Frontera NorteSur July & August 2001

Dávila was being interrogated at the state police office because he is a suspect in the kidnapping of a married couple, Ricardo González Chapa and Nelly Peña. Garza said that the kidnapping was a typical "adjustment of accounts" between drug dealers. Garza denies that there is currently a drug war taking place in Tamaulipas. The kidnapped couple has yet to be located.

Yesterday more than 500 federal agents arrived in Matamoros to fight organized crime. So far the agents have searched alleged narcohomes and warehouses but the results of their actions have not yet been made public. The federal agents will also assist in locating suspects in the raid on the PME offices.

Source: El Mañana (Reynosa) & El Mañana (Matamoros), June 21, 2001.

The Importance of the Drug Trade in the Mexican Economy

The Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario writes that according to journalist Carlos Loret de Mola's new book, "El Negocio" ("The Business"), the Mexican drug trade is twice as large as the nation's oil sales--based on a conservative estimate of the size of the drug trade. Using the same data, Loret concluded that profits from the country's drug cartels are three times larger than the combined profits of Mexico's 500 largest companies.

Loret based his figures on the size of the drug trade on official, non-official and secret data from the Centro de Investigaciones y Seguridad Nacional (Cisen). The journalist also concluded that if the drug trade quickly disappeared in Mexico there would be an economic crisis worse than that of 1995.

According to one Cisen document to which Loret had access the US economy could contract 19-22% and the Mexican economy could fall as much as 63% if the drug trade was suddenly stopped.

Loret's book is scheduled to go on sale soon in Mexico.

Source: El Diario, June 25, 2001.

Year's Fourth Meth Lab Found in Tijuana

On Friday, June 15 the year's fourth "crystal" lab was found in a downtown Tijuana autoshop just across from the city's main post office. Tijuana's Frontera newspaper quotes a federal police officer, Salvador Barrios Zamora, as saying that the number of methamphetamine labs in Tijuana is increasing and that "crystal" is displacing cocaine and marijuana in the area drug trade.

Last Wednesday, June 13, at the Tijuana airport, the Mexican Army and the Policía Federal Preventiva seized four million medical pills of the type that are used in the production of methamphetamine. Jorge Peña Sandoval, state director of the Procuraduría General de la República (Federal Attorney General's Office, PGR), believes that the pills originated in Asia and then went to Los Angeles, California, then to Mexico City and then on to Tijuana.

Source: Frontera, June 20, 2001. Article by Ernesto Alvarez.

Six Agents Suspended During Torture Death Investigation

Five Baja California state police agents and one Tijuana police officer have been suspended until the torture death case of Isidro Carrillo Vega has been resolved, according to an announcement made by the internal affairs division of the Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado (State Attorney General's Office, PGJE).

Carrillo, who was being investigated for a bank robbery, died on May 27, 2001 from wounds allegedly received during torture in the PGJE's Robos Domicilarios (Home Robbery) offices.

Source: Frontera, June 7, 2001. Article by Ernesto Alvarez.

Federal Police Imprisoned in Cd. Juárez, More Charges May Follow

The Ciudad Juárez newspaper El Diario reported on June 16, 2001 that two Policía Judicial Federal (Federal Judicial Police, PJF) agents were taken from house arrest in a hotel to an area prison facility. The newspaper also said that the PJF agents tried to elude the move to prison by hiding in a different hotel room with the help of the PJF agents that were guarding them. El Diario says that the escape attempt was thwarted by the 50 city and state police agents and soldiers that had surrounded the building.

The June 19, 2001 El Diario says that officials are now trying to charge the two PJF agents with two new crimes: auto theft and the cover-up of a crime. Already charged with the May 10, 2001 murder of one man and the wounding of 7 family members, the agents may now be charged with using a stolen vehicle during the crime. The agents may also be prosecuted for trying to cover up their involvement in the shooting death.

