Javier Ortiz, a former Michoacan state police officer, appears at a news conference in Mexico City with nine other people suspected of having ties to a drug cartel. A top advisor to the state’s governor was among those detained.

10 mayors, other Mexico officials detained
The sweep targets local officials in the state of Michoacan, home to La Familia, a fast-growing group of 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://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-mexico-mayors27-2009may27,0,1829460.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

10 mayors, other Mexico officials detained
The sweep targets local officials in the state of Michoacan, home to La Familia, a fast-growing group of drug traffickers.

By Tracy Wilkinson

May 27, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City — Mexican security forces swept into President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan on Tuesday and arrested a total of 27 mayors and other government officials, the largest operation to target politicians in Mexico's bloody drug war.

The officials, including 10 mayors, are being investigated for alleged ties to drug traffickers and other organized crime syndicates that in effect control large sections of Michoacan, the federal attorney general's office said.

Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy, in a brief, curt appearance before reporters, confirmed the arrests and said he had not been notified ahead of time.

Those detained include a key advisor to Godoy, a judge and several top regional public security officials, the attorney general's office said. Most were taken to Mexico City for questioning after being rounded up during the morning from their homes, offices and city halls.

Julio Cesar Godoy, the governor's brother and a congressional candidate, was questioned Tuesday by the army as part of the operation but was not arrested, the brother told a Michoacan newspaper.

Although Mexican authorities have frequently arrested corrupt security agents in drug-related cases, this is the first time they have gone after such a large number of elected officials. The sweep was significant because it represents an effort to hit the political cover that the traffickers enjoy, though it may not make much of a dent in the smuggling network, analysts said.

Michoacan is the base for a fast-growing, extremely violent drug-trafficking organization known as La Familia. The group, which in the last year has expanded its operations into three other Mexican states, is considered especially adept at infiltrating local governments by buying or scaring off mayors or members of city councils and police departments.

"Everything is so corrupt here, from top to bottom, the [federal] government had to show it was doing something," Reginaldo Sandoval, president of the state branch of the small Labor Party, said in a telephone interview from Morelia, the capital of Michoacan.

At least 83 of Michoacan's 113 municipalities are mixed up at some level with narcos, a Mexican intelligence source told The Times this month. The source, not authorized to talk to the press, spoke on condition of anonymity.

Dozens of mayors and other local officials have been killed or kidnapped as La Familia, with chilling, disciplined efficiency, has extended its reach. Calderon chose his native Michoacan to launch an army-led offensive against drug gangs shortly after taking office in December of 2006. The drug war-related death toll has since climbed by more than 11,000 people nationwide.

La Familia has been doing battle with the so-called Gulf cartel, which moved into Michoacan a few years ago in what was initially a strategic partnership. The arrangement ruptured last year, with the two groups struggling over control of land to produce drugs and over transport routes, including Michoacan's valued Lazaro Cardenas seaport.

La Familia specializes in marijuana, methamphetamine and cocaine. In the last year it has set up shop in 20 to 30 cities and towns across the United States, a senior U.S. law enforcement official said Tuesday. Like many Mexican states where traffickers act with impunity, Michoacan suffers from rampant corruption, residents say. Several of the detained mayors are from the so-called Tierra Caliente (Hot Land) section of southwest Michoacan, a rugged, virtually lawless area dotted with meth labs. One person under arrest is the mayor of Uruapan, the city where traffickers in 2006 notoriously tossed five human heads onto a dance floor, an early signal of how grisly the drug war would become.

Six of the detained mayors are with the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico for more than 70 years; two each represent Godoy's leftist Democratic Revolution Party and Calderon's rightist National Action Party.

"We will be watching to be sure these detentions are processed correctly and . . . [then] we can conclude whether this is really an attack on crime or part of a partisan political campaign," PRI Sen. Manlio Fabio Beltrones, who once had to fight off similar accusations, said in Mexico City. "I trust it is the former."

