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Violence like this along the border is getting worse and is already spilling over into the US and Texas. When will the Obama Administration and the Federal Government step up to do more to protect our own border from this escalating violence? The car bomb article today from the associated press (see below) is yet another example of this escalating violence. If you live on the border, massive gun battles and explosions can be heard on a nearly daily basis. Here are some articles I have posted about border violence just in the last year. I barely even scratch the surface: SHOCKING Texas/Mexico Border WARZONE...

Note: The following text is a quote: Travel Warning United States Department of State Bureau of Consular Affairs Washington, DC 20520 This information is current as of today, Sun Mar 14 2010 15:23:05 GMT-0700 (PDT). MEXICO March 14, 2010 The Department of State has issued this Travel Warning to inform U.S. citizens traveling to and living in Mexico of concerns about the security situation in Mexico, and that it has authorized the departure of the dependents of U.S. government personnel from U.S. consulates in the Northern Mexican border cities of Tijuana, Nogales, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, Monterrey and Matamoros until...

EL PASO, TX — A critical opponent of drug law reform in Texas has been indicted on charges of trafficking 50 kilograms of marijuana and money laundering. El Paso County Commissioner Guillermo “Willie” Gandara Jr., 37, who is currently a Democratic candidate for the Texas legislature, along with Juan Canales, 50, were arrested late Wednesday night following a multi-agency investigation that included the DEA and FBI. A federal grand jury indictment charges the defendants with one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute 50 kilograms or more of marijuana, and one count of possession with intent to distribute...

Three beheadings in two different states and they happened here in the United States, not Mexico. Former DEA supervisor Phil Jordan says all three beheadings have cartel written all over them. They happened in Arizona and Oklahoma in the past year. A murder mystery is now unraveling on a stretch of North Reservation Road in Tucson, Ariz. County workers found a headless man lying on the side of the road Jan. 6. The man's hands and feet were reportedly missing, too. "It would lead me to believe the message wanted to be sent. This is one of the ways they...

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- The number of new prescription drug shortages in 2011 shot up to 267, well above the prior record and about four times the number of medication shortages in the middle of the last decade. Figures just released by the University of Utah Drug Information Service, which tracks national drug shortages, show there were 56 more newly reported drug shortages in the U.S. last year than in 2010, when there were 211. By contrast, there were only 58 drug shortages reported in 2004. As the drug shortages worsen, so does their impact on patient care, particularly...

Authorities are investigating human remains found at the same U.S. border lake where a Colorado man was reported to have been killed by Mexican drug cartel members last year. A professional fisherman found the skeletal remains on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake on the Texas-Mexico border, according to multiple reports. The skeleton was found about 15 miles from where 30-year-old David Hartley was last seen alive on Sept. 30, 2010. His wife, Tiffany Hartley, said the couple had set out on Wave Runners to take photos of a half-submerged church on the Mexican side of the lake when they...

MEXICO CITY – The Mexican army says it has dealt a significant blow to the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel with the arrest of the cartel leader's security chief. The army says special military forces seized computer files and other data when they detained Felipe Cabrera Sarabia. But Chief Army spokesman Gen. Ricardo Trevillo offered few details about the hunt for cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Trevillo told a news conference Monday that Cabrera was captured without a shot being fired Friday in the capital of Sinaloa state, headquarters of the cartel allegedly run by

Drug Enforcement Administration agents have raided an Oklahoma car dealership that the government suspects may be one of about 30 such businesses in the U.S. involved in funding the terrorist group Hezbollah. DEA agents say the car lot of Ace Auto Leasing in Tulsa is part of a huge network that is selling cars and drugs -- and then using the money to support terrorism against the U.S., myfoxphoenix.com reports. During Friday's raid, agents could be seen carryout out filing cabinets and other items. They also questioned employees and took inventory. "They're making big time money and it's going right...

SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - The recent arrests of three alleged drug gang leaders from Mexico and the shooting of a sheriff's deputy in South Texas are raising fears among some Lone Star State officials that the brutal drug wars plaguing Mexico are taking hold north of the Rio Grande. On Sunday, Deputy Hugo Rodriguez of Hidalgo County in the southern tip of Texas was shot several times when he pulled over a vehicle containing a person kidnapped by members of Mexico's Gulf Cartel, County Sheriff Lupe Trevino said. Rodriguez's bulletproof vest saved his life, Trevino said. "I have always said...

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama said on Thursday "individuals in the Iranian government" were aware of the alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to Washington, and they must be held accountable. "We believe that even if at the highest levels there was not detailed operational knowledge, there has to be accountability," Obama told a joint news conference with the visiting South Korean president.

Ms Valles, 21, fled Mexico in fear of her life, hustling her parents, sisters, husband and one-year-old son into a 4 x 4 vehicle and hurtling across the border to seek asylum in the United States. They left just in time. That night a squad of hit men arrived at their small bungalow and ransacked the rooms. "I would like to go back home," she said. "But if I hadn't left my country I wouldn't be alive now." In spite of her diminutive size and sweet, girlish manner, Ms Valles had some powerful and vicious enemies. The criminology graduate was...

Gunmen in northern Mexico have shot dead three relatives of a police officer being held over a deadly arson attack on a casino last month. The officer's father, stepmother and stepbrother were killed in their home in the city of Monterrey. Police believe it was an act of revenge by the Zetas drugs cartel, after the officer named gang members allegedly involved in the casino attack. The blaze killed 52 people and caused revulsion across Mexico. Police officer Miguel Angel Barraza is one of six suspects detained in connection with the 25 August arson attack on the Casino Royale in...

The DEA announced Thursday the results of Project Delirium. Agents said it was a 20-month long investigation that spanned the country with the La Familia Michoacana cartel as its target. DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said the operation resulted in 1,985 arrests, $62 million in cash, and around 2,773 pounds of meth, 2,722 kilos of cocaine, 1,005 pounds of heroin, 14,818 pounds of marijuana and $3.8 million in other assets. Of those arrested, 35 were in Austin after law enforcement executed search warrants at 11 homes in the area on Wednesday.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins. The elderly are killed. Women raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death. In an interview arranged by intermediaries on condition neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push $5 million to $10 million a month worth of cocaine into the U.S. Law-enforcement sources confirm...

The signature crimes of the most violent drug cartel in Mexico are its beheading and dismemberment of rival gang members, military personnel, law enforcement officers and public officials, and the random kidnappings and killings of civilians who get caught in its butchery and bloodletting. But this disparate band of criminals known as Los Zetas is no longer just a concern in Mexico. It has expanded its deadly operations across the southwestern border, establishing footholds and alliances in states from New York to California. Just last year, federal agents tied a cocaine operation in Baltimore to the Zetas. “Those of us...

The U.S. is offering a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of whoever is responsible for the slaying of an American federal agent in Mexico, suggesting Washington seeks to snare the person who ordered the killing or doubts those in Mexican custody acted alone. [snip] Mike Vigil, a retired Drug Enforcement Administration executive who was based in Mexico, said....."They have arrested a few lowlifes that apparently were involved, but what is not known is if they were the only ones responsible," Vigil said. ...Alonzo Pena, who recently retired as deputy director of Immigration and...

EL PASO, Texas (Reuters) The mayor and police chief of a small town on the U.S.-Mexico border were among 11 suspects indicted for allegedly trafficking around 200 guns to Mexico, authorities said on Thursday. The U.S. Attorney's office in New Mexico said the mayor of Columbus, Eddie Espinoza, the town's police chief Angelo Vega, and village trustee Blas Gutierrez were among those arrested on an 84-count indictment. "Gutierrez, Espinoza and Vega were duty sworn to protect and safeguard the people of Columbus," U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said in a statement. "Instead, they increased the risk of harm that the...

