Posted on 10/06/2007 12:54:03 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — Mexican troops seized at least 10 tons of cocaine Friday after a shootout with smugglers in the Gulf Coast port of Tampico.
Eight men, all of them from the Tampico area, were arrested at the scene, a trucking warehouse near Tampico's airport. The Defense Ministry said officials received an anonymous tip about the warehouse.
When military personnel showed up at the facility, the ministry said, the troops encountered armed men blocking the street as others were unloading cocaine from a tractor-trailer. The gunbattle broke out. The ministry denied press reports that people on both sides had been killed in the gunbattle.
Coming just nine days after 3.2 tons of cocaine were confiscated from a plane forced down by the military on the Yucatan Peninsula, Friday's seizure gave a significant boost to President Felipe Calderón's offensive against Mexican drug gangs.
"We have redoubled the effort to enforce the law in Mexico," Calderón said Friday in Ciudad Victoria, the capital of Tamaulipas, of which Tampico is the largest city, according to El Universal newspaper.
Negotiators are fine-tuning an agreement by which some $1 billion in U.S. anti-narcotics aid will be sent to Mexico in the next few years.
"Today marks another historic success for the Mexican government's counter-drug initiatives," U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza said in a statement Friday night.
Garza praised the "the unwavering commitment of the Calderon administration" which he said was having "an immediate and successful impact on the drug cartels and in blocking their criminal operations."
There was no information about the ownership of the cocaine. Tampico is considered the territory of the Gulf Cartel, which is based in the Mexican cities bordering South Texas. Tampico is located on the coast about 250 miles south of the Brownsville.
The reputed leader of the Gulf Cartel, Osiel Cardenas, is in U.S. federal custody in Houston awaiting trial on narcotics-related charges. Calderón ordered Cardenas extradited to the United States this year.
Officials have said the cocaine seized in Yucatan belonged to Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, reputed head of the so-called Sinaloa Cartel of western Mexico, with which Cardenas's gang has been warring for three years.
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dudley.althaus@chron.com
Mexico Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
medico is corrupt to the core. I think one set of dealers took the cocaine away from another set of dealers.
It’s a hell of a drug.
Is 10 TONS a lot of cocaine?
“We have redoubled the effort to enforce the law in Mexico,” Calderón said Friday in Ciudad Victoria,...
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2 x 0 = 0
9,080,000 grams. Don’t know into how much crack that translates.
Perhaps some in our congress are attempting to buy the cocaine? I know many of those people in congress act as though they are high and delusional, but 1 billion dollars to medico to fight the war on narcotics? Insanity, and dollars down the toilet.
Not for MY typical Saturday nights (pre-Recovery).
I don't know...I've never been to an A-list Hollywood party.
Andy Dick is going to be deeply saddened.
would that mean medico is double dipping. They get $$ to fight the war and then get $$ for selling the dope.
Since guns are outlawed in Mexico, why would there have been a gun battle? /sarc
Even Paris Hilton couldn't finish that much in a ypical weekend.
Looked it up, converts to about 81,720,000 crack rocks.
Then add soap, B vitamins, plaster, rat poison (if they feel like it), baking soda, etc. The street value of this is very large. Every link in the chain dilutes it and adds more.
I was thinking along the same lines that the raid was just for show to get the 1 Billion of US anti-drug aid.
I'll bet these drugs will imitate Hillary's illegal campaign contribution refunds.
From what I've been reading, the Mexican military is almost like the Iraqi defense force. During the day they wear the uniform of their day job and at night they make money at criminal activities.
Looks like it’s going to be a hard winter.
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