Borderland Beat

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada detained?

2012-05-26T17:10:00.001-06:00

Neglected War report:

There have been multiple rumors about the capture of Ismael “Mayo” Zambada, number two in the Sinaloa Cartel criminal organization.

The most formal source is Diario de Sinaloa, who states:

The Mexian Army managed to capture the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, in the town of Aguaje Sinloa,

The operation took place around 0700 Hrs. (Thursday). Zambada was captured along with several members of his bodyguards. Cocaine, guns, and cartridges were seized.

The Mexican Army transported the detainees from Sinaloa to the Office of Special Investigations for Organized Crime (SIEDO) in Mexico City. The prisoners will give their ministerial statements within 48 hours and their status will be defined. At that moment, they could be sent to a high security prison, or to a detention house for further investigation.

Update

Mexican Marines tried to corner Ismael “Mayo” Zambada in the limits of Sinaloa and Durango states, but were unable to catch him.

Official sources from the National Defense mention Zambada Garcia was able to escape through the mountains, together with at least another 10 people.

The Marines tried to hunt him from the air, but “ El Mayo” had vanished.

The event took place Thursday afternoon in the Mountains of Sinaloa. The operation, say authorities, "was close to being a success."

Note from Ovemex: Although the account of his capture and subsequent escape have been all over the internet, I have been unable to find any credible news agency report much less any statement by Mexico authorities or military to confirm or deny the facts.

Capturan a "El Mayo" Zambada líder del Cártel de Sinaloa

Desmienten captura de Isamael “El Mayo Zambada”

Se les fugó de nuevo “El Mayo” Zambada

Escapa de nuevo "El Mayo" Zambada

Ismael Mayo Zambada, Se escapa en Sierra de Sinaloa

8 out of 10 Mexicans want to maintain or increase drug war, says survey

2012-05-26T16:19:00.003-06:00

A survey by the Office of Strategic Communications showed that 78 percent of people in Mexico, wants to increase or maintain the fight against organized crime, while 13 percent considered it necessary to suspend it, and another 9 percent did not answer.

Meanwhile, the question "Do you think that violence could be reduced if a ceasefire wre agreed on with the drug dealers?" 45 percent believe that it could decrease, while 48 percent say violence would not be reduced in the country and 7 percent did not answer.

... The telephone survey, carried out on May 22, included 800 adults, who reside throughout the Mexican Republic. The study has a confidence level of 95 percent and a margin of error of + / -3.46.

Original Spanish Milenio Report and access to download complete survey: 8 de cada 10 mexicanos quiere que se mantenga o incremente guerra contra el narco

Fake Military Uniforms Discovered in Piedras Negras Stash House

2012-05-26T16:08:00.001-06:00

A Mexican marines stand stand guard in streets of Veracruz State, Mexico on Jan. 24, 2012. (Johan Ordonez/AFP/Getty Images)

By RANDY KREIDER

ABC NEWS

Mexican authorities said Thursday that they have busted a factory on the U.S. border where drug cartels were allegedly manufacturing copies of Mexican military uniforms.

The Mexican Navy said that an unnamed cartel was making the copies in a Piedras Negras factory to "discredit" the Marines, who have been battling the cartels. Drug gangs have used fake uniforms in the past to impersonate the military and carry out murders and hijackings.

Acting on a tip, Marines raided the factory in Coahuila state just across the Rio Grande from Eagle Pass, Texas, and found 225 vests, 151 pairs of camouflage pants and 170 camo shirts, as well as holsters and ammunition, officials said.

The Zetas drug cartel, which operates in Piedras Negras, includes many former members of the Mexican military and has issued threats against the police and the Marines.

On Thursday morning, gunmen opened fire on a hotel in Nuevo Laredo, four miles from the U.S. border, and then detonated a carbomb. Officials in Tamaulipas state blamed the attack on the Zetas cartel.

Eight members of a new state police force staying in the Hotel Santa Cecilia were injured. The attack was the first on the state police, who took over from a municipal force that was disbanded because of alleged corruption. Several hours earlier, assailants had hurled gasoline bombs at a popular nightclub. After the hotel attack, gunmen fired on a local university.

The Zetas were founded by former members of the Mexican special forces who had been hired by the Gulf drug cartel as enforcers. Los Zetas broke away in 2010 and now control the drug business in much of the north and east of the country.

3 die, weapons seized in Zacatecas state

2012-05-25T22:00:00.000-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

Two armed suspects were killed in two separate incidents, a third unidentified man was found shot to death, and several weapons and munitions were seized in in Zacatecas state, according to Mexican news accounts.

A posting on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas news daily said that a Policia Federal (PF) road patrol unit attempted to stop several suspects travelling aboard three vehicles in Fresnillo municipality near the village of Purisima del Maguey Wednesday. The suspects refused to stop and instead opened fire on the PF unit.

The ensuing pursuit led the unit to the town of Caledon where one suspect was hit by gunfire, and presumably died at the scene. The suspects aboard the other two vehicles fled the scene.

PF agents seized one rifle and the vehicle at the scene.

In another action, a PF road patrol came under small arms fire in Calera municipality from individuals travelling aboard a pickup truck Friday. PF return fire killed one suspect. The press report indicates that a second suspect may have gotten away in the exchange of gunfire.

PF agents seized a small quantity of marijuana, one AK-47 rifle, 12 weapons magazines, 241 rounds of ammunition, tactical gear and the vehicle.

On Thursday, a PF road patrol discovered a cache of weapons in Villa de Cos municipality Thursday. The weapons cache was found in a vacant lot on Calle Nueva Aurora.

Seized weapons include 41 rifles, 43 40mm grenades, 28 weapons magazines and 569 rounds of ammunition.

On Wednesday morning police found an unidentified man shot to death on the road between Jimenez del Teúl and Chalchihuite. The victim was said to be a victim of an organized crime execution.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

© Copyright 2012 by Chris Covert
You must obtain permission to reprint this article

Mexico's Zetas cartel rewrites drug war in blood

2012-05-25T17:17:00.001-06:00

Drug-related violence has claimed about 55,000 lives in the past five years, including more than 3,000 police officers and soldiers.

By Ioan Grillo

Mexican government forces had bottled up a band of enemy fighters in this tiny village late last year, but feared they would escape into the dusty, rock-strewn hills. So more than 600 soldiers and federal police closed in from all directions with armored Humvees and helicopters.

The outlaws responded with a barrage of rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47 assault-rifle fire, tearing apart one federal police vehicle. For three days the fighting raged.

In the end, according to military accounts of the battle, 22 members of the Zetas drug cartel, two police officers and a soldier were dead, and 20 Zetas were in custody. Dozens more escaped to fight another day.

The battle could have been a scene from the war in Afghanistan, but it erupted just 45 miles south of the Texas border. It was only one of dozens like it in northeastern Mexico in recent months as soldiers, marines and police have engaged in a deadly cat-and-mouse game with roaming Zetas hit squads.

Formed in 1998 by 14 former Mexican soldiers, the Zetas have grown to command more than 10,000 gunmen from the Rio Grande, on the border with Texas, to deep into Central America. Their rapid expansion has displaced Mexico's older cartels in many areas, giving them a dominant position in the multi-billion-dollar cross-border drug trade, as well as extortion, kidnapping and other criminal businesses.

But it is bloodshed that has made the Zetas notorious. And feared.

Zetas killers have been arrested for some of the worst atrocities in Mexico's drug war, including the murders of hundreds of people whose bodies have been found in mass graves with alarming frequency, the massacre of 72 foreign migrant workers headed to the United States, and the burning of a casino that claimed 52 lives.

On Sunday, Mexican soldiers said they had arrested Daniel Elizondo, a Zetas leader known as "The Madman," as the alleged perpetrator of the massacre of 49 people whose corpses were decapitated, dismembered and dumped on a highway a week earlier. In the last month, the Zetas have also been linked to the decapitation of 18 people near Guadalajara and the hanging of nine in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. In those two cases, messages left at the scenes, signed by the Zetas, said the victims were rival traffickers.

Alleged perpetrator of mass beheadings in Mexico arrested

Mexican and U.S. agents say the Zetas' paramilitary tactics — based on small, roaming cells of armed operatives — and indiscriminate violence are the driving forces behind a recent escalation in Mexico's drug war. That conflict, between government forces and the cartels and among the cartels themselves, has claimed about 55,000 lives in the past five years, including more than 3,000 police officers and soldiers.

'Like urban guerillas' The Zetas pose a bigger challenge to the government than older cartels because of the intensity of their attacks against security forces, their disregard for civilian life and the murderous habits that break the unspoken codes of older traffickers. The brutality has made their heartland in northeastern Mexico a no-go area for many businessmen and tourists.

Mexican police officers and soldiers on the front lines say the Zetas have more in common with insurgents than traditional gangs. "The Zetas act like urban guerrillas," said Florencio Santos, a former soldier and now police chief in Guadalupe, a town on the southern outskirts of Monterrey. "They'll make a phone call to get the police out, then block the street in front of the patrol cars and open fire from the front and the side."

Drugs, guns, gangs: Child actors shame Mexico's politicians with mockumentary

Drug agents say the goals of the Zetas also differ from Mexico's traditional smuggling families. While older cartels focused on trafficking routes and drug-producing areas, the Zetas move into any town or city where they can to carry out shakedowns and other crimes.

"The Zetas have created a new model of organized crime and unleashed new levels of violence to try and unseat the older cartels," said Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "This has destabilized many areas of Mexico."

A report by Mexico's organized crime unit, SIEDO, found that the Zetas now control more territory than the nation's oldest and wealthiest trafficking organization, the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman. The report, leaked in January, says that while the Sinaloans operate in 16 of Mexico's 32 federal entities, the Zetas are in 17.

They are creeping into the United States, too. A grand jury in Laredo, Texas, in April indicted four alleged Zetas for conspiracy to murder and traffic drugs on U.S. soil. The charges follow another Laredo trial in January in which two alleged Zetas were found guilty on weapons and homicide charges.

Cross-border methamphetamine trade booms amid Mexico's 'war on drugs'

Zetas gunmen are alleged by Mexican prosecutors to be behind the killing of U.S. customs agent Jaime Zapata in Mexico in 2011, the first American agent to be murdered on duty here since the 1980s. The U.S. government is offering a $5 million reward for the capture of the Zetas supreme commander, 37-year-old Heriberto Lazcano, alias "The Executioner."

The United States is offering a $5 million reward for the capture of Heriberto "The Executioner" Lazcano, head of the Zetas.

War zone

The Zetas stronghold in northeastern Mexico, across the border from Texas, has become Mexico's most violent region. In Nuevo Leon state, home to the rich industrial city Monterrey and villages such as Vallecillo, there were more than 685 drug-related killings by mid-May, according to media tallies. This put it ahead of even Chihuahua state, with 560 gangland slayings and home to Mexico's previous murder capital, Ciudad Juarez, dominated by the Juarez Cartel.

One killed every half hour in Mexico drug-related violence

Nuevo Leon can seem like a state under siege. Zetas graffiti mark the group's territory. Many local residents, aware that gang hit men regularly murder people accused of snitching, are too scared to help the police. Police and soldiers in Nuevo Leon say they move only in convoys of at least 30 troops because of the threat of Zetas ambushes, a precaution not needed in most of the rest of the country.

