Associated Press
Undated photos show Fernando Rivera Hernandez, left, and Miguel Colorado Gonzalez, both former employees of the organized crime unit of Mexico's Attorney General's office.

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico acknowledges drug gang infiltration of police

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 movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexbust28-2008oct28,0,3196498.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico acknowledges drug gang infiltration of police
At least 35 officials and agents from an elite unit have been fired or arrested following tips from an informant involving the so-called Beltran Leyva cartel.
By Tracy Wilkinson

October 28, 2008

Reporting from Mexico City — In a damning blow to its fight against drug traffickers, the Mexican government Monday acknowledged severe penetration of a top law enforcement agency by a vicious gang that may even have bought intelligence on U.S. operations from renegade employees.

At least 35 officials and agents from an elite unit within the federal attorney general's office have been fired or arrested in an investigation that began July 31 following tips from an informer.

The officials, including a senior intelligence director, are believed to have been leaking sensitive information to the very traffickers they were investigating for as long as four years, prosecutors said.

In exchange, prosecutors said, the corrupt government officials received monthly payments of $150,000 to $450,000 each from the so-called Beltran Leyva cartel, a drug gang based in the Pacific state of Sinaloa that is engaged in a bloody fight with rivals for domination of the region's lucrative trade.

The group has also been linked to crimes, including the May killing of Edgar Millan Gomez, acting chief of a federal police agency, who authorities believe was targeted in re- venge for the arrest of alleged traffickers including top cartel operative Alfredo Beltran Leyva.



Good reputation

The accused officials were members of the agency in charge of probing drug and weapons smuggling as well as kidnapping and terrorism, known by its initials in Spanish, SIEDO. Unlike many agencies within a notoriously corrupt police system, the SIEDO has a generally good reputation in U.S. government circles.

The case, which represents an unusually serious breach of Mexican security, was launched after an informer with the code name Felipe turned himself in at the Mexican Embassy in Washington. He revealed the names of senior SIEDO officials on the cartel's payroll and was quickly put into a U.S. witness protection program, sources in the attorney general's office said Monday.

"Felipe" told Mexican investigators that he had worked for Interpol and then for the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, where he relayed information to members of the Beltran Leyva gang, according to several Mexican media reports.

The embassy declined to comment. And in Washington, senior Drug Enforcement Administration officials said the investigation was ongoing, and that it was premature to confirm details.

Whether or not those reports are true, it is certainly possible that intelligence on activities by the DEA in Mexico could be gleaned from within SIEDO, and the alleged spies could have had access to it.

"They handed over secret information and details of operations against the Beltran Leyva criminal organization," Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said during a news conference -- including details on raids of traffickers' hide-outs and the evidence seized.



Extent unclear

The full extent to which counter-narcotics operations may have been compromised is still not known.

"This investigation is not finished," Medina Mora said.

Although 35 people from SIEDO have been implicated, a spokesman for the attorney general's office said, five officials are likely to face the most serious charges, including illegal release of classified information.

They include Fernando Rivera Hernandez, a senior director of intelligence, and Miguel Colorado Gonzalez, SIEDO's general technical coordinator, both of whom have been in detention since August.

Colorado Gonzalez has also been named in a U.S. federal indictment filed Friday in the District of Columbia. He is accused of criminal association in the production and distribution of cocaine in the U.S. The U.S. is seeking his extradition.

The three others are federal agents, one of whom is a fugitive, prosecutors said. Medina Mora said SIEDO would be restructured and purged of its corrupt members through tighter screening and tougher punishment for lawbreakers. Reforming Mexico's underpaid and poorly trained police forces is a central component in President Felipe Calderon's two-year-long offensive against drug traffickers but one that has yet to show abundant progress.

SIEDO's predecessor agency within the attorney general's office was shut down in 2003 after half a dozen of its agents were arrested on suspicion they were helping drug traffickers.

Nearly 4,000 people have been killed in Mexico this year in drug-related violence as gangs fight Calderon's security forces and one another. The U.S. has pledged an additional $400 million to Mexico for help in training police and judicial agencies, but the money has not arrived.

Calderon wins praise from U.S. officials for attacking traffickers head on, but the mounting death toll and spread of violence to much of the country could eventually erode public support for the campaign.

Cases such as this also leave American law enforcement officers wary of sharing intelligence with Mexico.

Wilkinson is a Times staff writer.

wilkinson@latimes.com

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MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
For Tijuana children, drug war gore is part of their school day
Youths are increasingly exposed to the grisly violence that pervades the city.

