MEXICO CITY, February 10, 2012 (AFP) – The Mexican army has rescued 73 kidnapped Central American migrants, including 18 minors, from buildings in the country’s northeast near the crime-ridden US border, the defense ministry said.
It said forces were tipped off to the presence of the kidnapped migrants in the Tamaulipas state two days ago and launched a “coordinated, simultaneous and surprising” rescue operation on Thursday in which four people were arrested.
It declined to provide further information on the kidnappers or the nationality of the migrants.
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A couple from Texas who moved to a remote and violence-plagued area of northern Mexico to run a Baptist church were found slain at their ransacked home, their children said.
John and Wanda Casias was originally from Amarillo, Texas, but relatives said they moved to an area outside the city of Monterrey in the late 1970s or early 1980s and made it their home
Valerie Alirez, the eldest child of John Casias, told The Associated Press from her home in Greeley, Colorado, that one of her brothers found her father and stepmother on Tuesday dead in their home in Santiago, Nuevo Leon.
John Casias was a Baptist preacher and the couple ran the First Fundamentalist Independent Baptist Church in Santiago, Alirez said.
Her brother, Shawn Casias, who lives in Monterrey, said he went to his parents’ home around 4 p.m. Tuesday to pick up a trailer. After he had hooked up the trailer outside he went into the home to say goodbye. He said he found Wanda Casias lying on the floor with an electrical cord around her neck and a gash from a blunt object on her head.
Missing from the house were a couple of computers, a plasma television and a safe that had been chiseled out of the wall.
The couple’s Chevrolet Suburban was also missing, and Casias said he initially thought his father had been kidnapped.
But about four or five hours later, he said, a forensic investigator informed him that his father’s body had been found in a storage room of a small building on the property. His father also had an electrical cord around his neck.
Fighting between the Zetas and Gulf drug cartels has brought a surge of violence and other crimes to Monterrey and the surrounding region since 2010. In poorer suburbs, entire blocks have been held up by gunmen and young people snatched off the streets.
Casias said a sister-in-law in Dallas had spoken to their mother around 11 a.m. Tuesday and everything was fine. So he believes there was about a five-hour window when the killings could have occurred before he showed up.
He said the killers did not take everything they could have, leaving two of the three TV sets. He said perhaps they were warned that he was coming, because anyone watching the winding road approaching the home could have alerted them.
“They’re scum. They’re not sophisticated,” he said.
Speaking from his parents’ home, Casias said the house was burglarized two years ago when the couple were on one of their periodic visits to the United States to talk at churches about their work in Mexico.
“We‘re convinced that it’s somebody he knew,” Casias said of the killers. He said authorities had some leads based on people seen around the home.
John Casias was 76. He had recently priced a knee replacement because he couldn’t walk more than 100 yards (100 meters) without having to sit down, Shawn Casias said. Wanda Casias was 67.
Casias said his parents held services and prayer meetings at a church about 3 miles (5 kilometers) from their home.
The couple maintained a website, http://www.casias.org , with details of their lives and their missionary work
“The only hope for the Mexican people today is Jesus in them, the HOPE of glory,” they wrote in one dispatch from last summer. “I confess that it’s getting easier to witness to the wealthy, at least they are listening. The wealthy are fleeing to Canada and the USA for protection. The only problem is that when they return to re-new their visas the cartel is waiting, and either kill them of (sic) kidnap them for thousands of dollars, in some cases millions. The cartel has NO mercy or value for life. They are ruthless murderers!”
It was the second slaying involving American missionaries in a year in the Mexican region bordering Texas.
In January 2011, a Texas couple who had been doing missionary work in Mexico for three decades were attacked at an illegal roadblock in one of the country’s most violent areas.
Nancy Davis, 59, was fatally shot in the head while her husband, Sam, sped away from suspected drug cartel gunmen who may have wanted to steal their pickup truck, authorities said.
The Davises were driving along the two-lane road that connects the city of San Fernando with the border city of Reynosa in the state of Tamaulipas, which borders Nuevo Leon.
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Associated Press writer Katherine Corcoran reported this story in Mexico City and Christopher Sherman reported from McAllen, Texas.
