"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
On the morning of March 24, 2023, relatives of the victims went to the offices of the Attorney General's Office of the State of Sonora, based in Caborca, Sonora, to identify the four bodies that were found yesterday inside a well.
It was unofficially revealed that the victims were Juan Carlos Camarillo Juarez, Hector Alejandro Prieto Camarillo, Julian Isaac Miranda Mange and Francisco German Rivera Leon.
They were reported missing since last Wednesday morning, March 22, and were last seen in the vicinity of the Asuncion River. The authorities initiated a search operation with the unfortunate results described above.
Our deepest condolences to family and friends, Rest in Peace.
"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Three nearly simultaneous attacks took the lives of four men in the community of Mexicanos in the municipality of Villagrán.
Authorities are already investigating the possible relationship between the events.
It was shortly after 10:00 p.m. on Saturday night when the first attack was reported on Lazaro Cardenas Boulevard at the corner of the railroad.
A dead man with multiple gunshot wounds was found at the site.
At another point on Aldama street, the bodies of two men were found with various gunshot wounds.
A fourth man was found on 16 de Septiembre street, also with gunshot wounds after falling victim to an armed attack.
All streets were cordoned off by municipal authorities and then the Public Prosecutor's Office was notified for further investigation.
For the moment the motive of the murders are being investigated to determine any possible relationship.
The victims were taken to the Forensic Medical Service for the autopsy.
"HEARST" and "Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Marco Antonio Flores, the singer-turned-politician who once played private gigs for Zetas cartel figure El Lazca, announced that he would be closing his hotel in Zacatecas because the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG) has been threatening his employees.
Warning: Some graphic images below this point.
Marco & Banda Jerez
In the late 1980s, a local music teacher named Perfecto Flores created a band in the town of Jerez, Zacatecas, which was made up of his music students. Later on his son, a singer named Marco Antonio Flores, began performing with the group. In 2000, the band became more formalized and took on the name “La No. 1 Banda Jerez with Marco A. Flores”, often shortened to just “Banda Jerez”.
"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Forensic experts from the Tamaulipas Prosecutor's Office reconstructed the moment in which armed civilians shot the foreigners and then loaded them into a van.
Specialists from the Attorney General's Office of the State of Tamaulipas (FGJT) conducted a forensic investigation in the area where four Americans were attacked by alleged members of the Gulf Cartel on March 3 in the border city of Matamoros, Tamaulipas, resulting in the death of two of them: Zindell Brown and Shaeed Woodard.
Three weeks after the incident, which occurred on Lauro Villar and Primera streets in the border municipality, officials of the FGJT, agents of the National Guard, State Police and the Secretariat of the Navy blocked the streets surrounding the sector to prevent the passage of motorists and pedestrians.
After the closure of the roads, forensic experts were present to recreate, with the support of personnel, every moment of the episode where the group of North Americans who had entered Mexico through the "Ignacio Zaragoza" International Bridge that connects the Matamoros territory with the city of Brownsville, Texas, in the United States, were shot at.
The experts used five units to stage the attack and gather every piece of information to continue with the investigations that began last Tuesday, when Latavia Washington McGee and Eric James Williams were found alive, as were the bodies of their two remaining friends, in a wooden house in the Tecolote community.
At least four times, the authorities reconstructed a scene similar to the one that could be observed in a video that was recorded and spread in social networks and that shows the moment in which armed civilians shot at the foreigners to then put them in a white GMC Sierra pickup truck and transfer them to different points of the town until leaving them in the rural sector.
In the recreation, men followed a pickup truck similar to the one used by the Americans and when they destabilized them, they got out of the unit and were shot at, then placed in a pickup truck.
For this case, in which there was also pressure from the U.S. government, the bodies of the U.S. citizens were repatriated and six people were arrested, who have already been indicted and handed over by the same criminal organization.
In addition, at least two clinics and a Civil Protection ambulance were seized for being related to the crime.
However, to date, no further information has been provided on the security crisis that has strained relations between the Mexican and U.S. governments.
The commercial exchange between the regions of South Texas and the Tamaulipas city has not suffered any damage, according to a border businessmen report, who assure that families continue to visit businesses, clinics and various activity centers.
Oscar Martinez Torres, president of the Union of Merchants and Businessmen of the Northeast (Ucen), assured that despite the violence alerts in certain Mexican regions, U.S. citizens close to Matamoros continue to pass through the border city because they know the conditions that exist and the areas where they can transit.
“Socalj” for Borderland Beat
In May 2020, Manuel García Gómez and Jorge Humberto Velazco, who were processing liquid methamphetamine from Mexico in drug laboratories in Texas, were arrested. The group, under the direction of Jose Valdovinos Jimenez, a plaza boss who goes by “La Roca,” laundered many of the drug profits through a Dallas clothing store named Yoli's Western Wear to the sum of $10 million. The operation had been going for at least five years and was sending the drug money back to Mexico in thousands of small remittance transactions.
