Mexican drug gang turns to kidnapping in U.S.

Tue Aug 12, 2008 6:34pm EDT

By Lizbeth Diaz

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - American businesswoman Veronica was stepping out of her car in California when two men forced her into the passenger seat at gunpoint, pushed her teenage daughter into the back and drove them into Mexico.

Taking advantage of lax Mexican security at the San Diego border, and with U.S. authorities focused mainly on those entering the United States, the kidnappers took the two women to Tijuana in January and held them for a month before their family paid a $100,000 ransom.

"We got an automatic green light to go through Mexican customs and then we were blindfolded and taken to a house in Tijuana. They held a pistol to my stomach all the time we were in the car," said Veronica, who declined to give her surname.

An unintended consequence of Mexican efforts to weaken drug gangs, drug traffickers around Tijuana are turning to abducting U.S. citizens and residents in southern California and holding them in Mexico as a new way to get funds, U.S. and Mexican authorities say.

Mexican intelligence officials say Veronica is one of around 30 Americans abducted in southern California and taken to Tijuana since last November. Many of the victims are of Hispanic origin and hold double nationality.

ICE takes 10,000th violent gang member off U.S. streets

Effort shows ICE's commitment to target transnational gang violence

WASHINGTON, D.C. - U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, working in conjunction with federal, state and local law enforcement partners across the United States, have arrested the 10,000th gang member under operation Community Shield. This ongoing operation started in 2005 to curb gang violence and weed out transnational gangs gaining hold in urban and suburban U.S. cities.

Transnational gangs pose a growing public safety threat to communities throughout the country. It is estimated that there are over 900 different criminal gangs roaming U.S. streets and neighborhoods. These gangs no longer own turf in just the inner city but have spread their criminal networks throughout suburban and rural communities.

These transnational street gangs have a significant number of foreign-born members and are frequently involved in human and contraband smuggling, immigration violations and other crimes with a nexus to the border. Like any street gang, these transnational gangs also have a propensity toward violence. Their members commit myriad crimes including robbery, extortion, assault, rape and murder.

"This recent arrest, marking the 10,000th arrest under Operation Community Shield, is a significant milestone," said Julie L. Myers, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for ICE. "The violence being perpetrated by foreign-born gang members and associates is as shocking as it is pervasive. ICE is committed to using the full force of our enforcement authority to make our cities and towns safer from gang violence."

In a recent Chicago area Community Shield enforcement operation, one of the men arrested by ICE was Valentin Sierra-Martinez, a 20-year-old confirmed "Norteno-14" gang member. Sierra-Martinez is the 10,000th gang member or associate arrested by ICE as part of Operation Community Shield.

Sierra-Martinez, a Mexican national was in the U.S. illegally and has an extensive criminal background including convictions for residential burglary, domestic battery, possessing drug paraphernalia and knowingly damaging property. He remains in ICE custody pending removal to Mexico.

ICE has the unique and powerful authority to remove foreign nationals from the U.S., including illegal aliens and legal permanent residents based on their criminal history.

Juárez officer, 5 others charged

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 07/30/2008 12:19:50 AM MDT

EL PASO - A Juárez police officer is accused of leading a gang of kidnappers and killers that was captured after a vehicle chase by federal police in Juárez, officials said.

Federal police Tuesday arrested municipal police officer Juan Gallegos Acosta and five other men, seized four AR-15 and nine AK-47 rifles and three vehicles, including a 2002 GMC Yukon and a 2007 Toyota Solara, both reported stolen in Texas.

"Unfortunately, he is a member of the department," said Javier Torres, police force spokesman. "We are working on purging the department. Bad police officers will be sanctioned."

Federal officials said a chase began when federal police saw the sand-colored Yukon speeding on Zaragoza Avenue while carrying a group of men with assault rifles and bulletproof vests. The chase ended in the Oasis area.

The men and seized items were turned over to a federal organized crime unit in Mexico City. No charges were announced.

The federal agents were part of Joint Operation Chihuahua, the anti-crime offensive sent to Juárez to curb a flood of homicides, which have reached about 650 so far this year party because of a war among drug cartels.

