Reports: Juarez cartel armed wing leader nabbed (AP)

By ADRIANA GOMEZ LICON, Associated Press Adriana Gomez Licon, Associated Press – Sat Jul 30, 7:23 pm ET

MEXICO CITY – 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.

Federal officials said they could not confirm the arrest, but federal police spokesman Juan Carlos Buenrostro said a suspect would be flown from northern Mexico to Mexico City to be shown before news media by Sunday.

The federal Attorney General's Office offered a 15 million peso ($1.2 million) reward last October for information leading to Acosta's arrest. A woman answering the reward phone line advertised on Acosta's wanted posters said he had been detained Friday but refused to give her name.

U.S. prosecutors seek to try Acosta in the killings of an employee of the U.S. consulate in Ciudad Juarez, her husband and the husband of another consulate employee in March 2010. The slayings are among the highest profile attacks in the city that has been plagued with violence.

A U.S. federal indictment accuses 10 people, including Acosta, of conspiring to kill the three. Acosta and seven others are now in Mexican custody. Two others, including one of the FBI's 10 most wanted fugitives, Eduardo Ravelo, are still at large.

Besides the consulate killings, Acosta is blamed for two other notorious crimes in the Mexican government's 4 1/2-year-old offensive against drug cartels.

Chihuahua state officials allege Acosta ordered the massacre of 15 people, mostly teenagers, in January 2010 and was involved in a July 2010 car bombing, the first used by a cartel in recent history. Both attacks occurred in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million people that recorded 3,097 homicides in 2010 and more than 1,300 so far this year.

Mexico's government says at least 35,000 people have died in drug-related violence across the country since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon took office and launched a crackdown on organized crime. Other sources, including local media, put the number closer to 40,000. The federal government has not released an update of its numbers since December.

Other cities near the U.S.-Mexico border have been hit hard with violence while rival drug cartels battle over control of smuggling corridors.

In the northern state of Durango, federal officials said Saturday they burned 50 metric tons of marijuana that were found earlier in the week inside a large warehouse in black plastic bags.

The warehouse was in Santa Maria del Oro in Mexico's "golden triangle" region. The area, known for drug cultivation and trafficking, is also where soldiers a week ago found marijuana fields covering 148 acres (60 hectares) with a processing lab and five camps.

In Sonora state, Mexico's military said Saturday that troops seized five metric tons of marijuana near the U.S. border in Puerto Penasco, a beach city popular with visitors from Arizona.

Soldiers found three tons of the marijuana more than a mile (2 kilometers) from the port Thursday, a statement said. Officials earlier reported finding two metric tons of marijuana elsewhere in the same town the same day.

U.S. authorities earlier this year urged tourists to "exercise caution" about visiting Puerto Penasco due to rising drug violence in the city.

Yahoo! News

Top cartel leader captured in Mexico

Mexico City (CNN) -- Mexican authorities captured the top leader of one of the country's most violent drug cartels Tuesday, officials said.

Federal police captured Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas, also known as "The Monkey," in an operation in the state of Aguascalientes, Mexico's national security spokesman said.

Spokesman Alejandro Poire called Mendez the "principal head" of La Familia Michoacana cartel and said his capture was the federal government's "most overwhelming blow" to the group.

"This capture destroys what remained of the leadership structure of this criminal organization," he said.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon praised the capture on his official Twitter account: "A large blow by federal police to organized crime. One of the most wanted criminals was captured. Congratulations."

Mexico's Attorney General's Office had offered a 30 million peso ($2.5 million) reward for information leading to his arrest, saying Mendez was the mastermind behind drug trafficking, kidnappings and killings.

Tuesday's operation marks the fall of 21 of the suspects on Mexico's "most dangerous criminals" list, Poire said.

No deaths or violent clashes have been reported from Tuesday's operation, he said.

La Familia began operating in the state of Michoacan more than a decade ago, the country's national security spokesman told reporters last year. But it grabbed national attention in 2006 after reportedly hurling five decapitated heads of rival gang members onto a dance floor.

Mexico's public safety secretary has said Mendez was responsible for passing on the organization's values to new generations of drug runners in the cartel. Along with other leaders, he helped expand La Familia's reach to other Mexican states.

Extorting residents and charging fees to drug traffickers operating in Michoacan allowed the cartel to push away competitors, Mexican authorities said.

The cartel is known for its violence and the rules it imposes on its members.

Last year Mexican federal police gunned down Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, whom they described as the group's "spiritual leader."

Mexican authorities say the ideology advocated by the cartel's leaders includes banning members from consuming drugs and alcohol with the goal of keeping a tighter emotional grip on subordinates.

"The indoctrination of this group consists of courses in self-improvement, values, ethical principles and morals in keeping with the purposes of the criminal organization. With the objective that their subordinates separate themselves from drugs and alcohol and they unite with their families," Mexico's public safety ministry said in a 2009 statement after capturing the alleged head of La Familia's training operations.

La Familia's approach shows a "strong religious background," the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2009 statement.

"It purportedly originated to protect locals from the violence of drug cartels. Now, La Familia Michoacana uses drug proceeds to fuel their agenda that encompasses a Robin Hood-type mentality -- steal from the rich and give to the poor," the statement said. "They believe they are doing God's work, and pass out Bibles and money to the poor. La Familia Michoacana also gives money to schools and local officials."

Intelligence reports indicate that the cartel is "heavily involved in the production of methamphetamine" for export to the United States, according to the DEA, in addition to the distribution of cocaine and marijuana.

CNNMexico.com and CNN's Rene Hernandez, Maria Elisa Callejas and Catherine E. Shoichet contributed to this report.

CNN

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."

Yahoo! News

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.