Still in beta stage. -- www.watchingmexico.org and www.watchingmexico.com are being set up to give people connected to the great nation of Mexico and her wonderful people - Mexicans, business people, government employees and other foreigners working or living in Mexico, tourists and those investing in the country - the most up-to-date information on its war with drug cartels, general crime information, especially kidnapping, as well as advice on how to best protect yourself and your families.

Indictment reveals Mex
cartel's inner workings

By CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN Associated Press Writer © 2009 The Associated Press

July 2, 2009, 6:14PM
BROWNSVILLE, Texas — Nearly two years ago Mexican soldiers acting on what they said was an anonymous tip seized more than 11 tons of cocaine being unloaded by Gulf Cartel members at a warehouse near the eastern coastal city of Tampico.

At the time, Mexican media reported that it was the country's largest cocaine seizure to date.

But according to documents filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., last month in a case against 19 high-ranking members of the Gulf Cartel and its one-time enforcement arm the Zetas, authorities were monitoring phone conversations for months among the cartel members organizing that cocaine shipment from Colombia.

The bust was a big score for Mexican President Felipe Calderon's cartel crackdown and evidence of the cooperation between anti-drug efforts in the U.S. and Mexico.

READ REST OF STORY

BELOW - Mexican Army anti-drug elite troop trains

Drug-Cartel Links Haunt
an Election South of Border

Wall Street Journal

By JOEL MILLMAN and JOSE DE CORDOBA

COLIMA, Mexico -- The candidacy of Mario Anguiano, running for governor in a state election here Sunday, says a lot about Mexican politics amid the rise of the drug cartels.

A brother of the candidate is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Mexico for peddling methamphetamine. Another Anguiano is serving 27 years in a Texas prison for running a huge meth ring. A few weeks ago, a hand-painted banner hung on a highway overpass cited the Zetas, the bloodthirsty executioners for the Gulf Cartel drug gang, praising the candidate: "The Zetas support you, and we are with you to the death."

Mr. Anguiano says his meth-dealing brother was just an addict who sold small amounts to support his habit. He says the man jailed in Texas, reported by local media to be his cousin, may or may not be a relative. "If he is my cousin, I've never met him," he says. Denying any involvement with traffickers, he says the supposed Zetas endorsement was just a dirty trick by his election rivals.

READ ENTIRE STORY

K

Mexico: High stakes and rampant voter apathy in upcoming elections

LOS ANGELES TIMES: The Green Party, with its death penalty stance and toucan logo; the PRD and its unofficial face, Mariana; and the PAN, with its focus on the drug war, provide a colorful campaign.

By Ken Ellingwood

July 3, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City -- Mexicans vote Sunday, but the biggest story may be how many don't bother. At stake are all 500 seats in the lower house of Congress, six governorships and scores of local posts. But apathy and disgust with politics are rampant. Many voters plan to deface their ballots in protest.

Every campaign, however, offers moments that are memorable, incongruous, weird. Here are a few tidbits from Mexico, the 2009 edition.

The name says green, but the stance is pure red meat.

"Death penalty for murderers and kidnappers," the campaign banners exhort in block letters.

It's not an uncommon sentiment in Mexico, where capital punishment is banned and residents are fed up with frequent kidnappings and a homicide total that topped 6,000 last year, mainly because of clashes between drug-trafficking gangs.

READ REST OF STORY

4 Bodies Found in Mexico, 3 Without Heads

Thursday, July 02, 2009

MEXICO CITY —  Mexican authorities say police have found the bodies of four people killed in apparent drug violence, three of them decapitated.

A Mexico state prosecutor's official says three decapitated bodies and a severed head were discovered Thursday in two different parts of the state. The official declined to be identified in accordance with department policy.

A fourth body was found at a ranch in the western state of Michoacan.

And a second severed head turned up in a plastic bag in the southern state of Guerrero. It was not clear whether either head belonged to any of the decapitated victims in Mexico state.

Mexico's powerful cartels often decapitate their victims. Drug violence has cost more than 10,800 lives since late 2006.

MEXICAN MORTICIANS MAKING A KILLING AS DRUG WAR SPIRALS

March 26 2009

Juarez, Mexico – The Obama administration announced Tuesday that they will be stepping up efforts to aid the Mexican government in the ongoing battle against drug cartels throughout the country. Pledging 700 million dollars to the Mexican government and increased patrols along the border the government is hoping to stop the spiralling violence from spilling further into the United States. Many believe the new help will make little impact on the violence which has been spreading across the country at an ever increasing pace, and some are very unhappy with the foreign interference.

With more than 400 people dead this year the border town of Juarez is on a record setting pace. Last year a little more than 1600 people were killed in the violence, a pace which has government officials worried, but is delighting mortuary workers. The record setting pace is expected to generate record revenues for the industry across the country, but nowhere has that bump been felt like it has in Juarez. With a recent pledge by the Mexican government to send more forces to the city industry officials are becoming giddy.

