Narcoguerra not over, say
police
EXECUTION-STYLE KILLINGS
REPORTED AGAIN IN JUAREZ
by Jeff Barnet, FNS Editor
After five months of peace, renewed violence
For the first time since February 19, assassins armed with AK-47's committed public executions in Ciudad Juárez. The killings began two days after the state and local elections. By the end of the month, at least eleven persons had been killed in what Assistant Attorney General Jorge López Molinar called "a war between two criminal organizations for control of the plaza." Two of the dead were high-ranking federal police officials.
Government officials offer theories
"These executions are warnings from the cartels," said Molinar on July 11, after the slayings of the two police officers--Juan Manuel García Medrano of the Federal Highway Police (PFC) and Francisco Javier Sanchez Martínez, recently retired from the PJE and the National Institute to Combat Drugs (INCD).
Police and government officials put differing but related interpretations on the wave of executions. Governor Francisco Barrio of the National Action Party (PAN) stated that he felt the "warnings," which he also called "messages," might be intended for "the new administration" of the state government, namely, Governor-elect Patricio Martínez of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).
"These groups may have concluded that the new administration may not feel the weight of responsibility for conducting thorough investigations," Barrio told El Diario July 14.
In addition, the governor offered two other "hypotheses": 1) that the criminal organizations believe that "during the change of administrations, the state will lose the continuity of the investigations"; and 2) that the rival organizations are simply "adjusting accounts."
The PRI and Martínez will assume control of the state governorship on October 4.
Former state investigator and newly elected senator Francisco Molina Ruiz developed Barrio's PRI hypothesis further, stating that the executions "are a warning from one of the drug cartels to the next state administration." With the results of the election now final, he said, "criminal organizations are trying to negotiate a cheap peace with the future state authority."
State Attorney General Arturo Chávez Chávez agreed that "the electoral result" was probably a factor in the renewal of drug-related violence, but also echoed Barrio's other hypotheses by restating that drug organizations might view the change in administrations as an opportune time to "adjust accounts or eliminate their adversaries."
However, Chávez Chávez offered another hypothesis on July 15, after his office, the PGJE, had conducted comparative ballistic tests between the July 9 killing of Sanchez Martinez and earlier AK-47 shootings on January 28, 1998 (city police officer Jorge Frias Orozco), August 31, 1997 (the Geronimo's massacre); and August 3, 1997 (the Max-Fim massacre). Chávez Chávez stated that the tests proved that the same weapons were used in all four shootings.
The Attorney General then concluded, according to news reports, that the latest killing was part of "a new offensive by the Cartel de Tijuana." On August 6, 1997, Chávez Chávez first stated that the Cartel de Tijuana was responsible for the Max-Fim shooting, in which six people were killed.
He also announced that "it is hoped that another group of agents from the PGR (Mexican Federal Police) will arrive" and this time use helicopters to patrol the city, which Chávez Chávez regretted "did not occur last year."
In a theory never before published, El Norte de Ciudad Juárez said its reporters spoke to "anonymous US officials" who claimed that the Juárez Cartel is as strong as ever and is led by the late Amado Carrillo's brother Vicente Carrillo and Amado's son, Luis Vicente Leyva Carrillo.
El Norte's "anonymous US officials" say the Juárez Cártel "continues to work full power, with maybe a slight decrease of power, but only because the Cártel has become more regionalized."
No one--not government officials, police officials, anonymous sources--has ever said that the Carrillo clan is in control of the Juárez cartel. El Norte's July 4 article--published on the first year anniversary of Amado's death--stands alone in making this claim. The story did not appear in El Diario or The El Paso Times.
Also of note was that at no time during the month of July did any Mexican government or police official mentions any names (especially not Rafael Muñoz Talavera, suspected by U.S. DEA agents in April of having control of the Cartel: see conclusion of this article), nor did any officials ever state that the fighting was between two rival factions within the Juárez Cartel.
