Thread: Rival Drug Gangs Turn the Streets of Nuevo Laredo Into a War

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/inter ... arbie.html

December 4, 2005
Rival Drug Gangs Turn the Streets of Nuevo Laredo Into a War Zone
By GINGER THOMPSON
NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - The lucrative drug trade on the Mexican border seemed up for grabs after Mexican authorities arrested the powerful leader of the Gulf Cartel nearly three years ago. The rival Sinaloa Cartel sent Edgar Valdéz Villarreal, a young upstart known as La Barbie, to do the grabbing.

The wave of killings that followed has turned into an all-out drug war that has spread to almost every corner of Mexico, leaving about 1,000 people dead since March 2003 and bringing harsh criticisms from Washington about the failure of President Vicente Fox's government to end it.

The most spectacular gunfights began here last spring, federal law enforcement authorities said, and usually took place from 8 in the morning to 1 in the afternoon, on the elegant Avenida Colón.

While the number of killings has gone down since Mr. Fox sent a battalion of federal officers to try to take back control of the city's streets, the violence has not ended but moved to other parts of Mexico, especially the central state of Michoacan and the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.

The rise of men like Mr. Valdéz, 32, Deputy Attorney General José Santiago Vasconcelos said in an interview, helps explain why. He is part of a younger generation of rash and ruthless traffickers, Mr. Vasconcelos said, who are fighting to take over the drug trade after the Fox administration put at least a dozen of the older drug bosses in jail.

[Last week, law enforcement authorities linked Mr. Valdéz to a videotape that appeared to show the interrogation of four bruised and bloody men who admitted to being hired killers for the Gulf Cartel. The video, which was sent in an unmarked envelope to The Kitsap Sun in Washington State and was posted on the Web site of The Dallas Morning News, ended by showing one of the men being shot in the head. The authorities said they suspected that Mr. Valdéz was conducting the interrogation.]

The prize is the lucrative land drug routes that carry more than 77 percent of all the cocaine and about 70 percent of all the methamphetamines sold in the United States.

The more experienced drug kingpins, Mexican prosecutors said, were more willing to reach peace among themselves, to respect one another's territories and to stay out of sight in order not to cause trouble for local authorities.

New operatives like Mr. Valdéz, however, fight for all or nothing, Mr. Vasconcelos said. And they seem willing to keep up their fight, no matter what the cost.

"Why are we in this situation?" Mr. Vasconcelos said. "Because the only leaders who can contain the violence are the ones who are in jail."

"The structures they used to maintain - of corruption and obstruction of justice - when we took those away, they were forced to use violence," he said. "It's a beast."

Mr. Valdéz, a k a La Barbie, does not look like a monster. He gets his nickname, the authorities said, because he has the light complexion and blue eyes of a Ken doll. Law enforcement authorities, however, have described him as the mastermind of numerous killings and kidnappings across the country. They have raided homes that they believe had been rented by him and found grenades, automatic weapons and police uniforms.

Mr. Valdéz' illegal career took off after the arrest in March 2003 of Osiel Cárdenas, who controlled the drug trade in Nuevo Laredo, the busiest port along the 2,000-mile border between the United States and Mexico. Then his rival, JoaquÃÂ*n Guzmán, known as El Chapo, decided to make a move for control of this area.

Mr. Guzmán could not do it on his own, though. He had escaped from prison in 2001, and immediately became one of this country's most wanted fugitives. So while he hid in the mountains of Sinaloa state, the authorities said, he gave Mr. Valdéz, who is originally from Laredo, Tex., command of a well-trained unit of gunmen to lead the assault against the Gulf Cartel across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo.

Mr. Valdéz and another lieutenant, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, went to Mexico City in March 2003 with a $1.5-million bribe for DomÃÂ*ngo Gonzalez DÃÂ*az, a commander in the Federal Investigations Agency, Mexico's F.B.I., Mexican authorities said. In exchange for the money, the authorities said, Mr. Gonzalez sent a close confidant to command federal forces here, with instructions to provide protection to the Sinaloa Cartel and to help it fight its rivals.

