July 18, 2008
DEA Reports show that Mexican Cartel “Thugs” are receiving training from Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
The Juarez cartel reportedly gets its training from Colombia’s FARC. Further, that some terrorist group members have married Mexican women and have changed their Arabic names to Hispanic ones which has allowed them to enter the United States.
– In Sinaloa, two car bombs were turned over to the “PGR” (Mex. Dep’t. of Justice) by the army. One had three gas cylinders of ten kilos each; the other had two gallons of gasoline.
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Cuarto Poder (Tuxtla, Chiapas) 7/17/08
The “PGR” disclosed that narcotraffic has caused the death of four thousand 313 persons in the country during the last nineteen months up to June 5 of this year. (Note: this corresponds to the time since Pres. Calderon took office, 12/1/06. The June 5 date is because of the timing of the particular request for this information.)
The figure for 2007 was 2,712 deaths, while from January 1st to June 5 of this year it reaches 1,529.
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El Diario de Coahuila (Saltillo, Coahuila) 7/17/08 ( plus also in a good number of other papers )
Thanks to “national and international intelligence information” the Mexican navy was able for the first time in history to intercept a mini-submarine in Mexican waters; the craft was first detected sailing north some 120 kms. S.W. of Salina Cruz, Oaxaca. The craft, 10 meters long by 2.5 meters wide, was boarded in a surprise maneuver when it surfaced. The crew, believed to be Colombians, was arrested.
( Reports of the cocaine being transported vary from one ton, to four, to seven, depending on which paper you read )
The craft is being taken to Santa Cruz Huatulco and is expected to arrive there early Friday morning.
(The area involved is to the west of the southern end of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the narrow neck of land in S.E. Mexico)
(Note: the leftist Mexico City paper La Jornada was the only one that omitted the international intelligence information which brought about the interception and seizure. Instead, it reported on a praiseful declaration to the Mexican navy by a Mexican congressman)
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El Financiero (Mexico City) 7/17/08
Three armed kidnappers who at first claimed to be “ministerial” police were arrested by local police in Tultepec. With them they also found a kidnap victim, a man from the Dominican Republic. Shortly afterward, the local chief of police started to receive threatening calls on his cellular phone and soon after that some twenty armed men mounted a gunfire assault on the police facility and rescued the three kidnappers. Three police officers were wounded in the attack; now Mex. army personnel are guarding the facility. (Tultepec, state of Mexico, is some 18 mi. no. of Mexico City)
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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 7/17/08
A survey by Mexico’s Dep’t. of Public Education shows that in Sonora, Baja Calif. and the Distrito Federal half of secondary school students have seen their schoolmates carrying weapons in school. The nationwide survey of more than 13 thousand secondary school students also found that in Mexico City half of them have seen some type of drug being sold around the classrooms. Violence and criminality have also fostered gang membership, which reaches 91.4% in the Distrito Federal and 80% in Baja Calif. & Nayarit.
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El Informador (Guadalajara, Jalisco) 7/17/08
A new wave of violence in Culiacan, Navolato and Guasave caused the deaths of six persons in less than 20 hours in the state of Sinaloa. The victim in Guasave was forcibly taken away from his home by black clad, hooded men. He was later found elsewhere, shot to death.
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a.m. (Leon, Guanajuato) 7/17/08
The body of a man was found dumped by the side of the road near El Paraiso, Guanajuato. His hands and feet were tied with “grey industrial tape” and he was gagged with the same. One of his arms was burned and his head was inside a plastic bag. (Note: there were several other reports of homicide victims in other publications around the country.)
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La Voz de la Frontera (Mexicali, Baja Calif.) 7/17/08
In Calexico, Border Patrol Agents responded with pepper gas grenades after a group of smugglers kept throwing rocks at them from Mexicali. The most affected turned out to be the Aguilar family, who live at #1731 Avenida Internacional, and who had one of the gas grenades land in front of their home. One of the grenades failed to activate and was later retrieved by Mex. army personnel. The rock throwing “polleros” avoided arrest by Mexicali police.
