THE BORDER REPORT

Sick of swine yet? You oughtta be, but this one's a little different.

Somebody left a pair of severed pig heads outside the offices of two daily newspapers in Nogales, Sonora, last Monday, along with the message: everybody's going to die.

I'm not sure what the allegorical meaning behind the heads was; Death by Virus, maybe?

The newspapers themselves haven't published anything about the two incidences, and even the major daily, El Imparcial, gracefully backed away. Thankfully, the owners of this Web site lack the grace to do so as well.

The salacious swine crime started at Nuevo Día newspaper where an icebox was left at the front doors, a pig's head inside, a message taped to the top:

"This is for those in Caborca, everybody knows who killed Yovan Paez and they tried to unmask him, it was Nini Beltrán Felix, El Paletero, and El Patron and Rodrigo and Nacho Paez. And they killed him for being an asshole because he didn't want any trouble with me and didn't want to help them. The rat bastards, they did it so they wouldn't have to pay me the millions they owe but the money will be of no use to them," the note promises.

The pig's head left at the offices of Diario de Sonora runs along a similar vein (if a little resentful sounding) and is addressed to the "Pigs of Caborca: Anybody who helps them or has anything to do with them is not going to last because I'm going to kill them all. And the Government who helps them. See how long they last."

So who did Geovanni Paez? He was murdered last week, a triple hit in Altar, 30 minutes down Highway 2 from Caborca. The day before the triple hit, two police officers in Caborca were killed in a gunfight. On Sunday, four more died, this time in Puerto Peñasco. One of those was a relation to a Sinaloan money-launderer and to the narco-capo who handles the cocaine corridor through Mexicali and California's Imperial Valley.

Both Diario and Nuevo Día used anonymous sources to blame Francisco Rafael González, lead vocalist for Los Pikadientes de Caborca, saying the Army had captured him for the killing. Los Pikadientes are best known for La Cumbia del Río, a song that hit the Billboard Hot Latin Tracks in 2008 (and makes me want to stab out my eardrums with a pen every time I hear it).

González's people protested the stories, saying he was in Miami when the hit went down and was never arrested. Four days later, the pig heads show up.

Hm. No se que ondas, but I like the story.

Here's the song.