Daring Matamoros Jailbreak Latest Sign Mexico -- On the dusty outskirts of this border town, a brazen jailbreak recently unfolded that seemed scripted by Hollywood. Spilling from late-model Suburbans, pickup trucks and even a Humvee military vehicle, nearly 50 armed men dressed like Mexican soldiers or federal police officers with black ski masks, dark combat fatigues and bulletproof vests converged on the Santa Adelaida prison at 2 a.m. They flashed false credentials and a forged court order and told jailers they were there to take custody of four inmates and transfer them to another prison. They entered without firing a shot, took the prisoners and then vanished onto the narrow roads outside the rural prison. [continues 765 words]
Officials Say It's Key Score Against Accused Cartel Leader Zambada MEXICO CITY - At least 176 drug-trafficking suspects have been arrested this week in the United States and Mexico - the biggest score in a 19-month operation against what officials said is one of the world's largest smuggling networks, U.S. and Mexican officials said Thursday. The binational sweep was the highlight of Operation Trifecta. The probe was triggered by the December 2001 seizure of a cargo ship laden with nearly 10 tons of Colombian cocaine off Mexico's Pacific Coast, and the subsequent discovery a drug-smuggling tunnel dug under the Mexican border with Arizona. [continues 566 words]
A former drug lord tried but failed to escape with guards' help from a maximum-security prison in western Mexico a day after authorities told him he would be extradited to the U.S. Federal police said guards removed Hector Palma, of the Sinaloa drug cartel, from his cell and escorted him to an unauthorized visit with his family. As guards were returning him to his cell, the power went off and guards led him to a low-security prison courtroom. Authorities staffing an off-site monitoring system grew suspicious and foiled the escape bid. [end]
Mexican authorities discovered a large drug tunnel under construction a block from the U.S. border in Tijuana. Officials said the tunnel, found Tuesday, was more than 60 feet deep and 10 feet in diameter. They said it ran under a removable concrete floor in an empty warehouse next to a home near Otay Mesa, a border crossing for trucks. Officials said the tunnel had not yet crossed into U.S. territory. Authorities were searching for the owner of the property. [end]
His Anti-Narcotics Drive Is Drawing Applause From Washington It was the first time in Mexico that television cameras were allowed inside a military courtroom, and viewers got an eyeful. Newscasts aired clips of the trial of two army generals accused of using military aircraft to help drug traffickers move cocaine and marijuana through Mexico to the U.S. On Nov. 1, General Francisco Quiros and Brigadier General Arturo Acosta were stripped of their rank and handed 15- and 16-year prison sentences, respectively. [continues 705 words]
Ex-President's Brother Calls Funds Legitimate MEXICO CITY - More than $100 million is sitting frozen in a Swiss bank account once controlled by Ra=FAl Salinas de Gortari, the brother of a former president of Mexico. Now, after seven years, the source of those millions may become clear. Wednesday, Swiss officials gave Mexico's government thousands of pages of files from a long but unresolved money-laundering investigation of the Salinas account. No one -- not the Swiss, nor the Mexicans, nor American officials -- has ever figured out the origin of the money. [continues 328 words]
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico (AP) - Lawmakers from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border met in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo on Friday to discuss the Rio Grande water fight, drug-related violence and other bilateral issues. The third annual legislative border forum brought together 46 lawmakers from the 10 Mexican and U.S. states along the 2,000-mile international line stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. From the United States, eight legislators arrived -- three from New Mexico, two from California, two from Arizona, and one from Texas. [continues 411 words]
States Along Border Discuss Violence, Rio Grande Water NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Lawmakers from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border met in this Mexican border city Friday to discuss the Rio Grande water fight, drug-related violence and other issues. The third annual legislative border forum brought together 46 lawmakers from the 10 Mexican and U.S. states along the 2,000-mile international line stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. From the United States, eight legislators participated - three from New Mexico, two from California, two from Arizona and one from Texas. [continues 309 words]
MEXICO CITY -- A judge has sentenced a former Mexican army major to 60 years in prison, an unusually heavy sentence, for helping drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes escape capture, the Justice Department said Friday in a statement. Victor Soto Conde was discharged from the army and fined $38,000 as part of the same sentence for organized crime drug trafficking and money laundering. Soto used his inside knowledge of army operations to tip off Carrillo about a raid to capture him at the wedding of his sister in the northern state of Sinaloa. [continues 57 words]