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-tijuana25-2008oct25,0,2161691.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
For Tijuana children, drug war gore is part of their school day
Youths are increasingly exposed to the grisly violence that pervades the city.

By Richard Marosi

October 25, 2008

Reporting from Tijuana — The schoolchildren bounded up the rickety steps and followed the path of shattered glass into the two-story house on Laguna Salada Street. Two boys in neatly pressed gray pants flipped open their cellphones and took pictures of the pools of sticky blood. One teenager with a blue backpack pounced on a mangled bullet lying near a stained mattress.

In the living room, someone slipped on a pile of human entrails.

Downstairs, girls in blue skirts and white socks carefully avoided the blood dripping through the ceiling.

The "Scarface" poster hanging on the pockmarked wall disappeared.

The day before, a shootout between Mexican soldiers and drug cartel suspects had left three suspects and a soldier dead in the safe house at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Police had cleared the bodies, including the corpse of a kidnapping victim stuffed in a refrigerator. But someone had left the door open.

"Look, intestines!" yelled one teen, who was among dozens of children who streamed through the house between classes at nearby Secondary School 25.

"I think I'm going to be sick," said one boy, covering his mouth.

"It's shocking," said Victor Rene, 14. "I saw four dead guys last week, but that was clean. Their heads were wrapped in tape."

As Tijuana's latest flare-up in the drug war rages into its fifth week, with the death toll approaching 150, violence is permeating everyday life here, causing widespread fear, altering people's habits and exposing the city's youngest to carnage.

Civic leaders are calling for a 9 p.m. curfew for children. Archbishop Rafael Romo has asked the media to refrain from showing gruesome photographs. One priest halts his sermons every week to demonstrate proper shootout-safety behavior: He cues a drum roll, then throws himself to the floor.

But these and other measures haven't been able to shield children from the violence near schools, neighborhoods, busy streets and popular restaurants. Grisly public displays of death have been the hallmark of the killings since the latest violence between rival drug cartels started Sept. 26.

Bodies have been hung from overpasses. Twelve corpses, some with their tongues cut out, were tossed into a vacant lot across from an elementary school. Several men have been beheaded, and killers have left behind acid-filled barrels containing dissolved human remains.

The toll of innocent victims has also been rising. Gunmen burst into the El Negro Durazo seafood restaurant and killed two rivals and a photographer who tried to run away. A 24-year-old teacher was kidnapped outside her school. Gunmen wielding AK-47s killed two teenagers sitting outside their home after they witnessed a drug-related killing. A toddler died this week when his mother crashed her car trying to avoid a shootout between state police and suspected cartel hit men.

Tijuana has endured years of violence and waves of kidnappings that have led thousands of people to move across the border to San Diego suburbs.

Still, the recent violence is unprecedented in scale and brutality. More than 460 people have died violently so far this year, a record, according to the Baja California state attorney general's office.

"It makes your hair stand on end," said Father Raymundo Reyna, a popular radio show host who keeps a muertometro -- death meter -- tally. Reyna is the priest who demonstrates to parishioners how to duck when gunfire breaks out.

"We show people how to prepare for an earthquake. Now we need to train them for a shootout," Reyna said.

Many people simply avoid public places. Families have cut back on going to restaurants. Some parents forbid their children to go to nightclubs, preferring they attend parties at the homes of people they know. More parents pick up their children from school rather than letting them take public transportation.

After eight people were killed in neighboring Rosarito Beach on Thursday, some panicked parents kept their children home, reacting to rumors that children were going to be kidnapped.

Cops, or anybody in a law enforcement uniform, are avoided; at least 10 security personnel have been gunned down in recent weeks in the Tijuana metropolitan area. Ana Luisa Angulo, a mother of four, said her daughter was recently pulled over by an officer for speeding.

"She didn't even argue," Angulo said. "She just wanted to get the ticket and get away from him as quickly as possible."

For some youngsters, Tijuana's battlefield is a playground, another childhood experience.

Down the street from Reyna's Monte Maria Church in a tough hillside slum, kids play in another bullet-riddled former hide-out, where a family was killed this year.

Then there are the wakes and funerals, among the few nighttime events that parents allow their children to attend.

Around the corner from the hide-out, teenagers last week stared glumly into the open caskets of Isabel Guzman Morales, 14, and Victor Corona Morales, 17, cousins who were shot to death outside their home. More than 100 people squeezed into the tiny front yard of a relative, where the caskets had been placed side by side under a tent.