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Novedades de Quintana Roo (Cancun, Q.R.) 7/17/08
The offices of the Mex. Immigr. Dep’t. (”INM”) were broken into and robbed Wednesday morning. Items taken : an unknown quantity of blank FM2 & FM3 forms, which are issued by the “INM” and used as evidence of legal status by foreigners in Mexico. (Reports in other papers mentioned that “official stamps” had also been taken.)
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– end of report –
Narco terrorism in Mexico stepping up a notch with the use of car bombs
Posted: 16 Jul 2008 10:33 PM CDT
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
Visit our website: http://www.nafbpo.org
Foreign News Report
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.
El Universal (Mexico City, Mexico) 7/16/08
(The first seven and the last paragraph of the main editorial follows.)
“On the road to narcoterrorism?”
The discovery of car bombs in Culiacan seems to reveal a new escalade by the drug traffickers which would put them on the (same) path with the combatants of the Middle East, (and) before that of the narcos of South America and of the members of the Irish Republican Army. (IRA).
There is a dangerous variant: the cartels can stop destroying each other to unite in a common front against the Army, the Federal Investigations Agency and the Federal Preventive Police, besides the city and state police forces, less well equipped than the others.
So far this year, around 2 thousand 200 persons have died due to criminal violence. In five years of the war of occupation in Iraq the military casualties of the United States are a little more than 4 thousand. In other words, less than here.
In one week alone 25 murders occurred in Sinaloa, despite the deployment of 3 thousand police and military in that state. That is to say, force has not been enough not even to avoid the free movement of the criminal gangs, although it may have served to affirm the unquestionable legitimacy of the government.
Cars are easily converted into bombs by the installation of butane gas containers in their interiors and a detonator which is activated by a cell phone or a garage door remote control. The recourse to car bombs is savagely surprising. Any apparently inoffensive vehicle, parked next to the curb, can explode suddenly and cause the death of innocent persons. The strategy changes targets: it’s no longer aimed at armed groups, but at civilian society. Remember 14 years ago, when a light truck exploded in front of the Oklahoma City federal building, with a children’s care center included. Timothy McVeigh was executed for that horrendous crime.
The energy wasted in struggles between the Center for Investigation and National Security (Cisen) and the legislators can be more useful if that struggle is used against an evil that undermines the nation seriously, and which demands the alliance of the political parties which today seem indifferent, and the participation of an entire society which is now victim of narcoterror.
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Diario de Yucatan (Merida, Yucatan 7/16/08
“On the road to “narcoterror” “Mexico and Colombia, a common destiny”
According to experts, the war being waged in Mexico against narcotraffic resembles what Colombia went through some years back. The growing wave of violence, especially in Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and Baja California brings back memories of cities like Medellin or Cali in the 80’s. Another similarity is the growing number of criminals extradited to the U.S., which last year reached 86.
And as if to confirm this opinion four car bombs were found yesterday in Sinaloa, similar to the ones used by terrorist organizations. The cars were fitted with butane gas tanks and a detonator; two of them had cellular phones to be used as detonators, one with a remote control and one was splashed with gasoline. Mexico must emulate the activities carried out by Colombia to combat the problem, according to analysts. Unofficial figures show that more than 2,160 persons have died due to organized crime, while 2,700 died in all of last year, which shows the increase of violence this year.
A few of some of the similarities with Colombia: hundreds of public security agency members murdered, tens of thousands of military deployed out on the streets and accusations of links between politicians and “narcos”. Another item in common is the approval in Mexico and the United States of the Merida Initiative, a 400 million dollar support plan against narcotraffic to purchase equipment and train personnel, dubbed by its critics as a replica of “Plan Colombia.”
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Cuarto Poder (Tuxtla, Chiapas), 7/16/08
– A truck speeded through an immigration control checkpoint near Comitan, Chiapas. After it was located further up the road, the driver and front cab passenger had disappeared, but not the thirty-seven “undocumented” aliens jampacked and hidden in the back. The aliens were from Ecuador, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador, Hondurans and Nicaragua. (This one item also from Prensa Libre, Guatemala City)
– An article titled “The flow of sex servers grows in Comitan” reports that the number of Central American “sex workers” increased from 60 to 94. None had immigration documents and many are young women who come to offer their services so they can continue their studies. (Comitan is on the main highway and close to the border with Guatemala)
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Diario 21 (Iguala, Guerrero) 7/16/08
The governor of Guerrero, Zeferino Torreblanca, said that violence linked to narcotraffic is rooted in poverty and “for that reason no one can claim victory.” He reiterated his commitment to help combat the violence taking place not only in Guerrero but in the entire country. Guerrero’s daily homicide rate is two. (The main city is Acapulco.)
