Massive, Elaborate Tunnel Found At Mexican Border

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Adam Housley reports live from the site in Nogales Mexico where a massive tunnel has been discovered.

We got tipped off late Wednesday evening and within a few hours we were on a plane and then on the road arriving in Nogales just as the sun peaked over the Sonoran Desert. Our contacts had told us of an elaborate tunnel, one of the best they’ve ever found, running 45 feet or so on the Mexican side of the border, then extending another 38 feet into the United States.

[...]

The Mexican Federal Police tell me in Spanish that the tunnel started in an abandoned white house just a few feet from where we are standing. The tunnel then stretches under the border fence about six feet under ground, headed towards a building that had recently lost its tenant on the U.S. side. It is about three feet high and wide with bricks and boards fortifying the sides and metal bars holding the roof. They tell me I could easily crawl through the tunnel with a back back (I am 6′3″) and the tunnel was likely being financed and built by the Gulf Cartel, a dangerous gang of thugs who have been terrorizing much of this area.

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11 Bodies, Some Mutilated Found In Car Near US Border

Mexican police found 11 bodies in an abandoned vehicle near the U.S. border on Thursday, some with their hands and legs cut off and left with threatening messages scrawled by suspected drug hit men.

The bodies of the men, who were shot to death, were found in the northwestern state of Sonora in a stolen SUV with Arizona plates, the state attorney general’s office said.

A state attorney general’s office spokesman said drug cartels were likely behind the attack, although he declined to give details about the messages left on the bodies.

The killings came a day after drug gangs shot up a police station in a nearby town as violence flared in the state dominated by Mexico’s top trafficker, Joaquin “Shorty” Guzman.

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4 U.S. Citizens Found Strangled in Tijuana Mexico

The bodies of four U.S. citizens were found strangled, beaten and stabbed in a van in this border city, two days after they reportedly left their Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs, U.S. officials said Thursday. The bodies were described as having been tortured; bludgeoned, beaten and with their skulls crushed. They were found wrapped in blankets early Saturday morning, according to a news release from the Tijuana State Attorney’s Office.

The victims were found Saturday, but their deaths were not reported earlier because they were under investigation, said Fermin Gomez, an assistant state prosecutor in Baja California.

U.S. consular officials in Tijuana said the victims  two men and two women from the San Diego and Chula Vista areas — were U.S. citizens. The state attorney general’s office in Baja, Calif., said one of the women was Mexican.

A spokesman for the U.S. Consulate in Tijuana confirmed the identities of the dead as Luis Games Chavez, 21; Oscar J. Garcia III, 23; Brianna Hernandez Aguilera, 19; and Carmen Ramos Chavez, 20. All were U.S. citizens and Southern California residents, the consulate spokesman said. He declined to give specific hometowns or say how long the four had been in Tijuana.

Their deaths are the latest in a string of violence in Tijuana that authorities blame on a bloody turf war between drug cartels.

“I just don’t think kids should be going to Tijuana right now,” Chula Vista police Lt. Scott Arsenault told the San Diego Union-Tribune. “They ran into the wrong people, obviously.”

Bernard Gonzales, a spokesman for the Chula Vista Police Department, said a friend told the women’s parents they were headed to nightclubs in Tijuana on Thursday night. They were reported missing the next day when they did not answer their cell phones.

Source

7 Police Officers Murdered In Tijuana Attacks

Heavily armed gunmen staged a series of surprise attacks against municipal police forces in this tense border city, killing seven and wounding three in brazen assaults that shattered a four-month period of relative calm.

Six police officers and an auxiliary officer died within a 45-minute span late Monday in ambushes at a hillside substation, on busy streets and outside an OXXO mini-mart, where four were killed in a hail of bullets, including one who tried to fight back.

“He took out his gun and tried to fire at them, but they shot him and he fell backward, and his eyes rolled up in his head,” said a teenager who witnessed the shooting in the tough Los Arenales neighborhood.

With authorities placing the blame on organized crime gunmen, municipal police Tuesday retreated to substations and headquarters and patrolled mostly in groups or with army escorts. The tension was palpable outside the 8th Street headquarters downtown, where motorcycle cops were being held back from patrol until further notice.

[...]

Authorities said the attacks, by men firing AK-47 rifles from late model cars and SUVs, were preceded by a spate of threats over police radio frequencies. Such threats are so common, Leyzaola said, that authorities didn’t feel a need to take precautionary measures.

The first act of violence against police Monday occurred about 9:15 a.m., when a female officer was wounded, shot in the back while on patrol in her vehicle near the airport. But the frenzy of attacks erupted at 8 p.m. in the ramshackle Los Arenales neighborhood of east Tijuana, where residents say police rarely venture. The four police officers arrived at the mini-mart to take a report of an assault and were ambushed as they left.

Witnesses said two or three cars pulled up and that several masked men opened fire with high-caliber automatic weapons. The officers didn’t stand a chance, even though they were wearing bulletproof vests, the witnesses said.

Two were shot in the back and fell near the door. A female officer was struck in the face and died while trying to take cover under a car. The fourth was shot in the neck and died with his gun still in his right hand.