Mexican drug lord has been cleared in the 1993 slaying of a Roman Catholic cardinal, a federal judge said. Judge Humberto Venancio Pineda upheld the ruling of a previous court, which threw out charges that Benjamin Arellano Felix ordered the killing of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo due to lack of evidence. Posadas Ocampo was killed in May 1993 at Guadalajara's airport. Investigators concluded that a gang of drug traffickers confused his luxury car with that of a rival they were trying to ambush. [end]
MEXICO CITY - A federal court today cleared Benjamin Arellano Felix, the reputed boss of Mexico's biggest drug cartel, of charges that he staged a 1993 gun battle that killed a Roman Catholic cardinal. The decision releases Mr. Arellano, 48, from responsibility for a crime that outraged this devoutly Catholic nation. It also dims hopes that Mexican officials will win justice in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo. Mr. Arellano's arrest by Mexican officials in March was considered a major victory against drug trafficking. Since then, courts have cleared Mr. Arellano in three of the six indictments filed by Mexican prosecutors. [continues 338 words]
Ambitious `No Tolerance' Policy Targets Dealers, Urges Prevention MEXICO CITY - Mexico is finally acknowledging that, like its neighbor to the north, it has a drug problem. Mexicans, too, are using marijuana, cocaine, heroin and amphetamines, and the government says drug use has doubled in the last decade. President Vicente Fox last week announced an ambitious ``no tolerance'' war on drugs that targets small-time drug dealers and implements educational and prevention programs. ``We want . . . young people to say no to drugs. To say yes to sports, study, culture,'' Fox said in a speech Monday to initiate the National Program for Drug Control. [continues 585 words]
President Touts Gains Against Cartels But Declares Substance Abuse A Destructive Problem. MEXICO CITY -- Boasting success in fighting "big fish" drug traffickers and high-level government corruption, President Vicente Fox is now targeting small-time dealers in order to combat drug consumption in Mexico, a problem that officials say is spiraling out of control. In an address Monday unveiling his anti-drug program and in his weekly radio address Saturday, Fox said he would soon ask Mexico's Congress to pass laws allowing municipal and state police to arrest drug dealers, a power that currently resides only with federal law enforcement officials. [continues 448 words]
MEXICO CITY - A military court on Friday convicted two generals of aiding drug smugglers, concluding a high-profile case aimed at cracking down on Mexico's drug trade. The five-general panel convicted Gen. Francisco Quiros and Brig. Gen. Arturo Acosta of protecting cocaine and marijuana shipments for drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in 1997 after undergoing plastic surgery. It sentenced Quiros to 16 years in prison and Acosta to 15. They have already served two years. The court cleared the men of another charge of criminal association. [continues 238 words]
"I'm proud of my country," said Ethan Nadelmann this past Wednesday at a talk at the Center for Investigation and Economic Teachings (CIDE, in its Spanish initials), a small institute on the outskirts of Mexico City. "But do you remember that Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire? I unfortunately do regard my government as an evil empire of drug prohibition. We are a country that for almost 100 years has aggressively pursued a policy of prohibition." [continues 1329 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Mexico, long focused on the war against top drug lords and cartels that smuggle narcotics to the United States, must do more to curb its own fast-rising drug-use and addiction rates, President Vicente Fox said Saturday. Two days before he is scheduled to unveil his government's aggressive, five-year anti-drug strategy, Fox said the new plan will push for improved drug treatment and prevention programs nationwide and work to impose tougher punishments for those caught selling drugs on Mexico's streets. [continues 397 words]
Far-Reaching Effort To Target Supply, Demand MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox pledged Monday to launch an all-out war on the drug trade, saying his administration would go beyond nabbing drug lords and take on drug consumption and production in Mexico. Mexico has long been a haven for drug smugglers moving their goods into the United States. But since Fox took office two years ago, his administration has arrested several high-profile cartel leaders -- including one of the country's most-wanted criminals, Benjamin Arellano Felix. [continues 497 words]
MEXICO CITY -- President Vicente Fox pledged Monday to launch an all-out war on the drug trade, saying his administration would go beyond nabbing drug lords and take on drug consumption and production in Mexico. Mexico has long been a haven for drug smugglers moving their goods into the United States. But since Fox took office two years ago, his administration has arrested several high-profile cartel leaders--including one of the country's most-wanted criminals, Benjamin Arellano Felix. The president said Monday that officials must do more to halt the growing problem of drug abuse and cultivation in Mexico. [continues 479 words]
