NUEVO LEON- Mexican authorities have arrested a Zetas underboss last week for his suspected role in dumping 49 mutilated corpses in the town of San Juan, Nuevo Leon that were discovered by the side of the highway on May 13.
According to officials, Daniel Jesus Elizondo Ramírez was tasked by his Zetas superiors with dumping the bodies and then hanging up a series of naro-banners throughout the region denying the Zetas involvement with the act spectacle in the following days. Ramírez was reportedly supposed to dump the hacked bodies in the town square, but got nervous and at the last minute disposed of the corpses by the side of Federal Highway 40- the main non-toll road between Monterrey and the border town of Reynosa.
A video posted at a Mexican website that covers drug crimes purportedly was filmed by an accomplice of Ramírez and shows him unloading dozens of bodies and unfurling a narco-banner nearby claiming responsibility. The stone archway just outside the village was marked with graffiti that read '100% Zetas'. The cameraman is said to be an accomplice who is still at large.
The banners hung up by Ramírez and other Zetas accomplices were said to be part of a ploy to distract police and the public. Ramírez is under house arrest while prosecutors are building up a case against him for the murder of those discovered outside of San Juan as well as the recent killings of members of the rival Gulf Cartel whose bodies were discovered elsewhere.
TAMAULIPAS- A hotel in the border town of Nuevo Laredo that was being used as temporary police barracks was under fire from suspected Zetas gunmen and then firebombed on Thursday, wounding 8 officers.
A Tamaulipas state official said authorities believed the Zetas cartel, one of Mexico's two most powerful criminal organizations, carried out the attack on the Hotel Santa Cecilia in Nuevo Laredo, a city across the border from Laredo, Texas.The attacks came about a week after Federal Police and Mexican troops arrested Daniel Jesus Elizondo Ramirez on charges stemming from the dumping of 49 mutilated bodies by the side of the highway in Nuevo Leon.
The Zetas, founded by Mexican special forces defectors, have carried out a number of sophisticated attacks, but Thursday's assault appeared to be one of the most elaborate. It also appeared to be the first attack directed against Tamaulipas' new state police force, which took over a year ago from a municipal police force in Nuevo Laredo that was accused of ineffectiveness and corruption.
The newly commissioned officers, who hail from around the state, were staying in the hotel until permanent barracks were built. Mexican police frequently requisition hotels in the absence of official barracks, or when threats make it unsafe for them to live at home.
The attack on the hotel took place around 7:15 a.m. on one of the main streets in Nuevo Laredo, less than four hours after unknown gunmen hurled gasoline bombss at the Maranho, one of the city's most popular nightclubs. The club, which was closed at the time, was badly damaged by fire but there were no injuries, authorities said.
Minutes after the hotel attack, gunmen opened fire on the Nuevo Laredo Institute of Technology, a science-focused university.
ELSEWHERE IN TAMAULIPAS- Officials from Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) have announced that they have suspended the membership of former governor Tomas Yarrington this week.
Although Yarrington hasn't been formally charged with any crime, US Prosecutors have filed two civil forfeiture cases aimed at confiscating poperties he holds in both Mexico and Texas. Yarrington is suspected of accepting substantial payoffs from drug cartels and investing some of the funds into real estate.
The PRI's Enrique Peña Nieto currently leads polling in the Mexican presidential elections, but the issue of crime and corruption may be an achilles heel for the PRI. The last three governors of Tamaulipas- all three of them from the PRI- are accused of recieving payoffs from the Gulf Cartel.
MEXICO CITY- Last week, a Mexican judge issued preliminary detention orders against four high-ranking retired and active duty officers in the Mexican military- including the second-ranking official in the Defense Ministry- stemming from evidence obtained by military prosecutors and the Attorney General's Office.
Officials haven't said why the men are being held. But according to the men's relatives, a person familiar with the legal proceedings and media accounts citing unnamed sources in the Attorney General's Office, the four are being questioned over allegations they were in the pay of one of Mexico's leading organized crime groups, the Beltran Leyva cartel.Angeles is reportedly very popular among his subordinates in the military, and the families of the accused back claims that the detentions are politically motivated.
"I regret and condemn that a few individual members [of the armed forces], according to evidence found by the Attorney General's Office and the military prosecutors, have taken part in illicit acts," President Felipe Calderon said this week. "The only thing that is clear here is that my government won't tolerate illegal acts, regardless of who commits them."
It is the biggest drug-related scandal since Mr. Calderon took office in December 2006 and deployed roughly 45,000 soldiers to different parts of the country to take on the drug gangs.
The highest-profile detainee is Gen. Tomas Angeles, whom Mr. Calderon appointed the second-ranking official in the Defense Ministry in 2006. Gen. Angeles served until he retired in 2008.
The detentions come just two months before presidential elections in July, spurring speculation in Mexico's press and among many analysts that the detentions may have to do with presidential or barracks politics.
Gen. Angeles, who served as Mexico's military attaché in Washington, was considered to be angling for a top security job if Enrique Peña Nieto, the candidate of the former ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, wins the presidency.
Linking Gen. Angeles to a drug cartel makes little sense given his ambitions of becoming secretary of defense, said Raúl Benitez, a security analyst at Mexico's National Autonomous University. Such aspirations would have put the general in the position of being closely watched by both U.S. and Mexican intelligence services, making it likely that the general would have taken care not to associate with drug traffickers, Mr. Benitez said.Another accused general is Brigadier Gen. Roberto Dawe, who until recently was part of President Felipe Calderon's security detail before being reassigned as a military commander whose jurisdiction included the Pacific Coast state of Colima.
"If you are ambitious, the last thing you do is mess with narcos," he said. "It's suicide."
According to a 2009 US Diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks, the State Department suspected a Mexican Army officer who was part of Felipe Calderon's security detail of leaking military intelligence to the cartels as well as training hitmen and facilitating the transfer of arms.
In April of this year, a retired Mexican general who had previously been convicted of having ties to the Juarez cartel was shot dead by unkonwn assailants in Mexico City. Gen Mario Arturo Acosta was convicted in 2000 of having ties the Juarez cartel and recieved a sentence of 16 years in prison in 2002. However, Acosta was exonerated five years later and in 2010 survived an attempt on his life.
COAHUILA- Acting on an anonymous tip, Mexican Marines raided a clandestine factory in the border city of Piedras Negras that made counterfeit military uniforms on Thursday.
They seized hundreds of combat trousers and shirts, as well as body armour, some with the Marine logo.Zetas sicarios thought to be behind the disappearence and murder of hundreds of bus passengers in and around the village of San Fernando, Tamaulipas were reportedly wearing military-style fatigues when they pulled their victims off of intercity buses.
A Navy spokesman said the find showed "criminal groups wanted to discredit the Navy" by wearing their uniforms while committing crimes.
Over the past months, the security forces have arrested a number of alleged cartel hitmen wearing counterfeit uniforms.
Officials said the uniforms were used by Mexican drug cartels to set up road blocks and carry out kidnappings.
They said the uniforms made it easier for criminals to approach their victims, who did not realise they were being targeted until it was too late.
Marines found the workshop in the northern town of Piedras Negras across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas, after receiving an anonymous tip-off.
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