Guadalupe police chief Santos survived an ambush in September because the bullets didn't pierce his armored vehicle. "It was a terrifying moment," Santos said. "I thought the bullets might get through, but the vehicle held until reinforcements came."

Some of his fellow policemen weren't so lucky. Last year the Zetas murdered 13 of Guadalupe's 300 street officers and destroyed 48 patrol cars through such attacks. Santos and most of his officers now sleep inside a barracks for protection.

The Zetas are aided by an effective network of spies. These hawks, as they are called, are typically teenagers or young men and women paid about $600 a month, Guadalupe police say. In a country with a minimum wage of about $5 a day, that money can buy a lot of support.

When a Reuters reporter accompanied police in Guadalupe on a recent patrol, officers listened to a radio frequency used by the gangsters. Zetas hawks could be heard warning their cohorts about the convoy of police vehicles moving into a slum on the edge of Monterrey.

Santos, the police chief, said he fought Zapatista guerrillas when they took up arms in the southern state of Chiapas in 1994 to fight for the rights of indigenous people. The Zetas, he says, are a far deadlier foe. "The Zetas have much better training and better armaments than the Zapatistas did."

Public recruiting

The Zetas' supreme leader, Lazcano, was born in 1974 in the village of Acatlan in Hidalgo state, the local birth registry shows. This community of cattle farms and corn plots more than 600 miles from the Mexico-U.S. border provides its youth with few opportunities. Many young men head north to enter the U.S. illegally, or they join the armed forces.

As a child, Lazcano moved with his family to the nearby city of Pachuca, settling in the working-class barrio of Tezontle, police say. The clutch of dusty streets and unpainted cinder-block houses lies next to a military base, where records show Lazcano enlisted with the Mexican army at age 17 to become an infantryman.

Mexico's drug war: No sign of 'light at the end of the tunnel'

He was following in the footsteps of the founding Zetas, many of whom also came from central and southern Mexico and served in military divisions -- infantry, motorized cavalry, special forces -- whose regulars often received training from the U.S.

A 2009 U.S. diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks shows that at least one Zeta, former infantry lieutenant Rogelio Lopez, trained at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. Declassified U.S. training manuals used for Latin American officers include sections on combat intelligence and use of informants, both strong points of the Zetas.

Lazcano deserted from the infantry in 1998 to join the Zetas, then led by former paratrooper Arturo Guzman Decena. At the time the Zetas were still devoted to their original mission: acting as debt collectors and killers for the Gulf Cartel, a dominant gang, moving hundreds of tons of cocaine, marijuana and heroin into Texas.

The enforcers adopted the name Zeta -- the letter Z in Spanish -- from a radio signal Guzman had used as a paratrooper. Guzman baptized himself Z-1, and Lazcano became Z-3.

A few months later, after Mexican soldiers shot dead both Z-1 and his second in command, Lazcano took control of the Zetas at age 28 and began the group's rapid expansion. They spread the word on the streets, and even advertised on blankets hung from bridges: "The Zeta operations group wants you, soldier or ex-soldier," one said. "We offer a good salary, food and attention for your family. Don't suffer hunger and abuse anymore."

They recruited poor youths, former soldiers, members of other gangs and even foreign mercenaries, including former members of the Kaibil special forces in Guatemala's army, according to the Guatemalan security ministry. The Kaibiles were widely accused of atrocities in that nation's civil war.

As the Zetas grew, so did their ambitions, causing tension with the Gulf Cartel bosses. The first cracks in the alliance appeared in 2007, when Gulf Cartel leaders made a peace deal with the Sinaloa Cartel, a move the Zetas saw as a sellout, according to testimony from Zeta founding member Jesus Rejon, or Z-7, after he was arrested in 2011.

In 2010, tensions boiled over into open warfare as Zetas began attacking Gulf operatives wherever they found them and claiming the turf for themselves. The Gulf Cartel allied with their old Sinaloan rivals to fight back, engulfing the region in violence.

It is impossible to know the Zetas' share of the U.S. narcotics market, which is estimated by the United Nations to be worth a total of about $60 billion annually.

But it's clear that the Zetas' stronghold in northeastern Mexico includes some of the most sought-after trafficking routes into the United States. More than 8,500 trucks cross daily into Texas from the border city of Nuevo Laredo, twice the number crossing from either Tijuana or Ciudad Juarez.

To warehouse and move these drugs, the Zetas have set up cells in Laredo, Dallas and Houston, a U.S. federal court heard this January when it convicted two members of such a cell on homicide, racketeering and weapons charges. Evidence from wiretaps and witnesses show that the cells also move guns bought in U.S. stores and cash into Mexico. U.S. federal prosecutors in Texas say Zetas gunmen have carried out at least eight murders on U.S. soil to date.

The Zetas have also made billions of dollars by diversifying into extortion, kidnapping, product piracy and even theft of crude oil from the pipelines of Mexico's state-owned oil monopoly, Pemex, U.S. agents say. In a recent report, Pemex said it had lost 11.7 million barrels of oil to theft in 2010 and 2011, citing the Zetas as the main culprit.

This diversification breaks with the habits of older cartels, which have focused on drugs. And as the Zetas have made money with their portfolio of crimes, copycat gangs have sprung up with names such as "The Hands With Eyes."

In Guadalupe, police chief Santos said the Zetas receive protection payments, known as "quotas," from taxi operators, restaurants and other local businesses. "Most people pay up because they are so scared of what the Zetas will do," Santos said.

During the recent patrol, police were called to the scene of a shooting, finding a car dealership riddled with bullet holes, in what Santos said was a reminder over these payments.

When the Zetas burned down a Monterrey casino in broad daylight in August, the alleged reason was an extortion payment, according to federal prosecutors who have filed charges against alleged Zetas arrested for the crime.

The desire for shakedown money has fueled the spread of the Zetas across Mexico, investigators say. "What they want to do is control territory and physical space, where they can simply co-opt other businesses and collect tax," said Steven Dudley of the Washington-based research group Insight Crime. "That model is easily replicated."

'Anonymous warriors ... proudly Mexican' Agents say that as the Zetas have expanded, they have filled their ranks with unruly thugs who can be hard to control. "These new players ... are doing things that might not be sanctioned by the leadership. ... The outrageous behavior has made them the big target of the government," said a senior U.S. law enforcement official working in Mexico, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Such wild elements may have been behind the May 13 atrocity that made headlines around the world. Early that morning, 49 corpses with their heads, hands and feet cut off were left on a highway east of Monterrey. A note signed with the Zetas name was found amidst the carnage. However, messages released in the following days denied the Zetas had ordered the massacre.

Nearly 50 mutilated bodies dumped on Mexico highway

Investigators say Elizondo, arrested a week later as the alleged mastermind of the massacre, may have disobeyed top leaders in carrying it out. None of the victims have been identified. Police said they could have been foreign migrants traveling through Mexico to the United States. The Zetas often kidnap migrants for ransom and murder those who don't pay.

Zetas assassins have been effective in fighting rivals. In the last year, the Zetas have pushed the Gulf Cartel out of much of its historic turf along the South Texas border and challenged the Sinaloa Cartel close to their homeland in the Pacific. In a single ambush in the Pacific state of Nayarit in 2011, Zetas slaughtered 29 alleged Sinaloa Cartel operatives when the Zetas attacked with mounted machine guns and grenades.

Even more brutally, Zetas prisoners in February stabbed and bludgeoned to death 44 alleged Gulf Cartel inmates in a jail on the edge of Monterrey. After the attack, which officials say involved the help of corrupt guards, 35 Zetas prisoners escaped.

Several other major cartels have formed an alliance to hit back against the Zetas with their own paramilitary units, U.S. agents said in testimony at a congressional hearing in October evaluating Mexico's drug war. At the forefront of the fight back is a shady group calling itself the "Zetas killers," believed to be funded by rival cartels. Gunmen from this group dropped 35 corpses of suspected Zetas on a highway in Veracruz state in September.

In a video released after the incident, men in ski masks claimed they were going after the Zetas because of the harm their extortion and kidnapping rackets inflicted on communities. "We want the armed forces to trust us that our only goal is to finish off the Zetas," a man in a ski mask says on the video. "We're anonymous warriors, faceless, but proudly Mexican."

Since President Felipe Calderon took power in 2006 and sent 50,000 soldiers after the drug cartels, Mexican and U.S. agents have worked together to root out top drug traffickers.

The most spectacular takedowns include Arturo Beltran Leyva, a breakaway boss of the Sinaloa Cartel, who was shot dead by Mexican marines in 2009, and La Familia boss Nazario Moreno, whom police killed in 2010.

Lazcano and his top deputies have proved to be more elusive, thanks to their military-style organization. "They've got an advance guard, they've got a main body, they've got a rear guard," the U.S. official said. "They do forward reconnaissance almost like you would see if you were moving a dignitary around."

Zetas leaders also escape detection by using encrypted radio and Skype instead of telephones, the U.S. official said. Agents say leaders of the group's small operating cells are moved every few months to avoid detection.

Mexican soldiers say they came close to nabbing Lazcano in a house on the outskirts of Monterrey in 2009, but that after scouts warned him of the raid, he escaped the neighborhood in a bulletproof Jeep Cherokee.

With Lazcano still at large, the Zetas will pose a challenge for the next Mexican president. Calderon is barred by law from seeking re-election in the July polls. The current front-runner, Enrique Pena Nieto of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, has pledged to create and deploy a new police force against the gangs and gradually put army troops back in barracks, a promise popular with many voters who are tired of the relentless drug war.

Zetas hit squads could make that difficult. A message signed by the Zetas and hung from a bridge in Monterrey in February took aim at the Mexican government. "Even with the support of the United States, they cannot stop us, because here the Zetas rule," it said. "The government must make a pact with us because if not we will have to overthrow it and take power by force.

Special Note from Ovemex: A reader emailed recently me this very interesting link: Declassified Army and CIA Manuals Used in Latin America: An Analysis of Their Content

10 wounded in attack in Nuevo Laredo

2012-05-24T22:00:00.000-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A third day of attacks against several targets in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas took place including a firebomb attack on Tamaulipas state police agents, and one attack on a local night club, according to several Mexican news sources.

According to a report posted on the website of the leftist Proceso news weekly, Thursday's attacks included a firebomb attack at the Hotel Santa Cecilia on Avenida Reforma early Thursday morning at around 0730 hrs local time, which police agents for the Tamaulipas state Secretaria Seguridad Publica (SSP) are using for quarters.

Previous Mexican wire dispatches said the hotel was occupied by a detachment of the Polica Federal and that several PF agents were wounded in the attack.

A total of eight state police agents were wounded and another two civilians were hurt as well. The vehicle used was a Chevrolet pickup truck. Damage to he hotel's facade was reported as well.

Several news reports say a car bomb following by small arms fire characterized the attack, however, not even Los Zetas can get their hands on high grade or military grade explosives. Previous attacks which have been described as car bombs, were likely vehicles which fuel tanks were detonated by a hand grenade. Grenades, both hand grenades and the launched 40mm variety are in widespread use by the drug cartels.

According to the Proceso report, Thursday morning's attack were preceded by other attacks.

