Thread: 5 Illegals killed by Mexican Drug Gang, 4 arrested, Alabama

Alabama slayings:
Five suspects have been arrested in the Alabama slayings of five men believed to be illegal immigrants from Mexico. Investigators have described the slayings in Shelby County as contract killings carried out by a drug ring over at least $400,000 in missing money. The bodies of five men were found Aug. 20 inside an apartment. Investigators said the men had been bound with tape, beaten and shocked with an electrical current. Four of the victims had their throats slashed.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib ... xweek.html

They don't mess around. Kills me when they do this to their own and LaRaza goes balistic with "go home" as "racial terriorism" aimed at illegals.......withn that as normal common life, their "living in terror" here doesn't hold much water.

Four arrested in Shelby County slayings; one victim had drug trafficking charge

Tuesday, August 26, 2008
MALCOMB DANIELS
News staff writer

Four men were charged with capital murder Monday in connection with the slayings of five men found dead in a north Shelby County apartment nearly a week ago.

Charged are Alejandros Castaneda, 31, of Birmingham; Juan Fransisco Castaneda, 25, of Birmingham; Jaime Duenas Rodriguez, 22, of San Antonio; and Christopher Scott Jones, 40, of Birmingham.
Each faces two counts of capital murder - murder for consideration and murder of two or more persons. All are in the Shelby County Jail under no bond.

Two persons of interest in the case are being sought, and the investigation remains open, the Shelby County Sheriff's Office said in a news release issued Monday night.

The news release also stated that Sheriff Chris Curry wants the "residents of Shelby County to know he is confident that the suspects in custody are responsible for this crime and that it was not a random act."

The five victims were found Wednesday night at a Cahaba Lakes apartment off U.S. 280. They had been bound, and their throats had been cut.

Three of the men have been identified as Armando Lopez, 24; Ezequiel Rebollar-Perrban, 23; and Jaime Echeverria, 30. Shelby County Coroner Diana Hawkins said Monday the other two men have been tentatively identified and her office is trying to reach their relatives.

The Sheriff's Office announced the arrests after executing four search warrants in the Center Point area Monday, with the assistance of other local, state and federal investigators. The warrants were executed at the following locations:

A residence in the 1800 block of Centerbrook Lane.
A residence in the 100 block of Foxhill Court NW.
Castaneda's Tire.
People's Choice Barber Shop.

The Sheriff's Department said that, with the help of others, it was able to identify suspects and a motive for the slayings. Capt. Ken Burchfield declined to discuss that motive, saying the Sheriff's Department has a news conference scheduled for 9 this morning in Columbiana.

Burchfield confirmed that shortly before 7 a.m. Monday, a Shelby County deputy asked for assistance from the Jefferson County sheriff's office in looking for a person of interest in connection with the homicides. The report said the man would be driving a black Dodge Durango truck. Authorities provided no further information on that search.

Meanwhile, one of the men found dead was facing a drug-trafficking charge in Jefferson County, court records show.

Armando Lopez, listed in court records as a transient, was charged on June 1 in Birmingham and released June 24 from the Jefferson County Jail on $100,000 bond. His bond initially was set at $1 million. Tim Arnold, who represented Lopez in the Jefferson County drug case, declined comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Lt. Henry Irby, spokesman for the Birmingham Police Department, said he didn't know if the Jefferson County drug charges were related to the Shelby County slayings and declined to talk about the Shelby County case.

According to an affidavit/warrant sought by Birmingham police on May 30, Lopez "did knowingly sell, manufacture, deliver or bring into this state, or was knowingly under constructive possession of 28 grams or more, but less than 500 grams of cocaine or of a mixture containing cocaine."

The Jefferson County district attorney's office had filed a civil suit seeking to seize a 1989 Cadillac and $1,201 Lopez had in his possession when he was taken into custody by Birmingham police on May 29. Prosecutors say the money was drug money. That case is still pending.
Efforts to reach the Jefferson County prosecutor who handled Lopez's drug case were unsuccessful. The case was sent to a grand jury on July 14 after Lopez waived a preliminary hearing.