Business leaders have responded to the above events by calling for a purge of PJF units in Chihuahua. Sergio Holguín Lucero, president of the Consejo Coordinador del Sector Privado (Private Sector Coordinating Council), said that the PJF should become a more transparent operation.

To see a previous FNS article on this case go to the following link and scroll down: http://www.nmsu.edu/~frontera/may01/today.html

Source: El Diario, June 16 & 19, 2001. Articles by Armando Rodríguez & Roberto Ramos.

Alleged Juarez-Cartel Leader Arrested

Alcides Ramón Magaña (known as "El Metro"), one of the alleged heirs to the Carrillo Fuentes Cartel (also called the Juárez Cartel), was arrested Tuesday night, June 12, 2001 in Villahermosa, Tabasco, according to Mexican Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha. Magaña had been sought for years by the Policía Judicial Federal (Federal Judicial Police, PJF) for his alleged involvement in drug crimes.

According to the Federal Attorney General's Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR), Magaña was the alleged head of the Caribbean cell of the Juárez Cartel after the death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Magaña has been allegedly associated with the Carrillo Fuentes brothers since the early 1990's when he was the head of the Policía Judicial Federal in Tamaulipas. The Policía Judicial Federal is part of the PGR, the Mexican Federal Attorney General's Office.

Magaña was arrested at a telephone booth in Villahermosa by police who approached him with guns drawn. Police said that Magaña drew a pistol on them but dropped it when he realized that he was out gunned.

A US official said that the US will seek the extradition of Magaña. In the US, Magaña could face US$8 million in fines and life in prison. Magaña and others are accused in the US of trying to import 200 tons of cocaine and marijuana into the country in the period between 1994 and 1998.

Source: El Diario, June 14, 2001.

Citizens Request New Curfew in Two Cd. Juárez Neighborhoods

By the end of the week the Ciudad Juárez Dirección General de Seguridad Pública y Protección Ciudadana (city police) will impose a new curfew in the Torres del Sur and Infonavit San Lorenzo neighborhoods.  The decision to apply a curfew to these two neighborhoods was made after seeing the results that a similar program had in the Moradas del Porvenir neighborhood. The new curfews were requested by neighborhood organizations. Andrés Moreno, the district police director, said that any adolescents found outside after 10:00 pm will be reprimanded and taken before a judge.

A month after a curfew was imposed in the Moradas del Porvenir neighborhood the members of the gang "Los Omis 13" asked for a truce and are now working with police and people in the neighborhood to erase gang graffiti. The construction of sports fields and courts has begun and gang members told El Diario that they have quit using drugs.

In Infonavit San Lorenzo city police will create a database consisting of the names and crimes of juvenile offenders. The adolescents will be classified according to the type of crime they commit.

According to Ciudad Juárez police both neighborhoods face problems such as store robberies, auto theft, gangs, graffiti, and the sale of drugs. District police director Moreno said that both the police and the people in the neighborhood believe that the program will begin to show results within three months.

Source: El Diario, June 12, 2001. Article by Luz del Carmen Sosa.

Minimum Prison Sentences Given to Human Traffickers

A June 4, 2001 El Norte article states that Mexican federal judges are handing out minimum prison sentences to "polleros" (human traffickers). Of the 70 polleros in the Ciudad Juárez area prison known as the Cereso (Centro de Readaptación Social para Adultos) only two have received the maximum sentence of eight years. The minimum sentence for crimes related to human trafficking is six years.

A report by the Instituto Nacional de Migración (INM) states that in the first five months of this year 1,878 undocumented persons were detained in Mexico. During this time the INM estimates that polleros have earned US$6 million. The report indicated that polleros charge a minimum of US$500 up to approximately US$2,500.

Of the polleros that have already been sentenced and those awaiting sentencing 90% are men and 10% women. The youngest arrested pollero is 18 years old, the oldest 58 and most of the rest fall into the 25 to 35 year old age group. The polleros come from many Mexican states, Chihuahua cities, El Paso, New Mexico and even Beirut, Lebanon.

Source: El Norte, June 4, 2001. Article by Salvador Castro.