12 bodies found near Mexico school
The discovery in Tijuana shows that residential areas are no longer safe from the rampant drug violence.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tijuana30-2008sep30,0,195605.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
12 bodies found near Mexico school
The discovery in Tijuana shows that residential areas are no longer safe from the rampant drug violence.
By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 30, 2008

TIJUANA — Leonor Merino said she was shocked enough Monday to find that what she thought was a pile of rags was a dozen bodies. Then she realized children soon would be passing by the carnage on the way to school.

So as class time approached at Valentin Gomez Farias elementary school, Merino and her neighbors blocked the streets.

"We closed the streets so the kids wouldn't see all the dead bodies," Merino said hours after the bodies were removed. "Our hearts are trembling right now. We're wondering what's going to happen next."

The grisly discovery capped four days of violence that has shaken the sprawling Tijuana metropolitan area and forced Baja California state officials to plead for more federal police to help control the city. Police on Monday also discovered four bodies in a vacant lot in eastern Tijuana. They had been carefully arranged in a circle and, like other such scenes, carried a narco-message.

On Sunday, gunmen killed three people in nearby Rosarito Beach. On Friday, three police patrolling in their car were killed in a drive-by shooting. Earlier last week, four other police officers were wounded in drive-by attacks.

At least 380 people have been killed this year in Tijuana, most of them victims of organized crime, according to Baja California Atty. Gen. Rommel Moreno Manjarrez's office.

Moreno suggested Monday night that the killing spree resulted from the Mexican government's nearly 2-year-old offensive against organized crime groups, such as the Arellano Felix cartel, that are competing for lucrative trade routes into the United States. "We're in a war, a constant battle, and today you're seeing the results," he said.

Two of the victims were 18 years old and one was 15, Moreno noted.

The 12 bodies were discovered in Colonia Las Plazas, a quiet working-class area near the Tijuana airport. Residents bar their doors and windows, but the area of neatly kept stucco homes and roadside food stands had been spared the worst of the drug war violence.

The assailants apparently drove into the area about 4 a.m. Residents said they heard a quick barrage of gunfire, but did not report it.

Later, they emerged from their homes and found the bodies of 11 young men and one woman.

Bodies are regularly dumped in vacant lots in Tijuana. Mutilated corpses have turned up near churches or been left beheaded near hospitals and stores. But it is rare for killers to leave victims in a residential area, let alone across from a school.

Residents studied the victims for faces from the neighborhood. None of the bodies carried identification, and none of the faces seemed familiar, the residents said. "It was horrible, something you only see in the movies," said one middle-aged resident who gave his name only as Victor. "It didn't look real."

Residents said police did not arrive at the scene for several hours, so neighbors set up roadblocks themselves. Classes were canceled while police investigated and news media swarmed the area.

Police said a plastic bag filled with severed tongues was found near the bodies. According to Moreno's office, a message scrawled on cardboard, propped on one body, threatened more violence: "This is what happens to anyone associated with the loud mouth engineer." The reputed leader of the Arellano Felix cartel is said to be Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero -- the Engineer. Authorities believe the cartel has splintered into rival groups, some of which may be allied with other Mexican organized crime syndicates trying to muscle into the city.

Victor, the middle-aged resident, said it was sad that the violence was spilling into once-safe neighborhoods. He had to keep his children from looking out the window at the gruesome scene.

"It makes you realize things are very bad here in Tijuana," he said.

richard.marosi@latimes.com


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Two suspects held in Mexican Independence Day attack
Authorities are investigating whether the drug gang La Familia was in involved in Monday's grenade attack in western Michoacan state that killed seven people.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexarrests19-2008sep19,0,4111747.story

From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Two suspects held in Mexican Independence Day attack
Authorities are investigating whether the drug gang La Familia was in involved in Monday's grenade attack in western Michoacan state that killed seven people.

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 19, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Two men were being held as possible suspects in the fatal grenade attack this week on an Independence Day celebration in western Michoacan state, authorities said today.

The two were detained in northern Zacatecas state late Wednesday after being hospitalized with injuries from a car crash. The men are being held by the Mexican army, which is leading the government's campaign against drug traffickers.

Authorities said they were investigating whether a Michoacan-based drug gang known as La Familia was involved in the twin grenade attack Monday in Morelia, the Michoacan state capital. Seven people died, and more than 100 were hurt. Officials previously blamed organized crime but they did not specify a group.

A third suspect was arrested in Michoacan, Mexican news media reported. But state officials confirmed only the Zacatecas arrests and provided few details. The federal attorney general's office, which is in charge of the investigation, did not comment.

Mexican news reports said the pair detained in the city of Zacatecas, the state capital, appeared to bear injuries similar to shrapnel wounds suffered by victims of the grenade attack.

A spokeswoman in the federal attorney general's office confirmed that investigators were looking into whether La Familia was behind the attack. A text message purportedly sent out by the group a day earlier denied involvement.

