Discovery of 49 mutilated bodies dumped on a highway Sunday in northern Mexico is latest violent incident ~ VIDEO

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The discovery of 49 mutilated bodies dumped on a highway in northern Mexico on Sunday appears to be part of an increasingly gruesome war of intimidation among Mexican drug gangs. Here is a partial list of other notable incidents over the past 12 months. More

A popular vacation spot for ... body parts

Don't be an idiot, stay out of Mexico !!!

Mexican authorities report 20 dismembered bodies found in the state of Jalisco, presumed to be the latest victims of the country’s escalating drug war.

At first, reports said there were 12 bodies,then 18, left in two vans on a road in the Lake Chapala region, popular with US retirees and tourists.

Now, on a road in Jalisco, officials have spotted two more bodies and Mexico's attorney general suspects those killings could be connected to the other corpses, Europa Press reports. More

World's most dangerous volcano erupts in Mexico ~ VIDEO

MEXICO CITY – The Popocatepetl volcano is shooting a heavy plume of ash into the sky southeast of Mexico's capital, and television images show a reddish glow near the crater.

Webcam images on the site of the National Disaster Prevention Center show the plume rising from the top of the 17,886-foot peak at dawn, though clouds obscured the volcano for people further away.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/04/20/mexico-volcano-spews-glowing-rock-tower-ash/#ixzz1sbaqRoT6

U.S. Drivers Head to Mexico For Cheaper Gas, Despite Violent Drug Cartels

Drivers Head to Mexico For Cheaper Gas: MyFoxPHOENIX.com

As gas prices skyrocket, drivers are looking south of the border for some alternatives to ease the pain at the pump.
But there's growing concern that bargain-seekers could be putting their lives at risk.
The national average for a gallon of gas is hovering around $3.80 right now -- $4.35 in California, according to AAA, and some analysts think it'll keep climbing as we head into summer.

So it's no wonder in cities along the border -- people are driving into Mexico to fill up their tanks -- where the price for a gallon of gas is around a $1.50 less.
"I do work with a lot of people who do go across the border for gas and other stuff, but they're risking their lives. There's no way I would do it," said Elizabeth Perdoza, a driver from El Paso.


Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2012/03/19/us-drivers-head-south-to-mexico-for-cheaper-gas/#ixzz1q4D7mZxe

Breaking: 7.6 earthquake hits near Acapulco, Mexico

A strong, long magnitude-6.59 earthquake with an epicenter in Guerrero state shook central southern Mexico on Tuesday, swaying buildings in Mexico City and sending frightened workers and residents into the streets.

Mexico's National Seismological Survey said the temblor had an epicenter southwest of Ometepec.

It was six miles (10 kilometers) underground.


USGS



Earthquake Details


This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.
Magnitude
7.6
Date-Time
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 18:02:48 UTC
Tuesday, March 20, 2012 at 12:02:48 PM at epicenter
Location
16.662°N, 98.188°W
Depth
17.5 km (10.9 miles)
Region
OAXACA, MEXICO
Distances
25 km (15 miles) E (95°) from Ometepec, Guerrero, Mexico
42 km (26 miles) NNW (335°) from Pinotepa Nacional, Oaxaca, Mexico
87 km (54 miles) SW (219°) from Tlaxiaco, Oaxaca, Mexico
162 km (101 miles) WSW (255°) from Oaxaca, Oaxaca, Mexico
186 km (115 miles) E (96°) from Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico
Location Uncertainty
horizontal +/- 15.8 km (9.8 miles); depth +/- 6.5 km (4.0 miles)
Parameters
NST=438, Nph=440, Dmin=312.8 km, Rmss=0.88 sec, Gp= 79°,
M-type=regional moment magnitude (Mw), Version=9
Source
Magnitude: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Location: USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID
usc0008m6h

Mexico's army captures "El Chapo," security head for Sinaloa drug cartel, one of world's most wanted men

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- The Mexican army announced Sunday that it had captured the head of security for Sinaloa drug cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, one of the world's most wanted men.


