MEXICO CITY, May 27 -- Authorities today announced the arrest of a major drug trafficker they said was responsible for moving at least a ton of cocaine a month into the United States. Mexican soldiers captured Jesus Albino Quintero Meraz, known as "Big Ears," early Sunday in the Caribbean port city of Veracruz. Quintero was arrested with six other men, including a federal police officer accused of providing protection to his operations since 1996. The arrest is the latest in a string of blows that Mexican authorities have dealt in recent months to this country's powerful drug cartels, including the arrest in March of Benjamin Arellano Felix, leader of the violent Tijuana cartel that bears his family name. [continues 225 words]
Arrests Are Disrupting Cartels' Chains Of Command MEXICO CITY - Four years ago, U.S. intelligence officers gave their Mexican counterparts the address and home telephone for Jes=FAs Albino Quintero Meraz, a man they believed was shipping tons of Colombian cocaine from the state of Quintana Roo, on Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, to the United States. But nothing happened. In those days, Quintana Roo was a veritable narco-state. Authorities from the governor down through the ranks of the police were bought and paid for by Quintero and his associates in the Juarez-based cartel, U.S. and Mexican officials say, giving them control over much of the multibillion-dollar drug trade on the Gulf of Mexico. [continues 661 words]
Drug Cartels Feel Crackdown's Force PUEBLA, Mexico -- When they finally caught up with him, the undercover soldiers did not find Benjamin Arellano living like a rich drug capo presumably lives, in luxury and behind a protective cordon of vicious gunmen. Instead, the head of the cartel that controls much of the cocaine traffic into the United States was hiding in an unimpressive yellow house in this quiet colonial town, hundreds of miles from his Tijuana base. He was alone except for his family and one bodyguard. [continues 1400 words]
Crime: A Mexican Court Denies a U.S. Request, Saying a Guarantee That the Alleged 'Meth King' Would Not Face a Life Term is Insufficient. MEXICO CITY -- In a blow to U.S. efforts to extradite suspected drug kingpins, a Mexican court has denied prosecutors' request to transport Jesus Amezcua to a San Diego federal district court where he faces drug trafficking charges. The case has been closely watched by law enforcement officials on both sides of the border since Amezcua's arrest in Mexico City in June 1998 as he consulted with a Cuban Santeria guru. U.S. justice officials have labeled Amezcua and his two brothers "the meth kings of this hemisphere." [continues 505 words]
MEXICO CITY -- Officials have arrested three members of the Gulf drug organization, the latest blow to Mexico's major drug gangs. Mexicans Cesar Cuauhtemoc Sanchez and Sergio Amadeo Benavides, as well as Colombian Ruben Villa Garcia were arrested Sunday during an army operation in Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, Texas, officials said. Officials also seized weapons, computers, vehicles and drugs during the operation, according to a statement released by Mexico's secretary of defense. The arrests were the latest blow to the Gulf cartel, led by Osiel Cardenas. [continues 88 words]
MEXICO CITY -(AP)- Mexican Navy officials helped protect the Pacific Coast cocaine-shipping routes of a former major drug cartel in exchange for large payoffs, a Mexican newspaper reported Sunday. The operatives of the Tijuana drug organization -- most of whom now are in prison or dead -- paid officers $250,000 for each shipment of Colombian cocaine they received, then shipped to the United States, the Reforma newspaper said, citing police documents. The report also said that from 1998 to 2000, the cartel received information on the routes of U.S. anti-narcotics agents along the coast. [continues 128 words]
A Tijuana police officer was arrested this week, accused of trying to smuggle 5 kilos of methamphetamine into the United States, officials said Friday. Juan Francisco Garcia Peralta was detained by U.S. Customs officials at the San Ysidro port of entry Wednesday afternoon after a drug-sniffing dog alerted agents to the narcotics hidden in the police officer's van, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the San Diego office of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. The INS said inspectors also found $27,000 hidden inside the vehicle's hood. Garcia, a patrol officer for the Tijuana Police Department's tourist division, has been on the force for five years. He remains in custody in San Diego and is scheduled to enter a plea May 30. [end]
