Violence on the rise in county on border (Texas)

Houston Chronicle Rio Grande Valley Bureau | Aug. 21, 2005, 12:51AM | JAMES PINKERTON

[cbkaty]

Kidnappings and home invasions linked to ransoms or drug disputes

ROMA - The brush-covered hills of Starr County have long been a place of struggle and conflict, where settlers fought off Comanche raiding parties and dealt with bandits, gunrunners and bootleggers. And the Wild West atmosphere persists in this remote ranching and commercial center on the Texas-Mexico border, where 57,000 residents are spread over 19 small, isolated towns.

Native American shamen still gather hallucinogenic peyote cactus in the hills for use in religious rituals, sharing the back roads with drug smugglers who have long used the county as a major transit point.

And today, as Mexican drug cartels battle for control of trafficking corridors across the river, Roma and Starr County are experiencing a dramatic increase in violence, officials say, including kidnapping for ransom. Rings of kidnappers have operated for years in Mexico and Latin America, preying not only on the wealthy but on middle-class workers as well.

Since the beginning of the year, local lawmen and FBI agents have been working to solve nine kidnappings by unknown assailants, as well as five violent home invasions by so-called ''pseudo cops," groups of armed bandits who pose as police, said Kennedy Salinas, an assistant Starr County district attorney.

Although police have developed several suspects, no arrests have been made in any of the nine kidnappings.

''What I've learned from these ongoing investigations is there's been a border war with drug cartels vying for power between Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros," Salinas said, "and this area is a place they want."

The latest kidnapping took place this month at a Roma business, where a group of masked gunmen burst in during business hours and abducted a woman related to the store's owners, county officials said. The woman was returned unharmed the next day, and law enforcement officials say a ransom — one source said $240,000 — was paid.

No suspects have been arrested in the Roma kidnapping or in a similar one in the county seat of Rio Grande City in June.

The kidnappings have frightened local residents.

''I'm sure everybody who's heard about it, they are nervous. It could happen at any time to anybody," said Starr County District Clerk Juan Erasmo Saenz.

He added: ''There are so many different stories; either they are related to drug trafficking, or just people after money since they know some people have money."

'Won't file charges'

FBI agent J.L. Cisneros, based in McAllen, said some of the kidnappings in Starr County and neighboring Hidalgo County are connected to the drug trade. In many instances, investigators are given little information by the victims or their families.

''A lot of times it's over drug debts," the FBI agent explained, adding that family members are frequently taken to Mexico and held hostage until the debt is paid.

''The frustrating thing for us is we may get the victim back, and they won't file charges," Cisneros said. "They don't tell the whole story, for fear of being prosecuted themselves."

Kevin Hiles, mayor of Rio Grande City, agreed that kidnappings are sometimes related to criminal activity of the victims. "I like to say some people are victims of their own crimes, and some are victims of crime," he said.

But he was quick to add that the area is facing the same dangers as other communities along the Rio Grande, from Brownsville to El Paso.

''This is a result of us being on a border where there's two nations. It does have an impact, it does concern people, and you modify your lifestyle," Hiles said. ''It's not like the old days, when you keep your house unlocked. You have to take certain precautions."

Released unharmed

While some of the kidnappings are believed to be drug-related, some are not.

Police in Rio Grande City say the June 15 kidnapping of Rosa Lopez, the wife of the owner of a local electric supply company, was not related to drug activity.

''In this case, it's someone who is well-regarded in the community, a good family," said Noe Castillo, assistant police chief in Rio Grande City. ''It's a scary thought this is going on, but there is no evidence to say this is drug-related."

A number of armed, masked men knocked on the family residence late at night, and tackled business owner Leonel Lopez as he opened the door, Castillo said. The businessman was threatened, hit and bound with duct tape. His wife and her 2002 model Jaguar sports sedan were taken from the home.