The suspect, who was not identified by name, was captured in the Sinaloa state capital of Culiacan and will be presented to the media Monday morning, the army said.


Guzman, Mexico's top drug lord, is one of the world's richest men, and has eluded authorities by moving around and hiding since his 2001 escape from prison in a laundry truck.


The army said the man they had arrested also ran cartel activities in Durango and southern Chihuahua state, and was responsible for carrying out secret burials of cartel victims, kidnapping, extortion and arson. They did not say if the arrest moved the military closer to capturing Guzman, an arrest that would be seen as a major victory for the government of President Felipe Calderon.


Guzman is worth more than $1 billion, according to Forbes magazine, which has listed him among the "World's Most Powerful People." He has a $7 million bounty on his head, and thousands of law enforcement agents from the U.S. and other countries working on capturing him.


His cartel controls cocaine trafficking on the Mexican border with California and has moved eastward to the corridor between the Mexican state of Sonora, which borders Arizona.


Separately, Mexican soldiers discovered 13 bodies in an abandoned truck Sunday along with a message that they were killed in a war between rival drug cartels in the eastern state of Veracruz, officials said.


The bodies were found in Tamaulipas state, a few hundred yards (meters) from its border with Veracruz, according to the Tamaulipas attorney general's office.


The area has been the scene of bloody battles between the Gulf and Zetas cartels, and a pair of banners alluding to a rivalry were found in the truck, the statement from the attorney-general's office said.


On Friday, the attorney general's office in Veracruz said it had found 10 bodies in a different area along the border with Tamaulipas after receiving a tip.


On Thursday, three U.S. citizens traveling to spend the holidays with their relatives in Mexico were among those killed in a spree of shooting attacks on buses. In the spree, a group of gunmen attacked three buses in Veracruz, killing a total of seven passengers.


The Americans killed were a mother and her two daughters who were returning to visit relatives in the region.


The five gunmen who allegedly carried out the attacks were later shot to death by soldiers.


Earlier, the gunmen also shot to death three people and killed a fourth with grenade in the nearby town of El Higo, Veracruz.


Local police in Veracruz have become so corrupt that on Wednesday the government decided to dissolve the entire police force in the state's largest city, also known as Veracruz, and sent the Navy in to patrol. Some 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees were laid off.

Apocalypse, or chance to make a few pesos ??? Mexico's Mayan territory starts the countdown to Dec. 21, 2012

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Seize the day.


Only a year is left before Dec. 21, 2012, when some believe the Maya predicted the end of the world.


While some doomsday theorists may suggest putting together survival kits, people in southeastern Mexico, the heart of Maya territory, plan to throw a yearlong celebration. And to make a profit while they party.


Mexico's tourism agency expects to draw 52 million visitors over the coming year just to the five states richest in Maya heritage. Mexico as a whole is expected to lure just 22 million foreigners this year.


It is selling the date, the Winter Solstice, as a time of renewal. Most Mexican archaeological authorities say that the 2012 reference on a 1,300-year-old stone tablet only marks the end of a cycle in the Mayan calendar, not an apocalypse.


"The world will not end. It is an era," said Yeanet Zaldo, a tourism spokeswoman for the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo, home to Cancun. "For us, it is a message of hope."


Cities and towns in the Mayan region are starting the yearlong countdown on Wednesday. The city of Tapachula on the Guatemalan border will start an 8-foot (2.5-meter) digital clock in its main park to begin the countdown exactly a year before the date.


In the nearby archaeological site of Izapa, Maya priests will burn incense, chant and offer prayers.


On Mexico's Caribbean coast, between the resorts of Cancun and Playa del Carmen, people are putting messages and photos in a time capsule that will be buried for 50 years. Maya priests and Indian dancers will perform a ritual at the time capsule ceremony.


"People who still live in Mayan villages will host rites and burn incense for us to go back in time and try to understand the Mayan wisdom," Zaldo said.


