CBS News
Philadelphia Customs officers intercept package containing 60 dead butterflies
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers in Philadelphia intercepted a package from Portugal containing 60 dead butterflies earlier this month, officials said.
CBP agriculture specialists first inspected the parcel, which was labeled as “pieces of silk to be used in works,” on May 2 and found that it contained “dried out pupal cases and over 60 envelopes containing dead adult moth and butterfly specimens of the order Lepidoptera,” according to a news release from CBP.
The specialists detained the package, which was bound for Wayne County in Northeast Pennsylvania, and reported it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The Fish and Wildlife Service regulates wildlife importation, including dead specimens. The package of butterflies did not contain invoices or import documentation that would have explained the species or purpose of the package, according to the release.
CBP Photos/Handouts
“Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists have a very challenging and critical mission, and that is to protect our vital agricultural resources against the accidental or deliberate introduction of invasive insect pests, and plant and animal diseases that could harm our nation’s economic vitality,” CBP’s Area Port Director for Philadelphia Tater Ortiz said in a statement.
CBP agriculture specialists inspect tens of thousands of international air travelers and air and sea cargo coming into the United States every day.
CBP Photos/Handouts
Croatian authorities arrested an Austrian national on suspicion of trying to smuggle a corpse, after he was stopped at a border crossing with a dead woman riding in his car’s passenger seat, police said Tuesday.
The 65-year-old man was stopped at the Gunja border crossing with Bosnia in late November after presenting travel documents for himself and another passenger, police told AFP in a statement.
The officers then became suspicious after noticing the female passenger “was not conscious and was not communicating.”
Police called a coroner to the scene, who established that the passenger was dead.
Authorities said the 83-year-old woman had died in Bosnia, and the driver had tried to take her body to back Austria to “avoid formalities related to the transport of deceased,” the statement added.
Police did not elaborate on the relationship between the two, but local media has described the man as the deceased’s legal guardian.
Police said the case had been formally handed over to the country’s prosecutors.
Drivers in the U.S. have also been found with corpses in their vehicles for a variety of different reasons. Last year, a man in Texas was arrested after a man’s body was found inside his car nearly 40 miles away from where police there believe he was hit by the car.
In 2014, a Detroit-area man said he refused to stop and contact authorities after one of his passengers died during a drive to Michigan from Arizona because he feared being incarcerated if police investigated. Four years before that, police said a Southern California woman drove around for months with a homeless woman’s mummified body in her passenger seat.
CBS News
Rex Heuermann, alleged Long Island serial killer, due in court as prosecutors promise major development
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. – Accused Gilgo Beach serial killer Rex Heuermann is due back in court on Long Island Tuesday morning, and prosecutors are promising a major development in the case.
The hearing is set to begin after 9:30 a.m. A press conference is expected at the Suffolk County DA’s office shortly after. We will bring that news conference to you live on CBS News New York.
The judge has previously indicated he wanted to set a trial date at today’s hearing.
Heuermann’s last court appearance was back in October.
Heuermann accused of killing 6 women, so far
Heuermann, 61, has pleaded not guilty to murder charges in the deaths of six women between 1993 and 2011. The remains of 11 people were discovered around Gilgo Beach during that period, and investigators believe Heuermann may be linked to other killings. The Suffolk County DA has said there could be future indictments.
Four of the victims had their bodies disposed of near Gilgo Beach. Two others were murdered as far back as 2003 and 1993. Each of them had been involved in sex work.
Prosecutors allege Heuermann is linked to the murders through DNA, burner phone data, a description of his truck, internet searches and what they call a blueprint for how to get away with murder.
Attorneys wrangle over DNA, volume of evidence
A key point of contention in the new DNA evidence is called SNP, which prosecutors say links the hairs of victims to Heuermann. The defense has called an outside lab’s methods of genetic testing unproven and “magic.”
Another hurdle for prosecutors is the sheer volume of evidence. The DA says they’re struggling to keep up with the costs of processing the 120 terabytes of data and 400 electronic devices seized.
Heuermann’s attorney says his client is looking forward to his day in court and will be pursuing a change of venue, claiming the jury pool in Suffolk has been “poisoned.”
Heuermann remains in isolation in jail.
CBS News
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén — notorious drug lord nicknamed “Friend Killer” — returned to Mexico after U.S. prison sentence
Notorious drug lord Osiel Cárdenas Guillén has been returned to Mexico after serving a U.S. sentence and was quickly re-arrested and sent to a maximum security prison to face Mexican charges.
There had been nervousness about the impending return of Cárdenas Guillén, who once led the feared Gulf cartel in northeastern Mexico before he was arrested and extradited to the United States in 2007.
The U.S. Homeland Security Department confirmed in its social media accounts Monday that Cárdenas Guillén had been returned after serving 14 years in U.S. custody, most of his 25-year U.S. prison sentence. He is a Mexican citizen, so presumably he was deported.
“The successful removal of Osiel Cardenas, a notorious international fugitive, underscores our unwavering commitment to public safety and justice,” said Enforcement and Removal Operations Chicago Field Office Director Samuel Olson in a statement.
A Mexican federal official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said Cárdenas Guillén had immediately been taken into custody in Mexico on drug, organized crime and money-laundering charges.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement/Handout via REUTERS
The official said Cárdenas Guillén was being held at the country’s top maximum-security Altiplano prison just west of Mexico City.
Homeland Security Investigations posted photos of a paunchy, balding, bespectacled Cárdenas Guillén being escorted by two officers in helmets and flak vests, and the being walked over a border bridge.
The image contrasts with the drug lord’s fearsome reputation for violence in Mexico.
Nicknamed “El Mata Amigos” (“Friend Killer”), he recruited former Mexican special forces soldiers to form his personal guard. The former head of the Gulf cartel was known for his brutality. He created the most bloodthirsty gang of hitmen Mexico has ever known, the Zetas, which routinely slaughtered migrants and innocent people.
The 57-year-old native of the border city of Matamoros, Mexico, moved tons of cocaine and made millions of dollars through the Gulf cartel, based in the border cities of Reynosa and Matamoros.
After his arrest in the northeast border state of Tamaulipas, he was extradited in 2007 to the United States, where he was sentenced in 2010 to 25 years in prison and ordered to pay $50 million.
At that time, the Justice Department alleged that Cardenas Guillen threatened to kill a Texas sheriff’s deputy who was working as an undercover ICE agent because he refused to deliver almost 1,000 kilograms of marijuana.