Monday, a gaming establishment operating illegally, the Amazon, was firebomb attacked.
Tuesday two nightclubs, the Zebra and the Dubai were attacked, although press reports have not characterized the nature of those attacks.

Four hours prior to the attack on the Hotel Santa Cecilia, another nightclub, the Maranho was attacked by firebomb. Reports have also indicated that around the same time as the first attack, several roadblocks were put up by local criminal gangs, which is a tactic used to deny and delay security forces access to area cartel shooters are operating.

An American English language press report attribute some of these attacks to Los Zetas, who have been locked in a deadly dual with an alliance of the Sinaloa and Gulf Cartels. Attacks made mostly on innocents, are photographed along with narcomantas or painted messages, with threats against rival cartels.

Los Zetas are under increasing pressure from their rivals in their home turf. Multiple murders over the last two months in Nuevo Laredo and elsewhere by both sides have taken place, though nearly all the victims had no connection with the drug cartels.

Mass murders in both Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon and in Jalisco state by Los Zetas operatives have been among the responses by the group to Sinaloa Cartel incursions into their home territory.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com
© Copyright 2012 by Chris Covert
You must obtain permission to reprint this article

Armando Villareal arraigned in San Diego

2012-05-24T20:41:00.000-06:00

El Gordo pleads not guilty

First reported on BB forum: http://borderland-beat.924382.n3.nabble.com/Drug-cartel-player-extradited-to-US-from-Mexico-CAF-td4013716.html

Less then 24 hours after his extradition from Mexico, Armando 'El Gordo' Villareal plead not guilty in Federal court this morning, Magistrate Justice Nita L. Storm, presided over the hearing. Villareal used a public defender to represent him at the proceeding, it is unknown if he will retain a paid attorney at a later date.

Two men in their 20's, in the company of an older man, who said they were family, were the only family present at the hearing. Villareal, detained in Hermosillo, Sonora, in July 2011 was the primary defendant in Operation Luz Verde, a RICO investigation that has seen 38 convictions, out of the 43 named in the indictment.

Villareal, appeared thinner, clean shaven, quietly answered the judge, 'yes', when asked if he spoke english. US Assistant Distrcit Attorney Todd Robinson, argued that Villareal was a threat to the community, on the subject of bail. Villareal was ordered held, and asked to come up with some financial records, or receipts to indicate at what amount bail could potentially be set. That hearing is set for May 31, 2012, and the next for July 2nd.

Luz Verde targeted members of the Fernando Sanchez Organization, what authorities refer to as an offshoot of the Arellano Felix Cartel, it is in fact it's newer generation, a continuation, rather then a breakaway group. Villareal faces charges of conspiracy, racketeering and drug trafficking, the indictment alleges he ran a crew of the defendants from Tijuana, and Guadalajara, who engaged in smuggling, retail and wholesale drug sales of crystal methamphetamine and marijuana, as well as murders, kidnappings, and robberies.

One part of the surveillance detailed in the indictment features Villareal offering pounds of uncut methamphetamine at 10,000 a pound. Another has him discussing the theft of methamphetamine from a bus, coming from Jalisco. Also, requesting imitation uniforms and zip ties, as well as automatic weapons.

It was a fast turn around for Villareal, no doubt, who had been incarcerated in Veracruz, subsequent to his arrest last summer. Early this week, he was flown to Mexico City, where US officials took him into custody, and escorted him back to the city of his birth. This is the second high profile extradition this week of previously captured cartel lieutenants, Sergio Villareal Barragan, former Beltran Leyva upper management, was sent to Texas to face charges, earlier in the week.

Armando Villareal began his career with the Arellano Felix when he was 16, through his cousin, onetime lieutenant to incarcerated, Javier Francisco Arellano Felix, the head of the cartel from 2002 to his arrest in 2006. Arturo Villareal, detained with Javier Francisco on the 'Doc Holiday' of the coast of Baja, California, is the cousin of Armando Villareal, who both come from the Imperial Beach area of San Diego's South Bay communities.

Armando attended Montgomery high school on Palm Avenue, from these rather ordinary beginnings he rose to become second in command to Fernando Sanchez, after his cousin was arrested, and Sanchez Arellano led those loyal to him, and his family, against Teodoro 'El Teo' Simental. It is said 'El Gordo' was present at the infamous shooting at Insurgentes bridge in Tijuana, in April 2008, when gunmen clashed, leaving 16 dead. Villareal was said to have been placed in charge of the Tijuana plaza, when Sanchez Arellano left the city in October 2008, in the midst of a frenzied and bloody fight for control.

Gordo, engaged El Teo cells, in tit for tat retaliatory combat in Tijuana, narco messages, attached to bodies were both sent, and recieved to Villareal, with messages like 'These are the people of Gordo Villreal', and 'This is how we deal with the people of El Tres Letras'.

There were rumors that Villareal, and Sanchez Arellano has problems in their relationship, when Villareal defied peace agreements made with El Teo, and engaged in kidnapping against the wishes of his boss. It was reported that he was 'left on his own' several times. However, looking at the indictment of his Luz Verde, he seems aligned fully with the Arellano Felix. Zeta Tijuana reported that after the indictment was unsealed, Gordo fled Tijuana, and operated independent from both CAF and Sinaloa.

It is likely that Villareal will take a plea agreement, rather then face trial, as even the last holdout from Luz Verde, Carlos Cosme, has decided to take a plea bargain, previously being the only defendant heading to a jury trial. It is also probable Villareal will receive a 10 to 20 year sentence, if, and when he is convicted. It is unknown if it is possible, or likely that authorities will use Villareal's testimony, or knowledge to pursue Sanchez Arellano, who has eluded custody, and indictments, thus far.

Link to 86 page 'Luz Verde' indictment: http://www.scribd.com/doc/35652992/10MJ2489

Sources: AFN Tijuana, BB forum, AP news, UT San Diego, Zeta Tijuana

PRI Scolds Mexican Ex-Gov as US Prepares to Confiscate Property Paid by Cartel Funds

2012-05-23T23:38:00.000-06:00

Borderland Beat: Read additional information in Buggs' February 2012 post;

Mexican Governor Got Millions in drug cash

Yarrington

By Mica Rosenberg

Mexico's opposition party, leading by double digits in presidential polls, on Wednesday said one of its former governors must face up to charges in the United States of accepting millions of dollars from drug cartels.

In an effort to contain what is likely to become a hot campaign issue, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) said they are deciding if Tomas Yarrington, former governor of the state of Tamaulipas, should be thrown out of the party.

On Tuesday, U.S. prosecutors moved to seize millions of dollars' worth of real estate in Texas that Yarrington allegedly brought with drug money.

"Yarrington has to face justice in the country where he is being accused," the PRI said in a statement. "The PRI does not cover up impunity under any circumstances."

The PRI's candidate for president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has a commanding lead ahead of the July 1 vote but is fighting off attacks from rivals who say a win for the party that ruled for seven decades would be a return to Mexico's corrupt past.

Yarrington served as governor of Tamaulipas on the U.S.-Mexico border from 1999 to 2005. The accusations against him were brought in two civil suits but he has not been charged criminally.
The Photo Enrique Pena probably wishes didn't exist

PRI Buds: The disgraced former Governor with Mexico's likely next president

"(Yarrington) acquired millions of dollars in payments while holding elected office from large-scale drug organizations," one complaint filed in a U.S. district court in southern Texas said.

"He used his illicit income from his political years to become a major real estate investor through various money laundering mechanisms," the court documents said.

NO ARREST OR DETENTION

Yarrington was also the mayor of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, from 1992 to 1995, and sought nomination for the Mexican presidency in 2005.

One of the seized properties was a condo in the resort community of South Padre Island, at the southern tip of Texas, and the other was a larger site in San Antonio, prosecutors said.

Yarrington's lawyer has denied the properties belong to him, and called the charges "false allegations and false rumors."

Yarrington has not been arrested or detained, said Angela Dodge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. Mexican media reported that he was in Houston.

Tamaulipas, across the Rio Grande from Texas, is one of the country's most violent drug trafficking corridors.

Conservative President Felipe Calderon sent thousands of federal police and soldiers to take on the cartels after taking office in late-2006. However, drug murders have soared since then, reaching around 55,000 during the administration.

Calderon is prohibited by the constitution from running for re-election but his National Action Party (PAN) candidate Josefina Vazquez Mota is trailing by up to 20 points in the polls.

The PRI has gained much support by promising to restore security to the streets. Vazquez Mota has hit back, accusing the PRI of being complicit with drug gangs and said they may try to cut deals with cartels to lower murder rates.

"Yarrington is the face of the corrupt PRI that hasn't gone away," Vazquez Mota told local radio. "This is what we can't allow to happen again in our country."

The PAN, which broke the PRI's 71-year hold on power in 2000, is trying to shine a spotlight on a string of recent graft investigations against PRI officials.

The former treasurer of the state of Coahuila - who once worked for former PRI chairman Humberto Moreira - is also a target of a U.S. money laundering probe. (Reuters)

___________________

Distancing himself from Yarrington:
The PRI's candidate for president, Enrique Pena Nieto, has a 20 pt lead in the polls for the July 1 vote but is fighting off attacks from rivals who say a win for the party that ruled for seven decades would be a return to Mexico's corrupt past.

"The party is not responsible for this," Pena Nieto said on Wednesday when asked about the Yarrington case. "The law should be upheld."

According to the DEA complaint in Texas: Pena-Arguelles' older brother Alfonso was found slain by a monument in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, last year. Next to his body was a banner accusing Antonio Pena-Arguelles of stealing $5 million from the Zetas. DEA informants said the money had been intended to buy the Zetas influence in the Tamaulipas government through Yarrington's connections.

In the complaint : On the morning of his brother's death, Antonio Pena-Arguelles received a cellphone text message from Trevino, the Zetas' No. 2, accusing him, Yarrington and the head of the Gulf cartel, Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, of orchestrating Torre's slaying.

Moreira Brothers video of the Moreira brothers corruption in Coahuila:

Press release: Link Here Mexican Businessman Indicted for Alleged Money Laundering and Bank Fraud

All photos, links and bottom information added by Chivis

In Cadereyta; Residents Terrified by Narcos, "Only Trust in God"

2012-05-22T22:34:00.000-06:00

Posted on Borderland Beat Forum by contributor Havana

Nightmare Life in Cadereyta, N.L. Before the Slaughter of 49: Testimonials from residents, according to the DEA, Cadereyta is a major drug trafficking routes and people victims of kidnapping, robbery and extortion, but few speak of the 49 executed

Protest outside the city hall Cadereyta, NL,
about the recent execution of 49 people. Photo Sanjuana Martinez

Sanjuana Martinez for Jornada

Cadereyta Jimenez, NL. It was 3:30 am when Antonio Escobedo Ovalle heard the crowing of cocks and got up to go to visit his son in Reynosa.

Within minutes it was arranged, he prepared coffee and ate a piece of sweet bread, then went to board the bus that goes from from New Town to the town center. When the bus arrived, only he and a woman sitting next to the driver occupied the vehicle. When leaving the motorway, at kilometer 47, in the town of San Juan, a riot forced the bus to stop suddenly:

We got scared. Human bodies were lying on the roadside, some were in bags, there were many. We were impressed. Then after the feds sent us back and we walked around the gaps waiting to enter Cadereyta .