The text message steered blame toward the Zetas, a brutal gang that got its start as the armed wing of the so-called Gulf cartel. La Familia and the Zetas were considered allies; the message, if authentic, might suggest a split.

The attackers' motives remained unclear. Some analysts believe the violence against civilians may have been an attempt to pressure Mexican President Felipe Calderon into abandoning his nearly 2-year-old crackdown on organized crime. The president is from Michoacan.

The attack further rattled Mexicans, who have watched drug-related killings soar to more than 3,000 this year, according to Mexican news media counts.

Most of the slayings have been attributed to turf wars between drug gangs thrown off balance by the government campaign.

Bystanders have been killed in the crossfire during the crackdown, but civilians were not directly targeted before Monday's attack.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.


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DEA arrests 175 Mexican drug trafficking suspects
The suspects, believed to have ties to Mexico's Gulf cartel, were arrested in raids this week in a dozen U.S. states.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-na-drugs18-2008sep18,0,6372077.story
From the Los Angeles Times

DEA arrests 175 Mexican drug trafficking suspects
The suspects, believed to have ties to Mexico's Gulf cartel, were arrested in raids this week in a dozen U.S. states.
By Richard B. Schmitt
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 18, 2008

WASHINGTON — In what prosecutors said was a significant step in fighting the drug wars raging on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Justice Department said Wednesday that 175 people believed to be connected with one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels were arrested this week in a dozen states.

The arrests Tuesday and Wednesday were part of a 15-month investigation led by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration targeting the drug trafficking organization known as the Gulf cartel. The group is a key target of Mexican President Felipe Calderon's 21-month offensive against drug mafias.

The Justice Department also unsealed indictments in federal court in Washington against three reputed cartel leaders who remain at large in Mexico.

"We believe these arrests are a substantial blow to the Gulf cartel," Atty. Gen. Michael B. Mukasey told reporters in Atlanta, a regional hub of the cartel where 43 arrests were made.

Officials said 66 people were picked up throughout Texas; four arrests were made in California.

The sweep targeted the cartel's infrastructure, including transportation routes and distribution cells.

Authorities also announced the arrests of 10 people associated with an organized crime group in the Calabria region of Italy and accused of trafficking cocaine supplied by the cartel through New York.

The Gulf cartel is believed to be responsible for trafficking tons of cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and marijuana from Central and South America into major U.S. cities and laundering tens of millions of dollars.

Based in the state of Tamaulipas on Mexico's Gulf Coast, the cartel is considered a driving force behind escalating violence in Mexico and along the U.S. border. The scale and ferocity of the violence have increased with Calderon's crackdown, as have clashes among various cartels.

So far, the investigation has resulted in 507 arrests and the seizure of about $60.1 million in U.S. currency, 36,841 pounds of cocaine, 1,039 pounds of methamphetamine, 19 pounds of heroin, 51,258 pounds of marijuana, 176 vehicles and 167 weapons. Those arrested include suspected heads of U.S. cells and alleged members or associates of the Zetas, a violent paramilitary wing of the Gulf cartel.

Since December 2006, Mexico has extradited 145 drug trafficking suspects to the United States, Mukasey said. U.S. authorities have praised Calderon for breaking with Mexico's traditional reluctance to send citizens to the U.S. to face charges.

More than a dozen figures were extradited in January 2007, including Osiel Cardenas, the former leader of the Gulf cartel, who is expected to stand trial next year on drug and conspiracy charges in federal court in Brownsville, Texas.

The federal indictments unsealed Wednesday in Washington targeted three fugitive alleged cartel leaders -- Cardenas' brother, Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen, and Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano and Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez. The men are all believed to be in Mexico and are considered priority targets for American and Mexican law enforcement authorities.

rick.schmitt@latimes.com
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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexicans fear they are all targets now
By Ken Ellingwood

Mexicans fear they are all targets now
In the wake of the deadly explosions in the capital of Michoacan state, Mexicans are forced to confront a new kind of victim in the drug wars: anyone.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexattack18-2008sep18,0,2843529.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexicans fear they are all targets now
In the wake of the deadly explosions in the capital of Michoacan state, Mexicans are forced to confront a new kind of victim in the drug wars: anyone.

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 18, 2008

MORELIA, MEXICO — Gloria Alvarez never got to shout "Viva Mexico!"

The 32-year-old homemaker, cradling her infant son, jostled with the rest of her family and thousands of other people who packed the center of this colonial-era city Monday night to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.

Then came the blasts. Alvarez's husband and 7-year-old daughter were seriously injured. The 3-month-old baby, Uriel, somehow escaped unharmed, but Alvarez, gravely wounded, died later in a public hospital.

The devastated family was among many people in Mexico reeling Wednesday from what many considered an escalation in the vicious violence that has been racking the nation for months.

