Mexican Drug Cartels-making insane decisions-Update

Update...

MATAMOROS, MEXICO-- Ten more bodies were found in a new mass grave in Mexico's northern state of Tamaulipas, bringing the total number to 126 bodies, officials said Wednesday.

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They have terror, they have most of the government paralyzed, they are the second biggest employer next to the oil industry in Mexico...etc.  I still can not frame this within an economical model, geopolitical model or even within a terrorist framework.  Time will tell.

FYI:  Most gang members pose for a booking photo or news photo with their chin up so that the picture can not be used to identify them in a future criminal investigation.  

The Mexican Cartels Strike Back-Los Zetas Cartel

Anyone who reads this blog knows that I try to keep track of the Mexican drug wars and the American Law Enforcement response.

Up till now there have been some unwritten rules that the cartels followed, mainly to keep from having a full Mexican military intervention into their actions and to keep the Mexican position of no significant American forces operating in their country intact.



The Rules:
 1.  No cartel involved violence in/near major tourist sites.
 2.  American diplomats are not to be targeted
 3.  Hit just the target and not have huge civilian causalities

Well recent history has shown that number 3 has been abandoned since they are no longer content in grabbing their target, torturing him/her and dumping the body but instead lobing grenades at discos and shooting up parties.

Rule number one has fallen with the attacks on Americans/Europeans in and around tourist destinations.

Rule number two has just fallen.  On February 15, 2011 two ICE agents were ambushed in their armored car by  (logical guess) members of the Los Zetas*, with the result of one killed and one gravely wounded.  Reading the different news articles the attacks were specifically targeting American officials.  I am watching and waiting for the American response.  So far a couple of department heads but not the President have condemned the action but no follow up actions have been remunerated.  My belief is if the Obama administration only gives speeches (which so far is the case) and does not follow up with actions, then attacks like these will increase in number until all American law enforcement currently in Mexico are returned home.  If a major joint operation is conducted aside the government-loyal Mexican military, then this attack will be an anomaly.

Only time will tell.

Our prayers go out to the agents involved and their families.

* The Los Zetas Cartel was founded by Mexican Army Special Forces deserters who were recruited by the Gulf Cartel as a security force (assassinations, money and drug couriers, security).  The Cartel has since split into two factions, one loyal to the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels and the other to ABL.  In reality they are playing both sides to increase their share of the international drug trade.

The Article


Two ICE Agents Shot, 1 Killed inside Mexico

Two U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were shot in the line of duty today approximately 100 miles outside Mexico City Tuesday.

One of the officers has died from his wounds, reports the Associated Press, quoting an anonymous official.

A U.S. Embassy spokesman in Mexico City tells CBS News the two agents were shot while driving from Mexico City to Monterey by unknown assailants.

"ICE is working with the U.S. State Department, Mexican authorities and other U.S. law enforcement partners to investigate the shooting. Our thoughts and prayers are with our colleagues," ICE officials said in a statement this afternoon.

Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano condemned the attacks.

"Let me be clear: any act of violence against our ICE personnel - or any DHS personnel - is an attack against all those who serve our nation and put their lives at risk for our safety," Napolitano said. "We remain committed in our broader support for Mexico's efforts to combat violence within its borders."

The two agents were driving in the northern state of San Luis Potosi when they were stopped at what appeared to be a military checkpoint, said one Mexican official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

After they stopped, someone opened fire on them, the official said.

San Luis Potosi police said gunmen attacked two people a blue Suburban on Highway 57 between Mexico City and Monterrey, near the town of Santa Maria Del Rio, at about 2:30 p.m.

Police said one person was killed and another was flown to a Mexico City hospital, though they couldn't confirm the victims were the ICE agents.

Mexican Ambassador to the U.S. Arturo Sarukhan spoke with ICE chief John Morton to express Mexico's condolences, according to a spokesman.