Mexico votes in July in national elections to choose a new Chamber of Deputies, the 500-member lower house of Congress, and in six states for governors. One of Gov. Godoy's top aides, Citlalli Fernandez, who is also the former public safety chief for Michoacan, and Mario Bautista, director of the state's police academy, were among those arrested.

It was not clear whether more arrests would follow.

"It is important, but it won't have an impact on the amount of drugs going to the United States," said Alberto Islas, a Mexico City security analyst who has advised the Calderon government. "At the end of the day, the mayors and politicians are just another instrument in the cartels' business."

In another development, suspected drug hit men kidnapped and killed a Mexican journalist who covered crime for the Milenio television and newspaper chain. Eliseo Barron, snatched from his home Monday night by masked gunmen, was the second journalist in Durango state killed this month. His body was found Tuesday in an irrigation ditch with signs he had been tortured and shot, authorities said.

Durango is part of Mexico's Golden Triangle, a region of trafficking where some people believe the country's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, is hiding.

wilkinson@latimes.com

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Mexico sees inside job in prison break
The prison warden and two top guards are arrested in Zacatecas after suspected drug cartel men in a 17-car convoy, backed by a helicopter, entered the facility and freed 53 inmates.

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

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-mexico-prison18-2009may18,0,4319828.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Mexico sees inside job in prison break
The prison warden and two top guards are arrested in Zacatecas after suspected drug cartel men in a 17-car convoy, backed by a helicopter, entered the facility and freed 53 inmates.

By Tracy Wilkinson

May 18, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City — It took just minutes. Not a shot was fired. And by Sunday, authorities were sure it was an inside job.

Suspected drug traffickers swept into the prison in Zacatecas state Saturday and freed 53 inmates. Many of the escapees were cartel gunmen.

State Gov. Amalia Garcia said the prison warden and two top guards had been arrested. An additional 40 guards were being questioned.

"It is clear to us that this was perfectly planned" and that guards were bought off, Garcia said.

Officials reached that conclusion after reviewing tapes from security cameras. The footage shows the ease with which a convoy of 17 vehicles, backed by a helicopter, approached Cieneguillas prison. About 30 men, some in police uniforms, entered, rounded up the prisoners, loaded them into the cars and sped away.

The use of a helicopter was especially worrying to investigators, because they are not common in the Zacatecas area.

Army and federal security forces fanned out through four states in search of the escapees. Most of them were associated with the notorious Gulf cartel, one of Mexico's most powerful and violent drug gangs, and their paramilitary force, gunmen called the Zetas.

Once a relatively peaceful region, the central mountainous state of Zacatecas has become a venue for kidnappings, extortion and other violent crimes that have eroded the local economy and chipped away at government authority. In recent years, the Gulf cartel moved in and began to challenge the Pacific coast-based Sinaloa drug dealers who traditionally operated in Zacatecas and used it as a corridor for smuggling routes.

It was the third prison break in Zacatecas in recent years. It took place before dawn Saturday. Meanwhile, in Veracruz state, in a similar operation, commandos freed six inmates.

Among those who escaped in Zacatecas were several convicted drug traffickers, killers and kidnappers. They were housed in the maximum security division of the prison. Late Sunday, officials ranked 11 of the 53 escapees as "highly dangerous" and circulated their photographs to the public.

Hundreds of traffickers have been arrested by government forces over the years, but most of the top leaders remain at large or have been extradited to the U.S. And when they are caught, they often bribe their way to freedom.

One of Mexico's most powerful drug lords, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman famously escaped from a high-security prison in 2001 by hiding in a laundry truck.

wilkinson@latimes.com

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Pursuing smugglers, border agents become trackers
New fencing and high-tech devices make it difficult for drug traffickers to cross the border. So smugglers hoist packs and take to the desert on foot. Agents use century-old tracking skills to follow.

