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MEXICO CITY -- The U.S. Embassy in Mexico says two Americans have been slain outside the northern industrial city of Monterrey, an area plagued by drug violence. It identifies them as John and Wanda Casias. The embassy says the former Amarillo, Texas, couple's family has been notified and it is providing relatives consular services. The embassy hasn't confirmed reports that the killing happened Tuesday. Its statement provides no other details. Valerie Alirez in Greeley, Colo., is John Casias' eldest child. She says he and his wife were found dead Tuesday in Santiago, Nuevo Leon, by one of her brothers.

On Sunday, I wrote a story detailing the presence of the La Familia cartel in Austin, and in particular a group led by men from the central Mexican region of Luvianos.On Monday, after reading the story, officials with the Austin Independent School District canceled a scheduled football game between Travis High and the team from Monterrey Tech, citing safety concerns. If the game really was nixed simply on the basis of our story, it struck me as a curious decision. While I tried to explain how and why La Familia came to use Austin as a distribution hub, the presence...

MEXICO CITY -- Police have arrested a former Mexican professional wrestler accused of being one of the four members of the Zetas drug cartel who planned the casino arson that killed 52 people. Jose Alberto Loera is also known for his Lucha Libre name "El Voltaje" or "Voltage." Federal police regional security official Luis Cardenas Palomino said 28-year-old Loera was captured with two other men Tuesday in northern Mexico and flown to Mexico City where he was shown to the news media. He is the 12th suspect to be arrested in the case. Six others remain at large. Gunmen entered...

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...

Vice President of Intelligence Fred Burton demonstrates how video surveillance footage is used to reconstruct the recent arson attack in Monterrey, Mexico. Editor’s Note: Transcripts are generated using speech-recognition technology. Therefore, STRATFOR cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. In this week’s Above the Tearline, we’re going to show you how agents utilize video surveillance tape to reconstruct the crime using the recent casino fire in Monterrey, Mexico, as an example. Let’s take a look at the first video, which takes place before the crime occurs............

MONTERREY, Mexico — At least 22 people were killed in a string of attacks in Mexico, authorities said Sunday, including a shooting at a bar in Monterrey just hours after the opening of soccer's Under-17 World Cup. Gunmen stormed the bar in Mexico's third largest city late Saturday and "executed three people," wounded another, and kidnapped a security guard at the bar who was later found dead, an official of Nuevo Leon state's investigation agency told AFP. Four other people, 18-25 years old, were killed Sunday morning in Guadalupe, a city adjacent to Monterrey. "The victims were gathering in front...

CUERNAVACA, Mexico — Police found the bodies of six men and one woman inside a car abandoned Monday in an exclusive gated community near the picturesque central Mexican city of Cuernavaca. A shootout between rival gangs in the northern city of Monterrey killed two men, including a hot dog vendor caught in the cross fire, state police said. Three others were injured, including a 2-year-old and the child's father. In western Michoacan state, the bodies of two men were found with messages from a new drug gang (The Knights Templar) that has been taking responsibility for recent killings in the...

In Monterrey, Mexico, an armed commando stole the body of a TV personality moments after another commando had dropped the body on a street near a narco message. Jose Luis “La Gata” Cerda Melendez was found dead Friday morning along Miguel De La Madrid Boulevard, according to information released by the Nuevo Leon Attorney General’s Office. Cerda was reported missing Thursday evening after he was picked up near the Televisa station in Monterrey by a group of hooded gunmen. He was host of the show called “El Club.” Authorities didn’t release the content of the message, which was scrawled on...

<p>GUADALAJARA, Mexico — Suspected drug cartel gunmen hurled grenades, burned vehicles and blocked streets in a rapid series of attacks in Mexico's second-largest city, authorities said Wednesday.</p> <p>The seven attacks within two hours late Tuesday appear to have been coordinated, and were staged by drug gangs, possibly in retaliation for the arrests of their members, said Fernando Guzman Perez, interior secretary of Jalisco state, where the city of Guadalajara is located. A policeman and two transportation workers were injured in the attacks.</p>

MONTERREY, Mexico — Mexican authorities say six bodies found outside the northern city of Monterrey were burned so badly that investigators couldn't determine the cause of death or the victims' gender. A Nuevo Leon state prosecutors' spokeswoman says the bodies were found on a dirt road north of the city Sunday morning and bore the hallmarks of cartel killings. The spokeswoman said cartels have been known to burn bodies to prevent identification and to terrorize rivals.

