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Posts Tagged drug war
Arizona beheading raises fears of drug violence
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 29/Oct/2010 19:46
CHANDLER, Ariz. – The gruesome case of a man who was stabbed and beheaded in a suburban Phoenix apartment has police investigating whether the killing is potentially the most extreme example of Mexican drug cartel violence spilling over the border.
Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy’s body was found Oct. 10 in a Chandler apartment — his severed head a couple feet away. One man suspected in the killing has been arrested, and a manhunt is under way for three others.
Mexican Town’s Entire Police Force Quits After Attack
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 29/Oct/2010 19:39
Every cop in a small northern Mexican town quit Tuesday after gunmen heavily sprayed their brand new police headquarters Monday night.
All 14 members of the Los Ramones police force reportedly resigned, according to MSNBC. Nobody was answering the phone at the office of Mayor Santos Salinas, The Associated Press reported.
Gunmen fired more than 1,000 rounds at the building’s facade, reports Noroeste. Six grenades, three of which detonated, were also thrown at the building, according to the the newspaper.
http://www.tokeofthetown.com/2010/10/entire_mexican_towns_police_force_quits_after_atta.php
Acapulco: Six more people were found murdered and dumped on the side of the road
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 23/Oct/2010 15:16
“Six more people were found murdered and dumped on the side of the road, this time in near the intersection of San Isidro Gallinero and El Salto streets. The details are scarce, all were found this Friday, with visible signs of torture.
Investigators recovered over 40 shell casings of firearms that ranged in caliber. Again, the corpses were found with a familiar calling card: ‘This happened to us for working with La Barbie. We want your heads, KOREANO and METRO. Atte – Hector Beltran Leyva and friends.’ “
WARNING: Disturbing photo
Mexican Cartels Purchasing Grenades for $6.50
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 21/Oct/2010 20:09
“How much is six dollars and fifty cents? What can you buy with $6.50? Just off the top of my head, in the U.S., I’m thinking I could buy a couple gallons of gas, a pack of smokes, or maybe a value meal from one of my favorite fast food joints.
In Mexico, on the other hand, with roughly $80 pesos, I can buy two packs of smokes and a big bag of chips, a kilo of sirloin, about 9 liters of gas, or a tasty 8 taco breakfast washed down with an ice cold bottled Coca-Çola.
Or, for those same $80 Mexican pesos, according to a report made public in ElNorte, with the right connections, I could buy myself a grenade from Guatemala.”
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/10/mexican-cartels-purchasing-grenades-for.html
The Falcon Lake Murder and Mexico’s Drug Wars
Posted by Brian in News, Threat Watch on 21/Oct/2010 17:19
The Falcon Lake Murder and Mexico’s Drug Wars is republished with permission of STRATFOR.
By Scott Stewart
STRATFOR published an analysis last Wednesday noting that a reliable source in Mexico informed us that the Sept. 30 shooting death of U.S. citizen David Hartley on Falcon Lake — which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border — was a mistake committed by a low-level member of the Los Zetas drug trafficking organization. The source also informed us that those responsible for Hartley’s death are believed to have disposed of his body and that the Zeta hierarchy was conducting a damage-control operation to punish those responsible for the death and to distance the cartel from the murder. The source further reported that the murder of the lead Tamaulipas state investigator on the case, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas — whose head was delivered in a suitcase to the Mexican military’s Eight Zone headquarters in Reynosa on Oct. 12 — was a specific message from Los Zetas to Mexican authorities to back off from the investigation.
Since publishing the report, we have been deluged by interview requests regarding the case. Numerous media outlets have interviewed Fred Burton and myself regarding the Falcon Lake case. During the course of talking with reporters and customers, it became obvious to us that a solid understanding of the context within which Hartley’s killing occurred was lacking in media discussions of the case. Viewing the murder as part of the bigger picture of what is occurring in Mexico makes it far easier to understand not only why David Hartley was killed, but why his body will likely never be found — and why his killers probably will not be held accountable for their actions, at least in the context of the judicial system. Read the rest of this entry »
Agents feared Mexican drug cartel attack on border dam
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 20/Oct/2010 17:23
Falcon Lake Dam
“An alleged plot by a Mexican drug cartel to blow up a dam along the Texas border — and unleash billions of gallons of water into a region with millions of civilians — sent American police, federal agents and disaster officials secretly scrambling last month to thwart such an attack, authorities confirmed Wednesday.