Yucatan state has announced plans to complete the Maya Museum of Merida by next summer.


And President Felipe Calderon recently announced there would be about 500 Maya-themed events throughout the year in southern Mexico, including workshops and dance and music festivals.


Officials are building a state-run tourist hotel at the natural reserve of Calakmul in the state of Campeche. And the National Institute of Anthropology and History is opening three additional ruins to tourists.


Some theorists have found evidence of a 2012 apocalypse in the Bible, the prophesies of Nostradamus or in the alignment of celestial bodies, and official assurances that the world is likely to continue have not convinced everyone.


An article on the website "survivalguide2012" advises readers that in addition to stocking up on emergency supplies, they might consider heading to mountains on Dec. 21, perhaps those in Alaska or Bolivia.


"Regardless whether the threat of December 21, 2012, is real or not, there is no harm in being prepared" said the author, writing under the name Yang Muffins.


The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy


Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and they wrote that the 13th Baktun ends on Dec. 21, 2012.


The doomsday theories stem from a pair of tablets discovered in the 1960s at the archaeological site of Tortuguero in the Gulf of Mexico state of Tabasco that describe the return of a Mayan god at the end of a 13th period.


"The Maya are viewed by many westerners as exotic folks that were supposed to have had some special, secret knowledge," said Maya scholar Sven Gronemeyer. "What happens is that our expectations and fears get projected on the Maya calendar."


Gronemeyer of La Trobe University in Australia compares the supposed Mayan prophecies to the "Y2K" hype, when people feared all computer systems would crash when the new millennium began on Jan. 1, 2000.


For some reason, Gronemeyer says, people have ignored evidence that dates beyond 2012 were recorded in Mayan ruins.


"Human beings seem to be attracted by apocalyptic ideas and always assume the worst," he said.


Jonnie Channell of Albuquerque, New Mexico, says that 2012 "is going to be one of those things where people are definitely going to have to plan," not because of impending apocalypse, but because hotel rooms in the Maya region are probably going to be full.


Channell, who owns Maya Sites Travel Services, said she already has 24 reservations for three tour packages she is offering to major Mayan ruin sites in the week leading up to the solstice.


She named one "Beginning the New Calendar Era Under the Yucatan Stars."


"We put together these tours, and we've got lots of signups, and people are excited about it," she said. "If anybody think it's going to be the end of the world, then they better stay home."

Cross-Border Drug Violence Rages as Obama Mulls Pulling Troops

As violence along the U.S.-Mexican border continues to breed fear in some communities, the Obama administration may be considering pulling up to half of the National Guard troops who help monitor the southern border.  
“The administration is not serious about it,” said Rep. Francisco Canseco (R-TX), in reference to security along the border.  

