Thread: Drug lord aims to rid city of Zetas

Drug lord aims to rid city of Zetas

By Dudley Althausand Dane Schiller
Updated 11:42 p.m., Wednesday, April 18, 2012

MEXICO CITY — Drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman purportedly has come gunning for the vicious Zetas gang on the South Texas border, leaving 14 of their butchered bodies and a message vowing to rid Nuevo Laredo of its criminal scourge.

“We have begun to clear Nuevo Laredo of Zetas because we want a free city and so you can live in peace,” proclaims a banner, under which were posed the bodies, as well as the gunmen who presumably work for Guzman.

“We are narcotics traffickers and we don't mess with honest working or business people.”

Guzman's first attempt to seize Nuevo Laredo, in 2005, sparked a war with the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, which employed the gang at the time.

The battles, which included rocket attacks and massacres, killed more than 300 that year and gave birth to the increased violence still tormenting the borderlands and Mexico's interior.

The Zetas and the Gulf Cartel won that earlier contest.

Now Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel and one of the most wanted men in the hemisphere, looks to be back.

This time, he's presenting himself as a white knight, succeeding where Mexico's military and federal police have failed.

“I'm going to teach these scum to work Sinaloa style,” the banner purportedly signed by Guzman sneers, “without kidnapping, without payoffs, without extortion.”

“As for you, 40,” the banner says, addressing Zetas boss Miguel Treviño by his code name, Z-40, “I tell you that you don't scare me.”

The message also warns Nuevo Laredo's residents that anyone who continues paying extortion money to the Zetas would be considered “a traitor.”

“Don't forget that I'm your true father,” the banner advises.

Photos of the mangled corpses appeared Wednesday on Blog del Narco, a website in Mexico that reports crime news there. The posting came a day after the 14 bodies were discovered stuffed in a minivan parked near the Nuevo Laredo City Hall.

A note left with the bodies declared the victims “traitors.”

While the banner and the threat it contains appear genuine, its authenticity couldn't be verified.

“Chapo is going to step up to the plate and become the protector of the poor people against the Zetas,” predicted Mike Vigil, retired chief of international operations for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“Obviously, it is a vested interest because it behooves him and the other cartels to get rid of the Zetas that are causing a lot of problems for them.”

Vigil is a consultant in Mexico and in regular contact with senior government officials.

Officials in Laredo are watching closely.

“There is continued concern but we have dedicated all the resources necessary to ensure we don't have a spillover on the Laredo side,” said Mayor Raul Salinas, a retired FBI agent.

“Obviously, any time we have a situation like this — and other cities on the border would react the same way — we monitor very carefully what happens on the other side of the river.”

Guzman is arguably Mexico's most powerful crime boss.

His four-year struggle for Ciudad Juárez, bordering El Paso, has been blamed for nearly 10,000 homicides.

Some have credited Juárez's nearly 40 percent decline in murders in recent months to Guzman's reported victory in that battle.

“The Zetas are trying to take over the country, and they are a tremendous force to be reckoned with,” Vigil said. “It is a situation of fighting fire with fire, and I think that you are going to see much more of that as the cartels engage them.”

dudley.althaus@chron.com
dane.schiller@chron.com

Drug lord aims to rid city of Zetas - San Antonio Express-News

Wednesday, 18 April 2012 10:13 Juarez Businessman Murdered After Testifying Against Police

Written by Christopher Looft


A Mexican businessman who accused 10 federal police officers of extortion and kidnapping has been murdered in Ciudad Juarez, and while authorities say they suspect the motive was robbery, it seems possible that it was a revenge attack.

Eligio Ibarra was found stabbed to death in his residence near El Paso, Texas, on the US-Mexico border. His body was 70 percent covered in burns, making him difficult to identify.
One suspect has been arrested in connection with the murder.
Ibarra filed a complaint in September 2011 against 10 federal police officers, who he said demanded $5,000, threatening to plant drugs on him if he did not comply. He accused the officers of kidnapping, beating, and robbing him. At the time of their arrest, the officers had marijuana, heroin, and illegal weapons in their possession.
When Ibarra filed his complaint, he told online publication Norte Digital that he had received threats and feared for his life, as the El Paso Times reports. Based on his complaints, the agents were arrested and indicted on a variety of charges, including extortion, abuse of authority, kidnapping, and carrying illegal weapons. They were found guilty by a federal judge and currently await sentencing.
When his case became public, Ibarra fled Juarez, a state human rights official told El Paso Times. He had returned to participate in court proceedings against the officers.
InSight Crime Analysis

Despite the fact that Ibarra received threats, state and federal authorities suspect the killing was motivated by robbery, and that Ibarra knew his killer, due to evidence collected at his scene and the fact that only his family and friends knew when he was staying in his Juarez residence. One of Ibarra's cars was stolen, and the lock to his garage had been tampered with, suggesting the suspect or suspects had attempted to steal his other car.
Authorities have painted a picture of an unlikely-sounding robbery-homicide, in which somebody close to Ibarra stabbed him in the heart, burnt his body almost beyond recognition, all while navigating the closed-circuit cameras protecting his residence, in order to rob him.
If, on the other hand, Ibarra was killed in a revenge attack, perhaps even by colleagues of the officers he helped put behind bars, this would point to a deep level of corruption in the federal police. This would be a bad sign for security in Mexico, since the federal force is generally seen as a more reliable and less corrupt alternative to state and municipal police. The fact that Ibarra had no official protection despite his high-profile complaint against the police is telling of the dangers faced by those who report corruption in the security forces.