Gunmen kill six in Chihuahua

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Reforma article with photos from El Debate

Subject Matter: Confrontation in Jimenez Chihuahua
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required

Reporter: Reforma Redaction
In an attack perpetrated by two armed men, six persons were assassinated, and in a later confrontation, the Military killed one of the attackers, in the Town of Jimenez, informed the Attorney General of the State (FGE).

The two attackers were travelling in an Expedition Van and after the aggression fled. "When they retired, they encountered the Military as they exited Jiminez, close to the Installation of the Federal Police, where they had a confrontation with the Military, who killed one, and wounded the other who they took in custody", assured Carlos Huerta, spokesman for the area.

The events occurred during early Monday morning in a place known as La Curva, according to the primary reports, the two attackers belonged to the criminal group Gente Nueva.

Morelos Mayor Video-Tapes Himself Being Extorted by Los Rojos

Translated by Yaqui for Borderland Beat from Zocolo

Jorge Toledo Bustamante
Alcalde of the Municipality of Mazatepec, Morelos

Date: Aug 21, 2017

A video shows the moment when suspected members of the Mexican cartel "Los Rojos" forced the mayor of the municipality of Mazatepec, Morelos, Jorge Toledo Bustamante, to commit to the delivery of 5 million pesos ($ 270,000 USD) as payment for piso, aka right to the plaza. 

They also demanded the official to hire a person "who knows what he is doing" to be a liaison between the criminal group and the municipal administration. 

Toledo basically refuses to pay and even ensures that he will give up his position first. He explains that he was forced to reduce his salary in half because in the municipality there is no money, so he asks his interlocutor, to tell his "boss" that he wants to talk to him.

Mexico: The homicides that no one sees

By: *Víctor Manuel Sánchez Valdés for Animal Politico

When we talk about cities in Mexico having security issues, most people think of the municipalities where there is high number of intentional homicides recorded, such as Acapulco, Tijuana, Culiacan, Ciudad Juárez or Chihuahua City. However, there are smaller municipalities that have homicide rates per capita [1] that exceed two, three, four or even five times those of the five aforementioned municipalities.

These are municipalities that are off the radar of the authorities, and national media, therefore, their security crises have been neglected. Nor do they often receive federal support, even though their police agencies have an inadequate number of police personnel and insufficient equipment. For example, in recent years, most of them have not been approved for requests for resources [2] from SUBSEMUN [Subsidy for Security in the Municipalities a federal resource that is granted to some municipalities] [3] or FORTASEG (a subsidy that is granted to municipalities and, where appropriate, for the strengthening of security issues) [4], even though it is precisely in those municipalities where support is most needed.

San Diego: Alvaro Lopez-Nunez, uncle of Mini Lic, arrested in Nogales

Alvaro Lopez-Nunez arrested in Nogales

Unconfirmed organizational chart of Los Damaso, before the fall

There will be one more joining the family members and trafficking networks of Sinaloa cells, now waiting in purgatory at the San Diego MCC. Alvaro Lopez-Nunez, brother of Damaso Lopez, and uncle to Damaso Lopez-Serrano, was taken into custody yesterday by the DEA.  Lopez-Nunez was arrested at the Nogales Port of Entry, according to a Press Release from the San Diego US Attorney's Office, posted today. 

Lopez-Nunez, 38, was one of several names which appeared redacted on the indictment filed in August 2016 in the Southern District of California, for the arrest of Mini Lic, and Nahum Abraham Sicarios-Montalvo, aka El Quincenerao. He is charged with conspiracy to import cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin, likely linked to seizures that took place in 2015, with tractor trailers loaded with drug shipments were seized by SEDENDA acting on federal task force intelligence.

With undercover Instagram account, DEA nabs alleged Bay Area drug dealer

Original article available at East Bay Times
Written by Nate Gartrell

OAKLAND — While a Hayward man allegedly was posting pictures of Xanax, pot, and guns for sale on Instagram, Drug Enforcement Administration agents were busy taking screenshots.

