 |
- 6 die in southern Chihuahua
- 3 more homes torched in Choix, Sinaloa
- Shouting In Michoacán: Voices Against The Surrender Part 1
- Z-40's gun traced to San Antonio gun dealer
Posted: 17 Sep 2013 09:00 PM PDT  Rantburg.com A total of six individuals were murdered or were found dead in southern Chihuahua state municipalities since last last Thursday, according to Mexican news accounts. According to a news report posted on the online edition ofEl Diario de Juarez news daily, two men were found dead in a remote location in Guadalupe y Calvo municipality. The cause of death is aid to be mechanical asphyxiation. The victims were identified as Ivan Gerardo Moreno Gutierrez, 32, and Elizander Bejarano Martinez, 18. They were found aboard a Chevrolet sedan by Guadalupe y Calvo municipal police agents Monday near the village of Turuachi which is between Parral and Guadalupe y Calvo. Meanwhile in Chinipas municipality in far southwestern Chihuahua state, two men were found shot to death, according to a separate news account in El Diario de Juarez. The victims were identified as Jacobo Alanis Mancinasm, 36 and Mauricio Bustillos Hernandez, 31s. Both men were found aboard a pickup truck. One .45 caliber pistol with two magazines were also found with the victims. In Jimenez municipality, after five days without a murder, one unidentified man was found shot to death near a gas station on Calle Guadalupe Victoria. The news report said he was shot by an armed suspect traveling aboard a vehicle. The killing is said to be the first after a 12 hour run five days ago in which three individuals were murdered. In Creel in Bocoyna municipality, Pedro Gonzalez Vecinito, 30 was found beaten to death Tuesday. Reports say he was attacked by several people. In Parral, an auto body shop owner was kidnapped Tuesday, according to an online report posted in El Diario de Juarez. The report said several armed suspects dismounted three vehicles and ordered employees to lay down, then took the victim at his shop near the intersection of calles Persimonio and Arroyo Hondo in Juarez colony. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. His latest work of non-fiction, The Wounded Eagle: Volume 2 went on sale September 1st at Amazon.com and Smashwords.com  |
3 more homes torched in Choix, Sinaloa Posted: 17 Sep 2013 09:00 PM PDT  Rantburg.com Armed suspects entered the far northern Sinaloa state municipality of Choix firing rifles and incinerating homes, according to Mexican news reports. A wire dispatch which appeared on the online edition of El Imparcial news daily said that a total of 17 homes have been destroyed by fire in the last two weeks. Additionally two more vehicles adding to the count of two (for a total of four) were also destroyed by fires deliberately set. Procuraduria General de Justicia del Estado (PGJE) deputy Martin Robles Armenta said that on Monday an armed group, which entered Choix from Chihuahua state, also kidnapped one unidentified individual in the village of Tacopaco. Several Mexican news accounts say the armed suspects, dressed in black, entered Choix using boats across the Rio Fuerte near the Huites dam. Communities affected by the attack were Tacopaco and Leon de la Presa, from which 12 people -- eight women and four children were evacuated from the area by army troops, and taken to a shlter where relatives can retrieve them. Authorities also found spent cartridge casings for AK-47 rifles in the area. In the last 45 days a total of 30 homes have been destroyed, the bulk of them, 23, in Choix, with the remainder in Sinaloa municipality. The mayor of Choix, Juan Carlos Estrada Vega, has made a public call for a permanent Mexican Army base in the region saying that Choix would be a strategic location to stop the attacks from Chihuahua state, according to the Mexican news website am.com.mx The same report said that a total of 44 villagers from Cieneguilla de los Núñez and Babo were escorted by Sinaloa state police to return to their homes last Friday. The report also noted that 15 primary schools in Choix were to be activated, according to data supplied by the Sinaloa state Secretaria de Educacion Publica y Cultura del Estado. According to a separate report which appeared in El Debatenews daily, Estrada Vega and his police chief, identified only as Said Gastelum, said that it is in the northern approaches to Choix in the mountains where the problems are, not in Choix itself, although the area near Huites dam was a location where marijuana was being cultivated. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com. His latest work of non-fiction, The Wounded Eagle: Volume 2 went on sale September 1st at Amazon.com and Smashwords.com  |