The congressman, whose district includes nearly 800 miles of the southern border, said leaked White House reports reveal a plan to pull up to 600 of the 1,200 troops helping to monitor the divide. Canseco said people who live along some areas of the border are already feeling very insecure.
“We see all these reports (of) people coming across – killings happening, break-ins happening, sequestrations, and extortions,” he said, “even though [Secretary of Homeland Security] Janet Napolitano and President Obama refuse to recognize that there is cross-border violence.”
President Barack Obama ordered the troops to the border last year to help Border Patrol agents watch for illegal crossers and drug and human smugglers. The first of the 1,200 troops arrived in California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas in August 2010, and were expected to be in place for about a year. Earlier this year, Obama extended that deployment.
The Guard troops don't have arrest power and have spent much of their time monitoring the 2,000-mile border and alerting Border Patrol agents to suspicious activity. The deployment was to have ended at the end of the year.
Canseco said the administration would need to develop an alternative plan for keeping the border secure.
Department of Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler told Fox News Latino in an e-mail: “The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense are continuing to explore options to further strengthen the already unprecedented levels of personnel, technology and infrastructure deployed at the southwest border.”
Last week, U.S. Customs and Border Protection released data that said narcotics seizures for the 2011 fiscal year – which covers October 2010 to September – increased 20 percent compared to 2010.
Canseco believes it’s a combination of increased staffing of Customs and Border Protection agents and more drug smugglers making attempts to cross the border.  
“What is happening is [drug cartels] are amplifying the amount of trafficking that’s going through,” he said.
DHS also reported a major dip in apprehensions of undocumented immigrants.
In 2011, 340,252 arrests were made compared to 463,382 in 2010. Canseco said the drop is due to fewer migrants attempting to cross the border due to the poor U.S. economy.
Early next year, Canseco plans to propose the Southwest Cross Border Violence Recognition Act to Congress, which will allow the DHS and the FBI to define clearly what cross-border violence is.
“Over the summer we had incidents in the valley in Texas where [Department of Public Safety officers] were shooting across the river [at] drug cartels that were shooting at them,” said Canseco.  
He noted an incident that occurred on November 21 in Houston, where Zetas drug cartel members apparently opened fire at a tanker being transported for the Drug Enforcement Agency, which was carrying 300 pounds of marijuana, according to Canseco.
He said the incident resulted in the death of a federal informant and the wounding of a Harris County deputy sheriff.
“[We really need to] get serious on that national level about border security,” said Canseco. “That is one of the first things that our federal government should be doing.”

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2011/12/19/cross-border-drug-violence-rages-as-obama-mulls-pulling-troops/#ixzz1h4sQ9qVP

U.S. Proposes Unmanned Border Entry With Mexico

BIG BEND NATIONAL PARK, Texas – The bloody drug war in Mexico shows no sign of relenting. Neither do calls for tighter border security amid rising fears of spillover violence.

This hardly seems a time the U.S. would be willing to allow people to cross the border legally from Mexico without a customs officer in sight. But in this rugged, remote West Texas terrain where wading across the shallow Rio Grande undetected is all too easy, federal authorities are touting a proposal to open an unmanned port of entry as a security upgrade.

By the spring, kiosks could open up in Big Bend National Park allowing people from the tiny Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen to scan their identity documents and talk to a customs officer in another location, at least 100 miles away.

The crossing, which would be the nation's first such port of entry with Mexico, has sparked opposition from some who see it as counterintuitive in these days of heightened border security. Supporters say the crossing would give the isolated Mexican town long-awaited access to U.S. commerce, improve conservation efforts and be an unlikely target for criminal operations.

"People that want to be engaged in illegal activities along the border, ones that are engaged in those activities now, they're still going to do it," said William Wellman, Big Bend National Park's superintendent. "But you'd have to be a real idiot to pick the only place with security in 300 miles of the border to try to sneak across."

The proposed crossing from Boquillas del Carmen leads to a vast expanse of rolling scrub, cut by sandy-floored canyons and violent volcanic rock outcroppings. The Chihuahuan desert wilderness is home to mountain lions, black bears and roadrunners, sparsely populated by an occasional camper and others visiting the 800,000-acre national park.

Customs and Border Protection, which would run the port of entry, says the proposal is a safe way to allow access to the town's residents, who currently must travel 240 road miles to the nearest legal entry point. It also would allow park visitors to visit the town.

If the crossing is approved, Border Patrol would have eight agents living in the park in addition to the park's 23 law enforcement rangers.

"I think it's actually going to end up making security better," CBP spokesman William Brooks said.

"Once you've crossed you're still not anywhere. You've got a long ways to go and we've got agents who are in the area. We have agents who patrol. We have checkpoints on the paved roads leading away from the park."

A public comment period runs through Dec. 27 on the estimated $2.3 million project, which has support at the highest levels of government from both countries.

But U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican member of the House Homeland Security committee, questioned the wisdom of using resources to make it easier to cross the border.

"We need to use our resources to secure the border rather than making it easier to enter in locations where we already have problems with illegal crossings," McCaul said in an email. "There is more to the oversight of legal entry than checking documents. (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) needs to be physically present at every point of entry in order to inspect for contraband, detect suspicious behavior and, if necessary, act on what they encounter."

