Free Republic

Mexican President Andrés Lopez-Obrador will leave the presidency on October 1st. He will be replaced by Claudia Sheinbaum, the first woman to hold the job and someone who may regret that she got the job in the first place. Down south, violence is exploding. To be fair, AMLO's policy of "hugs rather than bullets" was a nice talking point, but the people with bullets did not get the memo. Let's check out what Allan Wall is writing about the war underway in Sinaloa: Elements of the military and National Guard, comprising 2,200 troops, have been sent to Sinaloa. Two of...

Several cities throughout Mexico have been forced to cancel their traditional Independence Day celebration due to widespread cartel violence. Historically, every September 15 at night, the president, each governor, and each mayor hold a celebration at their Plaza Square where they remember the start of Mexico’s Independence. During that celebration, they ring a bell while shouting a call to arms, death to a bad government, and the traditional “Viva Mexico.” The party is meant to commemorate the same call to arms known as “Grito de Dolores” given by Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla on September 15, 1810, when he called on...

Does San Diego, California have a 'Hamas' problem? No, not the ignorant student protestors at universities being directed by Hamas's proxies. No, not the terrorists rolling into the area from Joe Biden's and Kamala Harris's open border. They may be seeing actual tunnels, dug by Hamas itself or its clients the Mexican cartels, coming in through Mexico. The U.S. Border Patrol has discovered more than 200 of them since 2003, according to the Department of Customs & Border Protection. The most recent one found, that there's any news on, at least, was a 2022 Tijuana-to-San Diego tunnel , complete with...

California lawmakers and former top cops say Kamala Harris’s new campaign ads presenting her as ‘tough’ on drug trafficking don’t match with her record as a prosecutor – when she advocated not charging dealers until their third arrest. Harris proposed a policy in 2005 when she was San Francisco District Attorney to only prosecute drug dealers the third time they were caught selling narcotics, DailyMail.com has learned. The plan sparked a scandal and was only halted when the city’s police chief Heather Fong pushed back to prevent it. So when the Harris presidential campaign released an ad on August 7...

Two men suspected in violent attacks that left multiple people injured have been found and taken into custody, according to the Oceanside Police Department Wednesday. *snip* Witnesses told police two individuals with bandanas covering their faces were seen attacking several men with baseball bats. The suspects reportedly fled the scene before officers arrived, authorities said.

The FBI said Saturday it is helping Mexican authorities investigate the fatal shooting of two Arizona women in the Mexican state of Sonora. The Attorney General’s Office of Sonora said both victims, ages 72 and 82, were found shot dead inside an overturned pickup truck Friday morning on the Sonoyta-Caborca highway. Officials said an abandoned Ford F-150 pickup truck in the town of Quitovac was connected to the shooting after authorities discovered a stash of AK-47-style rifles, loads of ammo and ballistic vests inside the vehicle.

A diplomatic row is gaining steam between Mexico and the United States. Outgoing President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has accused the US of sponsoring opposition NGOs such as the group Mexicans Against Corruption and Impunity (MCCI) through USAID programs. Obrador said his Foreign Ministry had sent a diplomatic notice, while he would personally write to US President Joe Biden about it. The US government has sent nearly $5 million to MCCI since 2018, with private donors including the Rockefeller and Ford foundations, Mexico’s Financial Crimes Unit (UIF) said.

The United States managed to arrest Mexico’s most-wanted drug lord, but Mexican prosecutors — and the president — now say they are considering bringing treason charges against those who handed him over. It’s part of the long, strange trail of Sinaloa cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, who unexpectedly appeared on a flight that landed near El Paso, Texas in July. That private plane flight was arranged by another drug capo who decided to turn himself in. U.S. officials say Joaquín Guzmán López — a son of imprisoned cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán — flew to the United States...

Cartels have started an air war barely south of the US border — how long before it spills over, thanks to the Biden-Harris border erasure? As with terrorism, it’s a question not of if but when. A cell of the Sinaloa Cartel, Los Salazar, has begun using drones to drop bombs on a rival group Los Pelones, in the town of Sonoyta — two miles from the US border. Central Park, by comparison, runs 2.5 miles north-south. Which means US residents are thisclose to an ongoing battle between parastatal organizations that just went aerial. It’s like something out of Blade...

Trump’s extremist policy agenda is flying under the radar — and that’s a problem. Donald Trump went on national TV last week and proposed bombing Mexico. Asked by Fox News’s Jesse Watters if he’d consider strikes against drug cartels operating in the country, Trump said yes — and framed his answer as a threat against the Mexican government. “Mexico’s gonna have to straighten it out really fast, or the answer is absolutely,” the former president said. This is not a one-off answer to a stray question. Trump suggested firing missiles at Mexico during his presidency, asked advisers for a “battle...