MCALLEN - Despite violence in Mexico, Executive recruiters say they're having no problems filling top jobs. One employee CHANNEL 5 NEWS spoke with says there's not much attention paid to the security issues. Thousands of Americans cross the border every d(a)y to go to work. "I know there have been loses of key managers here and there due to concerns. I would say most managers still go to Reynosa to work every day," says Mike Willis. Willis is the Vice President of Business Partnerships for Workforce Solutions. He says despite the violence, there's several U.S. Companies looking to relocate into...

The pair traveled to Monterrey to visit family. About a mile over the border at the busy intersection of Boulevard Luis Donaldo Colosi and Vincent Guerrero Avenue around dusk.The couple waited at a red light when all of a sudden a sedan blocked them."Two doors on one side opened and all I could see was four or five guys with guns," the husband said."I heard 'get out of the car or I'll kill you guys,'" the wife said.The couple got out of their four-door pickup truck. Before the thieves pulled off, they directed the couple to remove their two dogs...

A Mexican marine and three alleged Zeta cartel members were killed in a gunfight Thursday night in a suburb of Monterrey. The Secretary of the Navy-Marines (SEMAR) reported that they were investigating a citizen call in Santa Catarina, just east of Monterrey. The Mexican Marines said they found several people inside two cars acting “suspiciously,” when they were attacked with grenades and firearms. In the gunfight that ensued, the Mexican marines said one of their soldiers was killed and three others were wounded with non-life threatening injuries. Three alleged Zeta cartel members were also killed. Two died when their car...

(CNN) -- At least three grenades exploded near the U.S. consulate in Monterrey, Mexico late Friday, a consulate employee told CNN Saturday. The closest blast was within 40 meters (44 yards) of the consulate, spokesperson Brian Quigley said. He did not offer many more details, but Justin Davis, a consulate duty officer, said the series of explosions occurred over the course of an hour, starting at 8 p.m. local time. Davis said there were no reports of deaths or injuries of Americans or any damage to U.S. property, though a few cars in the area were damaged. Shrapnel injured the...

MONTERREY, Mexico — Soldiers opened fire on a family's car at a military checkpoint in northern Mexico, killing a 15-year-old boy and his father, authorities and relatives said Monday. It is at least the second time this year that a family has been caught up in a shooting involving Mexico's military, which has come under intense criticism for human rights abuses as soldiers fight brutal drug cartels. Javier Trevino, Nuevo Leon state lieutenant governor, said soldiers apparently shot at the car when the driver failed to stop at the checkpoint Sunday on the highway connecting the northeastern city of Monterrey...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Suspected drug hitmen killed the mayor of a small town in northern Mexico on Sunday in a region where two car bombs exploded last week and the bodies of 72 murdered migrant workers were found. Mayor Marco Antonio Leal was shot dead by gunmen in SUVs as he drove through his rural municipality of Hidalgo near the Gulf of Mexico in Tamaulipas state, the local attorney general's office said. Leal's 4-year-old daughter was slightly wounded in the attack, a spokesman said. It was not immediately clear why Leal was targeted, but Tamaulipas has become one of Mexico's...

MONTERREY, Mexico – The U.S. Consulate is warning Americans who travel to Monterrey they face a greater risk of being kidnapped. The warning was issued after the possible kidnapping attempt of a college student. Last Friday, a firefight broke out outside the American School Foundation of Monterrey, located in the upscale suburb of Santa Catarina. Early reports say the kidnapping attempt triggered the gunbattle. Now officials believe it was a case of mistaken identity. The incident is raising new concerns about the danger of being kidnapped and held for ransom in Mexico. Organized criminal groups like the Zetas are trying...

