Free Republic

A drug kingpin in Mexico who has never set foot in Chicago has been named the city's new Public Enemy No. 1 — the same notorious label assigned to Al Capone at the height of the Prohibition-era gang wars. The Chicago Crime Commission announced the move Thursday, saying it considers Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman even more menacing than Capone because he's the leader of the Sinaloa cartel, which supplies most of the narcotics sold in the city. "Of the two, Guzman is by far the greater threat. ... And he has more power and financial capability than Capone ever dreamed...

Last Thursday Kaufman County Assistant District Attorney Mark Hasse was gunned down outside the local courthouse by two men in tactical gear who remain at large as reported by Frank Heinz for NBC in Dallas-Fort Worth. Hasse prosecuted organized crime cases, and was likely targeted for retribution. Investigators are looking at the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas which is a major methamphetamine distributor for the Gulf cartel as reported by Dave Gibson for the Examiner. The drug cartels freelance their retail distribution and enforcement work to local street and prison gangs across the United States, and have recently been targeting both...

"In less than a month, they have done something that the army and state and federal police haven't been able to do in years," said local resident Lorena Morales Castro, who waited in a line of cars at a checkpoint Friday. "They are our anonymous heroes." Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/01/21/vigilante-squads-spring-up-in-mexico-in-fight-against-cartels/#ixzz2IlDpMg3b

Tired of the scourge of organized crime, civilians in two rural towns in southwestern Mexico have taken matters into their own hands over the last two weeks. Since the second week of January, around 800 masked and armed residents have set up vigilante groups who are manning checkpoints, imposing curfews and arresting alleged criminals. This unofficial police force says they are providing security for the municipalities of Ayutla de los Libres and Teconoapa in Guerrero state, an area that has been hit hard by Mexico's drug violence. More than 70,000 people killed across the country since 2006 and residents in...

11 killed in Mexican drugs clashes AFP - Police and army troops squared off with presumed hitmen working for drug traffickers in two deadly incidents in Mexico that left 11 gunmen dead, authorities said. In Puente Nacional, in the eastern state of Veracruz, armed men attacked army troops who responded, killing six of the gunmen. And in Culiacan, in northwestern Sinaloa state, police and army troops clashed with gunmen, and five more gunmen were killed in that incident. Mexico's relentless drug violence has claimed more than 70,000 lives across the country since 2006.

Gangs need gun control, not the Law Abiding Gun Owners Gangs don't understand gun control or laws See all 4 photos Source: FBI My Goal For This Hub My goal is to shed some light on a area of violent crimes that is going unnoticed during the media coverage on gun control. That light should shine on the gangs and gang members operating their illegal businesses in the United States and across its borders. They use guns and violence in protecting and conducting these illegal businesses which are in the multiple billions of dollars a year. The statements shown...

In the past few years they have taken control of Mexico’s Coahuila region in the north, along the border of Texas, and are now starting to thrive like never before. Los Zetas covertly entered the region, and under the threat of extreme violence for those who didn’t cooperate they swiftly brought every aspect of commerce, politics, and business under their control in less than three years.This expansion was not undertaken to increase its drug trafficking or prostitution ring operations, but rather to enter into the business of coal mining.

At Stratfor, we follow Mexico's criminal cartels closely. In fact, we are currently finishing our 2013 cartel forecast, which will be released later this month. As we analyze the Mexican cartels, we recognize that to understand their actions and the interactions between them, we need to acknowledge that at their core they are businesses and not politically motivated militant organizations. This means that although violence between and within the cartels grabs much of the spotlight, a careful analysis of the cartels must look beyond the violence to the business factors that drive their interests -- and their bankrolls.  There are several distinct business factors that have...

Drug cartels are all over the place in Mexico, but the Los Zetas have gained the title of the most technologically advanced and dangerous cartel in the country. They’re ex-paramilitary, tooled up like a miniature army, and have even set up their own radio communications network to organize all their horrible, murderous, people-trafficking business. Los Zetas' radio network is the rock of the low-level operations carried out by the "street-soldiers." It keeps daily activity running smoothly as well as providing a quick method of communication for the network of lookouts monitoring police movement and making sure the cartel is always...

The Mexican drug cartels once again have taken deadly aim against U.S. law enforcement. This time the narco terrorists intentionally rammed their smuggling panga boat against an approaching Coast Guard inflatable which resulted in the death of Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III and the injury of another guardsman after they fell into the sea off the southern California coast as reported by the Los Angeles Times. Two suspects have been detained. The narco insurgents from Mexico increasingly are targeting U.S. officials on both sides of the border: last August two CIA officials were injured in a shooting ambush against...

The woman mayor who was kidnapped and murdered by a Mexican drug gang pleaded with her attackers for her young daughter’s life, it emerged today. Maria Santos Gorrostieta, who had already survived two assassination attempts, was driving the child to school at around 8.30am when she was ambushed by a car in the city of Morelia. The 36-year-old was hauled from her vehicle and physically assaulted as horrified witnesses watched, according to newspaper El Universal. They described how she begged for her child to be left alone and then appeared to get into her abductors’ car willingly. The little girl...