Later, the teenagers climbed down staircases made of rubber tires to another wake. Inside a teetering house made of wood scraps, the kids looked into the open casket of another friend, 19-year-old Felipe Alejandro Prado, who was also fatally shot with the cousins after being chased down by unknown assailants.

While family members served coffee and cookies, relatives and friends tried to piece together the tragedies. "The killers were probably outsiders," said Prado's father, Martin Gomez Mejilla. "They're taking so many innocent lives."

Friends suggested that Prado was not an innocent bystander; he was a drug dealer who fearlessly roamed the neighborhood's dirt streets, they said. One 11-year-old visitor seemed to want to emulate the dead teen. "When I grow up I want to be a narco, and get all the women and the money," he said.

Such shows of bravado from youngsters, say parents and psychologists, could mask deep-rooted trauma. Many children's anxieties are increasingly manifesting themselves in eating and sleeping disorders, they say.

"At night, some kids have nightmares," said David Sotelo, a psychologist, "but what worries me more than the trauma is the social costs, the desensitization and the low value some kids have for human life."

Even more troubling, say some, is a growing exhaustion bordering on indifference.

Teachers have twice had to evacuate Secondary School 25, where a razor-wire fence rings the playground. The first time, police had opened fire at the state prison a few blocks away, killing at least 20 rioting inmates. Two weeks later, a body was tossed in the street outside the school.

Last week's shootout at the safe house forced teachers and students to hit the floor again.

When the youngsters returned for afternoon classes after visiting the house, teachers had trouble getting their attention: The students were showing off their cellphone pictures of the carnage.

A teacher asked an assistant principal to confiscate the kids' phones and give them to their parents, so they could lecture their children. The assistant principal, Marcos Alvarez Guardado, just shrugged: "I'm sure they've already posted the images on the Internet," he said. "What more can we do?"

Marosi is a Times staff writer.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Jesus Zambada Garcia is captured after a gun battle in Mexico City. He commanded one of four branches of the Sinaloa cartel, officials say.

Mexico arrests major drug-trafficking suspect
Jesus Zambada Garcia is captured after a gun battle in Mexico City. He commanded one of four branches of the Sinaloa cartel, officials 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 ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexarrest23-2008oct23,0,4734886.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Mexico arrests major drug-trafficking suspect
Jesus Zambada Garcia is captured after a gun battle in Mexico City. He commanded one of four branches of the Sinaloa cartel, officials say.

By Ken Ellingwood

October 23, 2008

Reporting from Mexico City — Mexican authorities said Wednesday that they arrested a leading drug figure known as El Rey after a shootout in Mexico City early this week.

Jesus Zambada Garcia, the brother of a suspected drug kingpin in the western state of Sinaloa, was among 16 people captured Monday, Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said.

The attorney general said Zambada, whose nickname means "the king," commanded one of four branches of the so-called Sinaloa cartel, leading its operations in central Mexico. Zambada is the brother of Ismael Zambada and an associate of Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, the most-wanted trafficker in Mexico, officials said.

Jesus Zambada controlled smuggling of cocaine and chemical ingredients for the production of methamphetamine through Mexico City's airport, Medina Mora said. Authorities have focused attention in recent months on drug smugglers' use of the country's largest airport.

Zambada has also been linked to gruesome drug killings in central and western Mexico, prosecutors said.

"The arrest of Jesus Zambada Garcia, the King, stands out, without a doubt, as one of the most significant by President [Felipe] Calderon's government to date," Medina Mora told reporters. "It is not the only one in recent months, nor will it be the last in the months to come."

Investigators are looking into Zambada's possible role in the assassination of acting federal Police Chief Edgar Millan Gomez. The police commander was ambushed in May by a gunman in his Mexico City home, and authorities have long suspected that Sinaloa cartel traffickers were behind the slaying.

Marisela Morales, who runs the organized-crime unit of the attorney general's office, called Zambada "one of the most important" smugglers of cocaine and methamphetamines into Mexico.

Zambada's arrest offered officials a much-needed chance to claim progress in their uphill battle against drug traffickers.

Calderon declared a crackdown nearly two years ago, but drug-related violence has worsened despite some high-profile arrests and hefty drug seizures.

The death toll this year has exceeded 3,500, according to unofficial tallies in the media, amid a wave of killings that has included decapitations, scorched bodies and a growing list of innocent victims.

A grenade attack that killed eight civilians last month in the western state of Michoacan fed an increasing sense among Mexicans that their government is losing its war with well-armed drug gangs.

