NARCOBLOGGER

Ms Sandiford to be executed for drug trafficking.

2013-01-22T02:25:00.001-08:00

Lindsay Sandiford was arrested in May last year after she tried to enter the Indonesian holiday island with illegal drugs worth £1.6 million hidden in her suitcase.

Local prosecutors had called for the 56-year-old housewife to be jailed for 15 years. But today there were gasps in the Bali courtroom when a panel of judges announced Ms Sandiford would be executed for drug trafficking.

As the shock verdict was announced, Ms Sandiford, from Gloucestershire, slumped back in her chair in tears before hiding her face with a brown sarong as she was led out of the courtroom.

Bikie gang suspects in brawl arrests at Penrith shopping centre

2012-08-27T06:06:00.001-07:00

FOUR men with alleged links to outlaw motorcycle gangs were arrested last week after a brawl at a Penrith shopping centre. Police officers from the gangs squad and Penrith local area command had been investigating the brawl, which forced shoppers to flee for their safety about 2.45pm last Monday. Police will allege a man was leaving the shopping centre when he was confronted by a group of nine men and fighting began. A number of people tried to intervene, including an unknown male who was assaulted. All involved in the brawl then left the scene. At 7am last Thursday, police simultaneously raided four homes at St Marys, Emu Plains, South Windsor and Freemans Reach. Three men with alleged links to the Rebels were arrested at St Marys and Emu Plains, while an alleged senior Nomads member was arrested at Freemans Reach. During the search warrants, police seized distinctive gang clothing, quantities of anabolic steroids and prescription drugs and a set of knuckledusters. A man, 29, of Emu Plains, was charged with affray, participate in a criminal group and two counts of possess prescribed restricted substance. A man, 44, of Freemans Reach, was charged with affray, possess prohibited weapon, and two counts of possess prescribed restricted substance. A man, 25, of St Marys, and a 23-year-old New Zealand man were each charged with affray and participate in a criminal group. Penrith crime manager Detective Inspector Grant Healey said further arrests were anticipated.

27 charged in California-Mexico methamphetamine ring

2012-08-27T03:38:00.001-07:00

Local and federal authorities moved Thursday to break up an alleged drug trafficking ring connecting a major Mexican cartel and San Gabriel Valley street gangs, arresting 17 people in a pre-dawn sweep. A federal indictment unsealed Thursday charges 27 defendants with making, possessing and dealing methamphetamine imported by La Familia Michoacana, one of Mexico’s most violent cartels, to two Pomona gangs: Los Amables and Westside Pomona Malditos. Seven law enforcement agencies, including the Pasadena and Pomona police, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration, were involved in the sweep. Thursday’s crackdown is the culmination of a probe called Operation Crystal Light, a 16-month investigation by the San Gabriel Valley Safe Streets Gang Task Force. The investigation was launched after a 2011 kidnapping among suspected gang members in Southern California. Officers said they seized nine weapons, an undisclosed amount of methamphetamine, other drugs, and paraphernalia in Thursday morning raids in Los Angeles, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The probe involved about 200 law enforcement officers and several undercover purchases. “The goal of the federal task force is to disrupt the network so it’s disrupted permanently,” Timothy Delaney, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Criminal Division in Los Angeles, said. “Today’s arrests took some very serious players in the methamphetamine world off the streets.” The methamphetamine came into the country in liquid form via airplane, boats and cars, officials said. The drug was recrystallized at an Ontario home before local gangs would sell it and funnel money to the Mexican cartel. Most of the drugs were being sold in Pomona and Ontario, according to Assistant U.S. Atty. Shawn Nelson. Dealers were selling multiple pounds a day and making up to $9,000 per pound, Nelson said. He described the arrests as “a good dent” in the Mexican cartel’s local drug network. Three suspects were in custody before the raid and seven remain at large, federal authorities said. The indictment alleges that a La Familia Michoacana associate named Jose Juan Garcia Barron oversaw the transport of the meth between Mexico and Los Angeles County. Delaney said Garcia Barron is among the suspects who have not been apprehended. The 17 arrested Thursday were expected to make their first court appearance Thursday afternoon at U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles.

Police think Ogden drive-bys are tied to gang's power struggle

2012-08-27T03:35:00.001-07:00

Police believe drive-by shootings at an Ogden home Tuesday night and Wednesday morning may be related to a violent power struggle within a street gang over control of leadership, drugs and money. Ogden Police Lt. Scott Conley declined to identify the gang, but said members are not affiliated with the Ogden Trece. On Monday, 2nd District Judge Ernie Jones issued a permanent injunction against Trece members, banning them from associating with each other in public and being in the presence of guns, drugs and alcohol. The injunction also places Treces under an 11 p.m. curfew. The drive-by shootings at a home in the 500 block of 28th Street are signs of in-fighting among members of a local gang who are attempting to resolve their differences through escalating violence, Conley said. “They are in the same gang and are arguing back and forth,” he said, noting police have gathered intelligence on the dispute. “We are taking enforcement action to eradicate the problem or get the individuals involved incarcerated.” Six to eight gang members are believed to be involved in the dispute.

Arrest of Zetas leader's brother prompts Mexico travel warning

2012-06-13T00:37:00.001-07:00

American officials are issuing an alert following the arrest in the United States of the brother of a high-ranking member of the Zetas drug cartel.