Whether or not the cartel, which is known to have stolen bulk quantities of gunpowder and dynamite, could have taken down the 5-mile-long Falcon Dam may never be known since the attack never came to pass.”
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7033818.html
Threat grows as Mexican cartels move to beef up U.S. presence
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 20/Oct/2010 17:16
SAN DIEGO — When a major Mexican drug cartel opened a branch office here on the California side of the border, U.S. authorities tapped into their cellphones – then listened, watched and waited.
According to the wiretaps and confidential informants, the suspects plotted kidnappings and killings and hired American teenage girls, with nicknames like Dopey, to smuggle quarter-pound loads of methamphetamine across the border for $100 a trip. To send a message to a rival, they dumped a disemboweled dog in his mother’s front yard.
But U.S. law enforcement officials say the most worrisome thing about the Fernando Sanchez Organization was how aggressively it moved to set up operations in the United States, working out of a San Diego apartment it called “The Office.”
Using powerful technology, U.S. authorities intercept telephone calls in Mexico resulting in spectacular arrests
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 20/Oct/2010 17:14
“Washington, D.C. – Investigations by United States federal authorities included the monitoring of telephone calls of Mexican drug cartels, according to The Washington Post.
Using powerful, modern technology, U.S. authorities have been able to intercept telephone calls in Mexico that resulted in spectacular arrests such as that of Jesus Quinonez Marquez, Prosecutor General of Baja California, who was an operative in a narcotics ring. Quinonez was known as “El Rinon,†and he was arrested by the FBI last July in San Diego, California in an investigation that resulted in criminal charges against 42 more people.
Besides Quinonez, 34 other suspects were detained in the United States and 8 more are fugitives.”
Sinaloa, Mexico: Police being killed at soaring rates
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 15/Oct/2010 16:15
“Twenty-five law enforcement personnel were murdered in the state of Sinaloa in 2007, but this year that number has grown more than threefold and has reached 90.
The highest yearly number so far was in 2008, when 112 agents of various law enforcement agencies fell victim to organized crime.”
http://www.debate.com.mx/eldebate/Articulos/ArticuloGeneral.asp?IdArt=10288392&IdCat=6087
Monterrey, Mexico: Mexico’s richest city a battleground in bloody drug war
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 15/Oct/2010 16:14
A family walks past soldiers and federal policemen guarding a crime scene after a shooting between rival gangs in Monterrey October 5, 2010. (Reuters/Tomas Bravo)
“Monterrey, Mexico – Once an oasis of calm, Mexico’s richest city has become a central battleground in the country’s increasingly bloody drug war as cartels open fire on city streets and throw grenades onto busy highways.
Escalating violence in Monterrey, one of Latin America’s most affluent cities and seen as a symbol of Mexico’s economic prowess, is arguably the most dramatic development in Mexico’s four-year campaign against powerful drug cartels.
Firefights are spilling into leafy suburbs, putting ordinary Mexicans and foreigners at risk and raising the stakes for President Felipe Calderon as he faces pressure to protect a city generating 8 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product.”
Severed head of Investigator “delivered to military in suitcaseâ€
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 14/Oct/2010 11:44
Tiffany Hartley with husband David, who has been missing since September 30. The lead Mexican investigator in his case has been beheaded Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319997/Severed-head-Mexican-police-officer-Rolando-Armando-Flores-Villegas.html?ito=feeds-newsxml#ixzz12LuGglMR
Lead Mexican investigator Rolando Armando Flores Villegas was hunting for the men who killed a U.S. citizen, a Texas man who was jet-skiing on Falcon Lake, in Texas.