In Monday's incident, police came under fire after being led to a house in northern Mexico City by a resident's tip. Police rounded up the 16 suspects but were not able to immediately confirm Zambada's identity, Morales said.

Prosecutors said Zambada's 21-year-old son, Jesus Zambada Reyes, and a nephew were among those arrested.

On Wednesday, authorities lined up suspects and their seized weapons before news cameras, and police searched the house where the shootout took place.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday began a two-day visit with Mexican officials in the resort city of Puerto Vallarta that was to include discussion of Mexico's battle against traffickers.

Mexican officials are eager for the release of a $400-million package of U.S. training and equipment, known as the Merida Initiative.

The aid, approved by Congress in June, is the first part of a three-year assistance package for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

In voting for the aid, Congress softened human rights prerequisites that had raised the hackles of Mexican officials. Lawmakers had attached the requirements to ensure that the aid would not be used to repress ordinary Mexicans or fall into the hands of corrupt authorities.

The two nations must reach agreement on final details of the assistance before it is delivered.

Ellingwood is a Times staff writer.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com


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8 people killed in Tijuana
Three teenagers and the relative of a police officer are among those to die in violence officials blame on feuding drug traffickers.

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-tijuana15-2008oct15,0,1244185.story
From the Los Angeles Times

8 people killed in Tijuana
Three teenagers and the relative of a police officer are among those to die in violence officials blame on feuding drug traffickers.
From the Associated Press

October 15, 2008

TIJUANA — Overnight violence left eight people dead in this Mexican border city, officials said Tuesday.

The state prosecutor's office said three teenagers, including a 14-year-old girl, were gunned down in the street; a few blocks away, officials found the bullet-riddled body of a man. In another part of the city, gunmen opened fire on a car, killing two men.

Assailants attacked another car before dawn Tuesday, injuring a police officer and killing a relative. A few hours later, the body of a man was found near City Hall, his head covered with a plastic bag.

Officials blame warring cells of the Arellano-Felix drug-trafficking gang for the wave of violence.

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Mexico grapples with drug addiction
Long a corridor for narcotics headed for the U.S., Mexico is now contending with its own addiction problem, as U.S. border controls push traffickers to look elsewhere.

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-mexaddict15-2008oct15,0,4364637.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Mexico grapples with drug addiction
Long a corridor for narcotics headed for the U.S., Mexico is now contending with its own addiction problem, as U.S. border controls push traffickers to look elsewhere.

By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 15, 2008

HUITZILA, MEXICO — When the dope thugs beat him with a pistol, Rodrigo Sonck decided enough was enough.

He cleaned the gashes on his face and went to his father to plead for help: The cocaine life was killing him.

A month and a half later, Sonck was cloistered in a treatment clinic in the central state of Hidalgo, relating a tale of addiction that is increasingly familiar as growing numbers of Mexicans sample the drugs that once flowed through their country untouched.

For Sonck, a 28-year-old father of two, cocaine turned from an occasional party complement into an all-consuming, $700-a-week obsession. He sold his taxicab abruptly one night to get high. He had a chicken stand that met the same fate. The pistol-whipping came in August, after he raced off with his dealer's merchandise.

Sonck had veered over the edge.

"It started as a game, and ended as a terrible disease," he said.

The rest of Mexico is starting to feel much the same way. Once mainly a smuggling corridor for drugs heading to the United States, Mexico is grappling with the effects of a fast-rising addiction rate as relatively cheap versions of cocaine and methamphetamine find a market south of the border. Experts say the supply has increased as U.S. enforcement on the border has made it more difficult to move illegal drugs north.

A recent government survey of drug use shows Mexicans are trying drugs, and getting hooked, earlier in life and more frequently. The number of people who said they had tried drugs rose by more than a fourth, to 4.5 million, since the last survey in 2002. More than 460,000 Mexicans are addicted to drugs, a 51% jump from six years ago, according to preliminary results of the survey released last month.

Those tallies are undoubtedly too low. Officials said safety considerations prevented them from querying residents in two key drug-trafficking states, Sinaloa and Baja California, and hindered data collection in three others.

Growing consumption here presents a difficult new front in President Felipe Calderon's war on drug traffickers, declared in December 2006. There are signs that the street trade, known as narcomenudeo, is adding to overall drug violence that has killed more than 3,000 people nationwide this year. Analysts say the well-armed gangs that have fought each other for control of key international drug-smuggling routes are battling over the market in Mexico as well.