According to the New York Times, federal officials arrested Jose Treviño-Morales on Tuesday morning as part of a money laundering investigation.

The newspaper reported that Treviño-Morales is accused of using champion race horse ranches in New Mexico and Oklahoma to launder millions of dollars in drug money for the Zetas.

The New York Times reported that Treviño-Morales is the brother of Miguel Angel Treviño-Morales, a high-ranking Zetas leader known as Z-40.

The U.S. Embassy in Mexico issued a security message to American citizens in Mexico on Tuesday afternoon.

The message asks American citizens traveling and residing in Mexico to be aware of the incident and be prepared for any possible retaliation or violence related to the arrests.

“Given the history and resources of this violent TCO, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to maintain a low profile and a heightened sense of awareness,” the message states.

Security Message for U.S. Citizens – Possibility for Retaliation Following TCO Arrests (June 12, 2012)

The U.S. Embassy alerts U.S. citizens traveling and residing in Mexico to the enhanced potential for violence related to today’s arrests of Transnational Criminal Organization (TCO) associates and family members residing in the United States.

This morning, U.S. federal law enforcement agents arrested associates and family members of a senior TCO member, and seized property and assets within the United States.

These arrests could result in some form of retaliation and/or anti-American violence. Given the history and resources of this violent TCO, the U.S. Embassy urges U.S. citizens to maintain a low profile and a heightened sense of awareness.

Please review the Department of State’s Travel Warning concerning travel within Mexico and the state of Tamaulipas, available athttp://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_5665.html. The Department continues to advise U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas.

We also encourage U.S. citizens living or traveling abroad to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration web site at https://travelregistration.state.gov/ibrs/ui/ so that they can obtain updated information on travel and security. Americans without internet access may register in person or by phone with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. By registering, American citizens make it easier for the Embassy or Consulate to contact them in case of emergency.

For any emergencies involving American citizens in the Matamoros consular district, please call or visit the American Citizens Services (ACS) Unit at the U.S. Consulate General on Avenida Primera #2002, Col. Jardín, Matamoros, Tamaulipas. Telephone 011 (52) (868) 812-4402;

Drop the "ET" leader of "Los Zetas" in Zacatecas

2012-05-21T03:06:00.001-07:00

US blacklists sons of Mexico drug lord Joaquin Guzman

2012-05-10T06:56:00.001-07:00

The US treasury department has put two sons of Mexico's most wanted man Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman on its drugs kingpin blacklist. The move bars all people in the US from doing business with Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar and Ovidio Guzman Lopez, and freezes any US assets they have. Joaquin Guzman, on the list since 2001, runs the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. Mexico has seen an explosion of violence in recent years as gangs fight for control of trafficking routes. The US administration "will aggressively target those individuals who facilitate Chapo Guzman's drug trafficking operations, including family members," said Adam Szubin, director of the department's Office of Foreign Assets Control . "With the Mexican government, we are firm in our resolve to dismantle Chapo Guzman's drug trafficking organisation." Ovidio Guzman plays a significant role in his father's drug-trafficking activities, the treasury department said. Ivan Archivaldo Guzman was arrested in 2005 in Mexico on money-laundering charges but subsequently released. As well as the Guzman brothers, two other alleged key cartel members, Noel Salgueiro Nevarez and Ovidio Limon Sanchez, were listed under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. They were both arrested in Mexico in 2011 and are still in custody. Under the Kingpin Act, US firms, banks and individuals are prevented from doing business with them and any assets the men may have under US jurisdiction are frozen. More than 1,000 companies and individuals linked to 94 drug kingpins have been placed on the blacklist since 2000. Penalties for violating the act range include up to 30 years in prison and fines up to $10m (£6m). The US has offered a reward of up to $5m a for information leading to the arrest of Joaquin Guzman, who escaped from a Mexican prison in 2001.

FBI offers up to $100,000 for info leading to capture of Eduardo Ravelo

2012-05-07T06:20:00.001-07:00

Eduardo Ravelo, born on October 13, 1968 was added as the 493rd fugitive to the FBI 10 most wanted list on October 20, 2009. He is originally from Mexico, however he holds permanent residency status in the United States which gives him free movement across the border. An FBI informant and former lieutenant in the Barrio Azteca, a prison gang active in the U.S. and Mexico, testified that Ravelo told him to help find fellow gang members who had stolen from the cartel. In March 2008, he became the leader of the gang shortly after betraying his predecessor, stabbing him several times and shooting him in the neck. (Eduardo Ravelo: Wikipedia) Eduardo Ravelo was indicted in Texas in 2008 for his involvement in racketeering activities, conspiracy to launder monetary instruments, and conspiracy to possess heroin, cocaine and marijuana with the intent to distribute. His alleged criminal activities began in 2003. He is believed to be living in an area of Cuidad Juarez controlled by the Barrio Ravelo, with his wife and children just across the border from El Paso, Texas. He is also said to have bodyguards and armored vehicles to protect him from rival gangs as well as rival cartels.