Court records also show that Lopez pleaded guilty in Marshall County on May 15 to speeding, having no insurance and driving without a license.
Lopez was listed as having an address in the 4400 block of Bessemer Super Highway when he was stopped April 2 on the traffic charges. News staff writers Toraine Norris and Jeremy Gray contributed to this report. mdaniels@bhamnews.com

http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/i ... xml&coll=2

Victims shocked, beaten in drug-linked contract killing

Wednesday, August 27, 2008
JEREMY GRAY and MALCOMB DANIELS
News staff writers

Five men found slain last week in a north Shelby County apartment were beaten and shocked in a brutal murder-for-hire related to drugs and money, authorities said Tuesday.

Four men have been charged with capital murder in the slayings, which Shelby County Sheriff Chris Curry described during a news conference as being connected to a drug organization that transports cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. All the suspects either received or paid money in connection with the slayings, he said.

Curry did not say how much the men were alleged to have been paid to do the killings, but he said the slayings may have been in retaliation for embezzling money from the drug organization. He said there are no books to check, but authorities believe the amount was in the neighborhood or $400,000 to $450,000, based on what they have been told.

"It revolves around money, and that money revolves around drugs," Curry said.
Curry said others may have been targeted for death and fled before authorities discovered the bodies.

The bodies of Angel Horacio Vega-Gonzalez, 23, and his brother Gustavo Vega-Gonzalez, also known as Armando Lopez, 24; Ezequiel Rebollar-Terevan, 23; Jaime Echeverria, 30; and a fifth unidentified victim were discovered last Wednesday at Cahaba Lakes apartments off U.S. 280.
Investigators believe that on Aug. 17 - three days before the discovery - the men were beaten and tortured with electric shocks, and their throats were cut, the sheriff said.

Shelby County Coroner Diana Hawkins said her office is awaiting dental records to positively identify the fifth victim. Arrangements have been made by families to have the other four shipped to Mexico, Hawkins said.

4 jailed, no bond:
Four men were arrested Monday and charged with capital murder in the case: Alejandros Castaneda, 31, and Juan Francisco Castaneda, 25, brothers who live in Birmingham; Rodriguez Jaime Duenas, 22, of San Antonio; and Christopher Scott Jones, 40, of Birmingham. All are in the Shelby County Jail under no bond.


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Arrest warrants released Tuesday had different spellings for names of some of the suspects and victims th an information released earlier.
Jones pleaded guilty to a drug charge in Jefferson County in 1997, court records show. Lopez, one of the victims, was facing a drug trafficking charge in Jefferson County.

Two persons of interest are being sought, authorities said.
The suspects are each charged with killing the five victims by electrocuting, stabbing, suffocating or beating, or by any combination of those methods, according to arrest warrants filed Tuesday.

Rewards totaling $30,000 remain for information leading to the capture and conviction of those responsible.

Robby Owens, a district attorney for 25 years, thought when he first saw the inside of the town house where the men were discovered that the crime could not have happened there. He soon realized that the crime did happen in the apartment, but said the crime scene was "well-manicured" by the suspects.

"This was the cleanest crime scene I've ever walked on," Owens said.
He said the men were shocked via a wall socket.

Curry said he was not certain how long the suspects had been in the Birmingham area. Court records show Duenas and Juan Castaneda were in the area as far back as 2006.
Three of the four suspects are believed to be from Mexico and are in the country illegally, Curry said.

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Locating them was difficult because they often have more than one residence and use more than one name, he said. A flood of tips came in via e-mail and phone calls, Curry said, helping police piece together what happened.

An early hurdle:
"We had five people, we didn't know who they were, why they were there," Curry said. "It took a significant amount of time to get past that hurdle."

Owens said he was pleased that suspects were in custody five days after the bodies were discovered. "If you commit this kind of crime, we're going to catch you," he said.
On Tuesday afternoon, the four suspects appeared before Shelby County Circuit Judge J. Michael Joiner for a hearing conducted via video teleconference.

Because three of the men required the assistance of an interpreter, the hearings, which usually last about 15 minutes each, took nearly two hours.

Ray Mayfield, a retired University of Montevallo professor of Spanish, assisted both of the Castanedas and Duenas by interpreting the judge's questions and explaining the charges they faced.