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

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/nation/la-na-border-trackers12-2009may12,0,3605722.story
From the Los Angeles Times
COLUMN ONE

Pursuing smugglers, border agents become trackers
New fencing and high-tech devices make it difficult for drug traffickers to cross the border. So smugglers hoist packs and take to the desert on foot. Agents use century-old tracking skills to follow.

By Scott Kraft

May 12, 2009

Reporting from Antelope Wells, N.M. — Bill Fraley knelt to examine the brown, pebbled soil, like an art professor studying a familiar drawing.

"See those two fine-lines?" he said, passing a finger over two shoe prints, each with washboard rows of ridges. His hand moved to another heel print a few inches away. "And there's a doper lug," the heel imprint of a boot sometimes worn by drug smugglers.

A few steps away, a 5-foot barbed-wire fence cut through the cactus and greasewood, separating the United States from Mexico. The Border Patrol agent stood and tipped back the brim of his Stratton cowboy hat, eyes hidden behind aviator sunglasses. A satisfied expression hung on his chiseled face.

There were at least three of them, he figured. "It rained all day yesterday and these signs are on top of the rain," he said. "So I'd say they crossed yesterday, between 6 and 7. And it looks like they've got heavy loads of dope on them."

Their drop point would probably be on Interstate 10, near the exit for Steins Ghost Town and the New Mexico-Arizona state line. To get there, they would have to traverse 75 miles of rocky mountain ranges and tumbleweed-choked valleys, avoiding rattlesnakes and federal agents -- and do it on foot, with 45 pounds of marijuana on each of their backs.

It would take five to seven days.

Unless the Border Patrol caught them first.

Drug cartels in Mexico are in a deadly battle over smuggling routes into the United States. At the same time, more border agents, hundreds of miles of new fencing and a growing arsenal of high-tech devices have made it harder than ever for drug traffickers to cross much of the 2,000-mile border with Mexico. Over the last six months, the U.S. Border Patrol has seized 1.3 million pounds of marijuana -- an amount nearly equal to the total for all of last year.

The crackdown has driven waves of ever more daring smugglers to the most remote and rugged parts of the border, areas that are difficult for federal agents to patrol, where fancy electronic surveillance is often useless.

The southwestern corner of New Mexico, with its 81 miles of border, is one of those prime corridors, a forbidding area the size of Los Angeles County where drug traffickers find plenty of places to hide. To outwit their adversaries, Border Patrol agents here rely on tracking skills borrowed a century ago from Native Americans: "cutting for sign," detecting where someone has crossed the Earth's surface, and "pushing sign," tracking that person down.

So far this year, Border Patrol agents in this area have hauled in 35,500 pounds of marijuana, more than all of the year before, with a street value of nearly $30 million.

Radar units, infrared scopes and other technological marvels "are damn good machines," said Eddie Parra, a supervisor in the Lordsburg Border Patrol station. "But they can't see everything here. It's still up to us."

Tuesday, 10 a.m.

Fraley cut the sign a mile from the nearest dirt road. He got on his radio to relay the details to other agents, who work as a team, in four overlapping shifts, 24 hours a day.

To Fraley, 50, sign-cutting is both art and science. He looks for footprints, though he usually finds just fragments. He looks for disturbances: turned-over rocks, broken twigs, bent barbed wire. He looks for chewed gum, a cigarette butt, the residue of a line of cocaine snorted on a rock. He looks for clues to fix the time: Prints that seem to run right into a tree, for example, were made before the moon rose.

It is, Fraley explained, "the ultimate hunt. They may not be able to read and write their name, but they are very, very good at what they do."

On this morning, the smugglers had left behind plenty of evidence. They had knocked over rocks and Fraley and Parra noticed that the soil beneath was slightly dark and still moist.

"What I really love," Fraley said, "is when you come across an ant pile that's been stepped in. Ants will rebuild an anthill in an hour, so if you see a footprint in an anthill you'd better look up -- because you're likely to be looking right at your adversaries."

