AP IMPACT: Mexican drug cartels expand abroad

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose "Juancho" Leon was summoned by Mexican traffickers for what he was told was business. Instead, dozens of attackers ambushed his entourage with grenades and assault rifles, killing Leon and 10 others in a brazen demonstration of power.

Mexican drug traffickers are branching out as never before — spreading their tentacles into 47 nations, including the U.S., Guatemala and even Colombia, long the heart of the drug trade in Latin America.

The expansion comes amid a military crackdown in Mexico and the arrests of major Colombian suppliers and poses a new challenge for efforts to stop the flow of drugs into the United States.

In dozens of interviews with officials and experts in seven countries, The Associated Press found that the Mexican mobs increasingly buy directly from the cocaine-producing Andes and have begun using countries as distant as Argentina to obtain the raw material for methamphetamine. Mexican gangsters have been arrested as far away as Malaysia as they seek new markets for cocaine and "meth" supply sources.

"There are more Mexican drug traffickers in South America today than at any time ever, period," said Jay Bergman, the Andean regional director for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

The United States has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Colombia dismantle its major cartels but may have actually helped the Mexicans gain traction in South America in the process.

In the past two years, Colombia extradited 14 warlords to the U.S. on drug-running charges and another six major traffickers have been killed or arrested. Mexican emissaries and money are flowing into the country to fill the void.

"The belief is that the Mexicans are trying to get closer to the source of supply and take over the transport," said Jere Miles, chief of....

Today’s M3 Foreign news report from NAFBPO. It just gets worse and worse.

Clubs of Zacatecans growing in the U.S.

Posted: 21 Jul 2009 07:36 AM PDT

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
Visit our website: http://www.nafbpo.org
Foreign News Report

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.

El Sol de Mexico (Mexico City) 7/20/09

Zacatecas, Mexico, in the U.S.
Dateline: Chicago, IL. – Amalia Garcia, governor of the (Mexican) state of Zacatecas, formally inaugurated three new clubs of Zacatecans in Illinois and urged the immigrants from that area to maintain their “alliance” with the government of Zacatecas so that, as bi-nationals, they will continue to strengthen links with their places of origin. “Accompanied by local congressmen as well as by mayors from Zacatecas, and in front of more than 800 persons, among which were representatives of the Federation of Zacatecan Clubs in other parts of the United States, Amalia Garcia renewed her commitment to look after the welfare and security of those who have emigrated in search of a better standard of living.”

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La Prensa Gráfica (San Salvador, El Salv.) 7/20/09

Violence in……. El Salvador
El Salvador’s National Police reported that yesterday’s (Sat.) nineteen homicides bring July’s current monthly total to two hundred eleven, an average of twelve such deaths per day. One reader commented: “The eternal problem which El Salvador suffers: little respect for someone else’s life; life is worth nothing; at times I ask myself: why in this country do fellow countrymen kill each other as if they were animals?” (El Salvador is slightly smaller than Massachusetts)

Prensa Libre (Guatemala City, Guat.) 7/20/09

….. and in Guatemala
“Various violent acts late Saturday and yesterday left 14 dead, among them two persons who died due to the explosion of a grenade.” An accompanying side item reported the death of two more victims and the wounding of seven others after a gunfire attack on a group of three-wheeled cab drivers. A relating letter to the editor reads as follows: “All of us Guatemalans live in fear. We leave our homes to go to work without being sure we’ll return. Every day there are assassinations, assaults, extortions and no one does anything about it. Oil comes down in price and in Guatemala fuel goes up. There’s killing, robberies and dying; everyone does whatever they want and violating the law doesn’t matter. No one imposes order. Officialdom has lost credibility. Corruption has become ingrained in the various agencies and officials. No one believes in justice (and) it would seem that prior administrations installed judges to protect themselves and thus bring about impunity. We’ve hit bottom. Rebuilding the State is now urgent. The only solution is for the elected magistrates to enforce obedience to the law, since that is why they occupy their posts.”

El Observador (Caracas, Venezuela) 7/20/09

(The beginning of a short, three paragraph article about the weekend just ended):

….. and in Venezuela
“Once more the unleashed violence took over the streets of Caracas and cost the lives of 32 persons.”

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Armada Nacional de Colombia (Bogota, Col.), La Jornada (Mexico City) 7/20/09 & 7/18/09

Alien smuggling arrests in the Caribbean
Colombian Navy units intercepted a launch and detained thirty-four African immigrants who were being smuggled on the Caribbean toward Panama from Colombia. The Navy reported that the 34, all from Eritrea, had entered Colombia illegally some days ago and that each had paid U.S. $1,500 to be taken to the United States. Two Colombian smugglers in the launch were also arrested.

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The next three items are a tour of representative violence around Mexico
1. El Diario de Coahuila (Saltillo, Coahuila) 7/20/09

“13 executed in Chihuahua” “Another 13 persons were assassinated in the state in the last few hours (and) it’s worthy of mention that the wave of violence in the state has caused more than 2,700 deaths since January of 2008, and 1,653 of them in 2009, of which 1,050 alone have taken place along the border.”

2. El Sur (Acapulco, Guerrero) 7/20/09

A glance at a number of the state of Guerrero news headlines shows a total of five persons wounded and six murdered in a variety of different events there. There was also an attack on a state police vehicle traveling on an area road.

3. Excelsior (Mexico City) 7/20/09

Yesterday (Sun.) unknown and armed persons carried off Wilfrido Rodriguez by force. Rodriguez was a state police commander in northern Sinaloa state; his “executed body” was found on a highway today near Guamuchil, Sinaloa. Likewise, the chief of the prison at Aquiles Cerdan, Chihuahua, and one other prison guard with him were both riddled with gunfire and killed on a street on the south side of Chihuahua City. Both men were wearing bullet proof vests but the killers used not only AR15 but also ”cop killer” .50 cal. Barret rifles. (Aquiles Cerdan is shown as just a few miles S.E. of Chihuahua City)

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Challenges of the language
The following is offered only as an example of the daily translation battles waged by the “M3 Report” producers against pervasive and convoluted logorrhea. An attempt at a nearly impossible verbatim translation follows:

“The District’s First Judge on Criminal Matters ordered formal prison against Mario Manuel Romero Tinoco, ex-municipal president of La Huacana, Michoacan, due to his probable responsibility in the commission of violations of the law of organized crime and against health in the modality of collaborating in any manner to foment to bring about the carrying out of some crime of that nature.”

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- end of report -

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