20 Dead in Zetas - Gulf Shootout in Monterrey

t least 20 killed in Mexico bar, officials say

The attack takes place in the downtown of Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub hit by over a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.


Forensic workers load a truck with bodies after gunmen stormed into a bar in downtown Monterrey, Mexico, late Friday and killed at least 20 people. (Hans Maximo Musielik, AP / July 10, 2011)


By Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Mexico City—
Gunmen targeting a rival drug cartel opened fire in a crowded bar in the northern city of Monterrey, killing at least 20 people and wounding several, authorities said Saturday.

The attack occurred late Friday in the Sabino Gordo bar in downtown Monterrey, a prosperous and once-orderly industrial hub that has been buffeted by more than a year of fighting between the Zetas, known as the country's most violent drug gang, and the Gulf cartel.

Authorities said most of the dead — four of them women — were bar employees. Mexican news reports said the toll rose to 21 after a wounded man died in a hospital.

The attack may have stemmed from a dispute over narcotics sales at the bar, officials said.

"The most probable line that we're following is that it was a direct attack against the establishment, rather than against the people who were enjoying themselves there," Jorge Domene, security spokesman for Nuevo Leon state, said in a television interview.

Monterrey, Mexico's richest city, was once known as a peaceful if uninspiring factory town. But the drug violence has turned it into something more like a Wild West outpost, with gun battles in the streets, brazen kidnappings and frequent slayings of police officers in outlying communities.

Some have expressed worry that if Monterrey is lost to violence, so is all of Mexico.

The government of President Felipe Calderon launched an aggressive, military-led campaign against drug traffickers in late 2006, a drive accompanied by furious fighting between drug gangs. About 40,000 people have died.

The latest carnage wasn't limited to Monterrey. In the northern state of Coahuila, next door to Nuevo Leon, the decapitated bodies of seven men and three women were found around the city of Torreon. The killings were attributed to clashes between the Zetas and traffickers based to the west, in the state of Sinaloa.

Also, 11 bodies turned up in the municipality of Valle de Chalco, in the central state of Mexico, outside Mexico City, in an attack believed linked to crime groups.

In the western state of Michoacan, federal police in recent days have battled hit men from a faction of the splintering La Familia gang. On Saturday, the government deployed 1,800 more federal officers to the crime-torn state.

The spate of bloodletting prompted Calderon's public safety spokesman, Alejandro Poire, to call a rare Saturday news conference to defend the government's strategy.

Poire said the violence was caused by "absurd" rivalries between criminal groups and not the crackdown, which faces rising public criticism as the toll climbs.

"The violence is not going to slow down by dropping the fight against criminals," he said.

The Rest @ Intermex

US Ranchers Get Murdered on Trafficking Routs

April 9, 2010

Along the border, fears are growing that the escalating drug violence in Mexico will spill into the United States.

Last month, a well-known rancher was murdered in southeastern Arizona. Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant did it.

The murder prompted governors in New Mexico and Texas to send forces to the border. This week, the Mexican government sent dozens of police and soldiers to the Juarez Valley to restore order.

For many on both sides of the border, the fear is very real.
'Arm Yourselves'

Last week, residents held a town-hall meeting in Fort Hancock, Texas — a sleepy agricultural town on the border, about an hour southeast of El Paso, that looks like the bleak set of No Country for Old Men.

A couple hundred people crowded into the grade-school gym to hear a chilling message from Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West.

"You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves," he said. "As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you."

You farmers, I'm telling you right now, arm yourselves. As they say the old story is, it's better to be tried by 12 than carried by six. Damn it, I don't want to see six people carrying you.
- Hudspeth County Sheriff Arvin West

His warning was prompted by the killing of the Arizona rancher, and the spiraling violence a couple of miles away in Mexico in a region known as the Valley of Juarez. The notorious smuggling territory is being fought over by the Sinaloa and the Juarez cartels.

