15 killed in Mexican shootout

Alleged member of Los Zetas drug cartel Abraham Barrios Caporal, aka 'El Erasmo', is presented to the press in Mexico City, on June 30.Clashes take place in the small town of San Jose de Lourdes Alleged members of the Zetas cartel spray bullets from a safe houseSix navy fighters are wounded

(CNN) -- A five-hour shootout between Mexican navy fighters and alleged members of the "Zetas" cartel left 15 people dead and several wounded, the official Notimex news agency reported Friday.

The clashes in the small town of San Jose de Lourdes, Zacatecas, led to the arrest of 17 people, Notimex reported.

Alleged members of the Zetas cartel sprayed bullets from a safe house, wounding six navy fighters, Notimex reported.

The Los Zetas cartel is behind a string of massacres in Tamaulipas and as far as Guatemala, according to law enforcement officials in Mexico and the United States,

Mexican officials arrested alleged Zetas member Abraham Barrios Caporal, also known as "Erasmo," during an army operation in the eastern state of Veracruz on Thursday.

Barrios admitted to his involvement in the killing and burial of 193 people in the town of San Fernando, Tamaulipas, last April, officials said.

Los Zetas cartel was founded by Mexican army deserters, according to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.

It's an "extremely brutal" cartel involved in kidnappings, torture and beheadings, according to the DEA.

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Detained Mexican gambling magnate walks free (AP)

By ELLIOT SPAGAT and E. EDUARDO CASTILLO, Associated Press Elliot Spagat And E. Eduardo Castillo, Associated Press – Wed Jun 15, 1:41 am ET

TIJUANA, Mexico – Former Tijuana Mayor Jorge Hank Rhon's 10-day legal odyssey left him rumpled but with his reputation intact: He is an eccentric gambling tycoon with suspected ties to organized crime who appears to be untouchable by the law.

Wearing a sweat shirt and a smile, Hank Rhon walked free Tuesday after winning two rounds against Mexican authorities as separate judges dismissed federal weapons charges against him, then refused to back state prosecutors' attempts to detain him in a murder investigation.

The rapid-fire developments — he was freed around dawn from federal custody, held by state prosecutors in the afternoon at a hotel and home safe by dinner — dealt a blow to Mexico's attempts to fight organized crime and fueled claims that the strike against the controversial magnate was politically motivated.

"I'm free, I'm in my house with my family," Hank Rhon, 55, said late Tuesday through his spokesman, Francisco Ramirez.

While Hank Rhon was reveling in his newfound freedom, federal authorities were smarting after a judge ruled that the story of his arrest during an army raid last week just didn't hold up.

The man U.S. authorities have long suspected of ties with money laundering had supporters demonstrating in the streets for his freedom, and Roman Catholic bishops calling for his speedy release. He has strenuously denied ties to organized crime.

Federal prosecutors said they would appeal the judge's ruling, while the state said it would continue the investigation into his possible links to three homicides, including that he ordered the 2009 killing of his son's former girlfriend.

Assistant Attorney General Patricia Bugarin said that on June 8, the judge had ruled the arrests were legal.

"I don't know what reasons she had to change her mind," Bugarin told Milenio television. "I don't think the evidence was adequately analyzed."

Hank Rhon was Tijuana's mayor from 2004 to 2007, when he staged a failed run for governor. He has long figured large on the national political scene, and not only because of the wealth amassed from his Caliente gambling empire.

His father was one of Mexico's best-known politicians, leader of a faction in the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, that ruled Mexico from 1929 until 2000. National polls indicate that the man with the best chance to oust Calderon's National Action Party and recover the presidency for the PRI in 2012 is Enrique Pena Nieto, who has political ties to Hank Rhon.

Federal Judge Blanca Evelia Parra Meza ruled early Tuesday that there wasn't enough evidence to order Hank Rhon and eight others to stand trial on charges of possessing weapons restricted to military use, according to a statement from the court office. Parra said that the story told by soldiers about the pre-dawn raid in which they found weapons at Hank Rhon's home didn't hold up.

Soldiers raided his elaborate compound, which includes a racetrack, a casino and a private zoo in the early morning of June 4, seizing 88 weapons and nearly 10,000 rounds of ammunition during the raid.

