NAFBPO Report 5-9-08

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS
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Foreign News Report

The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican and Central and South American on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you credit NAFBPO as being the provider.

El Universal (Mexico City) 5/9/08

(1st paragraph of the main editorial) :

"The execution of Edgar Millan Gomez, Regional Security Coordinator of the Federal Preventive Police, is the latest evidence that the country is facing a real war against organized crime, especially the drug cartels."

In a related article elsewhere in the same paper, there is a report that an internal investigation has begun into this slaying, since only a few insiders at the "PFP" (Fed. Prev. Police) knew of Millan's whereabouts and itinerary.

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a.b.c. (Mexico City) 5/9/08

In his column titled "High Tension Line", Juan Gonzalez Carbajal writes:

"The executions which have taken place in the last days against police chiefs are unstoppable; they even include those of the military who have joined the struggle against narcotraffic. We informed you yesterday on the pages of El Vespertino that a strongly armed commando waited for the SSPF (Fed. Public Security Dep't.) operations chief Edgar Millan Gomez in his own home and massacred him without mercy at his home in Colonia Guerrero of the Distrito Federal. The shots they gave him show the assailants were professionals since most of the shots were right into his face. But there have been more executions in Tijuana, which seems like a no-man's land, as well as in Nezahualcoyotl, Sinaloa, Mexicali, Reynosa, Jalisco and Michoacan. They can't even stop narcotraffic with the army, which seems to be infiltrated throughout."

A high level meeting took place at the Dep't. of Government in Mexico City to coordinate and reinforce efforts against organized crime in the state of Sinaloa. Attending were Mexico's Secretaries of Government and of Defense, the Attorney General, Sinaloa's Federal Deputy (read: Congressman) as well as Sinaloa's Att'y. Gen. the Sec. of Government and the Mayor of Culiacan.

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El Debate (Culiacan, Sinaloa) , El Financiero (Mexico City) 5/9/08

Last night (Thurs.) three young men were at a supermarket parking lot in Culiacan when unknown subjects arrived in several cars and riddled them with "goat's horns" (read: AK47 assault rifles) and even fired a bazooka. Two of the young men died on the spot; the third one died at a local hospital. Twenty-five vehicles at the parking lot were damaged by the gunfire and police later found "at least five hundred 7.62 x 39 shell casings used for AK47 and a pistol."

A separate article said that official sources confirmed that one of the dead was Edgar Beltran, who is one of the sons of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel.

Esteban Robles Espinosa, head of the anti-kidnapping unit of the Judicial Police of the Distrito Federal, was shot twice on the head, once on the neck and once on the chest as he left his home and was airlifted to a hospital where he was pronounced dead. According to reports his killers awaited him as left his home. This marks the fourth execution of a high ranking law enforcement person within the last ten days in Mexico City.

On Andres Bello St., in Polanco, Mexico City, two Mexican Senators were being chauffered last night in a vehicle which was stuck in traffic. Then they were threatened and assaulted at gun point by street thugs. Both had wrist watches - each worth 20,000 pesos - taken away. One had his wallet robbed. One was hit on the face.

Following last Monday's execution of Miguel Angel Santacruz Armendariz, the state of Sinaloa's Ministerial Police investigations coordinator (our report of 5/7/08 relates), now the director and also the 2nd in command of the State Ministerial Police have resigned because of death threats they received on the same day as Santacruz's killing. They were asked to stay until replacements could be found and are completing paperwork at an undisclosed location. Fifteen agents have been executed in the last 38 days, six have been kidnapped and their whereabouts are unknown. Five others have been wounded after being ambushed.

The main editorial once again deals with the insecurity wave and ends by saying: "The magnitude of the problem which Sinaloa faces requires drastic actions and it is hoped that the federal security operations will have good results because the reestablishment of security is urgent."

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El Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 5/9/08

The number of police officers murdered in Juarez in 2008 has already surpassed the total for all of 2007. Sixteen officers have been executed on this border this year compared to the fourteen which took place in 2007.

A shootout last night (Thurs.) in Juarez between police and "an armed commando" just one block from the Paso del Norte international border crossing resulted in two dead and four wounded, three of the latter police officers. It all started at 10:30 p.m. when a group of thugs tried to kidnap several people at a night spot; a struggle ensued and police passing by on bicycles joined the affray. Two cab drivers were killed and the assailants fled in 3 vehicles. A bit earlier elsewhere in Juarez, a man died after a car-to-car gunfire assault. And six other persons suffered gunshot wounds in various other events around Juarez.

This morning (Fri.) three Juarez police officers in a patrol unit were the victims of yet another car-to-car gunfire assault. All three were hospitalized at the "Star Medica" which has been surrounded by police to prevent a further attack on the three.

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El Imparcial (Hermosillo, Sonora) 5/9/08

Four men fled when they became aware of the presence of a military patrol unit in Nogales, Sonora. The military then found four tires which the four left behind. The tires has six molds with 18 packages of cocaine weighing 9 kgs., 800 gms.; there was also a press to compact the drug. The site is at the corner of Paraje & Miramar Sts., Colonia Encinas.

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La Cronica (Mexicali, Baja Calif.) 5/9/08

The boss of a gang of kidnappers who held a pair of local area businessmen sequestered for more than three weeks has been identified as Cristian Castro Reyes, who was a Tijuana police officer up to Aug., 2007.

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Frontera (Tijuana, Baja Calif.) 5/9/08

Some 35 Tijuana Ministerial Police officers were handed their dismissal papers and had their weapons and all other police gear and equipment taken away. One of them had threatened the person who had administered his polygraph test.

Six suitcases loaded with shoulder and hand weapons, ammo, cocaine and bullet proof vests with police insignia were seized by military personnel in Tijuana (from El Porvenir, Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, 5/9/0

And 25 Salvadorans & Guatemalans (including 7 minors) plus their three "polleros" were detained by Mex. federal agents on the Chihuahua to Nuevo Casas Grandes highway. They were on their way to Los Chepas, near Columbus, N.M.

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Entorno a Tamaulipas (Matamoros, Tamps.) 5/9/08

Near a checkpoint after a short pursuit near Camargo, Tamaulipas (right across the Rio Grande from Rio Grande City, TX): two tons, 160 kgs. of weed.

http://www.americanpatrol.com/MISCNEWS/ ... 0-News.htm