Drug trafficking is not as prevalent in Mexico as it was just a few years ago, a high-ranking member of President Vicente Fox's administration said Thursday in Albuquerque. Mexican Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Enrique Berruga Filloy, who was in New Mexico for a speaking engagement, credited the apparent change in trafficking to improved bilateral cooperation between the United States and Mexico. He said those efforts need to continue. "Three years ago, practically any news out of Mexico that appeared daily on television in the United States had to do with drug trafficking," Berruga said. "Today, not only is it difficult to find news about drug trafficking in Mexico, but when there are such reports, they're good news." [continues 231 words]
Cleanup: Leaders Of This Border Town Know It Will Take Years To Spruce Up Its Seedy Image, And Vendors Selling Marijuana Pipes Are The First To Go. TIJUANA, Mexico -- This is not a whispering kind of town. Vendors along Avenida Revolucion, the border town's main drag, spend much of their days advertising their wares, which range from Viagra to 85-cent draft beers, at the top of their lungs amid a confusing mix of shouted Spanish and English. But there is one thing that causes the vendors to lower their voices these days. [continues 935 words]
WASHINGTON - Mexico is chalking up "enormous successes" in battling narcotics trafficking, causing "a disruption that we have not seen before" in cocaine smuggling around the hemisphere, the White House drug czar said Tuesday. Mexico's sweeping actions against drug smuggling are forcing U.S. dealers to dilute the quality of cocaine on U.S. streets, said John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. The purity of street-level cocaine in the United States fell 9 percent last year, he said. [continues 669 words]
U.S. drug czar Asa Hutchinson said on Thursday that the George W. Bush administration is concerned that Mexican drug money could end up financing terrorist activities, Reforma daily reported. The head of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said there is a possibility that terrorist groups would ally themselves with organized crime groups in Mexico, as has been the case in Colombia. "Mexican drug traffickers have been the base of drug mobilization in Colombia and the U.S., and...three terrorist organizations in Colombia receive financing from narcotrafficking," Hutchinson was quoted by the daily. [continues 170 words]
MEXICO CITY -- A new breed of crime leaders seems to be taking over Mexico's drug trade as the country's biggest gang reorganizes itself, U.S. and Mexican investigators say. In contrast to the brutal and flamboyant kingpins of the past, the new bosses are said to be keen on building alliances among gangs, delegating some of their organizations' responsibilities to key underlings and staying out of the limelight. The result likely will be a multibillion-dollar illicit industry that's less violent - but more efficient and even harder to stop, officials say. [continues 870 words]
Mexican Stations Fear Government Backlash Over Hit MONTERREY, Mexico - The latest accordion-driven hit by Los Tigres del Norte pounds from cantina jukeboxes and is belted out by street musicians, but you won't hear it on the radio. The group -- which drew fire in the past for songs about drug traffickers -- is now mocking President Vicente Fox. "Oh, now that change has come, we can all toast it with a glass of Coca-Cola," their new song says, referring to Fox's former job at the soft-drink giant. [continues 545 words]
When police killed one brother and captured another, it looked like the end of the line for the Arellano Felix drug gang. But the Arellano Felixes are a big family. Mexican and U.S. authorities expect Francisco Javier Arellano Felix - one of six siblings still at large - to take control of Mexico's largest drug-smuggling syndicate. "It's like pruning a tree," said Jesus Blancornelas, a Tijuana magazine editor who has survived Arellano Felix-engineered assassination attempts. "You cut off a branch if one Arellano dies or another is captured, but the family will always grow new branches." [continues 314 words]
Bosses Keeping Lower Profile, Forging Alliances MEXICO CITY - A new breed of crime leaders seems to be taking over Mexico's drug trade as the country's biggest gang reorganizes itself, U.S. and Mexican investigators say. In contrast to the brutal and flamboyant kingpins of the past, the new bosses are said to be keen on building alliances among gangs, delegating some of their organizations' responsibilities to key underlings and staying out of the limelight. The result likely will be a multibillion-dollar illicit industry that's less violent - but more efficient and even harder to stop, officials say. [continues 936 words]
