THE BORDER REPORT

This rumor comes straight out of Culiacán. It seems Ismael El Mayo Zambada knows perfectly well who kidnapped his cousin and two nieces – El Osama and Fernando El Ingeniero Sanchez Arellano. The Mexican Army apparently rescued the ladies already and I’m awaiting confirmation on the chisme. This leads to a few questions. UPDATE: The freshest rumor to come out of Sinaloa is that the kidnap was a $30 million ransom. At what point did someone think kidnapping El Mayo’s family for $10 bills each was a good idea? Vamos a ver.

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THE BORDER REPORT

I’ve been dedicating my time over the past few weeks to a new career as the Tucson correspondent for KJZZ, the NPR affiliate in Phoenix, Ariz., so I haven’t given this story the attention it merits. However, I am in Tucson, after all, and not Phoenix, so I don’t know why this story didn’t get that city’s attention. And perhaps, it should have. It’s been nearly three weeks since cops found Martin Alejandro Cota, his severed head lying next to the rest of his body. They’re calling it a drug hit and a message.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Readers of BorderReporter are no strangers to the stories that surface on a daily basis of clashes between Mexico’s cartels and the state. But some of you may find certain elements of this report I co-authored on firearms trafficking to Mexico interesting. Funded by the Mexico Institute at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego, my colleague, Colby Goodman and I set out to establish the parameters of the trafficking debate, since so often, the numbers are roughly generalized and given little context.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Edgar “La Barbie” Valdez Villarreal sang like a drunken perrico, grinning the entire time while he spoke of his relations to Shorty Guzmán, El Mayo Zambada, Arturo Beltrán, and even Ramon Ayala (I’m sure Ayala appreciated that). He boasted of sending semi-trucks full of dope north and bringing them back in to Mexico stuffed with cash. He lamented not having finished the job of murdering his Zeta rivals. Now, Mexican president Felipe Calderón says all the video-recorded declaraciones are out the legal window, since he didn’t say them in front of a judge nor did he have his lawyer present.

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THE BORDER REPORT

This story took me the better part of the night to root out from federal court cases but I like it. It’s easy to jump to conclusions but more importantly, it’s interesting to see what’s revealed about the intel that led to the fall of La Barbie.

On an August afternoon in 2005, Jesus  Ramos, a truckdriver, was driving south to Atlanta and called Romero Roel Martinez, the Sinaloa Federation’s cocaine distributor for that region. Ramos told him he would meet Martinez and run a load of cash proceeds down to Texas.

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