Organized Crime



Pancho Villa Returns

May 20th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics

THE BORDER REPORT

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"Villa is everywhere, but Villa is nowhere."

AGUA PRIETA, SONORA - That was the message from Gen. Black Jack Pershing to Washington in the days after the U.S. ordered him to hunt down Pancho Villa in Mexico.

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It was a violent time; the Mexican Revolution was underway and finally Gen. Alvaro Obregón repelled Pancho Villa in Agua Prieta. Some believe he did it with the help of the Americans who lit up the town with searchlights from their side of the border.



Cananea Update

May 19th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics

THE BORDER REPORT

I'm doing reporting for a piece about Cananea that I'll post Sunday morning. It's taking me a little while longer than I expected. Hopefully you'll find it worthwhile. Thanks for reading.


Cananea Update: Rebuttal

May 18th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics
THE BORDER REPORT
Cananea's mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores, struck back a little at Gov. Eduardo Bours during a press conference this afternoon at city hall.
But he's also adding a little to the confusion about how many cops are left in town.
Friday, Bours told El Imparcial newspaper that the five dead officers were involved with local drug trafficking in Cananea.
He slammed them further, saying the Cananea police chief was a hand-picked successor to Ramon Tacho, the Agua Prieta police chief gunned down Feb. 26. Tacho was chief in Cananea until Cha Flores took office last fall.
"There's a lot of declarations that have been said," said Cha Flores. "If they have to investigate my police, then please do so. But they also need to investigate the state and federal police working in this city," he said.
He's got a good point there; the line between cop and thug is increasingly blurring in Sonora these days.
American law enforcement sources have told me that Tacho actually approached the Douglas Police Department with information he wanted to give the FBI about narco-traffickers working in Agua Prieta. The Feds never got back to him and he died shortly after.
Late Thursday night, Pedro Emigdio Cordova Herrera, a State Investigative Police commander from Cd. Obregón died after gunmen shot him in the face and stomach. It was the second hit on Cordova who was shot in the back in Obregon last October.
He worked for the Enriquez Parra brothers who trafficked dope into Arizona for the Sinaloa Federation.
Finally, the convoy from Tuesday night's attack on Cananea traveled all the way from Caborca. It had to drive right past a Mexican Customs checkpoint on Highway 2 west of Cuitaca. No official there claimed to have seen them when I stopped by to ask about that today.
The governor should also be concerned about the Hermosillo Police Department.
An Hermosillo police officer was arrested on his way to Cananea Tuesday night. He told officers he was simply traveling up the road but text messages from the gunmen were found on his cellphone.
Finally, I would add that the governor never said anything about the state police who've been gunned down in Hermosillo this year. Both Raul Bojorquez and Hector Castelo were murdered in Hermosillo. I've never heard any public criticism about them.
Still, Mayor Cha Flores declined to explain the unofficial number of resignations of his police officers this morning.
He said 15 police officers have resigned since Tuesday's mass kidnapping of Cananea cops.
"That leaves us 32 police officers to watch over this city," he said.
But officials at the police department said eight more resigned this morning.
The police chief never showed up for work Friday morning.
-- Michael Marizco