The teenager who witnessed the attack said he placed his sisters on the floor and then peeked outside and saw the last officer go down.

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Woman Captured Guarding Massive Weapons Cache

Smirking for the camera, this is the 20-year-old woman Mexican police caught guarding an extraordinary arsenal of weapons.

Anahi Beltran Cabrera was seized during a routine patrol in Sonora state, near the U.S. border.

Officers recovered a vast cache of weapons including an anti-aircraft gun capable of firing 800 shots per minute, a number of rifles and an array of ammunition.

They believe the haul belongs to a group allegedly linked to the powerful Beltan Leyva drug cartel.

Cabrera was paraded before the media – along with the weapons she was caught guarding.

Large swathes of Mexico have been ravaged by violence with drugs gangs battling for territory.

Last month, 2,000 soldiers and armed federal police were deployed into the border town of Ciudad Juarez to restore order to the country’s most violent city.

In one month, 250 people were killed by hitmen fighting for lucrative smuggling routes.

Source

TSA Warns Truckers Of Violence In Mexico

Drivers in cross-border operations to Mexico and along the U.S. Southwest border are being advised to take precautions to avoid being caught in the drug violence in the region, a Transportation Security Administration contractor said.

According to Total Security Services, Inc., which operates TSA’s Highway Information Sharing and Analysis Center, the violence among Mexican drug cartels has killed more than 200 Americans since 2004, and truckers may be victims of crimes ranging from hijacking and kidnapping to murder.

The Highway ISAC is recommending that drivers with deliveries in Mexico keep in scheduled contact with dispatchers and report in at every scheduled and non-scheduled stop. Drivers also should avoid unsafe highways, and establish a verbal “duress code” to use on the phone when they in the presence of people who may have criminal intent.

Interested parties may receive a copy of the report “Border Violence” by calling the ISAC at 1-703-563-3275

via Source

Hezbollah Uses Mexican Drug Routes Into U.S.

Hezbollah is using the same southern narcotics routes that Mexican drug kingpins do to smuggle drugs and people into the United States, reaping money to finance its operations and threatening U.S. national security, current and former U.S. law enforcement, defense and counterterrorism officials say.

The Iran-backed Lebanese group has long been involved in narcotics and human trafficking in South America’s tri-border region of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil. Increasingly, however, it is relying on Mexican narcotics syndicates that control access to transit routes into the U.S. Read more

Drug Cartels New Weapons Pushes Mexico Towards Edge

It was a brazen assault, not just because it targeted the city’s police station, but for the choice of weapon: grenades.

The Feb. 21 attack on police headquarters in coastal Zihuatanejo, which injured four people, fit a disturbing trend of Mexico’s drug wars. Traffickers have escalated their arms race, acquiring military-grade weapons, including hand grenades, grenade launchers, armor-piercing munitions and antitank rockets with firepower far beyond the assault rifles and pistols that have dominated their arsenals.

Most of these weapons are being smuggled from Central American countries or by sea, eluding U.S. and Mexican monitors who are focused on the smuggling of semiauto- matic and conventional weapons purchased from dealers in the U.S. border states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

The proliferation of heavier armaments points to a menacing new stage in the Mexican government’s 2-year-old war against drug organizations, which are evolving into a more militarized force prepared to take on Mexican army troops, deployed by the thousands, as well as to attack each other.

These groups appear to be taking advantage of a robust global black market and porous borders, especially between Mexico and Guatemala. Some of the weapons are left over from the wars that the United States helped fight in Central America, U.S. officials said.

“There is an arms race between the cartels,” said Alberto Islas, a security consultant who advises the Mexican government.

“One group gets rocket-propelled grenades, the other has to have them.”

Source

Police: U.S. Teens Were Hit Men For Mexican Cartel

Prosecutors say they quickly discovered these two teenagers were homegrown assassins, hired to carry out the dirty work of the notorious Gulf Cartel.

“There are sleeper cells in the U.S.,” said Detective Garcia. “They’re here, they’re here in the United States.”

The cases against Cardona and Reta — both are in prison serving long prison sentences for murder — shed new light into the workings of the drug cartels.

Prosecutor and investigators say Reta and Cardona were recruited into a group called “Los Zetas,” a group made up of former members of the Mexican special military forces. They’re considered ruthless in how they carry out attacks. “Los Zetas” liked what they saw in Cardona and Reta.

Both teenagers received six-month military-style training on a Mexican ranch. Investigators say Cardona and Reta were paid $500 a week each as a retainer, to sit and wait for the call to kill. Then they were paid up to $50,000 and 2 kilos of cocaine for carrying out a hit.

The teenagers lived in several safe houses around Laredo and drove around town in a $70,000 Mercedes-Benz.

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Homeland Security Plans For Violence On US Border

Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border.

The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States.

Roger Rufe, Homeland Security’s head of operations, outlined the agency’s plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other agencies are overwhelmed.

