By Gary Martin/San Antonio Express News
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/state/article/U-S-Mexico-team-up-for-murder-trial-2691871.php#photo-2167083

Soldiers escorted Julian Zapata Espinoza (third from left) during a presentation of detainees for the media in Mexico City eight days after Jaime Zapata was killed last February.Photo: Associated Press, Miguel Tovar / AP


WASHINGTON — A federal judge signaled Wednesday that he would allow Mexico and U.S. prosecutors to team up in the trial of a Mexican drug cartel member accused of killing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent Jaime Zapata.

It was the first time that Julian Zapata Espinoza, known as “El Piolín” or “Tweety Bird,” has appeared in U.S. court since he was arraigned in December.

U.S. Chief Judge Royce Lamberth warned that even though he would waive provisions for a speedy trial because of its complex nature, prosecutors from both governments would need to move expeditiously regardless of sovereignty issues.

“We can send them right back to their sovereignty if they do not want to cooperate with us,” Lamberth said.

Justice Department lawyer Michael DiLorenzo asked the judge to designate the case complex and give more time to the prosecution to receive ballistics reports, crime scene reports and documents from agencies in Mexico where the crime occurred.

Lamberth said he would likely rule in favor of the request over the objections by court-appointed defense lawyer Ron Earnest.Zapata Espinoza, sporting a goatee and close-cropped hair, was in the courtroom wearing an orange District of Columbia jail jumpsuit.

He remained motionless during the proceedings.

“He's a little surprised. He's disoriented. He's not familiar with the American system of justice,” Earnest said.

Lamberth set another hearing date of April 25. A trial in the case is not expected until later this year.

A federal grand jury in Washington returned a sealed indictment last April charging Zapata Espinoza with the murder of Zapata and the attempted murder of ICE special agent Victor Avila.

Zapata Espinoza also is charged with murder and attempted murder of internationally protected persons and using a firearm during the crimes.

The indictments were opened when Zapata Espinoza was extradited from Mexico in December to face the charges in U.S. district court.

He is being held without bail.

Agent Zapata, 32, of Brownsville was gunned down Feb. 15.

Zapata and Avila were consultants working with the Mexican government and traveling between Mexico City and Monterrey, near San Luis Potosí, when they were ambushed by a group of armed men.

Mexican and U.S. officials said the ambush was carried out by Los Zetas, one of the major criminal drug cartels operating in Mexico.

Ballistics and crime scene reports, as well as analysis, is part of the information Justice Department lawyers want to see before the next hearing.

“We continue to work with our partners south of the border to obtain additional documents,” DiLorenzo told the judge.

Zapata Espinoza has confessed to the shooting death of agent Zapata to Mexican authorities.

The National Defense Secretariat of Mexico said five other Los Zetas cartel members also were arrested in connection with the ambush.

Earnest said that even with indictments, he expects Zapata Espinoza to be tried alone on the charges he faces.

The death of Zapata and the attempted killing of Avila became an international incident that was discussed between President Barack Obama and Mexican President Felipe Calderón during a state visit last year.

Calderón and Mexican officials worked with the Justice Department, FBI, ICE, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other U.S. agencies on the investigation.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, officials estimate that as many as 47,000 people have been killed in the drug wars since Calderón ordered a crackdown nearly six years ago.

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At least a dozen banners appeared Wednesday morning in Ciudad Juarez, all containing the same message threatening police chief Julián Leyzaola and the members of his force.

The message also accused Leyzoala of supporting the Sinaloa Cartel in their fight against the Juarez cartel to secure the lucrative Ciudad Juarez plaza.

The banners contained the following message.

"Para leyzaola. Si sigues apoyando a los montaperros y agarrando pura gente de nosotros te vamos a matar un elemento diario para q sepa toda la ciudadanía lo corrupto que eres. Leyzaola=Delincuente con placas. ATTE. NCJ."

This is for Leyzaola. If you continue supporting the imitators and only arrest our people we will kill one officer daily so that the citizens will know how corrupt you are. Leyzaola = a criminal with a badge. Sincerely, Nuevo Cartel de Juarez

The message highlighted the fact that five police officers and a state prosecutor have been murdered this month in Ciudad Juarez.

The latest officers to fall were Héctor René Martínez González, age 45, and Carlos Daniel Cháirez Hernández, age 26. Both men were attacked Tuesday afternoon in the colonia Bosques de Salvárcar while on the way to report for their evening shift duties.

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Authorities say the Mexican Navy has taken over traffic policing duties in the port city of Veracruz, which has been plagued by drug cartel violence.

Veracruz state Gov. Javier Duarte said in a statement Monday that two rear admirals are now the directors of traffic police in the neighboring cities of Veracruz and Boca del Rio.

The move is part of an effort to root out corruption from law enforcement and start from zero in the city of Veracruz.

In December, the police departments in both cities were disbanded and taken over by the Navy. Authorities said the departments had been infiltrated by the Zetas drug cartel. In Mexico traffic police are separate from other police departments.