The slaying of the mayor of a resort town outside Mexico City this month was in part linked to his resistance to local drug sales, authorities said. Media reports said 12 men whose headless bodies turned up in the Yucatan peninsula in August may have been killed as part of a narcomenudeo turf war.

Mexican leaders, who for many years have pointed an accusing finger toward the United States when talking about drug use, now acknowledge their nation's own problem.

"It is clear to everyone that our nation has stopped being a transit country for drugs going to the United States and become an important market as well," Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said recently. "We are experiencing a phenomenon of greater drug supplies in the streets, at relatively accessible prices."

Addiction is reaching all corners of a nation that is poorly equipped to cope. Some rural Mexican communities have watched drug use rise after migrant workers returned from the United States with a new appetite for cocaine and other addictive substances.

Experts say potent drugs, such as cocaine, have become affordable for Mexicans of modest means. Prices have fallen as domestic supplies have risen, in part because of U.S. efforts to tighten border security since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"They've gotten cheaper, basically, because there is more availability," said Carmen Fernandez, who runs a nationwide network of 110 drug clinics, known as Juvenile Integration Centers, that are largely supported by government funds. "A lot of these drugs stayed in Mexico."

Methamphetamine, a synthetic drug, is manufactured in Mexico and widely available. Officials in the northern border state of Sonora say consumption of crystal methamphetamine has quadrupled since 2002. They label drug use their biggest public-health threat.

In interviews, addicts confirm that illegal drugs are readily available and often less expensive than a six-pack of beer. Crack cocaine, known in Spanish as piedra, or rock, sells for as little as $3 a hit. Powder cocaine, folded into a stamp-sized paper bundle known as a grapa, is diluted with aspirin or other chemicals and sold for $5 or less.

In Mexico City's poorest neighborhoods, such as the Iztapalapa and Tepito sections, dealers work from mom-and-pop stores, grimy housing projects and street corners.

"It's like a plague that is invading us," complained Ulises Ocampo, a neighborhood activist in the Tlalpan section of southern Mexico City.

Sonck said he had 25 spots to buy cocaine near his home in northern Mexico City. "It used to be something that was not very common," he said. "Now everybody is involved."

Calderon has proposed giving arrestees who are addicts or those caught with small amounts of drugs a choice of treatment rather than prison. The measure would also give local police a bigger role in trying to erase small-time drug dealing, at a time when federal forces are strained.

Administration officials insist the proposal won't mean decriminalizing small amounts of cocaine and other drugs. The proposal wins qualified praise from critics who say the government has given short shrift to prevention and treatment in favor of a U.S.-style approach heavy on enforcement.

"There are not enough good treatment centers. There is not enough good prevention of relapses," said Haydee Rosovsky, a drug scholar who formerly headed the government's commission on addiction. "All the money is put in helicopters and soldiers and firearms."

The Calderon administration has begun building 310 centers to improve outpatient treatment by helping specialists spot addictions sooner.

Janai Ramos needed help long before she got it.

Ramos, a 22-year-old addict in Mexico City, smoked crack through a glass pipe for the first time four years ago. "This is for me," she recalled thinking.

The drugs were within easy reach: Ramos could buy from any of four nearby houses, side by side. She sank into long benders, emerging filthy and dehydrated after consuming nothing but crack smoke for four days at a time.

Ramos was soon smoking 15 hits a day, at $5 each. She made money selling fake-gold bracelets, but started stealing cellphones, hubcaps and truck mirrors to pay for more piedra.

Eventually she traded her body, selling sex up to five times a day to men she didn't know.

"The truth is very ugly and degrading and humiliating as a woman," Ramos said. Her round eyes were bright, but her voice seemed to come from a thousand miles away.

Ramos sought help several times, but relapsed. In late August, she checked into a clinic in Iztapalapa. She and three other women share a dorm-style room, spare but with a few paper flowers.

The men's section has 24 people. All but two are coke addicts. They are up at 7 a.m. and fill the day with workshops, therapy sessions and household chores before lights go out at 10 p.m.

On the tough streets outside, an easy supply of drugs beckons, a fact of life in this new Mexico.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

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



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More than two dozen die amid Mexico violence
A newspaper publisher, two federal agents and 11 people gunned down in a bar are among those killed as Mexico endures drug warfare.

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-mexico11-2008oct11,0,1783400.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

More than two dozen die amid Mexico violence
A newspaper publisher, two federal agents and 11 people gunned down in a bar are among those killed as Mexico endures drug warfare.