Duenas and Alejandros Castaneda told Joiner they did not do anything to be charged with capital murder, and Duenas added: "I don't know why two charges when I didn't do anything."
Alejandros Castaneda added: "I was out of town when this happened, so how can I be charged?"
News staff writer Nancy Wilstach contributed to this report. jgray@bhamnews.com

http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/storie ... thispage=1

Cartels unleash violence in region

Hispanic gangs now seen entrenched

08/31/2008
It was not just a crime. It was a message. When five men were shocked, beaten, bound and their throats slashed in a Shelby County apartment this month, that message was barbarically clear, law enforcement officials say. Disloyalty and betrayal o...
- Birmingham News (AL)
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Mexican and Central American drug gangs said to be operating in the Birmingham area

Hispanic gangs now seen entrenched

Sunday, August 31, 2008
CAROL ROBINSON
News staff writer
It was not just a crime. It was a message.
When five men were shocked, beaten, bound and their throats slashed in a Shelby County apartment this month, that message was barbarically clear, law enforcement officials say.
Disloyalty and betrayal of the family - the organized crime family - will be cut out quickly and savagely.

Authorities say the crime also signals a broader message to the people of Birmingham and its metropolitan area: Mexican and Central American drug gangs operate here, and more incidents of such violence could follow.
"It's sort of a wake-up call to people who believe this kind of thing is not going on in Birmingham," said Greg Borland, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Alabama. The multiple slaying was "horrible ... but it was only a matter of time because of the increasing prevalence in Alabama."
"People have been allowed to believe these organizations don't exist here, and I think a lot of people preferred to think that," Borland said. "The reality is, they are everywhere."
The Shelby County slayings are linked to a feud over money between Birmingham and Atlanta factions of Mexican drug cartels, authorities say, and while the level of violence in the Cahaba Lakes killings was stunning by any measure, it was a clear sign that those highly organized drug trafficking operations - and their brutality - are rising here.
Such violence is more typically found in areas where the drug trade is deeply rooted - big cities and in areas along the drug pipeline. Just last week, 11 decapitated bodies were found near the Mexican city of Merida, and authorities in El Paso, Texas, heightened security along the U.S.-Mexican border, warning that cartels had authorized hits on their enemies in the United States.
The spreading violence in Mexico, authorities say, could translate into more problems anywhere there is cartel activity.
Closer by, in the Atlanta area, drug violence associated with the cartels also has escalated.
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Gwinnett County, just northeast of Atlanta and one of the fastest-growing counties in the U.S., has recorded about nine drug-related kidnappings this year, including a man who was bound and chained in a basement in the town of Lilburn.
No immunity here:
"We're not going to be immune from it," said Greg Bowden, acting assistant special agent in charge of the FBI's Birmingham division.

That couldn't have been more clear on Aug. 20, when authorities found the bodies of Angel Horacio Vega-Gonzalez, 23, and his brother Gustavo Vega-Gonzalez, also known as Armando Lopez, 24; Ezequiel Rebollar-Terevan, 23; Jaime Echeverria, 30; and a fifth man, whose identity has not been confirmed, inside a Cahaba Lakes apartment off U.S. 280 in Alabama's wealthiest and fastest-growing county.
Investigators said they believe that on Aug. 17, three days before the bodies were found, the men were beaten and tortured with electric shocks and their throats slit.
Four men have been arrested and charged with capital murder in the slayings. Two more suspects remain at large.
Authorities said the slayings were connected to drug factions in Birmingham and Atlanta that transport cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana.
The killings, they said, may have been in retaliation for missing money - roughly $450,000 - from one of the drug organizations. Investigators said others may have been targeted for death and fled the area before authorities discovered the bodies.
Some of the victims were involved in the drug trade and targeted for murder; at least one was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, investigators say.
Armando Bello, a spokesman for the Mexico Consulate in Atlanta, said they had not seen anything like the Shelby County slayings in recent years. The number of people killed and the way they died was a cause for concern for Consul General Salvador De Lara, Bello said.
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DEA's Borland said the extreme violence displayed in the Shelby County case is indicative of the high stakes.
"We see as you're higher up on the food chain, you see a lot more significant levels of violence because the amount of money is so much higher, and the profit motive becomes greater," he said. "The value of a life is less when you consider that type of money.
"When they perceive a person who is a part of their organization has betrayed them or has been disloyal, they react in violent ways," Borland said. "It's meant to punish and to send a message to anyone in the future. In their mind, they've got to be able to demonstrate there's no amount of money worth going against the organization."