REYNOSA — At least six people are reportedly dead after several vehicles exploded during an apparent shootout Tuesday evening. Gunfire and explosions erupted about 5 p.m. Tuesday along the highway between Monterrey and Reynosa on the city’s far west side, near the Anzalduas International Bridge, sources said. Apparently slain in the battle were two Mexican army soldiers and four suspected drug cartel members who were burned to death inside an SUV. A woman was also reportedly shot in the rear end and was rushed to an area hospital for surgery, a source said. The apparent explosions along the Reynosa-Monterrey highway...

MONTERREY, Mexico—A surge of drug violence in Mexico's business capital and richest city has prompted an outcry from business leaders who on Wednesday took out full-page ads asking President Felipe Calderón to send in more soldiers to stem the violence. The growing violence in Monterrey, long one of Mexico's most modern and safe cities, is a sign that the country's war against drug gangs is spreading ever further from poorer battlegrounds along the border and into the country's wealthiest enclaves.

MONTERREY Mexico (Reuters) - Mexican security forces found the body of a slain mayor near Mexico's affluent city of Monterrey on Wednesday, days after he was abducted by drug hitmen, officials and local media said. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, in a posting on his Twitter account, said he was sorry about the "cowardly assassination" of Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos, the mayor of a popular tourist town on the outskirts of Monterrey, a major industrial center with close U.S. business links. "The murder of Edelmiro is an outrage and forces us to redouble our efforts to fight these cowardly criminals," Calderon wrote....

Mexican media outlets are reporting grenade attacks at Televisa television studios in Matamoros and Monterrey. The El Norte newspaper reported the attack in it's on-line edition reported that the Matamoros attack took place after 9 p.m. Saturday. The El Milenio newspaper reported that the Monterrey attack took place after 1 a.m. Sunday. El Norte reported that that grenade was thrown from a car and landed on the roof of the Matamoros Televisa buildng causing damage but no injuries. El Milenio reported that a single grenade was thrown at the Monterrey Televisa building damaging a truck parked outside. The newspaper reported...

Police in Mexico say members of a drug cartel blocked off at least 13 major roads in Monterrey on Saturday. Drivers were dragged out of their vehicles by armed men and their cars used to cut off the roads in the north-eastern city. The blockade happened after a shootout between the Mexican army and alleged members of a drug cartel, in which four people were killed.

SNIPPET: "MEXICO CITY -- Investigators said Saturday they have found 51 corpses in two days of digging in a field near a trash dump outside the northern city of Monterrey, as excavations continued at one of the largest clandestine body dumping grounds in Mexico's bloody drug war." SNIPPET: "The largest mass grave found in recent years was discovered in May in the southern city of Taxco, where a total of 55 bodies were dumped in an abandoned mine shaft, apparently by a drug gang."

MEXICO CITY — Authorities found the remains of at least 18 people in a series of pits and scattered on the ground at a suspected drug-gang dumping site near the industrial hub of Monterrey in northern Mexico, an official said Friday. Investigators were using heavy equipment to search for more bodies at the rural site outside Mexico's third-largest city, local media said. Photographs showed charred spots on the soil suggesting some bodies may have been partially burned. The state attorney general's office in Nuevo Leon state, where Monterrey is located, said more heavy equipment was being brought in to search...

REYNOSA — Two gunmen were killed and two soldiers injured after the gunmen attacked Mexican soldiers on patrol in Reynosa early Tuesday morning, according to a news release from the Mexican Defense Ministry. The Mexican military seized 18 military-style uniforms made in North America, four vehicles, two rifles, 44 ammunition magazines and 1,052 rounds of ammunition after the shootout ended. Attacks on the Mexican military along the border are not uncommon. On April 1, 18 gunmen were killed in Reynosa after staging several attacks on the Mexican military, and in May a weekend of violent shootouts left six dead and...