Antonio has 75 years, in a cowboy hat, plaid shirt and a pitted belt. quietly sitting in the shade of a tree in the main square when he comments that Cadereyta yet to recover from the shock caused by the image of the 49 torsos and the message above the bodies: This goes for all the Golfos, Chapos, Marinos , Huachos and governments, no one will be able to do anything ......Attn: El loco, Z40 and Commander Lazcano

The Gulf Cartel Feud

Speaking softly, turning constantly to the sides because he says that the malitos (bad ones) are everywhere. He explains that this town has changed since Felipe Calderon declared war on the drug cartels. And five years ago the Cartel del Golfo (CDG) made it their fiefdom for its livestock and agricultural wealth, and particularly for the prosperity around the Pemex refinery.

The peace of the town, known as the capital of Mexican broom makers, it was slowly becoming the pax of the drug cartel . The ranches were looted or confiscated , turned into extermination camps, businesses were robbed, landowners in suburbs were attacked . The wave of kidnappings are affecting each of the residents, or their relatives or acquaintances. The police and some city officials joined the criminal side and the population remains completely defenseless.

Antonio had 12 children, but lives alone. Widowed 30 years ago and the last woman with whom he lived on free love , as he says she took off a decade ago. Since then, he says, he is resigned to be alone: "To which I didn't impose on myself this massacre. But Here they go again, killing and lifting people. They take from right here, from the square. Where do we go? They've spoiled the community. "

A month ago, next to this square appeared a decapitated man, who joined the 18 executed between April and May, including nine municipal bureaucrats. Since January the number has reached 112 dead, not including robbery, kidnapping and offal of properties that organized crime will include in its spoils.

Here is the nest of them (CDG). A group of businessman are meeting with 200 other businessmen in the town Lions Club. The organizations that were disintegrating gripped by fear and threats. But today they are willing to start over to have a voice and denounce the crimes they have suffered for years.

Here, as elsewhere in Mexico, the law of silence reigns. People suffer the consequences of violence under the rules of the narco. Upon arrival of the Cartel del Golfo was followed by the arrival of Los Zetas. Both are currently competing for territory and profits not only from small time drug dealing and the passage of drugs, but common crimes, which also has other competitors.

Since there are no police or transit, Cadereyta left in peace , says Francisco Marroquin. "They got the extortions, robberies and threats. To me I know how the police work, at eight or nine p.m. they kidnap people walking on the street. They take their watches, cell phones, wallets, everything they might have brought, and then throw them out of town. 'And do not complain, because I'll put you in the can', "he warned.

A few months ago, federal and state authorities arrested Rolando Natividad Ríos Reyna, who was director of police, four of his bodyguards, 16 officers, eight members of Transit, and two qualified judges of the Ministry. Those who were not arrested, resigned. The village was gradually without authority of security, as in more than twenty municipalities. A year ago the town hall was attacked with goat horns at 3 pm, and since then the PRI mayor, Eduardo Javier de la Garza Leal, recommended accepting a curfew from 7 pm. At that time the square and the streets are empty. Few people venture out with the background noise of gunfire.

The latest strategy to curb lawlessness ruling was last week's new appointment of former general Niño Ricardo Cesar Villarreal as new police chief: a retired military officer. He comes to restore order and to work for the good of the municipality, said the mayor in a brief inauguration ceremony, without staff.

The city hall looks semi-desert. The mayor isn't around and either is his secretary, Carlos Rafael Rodriguez Gomez, who has two months in office and refuses to say anything about the slaughter of 49 people. He does not give statements for security reasons. We prefer not to talk, things are very ugly , he argues.

The cartels have moved into new businesses, as well as trafficking in drugs and persons, kidnapping and extortion of migrants. Here, the theft or the milking of fuel is a profitable business. Two months ago, the Attorney General's Office presented seven individuals responsible for stealing from Pemex 150,000 liters of fuel between Cadereyta and Reynosa, worth a million and half pesos.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA, for its acronym in English), Cadereyta is one of the main routes of smuggling of immigrant and cocaine, as well as theft of fuel, and a place contested by Los Zetas, the cartel Gulf and Sinaloa. The municipality is a strategic bridge and adjacent to drug plazas controlled by Los Zetas, like Juarez, west, but also highly contested territories to the south which are now battlegrounds, such as citrus area Allende, Montemorelos, Santiago and General Teran.

We're surrounded. People know that God is their only hope of safety , says the parish priest, Gerardo Bazaldúa. People are very scared by the situation. There are constant abductions, death of a family and even assaults here on the corners of the square. They come looking for the only security they have, God .

A few days ago, the walls of the church of San Juan Bautista woke up with a new narcopainting: CDG. The federal police arrived a few hours to question the priest. We asked who had painted the walls. If we are the victims, how do you know? Scratching the house of God shows a lack of respect

Father Gerard is short, stocky and graying. He is 33 years and moved here eight months ago from the town of Guadalupe, another town besieged by organized crime: Maybe because I saw it and I have fanned fear by walking the trails and ranches .

In this crisis situation, he recommends fasting and abstinence to strengthen the will to avoid evil . In his sermon at the Mass of this day, the priest talks about the recent slaughter of 49 people. This questions us about the meaning of life. See how heinous they treat the person, other than to kill, they destroy what they kill, by dismembering. It is something that goes beyond the mind of man.

Of atrocities Jesus Garza knows. His son was 52 years old was a kidnap victim on 2 November. "We gave the money for the rescue and they said 'go to pick him up, just up the hill'. And there we find him, he was, quartered," he says crying.

In 1973, the Rameros with their eight children moved to live in Cadereyta. It was a very nice town, good people, hardworking. We slept with the doors open, there was no one to rob you or bother you.

Now, the people are scared and locked inside. The homes are abandoned. Many were weekend homes of people who came from Monterrey to rest, as Virginia Buenrostro Romero, 53. On November 13, 2010 she decided to spend a holiday with her husband, at thier country house in the ejido La Esperanza. -Arriving at night, she noticed that lights were on and it was occupied by a group of 17 men and one woman. For you, we were waiting , a boy with gun told them.

They were hostages for three days until, suddenly, the Army released them from where they were inside the trunk. Unfortunately, his daughter Jocelyn Mabel Ibarra, 27, and her boyfriend, Jose Angel Mejia Martinez, 28, had gone to look for them at the house, where there were still some remaining criminals, and they kidnapped them together also with the driver, Juan Manuel Salas Moreno.

Also kidnapped

In charge of the negotiation, was their son David Joab Ibarra Buenrostro, 28, who was to pay the ransom, but he was also kidnapped.

Since then, the four are still missing. Virginia has continued to investigate and has seen how federal police were involved, the kidnappers who were given an envelope with money. In captivity, they watched the soldiers blow away the leader of the cel. She watched as the criminals spent other victim's money.

Together with a small group of women, Virginia is protesting outside of Cadereyta city hall about the slaughter of 49. "You can not live like this. I do not want the same thing happens to other people, because it would be martyrdom. It is as if he brought a knife, cut and slowly I'm bleeding. I'm slowly dying. We are being slowly tortured."

Life in the main square passes with apparent normality. Convoys of army and federal police have begun to arrive. Francisco Marroquin Lozano , 75, speaks firmly: Why are the soldiers here? Go to ranches, there they are. Go over there! What they should do is kill them .

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/2012/05/20/politica/011n1pol

Federales bust 11 Zetas in Zacatecas state

2012-05-22T22:00:00.001-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A total of 11 suspects were detained by Policia Federal (PF) agents in Zacatecas state Tuesday morning, according to Mexican news accounts.

According to a news story posted in the website of El Sol de Zacatecas news daily, the PF security operation took place at a residence on Calle Francisco de Asis in Papatonin colony at around 1020 hrs. The unit based the raid on intelligence acquired which indicated the criminal group was allegedly engaged in retail drug sales and recruitment for the Los Zetas criminal gang.

The security operation involved 25 vehicles including two Rhinos, which are wheeled armored personnel carriers used by the PF. Of the 11 detained, two were from Zacatecas, two were from Guatemala and two were women.

The detainees were identified as Jorge Francisco Rodriguez Carmona, 21, Coahuila, Bryan Lopez Almeida, 17, Ojocaliente, Olga Lidia Almeida Davila, 36, Ojocaliente, Juan Manuel Ortiz Lopez, 24, Coahuila, Devora Gissel Vargas Guerrero, 19, Coahuila, Eddin Roberto Call Vargas AKA El Congo, 33, Guatemala, Roman Rios Garcia AKA La Curro, 28, Coahuila, Leonardo Hernandez Santos, 24, Coahuila, Alejandro Espinoza Valdez AKA El Bebé, 17, Coahuila, Francisco Capuccino Saucedo, 30, Guatemala, and Angel Aleman Macias, 20, Aguascalientes. Jorge Francisco Rodriguez Carmona was identified the leader of the cell.

Policia Federal agents also seized nine rifles, one handgun, ammunition, one Nissan Versa SUV and one Volkswagen Jetta sedan.

In other news, according to a news report posted on its website of El Sol de Zacatecas, a man was shot to death by municipal police agents early Monday morning.

Miguel Angel de la Cruz Marin attacked the headquarters of the Policia Preventativa in Juchipila municipality using an AK-47 rifle. No one was reported hurt in the assault. Official reports said the suspect had no links to organized crime, however, unofficial reports said that a link existed.

The same report referenced a PF operation late last month which dismantled a Gulf Cartel cell in Juchipila municipality. The cell's leader, Ampelio Ayala Martinez, AKA El Tio, 59, was among the detainees.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantbrug.com

© Copyright Chris Covert
You must obtain permission to reprint this article

Change of command in southern Chihuahua state

2012-05-22T22:00:00.000-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

The commander for the Mexican 42 Military Zone has changed from General de Brigada Jesus Pedroza Ayala to General Diplomado Estado Mayor Miguel Andrade Cisneros, according to Mexican news sources.

The new commander, General Andrade Cisneros, had been commander of the Mexican 32rd Military Zone in Yucatan, an appointment he gained in July 2010, when he relieved General de Brigada Diplomado de Estado Mayor, Juan Manuel Rico Gamez, who went on as commander of the 31st Military Zone based in Chiapas state.

According to data supplied by the Mexican Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), General Andrade Cisneros was promoted to his current rank in November 2008. He had previously served a military attache for the Mexican embassy in Panama prior to his appointment to the army garrison in Cozumel, which he received in early 2010.

Going by news accounts, the General Andrade Cisneros maintained friendly relations with the local business and education community in his Yucatan area of operation, even going so far as attending less formal functions in civilian dress. During his brief tenure as garrison commander, however, in Cozumel, he was considered a low profile commander.

General Andrade Cisneros

The change of scenery could not be more stark for General Andrade Cisneros, going from an area where the tourist industry thrives to essentially a backwater command in a desert area bounded by mountains in the west.

His predecessor in the 42 Military Zone, General Jesus Podroza Ayala, was only appointed commander of the zone last July. He had come from commanding the army garrison at Manzanillio in Colima, where he was appointed sometime in 2010.

Like General Andrade Cisneros, General Podroza Ayala was promoted to his current rank in November 2008. He had previously served as chief of staff for the IV Military Region in 2009 encompassing Nuevo Leon state. His tenure as chief of staff was marked by public appearances in behalf of the army in Nuevo Leon.