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El Diario de Coahuila (Saltillo, Coahuila) 7/16/08
Gerardo Valdes is the head of the Special Unit Against Organized Crime and Kidnapping and also Chief of the Special Anti-Kidnapping Group of the Department of Justice in Torreon, Coahuila.
Valdes was forcibly carried off by a group of armed men in from of his house Monday night. He is the second man in that job to be taken away by force. In May of 2007 Enrique Ruiz held that post and he was the victim of an identical crime.
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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 7/16/08
– A state police commander was murdered in a car-to-car AK47 gunfire assault in Culiacan, Sinaloa (No date is shown in this article – a common practice – but it was posted at 07:44 7/16/08). More than thirty shots were fired. This brings law enforcement officer deaths to 64 for this year in Sinaloa.
– When part of the pavement sank an underground tunnel was discovered under lane #8 of the DeConcini border crossing at Nogales.
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La Cronica (Mexicali, Baja Calif.) , Frontera (Tijuana, Baja Calif.) 7/16/08
In Mexicali, local police burst into a house at Rio Americano # 3140, arrested six men and found and freed a local businessman who had been kidnapped. One of the six thugs arrested is a Tijuana police officer. The kidnap victim was found blindfolded, gagged and tied with duct tape; they were asking three million dollars ransom for him. Also found in the house: 3 assault rifles, three pistols, ammo, phones and radios.
A more recent report says that two other Tijuana police officers have now also been arrested in Mexicali and were being transported to Tijuana under heavy guard.
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El Universal (Mexico City) 7/16/08
– headline : “Five damned days”
Between last Thursday and Monday ( 7/10 to 7/14) the daily average of homicides in Sinaloa reached 7., besides the kidnapping of groups of people at a shopping mall following a robbery, the setting of houses on fire and the car bombs now found in Culiacan. A faculty member of the University of Sinaloa warned that in that climate, young people who are attracted by easy money and by firearms fall easily into a “narcoculture.”
– There were eighteen homicides in the state of Chihuahua between midnight Monday and Thursday. A city police officer was gunned down and another gravely wounded in Juarez. Also in Juarez, a prison facility captain was murdered while on his way home. Nine other crimes took place in Juarez, while in Chihuahua City four men were out to death in a shop, as was one other man elsewhere. A married couple in Norogachi suffered the same fate. And in Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, two motorcycle riders shot a man to death. La Jornada (Mexico City) adds that from Jan. to date 577 persons fell victims to homicide in the state of Sinaloa and that in that area up to an hour has passed from the initial report of shootings until police officers have arrived on the scene.
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Note: the producers of NAFBPO’s Foreign News Report strive to present clear, concise and accurate translations of the material found. Please take a moment to see two typical examples of what we have to contend with. Following are literal translations.
The first describes the execution (yesterday, in Juarez) of three young men who according to witnesses were first forced to kneel down:
“(name) who was taken to that nosocomium with two bullet wounds in the right parietal region, with exposition of the encephalic mass.” (Meaning he was shot on the right side of the back of the head, taken to a hospital and some of his brain was showing)
Another:
“After evaluating the juridical elements provided by the federal prosecutor assigned to the Specialized Investigations in Organized Crime of the Sub-Department of Justice, the dispenser of justice considered probable the indicated person responsible for organized crime and crimes against health.”
(This was the wording in a account of the sentencing of the ex-chief of police in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, for conniving with criminals. Now you know why we are sometimes slow in plowing through our material)
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NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
Visit our website: http://www.nafbpo.org
Foreign News Report
The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.
(Note: the following item, though not news originating from Mexico, is reported because of its degree of relevance. The item received wide coverage throughout Mexico today but originated with the paper below.)