Baytown Texas-Latin Kings-Ms-13 Connection

There appear to be people in Goose Creek ISD, Baytown Texas that are hunting for websites that show pictures, videos and music for sale celebrating the war between the Latin Kings and MS-13.

US Deputy Marshall Vincent Bustamante Found Dead in Juarez

US marshal accused of stealing government property has been shot dead execution-style in the lawless Mexican border town of Juarez in the latest murder along the violence-gripped Rio Grande frontier.

The body of Deputy Marshal Vincent Bustamante was found with multiple gun wounds to the back of his head, according to Chihuahua state police

The Rest @ Gangwarfare

Oaxacan Indian Clan Operated Heroine Ring

Police arrest 48 suspects, members of a Oaxacan Indian clan, who allegedly brought the drugs in from Mexico, selling 15 to 20 pounds a week to gangs in East Los Angeles.

By Sam Quinones and Richard Winton March 25, 2009

For two decades, a Oaxacan Indian family allegedly ran an international drug ring that smuggled heroin through Tijuana into Southern California, generating millions of dollars in profit that returned to Mexico.And authorities said they did it undeterred by keeping it simple.

Family members lived humbly, with underlings distributing the drugs in open view at parking lots of 99 Cents stores, Food 4 Less supermarkets, Home Depots and McDonald's restaurants.

• At these bustling locations, men inconspicuously trading brown shopping bags filled with heroin didn't seem out of place.
• They communicated using an Indian language from their home village -- initially stumping investigators who listened to their exchanges on wiretaps.

"The language -- that stalled us," said Larry Zimmerman, the L.A. County Sheriff's Department's lead detective on the case.

They finally identified it as Mixteco Bajo, one of the main Indian languages in the state of Oaxaca, and brought in an interpreter.

On Tuesday, federal and local authorities arrested 48 members of the Mendoza family in raids at 38 residences and businesses that began before dawn and lasted into the afternoon.

• The Mendoza clan allegedly sold 15 to 20 pounds of heroin every week -- generating roughly $2 million a month in profits.
• Much of the money was sent back to Mexico, authorities said.
• The arrest offers a window into how heroin from Mexico makes its way north and into Southern California -- relying largely on a network strengthened by family ties. It shows "how heroin initially controlled by [Mexican] drug cartels makes its way into the U.S., into the hands of gang members across the Los Angeles region," U.S. Atty. Thomas P. O'Brien said.

O'Brien said the defendants in the case were indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin, among other charges.

If convicted, they face 10 years to life in federal prison.

The federal indictment of the Mendoza clan showed that the group shunned the ostentatious trappings normally associated with high-end drug traffickers.

• The clan allegedly used Ford, Honda and Pontiac vehicles. They stored the heroin in the cars -- hiding it in engine blocks, gas tanks, steering columns, air vents and dashboards.
• Despite the hefty drug profits, family members lived in modest homes in suburbs such as Montebello.
• The seven-month investigation centered around Ramon Narciso Morales-Mendoza, the alleged clan leader.

Earlier this year, detectives found $10,500 hidden in the compartment of his car designed to hold the air bag, according to a federal affidavit. (He and other family members could not be reached for comment Tuesday).

On wiretaps, members of the Mendoza clan referred to the drug as "salsa," "burrito," "taco" and "shirts."

• In safe houses, including one in the city of Commerce, the smugglers would cut the black-tar heroin with lactose using a coffee grinder, according to the affidavit.
• Clan members would then break the heroin into quarter-gram amounts and place them in small multi-colored balloons and bunch them together in large plastic or paper bags.
• The bags were then distributed to 11 street gangs, mostly in the East Los Angeles area, and other vendors.
• The gang members would sell the heroin to users from San Diego to Santa Barbara, according to the federal affidavit.

Each week, the network's heroin was broken down into about 150,000 street doses, officials said."That's enough to supply thousands of people every week," said Tim Landrum, agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

At times, the network provided Christmas bonuses in the form of free heroin to those who sold for them, authorities said.

"One customer we arrested came from Santa Barbara," Zimmerman said. "He said it's the best heroin there is. He'd buy a balloon for $5 in L.A. and sell it for $40 in Santa Barbara."