A PRI spokesman for Governor-elect Martínez stated that the responsibility for the violence, as well as the investigations into the violence, still rested with the PAN government until October 4.
Federal Officers Both Worked in Anti-Drug Operations
The hits on García Medrano July 7 and Sanchez Martínez July 9 were "contract killings," according to PJE investigators. According to police, both of men had worked in anti-drug operations. In addition, they were both killed by professionals using AK-47's.
García Medrano, second commander of the Federal Highway Police (PFC), was shot to death outside his home by an armed commando at seven in the morning on July 7. He was a twenty-year veteran of the PFC and had worked in Ciudad Juárez for three years, according to a PFC spokesman.
According to an agent from the Office of Previous Investigations quoted in El Norte, García had also worked in "an important undercover drug operation" in December 1997.
The high-ranking federal police official was shot 11 times as he was leaving his house, with both a .40 caliber weapon and an AK-47. His house was ocated in the Panamericano Jardín neighborhood of Ciudad Juárez, near the Juárez International Airport.
Witnesses told El Diario that there were at least three assassins, who spent the night inside a house under construction waiting for the victim to appear.
Chihuahua state police are investigating the murder. As of July 10, PJE agents were looking for two men who allegedly met with García just hours before he was killed, according to El Diario.
One of the assassins (sicarios) shot García Medrano in the face (in Spanish, a tiro de gracia) after he was dead, shattering his skull.
According to witnesses, one of the sicarios was dressed in a jacket with white, blue, and orange color rays. Another carried the case for the AK-47. PJE investigators told El Diario that they had never heard of a hit man bringing his AK-47 case to the site of a killing before.
Only 62 hours after the assassination of García Medrano, Sanchez Martínez, 36, ex-commander of the PJE and an investigator in the National Institute to Combat Drugs (INCD), was gunned down by three men using AK-47 assault rifles at 9:25 p.m. on July 9.
Witnesses said Sanchez was shot to death while sitting in his car, waiting for a light to change at the corner of Ejido and Seine. The three assassins pulled up in a white Neon with tinted windows, then proceeded to kill the victim with a volley of AK-47 fire, according to PJE spokesman Luis Najera. Police said Sanchez Martínez was hit 40 times.
While assigned to the INCD's Guadalajara office, Sanchez worked for General Jesus Rebollo, former Mexican drug policy chief now serving 31 years in prison for his role in aiding the Cartel de Juárez and its former head, Amado Carrillo "El Señor de Los Cielos" Fuentes.
Relatives of the victim said that Sanchez had left his INCD duties eight months ago and was dedicated to the commerce of chemical products and wood platforms. He had been a group chief of the PJE until mid-1996.
"It looks like a contract killing," said Najera to reporter Sonny Lopez of the El Paso Times.
In April, DEA Predicted Narcoguerra Not Over
Mexican officials said in April that no one had taken over control of the Juárez cartel. However, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent Thomas L. Kennedy stated, in an article published in the April 15 issue of The New York Times, that the "bloody street wars" in Juárez between rival factions of the Juárez Cartel "are not over." In fact, he predicted it would end in a "crescendo of violence."
According to Kennedy's April interview, the Juárez cartel is under the control of Rafael Muñoz Talavera, who was indicted in connection with the 1989 seizure of 20 tons of cocaine in Sylmar, California. Tried twice in two locations for drugtrafficking, Muñoz was not convicted for any crimes.
In a April 15 interview with the New York Times (and reprinted in Spanish in El Diario), Chihuahua Governor Francisco Barrio Terrazas said that alleged drugtrafficker Rafael Muñoz Talavera "forged an alliance with exceptionally violent traffickers from Tijuana." Barrio said he believes that Muñoz used "Tijuana henchmen" to seize control of the Cartel de Juárez, attacking followers of the late Amado Carrillo Fuentes. Barrio attributed the August 3 Max-Fim massacre, in which six people were killed, to Muñoz and his Tijuana assassins.
