Posted on 12/14/2006 11:38:07 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
MEXICO CITY — A cousin of Mexico's first lady was found dead of gunshot wounds just outside Mexico City, authorities said Wednesday.
The body of Luis Felipe Zavala, cousin of Margarita Zavala, was found in his minivan Tuesday night in the city of Naucalpan in Mexico State, said Carlos Flores, state deputy attorney general. Naucalpan borders Mexico City.
Authorities spoke with Zavala's wife, two of his brothers, and a brother-in-law — all of whom said he had no known enemies, Flores said.
President Felipe Calderon's office confirmed the death.
"It's evidently an execution because of the way his life was taken and the position he was found in," Flores told W Radio, noting that the body was found wedged behind the driver's seat. Zavala had been shot in the neck, the thorax and the side, apparently with a 9mm pistol, he said.
Zavala's body was found by a resident who noticed that the minivan was blocking his driveway.
Married with three children, Zavala was a horse-riding instructor and also bought and sold horses, although he did not appear to be a rich man, Flores said.
The killing occurred a day after Calderon announced a massive crackdown on organized crime, including drug trafficking, in his native central state of Michoacan, sending in 6,500 soldiers and federal police.
More than 500 people in Michoacan have been killed this year in violent deaths. Investigators link at least half of the homicides to a turf war between two rival drug gangs.
Within the next 20 years, Mexico is going to be in a state of anarchy, and we are going to have to occupy the country. Mark my words.
20 years? more like 20 months or weeks.........
Only fair, since their in the process of occupying ours.
their = they're
WELCOME TO MEXICO!
If thats the case we would have oil reserves up the ass. Maybe we can annex Mexico and have it either a new state or a terrority like Puerto Rico. Then our immigration problem would be hopefully over.
Well if we're going to take them all in anyway, we might as well get something out of the deal.
No need, they are already occupying our border states.
This is a pretty good explanation of Mexico and the drug culture. It looks like the drug lords are infighting and also fighting the government. It also looks like they have a huge drug (meth) problem with the poor people in Mexico.
Calderon is not sincere in this as he has done nothing to close the borders. He doesn't want a fence. He mainly wants the drugs shipped into the U.S. just as he wants the remittance money. Drug money is 2nd or 3rd to remittances and oil in Mexico. Hopefully, tourism is not in the running any more.
http://www.mexidata.info/id1165.html
Monday, December 11, 2006
The Curse of Methamphetamine in Western Mexico
By Sam Logan
· Meth, or ice, is the latest drug to flow from Mexico to the United States, but one criminal faction has drawn a line in the sand, vowing to rid its turf of anyone involved in the production and sale of this destructive drug.
The men and women who control narcotrafficking organizations in Mexico are economic actors. They make business decisions based on demand, costs and risk, like any CEO of a Fortune 500 organization. As 2006 comes to a close, it appears the most obvious business decision made by many of Mexico’s drug trafficking organizations has been to focus more on supplying the US market with methamphetamine, known as “ice” or “meth” on both sides of the border. There is, however, one exception.
The Mexican state of Michoacan, considered the center of the country’s methamphetamine production, is home to an organization that calls itself “La Familia” (The Family). Based in Morelia, the state capital, La Familia is a criminal organization formed by men born and raised in Michoacan, and they do not like what methamphetamine is doing to their city and state. The public health effects the drug has on a city are much worse than the degenerative effects of crack-cocaine. Meth is cheap, produces a longer, more intense high than cocaine, and compared to cocaine or heroin, meth is much easier to make.
On 19 August 2005, the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) announced a haul of 55 pounds of methamphetamine at the conclusion of Operation Three Hour Tour. At the time, DEA administrator Karen Tandy claimed the operation had broken up a meth smuggling pipeline between the United States and Mexico that supplied the drug to close to 23,000 users a month. It is unlikely that she was referring to Mexican users.
As the production of meth in Mexico has skyrocketed to meet demand in the United States, the number of Mexican meth addicts has jumped. While it is difficult to find exact statistics on the number of meth users in Mexico, it is clear that cities along the US border harbor countless numbers of listless addicts.
“There are just as many meth addicts in Nogales, Sonora, as there are in Nogales, Arizona, maybe more,” a Mexican national from Sonora, who asked not to be named, told ISN Security Watch in a recent phone call. “Mexican drug use is a Mexican problem, and meth is obviously the worse of them all,” he added.
Beyond the border, however, Morelia has a serious problem that will not be tackled by the Mexican government but by organized crime.
La Familia
La Familia is considered one of the heaviest armed and best organized factions loyal to the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s top three drug smuggling organizations. La Familia relies on support from other factions of the Gulf Cartel and repays in kind when requested, but its primary goal is to “clean” and pacify Michoacan.
According to an article written by Mexican security analyst Ricardo Ravelo, and published by news and analysis magazine Proceso on 3 December, La Familia has 4,000 members throughout Michoacan’s 113 municipalities. Each member earns between US$1,500 -2,000 a month. The organization itself spends some US$1.5 million a month in bribes, has good relations with the state police forces, and only hires individuals born and raised in Michoacan.
The organization’s head of public relations, a man who calls himself "The Uncle," said in a 22 November interview that the current focus of his organization is to pacify Michoacan and remove the scourge of methamphetamine from his state. According to him, meth addicts die within two years of first becoming addicted to the drug.