Federal prosecutors said only 10 were licensed and two were traced to two other Tijuana murders, of a security guard in December 2009 and an alleged car thief in June 2010.

Hank Rhon's lawyers said the raid was illegal because soldiers didn't have a search warrant.

The army had said the soldiers didn't need a search warrant to enter the house because they got a tip about weapons being stored there, saw armed men at the residence and followed them inside. But Parra, the federal judge, said, "There was evidence of several inconsistencies, in regard to the times, distances and places referred to in the soldiers' report," according to the statement.

Hank Rhon was then turned over to state prosecutors, who announced they were investigating his link to the August 2009 killing of 24-year-old Angelica Munoz after the assassin testified that he acted under orders from Hank Rhon.

A state judge then refused to order him held for 40 days without charges while prosecutors completed the investigation.

Prosecutors' spokesman Marco Vinicio Blanco said a Baja California state judge cited a lack of evidence in deciding not to hold him in the killing, in which the woman was shot in the head.

U.S. authorities have long suspected Hank Rhon of links to money laundering, but no accusations have been documented. Two of his bodyguards were convicted of killing investigative journalist Hector Felix Miranda in 1988, but they denied the attack was linked to their boss, and no charges were filed against him.

Despite the accusations, Hank Rhon's reputation for generosity won him support in Tijuana.

Bertha Guadalupe Diaz, a 66-year-old street vendor who regularly attends Hank Rhon's massive, free parties on Mother's Day and other holidays, recalled being summoned to City Hall when Hank Rhon learned she couldn't afford a hearing aid. He offered to pay the bill.

"Thanks to him, I hear," she said.

Virginia Mora, 66, said she met Hank Rhon in her hardscrabble neighborhood when he campaigned for mayor and stopped by for two servings of homemade soup. He paid her with a huge delivery of cement and other building materials.

"He likes to help people out, give gifts," said Mora, 66.

___

Associated Press writer Mariana Martinez contributed to this report.

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Mexican judge gives 60 years to killer of top cop (AP)

MEXICO CITY – A judge sentenced a man to 60 years in prison for the 2008 murder of Mexico's acting federal police chief Edgar Millan Gomez, federal prosecutors said Saturday.

Alejandro Ramirez Baez was convicted of homicide and possessing restricted weapons, the Federal Attorney General's Office said in a statement. A second man was sentenced to one year in prison for illegal arms possession. Both were found to be part of a cell of the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, the statement said.

Millan, one of the highest ranking police officials killed by drug cartels in recent years, was attacked in his Mexico City home in May 2008. The Sinaloa cartel had been a key target of operations led by Millan prior to his death.

Also Saturday, Mexican troops discovered almost two tons of methamphetamine stored in water tanks and buried in the ground in the northern state of Coahuila, the Defense Department said. Eleven kilograms (24 pounds) of heroin were found in the same spot after a patrol found dug-up earth in the municipality of Castanos, a Defense Department statement said.

Mexican troops have conducted three other seizures this month in Coahuila, across the border from Texas. Most have been weapons seizures, the most recent one allegedly belonging to the brutal Zetas cartel. Coahuila is one of several northern Mexican states where the Gulf and Zetas cartels are fighting for control.

In the northern state of Durango, a 70-year-old farmer and his two grown sons were gunned down by unknown assailants, the state's prosecutor's office said Saturday. The men had been tending to cattle when they were killed. At least 100 empty shells from an AK-47 were found near the scene, the prosecutor's office said.

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Mexican poet's peace caravan arrives in Juarez (AP)

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – A well-known Mexican poet who has turned his grief over a murdered son into a crusade for peace ended his weeklong "consolation caravan" Friday in the country's most violent city, saying he seeks to change public consciousness and the government's current strategy for fighting drug trafficking.

Javier Sicilia, who started the caravan from outside Mexico City last Saturday, had amassed about 1,500 followers, including others who had lost innocent family members and friends to drug violence, by the time he reached Ciudad Juarez, the border city across from El Paso, Texas.

Sicilia visited a park created in the memory of 15 teens slaughtered in 2010 by gang members in what was believed to be a case of mistaken identity, as well as a field where the bodies of eight women were found in 2001. Hundreds of women were murdered in Juarez in the 1990s, the symbol of the city's violence before a fight among drug cartels heated up, killing at least 3,100 people last year alone.

