Crime: Authorities Suspect That Ramon Arellano Felix Of The Tijuana Cartel Was Killed In A Shootout. MEXICO CITY -- Authorities were trying to determine Friday whether a man killed in a shootout with police this month was Ramon Arellano Felix, the reputed leader of Mexico's most-feared drug cartel. The newspaper Noroeste in Mexico's Sinaloa state reported that Arellano Felix was shot dead Feb. 10 in the seaside resort of Mazatlan. Arellano Felix is on the FBI's 10 most-wanted list alongside Osama bin Laden, and the State Department has offered a reward of up to $2 million for his capture. [continues 592 words]
Mexico: Federal Prosecutors Question Couple Suspected Of Laundering Money For A Drug Cartel MEXICO CITY -- In just one bust, Mexican police seized 15 suitcases full of nearly $13 million in U.S. money and jewelry, more than all the loot captured in a much-vaunted joint U.S.-Mexican anti-drug operation that culminated earlier this year, officials say. Local police in a suburb of the northern city of Monterrey last week responded to reports that a family was "scandalizing" the neighborhood with gunshots and shouting, according to a federal police statement issued Sunday. [continues 588 words]
Americas: A change of leaders has mellowed the nations' relationship, allowing for better cooperation on issues from border policy to crime-fighting. MEXICO CITY--Cross-border cooperation between the United States and Mexico, on issues as diverse as the environment, fugitives, illegal immigration and drugs, has vastly improved under the new administrations of George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, officials in both countries agree. U.S.-Mexican teamwork at the top levels of government is beginning to pay important dividends. For instance, when U.S. narcotics agents pounced on suspected cocaine traffickers last month in several American cities, the operation didn't stop at the border. Mexican police followed up with raids in Monterrey and Mexico City, capturing 14 money-laundering suspects. [continues 1451 words]
Narcotics: Indictment Accuses Villanueva, Who Was Arrested In Cancun After 2 Years On The Run, Of Taking Payoffs For Drug Shipments To North. MEXICO CITY--U.S. prosecutors Friday unsealed an indictment accusing a former Mexican governor of cocaine smuggling on the same day he was jailed here after two years on the run. The joint moves were an unusual display of emerging U.S.-Mexican cooperation against drug traffickers. Mario Villanueva, at the time governor of Quintana Roo state, vanished in 1999 days before he was to leave office and just when Mexican authorities were about to charge him with trafficking. Federal police Thursday night arrested Villanueva, disguised with a goatee and a ponytail, in the resort city of Cancun. [continues 803 words]
Mexico: The High-Ranking Army Officer Is Arrested For Allegedly Protecting The Gulf Cartel. MEXICO CITY--In a case reminiscent of the drug corruption portrayed in the movie "Traffic," the Mexican government Thursday arrested a brigadier general accused of providing protection for one of Mexico's major drug cartels. The Defense Ministry said charges were brought against army Brig. Gen. Ricardo Martinez Perea as well as two junior officers for their alleged links with the Gulf cartel. The military statement provided few details, but the legal action appeared to advance a government offensive against the cartel that began this week with the arrest of 21 alleged members in Tamaulipas state. [continues 364 words]
Speaking on his weekly radio program, Fox expressed delight with the two presidents' meeting Friday, saying it opened a path to increased cooperation on issues ranging from migration to drug trafficking and energy. Disclosing the first details of the migration talks, Fox said: "The commitment of President Bush and our commitment is to seek that all those Mexicans who are there without documents or illegally be considered legal workers." That would mean the workers could receive Social Security and other benefits and could travel back and forth from Mexico freely, not sneak across the border. [continues 300 words]
When cocaine boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes died in July 1997 during plastic surgery to disguise his identity, some analysts predicted the collapse of his Juarez cartel, one of the hemisphere's premier drug-smuggling gangs. But the four suspected cemeteries of Juarez cartel victims discovered last week near the border city of the same name provide gruesome evidence that Mexico's major drug gangs remain powerful and vicious threats to Mexico and the United States. The key Mexican drug cartels, U.S. and Mexican officials agree, have evolved constantly in recent years even amid a crackdown against them. A new generation of younger traffickers, sometimes called "narco-juniors," has added a cold, high-tech sophistication to the arsenal of old-fashioned corruption and brutality that made the cartels so feared. [continues 941 words]
MEXICO CITY - When cocaine boss Amado Carrillo Fuentes died in July 1997 during plastic surgery to disguise his identity, some analysts predicted the collapse of his Juarez cartel, one of the hemisphere's premier drug-smuggling gangs. But the four suspected cemeteries of Juarez cartel victims discovered this week near the border city of Ciudad Juarez provide gruesome evidence that Mexico's major drug gangs remain powerful and vicious threats, both to Mexico and the United States. The key Mexican drug cartels, U.S. and Mexican officials agree, have evolved constantly in recent years even amid a crackdown against them. A new generation of younger traffickers, sometimes called "narco-juniors," has added a cold, high-tech sophistication to the arsenal of old-fashioned corruption and brutality. [continues 476 words]
Smuggling: Veteran Boss Brought Cocaine From Colombia, Prosecutor Says. MEXICO CITY - Mexican officials said Saturday that they have arrested a veteran boss of a drug cartel that smuggles Colombian cocaine up Mexico's Pacific Coast into the United States, and thus crippled a major branch of the Juarez cartel. Mariano Herran Salvatti, Mexico's top drug prosecutor, told reporters that agents arrested Juan Jose Quintero Payan, a longtime trafficker, when he arrived at a house in Guadalajara on Friday night for a tryst with his lover. [continues 459 words]
Program could cost up to $500 million over next 3 years The Mexican government revealed a high-tech strategy yesterday to wage ``a total war against drug trafficking,'' including new satellite surveillance, X-ray detection systems and high-speed navy patrol boats. Interior Secretary Francisco Labastida Ochoa, a likely presidential candidate who is responsible for domestic security, said key government departments had spent 10 months developing the plan to fight the drug scourge, which he said ``constitutes the gravest threat to our national security.'' [continues 470 words]
Weapons: Angry over flow of arms coming south, many linked to drug trafficking cartels, lawmakers are expected to approve harsher penalties for smugglers. MEXICO CITY--Next time you pop across the Mexican border for a visit, remember to leave your AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle at home. This year, 123 U.S. citizens have been arrested in Mexico on weapons charges, according to the U.S. Embassy here, and about 70 Americans--including an Orange County man--are now being held, accused or convicted of violating the country's strict Firearms and Explosives Act. [continues 1418 words]
Crime: Authorities Capture Two Brothers Who Allegedly Ran Main Methamphetamine Ring. MEXICO CITY--Mexican authorities said Tuesday that they had smashed the country's main synthetic drug cartel, dealing a powerful blow to methamphetamine trafficking into California and other American states. Mexico's top anti-drug official, Mariano Herran Salvatti, told reporters that police arrested the suspected cartel leaders, Luis and Jesus Amezcua-Contreras, and seized 125 properties and businesses that were being used to smuggle the drugs and launder the profits. [continues 449 words]
MEXICO CITY -- A series of accusations this week linked Mexico's most notorious drug cartel to money-laundering scams that touch the highest levels of the nation's political, financial and labor elite. First, it emerged that the laundrymen of the Juarez cartel tried to buy a controlling share of a struggling bank. Then it was reported that they tried to go into business with President Ernesto Zedillo Ponce de Lesn's brother. And on Friday, a newspaper said the head of the largest national labor federation and a union-linked bank were being probed for suspected money-laundering ties. [continues 475 words]
