Thread: Drug Cartel-related killings surge in Tijuana

Drug-related killings surge in Tijuana

LA Times
By Richard Marosi
December 16, 2009

Dozens of people have been killed since the weekend, in violence that authorities attribute to the end of a months-long truce between rival crime bosses.

Reporting from San Diego - More than 45 people have been killed in Tijuana since last Saturday in grisly drug cartel violence that appears to signal the end of a nearly yearlong truce between rival crime bosses, according to Mexican authorities.

At some crime scenes, attackers left behind threatening narco-messages, recalling the type of terror tactics used in gang warfare last year that claimed hundreds of lives.

On Sunday, the mutilated body of one man was discovered hanging from an overpass on a busy highway.

Two days later, four decapitated bodies were found.

That same night, heavily-armed gunmen opened fire in a seafood restaurant, killing four people.

Bodies have been turning up all over the city, in parked cars, taco stands and on streets.

At least eight people were killed Wednesday

Most of the victims appear to be small-time drug dealers or young men with criminal backgrounds, local police said.

Gunmen also wounded a state police officer while he was on patrol Monday.

The violence is believed to stem from an ongoing feud between rival crime bosses of the Arellano Félix drug cartel.

Fernando Sanchez Arellano, a nephew of the cartel's founders, has been trying to fend off a challenge from one of his lieutenants, Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed, El Teo, authorities say.

The rivals are believed to have agreed to a truce earlier this year, which led to a decrease in the homicide rate.

But the recent surge of killings has pushed Tijuana's death toll this year to about 580. Last year, there were more than 800 slayings.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and- ... 1662.story

The rivals are believed to have agreed to a truce earlier this year, which led to a decrease in the homicide rate.

But the recent surge of killings has pushed Tijuana's death toll this year to about 580. Last year, there were more than 800 slayings

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Yeah what a good neighbor Mexico is and how wonderful it is that their criminals cross the border into the US illegally...............

Killing each other, Thugs verses thugs. Better them than us.