Free Republic

Ciudad Juarez – An investigator with the Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office and her 5-year-old daughter were gunned down outside their house in Chihuahua city on Tuesday, Mexican officials said. Brenda Carrilla and her daughter were leaving the house when a group of gunmen traveling in at least two vehicles opened fire on them. Carrilla was killed instantly and the little girl died while being transported to a clinic, the AG's office said. One of the drug cartels that operate in Chihuahua left a message about a week ago on a street in Chihuahua city, the state capital, threatening to...

LA JOYA - With every pin of the badge and every zip of the uniform, a law officer knows his or her life is on the line. A new threat from Mexican cartels highlights that danger. The warning sends La Joya PD and other departments a message: the front line on the war on drugs is here, in the front seat of the patrol unit. La Joya police say they know they have a target on their back. It comes with the job. “For them to get the load across, they're going to do anything in their power, but of...

Colombia's armed forces say they have killed a Farc rebel leader who acted as the group's main contact with Mexico's drug cartels. The rebel known as Oliver Solarte controlled drugs and weapons smuggling operations in southern Colombia, President Juan Manuel Santos said. He died in an attack on rebel positions near the border with Ecuador. It is the latest in a series of blows to the guerrillas, who have lost many of their top leaders in recent years.Farc setbacks President Santos said the death of Oliver Solarte was an "important blow" to the left-wing group. ""I want to tell them...

Hoping for public help to bring to justice fugitives behind one of San Jose's bloodiest crimes, police Tuesday released a graphic video captured by security cameras at the Mexicali Club earlier this year during a deadly kidnap attempt. The bar invasion left three dead, one badly wounded and the getaway driver and a mystery man in a bulletproof vest on the run. The video shows an unidentified suspect grappling with the owner of the bar as he attempts to yank him at gunpoint from the club into a waiting SUV. Toward the end of the video, the club owner --...

(CNN) -- Two additional suspects have surfaced in the fatal shooting of an American man on a lake that straddles the United States and Mexico last September, Zapata County Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez told CNN. David Hartley was allegedly shot on the Mexican side of Falcon Lake. He and his wife, Tiffany, were on personal watercraft on the lake when gunmen opened fire on them, authorities say. The killing remains unsolved. Gonzalez said officials would not release the new suspects' names.

In Texas, nearly 8,200 farms and ranches back up to the Mexican border. The men and women who live and work on those properties say they’re under attack from the same drug cartels blamed for thousands of murders in Mexico. “It’s a war, make no mistake about it,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples said. “And it’s happening on American soil.” Texas farmers and ranchers produce more cotton and more cattle than any other state, so Staples is concerned this war could eventually impact our food supply, and calls it a threat to our national security. “Farmers and ranchers are being...

Beheaded Man in Chandler, Arizona Killed by Mexican Drug Cartel Police in Chandler, Arizona reported that a decapitated body found in a Chandler, Arizona apartment was murdered after stealing 400 pounds of marijuana drug cartel.

It is hard to remember a more important meeting between the president of Mexico and the United States. U.S.-Mexico relations are at boiling point as both nations prepare for an Obama-Calderón summit meeting in Washington on Wednesday and Thursday that would include conversations on controversial issues such as Mexico's drug war, diplomatic cable leaks, the influx of U.S. arms and a wave of anti-immigration initiatives in the United States. These issues are all taking a toll on the border nations relationship that had shown steady improvement in the recent years. As President Felipe Calderón prepares for an official visit to...

As if the threat of deadly drug cartels in Mexico wasn't enough, some of them are joining forces with Middle East terror groups. "Hezbollah are absolute masters at identifying existing smuggling infrastructures," says former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun, adding that the group "is developing relations with those responsible for operating those smuggling operations and then forming close relations with them, so that they can move anything they have an interest into virtually anywhere in the world." That comment comes from former DEA Chief of Operations Mike Braun. He goes on to tell me that the Middle East terror...

ACAPULCO, Mexico – A spate of attacks on taxis in the Mexican resort city of Acapulco has left 12 taxi drivers or passengers dead, police said Sunday, just hours before the Mexican Open tennis tournament is scheduled to start. Acapulco has been the scene of bloody drug cartel turf wars, and taxi drivers have often been targeted for extortion or recruited by the gangs to act as lookouts or transport drugs.

Here is our 2 billionth "wake up call" about Mexico and drug cartel violence. Just how many more do we need before we truly wake up and aggressively face this issue????? Now the cartels are hiring people to assassinate in the USA! (Mr. President, please listen to your Secretary of State Hillary Clinton! She is right about Mexico and you are wrong. Mexico is like Colombia of 20 years ago...and it is inching into our country.) --- Three arrested in Palmdale, CA were found with 2 AR-15s and a thousand rounds of ammo.... Lieutenant in the Arrellano Felix sought for...

