Over 1,500 people have been killed in Mexico so far this year, according to Mexican news reports. Most of the slayings have taken place in states that are hubs for drug trafficking and organized crime. In one day this week, alone, Mexico recorded 40 executions. These murders are the most violent of episodes that are believed ordered by Mexican cartels with some of the victims being American citizens. The states of Chihuahua, Baja and Sinaloa accounted for at least 18 executions, while Tamaulipas and Guerrero had 12 in the last seven days. Those in Chihuahua brought the states total dead to 400 caused by organized crime. Six of those deaths took place in Ciudad Juarez. Four bodies were found in Baja near the border with the United States.

The violent events, combined with a shootout in Durango this week, left at least 16 dead; taking the total to 1,360 executions in the last 141 days. The assailants were all dressed in black and Mexican authorities also reported finding a dozen late-model vehicles that had been reinforced with armor.

The states of Baja, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Durango with cities of Juarez, Tijuana, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi are the focal point for the control of drug, human and terrorist smuggling routes in Mexico. Those states and cities alone accounted for about a 1,000 of this year’s violent deaths.

 The governor of Sinaloa has now restructured the police command in the state’s three largest cities and has placed career military personnel in charge. In Ciudad Juarez, a military officer assumed command of the city police; his predecessor was murdered nine days ago.

Police in the Rosarito Beach area in Baja California stated, “that across the border from San Diego, we discovered the bodies of three men and a woman Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast (not far south of Tijuana), the locale where criminal gangs are now trafficking in drugs and people. At night the area is a reception zone for drugs but also a departure point for boats taking undocumented persons to the United States easier than through the mountains, desert or the border gate.” Also in Rosarito Beach, 11 persons were arrested when found to be unloading a boat with 2,542.6 kilos of marihuana onto different vehicles. Two of the arrested were minors.

A semi-trailer hauling nopal (prickly pear) northbound towards Tijuana was found to have had 334 kilos of cocaine in 180 packages. The find was again at the Benjamin Hill, Sonora, checkpoint where many drugs have been found lately and is the third sizeable one within a week.

In Orozco, Sonora, an 18 wheeler stopped short of a checkpoint and the driver fled. Inside, was found 300 packages with 329.4 kilos of cocaine in each.

In the ocean off Los Mochis, Sinaloa,  a couple of local fishermen spotted a floating object and then saw that a pair of feet were sticking out on one end. The unidentified gangland type execution victim had been wrapped in duck tape a common tactic used by the cartel assassins.

Tuesday morning near Masiaca, Sonora, Mexico military personnel found 150 sticks of dynamite “25 cms. long by 5 cms. in diameter” (8 1/4″ X 2″) some 600 meters off the highway. The explosives were destroyed. (Masiaca is halfway between Los Mochis and Ciudad Obregon.)

Federal highway police checked an abandoned car on the Mexico City – Cuernavaca highway. The four-way flashers were operating and the trunk lid was ajar. Inside: the tied, blindfolded and tortured bodies of two men who had been shot while inside the trunk. A large tag board sign on the bodies read: “This is the way all will end up who are against El Chapo and El Rey Zambada” referring to the head of the Sinaloa Cartel Joaquin El Chapo Guzman and to Ismael El Mayo Zambada. The two victims were later identified as the Director of the State of Morelos Ministerial Police and of another officer of the same agency. 

In Culiacan Sinaloa, two male suspects, 23 and a 20, were arrested by federal agents at a safe house in which they also found firearms, including a .50 cal. rifle, speed loaders, grenades, tactical vests and 16 armored vehicles. 

In recent months and after Mexican president Caldron dispatched the Mexican army and federal police to many interior cities and to Mexican cities on the Mexican U.S. border the level of violence has risen substantially.

Mexican Senator Ramon Galindo Noriega said that the federal support for Ciudad Juarez has been evident but nevertheless there will be no Federal Police or Army that will be sufficient to combat crime if the city and state police are infiltrated by narco-traffickers. 

Sources:

Open Mexican news sources, L.A. Times,Ciudad Juarez Police, Rosarito Police, The National Association Of Former Border Patrol Officers, and the Laguna Journal

BY MICHAEL WEBSTER: SYNDICATED INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER.  Sunday DEC 14, 2008 at 12:01 PM PST

From Brownsville Texas to San Diego California Mexican cities bordering American cities along the U.S. Mexican border are where Americans are being killed by assassinations and executions. Many Americans were kidnapped in the U.S. and taken to Mexico where they were murdered. Still other Americans were abducted and slain in Mexico while visiting, others where shot gangland style in country. Dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped, or held hostage, or killed by their captors in Mexico and many cases remain unsolved. Moreover, new cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and Americans being killed continue to be reported.

38 year old American Carey McClintock was found dead Aug 31, 2008 in the dangerous Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The number of murders in Juarez has jumped from 300 in 2007 to roughly 1,500 this year more than five times as many as last year.

Due to the so-called drug war extortions, robberies, kidnappings and executions in Juarez these crimes have mushroomed unchecked, and many U.S. citizens are getting killed in that violence.

Of the few that the FBI reported as known kidnappings there were 30 U.S. citizens that have been kidnapped or disappeared, nine were later released, two found dead and 13 still missing .

The FBI now refuses to estimate the numbers of Americans being kidnapped or murdered in Mexico. These earlier reports were out dated and officials believe the real numbers are much greater. All 30 were Americans just from the San Diego area alone. How many other U.S. citizens are there? No one seems to know for sure. But there are others more from border cities like El Paso.

Carey was alone in a well known downtown Juarez tourist hotel. Two men where seen according to the bell boy forcing Carey from her room and it is believed she was taken to an unknown site where she was brutally beaten and then stabbed 37 times. Her bloody butchered lifeless body was found by police in an abandoned house on the out-shirts of town. Carey’s handbag, possible cell phone and all her personal possessions were found in her room at the hotel and Carey’s family wants to know what other things where found of Carey’s and what happen to them after the Juarez police took them into custody? We have asked the Juarez authorities for an accounting of them and to turn them over to us but so far no luck, according to Carey’s Father Stan McClintock.

In recent years over 500 girls and women have been killed in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.  Most of the victims were young and poor and many were sexually assaulted prior to their deaths. If Carey was raped the police report does not indicate it.

The family was devastated to learn of Carey’s death and of course wanted to know what happened to Carey.

Carey’s Father and Mother Sheila along with sisters Cathleen and Colleen traveled to Juárez where they identified the mutilated body of Carey at the Juárez coroner’s morgue. As the police and coroner were poring over Carey’s murder scene, they knew that other Mexican drug cartel gunmen most likely were shooting down other victims with automatic weapons fire some where else in the city.

Carey’s family keeps attempting to find out the details of the murder and who was responsible. They first went to the Juárez Police Dept. and after being given the run around they were finely able to talk with the detectives charged with finding the killer or killers. The police said they had no suspects or even any leads. The detectives indicated that there were so many unsolved murders in Juárez that they held out little hope of ever finding out who did it. The family pleaded with the police to please keep them informed as the investigation went forward. After weeks of no word from anybody Mr. McClintock started contacting Mexican police again and the American Consulate General’s office in Juárez. Still Nothing! He than contacted the El Paso Police Dept. he was told that because the alleged crime took place in Mexico that the El Paso police could not open an investigation into his daughter murder.

When it became apparent that there was nothing really being done to find the killer of his daughter Mr. McClintock started investigating the matter himself.