* Some big names in the Mexican drug trade, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities: Francisco Javier Arellano Felix * Likely heir to Tijuana-based gang run by brother Benjamin until arrest in March. U.S. officials say gang is Mexico's largest and strongest but may be struggling since Benjamin's capture and February death of brother Ramon, group's fearsome enforcer. Francisco Javier, college graduate who at 32 is youngest of six brothers, used to play role in Ramon's violent unit. Authorities expect him to receive help in new leadership role from brother Eduardo, physician, and sister Enedina, accountant wanted on Mexican money-laundering charges. [continues 304 words]
MEXICO CITY -- A new breed of crime leaders seems to be taking over Mexico's drug trade as the country's biggest gang reorganizes itself, U.S. and Mexican investigators say. In contrast to the brutal and flamboyant kingpins of the past, the new bosses are said to be keen on building alliances among gangs, delegating some of their organizations' responsibilities to key underlings and staying out of the limelight. The result likely will be a multibillion-dollar illicit industry that's less violent -- but more efficient and even harder to stop, officials say. [continues 542 words]
When police killed one brother and captured another, it looked like the end of the line for the Arellano Felix drug gang. But the Arellano Felixes are a big family. Mexican and U.S. authorities expect Francisco Javier Arellano Felix - one of six siblings still at large - to take control of Mexico's largest drug-smuggling syndicate. "It's like pruning a tree," said Jesus Blancornelas, a Tijuana magazine editor who has survived Arellano Felix-engineered assassination attempts. "You cut off a branch if one Arellano dies or another is captured, but the family will always grow new branches." [continues 310 words]
WASHINGTON - President Bush heads to Texas this week for a monthlong working vacation that includes plans to meet Mexican President Vicente Fox, an encounter that could place U.S.-Mexico relations back on the front burner. Warming relations between the neighboring countries were highlighted a week before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, when Fox traveled to the White House for a state dinner. Since then, the war on terrorism has consumed U.S. foreign policy, and Fox has been forced to deal with internal political pressures in Mexico. [continues 561 words]
MEXICO CITY - The Mexican government announced Sunday that it has sent an appeal to Texas Gov. Rick Perry asking him to cancel the planned Aug. 14 execution of Mexican citizen Javier Suarez, who was sentenced to die for the murder of an undercover drug agent in 1988. The letter from Mexico's embassy in Washington asked Perry to grant Suarez clemency based on purported new evidence about his mental state at the time of the killing. "Neurological and psychiatric experts have discovered new evidence about Javier Suarez' mental state at the moment of committing the crime. This evidence was not considered by the jury, and surely would have influenced the verdict," the Foreign Relations Department said in a news release. [continues 214 words]
Journalism: Jesus Blancornelas Survived A Murder Attempt After Exposing Tijuana's Arellano Felix Gang. TIJUANA -- Is there anything that could persuade muckraking Tijuana journalist Jesus Blancornelas to lay down his pen. A nearly successful assassination attempt by the Tijuana drug cartel failed to silence him. He waves away the inconvenience of life with 13 army bodyguards as just another bizarre plot twist in his episodic career. And indeed, the bearded and bespectacled Blancornelas--with his classic khakis, crisp white shirts and dry wit--seems more like a slumming college literature professor than the editor of the city's premier investigative journal. [continues 1612 words]
When the Arellano Felix Brothers Transformed Themselves into Vicious Drug Lords, They Had a Little Help from Members of Tijuana's Best Families. A hot day in Tijuana is cooling into a golden sunset. businesswoman Guadalupe Gonzalez is helping a customer select the perfect floral teacup from a china showroom that is a fantasia of fine figurines. Delicate swallowtail butterflies rest on china daisies. Mermaids hold out conch shells with tiny freshwater pearls. Porcelain brides and grooms painted in reassuring pastels gaze at each other with bland expressions of matrimonial joy. [continues 3123 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) A regional director of Mexico's main intelligence agency was slain in the border city of Tijuana, the 11th person killed this week in what authorities say is an escalating drug war. Jose Juan Palafox, Tijuana chief for the Center for Investigation and National Security, was gunned down at midnight on Friday, said Jorge Campos, the federal deputy Attorney General in charge of the case. On Thursday, Campos announced that Tijuana, which lies across the border from San Diego, and Mexicali to the east had turned into battlegrounds of a turf war between surviving members of the Arellano Felix drug organization and a rival drug trafficker, Ismael Zambada. [continues 159 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) -- There will be no more music about drugs and violence on Mexican radio stations in and around Tijuana. Baja California state radio stations signed an agreement Thursday to ban songs known as narco-corridos and instead to play only songs that promote positive messages and good values. They urged Spanish-language U.S. stations across the border in California to do the same. Casio Carlos Narvaez, a representative of the Radio and Television Industry Chamber, said stations will not be able to compete if their U.S. counterparts don't take the same step. [continues 60 words]
