Raul Madrigal stares and extends a defiant middle finger, apparently at feds hunting him.

Raul Madrigal stares and extends a defiant middle finger, apparently at feds hunting him.“He is kind of taunting us,” said Brian Ritchie, who leads the violent crimes and gangs task force for the FBI's Houston division, which has been trying to capture him for months. Authorities contend Madrigal, 29, is a key member of the fast-growing Tango Blast — the largest gang in the city — and that from 2007 to 2009, he helped the Gulf Cartel pump millions of dollars worth of marijuana and cocaine into Houston and the surrounding area.Fleeing to Mexico follows a Texas border crime tradition, but also speaks to what Washington sees as a growing threat posed by partnerships between Mexican drug cartels and U.S. gangs.Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer testified before Congress last week that the Department of Justice plans to step up investigations of the ties as part of a strategy similar to what was previously used to take on the mafia and other international syndicates.
Madrigal apparently made so much money that authorities intend to seize $18 million in assets in the case against him and 13 other defendants charged with trafficking under Operation Broken Star.They've already seized nine of Madrigal's bling cars, including a Bentley sedan, two BMWs and two Maseratis. All look showroom clean and remain parked in a heavily secured storage facility until they are sold at auction.
A 6.5 carat diamond ring also was taken as drug proceeds, as was a customized three-wheel T-Rex motorcycle, complete with ostrich-skin seats and an LCD monitor.
Authorities won't say whether they expect to see Madrigal in handcuffs anytime soon but note he's likely in a dangerous country where he can't stand alone. “He has probably aligned himself with some people who offer the protection he deserves and has earned,” Ritchie said.In Houston, the conspiracy is alleged to have started months after U.S.-born Madrigal was released from his second stint in a Texas prison, where agents speculate he reinforced dubious connections. Authorities said Tango Blast is an appealing partner for traffickers because it has many members and is spread out across the state. Other more traditional Latino gangs, such as the Mexican Mafia and the Texas Syndicate, also work with the cartels, according to a recent law enforcement report. “People are so worried the cartels are going to come over here, but they have these people at their beck and call,” said Pat Villafranca, an FBI spokeswoman in Houston.The cartel has the drug supply while the U.S. gangs know the streets, have the contacts and can blend in.“They get these guys to do their dirty work,” said Rick Moreno, a Houston police homicide investigator who has mapped out local gang connections to cartel murders, kidnappings and other crimes.
Among others charged in the conspiracy is Saul Salinas, the brother of a trafficker gunned down here in 2006. The case was recently solved and the suspects await trial.
“Madrigal hooked up with all these people he met in prison and out of prison,” the FBI's Ritchie said. His biggest connection was Mario Gonzalez, an accused cartel member and fugitive. Madrigal is charged in a conspiracy to move at least a ton of weed, but he is believed to have used a network of stash houses to sell about 5,000 pounds a month, enough to roll more than 3 million joints every 30 days.Even if Madrigal, who has a list of prior criminal offenses, again sees a courtroom, there is no guarantee of conviction. Four times he's had charges against him dismissed, and he wasn't charged in the death of a rival killed in a shootout. He was convicted twice and went to prison, once for theft and again for drug dealing.In the meantime, Madrigal's taunts give authorities motivation, said a veteran state law enforcement officer. “Old-school gangsters ... would never draw attention like that,” he said.

Read more...

Bodies of a retired Mexican brigadier general and two other men were found Tuesday in a sport utility vehicle abandoned on a highway outside of Cancun

Bodies of a retired Mexican brigadier general and two other men were found Tuesday in a sport utility vehicle abandoned on a highway outside of Cancun, the resort's mayor said. All had been shot many times.Mayor Gregorio Sanchez identified the victims as retired army Brig. Gen. Mauro Enrique Tello, his assistant Tulio Cesar Roman, an active-duty infantry lieutenant, and civilian Juan Ramirez.Tello had been working as a security consultant to the local government when he was killed.There was speculation that the slayings were intended as a warning to Cancun officials, some of whom have sought to rid the popular beach resort of drug traffickers and other gangsters.Elsewhere in Mexico, 14 people were reported killed between Monday night and late Tuesday afternoon in the border state of Chihuahua. Most of the dead were found in Ciudad Juarez.In one incident, a man and a woman were gunned down in a supermarket parking lot and a third person was killed in the checkout line.
Officials said they had not located any suspects or uncovered any clear motive in the killings, part of a wave of mostly drug-related violence.More than 5,000 homicides linked to organized crime were reported last year amid a battle among the world's most powerful drug cartels for territory and resistance to a two-year government crackdown on the cartels.Also Tuesday, a police station near the port of Lazaro Cardenas came under intense gunfire before dawn, killing officer Jose Cruz Zamorano as he sat in a parked patrol car, state police said in a statement. Another officer inside the station was injured.Authorities set up roadblocks to catch the attackers.In the northern border city of Tijuana on Tuesday, 55 city police officers were fired as part of the government's efforts to fight corruption. Police Chief Julian Leyzaola said the officers were involved in extorsion and often missed work.Tijuana has fired 350 police officers since December 2007, when Mayor Jorge Ramos took office.