 According to Mr. McClintock some time after contacting the El Paso City Police he received an e-mail from El Paso Police Detective Jesus C Terrones. “Needless to say I am disappointed that no one is really looking for Carey’s murderer”, McClintock said.  How do we ever get to the bottom of this if we have to rely on the Juarez Police Department I asked Terrones? I did think it was interesting that Torrones said the unit in Juarez assigned to this case was the best one they had. I guess meaning there best is not very good.  He offered this in a phone conversation I had with him earlier this week”.

McClintock says the local police, El Paso County Sheriff, FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security all have refused to investigate his daughter’s horrible death or even look into it for that matter.

In direct contras on June 19, of the same year 2008, ICE was contacted by an aide to Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), chairman of the influential and powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which has oversight responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent department of ICE, FBI,CIA and others, he asked for ICE to help arrange the release of Mexican National Erika Posselt a relative of the congressman’s wife who had been kidnapped for ransom from a business she owns in Mexico.

 “ she is not even a U.S. citizen, yet she gets the help she needed just because she is the relative of our El Paso Congressman, that is truly a shame” according to Donna Welch an El Paso native.  McClintock could not agree more and must wonder the same thing.

Still more murders of Americans are known such as an 11-year-old from El Paso who was killed recently during a highway robbery on the Durango-Mazatlan road in Mexico. The boy, Rico Armando Bañuelas, was on a family trip to Mazatlan.

New cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and American deaths continue to be reported. No one can be considered immune from these crimes on the basis of occupation, nationality, or other factors. Mexican criminals have been known to follow  harass and kill U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles, particularly in border areas including Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa, Juarez, Mexicali, Tijuana and most all border towns. 

23 year old American Kyle Mostello Belanger has been reported missing since last May and believed to have been kidnapped and is being held against his will for ransom in Juarez Mexico. The information has been forwarded to the Mexican Government and to the FBI and other U.S. agencies with no apparent follow-up investigations much less locating arresting and punishing his perpetrators.

Two more U.S. residents, Roberto Martinez and Ruth Sagredo Velasco, were killed in a barrage of at least 20 shots from AK-47 assault rifles fired at them as they drove in a Nov. 22 funeral procession for Sagredo’s sister.

Both Martinez and Sagredo were U.S. residents living in El Paso and working at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center there.

Mexican police recently discovered the bodies of a male and female believed to be Americans. The riddled bodies were found in a gray 2004 Kia Amanti also riddled with bullets at Boulevard Cuatro Siglos between Hermanos Escobar and Pérez Serna. Police said the car had U.S. plates.

The American couple were believed visiting in Juárez attending the funeral of the killed woman’s sister, who was also killed in a homicide only last week; Juarez police investigators told the El Paso Journal that the couple were obviously targeted.

Cmdr. Fernando Lozano Sandoval, of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency, was shot in the Mexican city just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. He was one of three police officials shot in Juarez over two days, and the only one to survive.

Lozano, identified by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office as a U.S. citizen, was taken to El Paso County’s Thomason Hospital, the only Level 1 trauma center within 280 miles. 

Another U.S. woman slain in Juarez

A woman identified as Ana Lourdes Hernandez, 32 and a U.S. citizen was killed in a drive-by shooting in Juárez, officials said. She died after she was taken by ambulance to Thomason Hospital in El Paso at the request of her family, a Juárez police spokesman said.

A vehicle drove by, and several shots were fired at Hernandez as she stood outside a home in the Bellavista area west of downtown Juárez, police said.

Marisela Molinar, 48, and Jesús Martín Huerta Hiedra were fatally shot in her 2009 Dodge Journey at Juan Pablo II and Arizona boulevards in Juárez at about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Mexican authorities said.

They both suffered multiple gunshot wounds and Mexican investigators discovered 85 shell casings at the scene.

 
La Mesa California an American woman Libby Gianna Craig was among four people found shot to death in a canyon near Rosarito Beach in Baja California.

The 28-year-old was in an area known as Morro Canyon along with three Afro-American males, Mexican police identified as “Black Americans”. Early reports also said more bodies were found in a separate location at different points of Playas de Rosarito, reported some Mexican papers.

All the shootings were apparently deliberate and targeted. According to Rosarito police.

A member of a well-known Willacy County farming family was found shot to death in Guanajuato, Mexico, this year according to the online edition of Correo, the state newspaper. Paul Wetegrove, 46, whose family grows onions, sugar cane and cabbage outside Raymondville, was reportedly shot by a man who approached him in a red Dodge Caravan, Correo stated. There were four other men in the vehicle. A man at the office of the Wetegrove packing shed on Farm-to-Market 762 on Friday refused to comment on the published reports. He said that the family wanted its privacy at this time. “What’s happened?

American Sam Botner killed in Mexico. He was brutally murdered by six Mexican cops while he was arrested on August 27, 2008 at the penitentiary of San Jose del Cabo Mexico.

Earlier this year four Americans were shot and wounded as they were leaving the Arriba Chihuahua nightclub in the ProNaF tourist zone in the heart of city of Juárez.

This reporter believes the above Americans killed or wounded in Mexico in 2008 is but a few of many. We are awaiting the results of a freedom of information filing to try and determine how many Americans have been killed in Mexico just this year (2008) and who they are.

An alarming number of people have directly been killed in drug related violence in Mexico this year. Nearly 7,000 drug related deaths since January 2007. As previously reported in the Laguna Journal more people have died in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Many of these deaths were Americans. This is all after more than 50,000 troops and federal police were deployed to Mexican cities, many along the border with the U.S.

Stan McClintock says he intents to continue his quest to find the killer or killers of his beloved Carey. He says he has some leads now and will investigate the matter no matter how long it may take to get to the bottom of it or where it may lead. He intents to pursue it with or without the American authorities help.

Editor’s note: The Laguna Journal/El Paso Journal will keep our readers up to date with the latest developments in the Carey McClintock case.

Michael Webster’s Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide,  in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He has published articles for MaximsNews, which  is associated with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 135 countries. Many of Mr. Webster’s articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.

Mr. Webster is America’s leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Mr. Webster does investigative reports for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies.  

EL PASO, Texas — Mexican Drug Cartel known member Jose Daniel Gonzalez was murdered on American soil in El Paso Texas. Gonzalez according to law enforcement was acting as an U.S. Government informant feeding important information about several Mexican Drug Cartel families. There modes of operations, drug routes and privileged inside information known only to high ranking Cartel members. Evan though Gonzalez was an active informant and was under U.S. Law enforcement protection the powerful Mexican Drug Cartels were still able to attack and kill Mr. Gonzalez.

According to Alicia A. Caldwell with the APNewsBreak reported today that the eight bullets that killed Gonzalez outside his home just doors from the El Paso City’s Police chief’s own home. The hail of automatic gun fire was fired at close range and left little doubt about their message.

Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel lieutenant shot on his quiet El Paso cul-de-sac this spring, has just come to light. According to reports Gonzalez was indeed working for U.S. officials as a confidential informant.

Sources close to the investigation has told the Laguna Journal. This maybe the first substantiated assassination carried out by Mexican Drug Cartel hit men although there have been others suspected assassinations in Phoenix, Alabama and elsewhere in the states. The feds suspect his slaying is the first time assassins from one of Mexico’s violent drug gangs have killed a ranking cartel member on American soil.

Caldwell’s report indicated that experts told her the murder represents a growing brazenness of the cartels on this side of the border that will most likely lead to more deaths.

“He got shot up close,” police chief Greg Allen said. “Whoever did it wanted to make sure it was known that it was for payback.”

Alerts send out to law enforcement last year warned that Mexican drug kingpins, including Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, publicly gave hit men permission to cross the border in search of targets.

“There’s an increasing number of (cartel) leaders living in the U.S., probably either to escape law enforcement or their enemies in Mexico, so that’s one of the risks that has increased in the last few years,” said Stephen Meiners, a senior tactical analyst for Latin America at Stratfor, a global intelligence company based in Austin, Texas.

