Borderland Beat |  |
- 3 die in Matamoros
- Tamaulipas News and Information
- Zetas Cartel Smuggled L.A. Dodger Yasiel Puig Out of Cuba
- Analysis: Sinaloa cartel losing power in Juárez
- 2 dead bodies and a banner left at Tijuana police station.
- 4 die in Tamaulipas state
- “If there’s anything democratic in Morelos, it’s kidnapping”; Even The 99 Percent Get Kidnapped In Mexico
- Chayo's Nephew: Apatzingán Mayor Uriel Mendoza Arrested for Extortion
- Santa Ana Calif. Michoacanos Vs. the Templarios
- Attemps to reconcile "Americano" and "Hipolito" La Ruana groups fails
- Melissa with Kike Plancarte
- 10 die in Durango state
- Bloody Sinaloa: 7 die.
- Mayito Zambada's "Guilty" Plea Deal Unsealed- is "Cooperating" with Feds
- Confirmed: El Chapo's Security Chief 'El Bravo' Killed
- The sins of Jesus Reyna
- Dr Mireles is sole spokesman-Additonal arrests-Fake AD Facebook pages
- El Taliban Pleads Guilty in US Federal Court
- Bloodbath in Tamaulipas: Death toll climbs to at least 24
- Jose Manuel Mireles asks for unity to prevent disarmament
- 5 die in southern Chihuahua
- 10 die in Tamaulipas
- Tense Situation in Tierra Caliente
- Human Rights Commission: Yurécuaro Self-Defense Leader Tortured by police
- Michoacan's state secretary, Jesus Reyna is fired and arrested!
Posted: 19 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT  According to an official news report posted on the website of Tamaulipas state government, the incident began Friday at 15:25 hrs, when a Mexican naval helicopter observed several armed suspects traveling aboard two vehicles in ejido Francisco I. Madero. Some of the suspects fired on the bird, causing naval personnel to return fire. Naval return fire killed three. Others in the convoy escaped the scene. Mexican security forces seized a Chevrolet Equinox SUV and an AK-47 rifle. The dead were all men in their 20s. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  | |||||||||
Tamaulipas News and Information Posted: 20 Apr 2014 12:05 AM PDT Borderland Beat  Unfortunately, there has been a narco news blackout in Tamps since 2010, typically sources on the ground and social media have been used to glean information of situations, events that occurred and SDR’s. Unfortunately, social media is also a breeding ground for baseless rumors that spread and become “fact”. It is an extremely difficult situation for reporting, in an explosive region. Tamaulipas Most Wanted List  LOS ZETAS Omar Treviño Morales "Z42" (is headquartered in Coahuila) Sergio Ricardo Basurto Peña " El Grande” (Nuevo Laredo) Maxiley Nadales Barahona "El Max/Z-19" ( works in Veracruz, Chiapas and Tabasco) CARTEL DEL GOLFO (CDG) José Antonio Romo López" La Hamburguesa" - Ciudad Mier Juan Carlos de la Cruz Moctezuma "El Chuma" - Miguel Alemán José Ismael Mendoza Falcón"Polimenso" - Frontera Chica "El Comandante Paquito"- Reynosa Juan Manuel Rodríguez García"Juan Perros" - Río Bravo. Carlos González Escobar"Carlitos Whiskies"- Nuevo Progreso Eduardo Ismael Flores Borrego"El Negro" - Valle Hermoso. Juan Francisco Saenz Tamez"El Metro 103" - head of sicarios. "El Orejón/Ciclón 7"- Matamoros By Itzli April 7th I begin by providing a brief recap and summary of information found elsewhere in other threads. The general consensus late last year was that the Gulf Cartel was divided into three major factions. Based out of Reynosa, the Metro faction was headed by X20. Based out of Matamoros, the Ciclones faction was headed by Homero Cardenas. Based out of Tampico, the CDG Sur faction was headed by K14. There was tension and outright conflict between Los Metros and Los Ciclones, while CDG Sur was aligned with Matamoros. Within Los Metros there were conflicts between competing cells. X20 conducted a purge of those aligned with El Gringo, though X20 himself would later be arrested. Afterwards, conflict was predicted as a number of individuals seemed poised to compete for the leadership, yet things seemed to remain calm. Last week saw the arrest of El Simple, who was a member of Los Metros, though his power within the group is debated. Within Los Ciclones, it was speculated that Homero was gradually consolidating power within the Gulf Cartel as a whole. Yet recent reports indicate that he suffered a medical setback last November which led to him being hospitalized. Rumors of his death have surfaced, as well as reports that Los Ciclones have been investigating if Los Metros had a hand in it. Within CDG Sur, reports of extortion and kidnappings increased in Tampico and K14 was directly blamed. He would eventually be arrested as a result of betrayal by his own faction. A number of potential replacements were heard, but it appeared El Wuasa, a native of Matamoros took over, only to be executed by his followers and members of his family were killed and kidnapped at his funeral. The Emerging Conflict Over the weekend, a number of shootouts and killings occurred in Tampico. On the surface it would appear that it is the fallout of the death of El Wuasa as members seek revenge or to gain power. Yet there seems to be more going on and it appears that those acting in the conflict are pawns of an increasing conflict between Los Metros and Los Ciclones. As best I can piece together based upon information on Valor por Tamaulipas, the struggle in Tampico on the surface the axis of power is shifting from the urban zone to the rural zone. In Tampico there is a group called Los Jimmy, founded by Comandante Jimmy who was executed or killed in Reynosa some time ago. Members of the group have a call sign using the initial J followed by a number. After Comandante Jimmy's death, El Chive, also known as J2, took control of the group along with his brother, El Tony, also known as J3. They have been in charge of stealing from pipelines in the area and have gained power since the fall of K14 and the death of La Wuasa. They have put in place another member of their group; some say El Guason, also known as J16, has been put in charge of Tampico, while others say it is El Chema. Regardless, it seems that Los Jimmy's are receiving support from Comandante Cortez, reportedly a high ranking member of Los Metros. Other CDG Sur groups are aligned with Los Jimmy: Grupo Escorpion of Lazaro and Grupo Michelin of "Gordo May". Los Jimmy are fighting to wipe out Arturo "El Sheyla/Sheila" Garza Treviño, provoking conflicts in Tampico and Ciudad Madero. "El Sheyla" was trained in Sinaloa by former soldiers and had previously worked under "El Coss" and "El Sierra" before working under "K14". He has been in charge of the war, alongside Los K, against Los Zetas in Tampico since 2010 and was the creator of Grupo Dragon. He currently is backed by Los Ciclones of Matamoros. It appears that Tampico is now a proxy fight between Los Metros and Los Ciclones. Most wanted list is from 24 Horas  | |||||||||
Zetas Cartel Smuggled L.A. Dodger Yasiel Puig Out of Cuba Posted: 19 Apr 2014 09:55 AM PDT Borderland Beat Strange story with the victim shying away from giving clarity or details, it now becomes a bit clearer. Use this hyperlink to read the original full length article written by Jesse Katz for Los Angeles Magazine  “Dormir es cuando te toca a morir.” One of the baseball’s biggest mysteries may have been uncovered this week: How did MLB star Yasiel Puig manage to escape from Cuba and wind up signing a 7-year, $42 million contract with the Los Angeles Dodgers?Puig, who tends to be cautious in what he says to reporters, has never publicly discussed the matter. But articles in Los Angeles magazine, which broke the story, and a five-month ESPN The Magazine investigation published online Thursday, claim one of baseball’s hottest rookies arrived in the U.S. under shady circumstances that had connections to a powerful Mexican drug cartel. Here are the bare bones of the articles: In Cuba, Puig always had an eye out for the possibility of escape, but he was understandably wary of the shady people who would come up to him with offers of help. After a couple of attempts that went nowhere—one stalled out when the ship failed to show, another time the boat he was on got stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard—in June 2012, Puig got on board a vessel with a crew of five, all of whom allegedly had connections to the Zetas drug cartel. Puig wasn’t alone. He was with a woman who was his girlfriend at the time, a Santeria priest, and a boxer named Yunior Despaigne, who knew Puig from youth sports academies they attended. According to the article, Despaigne had approached Puig with an offer from a Miami-area air conditioning repairman and convicted thief named Raul Pacheco. Pacheco would arrange for the boat and pay $250,000 for Puig’s passage. In exchange, once Puig was free, he would sign a contract turning over 20 percent of all his future MLB earnings to Pacheco. The escape was successful—the smugglers docked on a small island off the coast of Yucatan, which is when the problems started. Pacheco wouldn’t cough up the money. For at least three weeks, the Zetas-backed gangsters held Puig, Despaigne and the others at a seedy boarding house while they tried to negotiate with Pacheco and others for payment. If they didn’t get it, they told their captives, they would hack off one of the outfielder’s arms with a machete. According to ESPN, Pacheco and a group of Florida businessman hired “fixers” who entered the boarding house and rescued Puig and the other captives. They were whisked away to Mexico City where Puig was put on display for baseball scouts. Most of this information comes for court papers filed for a case in the U.S. District Court of South Florida. The plaintiff is a prisoner in Cuba who is suing Puig and his mother, Maritza, for $12 million on the grounds that information the Puigs gave the Cuban government led to his arrest and torture. As part of the case, the prisoner’s lawyer asked Despaigne to provide an affidavit detailing the circumstances of their departure from Cuba.  According to ESPN, Despaigne was frustrated that Pacheco hadn’t paid him money he felt was owed to him for convincing Puig to defect. In Despaigne’s affidavit, he says that since signing with the Dodgers, Puig has paid $300,000 to Pacheco, more than $400,000 to an associate of Pacheco’s and $600,000 to a Miami lawyer, Marcos Gonzalez. As for the people who held Puig captive in Mexico—the body of the leader, a man they called “Leo,” was found in Cancún with 13 bullets in it. And there are still death threats being made against all the men involved in the smuggling operation, including Puig. On Wednesday, Puig issued a statement through his agent about the articles. “I’m aware of the recent articles and news accounts,” the statement read. “I understand that people are curious and have questions, but I will have no comment on this subject. I’m represented on this matter, and I’m only focused on being a productive teammate and helping the Dodgers win games.” There are other, similar stories about the trafficking of Cuban ballplayers. In December 2013, the U.S. Attorney’s office in South Florida issued an indictment involving dozens of people alleging a human smuggling ring that had gotten Texas Rangers outfielder Leonys Martin and his family out of Cuba and held them captive in Mexico. The experience may be close to universal for Cuban ballplayers escaping the island, although few speak about it. Last summer, for instance, Chicago White Sox first baseman José Dariel Abreu was said to have disappeared from Cuba, but there was no official word about where he was for a few weeks. There were reports he eventually turned up in either Dominican Republic or Haiti. Nobody is sure what happened in between.
