Borderland Beat

21 criminals in Tamaulipas captured with guns and drugs
Is Mexican Govt. Outgunned By the Cartels?
7 dead in Apatzingán after police ambushed

21 criminals in Tamaulipas captured with guns and drugs

Posted: 17 Jun 2015 03:06 PM PDT

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Milenio article

[ Subject Matter: Organized Crime in Tamaulipas, Rio Bravo
Recommendation: No prior subject matter knowledge required]

Among the detained is the right arm of the leader of the criminal group and a blacksmith who fabricated poncho llantas, tyre piercing spikes, they confiscated marijuana, guns, ammunition and stolen gasoline.

Ciudad Victoria: Elements of the Tamaulipas Force detained 21 members of a criminal group that operate in the Town of Rio Bravo.(Otis: the location suggests these maybe people of El 98 of Cartel del Golfo).

Among the detained was the right arm of the leader of the group, who were two participants in an aggression against Federal Police installations.

It follows that those detained had different functions within the criminal group like halcones to was the Federal Forces and State Forces, distribute and sell stolen gasoline, robberies, and halcones to watch the sector where they are located and detained.

The criminal group had a blacksmith who was in charge of fabricating tyre puncturing spikes.

The criminals were identified as, Leonel Landeros Calvo, right arm of the plaza boss, Eduardo Pena Rodriguez, Luis Felipe Marin Guerra, Jose Emmanuel Diaz Saavedra, Sanjuanita Contreras Espinoza, Vanessa Valdez Ruiz, Mirian Zulema Cardenas Quiroz, Anna Karen Cardenas Quiroz, Ruben Adrian Garcia Cardenas and Luis Enrique Campechano.

As well as, Oscar Garcia Potenciano, Abel Cabrera Hernandez, Miguel Angel Martinez Lopez, Alejandro Martinez Leon, Jorge Humberto Contreras, Juan Jose Nunez Garcia, Alejandro Lopez Cortez, Carlos Dorado Mireles, Raul Alberto Longoria Gomez, Oscar Eduardo Silva Gomez and the blacksmith, Osca Leonel Flores Gonzalez.

The detentions were carried out in the interior of a safe house that they had in the Del Carmen Colonia of the frontier town, it was a citizen complaint that gave rise to a series of investigations and patrols on the part of elements of the Tamaulipas Forces.

Also confiscated were 15 bales containing 110 kilos of marijuana, 10 rifles, 3035 cartridges of various calibres, 48 magazines for different weapons, and four containers with 800 litres of stolen gasoline.

As well as, four pick ups, a van modified for the sale of stolen gasoline, six radios, and 90 tyre puncturing spikes and other accessories.

Original article in Spanish at Milenio

Is Mexican Govt. Outgunned By the Cartels?

Posted: 17 Jun 2015 02:27 PM PDT

.Borderland Beat Posted by DD republished from the Washington Post

DD:

Between 2006 and 2014 the Mexican government seized 162,858 firearms and explosives, according to government data. Weapons have become more powerful over the past 10 years, and enough guns and rifles have been confiscated to arm 60 percent of the Mexican Army.

it's the increased firepower behind the trigger that's been troubling authorities. With AK-47s leading the list of favorite narco weapons, explosives are also increasingly part of their arsenal with items such as land mines and bazookas repeatedly on the list of weapons seized by officials.

The shooting down of the heliocoptor in early May proved they possessed RPG's (rocket propelled grenades).

But the Mexican Government is on a spending spree to purchase military equipment that should equalize any inequality in firepower as shown in this report from the Washington Post.

What's behind Mexico's military buying binge?

By Joshua Partlow.

MEXICO CITY--It started with 27 rail cars full of ammunition rolling down the tracks into Mexico.

That load of 30 million bullets was soon followed by fleets of Black Hawk helicopters and thousands of Humvees: in all more than $1 billion of American military equipment sold to Mexico within the past two years.

