THE BORDER REPORT

Only a fool would assume women don't play a role in the splintering tensions of Mexico's cartel woes but this year's proving to be a particularly nasty one for femicide in northern Mexico. They've been strangled, dissolved in acid, one was thrown in front of a train, others, like this unidentified woman, were shot in the head, their bodies laid out on the street. A message to somebody, no different than the fate of their male counterparts.

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THE BORDER REPORT

A Sinaloa drug lord arrested in the United States for trafficking some of the purest meth ever seen in the Midwest, was also implicated in the 2004 murder of a photojournalist in Mexico, records show.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Or they never left.

Los Numeros, the southern Sonora crew of narco-trafficking brothers who acted as the strong-arm of the Beltrán Leyva family, are back in action. That's the song the little birds are singing.

Also known as Los Güeritos after the original four brothers of the Enriquez Parra family for nearly a generation, the group has been among the strongest narco-trafficking families to ever work Arizona and Sonora. They faded from thought over the past couple years but appear to be making a comeback. Certain events lead me down this path of thinking.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Just received another email from a college kid's parent, worried about their safety on Spring Break in Mexico this year.

I've had a good dozen or so of these questions thrown at me this year, some from Americans who want to travel to Puerto Peñasco, some from parents worried about their kids heading to Mazatlán or Cancún. And the University of Arizona starts its Spring Break today, so today's as good a day as any to get into this.

The short answer is yes, your kids are fine. Yes, they can go down to Mexico and sun on the beach, drink, tan, fornicate and have a great time.

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THE BORDER REPORT

I’ve noticed something really curious this past week and I’m not yet sure what it means, maybe nothing. Maybe everything. The top law enforcement officers from the three largest border cities in the Sinaloa Federation’s turf, have resigned, all within the past three months. Two in the past week, alone. In December, Tijuana’s public safety director, Alberto Cappella, quit his job, was pushed out really, after absorbing nearly a year of blame for Tijuana’s cartel woes. Two weeks ago, the city council in Nogales, Sonora, started pushing at chief of police, Arturo Ramirez Camacho. Last Friday, he quietly presented his resignation. Then Juárez’s chief Roberto Orduña Cruz, a crusty retired army major who used to eye me up and down with a scowl, resigned. In some ways, his case was the easiest to understand. Somebody, and I don’t know if it was Juárez or Sinaloa, La Linea or Gente Nueva, vowed to kill a cop every 48 hours until Orduña quit. A bad, bad move with an evil precedent for the city of Juárez. Orduña’s predecessor had fled to El Paso, a year ago. Orduña came in with the full backing of Mexico’s army. He offered 9,800 pesos a month and room and board to former soldiers with the campaign “Aún tienes mucho por lograr.” Critics decried his heavy-handedness, the militarization of Juárez. But the reality is, there wasn’t one. The military never gained control of the city. This week, Mexico City is sending up reinforcements, 5,000 strong. They won’t have any effect either. But violence is easy to understand, killing is easy to understand. Killing lacks the nuance of the stories that are harder to understand. The political machinations that determine control in old Mexico. I don’t care who is the controlling party in Mexico City. Or Washington, D.C. for that matter. The border has its own politics and the metropolitan governments hours away are getting schooled. I wrote about Nogales a couple of weeks ago, when the whisperings began about Camacho’s resignation. Nogales’ case is far subtler than the open death threats in Juárez or the juvenile blame game in Tijuana. In many ways, Nogales’ case is far older. The man being considered for the job in Nogales now is Juan Manuel Portillo Guevara. Portillo was the operations chief for the Hermosillo police department in 2004. His officers stopped a car with four men inside after a gunfight. One of those four turned out to be a high level member of the Beltrán Leyva’s operations in Sonora, Los Güeritos. The man, Daniel Enriquez Parra, gave a false name to the arresting officers then paid out an unknown quantity of cash and walked out the door. The case came to be known as the Cuarto Pasajero. The resulting criticisms of the Hermosillo police department led to dismissals, firings, interrogations, and then silence. I’ve always enjoyed the case because it was the first time Los Güeritos and the Beltrán Leyvas were discussed in polite society. By the time the story finished everybody was left with a healthy suspicion that the low-end cops who were fired had been working under the orders of somebody higher than themselves. Portillo, let’s be clear, was never charged. That’s not a surprise. He disappears for a few years, then quietly resurfaces as the likeliest candidate for the job of border police chief. It’s these old stories, the stories of twists and turns and manipulations and quiet patronage that are fascinating to watch. And ultimately, far more deadly than murder. But for the moment, the job of security jefe in northwestern Mexico’s three largest border cities remains open.  Now we watch and see who fills in.