TIJUANA, Mexico - There will be no more drugs and violence on Mexican radio stations in and around Tijuana. Baja California state radio stations signed an agreement Thursday to ban songs known as narco-corridos, and instead have decided to play only songs that promote positive messages and good values. They also urged Spanish-language U.S. stations across the border in California to do the same. Casio Carlos Narvaez, a representative of the Radio and Television Industry Chamber, said stations will not be able to compete if their U.S. counterparts don't take the same step. [continues 137 words]
TIJUANA - There will be no more drugs and violence on Mexican radio stations in and around Tijuana. Baja California Norte state radio stations signed an agreement Thursday to ban songs known as narco-corridos, and instead have decided to play only songs that promote positive messages and good values. They also urged Spanish-language U.S. stations across the border in California to do the same. Casio Carlos Narvaez, a representative of the Radio and Television Industry Chamber, said stations will not be able to compete if their U.S. counterparts don't take the same step. [continues 121 words]
Something is wrong when Juarez families ask an El Paso newspaper for help because of a drug problem in their neighborhood. A representative for residents in the Colonia Puerto de la Paz, a poor neighborhood in the northwest end of the city, said a local drug pusher has terrorized their streets since 1997. So why not call the police? "Well, we have, but we suspect police are involved," the representative said. "The drug pusher and his gang threatened us after some police last went to his house. We have nowhere else to turn." [continues 381 words]
President Vicente Fox's Unprecedented Cooperation With The Us Yields Big Blows To Latin Narcotraffickers MEXICO CITY - After years at cross purposes, Mexico and the US are entering a new era of cooperation in fighting the narcotics trade. Cartels have been gutted and record quantities of narcotics seized. The list of those arrested or dead reads like a 'Who's Who' of Mexico's drug underworld - evidence that two years after President Vicente Fox vowed to win the war on drug trafficking, he is making headway. [continues 900 words]
MEXICO CITY, July 8 - As newly declassified archives begin to illuminate what happened to hundreds of leftists who disappeared during a "dirty war" waged by the government in the 1970's, a harsh spotlight is turning on Mexico's army. President Vicente Fox's election two years ago ended seven decades of authoritarian rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. But the army, which built the party, remains as secretive a power as any in Mexico. Opening it to greater oversight is one of the greatest challenges facing Mr. Fox's government, and the institution has been slow to change. [continues 1198 words]
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Mexican troops seized about 5,000 pounds of marijuana at three sites in the Tijuana area, including almost a ton they found inside two small airplanes abandoned on a desert air strip, officials said Saturday. The troops were on a drug eradication mission when they happened upon the aircraft with 1,775 pounds inside earlier this week about 95 miles from the border city, a defense department statement said. Another army unit based at the Tijuana International Airport reported finding two dozen cardboard boxes holding 2,048 pounds of marijuana in the baggage claim area. [continues 112 words]
MEXICO CITY –– Mexican troops seized about 5,000 pounds of marijuana at three sites in the Tijuana area, including almost a ton they found inside two small airplanes abandoned on a desert air strip, officials said Saturday. The troops were on a drug eradication mission when they happened upon the aircraft with 1,775 pounds inside earlier this week about 95 miles from the border city, a defense department statement said. Another army unit based at the Tijuana International Airport reported finding two dozen cardboard boxes holding 2,048 pounds of marijuana in the baggage claim area. [continues 113 words]
MEXICO CITY - After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000 a year. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. Now it has spread south to larger cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, powder cocaine, with its high price limiting its use to Mexico's upper classes, has given way to $2-a-rock crack that is luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. [continues 594 words]