Echoing comments a day earlier from President Barack Obama, Rufe said there currently was no need to militarize the Southwestern border with Mexico, despite violence that threatens to migrate into the United States.

“We would take all resources short of DoD (Defense Department) and National Guard troops before we reach that tipping point,” Rufe told lawmakers on a House homeland security subcommittee. “We very much do not want to militarize our border.”

Rufe did not specify what circumstances would trigger a call for troops.

Source  – Full Article

General: Drug Cartels Are Linked To Terrorism

The head of the U.S. National Guard Bureau,  Gen. Craig McKinley said the link between terrorism and drug cartels along the United States’ border with Mexico is increasingly clear.

He went on to say the National Guard will be critical in helping protect the United States in the event of a terrorist attack and the growing threat of violent drug cartels operating along the Southwestern border with Mexico.

McKinley said the drug cartels in Latin America are clearly connected to organized criminal groups who support and funnel money to terrorist organizations.

“The Southwest border is one of the most critical areas in the nation right now,” McKinley said.

“The nature of the drug cartels along the Southwest border is becoming increasingly menacing, and the linkages between drug cartels through organized crime back to terrorist organizations cannot be disputed.”

via Source.

U.S. Citizen Beheaded In Apparent Mexico Drug Hit

A U.S. citizen was one of the three men who were found decapitated this week in Tijuana, Mexican authorities said Friday.

The body of George Harrison, a 38-year-old former Chula Vista resident, had been dismembered and mutilated and was dumped in a vacant lot near Tijuana’s beachside bullring.

Authorities said they suspected that it was an organized crime hit.

Harrison had several drug-related convictions in the United States and was suspected of drug trafficking in Mexico, Baja California Assistant Atty. General Rafael Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez said Harrison had been living in the Tijuana area since his release from a U.S. prison six months ago. He owned a pizzeria in Tijuana, from which he was abducted, Gonzalez said.

Authorities who searched Harrison’s business found four weapons, including a .38-caliber handgun.

Alongside the bodies, authorities discovered a taunting narco-message similar to others left at crime scenes in the battles among rival organized crime groups

Source

Mexico Offered U.S. Help In Battle With Drug Cartels

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the United States could help with equipment and intelligence techniques after returning from a six-day trip to Latin America punctuated by news of beheadings and intimidation by Mexican drug cartels.

Mexico could borrow from U.S. tactics in the fight against terrorism as it battles a crisis of drug-related violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, the top U.S. military officer said Friday.

Returning from a six-day trip to Latin America punctuated by news of beheadings and intimidation by Mexican drug cartels, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said the United States could help with equipment and intelligence techniques.

Adm. Mike Mullen would not be specific about what kind of intelligence or surveillance help the United States might offer, but said he saw ways to employ experience the United States has gained in the ongoing hunt for extremists and terrorists.

He would not say whether there may already be U.S. drones flying over bloodstained cities such as Ciudad Juarez, where 17 bodies came into the morgue on one day recently, including the city police force’s second-in-command and three other officers.

“Obviously it affects us because of the relationship between the two countries,” Mullen said during a telephone news conference as he flew to Washington following meetings in Mexico, his last stop.

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Threat of Mexican Drug Cartels Near Crisis

Two of Mexico’s deadliest drug cartels have reached a combined force of 100,000 foot soldiers, wreaking havoc across the country and threatening U.S. border states, the U.S. Defense Department told The Washington Times.

The cartels rival the Mexican army in size and have both Mexico and the U.S. in crisis mode as they deal with what they fear is a coming insurgency along the border.

“It’s moving to crisis proportions,” an unidentified defense official told The Times. The official also said the cartels have reached a size where they are on par with Mexico’s army of 130,000.

About 7,000 people have died in the last year — more than 1,000 in January alone — at the hands of Mexico’s increasingly violent drug cartels. Murders often involve beheadings or bodies dissolved in vats of acid.

The two most dangerous cartels are the Sinaloa cartel, nicknamed the “Federation” or “Golden Triangle” by law enforcement agencies, and “Los Zetas” (the Gulf Cartel). They have been growing and are reportedly discussing a truce or merger to better withstand government forces, The Times reported.

Mexico is now only behind Pakistan and Iran as a U.S. national security concern, coming in ahead of Afghanistan and Iraq, the defense official told The Times.

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Mexico Send In Military To Restore Order

The Mexican government will deploy 1,000 more federal police officers as part of a wider effort to restore order in Ciudad Juarez, the nation’s most violent city, officials said Monday.

Some of those uniformed federal officers began arriving in the border city Monday, two days after about 2,000 soldiers landed there in a related military buildup. Those soldiers were the first of an expected 5,000 additional troops who will be sent to help perform basic police functions.

The military reinforcements will bring to more than 7,000 the number of soldiers in Ciudad Juarez.

The nation’s public safety chief, Genaro Garcia Luna, said that along with the soldiers, he planned to dispatch the additional 1,000 federal police officers, Notimex news agency reported.

About 425 federal officers already had been posted in Ciudad Juarez, where the death toll last year exceeded 1,600, the highest in a country racked by drug-related violence.

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