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A federal judge says a Mexican drug cartel accused in the gruesome killings of nine women and children from an offshoot Mormon community must pay $1.5 billion to the familiesA Mexican drug cartel accused in the gruesome killings of nine women and children from an offshoot Mormon community must pay $1.5 billion to the families, a federal judge from North Dakota ruled. The family members of the victims filed a lawsuit accusing the Juarez cartel of carrying out the November 2019 attack in Mexico as retribution for their public criticism and protests against the cartel. Cartel members fired hundreds of...

Despite the capture of Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, the criminal group continues to export "wholesale" quantities of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl through crossing points located along the Mexican-California border: AZ, NM, and W. Texas.... the Sinaloa cartel "maintains an international expansionary footprint" in comparison with other groups, says the Drug Control Administration (DEA) in its annual report on drug trafficking which was published this Friday. SINALOA- continues to export "wholesale" amounts of methamphetamine, marijuana, cocaine, heroin and fentanyl through crossing points located along the Mexican border .... These drugs are distributed in cities such as Chicago, Phoenix, Los...

There is one chair in the room, and they sit him in it. He pulls out his wallet. He's looking for a number. A phone number, an address. That is why he is here. Fernando the lawyer. Fernando the drug trafficker. He's got a load of marijuana, and they want it.Fernando thinks he's in the company of friends. He thinks this man standing in front of him, this Lalo, is going to deliver the marijuana for him to New York. That's what the numbers are for. They are contacts. They are the people Lalo will call, the people who are...

A recent surge in arrests and cocaine seizures in Peru points to an increased presence of Mexican drug cartels, counter-narcotics officials say. The cartels have also contributed to more drug-related violence in Peruvian cities, ports and in remote valleys in this Andean country where coca, cocaine's base material, is grown, the officials say. Peruvian claims of Mexican cartels expanding echo those by officials in other Latin American countries, from Honduras to Argentina, where Mexican gangs have supplanted once-powerful Colombian cartels as kings of the illicit-drug underworld. .... That Mexican drug lords are sending emissaries here is no surprise to Hidalgo...

He was part of the team that helped put one of Mexico's most violent drug lords behind bars – the same one who escaped from a Mexican maximum-security prison over the weekend. Tuesday, KOB talked to Michael Vigil, a former DEA agent from New Mexico who investigated Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman for years. Vigil says Guzman's escape is not good for the U.S., especially our state. He says Guzman wants to push out the Juarez Cartel and push more heroin through New Mexico. "Chapo Guzman has taken over that area and he controls most of the routes into the United...

A massacre at a drug rehab center last week helped push the number of homicides in the Mexican border city of Juarez to more than 800 this year as rival drug gangs battle for turf. On Wednesday a commando-style group fired a barrage of more than 60 rounds during a religious service at the drug rehab center, killing eight and wounding five. Five other people were killed elsewhere in the city on that day. More than 100 people have been killed so far in August in the war between the Sinaloa and Juarez drug cartels, which broke out in January,...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Drug cartels are sending a brutal message to police and soldiers in cities across Mexico: Join us or die. The threat appears in recruiting banners hung across roadsides and in publicly posted death lists. Cops get warnings over their two-way radios. At least four high-ranking police officials were gunned down this month, including Mexico's acting federal police chief. Mexico has battled for years to clean up its security forces and win them the public's respect. But Mexicans generally assume police and even soldiers are corrupt until proven otherwise, and the honest ones lack resources, training and...

Alleged gun smuggling leader arrested in TucsonBy: The Associated Press Updated at: 04/04/2008 02:16:41 PM PHOENIX (AP) - Arizona authorities have arrested a Tucson man accused of being the leader of a gun smuggling network that supplied a Mexican drug cartel with weapons. Authorities on Thursday announced the arrest of 23-year-old Victor Manuel Varela Jr., who is accused of supplying the Juarez cartel in Palomas, Mexico with rifles and guns. Tom Mangan, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, says Varela’s network illegally bought the firearms in Arizona, transported them to New Mexico and then took...

MEXICO CITY — Reputed drug kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman has launched a bloody offensive to control drug smuggling along the entire U.S.-Mexico border, Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca said today. Mexico's top law enforcement official said Guzman was behind a wave of violence that has killed hundreds of suspected smugglers, hit men, police, soldiers and civilians along the 2,000-mile border. "Definitely, he is the most active man in his group. He is trying to fight for the border corridors, trying to control places like Culiacan just like the rest of the communities of Sinaloa (state), and the border...

MONTERREY, Mexico - Mexico's Juarez cartel, once thought to be in decline after its former leader died after plastic surgery, has formed alliances to gain control of smuggling routes along nearly all of the U.S. border. Authorities believe it has even infiltrated President Vicente Fox's office. The cartel has become Mexico's most powerful drug gang,.... Sorry it's AP and that's one o fhte ones were supposed to excerpt as I recall.

MEXICAN DRUG TRAFFICKERS: A BYPRODUCT OF POOR BORDER SECURITY By Jim Kouri MichNews.com Dec 21, 2004 In the United States-Mexico experience, there are relevant lessons for countries engaged in cooperative counter narcotics efforts. The primary lesson learned is that the illegal drug market has metastasized at the cost of thousands of lost lives and billions of dollars. A second lesson is that bilateral and multilateral efforts are key in the crusade against drugs. The costs that the illegal drug trade imposes on the United States have been estimated at a staggering $70 billion each year. Mexican drug traffickers are the...

A Mexican federal police pass belonging to Juarez Cartel drug lord Vicente Carrillo Fuentes was found by the FBI inside a West El Paso luxury home. The find occurred during the search of the house of a former, unnamed girlfriend of Carrillo on Oct. 16, 2000, FBI officials said. The agency chose to release the information now to jump- start the investigation that lost momentum when FBI priorities shifted from drugs to counter-terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said Hardrick Crawford, the FBI special agent in charge in El Paso. Carrillo is wanted in the United States for...

MEXICO CITY - Reputed drug lord Osiel Cardenas was arrested Friday after a fierce firefight with Mexican soldiers, cutting short the career of a man so bold he once threatened U.S. federal agents, leading the FBI to offer a US$2 million reward for his capture. Allegedly the leader of the Gulf drug cartel and the third major drug boss to fall in the last year, Cardenas was arrested in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, Defense Secretary Gen. Gerardo Vega Garcia told a news conference. At least two Mexican soldiers were wounded, one seriously, in the shootout with Cardenas' gunmen, who...

The FBI's top man in El Paso, Hardrick Crawford Jr., retired "abruptly" Friday afternoon amid complaints against him by Mexican officials. Crawford, 54, declined Saturday to discuss specific reasons for his retirement after 23 years with the FBI, including the past two years as special agent in charge of the El Paso office. "I had think been thinking about retiring for over a year, and I decided to tender my resignation at this time to pursue private consulting," he said in a telephone interview. "I will remain in the El Paso area for now. That's all I want to say...