At least seven people were slain Tuesday, including a triple homicide in the southern part of the city.

Relatives of man who dies after shootout reportedly threaten doctor

By Angelica Martinez

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

5:24 p.m. May 21, 2008

TIJUANA – Relatives of a man wounded in a fierce April shootout threatened a doctor Wednesday after they learned the man had died in a hospital, officials said.

Luis Humberto Moreno Rodriguez died at 10:40 p.m. Tuesday when several of his organs stopped functioning because of an infection, a spokesman for Tijuana's General Hospital said.

Later Wednesday, doctors and others gathered at a busy traffic circle in the city to call attention to the threats.

Moreno was among nine injured April 26 in a gunbattle between rival criminal gangs that left 13 people dead.

Two policemen shot, bodies dumped on Mexico highway

By Cyntia Barrera Diaz

REUTERS

12:24 p.m. May 21, 2008

MEXICO CITY – Two Mexican policemen were shot and their bodies dumped in a car on a busy Mexico City-bound highway, police said Wednesday, the latest in a spurt of brutal drug gang murders near the capital.

The bodies, which showed torture marks, were left with death threats directed at anyone backing powerful drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” (Shorty) Guzman, Mexico's most wanted man.

They were found late Tuesday in the trunk of a car abandoned on the Cuernavaca-Mexico City highway, a route used by commuters between the capital and the small colonial city where many have weekend homes.

“This is what will happen to those hanging out with El Chapo and El Mayo Zambada,” one of the messages left with the bodies read, according to the daily Reforma. The newspaper said the victims' hands and feet were bound.

Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada is a key aide of Guzman's Sinaloa cartel that controls smuggling turf in northwestern Mexico.

Mexican military takes over town's police force

The Associated Press

Article Launched: 05/20/2008 07:55:23 PM PDT

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico—There are no police anymore in Villa Ahumada. Even the mayor has fled.

Drug gangs have virtually seized this town of 1,500 not far from Texas, as Mexico's cartels grow increasingly audacious.

The Mexican military took over the police department this week because all 20 officers on the force have either been killed, run out of town or quit, officials said Tuesday.

Mayor Fidel Urrutia took refuge in the state capital of Chihuahua City—600 miles (1,000 kilometers) away—where he's waiting for the soldiers to recover his town.

"Security will be in the hands of the army and the state (police) ministries, and it will remain like that indefinitely," Chihuahua state police spokesman Marco Antonio Moreno said.

Late Saturday, some 70 assailants barged into town and killed the police chief, two officers and three residents. At least eight people were kidnapped.

The killings came a month after soldiers arrested eight men, including a police officer, during the burial of an alleged drug hit man in Villa Ahumada, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) south of El Paso, Texas.

Seized weapons linked to crimes throughout Baja

Rivals fight over 'control of region'
By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
April 29, 2008

TIJUANA – Weapons seized after shootouts between rival gangs that claimed at least 13 lives have been linked to eight other high-profile crimes in Tijuana, Rosarito Beach and Ensenada, authorities said yesterday.

Those crimes include last month's killings of two Mexican migrant protection officers in Tijuana's Colonia Libertad neighborhood near San Ysidro, an assassination attempt in December on Rosarito Beach's police chief, and the November theft from Ensenada's morgue of the body of a drug trafficker killed during the Baja 1000 off-road race.

During a news conference yesterday in Tijuana, state law enforcement officials offered some new details about Saturday's gunbattles, the deadliest in recent years. Federal authorities have taken over the investigation because it involves organized crime. They offered no information.

13 people killed as rival gangs clash in Tijuana

By Sandra Dibble

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 27, 2008

TIJUANA – A confrontation between rival criminal gangs left 13 dead and nine injured early yesterday in gunbattles that started along a major thoroughfare and continued near a private clinic where police exchanged gunfire with injured suspects.

The shootouts were among the fiercest the city has seen in recent years. They come amid a spike in violence along Mexico's northern border as drug gangs battle one another and face off against law enforcement agencies that have stepped up efforts against organized crime.