“There’s a possibility that this thing could get out of hand,” he said.

Shannon O’Neil, an expert on Latin America at the Council on Foreign Relations, said she knows of no other high-level killings in the U.S., but fears it won’t be the last.

“We have started to see more brazenness close to the border on the Mexican side and on the U.S. side,” O’Neil said. “Once you get these organizations firmly established in Mexico and the United States, you will have killings at all different levels.”

Gonzalez, a 37-year-old legal immigrant who lived with his family on a cul-de-sac in an expensive neighborhood, was shot May 15 2009 in front of his spacious home. His wife, Adriana Solis, and the couple’s two children fled not long after.

Two federal officials and one local official told the Associated Press that Gonzalez was handing over information about cartel activities to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which in recent years has taken a broader role in cross-border drug trafficking investigations. One of those officials said federal investigators were monitoring Gonzalez’s activities and whereabouts.

The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly about the case. In a statement e-mailed to the AP, ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa said, “It is ICE policy to neither discuss nor comment on issues regarding confidential informants.”

Cartel-affiliated hit men have violently, and fatally, disciplined low-level, American-based drug dealers in the U.S. But El Paso police said Gonzalez was a lieutenant in the Juarez cartel, which traffics in marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The cartel was once among the most dangerous in Mexico, but has recently lost some standing because of arrests, deaths and infighting.

The L.A. Times is reporting that the El Paso police don’t yet have an official motive in Gonzalez’s slaying, but chief Allen said detectives are working on the assumption that a cartel colleague discovered he was discussing their illegal activities with federal agents.

Allen, who lives behind Gonzalez’s house and heard the shots from his backyard, told the AP that he and other local authorities knew Gonzalez had been involved with drugs in the past but had no idea he was both a ranking Mexican gangster and federal informant. He’s angry he wasn’t briefed about a case his department now must solve as a local homicide.

Cooperation is seen as crucial to the success of the federal and state law enforcement agencies that fill El Paso, one of the country’s largest border cities and a major inland port.

The week after the killing, during a tense meeting of a multi-agency group called the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, Allen said he told federal authorities that his future cooperation depended on them keeping his department informed of their activities.

“How’d you like it if this happened in your neighborhood?” Allen said he told the gathering.

The bullets that killed Gonzalez were fired at such close range that three may have traveled through his body and lodged in a neighbor’s stucco wall and a parked car. A bloodstain still marked the street where the neighbors sat to watch the kids play. Now, aside from Allen, people living in the Rancho del Sol neighborhood are too scared to speak publicly about Gonzalez or his family.

Aldo Valderrabano lives around the corner from the Gonzalez’s second home, a more modest 1,800-square-foot, two-story house they used to live in a little more than a mile away. He said the Gonzalez family moved to the $365,000, 3,300-square-foot home listed in Solis’s name, a few months after she mysteriously lost three fingers last year.

Valderrabano’s wife visited Solis in the hospital, and he said Solis would only say the fingers were lost “in an accident.” She had no other apparent injuries. The family hasn’t been seen since the shooting, although El Paso police spokesman Javier Sambrano said investigators are in contact with them. He said Solis and her children are staying at an undisclosed location, “a move they did on their own.”

Gonzalez is listed in business records as the only contact for El Nuevo Rey (”The New King” in Spanish) freight company, which shares an address with his home. Federal Express packages for the company continued to arrive daily on Gonzalez’s front porch for weeks after the shooting. Business records show the company had annual sales of about $84,000.

He is also listed as the sole contact at that address for Gonzalez Auto Parts, Letters And Colors Day Care and Transportes Gonzalez. Neighbors said they have seen no evidence of any activity related to these kinds of businesses at the house.

Valderrabano said Solis told him the family was from Villa Ahumada, Mexico, a small town south of Ciudad Juarez that has been virtually taken over by cartel fighters in recent months. She said Gonzalez manned a family-owned food stand in Juarez, a city of about 1.1 million that abuts El Paso and is now occupied by the Mexican army in the government’s battle against drug gangs.

But while in El Paso, Valderrabano said, Gonzalez and his family were very pleasant. The families’ children often played together.

“They were very quiet, we didn’t have any problems with them,” Valderrabano said.

Sources:

A/P

El Paso Police Dept.

El Paso Sheriff’s Dept.

DEA,

FBI

L.A. Times

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO)

Photo’s: Crime Stoppers El Paso and A/P

For Related Articles go to: www.lagunajournal.com

Mexican drug cartels according to recent press reports have military style training camps on and near the border with the United States. These Training camps are for military-style killers. Federal authorities say these camps have Afghanistan and other middle eastern instructors who teach the latest military fighting tactics that are utilized in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Islamic radicals that are fighting and killing American and allied troops in those countries. Mexican officials admit they know of special training camps in the Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Michoacan, where newly recruited Zetas take intensive six-week training courses in weapons, tactics and intelligence gathering.

Iran is believed providing at least some of the money for this recruiting and training program. The training camps are teaching hit and run gorilla technique’s. Cells of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) have sent their seasoned veterans to oversee the training of the new troops and to direct the war against the Mexican government on behalf of the Mexican Cartels. Trained fighters from al-Qaida, Hizballah (Party of God) Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) have been seen in Mexico and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has reported cells from these terrorist organizations are believed here in the U.S. as well. According to a well placed CIA operative.

The El Paso Journal has been told by an anonymous caller who claims to be an Lt. of a Mexican cartel said in advance, “that the Mexican drug cartels would be advertising for recruits to train as cartel soldiers to fight the Mexican army which has been sent to the border with the U.S. to extinguish the Mexican drug cartels”. Just today a week or so since he made the predictions banners where string across a main artery in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico advertising for recruits. He also said they would be advertising on the internet which has also happened. His predictions have been accurate so far. He told of the Mexican army coming to each border town before they did. The Journal has not reported any of his predictions to date without confirmation from other independent unrelated and reliable sources.

The Mexican government first realized that Islamic radical militants were already starting to infiltrate the country in statements by high-ranking Mexican officials prior to and following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks indicated “that Islamic extremist organizations has sought to establish a presence in Mexico”.

Former Mexican national security adviser and ambassador to the United Nations, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, stated, that “Spanish and Islamic terrorist groups are using Mexico as a refuge… In light of this situation, there are continuing investigations aimed at dismantling these groups so that they may not cause problems”. He also mentioned that the terrorist groups in question are located in the northern part of the country. “Islamic people” in Mexico sparked speculation among observers that the Lebanese Shi’ite terrorist organization Hizbollah have established cells in Mexico.

Remarks made by Mexican public officials indicate the real possibility that al Qaeda cells are present in Mexico and could potentially attempt to cross the U.S. southwest border to conduct additional attacks.

The former director of Mexico’s Center for Intelligence and National Security (Centro de Inteligencia y Seguridad Nacional—Cisen), Eduardo Medina Mora, remarked that the possibility of an al Qaeda attack against the United States launched from Mexico “could not be ruled out.”

National Migration Institute (Instituto Nacional de Migracion—INM) official Felipe Urbiola Ledezma made more alarming statements during remarks to the press, Urbiola said, “We have in Mexico people linked to terrorism and we are constantly observing unusual immigration flows…[people connected to] ETA, Hizbollah and even some with links to Usama Bin Laden.”

