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on the border line between the US and Mexico
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Monday, May 29, 2017

Mexican Forces Raid Police Precinct in Zihuatanejo find 20 Officers had Drug Trafficking ties


Posted by Yaqui for Borderland Beat Republished from Fox News


Guerrero state, which is the world’s third most prolific producer of opium gum, all of which is sent north to fuel the U.S. heroin epidemic, is currently Mexico’s most murderous region.
Since last week’s operation, the Pacific resort’s municipal force has been taken off duty, leaving the state police and Mexican military to patrol the streets.



MEXICO CITY –  Following the detention of the entire municipal police force in the Mexican city of Zihuatanejo, a pleasant U.S. expat hotspot on the Pacific coast, 20 alleged drug traffickers were found to have been masquerading as cops.

Last Tuesday’s bust was conducted by state and federal police, along with the Marine Corps. Acting on mounting evidence of corruption in that precinct, they detained all 246 officers and officials until they could provide official credentials.

Alasdair Baverstock/Fox News Photo
Suspicions over local narcos masquerading as cops were first aroused in early April, when three municipal police officers disappeared from the precinct after protesting about their colleagues’activities.  


At the end of the operation, 51 arrests were made, including three high-ranking officers, but 31 were later released on charges of operating without full accreditation. The remaining 20 were charged with ties to organized crime and impersonation of public officials.

“Many of them are real police officers, but who we believe have strong ties to organized crime in the region,” Zihuatanejo’s Public Security Chief Carlos Cruz told Fox News. “The cartels are very powerful in the state of Guerrero, and we are working to purge our public bodies of links to drug trafficking.”

Since last week’s operation, the Pacific resort’s municipal force has been taken off duty, leaving the state police and Mexican military to patrol the streets.

“It was a shock,” said David Claassen, originally from Ohio, but who has lived in Mexico for the past three years. “We had no idea this was going on, as Zihuatanejo is such a peaceful and friendly place.”

On April 25, police officers who later turned out to be fake attacked a security outpost in neighboring Ixtapa and shot six officers, killing three.  (Alasdair Baverstock/Fox News)
Both the town’s mayor Gustavo Garcia and the Municipal Police Chief David Nogueda refused to comment, yet sources close to the government said it is only a matter of time before the Municipal Police force is disbanded and control of Zihuatanejo is handed over to state authorities.



“The municipal police will cease to exist once this scandal dies down,” said one magistrate who declined to be identified. “They are extremely corrupt and have only made organized crime worse in Zihua.”

The magistrate, who works in the police station and was a daily witness to organized crime’s infiltration into the force, said he needs to change his phone number once a month to avoid threatening calls from local gangsters.

“Whenever a narco was brought to me after being arrested, I would receive a call from the street boss demanding his immediate release. I had to comply because they know where my family lives and would threaten me terribly,” he said.

“I would fine the gangster $25 for his arrest, but the money would be collected by my bosses here in the precinct and never arrived where it should have,” he told Fox News. “There’s nothing anyone can do, because if you speak out against the corruption, your life is in danger.”

One narco masquerading as a police officer, known as ‘El Cadete’ (The Cadet), had been recruited into the municipal police force just 20 days before the bust, but was already well-known to the long-serving officers — he has been arrested numerous times in possession of illegal firearms in the past, a felony which usually carries a minimum 10-year prison sentence in Mexico.

Suspicions over local narcos masquerading as cops were first aroused in early April, when three municipal police officers disappeared from the precinct after protesting about their colleagues’ activities.

Weeks later, on April 25, those three men were killed when police officers who later turned out to be fake attacked a security outpost in neighboring Ixtapa.

“The killers were the same men who I saw every day in the precinct,” the magistrate told Fox News. “They killed the young men in broad daylight and later laughed about it.”

Typical Tourist Scene on the beach at a Zihuatanejo Resort
The state is home to more than half of the 62 drug cartels known to be operating in Mexico today, and while the majority of the crime is centered on Acapulco, Zihuatanejo is going through a spate of violence that has seen nine murders in the seven days since the raid on the town’s municipal police.

“There are two gangs operating here: the Sangre Nueva Generacion (‘New Generation Blood’, a group aligned to Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s Sinaloa Cartel), which controls the beachfront and touristic areas, and the Fulana group controls the villages and wider region around the town,” one local newspaper reporter told Fox News.