Shouting In Michoacán: Voices Against The Surrender Part 1 Posted: 17 Sep 2013 07:07 PM PDT  Note from the editor: “Shouting in Michoacán: Voices against the surrender” is a journalistic work that goes into social networks to give a voice to the victims of violence in that state. It is by anonymous citizens- from websites dedicated to fighting organized crime-they say, for the first time, what happens on their land. By: Oscar Balderas August 20, 2013— When you finish listening to my story you’ll think I’m making it up. You won’t notice that I’m talking about Mexico, of Michoacán, the land of the independentists José María Morelos y Pavón and Josefa Ortiz de Domínguez. And why do I speak of them? Because here we are slaves trying to become free from this hell that has been roasting us since 2006. To begin with, I will say that my name is Juan, but that’s not my real name. If I were to tell you, I will probably end up like my neighbor Ramón, who soldiers took from his home in the early morning. They put him in a truck without license plates, they beat him with a board until they ripped the skin from his buttocks and then threw him unconsciously in a ditch where some dogs killed him. He left a widow who doesn’t eat nor sleep and two daughters who’ve wet the bed ever since their dad is gone. It was all because he denounced an illegal search from some “army guys” who stole some jewelry from his sister. Do you see why I tell you that my name is Juan? I live in Pajacuarán, but I won’t tell you close to which hill, dirt road or my street. If they look for me, they will find me and I don’t want my wife or my son to find my body carved up, burnt, decapitated, hanged, or skinned on the street before my neighbors can put a white sheet over me and hide the signs of torture that some people talk about when talking about what happens in my town. I will also tell you that today is August 14, 2013 and I’m very afraid. You can’t see me, but I answer your questions via Facebook and my sweaty hands slip on the keyboard. I want to believe that you’re a journalist and that you aren’t a narco, municipal police officer, federal police officer, community police officer, self defense member or a soldier who in a few hours will come for me and with the printed evidence “grind” me, but here it no longer signifies when preparing a salsa for some enjoyable enchiladas that are typical here, but of shaving the skin with a machete and throwing you in caustic soda to consume you like a snail frying in salt. Why have I decided to talk now? Because since 2006, when we started getting fucked up, I thought that the best safeguard was to be silent. That, if I stayed still, the scythe of crime wouldn’t graze us and one day, after so many damned nights, I would awake in my town and we’d look at ourselves without any scratches. None of that happened. I kept quiet and that didn’t prevent anything because in 2007 some federal police officers sexually abused my sister-in-law under the pretext of doing a bodily search in search of cocaine; in 2008, they found my son’s best friend hanging from a bridge; in 2009 we said our goodbyes to “Don Chava”, the owner of a grocery store where ever since I was a kid would sell me popsicles. They found him without any ears or fingers because he didn’t pay dues to La Familia Michoacana. And things got worse: in 2010 came the wave of kidnappings of young people who refused to participate in the drug trade and now we assume are slaves working in some marijuana field or are buried in a narco grave; in 2011, my godson’s first communion was suspended because of a three hour shootout between soldiers and gunmen; and in 2012, on a morning (I won’t tell you what day or month) my house awoke with bullet holes in the front as evidence that everyone in this town has a horror story to tell. In 2013 I’m afraid that the next one will be my son, who is about to finish high school. Or my wife. Or my sisters, who also live here. I know that it’s only a matter of time, which is approaching, that every time I hear those voices getting closer, those mocking voices that come to your house and yell at you “bitch!”, “son of a bitch!” “whore!”, “faggot!” and who enjoy saying phrases like “you’re fucking dead!”, “now you’ll see what’s good!”, and “you’re going to prefer being dead, fucking Indian!”. This is why I want to talk and say that this isn’t calm. We are dying over here. They are killing us and we’re dying from fear. This isn’t life and you can’t say that this is the rule of law in Pajacuarán: there aren’t any more loud parties, food vendors on the streets, the urge to go out for a walk at dawn and talk while the starry sky gets covered. Here, even going to get tortillas we speak with love, we kiss, we say our goodbyes with a “come back soon”, because we don’t know if we’ll meet again. My story is like many others here: we live missing those who have been killed; concerned about who’s going to kill us. We drag violence from the past to the present and we become hopeless about the future, because since 2006 they promised us that this land would be “cool” and it has only become hotter beneath our feet. No one talks about this, some for convenience and others because they’re afraid of coming to Michoacán. I have decided to speak out because we need help. In my town there are too many who have been: left wrapped in blankets, left inside trunks, left wrapped in tarp, people forced to dig a pit and then buried, men who appear without tongues, women with torn chests, children with a coup de grace. My story can’t end like this. I, John, want to live longer, grow old with my wife, watch my son grow up, have grandchildren, and be able to walk by the sorghum fields again with the tranquility of a child in his home. I want, like you, to think that I’m making all this up. And when this happens, I’ll smile, triumphantly, because this will mean that the scythe of death is far from my grandchildren. And to talk, albeit from sweaty fearful keystrokes, I’ll operate. Source: Revolución 3.0  |