Other terrorist and criminal groups are in Mexico including the Russian mafia groups such as the Poldolskaya, Mazukinskaya, Tambovskaya, and Izamailovskaya have been detected in Mexico. The Moscow-based Solntsevskaya gang is also reported to be present in the country, as are other mafia gangs from Chechnya, Georgia, Armenia, Lithuania, Poland Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, Albania, and Rumania. Their major activities include drug and arms trafficking, money laundering, prostitution, trafficking in women from Eastern and Central Europe and Russia, alien smuggling, kidnapping, and credit card fraud.

Reforma a leading Mexican newspaper reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had detected a partnership between the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix Organization (AFO) and Russian mafia groups based in southern California. In a separate story, Reforma reported that members of the former KGB-affiliated Kurganskaya group in San Diego had met with AFO operative Humberto Rodríguez Banuelos.

Reforma reported that for at least the last ten years the Russian mafia was supplying Mexican drug traffickers with radars, automatic weapons, grenade launchers, and small submersibles in exchange for cocaine, amphetamines, and heroin. It cited a 1996 sting operation in which undercover DEA agents posing as Russian mafia members sold Carillo Fuentes operatives 300 AK-47s and ammunition in Costa Rica.

Even ten years ago, ten Russians, including four known members of the Russian mafia, were arrested at Mexico City’s international airport when they arrived on a KLM flight from Amsterdam. The mafia members included Aleksandr Zakharov, one of the leaders of the Moscow mafia and founder of the Uralinvest, known to have a principal role in organized crime in Russia. Another detainee was Nicolay Novikov, a Uralinvest director who had been imprisoned on three previous occasions for arms trafficking. A third was Yevgeniy Sazhayev, who had been arrested on two previous occasions for drug trafficking. The fourth was Vladimir Titov, wanted for various assassinations and who had escaped from several Russian prisons with the help of the mafia. The four men, who were traveling with six women, were apparently en route to Acapulco and Cancún. The group was reportedly deported. The Interpol head in Mexico, Juan Manuel Ponce, corroborated accounts that the group had been carrying arms and a substantial amount of cash.

According to Mexican analyst Jorge Fernández Méndez, the Russian mafia bosses had come to Mexico in order to mediate in the gang war being fought between the CFO and various other groups for control of drug trafficking routes through Mexico in the wake of the death of Alejandro Paez.

It is well known that the Russian mafia is deeply entrenched in the criminal fabric of the Mexican drug cartels and still today plays an important roll in providing guns and other weapons to the cartels and are purveyors of, drug smuggling, money laundering, prostitution, trafficking in women from Eastern and Central Europe and Russia, alien and terrorist smuggling, kidnappings for ransom.

The self proclaimed Mexican drug cartel Lt. says,” that we will be offering Mexican soldiers very attractive pay packages and other benefits to cross over and go to work for us”. He told the journal we can look for that new development to be happening soon. He also predicts that “active current duty Mexican soldiers and Mexican Federal Police officers will be killed by well armed and trained cartel soldiers”.

Sources:

Hundreds being rounded- up and many Arrested in Juarez Mexico

The U.S. placed Mexico under a travel alert As Thousands of Armed Mexican Troops Patrol the Streets of Juarez

Linking of drug cartels on the Texas border with Middle East terrorist

President Bush’s top intelligence aide has confirmed that Iraqi terrorists have been captured coming into the United States from Mexico

Americans Being Kidnapped, Held and killed in Mexico

They’re known as “Los Zetas

Reforma Reforma Mexico City Newspaper.

Library of Congress Federal Research Division: Terrorism and Crime …

www.cnn.com

www.lagunajournal.com

www.limeshine.com

http://bajasur.craigslist.com.mx/lab/604707210.html

BY MICHAEL WEBSTER: SYNDICATED INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER.  Sunday DEC 14, 2008 at 12:01 PM PST

From Brownsville Texas to San Diego California Mexican cities bordering American cities along the U.S. Mexican border are where Americans are being killed by assassinations and executions. Many Americans were kidnapped in the U.S. and taken to Mexico where they were murdered. Still other Americans were abducted and slain in Mexico while visiting, others where shot gangland style in country. Dozens of U.S. citizens have been kidnapped, or held hostage, or killed by their captors in Mexico and many cases remain unsolved. Moreover, new cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and Americans being killed continue to be reported.

38 year old American Carey McClintock was found dead Aug 31, 2008 in the dangerous Mexican town of Ciudad Juarez across the border from El Paso, Texas.

The number of murders in Juarez has jumped from 300 in 2007 to roughly 1,500 this year more than five times as many as last year.

Due to the so-called drug war extortions, robberies, kidnappings and executions in Juarez these crimes have mushroomed unchecked, and many U.S. citizens are getting killed in that violence.

Of the few that the FBI reported as known kidnappings there were 30 U.S. citizens that have been kidnapped or disappeared, nine were later released, two found dead and 13 still missing .

The FBI now refuses to estimate the numbers of Americans being kidnapped or murdered in Mexico. These earlier reports were out dated and officials believe the real numbers are much greater. All 30 were Americans just from the San Diego area alone. How many other U.S. citizens are there? No one seems to know for sure. But there are others more from border cities like El Paso.

Carey was alone in a well known downtown Juarez tourist hotel. Two men where seen according to the bell boy forcing Carey from her room and it is believed she was taken to an unknown site where she was brutally beaten and then stabbed 37 times. Her bloody butchered lifeless body was found by police in an abandoned house on the out-shirts of town. Carey’s handbag, possible cell phone and all her personal possessions were found in her room at the hotel and Carey’s family wants to know what other things where found of Carey’s and what happen to them after the Juarez police took them into custody? We have asked the Juarez authorities for an accounting of them and to turn them over to us but so far no luck, according to Carey’s Father Stan McClintock.

In recent years over 500 girls and women have been killed in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua City, Mexico.  Most of the victims were young and poor and many were sexually assaulted prior to their deaths. If Carey was raped the police report does not indicate it.

The family was devastated to learn of Carey’s death and of course wanted to know what happened to Carey.

Carey’s Father and Mother Sheila along with sisters Cathleen and Colleen traveled to Juárez where they identified the mutilated body of Carey at the Juárez coroner’s morgue. As the police and coroner were poring over Carey’s murder scene, they knew that other Mexican drug cartel gunmen most likely were shooting down other victims with automatic weapons fire some where else in the city.

Carey’s family keeps attempting to find out the details of the murder and who was responsible. They first went to the Juárez Police Dept. and after being given the run around they were finely able to talk with the detectives charged with finding the killer or killers. The police said they had no suspects or even any leads. The detectives indicated that there were so many unsolved murders in Juárez that they held out little hope of ever finding out who did it. The family pleaded with the police to please keep them informed as the investigation went forward. After weeks of no word from anybody Mr. McClintock started contacting Mexican police again and the American Consulate General’s office in Juárez. Still Nothing! He than contacted the El Paso Police Dept. he was told that because the alleged crime took place in Mexico that the El Paso police could not open an investigation into his daughter murder.

When it became apparent that there was nothing really being done to find the killer of his daughter Mr. McClintock started investigating the matter himself.

 According to Mr. McClintock some time after contacting the El Paso City Police he received an e-mail from El Paso Police Detective Jesus C Terrones. “Needless to say I am disappointed that no one is really looking for Carey’s murderer”, McClintock said.  How do we ever get to the bottom of this if we have to rely on the Juarez Police Department I asked Terrones? I did think it was interesting that Torrones said the unit in Juarez assigned to this case was the best one they had. I guess meaning there best is not very good.  He offered this in a phone conversation I had with him earlier this week”.

McClintock says the local police, El Paso County Sheriff, FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security all have refused to investigate his daughter’s horrible death or even look into it for that matter.