Twin grenade attacks on the dense, celebrating crowd, on a major holiday and in the Mexican president's hometown, killed at least seven people, wounded scores and sowed panic among a population already unnerved.

Mexican authorities on Tuesday blamed organized crime for the blasts in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, a western state with a long history of drug trafficking. In the 21 months since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared war on Mexico's powerful drug-smuggling networks, this was the first time civilians had been directly and indiscriminately targeted. And Mexicans were forced to confront a new kind of victim amid rising fears that, now, anyone is fair game.

People like Alvarez.

Her husband, Rafael Bucio, lay in his hospital bed Wednesday, the bones of a shattered arm and leg held in place by pins, and sought to understand what was happening to his country.

A parking attendant, Bucio, 30, said he recalled seeing an object fly past and strike a police car. It bounced off and rolled to within 6 feet of his family. Bucio had but a moment to identify the rolling object.

"When it stopped, I realized it was a grenade," he said.

He tried to gather up his family, but it was too late. All were knocked to the ground. His daughter, Jannyfer, screamed, "Papa, help me!" Her face was covered with blood. His wife lay motionless.

Five of the seven people killed were women. Most of the victims were from humble families for whom open-air town square celebrations are major social events.

Mexican troops Wednesday roped off the quaint central plaza and stood guard under Mexican flags and leftover holiday red-green-and-white bunting. Bloody shoes, ripped clothing and broken glass littered the paving stones where the injured had writhed in pain. Stunned citizens brought flowers and arranged candles in the shape of a cross, as hasty shrines.

"We are reaching a very extreme level of violence that we've never seen before," said Ordulia Castro, a 39-year-old nurse. "They are killing innocents. This isn't going to stop here. It's going to continue until we are in a guerrilla war, just like Colombia."

Some people compared Monday night's violence to a Mexican version of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. -- smaller, surely, but the kind of event that has the potential to change Mexico. Several of the survivors suffered horrific wounds and underwent multiple amputations.

"Mexicans have always been very happy. With this, it could change the attitude of people. It could make us more cold," said Rodolfo Chavez, a 44-year-old education researcher. "Nobody could ever have imagined this."

Mexican authorities circulated a composite sketch of a chubby man dressed in black who several witnesses reported seeing tossing a fragmentation grenade and begging for forgiveness.

Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy promised a "profound and exhaustive" investigation.

No arrests have been reported.

Michoacan has had a front-row view as the drug war has spread nationwide. Two years ago, gunmen in the city of Uruapan dumped five human heads onto the floor of a dance hall, auguring a wave of drug-hit beheadings that has only worsened.

Calderon chose Michoacan as the first place to send troops when, as a newly elected president, he announced his crusade against drug traffickers in December 2006.

On Wednesday, Calderon interrupted his scheduled activities to travel to Morelia.

"The sad events in Morelia," he said before heading here, "have sent the nation into mourning and demonstrate that the criminals act not only against the government but against society."

Bucio lay in his hospital bed, while his relatives arranged the cremation of his wife's remains. He hadn't yet broken the news of her death to Jannyfer, who was in a bed four floors above.

"Who knows where all this will end," he said. "I think maybe we are only at the beginning."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

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Organized crime blamed for deadly Mexico blasts
At least seven people are killed by the two explosions in the capital of Michoacan state during Independence Day celebrations.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexattack17-2008sep17,0,2057095.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Organized crime blamed for deadly Mexico blasts
At least seven people are killed by the two explosions in the capital of Michoacan state during Independence Day celebrations.

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 17, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Mexican authorities blamed organized crime Tuesday for a pair of blasts that killed at least seven people and injured more than 100 during Independence Day festivities in a western state.

The explosions, which officials believed were caused by fragmentation grenades, ripped through crowds in the capital of Michoacan state late Monday night during the traditional cry of independence, or grito.

The violence jolted a Mexican population already unnerved by the rising death toll from the nation's drug war, and raised fears that it might represent the start of a Colombia-style terrorism campaign by drug traffickers. No one claimed responsibility.

Although a growing number of civilians have been caught in the crossfire of the drug violence, traffickers have not previously targeted them.

Some analysts saw the attack as a means of pressuring the government of President Felipe Calderon to back away from its 21-month-old campaign against drug-trafficking groups.

"They have been hit hard by the Calderon administration and this is the way they respond -- to generate fear in the Mexican population," said Jorge Chabat, a Mexico City-based security analyst. "The purpose . . . is to increase the political cost to Calderon of going after the cartels."

Mexican leaders said the attack intentionally targeted civilians.

"We have no doubt this is an act of terrorism," Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy, who was presiding over the grito in the city of Morelia but was not hurt, said in a statement.

In a television interview, Godoy said organized-crime elements appeared to have been responsible. But he did not provide evidence, or say which group was believed involved.

Godoy said the blasts were apparently caused by fragmentation grenades. Hit men for drug-trafficking organizations have at times employed the grenades against police and to intimidate foes.

