THE BORDER REPORT No, no, not those numeros. I'm talking about the official numeros de secuestros and home invasion rip-offs in Phoenix. The statistics seem to have turned into a hen-pecking party with allegations against the recently demoted former chief, Jack Harris for $2.4 million in federal funding. Here's the latest: an independent panel has been reviewing the police department's statistics and found that of 358 reported kidnappings in 2008, only 222 met the criteria for kidnapping and 136 did not. My Fronteras Desk colleague does a nice job of summarizing the breakdown of the numbers. There are still 376 home invasion reports to tally up from that year. If they're found to include cases of illegal immigrants held against their will by bajadores, the number of kidnappings in the city could actually skyrocket well past the alleged 358. Keep your eye on it, it's going to be a fascinating case-study in the realities of border politicking. (Pictures out of a Phoenix kidnapping report). These are some cellphone self-portraits taken by a Phoenix rip-off crew, February 2009. According to the initial police reports, an anonymous caller had told a dispatcher that he had escaped the house when the bajadores came in but that there were others being held. By the time police arrived, everyone was gone. Maybe it didn't happen ...

THE BORDER REPORT

With the finding of six bodies in a dirt lot yesterday afternoon, about twenty people have now been murdered along the Arizona-Sonora border since last Tuesday. The bodies were found in Nogales, Sonora, and were presumed to have been there some three to five days, a timeline that matches up nicely with the start of this current conflict. Still don't know who the man was that was killed in Agua Prieta last week; nobody's saying so you know it's good (regionally interesting, probably not national). But a source in the area says Mexican Feds were in a meeting with the gringos on the Arizona side when they got the call and went running back into Mexico to deal with this. The latest conflict appears to be a group of Nuevo Zetas moving against the powerhouses of the Arizona border (and it ain't DHS). Meanwhile, the Mexican Army exercised an extreme case of ineptitude when a soldier was shot in a crossfire in Agua Prieta last Thursday. Seems the Army had surrounded a stash house when two traffickers in a Pontiac Grand Am raced out. A desmadre ensued when the soldiers unloaded on the car, hitting the car but also shooting at each other. The narcos got away. I thought training was a big part of the Merida money ... pero bueno. In light of this latest ordeal, Sonora Gov. Guillermo Padrés is asking Mexico City for one thousand more federales to be brought up into Sonora (mas ratas pal pozo ... ) And, up north of me, one of Arturo Beltrán Leyva's people was indicted on cocaine trafficking and money laundering charges in Phoenix. Misael Beltrán Cital and seven other people were indicted on the charges after the State Department issued him a visa to come to the U.S. Total setup and he fell for it, oops. We'll see what happens next.