“We have never seen business like this. Morgues are overflowing, mortuaries are running 24 hour shifts and graveyards are running out of places to put the bodies,” said Delfino Garcia, head of the Juarez Morticians Association. “While every other business in the country is suffering in this recession we can’t find enough people to hire. Of course that’s made a whole lot more difficult because of the fact that so many are dying, but it is a good position to be in. It is very difficult to get young people interested in death as a profession but since this war began they are seeing how much is there to be had. I think this will be a growth industry for years to come.”

Indeed the drug war is not showing any kind of end game as yet. The Cartels are generally much better armed and financed than the government forces which tends to lead to great deals of bloodshed. Last year more than 100 Juarez police officers were killed and like civilian deaths, that number is expected to grow exponentially this year.  

“U.S. Officials are stepping up efforts to stop the flow of cash and guns into Mexico but both sides know that is going to be largely fruitless.

The U.S. has never been able to stop poor people from crossing the border and the idea they will be able to stop well financed and well organized criminal organizations is ridiculous,” said Scrape TV International analyst Gustav Hander. “Considering that there is a full-fledged war going on right next door the support they are offering seems very limited. That’s of course assuming they want to stop the violence. The limited support may just be a token gesture. The idea of using American taxpayer dollars to help take away Mexican jobs may have been an appealing thing in the past, but they are showing a whole new economic model. If the violence spills over the border significantly there could be a similar economic surge in the United States.”

Enrolments in mortuary sciences have been on the increase in recent months throughout the United States, a sign that Americans are becoming more aware of the financial value of death.

“The one major concern the Mexican government has to have, outside complete collapse and total chaos in the country, is the cartels drawing those mortuary dollars into their own coffers. Pretty soon they are going to be looking at getting a cut of that revenue. After all it is their bullets doing the killing and those things don’t come cheap,” continued Hander. “The one hallmark of the Cartels is that they likemoney and they fight very hard to earn it. If they realize that a group of people is making a killing off their hard earned work they are going to going to get a piece of that action. I would be surprised to see them completely take over the industry at some point and that’s when we’ll really see the killing hit the mainstream in Mexico and probably the United States.”

Reportedly American gangs have already gained control of multiple body bag production facilities across the country in anticipation of a spill over of violence. Canadian officials had no comment on their plans should the violence move that far north. 

Emil Uliya, International Correspondent

At least 14 bodies found in Mexico mass grave

By MICHAEL E. MILLER – 1 day ago

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Police said Wednesday that they have uncovered a mass grave in central Mexico with the remains of 14 or 15 people believed to have been executed by the Zetas drug gang.

The remains found in Guanajuato state were so badly burned that officials were not immediately able to identify the number of victims, and it may be difficult to identify the dead.

Guanajuato Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa said the 14 or 15 bodies were piled into a single pit discovered on Saturday, a day after a shootout between police and suspected Zetas hit men in the town of Apaseo el Alto.

In the shootout, 12 gunmen were killed, 12 were captured and one police officer was wounded, officials said. The dead gunmen were not the bodies in the mass grave.

A large cache of weapons, including assault rifles, grenades and bulletproof vests, was also discovered after that clash, Zamarripa said. Investigations into the confrontation led police to the grave site.

In the Pacific port city of Manzanillo, customs officials announced Wednesday they had seized more than four tons of precursor chemicals commonly used to make Ecstasy.

The drugs were found inside an abandoned shipping container that arrived on a ship from Shanghai, China. On Tuesday, authorities announced the discovery of nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilos) of cocaine hidden in a shipment of tires from Colombia in the same port.

In Veracruz state, police found a decapitated body and severed head miles apart Wednesday.

Residents in Boca del Rio discovered a man's beheaded body with its hands and feet bound. The body also showed signs of torture — trademarks of drug-related homicides, authorities said.

Police refused to make public a note from the killers attached to the body.

Authorities in a nearby city later said that they had found a severed head, presumably belonging to the body in Boca del Rio.

Veracruz, one of Mexico's most important ports, has seen increasing violence in recent years. State prosecutor Salvador Mikel said at least five people died Monday in several drug-related slayings in the city. Earlier this month, gunmen kidnapped a top customs official who had launched a new system to check shipping containers at the port. He remains missing

Mexico is suffering a wave of gang violence that has killed more than 10,800 people since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched a military-led crackdown on drug traffickers.

Caption for pix: his 2005 Bentley Continental GT was riddled with bullets Dec. 12 on the 101 Freeway in L.A. after a chase that began near Olvera Street. The driver died later.

Bentley driver's slaying in L.A. might have Mexican cartel link

The LAPD is investigating whether a shooting on the 101 Freeway near downtown in December may have stemmed from an Arellano Felix drug rivalry. The luxury car was riddled with bullets.