By Tracy Wilkinson
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 11, 2008

MEXICO CITY — In another violent spasm, more than two dozen people were killed in Mexico within hours late Thursday and early Friday, including a newspaper publisher, two federal agents and a group gunned down as they drank at a bar.

The slayings came as Mexico endures an unprecedented wave of drug-related warfare that has claimed thousands of lives as narcotics trafficking networks battle among themselves and with authorities.

In the northern city of Chihuahua, 11 people died when four masked men dressed in black entered the Rio Rosas bar late Thursday and raked customers with gunfire. Seven people were wounded. The gunmen reportedly gained entrance by telling a guard that they were conducting a routine inspection. They disappeared into the night after the shootings, state prosecutors said, and no arrests had been made.

A columnist for a local newspaper was among the dead.

Early Friday, two federal agents and two suspected drug traffickers were killed in a shootout along the highway between Chihuahua and Ciudad Juarez, a city that borders Texas and has been an epicenter of drug violence.

In a separate incident, Miguel Angel Villagomez, the editor and publisher of La Noticia, a daily newspaper in the state of Michoacan, was found dead Friday morning with three gunshots to his body.

Associates said Villagomez left the newspaper office, in the Pacific port city of Lazaro Cardenas, on Thursday afternoon to give one of his employees a ride home. He was apparently followed, intercepted and seized, the associates said.

Francisco Rivera, deputy editor, said the paper recently published photographs of banners that had appeared in the city, purportedly the work of drug traffickers, and that might have been the reason Villagomez was targeted.

"We don't see any other motive," Rivera said in a telephone interview.

The banners, dozens of which have popped up in cities all over the country, offer rewards for the capture of suspects in a Sept. 15 grenade attack on civilians in the Michoacan state capital of Morelia, and appear to be part of a mutual finger-pointing campaign between rival drug gangs.

Journalist advocacy groups have rated Mexico as one of the most dangerous countries in the world to work as a reporter. The Inter American Press Assn. this week urged Mexican authorities to end what is in effect impunity for the killers of journalists by more seriously investigating such crimes.

In Tijuana, where fighting has surged in recent weeks and dozens have died, 13 people were reported killed late Thursday and early Friday. Among those shot to death, authorities said, was Francisco Javier Salas, a newspaper vendor. He may have been targeted after witnessing a slaying, Mexican media reported.

wilkinson@latimes.com

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With dozens of bodies found in the last week, some in law enforcement see 'the tail end' of the organization. But others warn that elements of the ruthless cartel remain very much alive.

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 ..."

State police officers investigate the scene of a shoot-out between drug gangs in Tijuana, Mexico, Saturday, Oct. 4.

With dozens of bodies found in the last week, some in law enforcement see 'the tail end' of the organization. But others warn that elements of the ruthless cartel remain very much alive.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-arellano6-2008oct06,0,570471.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Tijuana killings may signal fall of Arellano Felix cartel
With dozens of bodies found in the last week, some in law enforcement see 'the tail end' of the organization. But others warn that elements of the ruthless cartel remain very much alive.
By Richard Marosi
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 6, 2008

TIJUANA — The birthplace of one of Mexico's most infamous drug cartels looks more and more like its graveyard. Gunmen and associates of the Arellano Felix cartel, rulers of the city's criminal underworld for two decades, are being massacred by the score.

Their mangled bodies turn up in garbage-strewn lots, a dozen at a time. Killers cut out their tongues, slice off heads, and leave behind taunting messages. Two barrels of industrial acid left on a sidewalk last week are believed to contain liquefied human remains.

In all, at least 57 suspected organized crime members, a majority of them believed to be part of the Arellano Felix organization, were killed in the last week, including 12 dumped in front of an elementary school Sept. 29 and eight tossed in an industrial yard Thursday.

The carnage may be a sign that the cartel named for the Arellano Felix brothers is fractured and vulnerable to contenders, inside and outside the organization, who are looking to get control of lucrative trafficking routes into the United States, according to law enforcement sources.

Several forces have converged on the trafficking organization. The U.S. government has dedicated tens of millions of dollars over two decades to combating trafficking across the border with Baja California. The Mexican government also has intensified its efforts aimed at the cartel, which has splintered. Rival cartels have attacked, announcing their arrival with the savage killings and banners unfurled across busy intersections.

