The prosecutor in charge of internal affairs at the Attorney General’s Office of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua and one of her bodyguards were shot dead in the border city of Juarez, state officials told Efe on Thursday.
Sandra Ivonne Salas was killed around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday in the northwestern section of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s murder capital.
Salas’s slaying pushed the number of murders in Juarez, located across the Rio Grande from El Paso, Texas, to 303 in June, making it the deadliest month of the year, state officials said.
The prosecutor, who was in charge of internal affairs, analysis and evaluation of operations at the AG’s office, was traveling with two bodyguards when she was attacked.
One of the bodyguards escaped unharmed.
Salas was responsible for evaluating the performance of AG’s office employees assigned to the special investigation units in the northern section of Ciudad Juarez.
She was also heading up the investigation of Maximo Miranda Figueroa, a former AG’s office agent arrested in Costa Rica and accused of stealing public funds, dereliction of duty and obstruction of justice.
Salas, moreover, was involved in the probe into the Feb. 4 killing of Carlos Soltero Cano, a 33-year-old AG’s office employee in charge of an anti-kidnapping unit.
The bodies of 3 men abducted the night before are found abandoned on a dirt road outside of the town of Juan Jose Rios this morning. All three are victims of multiple gunshot wounds.
When the police arrive they realize that one of the victims is still alive. He is a young man who police did not identify but is expected to recover from his wounds.
He has cheated death but his executioner may not be so lucky. The usual penalty is death for a low level “sicario” who has been so careless as to fail and leave someone alive who may exact revenge.
Wednesday June 30. Culiacan, Sinaloa
A mother, Rosa Cruz Rios, and Perla, her 6 year old daughter were killed and another daughter, age 10, was wounded when the pick-up truck in which they were riding was attacked at a gasoline station by an armed group of men. Two other women riding in the truck, neighbors of Mrs Cruz, were also wounded.
The driver of the truck, the children’s father, returned fire and repelled the attack.
It was not known if the attackers suffered any casualties.
Wednesday June 30. Sinaloa de Leyva, Sinaloa
Wednesday morning the bodies of 6 men from El Tarraizal, a village high in the Sierra Madre mountains, are located by authorities. Dozens of 7.62mm AK-47 shell casings littered the area where 5 bodies were abandoned. Another body, with it’s head crushed, was found on the bed of a pickup belong to one of the victims.
Some of the men displayed severe machete wounds.
A narcomensage (message on a placard) was left behind stating that everyone who supported “El Chuyiyo” would meet the same fate and was signed by “los de arriba”, the people from above.
The 6 men had been abducted Tuesday evening by a group of armed men dressed in black and claiming to be state judicial police who walked into El Tarraizal and drove the population away from their homes. The gunmen and their victims left on several vehicles that were robbed from villagers.
Tuesday June 29. La Vainilla, Sinaloa
A group of up to 60 gunmen dressed in black and armed with assault weapons and RPG launchers attack and occupy the two mountain villages of La Vainilla and El Opochi. They are believed to be part of the same group that attacked El Tarraizal earlier the same evening.
All three villages are within the same municipality of Sinaloa de Leyva in the northern area of the state.
In a night filled with hysteria and terror the gunman fired into the homes of the villagers who lay on the floor of their homes as bullets penetrated doors and walls. The yelled “where is Chuyiyo cabezon” as the kicked down doors in search of men on a hit list.
Most of the villagers including all of the men had fled their homes into the mountains and only the old and some women and young children were left to sob and plea for their lives.
Before the gunmen left they torched at least 10 homes and vehicles. No fatalities were reported by the villagers.
“We live in hell," said some of the victims "the authorities were already warned that this could happen, we asked for help and they ignored us,"
Six hours after the attack around 10 soldiers and several municipal police arrived but retreated after inspecting the site according to the villagers
“We were questioned, we went from victim to being held responsible”
On June 9 of this year the town of Baburia lived through a similar assault and occupation by gunmen who abducted six men and burned down several houses and vehicles.
The six men were found executed the next day.
The inhabitants of La Vainilla, El Opochi, El Tarraizal and Baburia are mostly poor marijuana growers who live at the mercy of the traffickers and the military. They are expendable.
Tuesday June 29. Los Mochis, Sinaloa
A campaign closing event for the PRI candidate for governor, Jesus Vizcarra Calderon, was disrupted as a portion of the crowd of sympathizers stampeded after hearing gunshots. According to some witnesses several masked gunmen fired into the air after failing to abduct an individual who escaped and fled into the crowd.
Other witness claimed it opposition PAN supporters who disrupted the rally. Whatever the cause of the stampede, it is not lost on the attendees that even political rallies are no longer safe.
Both candidates, Jesus Vizcarra of the PRI and Mario Lopez Valdez of the PAN, are reputed to be “narcopoliticos” with connections to drug traffickers. Jesus Vizcarra has been photographed with Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of the leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel.