The Investigator’s decapitation is a ‘message to White House’: Mexican drug cartels are declaring that the U.S. ‘no longer controls border’.
“The lead Mexican investigator hunting for an American man who disappeared after he and his wife were ambushed on Falcon Lake has been beheaded, a Texas lawmaker claimed today.
The severed head of Rolando Armando Flores Villegas was delivered to the Mexican military in a suitcase, Aaron Pena said today.
His wife Tiffany has told police she and her husband were ambushed by pirates while jet-skiing on the popular lake on September 30.
They shot her husband in the head, she claimed. She tried to rescue him but was forced to abandon his body when the pirates opened fire at her.
His body still has not been found.”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319997/Severed-head-Mexican-police-officer-Rolando-Armando-Flores-Villegas.html?ito=feeds-newsxml
Mexico: Drug Cartels using internet social media, and Government proposals to fight it
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News on 11/Oct/2010 18:41
“What we do know is that drug cartels don’t merely depend on anonymous websites … they are quite capable of publishing that information online – and anonymously – themselves. In fact, according to the the blog “Last of the Dodos,†the Gulf Cartel even temporarily had its own official YouTube channel. (The account was quickly suspended.)
Mexican officials also say that drug cartels are using Twitter and Facebook to avoid military raids and police checkpoints. In the border town of Reynosa, where fighting between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel has been the most intense, a Facebook message that warned of an upcoming shootout caused the entire city, including schools and shops, to shut down. (The predicted shootout never did take place.)
Mexican politicians have responded by proposing a law that would give them power to block websites that facilitate the breaking of the law. It would also make illegal the publishing of information that helps anyone break the law or avoid the police.
In practice, the law could provide the government a handy excuse to censor legitimate information that helps hold government officials accountable.”
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/10/citizen-journalism-and-drug-trafficking.html
A plea for help from citizens of the city of Monterrey, Mexico
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 8/Oct/2010 21:15
“To whom it may concern:
We, the citizens of the city of Monterrey, Mexico, are tired of the violence created by the drug cartels and the organized crime. We don’t know where or who to ask for help since our governor and president have failed to protect us.
We have been living in fear since February this year and until now we have no answer on how to stop this. The drug cartels and the organized crime have taken our peaceful city along with its citizens prisoners; they have kidnapped men, women and children.
We never asked for this nor support any group or organization that is in connection with them. We never thought that something like this could happen to us and now here we are living a nightmare, our worse nightmare.
Today we are asking for your help. We know that you have the power to communicate and inform people about our real situation. We as good Mexican citizens are imploring for your valuable help. Please, inform the rest of the world about our current situation and let people know that we are pleading for clemency.
If there is an organization out there that can help us to find a solution, we are in the best position to accept the help. We don’t trust our government since our government has failed protecting us and there are no warranties for our lives.”
Double Homicide in Brownsville, Texas: Mexican drug cartel Executions
Posted by Jack Sinclair in News, Threat Watch on 7/Oct/2010 20:23
The Brownsville Herald
“Authorities have linked Thursday’s double homicide on FM 511 in the northwest outskirts of Brownsville. Texas, to Mexican drug cartels and are investigating the killings as spillover violence from the Tamaulipas war between the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas.
The bodies of Omar Castillo Flores “El Omarcilloâ€, 25, and Jose Guadalupe Lopez Perez, 38, were found inside a gray Dodge Ram pickup that was riddled with bullets, police spokesman Eddie Garcia said Friday. He said the truck had a Mexican license plate on the back bumper, and he identified both men as residents of Mexico.
At the crime scene, police recovered numerous shell casings of an unknown caliber. The Border Enforcement Security Task Force, a multi-agency group led by U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, assisted police in the investigation but deferred all comment to Brownsville police as the lead agency in the case.”
http://www.borderlandbeat.com/2010/10/two-zetas-executed-in-brownsville-texas.html