Cananea Reporter Threatened, Robbed

May 18th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics
THE BORDER REPORT
CANANEA, SONORA - A Cananea television news reporter has taken a leave from her job and left this city after her house was burglarized and her life was threatened.
Yazmín Islas, a reporter for Telemax, the state-run television station in Sonora, had computer flash drives and work-related DVDs stolen from her house during a burglary last night, she says.
The burglars had torn out part of her ceiling as well as if they were looking for hidden items there. Her clothes had been ripped out of her closet and drawers and a gold watch was taken. The burglars left her tape recorders and desktop computer alone.
"There wasn't a door forced open or a window; I don't know how they came in. They stole video, documents and some personal items," she said.
The flash drives contained information for stories she has already reported and some which she was still working on.
"I don't know if this was just a common burglary but I'm scared," she said.
Islas agreed to speak about the burglary and the threats because public attention may dissuade a more serious attack. Saturday morning, I'll contact the Inter-American Press Association, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists on her behalf.
Islas, a reporter for two years has been reporting on police items in Cananea such as the cop killings two nights ago. Prior to that, she reported on the March 22 execution of federal police officer Gustavo Vega in Cananea and the March 6 execution of federal police officer Aldo Guzman Palafox. Both worked for the Federal Preventative Police.
Ramon Tacho Verdugo, the Agua Prieta police chief gunned down Feb. 26, served as Cananea police chief until the new administration took office last September.
I do not believe this was a common house burglary.
Three weeks ago, someone dispersed cards throughout the entire city of Cananea, naming reporters who, the cards read, "had better watch themselves."
The cards, which Islas did not have a copy of but have been transcribed and posted to the Web, read:
Antes se creían intocables y se sentían elegidos por que el pueblo estaba bajo sus pies y podían decir y hacer lo que les diera la gana, porque se sentían protegidos por el comandante más mafioso de Sonora Ramón Tacho Verdugo. Pero ahora que se quedaron colgados de la brocha y están también en la mira de los verdaderos dueños de Cananea y de toda la región. Eran los favoritos del indeseable Comandante Tacho pero ahora muerto el perro no hayan donde meter la cabeza. El otro padrino de estos muertos de hambre el Pancho García anda con la cola entre las patas. El Bronco Juvera se crema la mamá de tarzan y que hasta se hablaba de tu con los mañosos; igual que el sangre de perro el ex presidiario de Antonio Moreno "el Mexicano". El vicioso, asesino y ex judicial de Pancho Moreno que vive bajo los güevos de su hermano Mario Moreno corrupto y que siempre andaba presumiendo que estaba arreglado con los narcos ahora se ha quedado mudo. Martín Camargo que quiere asustar a todo mundo con su revistita Proyección (¿) porque no se pone duro con los mafiosos (?). Ahí tiene al gordo Gabriel Zambrano sangre de perro, lunático y joto que se creía muy chingón y a todos les gritaba y el Efrén Ibarra flamante Regidor que esta ahí porque el Martín lo puso para que le cuidara sus intereses. Y las viejas mas feas y creídas que se sentían hechas a mano, la Miriam de Expresiones que no saluda ni a su madre y que trabaja con otro saco de plomo Rafael Maytorena de familia mafiosa. La Yazmin Islas vieja gorda que vive de lo que les baja a los policías y a los polleros, junto con la Sara Morales y la Esmeralda González, siempre metidas con los burreros y con los Comandantes. Los inútiles de Emisario que con sus caras de pendejos y con sus camaritas se quieren meter a todos lados. El Orlando Valencia que se viste de Judicial y quiere estar en todo también era de los favoritos de Tacho, junto con el Licenciado Cazares se creen los mas chingones de la tierra. Todos están en la mira y se los puede llevar la chingada de un momento a otro, para que se les quite lo pendejos y lo mamones. Aber (sic) si ahora andan de valientes y se sienten tan chingones. Cuídense gueyes
In short, the paragraph pertaining to Islas says: ... Yazmin Islas, that fat old lady who lives off what she can lift off the cops and the migrant smugglers, together with Sara Morales and Esmerelda Gonzales, always involved with the drug smugglers and the police commanders."
The note also says: "Now they're all being watched by the true owners of Cananea and the entire region."
It closes with:
"Watch yourselves."
"My employers told me to leave Cananea and told me not to do any reporting. I have not heard anything else from them since," Islas said.
Such threats are becoming common in Mexico's worst cartel-infested cities.
They are not made because the reporter was doing any serious investigative reporting. Rather, the threats come from merely reporting the day's events.
Like cop killings for instance.
-- Michael Marizco


False Alarm

May 18th, 2007 | By Michel Marizco | Category: General News, Organized Crime, Politics
THE BORDER REPORT
CANANEA, SONORA - Today's alarm that an armed convoy was returning to Cananea proved to be false, not that it mattered - whoever placed the call in to police managed to terrify the entire town. Marshal law was declared throughout the city as Mexican Army Humvees and Federal Preventative Police trucks raced from Agua Prieta and Cananea 15 miles west to Cuitaca in search of the killers.
Friends of one of the dead officer's rushed out of his funeral to flee before the killers could arrive. Store fronts were barred shut and clasped with padlocks; only one Pemex gas station stayed open and the worst moment came when nobody could find Mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores. Then the rumor sparked up that he had been levantado as well.
The calls were not witnesses or scared residents; they were threatening phone calls and were made to police stations in Cananea, Bacoachi, Arizpe, Naco and Agua Prieta, said Cananea mayor Luis Carlos Cha Flores.
I'm told that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection closed the port of entry in Naco for several hours after the news broke and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement brought in the Federal SWAT, Special Repsonse Teams, to hold the line. Schools in Naco, Ariz., went into lockdown.


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