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Analysis: Sinaloa cartel losing power in Juárez Posted: 18 Apr 2014 10:38 AM PDT Borderland Beat  The Carrillo Fuentes drug-trafficking organization, with its enforcement arm La Línea, is moving to regain the El Paso-Juárez corridor from the Sinaloa cartel, whose power in Juarez is eroding quickly, according to a terrorism and security analyst from the Texas-based private intelligence firm Stratfor We began seeing the weakening of the Sinaloa cartel and the strengthening of the VCF (Vicente Carrillo Fuentes) cartel and La Línea in Juárez because of the help of Los Zetas cartel since the end of last year," Stratfor's vice president of Tactical Intelligence, Scott Stewart, said. Stewart was one of the speakers at the second day of the U.S.-México Border Security Summit. Wednesday's conference was at the Doubletree Hotel in Downtown El Paso. The Juárez Chapter of ASIS International, an organization that provides private security services to businesses all over the world, organized the two-day summit to promote the El Paso-Juárez region to chief security officers and representatives of U.S. manufacturing companies. During his presentation of "The Border Potential Treats: Intelligence," Stewart gave an update on the trends and dynamics of the major drug cartels in México, including the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas, Jalisco Nueva Generación, the Gulf cartel, the Knights Templar and the Beltrán Leyva organization. The Sinaloa cartel, which battles for turf with the Carrillo-Fuentes drug-trafficking organization, leaving more than 10,000 dead in Juárez since 2007, still controls almost all Chihuahua state. However, Los Zetas, which are the second largest drug-trafficking organization in México and the Sinaloa cartel's biggest rival, has begun to help the Carrillo Fuentes cartel in moving illegal drugs around the El Paso-Juárez border in an attempt to regain control of this plaza, Stewart said. He said that it is unknown how long the Sinaloa cartel is going to resist, but so far this year there has not been a considerable increase of violence in Juárez like in the past years. "We think it is because the Sinaloa cartel's control over Juárez is eroding quickly," he said. Stewart explained the Sinaloa cartel was hit hard with the killing in December of Gonzalo "El Macho Prieto" Inzuza, who was believed to be one of the chief cartel leaders. It was also impacted by the arrests in January of enforcer José Rodrigo Aréchiga Gamboa "El Chino Antrax" and ultimately the capture in February of the cartel's leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. "Once those guys are out of the picture it makes it more difficult for the Sinaloa cartel to project military power, so we think that is what is helping to keep down the violence," he said. He predicts that the murder rate in México will continue decreasing and the overall violence will not increase significantly in the next months. However, there could be spikes of increased levels of violence in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Sonora and Baja California as the Sinaloa cartel tries to maintain control. Thank you to the reader for the heads up. Source: By Lorena Figueroa / El Paso Times  | |||||||||
2 dead bodies and a banner left at Tijuana police station. Posted: 17 Apr 2014 11:51 PM PDT BorderlandBeat  TIJUANA, B.C.- Two bodies were abandoned in the parking lot of a Tijuana Municipal delegation, the bodies were left inside a Chevy Suburban and a banner was left along threatening Victor Murillo, Police head of the La Presa sector. Written on a card , the message read "Por pasarse de Vergas. esto es para ti Murillo" (Roughly translated to: "This is for you Murillo, for being an asshole"). The bodies and the message were discovered at about 2:30 pm when a pair of agents noticed the suspect vehicle and approached it to conduct a search on it, upon approach, they discovered the vehicle had its doors unlocked and found inside two bags containing the dead bodies of two men, the bodies had signs of violence and gun wounds on their heads, the agents also found the message against their commander. Cells from the Sinaloa cartel operate in the eastern part of Tijuana were this delegation is located, the cells are believed to be led by the Arzate brothers , identified as "La Rana" and "El Akiles". A series of seizures of drug shipments have been reported on that area in the past weeks, including the arrest of a complete cell of kidnappers who used to target Tijuana´s businessmen. The state Attorney General ( PGJ ) claims that 80 % of violent homicides in Tijuana are linked to drug dealing and the fight for control of this border plaza PREVIOUS MESSAGE This wasn't the only message against the Tijuana corporation, less than 10 days ago, another body was dumped on the street, this time in the Playas de Tijuana delegation, the corpse which remains unidentified, had signs of a brutal torture and was covered with plastic bags and massive amounts of masking tape on the head. The body also showed heavy signs of hard hits with a hard material, possibly a baseball bat or something similar. At the moment not much was said, but it is known that this body was also abandoned with a message against the Tijuana police, the complete message is unknown though. SOURCES: http://www.proceso.com.mx/?p=369875 http://www.oem.com.mx/elsoldetijuana/notas/n3352360.htm  | |||||||||
Posted: 16 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT Rantburg.com Four unidentified individuals were killed or were found dead in a series of intergang firefights in the southern municipality of Tampico Tuesday and Wednesday. Also, a total of 179 migrants were released from captivity by Mexican Army units over several days in four different cities in the state, according to official state and Mexican press accounts. According to a news account in Proceso news weekly, two gunfights took place which left one dead. The first took place at La Puntilla market, while the second took place near the intersection of calles Aduana and Perimetral at a shopping center called Macalito. Meanwhile in Tolteca colony, near the intersection of calles Nicolas Bravo and Rosalio Bustamante, armed suspects drove customers and employees from a children's playground, Castillo de Sueños, then torched the building, which was destroyed. That afternoon, two men were executed in two separate incidents in Tampico. The first was near Hospital Militar, while the second was in Primavera colony, near a Coca Cola plant. The next morning, Wednesday, two armed encounters took place in Tampico, the first at a nightclub on Avenida Universidad, which took place at around midnight and then at first light at the Seduccion disco, where Molotov cocktails were thrown. No one was reported wounded at either incident. Mexico is in the middle of Semana Santa, or Holy Week, which is a major event especially in Tampico, as residents and tourists as well take advantage of warm weather and Tampico's beaches to spend Easter Sunday. During Semana Santa, Mexican security is usually beefed up, and it has been announced so since last month that army and naval infantry forces would in the streets to provide security. Ciudad Madero, a sort of twin city of Tampico is also the headquarters for the Mexican Navy Zona Naval1, which is a large naval detachment. The Mexican Army maintains a large base near Ciudad Mante, about 60 kilometers away. Busts in southern Tamaulipas Units of the Mexican Army detained nine individuals and seized contraband in southern Tamaulipas municipalities in two separate operations Tuesday, according to official government news releases. Just after noon, a Mexican Army road patrol encountered four suspects near Rancho Nuevo in Llera municipality, and detained all four. Inside the ranch house, soldiers found one unidentified man who had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom. Soldiers also seized two rifles, two pistols, 124 rounds of ammunition, six weapons magazines, one stolen vehicle, and MEX $3,868.00 (USD $296.58) and USD $48.00 (MEX($626.03) in cash. Meanwhile in Altamira, five unidentified male suspects were detained by a Mexican Army road patrol. In that incident, soldiers seized one rifle, 50 rounds of ammunition, two weapons magazines, four vehicles, 1,950 packages of marijuana, presumably wrapped for individual sale of marijuana, two cell phones and MEX $188,000.00 (USD $14,414.71) in cash. Rescues Since April 9th, Mexican security forces have rescued a total of 179 migrants in several separate operations, according to a news account posted on the website of Tamaulipas state government.
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Posted: 17 Apr 2014 10:36 AM PDT  Once the plutocrats' plague, kidnapping for ransom in Mexico has gone decidedly mass market. Shopkeepers and family physicians, carpenters and taxi drivers: All have been targeted in recent years as minions of young criminals enter a trade long run by guerrillas and gangland bosses. President Enrique Peña Nieto, 16 months into a six-year term, has struggled to meet his promises to dramatically lessen the crime. Both abductions and extortion continue to soar even as his government’s campaign against crime syndicates impacts drug profits and gang discipline weakens as kingpins are killed or captured. Many wealthy Mexicans have long hired bodyguards and taken other security precautions, making them harder to get. The typical profile of kidnappers, meanwhile, is becoming younger and less sophisticated — more willing to favor quick paydays over substantial ones.
That’s making Mexico’s middle class, and even the working poor, the criminals’ targets of choice. Ransom demands here in Morelos, a small state just south of the capital Mexico City that by some counts tops the nation in kidnappings, have ranged from $13,000 to as low as $250, according to the state police. At such prices just about anyone can afford to be snatched. “If there’s anything democratic in Morelos, it’s kidnapping,” says Gerardo Becerra, 56, a businessman who is leading a citizens’ anti-crime protest movement in Cuernavaca, the state capital once revered for its eternal spring-like weather and now known for insecurity. “It hits everyone equally.” Becerra’s group is demanding the resignation of Gov. Graco Ramirez, who took office 18 months ago after campaigning on a vow to attack crime, particularly kidnapping. The group hopes to force a recall election in the fall, which if successful, would be Mexico’s first such removal of a governor by popular vote. Some 1,700 kidnappings were reported across Mexico in 2013, nearly 10 percent of them in Morelos. Another 278 abductions were reported nationwide and 34 in Morelos in the first two months of this year, according to the government. Analysts say as few as 1 in 5 abductions are ever reported, in part because victims’ families fear police agents are involved with the gangs.  