MEXICO CITY - This country, long-focused on the war against top drug lords and cartels that smuggle narcotics to the United States, must do more to curb its own fast-rising drug-use and addiction rates, President Vicente Fox said Saturday. Two days before he's scheduled to unveil his government's aggressive, five-year anti-drug strategy, Fox said the new plan will push for improved drug treatment and prevention programs nationwide and work to impose tougher punishments for those caught selling drugs on Mexico's streets. [continues 199 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexico, long-focused on the war against drug lords and cartels that smuggle narcotics to the United States, must do more to curb its own fast-rising drug-use, President Vicente Fox said Saturday. Two days before he is scheduled to unveil a five-year anti-drug strategy, Fox said the new plan will push for improved drug treatment and prevention programs and work to impose tougher punishments for those caught selling drugs on Mexico's streets. "In the past they talked about drug production and smuggling to the large market in the United States," Fox said in his weekly radio address. "But now the problem is hitting much closer to home because it affects our children, our young people." [continues 133 words]
MEXICO CITY -- President Vicente Fox pledged Monday to launch an all-out war on the drug trade, saying his administration would go beyond nabbing drug lords and take on drug consumption and production in Mexico. Mexico has long been a haven for drug smugglers moving their goods into the United States. But since Fox took office two years ago, his administration has arrested several high-profile cartel leaders -- including one of the country's most-wanted criminals, Benjamin Arellano Felix. The president said Monday that officials must do more to halt the growing problem of drug abuse and cultivation in Mexico. [continues 472 words]
Mexico, long-focused on the war against drug lords and cartels that smuggle narcotics to the United States, must do more to curb its own fast-rising drug use, President Vicente Fox said Saturday. Two days before he is scheduled to unveil a five-year anti-drug strategy, Fox said the new plan will push for improved drug treatment and prevention programs and work to impose tougher punishments for those caught selling drugs on Mexico's streets. Mexican drug use is still well below U.S. levels, but Fox said Mexico's past emphasis on busting up major smuggling gangs that move drugs across the border has forced smugglers to cultivate a market at home. [end]
Officers Protected Major Drug Cartel MEXICO CITY - In a high-profile case, two Mexican generals were convicted Friday of protecting the drug-trafficking operation of the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the ``Lord of the Skies.'' Arturo Acosta and Francisco Quiros Hermosillo were sentenced to 15 years and 16 years, respectively. The military court found that they received cars, money and jewelry from Carrillo Fuentes, who ran the Juarez cartel. Carrillo Fuentes died in a Mexico City hospital in the fall of 1997 after a botched attempt to alter his appearance through plastic surgery. [continues 250 words]
MEXICO CITY -- A military court Friday convicted two generals of aiding drug smugglers, concluding a high-profile case aimed at cracking down on Mexico's drug trade. The five-general panel convicted Gen. Francisco Quiros and Brig. Gen. Arturo Acosta of protecting cocaine and marijuana shipments for drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who died in 1997 after undergoing plastic surgery. It sentenced Quiros to 16 years in prison and Acosta to 15. They have already served two years. The court cleared the men of another charge of criminal association. [continues 91 words]
Officials Admit They've Seen No Slowdown Since His March Arrest, Jailing ALMOLOYA DE JUAREZ, Mexico - Benjamin Arellano Felix, accused of running Mexico's most ruthless drug cartel, said the United States has lost its war on drugs and that violent trafficking gangs will thrive as long as Americans keep buying marijuana, cocaine and heroin. "It would stop being a business if the United States didn't want drugs," Mr. Arellano said Tuesday, in his first interview with the U.S. media, at La Palma maximum security federal prison. Mexican authorities hope to keep him there for the rest of his life. [continues 347 words]
ALMOLOYA DE JUAREZ, Mexico -- Benjamin Arellano Felix, the man accused of running Mexico's most ruthless drug cartel, said the United States has already lost its war on drugs and that violent trafficking gangs will thrive as long as Americans keep buying marijuana, cocaine and heroin. "It would stop being a business if the United States didn't want drugs," Arellano said Tuesday during a rare interview in the La Palma maximum-security federal prison here, where Mexican authorities hope to keep him for life. [continues 163 words]