"This is a difficult time for ICE and especially for the families and loved ones of our agents. Our hearts and prayers go out to them. This tragedy is a stark reminder of the risks confronted and the sacrifices made by our men and women every day," Morton said in a statement.

Though Mexico is seeing record rates of violence from warring drug cartels and a crackdown on organized crime, it is rare for U.S. officials to be attacked. The U.S. government, however, has become increasingly concerned about the safety of its employees in Mexico amid the escalating violence.

In March, a U.S. employee of a consulate, her husband and a Mexican tied to the American consulate were killed when drug gang members fired on their cars as they left a children's party in Ciudad Juarez, the city across from El Paso, Texas.

The U.S. State Department has taken several measures over the past year to protect consulate employees and their families. It has at times authorized the departure of relatives of U.S. government employees in northern Mexican cities.

In July, it temporarily closed the consulate in Ciudad Juarez after receiving unspecified threats.

In a famous case, in 1985 U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was tortured and killed in Mexico. Mexican trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero is serving a 40-year prison term for Camarena's slaying.

ICE, the investigative arm of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the second largest investigative agency in the federal government, enforced immigration laws and is primarily responsible for arresting, detaining and deporting people who are in the U.S. illegally. It also investigates drug cases in the U.S. and Mexico and other types of trafficking.

It was created in 2003 through a merger of the investigative and interior enforcement elements of the U.S. Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service and has more than 20,000 employees in offices in all 50 states and 47 foreign countries.In December, U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian A. Terry was shot and killed just north of the Arizona-Mexico as he tried to catch bandits suspected of targeting illegal immigrants.

As CBS News reported last week, violence has been escalating in Mexican border towns. In Juarez, Mexico, nearly seven people a day have died this year.

Nationwide, almost 35,000 people have been killed in drug violence since President Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown against drug trafficking shortly after taking office in December 2006.

Psalm 116:2-4

² Because he turned his ear to me,
   I will call on him as long as I live.
 ³ The cords of death entangled me,
   the anguish of the grave came over me;
   I was overcome by distress and sorrow.
⁴ Then I called on the name of the LORD:
   “LORD, save me!”

Another Blow to the Mexican Cartels-The Pig Captured

I try to keep up with the Mexican and American law enforcement responses to the danger that are the Mexican Drug Cartels.


I find our war with these criminal organizations analogous to the FBI’s war with the Chicago/ Philadelphia/New York Mafia in the post world war two era. The criminal organizations became violent over territory and profits and eventually law enforcement stepped in. It took a long time but eventually law enforcement took out all the major heads from all the competing families. The result was a neutered Mafia but one that still exists in a stunted form. That’s the future for these Mexican crime syndicates.

The Pig (Manuel Fernandez Valencia) has now been captured. A man that had direct connections to El Chapo, Mayo and ABL.

In the last three years, A.B.L.(Arturo Beltran Leyva) and Nacho (Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel)--killed.

VCN (Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla) , The Flores’ Brothers, Alfredo Beltran Leyva, La Barbie (Édgar Váldez Villarreal) and now The Pig --captured. Their talent pool is drying up, one man at a time.

ABL Killed, The Pig Captured, Nacho Killed, VCN Captured, The Flores Brothers, La Barbie Arrested

The Story - the link first http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1327974/Alleged-drug-dealer-Manuel-Fernandez-Valencia-The-Sow-arrested-Mexican-police.html


Bringing home the bacon: Alleged drug dealer nicknamed 'The Sow' arrested by Mexican police
By Daily Mail Reporter

A drug kingpin nicknamed 'The Sow' has been arrested after a stand-off with Mexican federal police.

Manuel Fernandez Valencia is linked to the notorious Sinaloa cartel and is suspected of plotting with one of Mexico's most wanted drug lords to smuggle eight tons of marijuana into the US.

Seven other men suspected of working for the cartel were detained with Valencia.

The drug dealer worked closely with cartel capo Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman smuggling drugs into the United States.

He has been wanted for extradition to the US since 2009 on charges of trafficking heroin and cocaine, and the two met at least five times recently, police said.

