Mexican Federales Seize Large Cache of Cocaine from Cartels
Sunday, 18 May 2008

NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FORMER BORDER PATROL OFFICERS

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.

Milenio (Mexico City) 5/18/08

1. On the second day of anti-narcotics operations in Sonora, federal forces in coordination with state and municipal police succeeded in delivering two blows to both the Gulf and the Sinaloa cartels. In one action carried out in the upscale tourist area of San Carlos near Guaymas, Sonora agents arrested 27 presumed members of Los Zetas, the notorious armed branch of the Gulf Cartel, and seized a trailer with 535 lbs. of pure cocaine. In a separate action, the Army seized a trailer at BenjamÃ*n Hill, Sonora with at least 530 lbs. of pure cocaine en route from Guadalajara, Jalisco to Tijuana, Baja California. Federal authorities were convinced that the shipment belonged to the Sinaloa Cartel since the zone through which it traveled is controlled by "El Chapo" Guzmán and also includes the states of Michoacán, Colima, Nayarit, Sinaloa and Sonora to transport drugs to the U.S.
2. Mexican federal police at the international airport in Mexico City seized nearly 2.5 tons of pseudoephedrin hydrochloride (a popular precursor in the synthesis of methamphetimine) being shipped from India via Amsterdam. (There was no mention as to where it was destined.) The drug was turned over to special drug enforcement (Seido).

3. Nearly 5 tons of marijuana were seized by Mexican Naval forces from three boats after pursuing them from near Point Ahome off the coast of Sinaloa to Point Rosa off the coast of Sonora, where the smugglers abandoned ship and escaped.

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El Universal (Mexico City) 5/18/08

1. A group of armed men kidnapped seven young Mexican male tourists at gunpoint on a major highway some 60 miles north of Acapulco, Guerrero. One of the tourists escaped to report the kidnapping. Police found bloodstains in their car which also had 37 bullet holes. The remaining six were later released, several wounded, and no arrests have been reported.

2. Operation Culiacán-Navolato has resulted in the capture of a major player in the Sinaloa Cartel, headed by JoaquÃ*n "El Chapo" Guzmán. Julio Alberto Zazueta Angulo, alias "El Moti", and a female, Zulema Iribe Sauceda, also presumed to be part of the crime organization, were arrested in Culiacán, Sinaloa on charges of firearms violations. The arrests deliver yet another blow to the cartel which considers Sinaloa its bastion of power.

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El Diario en Linea (Chihuahua) 5/18/08

A Chihuahua state delegate of the federal consumers organization and two others with him were assassinated by an armed group in Cd. Juárez late last evening.

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Entorno a Tamaulipas (Tamaulipas) 5/18/08

A federal judge in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas sentenced six ex-military members of Los Zetas to prison for convictions of offensives relating to organized crime. The sentences ranged from 26 to 36 years of incarceration.

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