If Godoy is right, attackers chose to make a powerful statement by launching an Independence Day attack on Michoacan, Calderon's home state.

Calderon's government began a crackdown against organized crime after taking office in December 2006. He has sent 40,000 troops and 5,000 federal police officers into the streets as part of the push, which has aggravated violent feuding among drug gangs.

More than 3,000 people have died this year in drug-related violence, according to unofficial tallies by the Mexican news media.

Calderon condemned the blasts as cowardly and called on Mexicans to unite.

"These are abominable acts that were clearly attacking our national security, committed by real traitors who have no respect for others or the nation," Calderon said Tuesday during a wreath-laying ceremony in Mexico City that was among Independence Day celebrations held nationwide.

Calderon urged Mexicans to step forward with information that could help authorities catch those responsible.

The explosions created pandemonium during one of Mexico's most beloved celebrations. The grito, a flag-waving commemoration of the 1810 declaration of war to break from Spanish rule, is held in plazas all over Mexico on Sept. 15, the eve of Independence Day.

Images of the scene in Morelia, the Colonial-era state capital, resembled those of bombing attacks in the Middle East, with rescue workers scrambling to reach the wounded and dazed. Empty shoes and scraps of clothing were strewn about the bloody pavement of the city's tree-lined main plaza, where thousands had gathered for the "Viva Mexico!" cry.

Most of the victims died during the initial blast at the plaza. A second explosion occurred a few blocks away on a crowded street. Officials said 108 people were hurt, at least 15 severely.

Godoy said witnesses reported that at least one of the grenades was thrown by a heavyset man dressed in black, who begged forgiveness for what he was about to do.

On Tuesday, authorities canceled the Independence Day parade in Morelia and army troops stood guard at the plaza.

Godoy said the federal attorney general's office was taking over the investigation. The attorney general oversees investigations of drug trafficking, organized crime and terrorism.

Michoacan, long a drug-trafficking center, was the first state targeted in Calderon's military-led crackdown. Anti-drug operations have continued, but the violence there has been eclipsed in recent months by rising death tolls in other spots, such as the northern border state of Chihuahua and the western state of Sinaloa.

U.S. law enforcement officials say the Calderon offensive has roiled the violent drug underworld by making it more difficult to smuggle narcotics north toward the United States. Michoacan is one place where U.S. officials say the effort has disrupted smuggling.

The bloodshed marred Mexico's independence celebrations.

In Mexico City, thousands of residents lined up for the annual military parade along the Paseo de la Reforma. But amid the flag waving, there was anger and unease.

Francisco Sandi, a 21-year-old student, said the incident underscored the dilemma facing Mexican leaders over drug trafficking.

"I ask myself, what's better? That the police intervene and provoke this kind of violent response from the narcos," he said, "or do nothing and end up being accomplices?"

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

Times staff writer Deborah Bonello and Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.




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Suspects in border tunnel charged, Mexico officials say
The eight men arrested in the house where the sophisticated tunnel began include a suspected L.A.-area gang member.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tunnel17-2008sep17,0,3342492.story
From the Los Angeles Times

Suspects in border tunnel charged, Mexico officials say
The eight men arrested in the house where the sophisticated tunnel began include a suspected L.A.-area gang member.

By Richard Marosi,
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 17, 2008

MEXICALI, MEXICO — Eight men arrested on suspicion of constructing a drug tunnel have been formally charged with racketeering and smuggling, Mexican state and federal authorities say.

The men, one of whom was identified as a suspected Los Angeles-area gang member, were arrested this month inside a small house where the well-constructed passageway began. The tunnel, equipped with ventilation, electricity and a rail-and-cart system to ferry material and dirt, stretched 150 yards, ending within feet of the California border.

Mexican authorities say the sophisticated design suggests that a major drug cartel financed the project.

Drug trafficking in Mexicali is controlled by the Sinaloa-based cartel led by Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, but authorities have yet to determine whether the group was responsible.

The tunnel appeared destined for a quiet neighborhood in the Imperial Valley city of Calexico. In recent years, organized-crime groups have tried to build at least seven tunnels in the Calexico-Mexicali area, taking advantage of flat terrain and dense cross-border neighborhoods.

The tunnels, which can cost $1 million, are closely guarded secrets that often enjoy protection by local police.

In this case, Baja California state preventive police raided the home after neighbors reported suspicious late-night activity, Juan Miguel Guillen, director of the force, said in a recent interview.

The suspects, most of whom came from distant Mexican states, told authorities they were ordered to stay in the house and work round-the-clock. One of the men had a tattoo from a Southern California gang, Guillen said.

The men's only contact with outsiders was a weekly visit from a man who brought food, supplies and their $500 weekly pay. The man wore a mask to hide his identity, Guillen said.