The dead appeared to be members of criminal cells linked to organized crime, but their identities were not revealed, nor would officials name any specific criminal organization, saying the investigation was continuing.

The injured included eight suspects and one federal police officer, authorities said; none of the injuries was life-threatening, they added. The suspects are in custody.

Gang robs US family of plane in Mexico

The Associated Press

April 15, 2008

Gunmen held up a family of U.S. tourists in Mexico on Tuesday and made off with their small plane, police said.

The robbers attacked the plane as the American couple and their two daughters, ages 6 and 8, were about to take off from a hotel airstrip in the Baja California beach town of Mulege.

Detective Juan Carlos de Jesus Jimenez said the thieves pulled a car in front of the six-seat Cessna Stationair, knocked out one of its windows and forced the tourists out at gunpoint. They then set fire to the car and flew off in the plane.

U.S. officials said they had heard reports about the incident but had not yet been in contact with the victims. The plane's identification number matched a craft registered to a company in Boise, Idaho.

Small aircraft are commonly used by Mexican drug cartels to smuggle narcotics.

Suspected gang member dies in shootout with cops

By Sandra Dibble

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

April 15, 2008

TIJUANA – A suspected San Diego gang member believed to have ties to the Arellano Félix cartel was killed in a shootout this weekend with police outside a children's birthday party in a working-class section of Tijuana, authorities said yesterday.

The man was one of two suspects killed in the incident that left eight others injured, including three children. Also injured was the intended target and owner of the residence, a municipal district chief named Jesús Alberto Hurtado Estrada.

Hurtado and his bodyguard were able to repel the attack, in which the assailants fired dozens of shots and flung a grenade toward an enclosed patio. The injured people were out of danger yesterday, Baja California officials said.

Rommel Moreno Manjarrez, Baja California's attorney general, said the attack pointed to the challenges that police face when they confront organized crime. He said the assault was linked to the detention of a suspect last week on an administrative charge, and the refusal of police under Hurtado's command to release him.

“We are facing one of the most dangerous groups that we've been up against in recent months,” Moreno said.

Jamiel’s Law: The revolt against L.A.’s illegal alien sanctuary policy

By Michelle Malkin
April 9, 2008 09:51 AM

Law-abiding citizens of all colors are uniting against the targeting of innocent black residents of Los Angeles by illegal alien gangs. The parents of murdered high school student Jamiel Shaw met with L.A. public officials yesterday, urging them to rescind the city’s notorious Special Order 40–one of the nation’s oldest illegal alien sanctuary laws. Enough is enough:

The parents of Jamiel Shaw Jr., a high school football star who was gunned down by a reputed gang member just blocks from his home, urged Los Angeles city leaders today to go after criminals who are in the country illegally.

Pedro Espinoza, 19, allegedly shot and killed the 17-year-old Los Angeles High School student on March 2 in the 2100 block of Fifth Avenue, not far from the Shaw family’s Arlington Heights home. According to police, the shooting occurred one day after Espinoza was released from county jail, where he was serving time for assault with a deadly weapon.

U.S. immigration officials believe Espinoza, a member of the 18th Street gang, may have been in the country illegally.

“We have a problem with the system. My son was murdered by someone that was here illegally. No matter how you look at it, that’s what happened,” Jamiel Shaw Sr. told reporters before entering the Los Angeles City Council chamber.

Authorities do not know why Espinoza was not detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement upon his release from the county jail.

Laredo Sector Border Patrol Agents Arrest 18th Street Gang Member

Monday, March 31, 2008

Laredo, Texas – Border Patrol agents from the Laredo North station arrested a member of a Central American gang Sunday.

Agents apprehended a man at the Texas Travel Information Center located at the 18-mile marker on Interstate Highway 35 north of Laredo.

The 22-year-old man was identified as an illegal alien from El Salvador. Agents discovered distinctive tattoos on his ring finger, upper arm and the inside of his lower lip. The tattoos identify him as a member of the 18th Street gang of El Salvador. The gang is a rival of another Salvadoran group known as the Mara Salvatrucha or “MS-13” gang.

The man was processed for removal proceedings.