Brazilian Cannibals Make Empanadas With Human Meat

2012-04-14T18:02:00.001-07:00

Brazilian Cannibals Make Empanadas With Human Meat Three people in Brazil killed and ate at least three women as a ritual of their religious sect. The cannibals, who have confessed to the crime, say that a voice told them to kill evil women. It's unclear if the voice also told them to use the extra human meat to stuff empanadas, which they then sold to their unwitting neighbors. One of the murderers, Jorge Beltrao Negromonte da Silveira, wrote a book on his sect's activities, Revelations of a Schizophrenic. (That title makes him sound remarkably self-aware.) The book details the murder of Jessica, a 17-year-old killed in 2008. Looking at the now lifeless body of the evil adolescent, I feel relieved. I grabbed some sheet metal and begin to remove all the skin and then I divide her up...we dine on the flesh of evil as a purification ritual. We bury the remainder in the patio. The other murderers were Da Silveira's wife Isabel Cristina Oliveira da Silva, and his mistress Bruna Cristina Oliveira da Silva. All three were living together along with a five-year-old girl, thought to be 2008 murder victim Jessica's daughter. As horrifying as the murders and cannibalism are, surely the worst part of this story is the empanadas — first because the neighbors had no idea they were eating people, and second, because the killers actually made money selling the empanadas. The fact that they got their neighbors to pay to help them get rid of the bodies just adds insult to injury.

The arrest and extradition of cartel boss Diego Murillo created a power vacuum in the Colombian underworld.

2012-04-10T09:50:00.001-07:00

Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A team of bodyguards fans out through the three-storey building in central Medellín, calling out "clear" after each room is checked. One gunman remains stationed on each floor; another three guard the building's entrance.

With the area secured, a young man in a designer T-shirt and baseball cap emerges on to the roof terrace, followed by his lieutenant. Javier is a trafficker with Colombia's longest-surviving drug cartel, the Envigado Office, but he describes his work in matter-of-fact terms.

"The Office controls the illegal businesses in Medellín. Its main businesses are extortion, hired killings, the traffic in arms and drugs," he says.

The heavy security is soon explained: Javier fears his cartel – and his home city – may be on the brink of another drug war.

Colombia was supposed to have overcome its bloody history. Over the last decade, the government has pushed leftist rebels back into jungles, overseen the demobilisation of tens of thousands of illegal far-right militia fighters and taken down various drug capos.

Washington foreign policy mandarins such as Paul Wolfowitz have held up Colombia as a model for other countries struggling with narco-chaos, such as Afghanistan and Mexico.

And Medellín, Colombia's industrial heartland, was promoted as the embodiment of the country's renaissance: the murder rate plummeted by about 80% over five years, reaching a decade low of 34 deaths per 100,000 in 2007. Once called the "city of death", Medellín was now open for business.

But the root cause of Colombia's violence – the country's status as the world's biggest cocaine producer – has not disappeared. And Medellín's apparent peace lasted only as long as its underworld was run by one man, through the Envigado Office.

Named after a neighbourhood of Medellin, the Office was originally a group of hitmen acting for Pablo Escobar's cartel. After Escobar's death in 1993, the Office was taken over by a former ally turned bitter rival of Escobar, Diego Murillo, known as Don Berna, who cemented control over Medellín and moved the organisation deeper into drug-trafficking.

The Office will collect on anyone's debt, as long as the creditor is willing to give over 50% of what is recovered. It has its own motto: "Debts get paid – with money or with life."

"Many people know that the government won't act as it should, it won't help the people in what they need. Many people come to us to collect money, debts on cars, debts for drugs, basically anything," says Javier.

In his book The Multinational of Crime: the Terrifying Office of Envigado, journalist Alfredo Serrano writes: "Whenever anyone died, people would say that 'they had got on the wrong side of the Office' – as if this criminal organisation held the power of life itself."

Murillo handed himself in to the authorities in 2005 as part of a peace process with the far-right paramilitary groups, but was accused of continuing to run the Office from behind bars, which eventually led to his extradition to the United States. He was convicted of exporting tonnes of cocaine and sentenced to 31 years in an American prison.

After his conviction, the then head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration said: "American and Colombian communities are safer with the removal of this notorious drug kingpin."

But it would not prove so for Medellín. With Murillo out of the way, a vicious power struggle erupted between his successors. Medellín's homicide rate doubled in 2009, leaving about 3,000 people dead.

"Around 15 close friends were killed in the war. We couldn't go out to clubs, we just had to stay home and not get killed," says Javier.

The factional fighting within the Office came to an end last year with the capture of one of the rival leaders, and since then most of the group has reunited under a new boss, just in time to confront a new threat: one of Colombia's emerging narco-militias, the Urabeños.

The Urabeños sprang up after the peace deal with the far-right paramilitaries. While the main militia leaders were jailed alongside Don Berna, most of the mid-range commanders – those who had been running the day-to-day cocaine operations – were free. Many of these commanders reorganised their old outfits, recruited other demobilised fighters, and returned to drug‑running.

The Urabeños are now a force across much of northern Colombia, bringing a military discipline to organised crime.

"They don't think like average narcos," said Jeremy McDermott, founder of Insight Crime, a thinktank that tracks organised crime in Latin America. "They are extraordinarily political, mixed with deep criminal experience."

The group's power was felt earlier this year when it forced dozens of towns to close all businesses after authorities killed a Urabeño leader. And now they are eyeing Medellín.

The looming battle between the Office and the Urabeños is for control of Medellin's underworld, the vast local market and for positioning to be able to negotiate with the Mexican mafias that ship cocaine to the US.

"Many Colombians are moving over to Mexico to firm up relations," says Javier. "We get our guns from there and they get the drugs from us."

