Mexican Authorities Call Ammunition Found "Enough for a Battalion"
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.
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a.m. (Leon, Guanajuato), El Bravo (Matamoros, Tamaulipas), O.E.M. (a nationwide newspaper chain) & several others. 2/8/08

When a Mexican military patrol unit on the area along the lower Rio Grande river tried to stop an SUV at dawn Thursday, the driver fled and a chase ensued. When stopped, the driver admitted he was coming from a ranch where four other men were guarding a load of marihuana as well as some weapons. The military succeeded in making a stealthy approach, detained the four men and found the following:
- 89 long barrel firearms, predominantly AR-15 and AK-47 assault rifles
- five pistols
- a .30 caliber sub-machine gun said to fire 250 rounds per minute. The gun's tripod was included.
- silhouette targets
- "high capacity B-4 plastic explosive cartridge"
- 83,365 (eighty-three thousand, three hundred sixty-five) rounds of ammunition
- a ten (or three, depending on report) meter long slow burning fuse
- nine vehicles, including a Silverado with "level 5", four inch thick armor
- Nine tons of marihuana
- 235 clips
- a "great quantity" of black and camouflage uniforms

The "PGR" (Mex. Dep't. of Justice) said it was the largest haul of weapons seized in twenty years and added it was "enough for a battalion." The location was "El Mezquitito Ranch", in the "Municipio of Miguel Aleman." It was also described as at the kilometer 14 marker of the Reynosa-Miguel Aleman highway and also at Kilometer 8 of the Los Guerra-El Nogalito highway. (note: the Mexican city of Reynosa is just up river from Matamoros)
Today, the "PGR" building in Matamoros is sealed off by Mexican military and there is a news blackout.
(note: the photograph attachments to today's report show some of the arsenal seized)




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a.b.c. (Mexico City) 2/8/08

The Attorney General of Mexico, Eduardo Medina-Mora, said that "Public insecurity has become one of the most grave problems which afflict the society and without a doubt constitute one of the most urgent problems facing the Mexican nation."
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O.E.M. (nationwide paper chain) 2/8/08

In Zapopan, Jalisco, a satellite city to Guadalajara, police seized 25 kilos of opium paste, a prime component of heroin.
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El Debate (Culiacan, Sinaloa) 2/8/08

1. In Navolato, Sinaloa police commander and three other police officers had just stopped at a convenience store when several individuals arrived in a vehicle, got out and opened fire.
The patrol vehicle sustained 25 hits; along with debris from the shattered windows, "tens" of spent cartridges for AK-47 rifle were found. All four officers died on the spot. (note Navolato is just outside Culiacan, on Mexico's west coast across from the tip of the Baja peninsula).

2. In the township of Tepantita, in the area of Sinaloa de Leyva (east of Los Mochis, Sinaloa) a field of at least 49 acres was found planted with alternating rows of corn and marihuana. The weed was reportedly destroyed.
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El Diario (Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua) 2/8/08

1. (note: on Jan. 26, a tag board was placed on the city of Juarez' Monument to the Police; the tag board listed 17 members of the Juarez Police Department threatened with death by an organized crime group. Our report of 1/27/08 has more details)
This morning (Fri.) at 8 a.m. the house of one of the police officers previously named on that death threat list was hit with a volley of gunfire. The local media in Juarez was also furnished with a new list with the names and dates when other high ranking Juarez police officers could be murdered.
The list has one heading that says: "The ones still to come and who still do not believe." Nine names are underneath. The second heading reads: "And for the collectors of quotas." Four names are listed below that.

2. In the Diaz Ordaz sector of Juarez, the body of a man was dumped onto the street from a moving vehicle. He was wrapped in a blanket and had been killed elsewhere.
Then, in Chihuahua City, two men about to leave the Wal-Mart parking lot were riddled by assault rifle fire. Eighty-one "ballistic evidences" were found, most of them 7.62x39 empty cartridges.
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El Financiero (Mexico City) 2/8/08

1. The Banamex(Bank of Mexico)-Citigroup foresees that individual monetary remittances into Mexico will increase 3.2% this year, to reach some 24 billion 700 miilion dollars.

2. In Torreon, Coahuila, the bodies of two men and one woman were found in a car. Their hands had been tied and their eyes were covered with tape. Their bodies had "various bullet impacts."
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La Cronica de Hoy (Mexico City) 2/8/08

The Director of Public Security of Hidalgo, Michoacan, fell victim to at least a 70 round, car-to-car gunfire assault just a few minutes into today. That is the third fatal attack on law enforcement officials this year at that location.
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