The men are being held in a state prison near Mexicali.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Mexico safety chief's tough job: policing the police
Drug money and corruption have long tainted law enforcement. But Genaro Garcia Luna, with President Calderon's backing and the aid of technology, may succeed in reforming the system, analysts say.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

Mexico safety chief's tough job: policing the police
Drug money and corruption have long tainted law enforcement. But Genaro Garcia Luna, with President Calderon's backing and the aid of technology, may succeed in reforming the system, analysts say.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexcops15-2008sep15,0,514108.story
From the Los Angeles Times
Mexico safety chief's tough job: policing the police
Drug money and corruption have long tainted law enforcement. But Genaro Garcia Luna, with President Calderon's backing and the aid of technology, may succeed in reforming the system, analysts say.
By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 15, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Federal police in the northern state of Coahuila had seven drug suspects in hand last week when they met a caravan of gun-toting men apparently intent on freeing the arrestees.

The highway standoff quickly turned nasty, and bullets began to fly. When the shooting stopped, one of the would-be rescuers was dead and two were wounded. The federal police arrested 33 more people.

But these were no ordinary gunmen. They were police officers from the city of Torreon, in uniform and aboard official police pickups.

In the trenches of the drug war, cops were fighting cops.

The shootout last Monday underscores the grave troubles facing Mexico's top police official, Genaro Garcia Luna, as he seeks to overhaul his nation's law enforcement system.

As field marshal in the government's 21-month-old offensive against drug traffickers, the former intelligence specialist has begun trying to turn Mexico's police into a modern, trustworthy and well-equipped force. His task amounts to fixing a broken army in the midst of a war -- a conflict that has killed 2,700 people this year.

More than 500 police officers and soldiers have died since the government campaign began in December 2006.

The weaknesses of Mexican police are vast. Most officers have at most a grade school education. They often have to buy their own guns on wages equal to those of a supermarket cashier. Many times, the average cop has his hand out for a bribe, in part to pay off bosses for the privilege of a job he probably will not hold for more than a few years. Problems are worst at the local levels.

And this nation seems to reshuffle its sprawling patchwork of police agencies as often as it changes presidents (every six years).

Today's crusader can be tomorrow's convict, as Mexicans learned bitterly in 1997 when the nation's touted drug czar, Army Gen. Jose de Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, was arrested on charges of working with traffickers.

It's anybody's guess where Garcia Luna, 40, will be a year from now. Many Mexicans complain that he has little to show for his efforts.

But analysts say new conditions may allow Garcia Luna to overcome Mexico's disappointing track record on police reform.

Most important,President Felipe Calderon of the conservative National Action Party has made the anti-crime campaign a centerpiece of his administration. The president has backed his rhetoric by dispatching 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers to drug-smuggling hot spots nationwide. He also has expressed support for consolidating the ungainly jumble of overlapping agencies into a centrally controlled national force. But that idea is politically explosive because the constitution gives states considerable autonomy, including control of their own security forces.

"If Genaro Garcia Luna can do this, it's because Calderon is behind him," said Ernesto Lopez Portillo, who heads the Institute for Democracy and Security, a Mexico City-based think tank.

Commanders purged

Since becoming public safety secretary in December 2006, Garcia Luna has shaken up federal police agencies, whose staff totals nearly 25,000. He put Mexico's version of the FBI, which he once ran, under the same roof as the Federal Preventive Police (itself expanded to incorporate the Federal Highway Patrol). The result is a consolidated Federal Police.

Garcia Luna has purged 284 federal police commanders, promoted 1,600 officers and added 3,000 positions. He has more than doubled pay for federal officers to $1,200 a month and recruited aggressively at universities to attract the best and brightest to work he views as increasingly sophisticated.

Garcia Luna has sent officers back to class and imposed strict new professional standards. Eventually, those standards will apply to all of Mexico's more than 300,000 state and local police officers, whose long tradition of corruption has made them a weak link in fighting crime.

The military has assumed anti-drug patrols in some spots because local police are considered unreliable.

Federal police are hardly beyond reproach, however. Officials were embarrassed last week when a federal officer turned up among five people arrested in connection with the highly publicized kidnapping and killing of a 14-year-old boy in Mexico City.

Garcia Luna asserts that decades of neglect, mainly under the once-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party, left police 30 years behind in training, equipment and conduct. Now, he contends, it is time to catch up and clean up.

"The corruption in law enforcement agencies helped crime expand and began the evolution of the criminal and crime," Garcia Luna said during a recent appearance before Congress. "Police fell further behind and lost effectiveness."

High-tech weapon

A key part of the strategy is technology. Garcia Luna, who served as intelligence chief in the Federal Preventive Police and later founded the Mexican FBI under then-President Vicente Fox, is fond of saying that Mexico will prevail against drug gangs through brain work, not bullets.

"His gun was the computer, from the beginning," said Lopez Portillo, the think tank chief.