The investigation of the Mendoza clan began last fall, when Sheriff's Department detectives started looking into heroin sales among street gangs in East Los Angeles.

That led to the Mendoza clan, and its six alleged distribution networks.

The family allegedly smuggled the heroin through Tijuana in vehicles.

Authorities said they were working to identify whether the family processed the heroin itself, or bought it and smuggled it, and what routes they took to get it to the border.

They declined to identify the town where the Mendoza family originated, saying they were working with Mexican authorities, and the case was still under investigation.

The DEA, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, among others, were involved in the investigation.

Tuesday's raids stunned members of the local Oaxacan Indian community, where drug use and gang membership is uncommon and widely disdained.

"I'm just shocked, to be quite honest with you," said Felipe Lopez, a Oaxacan Indian immigrant and Cal State Los Angeles professor, who teaches classes on Mexican Indian migration to the United States.

Oaxaca is a mountainous state in southern Mexico, 2,500 miles from the border and home to 16 separate Indian tribes. Many Oaxacan Indians have immigrated to California in the last 25 years, with the largest population concentrated in the San Joaquin Valley, near Fresno, where most are farmworkers.

This week's arrests came amid a harrowing drug war in Mexico among cartels that have used the proceeds of drug sales in the United States to continue their violence.

"This shuts down a major pipeline for the drug cartels," said L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca.sam.quinones@latimes.com

The Rest @ the LA Times

Mexican Drug War

Source : Disclose TV

Atlanta trying to link up with Dallas - Latin Knights and the 13s

It looks like someone in Atlanta may be looking up contact information
for the latin knights 13 gang in dallas..It looks like someone who may know how to search anonomously....

Federico Gochoa

Bajadores Infect Arizona Drug Markets

Morning News, 3/17/09
By Bryan Griffith, March 17, 2009

As Manuel exited the Radio Shack in Phoenix with his family one afternoon last month, a group of Hispanic men standing in the parking lot watched him closely. "Do it now, do it now," one said to another in Spanish, according to a witness. One of the men approached Manuel, pointed a revolver at his head and tried to force him into a Ford Expedition parked close by. "Please, I'll get into the car, just don't touch me," Manuel pleaded as he entered the vehicle, his wife told police. Nearby, she said, another man in a Chrysler sedan aimed a rifle or shotgun out the driver's side window. At some point, shots were fired, said witnesses, although apparently no one was hit. Then the vehicles tore off with a screech of tires.

Later that evening, the phone rang. When Manuel's wife picked up, a male voice said in Spanish, "Don't call the police," and then played a recording of Manuel saying, "Tell the kids I'm OK." The man said he'd call again, then hung up.

Despite the warning, Manuel's wife contacted the cops. In subsequent calls, the kidnappers told her Manuel owed money for drugs, and they demanded $1 million and his Cadillac Escalade as ransom.

When two men later retrieved the Escalade and drove off, the cops chased them and forced them off the road. Both men, illegal immigrants from Mexico, said they'd been paid by a man (who authorities believe has high-level drug connections) to drive the vehicle to Tucson. So far, police say, Manuel hasn't reappeared, and his family has been reluctant to cooperate further with law enforcement.

"He's a drug dealer, and he lost a load," says Lt. Lauri Burgett of the Phoenix Police Department's recently created kidnapping squad. "He was probably brought to Mexico to answer for that."

Surprising as it may seem, Phoenix has become America's kidnapping capital.

Last year 368 abductions were reported, compared with 117 in 2000. Police say the real number is likely much higher, since many go unreported. Though in the past most of the nabbings stemmed from domestic-violence incidents, now the majority are linked to drug-trafficking and human-smuggling operations that pervade the Arizona corridor. It's still unclear to what extent the snatchings are being directly ordered by Mexican cartels, but authorities say they're undoubtedly a byproduct of the drug-fueled mayhem south of the border. "The tactics are moving north," says assistant police chief Andy Anderson.

"We don't have the violence they have in Mexico yet--the killing of police officers and the beheadings--but in terms of kidnappings and home invasions, it has come."

That raises an unnerving prospect: that the turmoil in Mexico--where drug violence claimed more than 6,000 lives last year--is finally seeping across the border.

