THE BORDER REPORT

The following story was produced for the Fronteras Desk, public radio, Arizona. Click here for the audio version.

Long known as Arizona’s beach town, tourists and business owners in Rocky Point, Mexico, say a recent State Department’s travel warning about this place is unfair. Victims say otherwise. They say cartel violence in Mexico has quietly crept in and goes mostly unreported.

Last year the chief of police of this quiet resort town on the Sea of Cortez was gunned down. Since then, the stories of violence here are barely mentioned. Business owners and the town’s mayor prefer to keep it that way.

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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.

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TUCSON – Three people are accused of trying to buy anti-tank weapons in Arizona for a drug cartel in Mexico. Federal indictments were recently unsealed  in Phoenix. Court documents show the three also tried to buy a Stinger missile.

Click here to download the Indictment.

The accused were trying to buy the military weaponry for the Sinaloa Cartel.  Court documents show they used pounds of crystal meth for a down payment on the weapons.

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The U.S. Border Patrol held a memorial service in Tucson on Friday morning, paying homage to one of its elite agents, Brian Terry, who was killed during a gunbattle with bandits in a canyon along the Arizona-Mexico border. He was a man who friends called “Super-Cop.” (Click inside for slideshow of images.)

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THE BORDER REPORT

So, the same day that the Mexican Army pulls out of Cd. Juarez, U.S. agents start spreading the rumor that the Juarez Cartel has been defeated?

Anyone want to continue disagreeing with my assessment that the Sinaloa Federation is being protected and supported by the Mexican government?

It’s been clear for some time; from arrests like that of El Jabali last winter to the public relations campaign published by Proceso Magazine this week to the dissension within the Mexican Congress against what even two months ago was seen as an obvious move to protect Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

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