On the ground floor of a gleaming police campus in the capital, rows of uniformed federal officers tap at computers linked to bases nationwide. Above them, oversize screens receive images from cameras posted in drug-smuggling hot spots, such as Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, and along the U.S. border. The network will eventually give police in Mexico City quick access to fingerprints and other crime data from every town in the country.

U.S. officials praise Garcia Luna with a notable lack of reserve, given past letdowns.

"He wants to create -- clean the slate and create an entirely new professional force that will take the Mexican security apparatus into the 21st century," said a senior U.S. law enforcement official. "I think he's the real deal."

Critics weigh in

Most everyone agrees that Mexico cannot win the war it has declared against powerful crime organizations unless it cleans up its police, whose members often work on the criminal groups' behalf. But even a determined push probably will take years to succeed.

"The problem is, they're getting started very late," said Bruce Bagley, an international studies professor at the University of Miami. "We will not see the results for five to 10 years."

Some critics see the effort as a lot of media spin by Garcia Luna, who they say is out mainly to expand his authority.

Javier Herrera Valles, a high-ranking federal police official, was stripped of his duties this year after openly criticizing Garcia Luna.

"There is no strategy. There is no planning work. There is no intelligence," said Herrera, who had been responsible for overseeing the crime fight around the country. "The only strategy is increasing the number of personnel."

That, he and other critics say, has thrust the 5,000 federal police officers into risky operations for which they are not prepared and in which they are often outgunned. In May, eight federal officers died in Culiacan during a lengthy shootout with more powerfully armed gunmen.

An authentic effort to clean up corruption probably would please ordinary Mexicans, who tend to view the police as little more than criminals with badges.

That sentiment was captured neatly in a recent cartoon in the Reforma newspaper: Two officers, guns drawn, are poised outside a front door. One asks his partner, "Is this a rescue operation or a kidnapping?"

Officers now have to pass lie detector and psychological tests and undergo reviews of their personal finances, criminal records and family ties. Those sorts of checks are de rigueur for candidates trying to get hired in agencies such as the Los Angeles Police Department.

Those tests are fine by Gerardo Avila, a 28-year-old medical school graduate who was recently interviewing for a job in the Federal Police.

Avila said he wanted to put his expertise as a surgeon to work as a police trainer.

Wearing neatly gelled hair and a dark-blue suit, Avila said the image of police could use some reconstructive surgery.

"It's an image of distrust," he said outside a recruiting tent on the new Federal Police campus.

"This is what you have to change so people have trust, whether it be to report a crime or even to help."

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

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CRIME SCENE: A police officer guards the area of La Marquesa park where the bodies of 24 men were found about 30 miles from Mexico City. The dead ranged in age from 20 to 35 and all had been shot in the head, the attorney general’s office said.

24 bodies found near Mexico City
The apparent settling of scores between rival gangs appears to be the largest mass killing since Mexico's drug war exploded nearly two years ago.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico14-2008sep14,0,5191280.story
From the Los Angeles Times

24 bodies found near Mexico City
The apparent settling of scores between rival gangs appears to be the largest mass killing since Mexico's drug war exploded nearly two years ago.

By Tracy Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 14, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Gagged and bound, the bodies were dumped on a grassy roadside littered with trash. Most had been shot in the head, probably on the spot, judging from the spent shell casings. Some were carted there, already dead, authorities believe.

In what appears to be the largest single mass killing since Mexico's vicious drug war exploded nearly two years ago, the bodies of 24 men were discovered late Friday about 30 miles from this capital. The execution-style slayings probably were the latest battle between rival drug gangs, officials said Saturday.

The bodies were found in La Marquesa park, near a rest stop frequented by weekend travelers from Mexico City.

The drug war "knows no borders," said Enrique Pena Nieto, governor of the state of Mexico. He said the slayings were part of the "insecurity that prevails, in generalized form, in the nation."

All of the dead men sported short, military-type haircuts and most were dressed in T-shirts and shorts, apparel appropriate for weather far warmer than that of the Mexico City area. This led authorities to suspect they came from the neighboring states of Michoacan or Guerrero, where fighting among drug gangs is especially relentless.

None of the men were believed to be active-duty soldiers, Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said. There was speculation that either the killed or killers belonged to the Zetas, a ruthless band of hit men, many of them ex-military, working for one of the most powerful narcotics-trafficking syndicates.

The attorney general's office said in a statement that the dead ranged in age from 20 to 35 and all had been shot in the head. Their hands and feet were bound with gray tape, also used to cover their mouths, a spokesman for the state prosecutor's office, Octavio Campos, said in an interview.

"The initial investigation indicates some of the people had been executed before arriving at the site while others were executed there," Campos said. "This may be a settling of scores between organized criminal bands." The attorney general's statement specifically noted that none had been decapitated.

