THE BORDER REPORT

From time to time, I like to give other people space to share their perspective on this border. Today, it's a former drug trafficker for the Juárez Cartel, back from the days of Amado Carrillo Fuentes.

"Rabbit," as he was known then and will be known on BorderReporter.com, worked for the Juárez Cartel from 1984 onward. He was charged, and I have copies of the U.S. District Court indictment and sentencing agreement that establish his credibility, with possession with intent to distribute more than one thousand kilograms of marijuana, money laundering and the Kingpin Rule, known as running a criminal enterprise.

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THE BORDER REPORT

The Border Patrol's Special Response and Training units, federal SWAT basically, was deployed to the Nogales port of entry this morning while the local hospital was put on lockdown after rumors surfaced that Dos Mil and Gigio were about to have a showdown southside. The two have been fighting for control of the Nogales plaza for the past year; sending the murder rate in this city to the levels of Ciudád Juárez. These two have that port of entry at a heightened level of worry every time I'm down there. I've grown used to watching Customs inspectors wearing body armor and carrying machine guns at the port, just waiting for a runaway car to make a break for it or maybe a firefight to explode. This time, the situation seems a little bit grimmer; earlier this week the Sonora state police had received word of a gunfight going down and everybody on both sides of the line was worried. I don't yet know what prompted SRT to show up this morning, but I suppose we're going to find out.

THE BORDER REPORT

Tucson, Ariz., the hub in the Sinaloa-to-U.S. corridor for narco-trafficking and migrant smuggling, has really come into its own in the past week. The city has had six kidnappings reported in the past week, I understand from my sources in the Feds. I haven't seen much word of these kidnappings made public in local media, but my federal sources tell me that the city cops have had half a dozen kidnappings reported this past week alone; including one incident where the victim was recovered by Tucson cops. The city is seeing nowhere the level of kidnappings that happen on a daily basis in Sinaloa and Sonora; but the systematic level of kidnappings, should they continue, will come to mirror those in Phoenix; a city that averages about one kidnapping a day this year. Of course, in Phoenix, many of those kidnappings are bajador liftings, migrants held for greater ransoms than they had agreed to pay for being smuggled across the border. Coupled with some ... interesting murders, including two bodies found out west near Pima Community College, this could get interesting. The city is not going to see the level of violence that has spread through Nogales, Sonora, between Beltrán Leyva's people and the Sinaloans, but it's sure heating up here. We'll see what happens.

THE BORDER REPORT

The Americans are launching a new military effort out of Southeasten Arizona this morning, readers on the ground out there are reporting.

C-141 Starlifters brought U.S. soldiers in to the Douglas International Airport Sunday afternoon along with Apache helicopters. I'm told there is supposed to be some sort of announcement made today or tomorrow.

What amuses me is the name of the operation. Homeland Security calls it Operation Guardian Angel.

The U.S. Army calls it Operation Red Flag.

So, depending on who you ask, we're either about to save the U.S. border or bomb the crap out of it.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Been meaning to get to this case for a while, it fascinated me over the summer then I missed the concluding decision by an appeals court judge in July. Whoops; well, better late as it were.

I like this Ninth District Court of Appeals case because it shows to what extent the U.S. tries to get information on narcos entering the country. In this case, a State Department consular official in Ciudád Juárez tried to get a man he believes is a drug trafficker to become an informant and was willing to grant him a visa to live in the U.S. if he went for the deal.

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