Some Officials Say The Arellano Felix Drug Gang Has Killed 1,000 People To Assert Its Control. The Stories Of Two Victims Reveal Its Ruthlessness. TIJUANA -- Their killings were surgical, their brutality unspeakable, and their death toll on California's doorstep runs well into the hundreds. Many of their victims were symbolic, chosen for the message their slayings would send, and by all official accounts, the killing was fun. One victim was Jose "Pepe" Patino Moreno, a notably honest man who worked amid the corruption of Mexico's counternarcotics squads. The fearless, soft-spoken prosecutor who had won rare trust from U.S. law enforcement was found in a steep ravine on the road to Tecate. His head had been crushed by an industrial press; his 47-year-old body was so broken it felt like a bag of ice cubes when they lifted it. [continues 1324 words]
TECATE, Mexico - It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug - except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border believe that five of them started operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the underground route. [continues 539 words]
LAREDO -- Mexican authorities Tuesday identified the bullet-riddled body found across the Rio Grande from Weslaco as that of reputed Nuevo Laredo drug lord Dionisio Roman Garcia Sanchez. Garcia's body was found on a ranch near Nuevo Progreso, a shopping and entertainment mecca for winter Texans. Stripped to his underwear, the 46-year-old Garcia had been shot six times in the head and back, Mexican newspapers reported. Law enforcement authorities theorized rival drug traffickers killed Garcia and that his death may have been ordered by Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the Gulf Cartel's reputed leader. [continues 208 words]
TECATE, Mexico - It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug - except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border believe five of them started operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the underground route. [continues 608 words]
Tight Security Sends Crime Underground TECATE, Mexico - It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug - except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000- mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border said they believe five started operating after Sept. 11. [continues 442 words]
TECATE, Mexico - It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug - except the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all of them thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border believe five of them started operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the underground route. [continues 395 words]
TECATE, Mexico (AP) -- It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug -- except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border believe five of them started operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the underground route. [continues 607 words]
More Secret Passages Between Mexico, U.S. As Borders Tighten After Sept. 11 Attacks TECATE, Mexico - It was a typical bedroom with long curtains and a plush, floral rug -- except that the fireplace wasn't just for keeping things cozy. When police removed the metal grill still holding charred logs, they found a secret tunnel to the United States. Over the past decade, officials have discovered at least 16 tunnels along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, all thought to be used for smuggling drugs. Six have been found since December, and federal law enforcement officials on both sides of the border say they believe that five of them started operating after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. This suggests to them that heightened U.S. border security is driving more smugglers to the underground route. [continues 488 words]
HUAUTLA DE JIMENEZ, Mexico, May 4 - This is the place that launched a million trips. Back of beyond in the mountains of northern Oaxaca, Huautla has had a far bigger impact on Western civilization than vice versa. Its valleys are a cornucopia of rare flora and fungi with strange powers, and its "magic mushrooms" ignited the psychedelic culture of the 1960's. The town has 35,000 people, two restaurants, one bar, called the Cup of Forgetfulness, and not a single Lava lamp. But without Huautla (pronounced WOW-tla), a generation of Americans might never have turned on, dropped out or played a Beatles record backward. [continues 843 words]
The governors of four Mexican states bordering the United States are thinking about decriminalizing marijuana. The governor of Chihuahua, Patricio Martinez, said the idea arose because "what has been done to date hasn't worked, because drug consumption keeps rising, in spite of the wars waged against it." Much of the marijuana sold in the United States is grown in Mexico and trucked across the border. [end]
TIJUANA, Mexico -- The police chief of this notorious border town, Carlos Otal Namur, swears that he is just a simple street cop, and an honest one at that. The work of his 1,300 officers is keeping order outside the strip joints along Avenida Revolucion, making sure drunken American tourists don't get into fights, solving car thefts, responding to the occasional gunfight. Sometimes they bust drug dealers on the street, he said, but they never investigate or have dealings with the major drug cartels. [continues 972 words]