While the locals in Zihuatanejo were taken by surprise at the sudden operation, few were shocked by the arrests made.

“You can’t trust the cops here, the only people they take care of are the tourists,” said Miguel Angel Romero. “They don’t care about the terror the locals live with in the neighborhoods away from the beach.”

A street level municipal police officer in Zihuatanejo earns $360 a month, a wage few are likely to risk taking a bullet for by defying local gangsters, who offer additional compensation for the authorities’ silence.

“Now we have the state police on patrol, things can improve,” the magistrate said. “They are not afraid to shoot when they come across the narcos, but things will only get better if they are up for the fight, otherwise it will be business as usual.”

69 comments:

  1. As the saying goes, "When firearms become outlawed only outlaws will carry fire arms."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. With firearms you can hurt other people and hence it can be reasonable to outlaw firearms, but with drugs you can only hurt yourself.
      Thus lets legalize BOTH guns and drugs!

      Delete
    2. I see NRA propagandists pushing their baby out, pistolas.
      Guerrerenses have machetes to solve their problems, and would have done a long time ago if not for the federal gunmen subsidized by the US.
      Don't hope for crime to go away because the "state police and marinelas" they are on the take too in spite of their wonderfully better pay. This is the feral government cleaning up for 2018 on all the states, just making sure the state is aligned, accreditated and purged of any possible opposition.
      --I can't believe the Guerrero 3rd place in opium production claim, the UN reports 90% of the world's production comes from Afghanistan, and the state has been flooded with army and federales by the tens of thousands evrry year since before August 20 1967 "Massacre de La Coprera" when coconut workers were murdered by the state for demanding pay rises of $0.15 peso, 15 cents of 1 peso, $0.15 peso, $0.01375 of a dollar, not even 2 cents of a dollar, that is how the "Guerrerense Oligarch Dignitaries" defend their democracy in their feudal world, sponsored by the federal government.
      --O well, now the criminals will have some more members working for them full time...

      Delete
    3. "Mexico is awash in death and misery thanks to exported American guns"
      And you are calling people idiots ? Do you have any idea where tons of pre-cursor chemicals come from?China,but we dont hear anyone whining about that.You really cant keep blaming the US for everything wrong in Mexico,bet you listen to corridos and chant for chapo,take a look at yourself.

      Delete
  2. Thank God, the narcos in Mexico stay away from the tourist beach locations. sarc directed at ex-pats with collective heads in sand.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Poderoso Caballero es Don Dinero", Francisco de Quevedo.
      Nothing like tourist or retiree communities.

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    2. The only time these narcos will go to tourist spots is when they see and want to kidnap sexy young American girls.

      Delete
  3. Where ever the money is, it's always going to be protected cause they can't have the expats running scared and leaving. Let the people who see the violence everyday fend for themselves since they have nothing the government wants. Only way to make them fight is to have an expat killed outside the beaches for the government to go full force and fight, but even that show of force is going to be just for show.

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  4. Manuel Noriega ex president of Panama dead at 83

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 10:55 I accompany you on your pain and suffering, probesito,
      I know his real widows don't feel a pain like yours.
      Write his and yours Memoirs and Confessions by Manuel Noriega and El Chema Tamales.

      Delete
  5. These fake narco police are pieces of sheet!
    RussoNazi!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I could swear I saw you on the news about a week ago getting arrested in Mexico.

      Delete
  6. If we could read about 10 posts a day like this, I might say mex is trying to do something. 1 down, 100,000 more to go.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 3:32 ay, no mames güey, it is like we only need 99 999 mamadas after this one to destroy all the flys in the world.
      These cops are just getting bumped by the new capo-narcos in charge, and will work cooperating if they know what is good for them.

      Delete
  7. The three cops which did 'the right thing' and comlpained where murdered.

    Shows that in a criminal society good cops dont stand a chance. Change to criminal society cannot come from the cops, but must come from 'the public'.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. How can they?
      When their superiors are involved.

      Delete
  8. While things is down in guerrero. There has been arrest made in sinaloa and tabasco. In tabasco the police detain 13 mata zetas. They believe that their the once that decapitate five people and left their bodies. In sinaloa there was a shootout between rivals. 4 died but the armed forces got into the action and manage to detain 10 narcos. In zacatecas a golf cartel operator got executed by rivals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Doesn't surprise me that the CJNG sicarios behind the recent executions in Tabasco were picked up; that state has been a Zetas/CDG stronghold for more than a decade. The real surprise is when you look at Veracruz and see how many of the CJNG operators and sicarios there are ex-Zetas.