"One of the men that works for me had five people killed in front of his house over there [in Mexico] this past weekend," says Curtis Carr, who is a farmer and county commissioner. "And he's moving his family over here this week. It's serious over there. Whether or not it's gonna spill over here, I don't know."
Nobody knows.

'They Poked His Eyes Out'

The sheriff warned citizens to be alert and report strange vehicles on their streets. But at the same time, he said, don't succumb to fear.

"We haven't had anybody kidnapped here yet, but it could come," he said. "We haven't had anybody killed here, but that could come."

The violence in the Juarez Valley directly affects this little Texas town.

A couple of weeks ago, gunmen in the Juarez Valley killed the Mexican relative of a Fort Hancock high school student. When the student's family in Fort Hancock heard about it, they crossed the border at 10 a.m. to see the body, and took the student with them.

"By 10:30, they had stabbed the relatives that went with him, which included his grandparents, with an ice pick," says school superintendent Jose Franco. "My understanding is that the gentleman is like 90 years old, and they poked his eyes out with an ice pick. I believe those people are still in intensive care here in a hospital in the U.S."

Franco says the boy has isolated himself from other students so they won't ask him about the gruesome attack that he witnessed.

Tactics To Drive Out Rivals: Arson, Murder
The Valley of Juarez has a long history of human and drug trafficking. There's lots of open farmland for illicit activity. It's close to the city of Juarez, a major smuggling point. It's right across from Texas, with Interstate 10 only a few miles to the north.
And the river, the Rio Grande, is no deterrent.

Veteran Border Patrol agent Joe Romero stands on a levee overlooking the international river — which this time of year is but a trickle.

"You can literally walk across the river — and some times of the year not even get wet," he says. "And with the ease with which you can literally cross the border here from one side to the other, this made it very lucrative and appealing to anybody trying to smuggle in whatever contraband they had."

In recent years, the Department of Homeland Security has put up 44 miles of tall fencing across from the Juarez Valley, and doubled the number of Border Patrol agents. As a result, marijuana seizures in this area have fallen 97 percent in the past four years.

But none of this has dampened the drug mafias' vicious competition to dominate the Juarez Valley.

Farmers In Esperanza Flee To Juarez

Esperanza is one of several farm towns in the Juarez Valley terrorized by the narco-war. Last week, traffickers are believed to have torched two houses there and killed the occupant of one. A large bloodstain on the back door of one house marks the spot where the owner was executed.
More than 50 people were killed in the Juarez Valley in March.
Arson and murder are the tactics being used to drive out rival traffickers, as well as the general population.

Along a highway, eight members of the Villareal family stand, their bags packed, waiting for the bus. They say they're all afraid because of the killings. There's no security, no work anymore, and farmers have abandoned their fields.

You know it's bad when people are fleeing for safety to Juarez — the most murderous city in the hemisphere.

The Rest @ NPR




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DFW Gangs

US Mexico Partner to Reduce Arms Trafficking

Monday, April 5, 2010

US Acts to Combat Arms Trafficking in Western Hemisphere
US Department of State
Outlines programs to strengthen partnerships and combat illegal activities
Fact Sheet

U.S. Acts to Combat Illicit Trafficking in Arms in the Western Hemisphere
“We’re acting boldly, we are acting swiftly, and we are acting in concert to combat threats that are endangering the safety and security of citizens across the Americas.”

— President Barack Obama

President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton are committed to combating threats to the citizens of the Americas. As narco-trafficking and associated crime and violence continue to rise throughout the region, the United States has implemented programs to strengthen partnerships with the states of the Western Hemisphere to combat illicit trafficking in arms.

Training
· In 2009, the United States, Canada, and the Organization of American States (OAS) hosted the Western Hemisphere’s first customs and law enforcement officials meeting in Vancouver to discuss practical approaches and best practices for combating illicit trafficking in firearms.
· In 2009, the United States hosted a workshop in Belize on combating arms smuggling in Central America. The workshop aimed to increase states’ capacity to more effectively address the illicit manufacturing and trafficking of firearms and adopt an operational action plan among the seven Central American states. A South American workshop is expected to take place later in 2010.

