Scientific Dictatorship

Mexico: 13 Dead in Massacre at Ciudad Juarez Party

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – Gunmen stormed two homes and massacred 13 young partygoers in the latest large-scale attack in this violent border city, even as a new government strategy seeks to restore order with social programs and massive police deployments.

Attackers in two vehicles pulled up to the houses in a lower-middle-class neighborhood late Friday and opened fire on about three dozen youths attending a party. The dead identified so far were 16 to 25 years old, the Chihuahua state attorney general's office said Saturday in a statement. Fifteen were wounded, including a 9-year-old boy...

[Full Article]

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, Juarez, massacre, murders

Texas National Guardsman Slain in Mexico
Two Men Killed on a Street in the Violent Border City of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico; Guardsman from El Paso, Texas

(AP) Authorities say a 21-year-old Texas National Guard soldier was one of two men killed on a street in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Spokesman Arturo Sandoval of the Chihuahua state attorney general's office says family members identified the soldier as 21-year-old Jose Gil Hernandez of El Paso...

[Full Article]

Labels: border violence, Ciudad Juarez, El Paso, Juarez, Mexico, National Guard, Texas

Inside Mexico's Drug War, Americans Allege Abuse

CIUDAD JUÁREZ, Mexico—Two Americans were driving back to El Paso, Texas, last December after an afternoon across the border in Ciudad Juárez. A few blocks from the border, they were surrounded by Mexican army trucks and pulled from their Dodge Ram.

Mexico's military says it found two suitcases full of marijuana in the cab of the pickup truck. Two soldiers later testified that they drove the two Americans to a military compound on the outskirts of town, questioned them briefly, then turned them over to civilian authorities. The Americans were charged with possession of marijuana with intent to sell.

Those two men—Shohn Huckabee, 23 years old, and Carlos Quijas, 36—are being held in a Ciudad Juárez jail. They tell a different story about what happened that night. They say Mexican soldiers planted the marijuana in their truck. When they arrived at the military base, they say, they were blindfolded, tied up, hit with rifle butts, shocked with electricity and threatened with death...

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Labels: Ciudad Juarez, Juarez, Mexico

Four dead in Juarez bombing

Juarez-- People in Juarez are recovering from a car bomb that killed four Thursday night. The victims include two federal agents, an ambulance worker and a doctor who was in the area when the bomb went off.

Tonight, we have learned that it was a car bomb that was detonated with the same kind of sophistication that is used by terrorist groups like Hezbollah...

[Full Article]

Labels: bomb, car bombing, Ciudad Juarez, Juarez, Mexico

Deadly Mexican drug gang attack was 'car bomb'

[From BBC News]

Investigators in Mexico say a deadly attack by suspected drug cartel members in the northern city of Ciudad Juarez was a car bomb set off by mobile phone.

It is believed to be the first attack of its kind since President Felipe Calderon took office in 2006, promising to curb powerful drugs gangs.

Three people including two police officers died in Thursday's attack.

Police said the blast was retaliation for the arrest of a leader of the La Linea drug gang, Jesus Acosta Guerrero.

La Linea is part of the Juarez drug cartel.

"There were 10kg (22lb) of explosives, activated from a distance by a cell phone," Enrique Torres, a spokesman for the army in Ciudad Juarez, said.

At least 16 other people were injured in the attack, police said.

Ciudad Juarez is just across the border from El Paso, Texas. It has long been the battleground for cartels fighting for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the US.

More than 7,000 people have died in drug-related violence in Mexico so far this year. Almost 25,000 have died in the past three and a half years, according to figures released by the office of Attorney General Arturo Chavez on Friday.

[Webmaster - Compare this with the U.S. casualties in Iraq since 2003: 4,414]

Mr Chavez said the rising figures demonstrated that the cartels were under pressure from the government crackdown.

He said 75,000 weapons had been decommissioned in the same period and 78,000 people had been detained in drug trafficking operations.

President Calderon has despatched thousands of troops to regain control of areas of the country long dominated by powerful cartels.

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, drug cartel, drug wars, El Paso, Juarez

New Adversary In U.S. Drug War: Contract Killers For Mexican Cartels

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- A cross-border drug gang born in the prison cells of Texas has evolved into a sophisticated paramilitary killing machine that U.S. and Mexican officials suspect is responsible for thousands of assassinations here, including the recent ambush and slaying of three people linked to the U.S. consulate.

The heavily tattooed Barrio Azteca gang members have long operated across the border in El Paso, dealing drugs and stealing cars. But in Ciudad Juarez, the organization now specializes in contract killing for the Juarez drug cartel. According to U.S. law enforcement officers, it may have been involved in as many as half of the 2,660 killings in the city in the past year.