"Do your jobs, stop humiliating the citizens of Juarez, and do justice to so many who have died," Sicilian called out to state and local officials. "This is the beginning of a civil resistance movement to transform consciousness, to start a dialogue in the absence of government policies."

The number of homicides has fallen for three straight months in Juarez, though government officials haven't given a reason for the drop. But the city is emblematic of Mexico's problem with drug crimes and impunity. At least 95 percent of crimes there are never prosecuted, according to local human rights groups.

Several people have been arrested in the March 28 slaying of Sicilia's son, Juan Francisco Sicilia, a college student who authorities say was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Prosecutors say drug gang members killed him and six others 10 days after a couple of Sicilia's friends had a chance scuffle with the gangsters.

The caravan of about a dozen buses started in Cuernavaca, a central resort and industrial city where Sicilia's son and the others were slain.

Since then, Sicilia has led several marches, first in Cuernavaca and then from Cuernavaca to Mexico City. He also has proposed writing the names of the dead on plaques at the spots where they were killed throughout the country so that they won't just be numbers.

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21 bodies found outside Mexican town

A state police officer checks bodies found near Morelia, Mexico, on Wednesday night.The bodies were found in five separate locationsSome had signs of torture Authorities are investigating if they are related

(CNN) -- Mexican authorities on Thursday are following leads on a grisly find from the night before -- 21 bodies, some with signs of torture -- strewn in five separate locations on the outskirts of Morelia, Mexico.

Some of the bodies had signs of torture, and other bodies not any, Michoacan state attorney general's office spokesman Jonathan Arredondo told CNN.

At least three bodies had bullet wounds and signs of strangulation, he said.

The bodies were found just outside several exits to the central Mexican city. Authorities found three piles of five victims each, and two piles with three victims each, Arredondo said.

There were notes found at each location, but authorities did not immediately reveal what they said or if any group claimed responsibility.

Despite the similarities at the five locations, Arredondo said it was still unknown if all the bodies were linked.

Morelia is the capital of the state of Michoacan, which is the territory of the violent Familia Michoacana cartel.

The cartel purportedly circulated a letter calling for a truce with authorities last December and January of this year. In the letter, the cartel accused the federal police of committing abuses in the region and blaming it on them.

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Mexican police catch Gulf drug cartel leader (AP)

MEXICO CITY – Mexican federal police captured a leading member of the Gulf drug cartel Friday at what appeared to have been his birthday party, authorities said.

Gilberto Barragan Balderas "is considered one of the main leaders of the Gulf Cartel" and is the subject of a $5 million reward by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said Ramon Pequeno, head of anti-drug operations for the federal police.

Barragan Balderas was allegedly in charge of the cartel's operations in Miguel Aleman, across the border from Roma, Texas. Police captured him at a party at a ranch near another border city, Reynosa, which is across from McAllen, Texas.

Police said the party was apparently in honor of Barragan Balderas' May 19 birthday. Two alleged associates were also arrested in the raid, which also netted an assault rifle and three pistols.

No formal charges had been filed against any of the suspects.

Barragan Balderas, 41, is wanted on drug trafficking charges in the United States under a 2008 indictment.

A DEA statement says he was "responsible for obtaining advanced notice regarding the movement and locations of military and state police patrols and mobile checkpoints, thus protecting shipments of cocaine and marijuana for the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas" before the two gangs split in 2010.

The Gulf and Zetas cartels are now bitter rivals, and federal police said one of Barragan Balderas' "duties was to defend territory in Tamaulipas against attacks by the rival Zetas."

The Zetas have also been expanding into other territories in Mexico and engaging in a series of turf battles with gangs other than the Gulf.

On Friday, the attorney general of the north-central state of Zacatecas said at least 10 people were killed in a gunbattle apparently involving the Zetas and a rival front of gangs known as the "United Cartels."

"I say at least 10 people, because witnesses say that the gunmen, before they left ... took away other bodies," Attorney General Arturo Nahle told a local television station.

Gunmen left 11 vehicles at the scene of the confrontation in the remote town of Florencia de Benito Juarez. Six of the vehicles were bulletproofed, officials said.

The United Cartels is believed to be an alliance between the Gulf, Sinaloa and the La Familia cartels, to form a common front against encroachments by the Zetas.