Earlier this month, a city-wide police sweep targeted gangs including the Office, arresting 49 people, including seven due for extradition. Last month, the brother of the current leader of the Office was arrested.

But observers say cracking down on the Office will not be enough to keep the peace in Medellín. Jesús Sánchez, who heads the human rights office for the city's ombudsman, says the local government must offer legal alternatives to the legions of hitmen who would fight any drug war.

"The state must do more than just attack the crime; the state needs a greater presence in the poor neighbourhoods," he said.

Infrastructure in the slums has improved, but Sánchez says the city still owes its young men a historical debt: two generations have grown up in a culture of violence and the easy money of trafficking. "When a young man doesn't find work, he's got the chance immediately to join a gang and get all the money he needs."

Javier doesn't see Medellín emerging from its problems soon. "If this is going to change, people must really want to change. But people always want money and power."

Eight people from 'Holy Death' cult arrested in Mexico over ritual sacrifices of woman and two 10-year-old boys

2012-03-31T16:18:00.001-07:00

Eight people have been arrested in northern Mexico have over the killing of two 10-year-old boys and a woman in what appears to be ritual sacrifices. Prosecutors in Sonora, in the north-west of the country have accused the suspects of belonging to the La Santa Muerte (Holy Death) cult. The victims' blood has been poured round an altar to the idol, which is portrayed as a skeleton holding a scythe and clothed in flowing robes. The cult, which celebrates death, has been growing rapidly in Mexico in the last 20 years, and now has up to two million followers. Jose Larrinaga, spokesman for Sonora state prosecutors, said the most recent killing was earlier this month, while the other two were committed in 2009 and 2010. Their bodies were found at the altar site in the small mining community of Nacozari, 70 miles south of Douglas, Arizona. Investigations were launched after the family of 10-year-old Jesus Octavio Martinez Yanez reported him missing early this month.

Gang dispute sparked funeral home shooting that left 2 dead, 12 injured

2012-03-31T16:00:00.001-07:00

Dispute among gang members at a North Miami-area funeral home sparked a mass shooting that injured 12 people and killed two men, according to Miami-Dade police and law enforcement. The gunmen, who fired a barrage of bullets at a crowd of mourners Friday night, remained on the loose. Investigators have not released information about the shooters, only that a white car may have been involved. One of the victims, a 43-year-old man, died outside the Funeraria Latina Emanuel funeral home, authorities said. The other, a 27-year-old man, died at the hospital. Witnesses at the funeral home had said one of the two people killed was shot in the chest. Among the wounded was a 5-year-old girl who was shot in the leg. She is hospitalized at Jackson Memorial Hospital and is listed in stable condition. The funeral was for Morvin Andre, 21, of North Miami, who was buried Saturday morning at Southern Memorial Park next to the funeral home. Andre was killed March 16 after he tried to jump 22-and-a-half feet from the fourth floor of the Aventura Mall parking garage to escape pursuit from Bloomingdale’s loss prevention employees. Andre landed on his feet, but then fell back and hit his head, according Aventura Police Major Skip Washa, a spokesman. Washa said Saturday the county medical examiner’s office has ruled Andre’s death a suicide because the Bloomingdale’s employees were one floor below Andre when they told him to stop. Instead, he jumped. Originally, it was reported that Andre, a nursing student at Broward Community College, had been killed in a shooting, according to mourners at the funeral home. A law enforcement official told the Miami Herald that the shooting involved members of several South Florida gangs who were in attendance at his wake Friday night to pay their respects. Andre was not part of a gang himself, the official said. Certain gang members took offense when someone touched Andre’s body in the casket, setting off an argument that spilled out into the street. Members of one gang retrieved an assault rifle and a handgun from a car and opened fire at other gang members in front of the funeral home, a police commander told Miami Herald news partner WFOR-CBS 4. Shooting erupted as more than 100 people were gathered outside the funeral home, in the 14900 block of West Dixie Highway, outside the city limits of North Miami. “I was on my way out of the chapel when I heard the shots,“ said A.D. Lenoir, the pastor who officiated at the service. “I told people to look for cover. It was chaos.” Lenoir, 29, said people were screaming, crying and yelling. Several victims were taken to Jackson, and others to local hospitals. The West Dixie Highway corridor has been the scene of several shootings in recent years. In 2007, the owner of a martial arts studio was fatally gunned down in a drive-by.

Drugs gang’s banners declare truce for Pope’s visit to Mexico

2012-03-25T06:59:00.001-07:00

Banners purportedly signed by one of Mexico’s drug cartels have promised there will be no violence during next weekend’s visit by Pope Benedict XVI. At least 11 banners signed by the Knights Templar gang were found in five towns across Guanajuato state, including the city of Leon, where the Pope begins his trip on Friday, the state attorney general’s office said. A spokesman said the banners were found over the weekend hanging from pedestrian bridges and carried messages about “a sort of truce for peace and said they are going to keep the peace during the Pope’s visit”. The newspaper Reforma said one banner read: “The Knights Templar disavow any military action, we are not murderers, welcome to the Pope.” The Knights Templar gives itself a pseudo-religious persona, proclaiming in banners that it is the defender of the region’s people. It was created in Michoacan state after a split with the since-weakened La Familia cartel. In February, the Knights Templar put out banners warning rival gangs to stay away and not to create trouble during the Pope’s stay. The pontiff is scheduled to visit Guanajuato from Friday until Monday, when he will fly on to Cuba. Mexican president Felipe Calderon plans to greet the Pope at Leon’s airport. For many Catholics, the papal visit is long overdue, given that the country has more Catholics than any other Spanish-speaking country. Devotion still runs high for the Pope’s predecessor, John Paul II, who honoured Mexico by making it his first trip outside the Vatican and coming back four more times. He is known as “Mexico’s pope”. Recently, a glass case containing his blood – one of the relics of his beatification – travelled throughout Mexico for 91 days and is said to have been seen by 27 million people.

