Free Republic

A popular Mexican musician who sang the praises of drug lords was shot dead in a parking lot in the west of the country, police said late Tuesday. Ernesto Barajas, a singer with the group Enigma Norteno, which has four million monthly listeners on Spotify, was gunned down in the city of Zapopan in Jalisco state. He is among several performers of so-called "narco-corridos" — a controversial sub-genre of regional music that celebrates the exploits of infamous drug cartels — to have been killed in recent months. In May, five members of the group Fugitivo were murdered by suspected drug...

Sinaloa is a Mexican state in northwest Mexico. To the west, it's the Pacific Ocean and to the east a couple of other states. The largest city is Culiacan, a city of about a million people and a place that most of us didn't hear much about until a famous cartel came into the news, i.e., the Sinaloa cartel. In recent days, bullets are flying in Sinaloa because the cartels are fighting each other for territory as well as angry over their leader’s capture. This is the story: August 10 was, for many in Mexico, a quiet Sunday like any...

It has been difficult for archaeologists to accurately estimate the ancient Maya population because so many of their settlements still remain undiscovered and obscured beneath the jungle canopy of the Yucatán Peninsula. According to a statement released by Tulane University, however, a recent study conducted by researchers concluded that the Maya civilization was probably much more populous than previously thought. Relying on new lidar data compiled across 36,700 square miles of the Maya Lowlands -- an area that comprises parts of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize -- the team suggests that during the Late Classic period (a.d. 600–900), the Maya population...

Six severed heads have been found by the side of the road in Mexico alongside a chilling message in an area where such brutal violence is rare, Mexican prosecutors said. The male remains were discovered by a road linking the central Mexican states of Puebla and Tlaxcala, prosecutors said on Tuesday. Alongside the heads was a pamphlet blaming the savage killings on the settling of scores between rival gangs, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. ... Both Puebla and Tlaxcala are usually considered among the safest states in Mexico to visit, with the US State Department designating them a...

Mexican boxer Julio Cesar Chavez Jr has entered a prison in the northern Mexico state of Sonora after his arrest in the United States in July, Mexico's national arrest registry showed on Tuesday. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum in her daily press conference said the 39-year-old been deported. She previously said there was a warrant for his arrest for charges of arms trafficking and organized crime, and that prosecutors were working on the case. SNIP Mexican prosecutors allege he acted as a henchman for the powerful Sinaloa Cartel, which Washington designated a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year. Chavez Jr's lawyer...

Federal agents raided a car wash in Culver City on Tuesday, taking into custody eight people there and nearly 30 overall in the Los Angeles area, according to reports. Handy J Car Wash at 12681 Washington Blvd. was targeted alongside a Home Depot and several other sites. ... In a statement, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said it was “a targeted immigration raid … that resulted in the arrest of eight illegal aliens from Honduras and Mexico.” She identified several of those arrested as well. “Esteban Leal-Ramirez illegally entered the country TWICE in 2007 and has been...

A man suspected in the 2008 slaying of Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Juan Escalante was among 26 fugitives the U.S. has taken into custody from Mexico, the Department of Justice announced. Escalante, 27, was shot and killed that August in front of his mother’s house in Cypress Park, leading to the arrest of multiple suspects and the search for Roberto Salazar, who was charged with murder although he had not been apprehended. In its news release on Tuesday, the DOJ listed Salazar among the fugitives sent to the U.S. from Mexico to face federal and state criminal charges from...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Mexico sent 26 high-ranking cartel figures to the United States Tuesday in the latest major deal with the Trump administration as American authorities ratchet up pressure on criminal networks smuggling drugs across the border. Those handed over to U.S. custody include Abigael González Valencia, a leader of “Los Cuinis,” a group closely aligned with notorious cartel Jalisco New Generation or CJNG. Another defendant, Roberto Salazar, is wanted in connection to the 2008 killing of a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy. Other prominent figures have ties to the Sinaloa Cartel and other violent drug trafficking groups. The transfers...

President Trump has ordered the military to use force against the drug cartels that he designated as terrorist organizations on his first day in office.The New York Times reported the development this morning, a day after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that a reward for the arrest of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro — also kingpin of the Cartel los Soles cartel — has doubled to $50 million dollars.Attacking the cartels was one of Trump’s key campaign promises. Border Czar Tom Homan said Trump would destroy them.DetailsNot yet published at the White House website, the “order provides an official basis...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities are accusing sportswear company Adidas of plagiarizing artisans in southern Mexico, alleging that a new sandal design is strikingly similar to the traditional Indigenous footwear known as huaraches.The controversy has fueled accusations of cultural appropriation by the footwear brand, with authorities saying this is not the first time traditional Mexican handicrafts have been copied. Citing these concerns, local authorities have asked Adidas to withdraw the shoe model.Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday that Adidas was already in talks with authorities in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca to provide “compensation for the people...

