Violence on the rise in county on border
Kidnappings and home invasions linked to ransoms or drug disputes

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory. ... nt/3318971
By JAMES PINKERTON

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Rio Grande Valley Bureau

ROMA - The brush-covered hills of Starr County have long been a place of struggle and conflict, where settlers fought off Comanche raiding parties and dealt with bandits, gunrunners and bootleggers. And the Wild West atmosphere persists in this remote ranching and commercial center on the Texas-Mexico border, where 57,000 residents are spread over 19 small, isolated towns.


Native American shamen still gather hallucinogenic peyote cactus in the hills for use in religious rituals, sharing the back roads with drug smugglers who have long used the county as a major transit point.

And today, as Mexican drug cartels battle for control of trafficking corridors across the river, Roma and Starr County are experiencing a dramatic increase in violence, officials say, including kidnapping for ransom. Rings of kidnappers have operated for years in Mexico and Latin America, preying not only on the wealthy but on middle-class workers as well.

Since the beginning of the year, local lawmen and FBI agents have been working to solve nine kidnappings by unknown assailants, as well as five violent home invasions by so-called ''pseudo cops," groups of armed bandits who pose as police, said Kennedy Salinas, an assistant Starr County district attorney.

Although police have developed several suspects, no arrests have been made in any of the nine kidnappings.

''What I've learned from these ongoing investigations is there's been a border war with drug cartels vying for power between Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros," Salinas said, "and this area is a place they want."

The latest kidnapping took place this month at a Roma business, where a group of masked gunmen burst in during business hours and abducted a woman related to the store's owners, county officials said. The woman was returned unharmed the next day, and law enforcement officials say a ransom â€â€