However, in July, no one has spoken of Rafael Muñoz Talavera. With theories that name the Tijuana Cartel, the Carrillo clan, rival cartels, rival criminal organizations being tossed about by newspapers and officials alike, one thing seemed clear about the drug-related violence: either no one knows what's going on, or no one is telling.
Summary of the July Executions
Police investigators and newspapers claiming to have talked to police investigators have stated that the following shootings and executions were drug-related:
July 7 -- Juan Manuel García Medrano, second commander of the Federal Highway Police (PFC), shot to death by an armed commando using a .450 caliber weapon and an AK-47 outside his home, Ciudad Juárez.
July 9 -- Francisco Javier Sanchez Martínez,
former commander in the Chihuahua State Police (PJE) and investigator in
the National Institute to Combat Drugs (INCD), shot to death by an armed
commando using AK-47's while in his car stopped at an intersection near
his home, Ciudad Juárez.
July 10 -- Unidentified Burned Man, between
35-40 years of age, found dead on the street in the Libertad neighborhood,
Ciudad Juárez, near a hill known as Cerro Bollo, where his body
was found in a pile of burning tires. His head had been covered in a plastic
bag, his hands tied with gray adhesive tape, and with torture wounds covering
95% of his body. Police said he had been executed elsewhere, then dumped
on Cerro Bollo
.
July 13 -- Three Men, kidnapped and later found executed laying
face down in field, shot by a .45 caliber weapon, Parral, southern Chihuahua.The
victims: José de la Luz Moreno García, 25; Jesús José
Loya Beltran, 39; Inocencio Portillo Rico, 40. Police authorities said
the murders "were an act of revenge by narcotraffickers," according
to El Diario.
July 13 -- Aryan Osvaldo Valverde, Rancher, kidnapped
and later executed by a gunshot to his head, near Galeana, Chihuahua
July 13 -- Failed Assassination Attempt, Juárez
Lawyer, Lucio Cano Barraza, who fled two attackers carrying AK-47's
by abandoning his car in Ciudad Juárez and running across the Free
Bridge and into El Paso, Texas. PJE authorities quoted in El Diario
said Cano had been kidnapped from his home earlier in 1998.
July 19 -- El Paso man, Kirk Thompson, found
shot to death in his home in east El Paso. El Norte de Ciudad Juárez,
which said its reporters had talked to U.S. police investigators, alleged
that Thompson had "connections to the Cartel de Juárez."
That allegation was not published in either El Diario or The
El Paso Times.
July 21 -- Unidentified Man, Found Stuffed Inside
Barrel, Revolución Mexicana neighborhood, behind the Philips
maquiladora, Ciudad Juárez. The man, believed to be approximately
30 years old, was found decapitated, dismembered, covered in cement, and
stuffed inside a barrel. The man had been shot in the head execution-style
and carved into peices, said PJE Homicide Commander Arturo Tovar. As of
August 1, the man had not been identified.
July 23 -- Failed Assassination Attempt, Alleged
Drug Runner, Julio Rodriguez Rentería, shot in the head by two
drugtraffickers who allegedly owed him $4,000 (US), at the Juárez
Airport. Rodriguez told his story to police after being taken to the Juárez
General Hospital, according to El Diario. The two alleged drugtraffickers
were arrested.
July 23 -- Gilberto Ramírez, alleged
to be part of a drugtrafficking family, was tortured and shot to death
by men impersonating Federal Judicial Police (PJF) officers, in Palomas,
Chihuahua, south of Columbus, New Mexico. According to Mexical Federal
Police (PGR) spokesman Juan Figueroa Vargas, the men did not work for the
federal police.
July 24 -- Two Unidentified Men, found dead
and laying face down in streambed, near Namiquipa, western Chihuahua. The
men, estimated to be between 20 and 25 years old, had been repeatedly shot
by 9mm weapon. PJF agents said the bodies had not been shot in Namiquipa,
only dumped there, and were found in an advanced state of decomposition,
according to El Diario.