Drug Cartels Put Hit Squads in Laredo
By MICHELLE ROBERTS, AP
Posted: 2007-08-27 14:15:16
LAREDO, Texas (AP) - The scrawny young man at the defense
table was only 17, and had only a peach-fuzz mustache in his
mugshot. But authorities say he was already a seasoned
assassin in the U.S. for some of Mexico's drug lords.
The trial last month of American citizen Rosalio "Bart" Reta,
combined with the case against a co-defendant and interviews
with law enforcement officials, has cast a spotlight on a new
danger along the border.
Mexican drug lords locked in a bloody fight for control of a
pipeline that runs from Mexico to Dallas and up through middle
America have brazenly stationed hit squads and reconnaissance
teams in Laredo.
In the past two years, rival cartels have killed at least seven
people in Laredo, including a victim stalked and killed near his
job site and a man gunned down in the parking lot of a popular
restaurant, U.S. authorities say. Nearly all the victims were
mixed up in the drug trade themselves.
"That river does not stop these people," said Webb County
Sheriff's Maj. Doyle Holdridge, who for the past 30 years has
been working drug cases along the Rio Grande, which separates
Laredo from its Mexican sister city, Nuevo Laredo. The cities
have a combined population of half a million.
Over the past few years, the Mexican Gulf Cartel and its rival
Sinaloa Cartel have carried out a terrifying bloodbath in Nuevo
Laredo, where the traffickers have a saying: "Plata o plomo" -
"Silver or lead."
Unlike many other drug-related killings, the Laredo slayings
often involve careful planning, explicit orders and surveillance
of law enforcement officers, Guillen said. And arrests aren't
easy: In most cases, the killers flee back across the border.
Also, the traditional taboos against involving family members
and other civilians have disappeared.
"These days, if they have a problem, they kill it," Holdridge
said. "If they have to hose down a car full of five people,
they'll do it."
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Once a
thriving city, Nuevo Laredo is the prototype for what will be coming to cities
in the South Western U.S.A.
In another story, the answer to controlling the
U.S./Mexican border may be by the Mexican drug cartels.
11:15 PM CST on Wednesday,
February 21, 2007
By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The
Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico – The
evening calm here is deceiving.
As dusk settles, folks gather and mill around the town
square, as they do in town squares throughout Mexico. But soon the talk turns to
the latest deadly incident, this week's ambush of a federal congressman, which
left him seriously injured and his 31-year-old driver dead. And the inevitable
question arises: Is it too late to save Nuevo Laredo?
"You look around here, and nothing seems real anymore," said
Mari Moreno, whose sons live in Irving. "You do your best to get through the
day, but you know this city will never be normal again."
More than three years after warring drug cartels launched a
battle for Nuevo Laredo and its smuggling routes into Texas, senior U.S. law
enforcement officials say the Gulf cartel and its enforcers, the Zetas, have
established significant control over the beleaguered city.
In the past year, 700 small- and medium-sized businesses shut
down in Nuevo Laredo, and about 40 of the city's top business leaders have set
up shop across the border in Laredo.
Nuevo Laredo is a city under siege, with no police chief 11 months
after the last one quit, citing stress. His predecessor had been gunned down
within hours of taking the job.
The drug traffickers have threatened local reporters, warning them
away from coverage of their activities. They have broken cameras being used to
shoot video at crime scenes.
Some residents have begun using walkie-talkies rather than
cell phones in an attempt to avoid the heavy surveillance that law enforcement
officials say the cartel places on routine movements and communication.
U.S. officials say there's evidence that the Zetas are
steadily pushing their influence westward toward Monterrey, a center of Mexican
industry, cementing their network of human intelligence in the border states of
Nuevo León and Tamaulipas.
These states are gateways for smuggling drugs into
Texas and on to cities such as Chicago, New York City and Miami.