Mexican officials said Monday they had arrested 25 people who infiltrated the army, the federal police and the attorney general's office on behalf of some of the nation's most powerful drug kingpins. The arrests were the first such case under President Vicente Fox. They suggest that despite the recent jailing of leading figures from every one of the nation's major drug gangs, the cartels retain the money and the power to corrupt Mexico's government. The attorney general, Rafael Macedo de la Concha, said "corrupt public servants" were at the heart of a network that had been stealing secrets from the government and selling them to the drug cartels since 1996. [end]
Program Begins In Mexico City Despite Some Opposition MEXICO CITY (AP)- A Mexico City middle school has started a pilot program to test students for drugs via urine samples, a move that has drawn mixed reactions, local media reported Tuesday. Proponents of the tests - a group of parents, a conservative local legislator and the school's administrators - said the program should be extended to schools throughout Mexico, where drug use is still below U.S. levels but is rising fast. Recent programs in which student's backpacks were searched for weapons and drugs were called ineffective and an invasion of privacy by critics and human rights leaders worried new drug testing programs would unfairly target poor and Indian children. [continues 197 words]
MEXICO CITY, Oct. 21 - Mexican officials said today that they had arrested 25 people who infiltrated the army, the federal police and the attorney general's office on behalf of some of the nation's most powerful drug kingpins. The arrests were the first case of its kind under President Vicente Fox. They suggest that despite the recent jailing of leading figures from all the nation's major drug gangs, the cartels retain the money and the power to corrupt Mexico's government. [continues 465 words]
MEXICO CITY -- About 600 soldiers have been detained for 11 days and tortured during an investigation into alleged links to drug traffickers, a human-rights group alleged yesterday. The soldiers are being held in facilities in Guamuchil, Sinaloa, 680 miles northwest of Mexico City, said Benjamin Laureano Luna, president of the Mexican Front for Human Rights. "They have been confined to the barracks, cut off from communication and subjected to torture and cruel and degrading treatment," Luna said. Officials from the Department of Defense would not confirm or deny the detentions or comment on the allegations of abuse. [continues 111 words]
MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican army will probably disband an anti-drug battalion of soldiers in Sinaloa state for suspected involvement in drug trafficking, a setback for officials who favor using the military to fight the illegal trade. The unit of 600 soldiers was confined to quarters in Guamuchil in northern Sinaloa this month and searched after the National Defense Ministry received tips that the unit's involvement in the anti-drug fight had been compromised. National Defense Secretary Gen. Ricardo Vega Garcia acknowledged on television this week that members of the unit are being investigated on suspicion of drug smuggling and possession. Of the 48 soldiers directly implicated, 40 tested positive for drug use and an unspecified number were found in possession of "sums of money they couldn't justify," he said. [continues 430 words]
Government Holds 48 Soldiers, Could Disband Entire Unit MEXICO CITY -- The Mexican government may dismantle a 600-soldier army battalion based in northwestern Sinaloa state after discovering evidence linking dozens of its members to narcotics trafficking. "A unit can no longer function after being contaminated like this one," Mexico's defense minister, Gen. Gerardo Vega Garcia, said during an interview on national television late Monday night. "The unit will probably be disbanded and something else formed to replace it." A search of the 65th Infantry Battalion's barracks has uncovered stashes of cash and marijuana, Vega Garcia said. He added that 48 soldiers have been detained on suspicion of protecting growers of marijuana and opium poppies, the raw material for heroin, in the mountainous region they patrolled. [continues 681 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP) - About 600 Mexican soldiers have been detained for 11 days and tortured during an investigation into alleged links to drug traffickers, a human-rights group alleged Monday. The soldiers are being held in facilities in the city of Guamuchil, Sinaloa, 680 miles northwest of Mexico City, said Benjamin Laureano Luna, president of the nongovernmental Mexican Front for Human Rights. "They have been confined to the barracks, cut off from communication and subjected to torture and cruel and degrading treatment," Luna said in a telephone interview. [continues 193 words]
Families Claim Torture MEXICO CITY -- About 600 Mexican soldiers have been detained for 11 days and subject to torture during an investigation into alleged links to drug traffickers, a human rights group alleged Monday. The soldiers of the 65th Infantry Battalion are being held in facilities in the city of Guamuchil, Sinaloa, 1,100 kilometers (680 miles) northwest of Mexico City, said Benjamin Laureano Luna, president of the non-governmental Mexican Front for Human Rights. "They have been confined to the barracks, cut off from communication and subjected to torture and cruel and degrading treatment," Luna said in a telephone interview. [continues 197 words]
