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A former plaza boss for the Gulf Cartel is behind bars in the Rio Grande Valley after being arrested in Starr County. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested 34-year-old Eudoxio Ramos-Garcia at a Rio Grande City home on Thursday. Court records released Wednesday show that Ramos-Garcia is the former plaza boss for the Gulf Cartel across the border from Roma in Miguel Aleman, Tamaulipas. U.S. Immigrant & Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have taken over the investigation and filed federal drug charges against Ramos-Garcia. Court records show that Ramos-Garcia remained in the drug trafficking business as an independent marijuana smuggler. The records...

As the Gulf Cartel’s internal struggle continues, the residents of Reynosa, Matamoros and Valle Hermoso have been subjected to various firefights. In one of those firefights, the plaza boss of Valle Hermoso — a man known as Comandante Guerra — reportedly was gunned down. The firefights between the Gulf Cartel’s warring factions — the Rojos and the Metros — began Tuesday evening and continued into late Wednesday morning, said a source outside law enforcement familiar with the situation. The first clash was reported in Valle Hermoso, some 18 miles south of Brownsville, where Comandante Guerra was gunned down. About 8...

The nephew of imprisoned Gulf Cartel kingpin Osiel Cardenas Guillen was arrested by U.S. authorities in Port Isabel during a traffic stop. Rafael “El Junior” Cardenas Vela was arrested Thursday night by Port Isabel police and was later charged by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents with immigration charges as well as possession and conspiracy to possess narcotics with intent to distribute, court records show. As of Tuesday night, Rafael Cardenas remained in federal custody. Cardenas was pulled over while he drove in a personal vehicle with an attractive woman, a local law enforcement official confirmed. Rather than get an...

MCALLEN - Cartel members may be living next to you, down the street or in your neighborhood. You might never know unless you see it on the news. Examples include the deadly shooting on Expressway 83 in McAllen three weeks ago. The man who died was a Gulf Cartel operative. The McAllen Police Department won't give us any information about him or show us his picture. They won't even talk about the shooting. The truth is we may never know the exact number of cartel crimes that might be happening in the Valley. What we can tell you is two...

McALLEN — Fatal gunshots volleyed from one vehicle to another along the expressway early Tuesday morning point to a power struggle within the Gulf Cartel, sources familiar with the victim said. McAllen police continue to investigate the apparent murder of Jorge Zavala, 32, a Mission man slain as a volley of gunfire penetrated his Ford Expedition about 2 a.m. Tuesday. Zavala and a 22-year-old man fell victim to the gunfire when an unknown shooter attacked their dark-colored SUV from a Chevrolet Tahoe with oversized rims as they headed west past the Jackson Road interchange. Investigators believe the shots came from...

Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton demonstrates how video surveillance footage is used to reconstruct the recent arson attack in Monterrey, Mexico. Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. In this week’s Above the Tearline, we’re going to show you how agents utilize video surveillance tape to reconstruct the crime using the recent casino fire in Monterrey, Mexico, as an example. Let’s take a look at the first video, which takes place before the crime occurs............

For the first time, we are hearing from Jesus Rejon, the third most important man in the Zeta Cartel. He's talking about how the cartel does business. CHANNEL 5 NEWS got on our hands on an audio interview that was released by the Mexican government. On the tape there are two voices. One is the investigator. The other is Rejon, or "El Mamito.” The investigator spends a lot of time asking Rejon about where the Zetas get their guns. Rejon says the weapons are brought to them from the United States. He tells the investigator that they use to cross...

According to El Nuevo Heraldo, Heriberto “El Lazca” Lazcano Lazcano was killed at approximately 2 p.m. local time June 17 in Matamoros, Tamaulipas state, on Avenida del Nino at the intersection with Lauro Villar. It was reported that the top leader of Los Zetas was killed during a running gunbattle involving Gulf cartel forces. A separate report by El Universal citing Mexican military sources indicated that three were killed and nine were injured in a firefight involving Mexican soldiers and marines against members of Los Zetas and the Gulf cartel near the Tomates international bridge in Matamoros. Mexican military sources...

Hundreds of Mexicans taking part in a "peace caravan" to protest against the violent drugs war have arrived at their destination of Ciudad Juarez. The week-long journey was led by poet Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed by suspected drug-gang hit-men in March. Mr Sicilia wants Mexico's army pulled off the streets and more done to prosecute drug cartel members and seize their assets. President Felipe Calderon has said withdrawing the army is not an option. Nearly 35,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Mr Calderon deployed the army in the fight against the cartels in 2006. About...

The Mexican Army announced Sunday night the results of a raid at a warehouse that was being used as a makeshift machine shop by cartel members to build armored assault vehicles. The raid took place Saturday in the Prolongación Gonzalez area in the city of Camargo, across from Rio Grande City, during a routine patrol where a military convoy came across the warehouse, according to a news release from the Mexican Army. As a result of the raid, the Mexican military seized two dump trucks that had been heavily armored and modified to carry a squad of gunmen. The two...