Pimps Arrested in Spain for 'Barcoding' Women

2012-03-24T15:05:00.001-07:00

In this photo released by the Spanish Police on Saturday March 24, 2012 a tattoo in the form of a bar code is seen on the wrist of a woman in this hand out photo. SpainÂ´s Interior Ministry says police have arrested 22 persons of Romanian nationality on suspicion of using violence to force women into prostitution and tattooing them with bar codes as a sign of ownership. Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before freeing her. The women were tattooed on their wrists, and the freed woman had the sum 2,000 euro ($ 2,650) etched onto her skin. (AP Photo/Spanish Police) (AP2012)

MADRID – Police in Spain arrested 22 alleged pimps who purportedly tattooed women with bar codes as a sign of ownership and used violence to force them into prostitution.

Police are calling the gang the "bar code pimps." Officers freed one 19-year-old woman who had been beaten, held against her will and tattooed with a bar code and an amount of money — €2,000 ($2,650) — which investigators believe was the debt the gang wished to extort before releasing her.

The woman had also been whipped, chained to a radiator and had her hair and eyebrows shaved off, according to an Interior Ministry statement.

Mexican police found seven dismembered bodies hidden in barrels and a sack inside a burnt-out SUV in the central city of Metepec

2012-03-23T20:39:00.001-07:00

Mexican police found seven dismembered bodies hidden in barrels and a sack inside a burnt-out SUV in the central city of Metepec, officials said.

Mexico state Attorney General Alfredo Castillo Cervantes confirmed the grisly discovery Wednesday morning, although he said authorities have not identified the victims and did not provide more information.

He also did not confirm press reports that a message left alongside the bodies indicated they were members of a police force in that state.

“They haven’t been examined yet; we don’t have anyone unaccounted for in roll call. We’re going to await the examination and then we’ll know when these people disappeared, where they’re from and we’ll have more information,” Castillo said at a press conference.

All of the police forces conduct thorough roll calls to check if anyone is absent, he said.

The state attorney general refused to confirm if a threatening note was left at the crime scene and said divulging messages left by criminal gangs serves no useful purpose and only benefits those groups.

Finally, he said the state’s police forces were conducting several operations to track down the perpetrators of the massacre.

Mexico’s drug war death toll stood at 47,515 from December 2006 to Sept. 30.

The murder total has grown every year of President Felipe Calderon’s military offensive against the well-funded, heavily armed drug cartels.

Unofficial tallies published in December by independent daily La Jornada put the death toll from Mexico’s drug war at more than 50,000.

Which cartel will prevail? The Sinaloa cartel and the upstart Los Zetas are locked in a vicious fight to be the top dog.