Trust is particularly scarce in Morelos, which in the past three decades has been used as the base for a succession of Mexico’s more powerful crime lords. A chief of the state’s anti-kidnapping squad was arrested for leading a kidnapping ring in the late 1990s. “People feel they are living in lawless communities,” says Adriana Pineda, 39, the new chief of Morelos’ 60-member anti-kidnapping squad, which is partly funded by the US Agency for International Development and trained by the FBI and police from Colombia, Israel and elsewhere. “How do you build confidence?” she asks. A former state prosecutor who worked for Mexico’s equivalent of the CIA before returning to Morelos, Pineda says she focuses on instilling professional pride among her unit’s detectives, whose pay starts at less than $600 a month. Pineda deals with victims’ families directly, she says, because of the low public confidence in her agents. Investigations and ransom negotiations frequently become complicated because victims are targeted by family members and acquaintances, Pineda says. Victims in such cases often are killed because they can identify their captors. Relatives in December paid ransom consisting of about $4,000, and work tools, for a young carpenter kidnapped after being lured by a request for a construction estimate. The man’s teenage abductors killed him anyway. At least seven people were kidnapped last December, and six of them murdered, in Yautepec, a farming center about 20 miles from Cuernavaca that’s expanding quickly with new middle-class neighborhoods and the weekend homes of Mexico City families. Another 20 people were abducted in the community in the first two months of this year. “Those in the small towns know who the criminals are but are afraid to say anything,” Pineda says. “No one reports them.” While kidnappings are hitting particularly hard now, Morelos has been wracked by organized crime for decades. The Beltran Leyva crime family made Cuernavaca its base a decade ago. After marines killed family patriarch Arturo in the city in late 2009, his lieutenants destroyed one another in a bloody war to take over from him. Today, the remnants of those lieutenants’ gangs carry out many of the kidnappings, joined by newcomers who trade low-wage jobs for easier criminal profits. “They’re the cartels of window washers and brick layers,” says Becerra, the anti-crime activist. Becerra’s group claims that Gov. Ramirez and his police have failed miserably — either from “stupidity or complicity” in their efforts to end the crime wave and must go. Ramirez, who is the state’s first governor from the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, says the complaints are politically motivated. He argues that he inherited the crime plague from predecessors who cut deals with gang bosses, giving them free rein. Amid the federal government’s seven-year crackdown against wholesale drug trafficking and street-level sales, the gangs’ foot soldiers have increasingly preyed on citizens, too often with the help of local police, he says. That’s created an outsize public “psychosis” about “kidnapping, kidnapping, kidnapping, kidnapping,” Ramirez told the newspaper Reforma. The governor argues that his revamped state police forces have reduced kidnapping and other crimes in the past two months. “I assume my responsibility,” Ramirez said. “I am going to defeat kidnapping.”  | |||||||||
Chayo's Nephew: Apatzingán Mayor Uriel Mendoza Arrested for Extortion Posted: 16 Apr 2014 04:37 PM PDT Chivís Martínez for Borderland Beat  In the statement issued by the state agency, the warrant issued by a judge of criminal cause charges that Mendoza had probable responsibility in the commission of the crime of extortion perpetrated against Ramón Santoyo Gallegos, José Martín Gómez Ramirez and Ricardo Reyna Martinez. The victims were “regidores” instilled as political puppets in the Mendoza administration. Regidores, are similar to a board of directors, who vote on all municipality issues. Since January 2012, the men were forced to forward 20,000 MXN, of their pay, to “support the activities of the Templarios”.  Father Goyo, autodefensas leader of Apatzingán, has long accused Mendoza of extortion and led a group of self-defensemembers into city hall on March 4th demanding Mendoza resign, charging him, among other crimes, with extortion. The mayor is a nephew of the now deceased premier leader of Caballeros Templarios, Nazario Moreno, El Chayo, and autodefensas charge he won the election because the other candidates were threatened or ran out of the municipality. The victims reported that in January of 2012, Mendoza led them and council members to a location near the community of Las Punts in Apatzingán, where they were met by heavily armed men who identified themselves as members of the Templarios and said the 20,000 pesos a month (apx 1550USD) was needed to assist in the purchase of weapons, "leaving no choice to the offended to deliver the required amount," said the PGJE in the statement.  (above) In the March protest outside the Municipal Building, where his followers unfurled a banner that read: "Uriel, Give us the 300 missing people seized by your municipal police, or tell us where they are so we can give them a Christian burial.''Another Mayor arrested: Noé Octavio Aburto Inclán of Tacámbaro was arrested for links to organized crime, with the help of federal forces, autodefensas liberated the community this week but have been a presence in the community since March 27th.  | |||||||||
Santa Ana Calif. Michoacanos Vs. the Templarios Posted: 15 Apr 2014 09:14 AM PDT
DD. As reported yesterday in a story posted by Pepe on the Forum, the Attorney General's Office (PGR) imposed charges of 'organized crime in the form of terrorism' against AUC members of Yurécuaro, who were arrested for the murder of PAN mayor Tanhuato, Gustavo Garibay García, which occurred on 22 of March. For the first time the PGR has filed charges that make it implicit that a community group of self-defense is a criminal organization that commits illegal such as terrorism. On February 11, the Mexican Senate approved reform of the laws concerning terrorism. The reform law provides jail terms of 15 to 40 years and fines from 27,000 to 80,000 pesos (roughly US$2,045 to $6056) for those who use chemical, biological or radioactive weapons or arms of any other kind to carry out acts that seek to generate fear among the population. The bill states that this punishment will be applied to those who “intentionally commit actions affecting public or private goods or services against the physical or emotional integrity of people, or their lives, that cause alarm, fear or terror in the population or in a group or sector of the population, that threaten national security or pressure the authorities or individuals to make a determination.” If the so-called terrorist attack affects publicly accessible property or the national economy or if hostages are taken, the penalty will be increased by half. Critics of the new law fear that with such a vague definition in the Mexican security reform, the new law could be used to advance political agendas, suppress social manifestations, persecute opposition parties or individuals and silence critics. How this relates to the Santa Ana Michoacanos was raised by Pepe in the Forum article when he asked : “Will paisanos sending assistance to AD's who don't disarm be open to U.S. charges of funding terrorism?” That possibility remains a ticking time bomb. By H.G. REZA for OC Weekly A simple arch greets everyone who visits El Limón de la Luna, a village in the central Mexican state of Michoacán located in a region known as the Tierra Caliente—the Hot Land. "Bienvenidos al Limon de la Luna" ("Welcome to the Lime of the Moon"), say the words welded to the curved metal frame, which stretches across a two-lane road leading into town. The lime trees that grow on both sides of the highway complement the greeting with their dark-green leaves that look almost black in the fading light of day. During the harvest season, the ripe fruits—so juicy they gave the town its ethereal name—get picked and sent across Mexico. This bucolic entrance is a familiar sight to many residents in Santa Ana, the unofficial capital of the michoacanodiaspora in Southern California for the past 40 years. El Limón nowadays only counts about 300 residents, a population that significantly increases come winter, when caravans of expats make the 28-hour drive from Orange County to their ancestral home for Christmas break. But last year, the rancho's message of goodwill attracted unwelcome guests who didn't arrive with the same intentions as homesickpaisanos looking for a respite from the tough life of El Norte. A drug cartel called Los Caballeros Templarios (the Knights Templar) had built a stronghold in Apatzingán, a city of about 90,000, gaining control through a campaign of terror and intimidation. The cartel's tentacles spread quickly to the smaller outlying ranchos, including El Limón de la Luna, where it became an occupying army that exerted its authority with ruthless efficiency. . Some of the men helped to raise funds among limoneros in Orange County to pay for the arch. A man pulls up the photograph on his iPhoneand shows it to me. Four people are hanging from the arch, each with hands tied in front, feet dangling above the asphalt road. One is a pregnant woman whose husband and 19-year-old sister were hanged next to her, suffering the same long, agonizing death at the hands of amateur hangmen. The fourth victim is a man whose pants are pulled down around his ankles and his underwear yanked down to mid-thigh. A newspaper is attached to his head, suggesting that someone did not like comments—probably critical of the Templarios—attributed to him in an article.  The decision to use the arch for the executions appeared to be deliberate. It seemed the narcos saw gallows humor in El Limón de la Luna's warm welcome to all and were sending a warning to others thinking about opposing them: You're welcome to challenge us—but we'll have the last laugh. It wouldn't be the first or last time the cartel had used the arch to send what Mexican papers call a narcomensaje, a narco message; there have been at least two other hangings from the arch, resulting in the murders of four men. "So, you see, this is why we can't give you our real names if we talk to you," says the man with the iPhone, pointing to the photo. "If I say one wrong word and my name appears in the newspaper, it would be my family in Michoacán who will suffer. Do you think I want to see a picture of my father or brother hanging from the arch?" Another man tells of family members who were stopped at a road checkpoint set up by cartel gunmen outside of Apatzingán and forced to pay a tax for owning a car. His friend adds that his brother's parked car was shot full of holes by Templarios "who were looking for a way to entertain themselves."
The details they provided were purposely sketchy. Giving too much information could identify their families in Michoacán, putting them at risk of retaliation by Templariosicarios(assassins). And giving too many details away would also expose the remarkable revolution these men and their fellow michoacanos have supported and instigated after deciding enough was enough. In response to the Templarios' menace, thousands of residents in Tierra Caliente about a year ago began forming self-defense groups known as autodefensas, armed themselves and attacked the cartel, slowly driving narcos out of their towns in a series of bloody skirmishes that included house-to-house fighting. In los Estados Unidos, Michoacán natives began raising funds across the diaspora to help. Some even left their lives here to go back to Tierra Caliente and fight—not just men born and raised there, but even their Americanized children. It was an uprising that captured the hearts of Mexicans at home and abroad, is inspiring similar uprisings in other Mexican states shackled under narcoviolence, and embarrassed the administration of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, who recently tried to save face by announcing he was incorporating the autodefensaswithin the Mexican military. But the michoacano community in Santa Ana isn't celebrating just yet. Rumors abound about cartel gunmen and spies infiltrating the local community to gather names of people who criticize or denounce the Templarios. The New York Times reported that residents of Apatzingán are equally mistrustful, quoting a government official who said one does not know who the cartel's spies are until you cross them. * * * When local michoacanosdiscuss the war at home, they speak in whispers about "los problemas" or "las cosas" (the things), reminiscent of the Irish referring to sectarian strife inNorthern Ireland as "The Troubles." The word Templario is not mentioned in public, at least not above a whisper, lest it attract attention from one of the cartel's spies, whommichoacanosare convinced are everywhere. A man who was approached at his business waved me away and shook his head when I asked if I could talk to him about the war back home. He turned around and disappeared into a back room. After agreeing to talk to the Weekly, another man recanted after discussing his decision to go public with friends who also hail from Tierra Caliente. "I've changed my mind and am asking you to please forget everything I've told you," he said in a frantic telephone call the following day. "My friends are right. If my name appears in the paper, there's no telling what the narcos could do. And they're also right that I'll be putting my wife and kids in harm's way if I speak out, even if we live here. I can be punished for speaking the truth." The Michoacán grapevine says Templarios live in the San Bernardino County town ofHesperiaand in Riverside County in Mira Loma and Riverside. They have also been spotted in Santa Ana, eating at restaurants favored by michoacanos. "People know who they are. They may have changed their names, but they can't change their appearance and their past," says one man. Asked why he and the others do not report them to authorities, he says they are afraid of getting tagged as police informants and putting loved ones in Michoacán at risk of retribution by the cartel. Here, as in Tierra Caliente, the best way to avoid the Templarios' wrath is by taking the Sergeant Schultz approach, as another man says: "Miras, pero dices, 'Yo no vi.'" ("You look, but say, 'I saw nothing.'") The men's fears are real. Authorities say that some of the methamphetamine smuggled into Southern California is controlled by the Templarios, and Michoacán is the source of the drug. In 2010, federal agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration(DEA) were investigating another cartel's activities in San Diego County and were surprised to learn about the Templarios. The investigation quickly branched out to target Templarios, too. After an almost two-year investigation called Operation Knight Stalker, agents secured 30 arrest warrants for members of La Familia Michoacana and Templario cartels throughout Southern California in December 2012. Arrests were made in Santa Ana, Buena Park, Riverside, Perris, Downey and Los Angeles, as well as in San Diego County and as far north as Manteca. According to DEA Special Agent Amy Roderick, the investigation is ongoing. "These are dangerous and scary people," she says. "That's why we're going after them." Various drug cartels have fought over Michoacán for much of the past decade, but the brutality practiced by the Templarios has shocked even Mexicans. They're a splinter group from La Familia Michoacana (The Michoacán Family), notorious for making beheadings a normal part of cartel mayhem. After the Mexican Federal Police killed La Familia's founders, group infighting resulted in the formation of the Templarios, who won their internecine battle in 2011 to become heir to La Familia's medieval initiation rituals and ultraviolence. After successfully taking over Michoacán's bigger cities, they turned their attention to Tierra Caliente. It's a geographic and cultural zone covering parts of Michoacán and the neighboring state of Guerrero rich in agriculture and natural resources. In the Mexican psyche, it plays the same role as the Ozarks or Appalachiadoes for Americans: a region of stunning beauty, crushing poverty and fiercely independent people. The Templarios took on Tierra Caliente as the German Army did the Soviet Unionin World War II, killing, burning and looting with impunity. Upon taking power, they began subjecting residents to increasing extortion. Protection money was demanded; when that wasn't enough, the Templarios began asking for taxes on everything from land to crops picked to even wages. They occupied avocado groves and lime orchards, forcing their owners to sell their farms for a pittance. Sexual assaults and human trafficking became common. Cartel members intimidated terrified residents into silence; those who dared speak out saw their cars and homes burned—if they were lucky. The crisis reached a climax when the Templarios' chokehold on the towns and governing bodies in Tierra Caliente began to affect the area's main economic crops, limes and avocados, as well as threatened the livelihood of just about everybody living there. More crucial, the remittances by immigrants—long a lifeline that sustained long-abandoned ranchos such as El Limón de la Luna—dried up completely. Transfer services were suspected of being Templario fronts, so michoacanos in Santa Ana said they had to send money to Bancomer branches in faraway towns to ensure the safety of their loved ones; this precaution sometimes required two- or three-hour round trips. Even this was fraught with danger: Those who received money were immediately identified by Templarios as locals with connections to the United States. Kidnappings for ransom began to occur. Visits by Mexicans in the States to their Tierra Caliente hometowns began being canceled because of the Templarios' violence. Sick and dying parents went unvisited by children afraid of being killed. "My father is seriously ill and not doing well," says another Santa Ana resident who hails from the rancho of Peribán. "I'm afraid to visit him because of the fighting. The only thing I can do is call him frequently and hope for the best." Peribán is north of Buenavista Tomatlán. Last year, a politician was killed there after criticizing the cartel, and 10 local people were killed in an ambush while returning from a meeting with authorities about the drug gang. The cartel's presence was everywhere, including the local police forces. Many believed the drug ring was capable of monitoring telephone calls. "The violence is tearing our community apart, but you don't discuss it when you call home," says the man from Peribán. "You don't know who else could be listening, so you talk about work, family or the weather." * * * Tierra Caliente and its residents abroad couldn't count on any part of Mexican law enforcement for help. Local and state police are notorious for their close ties to the cartels; the Mexican Army and federal government seemed powerless to act. And when residents of Tierra Caliente finally realized this, they rose up and began to fight. The first village credited as retaliating against the Templarios was the indigenous community of Cherán, located in the Michoacán mountains north of Tierra Caliente and famous for its forests that serve as the breeding ground for the monarch butterfly. Most of the population there is Purépecha, and they were subject to the simultaneous triple blow of illegal logging, the Templarios and an apathetic government. Starting in 2011, the village engaged in skirmishes with La Familia and, following its demise, the Templarios. In February 2013, women in Cherán began organizing armed community-watch groups that successfully pushed the cartels out.