Guzman and Ismael 'El Mayo' Zambada, who authorities say control the Sinaloa cartel, are Mexico's two most notorious fugitives, with a $2 million reward offered for information on their whereabouts.

Fernandez Valencia was courted by the leaders of the rival Beltran Leyva cartel in 2007, but he chose to remain with Guzman, police claimed.

In August, his son Marcial was slain in Culiacan, apparently because the killers mistook him for Guzman's son.

One drove a white Ferrari and the other a white Lamborghini

Police said intelligence indicated Guzman called Fernandez Valencia personally to apologise and vow to find the killers.

Monday's arrests come on the heels of the death of reputed Gulf cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, also known as 'Tony Tormenta' or 'Tony the Storm,' one of a string of high-profile kingpins who have been captured or killed by security forces stationed throughout the country to battle drug traffickers.
2 Samuel 23:6But evil men are all to be cast aside like thorns, which are not gathered with the hand.

Christian Police Officer, Christian Cop, Christian Law Enforcment, Christian police

Got another one-the Mexican Cartels take another hit

The war with the Mexican Cartels is much like the war against the Mafia from 1900-1990.  The war is winnable but it will be long, exhausting, deadly and expansive.  The final result will be a castrated cartel but not an eradicated which is what the Mafia is today.

Here is another one that I have been reading about for some time.

He's rumored to have killed 250+ or more for ABL.  But like Vicente he went down without a fight.  The number 2 for ABL and the number 3 for Chapo are now in US custody... whose next?

I am liking Calderón more and more

The news article.

Enjoy

Edgar Valdez Villarreal – suspected drug lord 'La Barbie' – arrested in Mexico

Mexico City – Mexico officials announced late Monday that they captured Edgar Valdez Villarreal, or “La Barbie,” one of the country's most-wanted men. Authorities have described him as a powerful drug lord responsible for supplying the American market with cocaine.

The arrest handed Mexican President Felipe Calderón a badly needed victory just ahead of his annual state-of-the-union address Wednesday.

Mr. Valdez, who was born in Texas and nicknamed “La Barbie” for his fair complexion, was captured Monday outside Mexico City. He is the third major trafficking suspect to be taken down in the past eight months. The military killed Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, a suspected leader in the Sinaloa Cartel, in a July operation in Jalisco. In December, Arturo Beltran Leyva, the founder of a group that Valdez is allegedly vying to control, was killed by Mexican marines.

The capture is already being touted by Calderón's administration as a major success. “The capture of Valdez Villarreal is a high-impact blow against organized crime,” national security spokesman Alejandro Poire said in an e-mailed statement Monday night.

IN PICTURES: Mexico's drug war

Mr. Poire said the capture demonstrates that the federal government's public security office and its intelligence-gathering operations are capable. He said the search for the suspected drug lord was carried out across six Mexican states.

The government says that Valdez, 37, is a top player in the Beltran Leyva Cartel, and that his power has grown since the group´s founder Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed late last year. The group is suspected of being behind the growing violence in the central state of Mexico, bringing the types of beheadings andgangland violence to the capital region that were once confined to border towns hundreds of miles away.

Poire called Valdez a “highly dangerous criminal” who made connections with groups in Central and South America to smuggle drugs into the US, where he is also wanted. The US had offered $2 million for his capture, after an indictment alleged he had smuggled thousands of pounds of cocaine into the US.

The capture comes amid a string of recent setbacks for the Calderón administration, including the assassination of two mayors, a massacre of 72 migrants, and car bombs and continued attacks against journalists.

On Monday, 3,200 federal police were fired for alleged corruption and other offenses, another blow to an administration attempting to rebuild the federal police force and instill public trust in the institution.

But it is unclear whether the capture will quell violence or cause it to increase in the short-term. More than 28,000 people have been killed since Calderón took office nearly four years ago, in part, the government says, because pressure has caused drug gangs to splinter and fight one another.


