Thread: Mexican evangelical drug boss killed in raid

Mexican evangelical drug boss killed in raid

By Miguel Garcia Miguel Garcia – 7 mins ago

APATZINGAN (Reuters) – Mexican security forces killed a top leader of the cult-like La Familia drug cartel, the government said on Friday, relieving some pressure on President Felipe Calderon in his flagging drug war.

Nazario Moreno, known as "The Craziest One," was killed in a shootout late on Thursday in Calderon's home state of Michoacan in western Mexico where La Familia (The Family) controls methamphetamine trafficking and marijuana fields and operates extortion rings.

"Diverse pieces of information obtained during the raid all indicate that Nazario Moreno Gonzalez was killed yesterday," national security spokesman Alejandro Poire said. Officials said he was "the spiritual leader" of the cartel.

Moreno ran La Familia with a pseudo-religious philosophy preaching Bible scripture mixed with self-help slogans to prevent gang members from abusing drugs, while promoting a mystique unique among Mexican gangs by claiming to protect the local population. The cartel, founded in 2000, was known for its brutality, breaking onto the public stage four years ago by tossing severed heads into a disco in the town of Uruapan.

Calderon launched his army-backed drug war in Michoacan soon after taking office in 2006 and faces growing criticism across Mexico that the crackdown is not working. Some 33,000 people have been killed in drug violence over the past four years, worrying Washington and some investors who are freezing investment just as Mexico pulls out of a recession.

Violence flared on Wednesday night in Michoacan when federal police and security forces streamed into the town of Apatzingan, responding to an anonymous call reporting the presence of armed men.

At least 11 people were killed as security forces fought cartel members in ensuing street battles, including three civilians and five police officers. Local media reported gang members were stealing dozens of cars and setting them on fire to create roadblocks and chaos across the state during the clashes. The authorities did not specify exactly where Moreno was killed.

On Friday, some 300 heavily armed marines moved into the remote areas around Apatzingan, the scene of some of the worst violence, but the town was quiet in the afternoon, with most shops closed and people afraid to go out in the streets.

Michoacan's governor called for calm as police towed charred vehicles away from roads. "The advance of federal forces has sent the criminals into retreat," Poire said.

PUBLIC RELATIONS VICTORY?

A fervent evangelical Christian, Moreno, 40, was born in Apatzingan and was one of the original founders of La Familia, responsible for dozens of murders, according to official data.

He was believed to own several properties in the region and have businesses in Reynosa, across from McAllen, Texas. The gang was involved in a network of black market businesses, including pirated merchandise and the illegal sale of iron ore for export to countries like China.

With a $2.4 million bounty on his head in Mexico and wanted in the United States, Moreno is the second drug kingpin to be killed in just over a month. Marines killed the Gulf cartel's Ezequiel "Tony Tormenta" Cardenas on November 5 in northeastern Mexico.

"What we have seen in the past three years is ... that the assassination of criminal leaders has only created more violence and has not disarticulated organized crime," independent security analyst Alberto Islas said.

Adalberto Santana, a drug trade expert at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, said Moreno was likely to be quickly replaced.

"Business is business and Moreno's death won't stop drug smuggling or drug violence. Only policies that stop U.S. demand and help alleviate Mexico's poverty will do that," he said.

"This is a public relations victory for Calderon, little more."

Other La Familia leaders, including Servando "The Prof" Gomez, are still at large.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101211/wl_ ... xico_drugs

Jesus, meth and masculinity

A brutal Mexican drug gang is using an American evangelical's theories of masculinity to inspire its recruits.

One of the most astonishing religious stories on the web at the moment comes from Mexico, where a particularly brutal and feared drug gang, La Familia Michoacana, has been buying up the works of a Colorado evangelical, John Eldredge, and making new recruits read them as part of their induction process.

According to Religion News Service, "Family values and religion are emphasized during the recruitment process, [to La Familia] which includes daily group prayer sessions and mandatory readings."

Then they get taught to chop people's heads off; that is the signature of the gang. All the Mexican drug gangs are notoriously violent, but La Familia is the only one to use decapitation so much that the local Catholic clergy have had to get guidelines for burying bodies without their heads attached. There have been twenty in one town alone this year.

La Familia's leader, known as El Más Loco (the craziest one) started off as a small-time assassin, but dealing cocaine in the USA in the 90s was very impressed by the evangelical preachers he heard. Since then the gang has grown until it now supplies about half the the $20bn methamphetamine market in the USA.

El Más Loco wrote his own little book of Thoughts (vanity published, but no doubt he got very good terms from the publishers) but he is also greatly impressed by John Eldredge's book Wild at Heart.

"Eldredge's theology is based on a 'muscular' view of Christianity, one that emphasizes an 'authentic masculinity' that has been lost" according to Religion News Service. You can download from his website some of the talks he gives:

"Ask the men you know to name their favorite movies. Nine times out of ten, they will be stories of great battles, fought against desperate odds.

Watch little boys at play. They nearly always wind up acting out their dreams to be a Hero in the midst of great battles.

God set this desire in the heart of every man because every man will find himself in a great battle. The Bible promises it is so. We live in a world at war, an epic struggle of good and evil begun before the dawn of time. Learning how to fight in this battle is essential for every man."

Eldredge is of course horrified by the use to which his book has been put by La Familia, and there is something disturbing about the way in which American suburban fantasies of manliness are used by real killers: it's like finding that the Taliban drive Chelsea tractors.