The move shocked a Mexican nation inured to decades of nasty narco battles—and galvanized the rest of Michoacán. Peasants, lime pickers, ranchers, shop owners, teachers and other everyday people found inspiration in Cherán and took matters into their own hands. People began occupying municipal buildings and arresting local police officers they suspected of being in the Templarios' employ. Soon, bunkers made from fertilizer bags began appearing at vigilante-manned checkpoints on roads leading in and out of the towns. The bags were also used to prepare defensive positions in the towns. Autodefensasarmed with AK-47 and M-16 assault rifles began patrolling the highways and towns, looking for a fight with Templario soldados. They were successful beyond their wildest dreams. The drug lords and their soldiers were sent running for their lives, some promising to return and mete out vengeance; by last month, the autodefensaswere on the march to the Templarios' home base of Apatzingán.
Peasant men and teenage combatants were photographed enjoying themselves inside the opulent homes of Templarios leaders, including Enrique Plancarte "El Kike" Solis, whose taste for interior design was monochromatic. Almost everything in his home—furniture, accessories, walls—was a shade of red on white. His pink-and-white bedroom, including a pink bed, was fodder for Mexican newspapers, which ran photos with headlines such as "This Is How El Kike Lived." Until late last year, little was known in the United States about the bloody clashes between the defense groups and the Templarios. Recent reports in the Mexican media have claimed that a San Jose-based group called Voluntarios de la Comunidad (Volunteers of the Community) has held fund-raisers for the autodefensas in Los Angeles, San Bernardinoand other California cities with a large michoacanopresence. However, no one will openly admit such events have happened in Santa Ana. Several local men say they have increased the amount of money they send home every month during the timeof "las cosas." Ostensibly, the funds are supposed to be used for food and other living expenses—but if the money is also being used to purchase arms and ammunition . . . well, the men cannot say. What is undisputed is that former Santa Ana residents have joined the autodefensas. TheLos Angeles Times identified one of the fighters as Adolfo Silva, who attended Century High School and joined after the Templarios kidnapped his cousin. In an interview with GlobalPost.com, Silva seemed straight out of Hollywood central casting for American Me(his brother, the Times reported, was a member of the city's Lopers gang), with his clipped English, short hair and bravado. "We're here to defend the people. They tell us whatever they need," he told an interviewer. Then, speaking of the Templarios, Silva said, "They do a lot of bad stuff; we don't even know how come they be—how they are like that." A man who grew up near Nueva Italia, a town south of Apatzingán, and has lived in Orange County for almost 40 years says the narco leaders' lavish lifestyles was shocking for all the poverty in the Tierra Caliente. "These are men with no education," he says. "They are ignorant but have made themselves rich by exploiting the same people that they come from." The man makes a sweeping gesture with his right arm and points his forefinger at the other men standing at the bar with him. "We came here to better our lives by doing honest work," he says. "We earned what we have. Those people [drug lords] became rich through terror and murder." * * * Michoacanos began arriving in Santa Ana in the early 1960s, the same time Easterners, Midwesterners, Appalachian hillbillies, tejanos and others began flooding Orange County and Southern California. Michoacanoshad another thing in common with their fellow migrants: They were all part of a population boom and construction surge fueled by the aerospace industry. The others went to work in aircraft or defense plants or electronic firms;Michoacanosworked on farms, poured concrete, even picked the oranges that were still plentiful then and performed other backbreaking jobs handed out to newly arrived immigrants. The lucky ones worked as laborers in the construction industry—the pay was better—and helped to build the houses purchased by aircraft, defense and electronics workers. The really lucky ones joined the Laborers Local 652, hung out at its union hall off Chestnut Avenue, and earned relatively good wages and benefits. Many of the $40,000 dream homes built in central and north Orange County in the early 1970s were constructed in part by their blue-collar labor. When developers ran out of places to put up stucco and lay down concrete and asphalt, they turned to South County and took the michoacanos with them to build more expensive homes on ridges that rise above the ocean. The first families settled around First Street and Grand Avenue in Santa Ana, often sharing homes or apartments with other michoacanos until they could get on their feet. Our Lady of Guadalupe Church near Second and Grand, where First Communions and weddings were celebrated, served as an anchor for the community. As their numbers grew, they began pushing west toward South Main Street, where the first shops and restaurants catering to michoacanos began appearing in the 1980s. Today, Santa Ana is awash with businesses bearing the names of the Michoacán towns that sent the most people: Zamora, Sahuayo, Uruápan, Pátzcuaro, Apatzingán, El Granjenal. Over the years, michoacanoshave been perhaps the most cohesive of the many Mexican immigrant communities who settled in Santa Ana, frequently organizing hometown benefit associations to press for political change in the city and to raise funds for municipal projects back in Michoacán the Mexican government could never seem to care to finish. But those ties are changing as assimilation becomes easier for the newer generations. The sons shun the starched Western-style shirts, broad silver belt buckles and cowboy boots worn by their fathers as their Sunday best. The community festivals held at the union and church halls are not as important as before, when they were also a forum for families to gossip about events taking place back home. "Our children are Americans. Many haven't even been to Michoacán. To them, it's just a place where their parents came from," says the man from Peribán. For all the negative stereotypes that many have of Mexican immigrants and Santa Ana, there is also one real fact: The children of michoacanos who arrived as unskilled laborers half a century ago are today working alongside the children of whites who arrived at the same time. They are also buying the homes their fathers helped to build. The elders, meanwhile, rue the violence that is tearing apart their homeland and worry about family members who stayed behind. However, there is near-universal support for theautodefensas who are taking back the towns, whether birthplaces or ancestral, from drug lords and disdain for the government and military who allowed Michoacán to teeter close to becoming a failed state. Autodefensas have proven an embarrassment to Nieto and the Mexican Army. A ragtag group of embattled farmers have done in a few weeks what the military and law enforcement were unable, or unwilling, to accomplish in a decade. The fighters have their own uniform of sorts; white T-shirts emblazoned with "Grupo de Autodefensa" on the back. They've been hailed as heroes by almost all of Mexico, compared to the Zapatista uprising of the 1990s or the troops of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata from a century ago. An image of Michoacán's unofficial mascot—a Purépecha girl that's the logo for the La Michoacana ice cream company, now sketched with a shotgun, pistol and bandana covering her face—has gone viral, a commentary on the state of the times. Some critics have charged the autodefensas are nothing more than hired gunmen for another cartel looking to oust the Templarios. However, no evidence has backed up the allegations, which have been strongly denied by leaders of the local defense groups. A few weeks ago, the military threatened to disarm the self-defense groups, who refused to give up their arms and pushed back with demands of their own: They would consider a compromise only if all of the Templarios' top leaders were arrested and a genuine rule of law without crooked cops is established in their towns. Late last month, the government reached a "temporary" agreement with the vigilantes in which the autodefensas would cooperate with government law-enforcement agencies and be absorbed into quasi-military units called the Rural Defense Corps. The units will be overseen by the Mexican Army, and the fighters would be allowed to keep their arms if they register them. The latter stipulation is significant because Mexico's gun laws do not permit citizens to own assault weapons. Even though the autodefensasappear to have beaten the Templarios and the government, it still isn't enough to satisfy the michoacanos in Santa Ana. "Why doesn't the U.S. send the American military to Michoacán and clean up the place?" asks one man. "We send soldiers to Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. Why not Michoacán?" His friends nod in agreement, serious. It is an alternative that has been debated among them, and they see U.S. intervention as the only solution for peace in Tierra Caliente. The suggestion is outlandish, of course. Their naivete and frustration bring to mind the Mexicans' traditional lament for their country: So far from God and so close to the United States. So all they can do is fight for the Hot Land  | |||||||||
Attemps to reconcile "Americano" and "Hipolito" La Ruana groups fails Posted: 15 Apr 2014 01:12 AM PDT Borderland Beat The Ruana version of the Hatfield vs Mc Coys, is a selfish, personal war destructive to the autodefensa movement. In my opinion they should have been kicked out the federation as soon as their conflict became an issue that impacted the movement.....Take what either side says whith a massive barrel of salt.....But this will give you a peek at day to day life in La Ruana, population 10,000..... Chivís  La Ruana, Michoacán - The gathering takes place with 20 insults and 5 death threats each minute. On one side of the plaza, adjacent to the bandstand, stand Hipólito Mora’s people. On the other side, the followers of Luis Manuel Torres, aka "El Americano". In between both groups, no one, because the Federal Police "took a hike", as they say around here, as soon as the conflict began. It’s after six in the afternoon. At 1p.m. there was another meeting that ended up with a small march to on of Torres' community roadblocks. Mora’s followers hoped to run them out of town. There was yelling, pushing and hitting. Mora’s followers, now headed by his brother Guadalupe, say that H3, the letter and number that identify the patrol cars used by Torres’s army, fired into the air and "the ground, near our feet", according to one the most daring ladies. The problem is well known: mid-March, the self-defense groups of El Americano besieged those of Hipólito Mora, which were greatly outnumbered in people and arms, to arrest the founder of the self-defense groups and two of his men, who were accused of shooting and then burning Rafael Sanchez Moreno, El Pollo, and Jose Luis Torres Castaneda, the first one a reformed (ex-Templar converted into self-defense group member). The siege lasted three days. On the second day, Mora was taken out by the government and later jailed, accused of being the intellectual author of the crimes. As the days went on, more accusations were added. The local priest, Jose Luis Segura, says that since then things are worse than when the Templars were around, but the description is not exact: it’s hard to imagine during that time people would’ve had the courage to go out, as they do today, to demand that El Americano’s people leave town. We have to say, it’s not everyone. The town is clearly divided. "Murderers!", Mora’s followers shout. "Thieves!", answer El Americano’s people. And who gave them permission? La Jornada arrives around three thirty, when the initial commotion ends. A couple of men sitting under the shade dare to talk. All of a sudden, one of Torres’s men interrupts: "What are you writing there?", he asks, and snatches the notebook. He tries to read the scrawling writing. He makes out something one of the men just said about the government: "Hipolito was set up." It’s proof enough to take the reporter to El Americano. The reporters are surrounded by about thirty armed men. Torres reviews the notebook. He stumbles on the writing. "What does it say here?", he asks several times. He says he doesn’t remember an interview done in January. Around him, several men complain and threaten. "Don't say anything more that’s good for Hipolito. They lie!" After an exchange that seems to last forever, and with one simple look, he authorizes the journalists to be present. He even authorizes photographs of the assembly. Since he’s a man of few words, prior to the explanations El Americano had said: "And who gave you permission? Leave." Four young men on motor scooters follow the reporters everywhere they go while they wait for the assembly to begin. The point of the meeting is to decide if El Americano and his men should continue watching over the town and name a council that would theoretically have control over the self-defense groups. An important fact: there are no guns in sight. The first one to speak, Guadalupe Mora asks