2012-03-23T20:36:00.001-07:00

I discussed this with a good friend of mine, Mexican journalist Jose Carreño, over dinner the other day in Mexico City. He said: “The most remarkable thing about Los Zetas is how quickly they have grown and expanded since they broke with the Gulf Cartel and they have done so by sheer barbaric violence but what allowed them to expand so quickly is what will result in their downfall. The Sinaloa Federation is confrontational too but it is willing to form alliances and to compromise and to deal. Los Zetas isn’t and no one can afford to tolerate their survival – not the Mexican establishment, not the U.S. government and not rival cartels.” That is kind of my conclusion in this analysis of the strength and weaknesses, structure and methods of the two cartels published today in Agora. For those of you who don’t read Spanish this is a rough, truncated version: Mexico’s two most powerful cartels – Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán’s Sinaloa Federation and Los Zetas – appear deadlocked in their efforts to gain the upper hand but in the longer term the Sinaloans are likely to remain Mexico’s largest crime organization and emerge as the clear top dog. The struggle for mastery has left hundreds of foot-soldiers dead and comes at a time that Mexican authorities are redoubling their efforts to hunt down the cartel leaders but, barring a devastating blow against the Sinaloa Federation or an internecine blow-up, experts say the Sinaloans are better established, more rooted and better organized. “The Sinaloa cartel is more entrenched in society and Los Zetas are barely starting to build a social base founded on intimidation and corruption,” says Alberto Islas Torres, the founder of Risk Evaluation, a risk management company, and a former adviser in the presidential administration of Ernesto Zedilllo. José Luis Valdés-Ugalde , a political scientist at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, agrees that in the longer term the Sinaloans will prevail. “Both organizations are very strong and cross national borders. Los Zetas have shown tremendous ability in a short period of time and great strength to break away from the Gulf cartel. But the Sinaloa cartel has a dominant position and over time that will increase,” he says. The competition between the two crime organizations that’s triggered massacres and assassinations is dominating the criminal landscape in Mexico. Other cartels and crime gangs are being squeezed by Los Zetas and the Sinaloans and forced to align themselves with one or other. In recent months, Mexican authorities have pulled off some significant operations against both cartels with a series of arrests and fatal shootings of top lieutenants, including the Sinaloa Federation’s Cabrera Sarabia brothers and Jose Antonio Torres Marrufo, the alleged leader of the Gente Nueva gang, a Sinaloan enforcement group. And Sinaloan production of methamphetamine has been disrupted by several significant seizures of precursor chemicals in west coast ports. Political scientist José Luis Valdés-Ugalde believes the government’s offensive against the cartels has fallen more heavily on Los Zetas than the Sinaloa Federation. “Federal operations against los Zetas in the states of Veracruz, Zacatecas, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Tamaulipas, San Luis Potosi and Quintana Roo, have involved the capture of 17 of its leaders and plaza heads. Based on the number of detainees, I estimate that the group of key senior members has been greatly reduced,” he says. The capture of El Chapo or of Los Zetas’s top leader Heriberto Lazcano could be a game-changer. But the arrest of Lazcano would likely be more damaging for Los Zetas than the capture of El Chapo would be for the Sinaloa Federation, says Islas in an interview with Agora. He says the Sinaloa Federation is a maturer organization and with its horizontal leadership structure would better absorb the challenge of the loss of El Chapo than Los Zetas with its pyramid structure would if Lazcano were captured. He notes “board member disputes” could hurt the federation as was seen in the fallout of the quarrel between the Sinaloan leaders and their allies the Beltran Leyva brothers. But the federation has a basic strength “because it is based on family connections and alliances through marriages and kinship.” Last year saw significant geographical gains for Los Zetas in the struggle for mastery. A map breaking down cartel dominance and presence released by Mexico’s Office of Special Investigations into Organized Crime (OFDI) at a forum for crime experts at the National Institute of Penal Sciences suggests that Los Zetas is now operating in 17 Mexican states. The Sinaloa Federation is operating in 16 states. Four years ago, the Sinaloa Federation was operating in 23 states. Heriberto Lazcano’s crime organization maintains a presence in Sonora, Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas, Aguascalientes, San Luis Potosi, Hidalgo, Veracruz, Tamaulipas, Mexico City, Oaxaca, Tabasco , Chiapas, Yucatan and Quintana Roo. The Sinaloa Federation operates in Baja California Sur, Chihuahua, Durango, Sinaloa, Guanajuato, Queretaro, Oaxaca, Chiapas, Veracruz, Quintana Roo, Baja California, Sonora, Jalisco, Colima and Guerrero. According to OFDI, the major flashpoints in terms of the struggle for mastery between the two cartels are in the states of Durango, Coahuila, Sonora, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí. While Los Zetas may be operating now in more states than the Sinaloa Federation, the latter is not only the oldest but still the largest cartel with tens of thousands of operatives and gang members under its sway. El Chapo’s organization dominates most of western Mexico and controls Ciudad Juarez, a crucial drug plaza. Further, aside from the differences in command structure and membership, Los Zetas, who are primarily dealers, are in many ways less rooted in the drug business. “The Sinaloans are farmers – marijuana and heroin will always be grown by them,” says Islas. “They are producers and that is why they where able to develop the meth market.” He believes that Los Zetas’ greatest weakness lies in its membership base. “Their recruitment process is based on recommendations and this is why they are easier to infiltrate.” It is a vulnerability the cartel seems aware of: the cartel has a “counterintelligence apparatus to detect intruders and is more violent (than the Sinaloan Federation)” in order to enforce loyalty. Both cartels are expansionary further afield in Central America and the Caribbean. Central America offers vulnerable states with underfunded and ill-equipped armed forces and high levels of poverty, and Los Zetas has exploited that visibly in Guatemala, triggering alarm across the region. But of the two, say Mexican and Central American officials, the Sinaloa cartel is making more headway overseas, despite the publicity that has followed Los Zetas’ entry into Guatemala. According to PGR officials El Chapo is searching constantly to develop more international alliances and has highly developed ties and pacts across Latin America, Asia and West Africa. Since 2005 the Sinaloa Federation has pursued and cultivated ties in China, Thailand and India to secure precursor chemicals. In the last two years a series of arrests of Sinaloa operatives in the cocaine-producing states of Peru and Bolivia suggests that the Sinaloans are not nervous about moving into territory traditionally considered the preserve of Colombian organized crime. And that includes Colombia itself, where in 2009 more than seventy properties worth more than $50 million were seized by authorities linked to the Sinaloa Federation. At the time of the asset seizures, the Colombian police chief Oscar Naranjo said: “We have evidence of Mexicans sitting in Medellin, sitting in Cali, sitting in Pereira, in Barranquilla.” And El Chapo has increased the federation’s presence in the Caribbean, where authorities in the Dominican Republic say they have detected in the north of the island the presence of the Sinaloa cartel. Anibal de Castro, the Caribbean country’s ambassador to the United States, told a U.S. Senate hearing earlier this that the Sinaloa cartel “seeks to create a route to Europe via the Dominican Republic.” In the struggle for mastery, Los Zetas may go in for more gruesome and headline-catching violence, but according to a federal government study called “Information on the Phenomenon of Crime in Mexico,” until August 2010 at least the Sinaloa cartel was behind 84 percent of the drug-related slayings in Mexico.