MEXICO CITY " A government human rights report describes this city's prisons as corrupt traps for horribly overcrowded and underguarded inmates, centers that reek of raw sewage and marijuana. "Inhuman conditions for the inmates are prevalent" in many of the capital's prisons, according to the report issued Wednesday by the government's National Human Rights Commission. It accused officials of routinely violating human rights and said they could be held criminally responsible for conditions at the prisons, "which were found to be in a deplorable condition." [continues 390 words]
Mexico City - After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug-treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. smuggling operations were launched; now it has seeped south to such big cities as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, high-priced powder cocaine has given way to $2-a-rock crack, so cheap that it's luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. [continues 822 words]
Change In Strategy Has Disrupted Cartels, Driven Prices Up, He Says MEXICO CITY - After a two-year run in which army and federal agents have captured three dozen drug lords and arrested thousands of street dealers, Mexicans are outpacing Americans in the fight against drugs, the United States' drug czar said. John Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, on Thursday lauded the work of Mexican President Vicente Fox and his various organized crime strike forces. [continues 770 words]
CULIACAN, Mexico -- In ancient Mexico, kings traveled to the next life with jade masks and their favorite jewelry. In modern Mexico, drug lords head for the sweet hereafter with bags of cocaine, wads of dollars and submachine guns tucked beside them in coffins riddled with fake bullet holes. The burial practice is part of what Mexicans call narcocultura, a growing cultural trend that celebrates the lifestyles of this nation's cocaine smugglers, marijuana growers and heroin manufacturers. President Vicente Fox has made enormous strides against the drug trade in Mexico, the primary land corridor for trafficking into the United States. His government has made more than 10,600 drug-related arrests and seized tons of drug shipments in the past 18 months. But in Culiacan and other drug-producing states in this country's northwest, narcocultura's influence on architecture, couture, music, literature and even religion suggests a lack of faith in legal authority that will be a tougher challenge for the government than stopping the next cocaine shipment from crossing the border. [continues 823 words]
Cheap At $2 A Rock, It's A National Plight MEXICO CITY -- After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. Now it has seeped south to big cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. [continues 935 words]
SONOYTA, Mexico - Mexico has been sending more soldiers to the U.S. border to combat drug smuggling, and some are raising alarms on the other side by carrying their operations into U.S. territory. Even more worrisome, critics say, are recent shootings involving an American tourist, a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle and migrants. They fear the troops are overzealous and so poorly trained that they are a hazard to innocent people in both countries. Two of the shootings were on Mexico's side of the border, and the one on U.S. territory happened in a remote area where the border isn't marked well. It is along such stretches that Mexican troops have strayed onto the U.S. side - as American officers also occasionally cross into Mexico. [continues 290 words]
MEXICO CITY -- After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. Now it has seeped south to big cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, powdered cocaine, with its high price limiting its use to Mexico's upper classes, has given way to $2-a-rock crack so cheap that it's luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. [continues 404 words]
MEXICO CITY - Nearly two years after his historic election, President Vicente Fox is presiding over a paralyzed and bickering administration that has failed to deliver on a cascade of promises to make Mexico richer, safer, better educated and less corrupt. The charismatic Fox ended the 71-year rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, on July 2, 2000, with a promise to overhaul a corrupt government that had lost the people's faith. But as Fox has proved unable to advance his goals, the euphoria of his election has dissipated. In its place is increasing concern that history may remember Fox as the man who ended the PRI's reign but accomplished little as president. [continues 423 words]
Families Struggle With New Crisis MEXICO CITY - After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug-treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. Now it has seeped south to big cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. There, powdered cocaine, with its high price limiting its use to Mexico's upper classes, has given way to $2-a-rock crack so cheap that it's luring street kids away from sniffing solvents. [continues 507 words]