La Familia drug cartel is selling not just drugs, but also counterfeit Microsoft Office computer software, according the Redmond, Wash., tech giant. Microsoft showed off unauthorized copies of its Office 2007 software in Paris today which the company said it found for sale in Mexico. The pirated copies of Office were marked with La Familia cartel's rectangular "FMM" logo that the Microsoft says proves the link between the counterfeiting and the organized crime group, according to a Bloomberg report. "This is the real side, the scary side of counterfeiting and it plagues the world," said David Finn, Microsoft's associate general...

The decapitated bodies of 15 young men have been found in the Mexican beach resort of Acapulco. Police said they were discovered near a shopping centre and were all aged between 15 and 25. They were dumped there by drug cartel members fighting over the control of the drugs business in the city. SNIP In this latest violent incident, police responding to a report of a burning vehicle near Acapulco's Plaza Senderos shopping centre shortly after midnight found five other abandoned vehicles and the decapitated bodies. Media reports say that three messages signed by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of...

SAN DIEGO (CNS) - The mother of a 14-year-old boy suspected of working as an assassin for a Mexican drug cartel pleaded not guilty in San Diego Thursday to a charge of being in the United States illegally.

... The murder rate in Guatemala is already double that of Mexico, where more than 10,000 drug-related murders have taken place this year. Now there is evidence that one of Mexico’s most vicious cartels, the Zetas, are setting up bases in Guatemala as they come under increasing pressure from Felipe Calderon’s government. The Zetas have set up training camps and are trying to intimidate Guatemalan cartels. So far they’ve forced at least one Guatemalan drug family to leave the country. “When you have drug traffickers afraid of other drug traffickers, you know its getting pretty bad,” U.S. Ambassador Stephen McFarland...

...one law enforcement officer, speaking on condition that his name not be used, told The Brownsville Herald that the two-day toll “easily” passed 100... A Texas businesswoman, who was in Matamoros running errands, reported being in the downtown area when a shootout erupted just a block away. The woman reported hearing machine guns and over 20 seconds of continuous grenade explosions... Another woman said that while she was walking near the Pumarejo General Hospital in Matamoros, she saw a truck with armed gunmen collide with an SUV carrying a family. The woman stated that the impact rolled the SUV on...

The decapitation of the lead Mexican investigator in the alleged murder of a jet-skier on a border lake is a sharp retort to President Obama's administration, a Texas congressman said. "The Mexican drug cartels just sent a message to the White House that the United States no longer controls the border," Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, told WND. The severed head of investigator Rolando Armando Flores Villegas was delivered this week to an army garrison in Ciudad Miguel Aleman in the Tamaulipas state in Mexico. The city is across the river from Zapata County, Texas, the location of Falcon Lake, where...

Violence continued Wednesday in Matamoros as a grenade was thrown at city hall and a local university was shut down because of a threat of some type of attack. Also, the Mexican navy announced the arrest of 30 Gulf Cartel members during operations conducted Monday and Tuesday throughout the state of Tamaulipas. As disturbances continued to plague Matamoros, panic ripped through downtown around 9:30 a.m. when a grenade was thrown at city hall, injuring two people. Federal police and the military cordoned off an area six blocks wide around the main plaza at the intersection of Calle Sexta and Morelos....

The bodies of the four young men were discovered early on Sunday, hung upside down by their feet from a bridge near a wealthy area of Cuernavaca, a leafy city about an hour outside Mexico City, where many of the nation's elite own homes. The victims' genitals, index fingers and heads had been cut off, according to a statement from the attorney general's office in Morelos state, which includes Cuernavaca. Their heads and genitals were found nearby, along with a handmade sign, the statement said. "This will happen to everyone that helps the traitor Edgar Valdes," the placard read, referring...