Border Patrol Agents and Sheriff’s Deputies Locate Runaway with Gang in Ariz.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Yuma, Ariz. – Border Patrol agents and sheriff’s deputies, working together as members of the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office Gang Task Force arrested a “Sureno 13” gang member and also located a juvenile female reported as a runaway.

About 8:45 p.m., Border Patrol agents and YCSO Deputies encountered the man and a female subject near the Yuma Greyhound Bus Station. Agents determined the man was an alien illegally present in the United States. The juvenile female is a U.S. citizen who was reported as a “runaway” by her parents in California.

YCSO Deputies took custody of the female subject and are in the process of returning her to her parents. No charges have been filed by the juvenile’s parents against her alleged companion.

The illegal alien was taken to the Yuma Border Patrol Station where, in subsequent interviews, he claimed to be a “Sureno 13” gang member. He will undergo prosecution/removal proceedings for being illegally present in the United States and could face up to 180 days in jail.

In Los Angeles, Hispanic Gangs Ethnically Cleansing Black Neighborhoods

By Brenda Walker

If Washington wanted to develop a vibrant underworld of vicious criminal gangs, it couldn't do any better than the immigration system now in place. The permissiveness toward lawbreaking border-crossers combined with the pure numbers of immigrants who cannot possibly be assimilated in such bulk has created a witches' brew of crime-spawning social pathology. The worst creatures are the Hispanic gangsters who kill innocent Americans in order to illustrate aptitude for savagery.

A recent heart-breaking example: the slaughter on March 2 of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw, Jr. The South Los Angeles high school student was shot dead just a few doors from home by two Latino men who jumped from a car and demanded to know to which gang he belonged. When he didn't answer, they shot him down. His father heard the shots and went outside to see his boy bleeding on the sidewalk. [A youth 'on track' until fatal gunfire, By Paloma Esquivel, Paul Pringle and Francisco Vara-Orta, LA Times, March 4, 2008]

Jamiel had no gang connections. He was apparently just another random victim of Hispanic gangsters killing blacks to drive them out of their corner of Aztlan. The promising football star had received inquiries from Stanford and Rutgers universities about a possible athletic scholarship. His mother, Army Sgt. Anita Shaw, was called home from her second tour of duty in Iraq after the murder of her son.

The family is crushed. Dad Jamiel Sr. said they have "simply lost everything."

No arrests have been made in the case. The family is asking the public for help in bringing the killers to justice.

Freer, Texas Border Patrol Agents Arrest MS-13 Gang Member

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Laredo, Texas – Border Patrol agents assigned to the Freer, Texas station apprehended a member of a Central American gang on Wednesday.

Agents arrested the 18-year-old Mexican man at a store in San Diego, Texas. Tattoos on his body indicated that he is a member of the Mara Salvatrucha gang, commonly referred to as “MS-13.” During questioning the subject admitted being an MS-13 member.

Alleged Aztecas hear charges

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 02/14/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

Three reputed leaders of the Barrio Azteca gang indicted in a federal racketeering case made their initial appearance Wednesday before a federal magistrate judge in El Paso.

Carlos "Shotgun" Perea, Benjamin "T-Top" Alvarez and Manuel "Tolon" Cardoza are believed to hold the rank of "capo" (captain) in the upper echelons of the prison-based gang, which has about 2,000 members across the Southwest, including 1,000 in El Paso, FBI and police have said.

The three were already imprisoned when they were recently served as part of an 11-count Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) indictment issued by a federal grand jury last month, an FBI spokeswoman had said.

Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael S. McDonald read the charges to each of the men, who were shackled during two separate appearances in a mostly empty courtroom.

McDonald informed the men that each was accused of "engaging in the affairs of a criminal enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity."

They also face conspiracy charg es for allegedly being involved in a criminal organization that laundered money and distributed cocaine, marijuana and heroin. If convicted, they face life in prison.

Woman tied to gang case worked in federal office

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 02/12/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

A woman suspected of being an associate of the Barrio Azteca gang worked for years in the Federal Public Defender's office in El Paso raising questions as to whether the gang was able to infiltrate federal offices.