"El Mayo and El Chapo are the ones trying to enter Tijuana," read one banner, referring to alleged trafficker Ismael Zambada, and Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

"We are now seeing the tail end" of the Arellano Felix organization, said John Kirby, a former federal prosecutor in San Diego who co-wrote indictments against several members of the organization. "They're losing what was left of their grip on Baja California."

Elements survive

Not so fast, others warn. Elements of the organization, which earned its ruthless reputation by turning back all challengers, remain very much alive. Some of its deadliest assassins still roam the region. Its reputed leader, Fernando Sanchez Arellano, nicknamed El Ingeniero, a nephew of the group's founders, is believed to have a large war chest. The organization retains strong ties to law enforcement. And a contender for control has emerged from within the Arellano Felix organization.

"Old cartels don't seem to go away; they just seem to morph into new variants over time," said David Shirk, director of the Trans-Border Institute at the University of San Diego. "There's strong continuity for these organizations, dating back multiple generations of smugglers."

The cartel came to power in the 1980s when Colombian cocaine barons, shut out of traditional trafficking routes across the Caribbean Sea into Florida, began partnering with Mexican crime groups.

The Arellano Felix brothers -- Benjamin, Ramon, Javier -- moved in from Sinaloa and provided the perfect springboard. From their Tijuana stronghold, they controlled trafficking routes into California, the biggest drug market in a country that is the biggest consumer of cocaine in the world.

By the 1990s, the brothers were smuggling tons of cocaine into the U.S., mostly through the crossing at Mexicali, and killing anyone in their way. Authorities believe they killed hundreds, including prosecutors, police and judges.

The cartel suffered its biggest blows in 2002, when Ramon was gunned down by police in Mazatlan. With the feared enforcer out of the way, Mexican authorities weeks later arrested his brother Benjamin, the reputed brains of the organization.

Javier, often likened by authorities to the inept Fredo Corleone of "The Godfather" film clan, managed to keep the cartel together with the help of brutal and loyal lieutenants.

But after his 2006 arrest on a boat off Baja California, one associate after another began to fall. Gustavo Rivera, an alleged top lieutenant, was arrested outside a hot dog stand in Cabo San Lucas in March. Days later, Saul Montes, identified by authorities as an enforcer, was pulled out of his car by police at the Baja 250 off-road race. In August, another reputed enforcer, Ruben Rios Estrada, nicknamed El Pit, was dragged away from the bingo tables at a local casino by federal agents.

The cartel's leadership is said to have passed to Sanchez Arellano, the son of an Arellano Felix sister. Not much is known about Sanchez Arellano and it's unclear whether Mexican authorities even know what he looks like. They have not released a photo, as they commonly do for drug suspects.

Sanchez Arellano's attempts at reviving the family legacy have been blocked by his chief rival, Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed El Teo, a former cartel lieutenant who broke off earlier this year, according to law enforcement authorities.

Garcia often is blamed for the spate of abductions over the last few years, which have turned the city into one of the kidnapping capitals of the world. By April, the medical community, led by physicians who had been held for ransom, was threatening to stop treating patients in Tijuana.

Sanchez Arellano demanded a halt or cutback in the kidnappings because they were bringing down too much heat on the organization, according to Mexican media reports confirmed by Mexican law enforcement authorities.

Garcia allegedly refused, leading to an April gun battle between the rival groups that left 15 gunmen dead. Garcia fled to Sinaloa after the shooting. Tijuana enjoyed a relatively peaceful early summer.

Then in late August, four decapitated bodies were found in an empty lot. Their heads, charred from gasoline burns, were left at their feet, along with a message, "We are people of the weakened Engineer," referring to Sanchez Arellano.

Killing field

Since then, Tijuana has turned into a killing field of burned, decapitated and mangled bodies, many bearing similar messages.

"I think Teo's back, with a vengeance," said one U.S. federal anti-drug official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak with the media.

Garcia's fierce offensive suggests that he has formed alliances with outside organized crime groups, possibly the Sinaloa cartel. The powerful Gulf cartel also could be operating in the city, said Martin Rubio, the Mexican federal attorney general's top official in Baja California, who said the beheadings were the telltale signatures of the Texas-based organization.

The main battle for now appears to be between the cartel leader and the renegade lieutenant. Sanchez Arellano is said to control the coastal area; Garcia, the sprawling eastern part of the city. Each leader has an army of about 100 gunmen who roam in convoys of SUVs, according to the U.S. anti-drug official.

If Sanchez Arellano claims the intimidating pedigree, Garcia boasts the fiercer reputation. One of his top enforcers, Raydel Rosalio Lopez, is nicknamed Crutches because he has left so many of his victims disabled.