General Podroza Ayala tenure as 42 Military Zone commander was marked by high profile marijuana seizures, and at least one "Guns for groceries" buyback program, according to Mexican press accounts. His unit also helped with relief efforts in the Sierra Tarahumara earlier this year, in one instance shipping 110 tons of material.

According to several Mexican news accounts at the time, in October, 2011 his wife and daughter were carjacked and kidnapped in a Soriana Foods parking lot in Chihuahua city and taken only to be pursued by local municipal police. The pursuit ended a short distance away when the suspects abandoned the vehicles and their two hostages, running into the desert. Both females were unharmed in the incident.

General Podroza Ayala was commander during the intergang battles in Choix, Sinaloa earlier this month, which took the lives of 57 individuals including two military in Sinaloa state. The 42nd Military Zone maintains both rifle company sized bases as well as road patrols in the area on the Chihuahua state side of the battle area, but apparently failed to intervene when armed suspects were said to be crossing into Chihuahua avoiding an army cordon in Sinaloa state.

SEDENA likes to keep commanders in place for a long as possible, so they may gain experience, and train lower echelon commanders. Successful commanders will retain their commands if they don't attract negative attention and have some success. The Choix, Sinaloa incident may not have cost General Podroza Ayala his command, however. General Podroza Ayala is staff qualified, and may be going to Mexico City. SEDENA has plucked short time military zone commanders before for staff appointments elsewhere.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

© Copyright Chris Covert
You just obtain permission to reprint this article

Police Chief Gunned Down in Jalisco

2012-05-22T20:50:00.002-06:00

The deputy police chief of Magdalena, a city in the western Mexican state of Jalisco, was killed by gunmen, prosecutors said.

Victor Manuel Hernandez Sotelo was murdered Monday by two subjects on a motorcycle who rode up to his SUV and opened fire with 9 mm weapons in Guadalajara, the capital of Jalisco.

The police chief’s SUV crashed into a public bus after the shooting and the gunmen escaped, the Jalisco Attorney General’s Office said.

Hernandez Sotelo was shot twice in the head and died instantly, investigators said.

The police chief had driven to Guadalajara for a doctor’s appointment.

Investigators are trying to determine the motive for the killing and whether the police chief had received death threats, the AG’s office said.

About 50,000 people have died in Mexico’s drug war since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderon declared war on the country’s powerful cartels, sending soldiers into the streets to fight criminals.

Source: EFE

Soldiers Kill 5 Gunmen in Shootout in Guerrero

2012-05-22T20:35:00.002-06:00

Five suspected criminals died in a shootout with army troops in a mountainous area in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, state prosecutors said.

Soldiers from the 19th Infantry Battalion killed the gunmen Sunday afternoon in El Guayabal, a community near the resort city of Zihuatanejo, said a Guerrero Attorney General’s Office spokesman.

The gunmen attacked the soldiers, who returned fire, killing the five unidentified men.

Soldiers found 10 rifles, ammunition clips and ammunition among the belongings of the gunmen.

The area where the shootout occurred in the mountains of Zihuatanejo, near the border with Michoacan state, is the scene of regular shootouts involving drug traffickers.

The Familia Michoacana and Los Caballeros Templarios cartels both operate in the area, a prime poppy-growing region.

Neighboring Michoacan has been plagued by a wave of violence blamed on the turf war between the Los Caballeros Templarios and La Familia Michoacana cartel.

Los Caballeros Templarios was created in March 2011 by former members of the La Familia Michoacana.

Servando Gomez Martinez shares the leadership of Los Caballeros Templarios with Enrique Plancarte.

Illegal logging is also common in the area, which is closely watched by environmentalists, with rival loggers sometimes engaging in shootouts.

Source: EFE

4 Tons of MJ Found Floating in SoCal Harbor

2012-05-21T20:36:00.001-06:00

Borderland Beat ...Who dumped the mota?

Border Patrol: "An unusual discovery"

Orange County Sherriff officers unload 180 bales of marijuana, weighing a total of 8,068 pounds, Sunday in the Dana Point Harbor. The floating bundles were first seen by a boater around 12:01 p.m., U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Seth Johnson said. The bales were reportedly floating at least 15 miles off shore.

By ERIKA I. RITCHIE / THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

DANA POINT – Hundreds of marijuana bales valued by officials at more than $3.6 million were recovered after being seen floating in the ocean near Dana Point Harbor on Sunday, officials said.

The floating bales were first seen by a boater near the harbor around 12:01 p.m., U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Seth Johnson said. The bales were reportedly floating at least 15 miles off shore.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department sent three Harbor Patrol ships to aid in recovering the marijuana. A Coast Guard cutter was also sent to assist.

Border Patrol spokesman Michael Jimenez said his agency took possession of more than 8,000 pounds recovered by the sheriff's Orange County Harbor Patrol and estimated the value at more than $3 million. That does not count the marijuana that the Coast Guard has recovered, Jimenez said. Those details are expected on Monday.

The investigation into how the bales made it into the ocean is continuing. No suspects or vessel have been identified.

Jimenez called Sunday's incident unusual. In most scenarios when marijuana bales are found dumped in the water it is because a vessel is trying to flee from authorities.

"At other events, they've dumped the bales to get rid of weight if they're being chased," he said. "Generally in these cases we're aware they're being dumped. What's more unusual is that the bales were floating with no boat in sight."

1,686 kilos belonging to CAF seized in Peru

2012-05-21T20:09:00.001-06:00

1,686 kilos seized in Peru

In Piura, Peru, which is now considered the primary cocaine production country in the world, Peruvian authorities have seized 1,686 kilos, which have been linked to the Arellano Felix Cartel, headed by Fernando Sanchez Arellano, referred to in the United States as the Fernando Sanchez Organization.

The kilos, high purity, with an 'impressive amount of cocaine hydrochloride' were destined to Belgium, from the Peruvian port of Paita. The cocaine was intended to be shipped across the Atlantic, disguised, or hidden in a load of organic bananas. Often, when cocaine is discussed, the term stamps is frequently referred to, which is a reference to markings on the packages of cocaine. These markings can be on the cocaine 'brick' itself, embedded into the surface, or on the plastic wrapping.

These stamps can indicate quality, ensuring the cocaine is coming from a source country, or major wholesaler, refer to ownership, or be used for logistical purposes, in terms of where the particular load is going. The markings found on the kilos seized in Peru are 'The Lion', 'The Polo', and 'Louis Vuitton', three brands which apparently are used by the Tijuana Cartel. The Lion likely refers to the popular brand 'Express', which have the logo of a lion, rearing it's claws, on it's hind legs. It is a commonly worn brand, popular among many demographics, but very popular with youths, comparable to an Abercrombie and Fitch, or Hollister.

The Polo likely refers to the classic Ralph Lauren brand, a singular horsemen, that has been ever present in fashion for decades. Louis Vuitton, the French luxury designer, popularized by womens purses and handbags, uses many different prints and styles to distinguish it's brand, but it's probable the kilos were marked with a crossed LV, which is commonly scene on mens and womens shoes. It was not published how or why authorities linked these symbols to Tijuana, though it is assumed through previously established intelligence, from other seized shipments, informants, captured members, or distributors, lower on the hierarchy.

Peruvian authorities detained five men, and confiscated firearms and vehicles, as well as a business, of import and export, where they found documents referencing money laundering. The business was sending 8 containers of bananas to Europe, one of them containing the cocaine, which is said to be worth 101 million dollars. It is documented and established that Mexican, as well as Colombian criminal organizations, including Los Zetas, Gulf Cartel, and Sinaloa, as well as Los Rastrojos, of Columbia send wholesale drug shipments to Europe, where they are either purchased by other criminal networks, or distributed by members of their own syndicate. A kilo of cocaine sells for about 45,000 in the UK, and reportedly prices are going up all over Europe, to give an idea of what this shipment was worth to it's owners.

The Arellano Felix have long held ties in Peru, and though they are thought to be a languishing, dismantled, organization, they are still said to hold territory in Tijuana, and have established connections in Peru.

Sources: AFN Tijuana, BBC, Insight Crime.

Presenting El Loco: Z40 and Lazca Ordered Slaughter

2012-05-21T09:09:00.000-06:00

Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

Last week it was the Mexican agency SEDENA who reported the NL massacre was the work of CDG.

One could see a hedging in the major news sources of Mexico over the weekend. Expressions such as "reportedly of CDG" then shifting to "of a criinal organization". For their part Universal presented at the end of last week the possibility that the captured "Loco" was perhaps "Loko" the criminal reported killed in 2011.

Today it is SIEDO, another federal agency, who in their presentation declared the following:

Cadereyta• May 21, 2012 - 7:10 am During the presentation of Jesus Elizondo Daniel Ramirez, Brigadier General Edgar Villegas Meléndez Ruiz explained that "El Loco" was ordered to dump the bodies in the central plaza of Cadereyta.

The killing of 49 people in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon, was ordered by the leader of Los Zetas and the second in command of the criminal organization, Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano "The Lazca" and Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, "The Z40" with the intention of blaming the criminal organizations operating in the area of the country to create a climate of instability in the region, as reported by the deputy chief of staff operating the Ministry of Defence, Brigadier General Edgar Villegas Ruiz Melendez.

In presenting Jesus Elizondo Daniel Ramirez "El Loco", who is one of those allegedly responsible for the implementation of the 49 people whose bodies were dismembered and dumped in the town of San Juan, the General said that it was reported that the order of his superiors to leave the bodies in the plaza of the town of Cadereyta.

While reading a statement on the premises of the SIEDO, the military said that "El Loco" also stated that this action was endorsed by the head of the Zetas in Nuevo Leon, known as "El Morro" so they had to coordinate with a guy nicknamed "El Camaron" (the shrimp) because it was going to deliver the bodies to be dumped on the main square along with a manta.

"This was part of a strategy to blame for such acts antagonistic to criminal organizations, it could be augmented by placing mantas around the country, disputing of such facts to cause confusion in the authorities and public opinion.

"Likewise, said a representative of "Camaron" "known as" El Bocinas" as quoted in the village of Los Herreras, he was hired to attain 30 to 49 bodies, which were transported by several trucks.

Due to the likely consequences that would trigger an event of this nature against him and contrary to their heads, "El Loco" and his companions left the bodies where they were later located by the authorities and not in the plaza.

Also as part of the maneuver ordered by "The Lazca" and Treviño Morales, "Los Zetas" was a broadcast over the Internet a video where there are details of the event, where "El Bocinas" in charge of filming and who is listening to signals to those who participated.

Meanwhile the Attorney General's Office requested the detainment of "El Loco" for 40 days, on charges of organized crime, against health, violation of the General Law on Firearms and Explosives, as well as resource operations illegal proceeds.It is noteworthy that the detainee was assured a rifle 7.62 mm caliber, 10 thousand dollars in cash and various envelopes containing marijuana.

This reporter is frustrated and not entirely convinced of the "facts" , could this truly be the historical account? Yes. Could it be a ploy to complete the investigation in a matter of days because of the upcoming election? Yes. Could it be CDG twisted facts as planned if apprehended? Isn't there easier ways for Zs to disrupt plazas? Definitely. I am just not convinced completely of any scenario at this moment.

