Los Zetas vs CDG battleground spreads to Piedras Negras.

The bloody battles between Los Zetas and the Cartel del Golfo (CDG) for control of the Tamaulipas plazas in la Frontera Chica (Reynosa, Miguel Aleman, Camargo and Guerrero) and Nuevo Laredo are now spreading west to the Piedras Negras, Coahuila area.

All these cities and towns face the Rio Grande and South Texas and together with the Ciudad Juarez-El Paso plaza are major conduits for the trafficking of drugs and humans north into the Mid-Western and East Coast areas of the U.S..

A narco-guerrilla war of attrition between both groups has been fought in the Frontera Chica since the fracture of the Z-CDG alliance in February of this year with hit and run battles on an almost daily basis in the rural areas as the rivals attack each other and in turn fight against the Mexican military’s efforts to pacify the area

Nuevo Laredo, a long-time stronghold of Los Zetas, lived through major encounters in February which are now being repeated on a bigger, more vicious scale as the CDG again attempts to push the Zetas out.

Piedras Negras is in a semi-isolated area of the border at the very fringe of the vast Chihuahuan desert. At this point in time, criminal bands associated with Los Zetas are in control of Piedras Negras and Ciudad Acuna, another border city further west in Coahuila.

Past this two cities drug trafficking is controlled by the Juarez cartel, beginning in Ojinaga bordering the Big Bend region of Texas.

If the Zetas are pushed out of the border areas mentioned above, they will lose free access to the U.S. market for their products.

The financial consequences are staggering for the already cash poor Zetas on the Texas borders whose estacas, or lower level cannon fodder, are already living off the land by robberies and extortions, especially of the more vulnerable citizens who are victimized to an obscene degree.

It is rumored that some of these thugs, mainly those brought in from Central America who have no roots in the area, no longer get paid.

It is within this scenario that Piedras Negras may inevitably meet the fate of the Frontera Chica and Nuevo Laredo.

Although Piedras Negras, or simply Piedras as it is commonly called, has not escaped the insecurity and violence of Mexico’s most affected regions, the turmoil has not been on a scale as severe as seen in Tamaulipas.

After a brief but brutal period in April during which the Zetas consolidated their hold in Piedras, the cartel on cartel violence has not risen above the “calentar la plaza” which is the use of violence by a rival cartel to disrupt another in its territory.

These tactics often include attacks against law enforcement and locations where innocent civilians are targeted.

The events of this Sunday may mark the beginning of a battle for control of Piedras.

Unconfirmed rumors of attacks and shootings have increased in recent days. Social networking sites warn that shootings between los Zetas and rival groups have intensified and recommend that citizens not leave their homes at night.

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Sister Tries to Claim Mexican Drug Lord’s Body

UPDATE: The coroner's office in Guadalajara Jalisco reported that on Monday the bodies of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel and a nephew were turned over to families members who had claim them.

A woman who identified herself as a relative tried to claim the bodies of Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel, a top Sinaloa drug cartel boss killed last week in the western state of Jalisco, and his nephew, Mario Carrasco Coronel, Mexican officials said.

The woman, who said she was the drug lord’s sister, and her attorney went to the coroner’s office in Guadalajara around 4:00 p.m. Sunday and tried to claim the bodies.

The two drug traffickers were killed in separate gunfights last week at their Guadalajara residences with army troops sent to capture them.

The woman identified herself as Coronel’s sister and gave a statement to police while two hearses waited outside the coroner’s office to transport the bodies.

The woman was at the coroner’s office for six hours but left without the bodies.

Federal prosecutors asked the woman to provide photographic proof that establishes her family links, the funeral home director said, adding that she may try again on Monday.

About 50 soldiers were posted at the coroner’s office during the evening Sunday to prevent cartel members from taking the bodies.

Some 100 soldiers took part in the operation to transport Coronel’s body to the coroner’s office last week.

Coronel, considered one of the three most powerful drug traffickers in Mexico, was killed in a clash with army troops on Thursday.

The drug lord killed one soldier and wounded another while trying to evade arrest before being gunned down by military personnel.

A close associate of Coronel’s, Hiram Francisco Quiñones Gastelum, was arrested in the operation.

The drug trafficker had two residences in Guadalajara that he used as operations bases.

He was one of the senior leaders of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, which is led by Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, the army said.

