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Nuevo Laredo's Guns, Made in the U.S.A.

Posted by Dan Feder - June 15, 2005 at 8:41 pm
Ricardo Sala writes of the human costs of a military incursion into northern Mexico that is unlikely to make much of a dent in that region’s drug supplies. Another unavoidable, ugly result of this increased militarization is one the Mexican government is well aware of: a stepped-up arms race between and among narcos as they face more and better-armed enemies. And where do those gangsters get their guns? The same place everyone else does – from the United States arms industry. The Mexican government has tried this week to highlight this underappreciated facet of the chaos in northern Mexico. The Mexican daily La Jornada reported on Tuesday:

“As part of Operation Safe Mexico, aimed at confronting and combating “disputes between organized crime gangs,” the Mexican government will request “greater cooperation” from its counterpart in the United States to stop the smuggling of “latest generation” weapons that cross its border into national territory, a trade that is “only in the hands of companies and industry” of the northern country.

“As La Jornada reported yesterday, the organized crime gangs buy much of their armaments via the Internet. Through many different ports of entry, high-caliber guns and other equipment such as grenade launchers, rocket launchers, and offensive, defensive, and gas grenades.

“Presidential spokesman Rubén Aguilar admitted this fact yesterday. ‘The high-technology arms equipment that some of these gangs have comes from the United States.’ He said that he had already spoken with Washington, as ‘their collaboration is required.’”

So far, Washington is yet to make any public response. Though the Fox administration’s statements have been all over the Mexican media, the State department simply said yesterday that, “we have not received a request from the Government of Mexico about the issue of illegal arms trade on the border.”

“Poor Mexico,” goes a popular saying, “so far from God, so close to the United States.” Poor Mexico, across the river from the world’s biggest drug market, and the world’s biggest weapon supplier. How long can Mexico’s northern neighbor hope the evaporating Rio Grande to contain what its vices and counterproductive prohibitions have wrought?

About Dan Feder

Biography
I was a member of the Narco News team in various capacities, from webmaster to Editor-in-Chief, from 2002-2008. Since 2006 I have also been a member of the International Peace Observatory, which performs human rights accompaniment for Colombian campesino organizations in conflict zones. I am now living in Boston and working as a website developer for DigitalAid, Inc.

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Welcome to our nightmare

Submitted June 19, 2005 - 1:50 am by Bill Conroy
The militarization of the border is full throttle ahead.

The Houston Chronicle reports the following:

Gov. Rick Perry is beefing up law enforcement along the violence-plagued border with about 100 extra state troopers and $1.2 million for communications equipment.

"It will be a sizable enough contingent that the people who live there will see the increased security," said Kathy Walt, Perry's spokeswoman.

Two law enforcers with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also told Narco News that Customs and Border Patrol inspectors along the border have been "instructed to wear their (bullet-proof) vests."

This comes on top of news, according to another DHS source, that the Mexican government sent some 1,500 troops into Nuevo Laredo earlier this month.

Add to this the forces of the narco-traffickers -- including the paramilitary Zetas, the armed henchmen and the corrupt law enforcers -- and you have an explosive mixture baking in the 100 degree-plus summer weather that has touched down in Laredo/Nuevo Laredo.

Plus, there's the continuing media hype, the yellow journalism that seeks to light the fuse so the Sunday papers will sell.

And as evidence of that, we have the San Antonio Express-News, which in its Saturday paper, put the following blurb on its front-page:

COMING SUNDAY

MEXICO'S MOST WANTED

As notorious and glorified as Al Capone, the drug lord known simple as "El Chapo" directs the bloody turf war along the Mexico-U.S. border from mountain hideouts and caves.

Caves? Mountain hideouts? Osama, Osama, wherefore art thou?

The Express-News' Sunday "expose" promises to spin out the 21st Century Hearst Corp. script (remember the Spanish-American War?) for the new NARCO BORDER WAR!

I can hear the music now ... Bring in the clowns (err, tanks).

Is anybody going to have the guts in the government or mainstream media on either side of the border to be honest about how crazy all this is? The war on drugs has become the war on Laredo/Nuevo Laredo.

And do these forces of Prohibition – who seem to bask in the violence and “glorify” the syphilis-infected Capone imagery -- even really know what we're fighting over anymore? Is this war really about drugs, or is it a product of extreme capitalism -- where the dominate currency has now become bullets and blood?

One DHS official who spoke with Narco News put it this way: "Are we worried yet?"

Stay tuned....

War already here

Submitted June 20, 2005 - 10:23 am by Don Henry Ford Jr.
Drug wars' long shadow

Mexican cartels battle for key N. Texas hub

09:50 PM CDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005

By JASON TRAHAN, ERNESTO LONDOÑO and ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

The men were grilling steaks, drinking beer and shooting pool in the open garage of a West Oak Cliff home when the red car rolled up.

