Thread: Organized crime wave leaves 20 dead in Mexico's bloody weeke

Organized crime wave leaves 20 dead in Mexico's bloody weekend

AFP - 26 minutes ago

PETATLAN, Mexico (AFP) - An organized crime wave took a turn for the deadlier at the weekend in Mexico, with at least 20 people killed in three incidents, most of whom died in southern Guerrero state at the hands of hitmen.

About 60 gunmen launched an attack on a ranch in Mexico's southern Guerrero state Sunday, killing nine people and leaving another six wounded, authorities said, the second such incident in two days.

The attack with automatic weapons took place in Petatlan, on the property of a prominent rancher.

"Early this morning (Sunday), shortly after midnight, some 60 gunmen launched an assault on the home of Rogaciano Alba Alvarez, head of the Guerrero Cattlemen's Association, with at least nine people killed and another six seriously injured," a state official told AFP.

Alba Alvarez was not among those killed.

Hitmen arrived at the Alba ranch in six pickup trucks and opened fire with AK-47s, killing the ranch workers before "they apparently also kidnapped one of his daughters," the official added.

The violence came just 24 hours after Alba narrowly escaped an attack by another hit squad Saturday at a hotel in Iguala, also in Guerrero state. Seven people were killed in that incident and another eight wounded.

The hotel was hit as the ranchers were preparing an industry convention.

Alba, who also was targeted in an attack in 2006, is a past mayor of Petatlan (1993-1995). Local media have linked him to paramilitary groups accused of killing 17 members of a local rural workers organization.

Since December 2006, President Felipe Calderon's federal government has deployed 36,000 military troops and thousands of police around the country in an operation aimed at clamping down on organized crime.

But 16 people were killed in Guerrero state this weekend alone.

And four police were killed in the northern state of Sinaloa late Friday in an ambush, authorities said. Another two local police were killed, according to a local media report.

Federal and state authorities on Friday arrested 13 hitmen in Sinaloa and seized weapons and 379,000 dollars as part of the government's national anti-organized crime operation.

"This reaction by organized crime reflects how the Mexican government is fighting it in an unprecedented and systematic way," Public Safety chief Genaro Garcia Luna said at a weekend ceremony honoring policemen slain in recent days.

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Death toll rises to 17 in attacks on cattle ranchers in southern Mexico

By Natalia Parra
ASSOCIATED PRESS

1:43 p.m. May 5, 2008

ACAPULCO, Mexico – A prominent cattle rancher hid Monday from gunmen who killed two of his sons and kidnapped his daughter in weekend attacks that left 17 people dead in southern Mexico, relatives and authorities said.
Men with assault rifles forced victims into a line and sprayed them with bullets Sunday at Rogaciano Alba's ranch in Petatlan, a town in southern Guerrero state, investigators said. Five people were killed and five others died at a hospital, State Attorney General Eduardo Murueta said Monday.

Alba, a former town mayor and president of Guerrero's cattle ranching union, was not at the ranch during the attack. Relatives said he has since gone into hiding.
“They were coming for my cousin Rogaciano, and since they didn't find him, they took it out on his sons and workers,â€

At least 16 people killed in Mexican massacres

REUTERS

8:15 p.m. May 4, 2008

MEXICO CITY, – Heavily armed men killed at least 16 people, all members of a ranchers' association, in two different massacres in southern Mexico over the weekend, Mexican media saidSunday.
Some 40 men riding in luxury vehicles and wearing uniforms of an elite police squad shot nine people dead in the town of Petatlan in the state of Guerrero Sunday, El Universal newspaper reported.

And a group toting automatic weapons killed seven people in the town of Iguala, also in Guerrero, on Saturday.
Reforma newspaper said the ranchers were holding a meeting in Iguala and at least two of the sons of the association's state leader, Rogaciano Alba, were killed in Sunday's attack.

Alba himself has survived two other attacks in the past, Reforma said.

The newspapers did not say what could have triggered the attacks but well-armed drug traffickers are active in Guerrero, a poor, mountainous state on the Pacific coast home to the Acapulco beach resort.

Clashes over land rights or local politics are also common in Guerrero.

(Reporting by Cyntia Barrera Diaz, editing by Todd Eastham)

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