In direct contras on June 19, of the same year 2008, ICE was contacted by an aide to Congressman Silvestre Reyes (D-TX), chairman of the influential and powerful House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence which has oversight responsibilities for the Department of Homeland Security, the parent department of ICE, FBI,CIA and others, he asked for ICE to help arrange the release of Mexican National Erika Posselt a relative of the congressman’s wife who had been kidnapped for ransom from a business she owns in Mexico.

 “ she is not even a U.S. citizen, yet she gets the help she needed just because she is the relative of our El Paso Congressman, that is truly a shame” according to Donna Welch an El Paso native.  McClintock could not agree more and must wonder the same thing.

Still more murders of Americans are known such as an 11-year-old from El Paso who was killed recently during a highway robbery on the Durango-Mazatlan road in Mexico. The boy, Rico Armando Bañuelas, was on a family trip to Mazatlan.

New cases of disappearances and kidnap-for-ransom and American deaths continue to be reported. No one can be considered immune from these crimes on the basis of occupation, nationality, or other factors. Mexican criminals have been known to follow  harass and kill U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles, particularly in border areas including Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, Reynosa, Juarez, Mexicali, Tijuana and most all border towns. 

23 year old American Kyle Mostello Belanger has been reported missing since last May and believed to have been kidnapped and is being held against his will for ransom in Juarez Mexico. The information has been forwarded to the Mexican Government and to the FBI and other U.S. agencies with no apparent follow-up investigations much less locating arresting and punishing his perpetrators.

Two more U.S. residents, Roberto Martinez and Ruth Sagredo Velasco, were killed in a barrage of at least 20 shots from AK-47 assault rifles fired at them as they drove in a Nov. 22 funeral procession for Sagredo’s sister.

Both Martinez and Sagredo were U.S. residents living in El Paso and working at the Texas Tech Health Sciences Center there.

Mexican police recently discovered the bodies of a male and female believed to be Americans. The riddled bodies were found in a gray 2004 Kia Amanti also riddled with bullets at Boulevard Cuatro Siglos between Hermanos Escobar and Pérez Serna. Police said the car had U.S. plates.

The American couple were believed visiting in Juárez attending the funeral of the killed woman’s sister, who was also killed in a homicide only last week; Juarez police investigators told the El Paso Journal that the couple were obviously targeted.

Cmdr. Fernando Lozano Sandoval, of the Chihuahua State Investigations Agency, was shot in the Mexican city just across the Rio Grande from El Paso. He was one of three police officials shot in Juarez over two days, and the only one to survive.

Lozano, identified by the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office as a U.S. citizen, was taken to El Paso County’s Thomason Hospital, the only Level 1 trauma center within 280 miles. 

Another U.S. woman slain in Juarez

A woman identified as Ana Lourdes Hernandez, 32 and a U.S. citizen was killed in a drive-by shooting in Juárez, officials said. She died after she was taken by ambulance to Thomason Hospital in El Paso at the request of her family, a Juárez police spokesman said.

A vehicle drove by, and several shots were fired at Hernandez as she stood outside a home in the Bellavista area west of downtown Juárez, police said.

Marisela Molinar, 48, and Jesús Martín Huerta Hiedra were fatally shot in her 2009 Dodge Journey at Juan Pablo II and Arizona boulevards in Juárez at about 4:15 p.m. Wednesday, Mexican authorities said.

They both suffered multiple gunshot wounds and Mexican investigators discovered 85 shell casings at the scene.

 
La Mesa California an American woman Libby Gianna Craig was among four people found shot to death in a canyon near Rosarito Beach in Baja California.

The 28-year-old was in an area known as Morro Canyon along with three Afro-American males, Mexican police identified as “Black Americans”. Early reports also said more bodies were found in a separate location at different points of Playas de Rosarito, reported some Mexican papers.

All the shootings were apparently deliberate and targeted. According to Rosarito police.

A member of a well-known Willacy County farming family was found shot to death in Guanajuato, Mexico, this year according to the online edition of Correo, the state newspaper. Paul Wetegrove, 46, whose family grows onions, sugar cane and cabbage outside Raymondville, was reportedly shot by a man who approached him in a red Dodge Caravan, Correo stated. There were four other men in the vehicle. A man at the office of the Wetegrove packing shed on Farm-to-Market 762 on Friday refused to comment on the published reports. He said that the family wanted its privacy at this time. “What’s happened?

American Sam Botner killed in Mexico. He was brutally murdered by six Mexican cops while he was arrested on August 27, 2008 at the penitentiary of San Jose del Cabo Mexico.

Earlier this year four Americans were shot and wounded as they were leaving the Arriba Chihuahua nightclub in the ProNaF tourist zone in the heart of city of Juárez.

This reporter believes the above Americans killed or wounded in Mexico in 2008 is but a few of many. We are awaiting the results of a freedom of information filing to try and determine how many Americans have been killed in Mexico just this year (2008) and who they are.

An alarming number of people have directly been killed in drug related violence in Mexico this year. Nearly 7,000 drug related deaths since January 2007. As previously reported in the Laguna Journal more people have died in Mexico than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Many of these deaths were Americans. This is all after more than 50,000 troops and federal police were deployed to Mexican cities, many along the border with the U.S.

Stan McClintock says he intents to continue his quest to find the killer or killers of his beloved Carey. He says he has some leads now and will investigate the matter no matter how long it may take to get to the bottom of it or where it may lead. He intents to pursue it with or without the American authorities help.

Editor’s note: The Laguna Journal/El Paso Journal will keep our readers up to date with the latest developments in the Carey McClintock case.

Michael Webster’s Syndicated Investigative Reports are read worldwide,  in 100 or more U.S. outlets and in at least 136 countries and territories. He has published articles for MaximsNews, which  is associated with MediaChannel.org and Globalvision News Network, global news and media information services with more than 350 news affiliates in 135 countries. Many of Mr. Webster’s articles are printed in six working languages: English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Spanish. With ten more languages planed in the near future.

Mr. Webster is America’s leading authority on Venture Capital/Equity Funding. A trustee on some of the nations largest trade Union funds. A noted Author, Lecturer, Educator, Emergency Manager, Counter-Terrorist, War on Drugs and War on Terrorist Specialist, Business Consultant, Newspaper Publisher. Radio News caster. Labor Law generalist, Teamster Union Business Agent, General Organizer, Union Rank and File Member Grievances Representative, NLRB Union Representative, Union Contract Negotiator, Workers Compensation Appeals Board Hearing Representative. Mr. Webster does investigative reports for print, electronic and on-line News Agencies.  

For years now US federal officials have reported that the Mexican drug cartels are operating in dozens of US cities, and have consolidated their control of the entire corridor of the supply chain of illegal drugs from deep in Mexico north to the U.S. border and beyond.

Nationwide, the Mexican drug cartels are now the dominant distributors of wholesale quantities of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines and marijuana in the United States. No other group is positioned better to expand there already nationwide operation and take over total distribution of drugs in the south eastern part of the country too, then are the Mexican drug cartels as they now do in the south western part of the country.

Mexican drug cartels through their segregate organizations control the lucrative methamphetamine trade, as the arrival of purer Mexican ice methamphetamine has replaced locally produced powder meth, according to the US Department of Justice.

Glen Beck of the popular show of the same name said,” Atlanta has become the latest battleground for Mexican drug cartels.”

“Their idea is to control the whole economic process of production and distribution,” said Georgina Sanchez, an independent security consultant in Mexico and executive director of a public safety policy institute.

In many areas of the United States the cartels have entered into partnerships with local gangs, in others they have directly assumed control of local drug distribution, analysts say.

According to Beck, “The Mexican side of the border is essentially a war zone with the Mexican government fighting, losing, or sometimes in collusion with the heavily-armed drug cartels.  You’re not going to see much about it in the mainstream media. And for some reason, this just isn’t a topic anymore.”