The driver approached them slowly that chilly night last December, walking past the motorized wooden reindeer bobbing in the front yard. It was nearly 12:30 a.m. on Sunday, and the holiday lights strung on the Mimi Court house shone dimly on his face.

No words were exchanged, and the man's motive wasn't immediately revealed. But his mission was clear.

"He pulled a weapon and began shooting," said Cesar Tinajero, a 29-year-old Fort Worth native who was at the house that night. "Twenty seconds later, I was on the floor and I couldn't move."

One man was dead and three were injured by the time the shooter fled.

But this was not a typical shooting in crime-ridden West Oak Cliff. It occurred at the home of Gilberto Lugo, who some authorities believe is a North Texas leader of the Juárez cartel, the most powerful and feared drug-trafficking gang in Mexico. Although injured, Mr. Lugo escaped.

For five years, the Juárez cartel has been battling its archrival, the Gulf cartel, for control of drug routes into the United States – a bloody feud that has turned parts of the Texas-Mexico border into a virtual war zone.

Most coveted of those routes is Interstate 35, which extends from the banks of the Rio Grande to the shores of Lake Superior.

Authorities fear that the growing border violence has moved up the I-35 corridor to Dallas, whose major roadways and airports make it among the most important drug distribution points in the country, drug authorities say. In early June, a federal task force arrested more than three dozen people, most of them in Dallas, in a major drug bust that officials said involved Mexican drug cartels...

Cartel enforcers operate in Dallas

Trained by U.S. Army, commandos oversee drug, alien smuggling

09:51 PM CDT on Saturday, June 18, 2005

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News

Elements of the Zetas, feared enforcers for the notorious Gulf drug cartel, have been operating in the Dallas area for at least two years, according to the Justice Department.

The original Zetas are former Mexican army commandos, some apparently trained in the U.S. by Army special forces to combat drug gangs. Members of a broader Zetas organization have worked for the Gulf cartel since 2001. They provide firepower, security and the force needed to oversee shipments of narcotics and smuggled aliens along the border and up Interstate 35.

According to FBI officials, the Zetas want to consolidate their control of the smuggling route along I-35 in Texas from Laredo to Dallas for the Gulf cartel. Anyone caught not paying the 10 percent commission they charge on all cargo – drugs or humans – is killed, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement sources.

The Zetas also specialize in settling scores with rival drug-trafficking organizations in Dallas and other cities, according to U.S. investigators and a Justice Department memo.

"Texas law enforcement officials report that the Zetas have been active in the Dallas area since 2003," said the March 15 Justice Department intelligence bulletin circulated among U.S. law enforcement officials. "Eight to ten members of the Zetas have been involved in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs in the area ... for contract killings."

In addition to Dallas, the Zetas are spreading fast from the Texas border region into Houston and San Antonio and into other states including California, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia and Florida, according to the Justice Department bulletin. The agency said it had also learned that the group has begun establishing its own trafficking routes into the United States and apparently will protect them at any cost.

"U.S. law enforcement have reported bounties offered by Los Zetas of between $30,000 and $50,000 for the killing of Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers," the bulletin said. "If a Zeta kills an American law enforcement officer and can successfully make it back to Mexico, his stature within the organization will be increased dramatically." ...

It's hard for me to believe

Submitted June 20, 2005 - 10:29 am by Don Henry Ford Jr.
that the Zetas would put a bounty on American drug agents. Their goal is to make money. Killing an American agent would bring problems they don't need and is counterproductive to their goal.

Just my opinion.

Yes, it is unbelievable

Submitted June 20, 2005 - 12:51 pm by Al Giordano
re, the Dallas Morning News claim:

U.S. law enforcement have reported bounties offered by Los Zetas of between $30,000 and $50,000 for the killing of Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement officers," the bulletin said. "If a Zeta kills an American law enforcement officer and can successfully make it back to Mexico, his stature within the organization will be increased dramatically."

The words betray themselves when they speak of "bounties offered BY Los Zetas." The author (Corchado) doesn't understand his own beat. The Zetas, his own newspaper has reported, are guns for hire to the highest bidder. They are part of the "service industry" of the drug war. They are freelance, not belonging to any particular smuggling faction. (Frankly, they would work for either government if paid more, or if offered official immunity and protection, just like the "house of death" assassin-informant, to do so... watch out, because if past is prologue that is what is coming next.)

Therefore, a claim that the Zetas offer bounties for anything is not credible. These guys are bounty hunters, not bounty offerers.

Of course, there are gossipy law enforcement agents to make that kind of shit up to make themselves seem more courageous. It's a great line for an officer trying to get laid in a bar. "Hey gorgeous! There's a bounty of $30,000 on my life! Come to my hotel room tonight because tomorrow I may die!" I'm sure it works splendidly with a certain kind of paramour. But it's total bullshit in the context of how an organization like the Zetas really works. It's just a self-promoting fantasy that a lazy reporter published as "fact."

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