Posted on 08/05/2005 8:32:36 PM PDT by Libloather
Kidnapping, Murder Sweep Nuevo Laredo
Friday, August 05, 2005
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico A city official in charge of public security was gunned down along with another man in the downtown area of the embattled city of Nuevo Laredo on Friday.
According to reports, it appeared to be an organized hit involving two cars.
Nuevo Laredo, just cross the border from the United States, has become one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Rival drug cartels have turned the city into a war zone as they battle for control of the lucrative illegal drug market in the U.S.
Gun battles in broad daylight are common, and the U.S. Consulate (search) has shut down, at least temporarily.
The drug gangs have killed the city's last two police chiefs, the second of whom lasted only six hours on the job. Widespread police corruption has compounded the problem. The entire 700-officer force was fired for corruption this summer, though many were hired back.
In addition to the killings, there has been an epidemic of kidnappings. There have been over 400 in the past year, including dozens of Americans.
**SNIP**
Often, there are no ransom demands. Both of Rosita Gonzalez' sons were kidnapped, and she has no idea why.
"It's a pain that you can't have no appeal for it," said Gonzalez.
The Nuevo Laredo story that has gone largely unreported, as many journalists say the drug wars in there are too dangerous to cover, especially after a number of their colleagues have been gunned down.
**SNIP**
"Forty-one missing Americans is just too much."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Pablo Cisneros, father of missing daughter Brenda who disappeared in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico last September 18, 2004, in his auto shop in Laredo, Texas. Janet Schwartz, KRT
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Last September, Brenda Cisneros was celebrating her 23rd birthday with her family at a restaurant in Laredo, Texas, when she begged her father to let her go to a concert with a friend across the border in Nuevo Laredo.
"Please, Daddy, I'm a grown-up now," her father, Pablo Cisneros, remembers her pleading. Reluctantly, he said yes. "I know you're legally an adult," he recalls telling her, "but remember, you'll always be my baby."
His daughter and her best friend, Yvette Martinez, set out for Nuevo Laredo and a concert featuring the popular ranchero singer Pepe Aguilar on Sept. 17. Cisneros hasn't seen them since.
The last he knows is that she and Martinez, a 27-year-old mother of two, called a friend at 4 a.m. to say they were heading back from the concert and were just five blocks from the U.S. border.
Since January, at least 107 people have been killed in a fierce war that pits rival drug gangs in an increasingly violent struggle to control this key crossing point into the United States. Bodies are found in streets showing evidence of painful deaths: tortured, bound and gagged, handcuffed, with missing limbs. Some have been burned alive.
But the deaths are only part of the story. Since last fall, 23 Americans and at least 400 Mexicans have disappeared here, and their relatives complain that little is being done to investigate the disappearances or stop the gangs who perpetrate them.
No one knows who's doing the kidnapping. Some residents and police blame the abductions on the same gangs that are battling for drug turf. They talk of "safe houses," where victims are taken until ransoms are paid. Some say young women are housed there for drug lords "to play with" until they're used up, ending with death.
Others, such as Martinez's stepfather, William Slemaker, blame the police. He claims he spotted his stepdaughter's 2001 pearl-white Mitsubishi in a municipal police parking lot about a month after her disappearance but that when he pointed it out to police they denied it was hers. Later, the car turned up in the lot of a private towing company, which sought $2,500 for storage before it could be released. Slemaker said he didn't have the money, and the car remains in one of the company's lots.
"There're fingerprints, DNA, who knows what else inside that car," said Slemaker, who quit his job as a railroad worker to help Pablo Cisneros found a Web site called laredosmissing.com.
Every week, Cisneros and Slemaker cross from Texas into this gritty city of nearly a half-million residents to continue searching for their loved ones. They paste up posters asking for information. In return, they get death threats and anonymous calls: Their daughters were killed by drug traffickers, who used them for sex until they were "done" with them; they were fed to lions; their bodies were submerged in acid and only bones remain.
Cisneros and Slemaker said the calls were painful to hear, and they worry that they may be true. Forty-three Americans are known to have been kidnapped so far this year; 17 either escaped or were ransomed, though police will provide little information about them. Three others were found dead.