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities say that police in Ciudad Juarez have captured five alleged drug gang members suspected in the killings of two federal officers, including one whose body was hacked to pieces. One of the suspects is also believed to have acted as a lookout in the July 15 car-bomb attack on police that killed an officer and two other people, Luis Cardenas Palomino, regional security chief for the federal police, said Friday. He described the five men as members of the La Linea gang, which works for the Juarez drug cartel. He alleged they killed two federal...

Barbara "Hair on Fire" Espinosa of Scottsdale, AZ is down on the border today along with some 500 other Arizona citizens, at a Tea Party rally in support of Arizona's SB 1070 Immigration Law. Barbara is on private property, just west of Naco, and described her position as about 100 feet from the border fence. She says, "Right across from the border fence where we are, the property belongs to the drug cartel and the area is used to transport drugs and humans into the United States. Senate candidate JD Hayworth is there and has been talking to the ranchers...

Local law enforcement was bombarded with calls from across the country Saturday asking about a report that the Zetas had taken over two ranches off Mines Road. But officials with the Laredo Police Department, Webb County Sheriff’s Department and Border Patrol said they knew nothing about such an incident, while Erik Vasys, an FBI spokesman in San Antonio, said the agency does not comment on rumors.

With the massive amount of US military on the way to Costa Rica, has our country rolled over and now admitted that it has lost control of the trafficking of drugs, money laundering and crime in general? Ever since I can remember Costa Rica has said, “If ever invaded, it´s neighbors would come to its rescue.” In times past that referred to Venezuela, but now we have Chavez and….well that´s another 100 pesos. The new friendly neighbor must be the United States who is sending 46 war ships, 200 helicopters and 7,000 Marines to rescue us from invading drug cartels,...

Drug traffickers are spending $1 million a pop to build boats that look like submarines and can carry 4 tons of cocaine for 2,000 miles without refueling. Nicknamed "narco subs," they're made to sneak loads up from South America to Mexico, where the drugs are offloaded and taken overland into the United States. "It is a semi-submersible coffin," said Jay Bergman, Andean regional director for the Drug Enforcement Administration. "You batten down the hatches and you are doing everything to not be detected sailing in the middle of the ocean." At least 13 of the craft have been stopped and...

Note: Photos included. NOTE The following text is a quote: DEA-Led Operation Delivers Over 2,000 Arrests FBI, ICE and Mexican Govt. also take part in “Project Deliverance” which leads to the seizure of $154 million and 74.1 tons of drugs, as well as the arrest of a high-priority target DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart Announces Project Deliverance JUN 10 - (WASHINGTON) – DEA Acting Administrator Michele M. Leonhart joined Attorney General Eric Holder to announce the arrest of 2,266 individuals on narcotics-related charges in the United States and the seizure of more than 74.1 tons of illegal drugs as part...

Prowling these border dumps provides the equivalent of a graduate-level seminar on what illegal immigration really is, and as importantly, what it's not. We know the crossers are a religious bunch, because of the Catholic medallions, statues and Bibles they drop, and we know they're superstitious. The litter almost always includes garlic cloves: Illegals hang them from backpacks in the false belief that the scent will keep rattlesnakes away from their campsites. Some call illegal aliens "undocumented," but the truth is they have documents falling out of their pockets, literally. Examine the ground, and you'll find driver's licenses, birth certificates...

*******NOTE********* This is from December 2009. I don't remember hearing about this. I post it now, because this story is as relevant now as it was then. These Cartels are moving north, and have a presence, according to Janet Napalitano, in 230 of our cities. And its on the increase. See this thread for more information on this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2532599/posts *********NOW TO THE STORY*************** MEXICO CITY -- The brazen murder of several family members of a Mexican Naval hero threatens to start a dangerous new chapter in the country's drug war, in which cartels increasingly resort to terror tactics to try...

While Obama and Congress sit on their hands on border security, a drug cartel planned a terrorist attack on American soil. The Houston Chronicle is reporting that a drug cartel was plotting to blow up the Falcon dam along the Texas border near Rio Grande City, an area of about 4 million residents. The cartel known as Los Zetes was intending on placing dynamite near the dam to blow it up in order to get revenge on a rival gang called the Gulf Cartel, which smuggles drugs in the area. Meanwhile in Washington, the meeting between Obama and Arizona Governor...