Sources used for this post: Milenio and El Diario

Federales bag 6 bad guys in Zacatecas state

2012-05-20T13:00:00.000-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A Policia Federal (PF) road patrol killed six armed suspects in a firefight in Zacatecas state Saturday afternoon, according to Mexican news sources.

According to a news item posted in the website of El Sol de Zacatecas news daily Sunday, a Policia Federal detachment was on patrol on Mexico Federal Highway 54 near Concepcion del Oro municipality, when suspects travelling aboard three vehicles were signalled at around 1530 hrs by the unit to stop. Instead armed suspects opened fire on the unit. PF return fire killed six armed suspects.

A news item posted on the website of Vangardia news daily said the dead were members of Los Zetas criminal gang. Six guns characterised in reports as heavy weapons, which usually means assault rifles were seized in the aftermath along with ammunition and the three vehicles.

Reports also said the a unit of the Mexican 52 Infantry Battalion along with an undisclosed number of Zacatecas state police agents were subsequently dispatched to the area to add security.

Mexico Highway 54 is a direct route between Zacatecas city, the capital of Zacatecas state and Saltillo, Coahuila the capital of Coahuila state. The site of the armed encounter was close to the extreme northeastern border of Zacatecas.

Meanwhile, the bodies of two transit police agents were found dead last Thursday in their abandoned vehicle in the village of Gualterio in Chalchihuites municipality, according to a news item posted on the website of El Sol de Zacatecas.

The two victims were identified as Transit police agent Eduardo Zapata Perez and an assistant, Polica Preventativa agent Faustino Flores Ayala. Both men had been shot to death.

According to official reports related by the news post, the two officers had been dispatched to Sombrerete municipality to settle a dispute, but were instead attacked by a mob and shot to death. The report also added that transit officers do not engage in any other state business but traffic matters.

Sombrerete and Chalchihuites municipalities are in the westernmost area of Zacatecas state.

Mexico Federal Highway 45, which connects Durango city with Fresnillo, Zacatecas, is one of the most dangerous stretches of road in Mexico, as several instances of armed robberies of travellers have been reported, including tow against local Catholic priests.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

CNN Interview of Ioan Grillo: 49 Bodies--Just Another Crime in the Drug War?

2012-05-19T19:52:00.000-06:00

Borderland Beat: The following is a reporter’s perspective from Grillo, who was in Monterrey when the news broke of the massacre. The CNN article is different and one I found interesting..Paz Chivis

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

On Sunday, 49 decapitated bodies were found on a major highway outside Monterrey, Mexico, which is about 80 miles southwest of the U.S. border.

A large banner draped over the corpses had a threatening message from one cartel to another, in an area of Mexico where the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel have been fighting for some time. "100 percent Zeta" was painted in black graffiti on a wall at the entrance of a nearby town, indicating Mexico's paramilitary-trained cartel had committed another atrocity on a stunningly large scale.

A day after the massacre, banners purportedly signed by the Zetas appeared in various parts of the area, denying they were the killers.

Four days later, no information about the victims has been released. It's a mystery who killed them and why.

The only thing that's clear is that the people who live near the crime scene seem detached, said Mexico-based journalist Ioan Grillo. He has covered the drug war for more than a decade. That's increasingly how many Mexicans act, he said, an understandable coping mechanism when you live in a country battling a drug war that has killed more than 47,500 people in six years.

CNN talked with Grillo to get his observations and impressions of what's going on. Parts of this interview have been edited for clarity and length:

CNN: You were in Monterrey and went to the town, Cadereyta Jimenez, near the crime scene. Tell me about that.

Grillo: The frightening thing about this incident is the lack of reaction from Mexican society and Mexican authorities. You would expect that for an incident of this scale, that the military would be all over the place. Two days afterward, in the center of [Cadereyta], there were no soldiers I could see. There was cartel graffiti in front of the town hall. All around the town, you see graffiti names of CDG (Cartel del Golfo). It's blatant. And you don't see the authorities around.

CNN: The people in Cadereyta, what did they say to you

Grillo: The people I talked to are saying, 'Why is this happening? It doesn't have anything to do with Cadereyta. This has nothing to do with us,' which seems like a rejection of responsibility, a kind of denial. Some psychologists say that repeated exposure to trauma causes denial and apathy, a rejection of what has happened. In Monterrey people are quite numb.

Perhaps parts of Mexico feel that collectively. When you had the Monterrey casino fire which killed 52 people in 2011, there was an emotional reaction to that. When 72 migrants were found slain [on a Tamaulipas farm in 2010], there was a reaction.

CNN: What does this latest mass killing say about the drug war in the bigger picture?

Grillo: I don't think you can say this incident is a turning point. The drug war escalated significantly in 2008 to levels we'd not seen before, and in 2010 to levels we'd not seen before. We've had several more years of horrific atrocities. So this just seems like one more among so many.

CNN: What about efforts to identify the bodies? [On Wednesday Mexican authorities said they're asking for DNA samples to help with this.

Grillo: It has been worryingly slow. I mean, 49 people just disappearing? Don't they have families? Aren't there people out there missing them? There are no reports of mass disappearances. Perhaps they were related to trafficking but maybe they weren't.

Were they migrants [victims of previous cartel violence]? We don't know anything about the physicality of the victims. Did they have any tattoos that could help answer those questions? You'd think there'd be some physical space where [the killers] decapitated and dismembered these people. They must have left trails.

CNN:Logistically, it's incredible to think about how 49 people were killed and then transported out to a major highway. You said this area where the bodies were found is considered dangerous but what specifically is it like?

Grillo: This happened in the Plaza de Cadereyta in an industrial area of Monterrey. The bodies were left directly on a major highway that runs toward Reynosa and the U.S. border. The area has been under dispute between the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, and it's dangerous for that reason. A lot of journalists are fearful to go to the outskirts of the area.

CNN: You went to the crime scene, and you've been to hundreds of other crime scenes covering the drug war. How do police secure crime scenes in Mexico, and in particular, how does one secure a crime scene in which 49 bodies have been decapitated?

Grillo: In many cases, Mexican authorities do not secure crime scenes well. You can get close to the bodies in many cases.

In this case, the military and the police secured the area and covered it. The first calls came around 2:30 a.m. in the morning Sunday. The press in Monterrey first became aware of it around 4 a.m. Because it's a dangerous place to go and because it was the middle of the night, the press wanted to get five or six vehicles to go there in a convoy because of the danger of driving into a hostile area at night.

So by the time the press got there, it was 5 a.m., the area was covered and the road was blocked. Cameramen could not see the corpses or verify information about the corpses. It took until about 9 or 10 p.m. [to process the bodies and remove them] ...The only thing we saw was a video that seems to show the killers, which appears to be authentic.

CNN: You're talking about a video posted on the web that you viewed and you say appears to be authentic. Why do you say that?

Grillo:Because if you look at a photograph of a pile of human corpses, [you know when] it looks real. It corresponds to this incident. If you watch the video -- some of it is very dark -- you can see it appears to be authentic. As a journalist, you can't [be] 100 percent or know who put it there [on the Web].

CNN: Mexican President Felipe Calderon belongs to a party called the PAN and was elected in 2006. He declared war on the cartels and sent the military fanning out across the country, and he fired hundreds of corrupt police officers.

Some say that his actions fueled the violence with the cartels fighting back harder and more creatively. In July, Mexico will hold a presidential election. Calderon cannot run again because of term limits. The party opposite Calderon's -- the PRI -- could take power. How would the PRI in power change the drug war?

Grillo:Unless something extraordinary happens, the PRI are overwhelmingly in front in polls and are going to win. So far, the PRI have signaled some quite positive signs for the drug war by having concrete goals of reducing rates of homicide, kidnapping and extortion.

So they are doing something other than having a broad goal of defeating the cartels and reconquering territory. The PRI has said these are the anti-social crimes we want to reduce. It's also possible that the PRI could have a majority in Congress.

If that happens you could have a more powerful government that could bring together different police forces. One huge problem in Calderon's administration is that you had different police forces in different states fighting each other rather than working together.

Arrest of Alleged Kingpin Seen as Blow to Sinaloa Cartel

2012-05-19T19:16:00.000-06:00

Borderland Beat

By Richard Marosi and Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times

SAN DIEGO — Alleged drug kingpin Victor Emilio Cazares, among the most wanted trafficking suspects in the United States, has been arrested in Mexico, U.S. and Mexican officials say, despite having changed his appearance through plastic surgery.

A senior U.S. law enforcement official in Mexico confirmed this week that Cazares was captured April 8 at a highway checkpoint near the western city of Guadalajara. Mexican authorities on Friday confirmed Cazares was in custody.

Mexican authorities did not make the arrest public at the time, and it has not been previously reported. Cazares, 48, is believed to be a key lieutenant of Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa drug cartel. The arrest is seen as a blow to the sprawling criminal organization, the most powerful in Mexico.

Photo taken at Cazares' arrest

Cazares is charged with running a vast drug-distribution network featured in a Times series last year, "Inside the Cartel." U.S. law enforcement sources said he was nabbed by Mexican authorities with the help of U.S. federal agents. Federal prosecutors in San Diego, where Cazares was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2007, are seeking his extradition.

Mexican police had trouble identifying Cazares because he had undergone plastic surgery, the sources said. Though Cazares kept a low profile in Mexico, his photograph appeared on a widely circulated list of Mexico's most wanted drug traffickers distributed by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Cazares eventually acknowledged his identity to Mexican officials who were holding him. Those officials also confirmed his identity through photos and fingerprint information from the U.S., where Cazares has two drug-trafficking convictions.

Cazares, in a photograph taken at the scene of the arrest, appears much younger than his age. His once straight hair is curly, he has a grizzled beard and is wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the word "Rockers."

"It looks like he belongs in Venice Beach, surfing," said one official familiar with the investigation.

It is not unheard-of for Mexican drug traffickers to go under the knife to obscure their identities. In the most infamous case, drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, nicknamed "Lord of the Skies," died in 1997 after extensive surgery to alter his appearance, including liposuction. Two of the doctors involved in the operation were later tortured and killed.

The secrecy surrounding Cazares' arrest is unusual. According to U.S. sources, Mexican counterparts said they refrained from announcing the capture to comply with an electoral law in Mexico that seeks to prevent the government from influencing the outcome of an election campaign by touting its actions. With a presidential contest underway, some Mexican agencies, including the federal police, have stopped issuing news releases, though others have continued to make announcements. Mexicans will vote in July.

President Felipe Calderon, who launched what he calls an all-out fight against drug cartels in 2006, has been accused of going easy on the Sinaloa group while aggressively pursuing its rivals. Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, faces wide popular discontent over the drug violence that has killed more than 50,000 people since Calderon came to power.

Cazares is among a string of alleged Sinaloa underlings and associates arrested in recent months. A top-ranking Guzman ally, Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, was killed by army troops near Guadalajara in 2010. But the Mexican government has yet to capture Guzman, whom Forbes magazine lists among the world's wealthiest people.

Cazares is charged with running a distribution network that stretched from the state of Sinaloa in northwestern Mexico to dozens of cities across the U.S. In the Los Angeles area, about 20 distribution cells were linked to his alleged ring. He allegedly oversaw operations from a 25-acre estate outside Culiacan, the Sinaloa capital, that featured a twin-towered church and two man-made lakes.