Gunmen killed eight men and wounded six others in a remote mountain area known for drug trafficking, authorities said. The motive for the ambush early Wednesday at Bastantita, in the northern mountains of Durango, was unclear. A newspaper, Milenio, reported that snipers in nearby hills shot the workers while they drove in a pickup truck to a plantation of poppies used in the production of heroin and opium. [end]
TIJUANA, Mexico - Last summer, Benjamin Arellano Felix, chief of the multibillion-dollar cocaine cartel that bears his name, was drinking tequila with senior Mexican police officials long in his pay. That party is over. Mexico has jailed Mr. Arellano Felix and many of his top confederates, who wielded more power and influence in the drug trade from Mexico into the United States than any other group. Bringing down the Arellano Felix dons was the biggest victory in years in a bloody drug war Mexico had seemed certain to lose. The arrests capped a string of successes that also nabbed top dealers from all the major Mexican syndicates. [continues 1274 words]
Mexican Lawyer Has Survived 4 Plots To Kill Her Monterrey, Mexico --- She doesn't look like a likely target for assassination. Silvia Raquenel Villanueva wears polyester pantsuits and oversized, matronly glasses. Thick gold crucifixes dangle around her neck, and she presses religious pamphlets into visitors' hands like a mother worried about souls going astray. But Villanueva, whose body is scarred by bullets, knows what it's like to walk in the shadow of death. The criminal attorney has nearly been killed four times because, authorities believe, she has been involved in the prosecution of some of the biggest drug smugglers wanted in Mexico and the United States. [continues 760 words]
MEXICO CITY, April 18 -- Tijuana's police commander, detained last week along with 40 other officers suspected of drug corruption, was back on the job today, although federal prosecutors have not publicly cleared him and President Vicente Fox says he is still being investigated. Prosecutors have said all the officers detained last week are still under suspicion. Only 9 of the 41 have been kept in jail and charged with taking payoffs from drug traffickers. The rest have been freed, and at least one official, the state attorney general of Baja California, Antonio Martinez, contends that "they are not guilty of anything." Mr. Martinez said the Tijuana commander, Carlos Otal, had been privately exonerated by prosecutors. [continues 300 words]
State officials and military officers watch as more than 11 tons of marijuana, 100 pounds of cocaine and some heroin and psychotropic drugs are set ablaze. The drugs were burned last week at the Octava Zona Militar de Tamaulipas in Reynosa, Mexico. MEXICO CITY -- In this city's grandest plaza, where the nation's army annually flaunts its might and where gloomy peasants come to demand better lives, President Vicente Fox has taken a turn in the spotlight. A recent ceremony at the Zocalo, the sprawling historic plaza, was a platform to underscore Fox's determination in the war on drugs. [continues 1265 words]
MEXICO CITY - Forty-one Baja California policemen, including the Tijuana police chief, were arrested in an elaborate sting operation and flown to the capital under suspicion of involvement in the Arellano Felix drug cartel, Mexican authorities said yesterday. The suspects were lured to the Tecate police academy Wednesday under the pretense of a firearms check. After all had turned over their weapons, Mexican army units and federal officers swooped in and made the arrests from about 200 officers present. There was no resistance. Among those arrested was Tijuana's police chief, Carlos Otal Namur, and one of his deputies, Jesus Jacobo Aguirre. An assistant state prosecutor, Rogelio Delgado Neri, also was arrested. [end]
MEXICO CITY -- Federal authorities arrested 41 law enforcement officers today, including the police chief of Tijuana, in a continuing crackdown on corruption fueled by one of Mexico's biggest drug cartels. The arrests of the police chief, Carlos Otal, 20 Tijuana officers and 20 state police officers and municipal commanders from Baja California State was one of the biggest single sweeps of uniformed suspects in decades, officials said. In an unusual series of successes in the last year, Mexico has arrested senior members of four major drug cartels that have corrupted and controlled sectors of federal and local law enforcement, as well as the Mexican military, since the 1980's. [continues 447 words]