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora says cartels have deeply penetrated city police forces. (Eduardo Verdugo – AP)

Gwinnett County, Georgia, where Atlanta is located is over 1,000 miles from our U.S. – Mexico border. They have already had nine drug-related kidnappings this year. In one incident it just happened a couple weeks ago, DEA agents raided a home and charged three men, all illegal aliens, with kidnapping and conspiracy to distribute cocaine after finding that they had bound and chained the victim to a wall in a basement in the town of Lilburn and beat him for nearly a week in an effort to collect $300,000 in drug debt.

“The violence in [American] cities has a direct cause and effect related to what is taking place in Mexico,” said Fred Burton, vice president for counterterrorism at Stratfor, an Austin-based private intelligence company.

“The farther north you go from the border, the less that is understood,” said Burton, who is a member of the Texas Border Security Council, which focuses on homeland security and economic development along the Texas-Mexico border.

The biggest worry for local law enforcement groups is that the cartels will bring with them violent methods honed during furious cartel wars in Mexico that have left thousands dead since 2006. In recent years, Mexican drug violence has reached new heights, with beheadings, videotaped executions broadcast on the Internet, and the targeting and killings of top Mexican law enforcement officials.

Beck, said, “There are no good guys in this story except the people who are on the front line, like Rodney Benson. He is the Special Agent-in-Charge of the Atlanta Field Division of the DEA.”

From excerpts from the program Beck asks, “Let’s start, what did I miss about that guy who was chained to the wall? Tell me a little bit about this.”

“He was a distributor of narcotics up the East Coast, and he was lowered down under a ruse to come down and see the Mexican suppliers here in Atlanta.

And when he went to a house just in the metro area, he was pulled into a garage where seven armed men took him, took him out, essentially beat him, brought him down into the basement of this house where he was shackled in this unfinished basement. And his hands were cuffed. Then they took rolls of duct tape and essentially his entire face, his nose, pretty much everything was just covered with tape.

And over the course of a week, we became aware of this. And what we ended up doing, Glenn, through a number of different investigative means, we found the house where this individual was being held. And what we did was we conducted a rescue operation. And this individual, when we found him, was chained in the basement, severely dehydrated and he was beaten as well. And we saved his life.” Benson said.

BECK: All right, is it true that some of these people that are kidnapping in Atlanta are as young as 16 years old? The kidnappers?

BENSON: We’re seeing younger individuals being deployed by Mexican cartel leadership up into the United States to work for these cartels. Google or click on: Mexican drug cartels infiltrating colleges and high school campuses in America

BECK: Okay, there are two people who have a little bit of credibility on this. There’s the Gwinnett D.A. that said this is not a blip. This is significant in what’s going on here. U.S. Attorney for the northern part of Georgia said, we are about to see the extreme violence that is happening south of the border happen here in America.

“Not a lot of people because nobody is really covering this in the mainstream media, according to Beck. Google or click on: Young girl raped and beheaded in Florida by Mexican traffickers

But we’re watching it. The violence south of the border is off the charts. It’s more violent there than it is in Baghdad or Afghanistan. They’re beheading people said Benson.
Beck, do you believe this is the kind of stuff that is coming our way if we don’t do something and pay attention to this?

What we’re doing, Glenn, is we’re aggressively attacking that problem. Clearly, Mexican drug trafficking organizations are the dominant force that we’re facing here in the metro area. They’re responsible for the lion’s share of cocaine and methamphetamine and marijuana and black tar heroin that’s being distributed here.

It’s coming here; it’s going up the Eastern Seaboard.

We’re facing a very — it’s a challenge for us. They’re getting more sophisticated. They’re absolutely armed to the teeth; AK-47s and other weapons. According to Benson.

BECK asks: And they’re targeting this county because this is a large Hispanic community. So these drug gangs are just kind of trying to blend in to the Hispanic community? What is the reaction for the community? Are they standing up? Or are they afraid? Google or click on: Mexican Drug cartels terror reaches deep into the U.S.

It’s not just that county, Glenn. What you have is multiple counties in metro Atlanta. Now we’re seeing it, too, in a big way in North Carolina.

The community is reporting information to police. And that’s what they should continue to do. There’s a steady stream of tips and leads that come into law enforcement that we’re able to react to and I don’t anticipate that stopping anytime soon. Said Benson.

“Their idea is to control the whole economic process of production and distribution,” said Georgina Sanchez, an independent security consultant in Mexico and executive director of a public safety policy institute

DEA agents say that the cartels’ incursions into the United States are spurring more secondary crimes, such as shootings, kidnapping, and murders.

The above discussed concept can be further elaborated by presenting an instance. For example the male impotence diseases erectile dysfunction is said to be diagnosed easily if a person is ailing from hypertension or in common terms high blood pressure. A hypertension patient is an easy prey to ED. The theory applies the other way round too. A man who is experiencing ED has chances of having an ailed heart. The penis and the heart both become ill in the face of not receiving an adequate amount of blood flow. Blood is the food for all the organs. Low blood flow to the organs suggests that there are problems in arteries. The arteries are the medium for blood flow to all the major organs in the body. But if the arteries themselves prove to be hindrances in the smooth blood flow to the organs it is only natural that the organs will be ailed.

In this way one or more diseases can be the cause and also the effect to some other disease in the same body. But have you ever wondered that in certain cases the treatment to one disease can benefit the other disease as well. If we carry on with the example of the link between high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction, there have been current researches that show that erectile dysfunction treatments can also help in hypertension. There are a number of ED cures now available in the market. Apart from the very famous ED drugs that caused a number of ripples in the waters of medical science, innumerable forms of natural, herbal ED cures cropped up. However, doctors recently discovered that people who were administered with an ED drug containing phosphodiesterase showed improvement in the systolic blood pressure. Systolic blood pressure is the one that is mentioned first by a doctor while monitoring the blood pressure of the person. For example if a person is declared to have a blood pressure of 130/ 70, 130 will be his systolic pressure. There is a medical definition to the term but we won’t go into it now. Coming back to the point, ED medication brought about a decrease of around 1.43mm Hg in patients particularly with a systolic pressure of more than 160. Likewise there are several other diseases that show the above mentioned characteristics.

Talking about ED and high blood pressure, Bayer Levitra is another very popular and one of the best selling ED drugs in the market. Though it does not contain phosphodiesterase, it does contain elements that are beneficial for impotence and also for the heart. Levitra pill can also be administered to patients with diabetes and hypertension. It also has beneficial effects that would not be discussed here for the sheer fact that it would require an ample lot of space and time. One can even buy levitra at discounted prices if one decides to buy levitra online. But always bear the fact levitra prescription is necessary before you order levitra from anywhere.

By Michael Webster: Syndicated Investigative Reporter. Feb 21, 2009 at 1:30 PM PST.

Mexico – Mexican President Felipe Calderon condemned this week’s street protests against his army-backed drug war, saying they were cowardly acts orchestrated by drug traffickers.

In commemoration of the Day of the Army, President Calderón labeled as cowards and traitors to the nation those who use women and children as part of their strategy to bring about the withdrawal of the Army in its battle against organized crime

Hundreds of Mexicans, some woman carrying small children, blocked roads and bridges in Mexican cities bordering the United States from the Gulf of Mexico (Matamoros) to the Pacific Ocean (Tijuana) and protested by marching in the northern city of Monterrey in a series of demonstrations that police say are organized and funded by Mexican drug cartels.