Drug smugglers are nocturnal creatures. They spend their days hunkered down in the latticework of rock caves in mountains on the Continental Divide, crossing the valleys and open countryside by night.

Fraley's calculation: If the smugglers crossed the border at dusk, they had traveled much of the night. That likely put them near Red Hill, 15 miles north in the Animas Mountains.

A Mobile Surveillance System had been positioned on that route the night before. The tall, rotating radar device, operated day and night by an agent under camouflage netting, is the latest in crime-fighting technology. But it can't see into the deep gullies that slice down the mountainside, and it hadn't picked up any movement.

This group, Parra and Fraley agreed, would probably spend tonight moving through the Animas Mountains, which appeared in the distance, bathed in the blue shadows of puffy clouds. Tracking them through that terrain at night would be impossible. But eventually, the smugglers would have to drop down into the valley and cross westward to the Peloncillo Mountains.

That's when the Border Patrol would have its best chance to catch them.

Wednesday, 1 p.m.

Parra's radio crackled with good news. Seismic sensors in the Animas Mountains had recorded movement overnight, and that morning, agents on horseback had picked up the sign. It was the same group.

He steered his SUV along County Road 1, which runs through the long valley between the Animas and Peloncillo ranges. Thick whiskers of wild grass, toasted gold, stretched for miles on either side of the road. To the right, a twisting column of tumbleweeds rose 40 feet in the sky like a translucent tornado. To the left, a cloudburst showered a distant peak in indigo streaks.

Sign-cutting is Parra's passion. "God blessed me with the skill," he said.

A Border Patrol agent's life can be lonely. Some patrol hundreds of miles a day in SUVs, a two-way radio their only companion. Others venture forth in pairs, on foot, on horseback or in all-terrain vehicles.

After dark, when the few ranchers around here park their pickups, the roads belong to the Border Patrol. "Any car you pass down here at night is either lost or pretending to be lost," Parra said.

About 3 p.m., Parra, 43, pulled to a stop and met up with the horse patrol unit leader, Lawrence "Junior" Helbig. Helbig and his partner had spent much of the day tracking the footprints.

"It's the same group," Helbig said. "The odds of having several fine-lines and a doper lug together are just too high."

Fraley had confirmed three sets of footprints; now Helbig had spotted two more. A late-morning shower had mucked up the trail, but the color of the soil in the prints suggested they were only about four hours old, he said.

It wasn't so long ago that the Lordsburg force numbered barely a dozen agents; today it has 200, with plans for 350 in two years. The United States plans similar buildups all along the border amid fears that the violence in Mexico will spill over here. Helbig knows it's still not enough to stop the waves of smugglers.

"It's like stopping the flow of water in a river," Helbig said. "You can throw a rock in it, but the water always goes around."

Two weeks earlier, Helbig had tracked five smugglers into a nearby thicket. The smugglers jumped out and "quailed," running in all directions. Agents caught them and found several hundred pounds of marijuana as well as an AK-47 rifle. One of the smugglers said the weapon was for protection -- from other drug smugglers.

"Thank goodness they're not real violent toward us yet," Helbig said. "But there's a reason we carry a sidearm."

Wednesday, 8:15 p.m.

Parra, tired after a 14-hour day, headed home to Lordsburg. Jose Portillo, 36, the night supervisor, set a trap.

He assigned two agents to hide on one side of County Road 1. Using thermal imaging binoculars, they would try to pick up the smugglers as they descended into the valley. Then they would radio another two-man unit, this one armed with M-4 rifles. If all went according to plan, the smugglers would never make it across County Road 1.

Portillo drove his SUV, headlights off, toward the stakeout. He wanted to be close when the trap was sprung. Jack rabbits bounced across the road. Taking care not to illuminate the brake lights, he coasted to a stop. The engine was idling, heater on. A gauge showed the outside temperature at 50 degrees, a 20-degree drop from a few hours before. The moon crested the eastern horizon, casting light on the 8,500-foot Animas Peak.