While CBP will run the port of entry, the National Park Service is the driver behind the project, which it hopes will help conservation efforts on both sides of the border. Even as the National Park Service has increased cooperation with its Mexican counterpart, joint conservation has been limited by the inability of personnel to cross the border without making a circuitous 16-hour drive, Wellman said.

So the National Park Service is building the contact station just above the Rio Grande. It will house CBP kiosks where crossers will scan in their documents and talk to a customs officer in Presidio, the nearest port of entry, or another remote location. Park service employees will staff the station, offering information about the park and guiding people through the process.

Similar ports of entry are already in operation on remote parts of the border with Canada.

"We think we can do this without doing any damage to national security and possibly enhance security along the border by having better intelligence, better communication with people in Mexico," Wellman said.

The crossing would also restore a long-running relationship between the park, its visitors and the residents of Boquillas del Carmen, the town of adobe dwellings set a short distance from the river in Mexico.

For years, U.S. tourists added an international dimension to their park visit by wading or ferrying in a rowboat across the shallow Rio Grande to the town. There they bought handicrafts and tacos, providing much-needed cash in the isolated community.

But US officials discouraged such informal crossings in 2002 after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks prompted calls for tighter border security. Without access to tourists or supplies on the U.S. side, the town of just more than 100 people has seen a 42 percent drop in population from 2000 to 2010.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/12/11/us-proposes-unmanned-border-entry-with-mexico/#ixzz1gJtKcHJb

50 bodies found in Mexico, victims of drug violence

While our president refuses to take necessary measures to secure our border, this is what’s happening on the other side of the Rio Grande:

(Yahoo) Fifty dead bodies have been discovered over the past two days in western Mexico, victims of a fierce war waged between the government and the nation’s powerful drug cartels.

The bodies of 26 young men were dumped in three vehicles near a busy intersection in Guadalajara. It bore the signs of a drug vendetta and a chilling message of more to come in Mexico’s second city, set to host an international book fair this weekend.

The gruesome find came the day after 24 bodies were discovered in the city of Culiacan, in northwestern Sinaloa state.

A message found with the latest bodies said the peace enjoyed by the states of Jalisco and Sinaloa, allegedly as a result of agreements between local authorities and the Sinaloa cartel, was over.

“There were 26 corpses altogether, all male and aged from 25 to 35 years,” Fernando Guzman, a top official in Jalisco state, of which Guadalajara is capital, told a news conference Thursday.

Most of the men had been asphyxiated, some were naked and some marked with the words Milenio and Zetas — the names of drug gangs — in oil, Guzman said.

Earlier this week yet another incident of Mexican drug cartel spill-over occurred, this time in Houston. The result was a shoot-out leaving one Houston officer wounded.


(Houston Chronicle) One man was killed and an undercover sheriff’s deputy wounded Monday in a shootout between a drug task force monitoring an 18-wheeler and hijackers who tried to take control of the truck in a northwest Harris County neighborhood, officials said.

One of the attackers was also injured, struck by an officer’s vehicle when he tried to shoot the officer, authorities said.

The Harris County sheriff’s deputy and other members of a multi-agency narcotics task force were watching the truck, thought to be carrying drugs, about 2 p.m. Monday near Hollister and Bourgeois when several vehicles approached the truck and opened fire, said Christina Garza, a Harris County sheriff’s spokeswoman.

The deputy and the other investigators at the scene immediately began firing at the hijackers.

“In that exchange of gunfire, one of our undercover deputies at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office was struck in the leg,” Garza said.

A sheriff’s department spokesman at the scene said he didn’t know what kind of drugs were inside the truck.

The deputy was taken to a hospital where he is expected to fully recover, officials said.

A man sitting inside the tanker truck cab died after he was shot during the gunfight. Garza said officials didn’t know who shot the man.