Last week, federal authorities made their move, arresting 20-year-old Marcos Hatch on charges of trafficking alprazolam, a drug used to treat anxiety. He faces five years in prison, but court documents indicate that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is reviewing the case to recommend federal gun charges be filed as well.

Marcos Hatch, seen here in one of the numerous Instagram photos that have now become evidence in a federal drug trafficking case. (U.S. District Court Records)

According to a DEA affidavit released Friday, authorities came across Hatch’s Instagram account while researching another suspected drug dealer named Christian Vanleer. It all started when an undercover Oakland policeman requested to follow Vanleer on Instagram and he accepted, unwittingly allowing the feds access to his pictures and follower lists.

San Diego: Mini Lic lieutenant pleads guilty to trafficking from Sinaloa to Tijuana

Mini Lic associate lieutenant pleads guilty to trafficking from Sinaloa to Tijuana 

As Damaso Lopez-Serrano adjusts to live in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego, a looming structure overlooking the city, and the bay, his close associate  Jesus Manuel Salazar-Nunez has pled guilty, on the day he was scheduled to go to trial, in the court of Dsitrict Judge Dana Sabraw, who is overseeing prosecutions against Chino Antrax, and Serafin Zambada-Ortiz. He pled to a three count indictment, conspiracy to import cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin.

All these cases, the flow chart of how drugs are trafficked across the country through San Diego, stem from Operation Narco Polo, which will be the defining investigation that brought down the Sinaloa Cartel, as we knew it from 2006 to 2015.

Plazas of organized crime: Narco Plaza Map

Victor Sanchez Valdez for La Silla Rota 

click on image to enlarge

The Plazas of Organized Crime: A classification

Every day in various parts of the country there are armed clashes  between groups of organized crime, which seek to control as many municipalities as possible. It is a rampant race among dozens of organizations, where the will never be a definitive “winner”.  Even so, these criminal groups have incentives to try and expand their areas of influence and keep the plazas that are under their control.

U.S. Gov to El Chapo’s “Legal Dream Team”, no promises we won't go after your fees

by Chivis Martinez for Borderland Beat

Before they get into the case the new legal team of El Chapo Guzman wanted assurances from the United States government not to go after their paid fees in a form of forfeiture.  On Friday August 11^th, the feds sent a letter to the court addressing this and other issues.  [read the letter below in the included scribd document.]

“Certain private counsel have contacted the government and advised that they have obtained signed retainer agreements from the defendant. These attorneys, however, have sought prospective, written assurance that the government will not seek, at any time, to forfeit any legal fees collected by them for their representation of the defendant. In response, the government has advised private counsel that it will not grant a blanket, prospective assurance that it will forgo forfeiture of any and all funds received from the defendant for his legal fees. The government also advised that, should an actual forfeiture issue arise with respect to attorney fees, the parties can address the issue at that time. Therefore, the government respectfully requests that the Court deny the defendant’s request to set a deadline to provide the aforementioned assurance as moot.”

Criminally Charged: Texas police Chief in collusion with Cartel del Golfo leader

Bjeff for Borderland Beat republished from the Monitor

Chivis Note:

A tiny town with big problems…

La Joya  is a tiny Texas town which dots the southern border having  a population of 4000.  It appears that  Hernandez hoped to use his police chief position to bump-start a political career. He was a candidate for Hidalgo County sheriff, with unsuccessful bids for the Democratic Party nomination in 2012 and 2014. He later attempted an unsuccessful write-in campaign in November’s general election.Hernandez replaced former chief Julian Gutierrez, who was fired by the La Joya Mayor. Gutierrez had worked as a lieutenant in the department before he replaced former chief Jose Del Angel, who committed suicide in 2011. In the criminal complaint against Hernandez, it is alleged that Hernandez told an informant that he was “close friends” with CDG leader “El Toro”. Read details in the complaint at bottom.

El Toro was killed in April in a massive shootout with the Mexican Marina. -Note Chivis-

Federal Police officer who captured El Chapo moved to embassy in D.C. for safety

posted by Yaqui for BB republished from Reuters photo from Alternativo Noticias

A Mexican federal police officer who captured drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman in northwest Mexico last year was moved for his own safety to a posting at the Mexican embassy in Washington, DC, according to two Mexican law enforcement sources.