In the debate over illegal immigration – largely from Mexico into the United States – it is often easy to focus exclusively on the security of the border and the rule of law. While both are extremely important, so are the human costs that are paid as a result of the drug trade; when illegal aliens are caught, they are often caught smuggling illegal drugs.

Public Safety Secretary Minerva Bautista, the top security official in Mexico's western state of Michoacan where the cult-like drug cartel La Familia has been engaged in an insurgency against the government, was wounded today in an ambush which killed four others as reported by Gustavo Ruiz for The Associated Press: She was traveling in a bullet-resistant sport utility vehicle. State Attorney General Jesus Montejano told the local Milenio television station that the attackers used assault rifles, grenades, a grenade launcher and a powerful .50-caliber sniper rifle whose rounds are capable of penetrating bullet-resistant materials. * * * The dead included...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Secretary of State Hillary Clinton promised on Tuesday to help Mexico broaden a drug war that has failed to curb traffickers' increasingly deadly power along the U.S.-Mexican border. Clinton, leading a top-level U.S. delegation in Mexico City for a day of talks, said it was time to tackle the deeper social issues that fuel the narcotics trade as both nations battle to outmaneuver powerful smuggling organizations. "These narcotics cartels are waging war on civil society," Clinton told a news conference, pledging that the joint U.S.-Mexican response would not be bound by "borders or bureaucratic divisions." Clinton...

AUSTIN, Texas - Gov. Rick Perry announced on Thursday afternoon that Texas military helicopters will be sent to help in the battle against "spillover" violence in the Mexico border region. The governor will deploy the OH-58 Kiowa and UH-72 Lakota helicopters as part of the first phase of the violence contingency plan that he activated on Tuesday. The helicopters will help local law enforcement officers prevent and detect crime along the border. The aircraft will be flown between Brownsville and El Paso. "As we continue to increase our resources and personnel along the border to combat the threat of spillover...

MEXICO CITY – Mexican police have captured alleged drug lord Carlos Beltran Leyva, just two week after his even more powerful brother was killed in a shootout with troops — back-to-back victories in President Felipe Calderon's drug war. The Public Safety office said in a statement Saturday night that Carlos Beltran Leyva was arrested in Culiacan, the capital of the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, where he and several of his brothers were born and allegedly started their gang. Two weeks ago, his brother Arturo, reputed chief of the Beltran Leyva Cartel, was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines...

For those interested in exploring one of the greatest internal and transnational threats to the United States, there is a new book out today by Samuel Logan, This is For the Mara Salvatrucha: Inside the MS-13, America's Most Violent Gang. The book traces the history of Brenda Paz, a young Honduran who joins MS-13 and eventually becomes the most effective police witness against the organization, before she was killed. But besides the individual story, the book shows just how powerful and ruthless the MS-13 has become. Given that it now has chapters in thousands of cities across the United States,...

Bob Mazur won't be showing up at bookstores to sign copies of his new book. * * * Twenty-one years ago, after learning that the notorious Medellin drug cartel had sent a hit squad to kill him, Mazur had to assume a new identity and move his family from their Tampa home. * * * Mazur's book about the investigation code-named "Operation C-Chase" is a white-knuckle tale of how he gained the trust of crooked bankers and Colombian drug traffickers who would have killed him without a second thought if they knew he was one of "los feos." * *...

Amid Rising Violence, Mexicans Fight Back Government Efforts to Control Drug Turf Wars Aren't Enough, Some Say; Mayor Promises to 'Clean Up' Organized Crime By DAVID LUHNOW and JOSÉ DE CÓRDOBA MEXICO CITY -- Mexico's war on drugs took a grim twist this week, as a prominent mayor said he had created an undercover group of operatives to "clean up" criminal elements -- even if it had to act outside the law. Underscoring why the mayor may have felt compelled to take such steps, the new police chief in a neighboring town, a retired brigadier general, was shot and killed...

