THE BORDER REPORT

All photos courtesy of Nuevo Día newspaper

Clearly, mi estimado lector, someone had insisted on murder.

Four people died in a sporadic gunbattle that stretched for more than 150 miles, ending in Hermosillo, Sonora, yesterday. An entire family was targeted, heavies from Sinaloa that've been working the Arizona-Sonora-Sinaloa corridor for years.

El Imparcial was reporting four dead, including a Sinaloa man gunned down with AK-47s. The battle started in Nogales. Two U.S. citizens, one, the Arizona brother of a high level trafficker for the Sinaloan cartel boss, Arturo Beltrán Leyva, were arrested. The second was driving a Kansas City licensed Ford Explorer. One police officer died in the attack, though I don't yet know the level of his involvement. Alejandro López Martínez is the brother of Luis López, El Topo, The Mole. Known for his narco-tunnels that ran under the U.S. port of entry at Nogales, El Topo was taken out in late '04, a shot to the head in a crowded restaurant. Wanted in the U.S., his case was closed six months after his murder, several-ton coke trafficking charges.

Here's another tie of the fibers:

Nuevo Día is reporting that the target was Oscar Jaime Valenzuela, alias El Empanada. Valenzuela served as bodyguard to Francisco Labastida, the former PRI governor of Sinaloa.

And, the paper reports, one of the wounded gunmen is the brother of a high-level Federal Preventive Police official.

Twists and turns and more twists this morning.

Here's another, just a tickler from the files to think about. There's another "El Empanada," whose name bears a striking resemblance to that of Oscar; his name is Jaime Palma Valenzuela. Pesadito, pesadito, that one.

Back in the day, he and the Beltrán brothers were running a group of renegade soldiers from the Mexican Army's Guamúchil base in northern Sinaloa. Like, back when Labastida was governor. An exposed narco-battalion caused an uproar back in '02 in Guamúchil when soldiers were discovered to be flying dope for the Beltráns and Palma Valenzuela. It'll be interesting to see if the hunch is sound and it's the same guy taken out in Hermosillo yesterday.

Called down to a favorite guy in Hermosillo a few moments ago and he's cleared something up for me. Jaime, the right one or otherwise, was murdered in Nogales. His son was wounded in the Hermosillo attack; a 33-year-old pregnant woman riding in his car was shot and killed.

El Imparcial is now reporting the armaments, typical stuff and lots of it, five AK-47s, two AR-15s, a host of frag grenades and .45s.

What's really interesting is the whereabouts of El Barbas, Arturo Beltrán Leyva.

His brother, Alfredo, was arrested in Culiacán last January at the hands of 300 soldiers.

As a reader points out, last Friday, Beltrán Leyva sent a message to the military and police in Culiacán:

"I am the boss of the plaza and this is only the beginning. There is this and there will be more for what happened to El Mochomo."

A second: "Little lead soldiers, federale straw-men, this is the territory of Arturo Beltrán Levya."

Makes me wonder if he reads T.S. Elliott; you know, that poem, "The Hollow Men":

We are the hollow men / We are the stuffed men/ Leaning together / Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! ...

 

 

 

-- Michel Marizco