Mexican police rape allegations need outside investigation

2011-01-22T00:36:00.000-08:00

Mexican police rape allegations need outside investigation: "allegations made by an Ontario woman that she was raped by Mexican police are so serious, and the details so disturbing, that Mexican authorities should bring in a credible third party to assist in the investigation.

It is in their own best interests to do so. In an area that relies exclusively on tourism, they have little choice. The confidence of the travelling public is at stake.

Rebecca Rutland, 41, says police in the Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen took her and her fiance into custody on New Year's Eve. Whether police had reason to do so is not the issue. It is the couple's treatment after they were taken into custody that is in question.

Rutland says two police officers took turns raping her. She and her fiance, Richard Coleman, also allege officers robbed them of hundreds of dollars and other valuables. Mexican authorities deny the visitors' version of events and say the two were intoxicated."

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Flavio Mendez Santiago, known as 'El Amarillo', was arrested on Monday

2011-01-22T00:32:00.000-08:00

Flavio Mendez Santiago, known as 'El Amarillo', was arrested on Monday near Oxaca City in the south of the country.
The 35 year-old is said by police to have been one of the founders of Los Zetas, and was responsible for co-ordinating the trafficking of drugs and migrants throught the south.
Thousands of migrants from Central America hoping to travel through Mexico to to the US border are believed to fall victim to criminal organisations like Los Zetas every year. Some of them are recruited to traffic drugs in exchange for help in getting to the US, while others are kidnapped, then held to ransom. If the ransom is not delivered, they are often murdered."

:Text may be subject to copyright.This blog does not claim copyright to any such text. Copyright remains with the original copyright holder.

Heavy fighting in and around Cd. Mier – Mexican military – It’s payback time

2010-11-20T03:58:00.000-08:00

Heavy fighting in and around Cd. Mier – Mexican military – It’s payback time: "Heavy fighting between drug cartel gunmen and the Mexican military broke out in the Tamaulipas towns of Nuevo Guerrero and Miguel Aleman this week, prompting the two international bridges linking both towns to Starr County,Texas to go on high alert to guard against spillover violence crossing into Texas.
Two international crossings in Starr County, the Falcon Dam crossing and the Starr County bridge, were put on alert Wednesday afternoon."

Mexican army kills 11 in drug clash

2010-11-20T03:54:00.000-08:00

PressTV - Mexican army kills 11 in drug clash: "Mexican troops have clashed with gunmen believed to belong to the 'Los Zetas' drug cartel, killing 11 of them, according to the Defense Ministry.

The ministry said the clashes took place in the state of Tamaulipas, near Nueva Ciudad Guerrero, a city that faces the US state of Texas across the Rio Grande, when a patrol responding to reports of armed men came to blows with them, AFP reported on Friday.

The gunmen opened fire on the patrol, triggering the firefight, the ministry said.

The gunfight led to the deaths of 11 gang members. Two men were also arrested, who confessed that they were members of the Los Zetas drug cartel.

Los Zetas was formed in the 1990s by former members of an elite military unit. The gang's main business is smuggling drugs into the United States. It also smuggles people across the border and engages in extortion and kidnapping.

Following the incident, soldiers seized 11kg of marijuana, nine rifles, four handguns, one rocket launcher and 22 cartridges for a variety of weapons."

Texas Governor Endorses U.S. Troops in Mexico | KTSM News Channel 9

2010-11-20T03:51:00.000-08:00

Texas Governor Endorses U.S. Troops in Mexico | KTSM News Channel 9: "Texas' governor says it is time to send U.S. troops into Mexico to fight the drug war.
On MSNBC, Rick Perry said the murders of American citizens in Mexico is justification enough.
'I think we have to use every aspect of law enforcement that we have including the military i think we have the same situation that we had in colombia Obviously, Mexico has to approve any type of assistance that we can give them. But the fact of the matter is these drug gangs are people who are highly motivated for money, they are vicious, they are armed to the teeth. And I want to see them defeated,And any means we can to run these people off our border and to save Americans' lives, we have to be engaged in.'"

2 bodies hung from bridge, man beheaded in Tijuana

2010-11-20T03:47:00.000-08:00

2 bodies hung from bridge, man beheaded in Tijuana: "Two men were slain and hung from a bridge, another was decapitated and a fourth was shot to death over 24 hours in Tijuana, the latest gruesome killings in a Mexican border city where hopes had risen that cartel violence was decreasing.
The bodies of two men were found hanging from the Los Alamos bridge early Friday, said Fermin Gomez, Baja California state's deputy attorney general for organized crime.
Both victims had their hands and feet bound and one had his head covered with a black plastic bag. One of the bodies fell into traffic when the rope broke.
A day earlier, a human head was found underneath another bridge in Tijuana, which sits across from San Diego, California. The body of the 24-year-old man was found 12 hours later alongside the highway from Tijuana to the beach town of Ensenada."

Thirteen retirees have been shot dead at a detoxification centre near the Mexican border city of Tijuana

2010-10-25T01:41:00.001-07:00

Thirteen retirees have been shot dead at a detoxification centre near the Mexican border city of Tijuana, police say.

The reason for Sunday's attack was not immediately known, a police official told the AFP news agency, but it was apparently linked to the drug war that has claimed thousands of lives this year.

Elsewhere in the country, a mother and her two teenage children were killed in Torreon in the northern Coahuila state, when men in vans opened fire on a group of police patrol cars. The officers and soldiers returned fire.