According to a tally kept by the Reforma newspaper, 3,148 people have been killed in drug-related violence in 2008, with Friday the single most deadly day of the year; 17 other people were killed elsewhere in Mexico in shootings and attacks. Many victims turn up headless, including 12 bodies discovered on Aug. 28 on the Yucatan peninsula. The pace of the bloodletting far outstrips that of the previous year. Kidnappings are also at epidemic levels.

Warfare that was once confined to lawless swaths of Mexico's border and along smuggling routes has spread throughout Mexico since President Felipe Calderon's decision in December 2006 to unleash the army against traffickers.

Calderon maintains that the turmoil is proof that his crackdown is putting pressure on the criminal organizations that control a multibillion- dollar trade in cocaine, marijuana and heroin and who must compete for routes and dominance of the market.

He has dispatched 40,000 troops and 5,000 federal police officers into the streets as part of the campaign.

Analysts warn, however, that the escalating grisliness of violence committed by traffickers and their henchmen is aimed at frightening the public and eroding support for the government's efforts.

Polls indicate that Mexicans, once able to dismiss the bloodshed as something that played out among the criminals, are increasingly worried as the violence spreads and claims innocent victims.

Calderon, speaking Friday at a ceremony at Mexico's Military College, called on Mexicans to forge and sustain a united front against their criminal "enemies" to save the state from being overrun.

"In this war," he said, "there can be no truce because we will rescue, one by one, the towns, cities and public spaces in power of the criminals, and return them to our children, citizens, mothers, grandparents. . . .

"We will continue utilizing all -- all -- resources within our reach to recover the state's control and its territory, on all fronts."

Calderon spoke a few hours before the bodies were discovered at La Marquesa. By Saturday evening, none of the men had been officially identified. On a sign near the dump site, El Universal newspaper reported, someone had spray-painted the message: "This is the fight."

wilkinson@latimes.com

Times staff writer Cecilia Sánchez contributed to this report.

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Amid vendors and musicians in the tree-lined central plaza, police in Tecate, Mexico, handcuff a man on unspecified charges. Last December, deputy commander Juan Jose Soriano was assassinated after he reported a cross-border smuggling tunnel. Some suspect the police force has been corrupted by drug lords. More photos >>>

In Mexico, a police victory against smuggling brings deadly revenge Juan Jose Soriano, deputy commander of the Tecate Police Department, helped U.S. authorities find a drug-smuggling tunnel. The next morning, gunmen shot him 45 times in his bedroom.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major studio movie music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-soriano7-2008sep07,0,6331687.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

In Mexico, a police victory against smuggling brings deadly revenge
Juan Jose Soriano, deputy commander of the Tecate Police Department, helped U.S. authorities find a drug-smuggling tunnel. The next morning, gunmen shot him 45 times in his bedroom.

By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

September 7, 2008

Tecate, Mexico

Adrug-sniffing dog pulled the U.S. Border Patrol agent to a rusty cargo container in the storage yard just north of the Mexican border. Peeking inside, he saw stacks of bundled marijuana and a man with a gun tucked in his waistband.

The officer and the man locked eyes for a moment before the smuggler scrambled down a hole and disappeared. By the time backup agents cast their flashlights into the opening, he was long gone, through a winding tunnel to Mexico.

U.S. authorities called a trusted friend on the other side, Juan Jose Soriano.

The deputy commander of the Tecate Police Department gathered the entire shift of 30 officers at the decrepit police headquarters on Avenida Benito Juarez. Soriano knew any of them might leak information to the tunnel's gangster operators. So he took their cellphones and sent them away on a ruse about a car chase near the border.

The veteran officer told only a few trusted aides about the tunnel. Later that day, the officers went into the U.S. and traversed the length of the passageway to an empty building, where they found computers, ledgers and other key evidence.

For U.S. authorities, it was an encouraging example of cross-border cooperation in the drug war. For Mexico's crime bosses, it was a police victory that could not go unpunished.

That night last December, while Soriano slept with his wife and baby daughter, two heavily armed men broke into his house and shot him 45 times. The 35-year-old father of three young daughters died in his bedroom. He had lasted two days as the second-in-command of the department.

The death of a police officer is generally greeted in Mexico with a knowing smirk. All too often, it is assumed the cop in question was playing for both sides in the raging drug war that has claimed at least 2,000 lives in Mexico this year.

But all indications, from U.S. and Mexican sources, suggestthat Soriano was among the good ones, poorly paid but somehow immune to the lure of big money and the threat of deadly firepower from Mexico's violent drug gangs.

Cooperation with U.S. law enforcement ranges from secretive intelligence sharing to high-profile raids and arrests. It is aggressive police work that runs the risk of death for honest cops.

An intense, soft-spoken man, Soriano struggled for years to clean up the troubled department. But his corruption-busting ways earned him only contempt from many cops. At the small shrine to fallen officers in the courtyard at police headquarters, Soriano's image is conspicuously absent.