• According to a December report by the Justice Department's National Drug Intelligence Center, Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have established a presence in 230 U.S. cities, including such remote places as Anchorage, Alaska, and Sheboygan, Wis.
• The issue is preoccupying American officials. "This is getting the highest level of attention," including the president's, says Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. She tells NEWSWEEK that the administration is dispatching additional Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel to the border, and it's reviewing requests from the governors of Arizona and Texas for help from National Guard troops.

Earlier this month, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Mexico to discuss assistance and to share potentially relevant lessons that the United States has learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, says a senior Pentagon official familiar with details of the trip who wasn't authorized to speak on the record.

All the attention has stoked public debate on a particularly fraught question--whether Mexico is a failing state. A U.S. Joint Forces Command study released last November floated that scenario, grouping the country with Pakistan as a potential candidate for "sudden and rapid collapse." Such a comparison is excessive, says Eric Olson of the Woodrow Wilson Center's Mexico Institute in Washington, D.C., though the Mexican government confronts "real problems of sovereignty in certain areas" of the country.

Administration officials are striving to tone down the rhetoric and focus on ways to help. Among the priorities, says Olson: to cut American demand for drugs, to provide additional training and equipment to law-enforcement and military personnel in Mexico, and to clamp down on drug cash--an estimated $23 billion per year--and assault weapons flowing into the country from the United States.

As the violence continues to spiral in Mexico, reports of cartel-related activity are on the rise in American cities far removed from the border.

• Last August the bodies of five Mexican men were discovered bound, gagged and electrocuted in Birmingham, Ala., in what was believed to be a hit ordered by Mexican narcotraffickers.
• A few months later, 33 people with cartel ties were indicted in Greeneville, Tenn., for distributing 24,000 pounds of marijuana.
• In neighboring North Carolina, "there are cartel cells ... that are a direct extension from Mexico," says John Emerson, the Drug Enforcement Administration's special agent in charge in the state.
• Law enforcement in Atlanta, where a maze of interstates provides distribution routes throughout the Southeast, has dubbed the city "the new Southwest border." "All those trends are coming here," says Fred Stephens of the Georgia Bureau of Investigations. "We are seeing alarming patterns, the same violence." He ticks off a spate of cartel-linked crimes in the state--assaults, abductions, executions.
• Last May authorities in Gwinnett County found a kidnap victim, along with 11 kilos of cocaine and $7.65 million in shrink-wrapped bundles, in a house rented by an alleged Gulf cartel cell leader.
• A few months later, a suspected drug dealer in Lawrenceville was abducted by six men, dressed commando-style in black, and held for a $2 million ransom (he escaped).
  

Nothing rivals the rash of kidnappings in Phoenix, however.

• As border enforcement has tightened the screws on the California and Texas crossings, Arizona has become a prime gateway for illicit trafficking--in both directions. "The drugs and people come north, the guns go South," says Elizabeth Kempshall, the DEA's special agent in charge of the Phoenix division.

Arizona is mostly dominated by the Sinaloa cartel, which authorities say is trying to assert greater control over the U.S. drug trade.

Yet analysts believe the organization has fractured--most notably last summer, when the Beltrán Leyva brothers reportedly split from leader Joaquín (El Chapo) Guzmán.

That internecine conflict, along with cartel encroachment north of the border, has created something of a free-for-all in Phoenix's criminal underworld. Among the groups that have stepped into the breach:

• Roving Mexican gangsters called bajadores, or "takedown" crews, who are responsible for many of the city's kidnappings. Often operating in packs of five, they typically cross the border to commit crimes, then retreat south, say police.
• Some work as enforcers for the cartels, collecting payment from dealers who have stiffed the capos or lost their loads.
• Others function as freelancers, stealing shipments of drugs or illegal immigrants from traffickers. "We've seen an uptick in the bajadores since last summer," says Al Richard, a Phoenix police detective. "We are seeing a lot more professionals coming up here now."

Mas Information En CIS

El Vicentillo de Arresed in Mexico

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (CNN) -- The Mexican military has arrested the son of a top drug cartel lieutenant, the government said Thursday.