Tailored Assistance

· The United States has offered technical assistance to all states in the hemisphere, outlining available U.S. small arms and light weapons-related assistance programs to combat illicit trafficking. Programs are being designed to address the specific needs of individual states.
· As part of the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, the United States is partnering with Caribbean states to develop programs that address requests for technical assistance to help tackle trafficking in firearms throughout the region.
Marking and Tracing

· The United States signed eTrace agreements with all seven Central American states and 14 of the 15 Caribbean states. eTrace is a web-based firearm trace request submission system that provides for the electronic exchange of criminal gun data in a secure environment. Expanding eTrace participation throughout the hemisphere is a priority for 2010, including the introduction of a Spanish version of the eTrace software.

· The United States provided the OAS a $1 million grant to supply marking equipment to states in the region in order to increase hemispheric capability to trace firearms and identify illicit trafficking routes and suppliers.
Stockpile Management

· The United States has assessed and offered stockpile management and destruction assistance to a number of states in Latin America and the Caribbean. Through the destruction of aging and unsafe stockpiles, states are avoiding the potential disaster of an explosion, ensuring an increased level of safety for their citizens. Examples include the following:

· As part of the Merida Initiative in Central America, the United States has provided a grant for $1.3 million to the OAS for a program that will offer stockpile management and destruction assistance to the seven Central American countries.

· The United States has provided a $450,000 grant to the United Nations’ Regional Center for Peace, Disarmament, and Development in Latin America and the Caribbean to build up the capacity of several Caribbean governments in firearms stockpile management and destruction.
——————————

U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs, March 25, 2010; distributed by America.gov, Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.

The Rest @ US Mexidata




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Mexico Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora Resigns

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexican President Felipe Calderon removed his attorney general yesterday to try to revamp a war against drug cartels that have resisted an army campaign to defeat them.

Calderon told reporters that Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora, who spearheaded the government’s fight against drug trafficking, had resigned and would be replaced by a little-known former legal official.

A crackdown by thousands of troops and federal police has been unable to suppress turf wars between rival cartels that have killed more than 13,000 people since Calderon took power in late 2006.

Calderon has staked his presidency on his war on drugs, but cartels are killing about 20 people a day in Mexico — often after torturing them — and traffickers have infiltrated many state and municipal police forces.A large deployment of troops in the city of Ciudad Juarez, on the border with Texas, has not slowed a wave of drug killings there.About a dozen hooded gunmen burst into a drug rehabilitation clinic in Ciudad Juarez last week, lined up patients and shot 17 of them dead in a gang killing.Medina Mora will be replaced by Arturo Chavez, a former official in the attorney general’s office, Calderon said.

Despite making big drug seizures and capturing some cartel leaders, security forces have been unable to catch Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman, the head of the powerful Sinaloa cartel.
Mexico’s most-wanted man, Guzman escaped from jail in a laundry van in 2001.

The Rest @ Stabroek News

$1.4 Billion Sinaloa Meth Lab Shut down

17 June
Based on this and other news, we can expect the Mexican Meth Supply to be further reduced. Street prices will go up and new local labs will move to meet the supply.

-Federico Gochoa


By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO – 4 days ago

BADIRAGUATO, Mexico (AP) — The Mexican Navy gave reporters a firsthand look Tuesday at what they described as one of the largest methamphetamine labs ever found in the country, with enough ephedrine to produce more than 40 tons of the drug.

The smell of chemical solvents was overwhelming at the remote mountaintop site in the northern state of Sinaloa, where Navy personnel on patrol last week stumbled across an enormous holding tank they initially thought might be used to water a marijuana plantation.

Instead, the tank fed water to a pair of enormous sheds where sailors found 49,640 liters (13,000 gallons) of ephedrine, a chemical used to make methamphetamine. That is enough to produce 40.2 metric tons of the drug, or about 309 million individual doses.

