SECRETO A VOCES This is a column I wrote, appearing last week in my paper, The News of Mexico City. As soon as they get their Web site up, I’ll start linking to them. The federal agent laughs a little, sloshing the dregs of beer around in his glass in a border bar. “You need to quit this talk about Chapo working with the CIA,” he says. “We’ve got bigger problems. These politicos gunning each other down, holy shit. What the hell’s going on in this place?” He’s right, and wrong. It’s been a crazy few weeks along this border. First the rumors that a three-ton cocaine seizure belonging to the Sinaloan, Joaquín “Shorty” Guzmán, was being flown around in a plane belonging to the CIA. Then a hen-pecking party for former President Vicente Fox, linking him to the deaths of 21 Pemex workers after an oil rig accident in the Gulf. Then someone takes a shot at former Agua Prieta, Sonora, mayor-turned PAN congressman David Figueroa. The PAN-ista should take up gambling after these hit attempts, how many times has someone tried to kill him and his family now? Not to be outdone, Fox fired back at PRI Senator Manlio Fabio Beltrones, saying the Drug Enforcement Administration has a record on the leading senator connecting him to narco-trafficking. The New York Times scored a Pulitzer Prize in 1997 when they profiled the DEA’s information on Beltrones. It’s always seemed sketchy to me though. So much so, that I once had the chance to ask Willburn Sears about it. Sears is retired now, but in the 1990s, he was a DEA agent working in Sonora, back in the day when Amado Carrillo Fuentes ran the show and Beltrones was the Sonoran governor. “We never had any hard evidence,” he said when I spoke to him. The customary walrus mustache twitched a little as he grinned, recalling his fiascos with William Francisco, the head U.S. Consul in Hermosillo and the main source of the Times’ story. “We would get information and we’d have to sit back and analyze it. Okay, in what context is this information coming to us? I told Francisco, ‘I would love to write something on Beltrones if I could get something a little bit above a rumor!’ If I could get something to back it up with.” Quíen sabe. But there you have it; America's most powerful newspaper vinculates the Sonoran governor to the world's most powerful drug lord and the DEA agent watching it all happen says he never had much hard evidence to go on. (So where's my Pulitzer?) Then there’s the little matter of a certain aircraft captured a few weeks ago by the Mexican military. It seems this aircraft had passed through a few people before ending up in the hands of the Sinaloans. According to its FAA registration number, N987SA, the plane is registered to Donna Blue Aircraft out of Florida. With a (415) 555-5555 phone number, it’s not hard to figure that this company was merely a front. Low-key chatter about that plane says it’d been flown three times to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, from the U.S. so the first thing that comes to mind, I guess, is CIA. Admittedly a bit of a stretch but sprinkled with little seeds of truth that are fun to think about in the middle of the night in Nogales, Ariz. “Let it go,” my federal agent says. “It ain’t true.” But my paranoid mind starts to wander. It occurs to me I’ve never seen his badge and he doesn’t wear a uniform of any kind. Who’s he work for? “How come I’ve never seen your credentials?” I asked him. He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never seen yours either.” Quite a piece of political theatre, two politicians trying to out each other with organized crime and tragedies while someone tries to kill a third one; meanwhile shady drug planes crashing around us. The whole thing reminds me of a column Jesús Blancornelas once wrote: “Everybody against everybody, they’re killing each other,” he wrote. “Before when they’d fight, or when they were arrested, the narco-traffickers wouldn’t respond with bullets or vengeance … Now, we maintain this hypothesis: the war will continue.” But that was three years ago and it continues without him now; we’re coming up on a year since his death. It’s going to be a quiet anniversary too; I haven’t heard of any plans to memorialize the Zeta Tijuana journalist. I think that may have something to do with the timing of his death. Blancornelas passed away at about the same time Valentín Elizalde, El Gallo de Oro, was gunned down in Tamaulipas. Now, two city councilwomen from Ciudád Obregón, Sonora, want to erect a monument to El Gallo. El Gallo died because he decided it’d be a good idea to sing a song against the Gulf Cartel – in that mob’s turf. There’s a lesson in all this; stupidity gets you statues and honors. Rational thought gets you a mention in some guy’s column.

-- Michael Marizco

SO WHO DID SERGIO RAMIREZ?

AGUA PRIETA, SONORA – By all accounts, a prominent restaurateur gunned down yesterday was a popular figure in this city, a man described as both generous and fair, except, there's questions, there's always questions.

Sergio Ramirez was the owner of La Reforma restaurant, a popular – and very good – steakhouse in Agua Prieta. He was also owner of the Agua Prieta baseball team, Los Vaqueros de Agua Prieta but it's the restaurant that's interesting to me. Ever been there? A fantastic place, floors laid in giant stone, solid wood tables and high-backed chairs like small thrones. Great steaks at $25, $27 dollars a plate.

Read the full post

THE BORDER REPORT

A popular restauranteur in Agua Prieta was gunned earlier this afternoon, Sergio Ramirez, owner of La Reforma steakhouse in AP. I'm working on a few details; I'll have more on this later today.

THE BORDER REPORT

Mexican immigration officials captured five Somali nationals yesterday evening in Caborca, Sonora, about two hours south of the Arizona border along Highway 2. I really don't have much more information about the arrests except that it serves as a good reminder that whether the United States is going to start prosecuting Mexican migrants their first time out or not, it's doubtful that those who really need a different life won't try it anyway.

Read the full post

THE BORDER REPORT

The U.S. Homeland Security Department wants to use the same strategies used to identify UFOs to find weapons of mass destruction in your community.

And that, loyal reader, may be the strangest sentence I have ever written.

Any cellphone will do, I'm told. I just use the iPhone example because it's such a hot commodity these days, spinning rims for the middle class.

Anyway, so here's the latest plan from the Homeland Security Department. Too early to tell if it'll work, but this is what they want to spend/invest your tax dollars on.

Read the full post