Read more...

Jesus Zambada Garcia is captured after a gun battle in Mexico City. He commanded one of four branches of the Sinaloa cartel

Jesus Zambada Garcia is captured after a gun battle in Mexico City. He commanded one of four branches of the Sinaloa cartel, officials say.
Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they arrested a leading drug figure known as El Rey after a shootout in Mexico City early this week.
Jesus Zambada Garcia, the brother of a suspected drug kingpin in the western state of Sinaloa, was among 16 people captured Monday, Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said.
The attorney general said Zambada, whose nickname means "the king," commanded one of four branches of the so-called Sinaloa cartel, leading its operations in central Mexico. Zambada is the brother of Ismael Zambada and an associate of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the most-wanted trafficker in Mexico, officials said.
Jesus Zambada controlled smuggling of cocaine and chemical ingredients for the production of methamphetamine through Mexico City's airport, Medina Mora said. Authorities have focused attention in recent months on drug smugglers' use of the country's largest airport.Zambada has also been linked to gruesome drug killings in central and western Mexico, prosecutors said."The arrest of Jesus Zambada Garcia, the King, stands out, without a doubt, as one of the most significant by President [Felipe] Calderon's government to date," Medina Mora told reporters. "It is not the only one in recent months, nor will it be the last in the months to come." Investigators are looking into Zambada's possible role in the assassination of acting federal Police Chief Edgar Millan Gomez. The police commander was ambushed in May by a gunman in his Mexico City home, and authorities have long suspected that Sinaloa cartel traffickers were behind the slaying.Marisela Morales, who runs the organized-crime unit of the attorney general's office, called Zambada "one of the most important" smugglers of cocaine and methamphetamines into Mexico.
Zambada's arrest offered officials a much-needed chance to claim progress in their uphill battle against drug traffickers.Calderon declared a crackdown nearly two years ago, but drug-related violence has worsened despite some high-profile arrests and hefty drug seizures.The death toll this year has exceeded 3,500, according to unofficial tallies in the media, amid a wave of killings that has included decapitations, scorched bodies and a growing list of innocent victims.A grenade attack that killed eight civilians last month in the western state of Michoacan fed an increasing sense among Mexicans that their government is losing its war with well-armed drug gangs.In Monday's incident, police came under fire after being led to a house in northern Mexico City by a resident's tip. Police rounded up the 16 suspects but were not able to immediately confirm Zambada's identity, Morales said.
Prosecutors said Zambada's 21-year-old son, Jesus Zambada Reyes, and a nephew were among those arrested. On Wednesday, authorities lined up suspects and their seized weapons before news cameras, and police searched the house where the shootout took place.U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday began a two-day visit with Mexican officials in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta that was to include discussion of Mexico's battle against traffickers.Mexican officials are eager for the release of a $400-million package of U.S. training and equipment, known as the Merida Initiative.

Read more...

Hooded gunmen believed engaged in a drugs feud burst into the Rio Rosas bar and shot dead 11 people in the third drugs-related massacre

Hooded gunmen believed engaged in a drugs feud burst into a bar in northern Mexico and shot dead 11 people in the third drugs-related massacre in the state since July, officials said.The black-clad gunmen opened fire with assault rifles at the Rio Rosas bar in Chihuahua city near Texas on Thursday night after pushing their way in and identifying themselves as federal police, the Chihuahua attorney general's office said.The killings were believed related to a feud between gangs jockeying over drug smuggling routes into the United States.Customers stampeded out of the bar as the gunmen fled the usually quiet city neighbourhood. One of the victims was a columnist for the city's main daily newspaper.A few hours later, federal police fought a group of suspected hitmen in a gun battle on the highway south from Ciudad Juarez, which is on the U.S. border, to Chihuahua.Police declined to say if the battle, in which two policemen and two gunmen died, involved the men who attacked the bar.More than 3,000 people have died this year as Mexico's drug gangs fight for control of smuggling routes into California, Arizona and Texas, despite deployment of thousands of troops and federal police across Mexico by President Felipe Calderon.