that his people be placed on one side and his opponent’s on the other. And the shouting starts. They accuse him of dividing. The deputy mayor, Ramon Contreras, adds his voice to Mora’s petition. He says this way the votes will be counted. "The one that wins, wins," he says. The next one to speak is a courageous woman, whom some identify as El Pollo’s sister: "Who has the moral quality to decide who can live in this town and who can’t?" She also asks that no one on the council should have a heart full of rancor. She gets an ovation, but only naturally from the side of El Americano, who only shows up after the assembly has been going on for a while. A follower of Torres speaks next and says: "If we are not wanted, we’ll leave. We won’t fight. We only need the town’s decision." "Shut up, asshole!", someone shouts. The speakers at the microphone are accompanied by shouts for sanity, insults, dead threats and even some punches between the biggest hotheads. "The one that did harm needs to show his face," says an old man. A pregnant woman in a miniskirt challenges those that went to her home and tried to throw her out to show their faces. A chubby guy shouts his accusations against a "repentant" Knights Templar: "You killed him!" His father, on the bandstand with the accused, pleads: "Don’t kill him for that, please don’t kill him!" A young man looks Hipóolito’s brother in the eye and says: "Lupe Mora is responsible for whatever happens to me or my family!" A rotund woman accuses Hipólito of jailing her husband, accusing him of "stealing " and using drugs: and "if he uses drugs, so what, if he buys drugs with his own money." "Hipólito put me in jail because I refused to kill a guy, but I’m not a murderer," says an old, toothless, man. The deputy mayor, who on February 24 still worked for Hipólito, wants to stop the discussion: "Are we going to do it or not? Hey, separate your people on this side," he tells Guadalupe Mora. A space that looks more like an abyss starts opening up. It looks like Mora’s people are the majority, but the voting doesn’t take place because some demand there be ballot boxes. Also, aside from the deputy mayor, the only authority present is Mayor Luis Torres, recently reinstated in his post thanks to an agreement with El Americano. He takes the microphone and wants to be a mediator, but he can’t stand the shouts of "get out, get out!" He ends his small speech with: "11 thousand people voted for me, a group of 100 can’t tell me to leave," he says, stops talking and goes to the back row. The government declared war on him A speaker, older and short in stature, goes straight to the point: “We don’t want any Americanos here!” "Cabron you live in McAllen [Texas], you don’t even know what’s going on in La Ruana," they yell back. That’s when Luis Manuel Torres [El Americano] shows up, wearing a Lacoste 1927 cap and white sandals: "I’m from La Ruana and no one will make me leave." He speaks little, but goes straight to the point: he says he knows they are going to do to him "the same thing that they did to Hipólito". And he says: "the law is useless." El Americano and Lupe Mora try to reach an agreement. A repentant with Bvlgari glasses seems to be Torres’s consultant and proposes the creation of a council made up of people from both sides. They try to negotiate, but can’t reach an agreement, while the shouting continues below. Let’s go, there is nothing to do here, says Lupe. “Americano, Americano, Americano!”, shouts a group of women. Torres speaks again: "I’m going to keep watching, and if they sick the government on me, do it, let it come to try to disarm me and I will declare war against it." When the assembly ends, Guadalupe Mora laments: "I called Commissioner Alfredo Castillo yesterday to ask him to send the Federal Police, and look, they left us alone." La Jornada: Arturo Cano-Translated by Ruby Izar-Shea  | |||||||||
Posted: 14 Apr 2014 08:29 PM PDT Chivis Martínez for Borderland Beat   This video is the full length footage of a video posted on blogs and the mainstream news last week. It features slain Templarios leader Enrique “Kike” Plancarte and his singer daughter Melissa. This version is posted on Reforma. Melissa was previously adamant in interviews, that she was not in touch with her father and had not seen him since she was 15. Few believed that to be true, or that she and her father were estranged; she only confirmed her parentage in 2012. This video takes place somewhere in the Michoacán Sierras, where the singer is filming a video for a song released in 2013. Although there isn’t footage in the video of the two together, they appear being at the same setting, her “inside” and him out. The video poster makes a case of them being together by pointing out the ambient noises being alike, namely a running motor, voices and a bird chirping. Additionally a conversation is taped from two cameras between the two and the footage shows each perspective.  | |||||||||
Posted: 13 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT  In a news report which appeared in El Diario de Coahuila news daily, eight siblings were found shot to death in Pueblo Nuevo municipality Saturday. According to the report the dead were from the Duran Chamorro family and were found in the village of Balontita, which is near the border with Santa Rosario municipality in Sinaloa state. A few of the dead were identified unofficially as Eusiquia, Bernardo, Erika, "Chuya", Cruz, Cecilia, Hermelinda and Samuel. Also in Pueblo Nuevo, although the news report failed to state when, an individual identified as Fidel Ortega, 44, was shot to death in the village of Los Naranjos. A Mexican Army road patrol engaged and killed one armed suspect near the village of La Puerta in Pueblo Nuevo. Another man, identified as Lamberto Sarabia Cabrera, 20, was wounded in the encounter. The 10 dead in Pueblo Nuevo municipality is the worse death toll since 2012, when a total of six armed suspects were killed in an intergang shootout in 2012. A total of nine individuals were killed in that municipality in 2012. Pueblo Nuevo sits astride Mexico Federal Highway 40, which links the Pacific seaport of Mazatlan to Durango city and points east. This region of Durango is also part of the Golden Triangle in the western Mexican sierras, where drugs are grown and processed by most of Mexico's drug cartels. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  | |||||||||
Posted: 12 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT  Saturday a news account which appeared in the online edition of Milenio news daily said that four victims of a series of shootouts in Tamazula were found Saturday between the villages of Chacala and Las Coloradas. Those men were identified as Joel Barraza Chairez, 18, Aurelio Beltran Leon, 39, Nemias Fernandez Lopez, 24, and Jesus Alberto Guzman Garcia, 35. Last Wednesday news reports indicated that a total of 18 individuals were killed in a series of gunfights between local drug gangs in the municipality. At the time confirmed reporst were that four were found dead, and three were wounded, even though other publications had said the bloodletting was much worse. According to a separate news account in Milenio published last Wednesday, starting on April 8th, some of the gunfights in the area lasted about 15 hours and took place in the villages of Chacala, Las Coloradas and Las Trancas. Those reports also said that three individuals were wounded in the gunfights. They were identified in an April 9th La Jornada report as José Valdez Castañeda, Alejo Villanueva Zazueta and José Angel Arredondo Yáñez. The Milenio report which was filed Saturday also mentioned three wounded although none of the previous online reports have said if the reported wounded were the same. Mexico, specifically in Sinaloa are no strangers to large scale armed encounters between drug gangs. Almost two years ago 57 individuals were killed on a month's time span beginning in May, 2012, after gangs aligned with the Sinaloa drug cartel fought against groups of fighters affiliated with the Juarez, Beltran Leyva and Los Zetas mostly in Choix municipality. Given the nature of the fighting, usually gangs retrieve their dead to prevent rival gangs and Mexican security forces from gaining intelligence. Adding to that the government habit of failing to report everything about a confrontation, the death toll in Tamazula may be much worse than reported. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  | |||||||||
Mayito Zambada's "Guilty" Plea Deal Unsealed- is "Cooperating" with Feds Posted: 10 Apr 2014 11:26 PM PDT  The highest-ranking leader of the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel ever to be arrested on U.S. charges secretly pleaded guilty in Chicago more than a year ago to conspiring to distribute tons of cocaine and heroin and is cooperating with law enforcement, federal officials announced today. Vincente Zambada-Niebla, 38, is a close associate of captured Sinaloa loader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and is the son of Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who is believed to have taken control of the vast enterprise after Guzman’s arrest in February. Prosecutors said Zambada-Niebla, known as “Mayito” or “Little Mayo,” was for years the logistical coordinator of a billion-dollar cocaine and heroin operation, overseeing the delivery of thousands of kilograms of cocaine and heroin into the U.S. He pleaded guilty in U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo’s courtroom on April 3, 2013. Prosecutors in Chicago today unsealed his 23-page plea agreement. (use bottom far right icon to open and adjust size) Under federal sentencing guidelines, Zambada-Niebla faces life in prison, but prosecutors said that if he continues to “provide full and truthful cooperation” they will ask for an unspecified break in his sentence. As part of the plea deal, Zambada-Niebla agreed not to fight an order to forfeit in excess of a staggering $1.37 billion. A sentencing date has not been set. In a written statement, U.S. Attorney Zachary Fardon praised the work of federal agents “to hold accountable those individuals at the highest levels of the drug trafficking cartels who are responsible for flooding Chicago with cocaine and heroin and reaping the profits.” Zambada-Niebla was arrested in 2009 in Mexico City when he was indicted with Guzman, his father and other alleged Sinaloa cartel leaders in what was considered the most significant drug case in Chicago history. The indictment accused the cartel of using jumbo jets, submarines, tunnels, and other means to smuggle drugs into the U.S.  Pedro and Margarito Flores, twin brothers from Chicago's West Side who had risen in the ranks of Guzman's organization, provided key cooperation against Zambada-Niebla, leading to the seizure of millions of dollars worth of drugs between 2005 and 2009, according to court records. Margarito Flores attended a meeting in 2008 with Zambada-Niebla, Guzman and other cartel leaders at a mountaintop compound in Mexico, the charges allege. Flores told authorities that Guzman discussed a plot to attack a U.S. or Mexican government or media building in retaliation for the recent arrest of an associate. Later in the conversation, Zambada-Niebla turned to Flores and asked him to find somebody who could give him “big, powerful weapons” to help carry out the attack, according to court records. “American (expletive). We don’t want Middle Eastern or Asian guns, we want big U.S. guns or RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades),” Zambada-Niebla said, according to Flores’ account of the conversation in court records. “We don’t need one, we need a lot of them.” Zambada-Niebla admitted in his plea agreement that between May 2005 and December 2008, he was a high-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel and was responsible for many aspects of its drug trafficking operations, “both independently and as a trusted lieutenant for his father.” According to the plea deal, Zambada-Niebla coordinated the importation of multi-ton quantities of cocaine from Colombia and Panama into Mexico and facilitated the transportation and storage of these shipments within Mexico. Zambada-Niebla also admitted that he was aware that the cartel used violence and made credible threats of violence to rival cartels and to law enforcement in Mexico to facilitate its business. Under his deal, he faces at least 10 years behind bars, and a fine of up to $4 million. If he provides “full and truthful cooperation” against other members of the cartel, the government will try to spare him from a life sentence, the deal says. U.S. Attorney Zach Fardon said in a news release Thursday morning that the plea deal was “testament to the tireless determination of the leadership and special agents of DEA’s Chicago office to hold accountable those individuals at the highest levels of the drug trafficking cartels who are responsible for flooding Chicago with cocaine and heroin and reaping the profits.” Zambada-Niebla pleaded guilty to a single count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute multiple kilograms of cocaine and heroin between 2005 and 2008. His plea deal describes the distribution of tons of cocaine between 2005 and 2008. Zambada-Niebla admitted that he was a high-level member of the Sinaloa Cartel and was responsible for many aspects of its drug trafficking operations, “both independently and as a trusted lieutenant for his father,” the deal states. Zambada-Niebla also admitted he knew his father was among the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel since the 1970s. He acknowledged that he helped coordinate the importation of multiton quantities of cocaine from Central and South American countries, including Colombia and Panama, into the interior of Mexico, and facilitated the transportation and storage of these shipments within Mexico. Source: Department of Justice website-Chicago Tribune-Chicago Sun  | |||||||||