Mexican soldiers, military police and federal prosecutors arrested nearly 40 top government officials during a raid on a state police academy near Tijuana, taking into custody that city's police chief and the commandant of the State Judicial Police in Tijuana. Those arrested during the Thursday raid, which included the assistant state attorney general of Baja California, were charged with corruption and face pending trials in what U.S. authorities described as a crackdown by Mexican President Vicente Fox on drug trafficking. [continues 409 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- The Tijuana police chief and about 120 other state and city law enforcement officers from two Baja California border cities were arrested yesterday, the state governor's office said. The surprise operation appeared to be part of President Vicente Fox's crackdown on drug smuggling and police corruption. The federal attorney general's office did not return phone calls seeking comment. Army and federal police raided the state police academy in Tecate, about 65 miles east of Tijuana, where officers were holding a meeting on their licenses to carry arms. The police were ordered to turn over their weapons and credentials and placed under arrest, said Governor Eugenio Elorduy of Baja California. It was unclear what charges the officers faced. [continues 260 words]
The chief of police in the Mexican border city of Tijuana and about 40 other officers have been arrested for drug-related corruption. They were taken into custody at a police academy as the result of an elaborate sting operation. About 200 police officers from the border state of Baja California were called to the academy in Tecate on Wednesday, supposedly for weapons inspection and training. As they were settling down to their lessons, soldiers and federal police officers rushed into the classrooms and marched everybody outside. About 40 people were arrested and flown to Mexico City. [continues 473 words]
Latin America: Army, Federal Force Make the Arrests as Part of the Mexican Government's Crackdown on Drug- Related Corruption. MEXICO CITY -- The Tijuana police chief and about 40 other Baja California state and local police officers were arrested by Mexican army units and special federal police in a surprise operation at a Tecate police academy Wednesday as part of the Mexican government's crackdown on drug-related corruption. Details of the morning raid remained sketchy, but Baja California Gov. Eugenio Elorduy Walther confirmed the operation at a news conference. The governor's office and the Tijuana mayor's office said Tijuana Police Chief Carlos Otal Namur was among those arrested. [continues 523 words]
The Tijuana police chief and about 120 other state and city law enforcement officers from two Baja California border cities were arrested Wednesday, the state governor's office said. The surprise operation appeared to be part of President Vicente Fox's crackdown on drug smuggling and police corruption. Army and federal police raided the state police academy in Tecate, about 65 miles east of Tijuana, where officers were holding a meeting on their licenses to carry weapons. It was unclear what charges the officers faced. [end]
TIJUANA, Mexico -- The police officers were expecting to receive an evaluation of their work. Instead, soldiers and federal police stormed a meeting Wednesday at a state police academy in the border city of Tecate, ordering dozens of officers -- including Tijuana's police chief -- to hand over their guns and placing them under arrest. The Baja California governor's office said as many as 120 police were detained, and the federal government's Notimex news agency put the number at about 200. [continues 421 words]
MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's most ruthless drug lord was probably killed by a rival gang aided by corrupt police officers, not in a shoot-out with police as has been widely reported, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official. The official said Ramon Arellano Felix, the enforcer of the Tijuana drug cartel run by his family, is believed to have been forced to his knees and executed by gunmen on Feb. 10 in Mazatlan on Mexico's Pacific coast. [continues 319 words]
MEXICO CITY - Mexico's most ruthless drug lord probably was killed by a rival gang aided by corrupt police officers, not in a shoot-out with police as has been widely reported, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official. The official said Ramon Arellano Felix, the enforcer of the Tijuana drug cartel run by his family, is believed to have been executed by gunmen on Feb. 10 in Mazatlan on Mexico's Pacific coast. The death of Arellano Felix and the arrest of his brother, Benjamin Arellano Felix, on March 9 have been portrayed by President Vicente Fox and others as major victories for Mexican law enforcement. [continues 172 words]
Drugs: Surveillance Helped Mexican Police Seize The Head Of The Tijuana Cartel. A Judge Drops Some Charges. MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. government Friday acknowledged playing an important role in last month's capture of Benjamin Arellano Felix, an arrest that authorities on both sides of the border have hailed as crucial to efforts to dismantle the notorious Tijuana cartel. A high-ranking U.S. official who spoke on the condition he not be named said the March 9 arrest of the cartel's leader was facilitated by U.S. surveillance of cash couriers who move tens of thousands of dollars from Tijuana to the cartel's safe houses in Mexico City and Puebla. [continues 581 words]