In 1995, while living in Bell, outside Los Angeles, Cazares was arrested with a bag of cocaine and sentenced to two years in prison. He eventually returned to Mexico. U.S. authorities estimate that the group allegedly run by Cazares smuggled at least 40 tons of cocaine across the border from 2004 to 2007, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. A DEA-led 20-month investigation yielded more than 400 arrests.

Cazares eluded capture more than once. In 2007, Mexican authorities spotted him in downtown Culiacan but didn't act because he was protected by 20 heavily armed guards. A few months later, Mexican soldiers descended on his estate, but Cazares slipped away before the raid.

During his years as a fugitive, he was believed to have shuttled between hide-outs in Sinaloa and Jalisco.

In 2009, a woman believed to be his wife was killed in Sinaloa when her car was intercepted by two carloads of gunmen. In 2008, his nephew and Guzman's son were killed by .gunmen in a parking lot in Culiacan

It's unclear how authorities caught up with Cazares. In other hunts for trafficking suspects, U.S. authorities have relied on informants to provide tips. U.S. authorities had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Cazares' arrest.

Cazares' sister, Blanca, also faces drug charges in the U.S. She is suspected of laundering drug proceeds for the Sinaloa group, in part by using tainted dollars to buy and import silk from Asia and then resell it for pesos in Mexico, U.S. federal investigators say.

In recent months, Guzman's organization has faced an increasingly deadly challenge in various parts of the country from the Zetas, a criminal gang known for beheading and dismembering its victims.

Guzman and his allies have sought to control the colonial-era city of Guadalajara and the surrounding state of Jalisco in the midst of a turf war that has intensified since Coronel was slain by Mexican soldiers in a suburb known as Zapopan.

Last week, killers dumped parts of at least 18 bodies on the road between Guadalajara and Lake Chapala, a scenic area that is home to thousands of U.S. retirees.

Read "Inside The Cartel" LINK HERE

Captured CDG's" El Loco", Suspected Mastermind of Cadereyta Massacre of 49

2012-05-19T02:38:00.001-06:00

Borderland Beat

Elements of the Army captured in the town of Guadalupe, Nuevo Leon, Daniel Elizondo "El Loco", a member of the Gulf cartel and alleged mastermind of the execution of 49 people found in the town of Cadereyta.

The Ministry of National Defense (SEDENA) reported that, "for the discovery of 49 bodies, military personnel conducted ground surveys and other specific actions to identify, locate and arrest the alleged perpetrators of these crimes with positive results, additional information will be announced soon, as the operations continue”. the agency said in a statement.

SEDENA reported that after the discovery of the massacre, the Fourth Military Region implemented the “Rastrillo” implemented in coordination with regional commanders in the states bordering Texas, to seal and prevent the movement of offenders into other areas of the region.

This operation is performed under the direct command of Commander of the Fourth Military Region, implementing search and information gathering, intelligence, operations planning and precision of execution.

The National Defense said the arrest on Thursday in China Township of eight alleged members of the Gulf cartel, resulted in securing four rifles, a handgun, three hand grenades, 881 cartridges of different calibers, 34 magazines for different weapons, a kilogram of cocaine, two vehicles, tactical gear and diverse radio.

In the beginning of the massacre carnage video was a message, the message was signed by "El Loco" in addition to Z40 and Lazcano. Apparently, with this arrest gives credibility to the multiple banners signed by the Los Zetas cartel denying responsibility for the massacre.

Sources used: SDP, Milenio

UPDATE: BB reporter J reports that SEDENA has changed their position and says Loco is Z he read in AFN and presentation is tomorrow. Milenio is sticking to CDG. I will keep you updated. The entire thing stinks.

also...SEDENA says the 5 bodies discovered in a fosa this week were connected to this massacre.

Mexican Army uncovers mass grave with 5 dead in Nuevo Leon state

2012-05-18T22:00:00.000-06:00

Updated with information the dead found are not related to the Cadereyta massacre
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A Mexican Army unit of the 7th Military Zone has discovered a mass grave site in eastern Nuevo Leon state Friday evening, according to Mexican news sources.

An article posted on the website of Milenio news daily reported five narcofosas, or deep pits containing full skeletons discovered at around noon Friday. At least five full sets of charred human remains have been exhumed and reports say more are expected. Organized crime groups in the area have used remote sites such as the one near China for years to discard their victims.

One report by Excelsior news daily speculated that some partial remains were also found at the site saying some of those remains could be those of the 49 butchered individuals found last Sunday in Cadereyta, Nuevo Leon.

However, an Agency France-Prese Spanish language wire story posted on the Internet at midnight Saturday quoted an unidentified source with the Nuevo Leon attorney general's office saying the remains found were at least a year and more old, and ruled out the possibility those remains were of some of the victims found last Sunday in Cadereyta. Those officials characterized the number of dead found as "indeterminate."

The find was about 10 kilometers along a road to Mendez, Tamaulipas, which is southeast of China. China itself is 40 kilometers east of Monterrey and 30 kilometers east of Cadereyta, where the 49 unidentified individuals were found last Sunday.

The day before the discovery of the China mass graves, a Mexican Army unit detained eight unidentified individuals said to be members of a local Gulf Cartel group operating in the area. News releases by the Secretaria de Defensa Nacional (SEDENA), the controlling agency for the Mexican Army, hinted the eight detainees may have had involvement in the 49 dead found in Cadereyta.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

THE SECRETS OF "EL AZUL"

2012-05-18T12:38:00.001-06:00

Posted on Borderland Beat forum by Arm Chair Intellect

by Ricardo Ravelo

Mexico, D.F., April 17-Peacemaker of Mexican Drug Lords, skilled in negotiations, has worked for years to put an end to long-standing conflicts within Mexico's underworld. His name, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, or El Azul, AKA the blue. Few can claim to have survived more than four decades in drug trafficking. Today he is the most discreet and, at the same time, the most effective in the fixing both social and financial problems in Mexico narco underbelly.

Since 1992, when he was released from the Almoloya de Juárez prison after serving a seven year sentence, he vanished. No one knows of his whereabouts, although whispers through song sing of his adventures; claims he has been seen in Queretaro - once a stronghold - another claim is in 2003 he was seen in Morelos, under the aegis of the Government Pan headed the Governor Sergio Estrada Cajigal.

But in Mexico few speak of him and little is known, in United States the Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI) regarded him as the second most wanted international criminal in 2005, only behind the terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Currently El Azul appears on the FBI's most wanted list and has been well known amoungst law enforcement.

On 12 February of that year, Art Werge, spokesman for the FBI in El Paso, Texas, announced that there was a reward of $ 5 million for anyone who provides information that leads to the capture of Esparragoza Moreno, who at the time was identified as one of the main leader of the Juárez cartel.

A FBI spokesman said that the capo, "Has had the ability to form well-organized structures involving officials, police and military, including important commanders of the Mexican army".

He added that the agency, "Considers him one of the key men in the Mexican drug world by his contacts within Colombian's drug trafficking world and with logistics to transport cocaine to United States", according to the newspaper La Jornada.

The FBI say Esparragoza Moreno is very dangerous, is always armed and has a strong security team which looks after him. In Mexico, the perception of the authorities is quite different: they assume that El Azul is more prone to negotiation than other more violent narcos.

HISTORY

Juan José Esparragoza Moreno is barely younger than "El Mayo" Ismael Zambada (1948) and older than Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman (1957). He was born on February 3, 1949 in Chuicopa, Sinaloa, and is one of the few survivors from a generation of narcos who are now dead or imprisoned. Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, Rafael Caro Quintero, Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo (Don Neto), Emilio Quintero PayanManuel Salcido Uzeta (Cochiloco) and Pablo Acosta Villarreal, to name a few.

The next generation of drug traffickers who inherited power was also advised by Esparragoza Moreno. In this group include Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, Albino Quintero Meraz and even own Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, who were partners with El Azul in the Juarez Cartel, he is now at the service of the Sinaloa Cartel.

According to the psychological profile prepared at the end of the 1980s, during his imprisonment, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno is a person to be avoided, though he has not been known for violent confrontations and executions. He often says: "The business of drug trafficking is not with bullets".

Tarín Chávez, a protected witness in the trial of general Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo, accused him of being linked to the Juárez cartel. In a conversation with El Azul, they talked in length about the business.

"On one occasion Juan José Esparragoza Moreno came up to me and asked me, "Can I have a moment? I bring you a very warm greeting of general Francisco Quiroz, who is my very dear friend. He said that the business is not compatible with the deaths of those that would be missed… '"

In 1998, José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, then owner of the specialized unit in organized crime (UEDO), developed a profile of Esparragoza Moreno and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo. The second said that it was El Azul is the most seasoned of bosses. "There is no other capo like him", he told the reporter.

Azul was profiled as: "A great negotiator, perhaps patient strategist who has had a hold on drug trafficking in Mexico. He was the only man who has been able to sit at the negotiating table for most drug traffickers. Like few others, he likes to be in second position, because his experience has taught him becoming boss means death or jail".

A sample of his conciliation ability was the negotiation between a dozen of drug traffickers, Capos from the Gulf and Juarez cartels, ironed out blocks to stave off continued heat in late 1993, it was successful, for a short time.

The pact was called "The Peace of the North" because it put an end to a long period of killings and betrayals between both criminal organizations.

This managed to reduce the tensions that could be felt from Ciudad Juárez and Tamaulipas, and lead to a more robust border area for Mexican drug traffickers.

At the same time, according to official data, El Azul reached out and helped create the Federation. This federation included most of the strongest and most influential Cartels to date.

El Azul did not try to complete the desire of Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo to build a monopoly of drug trafficking in Mexico.

After the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes in July 1997, who died of a botched plastic surgery, Esparragoza Moreno didn't stay in Juarez for long, he soon left for Sinaloa after leaving jail in 1991.

Instead he spent a decade building closer ties to the Beltran Leyva brothers and Ismael El Mayo Zambada, his old acquaintances. The game changed in 2001, when Joaquin El Chapo Guzman escaped from Puente Grande penitentiary. This was when relations broke with the Juarez cartel, Azul lost respect for the leadership of Vicente Carrillo Fuentes.

According to a letter dated in October 2004 which was received by the President, several capos met a month earlier in Monterrey, Nuevo León, to discuss how they could establish hegemonic group to handle the drug trafficking in Mexico.

Drafted by a witness of that encounter, the Charter ensures that El Azul was able to sit at the table with Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, Joaquin El Chapo Guzman and Arturo Beltran Leyva, among others.

The idea was to plan the murder of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes (brother of Amado, Vicente Carrillo) and blame it on to another Cartel, Los Zetas, which was challenging Carrillo Fuentes family and the empire they created.

The new members of the Sinaloa Cartel believed that they only owed loyalty to Amado Carrillo, and not to the other members of his family, after his death many left, many felt Vicente Carrillo neglected command of the cartel and lost confidence.

At the meeting of the federation, El Azul also raised the idea to get rid of Los Zetas.

Coupled with the evidence above, another point critical objective of the cartel of Sinaloa Cartel was to control the golden triangle and to kill or exterminate Los Zetas, while leveraging the power of economic staff, coupled with the support from the highest level of government. They were to use the full weight of their corrupted federal officials against Los Zetas.