Officials on both sides of the border have watched as the Aztecas honed their ability to locate targets, stalk them and finally strike in brazen ambushes involving multiple chase cars, coded radio communications, coordinated blocking maneuvers and disciplined firepower by masked gunmen in body armor. Afterward, the assassins vanish, back to safe houses in the Juarez barrios or across the bridge to El Paso.

"Within their business of killing, they have surveillance people, intel people and shooters. They have a degree of specialization," said David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI's El Paso division. "They work day in and day out, with a list of people to kill, and they get proficient at it."...

[Full Article]

Labels: Aztecas, Ciudad Juarez, drug cartel, Juarez

Gunmen Kill 1, Kidnap 4 At Mexican Wedding

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, Juarez, kidnapping, Mexico

7 Mexican Police Officers Killed In Ciudad Juarez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Gunmen ambushed two police vehicles at a busy intersection in this drug- and violence-plagued city, killing seven officers and a 17-year-old boy who was passing by, authorities said.

Six of the police officers killed in Friday's attack were federal, and one was a local police woman, said Enrique Torres Valadez, a spokesman for the state of Chihuahua, where Ciudad Juarez is located. Two local police officers were in critical condition.

Authorities said the police officers had stopped to talk to a street vendor who flagged them down for help when gunmen opened fire from behind their pickup patrol trucks. The assailants fled in three vehicles.

Investigators said they don't know why the officers were shot, although they don't believe they were targeted because of any recent arrests they had made.

No one has been arrested but police said they have recovered two of the three cars used in the shooting.

Hours after the attack, a painted message directed to top federal police commanders and claiming responsibility for the attack appeared on a wall in downtown Ciudad Juarez. It was apparently signed by La Linea gang, the enforcement arm of the Juarez drug cartel. The Juarez cartel has been locked in a bloody turf battle with the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

"This will happen to you ... for being with El Chapo Guzman and to all the dirtbags who support him. Sincerely, La Linea," the message read. The authenticity of the message could not be independently verified.

Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million across from El Paso, Texas, is one of the world's deadliest cities, and a two-year turf battle between drug cartels has left more than 5,000 people dead...

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, drug violence, drugs, Juarez, Mexico

Cartels Continue To Fight For Control Of Juarez Drug Trade

EL PASO -- The violence sparked by a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juárez cartels is not nearing its end, U.S. officials in El Paso said.

Countering a recent media report, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, said Friday that he does not believe the Sinaloa cartel now controls all of Juárez's drug market.

The Associated Press on Friday reported anonymous U.S. intelligence sources saying Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, who leads the Sinaloa cartel, is winning Mexico's drug war. The story does not say the Sinaloa cartel is winning over Mexico's federal forces, but over Vicente Carrillo Fuentes' Juárez cartel.

FBI spokeswoman Andrea Simmons said the Sinaloa cartel appears to have control of the drug trade...

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, Juarez

Mexican 'Assassin Teams' May Target U.S. Law Enforcement, DHS Warns

Law enforcement officers in west Texas are on guard following an alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security warning of retaliatory killings for a recent crackdown on the Barrio Azteca gang.

Law enforcement officers in west Texas are on guard following an alert issued by the Department of Homeland Security warning of retaliatory killings for a recent crackdown on the Barrio Azteca gang.

David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI's El Paso division, said the paramilitary-style gang has an "open policy" to kill its rivals and may turn its sights toward local law enforcement officers.

"[They] are extremely cold-blooded and aggressive," Cuthbertson told FoxNews.com. "The killings are done really without thought and any kind of remorse."

Citing uncorroborated information, Homeland Security issued an Officer Safety Alert on March 22, advising lawmen in the El Paso sector to vary their routes to and from work and to wear body armor while on duty. The alert also suggested that officers' relatives pay closer attention to unusual activity in the area.

"The Barrio Azteca gang may issue a 'green light' authorizing the attempted murder of [law enforcement officers] in the El Paso area," the alert read. "Due to the threat, it is recommended that [law enforcement officers] take extra safety precautions." The Barrio Azteca gang, which formed in Texas prisons in the 1980s, is a brother organization to the Aztecas gang in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, the epicenter of Mexico's violent drug war, Cuthbertson said.

He said members of the gang's "assassination teams" are thought to work for very small monthly fees. One official from the Drug Enforcement Administration has said Aztecas have been known to kill for as little as $100. Since 2006, drug violence across Mexico has claimed nearly 18,000 lives.

Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo, the reputed boss of Barrio Azteca members living in Juarez, remains on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List, and the FBI is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to his arrest. He and other Barrio Azteca gang members serve as hitmen for the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug trafficking organization -- also known as the Juarez cartel -- and are responsible for several killings, according to the FBI.

The DHS warning came just days after hundreds of Barrio Azteca gang members were interviewed by officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and FBI following the murders of three people linked to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez on March 13. More than 200 officers from at least 18 agencies participated in "Operation Knockdown," which resulted in at least 26 felony arrests of alleged Azteca members.

The Barrio Aztecas are believed to be aligned with the Juarez cartel against the Sinaloa drug cartel for control of the billion-dollar drug-trafficking routes through the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez corridor. Since 2008, the Aztecas have been rivals of the Artistic Assassins, or "Double A's," who serve as contract killers for the Sinaloa cartel, Cuthbertson said.

"They're very organized," he said. "They have a code they go by and certainly a communication network inside and outside of the prison system."

Cuthbertson said Barrio Azteca gang members have been found in central Texas towns like Odessa and Midland, as well as in southern Mexico.

Ricardo Valles de la Rosa, an Azteca sergeant, said last week in a purported confession that his gang was hunting for the vehicle of a Texas jail guard who was killed in one of two SUVs attacked in the March 13 shootings that killed El Paso jail officer Arthur Redelfs, his wife Lesley Enriquez, who worked as an employee of the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, and Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of another consulate worker.

Valles de la Rosa, according to his statement, was instructed by Azteca brass to target Redelfs due to alleged harsh treatment of Azteca members in jail. Valles de la Rosa was ordered last week to be held for trial on weapons charges for allegedly carrying a 9mm pistol when he was arrested.

Ron Martin, president of the El Paso Municipal Police Officers' Association, said that while he takes any threat to the law enforcement community seriously, he won't change his habits.

"It's not the first time a gang has put a hit out on El Paso police officers," Martin said. "Our guys are very highly trained, so they're pretty well prepared for just about anything. For them to come out and attack a law enforcement officer in the United States would be detrimental to their business."

Martin called the March 13 killings "unacceptable" and said he felt the killings were no less shocking because they occurred in Mexico, just across the border, rather than in El Paso or elsewhere in Texas.

"It doesn't matter if it actually happens across an imaginary dotted line, you're killing people for money," he said. "It's unacceptable."

Asked if he had changed his daily routines since the DHS alert, Martin said: "It's not like we're doing anything different because a bunch of murderers -- I call 'em terrorists -- are threatening us. Personally, I don't do anything differently than I did before. We're not changing the way we do our job because of them."

Labels: Department of Homeland Security, drug cartel, drug wars, El Paso, FBI, Juarez

Mexico's Drug Wars Fuel Northern Flight

(CBS) Luis Aril Anzures is 29, and a successful restaurateur in El Paso, Texas.

But 11 months ago he lived across the border in Juarez, Mexico - one of the most dangerous cities on earth, reports CBS News correspondent Bill Whitaker. One day driving home, three cars surrounded him.

"People came out of the cars with AK-47s, pointing at me, told me to get out of the car, made me kneel on the street," Anzures said. "I thought I was going to die."

At just that moment soldiers drove up and saved him. That night, Luis and his family fled to El Paso, one of the safest cities in the U.S. - just 13 murders last year. They now have a thriving new restaurant and a safe new life.

"We love it here," Anzures said.

He's part of a growing number of people fleeing north to safety across the Rio Grande.

The port is one of the busiest on the border, 23 million crossings back and forth a year. But in the last two years, as many as 80,000 people from Juarez have crossed into El Paso -- and not gone back...

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, drug wars, El Paso, Juarez, Mexico, Texas

Operation Knockdown: FBI Raids Texas Gang

WASHINGTON — FBI agents and police swooped Thursday on suspected members of a gang thought to be involved in the slaying of three people linked to the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, an official said.

Some 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers launched raids early Thursday in southern New Mexico and around the Texas border city of El Paso, targeting suspected members of the Barrio Azteca gang, Rusty Payne, a spokesman for the US Drug Enforcement Administration, told AFP.

The raids, called "Operation Knockdown", were part of "an ongoing effort to generate leads and intelligence regarding the investigation into Saturday's murders" in Mexico's notorious crime capital, Ciudad Juarez, Payne said...