In a security relationship between Mexico and the United States often described as standoffish, foreign military sales have lately become a big exception. Admiral William E. Gortney, the commander of Northern Command, the U.S. military headquarters that deals with Mexico, testified to Congress earlier this year that Mexico's buying binge represented a "100-fold increase from prior years."

Americans and Mexicans familiar with the foreign military sales program said that the change in part reflects a revived security partnership between the two countries. It also shows Mexico's aggressive push to modernize its military in the face of powerful drug cartel adversaries.

U.S. officials have hailed the sales in part because they're so rare. Gortney, the Northcom commander, described Mexico's decision to approach the Defense Department about buying military equipment as "unprecedented" and that it marked a "historical milestone" in relations between the two countries.

Mexico's long been suspicious of gringo motives (at least since it lost about half a million square miles of its territory to the U.S. in the 19th century) and has tended to not be a big U.S. military buyer, relying more on European equipment or private commercial agreements. At the start of President Enrique Peña Nieto's term more than two years ago, his administration felt the United States had wormed its way too deeply into the drug war, and Mexico halted many security programs.

Mexico's long been suspicious of gringo motives (at least since it lost about half a million square miles of its territory to the U.S. in the 19th century) and has tended to not be a big U.S. military buyer, relying more on European equipment or private commercial agreements. At the start of President Enrique Peña Nieto's term more than two years ago, his administration felt the United States had wormed its way too deeply into the drug war, and Mexico halted many security programs.

"We knew that the President came in really wanting to focus on things other than security," said a U.S. military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly. "He found out he really needed to pay a lot of attention to security."

In late 2013, Mexico asked the United States if it could fill a large order of 5.56 mm ammunition, and the embassy helped deliver the trainloads of $6 million worth of bullets within 100 days, the official said.
"That case really kind of broke the ice," he said. "They saw the responsiveness of what we could do as a partner in foreign military sales. And they liked it."

That sale paved the way for even larger purchases: orders for more than two dozen UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters for the Air Force and Navy, and more than 2,200 Humvees. Since Peña Nieto came to office in late 2012, Mexico has purchased about $1.5 billion in equipment through the government's military sales program, plus $2 billion more through U.S. companies, said Inigo Guevara Moyano, a Mexican defense consultant based in Washington.

"All of these buys have been to replace existing systems that averaged 30 to 40 years old and drained budgets through high maintenance costs and poor availability," he said. He noted that defense spending also rose sharply under Peña Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon, and that it reflects the "maturing military-to-military relationship at the institutional level, regardless of who is in power."

The buying also is a sign of the intensity of the war against the drug cartels. The Mexican military has aggressive operations ongoing in several states such as Tamaulipas, on the Texas border, and Jalisco, against the ascendant New Generation drug cartel. These operations have driven a rapid increase in defense spending over much of the past decade. Since 2006, spending has tripled, from $2.6 billion to $7.9 billion this year. Despite the growth, Mexico spends less than many other countries in the hemisphere, just .51 percent of gross domestic product, compared to a Latin American average of 1.31 percent, Guevara said.

In addition to tactical raids and statewide operations against drug cartels, the Mexican military is involved in all sorts of other missions, from vaccination programs, to reforestation, to securing voting booths in volatile parts of the country, as it did last week. The lavishly funded drug cartels it fights are sometimes better armed and equipped than the security forces. Cartel gunmen recently shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade.

"The Mexican armed forces, including the Army, is one of the most overtasked military forces in the world," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst.

Some have been critical of the U.S. sales, particularly in a climate where Mexican security forces have regularly been accused of human rights violations. Last year, 43 teachers college students disappeared in Guerrero, allegedly captured and killed by local police working with drug gangs. A few months earlier, 22 civilians were killed by the Mexican military in the town of Tlatlaya south of Mexico City. The army first described the incident as a firefight but later admitted that a number of the civilians had been executed after surrendering. Relatives of the 42 men killed last month on a Michoacan ranch have accused the authorities of torturing and executing them, claims the government denies.