Confirmed: El Chapo's Security Chief 'El Bravo' Killed Posted: 11 Apr 2014 02:40 PM PDT The Attorney General of the state of Sinaloa (PGJE) today confirmed that one of the three killed in the town of Elota is Manuel Alejandro Gómez Aponce aka "El Bravo". When found he had been dead for apx three hours. After the capture of Guzman Loera, , it was learned that El Bravo was in charge of the resort of Mazatlán, and was the man entrusted to oversee security at the Miramar condos . We all know how that ended.  Ríodoce is reporting , the security chief of El Chapo, is one of the three bodies discovered Wednesday morning at a factory. This is the second time "El Bravo" has been reported dead in recent years. The bodies were found in La Cruz de Elota, Sinaloa. The discovery of the bodies occurred at about 11AM. Ministerial Police sources said the dead bodies were discovered by workers at the site known as "La Palapa". The bodies were discarded alongside a chain link fence, with signs of torture and blows to the body in addition to bullets to the head. One of the deceased was wrapped in a blanket with duct tape at the feet.  Manuel Alejandro Aponte Gomez has been indentifed by the federal government as security chief of Joaquin Guzman Loera for ten years. The security chief is a former Elite Militar and is a Military College graduate, attending in the years of 1993 to 1996. He is named as the architect of the execution plot of Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentes, The Golden Child, the afternoon of September 11, 2004 at the Cinepolis Plaza, in Culiacan. El Bravo is from Chilpancingo, Guerrero. Aponte Gomez he graduated as a second lieutenant in 1996, and led one of the infantry units stationed in anti-drug efforts.  According documents of the agency, the seventh infantry, in those years were deployed to the mountain town of Badiraguato, Sinaloa, the birth place of 'El Chapo.' He was listed as a deserter in May 2004. In his ministerial statement, Carlos Manuel Hoo Ramirez, the man who was arrested with Joaquin Guzman Loera, February 22 in Mazatlán, said the arrest of Chapo could trigger a war between Dámaso López Núñez and Manuel Aponte Núñez López (el Bravo) , if he and the sons of Guzman Loera come to believe that they were betrayed by Dámaso.  | |||||||||
Posted: 10 Apr 2014 08:39 AM PDT  El Diario.mx (4-7-2014) by Raymundo Riva Palacio, Journalist and political analystTranslated for Borderland Beat by un vatoFEDERAL DISTRICT-- The most surprising thing about the arrest last Friday of Jesus Reyna, Secretary of Government and former interim governor for the State of Michoacan is that it did not happen earlier. For a long time, he said that the situation in Michoacan was peaceful, and with that, he prevented an earlier Federal intervention in the state, which led to the rise of the self defense forces (autodefensas). For months, he operated from the shadows against Federal Commissioner Alfredo Castillo and controlled the local Congress to prevent the reestablishment of the political order. Accused by the former gubernatorial candidate, Luisa Maria Calderon, of having links with Los Caballeros Templarios, nobody touched him until a few days ago, when the lieutenant of a cartel leader pointed him out. It's unusual when a criminal incriminates a politician for the latter to be arrested by Federal authorities, interrogated and, to investigate more thoroughly, for him to be placed in detention for 40 days, all ofwhich the PGR (Mexico's Attorney General) did this past weekend. Normally, when a criminal names a high level public official, Federal authorities investigate him quietly, without throwing him into the bonfire because he was singled out. The PGR (Mexican Attorney General) sentenced Reyna politically, and Miguel Angel Osorio, the Secretary of Interior, without worrying about the Federal Pact [between PRI and PAN], converted him into the "former Secretary" of government. If the rules were broken and the times have changed, the question is, why? In any case, Reyna is the key to a door that could unveil details about the institutional protection provided to Los Caballeros Templarios. Within the Federal government, his dark connections with the criminal world were known, but, like other politicians in the past, the connections were useful for the new government. "Reyna operates in the sewers, but he's necessary for resolving (public) security problems", a high ranking federal official said last year when it was thought that Fausto Vallejo would not return to govern Michoacan after he had health problems. Osorio Chong worked with him to restore order in Michoacan, but what Reyna did was to maintain the status quo that favored Los Caballeros Templarios. The PGR will have to determine whether the consequences from his policies were deliberate or circumstantial, but the bottom line is that it happened. The clearest example was the former mayor of Tepalcatepec, Guillermo Valencia, who in February requested permanent leave after nine months, he said, of harassment by the brothers Juan Jose and Uriel Farias, alleged in court files to be plaza bosses for the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generacion (CJNG). Valencia is a creation of Reyna, and for ten months functioned as mayor (of Tepalcatepec) from Morelia. The council of Tepalcatepec asked the local Congress to name a new mayor, but, under pressure from Reyna, it responded that it did not have the power to remove him, froze the petition, and in that manner exacerbated the conflict in the area. When Reyna lost power, the Congress facilitated the process and Valencia became an instrument to attack Commissioner Castillo. Both of them were accused publicly of having links with the deceased leader of La Familia Michoacana/Los Caballeros Templarios, Nazario Moreno, "El Chayo", and Servando Gomez, "La Tuta", which is one of the reasons that Reyna is under arrest. (Reyna) is the first thread in a web that reaches into the heart of Leonel Godoy's government, who, through his (Reyna's) intercession , became a political ally of Vallejo. The strange alliance of the PRI politician Vallejo with his PRD predecessor --who left an out of control public debt and a state partially governed by drug traffickers-- triggered a profound political crisis and deepened the security crisis in Michoacan. If the phenomenon of drug trafficking grew during the administration of Lazaro Cardens Batel during the fist part of this century, it became solidly entrenched in power during that of Godoy, friend of Reyna since they were youths. The alliance allowed him to maintain, by omission or by intent, the support of the Templario cartel, itself broken by the paramilitary offensive of the autodefensas and their alliance with the Federal government. When Vallejo returned to the governor's office in October, Reyna revolted and tried to sabotage him. He was unable to do so, and began his own war of attrition and discredit against Castillo and the Federal intervention. The struggle ended this weekend, with the veil of protection of Los Caballeros Templarios -- again, through omission or intentionally -- (disappearing) in step with the beheading of the cartel. Leaders, finances, militias, businesses have been affected in the last few months. What was needed was a blow to the heart of institutional protection, which everything seems to indicate has begun.  | |||||||||
Dr Mireles is sole spokesman-Additonal arrests-Fake AD Facebook pages Posted: 10 Apr 2014 09:16 AM PDT Chivís Martínez for Borderland Beat  Dr Mireles stated, that the move was to better inform the public of decisions and movement in working in coordination with agencies to combat crime. The action will give clarity on official positions and decisions of AD on all matters. Recently, there has been confusion, in part, due to multiple leaders speaking in an official manner, sometimes with incompatibility. Dr. Mireles has steadfastly held the position, that all matters and decisions must be presented before council for a vote, and the result of the vote shall prevail. While Dr. Mireles was convalescing with injuries from a plane crash, he was unilaterally removed as council spokesman by Estanislao Beltran, aka Papa Smurf. The removal was conducted without a vote of council and came on the heels of a very candid interviewDrMireles gave to El Pais.   On Sunday in five different locations in Michoacán against the governments proposed autodefensas disarmament. Demonstrations were reported in Apatzingán Miigica, Parácuaro, Los Reyes and La Huacana. It was in the recently liberated town of Huetamo that AD reported the arrest of 12 AD members during the night, by federal forces. Autodefensas believe that by disarming the group, that will make them vulnerable to other cartels, Zetas, CDG etc would likely move into Michoacán to take the territory from the weakened Templarios. "We don't want any cartels in Michoacán", said Dr, Mireles. Dr Mireles reported to me, that Americano is not the criminal some outlets have reported him to be. That he is a good friend of Dr Mireles. Neither he or Smurf are behind the death threats nor are they working in collusion with the commissioner to oust the movement. Because Dr Mireles has not made public who those people are that are behind the threats, I will not say who they are, but will say who they are not.
What has occurred, is a small faction of an Autodefensa group, coordinators of two communities, rallied against the federation, and began meeting secretly with the State Commissioner of Security, Alfredo Castillo with a plan to disarm and destroy the federation union. What led to the conflict between the two autodefensa groups was greed. The organizers of the two communities wanted title ownership of properties confiscated from the hands of Templarios, to be transferred to various leaders and coordinators and began doing so for themselves. Dr Mireles and the autodefensas of the other 34 municipalities strongly opposed the actions, saying the land must go back to the rightful owners. This led to a split, which led to an all out conflict between the two sides. The small group began talks with the commissioner and the state, who want nothing more to eliminate the union and the problems that the group has caused the state. For over a year, investigations have been repeatedly called for by the AD federation, because of the pervasive corruption and cartel collusion. Those who have followed the AD movement for the past year, will affirm that Dr Mireles has long spoken of the state level corruption, and specifically the meetings Jesus Reyna had attended with La Tuta on multiple occasion. The meetings were the basis for the recent arrest of Reyna, and was no surprise to those following Dr Mireles. He has called for the expulsion of the commissioner for attempting to disarm the autodefensas. This is in direct violation of the 8 point agreement contracted by the state and the autodefensa federation. Namely, establishing the rule of law, security, and a fair delivery of justice. Only at that time would they lay weapons down.  Caution: Social Media sites declared as autodefensa pages The facebook page Valor Michoacán SDR, issued announcements falsely attributed to autodefensas. It should be known that the above social network page is not connected to autodefensas and does not represent them. This is the word directly from Dr Manuel Mireles, and that would explain why the confusion of pages, such as this popular one, is in conflict with the actual position of autodefensas. Case in point, the rumors about the person known as “Americano” and the H3 autodefensas group, originated on this FB page and is in directly contrary to AD and Dr Mireles position. It has become common place that media outlets such as Proceso and Reforma, has taken the reports from these imposter social pages as the official position of the autodefensas council.  I wrote the administrator of Valor and asked him what evidence he has that Americano is a criminal and has criminal ties. And that H3 is a cartel. I also asked if his page is an official page of the autodefensas council or movement. He wrote back, a week later, and asked if I wanted an interview. He did not answer any of my questions. Finally, the autodefensas began their own official facebook page. By tomorrow I should have the link, I am waiting for a verification. 
Dr Mireles explained the first communities to raise arms and the leaders: H3 signifies the third community (Buena vista) who took up in arms. (H1 is first, H2 is second and so forth) Like H1 is the Ruana, the first who took up arms And H2 is Tepalcatepec. The coordinator general of the Ruana is Hipolito. The general coordinator of Buenavista is the Americano. The general coordinator of Tepalcatepec Or presidente.del Council autodefenzas of tepalcatepec is me. (Dr Mireles) The coordinator. of Aguililla is Frutos Coalcomán is Misael. Apatzingan is Father Goyo. The Nuevo Italia is Cuquín. Churumuco is.Froilan. La Huacana is Ulysses. Los Reyes is Panchito (relative of the girls hanged in Limon de la Luna see foto) Tancítaro is a son of Don Angel Bucio Cotija is Paco.
