Free Republic

TIJUANA, Mexico – Mexico has captured a kingpin accused of terrorizing his way to the top of a gang fighting for control of key U.S. drug routes — even ordering rivals dissolved in acid. Tuesday's arrest, announced by U.S. and Mexican officials, capped a series of victories in Mexico's U.S.-backed war on narcotics. Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as "El Teo," was arrested at 5 a.m. (8 a.m. EST; 1300 GMT), said Amy Roderick, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego, California. She said she had no other details. A U.S. official and a Mexican law enforcement...

EL PASO, Texas — An alleged Mexican gang leader named to the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list may have surgically altered his face and changed his finger prints to hide his identity, federal investigators said Wednesday. Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo was added earlier this week to the wanted list that includes the likes of Osama Bin Laden and Boston crime lord James "Whitey" Bulger. "From what I've heard, it's my understanding he may have had ... plastic surgery and manipulated his finger prints," said Samantha Mikeska, the FBI's lead investigator in a 5-year-old probe of Ravelo's Barrio Azteca gang. If Ravelo...

ACAPULCO, Mexico — Gunmen killed six people, including a local police chief, in a series of attacks Monday in mountain towns in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. The police chief of Pungarabato was repeatedly shot while driving his red Mustang on a highway near the small town early Monday, Guerrero state public safety department said in a news release. Five other men were found gunned down in different towns in the isolated mountainous zone known as the Tierra Caliente, or the Hot Land, the state police said. In the border city of Tijuana, soldiers detained 60 people at a...