Oh and good-bye Nacho where ever you are.

More Cartel Violence

Non-serial killer, sensation /gruesome homicide is used primarily as warning, punishment and to build fear. The murders is Mexico are getting more and more ghastly because a simple multiple homicide does not garnish the attention desired by the cartel in question. Thus over time they get more brutal, more torturous and more macabre in order to rise about the other piles of rotting bodies. Here is another example from a growing and troubling trend. A sign of the future for America if we ever let the cartels truly set up their power base on our soil.


Mexico man's face skinned and stitched onto a soccer ball in Sinaloa in threat to Juarez drug cartel
By Soraya Roberts

DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, January 9th 2010, 5:54 PM

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."

Hernandez, 26, was kidnapped from Sonora on Jan. 2 and taken to the neigboring state of Sinaloa. The motive for his abduction remains unclear but Sonora is known for its marijuana farms, Robles said.

Sinaloa state is the hometown of the bosses from four of the six major drug cartels in Mexico.

While tortures and beheadings have become a familiar sight since President Felipe Calderon started his crackdown on drugs three years ago, Hernandez's murder was particularly grisly.
More than 15,000 people have been killed in the drug war, many of them in the border cities of Ciudad Juarez and Tijuana. At least 17 journalists have been killed since 1992 after reporting on the local drug community, which has spurred some of the country's newspapers to stop covering violence to avoid more deaths.

Members of the cartels often torture and mutilate their victims in order to intimidate the people who threaten them.

With News Wire Services.

Drug War

I am often asked if I think that law enforcement ever has any meaningful successes when dealing with the distribution and sale of illicit narcotics.  I usually say we have a limited affect, primarily due to the copious amounts of drugs coming in and the huge profits being made.

I need to reevaluate this position.  We are having a profound effect when viewed with the drug war going on in Mexico.  Mexico is in danger of becoming a failed state due to the cartel's (Los Zetas, Gulf, Sinaloa Cartel) influences in all aspects of Mexican life.  While we are not stopping drug violence nor stemming the flow of drugs into this country or the currency from the sales from flowing out, what we are doing is keeping the drug organizations from becoming the single biggest bastion of power in American society.  It’s a nice starting point.

Case in point 
At Arturo Beltrán Leyva (ABL) grave a head just showed up to make a point.  Since severed heads are becoming the norm they decided to engage in some Feng shui and balance the floral arrangement by placing one in his ear.  Don't ever forget it really is a war.

Fighting Evil always has a price

In the Battle with Evil for Justice there is always a price to be paid. Sometimes it is small, other times the price is horrorific. I think we as Americans take our imperfect institutions of Justice, Fairness and Openness for granted because so few of us outside the military have ever sacrificed anything for them. Rather we bitch and whine and find the little problems of life overwhelming. The war on drugs is really a war with greed and mercilessness as this family has and the world now knows in such a visceral sense and in a way I hope my family will never know.


Our prayers are with these new victims and for all the men who did the right thing and their families that are now at risk for it.

Mexican Marine's Family Murdered in Suspected Revenge

Just hours after the funeral of a special forces marine, gunmen murdered the marine's family in what Mexican police suspect was a revenge attack.  Melquisedet Angulo was fatally injured when he took part in a raid that killed notorious drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva and five bodyguards last week.  Local authorities say the assailants broke the door down with a sledgehammer and sprayed the family with bullets in the living room and bedrooms.  The murder of Angulo's mother, sister, brother, and aunt was condemned by Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

[Felipe Calderon, Mexican President]:  "These reprehensible events are a display of the lack of scruples with which organized crime operates, preying on innocent people. This only spurs us to redouble our efforts to root out such a singular cancer from our social life."