ACAPULCO, Mexico (AP) – Police say eight men were killed in an attack on a funeral in a rural area of Guerrero, part of a death toll of 13 over the weekend in the southern state plagued by drug violence.
An Atoyac de Alvarez municipal police statement says officers found seven dead and two injured early Sunday morning at the scene of a vigil. One of the injured later died.
The statement said the funeral-goers were attacked by masked men firing large caliber rifles favored by drug cartels as they mourned the victim of shooting several days earlier.
Acapulco police said Sunday that three bodies were found dumped in a vacant lot in the resort city, while a fourth was found decapitated in a car and another man died in a shootout with police.
MEXICO CITY — Mexican police say they have captured one of the main smugglers of illegal weapons for the Sinaloa drug cartel.
Federal police say Eduardo Avila Ojeda smuggled guns, ammunition and explosives into Mexico to be used by the cartel.
Police said Thursday that the 34-year-old suspect was captured Wednesday in the northern city of Culiacan. Culiacan is the capital of Sinaloa state, home to the cartel of the same name.Mexican officials have long blamed weapons smuggled in from the United States for fueling drug violence that has claimed more than 47,500 victims in five years.Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Mexican President Felipe Calderon has asked U.S. House Speaker John Boehner to crack down on weapons trafficking that has fueled drug violence in Mexico.
Calderon’s office says the president stressed the importance of stopping illegal trafficking of weapons and cash into Mexico.
The government says Mexico’s drug cartels import much of their weaponry from the United States.
Boehner and Michigan Rep. Dave Camp visited Mexico on Friday along with other members of Congress to discuss security and economic and political issues with Mexican officials.
Calderon’s office says the U.S. delegation praised Mexico’s five-year offensive against drug cartels.
The U.S. delegation previously visited Colombia and Brazil.
Mexico’s Public Security Secretariat has announced the arrest of Luis Jesus Sarabio Ramon, one of the founding leaders of the Los Zetas drug cartel and one of the most wanted men in the country.
The capture of Luis Jesus Sarabio Ramon was part of Operation Northeast,being carried out by the Mexican military.
The Zetas organization was originally formed by members of the country’s elite army units who had decided to join the powerful drug mafia.
March 15, 2007: A haul of about $206 million is seen with confiscated weapons after the money was found stashed in closets, suitcases, and drawers in a house in an upscale neighborhood of Mexico City.
MEXICO CITY – Mexico’s government allowed a group of undercover U.S. anti-drug agents and their Colombian informant to launder millions in cash for a powerful Mexican drug trafficker and his Colombian cocaine supplier, according to documents made public Monday.
The Mexican magazine Emeequis published portions of documents that describe how Drug Enforcement Administration agents, a Colombian trafficker-turned-informant and Mexican federal police officers in 2007 infiltrated the Beltran Leyva drug cartel and a cell of money launderers for Colombia’s Valle del Norte cartel in Mexico.
The group of officials conducted at least 15 wire transfers to banks in theUnited States, Canada and China and smuggled and laundered about $2.5 million in the United States. They lost track of much of that money.
In his testimony, the DEA agent in charge of the operation says DEA agents posing as pilots flew at least one shipment of cocaine from Ecuador to Madrid through a Dallas airport.
The documents are part of an extradition order against Harold Mauricio Poveda-Ortega, a Colombian arrested in Mexico in 2010 on charges of supplying cocaine to Arturo Beltran Leyva. A year earlier, Beltran Leyva was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in the city of Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City.
The documents show Mexico approved Poveda-Ortega’s extradition to the United States in May, but neither Mexican nor U.S. authorities would confirm whether he has been extradited.
U.S. and Mexican officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The documents offer rare glimpses into the way U.S. anti-drug agents are operating in Mexico, an often sensitive subject in a country touchy about national sovereignty.
On one occasion, the informant who began working for the DEA in 2003 after a drug arrest met with the girlfriend of a Colombian drug trafficker in Dallas and offered to move cocaine for their group around the world for $1,000 per kilo. In a follow-up meeting, the informant introduced the woman to a DEA agent posing as a pilot. The woman is identified as the girlfriend of Horley Rengifo Pareja, who was detained in 2007 accused of laundering money and drug trafficking.