The family and friends of a Birmingham woman are pleading with the community to help them keep her in Alabama after she was detained this week during a traffic stop. “On the morning of Tuesday August 5th, Giovanna [Martinez] was driving to work when a Leeds officer pulled her over for going 1 mile over the speed limit,” reads a GoFundMe set up by her brother Dilan Hernandez to cover Martinez’s legal expenses. “What should have been a regular traffic stop, turned into something much worse as an ICE agent arrived closely thereafter. In less than an hour she was...

The Mexican government thought it hard turned a corner in cooperating with the Trump administration on combating the cartels, having launched an aggressive crackdown of its own.President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico denied that the United States would use its military in Mexico on Friday, responding to news that President Trump had directed the Pentagon to target drug cartels that the United States considers terrorist organizations. “The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military. We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out,” she said....

The president has ordered the Pentagon to use the armed forces to carry out what in the past was considered law enforcement.President Trump has secretly signed a directive to the Pentagon to begin using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels that his administration has deemed terrorist organizations, according to people familiar with the matter. The decision to bring the American military into the fight is the most aggressive step so far in the administration’s escalating campaign against the cartels. It signals Mr. Trump’s continued willingness to use military forces to carry out what has primarily been considered a...

President Trump is upping the ante against the terrorist drug cartels who have been poisoning America and endangering its citizens for decades in an unprecedented fashion. The New York Times reported Friday that Trump ‘secretly’ signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to start using military force against certain Latin American drug cartels. The order provides an official basis for the possibility of direct military operations at sea and on foreign soil against cartels. This means that US troops could find themselves in countries like Mexico battling the Sinaloa Cartel, for example. As TGP readers know, Trump has long floated the...

U.S. prosecutors said Tuesday they won't seek the death penalty in their cases against Mexican cartel kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Rafael Caro Quintero, the drug lord charged with orchestrating the 1985 killing of a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent. Caro Quintero, 72, and Zambada, 75, have pleaded not guilty to an array of drug trafficking charges. The prosecutions are separate, but they similarly target two of Mexico’s most notorious narcos. It is unclear whether taking the death penalty off the table signals any possibility of a plea deal with either or both men. Zambada's lawyer, Frank Perez, said...

The amount of money Mexico received in remittances fell 16.2% annually in June, the largest year-over-year decline for any month in more than a decade. Analysts partially attributed the sharp decline to fear of going out to work among Mexicans in the United States, where the U.S. government is pursuing an aggressive deportation agenda. The vast majority of remittances to Mexico are sent from the United States, where millions of Mexicans — both documented and undocumented — live and work. The Bank of Mexico (Banxico) reported on Friday that income from remittances totaled US $5.201 billion in June, down from...

Terrifying video footage shows the moment a prosecutor was ambushed and killed in the Mexican border city of Reynosa on Monday. Ernesto Vázquez was driving his black Cadillac Escalade when a gang of assassins launched their attack on him on Hidalgo Boulevard, brazenly tossing a grenade at the back of the vehicle during afternoon rush hour . While clearly in agonizing pain, Vázquez was able to get out of the vehicle on his own and crawled across the pavement. The assailants then pulled up in a white Ford Explorer and opened fire on the defenseless official. Additional video footage showed...

This editor picked up the language-learning app Babbel during a recent sale, and though he'd prefer to learn French, he picked Central American Spanish, figuring if the country is going to be taken over by illegal aliens from Central America, he'd better be prepared. His Spanish isn't good enough to translate this, although it's reported that Democrat Rep. Delia Ramirez told an audience at the second annual Panamerican Congress this weekend that she's a proud Guatemalan before she's an American. VIDEO AT LINK: Democrat Rep. Delia Ramirez at a summit in Mexico City this weekend tells the audience while speaking...

Ukraine counterintelligence investigates presence of sicarios on front line. [Spanish word for a hitman or a hired killer, especially in Latin American and Mexican drug cartels.] Ukraine's domestic intelligence suspects Spanish-speaking volunteers of infiltrating the International Legion to train in flying FPV drones. [First-Person View drones.] Some are reportedly linked to cartels and have been recruited through private military companies.

President Trump, on Thursday, extended the tariff pause on Mexico for another 90 days, in the hopes that a larger trade deal can be made. Mexico's President agreed to immediately suspend non-tariff trade barriers to secure the extended pause. The tariff rate will remain, with a 25 percent "fentanyl" tariff, a 25 percent tariff on cars, and a 50 percent tariff on steel, aluminum, and copper. .@PressSec: "Mexico has agreed to immediately terminate its non-tariff trade barriers, of which there are many. As the President said, we will continue to talk to Mexico over the next 90 days with the...