MONTERREY, Nuevo Leon - Disputes between drug cartels, the capture of several kingpins and the settling of scores in turf disputes have turned this wealthy industrialized city into the bloodiest battleground of Mexico's narcotics wars. Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha acknowledged that the Gulf Cartel, currently headed by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, has gained a foothold in the northern state of Nuevo Leon, of which Monterrey is the capital. One of the country's most prosperous cities, Monterrey has become a haven for druglords vying for territory, said Roberto Benavides, political science department head at the University of Nuevo Leon. [continues 459 words]
Part Three of Five SONOYTA, Mexico - This isolated area of the U.S.-Mexico border, a 100- mile-wide stretch of wild desert between the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and Coronado National Forest, has become one of America's newest drug corridors. Top Stories Mexican drug lords, backed by corrupt Mexican military officers and police officials, will move tons of marijuana, cocaine and heroin this year over rugged desert trails to accomplices in Phoenix and Tucson for shipment to willing buyers throughout the United States. [continues 1250 words]
Music: Officials Are Trying to Ban the Mexican Equivalent of Gangsta Rap, Saying It Is a Bad Influence. TIJUANA -- It was supposed to be the day the music died. In an elegant hotel salon, the governor of Baja California gathered with guests of honor to witness a solemn promise to purge the state's radio airwaves of "narco-ballads"--songs about narcotics traffickers--a genre as popular, gory, and hard to banish as gangsta rap. "Narco-ballads set a bad example for the younger generation," said Mario Enrique Mayans Concha, the sober, suited president of the Baja California chapter of Mexico's Chamber of Radio and Television Industry, who has presided over the 2-month-old ban. [continues 1466 words]
Blacklisting Of Baja Hotel, Other Conflicts Stalling Cooperation ROSARITO, Mexico - It was supposed to be an example of how well the United States and Mexico were waging the war together on illegal drugs. Instead, Rosarito's Oasis Hotel and Convention Center, on a wide swath of smooth beach 15 miles south of Tijuana, represents one of the cracks that have emerged on the unified front against traffickers. Last winter, the Oasis and seven other Baja California companies allegedly run by the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug organization were blacklisted. American officials - led by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the U.S. Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets - were so convinced that the hotel laundered drug money that they openly warned Americans against visiting or investing in the hotel. [continues 1425 words]
Not long ago Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, was a peaceful border community. But in recent years drug-related violence has spun out of control in Laredo's sister city. This year alone, more than three dozen people have been killed in drug-related incidents and 17 have disappeared in this city of half a million people, according to the Laredo Morning Times. With no end in sight to the violence, the government of President Vicente Fox has sent more than 300 federal agents and an untold number of soldiers to restore law and order. [continues 247 words]
Two of the most powerful Mexican drug cartels are now being led by women, a leading drug investigator said. Special prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos told the newspaper La Jornada that the Arellano Felix cartel in the border town of Tijuana is being led by Enedina Arellano Felix after the arrest of her brother Benjamin and the death of sibling Ramon at the beginning of the year. A similar change in leadership has occurred in a cartel in Colima after the arrests of brothers Luis, Jesus and Adan Amezcua, the prosecutor said. [continues 85 words]
MEXICO CITY -- Women are now in charge of two of Mexico's biggest drug cartels, a high-ranking police commander was quoted Wednesday as saying. In an interview published in La Jornada daily, the head of the attorney general's organized crime unit (UEDO), Joe Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, said control of the Tijuana and Colima cartels, run by the Arellano Felix and Amezcua Contreras families, respectively, has been turned over to the sisters of the former leaders who have either been imprisoned or killed. [continues 210 words]
MONTERREY, Mexico - A former federal police commander was gunned down outside his home in northern Mexico, marking the 10th execution-style slaying in the past month in Nuevo Leon state. Ricardo Ruben Puente, 46, was shot four times after he and his wife pulled up to their home Saturday night in the affluent city of San Pedro. His wife, who was getting out of the car at the time, was not injured, authorities said. Police said the killing appeared to be a drug hit. Authorities had made no arrests. [continues 130 words]
