JALISCO- Explosives used during a fierce firefight between state police in Jalisco and gunmen from the New Generation Jalisco cartel may have been provided by a fugitive arms trafficker who had been under US surveillance for nearly a decade and was part of a lesser-known 'grenade walking' operation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
The ATF began watching Kingery in "2004 related to AK47 purchases" he was believed to be trafficking to Mexico.
In 2009, ATF also learned Kingery was dealing in grenades; weapons of choice for Mexico's killer cartels. Documents show they developed a secret plan to let him smuggle parts to Mexico in early 2010 and follow him to his factory. Some ATF agents vehemently objected, worried that Kingery would disappear once he crossed the border into Mexico. That's exactly what happened.
Kingery resurfaced several months later in 2010, trying to smuggle a stash of grenade bodies and ammunition into Mexico, but was again let go when prosecutors allegedly said they couldn't build a good case. In 2011, Mexican authorities finally raided Kingery's factory and arrested him -- they say he confessed to teaching cartel members how to build grenades
According to local officials, local police in the city of Tepatitlan were responding to complaints of gunshots being fired in the air earlier this month when they came under fire from the gunmen before their assailants barricaded themselves in a nearby building.
According to the government account, the local police, while under attack, called state police for backup just before 7 p.m. The state police arrived to find the suspects holed up in a house, where, according to news reports and witnesses on Twitter, they kept up a gun battle with the police for three or four hours. Officials said the men threw a number of grenades at the officers.Sometimes referring to themselves as the 'matazetas' [translates to 'Zeta killers'- NANESB!], the nascent Jalisco New Generation Cartel is one of Mexico's newest cartels, formed after a 2010 break with the Sinaloa Cartel.
BAJA CALIFORNIA SUR- A flamboyant narco who's crime family was reportedly the inspiration for the 2000 Steve Soderbergh film Traffic was gunned down at a children's birthday party in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas. However, what made the assassination of one of the heads of a cartel in decline newsworthy was the fact that the gunmen were disguised as clowns to get close enough to Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix- one of the three brothers that oversaw operations of the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix Cartel [what are the odds his dying words were "Gunned down by clowns in Cabo! *gurgle* The old fortune-teller was right....."?[NANESB!].
Two bands were entertaining the more than 100 guests, while some local newspapers reported that the party was attended by famous Mexican sports stars.With the Tijuana cartel in decline thanks to the arrest and extradition of the Arellano-Felix brothers, the Sinaloa cartel eventually moved into northwestern Mexico to take over the lucrative smuggling routes.
The gunmen, guests told police, approached him calmly then shot him in the head - with another bullet in the chest to finish him off.
"He was hit by two bullets, one in the body and one in the head," said Isai Arias, prosecutor for the Baja California region.
He was shot at around 8pm on Friday, in the Casa Oceano holiday resort complex, and relatives had identified the body, he added.
Photographs said to be of the scene showed a corpse covered in a blood-soaked sheet, lying on the floor of a grand dining room with tables covered in lurid blue satin. The gunmen, it is said, escaped in a waiting four-wheel drive vehicle.
Francisco Rafael, the eldest brother of the infamous Arellano Felix clan, which ran the Tijuana Cartel, was in his heyday head of the family that for 20 years controlled the most powerful smuggling route from Mexico into the United States. American authorities once described the seven well-dressed and well-spoken brothers as "dashing, multimillionaire, savage criminals".
Arellano Felix was one of 11 children born to a modest family in the Sinaloa region. Alongside his brothers he began by smuggling contraband into the US, before graduating to cocaine.
He also found time to form a band called Los Escorpiones – the scorpions – which played throughout the region. The animal became a symbol of Arellano Felix's, and he took to wearing a four-inch-long diamond-encrusted scorpion pendant around his neck.
To launder the funds through trafficking, he paid for theatre shows and cultural performances in Mazatalan, a sprawling coastal city in Baja California. He also ran what was billed as "the world's largest disco" – a club called Frankie Oh's, emblazoned with scorpion designs.
In an interview with El Noreste newspaper in 1992, he described himself as "a fearless businessman, who risks a huge amount without the fear of losing everything".
For decades, Arellano Felix was seen as untouchable – detained three times for drugs and gun offences, yet miraculously escaping each time. Many believed that the law enforcement officials were in his pay.
With his brothers Benjamin - the brains behind the cartel - and Ramon, the brawn of the organisation, Francisco Rafael was seemingly beyond the law.
He is thought to have masterminded the assassination of the Archbishop of Guadalajara, Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo, in 1993 – although authorities were never able to pin the high profile murder on him.
"Wanted by Mexican police since 1978 and on the run from the American law enforcement agencies since 1980, Arellano Felix rubbed shoulders with film stars, television personalities and radio songstresses," said a feature on the drugs capo in Mexican magazine Proceso.
Arellano Felix was eventually captured in 1993, and sent to prison. In 2006 he was extradited to the US, but was released two years later for good behaviour and repatriated to Mexico where he was thought to be living quietly.
In the meantime the power of the Tijuana Cartel had waned, with most of the Arellano Felix brothers either killed or arrested, and rival cartels taking over its territory.
Benjamin was arrested in March 2002, and extradited to the United States in 2011 - where he is currently serving a 25-year sentence. Ramon, the most ruthless of the brothers, had died in a shoot out in Mazatlan a month previously.
Brothers Benjamin and Eduardo were extradited to the United States in 2012 to face charges of racketeering and conspiracy to launder money.
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