Free Republic

A Mexican drug suspect has confessed to dissolving the bodies of 300 rivals with corrosive chemicals near the U.S. border, in a claim highlighting the brutality of Mexico’s drug war. Santiago Meza, known as "The Stew Maker," told journalists he did away with bodies in industrial drums on the outskirts of the violent city of Tijuana. More than 700 people died in Tijuana last year as rival gangs battled for control of the city’s lucrative drug trade. Many others are missing and believed dead after being abducted. The suspect, who was paraded before journalists by the army on Friday, said...

(AP) Mexico City - Salim Boughader Mucharrafille was arrested in 2002 and convicted on organized-crime and immigrant-smuggling charges. Boughader, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, ran a cafe in the city of Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, California.

Gunmen also opened fire on a Baja California state Attorney General's Office. MEXICO CITY -- At least 11 people were murdered in and around the Mexican border city of Tijuana in separate incidents over the weekend, police said. Several gunmen also opened fire on a Baja California state Attorney General's Office facility located in one of Tijuana's most dangerous neighborhoods. Two of the killings occurred in the neighboring city of Playas de Rosarito, where a body was found Saturday and gunmen murdered an 18-year-old man a day later. In Tijuana, which is near San Diego, California, two people were killed...

TIJUANA — Mexican soldiers freed three kidnapped businessmen Wednesday evening after an anonymous tip led them to a home in the Mesa de Otay area, authorities said at a news conference Thursday. Soldiers said they encountered little resistance when they stormed the home. They arrested eight men, confiscated 25 guns and took more than 3,000 rounds of ammunition, army officials said. Based on information gathered at the home, soldiers went to a residence in La Presa where three more men were arrested. They are accused of participating in the attack on the Baja California Attorney General's Office in Tijuana early...

TIJUANA, Mexico — Gunmen opened fire in the state attorney general's office in Tijuana today, wounding three agents, police said. One of the state officers was in serious condition after the 1:30 a.m. attack, a news release from the Tijuana police department said. City police said they had no further details, and the Baja California state attorney general's office declined to comment. Drug gangs have raided police offices in the past to rescue members in custody. Some have even invaded hospitals to kill wounded rivals. State police often interrogate suspects at the offices where the shootings occurred, but it was...

More than 5,000 people have been killed in Mexico's out of control drug cartel wars this year, so why is our government opening even more border crossings at this time with Mexico. Many elected officials are ignoring Mexico's raging war against the drug cartels and instead of focusing on safety and public security, trying to widen the openings in our border with Mexico strictly for commerce purposes. DOBBS: Disturbing new details emerging tonight from Mexico proving that the raging drug cartel wars there are far more deadly than the government of Mexico has previously admitted. The U.S. response, however, is...

Nearly 300 people have been killed since late-September – many mutilated, tortured and beheaded in gruesome terror tactics copied from Iraq's brutal conflict. In the past week alone, there has been an attack in a nightclub popular with students that left five young people dead or dying; a hit squad stormed a private hospital and killed a patient who was being treated for gunshot wounds; and armed men opened fire on a car parked outside a popular US-owned discount warehouse, killing a woman and seriously injuring a man. Mexico's drug war death tally of more than 4,000 this year –...

TIJUANA – About 500 federal police, state police and marines took over patrol of several city neighborhoods Tuesday from the municipal police officers who normally perform those duties. The action occurred in central and eastern Tijuana, where high crime rates related to drug violence have been recorded in the last two months. Municipal police are expected to undergo extensive background checks and training, Mayor Jorge Ramos said. The military and state and federal police are scheduled to be in place for a month. The municipal officers were called in from patrol Tuesday morning. When they arrived at their stations, they...

TIJUANA – Manuel GarcNa has worked up to 14 hours a day for the past month outside the coroner's office, which now doubles as a municipal morgue. The wave of violent crime in Tijuana has filled the refrigerated rooms of the building, and GarcNa is among at least half a dozen employees of funeral homes who mill around the hearse entrance, hoping to sell their services to the families of the deceased. When the families arrive, GarcNa tries to be the first to approach them. He speaks softly, hands them a business card and tells them the price. “It all...

TIJUANA, Mexico – Two people were shot to death at a taco restaurant in the border city of Tijuana on Saturday, hours after a man's decapitated head was found wrapped in duct tape. Prosecutors in Baja California state, where Tijuana is located, said two other people were wounded in the restaurant shooting, which apparently involved assault rifles. Another man was shot to death at a pool hall, and two men were found shot to death on a street. On Friday, gunmen attacked a state police convoy on a main boulevard in Tijuana, across the U.S. border from San Diego, but...

