Reuters: Mexico captured the leader of the once-feared Juarez Cartel in the country's restive north on Thursday, the second drug kingpin to fall in just over a week, a government source said.
Vicente Carrillo, 51, long-time head of the Juarez Cartel, was a fierce rival of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel and the world's most wanted drug boss until his capture in February. Read more.
The MexicoBlog of the CIP Americas Program monitors and analyzes international press on Mexico with a focus on the US-backed War on Drugs in Mexico and the struggle in Mexico to strengthen the rule of law, justice and protection of human rights. Relevant political developments in both countries are also covered.
Showing posts with label Juarez cartel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Juarez cartel. Show all posts
Nov 4, 2013
Juarez: The sequel
GlobalPost
Dudley Althaus
November 1, 2013
Young daughter in hand, Isabel Aguilera recounts the mayhem that stalked these streets.
Here they dragged a father from the breakfast table, shooting him dead outside in front of his family. There they came for a shopkeeper, gunning him down behind the counter. Yonder they snuffed two brothers after pulling them from their beds before sunrise.
“They were people from outside,” Aguilera, 38, said of the killings that recently swept like cholera through Riveras del Bravo, a teeming sprawl of Mexico’s working poor. “They wanted to inject power, fear.”
These thousands of matchbox houses once ranked among Earth's deadliest patches through years of criminal war in Ciudad Juarez, an industrial and narcotics corridor bordering America’s safest large city El Paso, Texas.
More than 10,000 people were murdered across the Mexican city of 1.3 million in less than five years. Many were young men gunned down on streets like these. Read more.
Dudley Althaus
November 1, 2013
Young daughter in hand, Isabel Aguilera recounts the mayhem that stalked these streets.
Here they dragged a father from the breakfast table, shooting him dead outside in front of his family. There they came for a shopkeeper, gunning him down behind the counter. Yonder they snuffed two brothers after pulling them from their beds before sunrise.
“They were people from outside,” Aguilera, 38, said of the killings that recently swept like cholera through Riveras del Bravo, a teeming sprawl of Mexico’s working poor. “They wanted to inject power, fear.”
These thousands of matchbox houses once ranked among Earth's deadliest patches through years of criminal war in Ciudad Juarez, an industrial and narcotics corridor bordering America’s safest large city El Paso, Texas.
More than 10,000 people were murdered across the Mexican city of 1.3 million in less than five years. Many were young men gunned down on streets like these. Read more.
Jun 27, 2012
Mexico: Family of 20 Crosses into Texas Seeking Asylum after Drug Cartel Murders
Fox News Latino: CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mex. – One of the largest families to cross the U.S.-Mexico border together into Texas in recent years with the hope of securing asylum arrived in El Paso on Saturday.
After languishing for five days in a hot government office here surviving on soup, beans, and water, 20 family members crossed the Bridge of the Americas into El Paso, seeking asylum after two of their relatives were killed the previous week and death threats against others increased.
Héctor Porras, 45, said he and his family fled Villa Ahumada Tuesday to Juárez, after his 49-year-old brother, Rudolpho was killed June 16, and his 18-year-old nephew, Jaime, was killed two days later while visiting his father's new grave. Read more.
After languishing for five days in a hot government office here surviving on soup, beans, and water, 20 family members crossed the Bridge of the Americas into El Paso, seeking asylum after two of their relatives were killed the previous week and death threats against others increased.
Héctor Porras, 45, said he and his family fled Villa Ahumada Tuesday to Juárez, after his 49-year-old brother, Rudolpho was killed June 16, and his 18-year-old nephew, Jaime, was killed two days later while visiting his father's new grave. Read more.
Apr 6, 2012
Mexican gang member sentenced to life in U.S. prison for murders
Reuters: " A senior member of a Mexican drug cartel was sentenced to life in prison in a U.S. court on Thursday after authorities implicated him in more than 1,500 murders, including the 2010 execution of a U.S. consulate employee in northern Mexico.
Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, 34, pleaded guilty to 11 counts that included murder, conspiracy to kill people in a foreign country and various racketeering, money laundering and drug charges.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Hernandez to seven concurrent life terms and three additional consecutive life terms." read more
Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, 34, pleaded guilty to 11 counts that included murder, conspiracy to kill people in a foreign country and various racketeering, money laundering and drug charges.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone in El Paso, Texas, sentenced Hernandez to seven concurrent life terms and three additional consecutive life terms." read more
Feb 2, 2012
Drug War Collateral Damage: Drug, Paramilitary Violence Creates Ghost Towns in Mexico
InSight Crime: "Three towns in Mexico have lost large portions of their residents in recent years, as locals fled worsening violence at the hands of drug gangs and paramilitaries, according to a report from Animal Politico. Animal Politico says that between 2005 and 2010 the municipalities of Santo Domingo Ixcatlan, Praxedis G. Guerrero, and Guadalupe lost 44.5, 43.6, and 29 percent of their populations." read more
Jan 18, 2012
Mexico Drug War: Juarez Cartel's Strength Further Undermined
STRATFOR: "Operating predominantly in Juarez, El Paso and Mexican prisons, Los Aztecas have been functioning as the primary street gang for the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes cartel (VCF, also known as the Juarez cartel). Like most Latin American gangs, Los Aztecas are decentralized and are composed of various independently led cells known as "cliques." However, newly acquired information from Stratfor sources has sparked a reassessment of the relationship between Los Aztecas and the VCF." read more
Aug 8, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Upstart Gangs Eat into Cartel Hegemony
From 'InSight Crime,' an analysis of the dynamics of the fragmentation of Mexican cartels
Mexico: Upstart Gangs Eat into Cartel Hegemony: "While the most obvious symptom of Mexico’s current struggle with organized crime is stratospheric rates of violence, the fracturing of powerful trafficking organizations into a constellation of smaller groups could have a more lasting impact on the country. ...
The most obvious reason for the growth of the smaller gangs is pressure from the federal government. A significant number of kingpins have been killed or arrested in the past two years in particular, and one capo’s demise often sparks fighting between subordinates and rivals for control of his network. (The government denies this, though not very convincingly.) But even beyond the takedowns of capos, a more aggressive federal policy creates space for newcomers, because one group losing a significant chunk of its operators or having its favored cocaine route shut down by the army creates opportunities for ambitious small-timers.
But this is not a one-off phenomenon; instability breeds further instability, because the new groups don’t enjoy the same level of dominance as their predecessors did. Even after winning control over a given territory, their reign is subject to continued challenges."
Mexico: Upstart Gangs Eat into Cartel Hegemony: "While the most obvious symptom of Mexico’s current struggle with organized crime is stratospheric rates of violence, the fracturing of powerful trafficking organizations into a constellation of smaller groups could have a more lasting impact on the country. ...
The most obvious reason for the growth of the smaller gangs is pressure from the federal government. A significant number of kingpins have been killed or arrested in the past two years in particular, and one capo’s demise often sparks fighting between subordinates and rivals for control of his network. (The government denies this, though not very convincingly.) But even beyond the takedowns of capos, a more aggressive federal policy creates space for newcomers, because one group losing a significant chunk of its operators or having its favored cocaine route shut down by the army creates opportunities for ambitious small-timers.
But this is not a one-off phenomenon; instability breeds further instability, because the new groups don’t enjoy the same level of dominance as their predecessors did. Even after winning control over a given territory, their reign is subject to continued challenges."
Jul 30, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Reported that Juarez cartel armed wing leader nabbed
Reports: Juarez cartel armed wing leader nabbed - Forbes.com: "Federal police have captured the alleged leader of a ruthless gang of killers who work for a drug cartel in the violent border of Ciudad Juarez, Mexican news media said Saturday.
The suspect, Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, is wanted by the U.S. government on charges of murdering a U.S. consulate employee and her husband last year in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas.
The newspaper El Universal and Milenio television said the 33-year-old Acosta was arrested Friday in the northern city of Chihuahua, capital of the state where Ciudad Juarez is. Mexican authorities have identified Acosta as the head of La Linea, a gang of hit men and corrupt police officers who act as enforcers for the Juarez Cartel."
The suspect, Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, is wanted by the U.S. government on charges of murdering a U.S. consulate employee and her husband last year in Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas.
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Sinister Details Emerge of Mexico Jail Massacre
From 'InSight Crime'
Video taken from the jail’s security cameras, and released online by state authorities, shows the events leading up to the killing. A handful of guards are seen, just before the shooting began, leaving the hallway adjacent to the cell where 13 of the inmates were killed....
