Families of Bodyguards at Risk

The drug cartels are focusing their attacks on families of security escorts and police in general, warned the Mexican Society of Bodyguards "Sociedad Mexicana de Guardaespaldas" (SMG).

With this strategy, the criminal cartels are trying to undermine the defenses and prevention used to protect lives, said the organization, and challenged the three levels of government to develop more efficient strategies to protect police officers, public security and their relatives.

In a press release the organization also condemned the attack on Tuesday in Chihuahua where commandos killed Brenda Carrillo González, wife of Sergio Antonio Chivet Ponce, a member of the protective detail of governor Horacio Cesar Duarte Jaquez, also killed in that attack was the 5 year old daughter.

In addition, the organization also criticized the attack against Jaime Rodríguez Calderón, Mayor of the city of Garcia, Nuevo Leon, where one of his bodyguards was killed and five of them were wounded defending the mayor.

Given these facts, the SMG reiterated that it is essential that all police forces and personal protective details (bodyguards) of dignitaries and politicians maintain a low profile and rethink a new strategy for the protection of people.

"In the same manner, within their circle of family and social interaction, they should use special care with information derived from their professional activities in order to protect the integrity of their loved ones," said the agency.

This is precisely why the SMG warned months ago of a new modus operandi on the part of organized crime that would target the families of police and bodyguards, putting them at risk.

Just in 2010, 149 police officers from different agencies were killed in Ciudad Juárez alone, exceeding the 67 killed in 2009.

Last Tuesday, the coordinator of the Crime of Investigation Unit from the prosecutors office, Brenda Hugette Carrillo González, and her 5 year old daughter, who are wife and daughter of a bodyguard for the governor of Chihuahua, were executed when they left their home in the community of Infonavit Panorámico while inside of an official vehicle.

At the time of the attack, the husband and father of the victims was inside the house.

Carrillo Gonzalez and her daughter were on board of a 2011 red Ford Lobo pickup owned by the State Government. According to witnesses, a group of armed men opened fire on them with assault rifles.

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Video of Shooting on U.S.-Mexico Border Released

A video released Thursday shows a U.S. Border Patrol agent firing earlier this week on four Mexicans who threw stones at him after they were spotted trying to enter the United States, an incident that left a 14-year-old boy dead.

The video, which was made by a Mexican with his cell phone, shows the four young men walking under a bridge over the Rio Grande, known in Mexico as the Rio Bravo, that links Ciudad Juarez to El Paso, Texas.

The Mexicans can be seen approaching a fence in their attempt to enter the United States.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent then arrives on a bicycle and manages to detain one of the Mexicans, while the other three run back toward the Mexican side of the border.

The three teenagers realize that their friend has been detained and throw several stones at the U.S. agent, who fires three times at close range at the Mexicans, killing Sergio Adrian Hernandez.

The Border Patrol agent fires while holding the detained Mexican by the hair, sending the others scurrying for cover.

A group of people watching the incident unfold, including the man who took the video, shout “they are throwing rocks,” followed by the sound of gunshots and a person saying “he hit him, the stupid man hit him.”

One of the other teenagers raises his hands and surrenders when he sees that Hernandez has been shot in the head, and more Border Patrol agents appear on the riverbank.

The video appears to disprove the U.S. agent’s account that he felt his life was in danger and also contradicts the statements of Hernandez’s mother, who said Wednesday that her son did not cross into the United States and was only watching what was going on.

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Texas Border Agent Kills Mexican with Marijuana

The Associated Press

Laredo, Texas—A Border Patrol agent shot and killed an unarmed man on the banks of the Rio Grande following a foot chase and a struggle, authorities said Friday.

Border Patrol agents found several men carrying five bundles of marijuana, weighing about 260 pounds, onto the river bank in Laredo near a residential neighborhood late Wednesday night, said Laredo police spokesman Joe Baeza Jr.

The men scattered when the agents approached.

An agent caught up with one of the alleged smugglers, and the pair struggled in the brush before the agent shot the man once in the chest, Baeza said.

"The paramedics tried to revive him, and but he was already gone," he said.

Investigators do not believe the man, a Mexican citizen in his 30s, was armed.

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US Increasing Military Presence in the Mexican Border

Lawmakers Demand Administration Deploy National Guard, Border Patrol After Killing.

Lawmakers from Arizona and New Mexico are ratcheting up their demands that the Obama administration deploy hundreds of National Guard troops and Border Patrol agents to the Mexican border after the killing of a prominent southeast Arizona rancher.

Local police say Robert Krentz, 58, whose body was found slumped over his ATV on his ranch Saturday, was probably shot to death by an illegal immigrant. Footprints from the scene of the crime led back across the Mexican border.

In the wake of the shooting, state and federal lawmakers have called on the Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon to revive stalled plans to beef up border security and protect the people who live near notorious drug-running routes.

"The federal government must do all it can within its power to curb this violence and protect its citizens from criminals coming across the border from Mexico," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

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Ranchers' Big Fear Realized

 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Southern Bureau

Las Cruces, New Mexico — Ranchers along the Arizona-New Mexico border with Mexico have long become accustomed to trespassing and property damage caused by illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

But the weekend slaying of an Arizona rancher by a suspect who apparently fled to Mexico was the looming threat that always caused the most fear.