The Uncle said his organization’s principle targets are Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the leader of what many consider to be Mexico’s most powerful drug smuggling organization, The Sinaloa Federation, and the Beltran-Leyva brothers, three men who work directly under Guzman to control the Sinaloa Federation’s interests in the cities of Culiacan and Monterrey, and in Sonora.
The Crystal King
Another member of the Sinaloa Federation, Ignacio Coronel Villareal, is known as "The Crystal King" because of his preference to work with the production and distribution of methamphetamine. By the end of 2006, he may have worked himself into a top position within the Sinaloa Federation, running the organization’s methamphetamine operations.
His current network runs from Morelia along Mexico’s Pacific coast in the states of Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora. The Crystal King’s principle distribution outlets cross the border at Nogales, Sonora and Nogales, Arizona. His string of methamphetamine production labs run from Morelia north to Nogales.
The drug smuggling route that runs along the country’s Pacific coast is heavily used by methamphetamine dealing organizations. It is likely most of them work directly with the Sinaloa Federation so they may pass through controlled areas in Sinaloa, Nayarit and Sonora with little trouble.
During Operation Baja Kings, run by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2003, associates of The Crystal King were captured smuggling some 80 pounds of methamphetamine with over 90 percent purity. It was considered the largest single bust of methamphetamine at the time.
Since 2003, Coronel may have moved from his traditional center of operations in Guadalajara, Jalisco to Morelia according to the Mexican Attorney General’s office. Meanwhile, the US government has announced a US$5 million reward for information leading to Coronel’s arrest. It remains to be seen if La Familia gets to him first.
Long road ahead
If La Familia wants to eradicate the presence of methamphetamine labs in Michoacan, it must focus on the illicit import of ephedrine, the principle precursor chemical for methamphetamine production.
On 6 December, Mexican authorities seized just under 20 tons of precursor chemicals at the Michoacan port of Lazaro Cardenas. This is the largest seizure of precursor chemicals in at least the past six years
Mexican authorities had received an anonymous phone call that instructed them to search a specific container off loaded from a Chinese vessel.
Such a large haul of precursor chemicals is enough material to make a significant amount of methamphetamine. This seizure alone suggests the presence of massive meth-cooking operations in the mountains of Michoacan.
Authorities commented the chemicals were on route to methamphetamine super labs in the mountains of Michoacan, where they would be cooked into the drug, packaged and shipped north for distribution in the United States.
“There is little regulation of precursor chemicals in Mexico,” a Mexican security specialist who spoke on condition of anonymity, told ISN Security Watch. “It is likely that Mexico produces many of the chemicals needed for drug production,” he said. “But many of the chemicals used in the production of methamphetamine also come from Asia,” he added.
Drawing the line
Mexican organized crime dictates the country’s involvement in the drug trade. Acting as the middlemen between US consumers and Colombian suppliers, Mexican criminals moved beyond growing marijuana and producing a limited amount of opium tar as Colombian organizations fell under the weight of Colombian and US law enforcement. The cocaine trade has generated billions for Mexican criminals, and violence in Mexico’s cities has contributed to a prevailing sense of insecurity in many cities, especially along the northern border and along the Pacific coast.
As methamphetamine becomes more popular in the United States, Mexican super labs will continue to supply the demand. The men and women who run Mexico’s organized criminal factions are economic actors, except, that is, for a small few.
La Familia's recognized strength within the Mexican criminal underworld will certainly lead to more violence as it battles with the Sinaloa Federation to remove the latter’s presence from Michoacan. As 2006 comes to a close, it will be said that this year was more violent than the last. The next may be even more violent, but at least a line has been drawn. Methamphetamine, more than any other drug on the market, destroys lives and the social fabric of any city crowded with meth addicts. Even Mexican criminals can see that.
——————————
This article was originally published at ISN Security Watch (12/07/06). The International Relations and Security Network (ISN) is a free public service that provides a wide range of high-quality and comprehensive products and resources to encourage the exchange of information among international relations and security professionals worldwide.
Sam Logan (www.samuellogan.com) is an investigative journalist who has reported on security, energy, politics, economics, organized crime, terrorism, and black markets in Latin America since 1999. As well, Logan is the Latin American correspondent for ISN Security Watch. He has just published his first e-book entitled “The Reality of a Mexican Mega Cartel.”
Obrador's people might have made the hit knowing that the drug cartels would immediately be blamed.
20 years...they will have occupied us by then,,,,,
FYI Read post #10.
Notice the name of the port of entry.
Wasn't "El Presidente" Fox the one who said there are no murders in Mexico and that the US was the "violent" culture?
Yeah--thanks for the reminder, Vicente.
Maybe what this means is that the new President, who's only been in office since Dec. 1, has b***s.
I think you can make a pretty good case they already are. Here are recent stories on the blog listed above:
Mexican government sends 6,500 troops to state scarred by drug violence, beheadings.
Worldpress.org awards to dead Mexican editors
Gunmen Slay Indian Activist in Oaxaca
Mexico -- 80 prisoners on the loose in Cancun after riot
The House of Death
Kidnapping for Cash Spreads to South Texas
Dope war leaves more victims dead in the streets of Monterrey
Federal Agent Gunned Down in Northern Mexico
Entertainer who sang of drug gangs is slain
Along the northern Mexican border, fear rules
Violence, political upheaval keeping some U.S. travelers away
3 police killed, 1 decapitated in Mexico
Mexican Riots in Oaxaca (Photo Essay)
I'd say you're right. It's been getting steadily wrose with no signs of letting up.
In the words of Ronaldus Magnus, "You ain't seen nothing yet."
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