Police used water cannons to disperse protesters in the northern industrial city of Monterrey, Mexico, where hundreds of protesters in Monterrey and others in several border cities demanded that the Mexican army leave their cities. Officials say that the protests are organized by Mexican drug cartels that they say are trying to disrupt the government’s anti-drug crackdown. 

The protests, being held nation wide and in Mexican cities near the U.S. Border, put new pressure on President Calderon to continue to try and defeat the Mexican Drug Cartels (MDC’s). In 2007, Calderon’s administration launched a military campaign to combat spiraling drug violence in his country. Thousands of people died in drug-related violence last year as MDC’s and their gangs fought each other, the Mexican Army and Mexico’s security forces.

The day after these demonstrations Juárez police chief Roberto Orduña Cruz resigned after the Juárez Mexican drug cartel killed six city police officers and threatened to kill more unless he left the force.

 

Juarez Police Chief  and Public Safety Secretary Roberto Orduna Cruz, left, resigned on Friday during a news conference with Juarez Mayor Jose Reyes Ferriz. At right is Juarez city official Guillermo Dowell. (Photo courtesy of Juarez city government)

“Those who see … their criminal structure weakened have tried to provoke the army’s retreat,” Calderon told soldiers at an army base in Monterrey.

“True to form as cowards, they have even used women and children for their wretched goals,” he said on Mexico’s national military day.

Aides said Calderon chose to celebrate Thursday’s event in Monterrey, rather than the capital, as a response to the demonstrations, where many marchers held up colored cloths to hide their faces.

Last week an alert went out to law enforcement officers across the United States issued by the Homeland Security Office of Intelligence, Analysis and FBI.
 

The alert warned that the US Customs and Border Protection Offices located at the US-Mexican Border crossings located in El Paso, Big Bend, and Edinburgh, Texas has closed due to violence across the border in Mexico. Protesters clashing with Mexican Police have escalated at the border crossings which has involved gunfire and explosions. Intelligence has reported that the protests may have been staged by the Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) to mask criminal activities along the US – Mexican border.

Additional information reported that the Mexican border officials have also closed their side of the border.

Mexico’s drug war is affecting business throughout the country, tourist are no longer shopping in the Mexican border cities and tourism in general is down even in popular hot spots like Cancun. The violence is turning away investors who Mexico needs for business and has concerned and alarmed the Obama administration. The United States, has pledged $1.4 billion worth of drug-fighting equipment and training to Mexico and Central America and has delivered less than a 1/3rd. According to news reports the Obama administration is taking another hard look at that pledge.

At the same commemoration of the Day of the Army, President Calderón labeled the MDC’s as cowards and traitors to the nation those who use women and children as part of their strategy to bring about the withdrawal of the Army in its battle against organized crime.

“True to their status as cowards they have even used women and children for small minded purposes, their acts are treason”, said Calderón recently from the capital city of Nuevo Leon, where there have been six protest demonstrations against the army.

He added “Let no one make a mistake, let no one confuse the sides, the enemies of the country and of all Mexicans are those who assail its institutions, who harass, threaten and extort society, who poison its sons and who betray the country.”

Calderón, who praised the army’s task, asserted that organized crime is condemned to defeat because the Armed Forces and an entire nation are on the side of the Mexicans.

To all who pretend to be above the law, said Calderón, we say that our Armed Forces “are not intimidated nor will they ever desist because they are composed of Mexicans fully committed to the defense of our dear Mexico.”

Police and government officials in Monterrey say Mexico’s most violent drug gang, the Gulf cartel, and its feared armed wing, the Zetas, is behind the protests.

The cartel is paying people to attend marches and has handed out backpacks full of schoolbooks, pens and paper to poor families who joined the demonstrations, police say.

The northern states of Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas, home to Monterrey and the border cities of Nuevo Laredo and Reynosa, are the trafficking routes into Texas for the Gulf Cartel.

Calderon has sent more than 45,000 troops and federal police across Mexico to fight drug gangs since late 2006, a move widely supported by many Mexicans angry with years of inaction and deep corruption in the country’s police forces.

Despite warnings from rights groups about soldiers using excessive force in the drug fight, Calderon also has Washington’s support for using the army, which has made historic drug seizures and is catching more gang leaders.

More protests and even rioting in Mexico is expected particularly along the U.S. Mexican border 

 

Federal court documents show that the Arrelano Felix Organization (AFO) also known as the Arrelano Felix Family is a criminal enterprise based in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico. For more than 20 years, the AFO has shipped hundreds of tons of cocaine and marijuana to the United States; laundered hundreds of millions of dollars in drug proceeds; kidnapped, tortured, and murdered numerous persons, including informants and law enforcement personnel; and paid millions of dollars in bribes to government officials. The cartel nearly collapsed in 2002, after Ramon Arrelano Felix was killed by the police, and Brother Benjamin was taken into custody. However, the cartel has since seen resurgence in strength, power, and violence.  And, with the recruiting of U.S. Government agents and others, the cartel continues to be a major player in all organized crime in Baja California.

The remarkable thing about this case is one of the defendants as a high ranking cartel boss of Richard Padilla Cramer a former United States Government agent with ICE, little known fact that has not been brought to the attention of the public by U.S. Authorities in this case.

Duarte was close to, and worked with, Cramer a corrupt U.S. ICE official they conspired as they murdered, or caused others to be murdered, as they invested cash in global drug deals endangering the lives of U.S. and Mexican law enforcement.  Furthering the danger, Cramer sold secret U.S. Government information to Duarte and other Mexican Drug Cartel bosses and to the Mexican Government as ran huge cocaine trafficking operations. Feds reported Cramer joined the cartels full time after he retired from ICE. A former U.S. Government internal affairs agent who wants to remain anonymous told the U.S. Border Fire Report that defendant Armando Martinez-Duarte, was Cramer’s boss and has been for years.  The internal affairs agent claims that it is possible Cramer is acting covertly as a double agent.

 Richard Padilla Cramer, a 26-year veteran of the U.S. anti-drug complex was arrested by DEA agents last month and is behind bars in Florida awaiting the results of a Federal Grand Jury investigation. Cramer was arrested and jailed after U.S. Government officials accused him of directing a massive cocaine shipment to Spain via the United States, and selling important information in law enforcement databases to the vicious Arrelano Felix Mexican Drug Cartel.

Cramer, as a high-ranking U.S. anti-drug official, held front-line posts both in the United States and in Mexico in the War on Drugs. Cramer, sometime later, was investing in drugs and trafficking as a full partner in Mexico’s murderous drug cartels.  According to records made available to this reporter, he led an office of two dozen agents in Arizona and others as the attaché officer for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Guadalajara, Mexico.  Both Duarte and he, worked with the U.S. Mexican Embassy in Mexico City and U.S. Consulate offices in Guadalajara and other Mexican cities.

United States Attorney, Karen P. Hewitt, announced today that, within the last week, Jesus “Chuy” Labra-Aviles, Efrain Perez, Jorge Arrelano Felix, and Armando Martinez-Duarte pled guilty in United States District Court to charges arising from their leadership of the Arellano-Felix drug trafficking organization (AFO).

The defendants entered their guilty pleas before United States Magistrate Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo, subject to final acceptance of the plea by United States District Court Judge Larry A. Burns, at the time of sentencing. The details of the defendants’ pleas are not known but here is what we do know:

Jesus “Chuy” Labra-Aviles: On October 15, 2009, Labra-Aviles pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana and agreed to forfeit $1 million. Under the plea agreement, the United States will recommend 40 years of imprisonment. As part of the plea, Labra-Aviles admitted that from the 1980s to 2000, he was a senior partner in the AFO who frequently joined with Benjamin Arellano-Felix and Manuel Aguirre-Galindo to invest in and distribute large shipments of cocaine and marijuana. Labra-Aviles also admitted that he served as an organizer and leader of the AFO and that AFO members paid millions of dollars in bribes to law enforcement officers, government officials, and military officials. Sentencing for Labra- Aviles is set for January 4, 2010, 9:30 a.m., before United States District Judge Larry A. Burns.