Cocaine That Once Flowed Through Nation To The U.S. Is Now Likely To Stop There MEXICO CITY - After years of dismissing cocaine as a U.S. problem, Mexicans are finding that it's their problem, too. Government drug treatment clinics that saw 3,000 abusers a year in the 1990s now see 50,000. Abuse used to be largely confined to the northern Mexican states from which U.S. cocaine smuggling operations were launched. But it has seeped south to big cities such as Mexico City and Guadalajara. [continues 502 words]
MEXICO CITY - Mexican authorities have long refused to extradite criminals to the United States if they face the death penalty. Now it's not only death, but life as well. Reflecting their belief that all criminals can be rehabilitated and doubts in Mexico about the application of justice, Mexican courts recently began prohibiting the extradition of suspected murderers or dangerous drug traffickers if they face the prospect of life in a U.S. prison. Only last year, the Mexican Supreme Court approved the extradition of Mexicans. But later clarifying the ruling, the court said any extradited suspects who are convicted in the United States must be punished under Mexican sentencing guidelines. Mexico forbids the death penalty and life in prison. [continues 175 words]
MEXICO CITY -- Despite a series of defeats that included a sting operation across the United States last week, the feared Arellano drug cartel is still operating with strength along the U.S. border and has been involved in several bloody shootings, prosecutors in Mexico say. Officials said several multiple killings in Sinaloa state were the work of younger Arellano operatives trying to make names for themselves as the brutal cartel begins to reorganize after the capture of its leader, Benjamin Arellano, and the death of its chief enforcer, Ramon Arellano. [continues 821 words]
MEXICO CITY - The final misfortune of Josue Ulises Banda Cruz, a 17-year-old ne'er-do-well, was that he was standing on a corner drinking beer with his buddies when the police came cruising by at 2 a.m last Tuesday. Officer Jose Luis de la Cruz Gamas's crude crowd-dispersal technique - firing his service revolver in the general direction of the young men - proved fatal. One bullet struck Josue in the back of the neck. The officer took the dying boy, threw him in his patrol car, and dumped his body on a deserted street, the police and witnesses said. [continues 746 words]
One of the many knock-on effects since the attacks on the United States last September has been the dramatic increase in drugs seizures on the Mexico/US border. Tightened US security to fight terrorism along the 3,000km frontier has made it harder for smugglers to transport cocaine and other drugs. But US authorities are not the only ones turning the screws. In Mexico, long seen as home to corrupt drugs officers, efforts have been stepped up against the traffickers. [continues 607 words]
EL PINACATE BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Mexico - Drug traffickers scar volcanic desert with illicit runways, while law enforcement officials chase them through once-tranquil parks. Thousands of migrants traipse across delicate back-country areas - sending campers fleeing to ranger stations, fearful of crowds trekking by their tents in the night. Wilderness areas on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are taking a beating from an onslaught of migrants, drug traffickers and law enforcement officials, a new study says. Some national treasures in both countries have been lost forever. [continues 605 words]
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico -- A man wielding a machine gun burst into a bar in this border city and opened fire on a suspected drug smuggler and his friends, killing three people and wounding two others. Police commander Arturo Pedroza said the attack occurred in the El Sitio bar shortly before midnight Wednesday. The gunman was after Ismael Flores Godines, a convicted drug pusher known as "El Mayelo." Flores Godines was among those injured in the attack, Pedroza said. Pedroza said local police officer Alfredo Guevara and ex-state police officer Arturo "The Russian" Gallegos were killed. Key drug smugglers often buy protection from corrupt police officials using a series of relatively small bribes, federal authorities say. On Sunday, men with automatic weapons fired more than 10 shots at Flores Godines as he was walking to his home outside Nuevo Laredo, 550 miles north of Mexico City, across the border from Laredo, Texas. [end]
Today's Topic -- The Environment EL PINACATE BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Mexico - Drug traffickers scar volcanic desert with illicit runways, while law enforcement officials chase them through once-tranquil parks. Thousands of migrants traipse across delicate back-country areas -- sending campers fleeing to ranger stations, fearful of crowds passing their tents in the night. Wilderness areas on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are taking a beating from an onslaught of migrants, drug traffickers and law-enforcement officials, a new study says. [continues 743 words]