The Take Over
The take over of the Inter State Traffic Police in Veracruz by the Mexican Marines: The police agency is abolished. Mexican governor said the militarization of the police forces is temporary until the police forces are rebuilt from the ground up.

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Eight men were killed in separate shootings in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital, police said.

Gunmen armed with assault rifles entered a house Monday in the southern section of Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, and opened fire on the four men inside, the Ciudad Juarez municipal police department said.

Three of the men were pronounced dead at the scene, while the fourth man died while being transported by an ambulance to a clinic.

The naked body of a man who had been bound with duct tape was thrown from a moving car a few hours earlier on an avenue in the border city.

A message signed by a criminal organization was left with the body, the police department said.

Gunmen opened fire on a man who was walking down a street in downtown Juarez, killing him.

A man who tried to take shelter in his house was shot dead by gunmen riding in a vehicle, leaving the body hanging on a fence, police said.

Gunmen cut off a vehicle carrying four people earlier in the day and opened fire, killing one of the people inside and wounding the other three.

The motive for the killings has not been determined and the victims have not been identified, police said.

Over the weekend, a Ciudad Juarez police supervisor was murdered by gunmen while driving to work.

The victim, who unofficial reports identified as Fabian Ramirez, was driving to work with another police officer Saturday morning in his private automobile when the attack occurred.



Three municipal police officers have been killed in Ciudad Juarez since the start of this month by suspected drug traffickers.

Ciudad Juarez has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.

The border city, which topped the list of the world’s deadliest cities for three consecutive years, dropped to second last year with 148 homicides for every 100,000 residents.

The murder rate took off in the border city of 1.5 million people in 2007, when 310 people were killed, then it more than tripled to 1,607 in 2008, according to Chihuahua Attorney General’s Office figures, with the number of killings climbing to 2,754 in 2009.

More than 3,100 people were murdered in the border city in 2010, making it the worst year since the cartel turf war sent the homicide rate skyrocketing in 2008.

About 2,000 people were murdered in Juarez in 2011.

Source: EFE

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A Sinaloa cartel boss wanted in the United States in connection with the deaths of 11 migrants in 2009 was arrested by the Federal Police, the Mexican Public Safety Secretariat said.

Fidel Mancinas Franco, who ran the cartel’s operations in the northern border state of Sonora, was detained on Saturday, the secretariat said.

The suspect was captured by the Federal Police on a highway outside Cananea, a city in Sonora, and taken to Mexico City.

Mancinas Franco is the subject of an arrest warrant on people trafficking charges and faces extradition to the United States for the deaths of the migrants in two automobile accidents.

He ran the Sinaloa cartel’s operations in the cities of Nogales, Agua Prieta, Naco and Cananea, all located in Sonora, officials said.



'Chapo' Aide Killed in Gunfight

The Mexican security forces have arrested 11 alleged members of the country's most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa cartel.

They said those detained worked for Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the most wanted man in Mexico.

They were arrested during a helicopter raid on a ranch in the north-western state of Durango on Friday.

During the raid, elite troops killed the regional leader of the gang, Luis Alberto Cabrera Sarabia.

Members of a Mexican army special forces unit fatally shot a high-ranking aide to the country's most-wanted drug dealer in a gunfight in the northern state of Durango, officials said Monday.

Cabrera Sarabia was responsible for the operations of Guzman's Sinaloa Cartel in Durango and part of the neighboring state of Chihuahua, army spokesman Gen. Ricardo Trevilla said.

The army says Sarabia is know as "The Architect," and was named to the role after the December arrest of his brother Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, or "The Engineer."

Sinaloa gunmen traded fire with troops during the operation to arrest Luis Cabrera Sarabia on Friday. One of the gunmen was slain and 11 others were captured. Four soldiers were hurt in the gunfight.

The Sinaloa organization, sometimes referred to by officials as the Pacific cartel, is the oldest drug cartel in Mexico and is led by Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman.

Guzman, considered extremely violent, is one of the most-wanted criminals in Mexico and the United States, where the Drug Enforcement Administration is offering a reward of $5 million for him.

Forbes magazine estimates that Guzman has a fortune of more than $1 billion, making him one of the richest people in the world.

The Sinaloa cartel, according to intelligence agencies, is a transnational business empire that operates in the United States, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, the Americas and Asia.

Guzman, who was born in 1957 in La Tuna, Sinaloa, was arrested in Guatemala in 1993 and pulled off a Hollywood-style jailbreak when he escaped from the Puente Grande maximum-security prison in the western state of Jalisco on Jan. 19, 2001.

Source: EFE, The Associated Press

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Five police officers and one detainee were ambushed and gunned down in the Estado de Mexico municipality of Ixtapaluca Tuesday afternoon.

At the time of the attack police officers were transporting two detainees that according to the Estado de Mexico Attorney General were members of La Familia Michoacana. One of the detainees survived the attack with critical injuries and is still in custody.

According to Estado de Mexico Attorney General Alfredo Castillo the officers were travelling in two pickups and were attacked by men armed with AR-15's after being stopped by another vehicle and exchanging words with the occupants.