Authorities presented suspect Vicente Zambada Niebla to the press Thursday in Mexico City.

Vicente Zambada Niebla, known as "El Vicentillo," was arrested Wednesday along with five subordinates, Mexico's defense department and attorney general's office said in a joint release. The men were acting suspiciously and had military-grade weapons, officials said.

• Zambada is the son of Ismael Zambada García, known as "El Mayo."
• The elder Zambada is a top lieutenant in the Sinaloa cartel, headed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, officials said.

Senior defense official Luis Arturo Olivier Zen and Jose Ricardo Cabrera Gutierrez, a top official with an attorney general's task force on terrorism and security, announced the arrest in Mexico City.

Guzman, the alleged cartel leader who escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001, was named in this year's Forbes magazine report on the world's billionaires. He ranked 701.

Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora expressed outrage at Forbes for listing a major drug suspect.

About 6,500 people died in the drug war in Mexico last year, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said last week.

Defense official Olivier said authorities confiscated

• three rifles
• three luxury automobiles
• 67,480 pesos ($4,845)
• $866 in U.S. currency.
  

A video on the Universal newspaper Web site shows a dark-haired Zambada and other men being led away in handcuffs. Zambada sports long sideburns, beard stubble, a black sports coat and a striped shirt.

Mas Inforamtion en CNN

Explosives Captured in Raid in Durango

The fear of guerrilla warfare was compounded in February when 270 pounds of dynamite and several hundred electric detonators were stolen from a U.S. firm in the state of Durango.

On Valentine's Day, about 20 masked gunmen, led by a heavyset man wearing gold rings and chains, stormed the warehouse of a subsidiary of Austin Powder Co., an industrial explosives manufacturer, according to official accounts. They overpowered guards and emptied the warehouse.

Two similar thefts were reported within four days in the same area.

Although the Mexican army recovered most of the dynamite, the incident augurs an even bloodier trend, officials said.

"There is only one reason to have bulk explosives," said Thomas G. Mangan, spokesman in Phoenix for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "An improvised explosive device. A car bomb."

In addition to grenades, high-powered guns such as the .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle have become a weapon of choice in narcotics traffickers' arsenals, Mangan said.

Unlike grenades and antitank weapons, the .50-caliber guns can be obtained by ordinary citizens in the U.S. and smuggled easily into Mexico, like the tons of assault rifles and automatic pistols.

Mas De La Whistle Stopper

Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels Joining Forces?

As the violence in Mexico spikes, four major drug cartels that are fighting each other for territory and smuggling routes may be forming alliances with each other.Currently three cartels control most of the border region between the U.S. and Mexico.

But the federation, or Sinaloa cartel, is fighting for a larger area of the border and may be negotiating a truce with the Gulf cartel.

Fred Burton, vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security at Stratfor Global Security says it's not surprising these groups are trying to join forces.

"We've seen reports coming out of Mexico that cartels have set down and tried to do business together because of, let's face it, pressure. Whether that be law enforcement pressure or military pressure, (it) is bad for business."

The drugs cartels are now claiming they have as many as 100,000 foot soldiers at their disposal — which include a growing number of deserters from the Mexican military. This has turned this conflict into what some experts call an evenly-matched fight. Others describe it as a propaganda battle."It's not particularly surprising to see them claiming thousands and thousands of people in their employ, so that they can try and frighten the population, intimidate people including the security forces against whom they are operating," Jackson said.But Burton, who studies the unrest daily, said more disturbing than the sheer number of foot soldiers, is the cartels' firepower.

"I think the most frightening aspect of this, if you look at this, are not so much the numbers of 100,000. It's the tactical capabilities that the cartels have, for example in places like Reynosa when they are able to muster RPG's and law rockets."

The Rest From The Whistle Stopper

Mexican Drug Artelss operate in 230 US Cities

March 13, 2009

What happens in Mexico doesn't stay in Mexico. As drug-related violence escalates south of the border, its effects are being felt as far away as Maryland and Minnesota, where federal agents last month made hundreds of arrests and seized tons of cocaine traced to Mexico's ruthless Sinaloa cartel.

Skirmishes among rival gangs have spilled across the border into El Paso, Texas, and San Diego.