"I think everybody just feels like they've been hit in the stomach," said bootheel rancher Judy Keeler, a friend of rancher Robert Krentz, who was tending his Cochise County ranch Saturday when he was fatally shot by an unknown assailant.

"A lot of us have been going to (border security) task force meetings for years and we've been warning about this, and now it's happened," Keeler said.

Krentz's body, and his badly injured dog, were discovered shortly before midnight Saturday by a helicopter search crew after he failed to show up at a prearranged meeting with his brother. No suspect has been identified, but footprints tracked by Border Patrol agents, deputies and Arizona Department of Corrections dog chase teams led 20 miles south to the Mexican border.

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Mexican Cartel Infiltrating Border Patrol

U.S. Falters in Screening Border Patrol Near Mexico.

New York Times

Federal anticorruption investigators continue to struggle to keep up with the screening of newly hired United States law enforcement officers working on the Mexican border and have fallen far behind in checking current employees as well, federal officials testified on Thursday.

The testimony came during a hearing in Washington before a subcommittee of the Senate Homeland Security Committee on rising corruption among the ranks of federal law enforcement officers who patrol the border and guard ports of entry.

Representatives from the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security painted a grave picture of drug trafficking organizations trying to recruit federal officers to work for them and infiltrate the ranks.

Although the vast majority of officers do not betray their jobs, the corruption problem, said Kevin L. Perkins, an F.B.I. agent who helps supervise corruption investigations, “is significantly pervasive.”

Internal affairs officials from the Department of Homeland Security said that the rapid post-9/11 growth of Customs and Border Protection — the agency has swelled in recent years to more than 41,000 frontline border agents and officers — has meant that not all new hires are thoroughly vetted.

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House of Death Lingers

ICE burns informants across the country - House of Death lingers

San Diego County Political Buzz Examiner

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are quickly gaining attention within the war on drugs. This war is a deadly one fought day in and day out along the U.S. borders and well as cities that serve as distribution centers for the warring Mexican cartels.

Having confidential informants on the company payroll is a necessity to infiltrate the violent drug cartels and other organized crime syndicates. Some are double agents looking to elude authorities, others looking to work off a court conviction and others who may have got in over their heads and are looking for redemption.

Since ICE’s inception there have been eight agents investigated for improper informant handlings and more than 35 agents have been reported as being involved with questionable actions.

Documents and interviews have shown ICE handlers involvement with underreported debriefings, failure to document informant actions, drug use and improper sexual relations.

The El Paso ICE office sits in the heartland for drug cartels that carry the products across the Rio Grande River from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico where more than 14,000 murders have been committed since the renewed drug war in 2004.

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Officers Want Drug Profits Targeted

Officials say U.S. not doing good job of seizing cash headed south.

Houston Chronicle

About $320,000 in neatly stacked currency was seized during one vehicle stop in Houston in February 2008.

When federal agents kicked in the door of a upscale home near Seven Lakes High School in Katy in June 2008, they found cocaine, handguns and an unexpected bonanza; $1,379,510 in cash bundled up and waiting for a short trip back to the Mexican border.

More startling were the ledgers agents found indicating the Gulf Cartel already had used the Katy operation to move $200 million in drug proceeds south of the border.

More and more, Mexican and Colombian drug cartels are turning to a low-tech, but effective, tactic to collect drug profits. They simply box up the cash, stash it in a truck or car and drive it across one of the many border crossings.

Current and former law enforcement officials say the federal government should devote more agents and equipment to search for billions of dollars hidden in vehicles headed south, as well as infiltrating the bulk smuggling operations.

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Suspect Extradited to U.S.

Mexico ships suspect in slaying of U.S. Border Patrol agent from El Paso.

El Paso Times

El Paso -- Two years of waiting in agony for Mexico to turn over a murder suspect in the slaying of a U.S. Border Patrol agent from El Paso ended Thursday for the victim's family.

The man thought to be responsible for the death of Senior Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar Jr. near Yuma, Ariz., was extradited to the United States, where he faces murder and drug charges.

Officials said Jesús Navarro Montes arrived in Houston Thursday and would be transported to Southern California to face the charges.

Navarro is charged with running over and killing Aguilar, 32, during a drug-smuggling attempt. Navarro had been arrested, released and then rearrested by Mexican authorities.

The agent's father, Luis "Louie" Aguilar Sr., an El Paso County constable, said that the loss of a son is tragic but that with Navarro now in U.S. custody, the case can move forward into the federal court system.

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U.S. Gives Mexico Keys to Open Border and Amnesty

San Diego County Political Buzz Examiner

Congressman calls for investigation on Sutton and House of Death

Mexico’s culture of corruption is synonymous with the drug dealers, Federales as well as the government. It is no secret business south of the border is handled with a greasy handshake full of money, but what’s surprising to most Americans are the major trade deals cut to benefit our neighbor to the south.

Why has America bent over backwards to create free trade and open borders with such an uncooperative neighbor? What has Mexico given up for the sake of our benefit? Still thinking? It could take awhile.

Mexico is a country filled with natural resources. There is plenty of fertile land for crops, it lays claim to a massive amount of oil and contains thousands of miles of sandy beaches for tourists to frolic on. So why does this country, so close to the successes of its North American neighbor continue to stagnate in corruption and remain an oligarchy?

For the meantime America is the sole superpower. But unlike the past, American administrations have made mistakes and those blunders translated into some bad deals for the American people.

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