Read more...

Gangland football Second division club Mapaches de Nueva Italia could be financed by the ruthless Gulf cartel

Second division club Mapaches de Nueva Italia, based in the western state of Michoacan, could be financed by the ruthless Gulf cartel from the Gulf of Mexico or by an emerging gang called The Family, possibly for money laundering purposes.
"We have made seven arrests of club directors and players, all Mapaches," said a federal official who declined to be named. The arrests followed a police raid on the team after a game in Mexico City.
The official declined to give more details about the investigation but Michoacan state has been at the center of Mexico's gruesome drug war as rival cartels fight over smuggling routes for cocaine and marijuana and the army tries to stop spiraling violence.In September, drug gangs threw grenades into the central square of Michoacan's capital Morelia as revelers celebrated Independence Day, the first major strike by drug cartels on the public.

Read more...

Mexican Gangs bodies cut up ,dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked ,hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being murdered

Bodies are cut up and dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked and hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being murdered -- Mexican gangs are using horrifying methods to outdo each other in an already harrowing drugs war.
Drug cartel hitmen have massacred some 70 people in the past 10 days in Tijuana on the U.S.-Mexico border, once a freewheeling city serving Americans tequila, cheap medicines and sex that is being devastated by the war.Mexico's government says most of the recent victims belonged to Tijuana's Arellano Felix family cartel that won notoriety in the 1990s for smuggling tons of cocaine into California and for its ruthless elimination of enemies.But it has been weakened in recent years with former leaders killed or arrested, and other cartels are moving in to take control of the drugs trade in Tijuana and throughout the border state of Baja California.
"The Arellano Felix cartel no longer has control of drug trafficking in Tijuana, rival gangs are coming into the plaza," said Baja California's police chief, Daniel de la Rosa.In one of the nastiest mass executions in the city, hitmen dumped 16 bodies across Tijuana, some with their tongues cut out, late last month. Days later, police found a barrel suspected of containing human remains in acid with a message from a gang threatening to make more "soup" of rivals.Since the drug war exploded in 2006, Tijuana has become one of Mexico's most violence cities.President Felipe Calderon has deployed thousands of troops in the city, which lies across the border from San Diego, but they have not stopped the killings and he is bogged down in a search for new strategies to halt the relentless violence across Mexico.

Read more...

Surenos 13 members were far-flung, ranging into what might seem like unlikely places such as Provo, Utah. Seven people identified as Surenos 13 member

Surenos means "southerner," Eways said. The term is often used in California prisons to refer to any gang member from southern California, he said. And No. 13 represents the letter M — the 13th letter of the alphabet — which symbolizes the gang members' alliances to the Mexican mafia, Eways said.increase in arrests of alleged members of the gang Surenos 13 may represent the gang's increasing reach, or it may result from better classification of those arrested, authorities and academics said. The gang is distinct from the larger and better-known MS-13, but police or federal agents may have lumped them together during previous roundups.Over the course of a four-month effort that ended Tuesday, officials arrested 1,759 people in 28 states, 33 percent more than they arrested during a similar campaign last year. Of those, 1,315 were gang members and gang associates, and 338 belonged to Surenos 13, according to figures released Wednesday by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
The Surenos 13 members were far-flung, ranging into what might seem like unlikely places such as Provo, Utah. Seven people identified as Surenos 13 members were arrested there in June.A relatively small number of those picked up this summer, 86, were identified as members of MS-13. Federal authorities have said MS-13 is one of the nation's largest gangs, with 10,000 members in the U.S., Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala. During a similar crackdown last year, officials arrested 273 people identified as MS-13 members."In every area of the country, there are transnational gang problems," ICE assistant secretary Julie Myers said in an interview with The Associated Press.Surenos 13 gangs, also known as SUR 13, may not be connected to gangs bearing the same name in other locations, she said. MS-13 continues to have a tighter affiliation across the country than those calling themselves Surenos 13, she said.Another reason for the uptick in Surenos 13 arrests could be that for many years, law enforcement across the country had been misidentifying MS-13 members. There are about 1,000 gangs across the country with the same signifiers as MS-13, said Sgt. Andrew Eways, supervisor of the Criminal Investigation Section of the Maryland State Police.MS-13 and Surenos 13 are equally lethal and dangerous, said gang psychology expert Jorja Leap, an associate adjunct professor of social welfare at the University of California, Los Angeles. "I would not want to be greeted by either one of them."

Read more...

Mexican police said on Friday they have found the bodies of 24 men who were bound and shot to death execution-style outside the capital.