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Killings Up Nearly 50% in Ciudad Juarez

A total of 1,700 gangland killings occurred in the northern Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez during the first seven months of the year, a figure that was up 47.6 percent from the same period in 2009, when 1,150 people were murdered, officials and press reports said.

The January-July 2010 figure includes 18 murders that occurred over the weekend in Mexico’s murder capital.

Ciudad Juarez, located across the border from El Paso, Texas, is the scene of a war for control of smuggling routes between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels.

Fifteen people, including two women, were murdered in the border city on Saturday.

Three other people were killed on Sunday, Chihuahua state prosecutors said.

July ended as the second-most-violent month of 2010 in the border city, with 291 homicides, or an average of eight per day, being registered.

June ranks as the most violent month of the year, with 313 homicides, followed by May, with 262; March, with 240; January, with 227; April, with 205; and February, with 163.

Ciudad Juarez, where nearly 6,000 people have been murdered since 2008, has been plagued by drug-related violence for years.

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 state AG’s office figures, with the number of killings climbing to 2,635 last year.

Ciudad Juarez, with 191 homicides per 100,000 residents, was the most violent city in the world in 2009, registering a higher murder rate than San Pedro Sula, San Salvador, Caracas and Guatemala, two Mexican non-governmental organizations said in a report released earlier this year.

Some 25,000 people have died in drug-related violence since President Felipe Calderon declared war on Mexico’s cartels shortly after taking office in December 2006.

More than 7,000 gangland killings have occurred so far this year in Mexico, Attorney General Arturo Chavez Chavez said last month.

The death toll for all of 2009 was 7,724.

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Sinaloa Cartel Behind Mexican Journalists’ Kidnapping

Reporters Javier Canales Fernández, from Multimedios Torreón; Facundo Rosas, comissioner of the general Federal Police; Genaro García Luna, secretary of Federal Public Security, and reporter Alejandro Hernández Pacheco of Televisa Torreón during a press conference.

The Sinaloa cartel was behind the kidnapping last week of four journalists, all of whom are now free, in the northern Mexican state of Durango, Public Safety Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said.

“The goal of this group was to transmit messages from organized crime to impact the community, using the reporters as the channel,” Garcia Luna said in a press conference.

The four reporters were abducted Monday while covering a disturbance at a Durango prison whose warden was arrested on charges that she allowed prisoners out at night to commit more than 30 killings on behalf of a drug cartel.

The journalists disappeared in La Laguna, a region that sprawls across parts of Coahuila and Durango states.

Reporters Javier Canales Fernández, of Multimedios Torreón and Alejandro Hernández Pacheco, of Televisa Torreón during a press conference after being rescued.

Televisa cameraman Alejandro Hernandez and Milenio Television cameraman Jaime Canales were rescued by Federal Police officers Saturday in Gomez Palacio, a city in Durango, officials said.

Televisa correspondent Hector Gordoa was released unharmed on Thursday.

Oscar Solis, a reporter with the Durango newspaper El Vespertino, has also been released, Garcia Luna said.

Gordoa and Solis were released following negotiations with the kidnappers, who were not caught, the public safety secretary said.

“When they noticed the presence of the Federal Police around the safe house, the kidnappers fled,” Garcia Luna said.

The main concern was the journalists’ safety and investigators are continuing to work to find the kidnappers, the public safety secretary said.

Two of the journalists appeared at the press conference on Saturday.

“All day and all night they intimidated us ... when they saw themselves surrounded, they really thought about harming us, but they treated us badly,” Hernandez said.

The cameraman, who suffered a head injury when he was hit with a board, said he was convinced that the gunmen were going to kill him.

Some of Mexico’s leading broadcast journalists went silent on the air last week in a symbolic protest of the journalists’ kidnapping in Durango.

“Unusual things” are being seen in Mexico, muckraking pundit Carmen Aristegui said Friday on MVS radio, citing the decision of Televisa host Denisse Maerker to display a blank screen for most of her hour-long weekly public affairs program on the country’s dominant network.

Anchors of a news program on W Radio followed Maerker’s example on Friday.

Mexico has seen an escalation in violence against journalists, the country’s independent National Human Rights Commission said Thursday.

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Caravan of Death Murders 7 in Ciudad Valles

Gunmen in a convoy of eight vehicles killed six policemen, a city worker and a civilian and terrorized the population in Ciudad Valles, San Luis Potosi, during a string of consecutive attacks as the convoy crossed the length of the city.