      Delete
    2. Thanks for the heads up.

      Delete
    3. I, thought there where no CDS rivals in Sinaloa???

      Delete
    4. No mata-zetas need be arrested under no circumstance even if they demand to be arrested and taken to prison, because they are Jaliskas, and they that all the time. Llevenselos pal cuartel de las marinas.

      Delete
    5. They found oil in Tabasco in the 70's and corruption flowed from the wildcatting, specially from the politicians' assholes but El Mamito had it down for los zetas, with the politicians on the scene, I don't know that they have been investigated for that, ever.

      Delete
  9. Puerto Vallarta known for underage prostitution is also known as a U.S. vacation hotspot for even top executives from U.S. corporations. Now this town. It amazes me that everywhere there is a hotspot for Americans there is so much corruption. Yet this is only a Mexican issue say some BB readers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 8:47 come serr tu dirreccion, tu hablas mucho, nosotrras solo querrer ser felices un ratito con nuestrros ameegos mexicanos, ellos dicir que ser mayores de edad, comprendes?
      No serrarnos el paraiso otrra vez, ya nos corrieron de Cancun y Cacapulco por sus chismes.

      Delete
  10. Why does it not surprise me. Mexico has literally fallen into a society of corruption. Lawless and corrupt in every aspect. Such a shame that normal life consists of unwanted yet appropriate criminal activities by those municipal and government officials.
    Moreover the disappearance of police due to the protests.
    Unbelievable.!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On the other hand moreover, you forgot to sign your crap, w40, or it was intentional?

      Delete
  11. Cjng is taking over that area

    ReplyDelete
  12. Fox? You's are getting lazy now

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @10:52AM No Yaqui is not getting lazy. she just did her homework. The author of the story is a free lance journalist that has published in

      Publication
      TIME
      The Telegraph
      The Independent
      Globe And Mail
      The Atlantic
      CS Monitor
      PRESS TV
      Salon
      The Guardian
      The Scotsman
      Financial Times
      Rough Guides
      Live TV/Radio
      Daily Mail
      BBC
      She has published 12 stories this month and has several ready in draft form waiting to get formatted. Be careful who you call lazy.

      Delete
    2. Nobody publishes 12 stories a month, if they did the proper research. I've been a war correspondent for BBC, Reuters, and GPT for 17 yrs. Any journalist pushing nonsense work like this will stay free lance.

      Delete
    3. Mexico has had a Herion problem for decades. Oh Charles Bowden, please come back to inform these idiots like only u can!!

      Delete
    4. dd, u should def stick to blogging

      Delete
    5. @3:37 You should not call one of our 2 hardest working reporters lazy

      Delete
    6. How is reposting a story from Fox News, and ADDING a paragraph once again blaming the US for mex heroin trade, hard work??

      Delete
    7. @3:32 If you had been a war correspondent for major publications for 17 years I would think you would recognize that you are talking about 2 different people. Alasdair Baverstock is the free lance journalist who researched and wrote the article. Yaqui is the Borderland Beat reporter who republished the article on BB. Nearly all of the 12 articles she has posted this month have been translations from Spanish publications. That is a big part of what we do here. We have a few that are original articles written by the reporter and I assure you they are well researched. I spent over 30 hours on the memoriam to Javier Valdez.

      Delete
    8. Yaqui added a paragraph at the beginning of the article once again blaming the US for the heroin trade in mex!! Trump backed Fox News would never have put that paragraph in the article!! If your going to challenge me, post ALL of my comments!!

      Delete
    9. And the memorial to Valdez was wonderful. It brings me to tears to read about these lives snuffed out, for telling the world about the madness they have to not only report on, but also live in.

      Delete
    10. @6:28 Before accusing Yaqui of adding a paragraph blaming the US for the heroin trade in Mex. and saying "Trump backed Fox News would never have put that paragraph in the article!!!", click the hyper link at the top of the page that says Fox News and go to Fox news website. Read the story and you will find that exact paragraph (written by a Fox reporter). It is just to left of the photo with the beach scene.

      Your next comment can be an apology to Yaqui.

