Free Republic

The eldest brother of Mexico's once powerful Arellano Felix drug cartel family was killed by gunmen dressed as clowns at a children's party, authorities said Saturday. Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix, 63, was gunned down Friday during a family event Friday in Cabo San Lucas,

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel condemned a Thursday night shooting on Chicago’s South Side that wounded 13 people, including a three-year-old boy. “Senseless and brazen acts of violence have no place in Chicago and betray all that we stand for,” said Obama’s former chief of staff in the first of a series of tweets Friday morning. “The perpetrators of this crime will be brought to justice and prosecuted to the full extent of the law,” Emanuel added. Witnesses said several gunmen fired at least 20 shots at a group on basketball courts, according to NBC News’s Chicago affiliate. The station said...

Forget about The Beach Boys and their surfer music. The California beaches now are about the Mexican cartels and their panga boats. State authorities busted 18 people and seized one ton of baled pot after their smuggling boat landed at a Santa Barbara County beach as reported by Samantha Tata for KNBC: "there have 10 panga boat busts – involving drug and human smuggling – in Santa Barbara County since October 2012, according to data from the Department of Homeland Security." Last December the narco terrorists intentionally rammed their panga boat against an approaching Coast Guard inflatable which resulted in...

The narco insurgents continue their terror campaign against the Mexican government, and on Sunday in a shooting ambush the Knights Templar drug cartel assassinated a high-ranking navy official as reported by Richard Fausset for the Los Angeles Times: "The attack was one of numerous violent assaults on federal authorities in the state of Michoacan in recent weeks. Seven federal police officers have been killed, and many more wounded. More than 20 alleged criminals have also died in the shootouts." The terror insurgency against the Mexican government is financed by American junkies, and much of the drug cash is laundered through...

Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the notoriously brutal leader of the feared Zetas drug cartel, has been captured in the first major blow against an organized crime leader by a Mexican administration struggling to drive down persistently high levels of violence, a U.S. federal official confirmed.

"Lebanese Canadian Bank to Pay $102 Million in Hizballah Laundering Case" SNIPPET: "The Beirut-based Lebanese Canadian Bank ("LCB") will pay $102 million as part of a settlement reached this week with federal prosecutors. The LCB was accused in a December 2011 complaint of funneling money to the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah as part of a global money-laundering scheme. The "settlement shows that banks laundering money for terrorists and narco-traffickers will face consequences for their actions, wherever they may be located. This type of money laundering network fuels the operations of both terrorists and drug traffickers, and will continue to use...

For more than a day, the plastic orange toolbox sat on the lawn under a cherry tree, a few paces from the sidewalk. No one passing the Canby home took notice. Not the runners. Not the dog walkers. Not the kids riding by on bicycles. Then curiosity drew a 31-year-old landscaper who had come to the home just after sunset to help a friend move. Ivan Velasco Rodriguez poked the toolbox with a wooden rake handle. The pipe bomb lurking inside exploded. Metal shards flying at bullet speed fatally injured Velasco Rodriguez and slammed into surrounding homes. Pieces fell on...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers have rescued 165 people kidnapped by a drug cartel and held for as long as three weeks in a one-story home alongside the U.S. border. National security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez says 150 victims were U.S.-bound migrants from Central America. Fourteen were Mexicans and one was from India.

The man gunned down execution-style at the Southlake Town Center Wednesday was an attorney linked to a major Mexican drug cartel who had been living with his family in a secure, gated community with his wife and at least one child, NBC 5 has learned. Four separate law enforcement sources familiar with the investigation identified the victim as Juan Jesus Guerrero-Chapa, 43, of Nuevo Leon, Mexico. Chapa has been named in various Mexican news reports as a lawyer for the Gulf Cartel, one of the largest and most violent drug organizations in Mexico.

Media Cover Up: U.S. Government Invokes National Security to Conceal Deal Cut with Mexican Drug Cartel Tuesday, 4. October 2011 Mainstream Media Assists Government in Cloaking Evidence of an Ugly Duplicity in the So-Called Drug War On Saturday, October 1, 2011, investigative journalist Bill Conroy of the Narcosphere reported scandalous and highly troubling new developments in the criminal case against accused Mexican narco-trafficker Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla. The breaking story unravels the U.S. governmentÂ’s ugly national-security interests in the drug war by exposing a quid pro quo deal between the US government and the most powerful international narco-trafficking organization...

Los Zetas is a sadistic cartel in Mexico which apparently has convinced some that because it genuflects before the Catholic Church it must fear God as reported by Damien Cave for The New York Times: "it's true that for all their infamous cruelty -- beheadings, kidnappings, the mass murder of 72 Central and South American migrants in 2010 ­ -- the Zetas are also known for their respect of the Catholic Church." Of course, religious superstitions never should be mistaken as genuine faith, and sometimes the dirty devil hides behind a pious front. Frankly, with respect to Los Zetas and...

"Texas Congressman Says Terrorists Taught to 'Act' Hispanic To Enter U.S." SNIPPET: ""We know that Al Qaeda has camps over with the drug cartels on the other side of the Mexican border,” U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert said on C-SPAN. “We know that people are being trained to come in and act like they're Hispanic when they're radical Islamist."" SNIPPET: "Gohmert, who is vice chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, said during the interview that while the United States should continue welcoming immigrants, it also needs to be highly vigilant about its borders."

REYNOSA — Fear and panic filled the streets of Reynosa on Sunday night as rival gunmen battled during a three-hour firefight that saw automatic weapons and grenades used. Surprisingly, Mexican authorities were absent for most of the melee. The opening clashes were reported just before 9 p.m. Sunday, when rival factions of the Gulf Cartel consummated what appeared to be a yet another rift within the criminal organization. During the protracted gunbattle, dozens of gunmen were killed, but authorities Monday would only confirm the deaths of two bystanders and the injury of a third. A Tamaulipas law enforcement official, who...

MORELOS, Mexico — A 13-year-old Mexican drug cartel hitman was found dead along with five other people. Univision reports that Jorge Armando Moreno’s body showed signs of torture when he was found near the town of Morelos. Moreno — who was a member of the Los Zetas gang — was arrested earlier this month, along with 15 other suspects, and confessed to taking part in 10 executions. He was released into his family’s custody because he was too young to be criminally prosecuted. Zacatecas state law says no one under the age of 14 can be subject to criminal prosecution....

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 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...

PROGRESO, Mexico (AP) — Mexico's navy said Wednesday that its personnel had no idea they had killed the leader of the country's most-feared drug cartel until after his body was stolen from a funeral home in this border town. The death of Zetas cartel leader Heriberto Lazcano, alias "El Lazca," in a gunfight with marines Sunday left a wake of fear in the small mining and farming towns that dot the northern plains of Coahuila state. Residents of Progreso said they heard a series of three loud explosions Sunday, apparently from the grenades that Lazcano reportedly fired at marines who...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An Iranian-American man who U.S. officials say has links to Iran's security forces pleaded not guilty in federal court on Monday to plotting to kill the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Washington in a bomb attack. , 56, who was arrested on September 29 in New York, faces several charges including conspiracy to murder a foreign official, conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism. Another man, Gholam Shakuri, was also charged in the plot but is believed to still be in Iran. U.S. officials said he is a...