Posted on 05/27/2005 5:42:16 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
MEXICO CITY — Reputed drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has launched a bloody offensive to control drug smuggling along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said today. Mexico's top law enforcement official said Guzman was behind a wave of violence that has killed hundreds of suspected smugglers, hit men, police, soldiers and civilians along the 2,000-mile border. "Definitely, he is the most active man in his group. He is trying to fight for the border corridors, trying to control places like Culiacan just like the rest of the communities of Sinaloa (state), and the border cities," Cabeza de Vaca told a group of foreign reporters about a month after taking his job.
On Mexico's Pacific Coast, Sinaloa is the home state of Guzman and most of the country's top drug suspects. Culiacan is its capital and a hotbed for marijuana and cocaine trafficking. Guzman, whose nickname means "Shorty," bribed guards to escape from prison in 2001. He is one of Mexico's most-wanted fugitives. U.S. authorities have offered $5 million for his capture. "We are looking for him. We are behind him," Cabeza de Vaca said of Guzman. "Many times we have been close. We will continue searching very intensely." Authorities in Mexico and the United States believe that two inmates awaiting trial for leading drug syndicates — Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas — have forged a jailhouse alliance to stop Guzman from moving in on their smuggling territory.
Under former Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha, who left office a month ago, Arellano Felix and Cardenas were among a series of high-profile arrests that forced bloody turf battles among gangs across Mexico. Mexico's top anti-drug prosecutor has said that Guzman is working for the Juarez cartel, a powerful and ruthless gang based in the city of the same name across the border from El Paso, Texas. U.S. investigators say Guzman is more independent, however, and has simply reached a nonaggression pact with Juarez cartel leaders. The spike in killings and kidnappings in northern Mexico in recent months has made headlines and prompted federal agents and soldiers to patrol the streets of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas. "Practically all of these executions mentioned are settling of scores or simply an elimination in order to occupy posts" between different smuggling groups, Cabeza de Vaca said. On Thursday in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, a federal agent was killed in a shootout with two men who Cabeza de Vaca said were members of the Zetas, a group of military deserters believed to be loyal to Cardenas. The attorney general said authorities recovered a cache of weapons in the suspects' vehicle and added that the two were almost certainly leaving or headed to a contract killing. Shortly before Cabeza de Vaca met with reporters in a Mexico City hotel today, police in Nuevo Laredo found the bodies of two men who had been shot several times and killed inside a car. No arrests have been made in that case.
The attorney general also said investigators suspect that large drug gangs sometimes rely on hit men from other countries, who slip into Mexico using false travel documents and carry out professional killings before disappearing. His comments came a day after Guzman's son, Ivan Archivaldo Guzman Salazar, was transferred to a maximum-security penitentiary west of the capital amid reports of a planned attempt to break him out of jail. Guzman Salazar is awaiting trial on money laundering charges.
What ever happened to vicente's aide, (that got busted for working with drug lords?)
Last I heard, he was sitting in a federal maximum security prison. There is "bail" in a limited sense in Mexico, but not for this kind of thing.
This isn't much better........................
LOL! Growing your marijuana?
True, true.
Last I looked, he has a good chance of gaining control of the border. Our national leadership sure as hell doesn't want control of it. Ba--ards.
No. El Chapo Guzman does not "control" the border between the US and Mexico. Never Will. The elite higher-ups, the wealthy .01%, and the mexican pols control the border, and the things going on at, with, and about, the border.
But it sounds good.
That's an idea I like!
Al Pacino rocks.
Say 'ello to my liddle fren'
Say 'allo
to my little fren!
Mena moved south.....
Thanks.
There is always a wave of murders when the drug franchise issued from the Mexican power structure changes. The new boss is simply eliminating his competition, probably with the assistance of Federal police.
i live here, and don't much worry about gangsters bumping each other off. Unlike the gangs in the U.S., folks here normally don't take out innocent bystanders. But, the feeling in Mexico is that the problem is caused by the U.S. (yeah, I know... Mexicans blame EVERYTHING on the U.S. -- and some folks here blame everything on Mexicans so it's a fair trade). There's more than some truth to the matter. Drugs are one export the U.S. isn't trying to regulate off the market (unlike fruits and vegetables, but that's another thread)... the U.S. is the world's largest consumer of these products (50% of the world's narcotics are consumed in the U.S., according to the CIA's world fact book).
The Mexican response is to blame the violence on the U.S. drug consumers. Hey, most here want capitalism... this is just the ugly side of it.
I don't say the US demand doesn't drive the market--only that the corruption in Mexico allows various gangs to flourish with a quasi-legal franchise that is revoked from time to time as pressure is applied from the US to show the government is responding.
This theory isn't an original thought of mine; it comes from a very informed and astute Mexican intellectual and was published widely a few years ago.
No Joke this photo looks exactly like my next door neighbor. could be Brad Johnson of Midnight Express.
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