A Catholic Church-owned mountain that towers nearly a mile high near El Paso, Texas - its giant statue of Jesus Christ for decades drawing faithful to the summit - has been turned by Mexican cartels into a human smuggling stronghold where migrants are robbed, beaten and raped while chasing entry into the US. Mount Cristo Rey sits largely on American soil - located just inside the border at Sunland Park, New Mexico, where that state, Texas and Mexico all meet along a now-perilous boundary. The mountain is now totally controlled by Mexican cartels who use it to sneak illegal immigrants...

Associated Press CHICAGO (AP) — The leaders of a powerful Mexican cartel, frustrated that U.S. law enforcement was interfering with their lucrative drug business, plotted a military-style attack on a U.S. or Mexican government building to "send the gringos a message," federal prosecutors allege in documents filed this week. Leaders of the Sinaloa cartel sought dozens of American-made weapons for an attack in Mexico City on possible targets that included government buildings, an embassy or consulate or media outlet, according to documents in the case against Vicente Zambada, an alleged top lieutenant in the cartel. Zambada is in jail in...

A recently arrested gang member has told city officials that criminals are smuggling weapons inside NYC's shelters for asylum seekers, putting law abiding families in danger not only in those very same shelters, but on the city's very streets as well.

A Mexican folk religion involving human sacrifice and devoted to "Holy Death" is growing in popularity among drug traffickers and violent criminals, prompting Texas officials and the Catholic Church to warn about honoring the so-called "Saint Death." Authorities are speaking out about the religion devoted to La Santa Muerte, which translates to “Holy Death” and "Saint Death," that has gained popularity steadily since the late 1980s among Mexican-American Catholics. “She’s not a saint. There is nothing good that can come out of praying to her,” Sante Fe Archbiship John Wester said in February. “We have a lot of saints who...

A Mexican woman believed to be a witch with cartel ties, was killed after she tried to snatch an 18-month-old out his parents' arms with the stated intent of killing the child as sacrifice to the patron saint of cartels. Before Maria Guadalupe R.M., 33, tried to kidnap the child, she had made it known to her nephew, also the father of the child, that she believed a dead family member had been reincarnated as his son, reported local newspaper Norte Digital. Sunday, she broke into her relatives' Ciudad Juarez home as her nephew slept with his wife and son...

The flood of illegal immigrants is starting to take effect on the crime situation. It's already bad with our homegrown bunch reared with little or no values, but now we have to deal with thousands out of the millions of illegal immigrants who not only have no values, they have been TAUGHT FROM THEIR YOUTH how to steal from and defraud others. A Spanish-speaking customer who just now stopped by told me he took another hard-working Hispanic friend from Austin to Houston to buy a 2023 Tacoma 4WD TRD pickup from an Hispanic. He made several mistakes, but that is...

Honduras still has a long way to go to dismantle the “narco-state” that grew under ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez, jailed this week for smuggling a deluge of cocaine into the United States, experts said. Hernandez, 55, spent years in positions of power cozying up to kingpins from some of Latin America’s most notorious cartels, which placed proxies in state institutions while he pocketed millions of dollars in drug money. Extradited to the United States upon leaving office in 2022, Hernandez was sentenced this week to 45 years in jail for his crimes after prosecutors said he had turned his country...

A mayor in southern Mexico was found murdered in the back of van, just days after another politician was killed in the same region. Acacio Flores, who represents Malinaltepec, was found dead after the killing of Salvador Villalba Flores, another mayor from Guerrero state elected in June 2 polls. Prosecutors in Guerrero said Lores’ death had been ruled a homicide, and agents of the Ministerial Police were investigating. Flores was found with a bullet wound to the back of the head in the back of a van, a human rights campaigner told AFP. The rights activist said the politician was...

Los Angeles-based affiliates of the Sinaloa cartel, the organization once helmed by infamous drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, have partnered with underground banks in China to launder more than $50 million, authorities say.

On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Your World,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas responded to concerns that the exemption for unaccompanied children in President Joe Biden’s immigration executive action will result in cartels taking advantage of that by stating that “We are taking it to the cartels.” Host Neil Cavuto asked, [relevant exchange begins around 6:05] “[T]here are a number of exemptions for this, including unaccompanied children. And isn’t that a green light for drug cartels to take advantage of that, and the whole purpose of this sort of blows up in your face?”