Two months later, that federal commander, Adolfo Ruiz Ibarra, was shot with his brother Edmundo in a blaze of gunfire. It was one of the first clear signs, the authorities said, that the Gulf Cartel would not surrender easily.

Mr. Cárdenas, the leader of the Gulf Cartel, managed to keep control of his gang from inside Mexico's main maximum-security prison, La Palma. The Nuevo Laredo police department served almost entirely at his pleasure, federal law authorities said, helping not only protect the Gulf Cartel, but also kidnapping and killing suspected rivals. And a group of special forces officers, known as Los Zetas, who had deserted from the military and served as Mr. Cárdenas's personal security detail when he was out of prison, were deployed to protect the Gulf Cartel's turf - especially Nuevo Laredo.

Mexican authorities say they believe Mr. Cárdenas was behind the killing in December 2004 of El Chapo's brother, who was also being held in La Palma. After that, authorities said, the fight between the Gulf Cartel and the Sinaloa Cartel turned personal.

Kidnapping and revenge killings became common. The Zetas would leave scathing notes near the bodies of their victims, and it was through such a note that mentioned Mr. Valdéz by name that the authorities learned he had crossed the border into Nuevo Laredo.

He did not have much of a criminal record before he left Texas, according to the Laredo police - just a reputation as a small-time drug dealer and a drunken driving charge nine years ago. "As far as we're concerned," said Juan Rivera, a spokesman for the Laredo Police Department, "he's nobody here."

But since then, his name has appeared on most-wanted lists from the United States Drug Enforcement Agency, which issued a warrant for his arrest in 2003 on charges of cocaine smuggling, and by the federal authorities in Mexico.

Rafael RÃÂ*os, the deputy secretary for public security, described Mr. Valdéz as "an operator in charge of distribution of drugs and of recruiting" soldiers for the cartel. Most recruits come, as he did, from north of the border, and have helped expand the Sinaloa Cartel's operations, and its violence, into the United States.

In September 2004, Mr. Valdéz bought an entire page in El Norte, a daily newspaper here, to declare his innocence and ask President Fox for justice. He described himself as a legitimate businessman who had been forced to leave Nuevo Laredo and move to the neighboring state of Coahuila because he was being harassed for bribes from local police officers.

"I ask you to intervene to resolve the insecurity, extortion and terror that exists in the state of Tamaulipas, and especially in the city of Nuevo Laredo," the letter read. In a later paid advertisement in the newspaper El Mañana, Mr. Valdéz asked the question on many Mexicans' minds: "Could it be that the Mexican Army and the attorney general lack the means and tools to finish these delinquents?"

Well folks, this may be the next excuse as to why we should welcome the illegals with open arms.

The wave of killings that followed has turned into an all-out drug war that has spread to almost every corner of Mexico, leaving about 1,000 people dead since March 2003 and bringing harsh criticisms from Washington about the failure of President Vicente Fox's government to end it.

Now our government can say, we need to let them come because their lives are in danger should they remain in Mexico. Since their current slogan of them simply being people coming here to do work Americans won't do is failing this could be their next tactic.

I see you're point, OhioBuckeye, but I don't think they'd try to do that.

It would be too obvious, and at this point the American people aren't going to stand for anymore excuses. I'm pretty sure about that.

I don't think I've ever had a chance to say hi, OhioBuckeye. So you are a Buckeye, huh ?!!

Hello Legal,

That post was a tongue in cheek one because they are running out of excuses and who knows what their next ploy will be. Yeah I'm a Buckeye through and through, but currently living in New Mexico. Only for another year though! How I ended up here is along story, but to make it short...I spent 21 years looking for a girl I fell in love with, but who dumped me because I was too wild. I finally found her and she lived here, so here I am. She's also a Buckeye who misses Ohio. Found out today her stepfather wants to buy the property, so things are looking good. Thanks for the welcome. Been coming to the site for a long time as a lurker, then see a post I had to respond to. Wish I would've joined sooner.

That's great OhioBuckeye, we're so glad you did find us.