Three Tijuana police officers suspected of ties to organized crime were detained this week by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into the United States. The officers, two of whom were assistant chiefs, were taken into custody at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry, said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego. The officers worked for the municipal police department and were turned over to the Mexican military. The first two were detained Monday and are among the 20 municipal officers being held for questioning in Mexico City by the federal...

Some 40 people have been killed in drug-related violence in the past week in Tijuana, bringing the total so far this year to more than 400. On Monday, 12 bodies were found outside an elementary school and an additional four victims were discovered in another section of the city. Nine more bodies were discovered near a day care on Thursday and two other bodies were found elsewhere.

TIJUANA – A special federal task force captured several men believed to be high-ranking members of the Arellano Felix cartel amid gunfire in a pre-dawn raid Friday, according the local Mexican military command. The suspects were gambling around 2 a.m. in a room at Caliente Casino, owned by former mayor Jorge Hank Rhon. Alfonso Duarte Mujica, local military commander, said at a press conference Friday morning that one of those captured was Pedro Ignacio Zazueta, known as “El Pit,” believed to be one of the leaders of the Arellano cartel. Zazueta is a lieutenant to Fernando Sanchez Arellano, known as...

Tijuana is a chaotic Mexican border city of 1.5 million people and seen as a direct threat to the United States through its AIDS crisis, officials say. When Mexican President Felipe Calderon opens the 17th International AIDS Conference in Mexico City on Sunday, he can boast that his country has one of the lowest HIV rates in the Americas. But, he can't include Tijuana, one of the busiest border crossings in the world, in that category, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) said. Tijuana, located 20 miles south of San Diego, has an HIV infection rate that's nearly triple the national average...

TIJUANA, Mexico - Massive gunbattles broke out between suspected drug traffickers who fired at each other while speeding down heavily populated streets of this violent border city early Saturday, killing 13 people and wounding nine. All of the dead were believed to be drug traffickers, possibly rival members of the same cartel who were trying to settle scores, said Rommel Moreno, the attorney general of Baja California state, where Tijuana is located. "Evidently this is a confrontation between gangs," Moreno told reporters. Eight suspects and one federal police officer were injured in the pre-dawn shootings, none gravely, said Agustin Perez...

In 2007, the number of Americans kidnapped while in Mexico doubled from the previous year. This has not only reduced tourism to Mexico, it is affecting the future of real estate projects, such as Donald Trump's towers in Tijuana. Jill Barshay reports TEXT OF STORY Lisa Napoli: This week, the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert for Americans heading to the northern border region of Mexico. The reason: a surge in violence and kidnappings linked to Mexican drug cartels. Marketplace's Jeff Tyler reports the violence it's starting to take its toll on the tourism industry. -------------------------------------------------------- Jeff Tyler: Last...

Soldiers seized assault rifles, grenades, marijuana and bulletproof vests bearing police insignia after a brief shootout in the Mexican border city of Tijuana. No one was wounded in the overnight exchange of fire with three suspects hunkered down in a house in La Mesa district, army Gen. Sergio Aponte Polito told reporters Friday. Troops seized 91 assault rifles — some with butts of gold and ivory — along with 18 grenades, the bulletproof vests and more than 880 pounds of marijuana, Aponte Polito said. The three suspects, aged 25 to 33, were arrested. The bust followed weeks of bloody confrontations...

TIJUANA -- Marcos Rojas, a waiter at Mr. Tequila Restaurant, roams the Plaza Viva Tijuana, eager to pour double shots for partying tourists. This downtown gateway used to be crowded with Southern California day-trippers, Midwestern families and busloads of German and Japanese tourists. But empty bars and shuttered businesses now outnumber people mingling near the broken fountain. Rojas, who earns tips by making a show of slamming tequila shots on the table and pouring them down customers' throats, says it's been a week since he performed one of his signature tricks, twirling a tourist on his shoulders. "Look around, it's...

Organized, well-financed and violent Mexican kidnapping cells are targeting a growing number of U.S. citizens visiting communities popular with San Diegans and other California residents. Advertisement Last year, at least 26 San Diego County residents were kidnapped and held for ransom in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach or Ensenada, local FBI agents overseeing the cases said yesterday.

TIJUANA, Mexico — Gunmen chased a pickup truck into Tijuana's international airport on Wednesday, firing at and killing the driver, whose vehicle crashed through the windows of the terminal and came to rest near a security check point. Two women riding with the victim were wounded and the airport's operations were briefly interrupted, the Baja California state attorney general's office reported. The shooting occurred in the early morning when few people were at the terminal. The gunmen fired into the pickup as it lay inside the airport lobby to make sure the driver was dead. They fled in another vehicle....