MEXICO CITY -- U.S. officials believe Mexico's most violent drug lord was lured to a Pacific coast resort town and executed by police working for a rival drug trafficker, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said Friday. The comments refuted published reports that Ramon Arellano Felix was killed in a shootout with state police in Mazatlan. Speaking to reporters on the condition of anonymity, the official said U.S. agents helped Mexico find the other leader of the Tijuana cartel, Benjamin Arellano Felix, when they detected couriers carrying cash from Tijuana to Mexico City. The two events - -- Ramon's Feb. 10 death and Benjamin's arrest March 9 -- dealt a blow to Mexico's most feared cartel at a time when it was already struggling under pressure from rivals and big drug seizures by police. The official said U.S. prosecutors plan to file a request for Benjamin's extradition. However, he said, they would not seek a death sentence to avoid a dispute with Mexico, which refuses to extradite suspects who face that penalty. [end]
MEXICO CITY, April 5 -- Mexico's most ruthless drug lord likely was killed by a rival gang aided by corrupt police officers, not in a shoot-out with police as has been widely reported, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official. The official, who asked not to be identified but is familiar with the case, said Ramon Arellano Felix, the enforcer of the Tijuana drug cartel run by his family, is believed to have been forced to his knees and executed by gunmen on Feb. 10 in Mazatlan on Mexico's Pacific coast. [continues 426 words]
TOLUCA, Mexico (AP) - A judge dismissed charges that the accused head of Mexico's largest drug smuggling gang had a hand in the 1993 killing of a Roman Catholic cardinal. Judge Leopaldo Ceron said late Thursday that prosecutors failed to provide sufficient evidence that Benjamin Arellano Felix was involved in the slaying of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo, who died in a hail of gunfire at the airport in the western city of Guadalajara on May 24, 1993. In a court appearance Tuesday, Arellano Felix told one of Ceron's assistants that he "had nothing to do with" Posadas Ocampo's death. [continues 214 words]
Traffickers, Fearing Extradition, Lead Authorities To Bosses MEXICO CITY Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the country for two decades. More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent months in an anti-crime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges. The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, on March 9, and Adan Medrano, known as the Gulf cartel's operations chief, last Wednesday. [continues 278 words]
Crackdown: Adan Medrano's Arrest is the Latest Strike in the Government's Offensive Against Narcotics Rings. MEXICO CITY -- Mexican authorities claimed another trophy in their crackdown on drug bosses, arresting a man who they say is second in command of the Gulf cartel, a major heroin-, marijuana- and cocaine-smuggling ring based in the border state of Tamaulipas. Adan Medrano, believed to be the cartel's operations chief, was arrested Wednesday afternoon in Matamoros as he bought ice cream for a family member. He was armed with a gold-plated .38-caliber pistol but did not resist arrest. [continues 469 words]
MEXICO CITY, March 30 -- Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the country for two decades. More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent months, in an anticrime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges. The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, on March 9, and Adan Medrano Rodriguez, known as the Gulf cartel's operations chief, on March 27. [continues 524 words]
Capture Of Kingpins Has Loosened Gangs' Powerful Grip On Nation MEXICO CITY - Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the country for two decades. More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent months, in an anti-crime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges. The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, on March 9, and Adan Medrano Rodrguez, known as the gulf cartel's operations chief, on March 27. [continues 385 words]
Informants Have Led To The Capture, Arrest Of Dozens, Including A Gulf Cartel Leader MEXICO CITY - Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the country for two decades. More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent months, in an anticrime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges. The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, on March 9, and Adan Medrano Rodriguez, known as the Gulf cartel's operations chief, on March 27. [continues 281 words]
MEXICO CITY - Outgunned and outspent, the Mexican government is nonetheless scoring striking victories against the drug cartels that have corrupted the country for two decades. More than 20 of Mexico's most-wanted men have been arrested in recent months, in an anti-crime wave without real precedent. The accused drug lords are reputed to have controlled billions of dollars in cocaine and paid bribes to thousands of police officers, prosecutors and judges. The latest suspects to fall were Benjamin Arellano Felix, charged as the leader of the Tijuana drug cartel, and Adan Medrano Rodriguez, known as the Gulf cartel's operations chief. [continues 341 words]