Mexican police said on Friday they have found the bodies of 24 men who were bound and shot to death execution-style outside the capital.The bodies found Friday represent one of the largest single mass executions in Mexico in recent memory.
Police and soldiers were at the scene of the crime in a rural area just west of Mexico City, which has been marked by gangland slayings and land disputes between farming communities.The killings are "without doubt" linked to organized crime, said Alberto Bazbaz, the attorney general of Mexico State, which borders Mexico City.
"The only thing we have to identify them is that they all appear to be between 20 and 35, all of them have military-style haircuts, and they were wearing clothing appropriate for a warm climate," Bazbaz told the television network Televisa.
The mountains around Mexico City are colder, and Bazbaz said it was likely they were from the warmer, drug-plagued neighboring states of Michoacan or Guerrero.
In a statement, the federal Attorney General's Office said it was considering taking over investigations into the case, an additional indication that organized crime — a federal offense — was involved.

Read more...

Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero .Two bodies were found Monday morning on a hillside, one with its head placed on its upper back.

Two bodies were found Monday morning on a hillside, one with its head placed on its upper back.The gruesome discoveries this week of five bodies, four of them decapitated, have shattered a period of relative calm and revived concerns that organized crime groups are escalating their battle for control of this border city.Three more bodies were discovered Tuesday morning in an illegal dump.
Their heads, charred from gasoline burns, were placed at their feet, according to the Baja California state attorney general's office.Authorities have not identified the victims.The attacks recalled the decapitations two years ago of three Rosarito Beach police officers.Authorities believe the recent victims may have been associates of the reputed leader of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero -- The Engineer.
Printed on the shirtless victims' backs was a taunting message: "We are people of the weakened engineer."Violence had declined significantly in recent months, and Alberto Capella Ibarra, Tijuana's secretary of public security, discounted the significance of this week's killings, comparing them to Los Angeles-area gang slayings that are barely noticed."The only difference here is how dramatic the deaths are," Capella said in an interview in his downtown office.
But Capella and others conceded that the savage nature of the crimes could signal a deadlier phase in the drug war as the Arellano Felix drug cartel fights rivals.
The cartel, once among the most powerful in Mexico, has been weakened in recent years by arrests and killings of its top bosses.Sanchez Arellano is said to have assumed control when his uncle, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, was captured in 2006.In April, a gun battle between groups headed by Sanchez Arellano and a rival faction left 13 dead and appears to have split the cartel into two camps.
The head of the rival group, Teodoro Garcia Simental, moved to the state of Sinaloa, where he may have forged ties with a cartel based there, said Mexican law enforcement sources who spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk publicly on the subject.The recent deaths could be a sign that Garcia or one of his underlings may have launched an offensive to push out Sanchez Arellano with the help of powerful allies from Sinaloa.Such a scenario, some fear, could turn Tijuana into a battleground on par with the northern state of Chihuahua, where more than 800 deaths this year have been linked to drugs, the most of any Mexican state, according to a report by the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego.
The Chihuahua death toll grew higher Tuesday when gunmen killed five people at a family gathering at a ranch. Also this month, cartel gunmen killed 13 people at a party in the tourist town of Creel, and eight people during a prayer service at a Ciudad Juarez drug rehabilitation center

Read more...

Rene Tercero Reyes Aguirre was shot by an armed gang who broke into his home in Juarez, Mexico.

Five-time Mexican supercross champion was brutally murdered in his home by a biker gang on Monday.Rene Tercero Reyes Aguirre was shot by an armed gang who broke into his home in Juarez, Mexico.Two friends of the 24 year old rider were also murdered in the attack, which followed a series of violent gang-related attacks in the town on Monday that left a total of 11 people dead.The violence raged on into Tuesday, when a further three people were killed.

Read more...

Mexico's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman Shootout between rival drug gangs in Sinaloa