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El Taliban Pleads Guilty in US Federal Court Posted: 08 Apr 2014 12:37 AM PDT  A former leader of a Los Zetas splinter group pleaded guilty Monday in Texas to federal drug and money laundering charges in a deal prosecutors hope could help with other ongoing investigations. Prosecutors said Ivan Velazquez Caballero, better known as "el Taliban," was a regional boss for the Zetas, the violent former enforcement arm of the Gulf cartel. He pleaded guilty to one count each of drug trafficking conspiracy and money laundering conspiracy stemming from an indictment that accuses dozens of people of smuggling cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. The charges carry a maximum of life in prison, but prosecutors offered him credit that could result in a shorter sentence in exchange for his plea. Investigators believe that Caballero was at one time responsible for the group's money laundering, which could make him an important source in other cases. Sentencing is set for July 18. The criminal acts underlying the charges as occurring between 2001 and 2008, when the Zetas were still part of the Gulf cartel, according to assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno. At the time, the Gulf cartel controlled the eastern end of the Texas-Mexico border. The Zetas eventually spun off into a separate criminal enterprise and finally split from the cartel in early 2010. Velazquez Caballero was allegedly fighting with the Zetas' leader, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, when he was captured by Mexican marines in 2012. Velazquez Caballero was extradited to the U.S. in November to face the charges from a 2010 indictment. Trevino Morales, arrested in Mexico in July, was also named in that indictment. Velazquez Caballero controlled the smuggling in Mexico's Zacatecas and Aguascalientes states, as well as parts of Guanajuato and Coahuila states, Mexican Navy spokesman Jose Luis Vergara said at the time of his arrest. At one time he was also allegedly responsible for the group's money laundering. During Monday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Micaela Alvarez told Velazquez Caballero that providing substantial assistance to the government could help him get below a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence. The judge will have the final say his sentence. However, University of Texas-Brownsville government professor Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, who isn't involved in the case but studies the Zetas, doubted that Velazquez Caballero would have much valuable information. She noted that he has been in U.S. custody for nearly two years and that his knowledge likely doesn't reach all corners of the Zetas because it's such a diversified organization. Correa-Cabrera said the Zetas is essentially a multinational corporation with diverse revenue streams that include extortion, kidnapping, music and film piracy, as well as mining, stolen gasoline and natural gas. And with its recognized leaders either dead or in custody, the Zetas revenue streams continue under a lower profile. "They already created their brand and now they are silently continuing to do what they know how to do," she said. Moreno, the assistant U.S. attorney, said Velazquez Caballero had been involved in the smuggling of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. and laundering the cartel's drug revenue. The indictment — which charged 34 people — said hundreds of loads of cocaine and marijuana were smuggled into Laredo, Texas, and then on to Dallas between 2001 and 2008.Moreno also said Monday that a government witness had remembered seeing Velazquez Caballero at a Zetas training camp near the Texas town of San Fernando, about two hours south of Brownsville, in 2005. At previous trials, witnesses have testified that Zeta recruits were taught at the camp to raid houses and kill. Velazquez Caballero, wearing a beige t-shirt and pants and salt-and-pepper beard, gave only short answers when asked direct questions by the judge and otherwise did not speak during the hearing. A month after Velazquez Caballero was captured, Mexican authorities killed Zetas leader Heriberto Lazcano. It is believed that Omar Trevino Morales has been running the organization since the arrest of his brother Miguel Angel Trevino Morales last year. Velazquez Caballero is also facing federal drug and money laundering charges in Sherman in the Eastern District of Texas. The trial in that case is scheduled for May. Source: Star-Telegram  | |||||||||
Bloodbath in Tamaulipas: Death toll climbs to at least 24 Posted: 07 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT Rantburg.com As many as 60 individuals have been killed in the Mexican northern border state of Tamaulipas since last Friday, according to Mexican news reports. Officially as of Sunday evening, the death toll solely in shootings and shootouts climbed to 10, including a confrontation between a Mexican Army road patrol and a convoy of armed suspects in Miguel Aleman, and a series of shootings and shootouts in the southern Tamaulipas municipalities of Madero and Tampico, bringing to death toll to 10 total. According to an unsigned report in Amigos de Tamaulipas2 in mforos.com, the actual death toll as of Sunday was 18. The posting said that Monday afternoon a number of gunfire exchanges had taken place, specifically in Tampico and Madero, but no deaths or wounded have been reported so far. A news release posted on Tamaulipas' government website said that three individuals were found shot to death Monday, including one man found at around 0039 hrs in Pueblo colony and two more found in Echeverria colony. All the victims were men in their 20s. Both of these finds were made before 0900 hrs. A second report posted Monday night on the website of Tamaulipas state said that a second gunfight took place between another Mexican Army unit and armed suspects in Miguel Aleman municipality which ended with three armed suspects dead. According to the news release, the gunfight took place near a gap called Las Crucitas near the Rio Grande river Sunday night at 1935 hrs. Only one of the three were identified, Raymundo Mares Rivera. All three men who died in the encounter were in their 20s. Soldiers seized a number of contraband including three AK-47 rifles, one AR-15 rifle, one grenade, 31 weapons magazines for AK-47, 15 weapons magazines for AR-15, two bulletproof vests and a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. According to a report posted on the website of Tamaulipas state, four men were detained in Zona Centro of Tampico by a Mexican Army unit, and a number of weapons and munitions were seized Monday afternoon. Among the contraband seized was seven rifles, one 12 gauge shotgun, one grenade launcher, three sub machine guns, two hand grenades, two rifle grenades (probably 40mm), one rifle scope, 80 metal stars, six weapons magazines, personal quantities of marijuana and cocaine, two vehicles, tactical gear and MEX $6,674.00 (USD $513.48). An uncredited dispatch posted Monday afternoon on the website of El Diario de Coahuila news daily said the number of shooting deaths in the past 30 hours in Tamaulipas state could be as high as 60. Tampico recently received a new Gulf Cartel plaza jefe, a criminal underboss whose territory is the municipality of Tampico, and could be a possible reason why intergang firefights have spiked in the state. Tamaulipas is a primary route for the shipment of drugs, weapons and munitions, shooters, and migrants north. A news report posted on the website of Dia a Dia Tamaulipas news daily said that Twitter users were still reporting gunfire in Tampico as of 1830 hrs CDT. This writer saw Twitter reports as late as 2130 CDT. An official associated with schools in Tampico reported public school attendance down to between 40 and 50 percent. According to a late news report posted on the website of Milenio, despite rumors to the contrary, public schools will convene normally Tuesday. Also, according to a facebook posting classes will convene for Tueasday at Unidad Academica de Ciencias Jurídicas y Sociales (UACJS). According to Informador news daily, however, , three universities in the area have suspended classes. The schools include Universidad Autonoma de Tamaulipas (UAT), Facultad de Comercio y Administracion de Tampico (FCAT) and Universidad del Noreste (UNE). Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com. He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com Video A video, reportedly of a portion of the shootings in Tampico, can be found here Another video, this time in Del Pueblo colony in Tampico here.  | |||||||||
Jose Manuel Mireles asks for unity to prevent disarmament Posted: 06 Apr 2014 09:10 PM PDT El Diario de Coahuila (4-6-2014) (Source: apro) by Jose Gil Olmos Translated for Borderland Beat by un vatoMEXICO, D. F., (Apro).- After a year of risking their lives facing and expelling Los Caballeros Templarios out of 14 Tierra Caliente municipalities, Costa and the Meseta Purepecha (Purepecha Mesa), the self defense groups in Michoacan are now being threatened by Enrique Pena Nieto's government, which is trying to force them to lay down the weapons with which they did the work that PRD, PAN and PRI Federal and state administrations failed to get done in 12 years. The announcement enraged the autodefensas, who, through the words of Dr. Jose Manuel Mireles, refuse to disarm themselves. Article 10 of the Constitution, they argue, gives every Mexican the right to possess a weapon for self defense. The spokesman for the Tepalcatepec autodefensas asked for support from the towns to prevent (the government) from taking their weapons. On Thursday, April 3, the Commissioner for security and economic development for Michoacan, Alfredo Castillo, announced in Morelia that the disarmament of the autodefensas will begin within the next few weeks, and he warned that, at the end of this process, whoever is found in possession of firearms will be arrested. Hours later, on Thursday night on (April) 3, confrontations were reported between criminals on one side and autodefensas and Federal police who had supposedly cornered Servando Gomez Martinez, aka "La Tuta", the leader of Los Caballeros Templarios. The threats of disarming them angered the autodefensas. Upon learning of statements made by the commissioner, who is touring the municipality of Coahuayana, Mireles rejected the disarmament and asked the people for unity. He reminded them that there have already been violent reactions to the threats of disarmament, like the one that took place in February in the Antunez area, where the population prevented soldiers from disarming them and there was a confrontation in which four persons died, two of them autodefensas. He warned that he is not in favor of placing the safety of his city, Tepalcatepec, in the hands of the "single command" police or the national gendarmerie, because they do not know the geography, the people nor the criminals. DANGEROUS DIFFERENCESMireles' words clashed with the statements by the Federal commissioner. According to Salvador Maldonado Aranda, researcher with the College of Michoacan, these differences between the autodefensas and the government could bring about a new security crisis in the state. A scholar of the Tierra Caliente region for more than a decade, Maldonado points out in an interview that the agreement signed at the start of the year by Castillo and the leaders of the autodefensas was meant to provide some certainty about the relationship between the parties. Also, disarmament was foreseen once demands for the arrest of the Templario leaders were satisfied. He comments that, at least during these tense moments, there is in practice a distancing between the commissioner's team and the autodefensas, who have divided into at least two goups: those linked to Mireles and those who support Castillo. "I think this is the most tense situation, because it is not too clear whether the parties will come together or whether the the relationship will break up," Maldonado indicates. He warns that you cannot disarm the autodefensas with the stroke of a pen, like the EPN government is trying to do, because their importance in combating crime and governing Michoacan has not been (properly) appreciated. "Without this negotiation, I believe we'll find ourselves in a serious dilemma: how are the relationships, the agreements going to be developed, what kinds of actors will form alliances to continue to improve a problem of violence and provide more assurance in governance. That's the problem". RISKS OF MUTATIONContrary to Castillo's opinion that there is no longer any reason for the autodefensas to exist, (Maldonado) says that they can be an important intermediary, so long as new agreements are put in place to review the matter of infiltration and the work done to clean up areas previously controlled by (organized) crime. He explains that the Federal Government should implement a long term strategy to provide the people with some certainty, and not expect that the autodefensas will come in, clean up the zone, and, a month later, the problem is again in place. Worse still, if the Federal Government does not act carefully and wants to make the autodefensas disappear, there could be a phenomenon like in Peru or Colombia, where similar groups ended up being a problem for security and governability. "That is a problem that was also experienced by other groups in Latin America, like the Civil Defense Committees in Peru, and, in some ways, the Self Defense Groups or paramilitary groups in Colombia. They had to reach a point where they had to negotiate to determine what they would do with them." However, he explains the the Michoacan autodefensas are different from the ones in Peru or Colombia, which were created by military (personnel) and subsidized by the government for counterinsurgency purposes. If the differences with the Government persist, he adds, and they are made to disappear, there is a risk that in the intermediate term the autodefensas will take on another face and that other problems will grow, because then, the danger would come not only from criminal organizations, but also from the groups created to fight them and which are now considered to be illegal. He argues that these groups are not going to give up their weapons even if they go underground; in a political situation hostile to them, they can form alliances with other kinds of groups. The problem, he concludes, is that there have been no effective measures developed to provide predictability in the manner in which public security will be generated in Michoacan, except for deflating a political movement and eliminating organized crime. He proposes a plan for citizen security, more so than public (security), whose strategic focus is on society and its long-term welfare.  | |||||||||
