Here's very disturbing news: narco-commandos operating with impunity on both sides of the border with Mexico.
A renegade band of Mexican military deserters, offering $50,000 bounties for the assassination of U.S. law-enforcement officers, has expanded its base of operations into the United States to protect loads of cocaine and marijuana being brought into America by Mexican smugglers, authorities said.The deserters, known as the "Zetas," trained in the United States as an elite force of anti-drug commandos, but have since signed on as mercenaries for Mexican narcotics traffickers and have recruited an army of followers, many of whom are believed to be operating in Texas, Arizona, California and Florida.
Working mainly for the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico's most dangerous drug-trafficking organizations, as many as 200 Zeta members are thought to be involved, including former Mexican federal, state and local police. They are suspected in more than 90 deaths of rival gang members and others, including police officers, in the past two years in a violent drug war to control U.S. smuggling routes.
The organization's hub, law-enforcement authorities said, is Nuevo Laredo, a border city of 300,000 across from Laredo, Texas. It is the most active port-of-entry along the U.S.-Mexico border, with more than 6,000 trucks crossing daily into Texas, carrying about 40 percent of Mexico's total exports.
Authorities said the Zetas operate over a wide area of the U.S.-Mexico border and are suspected in at least three drug-related slayings in the Dallas area. They said as many as 10 Zeta members are operating inside Texas as Gulf Cartel assassins, seeking to protect nearly $10 million in daily drug transactions.In March, the Justice Department said the Zetas were involved "in multiple assaults and are believed to have hired criminal gangs" in the Dallas area for contract killings. The department said the organization was spreading from Texas to California and Florida and was establishing drug-trafficking routes it was willing to protect "at any cost."
U.S. intelligence officials have described the Zetas as an expanding gang of mercenaries with intimate knowledge of Mexican drug-trafficking methods and routes. Strategic Forecasting Inc., a security consulting firm that often works with the State and Defense departments, said in a recent report the Zetas had maintained "connections to the Mexican law-enforcement establishment" to gain unfettered access throughout the southern border.
This follows last week's incident in Nuevo Laredo where a mysterious military-style confrontation erupted and caused the U.S. consulate to be closed.
Warring Mexican gangs stepped up the urban battle in Nuevo Laredo late last week, prompting the U.S. ambassador in Mexico City to close the consulate in this border town that terrorized citizens compare to a war zone in Baghdad.The pitched battle -- with bazookas and grenades -- was so fierce that after the shooting a house at the fighting's center was riddled with holes the size of melons. Part of it had collapsed. A building across the street was pocked with holes, indicating a response with heavy weapons. Hundreds of bullet casings from AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons littered the street. Cars, many with Texas plates, lay like victims, their windows shattered and their bodies scourged by bullet holes.
Tony Garza, the U.S. ambassador called the battle, ''an alarming incident'' that involved ''unusually advanced weaponry'' and said the consulate will remain closed at least until Aug. 8.
For more than 30 minutes Thursday, the sharp report of automatic weapons fire, punctuated by thumping explosions, could be heard throughout this city. After the fighting had ended, the street where the confrontation had taken place bore all the signs of combat.
There was no official police version of the events. Police said no one had been injured or killed, but splotches of blood stained the streets when a reporter and photographer arrived minutes after the shooting stopped.
Apparently the drug gangsters have decided that American victims aren't enough to satisfy their appetite for money and power.
In Mexico, which has been a pipeline for drugs into the United States for years, some trafficking gangs now are diverting narcotics for sale in Mexican cities, leaving at least 1 million Mexicans addicted to heroin, cocaine and other illegal hard drugs. Small-time gangsters are kidnapping, robbing and killing one another for the money earned from the growing market for street drugs, and users trying to overcome their dependencies are filling substance-abuse clinics."(Domestic drug dealing) has generated its own pool of violence," said Gilberto Higuera, one of Mexico's top drug prosecutors. "It's a threat to public safety — a cancer."
Across Mexico, 700 drug-related slayings have been recorded since Jan. 1. Although the statistics do not break down the percentage related to the so-called retail drug trade, that number is believed to be substantial. For instance, about one in seven narcotics-related killings in Nuevo Laredo since Jan. 1 was connected to street drug deals. In Sinaloa state, the scene of some of the country's most brutal drug violence, officials say disputes over street narcotics have accounted for about 100 of its 300 drug-related slayings this year.
"We are seeing a new generation of totally ruthless gangsters," said Mercedes Murillo, a Sinaloa human rights activist. "Now they will kill someone over as little as $500."
Drug crime, violence, corruption, rampant smuggling of humans and contraband: despite its potential, Mexico is a growing security and economic threat.
Posted by Alan at August 1, 2005 06:53 AM