They're apparently the lucky ones.

Police found eight more bodies Friday. Two had been decapitated, their tongues cut out and their heads placed atop their torsos. The killers left behind another message, according to the Baja California attorney general's office.

"Here you go Engineer," wrote the killers.

richard.marosi@latimes.com

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Mexico's President Calderon has few choices in drug war

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-mexwar1-2008oct01,0,6480187.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico's President Calderon has few choices in drug war
Though an attack on civilians in Morelia has tested the public's stomach for the increasingly savage conflict, the president has little room to pull back from his crackdown.
By Ken Ellingwood
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 1, 2008

MEXICO CITY — Stretched thin in an uphill battle against drug gangs, the government of Mexican President Felipe Calderon faces increasingly stark options at a pivotal moment.

A fatal Sept. 15 grenade attack on civilians in western Mexico, coming on top of a steadily rising death toll nationwide, drastically altered the stakes in the nearly 2-year-old crackdown.

Calderon now has little room to pull back without appearing beaten. But the attack, which killed eight people during an Independence Day celebration in Calderon's home state of Michoacan, is testing the public's stomach for the increasingly savage conflict.

"The violence is not going to stop soon. There will be more actions," political analyst Alfonso Zarate warned last week in the daily El Universal newspaper. "However, neither the government nor the public can turn back."

The crisis has reopened debate over alternatives, including legalizing drugs. Many Mexicans wonder aloud whether Calderon should revert to the practices of earlier governments, led by the Institutional Revolutionary Party, that tolerated traffickers as long as they kept the killings of noncombatants down and bribes up.

Calderon's aides have publicly ruled out any peace deals with the drug underworld.

"There are two options: to fight it or not fight it," security analyst Jorge Chabat wrote in El Universal last week.

Walking away from the battle would worsen corruption and could leave the Mexican government critically weakened, he said. Staying with the crackdown will almost surely mean more bloodshed.

Turf wars among drug-trafficking groups have killed more than 3,000 people this year, according to news reports, aggravating public anxiety over a rising rate of kidnappings and other crimes.

Since the Sept. 15 attack in Morelia, the president and top aides have vowed to continue their crackdown and urged residents to unite against a foe they say threatens national security.

The administration already had deployed 40,000 soldiers and 5,000 federal police officers as part of its nationwide campaign, which began shortly after Calderon's inauguration in December 2006. The offensive has yielded several high-profile arrests and major seizures of drugs and money, including a recent $26.2-million haul in northern Sinaloa state.

"From the start of his administration, when he proposed this as a priority, President Calderon indicated clearly that this was going to be a long-term battle," Atty. Gen. Eduardo Medina Mora said in a television interview last week.

During a visit to New York on Sept. 23, Calderon again called on the United States to help by stanching the cross-border flow of arms into his country. He also said Mexico was "paying a very high price" for U.S. drug consumption.

But in raising the specter of a possible terrorism campaign, the grenade attack has left Mexicans feeling more at risk than at any time since Calderon launched the offensive.

Mexican authorities Friday announced the arrests of three men suspected of carrying out the attack. They were said to be members of the Zetas, the armed wing of the so-called Gulf Cartel that has decapitated rivals and carried out scores of other killings.

Although polls show most Mexicans support the crackdown, they also indicate that people increasingly question whether this type of campaign can succeed.

The administration acknowledged during a congressional hearing last week that the intelligence service lacks the agents and information-gathering capacity for a nationwide campaign against organized crime.

Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mouriño also confirmed what everybody already suspected: that drug gangs have infiltrated police forces so thoroughly that authorities can't fully guarantee public safety. And he expressed concern that drug money could make its way into midterm congressional elections in July.

The election campaign may complicate matters for Calderon in other ways, by sharpening criticism over his anti-crime strategy and giving political foes opportunities to grandstand.

When Mouriño, Medina Mora and Genaro Garcia Luna, the nation's public safety chief, appeared before Congress last week, opposition lawmakers jeered and held up signs saying, "Resign."

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party, which holds the second-highest number of seats in the lower house of Congress, refuses to recognize Calderon as president, saying his 2006 election victory was fraudulent. Many leftists believe Calderon launched the drug crackdown to gain legitimacy after the disputed vote count.

Public opinion remains a wild card. In a poll in the Milenio newspaper last week, two-thirds of respondents said they were afraid to go to public places after the grenade attack.

ken.ellingwood@latimes.com

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