Just a few days after the arrest of the CJNG members, the DEA agent responsible for their arrest appeared to testify before the court. He was identified simply as "TH." It was because of his testimony that the judge denied Manuel García bail. He and Velazco were then held at the Johnson County Detention Center. The DEA agent first testified against Jorge and would again in the trial against Manuel.
"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Sometime at the beginning of this month several CJNG gunmen ambushed a few Cartel de Sinaloa hitmen. What follows is the bloody aftermath of a perfectly executed assault against their adversaries. The fallen Mayo Zambada operatives that are laying dead on the rocky and barren ground are few in numbers.
At this time it is believed that the CDS hitmen stood their ground and defended their positions until the very end. But inevitably the undermanned hitman cell was overcome by a force greater in numbers. The numerous voices heard throughout this broadcast substantiate this theory.
Sicario #1: What happened you cowards? You fucking faggot ass Mayo Zambada gunmen.
Sicario #2: Hey dumb ass I’m going towards the left here.
Sicario #3: Ah. Ok, I see you now.
Sicario #1 kicks a dead Mayo Zambada gunman in his face: You dumbass.
Sicario #2: Are we going to cut off an arm or what?
Sicario #1 moves towards another dead male on the ground: Ha! He got shot right in his face.
"HEARST" and "Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Cartel de Noreste (CDN) denounced Gulf Cartel - Metros' leader El Primito in two banners placed in a highly visible and highly public area of Mexico City.
Quick Review
Cartel de Noreste, the Zetas splinter group, has been fighting against the Gulf Cartel - Metros faction for control la Frontera Chica, the northwestern region of Tamaulipas which borders the US. This region is made up of the municipalities of Guerrero, Mier, Miguel Aleman, Camargo and Diaz Ordaz, as seen on the map below.
"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
An Ohio woman was arrested for allegedly transporting a massive cache of fentanyl from the Grand Rapids area to metro Detroit.
An Ohio woman was arrested for allegedly transporting a massive cache of fentanyl from the Grand Rapids area to metro Detroit.
The Drug Enforcement Administration said investigators tracked the delivery of 20 kilograms of fentanyl, which is around 44 pounds, after developing intelligence during an ongoing investigation in Kent County.
On Wednesday, suspects believed to have connections to a Mexican cartel sent the woman to deliver to the Detroit area, according to the DEA news release.
Police from federal, state and local agencies stopped the vehicle in metro Detroit and seized approximately 20 kilograms of fentanyl and one firearm.
The woman from Ohio was taken into custody, but agents are not releasing her name due to the ongoing investigation. They also declined to share details about the Grand Rapids connection.
The DEA believes the fentanyl was made in Mexico. Drug cartels in Mexico, using chemicals mainly from China, are responsible for most fentanyl being trafficked in the United States, according to the DEA.
“The precursors (chemicals) are coming in from China mostly,” said Orville Greene, special agent in charge of the DEA’s Detroit field office. “From China, they go into Mexico, and in Mexico the precursors are processed into the finished product, powder or pill form, and then smuggled across the southwest border … Then, it gets shot out across the country from California, but also from Texas, Arizona, all along the western and southwest border.”
Greene, talking to News 8 by Zoom Friday morning, said the drugs are then transported via major highways throughout the United States, including interstates 94 and 75.
On March 7, Michigan State Police seized four kilos of fentanyl after a traffic stop on I-94 near Paw Paw.
"Sol Prendido" for Borderland Beat
Drug agency sees criminal organizations affecting health through fentanyl trafficking
The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) on Friday identified the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco Cartel - New Generation (CJNG) as the main threats "to health and communities" in US territory.
In a report on the agency's foreign operations, the DEA recalled that in September last year it created a unit dedicated exclusively to pursuing and dismantling the efforts of these two "transnational" organizations to traffic "fentanyl and methamphetamines" into the US.
The kidnapping of four Americans and the murder of two of them in the Mexican border state of Tamaulipas in early March has reignited the debate in the US about Mexican cartels.
A group of Republican legislators called for drug trafficking organizations to be classified as terrorist groups, a measure that the State Department does not rule out and which has been harshly criticized by the Mexican government.
Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard even traveled to Washington on March 13 to meet with the country's consuls in the U.S. and launch a communication strategy to refute the proposal of the congressmen of the opposition party.
The US State Department has listed organizations such as the Islamic State (IS), Hamas and the Colombian National Liberation Army (ELN) as foreign terrorist groups.