Hundreds of people have been arrested in Texas and around the country what officials say is the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel in the U.S WASHINGTON (October 22, 2009)—U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder calls the arrests of more than 300 people in a series of drug raids in Texas and across the country the largest single strike at a Mexican drug cartel operating here. Holder said at a news conference Thursday that the arrests over the past two days were aimed at the U.S. operations of the La Familia cartel. Click here to find out more! Holder...

Mexican candidate, his wife and 2 sons killed Published: 9/5/09, 6:10 PM EDT VILLAHERMOSA, Mexico (AP) - Gunmen killed a state congressional candidate and his wife and two sons in their home Saturday in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco, in southern Mexico. Jose Francisco Fuentes Esperon, 43, was found dead along with his wife, 38, and two sons aged 9 and 13, in the state capital, Villahermosa, according to state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez Lastra. Fuentes Esperon was a former university rector, and was widely known in the state capital. The state government immediately offered to provide protection for...

Note: The following text is a quote: Ten Alleged Mexican Drug Cartel Leaders Among 43 Defendants Indicted in Brooklyn and Chicago as Part of Coordinated Strike Against Mexican Drug Trafficking Organizations WASHINGTON – Forty-three defendants in the United States and Mexico, including 10 alleged Mexican drug cartel leaders, have been charged in 12 indictments unsealed yesterday and today in U.S. federal courts in Brooklyn and Chicago, the Department of Justice, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced. The alleged leaders and other high-ranking members of several of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels are charged...

Authorities announced charges Thursday against a Mexican gang that took Tijuana-style violence to the upscale suburbs of San Diego County, kidnapping, torturing and killing well-to-do residents, even after some families paid large ransoms. The gang, a rogue cell of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel, moved across the border in 2002 and posed as U.S. law enforcement, donning FBI and police uniforms and caps while snatching victims outside homes and public places, said San Diego County prosecutors. Nine victims were killed from 2004 to 2007, and the bodies of two of them were dissolved in chemicals at a rented house...

Mexican troops have found what may be a hide-out of the country's No. 1 drug lord at a giant methamphetamine lab hidden in the northern Sierra among cabins equipped with caviar face cream and escort catalogues. Mexican media published photos of a complex of 22 secluded mountain cabins, camouflaged to be invisible from the air. One was outfitted with a king-sized bed, luxury clothes, satellite television, pirated movies and high-speed Internet. The daily Reforma said army officials suspected the well-equipped cabin was used by top fugitive Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, leader of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, or his associate Ismael Zambada,...

WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors cited problems with evidence Monday when they asked a judge to drop charges against a Chinese-Mexican businessman accused of importing large amounts of methamphetamines to the United States. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan lambasted prosecutors at a hearing on the request to dismiss the indictment against Zhenli Ye Gon, saying, "I'm not pleased at all with anything I've heard from the United States government." When Ye Gon was arrested in 2007 in Wheaton, Md., authorities said they had seized more than $205 million in U.S. drug profits from his Mexico City mansion. The U.S. Drug Enforcement...

FBI is advising law enforcement officers across the country that a Texas cell of Los Zetas — an increasingly powerful arm of the Mexican Gulf Cartel drug trafficking syndicate — has acquired a secluded ranch where it trains its members to “neutralize” competitors in the United States.

With growing violence on the U.S.-Mexico border fueled by powerful drug cartels, officials from both countries have been repeating a shocking statistic to suggest this isn't just a Mexican problem. But Obama, Clinton and others have left out important qualifiers when citing the 90 percent statistic, which originates from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The agency doesn't have statistics for all weapons in Mexico, where gun sales are largely prohibited; it is based on only guns that the Mexican government sent to the ATF for tracing and that the ATF found were traceable.