Mexico Drug Related Violent Deaths Escalate

By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter May 22, 2008 5:00 p.m. PDT Revised May 23, 2008 10:00 a.m. PDT

Over 1,500 people have been killed in Mexico so far this year, according to Mexican news reports. Most of the slayings have taken place in states that are hubs for drug trafficking and organized crime.  In one day this week, alone, Mexico recorded 40 executions.  These murders are the most violent of episodes that are believed ordered by Mexican cartels with some of the victims being American citizens.

Penny Starr Senior Staff Writer for CNSNews.com  reports that a U.S. State Department report on "non-natural deaths" of U.S. citizens abroad says that 126 Americans were victims of homicides or "executions" in Mexico between Jan. 1, 2005 and Dec. 31, 2007. A total of 667 Americans were killed in Mexico by "non-natural" causes during that period. See report on "non-natural deaths"

The State Department says the report "is based solely on cases reported by American citizens to our posts abroad," which leaves open the question of how complete or accurate it may be.

Many of the reported homicides took place just across the southern border of the United States. Twenty-nine took place within the city of Tijuana, which sits just south of San Diego, California.

The two deaths described in the State Department report as "executions" both occurred in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, which borders the United States. One of those executions was reported to have taken place on Jan. 21, 2007 in Ciudad Juarez, just across the border from El Paso, Texas. See statement

The report specifically notes the violence in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez, stating that: "Dozens of U.S. citizens were kidnapped and/or murdered in Tijuana in 2007." See travel alert

The states of Chihuahua, Baja and Sinaloa accounted for at least 18 executions, while Tamaulipas and Guerrero had 12 in the last seven days. Those in Chihuahua brought the states total dead to 400 caused by organized crime. Six of those deaths took place in Ciudad Juarez.  Four bodies were found in Baja near the border with the United States.

The violent events, combined with a shootout in Durango this week, left at least 16 dead; taking the total to 1,360 executions in the last 141 days. The assailants were all dressed in black and Mexican authorities also reported finding a dozen late-model vehicles that had been reinforced with armor.

The states of Baja, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Durango with cities of Juarez, Tijuana, Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, Zacatecas and San Luis Potosi are the focal point for the control of drug, human and terrorist smuggling routes in Mexico. Those states and cities alone accounted for about a 1,000 of this year's violent deaths.

 The governor of Sinaloa has now restructured the police command in the state's three largest cities and has placed career military personnel in charge. In Ciudad Juarez, a military officer assumed command of the city police; his predecessor was murdered nine days ago.
 
Police in the Rosarito Beach area in Baja California stated, “that across the border from San Diego, we discovered the bodies of three men and a woman Sunday in an abandoned car in a remote patch of scrubland near the Pacific coast (not far south of Tijuana), the locale where criminal gangs are now trafficking in drugs and people. At night the area is a reception zone for drugs but also a departure point for boats taking undocumented persons to the United States easier than through the mountains, desert or the border gate." Also in Rosarito Beach, 11 persons were arrested when found to be unloading a boat with 2,542.6 kilos of marihuana onto different vehicles. Two of the arrested were minors.

A semi-trailer hauling nopal (prickly pear) northbound towards Tijuana was found to have had 334 kilos of cocaine in 180 packages. The find was again at the Benjamin Hill, Sonora, checkpoint where many drugs have been found lately and is the third sizeable one within a week.

In Orozco, Sonora, an 18 wheeler stopped short of a checkpoint and the driver fled. Inside, was found 300 packages with 329.4 kilos of cocaine in each.
  
In the ocean off Los Mochis, Sinaloa,  a couple of local fishermen spotted a floating object and then saw that a pair of feet were sticking out on one end. The unidentified gangland type execution victim had been wrapped in duck tape a common tactic used by the cartel assassins.
  
Tuesday morning near Masiaca, Sonora, Mexico military personnel found 150 sticks of dynamite "25 cms. long by 5 cms. in diameter" (8 1/4" X 2") some 600 meters off the highway. The explosives were destroyed. (Masiaca is halfway between Los Mochis and Ciudad Obregon.)

Federal highway police checked an abandoned car on the Mexico City - Cuernavaca highway. The four-way flashers were operating and the trunk lid was ajar. Inside: the tied, blindfolded and tortured bodies of two men who had been shot while inside the trunk. A large tag board sign on the bodies read: "This is the way all will end up who are against El Chapo and El Rey Zambada" referring to the head of the Sinaloa Cartel Joaquin El Chapo Guzman and to Ismael El Mayo Zambada. The two victims were later identified as the Director of the State of Morelos Ministerial Police and of another officer of the same agency. 
 
In Culiacan Sinaloa, two male suspects, 23 and a 20, were arrested by federal agents at a safe house in which they also found firearms, including a .50 cal. rifle, speed loaders, grenades, tactical vests and 16 armored vehicles. 

In recent months and after Mexican president Caldron dispatched the Mexican army and federal police to many interior cities and to Mexican cities on the Mexican U.S. border the level of violence has risen substantially.

Mexican Senator Ramon Galindo Noriega said that the federal support for Ciudad Juarez has been evident but nevertheless there will be no Federal Police or Army that will be sufficient to combat crime if the city and state police are infiltrated by narco-traffickers. 

Sources:

Open Mexican news sources, L.A. Times,Ciudad Juarez Police, Rosarito Police, The National Association Of Former Border Patrol Officers, and the Laguna Journal.