Federal authorities have said they were investigating whether some of the slain officers had ties to drug traffickers, and whether the killings were meant to settle scores between the Gulf and Sinaloa drug cartels. It is a priority of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Explosives and Firearms , to target these organizations that are responsible for transnational gun crime and violence” said ATF Assistant Special Agent in Charge Joshua Hernandez, Dallas Division. Mexican drug traffickers have begun videotaping their killings and carrying out beheadings, like Iraqi insurgents, to send a message to rival gangs or the government. In the city of Santa Catarina, Nuevo León, the Mexican Navy arrested José Ricardo Barajas López on 3 August 2012, another cartel member responsible for the massacre.
Eighteen heads were found along the dismembered bodies; some had been frozen, others were covered in lime, and the rest were found in an advanced state of decomposition. The Mexican authorities confirmed that a message was left behind by the killers, presumably from Los Zetas and the Milenio Cartel. The patrols ceased and Saucedo has been forced to lay low in his home village of Zangarro. His requests to the federal government for protection have so far gone unheeded, in a country where, over the last three years, 96 community, environmental or rights activists have been murdered. I was let down in the first few minutes,then when i realized the direction it was headed in it made for an interesting story.
The Gulf Cartel is one of the oldest and most powerful of Mexico’s cartels, but it’s lost a lot of ground in recent years to the Zetas, who were originally the Gulf Cartel’s muscle. They were believed to have been killed for refusing to pay a ransom or join the Zetas. In 2010, the Zetas killed 72 undocumented immigrant workers in the San Fernando massacre. The unprecedented backlash from US police led to the gang breaking up into different groups, with notorious El Chapo (“Shorty”) and his partner choosing to stay in Sinaloa. The gang members blamed Camarena for giving up information which led to an $8billion marijuana plantation being destroyed by authorities. It is an offshoot of the Guadalajara cartel, and they grew to international notoriety in 1985 when they kidnapped and murdered undercover DEA agent Kiki Camarena in 1985.
And last Saturday, Mexican customs intercepted a 26 tonne shipment of fentanyl — the most dangerous opioid known to man — which was being sent to the Sinaloa Cartel from China. With its vast resources, the group has been known to use Boeing 747s, narco submarines and container ships to move multiple-tonne shipments of cocaine, heroin and fentanyl into North America. The Sinaloa Cartel is known to favour dissolving the remains of their victims in vats of acid. So over 30 hours, they broke Camarena’s skull, jaw, nose, cheekbones and windpipe, injecting him with drugs to make sure he was conscious throughout the torture. And the bloodshed is spilling into affluent tourist hotspots including Mexico City and Cancun, where over half a million Brits holiday every summer.
A bullet through the back of the head, for example, signified that the victim was a traitor; a bullet through the temple, however, signified that the victim was member of a rival drug gang. Now, decapitation is a tactic often used by the criminal organizations in Mexico—primarily by Los Zetas and its two main rivals, the Gulf and Sinaloa cartels. The first public decapitation was carried out by La Familia Michoacana in September 2006, when several gunmen opened the doors of a bar in the Mexican state of Michoacán and threw five severed heads on the dance floor.
Cartel kingpin Nemesio Cervantes – or El Mencho – has become the United States’ new “most wanted” with a $10million bounty slapped on his head. Making sure that victims of federal crimes are treated with compassion, fairness and respect. axis 500 utv reviews EL PASO – A Mexican national was sentenced today to life in prison for his role in the Sinaloa Cartel’s narcotics distribution operations. The brewery which takes its name from a native plant local to the area is well worth a visit.