"It's a shame," said Donald McDermott, a former Border Patrol assistant chief who worked with Soriano. "He was one of the good guys. . . . His untimely demise was a blow to border enforcement on both sides of the border."

A city of 120,000 tucked in the rugged mountains 40 miles east of Tijuana, Tecate is best known for its tree-lined plaza and beer brewery. But its tranquil veneer masks its reputation as a hub of organized crime groups that use the surrounding area of boulder-strewn peaks and remote valleys as a launching pad for smuggling drugs and humans.

The 200-member police department has long been suspected of functioning as an arm of the drug cartels, providing protection and ensuring that smuggling routes remain open along the 75 miles of border for which the department is responsible.

Soriano stood apart: an aggressive, disciplined lawman who aspired to become police chief, according to law enforcement sources on both sides of the border. Unlike most Mexican cops, he had a degree in police science. And he spent three years working for Grupo Beta, a federal immigrant-safety force with whom he once saved 65 immigrants in a snowstorm.

In 2003, Soriano took charge of Tecate's SWAT-like special response team. In a break from past practices, he reached out to U.S. agencies for training opportunities and cross-border crime fighting.

Soriano's officers arrested border bandits, disrupted smuggling operations and went where cops hadn't gone in years, say U.S. and Mexican sources who spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing retaliation.

Soriano was a go-to source for the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies and was a regular at binational meetings, where he shared information with his U.S. counterparts. "He wanted to do things the right way," said one Mexican law enforcement source. "But that was a problem for many people."

Police brass reassigned Soriano to a desk job in 2005. "They took away his wings. They weren't ready for where he was going," said one U.S. law enforcement source.

Late last year, Tecate's new mayor salvaged Soriano's career, asking him to take the No. 2 job at the department. Law enforcement contacts across the border applauded the move and didn't wait long to restore ties.

This time, though, the stakes were higher.

A well-concealed tunnel can generate tens of millions of dollars in drug profits for traffickers, who pay huge amounts of protection money to keep them open and threaten anyone who talks about their location.

It was crucial to quickly find the opening of the tunnel discovered that December morning. U.S. authorities didn't want the operators to have time to clear out the drugs and other evidence. In other tunnel cases, Mexican authorities had been slow to respond, allowing crime bosses to abscond with drugs.

Soriano took immediate action. After confiscating the cops' cellphones, he dispatched them to the four-lane border crossing and told them to look out for a fugitive trying to flee from California authorities. Then he and several trusted officers started searching for the tunnel in homes and businesses near the border. He kept a close watch on crooked cops, who he feared would slip away to warn the tunnel operators.

The search failed. Someone would have to traverse the length of the passageway to find the opening.

Soriano volunteered seven officers. They crossed into the U.S. and descended into the tunnel while U.S. and Mexican authorities waited for them to surface in Mexico. About 45 minutes later, the Mexican team climbed up the 80-foot-deep shaft into a vacant two-story building a block south of the border.

A Virgin of Guadalupe picture hung near the opening. Nearby were computer monitors and scribbled ledgers. Soriano, alerted by a radio call from his team, arrived at the building just ahead of the crush of reporters and other police. Mexican federal agents took over the crime scene.

At about 2 a.m. the next morning, a convoy of vehicles drove down the deeply rutted dirt road leading to Soriano's modest house, which was decorated with a string of Christmas lights. Two men armed with AK-47s broke in. Soriano jumped out of bed, but the men stopped him before he could grab his weapons in the hallway.

Soriano seemed to recognize his attackers and begged them not to shoot, a source said. But the men opened fire, the spray of bullets coming within inches of Soriano's year-old daughter sleeping in the crib by his bed.

Since Soriano's death, relations between the Tecate Police Department and U.S. agencies have been almost nonexistent. The force doesn't have a liaison officer, and the border lands are more lawless than ever, Mexican sources say.

Soriano's slaying sent a message to other cops who would dare cooperate with U.S. authorities.

That was clear at Soriano's funeral, where many cops seemed to be celebrating his death, said one person who attended. Some laughed, while others chatted loudly in gestures of disrespect.

Mexican authorities suspect police were involved in the slaying, either as the triggermen or the lookouts for hit men. Nobody has been arrested in the case.

Meanwhile, the tunnel investigation has stalled. There have been no arrests, and it is unknown who was behind the construction and financing of the passageway.

On the day of the tunnel discovery, Soriano turned over a largely intact crime scene. But soon, dozens of soldiers, police, federal agents and reporters gathered to marvel at the sophisticated lighting and water pumping system. Other unidentified people seemed to linger for no apparent reason, said U.S. and Mexican sources.

The computers and other evidence had vanished.

Soriano once wrote on an employment evaluation that he wanted to be a police commander and lead a team of loyal, aggressive cops whom he would treat as friends. "I want to be surrounded by honest police who would never betray anyone."

richard.marosi@latimes.com

Times staff writer Robert Lopez contributed to this report.

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