According to the government, the shooters belong to the Aztecas, a gang working for the Juarez Cartel, while the victims, the Mexicles, are in the service of the Sinaloa Cartel. While some have interpreted recent declines in the levels of violence in Juarez as a sign that Sinaloa is steadily winning control of the city, the rivalry, which has killed thousands of people in Juarez over the past several years, appears to be as hotly contested as ever inside of the jail. ...
The incident in Juarez points to a longstanding problem in Mexican criminal justice: the abysmal quality of the prison system. The massacre in Juarez is just the latest mass killing in a Mexican prison. Nineteen people died in a prison riot in Tijuana in September 2008, the Aztecas killed 20 rival gang members at a state prison in Juarez in March 2009, 19 people were killed in fighting in a Gomez Palacio prison a few months later, and a 23 were murdered in Durango in January 2010."
Jun 28, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: A Survey of Mexico's Trafficking Networks
A look at the current status of the various Mexican cartels, from "InSight - Organized Crime in the Americas
Perhaps the most obvious change in Mexico today is the relative decline of the large gangs that controlled the nation’s criminal scene five, or even two, years ago. The Sinaloa Cartel, which united capos like Joaquin Guzman, Juan Jose Esparragoza, Arturo Beltran Leyva, Ismael Zambada, and Ignacio Coronel as recently as 2008, has been beset by assaults from adversaries and strife within the group, especially the defection of Beltran Leyva and his network."
Jun 24, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug Wart: Arrests Herald Juarez Drug Gang's Decline
Arrests Herald Juarez Drug Gang's Decline: "A pair of recent arrests have underscored the increasing vulnerability of La Linea, once one of the most potent criminal groups in Juarez, Mexico's most notorious city. ...
These arrests reflect what appears to be an ongoing decline of La Linea. While the gang has long been one of chaotic Juarez’s most fearsome groups, La Linea’s influence has declined over the past several months, and they no longer present the threat that they did in years past."
Jun 23, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Mexico's most powerful drug cartels
Christian Science Monitor is right when it says that if La Familia is fractured, its territory will taken over by remnant groups or other cartels. Narcos aren't going to give up the billion dollar amphetamine business that La Familia controlled. Already the battle between factions of La Familia is taking place in Michoacán, with an increase in murders and blockades of roads when the police come searching for them.
The aticle provides a good overview of the current status of the major cartels.
Mexico's most powerful drug cartels - CSMonitor.com: "Mexico declared a major victory Tuesday when it arrested the leader of the La Familia drug gang and 50 of its members, calling the group finished after the arrests. But the deadly drug war in Mexico is far from over. Many experts expect the remaining La Familia members to join allied groups and for its territory to be absorbed by other traffickers.(AMB emphasis) Here’s a look at Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels:"
The aticle provides a good overview of the current status of the major cartels.
Mexico's most powerful drug cartels - CSMonitor.com: "Mexico declared a major victory Tuesday when it arrested the leader of the La Familia drug gang and 50 of its members, calling the group finished after the arrests. But the deadly drug war in Mexico is far from over. Many experts expect the remaining La Familia members to join allied groups and for its territory to be absorbed by other traffickers.(AMB emphasis) Here’s a look at Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels:"
Jun 17, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Mexican police arrest drug boss El Brad Pitt
Mexican police arrest drug boss El Brad Pitt | Reuters: "Mexican federal police on Thursday announced the capture of a senior crime boss linked to the powerful Juarez drug cartel known as 'El Brad Pitt.'
In a statement, the police said they had arrested 34-year-old Marco Guzman, alias 'El Brad Pitt' or 'El Dos' (Number 2), a leader of the cartel's armed wing, La Linea."
In a statement, the police said they had arrested 34-year-old Marco Guzman, alias 'El Brad Pitt' or 'El Dos' (Number 2), a leader of the cartel's armed wing, La Linea."
Jun 10, 2011
Movement for Peace with Justice: Poet's peace caravan to end drug war approaches Ciudad Juarez - latimes.com
MEXICO: Poet's peace caravan to end drug war approaches Ciudad Juarez - latimes.com: "On Friday, Sicilia's 'peace caravan' is expected to roll into Ciudad Juarez for the signing of a 'national pact' to change course as he called for on May 8 in Mexico City.