Armando Martinez-Duarte: On October 16, 2009, Martinez-Duarte pleaded guilty to conspiring to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. As part of his plea, Martinez- Duarte admitted that from the 1990s to April 2002, he was a federal law enforcement officer in Mexico who was paid by AFO leaders to leak information about AFO investigations, intervene with other law enforcement officers on the AFO’s behalf, escort and protect AFO members and drug shipments, and help place certain individuals in ranking law enforcement positions in areas under AFO control. Sentencing for Martinez- Duarte is set for January 11, 2010, 9:30 a.m., before Judge Burns.

Efrain Perez: On October 19, 2009, Perez pleaded guilty to conducting the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity and conspiring to invest illicit drug profits. Perez also agreed to forfeit $1 million. Under the plea agreement, the United States will recommend 30 years of imprisonment. Perez admitted that from the 1990s to June 2004, he and Ismael Higuera-Guerrero, the top lieutenant to the Arellano-Felix brothers, were responsible for receiving large drug shipments in Mexico and smuggling them into the United States, coordinating the distribution of drug shipments within the United States, collecting drug proceeds, and policing Tijuana for enemies, suspected informants, and uncooperative government personnel. Perez also admitted AFO members killed numerous persons in furtherance of the enterprise. Sentencing for Perez is February 8, 2010, 9:30 a.m., before Judge Burns.

Jorge Aureliano Felix: On October 21, 2009, Felix pleaded guilty to conducting the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity and conspiring to invest illicit drug profits. Felix also agreed to forfeit $1 million. Under the plea agreement, the United States will recommend 30 years of imprisonment. Felix admitted that, like Perez, from the 1990s to June 2004, he ranked as a top AFO lieutenant. Sentencing for Felix is set for January 11, 2010, 9:30 a.m., before Judge Burns.

According to federal officials the guilty pleas by Labra-Aviles, Perez, Felix, and Martinez-Duarte bring to eight the number of high-ranking AFO leaders who have been convicted since 2006 in the Southern District of California of federal drug trafficking and racketeering charges.

“These four guilty pleas of top leadership figures in the Arellano-Felix Organization are the product of outstanding investigative and prosecutorial work over more than a decade. In achieving this success, we appreciate the cooperation provided by the Government of Mexico during the extradition process. But our work does not end here. The U.S. Attorney’s Office remains committed to seeking justice against all drug traffickers attempting to exploit the southwest border,” said United States Attorney Karen P. Hewitt.

“With this guilty plea today, all agencies involved in this investigation have dealt a significant blow to the leadership of the Arellano Felix Organization,” said Special Agent in Charge Ralph W. Partridge of the DEA San Diego. “This should send a message to the traffickers that with the outstanding cooperation of the Mexican government, there is no place to hide, they will be brought to justice.”

FBI Special Agent in Charge Keith Slotter commented, “Today’s guilty pleas are a result of thoughtful investigative work and cooperation between law enforcement agencies and we are pleased with the efforts of the prosecutors to see justice brought to these individuals.”

“The plea agreements announced today deal a significant blow to the Arellano-Felix organization and demonstrate law enforcement’s resolve to continue to investigate and prosecute drug trafficking organizations,” said Leslie P. DeMarco, Special Agent in Charge of IRS – Criminal Investigation’s Los Angeles Field Office. “IRS-Criminal Investigation brings in its financial expertise to narcotic investigations to disrupt and dismantle drug trafficking organizations. We specialize in following the money in these illegal operations, enabling increased criminal prosecutions and asset forfeitures.”

Case Number: 97cr2520-LAB

DEFENDANTS:

§                                                                                                                                                    Jesus “Chuy” Labra-Aviles

§                                                                                                                                                    Efrain Perez

§                                                                                                                                                    Jorge Aureliano Felix

§                                                                                                                                                    Armando Martinez-Duarte

SUMMARY OF CHARGES AND PENALTIES

§                                                                                                                                                    Conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 841 and 846 (punishable by at least five years and up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine)

§                                                                                                                                                    Conducting, and conspiring to conduct, the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1962 (punishable by up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross profits)

§                                                                                                                                                    Conspiracy to invest illicit drug profits, in violation of Title 21, United States Code, Sections 846 and 854 (punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine).

AGENCIES

§                                                                                                                                                    Drug Enforcement Administration

§                                                                                                                                                    Federal Bureau of Investigation

§                                                                                                                                                    Internal Revenue Service, Criminal

A list of those cartels pictured in the above map:

-Tijuana Cartel…Run by the Arrelano Felix family. The cartel nearly collapsed in 2002, after Ramon Arrelano Felix was killed by the police, and brother Benjamin was taken into custody. However, the cartel has since seen a resurgence in strength and violence of late, and continues to be a major player in the smuggling of marijuana and cocaine into the U.S.

-Sinaloa Cartel…Infamous for the smuggling of cocaine from Columbia, and heroin from Southeast Asia. They also produce their own brand of heroin. U.S. law enforcement has identified Sinaloa Cartel distribution centers in Arizona, California, Texas, New York, and Chicago.

The Sinaloa Cartel uses the gangs known as MS-13 and the Mexican Mafia to distribute drugs inside the U.S.

-Gulf Cartel…Utilizes an elite paramilitary group known as the Zetas as enforcers. Many of the Zetas were actually trained at U.S. military bases, in an effort by this country to aid the Mexican government in their fight against the cartels. Upon their return to Mexico, they were recruited by the Gulf Cartel, who offered them a much higher salary than did the government.

The Zetas have proven to be ruthless fighters in the cartel´s ongoing war with the Sinaloa Cartel.

The Gulf Cartel boasts of relationships with corrupt officials and is based in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, they also have major operations in the city of Nuevo Laredo and account for the increased violence now being seen there.

-Beltran-Leyva Cartel…Based in Sinaloa, it is a family business with the five Beltran-Leyva brothers: Marcos Arturo, Mario Alberto, Carlos, Alfredo and Héctor. The brothers traffic in cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.

The cartel’s other criminal enterprises include human smuggling, kidnapping, money laundering, and arms trafficking. Beltran-Leyva is in direct competition with the Sinaloa Cartel, a rivalry which has turned the Mexican state of Sinaloa into a war zone.

-La Familia Cartel…Based in the Mexican state of Michoacan formed in 2006, as a splinter group of the Gulf Cartel. The group’s leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez sees himself as an evangelical figure, and always carries a Bible with him.

In a strange mix of religion and drug trafficking, Gonzalez forbids his employees to use drugs or alcohol. The cartel enjoys an incredibly violent reputation, and actually describes their use of mutilations and beheadings of rival cartel members as “divine justice.”

The La Familia Cartel has become very powerful, very quickly through the use of bribes of both local and national politicians. In addition to drug trafficking, the organization extorts so-called protection money from local businesses.

-Juarez Cartel…Perhaps, the wealthiest of the cartels. According to the U.S. State Department, the Juarez Cartel “controls one of the primary transportation routes for billions of dollars worth of drug shipments entering the United States from Mexico annually.”

The Juarez Cartel has been publicly posting hit lists containing the names of Juarez police officers. Many of those officers have been murdered, and still more have fled the city.

Kidnappings, torture, and shootouts have become a way of life in violence-plagued Juarez. That Mexican city which shares a border with El Paso, TX, has already seen an astounding 3,000 murders since January 2008.