Address Today May Emphasize Fiscal Successes MEXICO CITY - President Vicente Fox seemed unstoppable two years ago when he toppled Mexico's authoritarian political machine. He boasted he could end a seven-year rebel conflict in 15 minutes, root out endemic corruption and modernize poor farming villages. But the energetic leader with a 6-foot-5 frame has been humbled, admitting he may have set hopes too high. As he prepares for his state-of-the-nation address today, he is telling Mexicans that building a democracy takes time. [continues 519 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico - There is no difference between the U.S. war on drugs and its war on terror because a large chunk of the dlrs 60 billion Americans spend on illicit drugs each year goes to fund terrorist groups, U.S. Drug Czar John P. Walters said Friday. Visiting the violent border city of Tijuana to participate in a forum on drug-related violence against journalists, Walters said that Mexico's largest drug smuggling syndicate, the Arellano Felix Organization, has financial ties to the guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and to al-Qaida. [continues 327 words]
Under their breaths, Mexican leaders are voicing doubts about three American players in the flap over the execution of Javier Suarez. Three names have taken on a dubious flavor in the dispute, those of Rick Perry, Tony Garza and George W. Bush. Suarez, a native of Piedras Negras who was put to death earlier this month in Huntsville, was, as one Mexican official says, no Nicola Sacco or Bartolomeo Vanzetti. He apparently was a small-time drug dealer who, by his own confession, shot and killed a Dallas undercover officer. [continues 1107 words]
The combination has brought unusual and uncomfortable exposure to a military that has spent most of the past half century walled off from the scrutiny of politicians, reporters and the public. "Politics is unfamiliar terrain for us," said Gen. Alvaro Vallarta, who is on leave from the army while serving as a congressman. "The army doesn't want to get into the political game." Unusual for Latin America, Mexico's 240,000-strong military has largely kept out of politics since the 1940s. [continues 116 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico - The headquarters from which Jesus Blancornelas wages war on the Arellano-Felix drug cartel is intentionally understated: an average-looking house in a middle-class barrio with a small sign near the gate announcing Zeta Magazine. It's the three or four "guaruras," or bodyguards, hanging around just outside, with their mirrored shades and alert postures, that give one pause. They have good reason to be there. For 17 years, Blancornelas has fought with words the men who use guns to forge a path for much of the marijuana and cocaine that reaches the United States through the California-Mexico border. His target and self-admitted obsession is the powerful Arellano-Felix drug cartel, based in Tijuana and currently considered the largest and best- organized drug organization in Mexico. [continues 651 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico - The high-profile capture in recent months of an Arellano-Felix drug cartel capo, and the death of his equally powerful brother, have forced a streamlining of the organization but not a weakening, activists and leaders here say. "This is a very heavy atmosphere," said Raul Ramirez Baena, human rights prosecutor here. "It is permeated with the distribution and traffic in drugs." U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials have estimated that the Arellano-Felix organization, known as the Tijuana cartel and the largest drug organization in Mexico, is responsible for up to 40 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States. [continues 1165 words]
Fox's Reforms Haven't Changed Way Of Life In Crime-Ridden Region CULIACÁN, Sinaloa - Candelario Sánchez Vega and José Luis González swore they were simple farmers. But in the eyes of police here, the automatic weapons and boxes of ammunition they were carrying marked them as gunmen on their way to a hit. That was a nice bust for a harried state police force that has found it difficult to keep up with rampant drug-related crime in Sinaloa, one of the most violent places in Mexico. It got better when the pair led authorities to an even larger stash: 10 weapons - six of them automatic rifles - boxes of ammunition, and bulletproof vests, caps and canteens belonging to federal police agencies. [continues 1609 words]
Mexico Relocates Inmates, Evicts Families From Notorious Tijuana Prison TIJUANA, Mexico -- Under cover of predawn darkness, 2,000 prisoners were handcuffed and moved out of La Mesa penitentiary surrounded by heavily armed police and soldiers today as the Mexican government sought to regain control over one of North America's most notorious prisons. With helicopters flying overhead as an extra precaution, the most dangerous convicted murderers, drug traffickers and other convicts from La Mesa were herded onto buses and trucks and driven to a new prison in El Hongo, a small town 50 miles east of Tijuana just south of the border with California. [continues 971 words]
Inside Mexico
