on all charges, he faces life in prison. Miguel Trevino-Morales is a principal leader of Los Zetas, originally a security force used by the Gulf Cartel. The Zetas, whose origin includes former members of the Air Mobile Special Forces Group of the Mexican military, have evolved into not only a security force but a drug trafficking organization in their own right.

In addition, a three-count superseding indictment returned June 9, 2009, in the District of Columbia charges the four leaders and 15 other alleged cartel members with conspiracy to possess with intent to import cocaine and marijuana into the United States and two counts of possession with intent to import cocaine into the United States. Cardenas-Guillen, Costilla-Sanchez and Lazcano-Lazcano are Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) Consolidated Priority Organization Targets (CPOTs). Conviction on any count carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years and a maximum of life in prison.

According to the superseding indictment, the Company was led primarily by a governing council, or triumvirate, which consisted of Cardenas-Guillen, Costilla-Sanchez and Lazcano-Lazcano. The indictment alleges the Company has operated along the U.S./Mexico border, dividing the territory into areas known as “plazas” and assigning each plaza region a leader known as the “plaza boss.” The superseding indictment alleges Cardenas-Guillen, Costilla-Sanchez and Lazcano-Lazcano directed the Company’s cocaine and marijuana shipments via boats, planes and cars from Colombia and Venezuela to Guatemala, as well as to various cities and “plazas” in Mexico. From Mexico, the drugs were then shipped into cities in Texas for distribution to other cities in the United States.

The Company allegedly used sophisticated record keeping programs to track shipping, employment, payroll and payments made to law enforcement officials as well as payments received and owed. The superseding indictment alleges that the defendants discussed, among other things, supply issues, debt collection, pricing for the drugs in specific areas, bonus structures for individuals working at the “plazas,” concealment of the drugs during transportation, methods of shipment from Mexico to Texas, seizures of shipments and locations along the U.S./Mexico border where defendants allegedly believed the drugs could move more freely and control of law enforcement in certain areas.

Cardenas-Guillen, Costilla-Sanchez and Lazcano-Lazcano were previously charged with drug trafficking crimes in 2008 in two separate indictments returned in the District of Columbia cases. The other previously charged defendants, included in the superseding indictment, are Jaime Gonzales-Duran; Samuel Flores-Borrego; Mario Ramirez-Trevino; Alfredo Rangel-Buendia; FNU LNU, aka Lino; Gilberto Barragan-Balderas; Juan Reyes Mejia-Gonzales; Omar Trevino-Morales; Jesus Enrique Rejon Aguilar; Alfonso Lam-Liu; Eleazar Medina-Rojas; and Aurelio Cano-Flores. The superseding indictment also added the following defendants: Carlos Cerda-Gonzalez, Victor Hugo Lopez-Valdez and Sigifredo Najera-Talamantes.

Costilla-Sanchez is also charged, along with Osiel Cardenas-Guillen and eight others, in a 17-count superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of Texas in April 2002 with conspiracy to import and possess with intent to distribute cocaine and marijuana, conspiracy to launder drug money and threatening to assault a federal officer. A State Department reward of up to $5 million has previously been offered for information leading to the arrest of Costilla-Sanchez.

Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen, along with 13 others, is also charged in a 10-count indictment filed in the Southern District of Texas in December 2002 with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, possession with intent to distribute cocaine and conspiracy to launder drug money. Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen is alleged to have controlled a cocaine and money laundering organization in Matamoros, Mexico, with multiple cells in Houston that warehoused, transported and distributed multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine and laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds that were smuggled into Mexico beginning in 1998.

Members of the Company on the DEA Most-Wanted List are also subjects of rewards, up to $5 million each, offered by the State Department through the Narcotics Rewards Program for information leading to these individuals’ arrest. They include:

Heriberto Lazcano-Lazcano (AKA El Verdugo, El Lazca, Laz, Catorce and Licenciado)
Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen (AKA Ezequiel Cardenas-Guillen, Marcos Ledezma, Tony Tormenta and Licenciado)
Miguel Angel Trevino-Morales (AKA 40, Cuarenta, L-40, David Estrada-Corado and Comandante Forty)
Alejandro Trevino-Morales (AKA 42, Omar and Comandante Forty Two)
Juan Reyes Mejia-Gonzalez (AKA R-1, Kike, Kiki, Quique)
Mario Ramirez-Trevino (AKA Mario Armando Ramirez-Trevino, X-20, Mario Pelon and Pelon)
Gilberto Barragan-Balderas (AKA Heriberto and Tocayo)
Jesus Enrique Rejon-Aguilar (AKA Mamito, Caballero and David Enrique Cruz-Maldonado)
Samuel Flores-Borrego (AKA Metro Tres, Tres, M Three, El Cabezon, Metro Three and Commander Tres)
Aurelio Cano-Flores (AKA Yankee and Yeyo. Now in custody).

Since the inception of the Narcotics Rewards Program in the 1980s, the Department of State has paid more than $44 million in rewards to individuals whose information helped bring to justice many major violators of U.S. drug laws who were responsible for importing hundreds of tons of illegal narcotics into the United States each year. In addition, the Mexican Attorney General’s Office previously announced rewards of up to $2.4 million (30,000,000 pesos), per individual, for information leading to the capture of Costilla-Sanchez, Cardenas-Guillen, Lazcano-Lazcano and Miguel Trevino-Morales.

In support of the coordinated U.S. government effort against this organization, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s OFAC today designated Costilla-Sanchez, Cardenas-Guillen, Lazcano-Lazcano and Miguel Trevino-Morales as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers through the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act (Kingpin Act). Today’s designation action freezes any assets the individuals may have under U.S. jurisdiction and prohibits U.S. persons from conducting transactions or dealings in the property interests of the designated individuals and entities. Penalties for violations of the Kingpin Act range from civil penalties of up to $1,075,000 per violation to more severe criminal penalties. Criminal penalties for corporate officers may include up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $5 million. Criminal fines for corporations may reach $10 million. Other individuals face up to 10 years in prison and fines for criminal violations of the Kingpin Act. On April 15, 2009, the President designated Los Zetas as a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker Kingpin organization.

During the coordinated investigation that led to the superseding indictment in the District of Columbia being returned, foreign law enforcement seized substantial amounts of drugs belonging to this organization. Among the shipments intercepted was a 2,400 kilogram cocaine shipment intercepted and seized in Panama on Nov. 30, 2007. On Oct. 5, 2007, Mexican authorities seized an 11.7 ton load of cocaine, which was (at the time) the largest cocaine seizure in Mexican history. On Oct. 16, 2008, Mexican law enforcement agents seized more than 9,000 kilograms of marijuana belonging to the Company in Guadalupe, Mexico.

In September 2008, the Department announced the arrests of more than 175 alleged Gulf Cartel members and associates in Project Reckoning, a multi-agency international law enforcement effort that targeted key leadership elements of this organization. That effort is continuing through the coordinated multi-agency initiatives and developments announced today. To date, Project Reckoning has resulted in more than 620 arrests and the seizure of more than $84 million in U.S. currency, multiple tons of illegal drugs and 934 weapons.

The case is being investigated by the DEA Houston Office in coordination with the Special Operations Division, comprised of agents, analysts and attorneys from NDDS, DEA, FBI, ICE, ATF, U.S. Marshals Service and Internal Revenue Service.