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Mexican drug violence kills 18 (AFP) – Aug 10, 2009 CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Eighteen people have been killed in execution-style murders in Mexico since Sunday, in violence blamed on bloody feuds between rival drug cartels, officials said. |
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US, Mexico officials to promise shared help 08/13/2009 Associated Press The U.S. heads of Homeland Security and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives plan to sign a letter of intent with the attorney general of Mexico again pledging cooperation and shared intelligence in the battle against drug cartels and other border violence. READ FULL STORY Plan for Guard troops on border stalls over money By LOLITA C. BALDOR (AP) – Aug. 14 WASHINGTON — A government plan to use National Guard troops to help stem Mexican drug violence along the southern border is stymied by disagreements over who will pay for the soldiers and how they would be used. READ FULL STORY OPINION - RANT Written by Rudi Stettner Obama's Surrender on Mexican Border I never thought that I would agree with anything Barack Obama did. It finally seems that he is getting serious about our porous border with Mexico. Yahoo News reports that back in June, Obama had ordered that National Guard troops be deployed on our border with Mexico Yahoo News reports as follows. This sounds good. Unfortunately, when you get the Department of Homeland Security, the Pentagon and the State of California working together, you have enough buck passing to keep any planned action on the drawing board rather than on the ground. READ FULL RANT WORST MEXICAN RECESSION IN 30 YEARS? Associated Press, 08.12.09, MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's finance secretary is warning that falling oil production and prices may push the already cash-strapped nation into its worst economic recession in 30 years. READ FULL STORY U.S. Cash for Clunkers Program Helps Mex Auto Industry, Much Exported to U.S. MEXICO CITY, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Mexico's automobile production plummeted in July from a year earlier, but the fall was the least severe this year as Americans rushed to take advantage of the U.S. government "cash for clunkers" program. READ FULL STORY |
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Adios Amigos - In this Feb. 26, 2009 photo, a sign that reads in Spanish "Goodbye friends" hangs on a closed restaurant-bar along the famous Revolucion Avenue in Tijuana, Mexico. credit: Assiciated Press |
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Mexico cartels go from By MARK STEVENSON The Associated Press Monday, August 17, 2009; 12:00 AM CIUDAD HIDALGO, Mexico -- Shopkeepers in this pine-covered mountain region easily recite the list of "protection" fees they pay to La Familia drug cartel to stay in business: 100 pesos a month for a stall in a street market, 30,000 pesos for an auto dealership or construction-supply firm. Mexican drug cartels have morphed into full-scale mafias, running extortion and protection rackets and trafficking everything from people to pirated DVDs. As once-lucrative cocaine profits have fallen and U.S. and Mexican authorities crack down on all drug trafficking to the U.S., gangs are branching into new ventures - some easier and more profitable than drugs. |
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Mexico Replaces All Customs Agents with Army, Doubles Their Ranks Associated Press -- Monday, August 17, 2009 MEXICO CITY, Aug. 16 -- Mexico has replaced all 700 of its customs inspectors with agents newly trained to detect contraband such as guns, drugs, and big-ticket appliances smuggled to avoid import fees. The shake-up -- part of an effort to root out corruption and improve vigilance at Mexican ports with new technology -- doubled the size of Mexico's customs inspection force. READ FULL STORY. 17 Linked to Mexican Drug GangsCharged in String Los Angeles Times Aug, 14 Authorities announced charges against a Mexican drug gang that took Tijuana-style violence to the upscale suburbs of San Diego County, kidnapping, torturing and killing well-to-do residents, even after some families paid large ransoms. READ FULL STORY We think final site will have a home page that has a full list of links to other pages on Watching Mexico, which includes political and police situations in main cities and regions, advice on best actions, with home page featuring main stories, each with headline, first paragraph and link to full story. You can use site for daily quick overview of what is happening in Mexico, or read stories in depth. Send ideas to: watchingmexico@watchingmexico.com |
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Cult-like gang gains power in Mexico drugs war
"La Familia" (The Family) uses Bible scriptures to inspire its traffickers and has taken over smuggling in the state of Michoacan, gaining power despite Calderon's near three-year assault on cartels in the state and across the country. After the group killed 16 police in a series of brazen attacks last week, Calderon sent some 5,500 troops, elite police and navy officers to the mountainous marijuana-producing state in one of the biggest surges of the drug war. |
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Mexico's Kidnapping Wave |
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Sunday, 09 August 2009 Antonio Ortega, president of the Citizen Council, warns kidnappings more than double to 300,000 Mexico City, Aug 9 (Reuters) - The Citizens' Council for Public Safety and Criminal Justice suggested that the Summit of the Americas signed the Guadalajara Initiative "to support the fight against criminals who cause violence in the country by kidnapping and extortion. In a media conference, the president of the Council, José Antonio Ortega, said that in 2008 there were 128,000 high-impact reported kidnappings, and warned that the trend moved sharply upward this year, with more than 300,000 possible, "he said. |