At 9:15 p.m., Portillo checked in with his two teams.

Nothing.

"Tonight is the night to catch them," Portillo said, gazing out his windshield, Orion shimmering in the sky. "It's harder after this."

At 1:46 a.m., Portillo reached for the radio handset.

"Let's pull out," he told his surveillance units.

He didn't try to hide his disappointment. "They've crossed by now," he said. "They must have taken a different route."

Pause.

"Tomorrow, it's do or die."

Thursday, 10 a.m.

Parra read the overnight report: The smugglers had crossed County Road 1 several miles from the stakeout, and made it to the Peloncillo Mountains.

Rogelio Villa and his partner, on foot in the Peloncillo range, picked up the sign. "We've got our guys over here," Villa radioed Parra. "They were definitely here late last night or early this morning. Looks like there are four or five of them."

The footprints were different, but Parra wasn't worried. Smugglers often swap out their boots. "It's likely these are the same guys," he said.

Traffickers know that footprints can give them away. So they walk on rocks, where they don't leave prints. They walk backward. They wear boots like those worn by Border Patrol agents. They tie strips of carpet to their soles to avoid leaving clear prints on dirt roads. ("I've even seen them take the hoofs from cattle and glue them to their shoes," one agent said.)

Two agents jumped ahead to see how far the smugglers had gotten. At a cattle watering tank, they came upon a rancher's motion-activated game camera. An agent took the memory card out of the camera and put it in his own.

The photo that popped up was clear: a muscular, dark-haired man with a short beard, wearing black jeans and a sweat shirt under his striped shirt. A water bottle in his hand had been shrouded in black cloth, to avoid a reflection that might give his position away. On his back was a parcel, about 3 feet square. Marijuana.

As Parra knew, nearly identical parcels from an earlier bust, each weighing more than 45 pounds, were stacked in a drug locker at Border Patrol headquarters.

Parra called in air support. Fifteen minutes later, a low hum signaled the arrival of a single-engine plane, which made long, sweeping runs over the mountain range.

"We don't see anything," the pilot radioed. "We've probably dug them in like a tick. You might walk right up on them."

But Parra thought the smugglers might have moved farther north, across Highway 9 to the rocky hills of Weatherby Canyon. If the traffickers had reached Weatherby, they would be one night's hike from drop points on Interstate 10.

Villa found fresh footprints in the canyon, confirming Parra's suspicions. "These boys jumped Highway 9 already," Villa said. "They're up there on Weatherby."

Friday, noon

Two infrared scopes aimed at Weatherby Canyon had detected no movement the night before. Parra returned to look for signs that the smugglers had come down the mountain. Two younger agents searched for an hour and found nothing.

Within 10 minutes of arriving, though, Parra picked up the footprints.

He tracked the sign on foot for several miles along the side of Weatherby until it disappeared. Sweat dripped from his face as he paused to take a swig from his water bottle.

"I'm leaning toward thinking they're still up on top of those hills," he said, lighting a Marlboro. "We were keeping this area very hot last night, and they could have stayed up."

Later, Parra reconsidered when a nearby rancher reported that his dogs had barked loudly at 3 a.m."I don't see how we would have missed them," he said. "But the dopers must have been moving."

Saturday morning

Tim Lowe, the day supervisor, dispatched two agents on ATVs to Weatherby.

A scope had been deployed there briefly the night before, "but they 10-3ed it," Lowe said, using the code for terminating an operation. No one had been able to pick up the sign again.

Sunday afternoon

The exit for Steins Ghost Town on Interstate 10 leads to a cemetery of weathered crosses. Next to the cemetery, pieces of cloth and shoulder straps made of old blankets lay on the ground.

The drugs were gone, likely bound for Tucson and points west.

So were the smugglers, headed back to Mexico to collect their paychecks and pick up another load.