The members of the Navy patrol found drums, barrels and other chemicals used in the process at the site, located on a dirt road miles from the nearest town.

"This is one of the heaviest blows to the drug traffickers in this administration ... as far as synthetic drugs are concerned," said Vice Admiral Jorge Humberto Maldonado, who estimated that the precursors were enough to produce methamphetamine worth $1.4 billion in street value.

That would make it larger than the May seizure of more than 8 tons (almost 8 metric tons) of finished methamphetamine at a clandestine drug lab in the western state of Michoacan.

• In 2006, Mexican officials seized more than 19 tons of a similar precursor chemical, pseudoephedrine acetate, at a Pacific coast port.
• Mexico subsequently banned almost all legal uses of pseudoephedrine, but traffickers have apparently found other illegal routes to get the material.
• On Tuesday, Guatemalan authorities confiscated nearly 10 million pseudoephedrine pills worth $33 million, the country's biggest seizure of the substance.
• The Navy was carried out the Thursday bust in Mexico's so-called Golden Triangle, where traffickers long have operated. But was no immediate indication which drug cartel ran the facility.

The Navy also reported Tuesday that it had detected a shipment of cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks aboard a freight ship at the Gulf coast port of Progreso. The Navy did not provide an immediate estimate of the amount of cocaine found, but said it had been detected in an X-ray inspection of the shipment.

Also Tuesday, police found the bodies of seven young men who were beaten or shot to death in the state of Durango in northern Mexico.

At least three of the bodies had bullet wounds. The others appear to have been beaten to death.
Investigations into the case are continuing, but the style of the killings suggested the involvement of drug gangs.

An employee of the state prosecutor's office, who was not authorized to be quoted by name, said the bodies were found on a street in the city of Gomez Palacio.

And in the western state of Michoacan, three suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with local police in the city of Uruapan. State prosecutors said the shootout occurred Tuesday after police got a report of kidnappers fleeing in a truck and attempted to stop them.
More than 10,800 people have been killed by drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a nationwide crackdown on organized crime in late 2006.
Associated Press Writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report

The Rest @ The Associated Press

Mexican Drug War

Source : Disclose TV

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

Chiapas Attorney General Mariano Herran Arrested

Mon, 26 Jan 2009 2:54p.m.

Former Mexican drug czar arrested on suspicion of corruption, abuse of power

Prosecutors have arrested a former Mexican drug czar on suspicion of corruption while he was economy secretary in southern Chiapas state.

• Chiapas state Attorney General Raciel Lopez says Mariano Herran is charged embezzlement stemming from a stint as economy secretary last year. He gave no further details.
• Herran was Mexico's drug czar from 1997 to 2000. He had replaced General Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, who was convicted of aiding a top drug lord.
• Herran served as Chiapas chief prosecutor from 2000 to 2006, then as economy secretary.

His arrest, announced Sunday, comes in the midst of Mexico's biggest corruption scandal since Rebollo: the arrest of a dozen-high ranking officials with alleged ties to the Sinaloa cartel.

AP via W3 News

Mexican Drug War Gonna Hurt Obama?

Add another pressing challenge to President-elect Barack Obama's growing to-do list - tamping down a dramatic rise in violence and corruption that has overwhelmed the U.S.-Mexico border and spread an escalating turf fight between warring drug cartels into the United States.

Near-daily shootouts and ambushes along the southwestern border pose a serious threat, according to separate government reports, which predict a rise in "deadly force" against law enforcement officers, first responders and U.S. border residents.

Even President Bush, during a Dec. 21 interview with The Washington Times, warned that Mr. Obama faced a looming war with drug cartels where "the front line of the fight will be Mexico." He said the new president will need to deal "with these drug cartels in our own neighborhoods."

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said the agency has begun to make progress against "the criminals and thugs" operating along the U.S.-Mexico border, but "we are beginning to see more violence in some border communities and against our Border Patrol agents as these traffickers ... seek to protect their turf."