'They operate
on fear'
To finance their criminal activities, the traffickers are
kidnapping Mexicans and Americans in rising numbers, a U.S. official said, and
have earned themselves a new nickname: narco secuestradores, or narco
kidnappers.
"They operate on fear," said a U.S. law enforcement official,
speaking on condition of anonymity, adding the Gulf cartel has gained the upper
hand in the region over the competing Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo"
Guzmán.
"They're simply more disciplined, have better intelligence,
better training and proven to be far more effective at recruiting than Chapo's
army," the official said.
A congressional report issued this year by the
subcommittee on investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security said that
"the Texas-Mexico border has been experiencing an alarming rise in the level of
criminal cartel activity."
The report, "A Line In the Sand: Confronting the Threat
at The Southwest Border" added that "these criminal organizations and networks
are highly sophisticated and organized, operating with military style weapons
and technology, utilizing counter surveillance techniques and acting
aggressively against both law enforcement and competitors."
On Sunday, under the orders of President Felipe
Calderón, an estimated 3,300 troops were deployed to the two states to restore
order.
Mr. Calderón, who came into office Dec. 1, quickly sent
a strong signal when he deployed troops to his home state of Michoacán and to
Tijuana to fight drug traffickers. Federal troops and police have now been sent
to eight of the country's 31 states.
The task remains daunting. This week, an assistant state
prosecutor for the state of Durango, Hugo Reséndiz Martínez, was fired from his
post for allegedly passing sensitive criminal information to the Sinaloa cartel.
He has been detained and is also under investigation in connection with
killings, the attorney general's office said.
Hours after the troops arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Horacio
Garza, a federal congressman and two-time mayor of the city, was shot as he and
his driver headed toward the airport Monday evening. The driver was killed. Mr.
Garza received three bullet wounds, to the neck, shoulder and leg, and was
transported to a Mexico City hospital for medical care and for his own safety.
Hitmen in this city have been known to follow their target to hospitals to
finish the job.
No clear motive for the attack has been established, but over
the weekend Mr. Garza met with families whose relatives have disappeared in
recent years from both sides of the border. Mr. Garza vowed to take the crime
files of those who have disappeared and prepare a report for Mr. Calderón and
press him for action on behalf of the victims' families.
"Garza was the first high-level Mexican official to make such a
bold promise," said Priscilla Cisneros, whose daughter, Brenda, was a community
college student in Laredo when she disappeared in September 2004. "I don't know
if that was a coincidence, or the reason. We just don't know."
In 3 ½ years of intense cartel violence, more than 600 people
reportedly have been killed in Nuevo Laredo.
Hundreds more Mexicans have been kidnapped or have
disappeared from the area in recent years. At least 63 Americans have been
kidnapped, according to Laredo's Missing, an organization set up by family
members to pressure authorities on both sides of the border to find their loved
ones. Many of the Americans were later released, but at least 20 remain missing.
Hardly feeling
secure
The sight of the troops passing through Nuevo Laredo's main
square generated both hope and skepticism among residents.
"Look at them," said Juan José García, 65, whose sons live in
Dallas and San Antonio. "They look so pristine in their nice uniforms, like
they're going to a parade. But they do want to give us a sense of security," he
said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
"A false sense of security," said Cecilia García Martínez,
26, who migrated from Veracruz two years ago and is eager to move to the United
States.
A garlic farmer, José Torres Martínez, 60, screamed at
American reporters, blaming them for "giving Nuevo Laredo a bad name and killing
off our business."
Indeed, tourism is virtually gone from Nuevo Laredo, and the
city is moribund. The exodus of the middle class has continued unabated. A
headline in this week's El Mañana newspaper summed up the situation this
way: "Nuevo Laredo dies; Laredo booms."
A year ago, El Mañana announced it would no longer
cover drug-related crime to protect its employees. Its management now says it is
considering opening a newspaper in Laredo. Mr. Suneson of Marti's said he is
opening a business in San Antonio.
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