The wounded deputy was not identified because of his undercover law enforcement work. He is assigned to the multi-agency High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task force, officials said.

Garza said one of the hijackers tried to shoot at an officer, who then hit the attacker which his vehicle. He was taken to an area hospital in unknown condition.

Investigators also arrested several people who tried to flee, officials said.

Sheriff’s officials at the scene would not confirm reports that the person killed was a police informant.

The tanker truck continued rolling forward during the gunbattle until it finally veered off the road and into a wooded area next to Champions Crossing subdivision.

Hamilton Russell, who lives nearby, said the truck looked familiar.

“For the last few days, there’s been a truck that looks very similar to that parking over there,” Russell said.

The truck came to a stop near a small park popular with children in the neighborhood.

“I’m just glad that the kids weren’t around here playing. It was a real shock to me,” said Keith Pruitt, who lives in the subdivision.


A Harris County sheriff’s deputy heading to the shooting was injured when he collided with a school bus.

The deputy had triggered his lights and siren when an Aldine ISD bus struck his patrol car near West Road and Antoine. The school bus also hit a third vehicle near the intersection, officials said.

No students were on the school bus at the time.

The deputy, the bus driver and the driver of the third vehicle were taken to the hospital for treatment, officials said.

Unfortunately, unless there we have substantial change in our border security and enforcement policies, we have no reason to believe Mexican drug violence in the U.S. will subside.

HT~ RightScoop

US Gives Mexico 4th Black Hawk Helicopter

Washington –  The United States will deliver a fourth Black Hawk helicopter to Mexico next month as part of an effort to bolster that country's capabilities under the Merida Initiative, a security cooperation pact aimed at fighting drug trafficking and other forms of transnational organized crime.

Mexico received three Black Hawks from the United States in September.

The $20 million UH 60M Black Hawk, one of the most advanced aircraft of its type in the world, is equipped with gear that allows it to support operations at night, the State Department said.

"With additional deliveries of equipment, training, and capacity building in 2011, we intend to meet the secretary's commitment to deliver $500 million in calendar year 2011, bringing the overall total delivered to more than $900 million," the State Department said.

Officials initially said the helicopter had been delivered on Monday, but the department later said the aircraft would be given to Mexico on Dec. 8.

The United States has provided Mexico with 14 helicopters, including the three Black Hawks delivered on Sept. 15 to the Navy Secretariat, under the Merida Initiative.

The regional security cooperation pact was crafted by the Bush administration in 2007 to help Mexico, Central America, Haiti and the Dominican Republic fight drug trafficking and other forms of transnational crime.

The U.S. Congress has approved more than $1.6 billion for the pact since it took effect in 2008.

The approximately $500 million in assistance being provided this year by the Obama administration to Mexico will push the total aid received by that country under the pact to around $900 million.

Mexico has used the assistance to train more than 52,000 police officers and judicial branch employees, and improve the exchange of intelligence, leading to the arrests of more than 33 high-level drug traffickers, the State Department said.

Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/11/22/us-gives-mexico-another-black-hawk-helicopter/#ixzz1eVaylfWZ

Mexican Drug Cartels Torture, Decapitate Blogger !!!

MEXICO CITY -- Police found the body of a woman who had been decapitated in a Mexican border city on Saturday, alongside a handwritten sign saying she was killed in retaliation for her postings on a social networking site.

The gruesome killing may be the third so far this month in which people in Nuevo Laredo were killed by a drug cartel for what they said on the Internet.

Morelos Canseco, the interior secretary of northern Tamaulipas state, where Nuevo Laredo is located, identified the victim as Marisol Macias Castaneda, a newsroom manager for the Nuevo Laredo newspaper Primera Hora.

The newspaper has not confirmed that title, and an employee of the paper said Macias Castaneda held an administrative post, not a reporting job. The employee was not authorized to be quoted by name.

But it was apparently what the woman posted on the local social networking site, Nuevo Laredo en Vivo, or "Nuevo Laredo Live," rather than her role at the newspaper, that resulted in her killing.