More at The Washington Times

Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)

-Big Quacho

Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, is one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

• Most MS-13 gang members are illegal aliens from El Salvador, but also include nationals from Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, and other Central and South American countries.
• With over 10,000 members, MS-13 gangs can often be identified by clothing or tattoos incorporating MS-13 or the number 13.
• Gang members have attacked and threatened law enforcement and committed a sting of ,rapes, assaults, break-ins, auto thefts, extortions, and frauds across the U.S.

MS-13 is one of several illegal alien gangs in the Dallas area.

We now know that some gangs are creating a “good neighbor” policy with other Latino street gangs in Dallas, such as Tango Blast, which is a combination of the Texas Syndicate, Mexican Mafia, and Latin Kings gangs. These dangerous gangs have been joining forces in manpower and drug trafficking, realizing that they can succeed more in their illegal activities if they join forces than by the continued blood rivals.

• Unfortunately, incarcerated gang members have been reorganizing in prison and once released, they band together to handle the security and sales for the drug cartels.
  

Gang members have long been engaged in retail drug trafficking, including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine, and heroin. As I have mentioned previously,

• Dallas serves as a major drug distribution hub for national drug trafficking, by major Mexican trafficking organizations.
• In 2005, law enforcement officials estimated the illegal narcotic business in Dallas at roughly $10 million a day.
• The fallout of violence along the US/Mexico border in Laredo is in part a consequence of the lucrative drug trade in Dallas as drug cartels and gangs fight for I-35, also labeled the Drug Corridor by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

In response to the rising gang violence in Dallas and across our nation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) launched Operation Community Shield in February 2005 after a national threat assessment identified MS-13 as one of the largest and most violent street gangs in the country.

Nationwide, ICE arrested 359 MS-13 members and associates, including 10 clique leaders in the first phase of Operation Community Shield. Building on this initial success, ICE extended Operation Community Shield to target all illegal alien gangs, netting about 2,390 arrests from roughly 240 street gangs, including about 920 from the violent street gang MS-13.

Since the crackdown began, much of the gang’s leadership has left Dallas. Additionally, since February 24, 2006, ICE and Dallas police have conducted joint missions of Operation Community Shield, resulting in the arrest of 44 Dallas-area gang members.

I am proud of the Dallas Police Department’s dedication and commitment to ending gang violence as they worked with ICE to crackdown and dismantle violent street gangs in the Dallas area.

Expeditious Removal for Illegal Salvadorans
It is a travesty that illegal alien gang members are here in the first place and an even greater travesty that they are often released after apprehension due to legal loopholes. Currently, an 18-year-old court order affords Salvadorans full deportation process, thus undermining DHS’ authority to apply expedited removal procedures. Issued in 1988, the court order, also known as the Orantes injunction, was designed to protect Salvadorans seeking refuge in our nation from a brutal civil war in El Salvador. However, times have changed. The civil war in El Salvador ended many years ago, and the nation now has a democratically elected government with a developing economy. Unfortunately, MS-13 and members of drug cartels continue to exploit these loopholes in our legal system to thwart our immigration laws and obtain release into our communities.

In response, I am pleased to cosponsor legislation introduced by Congressman Henry Bonilla (R-TX) to close this legal loophole which allows thousands of illegal immigrants to remain in our country each month. The Fairness in Immigration Litigation Reform Act (H.R. 5541) overturns the Orantes injunction, thereby subjecting illegal Salvadorans to the same enforcement laws as other illegal immigrants. H.R. 5541 also establishes judicial guidelines for other present or future cases to ensure that no injunction unnecessarily interferes with the government’s implementation of the expedited removal program. This legislation is critical to implementing interior enforcement effectively and efficiently, and I look forward to working with my colleagues to ensure that illegal Salvadorans are not the exception to the rule of immigration law.

The whole thing from Deport Now