Researcher John Lindsay-Poland wrote for the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA) that the "massive militarization" is "bad news for the many Mexicans devastated by the abuses of police and soldiers."

"The United States must develop other capacities besides producing guns and military equipment for finding a healthy balance of trade and addressing our own problems," he wrote.

But others see this as necessary maintenance and modernization for an under-equipped military.

"It's mainly a process of correcting the imbalance," Hope said. "Having Humvees will not affect how much respect they have for human rights."

DD. While not weapons per se, this video of military equipment crossing the border at Laredo in April gives an idea of the scale of the purchases.

7 dead in Apatzingán after police ambushed

Posted: 17 Jun 2015 11:37 AM PDT

Borderland Beat by DD republished from Mexico News Daily

DD: The original source for this story was Mexico News Daily, but also includes material from further research from OEM, Cambio de Michoacan, and Quadratrin.

Rurale with head injury

Yesterday morning (Tue. June 16), at about 1:AM two members of the Forces Rurales and 5 civilians were killed in an ambush near Apatzingan. Five members of the Rurales were injured in the attack, one in an injury to the head and according to unofficial reports had brain matter showing but was still alive after being transported along with the other injured to hospitals in Apatzingan, about 30 minutes from the site of the attack.

The reports from different media give some conflicting details, but the above seems to be a brief consensus of the basic facts of the attack. Some report there were 6 killed. Some report that there is a missing policeman, some say there are 2 missing.

OEO reported that a call for assistance from the survivors was not made until about 8:AM even though the attack started about 1AM, because the area was so remote that there was no telephone signal available.

"It is noteworthy that after the police realized they were exceeded in number by criminals, many hid in the bush and weeds, until dawn when they could go to a place where communication was possible because the a good signal does not exist in the place of the attack."

The Rurales had been tasked with escorting some trucks that were "decommissioning" or dismantling the Fortaleza de Anunaki which was the home, playground and meeting place of Caballeros leader Nazario "El Chayo" Moreno González and boasted rodeo grounds with capacity for 1,000 people, a casino and cockfighting ring.

As the trucks left the Anunaki, the small caravan of trucks carrying scrap metal from the dismantling of facilities at the ranch, and the two police vehicle escorts were attacked about 1 kilometer from the entrance to the ranch.

The assailants attacked with gunfire and grenades. One of the policemen was shot in the head and lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a ditch. The other dead policeman was found in his vehicle which had been incinerated, but it is unclear if he was killed first by the gunfire or died in the fire.

Two of the civilians killed were drivers of the big trucks carrying the scrap metal. Two other civilians were killed who most reports indicate were in a Nissan "cleated" truck that was just passing by on the highway when the ambush took place. Their bodies were found in their truck which also had been incinerated.

As soon as they received the call for help to the area elements of the Federal Police as well as the Mexican Army moved to the area, and "combed" the area for the attackers, but needless to say that since it was 8 hours after the ambush, they found nothing. It is thought that some of the attackers may have been wounded and were "hospitalized" in the rugged surrounding mountains.

Information has been slow coming out of the area due to its remoteness, but at this time there were no updates on the condition of the injured police. There is speculation that the attackers were remnants of the Knights Templar.

The Mayor of Apatzingan said there had been no violence in the city resulting from the attack (maybe because there is a heavy presence of federal police and military already there). But the Governor last night ordered increased patrols in the rural areas around Apatzingan.

the Fortaleza de Anunaki, former stronghold and meeting place of the Caballeros Templarios crime gang, located about half an hour from Apatzingán. - See more at: http://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/7-dead-in-apatzingan-after-police-ambushed/?utm_source=Mexico+News+Daily&utm_campaign=e4ed53d864-June+16&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f1536a3787-e4ed53d864-349444589#sthash.2pb4Cwdv.dpuf

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Thursday, June 18, 2015

Borderland Beat

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What's behind Mexico's military buying binge?

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