Nicolas Gonzalez was a senior federal police officer in the northwestern state of Sinaloa during the January 2016 capture of Guzman, the sources said. Gonzalez is now Mexico's law enforcement emissary in Washington, according to the sources and the Mexican foreign ministry website.

Currently awaiting trial in New York after being deported to the United States, Guzman was re-captured in the Sinaloa town of Los Mochis. The kingpin, who ran the feared Sinaloa drug cartel, had been on the run after infamously escaping through a tunnel from his high-security jail in 2015.

Drug cartel violence in Cancun and Los Cabos

Republished from New York Times

Reporter: Andrew O'Reily

In January, a lone gunman entered the trendy Blue Parrot nightclub in the upscale Mexican resort town of Playa del Carmen and opened fire. Chaos ensued as the crowd scrambled for cover as the gunman traded shots with another man inside the club and security working the annual BPM music festival tried to suppress the melee.

When the bullets stopped flying in what is believed to be a drug cartel-related gunfight, five people were dead – including a Canadian bodyguard caught in the crossfire and an American teenager who was trampled to death as panicked partiers fled the club.

On Sunday, sunbathing tourists were forced to take cover on the white sand beaches of Los Cabos – a popular getaway at the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula – as gunmen unloaded and left three people dead.

The grim truth of Los Cabos

The truth of Los Cabos 

Aftermath of shootout in Acapulco, April 2010

There are signs.  Messages in the bodies, signals in the bound, executed bodies, who lay in the sun, or sit in the dark, until they are discovered.  There are patterns in the bullets, the ring of heavy arms firing from shoulders of men wearing t shirts and jeans, chasing down another, emptying bullets into the fleeing, until they are lifeless and bleed out, onto the pavement.

There is a sense of familiarly and foreboding in the coolers with body parts, with lifeless severed heads, twisted expressions and slicked, damp hair, eyes staring out of the OXXO coolers.  The mass graves, the fosas, the digging, shovels and heavy equipment, unearthing the secrets men tell, when they are alone, tired, beaten and bloody too, they whisper "I will tell you where there are bodies". Where we buried the bodies.

La Paz: Cousin of soccer player "El Chuletita" Orozco tortured and exeucted

Cousin of "El Chuletita Orozco" tortured and executed

In the early hours of Thursday morning, August 9th, in an inner colonia in La Paz, Diana Laura a man's body was discovered, as have many since the narcounemdo wars came to the city in 2014.  The man was Emillio "El Capote" Ibarra Penuelas, cousin of Javier Antonio Orozco Penuelas, "El Chuletita", who played for Tampico Madera league.  

Ibarra-Penuelas was confirmed to be "dedicated to narcocomunedo" in Laz Paz, by the state intelligence agencies.  Bands of narco retailers sometimes aligned and sometimes loyal to factions of the Sinaloa Cartel, and increasingly the CJNG bloody the streets of La Paz to control the sales of drugs, mainly crystal among the colonias. 

Mexico: counterfeit,tainted alcohol causing tourists blackouts-robbed and assaulted

AP

• Until July 27th, the U.S. state department failed to warn travelers of tainted alcohol, served at resorts and clubs causing blackouts.      
• 36-40% of  Mexican alcohol is counterfeit, made by cartels.                                                                                                             

Dead after drinking alcohol at resort

Mexican authorities swept through 31 resorts, restaurants and nightclubs in Cancun and Playa del Carmen in recent days, suspending operations at two for unsanitary alcohol and in the process discovered a sketchy manufacturer that was supplying tourist hot spots.

Regulators seized 10,000 gallons of illicit alcohol from the company, noting its “bad manufacturing practices,” according to government officials. They did not release the company's name.

Among those suspended: the lobby bar in the Iberostar Paraiso Maya, a resort in the complex where Abbey Conner, a 20-year-old Wisconsin woman, (at left) drowned amid suspicious circumstances while on vacation with her family in January.

Other vacationers later told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel they had blacked out and been assaulted at the resort after drinking at the beach and pool bars.