      Delete
    11. Crow tastes terrible Yaqui. I just wanted dd to put the work in.

      Delete
    12. I would say, that paragraph was pushed to the beginning of the article though. Based on you two's bias towards the US. In the original fox publication, that was the last paragraph in the article. So as not to highlight the US as the cause of the crooked Mexican cops. U guys are slick. Lol....

      Delete
    13. @6:11PM Have you ever "republished" a story? (and before you continue the fake facts that 7:49 posted about adding a paragraph read my response to him). Copying and pasting story is one of the easiest stories to do and this is the first or second one that Yaqui has done. The rest are all translations. But even to just republish a story takes some time. You don't just go to Fox News and click copy and paste it to BB. It has to be formatted for BB, the photos imported and placed where they belong, and then edited (paragraph breaks, margins alignd, etc.) So your attempt to bash Yaqui just shows you don't know what you are talking about.

      Delete
    14. 3.32
      You are arguing with a bleeding heart simpleton who sees only what he wants to see,he is the mod who allows the stories,many with a silly politically angled bias against the US.

      Delete
    15. @1;56PM This is the bleeding heart simpleton. As usual you don't know what you are talking about. I moderate comments, not stories. I don't allow or disallow stories. The reporters don't submit their stories in advance to anyone for approval. If asked by a reporter I will proof read a draft or help with formatting. So my bias is not reflected in any of their stories. Did you notice that there was a Fox News story up the same day a Washington Post story.

      8:12. When you said earlier that "Trump backed Fox News" would never publish such a paragraph I asked you to go to the Fox News site and even told you where in the story it was. Evidently you didn't do that or you would not now be claiming (falsely again) that it was the last paragraph. It is in the middle of the story. If we had wanted to give emphasis to the paragraph I would have made it the last paragraph because the last thing a reader sees is what he takes away from the story. It is used as a clincher. So as I told 1;56 know what you are talking about before you slam BB as being biased.

      Delete
    16. I did go to the website idiot. And he took the last paragraph from the original and made it the headline. And y dont i ask DD himself if the US is the cause of mexicos crisis. I did, and his answer was yes. So THATS BIAS AMIGO!!!

      Delete
    17. @3:25AM Why do you continue to lie about something that is so easy for a reader to check the truth on the Fox website.

      Delete
    18. @7:51PM I interpret your comment as an apology and think you are a scholar and gentleman.

      Delete
    19. That's funny DD, why did the Wash Post ask you to remove it then? That's odd.

      Delete
    20. @3;47PM If you think that is funny you have a strange sense of humor. (and you don't know much about journalism or copyright laws). Many websites require the same restrictions that WP is requiring, so it is not "odd" or unusual. (as is their right under copyright laws.) Many other websites don't complain because they think like I do that when we publish their stories it just broadens their coverage.(that is why we have a hyperlink to their site at the top of the page in every story.)
      As you can see the WP did not elaborate on their reasons.
      On Fri, Jun 2, 2017 at 8:16 AM, AlFadl Miranda, Azhar wrote:

      " Hello,
      Thank you so much for including Joshua Partlow’s story on your site http://www.borderlandbeat.com/ 2017/05/in-mexico-price-of- americas-hunger-for.html

      We don’t permit full republishing of our stories—only excerpts with a link to the original story. May you please make this edit?

      Azhar AlFadl Miranda
      Publicist
      The Washington Post"

      Delete
    21. Man the WaPo has been invaded too.
      Ok ladies of the night, as a 200 comments a day nobody, I have to say Fawx News has earned its kneepads by the truck load, and o ly the most reactionary of their believers still trust them, but only 2 channels published the story that says THE CIA HAD KIKI CAMARENA MURDERED, CHANNEL 26, FAWX NEWS AND PROCESS IN MEXICO, with interviews live with accusers DEA agents Héctor Berrellez and Phil Jordan, and the accused FELIX ISMAEL RODRIGUEZ MANDIGUTIA, A CUBAN PLUMBER EXILEE WITH A LONG HISTORY OF CRIMES that nobody else investigates or prosecutes.
      So, don't worry too much about the personalities and dignitaries visiting us, or with their looong track records that many times pave the way like vaseline to later stick it to all of us.
      And don't let your personal grudges get in the middle, fight with the ideas not with the talibanes.
      1:56 I am jealous of the guys interacting with la yaqui too, but I won't be a sucky sour puss like you, guess your "style" keeps you very very lonely.