But the most interesting thing is that Wild At Heart is part of a much larger programme of discipline among the gangsters. Although they are often recruited in prison or rehab, they are forbidden to use drugs themselves They are forbidden, too, to sell drugs to natives of their own province. The penalties are savage, if sometimes stopping short of death.

They announced themselves in 2006, rolling five severed heads onto a dance floor, accompanied by a card which read:

"La Familia doesn't kill for money, doesn't kill women, doesn't kill innocent people. It only kills those who deserve to die. Everyone should know this: Divine justice."

This isn't exactly moral behaviour, but it isn't complete anarchy, either. And it is theoretically important. The Cognition and Culture theorists of religion, whom I wrote about last week, have as their main enemies the "functionalist" school who believe religion is not a byproduct but a useful form of social organisation which holds people together as nothing else can.

Functionalists would love this story. Religious techniques are used by La Familia to knit together people who may have no knowledge of their biological families into a much larger group of fictive kin, whose link is other people's blood that they have spilled.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ristianity

It looks like La Familia only deals hard dope, like Speed, Heroin, and Opium to Americans. Wow! Gee, I wonder why!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101213/ap_ ... war_mexico

Mexicans march in support of 'Craziest' kingpin
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By GUSTAVO RUIZ, Associated Press Gustavo Ruiz, Associated Press – 42 mins ago
MORELIA, Mexico – A peace march called by local authorities in western Mexico turned into a show of support for a slain drug lord Sunday, with adults and children carrying signs lauding the capo known for handing out Bibles to the poor.

Hundreds of people turned out for the march in Apatzingan, the birth place of La Familia cartel leader Nazario Moreno, who was known as "The Craziest One" and reputedly indoctrinated his gang members in pseudo-Christian ideology.

The government says Moreno was killed in Apatzingan on Thursday in a shootout with federal police. The hunt for Moreno and other La Familia leaders set off two days of battles in key parts of Michoacan state, with cartel gunmen using torched cars and buses to blockade highways. At least 11 other people were killed, including a baby and a teenage girl.

The Apatzingan government convoked the march to call for peace and demand that federal troops and police leave the city. But local officials quickly distanced themselves from the event after people showed up with the pro-Moreno signs.

One man held up a sign that said: "Nazario will always live in our hearts." A boy in a checkered shirt held another saying "Mr. Nazario, for students your ideals live on." A little girl in pigtails held a sign reading "La Familia Michoacana is more than one state." A woman held one high over her head proclaiming: "Long live La Familia Michoacana."

The city government issued a statement saying it decided not to participate in the march "after determining the right conditions were not in place." It didn't mention the signs.

It was the second straight day that Apatzingan residents took to the streets to show support for Moreno. On Saturday night, hundreds marched with similar signs.

Also on Sunday, banners were hung from bridges in Petacalco, a town in southern Michoacan state, reading: "We support La Familia Michoacana. We will always remember Nazario Moreno, The Doctor" — another nickname for the kingpin.

La Familia burst into national prominence in 2006 by rolling five severed heads into a nightclub in the mountain town of Uruapan and proclaiming its intention to protect Michoacan from other cartels and petty criminals.

President Felipe Calderon, who was born in Michoacan, responded by deploying thousands of federal troops and police into Michoacan, vowing to crush a cartel that he warned was corrupting local officials, extorting businesses and growing in power.

He later sent thousands more troops to other drug trafficking hotspots across Mexico in an intensified crackdown that has at times taken on warlike proportions. More than 28,000 people have died in drug gang-related violence since late 2006.

La Familia distinguished itself from other cartels by making public proclamations, including a telephone interview with local media last year with its reputed No. 2, Servando Gomez Martinez, who remains at large.

But the march Sunday was one of clearest indications yet of popular sympathy for the cartel, which also gained a reputation as one of Mexico's most brutal, staging bold attacks on government security forces.

Moreno, 40, was considered the ideological leader of La Familia, setting a code of conduct for its members that prohibits using hard drugs or dealing them within Mexican territory. He purportedly wrote a religiously tinged book of values for the cartel, sometimes known as "The Sayings of the Craziest One."

A Mexican government profile said Moreno "erected himself as `the Messiah,' using the Bible to preach to the poor and obtaining from them unconditional support." The profile also said his wife organized self-help seminars in Apatzingan.

A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration profile says La Familia gives Bibles and money to the poor, funds schools and pays off local officials.

The cartel may have originated as "a vigilante group to counter local street crime and law enforcement corruption," the DEA says. "Now, La Familia Michoacana uses drug proceeds to fuel their agenda that encompasses a Robin Hood-type mentality — steal from the rich and give to the poor."

While the protests erupted in Michoacan, cartel violence continued in neighboring Guerrero state, where seven people were found dead Sunday.

The bodies of four men, their hands bound, were dumped in the highway linking Acapulco to Mexico City, according to the state Public Safety Department.

Three decapitated bodies were found in Acapulco, two of them hanging from a bridge and the other dumped by a river. The heads were found nearby.

___

Associated Press writer Sergio Flores in Acapulco contributed to this story.

"Business is business and Moreno's death won't stop drug smuggling or drug violence. Only policies that stop U.S. demand and help alleviate Mexico's poverty will do that," he said.

Now mexico blames the U.S. for it's gun violence, and it's drug smuggling. And they are not satisfied with all of the manufacturing that has gone down there either.
It seems to me like the poor folks over there come up here, because they have nothing else going for them. It appears to be a "do or die situation", considering they don't use contraception, which results in too many kids. Americans on average have 2 kids if they are lucky, while mexicans probably have 10 on average, by the looks of the amount of illegal aliens from mexico there are in America.