Free Republic

A recent surge in arrests and cocaine seizures in Peru points to an increased presence of Mexican drug cartels, counter-narcotics officials say. The cartels have also contributed to more drug-related violence in Peruvian cities, ports and in remote valleys in this Andean country where coca, cocaine's base material, is grown, the officials say. Peruvian claims of Mexican cartels expanding echo those by officials in other Latin American countries, from Honduras to Argentina, where Mexican gangs have supplanted once-powerful Colombian cartels as kings of the illicit-drug underworld. .... That Mexican drug lords are sending emissaries here is no surprise to Hidalgo...

On Monday, a Pinal County, Ariz. sheriff's deputy spotted two Hispanic males armed with long rifles along Interstate 8 in the Vekol Valley. The men were hiding in the bush next to the road, and fled when the deputy spotted them. As they fled, one suspect dropped a backpack containing a loaded magazine and .223 caliber ammunition. Other evidence discovered at the scene indicated that a load of marijuana had recently been transferred to a vehicle. Law enforcement was unable to catch the fleeing gunmen. As Liberty & Security Journal reported last week, Mexican drug cartels have deployed hit men...

Border: If there's one word we shouldn't want to add to the U.S. lexicon, it's sicario, the Spanish word for contract killer. But with lawmen warning of sicarios now in Arizona, we may soon know that word — and worse. With little to worry about in crossing the unguarded U.S. border, it was only a matter of time before cartel smugglers began fighting over the lucrative spoils themselves. Last May 13, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned Arizona authorities that it had intelligence that 15 trained sicarios from Mexico's Sinaloa cartel were heading to Arizona, the Arizona Republic reported....

Drug smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or "sicarios," into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.

MEXICO CITY — The Mexican government on Monday offered $2 million rewards each for information leading to the capture of 24 men identified as the country’s narcotics smuggling kingpins, including the bosses of the Gulf Cartel bordering far south Texas. Topping the most-wanted list are Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada of the Sinaloa Cartel based in the Pacific Coast state. Arturo Beltran Leyva, who leads a cartel that carries his name, carried a $2 million reward, as do the heads of the Juarez Cartel based in the violent city opposite El Paso, the La Familia Cartel...

Well-Coordinated Cartel Hits Show Greater Sophistication CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- The hit was fast, bold, lethal. Jesús Huerta Yedra, a top federal prosecutor here, was gunned down last week in a busy intersection 100 yards from the U.S. border in a murder of precise choreography. In Mexico's chaotic drug war, attacks are no longer the work of desperate amateurs with bad aim. Increasingly, the killings are being carried out by professionals, often hooded and gloved, who trap their targets in coordinated ambushes, strike with overwhelming firepower, and then vanish into the afternoon rush hour -- just as they did in...