The empty cartridges of at least eighty .223 cal. rounds fired by the gunmen littered the crime scene.

Ixtapaluca, like many of the Estado de Mexico municipalities that surround Mexico City, has been a hotbed of organized criminal activity that includes extortion, automobile thefts, illicit drug dealing, kidnapping and the sale of counterfeit products.

In September, 2011, three federal police officers were killed in Ixtapaluca while attempting to arrest suspected La Familia extortionists, and the Ixtapaluca municipal police chief was murdered that same month.

These municipalities are home to approximately half of the more than 20 million people that live in the Mexico City metropolitan area, from the wealthy suburbs in Huixquilucan to the sprawling urban slums of Ciudad Neza (Nezahualcoyotl).

La Mano con Ojos, Los Zetas, La Familia Michoacana, Los Caballeros Templarios, el Cartel del Centro and the ultaviolent street gangs of Ciudad Neza operate in, and fight for, these municipalities.

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By Robert Bunker

Small Wars Journal

Mexican Cartel Tactical Note #9: Decapitated Adult Male with Hands and Feet Removed:

Found on Side of a Dirt Road Near Marana (Pima County) Arizona.

Key Information:

Via Veronica M. Cruz, “Decapitated body found near Tucson Mountains.” Arizona Daily Star. Saturday 7 January 2012:

A man’s decapitated body was found on the side of a dirt road Friday morning west of the Tucson Mountains.

The hands and feet also had also been removed from the body discovered in the 2300 block of North Reservation Road and West Mile Wide Road. None of the missing body parts were found at the scene, Pima County sheriff’s Bureau Chief Rick Kastigar said.

The body was discovered by two men cutting grass along the road to feed their animals, he said.

The men flagged down Bureau of Land Management Rangers and border patrol agents in the area, but were released before deputies could question them, Kastigar said.

“We don’t know who they are or where they came from,” Kastigar said of pair who reported the discovery. “We don’t know their association to the crime.”

Other evidence was found at the scene but Kastigar could not provide details, citing the ongoing investigation.

Kastigar said that neither he nor the department’s veteran investigators have dealt with a case like this before.

“I can tell you that the crime of murder is not necessarily new to that part of the county,” Kastigar said. Homicide victims have been found in the remote area.

An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Sheriff’s deputies are asking for anyone with information to call to call 911 or 88-CRIME (882-7463).
See Kvoa.com (Ch 4 News Tucson, AZ) 1:23 minute video at http://www.kvoa.com/videos/body-found-near-marana-was-decapitated-sheriffs-say/.

For information on this incident and on other Mexican cartel beheadings in the US see Krgv.com (Ch 5 News Rio Grande Valley, TX) 1:45 minute video at http://www.krgv.com/news/expert-says-beheadings-in-u-s-look-like-work-of-cartels/.

Who: Unknown adult male. Ethnicity and/or distinguishing features not provided.

What: Beheading and partial dismemberment; hands and feet removed.

When: Estimates are that the body was not at the location more than 24 hours which would place the body dump on roughly Thursday 5 January 2012.

Where: On the side of a dirt road near Marana (Pima County) Arizona— 2300 block of North Reservation Road and West Mile Wide Road. This is a rural area North-West of Tucson with the interstate I-10, linking Phoenix and Tucson, about 15 miles to the East.

Why: The working assumption is that this is Mexican cartel related, though the homicide is still under investigation. The lead investigative agency is the Pima County Sheriff’s Office.

Tactical Analysis: The beheading and partial dismemberment of the adult male has all the trademarks of a Mexican cartel killing although this homicide will likely never be solved in the near term. No mention of tattoos on the body or personal items have been made in the news reports which would help to identify potential cartel and gang linkages.

None of the victim’s removed body parts have been located and investigating detectives said that the body also suffered other obvious signs of trauma. Lack of the head and other body parts at the body dump scene (potential crime scene unlikely) indicate that the perpetrators did not want the victim identified. The mention of ‘obvious signs of trauma’ is assumed to mean physical abuse and/or blunt force or penetrating trauma [eg. bladed weapon or gunshot(s)]. It is noted that the body was dumped by the side of a dirt road.

The body could have instead been buried in a shallow grave further away from the road which could mean (a). The perpetrators wanted the body found (possibly as a warning to others linked to their activities) or (b). Due to time or operational security (OPSEC) reasons they decided to leave the body out in the open. Past cartel TTPs (tactics, techniques and procedures) would suggest that the perpetrators wanted the body found to make a statement to other illicit narcotics and/or human trafficking smugglers.

A body dump to dispose of a kidnapping victim (for family extortion purposes) also has to be considered but would appear highly unlikely. This incident will now likely end the debate concerning whether beheadings have taken place in the Arizona desert— though technically the victim may have been killed indoors for OPSEC reasons. While no such Arizona desert beheadings had been identified prior to this incident this cartel violence spillover ‘firebreak’ now appears to have been crossed.

Significance: Beheading; Cartel Tactics; Cartel TTPs; Cross Border Violence.

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