Another scene described the informant negotiating a deal to move a cocaine shipment from Ecuador toSpain and minutes later being taken to a house where he met with Arturo Beltran Leyva.
Beltran Leyva was once a top lieutenant for the Sinaloa drug cartel, led by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman. But he split from the cartel shortly after his brother was arrested in 2008, setting off a bloody battle between the former allies.
Fractured cartels have led to an increase of drug violence in Mexico. According to several counts more than 45,000 people have been killed since late 2006, though the government stopped giving figures on drug war dead when the toll hit nearly 35,000 a year ago.
On Monday, police in western Mexico found the bodies of 13 men at a gas station in the state of Michoacan.
The bodies were dumped near a convenience store on the gas station lot in the town of Zitacuaro, said Michoacan state prosecutors spokesman Jonathan Arredondo.
Arredondo said threatening messages were found with the bodies, but he wouldn’t comment on their content or give any other details.
The western state is home base to The Knights Templar cartel, which like its predecessor, La Familia, is a pseudo-religious gang specializing in methamphetamine production, drug smuggling, extortion and other crimes.
Members of the Mexican Army (SEDENA) arrest Felipe Cabrera Sarabia (aka) “El Inge” as a result of a military intelligence operation in Culiacan. Mexico City, Mexico. 26th December 2011
Felipe Cabrera Sarabia (aka) “El Inge”As part of the strategy against organized crime and drug trafficking in Mexico, the mexican army arrest and as a result of the actions of “Operation Laguna” where did the arrest of Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, (aka) “The Inge” lieutenant and responsible for the activities of drug trafficking and violence by the criminal organization “Pacific Cartel or Sinaloa Cartel” in the state of Durango and southern Chihuahua.
The analysis of his behavior, allowed to locate the building where taken refuge, so a delicate operation was planned attempt to capture an accurate and safe for the population were used for this elite units of the Mexican armed forces, once captured was ready to federal authorities, is noteworthy that during this action was not necessary to use force of any kind.Sarabia Cabrera integrated a criminal group composed of his brothers Luis Alberto, Jose Luis and Alexander, who initially engaged in activities of planting and cultivation of marijuana in the mountainous area of the state of Durango.By differences with Mario Nuñez Meza (a) “The M-10″, leader of the criminal group “Ms”, began a struggle for control of the production areas in southern Durango and Chihuahua, causing a high rate of violence on whichf this effort, which highlights the detention of 23 leading membermanifested itself through clandestine burials, kidnappings, extortion, burning businesses and homes and publication of narcomensaje against the public and other antagonistic groups.
Operation “Laguna”, obtained information that led to the location and arrest of this important drug trafficker which is in addition to other achievements os of the leadership structures, operations, drug dealing , financial communications and the “Zetas” and “Pacific Cartel” in the region of the Laguna District.These affectations are made without distinction of drug trafficking organizations they belong to criminals seeking at all times alike refine their operational capacity.
The violence with which sarabia Cabrera, maintaining control of their criminal activities brought him to climb in importance within the organization of “Chapo Guzman and the Sinaloa cartel,” managing to be instrumental in the movement of drugs, including providing security to this capo in its area of operation in the Sierra de Durango.During the arrest of Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, were seized firearms, computer equipment and various false documents. the insured, was made available to the Agent of the Federal Public Ministry assigned to the Office of Special Investigations into Organized Crime (SIEDO) in Mexico City.
MEXICO CITY — Mexicans got a rare glimpse into the rough-and-tumble student organizations at many of Mexico’s universities Thursday, after five bodies were found buried at one group’s headquarters in the western city of Guadalajara.
Jalisco state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said relatives had identified three of the dead as high school students who were reported missing along with two other people last week after they complained that the student group was demanding protection money to sell snacks outside a campus.
Police uncovered three bodies in a pit late Wednesday and two more in another pit late Thursday. Investigators were trying to determine if the latest two were a fried-dough vendor and his son who went missing with the three teenagers, Coronado said.
The vendor, Armando Gomez, his son and three of his high school friends disappeared last Friday after going to the Federation of Guadalajara Students’ headquarters, where the bodies were found. They went to complain that the student group was demanding too much protection money for allowing him to sell snacks outside a high school campus.