A new congressional report from the House Homeland Security Committee Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations and Management ties Middle East terror organizations to Mexican drug cartels. The report, released Thursday, is titled “A Line in the Sand: Countering Crime, Violence and Terror at the Southwest Border.” It found that the “Southwest border has now become the greatest threat of terrorist infiltration into the United States.” It specifically cites a “growing influence” from Iranian and Hezbollah terror forces in Latin America. “The presence of Hezbollah in Latin America is partially explained by the large Lebanese diaspora in South America,” the report reads....

With little pushback from law enforcement within its borders the United States increasingly is serving as a global distribution hub for the Mexican drug cartels. Last week police in Melbourne, Australia busted two suspects including a reputed "high ranking member of the Comanchero Motorcycle Club" for their alleged roles in receiving cocaine shipments from an unidentified Mexican drug cartel in the United States as reported by Andrew O'Reilly for Fox News: "while it is unclear which cartel the outlaw motorcycle club members were working with, it is well known that Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán's Sinaloa cartel has a major stake...

Ben Swann Exposes U.S. Troops Involved in the Mexico Drug War; What The Media Isn't Telling YouBen Swann Reality Check explains what the media isn't telling you about Mexico's drug war and the U.S.'s war on drugs YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eev-jPySnnI Related News:Feds Let Mexican Cartel Hit Men Kill in U.S., Senior Lawman Told Stratforhttp://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/13457-feds-let-mexican-cartel-hit-men-kill-in-us-senior-lawman-told-stratforU.S. Troops Working with Mexico on Drug Warhttp://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/13473-us-troops-working-with-mexico-on-drug-warStratfor Sources: U.S. Troops in Mexico as Feds Aid Cartelshttp://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/13118-stratfor-sources-us-troops-in-mexico-as-feds-aid-cartelsReports: CIA Working with Mexican Drug Cartelshttp://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/north-america/item/10658-reports-cia-working-with-mexican-drug-cartelsTrafficker: U.S. Feds Aided Mexican Drug Cartelhttp://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/7519-trafficker-us-feds-aided-mexican-drug-cartel"Drug Lords" Targeted in Fast & Furious Worked for FBIhttp://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/item/7603-%E2%80%9Cdrug-lords%E2%80%9D-targeted-in-fast--furious-worked-for-fbi

Quebec police have busted more than 100 individuals for their alleged roles in a drug conspiracy which used a trucking firm to bring cocaine into Canada from the United States, and the arrested include those with suspected ties to the Italian Mafia, the Irish West End Gang and Hells Angels motorcycle club as reported by The Canadian Press: "Police said the organization, which had been under investigation for about six months, managed to rake in an estimated $50 million in that short time. * * * The group allegedly used a middleman to co-operate with Mexican drug cartels and appeared...

Excerpted from Business Insider: Leaked emails from the private U.S. security firm Stratfor cite a Mexican diplomat who says the U.S. government works with Mexican cartels to traffic drugs into the United States and has sided with the Sinaloa cartel in an attempt to limit the violence in Mexico. Many people have doubted the quality of Stratfor’s intelligence, but the information from MX1—a Mexican foreign service officer who doubled as a confidential source for Stratfor—seems to corroborate recent claims about U.S. involvement in the drug war in Mexico...

But for the first time Agent Zapata’s partner Victor Avila spoke out about the attack that left Agent Zapata dead and him wounded. His twin sister Magdalena Avila-Villalobos spoke for him in the Univision special on Fast and Furious. Avila is so scared and hurt by the attack he did not speak out until he knew he was in a secure location. No one knows for sure why Agent Zapata and Agent Avila, assigned to the US Embassy, were asked to travel on road 57, a road controlled by the Zeta Cartel and extremely dangerous. They didn’t even know why...

When Mexican authorities took Juarez drug cartel carnage king Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez — better known as “El Diego” — into custody, he had weapons from Operation Fast and Furious on his person, the English-language transcript of the Spanish-language television network Univision’s special investigation into the scandal shows. “According to investigations, ‘El Diego’ forms the link between this massacre and Fast and Furious,” an anchor read on air in Spanish Sunday evening, referring to two different mass killings drug cartel operatives used Fast and Furious weapons to conduct as Univision reported. “When he [El Diego] was captured in Chihuahua in...

<p>The identities of the agents were not immediately released, but the shooting occurred at the Brian Terry Station near Naco, Ariz., which is just south of Tucson. The station was named after an agent who was killed in the line of duty in December 2010. The area is considered a remote part of the state and sources tell Fox News that the shooting occurred about eight miles from the border.</p>

On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez. Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the Mexican cartel La Linea, broke into a one-story house and opened fire on a gathering of nearly 60 teenagers. Outside, lookouts gunned down a screaming neighbor and several students who had managed to escape. Fourteen young men and women were killed, and 12 more were wounded before the hit men finally fled. Indirectly, the United States government played a...