Sinaloa is a small agricultural state with a population of only 2 and a half million people that is known as the baseball capital of Mexico. The state is also infamous for its violent outlaw history.
Sinaloa is the state with the highest concentration of marijuana and opium under cultivation in Mexico. Its highlands produce some of the most potent pot in North America.
It is the birthplace of most of Mexico’s drug kingpins. Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo “The Godfather” who was Mexico’s top trafficker in the 1980’s, the Caro Quintero, Arellano Felix, Carrillo Fuentes, Beltran Leyva and Zambada clans, and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and Hector “El Guero” Palma all call Sinaloa their birthplace.
The state also supplies a majority of the deadly “sicarios”, or assassins, that serve as killers for the Sinaloa and other cartels. The names of paramilitary hit squads originating in Sinaloa such as “los Pelones” and “los Negros” are feared throughout Mexico.
The violence in Sinaloa is unstoppable. No authority, at any level of government has been able to stop the terrorism of organized crime and its breakdown of civil society and state institutions
Official numbers show that the government strategy has brought a resurgence of homicides to Sinaloa. June 2010 was the most violent month in the history of the state with 226 drug cartel related murders.
Sinaloa has suffered 1,202 murders for the first 6 months of 2010. For 2009 the number of murders for the whole year was 1,243. Sinaloa now has the highest murder rate of any state in Mexico.
June 2010 was in fact the deadliest month of President Calderon’s term for the entire country of Mexico. This month there were 1,200 murders linked to organized crime. Sinaloa and Chihuahua accounted for almost half of these murders. 103 of these victims were soldiers and police. The number of innocent civilians is unknown.
Mexican Cartel Member Linked to Attacks on Officials Arrested
Federal police escort Miguel Ortiz Miranda, aka "El Tyson," alleged to direct operations of the La Familia cartel in Morelia, capital of Michoacan. Officials said Ortiz was responsible for the assassination attempt against state security chief, Minerva Bautista Gomez.
A Familia Michoacana drug cartel boss suspected of being behind attacks on several public officials has been arrested by Federal Police officers, the Mexican Public Safety Secretariat said.
Miguel Ortiz Miranda, a former police officer who goes by the alias of “Tyson,” was arrested Tuesday in connection with the ambush in April of Michoacan state Public Safety Secretary Minerva Bautista Gomez in which four people died.
He also confessed to the murder last year of Jose Manuel Revuelta, who served as Michoacan’s public safety secretary, as well as the killing of Josafat Delfino Lopez Tinoco, who was director of investigations for the federal Attorney General’s Office.
The drug trafficker, moreover, has been linked to the killings of 12 Federal Police officers in Zitacuaro and four other officers on the highway to Tarimbaro last month.
Ortiz Miranda, who was in charge of drug sales for the cartel in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, confessed that many of the attacks were a response to changes in the state Public Safety Secretariat that “went against the interests” of the criminal organization, officials said.
La Resistencia, a group that left messages with the bodies of victims, such as Lopez Tinoco, whose head was packed in a cooler, is really an alliance of the La Familia, Milenio, Los Valencia and Gulf organizations to battle Los Zetas, Ortiz Miranda told authorities.
La Familia operates in Michoacan, while the Milenio and Los Valencia gangs are based in Jalisco, and the Gulf cartel operates out of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
Narcos and Polleros Kill each other in Sonora, 21 dead.
Twenty-one people have been killed in Mexico following a gun battle between suspected rival drug gangs near the US border. Two groups authorities believe were involved in drug and human trafficking clashed in a deserted area about 12 miles south of the border, Sonora State Police spokesman Jose Larrinaga Talamantes.
Prosecutors in northern Sonora state say the fighting occurred on Thursday in a sparsely populated area about 20km from the Arizona border.
The state attorney general's office said in a statement that nine people were captured by police at the scene of the shootings, six of whom had been wounded in the confrontation.
Authorities at the scene found seven rifles.
"Details are sketchy as it's is a very far away area from the capital of the state, but police say two gangs are fighting for control of the area. It is a very lucrative transit point for drugs and migrants crossing the border into the US," she said.
"Drug traffickers are also involved in the human trafficking business, so that's why they are fighting for control of territory."
The Mexican Army, state police and federal police responded to the area after the shootout, which witnesses said happened about 4 a.m. Thursday (7 a.m. ET). Investigators were still searching for others involved later Thursday, Larrinaga said.
Police said the bullet flew through the window, then through an interior wall before hitting a picture frame and stopping.
El Paso, Texas - Several gunshots apparently fired from Juárez hit El Paso City Hall on Tuesday afternoon.
No one was hurt, but nerves were rattled at City Hall in what is thought to be the first cross-border gunfire during a drug war that has engulfed Juárez since 2008.
El Paso police spokesman Darrel Petry said investigators do not think City Hall was intentionally targeted but rather was struck by stray shots.
"It does appear the rounds may have come from an incident in Juárez," Petry said.
City Hall, whose east and west sides are covered by glass windows, sits on a hill about a half-mile north of the Rio Grande.