      Delete
    22. 3:32 you are the first and only "anonymous" war correspondent that has appeared here in our famous pages, a new low for Borderland Beat, you belong with the home rope jumping paratroopers.

      Delete
    23. Can we move on now ?
      I saw this piece in several US sources and thought this was the best version due to the FREELANCE Author Alastair Baverstock; as DD pointed out.
      Yes, that first paragraph WAS A MISTAKE, PERIOD.
      Thanks DD for your support.
      and apology accepted.

      Delete
    24. Thank u Yaqui!!! U know we love u!!!

      Delete
    25. U the man Yaqui! We only want the best for our neighbors. We love your culture, architecture, beaches, FOOD, and God we love your women! We can overcome this!
      From: crow eater

      Delete
    26. 3:28 according to "The Crying Game" there comes a time it doesn't matter if a man or a woman is a man or a woman.
      gorillas love their nitpicking, that makes them big and stong and dumb... so there.
      this is my unresearched, biased, unfounded, added "paragraph"

      Delete
  13. Really, police officers, What about the politicians that took money from El Chapo?, Where is the secret payoff list, bet you Nieto is at the top

    ReplyDelete
  14. This article is bogus not all of it goes to the US a portion stays in Mexico to feed the heroin demand there. I'm from Calexico and I know there has long been bunch of tecatos in Mexicali Tijuana San Luis Rio Colorado etc and now it has spread farther south.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Luis at least you have the intelligence to see and think for yourself instead of using a scapegoat for endemic failings in Mexico,we know only too well the huge demand for drugs in the US,headlines like this are non-productive and continue on the oft repeated political mantra of "the gringo is to blame" We know the failings of the US only to well.
      It is bogus.Mantente seguro hermano

      Delete
    2. Thanks for your comments and yes, I totally agree.
      I know all to well how all of these hard drugs are affecting many many Mexican communities/ families / society.

      I think that the US demand is only a part of a huge complex problem, perhaps unsolvable.

      Delete
  15. Pueblos de Guerrero!! Ayi yayai verda de dios!!!

    ReplyDelete
  16. Ya me voy, Ya me despido. Pero pronto volvere, de los pueblos de guerrero nunca mi olvidare ese es mi estado querido, tierra donde yo me crie.

    ReplyDelete
  17. "Sent north to fuel the US epidemic"
    Even the headline is politically angled.
    You really must take responsibility for your own actions and stop blaming everyone else

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 2:41 it is like cars, they don't run just because they have a muffler, there are a lot of components and they still require fuel and taxes to work.
      Same with your broke ass muffler, there is no scapegoats, just components, if you really really love your.country try, don't black out its realities, The US is not about covering up for its criminals anywhere in the family tree, covering up for them is rather cowardly, ignorant, and a treason, Benedict Arnold would not be proud of his betrayals, why would youses?

      Delete
  18. That's bull not all the heroin crop goes to satisfy America's drug rabbit. Mexico has it's own heroin epidemic since I've been a kid. Lord knows tecatos have long been a fixture in Tijuas,Chicali and other northern cities and it's moving farther south

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Those are all the deported Mexicans that got deported because of drugs. I know a few from growing up that got hooked on drugs and got deported and stayed in Tijuana because the bus doesn't go down south, and maybe they thought they had a chance to cross the border again.

      Delete
    2. 2:57 most mexicans do not have the money to buy a lot of Heroin, cebollitas de meth, maybe, heroin and cocaine, and designer's grifa only the juniors of millionaire politicans and businessmen, most farmers do not have huaraches to wear, or much to eat but you have a very big mouth, even naco-narcos barely have maruchan to eat or chips and cocas, they have gun payments to make too, and no welfare.

      Delete
  19. Wow just lime they did in Tijuana a few years back

    ReplyDelete
  20. Don't believe there is a simple solution to the unprecedented violence and corruption in Mexico.
    Declaring martial law in those states will only bring protests from citizens and criminal gangs.
    Strict oversight and enforcement of municipal officials will result with disagreements and protests.
    The end result is a continuing uncertainty for a country deeply embedded with corruption.
    Heartbreaking.

    E42

    ReplyDelete
  21. cop was with them

    ReplyDelete
  22. What we have here is a complete lack of respect for the law.

    ReplyDelete

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