Shootout between rival drug gangs in Sinaloa, Mexico, leaves trail of war behind. Shootout between alleged rival drug gangs set vehicles ablaze and damage houses as they battle for turf.Two groups of alleged drug traffickers were involved in a shootout at dawn in the northern city of Culiacan in the state of Sinaloa on Monday (July 14) where they set ablaze three vehicles and damaged four houses, according to authorities.There were no reports of injuries, deaths or arrests and the state attorney general's office said it was too early to report how many weapons or if drugs had been seized.As Federal Sinaloa Deputy, Daniel Amador Gaxiola stated, "We are living through the most difficult stages of modern history, if you can call it that. We regret what is happening in Sinaloa and people live in fear and uncertainty. However we have to recognize efforts being carried out by the government are trying to create results. Unfortunately, it's a problem that is out of our reach, of many forces of our society."A house which was used as a refuge by alleged drug traffickers was attacked with a spray of bullets and molotov bombs. The occupants fired back but then managed to escape when the house was set on fire together with two SUV vehicles which were parked inside.Another vehicle exploded and was burnt down. Authorities found three gas tanks in the rear seats. This event comes a after gunmen killed eight youths and a police Chief, and took dozens of restaurant patrons hostage for hours, in two attacks in the drug gang-ridden state of Sinaloa.Drug gang killings and shootouts in Mexico have soared to unprecedented levels.Some 1,700 people have died so far this year, as an army-led crackdown intensifies turf wars between rival gangs, whose hitmen are increasingly taking their battles public with daylight shootouts in busy streets.
Sinaloa state in northwestern Mexico is one of the areas most affected by drug violence and is home to Mexico's most-wanted drug lord, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman.

Read more...

Six people were shot and killed inside a private law office in central Mexico

Six people were shot and killed inside a private law office in central Mexico, state prosecutors said.Five men and a women died in yesterday's attack in the western city of Guadalajara, the Jalisco state attorney-general's office said in a statement.
Two women survived the shooting, the statement said. Mexico City newspaper El Universal reported they were seriously wounded. The bodies were found in different parts of the office, and some of the victims' hands were tied, the statement said. The gunshot wounds appeared to come from a 9mm weapon. No arrests had been made.
In recent years, Mexico has suffered a wave of organised crime and drug-related violence that killed more than 2,500 people last year alone. It was not immediately clear if any of the lawyers at the office had clients with links to organised crime.

Read more...

Criag Petties half brother toThree 6 Mafia's DJ Paul

Alleged Memphis drug lord and half-brother to Three 6 Mafia's DJ Paul is facing 56 charges in federal court after being arrested early this month in Mexico, while appearing in the top 15 of America's Most Wanted fugitives.
A nearly 70-page indictment was handed down to 31-year-old Craig Petties this week, detailing his alleged drug operation which is estimated to have run from 1995 up until this year. The superseding indictment follows a 40-page one laid against him originally in 2002 before he went on the run.
Petties -- in addition to conspiracy to distribute marijuana and cocaine from the original indictment -- now faces several other charges including conspiracy to commit murder for hire, money laundering and racketeering.
Authorities have learned, since 2002, that Petties' organization allegedly attempted to kill people who interfered with their drug trafficking business.
As far as money laundering charges, the indictment says that Petties used drug money to pay for several expensive cars, a home in Las Vegas as well as one in Memphis.
During raids and arrest, authorities have confiscated several firearms, lots of money and vehicles.


"So far we've had seizures of almost $3 million, little over 2.9 million and something like 40 vehicles and over $600,000 in cash," said U.S. Attorney David Kustoff.
He wanted arrested on January 11 in Mexico, along with a female companion -- believed to have been his girlfriend -- and three other individuals. Petties was apparently running multi-million dollar drug ring while evading arrest in Mexico.
Memphis Police Director Larry Godwin told local FoxNews affiliate that they've begun combing through homicide cases to find connections to Petties or members of his gang. Six others who listed as associates all face the same or similar charges.
Petties and his co-defendants are all in federal custody. If convicted of all charges, he and his associates could face life in prison or the death penalty.
Prosecutors haven't yet to determine what punishments they will seek.

Read more...

Jose Luis Santiago, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman

Jose Luis Santiago, the point man in the country's war on drug gangs and the official in charge of extraditing drug bosses to the United States, said the suspected hit men may belong to the Sinaloa Cartel, which dominates Mexico's Pacific Coast cocaine smuggling routes.
Mexico's deputy attorney general said on Thursday that three men arrested in Mexico City last week with shoulder-fired rockets, rifles and a submachine gun were planning to kill him.
"It's one of the risks run by all of us who are committed," Santiago was quoted as saying in the daily Reforma newspaper's online edition.
Police stopped a car in an upscale neighborhood during a late-night check last Thursday and found the men and the weapons. Santiago said an investigation indicated they were on their way to ambush him.
President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 25,000 federal police and soldiers to hunt down drug cartels near the U.S. border and in other troubled areas around Mexico, which was hit by some 2,500 drug gang murders last year.
In northern Mexico, drug gangs frequently murder local police, judges and politicians in the middle of the conflict. But attacks on senior federal authorities are rare.
Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa Cartel, escaped from prison in 2001 and remains at large. One of his top lieutenants was arrested this week.

Read more...