They would take advantage of Government for the purpose and aim to conduct all activities with impunity. Its predominant activities, specifically were those related to drug trafficking. This being Ismael Zambada, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, Chapo Guzmán and Juan José Esparragoza Moreno, El Azul. They intended to monopolize drug trafficking and create a single cartel drug, the Sinaloa Cartel.

At that meeting it was also agreed that they would penetrate the plaza of Nuevo Laredo. The man responsible for that operation was a U.S. born, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, La Barbie. Arturo Beltrán, who was his boss died at the end of year 2009 in Cuernavaca, Morelos, during a shootout with members of the Marina.

Esparragoza Moreno seems to have been on the move; proven when the DEA confirmed that the Sinaloa cartel and the Gulf - deadly rivals for decades - came to an agreement and consolidated both cartels in most parts of the country.

In response, Los Zetas broke relations with the the Gulf cartel, and allied themselves with the Juarez and Tijuana cartels.

Corrupter Of Power

In addition to his negotiating capacity between traffickers, Juan José Esparragoza Moreno has also managed to corrupt governors, senior police and military officers. An example of this is in the State of Morelos, where in 2004 he brought under his influence the then Governor Sergio Estrada Cajigal.

The power of El Azul in Morelos had no limits: had police agencies are for his personal use and for the protection of his partners and family members. According to research conducted by a crew in Morelos, Nadia Esparragoza Gastélum, daughter of El Azul, was romantically linked with the Governor Estrada Cajigal.

Esparragoza also enjoyed protection from Agustín Montiel and Raul Cortez, heads of the ministerial police of Morelos, Cuernavaca airport. They used to bring down planes loaded with drugs that were then later transported in trucks protected by police patrols, according to the PGR.

The relationship between El Azul military isn't a secret. He has had a long standing relationship with the generals Francisco Quiroz Hermosillo and Jorge Maldonado Vega. In a recording you can clearly hear Esparragoza Moreno talking with Maldonado Vega, in the early 1980s when he was still in Juarez.

Javier Barba Hernández, a member of the cartel of Guadalajara, who attended the University of Guadalajara and subsequently was sent to work for the major drug traffickers. Maldonado Vega had the order to burn six tons of marijuana by the army in Guadalajara, but beard Hernández asked an interview to the military to negotiate the drug to be handed over to the Judicial Police of the State. At that meeting, which was attended by El Azul and Hernández, they offered up to 5 million dollars. "All you have to do is deliver the shipment to the Judicial Police," He was told. But Maldonado Vega refused to negotiate in his ministerial testimony.

The drug is not negotiable: I'm going to burn and I demand respect for my work. If any of you gets close, I'm going to arrest on the spot - said the general energetically.

These are güevos, my general, allow me to you kiss the hand - El Azul commented ironically. He then rose from his seat and turned to him. He took the hand and gave him a kiss as a sign of recognition of his authority. The next day the drugs were burned in Tequila, Jalisco.

This portrays the capo as a character, which is humorous, and likes partying, yet another feature in his personality, as was confirmed among people who knew him. Esparragoza Moreno likes to walk all "blinged up with shiny hair" in the style out of the 1970s. He likes alcohol, and playing cards, one of his favorite pastimes while imprisoned along with Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo and Amado Carrillo. He is fond of the dark glasses of the Ray Ban brand, sportswear and enjoys exercising.

There are few photographs of Esparragoza Moreno, but during the searches made by the PGR they found some. In one El Azul appears in the hallway of his home in the northern style cloths and mustache and cropped hair. In another picture, published in the Edition 1098 issues of process, he is accompanied by Boxer Julio César Chávez and the then-head of the Juarez Cartel, Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

"Why El Azul has survived so many years in the business?", asked a man who requested anonymity.

He is a very skillful capo. He is liked by all. He murders but does not by murder senselessly. He dislikes violence. He only kills for the money. He is a kingmaker of drug traffickers, to be respected.

Translated from the Spanish language article in El Orbe ( a reprint from Proceso)

Mexican Army detains 8 for Cadereyta massacre

2012-05-17T22:00:00.000-06:00

You can read the Borderlandbeat.com report on the Cadereyta massacre by click here
By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A unit with the Mexican 7th Military Zone detained eight unidentified individuals they said were Gulf Cartel operatives and who may be involved in the murder of at least 49 people in Cadereyta municipality in Nuevo Leon state, according to web reports.

The detentions took place following a raid in China municipality, where solders also seized four rifles, one handgun three hand grenades, 34 weapons magazines, 881 rounds of ammunition, one kilogram of powder cocaine, tactical and communications gear and two vehicles.

This writer reported late Sunday that a possible connection existed between the Jalisco massacre where a total of 18 individuals were kidnapped, tortured to death and butchered in a purported Mothers Day massacre. Those dead were found May 9th, the day before the traditional Mexican Mothers Day.
You can read the Borderlandbeat.com report on the Jalisco massacre by clicking here
News reports at the time said a number of unidentified kidnap victims of the same Los Zetas/Milenio group escaped a safe house. Anonymous reports said that the plan was for a spectacular Mothers Day massacre using innocents kidnapped at random. This writer speculated that those escapees may have sprung the plan for a larger massacre,and possibly led to the Cadereyta massacre the following Sunday.

Nuevo Leon attorney general Adrian de la Garza said that some of the victims were from southern areas of Mexico. A Secretaria Seguridad Publica spokesman reportedly said that many of the victims were killed two days before their discovery. The report posted on Borderlandbeat.com and Rantburg.com attempted to link the two mass murders from the same criminal group, Los Zetas.
You can read the BorderlandBeat.com report on the possible link between Los Zetas criminal group and the Cadereyta massacre by clicking here
However, early Tuesday morning several narcopintas or painted messages appeared in Zacatecas state and later in Nuevo Leon which disclaimed Los Zetas responsibility for the butchery at Caderayta, hinting that Gulf Cartel members had committed the much larger Cadereyta massacre.
You can read the BorderlandBeat.com report on Los Zetas narcopintas disclaiming responsibility for the Cadereyta massacre by clicking here
Since March, the Los Zetas and Gulf Cartels have been engaged in a bloody game of oneupmanship as the Gulf and Sinaloa cartel alliance vowed to remove Los Zetas from their home turf in Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas state. The Jalisco state murders, similar to the Cadereyta murders, were meant to send a message to the Gulf/Sinaloa alliance, and similarly, innocents such as migrants had been captured, tortured and and then butchered in those grisly displays.

It is de riguer in the Mexican Drug War that narcopintas mean nothing, until they mean something, so the end result of the massacre and the actions taken by Mexican security forces are far from over.

The story of the 49 dead at Cadereyta is also far from over

Chris Covert write Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

Mexican Federales bag 2 bad guys in Zacatecas state

2012-05-16T22:00:00.000-06:00

By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com

A Mexican Policia Federal (PF) patrol killed two armed suspects and wounded two others in an exchange of gunfire in Guadalupe municipality in Zacatecas state Tuesday evening.

According to accounts posted on the websites of El Sol de Zacatecas and El Sol de Mexico, the PF patrol observed armed suspects travelling aboard a Volkswagen Jetta sedan on calle Olvido in Margaritas colony near Unidad Academica de Odontologia at 1900 hrs, and signalled the driver to stop.

Instead, the occupants opened fire on the unit, so police agents returned fire, killing two and wounding two. Two PF agents were wounded in the encounter. Police agents found metal stars in the vehicle which are used to puncture tires.

El Sol de Zacatecas also reported that a Ford Lobo (F-150) was found in San Ramón colony late Tuesday night with a dead suspect inside.

In other news, armed suspects attacked the police headquarters of Jerez municipality Wednesday morning. Armed suspects aboard a pickup truck fired their weapons against the facade of the building.

El Sol de Zacatecas reported in that incident one municipal police agent was wounded in the attack and another individual was kidnapped.

A subsequent Policia Estatal Preventiva (PEP) operation encountered a nine vehicle convoy on the Jerez-Zacatecas road following the attack. Apparently all but three vehicles of the convoy escaped, leaving one unidentified female detained.

In a possibly related incident, the Zacatecas state Secretaria de Seguridad Publica (SSP) and the director of the state Policia Estatal Preventiva were injured when the helicopter they were riding in crashed near Zacatecas city Wednesday morning.

Generals Jesus Pinto Ortiz (SSP) and Victor Manuel Bosque (PEP) are reportedly out of danger. The helicopter was being dispatched to Jerez when a mechanical failure forced the bird down.

Chris Covert writes Mexican Dug War and national political news for Rantburg.com

Two Mexican Generals Detained for Alleged Drug Gang Ties

2012-05-16T19:33:00.000-06:00

Former Deputy Defense Secretary Gen. Tomas Angeles Dauahare

Michael O'Boyle and Miguel Gutierrez
Reuters

Investigators are questioning Mexico's former deputy defense minister and a top army general for suspected links to organized crime, in the highest level scandal to hit the military in the five-year-old drug war.

Mexican soldiers on Tuesday detained retired general Tomas Angeles Dauahare and general Roberto Dawe Gonzalez and turned them over to the country's organized crime unit, military and government officials said.

Angeles Dauahare was No. 2 in the armed forces under President Felipe Calderon and helped lead the government's crackdown on drug cartels after soldiers were deployed to the streets in late 2006. He retired in 2008.

Dawe Gonzalez, still an active duty general, led an elite army unit in the western state of Colima and local media said he previously held posts in the violent states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

An official at the attorney general's office, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the generals would be held for several days to give testimony and then could be called in front of a judge.

"The generals are answering questions because they are allegedly tied to organized crime," an official at the attorney general's office said, on condition of anonymity.

Angeles Dauahare said through a lawyer that his detention was unjustified, daily Reforma newspaper reported.

If the generals were convicted of drug trafficking, it would mark the most serious case of military corruption during Calderon's administration.

"Traditionally the armed forces had a side role in the anti-drug fight, eradicating drug crops or stopping drug shipments," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst who formerly worked in the government intelligence agency.

"After 2006, they were more directly involved in public security, putting them at a higher risk of contact (with drug gangs)," he said.

PAST ARMY CORRUPTION

About 55,000 people have been killed in drug violence over the past five years as rival cartels fight each other and government forces.

Worsening drug-related attacks in major cities are eroding support for Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, ahead of a July 1 presidential vote.

Over the weekend, police found 49 headless bodies on a highway in northern Mexico, the latest in a recent series of brutal massacres where mutilated corpses have been hung from bridges or shoved in iceboxes.

Opinion polls show Calderon's party is trailing by double digits behind opposition candidate Enrique Pena Nieto from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which says the government's drug strategy is failing.

Traditionally, the military has been seen as less susceptible to cartel bribes and intimidation than badly paid local and state police forces, who are often easily swayed by drug gang pay offs.
But there have been cases of military corruption in the past. Angeles Dauahare himself oversaw the landmark trial of two generals convicted of working with drug gangs in 2002.

Those two generals were convicted of links to the Juarez cartel once headed by the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was known as the "Lord of the Skies" for flying plane loads of cocaine into the United States.

Since then, the Sinaloa cartel - headed by Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman - has expanded its power and is locked in a bloody battle over smuggling routes with the Zetas gang, founded by deserters from the Mexican army.

(Additional reporting by Veronica Sparrowe; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Jackie Frank)