Mexican officials said they were concerned that the reports of kidnappings and violence were hurting this border city's reputation as a tourist destination. They said most of those who'd disappeared had ties to drug traffickers and that others were safe.
"In my experience, most of the missing and murder victims are involved in organized crime," said Daniel Hernandez, Mexico's consul general in Laredo. "Sometimes, it's involuntary; it can be a cousin of a cousin and they're at the wrong place at the wrong time."
U.S. officials are less certain. The State Department, at the urging of U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, has issued a travel advisory for Mexico, warning U.S. citizens to stay clear of Nuevo Laredo.
The United States can do little to solve crimes in Mexico. U.S. authorities can't go into Mexico to investigate a crime against an American unless Mexican authorities invite them. So far, there's been no such invitation.
"Mexico is very protective about its national sovereignty. That's the issue. It could become a political problem," said Laredo-born Raul Salinas, a burly and congenial 27-year veteran of the FBI who once worked at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City and now is running for mayor of Laredo.
The suggestion that their daughters might have had drug connections enrages Slemaker and Cisneros.
"Our daughters didn't have criminal records. But suppose they came in contact with a trafficker or Mafioso; is it all right to kill and kidnap people because of this?" said Slemaker, who's been Yvette's stepfather since she was 8.
Slemaker acknowledges that Martinez's estranged husband is in a Texas prison for drug crimes, but he said Martinez had been seeking a divorce for the past six years. He and Cisneros also said it was possible the women ran into a bad crowd.
"We heard later that a bunch of 70 armed men dressed in black uniforms turned up at the concert," Slemaker said.
Police refuse to discuss the Cisneros-Martinez case, or any case for that matter, saying doing so would endanger current investigations.
The local police chief said drug trafficking and related crimes were the problem of Mexico's federal police, not him.
"My priority is to prevent assaults, burglaries and auto theft," said Omar Pimentel, 37, whose predecessor was gunned down after just seven hours in office. "The federal police are in charge of drug crimes."
Cisneros said the months since his daughter disappeared had been hard. He said he could barely eat and that his chest burned.
"My heart and soul are broken," he said. "All my energy is spent on finding our daughters. But I know what will cure me: Brenda."
Knight Ridder special correspondent Janet Schwartz contributed to this report.
I wonder why this hasn't received the publicity that the Holloway case has?
Steve Harrigan better watch his back. He apparently loves to be around danger and flying bullets but this looks really dangerous.
I had not been following this story at all until I heard on FNC that 41 Americans have gone missing in Mexico in the last year alone.
That is an ASTOUNDING number and it's distressing to realize how under-reported these disappearances have been.
You know why. Not pretty, white and blond enough. Coming from a fed up white man.
She's very pretty, but otherwise you are right on. From another fed up white guy.
I think that's a part of it, but I also think that the media has an agenda to paint Mexico in the best light possible.
I've seen no coverage at all about the other 40 Americans missing in Mexico, either.
It's just something that's not to be talked about. It doesn't fit the media's template.
So sad.
Amazing isn't it? One American disappearance on an island wall to wall coverage verses over 40 on our southern border/Mexico and most of the pressholes are MIA.
I am sure that Ted Koppel will be reading all of their names on the air during an upcoming segment of Nightline.
I think that's a part of it, but I also think that the media has an agenda to paint Mexico in the best light possible.
No - That starts with the President. He's a globalist. The Dems are even worse.
We need CONSERVATIVE LEADERSHIP in this nation - in Congress, in the White House. No more of this "business as usual" crap.
Ah, so Mexico is protective of it's national sovereignty, but the United States is not supposed to have ANY national sovereignty, is that how it works?
Coming to a city near you. Phoenix now has one of the highest crime rates in the country. Just a few years ago, it was a safe city.
And the whole mess is who's fault? Guess. From other story - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1457761/posts -
Suneson, like other Nuevo Laredo residents, blamed the consumption of narcotics in the United States for the city's violence. He called for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to provide more intelligence to Mexican officials in order to effectively clamp down on the drug gangs operating on the border.
"They need to come in here and clean this place up" Suneson said. "It's not an impossible task. It just takes political will."
I live close enough to the border that I could be in Mexico in about an hour. The last time I was in Mexico was over twenty years ago. Haven't missed it at all.
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