Posted: 06 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT  According to a news report which appeared in the online edition of El Sol de Parral news daily, three men were found shot to death Friday evening. The victims, two of whom were identified as Edil Bitelio Jimenez Payan, 30, and José Isaías Torres Meza, 33, were both both from Guadalue y Calvio municipality. Local residents had filed a complaint about three dead bodies on the Guadlupe y Calvo to Parral road, dead from gunshot wounds near the village of Turuachi. All three victims were shot in the head. Meanwhile in Bachiniva municipality, a man was found shot to death in April 1st near a location called San José y Anexas. The news report said he was struck with rounds from a 9mm weapon, probably a pistol. Lastly, in Cuauhtemoc municipality last Thursday one unidentified individual was wounded and another unofficially was killed in an encounter with a Mexican Army unit, according to a separate news report inEl Diario de Chihuahua news daily. According to a news account gunfire was exchanged between the occupants of a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck and a Mexican Army road patrol. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  | |||||||||
Posted: 06 Apr 2014 09:00 PM PDT Rantburg.com A total of ten unidentified individuals were shot to death or were found shot to death over the weekend in the northern border state of Tamaulipas, according to official Mexican news accounts. Saturday night in Miguel Aleman municipality, a Mexican Army road patrol encountered armed suspects traveling in a convoy, and exchanged gunfire witht he suspects leaving four dead and two wounded. According to a new release which appeared on the official website of Tamaulipas state, the army patrol encountered a convoy including a Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck in the village of Los Guerra, and attempted to affect a traffic stop, only to be fired on. Mexican Army counterfire ended the confrontation. Soldiers seized 17 rifles, one 0.50 caliber Barret rifle, 11 grenades, two grenade launcher attachments, three handguns,weapons magazines, ammunition, tactical gear and a package of marijuana. Five unidentified individuals were also detained at the scene. According to official reports, Mexican Army units had been reinforcing the region following a Friday night incident in which a hotel in Migeul Aleman was fired on by armed suspects said to be part of the convoy the unit encountered a day later. No one was reported hurt in the incident and damage was limited to the facade of the building. Meanwhile, in southern Tamaulipas, six unidentified individuals were shot to death in a series of shootings in Tampico and Madero municipalities Saturday and Sunday. According to the official version, three unidentified individuals were shot to death at a hotel in Madero Sunday afternoon at about 1510 hrs. The shooting was said to be an assassination. Of the three victims one of them was said t be an employee of the hotel. In Tampico at around 1530 hrs, one unidentified man was found shot to death at the intersection of calles San Pedro and Nardos in Las Violetas colony. An hour later in Madero one unidentified man was shot to death by armed suspects traveling aboard a Volkswagen Jetta. The incident took place near the intersection of calles Malva and Lilas in El Chipus colony. At around 1650 an unidentified man was found shot to death near the intersection of calles Honduras and Aduana in Talleres colony. Officials say that three separate intergang firefights had taken place in Tampico Saturday night, but police were unable to find any bodies. Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com and BorderlandBeat.com He can be reached at grurkka@gmail.com  | |||||||||
Tense Situation in Tierra Caliente Posted: 06 Apr 2014 03:56 PM PDT If you want a partial background to this situation I recommend reading an article translated by Jane Brundage over at Mexico Voices  Morelia, Michoacán—According to police reports, on April 5th around 22:00 hours, elements of the Navy made the arrest of 13 civilians in the municipality of Múgica which prompted the mobilization of residents of the community, who rang the bells alerting the rest of the population of a tense situation. People identified as self-defense members of the municipality of Nueva Italia carried out roadblocks on access roads to the county seat; this is because the Mexican Army and the Navy are initiating an operation to disarm the self-defense movement. So far there are reports that elements of the federal security and army have withdrawn from the municipality of Nueva Italia amid the threat of a confrontation with the population. The roadblocks are reported on Cuatro Caminos, La Estación and on the exit to Nuevo Conróndiro, where it is also indicated that access and presence of the media has been denied and the entrance of any vehicle, increasing the number of self-defense members at the points where the barricades are at. According to reports, during the blockades, various members of the self-defense groups have said that their communities will never again be held hostage by criminals, murderers, kidnappers, and extortionists. They denounced the complicity of the authorities with organized crime groups; so that the organized crime groups can take control of the communities again. Social media announced that on Sunday April 6, federal authorities will attempt to disarm the rest of the self-defense groups of the municipalities of Múgica, Apatzingán and Parácuaro, the self-defense movement will call on the people to demonstrate in defense of the self-defense groups, which could provoke a confrontation because the self-defense groups will refuse to disarm. Update: Mireles Confirms the Mobilization of the Self-Defense Movement Update: Michoacán: 40 Self-Defense Members Detained  Starting at 12:00 hours on Sunday, supporters of the self-defense movement will demonstrate in 20 municipalities of the state, demanding that the federal and state governments suspend the disarmament of the self-defense groups who fight organized crime, confirmed José Manuel Mireles Valverde, a leader and spokesman for the self-defense movement, this morning. “These are small demonstrations by the citizens of the municipalities in which we operate, because the government must understand that we cannot disarm until the state is finished with organized crime”, said the spokesman. According to the leader, the demonstrations will not be roadblocks, but it will be demonstrations in the municipalities of the residents who will demand the federal government respect the self-defense movement and suspend the disarmament that was announced. Mireles noted, “We insist to the government that we won’t give up our weapons until the criminal structure is disbanded and we can live in peace”, concluded the leader. Michoacán: 40 Self-Defense Members Detained By: E. Martínez E. Elements of the Mexican Navy arrested 40 members of the self-defense groups while they patrolled Cuatro Caminos, located in the county seat of Nueva Italia, municipality of Múgica, in the Tierra Caliente region. Those arrested were taken to the Military Zone 43, located on the outskirts of Apatzingán, members of the self-defense groups reported. The arrests occurred after 21:00 hours resulting in the mobilization of both self-defense groups as well as federal forces. The marines were backed by a helicopter gunship. The self-defense groups organized and blocked the seven accesses to Apatzingán and alerted groups from Parácuaro, Buenavista Tomatlán, Tepalcatepec, Coalcomán, Chinicuila, Nueva Italia, La Huacana, Churumuco and Huetamo in order for them to place roadblocks. It was reported that they started burning tires. As of the time this article was written, there were blockades in Nueva Italia, Parácuaro and Apatzingán; the operation of the federal forces has spread to seven of the 30 municipalities that have the presence of self-defense groups. This Friday, Miguel Ángel Osorio, the Secretary of the Interior said that the self-defense groups will be disarmed, since they’ve completed their period already and the federal government can ensure the safety of Michoacán. Sources: La Jornada, Quadratin, Michoacán 3.0  | |||||||||
Human Rights Commission: Yurécuaro Self-Defense Leader Tortured by police Posted: 06 Apr 2014 08:33 AM PDT Big thanks to reader "Pepe" for the translation of this article for Borderland Beat  Police Brutally tortured the autodefensa leader, in an attempt to coerce a confession The Michoacán State Human Rights Commission concluded its investigation of allegations of torture on the part state officials against Enrique Hernández Saucedo, leader of the self-defense groups in Yurécuaro, Michoacán. After several public complaints, the Commission began an investigation into whether “ there is evidence indicating torture” in the arrest of the self-defense leader accused of being the principal conspirator in the murder of Gustavo Garibay García, former mayor of Tanhuato. Last Monday, the 31st of March, Alfredo Castillo Cervantes, the Commissioner for Public Safety in Michoacán, alleged that the murder of the Mayor of Tanhuato, was orchestrated by the leader of the self-defense groups in Yurécuaro, Enrique Hernández. In a press conference, Castillo stated when Hernández was first questioned by state authorities, he denied his involvement in the murder of the mayor, but he was later arrested. Later, state officials arrested 19 other members of the self-defense group in Yurécuaro, four of whom “confessed” to the murder of the mayor and stated that Enrique Hernández ordered the murder. In an interview, Lorenzo Corro Díaz, with the State Human Rights Commission, stated that after a medical review conducted by the Commission, experts found evidence of physical torture, beatings and asphyxiation. Moreover, according to the statement given to the Commission by Hernández, three other colleagues were similarly tortured, and one died as a result of beating and a gunshot wound while in custody. Corro Díaz went on to state that Hernández described the following: After refusing to say what the police wanted, “he was taken to a closed van, where they placed a plastic bag over his head and sealed it around his neck. They later poured water over his head and repeatedly struck his ears with their open palms and beat him throughout his body.” This beating took place from Saturday around noon the 29th of March into the following Sunday. His wounds from the torture and beating were not treated until Monday, the 31st, when he was placed in the prison just outside Morelia. “He said they had been looking for him for the murder of the mayor of Tanhuato and they called someone known as ‘El Yanki’ who works for the state police.” This guy (El Yanki), stated Hernández, asked him to come for an interview with the state Attorney General, “but when I got there, I saw three other self-defense members who had been badly beaten, with signs of torture, who said they had been forced to confess.” “El Yanki” told Hernández he had to get results because he had made a contract with a state security official. Corro Díaz concluded; “Our medical specialists found evidence of torture exactly as Hernández described.” “Our doctor found evidence of torture in the respiratory system and a high level of inflammation in the inner ears, so bad that we expect he’ll lose most of his sense of hearing. Moreover, we found bruises throughout his body consistent with the torture described.” At this time the formal investigation by the Commission is on hold because Hernández wants to first talk to his lawyer before proceeding with the complaint. Nonetheless the complaint is open and there’s hope it will go forward because, as Corro Díaz stated, torture “weakens the society’s confidence in the system of justice.” Source: Michoacán tres punto cero  | |||||||||
Michoacan's state secretary, Jesus Reyna is fired and arrested! Posted: 06 Apr 2014 09:18 AM PDT  Michoacán Government Secretary Jesus Reyna Garcia will be relieved of his duty within hours after being investigated for alleged links with the Caballeros Templarios, tagged to replace Reyna for the position are Marco Vinicio Aguilera or Fernando Cano Jesus Reyna remains under arrest for the Deputy Attorney Specialized Investigation of Organized Crime (SEIDO) as they continue the investigation. According to reports from some national media, there is evidence that said the government secretary has ties to organized crime. Significantly, it is not the first time that Reyna Garcia is linked to the Templarios. Autodefensas were the first to openly charge Reyna with Templarios collusion. And in July last year, the outspoken José Manuel Mireles Valverde, leader of the autodefensas, said Reyna Garcia and his wife had attended the funeral of Nazario Moreno father. Moreno aka El Chayo is founder and leader of the cartel. "The worst enemy we have, after the Templarios, is the State Government because since we started the movement it has never given us their support. They have always reviled activity and our presence.", " said Dr. Mireles Valverde. Below is the partial document pertaining to the three meetings that Reyna attended with the leaders of Caballeros Templarios.-click to enlarge- Spanish language-  Source: michoacantrespuntocero |
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