Car was destroyed

The woman was released unharmed late the next night near the county line, and her car was found abandoned and burned in a local park, Castillo said.

''As far as we know, no ransom was paid," Castillo said.

The kidnap victims are often reluctant to talk about their abductors, who have threatened retaliation if they report the crime.

And while there have been no arrests in the kidnapping cases, law enforcement officials in Starr County were heartened by a stiff sentence handed down earlier this month in a home invasion that took place last October.

In that case, 15 armed men, wearing masks and identifying themselves as FBI agents, kicked in the door of a home 12 miles outside of Rio Grande City. The ''pseudo cops" terrorized a young housewife and her two children as they ransacked the home, looking for a cache of drugs and money.

First charged

On Aug. 12, state District Judge Alex W. Gabert sentenced one of the robbers, Gaston Garcia, 21, to a 50-year prison sentence after he pleaded guilty to aggravated robbery. He is the first of 15 men charged in the incident to be prosecuted, officials said.

Garcia, from Edinburg, pointed a gun in the face of a 9-year-old girl and threatened to kill the child unless cash and drugs were handed over.

''They pushed around the mother, slapped her a little bit, and then both mother and daughter were taped up with duct tape," said Carlos Delgado, an investigator for the Starr County District Attorney's Office. ''They took several weapons, and a little bit of cash."

Delgado believes the ''pseudo cops" were looking for a stash house where drugs and money were stored by drug traffickers and instead went to the wrong house.

''I believe they hit the wrong place, they were looking for drugs and money, and there was none," he said, adding the family members are law-abiding, working people.

Kennedy Salinas, the assistant district attorney, said the stiff sentence reflects the growing anger over the violence.

''People are concerned, and they want to see justice done to these individuals. We can say this comes with the escalating violence on the border," he said. And until the kidnappers are caught, local residents are left to wonder who the criminals are, and who their next victims could be.

''This is tough, you don't know what to think," said Dante Guzman, manager of the Wash and Lube in Roma. ''But I think it's a group of kidnappers. They don't want to work any more, so they're doing what's easy."

At City Hall in Rio Grande City, City Secretary Holly Guerrero said, ''I am not worried. ''I think they're pretty target specific," she said, adding the kidnappers were after ''people who have available funds, not people like me who work from month to month."

[cbkaty]

Note the last paragraph....and the "it's not happening to me...just the other guy so I don't care attitude "...WOW...

[Sterco]

Is this the culture we want to allow into the USA unrestrained?

[hershey]

The woman in the last paragraph is stupid as well as selfish.

[cbkaty]

Among those thieves, kidnappers, rapists, and robbers are TERRORISTS too........ I wonder why I hear only the sound of crickets when I ask Governor Perry to declare our border an emergency?

[cripplecreek]

But it's all about MEEEEEEEE.

[buffyt]

And Mexican drug cartels are now growing pot in our national parks. And they are armed and deadly. It is becoming a HUGE problem for our parks employees and visitors. Even in Seqouia.

[buffyt]

Famed for the biggest trees in the world, Sequoia National Park is now No. 1 in another flora department: marijuana growing, with more land carved up by pot growers than any other park.

Parts of Sequoia, including the Kaweah River drainage and areas off Mineral King Road, are no-go zones for visitors and park rangers during the April-to-October growing season, when drug lords cultivate pot on an agribusiness scale fit for California's Central Valley.

"It's so big that we have to focus our resources on one or two areas at a time because otherwise it's beyond our scope," says Sequoia's lone special agent assigned to the marijuana war, who, for his own safety, cannot be identified.

So far, park visitors and the growers rarely cross paths; the pot farms are in areas with little public appeal. However, officials report five encounters between gun-wielding growers and visitors on national forest lands in California this year.

The growers poach wildlife, spill pesticides, divert water from streams and dump tons of trash. Yet enforcement lags. Rangers say they lack helicopters and manpower, and elected officials have other priorities, including homeland security and fighting drug cartels in South and Central America.