Labels: Barrio Azteca, Ciudad Juarez, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Juarez, Mexico, Operation Knockdown, Texas

FBI In Mexico To Investigate US Consulate Killings

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) – US agents joined a probe into the brazen weekend killings at an American consulate in Mexico's bloodiest city, highlighting rampant violence that prompted expressions of concern from both governments.

Officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrived in violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez to probe the fatal shootings of two American and a Mexican with ties to the US consulate -- the first such attack in recent memory on American diplomatic personnel.

Mexican authorities blamed the drive-by murders of the American employee of the US consulate, her husband and the husband of a Mexican consular employee on "the Aztecas," a gang linked to the powerful Juarez drug cartel...

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, consulate, FBI, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Juarez, Mexico

Mexico Gunmen Kill American Consulate Staff

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – Gunmen in the drug war-plagued Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez killed two Americans and a Mexican linked to the local U.S. consulate, an attack U.S. President Barack Obama said "outraged" him.

An American woman working at the consulate in Ciudad Juarez, just over the border from El Paso, Texas, and her U.S. husband were fatally shot by suspected drug gang hitmen in broad daylight on Saturday as they left a consulate social event, U.S. and Mexican officials told Reuters.

A Mexican man married to another consulate employee was killed around the same time in another part of the city after he and his wife left the same event, a U.S. official said...

Labels: Ciudad Juarez, consulate, drug wars, Juarez, murder

U.S. To Embed Agents In Mexican Law Enforcement Units Battling Cartels In Juarez

CIUDAD JUAREZ, MEXICO -- For the first time, U.S. officials plan to embed American intelligence agents in Mexican law enforcement units to help pursue drug cartel leaders and their hit men operating in the most violent city in Mexico, according to U.S. and Mexican officials...

Labels: drug cartel, Juarez, Mexico

The House Of Death

When 12 bodies were found buried in the garden of a Mexican house, it seemed like a case of drug-linked killings. But the trail led to Washington and a cover-up that went right to the top. David Rose reports from El Paso

The article below says 'the US media have virtually ignored this story', yet editing had removed a reference to narconews.com reporter Bill Conroy, who has reported it extensively. Apologies.

Janet Padilla's first inkling that something might be wrong came when she phoned her husband at lunchtime. His mobile phone was switched off. On 14 January, 2004, Luis had, as usual, left for work at 6am, and when he did not answer the first call Janet made, after taking the children to school, she assumed he was busy. Two weeks later she would learn the truth...


House Of Death

A dozen men were tortured, killed and buried in a small house in Juarez. Three years later, the U.S. government is still trying to cover up what happened...


House Of Death, DEA Agent Leonhart And An Obama Nomination

It’s been more than a year since Obama took office and his administration has been slow to fill top cabinet posts throughout the government. Many of Obama’s nominees failed the routine vetting process for a variety of reasons including; non-payment of taxes, communist leanings, illegally eavesdropping and now covering-up a 12-murder spree along the U.S./Mexico border...


Murder Capital Of The World

On Jan. 31, an armed commando unit pulled up to a house in a working-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez on the Mexican side of the border with the United States. Inside the house, 60 teenagers were celebrating a friend's birthday. Wielding high-caliber weapons, the commandos opened fire on the kids, robbed the house, and then drove away from the scene—amid human cries, the scent of gunpowder, and the total absence of law enforcement officials...


The Case Of A Confidential Informant

Confidential informants — people who pose as criminals so they can provide information to the police or some government agency — have helped crack some major U.S. cases.

They are part of the shadowy side of law enforcement and operate in a secret and largely unregulated world.

And sometimes, things go terribly wrong...

Labels: drug cartel, drugs, El Paso, House of Death, Juarez, Mexico, Padilla

Mexico Man's Face Skinned and Stitched Onto a Soccer Ball in Sinaloa in Threat to Juarez Cartel

In a new incident of grisly drug war violence, a man's face was skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball as a threat to members of Mexico's Juarez drug cartel.

The unknown assailants cut up the body of Hugo Hernandez into seven pieces and left him on a street in the northern city of Los Mochis, a spokesman for Sinaloa prosecutors, Martin Robles, told the Associated Press.

Hernandez's torso was found in a plastic container in a separate location from another box that contained his arms, legs and skull. The macabre soccer ball was discovered a plastic bag near Los Mochis' City Hall in Sinaloa.

The gruesome discovery included a note, which read, "Happy New Year, because this will be your last."

Labels: drug cartel, Juarez

Slayings, Arrests Mount in Juarez

Four men were shot and killed early Sunday outside a bar in downtown Juárez during another violent weekend in the most dangerous city in Mexico...

Labels: drug cartel, Juarez