It was not clear who fired the shots that killed the bystanders, but the state attorney general's office said it was investigating and expressed condolences to the victims' families.

"Because they were driving where the shooting took place, a 14-year-old boy, his 18-year-old sister and their 47-year-old mother were killed," the office said.

None of the criminals or the police officers were wounded in the firefight and no arrests have been made, officials said.

Coahuila has been the scene of bloody turf battles between the Sinaloa cartel and the Zetas drug gang.

The woman who says her husband was gunned down by Mexican pirates now has a new mission.

2010-10-25T01:39:00.000-07:00

The woman who says her husband was gunned down by Mexican pirates now has a new mission.

After a long road trip, Tiffany Hartley is back in Colorado and says she plans to raise awareness about border violence.

Last month Tiffany and her husband David were jet skiing on Falcon Lake along the border of Texas and Mexico when they were attacked. Hartley says gunman in boats shot and killed David and she fled from the area because she was concerned for her safety. His body has not been found and it's believed the Zetas drug cartel is responsible.

"I had to leave him. I had to make that choice of leaving him and saving my own life," she said on Sunday in La Salle with her parents nearby. "That was the hardest decision ever."

Tiffany says she wants to keep this story in the news. She will soon be appearing on several national talk shows to continue telling David's story.

"I'd rather him be next to me, with me then having to do all this by myself," she said on Sunday.

The investigation into the case continues, but now with a federal focus from the Mexican government.

Tiffany remains optimistic about the investigation and thankful for American assistance.

"If Mexico doesn't let us in and doesn't let us help then their hands are tied. Now we are at the mercy of Mexico and their government," she said.

Tiffany said she'd like to speak to members of Congress of about the violence along the border.

"I don't want David's death to go in vain, but I want people in America to realize this is a big issue."

shooting death of U.S. citizen David Hartley on Falcon Lake was a mistake

2010-10-25T01:34:00.000-07:00

Reliable sources in Mexico have provided information that the Sept. 30 shooting death of U.S. citizen David Hartley on Falcon Lake — which straddles the U.S.-Mexico border — was a mistake committed by a low-level member of the Los Zetas drug trafficking organization. Those responsible for Hartley’s death are believed to have disposed of his body and that the Zeta hierarchy was conducting a damage-control operation to punish those responsible for the death and to distance the cartel from the murder.

Sources further reported that the murder of the lead Tamaulipas state investigator on the case, Rolando Armando Flores Villegas — whose head was delivered in a suitcase to the Mexican military’s Eight Zone headquarters in Reynosa on Oct. 12 — was a specific message from Los Zetas to Mexican authorities to back off from the investigation.
It has become obvious that a solid understanding if lacking of the context within which Hartley’s killing occurred was lacking in media discussions of the case. Viewing the murder as part of the bigger picture of what is occurring in Mexico makes it far easier to understand not only why David Hartley was killed, but why his body will likely never be found — and why his killers probably will not be held accountable for their actions, at least in the context of the judicial system.

There has been a growing fracture between the Gulf cartel and its former enforcement arm, Los Zetas, which had become an independent drug trafficking organization. Los Zetas were becoming increasingly aggressive and that the Gulf cartel was struggling to fend off these advances. In fact, it looked as if Los Zetas were about to swallow up the Gulf cartel.

What had been a tense standoff between the two cartels erupted into open warfare in January 2010 when Zeta leader Sergio “El Concord 3” Mendoza Pena died in an altercation between Mendoza and a group of men reporting to Gulf cartel No. 2 leader Eduardo “El Coss” Costilla Sanchez. After learning of Mendoza’s death, Los Zetas No. 2 Miguel “Z-40” Trevino Morales gave Costilla an ultimatum to hand over those responsible for Mendoza’s death by Jan. 25. When the deadline passed without his demand being met, Trevino ordered the kidnapping of 16 known Gulf cartel members in the Ciudad Miguel Aleman area as retaliation. The war was on.

Fearing the might of Los Zetas, the Gulf cartel reached out to their longtime enemies, the Sinaloa federation, and asked for their assistance in dealing with Los Zetas. The leader of the Sinaloa federation, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, has no love for Los Zetas, who as the former military arm of the Gulf cartel engaged in many brutal battles with Guzman’s forces. Together with another enemy of Los Zetas, La Familia Michoacana (LFM), Guzman joined forces with the Gulf cartel to form an organization known as the New Federation. The stated goals of the New Federation were to destroy Los Zetas, along with the remnants of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (VCF) organization, aka the Juarez cartel.

A move by the New Federation to destroy the remnants of the Arellano Felix Organization (aka the Tijuana cartel), now very weak, would allow the organization to dominate Mexican drug smuggling routes into the United States. If this New Federation consolidation were to occur (it has not happened yet), it would also likely result in a dramatic decrease in violence in the long term. But the VCF and Los Zetas have not yet been vanquished. This means that while the New Federation clearly has been able to gain the upper hand over the past several months, both Los Zetas and the VCF continue a desperate fight for survival and turf that in the short term means the level of violence will remain high.

The emergence of the New Federation was accompanied by the collapse of the Beltran Leyva Organization, a group formerly allied with the Sinaloa federation that broke away from Sinaloa and allied with Los Zetas and the VCF to fight against El Chapo and his allies.