Thread: Violent Anarchy in Mexico's Gateway to the U.S.

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=4723993

Violent Anarchy in Mexico's Gateway to the U.S.

"PA"

Zooming around town in caravans of sport utility vehicles bristling with weapons, Mexican soldiers-turned-drug hitmen have taken this border city of Nuevo Laredo to the brink of anarchy, infiltrating local police and threatening anyone who gets in their way.

Nuevo Laredo residents and law enforcement officials say the men are the Gulf Cartel’s feared Zetas, former members of a military intelligence battalion sent to the border to fight drug trafficking.

Instead, they joined the drug trade, recruited more followers, and converted this border city of 300,000 people into their home base.

Nuevo Laredo is the busiest trade area along the US-Mexico border, with an average of 6,000 cargo trucks crossing daily into Texas carrying 40% of Mexico’s exports.

Killings and police corruption became so brazen that President Vicente Fox was forced to send hundreds of troops and federal agents in March, and the only man brave enough to take the job of police chief was gunned down hours after being sworn in this month.

Since January, more than 70 people have been killed in Nuevo Laredo, compared to 65 for all of 2004.

The Zetas rule with fear, threatening police and city officials and extorting money from businesses, including restaurants, car dealerships and junkyards.

Their boldness was such that the Nuevo Laredo newspaper El Manana in 2003 published a citizen’s guide to detecting fake police officers.

The line between real and fake officers has become so blurred here that local officers opened fire on federal agents – wounding one – as they arrived to investigate the June 8 killing of newly inaugurated police chief Alejandro Dominguez.

“In actuality, law enforcement in Mexico is all too often part of the problem rather than part of the solution,� Anthony Placido, head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration’s intelligence unit, told a congressional committee last week.

Nuevo Laredo Mayor Daniel Pena said yesterday that 150 police officers will be fired after failing a screening process that included background checks and drug testing. The city police of 724 officers were pulled off patrols last week to be investigated for possible links with organised crime.

Although a few US shoppers seeking discount prescription drugs or cheap liquor still venture into Nuevo Laredo, the blow to the economy has been devastating, business owners say.

Impunity in Nuevo Laredo has only exacerbated an already critical situation, city officials say. In more than 70 homicides in Nuevo Laredo since January, officials have arrested only one person: a 27-year-old mother who confessed to drowning her two children.

"Impunity in Nuevo Laredo has only exacerbated an already critical situation, city officials say. In more than 70 homicides in Nuevo Laredo since January,"

thats 14 murders a month so far, heck that probable rivals NYC per 100,000 .