Mexican Assassins Headed to Arizona, U.S. Warned

Drug smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or "sicarios," into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the United States, the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.

In a memo sent in May and widely circulated since, the department said: "We just received information from a proven credible confidential source who reported that a meeting was held in Puerto Penasco in which every smuggling organization who utilizes the Vekol Valley was told to attend. This included rival groups within the Guzman cartel."

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzman Loera heads what formally is known as the Sinaloa Cartel, which smuggles multi-ton loads of cocaine from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. One of the most powerful and dangerous drug gangs in Mexico, it also is known as the Guzman cartel, which has been tied to the production, smuggling and distribution of Mexican marijuana and heroin and has established transshipment outlets in the United States.

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Why Mexican 'pirates' are targeting US tourists on Falcon Lake

The attack that allegedly killed the missing American tourist David Hartley on Sept. 30 while he was jet-skiing with his wife was not the first such incident on the 60-mile-long body of water straddling the United States and Mexico. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, gunmen armed with AK-47s and AR-15 rifles have attacked US tourists on Lake Falcon in a string of robberies in recent months. Using Argos-type fishing boats, some attackers are dressed as Mexican police, while others have used crude duct-taped signs to disguise their boats as Texas Parks and Wildlife vessels, according to victims' reports.

Since April 30, five incidents of armed robberies or attempted theft have been reported on Falcon Lake: one in April, two in May, and one in August. The fifth ambush allegedly ended in gunfire last week with the possible death of Mr. Hartley. “This is a new situation where [drug-trafficking] groups feel they own public spaces,” says Humberto Palomares, a security expert at the Tamaulipas campus of the Colegio de Frontera Norte (COLEF). Targeting US tourists on an international reservoir is just another sign that the cartels feel more in control of swaths of Mexican territory and don’t have to hide in wait for moments to strike, Mr. Palomares says. Lurking in the night. So dangerous is Lake Falcon, in fact, that Mexican law enforcement refuses to patrol it at night.

Mexican authorities have been searching Falcon Lake since Thursday for the body of Mr. Hartley. Their search is hampered in part by the danger of the lake, says Juan Antonio Jara, a Tamaulipas state prosecutor in the Miguel Aleman municipality office. Once it starts getting dark, he says, police and investigators must return to shore because "it's a high risk area due to [lack of] security." Some report that the bandits attacking tourists and fishermen on Lake Falcon have been brandishing “Z” tattoos, for the ruthless Zetas drug-trafficking group. But questions have emerged over why a well-funded crime syndicate would bother harassing US fishermen for a few hundred dollars, and whether there is only one gang involved. While the Zetas are the most powerful drug cartel in Tamaulipas, the state bordering Falcon Lake, small organizations associated with the Zetas may also be engaging in acts of piracy.

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Mexican smugglers use Pacific as new route

Mexican smugglers trying to find new routes into the United States are turning increasingly to the Pacific Ocean for a short sail to the California coast, where they drop off illegal immigrants and marijuana, U.S. officials say. The water route has become particularly popular in the past year.

"We've seen a huge spike in smuggling by water," said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Diego, California. "It's become very, very risky and difficult to cross by land. Smugglers try to jump where they think we're not looking."

U.S. Coast Guard Capt. Thomas Farris, the top-ranking Coast Guard official at the Port of San Diego, said interdictions of human cargo on the Pacific have doubled since last year. Drug busts -- all marijuana -- are even higher, he said. "Drug interdictions are six times above what they were last year.".

So far this year, he said, authorities have confiscated 60,000 pounds of marijuana and caught 400 people trying to sneak into the United States. The water route has become popular, because "the land border has been so severely closed by Customs and border agents."

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War Without Borders

Mexican Cartels Lure American Teens as Killers

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.

Published: June 22, 2009

LAREDO, Tex. — When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said. “I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.”

Reta was 13 when he was recruited by the Zetas, the infamous assassins of the Gulf Cartel, law enforcement officials say. He was one of a group of American teenagers from the impoverished streets of Laredo who was lured into the drug wars across the Rio Grande in Mexico with promises of high pay, fancy cars and sexy women.

After a short apprenticeship, the young men lived in an expensive house in Texas, available to kill whenever called on. The Gulf Cartel was engaged in a turf war with the Sinaloa Cartel over the Interstate 35 corridor, the north-south highway that connects Laredo to Dallas and beyond, and is, according to law enforcement officials, one of the most important arteries for drug smuggling in the Americas.

To read the full article please click here.

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