Thread: 3 Tijuana cops trying to enter U.S. taken into custodyUPDATE

3 Tijuana officers trying to enter U.S. taken into custody

By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

November 15, 2008

Three Tijuana police officers suspected of ties to organized crime were detained this week by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into the United States.

The officers, two of whom were assistant chiefs, were taken into custody at the Otay Mesa and San Ysidro ports of entry, said Lauren Mack, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Diego.

The officers worked for the municipal police department and were turned over to the Mexican military. The first two were detained Monday and are among the 20 municipal officers being held for questioning in Mexico City by the federal organized-crime unit, known as SIEDO. Many of the detainees in that group held top positions.

At least two who were detained at the border had crossing cards, Mack said, but their names were on a list provided by the Mexican military. She did not have information on the third.

“We were aware that these were suspects in an investigation,â€

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Ex-Tijuana cop sentenced for heroin trafficking in U.S.

FEDERAL COURT: A former Tijuana police officer was sentenced yesterday to 30 months in federal prison for drug trafficking.
Victor Melendrez Franco, 26, was arrested in November 2007 after San Diego police found 440 grams of heroin in his car during a traffic stop. He pleaded guilty in March to possession with intent to distribute.
In addition to the prison term, U.S. District Judge Thomas J. Whelan sentenced Melendrez to four years of supervised release.

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Three Tijuana police officers suspected of ties to organized crime were detained this week by U.S. authorities as they tried to cross into the United States.

I wonder why this isnt getting more attention. I havent heard it on the news. It goes to show that a large number of Mexican police are corrupt.

Gunmen attack police convoy in Tijuana


ASSOCIATED PRESS

12:25 p.m. November 15, 2008

TIJUANA, Mexico –

Gunmen attacked a state police convoy on a main boulevard in the Mexican border city of Tijuana, seriously wounding three policemen, state prosecutors reported Saturday.

A store owner was found shot to death nearby, though it was not clear if he was killed in Friday's attack on police or in a separate incident.

Attacks on lawmen have become increasingly brazen in many parts of Mexico as drug gangs try to intimidate honest officers pursuing them or to kill corrupt police in the pay of rival gangs in a rising wave of drug violence.

Tijuana police said Saturday they had found a man's severed head bound in duct tape beside a sign threatening members of a gang he allegedly belonged to. Three other bodies, all with bullet wounds, were also found on Friday in Tijuana.

In the nearby city of Tecate, an investigative police officer was found shot to death, and the body on another man – apparently an assailant killed while attacki
ng the officer – was found nearby.

Also Saturday, Mexico's Defense Department reported that a regional military commander, Gen. Jorge Cardenas Canton, had committed suicide after suffering a sudden depression.

Cardenas Canton commanded army troops in Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Like all Mexican military officers, part of his duties included combating drug trafficking.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexi ... lence.html

Shootings kill several in Tijuana, Mexico

The Associated Press
4:26 p.m. November 15, 2008

TIJUANA, Mexico — Two people were shot to death at a taco restaurant in the border city of Tijuana on Saturday, hours after a man's decapitated head was found wrapped in duct tape.

Prosecutors in Baja California state, where Tijuana is located, said two other people were wounded in the restaurant shooting, which apparently involved assault rifles.

Another man was shot to death at a pool hall, and two men were found shot to death on a street.

On Friday, gunmen attacked a state police convoy on a main boulevard in Tijuana, across the U.S. border from San Diego, but prosecutors said no injuries were reported.

While prosecutors offered no immediate motive in the attacks, Tijuana has been hit by increasingly violent turf battles between rival drug cartels, in which heavily armed hitmen execute rivals on city streets and attack law enforcement officials.

The violence is affecting innocent bystanders, prompting the city's doctors to organized a march Saturday against violent crime.

On Friday, police found a man's severed head bound in duct tape.

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