Sandy Valles New, 57, worked as a paralegal and in the investigations section in the El Paso office from 1996 to 2002, Federal Public Defender Henry J. Bemporad confirmed Monday.

Bemporad, whose office in San Antonio oversees federal defenders in the Western District of Texas, said that he wasn't in charge of the office at the time of New's employment but that all employees must pass FBI and IRS background checks.

Bemporad said he could not comment further pending more information about the allegations against New, who was arrested last week as part of a federal racketeering case targeting members and associates of the Barrio Azteca gang.

FBI agents believe that New, also known as "Guera" (blonde) and "Cuñada" (sister-in-law), has been an associate of the prison-based gang since 2000, FBI spokeswoman Special Agent Andrea Simmons said.

A 57-year-old woman held in Barrio Azteca case

By Daniel Borunda / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 02/08/2008 12:00:00 AM MST

A 57-year-old woman is the latest person arrested in an ongoing federal racketeering crackdown targeting the Barrio Azteca gang, FBI officials in El Paso said Thursday.

Sandy Valles New, who is accused of being an associate of the prison-based gang, was arrested Wednesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Paso del Norte Bridge, FBI spokes woman Special Agent Andrea Simmons said. More arrests are expected.

The FBI listed New as being from El Paso, but an El Paso County Jail log shows her having an address in Juárez.

New, who is also known as "Guera" (blonde) and "Cuñada" (sister-in-law), faces racketeering charges, which are part of an 11-count federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organization, or RICO, indictment issued by a federal grand jury last month, Simmons said.

ICE and Greeley, Colo., Gang Task Force target "Sureno 13" gang member

GREELEY, Colo. - A member of the violent street gang Sureno 13 was arrested here Saturday by Greeley Gang Task Force officers, with assistance from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agents.

Renato Rodarte-Bueno, 33, from Mexico, was arrested at a Greeley, Colo., apartment about 9 p.m., on Feb. 2, on state criminal charges of child abuse/neglect and possessing marijuana. He was allegedly smoking marijuana while watching his 3-year-old child.

ICE also placed a detainer on Rodarte-Bueno on federal immigration administrative charges, and criminal charges for reentering the United States after having been previously deported. Rodarte-Bueno remains in state custody.

ICE agents originally targeted Rodarte-Bueno for arrest after they discovered that he had returned to the Greeley, Colo., area after his deportation in 1997. Reentry into the United States after being formally deported is a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Rodarte-Bueno is an identified active Sureno 13 gang member. He has felony convictions for robbery and theft in the Santa Barbara County, Calif., Superior Court in 1993 and 1994. He was sentenced to seven years in a California prison. Before his convictions and deportation, he was a U.S. permanent resident.

The Greeley Gang Task Force learned that Rodarte-Bueno was returning to the area on the El Paso-Los Angeles Limousine Bus Line on the night of Feb. 1. He had taken an extended trip to Los Angeles, Calif., and didn't resurface in Greeley until the afternoon of Feb. 2.

The U.S. Attorney's Office District of Colorado has accepted federal prosecution of Rodarte-Bueno for "reentry after deportation."

"Gang members represent a significant threat to public safety throughout the United States," said Jeffrey Copp, special agent in charge of the ICE Office of Investigations in Denver. "ICE closely partners with local law enforcement agencies to especially target transnational gang members, and ultimately deport them to their countries of origin." Copp oversees a four-state area that includes: Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.

23 'Mexican Mafia' gang members indicted on racketeering in Texas slayings, feds say

By Michelle Roberts
ASSOCIATED PRESS
2:03 p.m. January 30, 2008

SAN ANTONIO – Twenty-three suspected members of a Texas prison gang were accused of racketeering in connection with the slayings of 22 people, according to a federal indictment released Wednesday.

The victims were mostly fellow members of the Texas Mexican Mafia or rival gangs. In some cases, they were suspected drug dealers indebted to the gang, which authorities say enforces a street tax on drug dealers who work on gang turf.

The slayings occurred between 2000 and 2005, according to the indictment.

The defendants were not charged with murder, in part because tying them to a specific crime is harder than proving they ran an operation that committed murder and dealt drugs, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton said.