Z-40's gun traced to San Antonio gun dealer Posted: 17 Sep 2013 09:59 AM PDT Borderland Beat  An assault rifle seized during the July arrest of one of Mexico's most violent drug lords —Miguel Angel “Z-40” Treviño Morales — has been traced to a shady gun seller whose home in Big Spring was searched last week and netted what authorities said was a “small arsenal.”More than 10,000 rounds of ammunition, 76 guns and $15,000 in cash were seized from Manuel "Manny" Rodriguez, 65, who was sentenced in 2002 to 47 months in the federal penitentiary after being caught in California selling machine guns and other firearms without a license. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Homeland Security Investigations also found that some of Rodriguez's customers, perhaps unbeknownst to Rodriguez, were supplying the Zetas with assault rifles and specifically seeking sellers like Rodriguez. Rodriguez, agents found, had been selling guns from various tables at SAXET gun shows by exploiting the so-called “gun show loophole.”  By posing as a private seller disposing of his “personal” collection, he was circumventing rules that required him to get a license and to conduct background checks on his buyers, authorities contend. And, because he is a convicted felon, Rodriguez should not have had guns in the first place, they argue. He is charged, for the moment, with being a felon in possession of a firearm. “A cooperating witness indicated he and others would go to Manuel Rodriguez and his son to buy AK-47s from them,” ATF special agent Christopher Benavides testified at the bail hearing. “They would then give (the weapons) to others who would smuggle them to the Zetas.” When Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Hulings asked if that was the only link to the Zetas that agents found, Benavides dropped a bombshell. Benavides said he and another agent traced a “Century Arms AK-47 variant” recovered in Mexico to a “cooperating citizen” in San Antonio. That person, Benavides said, then sold the gun to Rodriguez's son, and Rodriguez is believed to have sold it to someone else at one of the gun shows.  “This gun was recovered from Miguel Treviño, Z-40, along with other firearms and some cash during his arrest,” Benavides said. “Z-40 was head of the Zetas at the time.” In July, a Mexican navy helicopter tracked the 40-year-old Zetas leader, known by his radio call sign “El 40,” “Z-40” “Cuarenta” and other variants of the number in Spanish, on a rural road near the Texas line outside Nuevo Laredo. He was arrested and is being held in a Mexican jail. Under cross-examination by Rodriguez's lawyer, Benavides said he had no evidence that Rodriguez knew that any of his guns would wind up in the hands of the Zetas or make their way its leader who had reportedly ordered hits in Laredo and whose bloodthirstiness was known on both sides of the border. During an investigation that lasted several months, agents watched, then videotaped Rodriguez at the gun shows in San Antonio and Austin. In an undercover sting, an agent bought a Intratec 9mm Uzi from Rodriguez for $650 at an Austin gun show, Benavides said. During last week's raid, agents intercepted Rodriguez as he and his son left home towing a trailer to another gun show, Benavides said. There were numerous guns in the trailer, and several more were found in the home - almost half of them assault-style rifles along with ammo and a safe with $15,000, Benavides testified. In a pitch to keep Rodriguez locked up, prosecutor Hulings told U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo that Rodriguez “has been in and out of jail” since he was 22 for a variety of crimes including assault, and “has a lot of trouble complying with the law.” Hulings added that Rodriguez owes more than $260,000 in child support in California - so much that the Texas Attorney General has tried to garnish his wages - yet hid $15,000 in suspected proceeds from the sale of guns.  “He's well aware he cannot possess guns,” Hulings argued. “He was selling to people without checking where (the guns) were going. He was in possession of a small arsenal.” The arguments did little to sway the judge, until Primomo learned that Rodriguez was on probation on an unrelated offense last year while selling guns. “I was ready to release him on bond until I heard that,” Primomo said. The judge ordered Rodriguez held pending trial. MySanantonio , gcontreras@express-news.net, Lmtonline  |
No comments:
Post a Comment