Back on the border, the day shift was out -- cutting for new sign.

scott.kraft@latimes.com

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Killings of 4 Southern California residents in Tijuana sow fear

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

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-mexico-americans16-2009may16,0,1836250.story

From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Killings of 4 Southern California residents in Tijuana sow fear
Associated Press

May 16, 2009

TIJUANA, MEXICO — The slayings of four young Americans in Tijuana sowed fear in Southern California on Friday as Mexican prosecutors tried to determine whether the youths were involved in the country's violent drug trade or innocent victims of a brutal crime.

The victims, two men and two women in their teens and early 20s, said they were headed for a night of partying across the border only to be found strangled, stabbed and beaten a few days later.

Mexican officials are investigating whether any of the four San Diego-area victims had ties to the drug trade, after a toxicology report tested positive for cocaine on the body of Brianna Hernandez, who was either 18 or 19.

Another victim, Oscar Jorge Garcia, 23, was apprehended in the San Diego area in January 2008 with six illegal immigrants in the car, but never charged in the case, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lauren Mack said.

The parents of 20-year-old victim Carmen Jimena Ramos Chavez on Friday described a vibrant Chula Vista High graduate who worked at an amusement park for children and planned to become a hair stylist.

"She was a happy girl, with a desire to explore the world," said her father, Rogelio Ramos Camano, of Chula Vista. "Young people are like that. They think nothing will happen. I was like that, too."

Mexican prosecutors said the victims had been bound and tortured -- common tactics by Mexican drug gangs -- before being left in a van in a dusty slum on the outskirts of Tijuana.

Jose Manuel Yepiz, a spokesman for the Baja California state prosecutor's office, said investigators were examining a threatening letter to one of the victims from a jail inmate in San Diego.

Prosecutors said they had ruled out the possibility that the killings were a case of drug gangs targeting tourists.

Tijuana, which sits across the border from San Diego, has a reputation as one of Mexico's most violent border cities. Authorities said 843 people were slain there in 2008, many in drug-related violence.

Since taking office in December 2006, President Felipe Calderon has sent more than 45,000 soldiers to combat drug cartels in the country whose turf battles have killed more than 10,750 people over the last two-and-a-half years.

Violence had diminished in Tijuana in recent months, only to pick up a few weeks ago with seven police officers killed in brazen attacks on one day.

Victor Clark, a professor at San Diego State University's Center for Latin American Studies, said criminal ties with any one of the Americans could have spelled disaster for the group.

"Maybe they broke the rules, which means death" when dealing with Mexico's drug cartels, said Clark, a Tijuana resident and native. "And they dragged their friends down with them."

Relatives said the victims were familiar with both sides of the border and navigating the area's bilingual culture -- but may have taken their safety for granted.

Ramos said he had often told his daughter, who was born in Tijuana but raised from a young age in the U.S., that Tijuana was too dangerous, and she assured him she was always careful.

But Ramos said he didn't offer any warnings as his daughter got ready to go out with her friend Brianna on May 7, even as he watched a news program about killings in Tijuana on Mexican television.

"I think God put that out there so I would do something, but I didn't dare," he said in Spanish, shaking his head, recalling how they were already primped and ready to go.

U.S. tourists, already warned by the U.S. State Department to be cautious in Mexico because foreign bystanders have been killed, now appear even less likely to visit once-popular destinations like Tijuana.

"I'm not going to T.J. unless it's absolutely necessary," Amelia Lopez, a friend of a victim told television station San Diego 6. "Before, you know, you go to eat or have a good time or shopping. Nothing like that."

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Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, the reputed head of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, has instructed associates to use deadly force north of the border to protect trafficking operations, authorities said.

Sinaloa cartel may resort to deadly force in U.S.
Authorities say Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, the reputed leader of the Mexican cartel, has given his associates the OK, if necessary, to open fire across the border.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-mexico-chapo6-2009may06,0,1582255,print.story

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
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From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Sinaloa cartel may resort to deadly force in U.S.
Authorities say Joaquin 'El Chapo' Guzman, the reputed leader of the Mexican cartel, has given his associates the OK, if necessary, to open fire across the border.