Cartel presence:
There is a fairly significant presence of cartel cells operating independently in Birmingham and in concert with those in Atlanta, Borland said. For about five years, authorities have seen some cartel cells in Atlanta, metropolitan Birmingham and north Alabama working together.
"The number of organizations are certainly not at the level they are in Atlanta," he said, "but any one cell here is as violent and dangerous as any one cell in Atlanta."
Often, he said, the organizations associated with Atlanta operate in Alabama because there is less scrutiny on them here, less law enforcement attention.
"They hide in rural areas where they are close enough to transact in the urban areas," Borland said.
Bowden said the increase in organized Mexican trafficking naturally correlates with the growing population of Mexican nationals in north Alabama, which law enforcement officials estimate to be in the hundreds of thousands.
The National Drug Intelligence Center lists Alabama cities reporting the presence of Mexican drug organizations as Albertville, Birmingham, Decatur, Dothan, Huntsville, Mobile and Montgomery.
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Federal officials here say they've received intelligence about the presence of the Gulf Cartel, an organization based in Matamoros, in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, and the Juarez Cartel, based in Juarez, in Chihuahuastate.
While the hub of the cartel activities are in Atlanta, the Carolinas and other neighboring states, they routinely pass through here, and sometimes stop and stay, even if temporarily.
"Once the competition gets too hot, say in Atlanta, it's feasible for them to set up shop in our area," Bowden said. And the illegal activity continues.

"If that's what you do for a living, you don't go back to doing volunteer work at the hospital while waiting for the other cartel to move out," he said.
No pattern - yet:
It's not going to get better, Bowden said. But he and other federal authorities agree that what happened in Shelby County - five killed in one fell swoop - is an aberration, at least for now.
"To see that again? No," Bowden said. "But we are going to see other murders."
Jim Sullivan, assistant U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, agreed.
"This one was quite unusual," he said. "Whether this is the beginning of something, I hope not. We have been fortunate in the Northern District as far as violence goes."
Sullivan said a lot of drugs are coming through the Northern District from the Southwest, but said sometimes it's difficult to track it back to cartels unless those involved start talking. He said the Department of Justice has a program called the Consolidated Priority Organizations Targets, and all federal investigators watch for activity linked to those targets.
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"On occasion, we may see somebody who is very small on the totem pole, but the main players are in Mexico and Colombia," he said. "Every district has seen some, but the smart main players stay across the border."
"In Atlanta, it's been a growing thing with them. We're seeing what they saw eight to 10 years ago, whether it's black street gangs or MS-13," Bowden said. "There is a little bit of a lag."
MS-13, short for Mara Salvatrucha, is an El Savadorian gang with membership in the tens of thousands. Their cliques, or factions, are located throughout the United States and Central America.

The FBI's Field Intelligence Group does crime surveys with all local law enforcement agencies, monitoring drug prices, which are an indication of supply and demand, as well as watching other trends, such as graffiti.
A language barrier:
One of the biggest obstacles area officers and agents face is the language barrier.
Some estimate the number of Spanish-speaking residents in the Birmingham-metropolitan area up to 150,000 - far higher than U.S. Census numbers, with fewer than a dozen police officers fluent in Spanish among some 2,000 area law enforcement officers.
Some departments in recent years have made efforts to do better, seeking Spanish-speaking officers and dispatchers, but the gap continues to widen.
"I am requesting that the next agents we get in here speak Spanish, if that tells you anything," said the FBI's Bowden. Only two FBI agents in Birmingham are fluent in Spanish.
He said he is also trying to launch a Mexican Violent Crime Reaction team comprising Spanish-speaking officers and agents, a one-stop shop ready and willing to help all law enforcement agencies should the need arise.
In essence, authorities are hoping for the best and preparing for the worst.
"Hopefully this is that rare occasion that it hit the Northern District, and we are not anticipating escalation," Sullivan said. "The DEA, FBI and the locals are prepared to address it if it happens." News staff writer Malcomb Daniels contributed to this report. crobinson@bhamnews.com
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This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.al.com/birminghamnews/storie ... xml&coll=2

A 5th suspect has been arrested, and he, like the 5 dead and the 4 others arrested, is also an ILLEGAL alien.