Thread: Drug cartel suspect arrested in general’s Cancun death

Drug cartel suspect arrested in general’s Cancun death
By E. EDUARDO CASTILLO
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Feb. 11, 2009, 9:41PM

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6259383.html

MEXICO CITY — Mexican soldiers have arrested a suspected drug cartel hit man on accusations he orchestrated the killing of an army brigadier general hired to root out corruption in the resort town of Cancun, a Defense Department official said on Wednesday.

Prosecutors also asked a judge to place under arrest Cancun Police Chief Francisco Velasco as they investigate whether he protected the Zetas, a group of hit men for the Gulf Cartel, said Marisela Morales, the federal deputy attorney general for organized crime.

Velasco already was detained for questioning in the killing of retired Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, but authorities have not said whether he is a suspect in the homicide.

Octavio Almanza, the suspected head of the Zetas in Cancun, was arrested earlier this week on suspicion of masterminding Tello’s killing, Defense Department official Brig. Gen. Luis Arturo Oliver said on Wednesday.

Authorities also arrested six other alleged members of the Zetas, a group of rogue ex-soldiers aligned with drug traffickers.

Oliver said Almanza was an army soldier from 1997 to 2004 and recently arrived in Cancun. He is also suspected in the killing of nine soldiers in the northern city of Monterrey.

Tello’s bullet-ridden body was found in a car Feb. 3, shortly after the Cancun city government hired him as a security consultant to combat local corruption and asked him to set up the elite force. An active-duty lieutenant and a civilian were also found dead in the car.

Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, has seen its share of officials detained for allegedly aiding drug cartels, including a former governor sentenced to 36 years for money laundering and drug smuggling. Bundles of cocaine sometimes wash ashore in the region because smugglers drop drugs from boats or small planes for gangs to retrieve and move into the U.S.

An anonymous tip led to the arrest of Almanza and the six others, who have not yet been charged, Oliver said. They were found with 42 guns, 23 grenades and ammunition.

In northern Mexico, meanwhile, authorities found five abandoned bullet-riddled and bloodstained vehicles as they continued to hunt for drug gang killers after a wave of border-region slayings and clashes with soldiers that left 21 people dead.

The hours-long skirmishes around the town of Villa Ahumada on Tuesday were part of a wave of drug violence that has engulfed parts of Mexico — and even spilled across the U.S. border — as the army confronts savage narcotics cartels.

President Felipe Calderon said more than 6,000 people died last year in drug-related violence, and U.S. authorities have reported a spike in killings, kidnappings and home invasions linked to the cartels — some of it in cities far from the border, such as Phoenix and Atlanta.

Investigators on Wednesday were searching for assailants after finding five abandoned vehicles near Villa Ahumada, where gunmen a day earlier kidnapped nine people, starting the violence.

They executed six of the kidnap victims along the PanAmerican Highway outside town, said Enrique Torres, spokesman for a joint military-police operation in Chihuahua state.

An army convoy heading toward Villa Ahumada to investigate reports of the kidnappings on Tuesday came across gunmen who had just executed the six kidnap victims, Torres said.

A shootout between gunmen and soldiers ensued in which seven gunmen and one soldier died, Torres said. Another soldier was wounded.

Villa Ahumada, a town of 1,500 people about 80 miles south of El Paso, was virtually taken over by drug gangs last year when attackers killed two consecutive police chiefs and two officers.

Associated Press Writer Julie Watson contributed to this report.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-145691.html
related