Thugs working for Mexican drug cartels kidnapped the 12-year-old daughter of a ranch foreman in New Mexico, holding the girl for ransom until her family and neighbors came up with $80,000 for her release. They didn’t dare call law enforcement for help because of very real fears their calls would be monitored by the kidnappers using sophisticated communications relay stations erected on U.S. public lands. That was one of the most shocking stories four congressmen heard last week while visiting hot spots along the New Mexico, Arizona and Texas border, where specific American law enforcement officers are being targeted for...

Last week, Mexican authorities seized over 23 tons of ethyl phenylacetate, which is used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. The drug component was discovered at the Pacific port of Manzanillo, in a shipment from China. In April 2010, Mexican officials seized 80 tons of phenylacetic acid and its derivatives shipped from Shanghai, China. Imports of ethyl phenylacetate require authorization from the country’s health ministry, so the shipments are intentionally mis-labeled before leaving China. Last year, an anonymous U.S. official told Reuters that between October and November 2010, Mexican authorities seized 818 tons of chemicals used in making crystal meth. Due...

Mexican military patrols were on the lookout Tuesday for a group of Zeta gunmen that had entered Matamoros with plans to carry out several attacks. Locals reported seeing the military convoys, which were larger and more heavily armed than usual, patrol the city keeping an eye on high-profile vehicles. A source with firsthand knowledge of criminal activity in Tamaulipas stated that a group of approximately 50 Zetas were able to enter the city and hide amid the confusion of the weekend fighting between the Zetas, the Gulf Cartel and the Mexican military. On Monday afternoon, the source confirmed a clash...

The news that several major Cruise Lines are leaving California and/or cutting back cruises to the “Mexican Riviera” presented a dilemma to the media. The story caught them between two facts, neither of which they wanted to report. They tried quarantining it and smothering the story to mitigate the damage to California’s Democrat, but they had to explain why the lines were leaving the Ports of San Diego and Los Angeles. It was a genuine lose – lose for the steno pool. Nevertheless, here’s the elements of this story not being reported. Why they’re sailing away The first reason the...

Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, 53, is arguably the world's most infamous drug trafficker, and has extended his empire from Colombia to China since he broke out of prison in a laundry van on January 19, 2001....... PACT WITH THE DEVIL? Amid the mayhem of severed heads and blood-stained streets, Guzman and his right-hand man Ismael Zambada have adeptly taken territory from gangs weakened by army operations while bringing in raw materials from China to make meth, using Africa as a route for cocaine into Europe, and growing their business in Colombia and across Central America. "In the past five years, the...

The new year 2011 and lack of confidence in the tax policies of incoming governor Jerry Brown brings devastating news to Southern California. The progressive tax-and-spend policies of Democrat-run California government have chased another lucrative business out of the state. The open-borders, do-nothing immigration policy of the Obama administration claims the runner-up prize for this economic blow to an already-reeling economy in San Diego. The major cruise lines have just announced they are leaving San Diego, California to make NEW home ports in Texas, Florida and Australia. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that Texas and Florida don’t have state...

<p>GUATEMALA CITY – Men claiming to belong to the Zetas drug gang forced radio stations to broadcast a threat of war in a northern Guatemalan province where the government declared a state of siege last week, authorities said Tuesday.</p> <p>The men arrived at three radio stations in the northern city of Coban and threatened to burn the premises down and kill journalists and their families if the message was not broadcast...</p>

Joseph Proctor told his girlfriend he was popping out to the convenience store in the quiet Mexican beach town where the couple had just moved, intending to start a new life. The next morning, the 32-year-old New York native was dead inside his crashed van on a road outside Acapulco. He had multiple bullet wounds. An AR-15 rifle lay in his hands.... Three soldiers have been charged with killing her son. Two have been charged with planting the assault rifle in his hands and claiming falsely that he fired first, according to a Mexican Defense Department document...

Mexico has belatedly discovered that its criminal syndicates have become so powerful that they directly threaten the state. In fact, Mexico hovers on the brink of becoming a narco-state. Its criminal syndicates control the Mexican side of the Texas/Mexico border and the smuggling of drugs and illegal immigrants into Texas. Their influence and reach have crossed the Rio Grande River in ways that many politicians and media prefer to not acknowledge. Caught in this crossfire are ranchers trying to protect their property and their way of life. Here are some of the problems they face daily. The criminal organizations To...