Mexican authorities are blaming a captured Zetas drug cartel leader as being the mastermind behind an attack on an American Consulate in Monterrey. The Mexican Army (SEDENA) captured Hector Raul Luna-Luna during an operation in Monterrey on Wednesday. Authorities reported that Luna-Luna, who also goes by the nickname “El Tory”, is the head of the operations for the Zetas in the northern Mexican city. Luna-Luna’s captured prompted a series of “narcoblockades” and chaos in Monterrey on Wednesday evening. The Mexican Army reports that Luna-Luna is responsible for numerous attacks against military personnel and even an attack on the American Consulate...

They head the transportation department of the affluent city, which has seen drug-trafficking violence rise sharply. Reporting from Mexico City —Two senior officials from the local government of Monterrey were kidnapped within 24 hours, authorities said Monday, the latest sign of deteriorating security in Mexico's most affluent city. The northern industrial hub was until recently relatively free of the drug-trafficking violence engulfing other parts of Mexico. But warfare between gangs is now taking its toll in Monterrey and its tony suburbs. Both kidnapped officials ran the city's transportation department, which controls roadways, truck routes and car registrations, a division that...

MONTERREY — With its superhighways, gleaming skyscrapers, fancy art museums and leafy plazas, Monterrey has always been safe — so safe, in fact, that drug lords chose to park their families here. Life in Monterrey represented another Mexico, cozily above the national fray of violence and disintegration. No scruffy border city or remote, drug-infested outpost, Monterrey is Mexico’s wealthiest city, its economic engine, the center of textile, food-processing, beer and construction industries — a modern, sophisticated metropolis where per-capita gross domestic product is twice the national average. The drug lords’ families took advantage of the country’s best schools and top-of-the-line...

MEXICO CITY (BNO NEWS) -- A large cargo plane crashed near Monterrey International Airport in northern Mexico on late Tuesday, killing at least several people, reports said. The Airbus A300 belonging to AeroUnion went down shortly after 11 p.m. local time and crashed near the airport, causing a major traffic chaos. The Milenio newspaper reported that five crew members were believed dead. The newspaper reported that most of the aircraft crashed on the grounds of the airport, although a turbine and wing fell off and landed on a highway near the airport. There were conflicting reports on if there were...

Note: Photo included. SNIPPET: "MEXICO CITY – The deputy police chief in the northern Mexican border city of Nogales was killed along with his bodyguard, Sonora state police said Friday. Adalberto Padilla and bodyguard Ivan Sepulveda were shot Thursday night while traveling in a police vehicle. The assailants were described as men inside an SUV who opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, the weapon of choice for Mexico’s drug cartels. A 16-year-old bystander was wounded during the attack in the city just across the border from Nogales, Arizona." SNIPPET: "In other drug-related violence, a local police chief and his brother...

The U.S. Consulate in Monterrey is urging travelers to not use the highway between Nuevo Laredo and Monterey. The warning is for all forms of ground transportation including private cars and commercial busses. In the warning the consulate cited "a deterioration of the security situation of the border region," citing the gun battles and grenade attacks at the police station in Nuevo Laredo. The consulate has also halted non-essential travel for government employees. The warning also applies to the highway between Reynosa and Monterrey. For those that must travel the consulate says morning and early afternoon travel is the safest...

MEXICO CITY — In a hair-raising standoff that sent motorists scrambling for cover, municipal police pulled their guns on masked federal agents in one of Mexico's biggest cities — a stark display of the tensions caused by a crackdown on drug corruption among the country's lawmen. Federal forces are leading sweeps across the country to round up local officers and politicians accused of collaborating with brutal drug cartels. Many city police are furious at seeing colleagues disarmed, humiliated and dragged away in handcuffs. Monday evening's confrontation started when federal police showed up to disperse city officers who were protesting the...