Despite the deployment of 49,000 troops across Mexico, killings by drug gangs have soared into the thousands.  Mexican soldiers usually wear masks during drug operations to keep their identities secret.
But Angulo was named and lauded as a hero by the Mexican navy, making his family an identifiable target.
Source: http://english.ntdtv.com/ntdtv_en/ns_sa/2009-12-24/726125620330.html


Psalm 10:15
Break the arm of the wicked and evil man; call him to account for his wickedness that would not be found out.

Arturo Beltrán Leyva is Dead

There is a little bit less evil in the world now.

A tip of the hat to the Mexican Military


From The Times December 18, 2009

Mexico's drug 'Boss of Bosses' shot dead in raid on luxury hideout

Mexico was celebrating a rare victory in its war on drugs yesterday after one of the country’s most notorious traffickers was killed in a two-hour gun battle after 200 Navy Marines stormed his luxury hideout.

Arturo Beltrán Leyva, known as the “Boss of Bosses”, died along with six of his henchmen after the Marines surrounded a complex of flats in Cuernavaca, a holiday town south of Mexico City. Beltrán Leyva, also wanted in the US, was the highest-ranking figure to be taken out by the authorities and his death marks the biggest success yet in President Calderón’s campaign to stamp out the drugs trade.

The Marines, among Mr Calderón’s best-trained — and least corrupt — forces, had been planning the assault for months. They had tracked Beltrán Leyva’s movements since Friday, when they narrowly failed to capture him.

Elite forces closed Cuernavaca’s roads and surrounded the complex of tower blocks. The 200 armed sailors, many arriving by helicopter, searched and evacuated the apartments and cut off communications in the area.

An intense battle ensued in which Beltrán Leyva and his men were killed. One, realising that he was surrounded, committed suicide. Beltrán Leyva’s body remained at the scene yesterday, a large gold medallion still in his hands.

Two sailors were wounded and one died when the gang hurled grenades at them. One civilian, driving past at the time, was killed in the crossfire.

Mr Calderón described the operation as “a decisive blow against one of the most dangerous criminal organisations in Mexico and the continent”. A spokesman for the Marines, Admiral José Luis Vergara, hailed the operation’s success and endorsed Mr Calderón’s promise to “carry the war against organised crime to its ultimate consequences”.

Beltrán Leyva, who had a $2.1 million (£1.3 million) price on his head, was a leader of the Sinaloa cartel until he and his four brothers split off last year and aligned themselves with Los Zetas, a group of former soldiers hired by the rival Gulf cartel as hitmen. The split is thought to have fuelled much of the recent bloodshed.

One of his brothers, Alfredo, was arrested in January 2008, in the Calderón administration’s first major success of the war on drugs. The Beltrán Leyva brothers had accused Joaquín Guzmán, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, of treason, and launched a series of bloody reprisals against him, including the killing of his son.

Among his crimes, Beltrán Leyva is accused of smuggling tonnes of cocaine and heroin, laundering money through a professional football team, and bribing hundreds of Mexican officials. According to US officials, he was guilty of multiple killings and beheadings and was responsible for much violent infighting between rival cartels.

On Wednesday morning, hours before he died, two dismembered bodies were found in plastic bags in the state of Guerrero with a note signed “The Boss of Bosses”.

Beltrán Leyva is the biggest prize yet of Mexico’s war on drugs, in which 14,000 people have been killed and 49,000 troops deployed since the beginning of Mr Calderón’s term in 2006.
The operation has been hailed by Washington as a decisive move. “We have begun having an impact against the drug traffickers,” Carlos Pascual, the US Ambassador to Mexico, said. “I don’t think it’s because we are doing something wrong.”

The two countries have pledged to work closer together to address the drugs trade. Five Bell helicopters were given to Mexico by the US as part of the Merida initiative, a three-year pact between the nations to fight the drug cartels.

This week has been one of the bloodiest yet in Mexico’s drug war, with multiple killings across the country. The general increase in violence is being seen by Mexican authorities as a sign that the war on drugs is finally making inroads. The drug cartels, they say, are weakening under the pressure of infighting and repeated hits from military and police operations, and are resorting to extreme, chaotic attacks.