Local media reported that the convoy entered the city between 6:00 PM and 7:00 PM on Friday, July 30, and drove boulevard Mexico-Laredo Boulevard and arrived first at a Coca Cola bottling where they shot down and killed two state police officers without stopping.

Several blocks later the gunmen stormed a municipal police installation and opened fire, killing three policemen and a civilian worker. Another policeman died later that night in a local hospital of his wounds.

An 80 year old civilian was hit and killed by stray fire from the attack on the municipal policeman.

After the attacks the gunmen took flight but attacked at least 2 police vehicles responding to the attack. Four other policemen were wounded by gunfire including the chief of the Municipal Police, Andres Castillo Vite, who was shot several times and seriously wounded.

Several cars that crossed the convoy were wrecked as the gunmen sped through traffic signals. Many residents and motorists called the Red Cross for help but the paramedics were overwhelmed by the attack.

The military and state and municipal police launched a search for the attackers but were unsuccessful.

Later in the evening the mutilated bodies of four unidentified men wrapped in large plastic trash bags were found abandoned in the city.

At the outskirts of Ciudad Valles motorists were brutally accosted and had their vehicles robbed by the fleeing gunmen who abandoned their vehicles and replaced them with the hijacked cars to avoid detection.

At night, Governor Fernando Toranzo called a meeting with his security team and representatives of SEDENA to address the situation.

On Sunday, August 1, the Mexican Army officially took control of police duties in the city.

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"Nacho's" Laptop Reveals its Secrets

Domingo 01 de Agosto de 2010
Francisco Gómez | El Universal

















When the late drug kingpin Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villarreal, was shot and killed by soldiers in his luxury safehouse, he was in possession of 10 suitcases containing $ 7 million (U.S.) a vast collection of jewelry, at least half a dozen cellphones, and most important of all, a laptop computer whose data storage contains information vital to the operation of his empire.

Experts from the Attorney General of the Republic’s office (PGR) are holding the laptop computer and are extracting and analyzing the information contained within its hard drive.

Information extracted from evidence seized at the safehouse has already led to a military operation that resulted in the location and death of Coronel’s nephew and heir apparent, Mario Carrasco Coronel, in Guadalajara on Friday, July 30, a day after his uncle was killed.

The computer, according to official reports, contains data on the operations of Coronel’s drug racketeering operations on land and sea, and the companies that he used to carry out the importation, transfer and distribution of cocaine, precursor chemicals used to manufacture synthetic drugs and methamphetamine.

According to SEDENA (the Ministry of National Defense) Nacho Coronel died Thursday afternoon during a clash with soldiers seeking to arrest him in Zapopan, Jalisco, in an operation based on military intelligence analysis. Coronel was found with his confidant and bodyguard, Hiram Quinones Francisco Gastelum, who was arrested by the soldiers who carried out the raid.

Nacho Coronel was third in command of the Sinaloa cartel, behind only Joaquín “el Chapo” Guzmán Loera and Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada.

Surrounded by luxury

In the safe houses uncovered in previous operations and where Coronel met his end this past Thursday, he lived surrounded by large amounts of cash in low denominations, jewelry and precious stones.

He also lived surrounded by high-powered weaponry to deal with any enemy and the security forces, according to official reports.

Nine assault weapons, seven side arms, grenades, one thousand cartridges and three luxury vehicles were seized in the safe house located in the upscale Colinas de San Javier neighborhood and were transferred to the custody of the Deputy Attorney General’s office Specializing in the Investigation of Organized Crime (SIEDO), whose prosecutors have jurisdiction to carry out any investigation.

Military sources said cell phones that contained information about the men who spoke to the drug lord led to the location of his nephew, Mario Carrasco Coronel, hours later in the Colonia Rinconada de los Novelistas where he was killed when he tried to escape from his captors.










Hiram Francisco Quiñones Gastélum, considered the personal bodyguard and confidant of the late Nacho Coronel, was transferred to the custody of the public prosecutor assigned to the Special Crimes Unit and is expected to be arraigned soon.

In an official report, the PGR said that, according to SEDENA, Quiñones is a former member of the security forces specializing in the management of combat strategies.

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Urban Combat

Urban combat is part of life in Monterrey now. Residents describe automatic fire in the distance as a normal component of the city’s ambient noise, especially at night.