In the past year, 100,000 marijuana plants have been removed from California's national parks, including 44,000 from Sequoia.

Cannabis operations are even more widespread in national forests and on Bureau of Land Management lands, where more than 500,000 plants were yanked last year. Pot busts on public lands in California have skyrocketed from an average of a couple of hundred plants per seizure a few years ago to an average of 3,500.

"I've had meetings with law enforcement throughout the state, and everybody just sits there with their mouths open. Nobody can believe this has happened on the scale that it has," says William Ruzzamenti, a 30-year Drug Enforcement Administration official who heads up the Central Valley High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Pot plantations have surged as Mexican-affiliated drug cartels adapt to increased border security since 9/11 and cash in on the rising price of high-grade weed, now more profitable than methamphetamine, according to investigators.

Public outcry has been muted.

Sequoia Kings Canyon spokeswoman Alexandra Picavet says she thinks the drug debate has kept the problem from getting traction.

"People get blinded by the marijuana issue. . . . We don't want people planting asparagus on the land, either. This is agricultural assault on a national park, no matter what they're growing."

The pot growers are no longer the stereotype of hippies. They are part of sophisticated criminal organizations schooled on the Colombian cartels' economy of scale, Ruzzamenti says.

Investigators say most of the ringleaders are U.S. nationals based in Southern California with connections to cartel families in Michoacan, Mexico; field workers are well-armed Mexican laborers.

[buffyt]

In Sequoia, rangers said, visitors have encountered pot growers. 'We cannot keep up with the drug smuggling and smuggling of undocumented aliens that comes across the border through parks on a daily basis. We are aware of the connection with drug cartels. We had a ranger shot and killed last year - that was a drug thing. It's pretty outrageous,' he said, referring to an incident in Arizona. The pot fields are financed by the Mexican drug cartels that dominate the methamphetamine trade in the adjacent Central Valley, drug enforcement officials say. The officials say there is evidence that the cartels, in turn, have financial ties to Middle Eastern smugglers linked to Hezbollah and other groups accused of terrorism."6

[cbkaty]

The officials say there is evidence that the cartels, in turn, have financial ties to Middle Eastern smugglers linked to Hezbollah and other groups accused of terrorism."

Amazing.....and I bet when you complain to your Governor...you hear the same crickets I hear?

[Zrob]

"not people like me who work from month to month"

interesting, coming from a "Government Employee". Arent the police and TRangers Government Employees? I wonder if that attitude is pervasive down there.

[WatchingInAmazement]

buffyt, do you happen to have a URL for your article. I'd appreciate it. Here's more.


Pot Bust Takes Violent Turn - One Wounded, Another Killed San Jose Mercury News ^ | August 6, 2005 | Ken McLaughlin and Brandon Bailey Bay Area pot farming is taking a frightening new turn. A state Fish and Game warden was shot in both legs and a man was killed Friday during an early morning raid on a huge marijuana garden near Mount Umunhum in a rugged, remote area of Santa Clara County. The operation had the hallmark of aggressive Mexican drug cartels, which in recent years have cornered California's marijuana-growing market, state drug agents say. (snip) http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/12319275.htm

[yoe]

Can this be correct? - "It's so big that we have to focus our resources on one or two areas at a time because otherwise it's beyond our scope," says Sequoia's lone special agent assigned to the marijuana war, who, for his own safety, cannot be identified.

The National Guard to ring the land; however many air-tankers it takes loaded with "Round-Up" to drop like slurry on Marijuana crops. Arrest all who try to leave the area. Swat teams arresting all workers at their homes or know hang outs and places of work simultaneously. Lock down the border from the Pacific to the Gulf of Mexico using armed military. A few days of this and perhaps the problem at least in Sequoia National Park would be over. The same thing along the border of Texas and Arizona, those governors should have their National Guard out with local police and others helping them to spot the drug dealers; arrest them on the spot, incarcerate them or shoot to kill – the latter would save a lot of tax money.

