Thursday, February 5, 2009

Mexico attacks leave 17 dead

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AFP) – Seventeen people, including a police officer, were killed in a 24-hour period in suspected drug attacks in Mexico, mainly in northern border areas, police and officials said.

Dozens have died so far this year and more than 5,300 died in 2008 as powerful drug cartels fight increasingly bloody turf wars despite a government crackdown including the deployment of some 36,000 troops.

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Friday, January 30, 2009

Former dump is revived

TIJUANA — Thanks to a groundbreaking binational partnership, people will now play soccer on what was once called Mexico's most notorious toxic waste site.

The 4-acre parcel was home to Metales y Derivados, an American-owned lead smelter that dumped more than 42,000 tons of hazardous waste into the ground, according to environmental officials. People living in Ejido Chilpancingo, a residential area near the site, complained for years that the contamination made them sick.

Now the heavy metals and other contaminants are entombed in concrete, and mini-courts are painted on the clean, flat surface.

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Friday, January 16, 2009

U.S. anti-drug information leaked to Mexico cartels

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Corrupt officials inside Mexico's security forces have leaked U.S. anti-drugs intelligence directly to drug traffickers to help them escape raids, a senior U.S. law enforcement agent said.

A recent anti-corruption sweep showed the infiltration of Mexican police forces had reached alarming levels, with several high-ranking investigators and a presidential guardsman arrested for selling information to drug cartels.

The U.S. agent said the arrests were an encouraging sign that Mexico's government is serious about stopping drug gangs from getting their hands on intelligence, some of which comes from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, or DEA.

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Saturday, January 10, 2009

DEA updates its top 10 list: Fresh faces abound

With most of the original leaders of the Arellano Felix drug cartel behind bars or dead, a new generation of suspected traffickers has stepped up to the plate. But their faces have barely been shown – until now.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Thursday presented a poster with photographs of 10 suspected drug traffickers, including a previously unreleased photo of Fernando Sanchez Arellano, described as the cartel's current leader.

“This is the new hierarchy, who's basically running the show down there now,” said Eileen Zeidler, the DEA's spokeswoman in San Diego.

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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

American anti-kidnap expert vanishes

MEXICO CITY — Felix Batista had negotiated with kidnappers scores of times to win the release of victims. But the U.S. security expert has vanished after a series of mysterious phone calls, appointments and messages – an ominous turn in the struggle to rein in Mexico's increasingly aggressive kidnappers.

Authorities and fellow kidnap negotiators said Tuesday they are struggling to find out what went wrong when Batista disappeared on Dec. 10.

The Coahuila state attorney general's office described the chain of events that preceded Batista's apparent kidnapping in the state capital, Saltillo:

"Mr. Batista was eating with several people at a restaurant on the north side of the city, when he received a phone call, and after conversing for several minutes, he left the restaurant," the agency said in a statement. "He told his companions that some people in a white SUV were going to leave him a message."

"At about 7:00 p.m., behind the restaurant, he got into a vehicle that wasn't the one he had described, and he hasn't been heard from since. From the investigation conducted so far, there were no signs of violence at the site where he was last seen."

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Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Plane crash leaves Mexico interior secretary dead

MEXICO CITY – One of Mexico's top pointmen in the war against drug trafficking died when a government jet crashed into a Mexico City street, setting fire to dozens of vehicles and dealing crusading President Felipe Calderón a serious blow.

Officials said the Tuesday crash appeared to be an accident but the loss of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, former anti-drug prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos and six others thinned the ranks of Mexico's already embattled leadership.

U.S. Ambassador Antonio Garza praised the two officials and suggested them as models for the fight against organized crime.

“Their dedication and commitment to accomplishing their work, especially that which strengthened our bilateral fight against those who attack the security of our two countries, certainly will be a model for all of us in a common effort that will continue to strengthen,” Garza said in a statement.

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Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Six slain in continuing Tijuana drug carnage

TIJUANA – Less than 48 hours after the capture of a key member of the notorious Arellano Felix cartel, the violence associated with drug trafficking continued unabated Monday.

Six men were slain between 3 and 7 p.m. in north and east Tijuana by gunmen from organized crime, authorities said.

The Body of a man with several gunshots and a wounded man were found on Avenida Ferrocarril about 3 p.m. in colonia Libertad, adjacent to the border, according to the state Attorney General's Office.

About 5:30 p.m., the agency received word that two men had been fatally shot by gunmen traveling in a vehicle in eastern colonia Mariano Matamoros.

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