About 4:50 p.m., city workers were going about a regular day when a bullet penetrated a ninth-floor west side window of the office of Assistant City Manager Pat Adauto.
The building was not evacuated, but several secretaries with windows facing Juárez described the incident as scary. Several police officers were sent to City Hall. A police crime scene investigator could be seen taking photos of the building.
Petry said an inspection by police and city staff found that City Hall was hit by seven gunshots, which appeared to be losing velocity when they struck. Six of the rounds hit stucco walls on the north and south sides of the building. Two bullets were recovered -- the one that went through the window and one that bounced off an exterior wall. The size of the bullets was not disclosed.
"Any time somebody takes a shot at City Hall, it's of great concern to us," El Paso Mayor John Cook said. "It's OK if people take political shots at us, but this is unacceptable."
In another act of terrorism directed at the electoral process in Mexico a decapitated body was placed yards away from a home belonging to Héctor “Teto” Murguía Lardizábal, the PRI candidate for Mayor of Ciudad Juarez.
The body of the beheaded man was found Wednesday about 6:00 AM on the Avenida Pedro Rosales De Leon. Just yesterday the candidate had officially unveiled his home address to report where he will vote next Sunday.
The body was found wrapped in a plastic bag with the head taped to the torso and hands bound behind its back and showed other signs of torture which is indicative of an organized crime execution style murder.
According to witnesses the body had a message attached to it addressed to the candidate but it was immediately removed by the police who refused to comment. The body was located so that it could be seen from the windows of all the houses adjacent to the site. It was not announced if the candidate had seen the body or the message.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first time that bodies are abandoned near a residence belonging to Murguia.
Murguía had three executed bodies abandoned a few steps from his home in separate incidents during a previous term as mayor of Ciudad Juarez. Murguía was mayor of Juarez from 2004 to 2007. In Mexico incumbents cannot seek reelection to consecutive terms.
Murguía’s previous administration was marred by a scandal involving his police chief, Saulo Reyes Gamboa, who served from January to October 2007.
Three months after leaving his position Reyes Gamboa was arrested by federal authorities in El Paso, Texas, on drug trafficking and bribery charges. He plead guilty and is now serving eight year sentence in a federal prison in Kentucky.
Murguía has campaigned on a populist agenda of tax increases to provide more social services for the poor and to combat organized crime. According to the candidate it is illogical to think that Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people, can operate on a budget of less than $250 million.
Ciudad Juarez is infamous as the world’s most violent city. Already this month there have been over 290 murders and 1,370 murders so far this year. The murders committed in Juarez since the beginning of the Calderon administration stand at over 5,300.
Veracruz Gov. Fidel Herrera Beltran, one of the threatened
The governors of five Mexican states have received death threats from organized crime groups, Tabasco Gov. Andres Granier Melo said.
Granier Melo said he and the governors of Veracruz, Fidel Herrera; Tamaulipas, Eugenio Hernandez; Sinaloa, Jesus Alberto Aguilar; and Chihuahua, Jose Reyes Baeza, all members of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, “have (received) threats from criminals.”
“The federal government has full knowledge” of the threats, Granier Melo said in a statement.
The Tabasco governor attended the funeral Tuesday of Rodolfo Torre Cantu, who was running for the governorship of the northeastern state of Tamaulipas at the head of a coalition led by the PRI and was killed along with four other people by gunmen.
State legislator Enrique Blackmore Smer and bodyguards Luis Gerardo Sotero, Ruben Lopez Zuñiga and Francisco David Lopez Catache were killed on Monday along with Torre Cantu as they headed to the airport in Ciudad Victoria, the state capital.
The candidate’s private secretary, Alejandro Martinez, and brother-in-law, Enrique de la Garza Montoto, as well as bodyguards Aurelio Balleza and Dante Quiroz, were wounded.
The gunmen who attacked the campaign vehicles were armed with large-caliber weapons, prosecutors said.
The two vehicles carrying the candidate’s party were hit by gunfire at around 11:00 a.m. Monday on the highway that links Ciudad Victoria with Soto la Marina, which is close to the airport.
Torre Cantu was heading to the airport to catch a flight to the border city of Matamoros, where he was scheduled to take part in a series of campaign events.
Investigators suspect that organized crime groups were behind the killings, which occurred six days before Tamaulipas and 11 other states are scheduled to hold gubernatorial, legislative and municipal elections.
“All the levels of government must take precautions and close ranks with federal forces,” Granier Melo said, “but the federal government must also provide more support to the states to bolster the fight against crime.”
Tabasco “will not yield” in the war against the criminal groups that are trying to take control of Mexico, the governor said.
Mexico has been plagued by a wave of drug-related violence that has claimed the lives of some 25,000 people in the past four years.
The prosecutor in charge of internal affairs at the Attorney General’s Office of the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua and one of her bodyguards were shot dead in the border city of Juarez, state officials told Efe on Thursday.