Activists from both sides of the border are set to converge on a city that has become the dark emblem of how horrific the drug-related violence can get. More than 8,000 people have died violently in Ciudad Juarez since the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels began battling there three years ago. ...
... can the movement translate emotional power into political strength? Can it avoid the fate of other social movements — being swallowed up by established political parties? Is Javier Sicilia's grief enough to force a change in the anti-crime strategy?"
Activists from both sides of the border are set to converge on a city that has become the dark emblem of how horrific the drug-related violence can get. More than 8,000 people have died violently in Ciudad Juarez since the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels began battling there three years ago. ...
Jun 9, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug Wart: Cartels Have 14,000 Armed Men in Just 2 Mexico Cities, Official says
Cartels Have 14,000 Armed Men in Just 2 Mexico Cities, Official says - Fox News Latino: "At least 14,000 'armed criminals' are in the northern Mexican cities of Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua, working for the drug cartels that are fighting for control of smuggling routes into the United States, Chihuahua state Attorney General Carlos Manuel Salas said.
'It was an inherited war, which we got from the prior administration, in which 9,000 armed criminals are fighting for Juárez and a number near 5,000 for the city of Chihuahua,' the state capital, Salas said."
'It was an inherited war, which we got from the prior administration, in which 9,000 armed criminals are fighting for Juárez and a number near 5,000 for the city of Chihuahua,' the state capital, Salas said."
Jun 4, 2011
Whack-a-mole Drug War: Zetas-La Linea Alliance May Alter Balance of Power in Mexico
What!? You mean the drug moles are forming allinaces? Sounds like the drug war is heating up even more.
This article, from the website, Insight - Organized Crime in the Americas, outlines a possibly emerging formation of two large, opposing alliances between major Mexican drug cartels: Zetas, La Linea, Juarez and Beltran Leyva cartels versus Gulf, Sinaloa, La Familia Michoacana cartels. And Ciudad Juarez continues to be ground zero for the battle.
Zetas-La Linea Alliance May Alter Balance of Power in Mexico: "In the fickle and fluid place that is the Mexican underworld, the alleged union between the Zetas and La Linea (affiliated with the Juarez cartel) may not be taken seriously at first, but a closer look reveals an alliance that could shift the balance of power in Mexico....
The Zetas started as a military arm of the Gulf Cartel in the 1990s, but definitively split from the organization in 2010.
For its part, the Gulf Cartel has since allied with its former rivals in the Sinaloa Cartel. The two groups joined forces with the Familia Michoacana to form the so-called “New Federation.” The federation’s goal, simply put, is to destroy the Zetas.
This may have just become slightly more difficult. The Zetas are already allied with former Sinaloa Cartel associates, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO). And they have been in contact with La Linea, possibly training its members, for months or even years, according to some intelligence officials.
The Zetas may offer soldiers to help La Linea in Ciudad Juarez, in return for access to the city, or, more precisely, the Juarez Valley drug trafficking corridor."
This article, from the website, Insight - Organized Crime in the Americas, outlines a possibly emerging formation of two large, opposing alliances between major Mexican drug cartels: Zetas, La Linea, Juarez and Beltran Leyva cartels versus Gulf, Sinaloa, La Familia Michoacana cartels. And Ciudad Juarez continues to be ground zero for the battle.
Zetas-La Linea Alliance May Alter Balance of Power in Mexico: "In the fickle and fluid place that is the Mexican underworld, the alleged union between the Zetas and La Linea (affiliated with the Juarez cartel) may not be taken seriously at first, but a closer look reveals an alliance that could shift the balance of power in Mexico....
The Zetas started as a military arm of the Gulf Cartel in the 1990s, but definitively split from the organization in 2010.
For its part, the Gulf Cartel has since allied with its former rivals in the Sinaloa Cartel. The two groups joined forces with the Familia Michoacana to form the so-called “New Federation.” The federation’s goal, simply put, is to destroy the Zetas.
This may have just become slightly more difficult. The Zetas are already allied with former Sinaloa Cartel associates, the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO). And they have been in contact with La Linea, possibly training its members, for months or even years, according to some intelligence officials.
The Zetas may offer soldiers to help La Linea in Ciudad Juarez, in return for access to the city, or, more precisely, the Juarez Valley drug trafficking corridor."
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