Also Friday, Mexico's federal security spokesman said homicides in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez have dropped from an average of 11 a day in October to about four a day in April.

Alejandro Poire attributed the drop to the deployment of thousands of federal police and efforts by local prosecutors. But he added that "the problem is not 100 percent solved."

More than 6,000 people have died the past two years from drug-related violence in the city, which sits across from El Paso, Texas.

Despite the bloodshed, the state legislature is scheduled to award the city the title of "Heroic" Ciudad Juarez on Saturday in recognition of the city's participation in the 1910-17 Mexican Revolution.

The killings extend throughout various parts of Mexico. On Friday, police in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero reported they found the decpitated bodies of four men in the township of Tecpan de Galeana, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Acapulco.

Also Friday, President Felipe Calderon met with a delegation of U.S. lawmakers led by Rep. Connie Mack, a Florida Republican who is chairman of the House subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs.

Calderon's office said in a statement that the president stressed "the importance of combatting ever more firmly and efficiently weapons trafficking and money laundering," two elements that Mexico says fuel the bloody drug war that has cost over 35,000 lives since late 2006.

He also "stressed the importance of fully recognizing the contributions that Mexican migrants make to the U.S. economy and society."

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14 bodies recovered from Mexican mine blast

SAN JUAN DE SABINAS, Mexico (AP) — Rescue crews recovered the last of 14 bodies early Sunday from a coal mine wracked by a gas explosion last week, while Labor Secretary Javier Lozano called for an overhaul of mine safety in Mexico.

Mexican officials said the blast Tuesday was caused by a buildup of gas. The national mine workers union said the mine's work force was not unionized and accused the government of allowing mines to operate with unsafe conditions.

The explosion was so powerful it also seriously injured a teenager who reportedly lost an arm as he was worked on the surface outside the mine. Lozano said earlier that the boy's employment at the mine was an apparent violation of labor laws.

In announcing that the last body had been recovered, Lozano said his ministry would embark on a project to make sure all mining companies follow the law and provide safe conditions for their workers.

"We want clean coal, coal without blood," he said.

A similar blast caused by a methane gas buildup killed 65 miners in February 2006 at Mexico's Pasta de Conchos coal mine in nearby San Juan de Sabinas.

Ramiro Flores Morales, a state legislator who says he is the city's local record keeper, said there have been dozens of explosions and deaths for various reasons in the area's coal mines over more than two decades, though there was no independent confirmation of his statistics.

Since the Pasta de Conchos tragedy, Flores said, the government "has promised to increase the number of inspectors ? to increase safety measures and to provide training for miners, and none of this has happened."

Instead, Flores said, two things remain constant: "The cry and demand from loved ones to recover the bodies for proper burial and the fact that mining continues to be the only local source of employment."

President Felipe Calderon was expected to travel on Monday to the mine, which is about 85 miles (135 kilometers) southwest of Eagle Pass, Texas, to offer condolences and government support to the families.

Several top officials in his government were expected to visit as well, including the secretary of energy and the federal prosecutor for labor violations.

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A U.S. lawmaker targets Mexican drug cartels

Are drug cartels considered terrorists?STORY HIGHLIGHTSTexas Republican wants cartels declared terrorist organizationsAmbassador says if so, U.S. drug users should be considered terror "financiers"American officials are concerned about violence spilling across borderMexican officials say cartels are not insurgent or politicalRELATED TOPICSTerrorismMichael McCaulMexico (CNN) -- Should Mexican drug cartels be considered terrorist organizations? They murder, plot, kidnap, and dismember bodies. They're also responsible for shootouts, explosions, fires and other atrocities.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, the chairman of the Homeland Security Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, says they should.

McCaul has introduced a bill that would add Mexico's six dominant cartels to the State Department's foreign terrorist organizations list. The criminal organizations included in the bill are the Arellano Felix organization, Los Zetas, Beltran Leyva, Familia Michoacana, Sinaloa Cartel, and the Gulf Cartel/New Federation.

If the bill is approved, it would allow law enforcement agencies to have increased powers to limit cartels' financial property and travel interests and impose harsher punishments on anyone who provides material support to cartels.

In announcing his bill, McCaul said that "the

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