The site prominently features tip hotlines for the Mexican Army, navy and police, and includes a section for reporting the location of drug gang lookouts and drug sales points -- possibly the information that angered the cartel.

The message found next to her body on the side of a main thoroughfare referred to the nickname the victim purportedly used on the site, "La Nena de Laredo," or "Laredo Girl." Her head was found placed on a large stone piling nearby.

"Nuevo Laredo en Vivo and social networking sites, I'm The Laredo Girl, and I'm here because of my reports, and yours," the message read. "For those who don't want to believe, this happened to me because of my actions, for believing in the army and the navy. Thank you for your attention, respectfully, Laredo Girl...ZZZZ."

The letter "Z" refers to the hyper-violent Zetas drug cartel, which is believed to dominate the city across from Laredo, Texas.

It was unclear how the killers found out her real identity.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/09/25/women-decapitated-in-mexico-for-web-posting/?cmpid=NL_FNTopHeadlines_20110925#ixzz1Z0wxJDFX

Five alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel detained in Mexico's casino attack !!!

Police in northern Mexico have arrested five alleged members of the Zetas drug cartel suspected of setting a casino fire that killed 52 people, authorities said Monday. Authorities are said to be looking for two other suspects. Read More:

Video: Mexican Casino Royale torching kills at least 53 !!!

Gunmen burst into a casino in Monterrey, Mexico Thursday and doused the premises with a flammable liquid, starting a fire that killed at least 53 people.

5 decapitated bodies found in Acapulco

By Associated Press, Updated: Saturday, August 20, 11:31 AM

ACAPULCO — Mexican authorities say two decapitated and scalped bodies were left outside a Sam’s Club store in Acapulco and three headless corpses were found on the main tourist strip in the resort city.

Guerrero state police say in a statement that the bodies discovered outside the Sam’s Club were cut into more than 20 pieces. The skin on their faces and scalps had been removed and left in a woman’s purse at the scene.

Read More

Mexican Police Arrest Suspect Blamed for Over 600 Murders

Mexican police arrested the suspected leader of a brutal drug gang called "The Hand with Eyes" and he has confessed to helping carry out or ordering more than 600 murders, authorities said Thursday.

Mexican police arrested the suspected leader of a brutal drug gang called "The Hand with Eyes" and he has confessed to helping carry out or ordering more than 600 murders, authorities said Thursday.Oscar Osvaldo Garcia Montoya, 36, was arrested in an overnight raid on a presumed safe house on the outskirts of Mexico City, State of Mexico Attorney General Alfredo Castillo said at a news conference."The Hand with Eyes" is one of the groups blamed for bringing the drug violence typical of northern Mexico to Mexico City and its surrounding areas.The organization is known for extreme violence, including decapitations. Many of its victims have been drug dealers and rivals killed as the group fought for control of drug sales in Mexico state, an area that includes many of the poor suburbs ringing the capital.Castillo said Garcia is a deserter from the Mexican marines who worked as a bodyguard for major cartel figures including Edgar Valdez, aka "La Barbie," a top assassin for the Beltran Leyva...

Read More ›

Mexico 'drug enforcer admits 1,500 killings'

Mexican officials have confirmed the arrest of a suspected powerful gang leader.
Police say Jose Antonio Acosta confessed to ordering the killing of around 1500 people.

Uniformed Mexican Soldiers Cross Into South Texas !!!

AP File

Almost three dozen uniformed Mexican soldiers in four military vehicles crossed the Rio Grande into South Texas without authorization Tuesday in an international incident U.S. officials were calling inadvertent.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Rick Pauza said no gunfire or injuries were reported when the 33 soldiers crossed the new Donna-Rio Bravo International Bridge over the Rio Grande, about 15 miles southeast of McAllen. The soldiers were processed and returned to Mexico, he said.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TEXAS_BORDER_INCURSION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2011-07-26-22-57-00#ixzz1TJpxXCtH