Phoenix is suddenly the kidnapping capital of the U.S.A recent National Drug Intelligence Center report says Mexican cartels have a foothold in 230 U.S. cities, where they have forged alliances with local gangs to distribute drugs.

Atty. Gen. Eric Holder says the cartels are a national security threat.

• A State Department travel advisory warns that tourists visiting Mexico have been injured and killed in public places, and "dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped across Mexico."
• Its most recent dispatch specifically warns against spring break excursions to Tijuana and Rosarito Beach. Can Puerto Vallarta be far behind?

For generations, Mexico's drug cartels co-existed more or less at arm's length, each with established territories and distribution routes, unmolested and sometimes abetted by police. The illicit trade, fueled largely by American drug habits, is a $10 billion-a-year industry. But tightened security at the border led to conflicts over turf, especially near key crossings such as Tijuana and Juarez.

Warring gangs also found themselves scrapping over a domestic market that used to be an afterthought.

• The cartels operate shadow governments in hundreds of communities, extorting "taxes" from businesses and residents.
• In many towns, it's hard to tell whose side the cops are on: Either they're on the cartel payroll or turning a blind eye.
• Those who do their jobs risk being killed, often by their own; their gruesomely disfigured bodies—occasionally just their heads—are dumped in the streets overnight as a warning to others.
• Last month, the police chief of Ciudad Juarez yielded to drug lords' demands that he resign after they made good on a promise—six times—to kill a police officer every 48 hours until the chief was gone.

Elected in 2006, President Felipe Calderon quickly made good on his promise to confront the lawlessness, dispatching 40,000 soldiers to take over the work police couldn't or wouldn't do.

It's a bloody undertaking.

• More than 6,000 people, including 500 police officers and soldiers, were killed last year.
• An additional 1,000 died in the first two months of this year.
• The government has also instituted reforms designed to professionalize the police force and judicial system, but those changes could take a decade or more.

Mexico's drug war must be fought on both sides of the border.

The Bush administration's Merida Initiative promised $400 million a year to Mexico for equipment and police training; Congress is talking about doubling that amount.

In cooperation with Mexican authorities, federal agents recently staged raids in California, Maryland and Minnesota, arresting 755 people and seizing 13 tons of cocaine, 8 tons of marijuana, scores of vehicles and weapons and $59 million in cash.

The feds are also cracking down on U.S. gun dealers who are arming the cartels. Mexico says it seized more than 20,000 weapons last year; U.S. officials estimate up to 90 percent were smuggled over the border.

A single Phoenix gun merchant has been charged with selling more than 700 guns, including assault rifles, that he knew would end up in the hands of drug barons.

Though some U.S. officials worry aloud that Mexico is devolving into a narco-state, others say the body count is a hopeful sign.

Forced to fight the government and one another, the fractured cartels will be easier to defeat or at least contain. At this point, though, it's far from clear who's winning.

The Rest From The Chicago tribune

Juarez Peolice Chief Resigned

SAN DIEGO—Tijuana, Mexico, March 2009: Joggers discovered the headless bodies of three men near a bullfight ring. The corpses were also missing their hands, and one its feet. Nearby, authorities found the men's heads, along with a message from drug traffickers calling them "snitches." The area where all the body parts were found is a $10 cab ride from San Diego, Calif.

Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, February 2009: Chief of Police Roberto Orduña Cruz stepped down after drug cartel bosses made good on a threat to kill one of his officers every 48 hours until he resigned. Cartel assassins killed six officers before Orduña relented. That brought to about 200 the number of people killed in the month of February in Juarez, just two miles south of El Paso, Texas.

The Rest from World Mag

MS-13 Looking for Tagme Na Waei's Replacement in Guinea Bissa, Africa

In Guinea Bissau, West Africa, the General of the Military and the President both were assassinated this last weekend. This was an internal dispute that had been simmering from some time.

What is most interesting is that someone deep in El Salvador , possibly MS-13, is trying very hard to find out why Tagme Na Waei was killed, and determine who will be their new cover in Guinea Bissau since the poor African Narco State is the El Salvador connection's homeport for drug shipments to Milan, and Other ports in Europe.



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