LA AJOYA, Mexico (AP) - Mexico's top drug gang has launched a bloody offensive in a marijuana- and poppy-rich mountain region to show its rivals that it hasn't been stopped by the arrest of its operations chief and the death of his fearsome brother. Police say the Arellano Felix organization was behind a massacre in the mountain town of La Ajoya, where 23 men in ski masks and camouflage uniforms turned Kalashnikovs on a Mother's Day party, gunning down 12 people, including four police officers, a 70-year-old woman and a 6-year-old girl. [continues 975 words]
Several Steps Needed Before Border State Could Change Law CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - It's ironic that in this city, home to one of the world's most infamous drug cartels, marijuana could be legalized. But such a change is being considered. Marijuana has become so common throughout the border region - and efforts to curb its impact have had such little effect - that the administration of Chihuahua Gov. Patricio Martinez has launched a study of the consequences of legalizing marijuana. It remains unclear whether marijuana would be sanctioned only for personal use or as a medical treatment, or whether it would be allowed into the social fiber like alcohol. Moreover, the Mexican federal government would need to approve any legalization. [continues 935 words]
MEXICO CITY, May 30 -- Five men and one woman in a heavily guarded downtown office building guard dangerous secrets. Talking about them could get them fired or even killed. So in isolation, the elite government lawyers work toward the same goal: dismantling the Arellano Felix drug cartel. "No one knows what the others are working on. Only I see all the information," said Jose Vasconcelos, Mexico's chief anti-drug prosecutor, who lives behind a wall of bodyguards. "That helps prevent leaks." [continues 1252 words]
MEXICO CITY- Mexico extradited a Mexican man wanted in Texas on drug charges, the federal attorney general's office said Thursday. Rito Emilio Mendoza was turned over to U.S. Marshals from San Antonio on May 17. He is wanted by a U.S. federal court on charges he helped smuggle more than 60,000 kilograms of marijuana into the United States in 1996. Officials have said Mendoza was a member of the drug organization led by Francisco Rios, Eduardo Armando Quiroz and Ruben Valdez Carrasco. Officials believe the three men, who were arrested during trips to the 2000 Olympics in Australia, controlled the flow of drugs through border crossings near Big Bend National Park. [end]
MEXICO CITY -- Imagine a businessman in a black BMW convertible running a red light and being stopped by a motorcycle cop. As the officer comes to the window, the driver, without even pausing from his cell phone conversation, hands over a 50-peso bill worth about $5. "Your bribe is waiting for you," says police ethics instructor Miguel Alcartar, describing the all-too-common scenario to Marcos Perez of Mexico City's motorcycle patrol. "In the past you probably would have taken it. The driver expects you to now. What do you do?" [continues 154 words]
Mexico: Troops Catch a Suspected Drug Trafficker Who Says He Shipped Tons of Cocaine to the U.S. MEXICO CITY -- Soldiers on Sunday captured Albino Quintero Meraz, described as a major drug trafficker aligned with Mexico's so-called Juarez cartel who claimed to have shipped as much as a ton and a half of cocaine each month from Guatemala to the United States. At a joint news conference Monday, Defense Secretary Ricardo Vega Garcia and Atty. Gen. Rafael Macedo de la Concha said Meraz was a kingpin on a par with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and Ismael Zambada, both fugitives from Sinaloa state, and Tijuana cartel leader Benjamin Arellano Felix, who was captured March 9. [continues 289 words]
MEXICO CITY - Police and army officers captured a cocaine trafficker responsible for major drug shipments from Guatemala to the United States, authorities announced yesterday. Jesus Albino Quintero Meraz was captured early Sunday in the gulf coast state of Veracruz, Defense Secretary Gerardo Vega and Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha said at a news conference. "He was and is a major figure in the world of cocaine trafficking," Vega said, adding that Quintero is a drug leader "on the level of El Chapo Guzman," alleged leader of the powerful Sinaloa drug organization, and Benjamin Arellano Felix, leader of the powerful Tijuana drug organization. [continues 122 words]
MEXICO CITY, May 27 - Four years ago, American intelligence officers gave their Mexican counterparts the address and home telephone for Jesus 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 Mr. Quintero and his associates in the Juarez-based cartel, American and Mexican officials say, giving them control over much of the multibillion-dollar drug trade on the Gulf of Mexico. [continues 667 words]
Inside Mexico