MEXICO CITY — Soldiers captured one of Mexico's most-wanted drug smugglers, whose nickname "la burra" — female donkey — belies his power as the alleged trafficker controlling drugs flowing through the northern city of Monterrey. Authorities announced the arrest of Hector Huerta Rios on Wednesday, just hours before U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for a two-day visit to discuss security issues and U.S. support for Mexico's battle against the drug cartels. Clinton is scheduled to travel to Monterrey on Thursday. Huerta Rios was detained Tuesday in a suburb of Monterrey, said Army Gen. Luis Arturo Oliver. He was...

Grenades used in three recent attacks in Monterrey, Mexico, and Pharr, Texas, all originated from the same lot delivered from South Korea... That the grenade used in the third attack reportedly came from Mexico indicates that in addition to the well-known path of weapons flowing from the United States into Mexico, arms also are flowing from Mexico into the United States. The first of the three attacks targeted the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey, Mexico. In the second incident, again in Monterrey, gunmen attacked a local TV station on Jan. 12 in an attempt to intimidate the news agency into cutting...

MONTERREY, Mex. -- Masked gunmen opened fire and tossed a grenade at a Mexican television station during its newscast Tuesday night. The two news anchors asked for help from police on the air. It was a stark warning from drug gangs about the station's drug coverage. No injuries were reported, but it was the latest in a series of attacks on journalists covering drug cartels in Mexico. Witnesses say the masked gunmen arrived in two pickup trucks and opened fire during the station's evening newscast. There was a message left outside the station saying "Stop reporting only about us; also...

MONTERREY, Mexico — The U.S. Consulate General in Monterrey suspended visa service Thursday as combat-ready police surrounded the building after reports of nearby gunfire. The midday mobilization came just four days after two assailants attacked the consulate with at least six .45-caliber gunshots and a hand grenade that did not detonate. “I have made the decision to suspend visa services to the public for the rest of the day today while we assess the security situation,” Tony Garza, U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said in a statement Thursday. The shooting came less than 24 hours after Garza visited the consulate to...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Assailants opened fire on the U.S. consulate in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, a Mexican official said. Nobody was injured in Sunday's shooting. Shell casings were found outside the consulate, but there were no witnesses to the attack and no one was in custody, said a spokeswoman for the Attorney General's office who was not authorized to give her name. The spokeswoman had no further details. Mexican media reported that one man opened fire on the consulate and another man threw a grenade that failed to explode. El Universal newspaper, citing a U.S. Embassy statement, said...

A car plowed into a bike race along a highway near the US-Mexico border, killing one and injuring 10 others. Police investigator Jose Alfredo Rodriguez says the 28-year-old driver was apparently drunk ... A photograph taken by a city official shows bicyclists and equipment being hurled high in to the air...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Suspected Mexican drug hit men dumped the head of a murdered man on top of a car in the street, police said on Friday, in a rare outrage in the wealthy city of Monterrey. The head, found on Thursday night on the roof of a car parked in a middle-class residential area, had a written message next to it signed by the Gulf cartel, the country's most violent drug organization. The ears were chopped off, a senior state police officer told reporters on condition of anonymity. Mexican drug gangs, engaged in a bitter fight with each other...

MEXICO CITY — A federal police commander escaped killers near Monterrey on Tuesday as authorities in Mexico City pursued leads in a plot to assassinate more top police officials. For the first time, Mexico's warring drug gangs are training their guns on the heads of the nation's security forces. Under siege from an unprecedented federal anti-narcotics campaign, the gangs are switching from bribes to bullets in defending their lucrative smuggling routes to the United States. The result is three police commanders killed in the capital since May 1, including Edgar Millan, who as commissioner of the 30,000-member federal police led...

Operator had 19 citations; owner settled $3.3 million suit The operator of the bus that crashed in Victoria, killing one person and injuring dozens others, has been cited 19 times in the past three years, and the bus owner settled a lawsuit for $3.3 million two years ago with victims in a similar wreck, records show. Capricorn Bus Lines, which once operated under the name Flores Charter and Tours, settled a Houston lawsuit involving a 2002 crash in Nuevo Laredo. In that incident, plaintiffs claimed negligence by the company and the inattentiveness of the driver caused the bus to roll...