U.S. Posted $2 Million Reward For Capture MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities Thursday announced the arrest of one of the country's most-wanted drug trafficking suspects, for whom the United States had offered a $2 million reward. Adan Medrano Rodriguez was detained by agents of Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation in the northern state of Tamaulipas on Wednesday night, Justice Department officials said. He was transferred early Thursday to Mexico City, where he is being detained. Medrano, the alleged right-hand man of presumed Gulf drug organization leader Osiel Cardenas, also was wanted by the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and Interpol on drug charges and for allegedly threatening federal agents in Texas. [continues 264 words]
MEXICO CITY -- In Mexico's latest strike against the country's powerful drug cartels, authorities on Thursday announced that they had arrested a top trafficker without a shot being fired. A team of army troops and federal agents seized Adan Medrano Rodriguez Wednesday afternoon on a street corner in the city of Matamoros, just across the border from Brownsville, officials of Mexico's justice department said. Medrano reportedly was on his way to pick up a new Chevrolet Suburban when he was confronted by the arresting troops and police. Officials said he was carrying a .38-caliber handgun but did not put up a fight. [continues 428 words]
MEXICO CITY, March 28 -- Adding to an extraordinary string of antidrug successes, Mexican authorities announced the arrest of a top lieutenant today in the cocaine trafficking organization known as the Gulf cartel. The suspect, Adan Medrano Rodriguez, 32, was wanted in the United States and Mexico on charges of drug conspiracy. He was last seen by the authorities in November 1999, when he confronted and nearly killed two agents, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Drug Enforcement Administration, during an armed standoff in the Mexican border town of Matamoros, south of Brownsville, Tex. [continues 252 words]
I'm not really a trend-setting guy, so imagine my surprise to discover that I was in at the start of a major trend in another culture. Back in the 1970s, my friends and I ate at Mi Casa, a Mexican restaurant on 24th Street in San Francisco, where I discovered a tune on the jukebox that I'd always play because I liked its title. I had no idea what the lyrics were, but "Contraband y Traicion" ("Contraband and Betrayal") gave a hint, and I thought the band's name, Los Tigres del Norte, was cool. So were the cheesy gunshots towards the end of the song. [continues 1007 words]
MONTERREY, Mexico -- The bodies of three men who were executed gangland-style were found Tuesday morning in Tijuana, raising fears that a bloody war for control over the drug-smuggling corridor on the U.S.-Mexico border may be underway. Although the three victims, whose ages were believed to be between 30 and 35, had not been identified as of late Tuesday, the slayings bore similarities with past drug killings. The victims had apparently been tortured. At least one was found with a plastic bag over his head, and the men's arms and legs were bound with gray duct tape. One of the dead had two bullet wounds, and the other two had apparently been beaten to death, Tijuana law enforcement sources said. A nervous Tijuana was rattled by gunfire Tuesday afternoon in the middle-class Los Olivos neighborhood, scene of past violent exchanges and killings. The gunfire was near the exclusive Hipodromo and Chapultepec areas, where the Arellano Felix cartel recruited many of its young assassins--called "narco juniors"--from the Tijuana elite. [continues 265 words]
With Arellano Felix Cartel Crippled, Officials Say Ismael Zambada May Be Poised To Fill The Void. MEXICO CITY -- If there is one man likely to fill the power vacuum that the crippling of the Arellano Felix cartel has created in the multibillion-dollar drug-trafficking trade, it is Ismael Zambada. A growing force in drug smuggling in northwestern Mexico, Zambada is the man Ramon Arellano Felix was thought to be gunning for when he himself was shot by police Feb. 10 in Mazatlan. The two were said to be sworn enemies, with Arellano Felix claiming Zambada had dodged a $20-million debt. [continues 786 words]
The death and arrest of two drug cartel leaders breaks up ring. MEXICO CITY - When President George Bush heads to Mexico this week to attend a UN conference with Mexico's President Vicente Fox, they'll have a major law enforcement achievement to celebrateUS and Canadainn. Late last week, Mexican authorities confirmed that the man gunned down during a Feb.10 police shootout in the western city of Mazatlan was Ramon Arellano Felix, the notoriously brutal enforcer of a Tijuana drug cartel he ran with his brother Benjamin. For years, a grainy photo of Ramon had appeared next to Osama bin Laden's on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. [continues 646 words]
Inside Mexico
