THE BORDER REPORT

So, yeah okay. I was gone. Some of you apparently noticed; bola de culeros.

Spent my birthday camping up in the Chiricahua Mountains on the Arizona/New Mexico/Sonora border. Pine trees and rain and rare steak and sake. My cell didn’t get any service, didn’t even take a camera with me. I liked the disconnect. Pile on a magazine gig, a cop ride-along and some feverish hacking and this week’s about had it.

But I’m back and you can shove your coup right up in there with your movie quotes, mi estimádo.

So what’s been happening while I was gone?

Juárez has exploded yet again. La Polaka is reporting nine murders since yesterday and an average of seven a day in June (ever the diligent scorekeeper, it’s “July opens with Nine”). Are they ever going to settle this? We need a winner; whether that’s Vicente or Shorty is nearly irrelevant at this point. This thing between them is taking on global dimensions. From what I’m told, the Utah Department of Public Safety is quietly beginning training of Chihuahua’s state police. Couple things there. First, I suppose that’s because of Meredith Romney’s kidnapping in Janos, Chihuahua, last month (turns out Meredith is a man, who knew, sorry about that). Finally got to the bottom of that. Turns out the former Mormon leader and businessman was taken from outside his ranch. Gunmen shot out the tires on his truck, left his wife sitting there. The Mormon community was furious, they’ve been staging protests in Chihuahua and Mexico City, demanding that the government exercise some control. Nothing will happen of course; people protest every day in el D.F. But if Chihuahua A.G. Patricia Gonzalez is appealing to Utah, that’s interesting considering the limited level of involvement the Utah cops could take. What’re they gonna do, teach the judiciales how to serve warrants? Equipment and training isn’t the problem for Mexican cops; they’re not riding around on burros, after all. Border residents would be better served by an internal affairs unit coming in, if you catch my drift.

Over to my right, much excitement in Baja Cali after a hush-hush arrest in Ensenada. Teo, fue el Teo, went the chisme, pero no; it wasn’t Teodoro García after all. Instead it was a norteño singer, Fabian Ortega, El Halcón de la Sierra, along with 18 associates of Teo. That’s the third time since the spring that Teo’s arrest has been whispered around town. Which doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, of course …

Then the big break down south; which you’ve already discussed but I’m just getting to.

So you’re telling me that these two are finally on the outs?

Incredible. Arturo is wanted in both countries with a $2 million price on his head on either side of the line. (In my opinion, he’s gained weight in this recent photo sent to me by a very badass compa). Edgar “Barbie” Valdez is still wanted on a Lousiana pot smuggling case from 2003 and in Mexico for $2 million, U.S., but if he’s broken with Barbas, he’s got a lot more troubles than the po-lice. But then again, so does Arturo. It wasn’t too long ago that Barbie was negotiating one million a month bribes to the offices of Genaro Garcia Luna, Minister of Public Safety for the country. Garcia, it is alleged, had ordered his AFI agents to torture a crew of Zetas for Barbie back when he was AFI boss in 2005. That allegation surfaced in a PGR expediente that since then has become meaningless, i.e., ignored.

Beltrán has been in a unique position of all the cartel figures currently burning Mexico to the ground. He’s never terrorized the way the Zetas always have, and he doesn’t appear in international magazines the way Shorty did.

But what he has done is build an infrastructure of corrupted federal and local police that stretches from Sonora (or a little north of there) down to Mexico City. Shorty took a big hit when Beltrán split with him. And one of the reasons for the value loss was Barbie.

And now, Beltrán’s lost Barbie.

This thing’s like a big atom split; are we going to see yet another organization surface, one headed by Barbie? The problem with splitting atoms of course is that if you split the wrong kind, things get hinky and you go nuclear.