EL PASO, Texas -- According to the U.S. State Department, crime in Mexico continues at high levels, and it is often violent, especially in Mexico City, Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, and Monterrey. Some Borderland residents said they do not cross the border for safety reasons. “I don't like to go. I rather stay here in the states where I know I'm safer,” said Crystal Villalba of the Lower Valley. “I don’t go because my parents don’t let me. They say, ‘You're going to die or they're going to kidnap you,’” said Miguel Zavala of Horizon. U.S. citizen who are...

MONTERREY, Mexico – Gunmen murdered a police chief in the central Mexican state of San Luis Potosi Thursday as he drove to a restaurant with his family, the latest killing in a spike in drug violence in Mexico. A group of men shot dead state police chief Jaime Flores in a daylight ambush in the city of San Luis Potosi, destroying his SUV vehicle and leaving 40 bullet casings on the street, the state attorney general's office said. “We believe drug gangs were behind this,” said a spokesman who declined to be named. Flores' wife and two children survived the...

Official Mexican government reports reveal Mexico has entered discussions with the state of Texas and top officials in the Bush administration to extend the Trans-Texas Corridor into Mexico, with a plan to connect through Monterrey to the deep-water Mexican ports on the Pacific, including Manzanillo and Lazaro Cardenas. The official website of the Mexican northeastern state of Nuevo León contain multiple reports that José Natividad Gonzáles Parás, governor of the Mexican state of Nuevo León, has actively discussed with numerous U.S. government officials, including Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the...

MONTERREY, Mexico — Two federal police officers were shot dead Tuesday and two more were injured by gunfire in yet another attack on law enforcers in this violence-torn metropolis. The officers met a hail of high-caliber gunfire around 10 a.m. at a gas station close to a Holiday Inn Express near the center of the city. A least 100 shell casings littered the street around the scene. Their deaths bring to about 30 the number of officers killed in the Monterrey area this year in attacks blamed on organized crime. Authorities did not immediately release names of the officers or...

MONTERREY, Mexico — Two Iraqis traveling to the United States were arrested Monday at the Monterrey International Airport with fake Swiss passports, authorities said. The two men, who said they were Chaldean Christians ages 25 and 30, were fleeing discrimination in war-torn Iraq, said Luis Robles, a Mexican immigration official. "They behaved a little strangely, so they were sent for a secondary interrogation," Robles said. The men were headed to California, where one man said he had a sister, Robles said. There are sizable communities of Iraqi Christians in the state. The arrests marked the second time this year that...

MONTERREY — A billboard in Monterrey hangs high above the highway to Reynosa, alerting motorists that not everyone on this side of the border agrees with putting a wall between the two countries. The billboard reads “McAllen rechaza el muro fronteriza” or McAllen rejects the border wall. It’s just part of a multi-pronged attack city and business officials in the Rio Grande Valley are mounting to convince neighbors in Mexico that the area is still open to their visits — and their money. With the background of a "No Border Wall" poster, McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez visited Monterrey Wednesday to...

Nearly four weeks without an organized crime-related killing ended early Saturday with what police described as the third attempted hit this year on a suburban police chief. Guadalupe Police Chief Candelario Juárez Ríos escaped the attack unscathed, but an officer, who acted as a bodyguard for Juárez, died from multiple high-caliber gunshot wounds. It was the third attempt on Juárez's life since April. The shooting came after a monthlong lull in gang-related attacks that have claimed more than 80 lives this year in Monterrey, the embattled industrial metropolis of northeastern Mexico, which is about 120 miles south of Laredo. More...

Calderon calls for tests and new parks as part of his initiative MONTERREY, Mexico — Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday launched a new phase of his anti-narcotics crusade that will include the drug testing of students in more than 8,000 schools nationwide. Calderon's initiative is seen as recognition of a growing problem among Mexican adolescents. Many Mexicans, including police and other officials, have long seen drug trafficking as an American problem, limiting the public's support for combating the problem. "Society is demanding a coordinated response from the authorities to confront this social cancer," Calderon said at a junior high...