The narco blockades of city streets and highways occurred just about every day in Monterrey this week. They too are a common hazard now, an impediment to commuters and commercial traffic and potentially deadly as residents increasingly do not stop for the carjackers who set up on intersections to confiscate vehicles for their barricades.

You just gun your car and pray to God. This is one of the only ways to resist the criminal terrorists on the streets. They haven’t started killing residents en masse for their cars, yet.

It is also sad but true that some residents risking their lives are also motivated in part to avoid the indignity of paying a bribe in order to retrieve vehicles from municipal authorities.

The blockades started early on Saturday, between 12 midnight and 1:00 AM in the suburbs of San Nicolas and Escobedo. The blockages of traffic only lasted 30 to 40 minutes in both cases as authorities are responding more efficiently to remove vehicles involved.

In San Nicolas the intersections of Juan Palo II and Lopez Mateos, Lopez Mateos and Moctezuma, and Ave. Los Angeles between Churubusco and Nogalar were blocked

In Escobedo the Libramiento Noroeste was blocked at kilometro 25 and at Camino Real

At 7:30 PM two rival groups of gunmen traveling in at least 7 pick-up trucks and SUV’s clashed on one of the city’s busiest main thoroughfares, Felix E.Gomez.

As one group of gunmen pursued the other on Felix E. Gomez one of their vehicles crashed into a taxi, overturning it and injuring a family of 3 inside the taxi. A gunbattle, lasting up to 20 minutes according to some witnesses, ensued there as both groups of gunmen fought each other at the site of the accident.

It was reported that a military patrol of 3 vehicles responding to the scene of the shooting also came under heavy fire.

Panic engulfed the area as motorists and pedestrians attempted to flee the crossfire at the scene of the fighting.

As the shooting died down and the remaining gunmen fled the area, paramedics and police reinforcements arrived to a scene where hundreds of bullet casings filled the street and vehicles were heavily damaged by gunfire.

One gunman was reported killed and two badly injured that were placed under arrest. Five innocent civilians were wounded including those in the taxi. Their condition was unknown.

No military casualties were reported.

Immediately after the gun battle more narco blockades were reported in the central area of Monterrey. Up to 18 blockages involving the usual busses, tractor trailers and automobiles taken at gunpoint from their drivers were put up. All the blockages had been cleared by 11:30 PM.

Another increasingly common tactic being used by organized criminal groups in Monterrey, and throughout Mexico, are grenade attacks, usually with the grenades thrown at buildings and groups of people from speeding vehicles.

In the early morning hours of Saturday one grenade was thrown from a motorcycle at a Monterrey municipal police substation which failed to explode.

This past Thursday night at 10:30 PM a police station in the Monterrey suburb of Guadalupe came under a grenade attack that injured one policeman and left one patrol vehicle in flames. This was the second grenade attack against a Guadalupe police installation in the month of July.

Hours before the grenade attack on Thursday a pursuit under fire by unknown gunmen of another vehicle on another busy main thoroughfare, Avenida Garza Sada, led to the deaths of two youths.

The youths were in the automobile being pursued which came to rest several feet from the spot in front of the Instituto Tecnológico de Monterrey where 2 students were killed in a crossfire during a confrontation between gunmen and soldiers this past March 19th.

Fighting was especially heavy in Nuevo Laredo on the U.S. border 120 miles north of Monterrey on Friday and early Saturday morning.

A massive firefight lasting almost an hour was reported in southern Nuevo Laredo Friday afternoon in the Colonia Concordia area close to the Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores on Avenida Reforma between army troops supported by a helicopter and a group of gunmen.

Civilians rushed out of the area, fleeing into stores for safety from the intense gunfire. Grenade detonations were reported on the Avenida Reforma.

Fighting continued as the gunmen dispersed and were pursued by soldiers.

No casualties or arrests were reported but there were unconfirmed witness accounts on social networking sites did mention that a number of casualties had occurred.

Friday night a grenade attack was reported against the building housing the offices and studios of the local Televisa network station in Nuevo Laredo located on Avenida República in the Colonia Infonavit area.

The attack occurred before the nightly newscast. According to witnesses a grenade was thrown from a passing vehicle and detonated outside the main entrance to the building.

Luckily there were no casualties in the attack but the building and several employee vehicles sustained damage.

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