The first three bodies were found two days after two college students in nearby Guerrero state were killed in a clash with police after student protesters hijacked buses, used them to block a highway and fought officers with rocks and sticks.
Highly organized, semiformal and often violent groups are commonplace at Mexican universities. It is a phenomenon that dates back at least to the 1950s, but swelled during student radicalization in the 1960s.
The organizations have become less ideological over the years, however, and are now often linked to, or protected by, political bosses known in Mexico as “caciques,” or chieftains. The groups sometimes act as enforcers to strong arm a politician’s rivals, or freelance in extortion or petty robbery.
Political analyst John Ackerman said Mexico’s current political atmosphere, with tension heating up before the July presidential election and a lame-duck central government distracted by the fight against drug cartels, may have emboldened such local groups.
“Cacique power is alive and well in Mexico,” said Ackerman, of the legal research institute at Mexico’s National Autonomous University. “This is another aspect in which democracy is still incomplete in Mexico.”
The Federation of Guadalajara Students, known as by its Spanish initials FEG, no longer has any formal ties to the university, but it operates at high schools affiliated with the university.
The FEG specialized in charging food and soft drink vendors to operate around the high schools, according to one university official familiar with the group. While the group was once leftist, the FEG switched decades ago to supporting the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000, said the official, who agreed to discuss the group only if not quoted by name because he wasn’t authorized to speak about it.
The FEG has a website in which it describes itself as “a student political organization … teaching the promotion of Democracy and Tolerance.” It lists no phone number or email contact.
On Monday, many Mexicans were shocked by the shooting deaths of two protesters at a demonstration by students from a rural teachers college in Guerrero state, but were not at all surprised students had hijacked buses, used them to block the toll highway leading to the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco and threw stones when police tried to clear the road.
The Guerrero state prosecutors office said students from the teachers college regularly block highways or take over toll booths to raise funds, but had acted with unusual violence in Monday’s protest, which was called to demand more funding for the college.
Police called in to clear the blockade apparently opened fire on the students. Federal police have said it was state police who fired the fatal shots, while Guerrero officials released video of federal officers kicking and beating detained protesters.
Lawyers for the students and rights groups, meanwhile, are accusing authorities of planting grenades at the scene and an assault rifle on one student to try to justify the shootings.
Ackerman, at the national university, said he considered the shootings unjustified. But he added there were indications that “outside forces,” perhaps directed by a former governor, may have infiltrated the protest in an attempt to create a politically embarrassing situation for current Guerrero Gov. Angel Aguirre.
“The long-standing tradition of using student ‘golpeadores’ (street fighters) to implement a strategy that authorities can’t carry out themselves is alive and well in Mexico,” Ackerman said.
MEXICO CITY — The Mexican army said Monday 11 suspected drug cartel members were killed and a soldier wounded in a shootout just south of the Texas border.
Soldiers began engaging with the gunmen Saturday after they opened fire from a building where they had holed up in city of Valle Hermoso, south of Brownsville, Texas, the Defense Department said in a news release.
The army patrol later seized the building, finding 11 dead gunmen and 73 rifles inside. Two suspects were arrested.
The wounded soldier was taken to a hospital for treatment. His condition was unknown.The Gulf and Zetas drug cartels operate in the area.In Veracruz, a Gulf coast state bordering Tamaulipas to the south, unidentified assailants tossed an explosive device into a building where a cockfight was being held early Sunday, state prosecutors said in a statement.
One man was killed and nine others slightly wounded, the statement said. The wounded were treated at hospitals and released.
State prosecutors did not specify what type of explosive device was involved. They also did not say if they had arrested any suspects or uncovered a motive for the attack.
Nov 29, 2011- 5:04 - Former Rep. Tom Tancredo on the importance of border security and how the candidates will approach the issue.
BASHIR: STOP GINGRICH’S FOOD STAMP RHETORIC BEFORE SOMEONE GETS KILLED
MSNBC host Martin Bashir rarely misses an opportunity to dramatize and string-together current Republican happenings with obscure incidents from the past. Example. On Friday Bashir made the arguably far-fetched comparison linking the murder of a black British teenager in 1993 to Newt Gingrich calling President Obama “the most effective food stamp president in American history.”
Former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo discusses the extent of the investigation into the Department of Justice.
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