Mexican authorities are reporting the arrest of a high-ranking member of the Gulf Cartel south of the border in Reynosa. Mexico's National Ministry of Public Safety (SSP) reported that federal police arrested Gilberto Barragan-Balderas and two other men on Friday afternoon. Residents used Twitter to report gunfire and a heavy police presence in a neighborhood on the city's westside. SSP officials confirmed that Barragan-Balderas was captured along Gulf Cartel gunment Sergio Gutierrez-Castañon and Romeo Eduardo Mejia. Mejia is the brother of Juan Reyes Mejia, a lead Gulf Cartel gunman known as "El R1." Barragan-Balderas, who goes by the nicknames of...

From mass graves to mass kidnappings, the situation in parts of Mexico continues to look grim. Mexico's federal police rescued 51 people, including six Chinese and 18 Central American migrants, who were captive in the same border city where more than five dozen people were freed last week, authorities said Monday night. Police investigators were led to the latest group while following up on last week's rescue of 68 people in Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas, federal officials said. Authorities gave no motives or identified the kidnappers or drug gang involved, but drug cartels have been accused of pulling people...

Morning of April 21, 2011 - My Brother and I are soldiers in the Army National Guard. My brother, James Bellow, is currently deployed on the Texas/Mexico border. In the early morning hours of April 21st, 2011, my brother witnessed and recorded a MASSIVE firefight and Battle in Mexico, right across from the city of Roma, TX. This battle lasted for hours and included machine gun fire and several explosions from grenades of mortars. My brother filmed some of the footage of the battle on his phone, which can be seen below: Gunfire heard during the battle in Mexico right...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - Ten complete bodies, three headless bodies and four severed heads were found when authorities dug up a pit in a house in the Mexican state of Durango, authorities said Friday. Authorities are determining whether some of the heads belonged to the bodies. The badly decayed corpses — which have not yet been identified — were taken to a morgue for autopsies, the Durango state prosecutor's office said in a statement. Durango has been the scene of a bloody turf battle between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Zetas gang. The grisly discovery comes as mass graves with...

In Monterrey, Mexico, an armed commando stole the body of a TV personality moments after another commando had dropped the body on a street near a narco message. Jose Luis “La Gata” Cerda Melendez was found dead Friday morning along Miguel De La Madrid Boulevard, according to information released by the Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office. Cerda was reported missing Thursday evening after he was picked up near the Televisa station in Monterrey by a group of hooded gunmen. He was host of the show called “El Club.” Authorities didn’t release the content of the message, which was scrawled on...

More than 140 prisoners escaped from a prison near the U.S. border on Friday, media said, the latest breach of Mexico's notoriously insecure jails that are helping to feed a violent drug war... on the outskirts of Nuevo Laredo across from Laredo, Texas. In September, 85 prisoners escaped from jail in the nearby border city of Reynosa. Authorities discovered in July that prison officials had allowed convicts out of jail in northwestern Durango state to carry out revenge attacks before returning to cells for the night.

The inmates who escaped from a Nuevo Laredo prison this week are likely part of a plan to bolster the ranks of the Zetas cartel, Webb County Sheriff Martin Cuellar said Saturday. Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, sits just across from Laredo, at the southern end of the I-35 corridor. It is the county seat of Webb County. Cuellar said Saturday that intelligence gathered by Texas law enforcement indicates the break was orchestrated by Orlando Monsisvais Treviño, 28, the nephew of Miguel Treviño Morales, "El 40," believed to be the Zetas' second in command. The Tamaulipas state government said in a news...

Gunfire and roadblocks were reported Wednesday evening in Matamoros as armed gunmen with the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas organization clashed with the Mexican military in a three-way confrontation, sources stated. One of the international bridges to Brownsville was closed. Tractor-trailers were used to block off various avenues in Matamoros, including Lauro Villar, Avenida Solidaridad, Avenida del Nino and other main thoroughfares, in an effort to keep military vehicles from getting through, according to a Mexican law enforcement official who asked not to be named for security reasons. A source with the Mexican military who asked not to be named...

MEXICO CITY - Mexico will send more troops and federal police to try to control drug violence that has spiraled into warfare in parts of the northeast along the U.S. border, the government said Wednesday. The goal of "Coordinated Operation Northeast" is to reinforce government authority in the two states most heavily affected by a surge in violence following a split between the Gulf and Zetas drug gangs, federal police spokesman Alejandro Poire said. The new effort also aims to keep the two cartels from regrouping after the takedown of key leaders, he said. But in a media briefing with...

MEXICO CITY Threats and violence by drug gangs are preventing some government oil workers from reaching installations in northern Mexico and costing state-owned Petroleos Mexicanos about $350,000 every day in lost production, a company official said Thursday. The official said Pemex has shut down the equivalent of about 100 million cubic feet of natural gas production per day. He talked to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, because company rules do not allow him to be quoted by name. That amounts to about $10.5 million per month, or about 2.3 percent of Mexico's $450 million per month average in...