Mexico Drug War: Cartels make Santa Fe, in Mexico City, one of their hubs

La Jornada: "Members of drug groups such as those of Beltrán Leyva, Edgar Valdez Villarreal, (la Barbie) and La Familia have used the commercial zone of Santa Fe, located in western Mexico City, as a meeting place, to shop or for lodgings. (Where a car was burned and two bodies and two heads were abandoned yesterday in front of a major, hi-end mall.)  Several arrests have been made by federal authorities in restaurants, hotels and shops that are located in the place where, a few decades ago, there were garbage dumps and sand and gravel pits.

... for example, in October 2008, the Colombian drug kingpin, Teodoro Mauricio Restrepo, who served as liaison to the Beltran Leyva organization, used the mall parking garage to transport business partners and service providers from there to his mansion in Desierto de Los Leones, where he held his parties and had exotic animals to be maintained.

In February 2009, at the mall where the incident occurred yesterday, Gerardo Gonzalez Benavides, known as "Tony the Lie," who is Edgar Valdez Villarreal's ('la Barbie') cousin, was arrested. He allegedly controlled drug sales in Tultitlan and Cuautitlan, in the state of Mexico.

Similarly, on April 14, 2010 Hilario López Morales, 'the Cat', was captured in one of the restaurants in Santa Fe. He was identified by federal authorities as being in charge of La Familia cartel operations in Zitacuaro, Michoacan.

Also in November 2010 in the Central District hotel, federal authorities arrested five members of what is known as the Independent Acapulco Cartel, an organization that la Barbie created after the death of Arturo Beltran Leyva in December 2009. Among those arrested was Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, father of Edgar Valdez Villarreal." Spanish original