Posted on 12/30/2008 10:50:50 AM PST by AuntB
CIUDAD JUAREZ (AFP) -- Ten people, including a police officer, were killed across Mexico in the hours before Christmas, in the latest spasm of violence in the country's brutal drug war, officials said on Friday.
Officials said the body of Javier Coapango, coordinator of public security for a town just outside Mexico City, was found dumped along the side of a road on Christmas eve. He had been kidnapped on December 17.
Another man was fatally shot in southern Mexico, while eight other corpses were found in the north, near the country's border with the United States, authorities said.
A state Justice Department official who was not authorized to be quoted by name said the bodies were discovered by a farmer.
The bodies were found near the town of Tuxtla Chico, about 55 miles (90 kilometers) south of another border settlement where Mexican and Guatemalan drug traffickers engaged in a series of gunbattles that killed 17 people last month.
Feuding drug cartels have engaged in a brutal battle for dominance, with more than 5,300 people have been killed this year across Mexico.
The rampant violence comes despite the deployment of 36,000 troops across the country.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2151549/posts
[snips]“How do you begin to understand that so many people are dying in Mexico? More than 5,000 casualties because of “narcotrafficking.” That’s more than all of the American troops that have died fighting an actual war in Iraq.”
One grisly new tactic is beheadings. A headless corpse hung above a busy highway almost two hours before police covered it with a sheet - the head found in a nearby park.
In Tijuana, nine men were decapitated last month, three of them policemen, their badges stuck in their mouths - some of the 40 murders in Tijuana occurred in just one weekend.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/12/16/eveningnews/main4672172.shtml
More news from our retired border agents today:
http://digital.montrealgazette.com/epaper/viewer.aspx%20
VANCOUVER — Canadian border guards have seized $43 million worth of cocaine at the Pacific Highway border crossing in the past week.
A Canada Border Service Agency spokesperson said the latest seizure occurred on Dec. 24 when a B.C.registered tractor-trailer unit carrying bananas from California was searched.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/12/27/MNMQ14QQ9B.DTL%20
Elusive bandit loves fast horses and faster ladies
Richard Marosi, Los Angeles Times
Sunday, December 28, 2008
(12-28) 04:00 PST Tijuana — (link at the end of article)
He is said to love the ladies, fast horses and dissolving enemies in lye.
Teodoro Garcia Simental is among the best known but least identifiable villains in Mexico’s drug war, blamed for a trail of terror across Baja California.
His heavily armed hit men, authorities say, have been leaving the gruesome displays of charred and decapitated bodies across the city, signed with the moniker “Tres Letras,” for the three letters in “Teo.” And authorities believe he runs a network of hideouts where kidnap victims are held in cages.
Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem to find him.
Billboards showing Tijuana’s most wanted kidnappers don’t include Garcia’s image, even though he is believed to be behind most of the gang war that has claimed more than 400 lives here since late September.
“That tells you that you don’t want to be the one responsible for putting Teo’s picture in public,” said one U.S. law enforcement source who spoke on condition of anonymity. “There’s no future in it.”
[snip]
More today:
Marijuana found hidden in flatbed trailer
December 29th, 2008 @ 10:56am
http://news.ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=1016025
by Associated Press
More than a million dollars worth of marijuana has been seized while being smuggled into the United States in a flatbed trailer.
The seizure was made Saturday, near the Mexico border south of Patagonia, the U.S Border Patrol said.
Agents assigned to the Sonoita border station stopped a suspicious pickup pulling the trailer, authorities said. They smelled a strong odor of marijuana, but could not see any evidence. A Border Patrol K9 was brought to the scene and alerted to the presence of narcotics. More than 1,000 pounds of marijuana was found hidden under the wooden planks of the trailer.
The driver was arrested.
“Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem to find him.”
How about: “Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem resist Simental’s lucrative bribes.”
Bingo!
The solution is to open up the market and the prices and profits of the trade will drop faster than the price of gas.
Two problems:
First other than pot, drugs are dangerous substances that no company could market given product liability laws.
Second, legalization will not reduce crime and will only shift it. Criminals currently gainfully employed in the drug business are not going to start earning an honest wage because they can no longer produce, transport, smuggle or sell drugs. They will simply shift to other endeavors such as kidnapping, carjacking burglary etc. Crime is all about making a lot of money without having to earn it.
If the criminals turn to other crimes, there will be plenty of cops looking for some way to justify their place on the payroll.
The WOD is all about the payroll. Nothing else.
Nothing says Christmas (Feliz navidad) in Mexico than murder and shootings.
More from our retired border agents. This group really helped out the economy, didn’t they?
http://www.caller.com/news/2008/dec/29/two-illegal-immigrants-dead-near-mathis/
Two killed as immigrants flee authorities near Mathis
By Stuart Duncan (Contact)
Originally published 04:25 p.m., December 29, 2008
Two illegal immigrants from Honduras died after a vehicle they were in crashed into a ditch near Mathis as the driver attempted to elude deputies.
The incident began when a San Patricio County Sheriff’s Department deputy tried to make a routine traffic stop of a pickup carrying 14 people Monday morning, San Patricio County Sheriff Leroy Moody said.
The driver of the truck, which was northbound on State Highway 359, tried to speed away from the deputy. It veered onto a dirt road and eventually ran into a ditch just after 9 a.m. Monday about five miles east of Mathis, Moody said.
Thirteen of those in the truck fled on foot. One man, believed to be in his late 20s, was found dead in the back of the truck. He may have suffered a broken neck although authorities are awaiting the autopsy report, Moody said.
Another man was found dead about 30 minutes later in some brush behind a house, east of Interstate 37 and south of Farm-To-Market Road 888, Moody said. The man’s age and cause of death were unknown Monday, but authorities believe he was among the people in the truck, Moody said.
Three others injured in the wreck were taken — one by HALO-Flight and two by ambulance — to Christus Spohn Hospital Memorial, Moody said. Details about their conditions were not available Monday night.
Ten others were apprehended by as many as 10 law enforcement personnel from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Bee, Live Oak, and San Patricio County Sheriff’s departments and the Department of Public Safety, Moody said.
One man remained missing. Authorities continued searching for him late Monday, Moody said.
Ten immigrants were turned over to Border Patrol agents Monday. The three who were injured also will be turned over once they are released from the hospital, Moody said.
“Yet thousands of police officers, soldiers, state and federal agents can’t seem to find him.”
You can’t apply a United States type perspective of law enforcement in Mexico. In the US, local police are empowered. In Mexico, the Federal police are “all powerful” and actively intimidate the local police. The common people fear the federal police. Power from the top helps the Mexican government maintain the two tier society.
Local police aren’t going to stick their neck out in any way, why risk it? Federal police don’t know what’s going on at the local level –at best they are ineffective. Add corruption to the mix and no number of policemen will be effective.
The military mostly rides around in trucks.
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