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Mexico arrests 4 in kidnapping that sparked outcry By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO (AP) – Jul 28, 2009 MEXICO CITY — Police have captured four suspects in the kidnapping and killing of the daughter of Mexico's former sports commissioner, a case that provoked huge protests against crime and police incompetence. Among those arrested is Candido Ortiz, accused of leading the kidnapping band "the Reds" and organizing the abduction of 19-year-old Silvia Vargas, Public Safety intelligence coordinator Luis Cardenas said Tuesday. Ortiz's voice identifies him as the one of the negotiators who demanded a ransom from Nelson Vargas, Mexico's top sports official until 2006, Cardenas said. He was captured along with his brother and two others in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. Another brother is a former driver for the Vargas family who was arrested last year. Still at large is a fourth brother who has escaped twice from police custody. Vargas was apparently snatched from her vehicle as she drove to school in Mexico City in September 2007. Her captors initially demanded a ransom, then abruptly stopped making contact. With their daughter still missing, the Vargas family went public with the case a year later. Her body was found in a clandestine grave in December 2008. The arrests come two weeks after federal police announced the capture of two suspects in another prominent kidnapping case in which the 14-year-old son of a sporting goods magnate was slain. Those arrests, however, raised more questions about police efficiency: federal investigators say one of the suspects confessed to killing Fernando Marti — but said he did not know the suspects arrested a year ago by Mexico City police. Authorities say they are trying to sort out the confusion. The Vargas and Marti cases helped ignite nationwide protests last year against Mexico's wave of kidnappings. The government says police are increasingly capturing kidnappers, but Mexico's abduction rate remains one of the world's highest. The Mexican government says there are about 97 kidnappings a month, but most abductions go unreported due to widespread fear that police themselves may be involved. The nonprofit Citizens' Institute for Crime Studies estimates the real rate is closer to 500 a month. |
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Surveillance photos released by Mexican governement showing what it says are police officers helping 53 convicted narcotic dealers escaping from prison. |
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By The ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: July 17, 2009 The federal police have arrested two men suspected of kidnapping a prominent businessman’s teenage son, whose killing set off nationwide protests against crime. A police official said Friday that the suspects, José Montiel, 34, and Noe Robles, 31, were believed to be members of a Mexico City gang responsible for at least 23 abductions. The victim, Fernando Martí, 14, the son of a sporting-goods magnate, was kidnapped at a fake police checkpoint in June 2008. His body and that of his driver were found two months later, even though the family had reportedly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom. |
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From: MEXIDATA.COM Monday, August 10, 2009 Los Linces, Mexican Drug War Contemporaries of Los Zetas By Sylvia Longmire Drug-related violence throughout Mexico is vicious, rampant, and almost always attributed to drug trafficking organizations, or DTOs. However, that attribution is very generic. To many, DTOs are just a faceless machine of drugs, death, and destruction. To others, they are disciplined and well-structured organizations designed to make maximum profit through bribery, intimidation, and enforcement. Upper-level management, as it were, of Mexican DTOs aren’t the ones who get their hands dirty during day-to-day operations and in defense of their transport routes. This is the job of the enforcement groups. |
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Former police prefer income of organized crime (translated from Spanish News Agency, EFE) 11/08/2009 MEXICO (EFE) - About a thousand former officers of the defunct Mexican Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) are now integrated into the ranks of organized crime in Mexico, mainly drug trafficking, as the capital city newspaper published yesterday, "Reforma", which cites unnamed sources in the PGR. According to a federal government news release, 2,426 agents have resigned from AFI since it was created in November 2001, until it was debandd for links to narco trafficking on April 18 this year. The years with the largest number of resignations were 2007 (634) and 2008 (617), recent periods of maximum violence of drug trafficking cartels in the country, the report said. Some of the resignations were due to the rejection of the police to undergo tests of confidence introduced by the government of President Felipe Calderón. Four out of ten police officers who were low in the ranks of the security agency then went to join some of the Mexican cartels in drug trafficking, said the newspaper, quoting "sources of first level" of the Attorney General's Republic (PGR), which ran the AFI. Among the cases cited are the resignations of four former officers who were supporting Jesus "The King" Zamba, one of the kingpins of the Pacific Cartel, who has been arrested. |
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Mexicans say plot by Drug Trafficers to kill Mexican president thwarted |
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No loitering rule applies to police in Mexico out of fear of drug ties The Associated Press Wednesday, August 12, 2009; 12:08 AM MONTERREY, Mexico -- Police in the northern Mexico city of Monterrey have been told not to sit in parked patrol cars observing traffic, because officials suspect they could be spying for criminal gangs or drug cartels. The measure marks a new low for Monterrey's municipal police. In recent years they have been banned from using cell phones while on duty and at times had their weapons confiscated because of concerns some officers may be acting as lookouts for gangs. Monterrey officers will have to keep their patrol cars moving under rules announced Tuesday by state Public Safety Secretary Aldo Fasci. Local police officers in several cities have been detained for allegedly protecting drug cartels or warning them about federal police or army raids. |
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NEW YORK TIMES POLICE GUIDE DRUG GANG OUT OF PRISON MEXICO CITY — The surveillance cameras captured it all: guards looking on nonchalantly as 53 inmates — many of them associated with one of Mexico’s most notorious drug cartels — let themselves out of their cells and sped off in waiting vehicles. Men in police uniforms helped 53 inmates escape at the prison in Cieneguillas, Mexico, in May, as seen on a surveillance video. Escape vehicles outside the prison were marked as police cars. The video shows that prison guards only pulled out their weapons after the inmates were well on their way. The brazen escape in May in the northern state of Zacatecas — carried out in minutes without a single shot fired — is just one of many glaring examples of how Mexico’s crowded and cruel prison system represents a critical weak link in the drug war. |
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