By Paul Pringle and Richard Winton

July 3, 2009. LA Times

The shooting last December was as mysterious as it was brazen: On a downtown stretch of the 101 Freeway, a storm of bullets riddled a $100,000 Bentley, showering the lanes with shell casings and glass, and leaving the driver mortally wounded.

And then, for month after month, there was nothing -- no arrests, no suspects publicly identified, no possible motive given.

Hollywood Freeway shooting

But the speculation had been unavoidable. The audacity of the attack and the glaring mismatch between the ultra-luxury car and the young Latino victim of little apparent means suggested a Mexican-style narcotics hit, the type that has killed several thousand people in the drug wars south of the border.

Now, court records obtained by The Times show that police are investigating whether the predawn shooting was indeed tied to the Mexican dope trade. It would be an unusually bold display of cartel-related violence in the L.A. region.

One suspect was charged with murder Thursday.

A search warrant affidavit filed by a Los Angeles Police Department detective says investigators learned that the dead man, 25-year-old Jose Luis Macias, might have been selling drugs here for the notorious Arellano Felix cartel. The document says a friend of his since childhood may have had him gunned down to take over the local business.

The affidavit describes a Wild West pursuit of Macias that began with shots fired near the historic Olvera Street plaza, blocks from the Civic Center and LAPD headquarters, before it spilled onto the southbound 101. Like Macias, the suspects, identified as laborers, at one time or another drove cars beyond their outward pay levels -- a Hummer and a Cadillac Escalade, the affidavit says.

Earlier this week, the LAPD arrested Michael Angel Aleman, 34, who has been charged with first-degree murder, attempted murder and shooting into an occupied vehicle. Described in the affidavit as a former gang member, he is being held in lieu of $1.38-million bail.

The affidavit quotes an officer alleging that a second man, Eddie Escobedo, also known as Eddie Hernandez, wanted Macias killed.

"He said that Macias was dealing drugs" for the cartel, the document says. "He further stated that a power struggle erupted between the two because Eddie Escobedo wanted to be the 'shot caller.' "

Escobedo's whereabouts could not be determined.

Another man the affidavit names in connection with the case, Sabino Cabral, 26, is in custody on suspicion of lesser offenses and has not been charged in the killing.

Cabral, who was previously arrested in Arizona for allegedly transporting more than 200 kilos of marijuana and possessing a rifle, is believed to have had a 9-millimeter pistol that was used in the Olvera Street shooting, the affidavit says. The affidavit says it is the detective's "belief that Sabino Cabral was present, if not involved in the murder."

The document identifies two other men in connection with the investigation, describing them as bodyguards for Escobedo.

LAPD officials Thursday declined to discuss the probe. "There are people we need to talk to," said Robbery-Homicide Lt. Greg Strenk.

After The Times inquired about the case, the district attorney's office released a statement Thursday confirming that charges had been filed against Aleman. The statement called Macias a car salesman, but did not elaborate and made no reference to the cartel.

The court documents contain tipster accounts of two men with handguns first opening fire on the silver 2005 Bentley Continental GT near Olvera Street, about 3 a.m. Dec. 12, as Macias drove away from a celebration of the festival of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The assailants stepped in front of the car at Cesar Chavez Avenue and Alameda Street and started shooting. Macias sped off, made a frantic U-turn and headed toward the freeway, where he was shot minutes later, the affidavit says.

Macias suffered multiple head wounds, as rounds punctured the Bentley from back to front, according to the statement. He died in the hospital two days later.

The fact that investigators have remained mum since then -- tips had come in almost immediately -- is not unusual considering the life-and-death sensitivity of cases that could involve cartels or their partners in the United States, experts say. In Mexico, the drug organizations have routinely threatened and killed witnesses, authorities say.

In recent years, the death and imprisonment of key leaders have weakened the Arellano Felix cartel, but it remains a fierce combatant for drug smuggling routes from Tijuana into Southern California and across the United States, law enforcement officials say.

Orlando Lopez, a special agent in charge in California's Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, said the cartel brings cocaine, heroin, marijuana and methamphetamine into the state and acts as a wholesaler for drug-dealing street gangs. "They're very active," he said. "They have members on both sides of the border."

The documents in the Macias case do not refer specifically to any cartel chieftains. Nor do they state the cartel directly sanctioned the shooting.

But the detective's affidavit, citing an officer's account, says "Eddie placed a 'green light' on victim Macias," vernacular for approving a killing.

The Macias probe has stretched from a party supply store to a card club to Cabral's home on 2nd Street in Boyle Heights. Last week, the police seized a .45-caliber handgun, ammunition and several cellphones from the home, the affidavit says. Cabral was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving and other traffic violations, police records show.

He has also been convicted of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle, according to court records.

In the 1990s, Aleman was convicted of carrying a concealed weapon, and later of voluntary manslaughter, and was sentenced to eight years in prison, prosecutors said.

According to the affidavit, Montebello police also have arrested Aleman on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, although the circumstances are not described. The document says the Montebello Police Department arrested Cabral as well, but no details were provided.