Thread: Mexican turf war spills into U.S.

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Mexican turf war spills into U.S.

Web Posted: 02/23/2006 12:00 AM CST
Angela Kocherga
KENS 5 Eyewitness News


The murder rate in Nuevo Laredo set a new record since the start of the year. The Mexican city is the site of a bloody turf battle between rival drug cartels.

Now there are concerns the drug cartels may be exploiting their cross border ties to stage an attack against rivals in Mexico.

Mexican soldiers have been posted at the entrance to 11 international bridges linking the state of Texas to Mexico, in the past few days they've been seen in Nuevo Laredo checking vehicles heading into Texas.

A border checkpoint is set up without warning in Mexico. The soldiers search northbound vehicles heading to Laredo.

They're looking for weapons, contraband, but also criminals who work for drug cartels locked in a battle to control the lucrative smuggling route that cuts through the sister cities.

"This is the best trade route in the whole country, in the nation and in both countries, so of course it's going to pass through Laredo," Laredo Mayor Betty Flores said.

Now there are signs traffickers may be using Laredo as a staging ground in their drug war.

"They have people working on both sides of the border. It's impossible for you to run a criminal organization without having people on the other side," Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores said.

Some of those people may have been working from a Laredo home where investigators found a small arsenal of high-powered weapons and homemade bombs, bulletproof vests, police scanners and cash.

Sources say the explosives and weapons found in one Laredo home were likely going to be used by drug traffickers against their rivals in Mexico, where the cartels are waging a bloody turf war.

Violence in Nuevo Laredo is at a record high. Murders are double the rate this time last year.

They include brazen attacks. Gunmen last week stormed an emergency room to finish off a 17-year-old they had tried to shoot earlier in the day.

Nuevo Laredo's police chief and others in U.S. law enforcement say young hitmen who are U.S. citizens evade the law by crossing the International Bridge.

They say there's evidence some of the contracts are carried out on U.S. soil. In December, a man was gunned down at a Laredo restaurant in front of his family. And just last week another man was shot in a movie theater parking lot.

"And we have had our fair share of shootings and homicides on this side that are somehow connected to the narco and human smuggling trafficking that's going on along the Texas-Mexican border," Rick Flores said.

However, the mayor of Laredo says her community should not be singled out and that drug violence is found in many cities. "In Dallas and in Houston and in New York and in every place," Betty Flores said.

Even so, the bloodshed on this side of the border is unprecedented. More than 170 people were killed in Nuevo Laredo last year. This year could be worse if the current trend continues. There have been 30 murders since January

I can't figure out why anyone thinks this is news. This sort of thing has been going on for a number of years, not only in Laredo/Nuevo Laredo but in El Paso/Juarez, San Diego/Tijuana, and other border towns.