Vicente Fox should be doing the same thing on the Mexican border and in the interior of Mexico.

Thank G-d, America sees to it our druggies have clean needles………

[yoe]

"...California's marijuana-growing market..."

Equal to North Carolina's National Forest's marijuana farms.

Once the No Smoking crowd had their way, the tobacco farmer had no crop to sell; the obvious next step was to grow something that was at least as lucrative as leaf and that was another leaf...even moon shinning is off, it simply doesn't pay as much as it use to. So we can thank the thousands and thousands of people who insisted you stop smoking "tobacco" and use marijuana instead. The jump in marijuana and Meth has soared since “no smoking” is just about every where; in CA these dumb people are trying to keep you from even smoking in YOUR yards.

[Patriot2A]

Five years ago, police say home invasions were virtually unheard of in Tucson. Now the crimes run at three to four a week, as criminals go after the profits of the illicit trade in marijuana, black-tar heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine through the city.
U.S. “home invasions” up as thugs seek Mexico drug cash

Mon Apr 20, 2009 10:21pm EDT

By Tim Gaynor

TUCSON, Ariz (Reuters) - When the heavy battering started to buckle the front door of her new home in Tucson, Maria remained frozen to the spot with fear.

As her family scattered to hide in the bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen, masked men toting guns and dressed in flack jackets stormed into the living room shouting “Police! Everyone on the floor!”

Her cheek pressed to the ground, she watched as the men fanned out through the comfortable suburban house, pistol whipping her brother-in-law and shouting, “Where are the guns and the drugs?”

“I raised my head and saw his black boots ... It was then I realized they weren’t police at all,” she recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Maria, who has no connection to the criminal underworld, is among scores of law-abiding Tucson residents caught up in a wave of violent so-called home invasions, most of them linked to the lucrative trade in drugs smuggled from Mexico. Maria had bought the house weeks before and the gunmen believed drug traffickers were using it.

The desert city is less than two hour’s drive from the Mexico border. It lies on a crossroads for the multimillion dollar trade in drugs headed north to market across the United States from Mexico, as well as guns and hot money proceeds headed south to the cartels.

Five years ago, police say home invasions were virtually unheard of in Tucson. Now the crimes run at three to four a week, as criminals go after the profits of the illicit trade in marijuana, black-tar heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine through the city.

“We’ve always dealt with those in business establishments, banks and convenience stores, it was very unusual to see them in houses,” Roberto A. Villasenor, Tucson’s assistant chief of police said of the recent trend. “The home was seen as a safe spot.”

CAUGHT UP

Curbing drug violence is a top concern for the government in Mexico, where rival cartels murdered 6,300 people last year as they battled the authorities and each other for control of lucrative smuggling corridors to the United States.

It is also high on the U.S. agenda as authorities seek to stop cartel-related crimes such as kidnappings, home invasions and gangland-style slayings from bleeding over the porous U.S. border and taking hold here.

A year ago, Tucson police department set up a special unit to target the rising number of home invasions. Since then, the officers have investigated at least 173 cases scattered across the city, three-quarters of them tied to the drug trade, investigators say.

The assailants — typically teams of two to six people — frequently dress in tactical gear and identify themselves as police officers, Drug Enforcement Administration agents or SWAT team members as they burst into houses to steal drugs, cash or guns.

“Demographics mean nothing when it comes to home invasions. We see (them) in some of the richest, most wealthy parts of town, and also in some of the most downtrodden, completely poor areas,” said Detective Sargent David Azuelo, who runs the home invasion unit.

While most raids target the drug trade, some have branched out and gone after students and other law-abiding residents, Azuelo said. Others assault families who just happen to live in a house that was once used to deal drugs, or simply because the attackers got the wrong address.

[TADSLOS]

Class warfare at the tip of the spear.