THE BORDER REPORT

Nothing new on Heriberto Lazcano's killing yet. Some people are wondering if Proceso got it right, and my sources within the intelligence communities haven't heard anything yet, nothing they're willing to share anyway. But the narco-reporter who wrote the story, Ricardo Ravelo, is a fantastic journalist who's done some exemplary work detailing the inner workings of the drug trade in the past. It's hard to imagine he'd be this wrong. Still, the information that Chapo Guzmán was briefly captured in Sinaloa seems not to have panned out, so we'll have to see about this one.

-- Michael Marizco

THE BORDER REPORT

First the Sinaloans, now the Gulf Cartel. Proceso Magazine is reporting that EL Z-1, Heriberto Lazcano, was gunned down last Friday.

El Lazca was the leader of the Zetas, the military arm of the Gulf Cartel.

I'm making some calls right now, getting some new information. I'll be back later today with an update.

THE BORDER REPORT

Mexico President Felípe Calderón seems to be spending a lot of his time these days talking tough against the gringos, and while most of his rhetoric is aimed at a domestic audience, i.e., Mexicans, not Americans, his words do carry a certain diplomatic weight in this country. So it would be nice, before the president beseeches the gringos to please, please stop selling weapons to the narcos, if he could get his own police officers under control before they kill more of his own citizens. Three police officers, including the commander of the Mexican FBI in Baja California Sur, the commander of the state police in the same state and one of his officers were all arrested in Phoenix on Saturday trying to buy three handguns and 450 rounds of ammunition at a gunshow. The three men drove up in the State Police commander's official armored Chevrolet Suburban. I'm sure the local media will get to this story eventually, so I'll let them deal with the details of the arrest. Suffice it to say, Phoenix PD, ATF and ICE dropped in on them as they were buying the weapons. Gunshows in Arizona are some of the easiest places in the United States to pick up weapons. Good stuff too; I've been eyeing a really nice Bushmaster AR-15 I want to pick up someday. I'll probably go to a gunshow to do so; they offer better prices and a better selection. But before I lose myself in a gun-rights argument, let me get back to Calderón. We have our problems of course. With the 2004 expiration of the assault weapons ban, only your bank account limits how many semi-autos you can buy in Arizona. Obviously, there is going to be problem with narcos, gangmembers, whack-jobs and ignorants buying powerful weapons. That's the consequence of liberal gun laws. (The AK-47 and ammo in the photo above were confiscated in Caborca last month. According to the serial numbers on the rifle, I'm told it was purchased in Arizona.) But – like Americans blaming the Mexicans for selling us the dope – Mexico has many problems of its own to tackle before assigning blame outwards. Like corrupt federal and local police, for example.

THE BORDER REPORT

PROTESTS AS A SPOKESMAN IS GUNNED DOWN

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THE BORDER REPORT

In December 2006, the U.S. Department of Justice released a quiet statement that the U.S. Attorney for Arizona, Paul K. Charlton, was resigning. He was taking a position with a private law firm, the release stated. What they didn't tell us was that the bosses in Washington D.C. ordered him to resign.

In a frank conversation with The Border Report, the former U.S. prosecutor talks about the resignation of the man who fired him, the direction the Department of Justice should go in now, and his own future in the legal arena.

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