By Josh Meyer

May 6, 2009

Reporting from Sells, Ariz. — The reputed head of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said.

Such a move by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Mexico's most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel's previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S. -- either with law enforcement officers or rival traffickers.

Police and federal agents in Arizona said they had recently received at least two law enforcement alerts focused on Guzman's reported orders that his smugglers should "use their weapons to defend their loads at all costs."

Guzman is thought to have delivered the message personally in early March, during a three-day gathering of his associates in Sonoita, a Mexican town a few miles south of the Arizona border, according to confidential U.S. intelligence bulletins sent to several state and federal law enforcement officials, who discussed them on the condition of anonymity.

The Sonoita meeting is considered one of several signs that Guzman is becoming more brazen even in the face of a Mexican government crackdown on his activities and continued turf rivalries with other traffickers.

Information from informants, wiretaps and other sources have prompted a flurry of warnings to authorities in U.S. border states, instructing them to use extreme caution when confronting people suspected of smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants from Mexico or ferrying weapons and cash south from the United States, officials familiar with those warnings said.

Some U.S. intelligence officials suggested Guzman was on the defensive because of enforcement efforts on both sides of the border and because he can no longer afford to ditch valuable cargoes when challenged by rivals or authorities.

Michele Leonhart, acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Mexican smugglers were also under pressure because their Colombian partners were no longer extending them credit. "There's a need to get the cash back itself quicker and faster," Leonhart said.

U.S. authorities say Guzman has become increasingly intent on gaining dominance over smuggling routes in Mexico and the United States. To do so, they say, he has escalated his assault on some rival smugglers while forging alliances with others.

"Chapo is at the forefront of the efforts to control the routes into the United States," said Thomas M. Harrigan, the chief of operations for the DEA.

He said virtually all of the violence remained in Mexico, but U.S. authorities were alarmed that attacks on police, soldiers, government officials, journalists and other potential opponents had intensified near the border.

How much risk that poses to U.S. authorities "depends on how desperate the cartels become to move their cargo in the U.S.," said Dan Wells, commander of the Arizona Department of Public Safety's Intelligence Bureau.

So far, the contrast has been stark -- near-daily violence in Mexican border towns with relative tranquillity on the U.S. side, according to data and interviews with law enforcement officials in the region.

For example, Ciudad Juarez had 100 times as many homicides in the 14 months ending in February as neighboring El Paso, which is roughly half its size. In 2008, Nogales in Mexico's Sonora state had 40 times as many homicides as Nogales, Ariz., which is roughly one-ninth as populous.

Deeper into the United States, narcotics agents say they have seen little evidence of spillover from Mexican drug war violence beyond an increase in ransom kidnappings related to collection of drug debts.

But near the Mexico-Arizona border, Robert W. Gilbert, chief patrol agent for the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Tucson sector, said confrontations between law enforcement and suspected traffickers -- and among traffickers themselves -- had grown more violent.

A shootout occurred several weeks ago when one group allegedly tried to hijack another's load of drugs on one of the main roads leading north to Phoenix. Two of the suspected traffickers were wounded.

"Times have changed," Gilbert said. "The tactics, the aggressiveness. We're victims of our own success." Now, he said, "they'll fight us."

An internal report from the agency, obtained by the watchdog group Judicial Watch, appears to support Gilbert's assessment. It shows reported weapons-related assaults against border officers rose 24% last fiscal year, compared with 2007, and assaults involving vehicles rose 7% in the same period.

Among areas with sharp increases in assaults was the Tucson corridor, the report said. Mario Escalante, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector, said there were 113 assaults against agents in the sector between October and March, and an additional 26 last month.

"They're losing money and they are frustrated, and they are using other tactics to get their loads across," Escalante said.

The tactics include throwing barrages of rocks at agents, ramming their cars into agents' vehicles and sometimes shooting. He said the Guzman warning had put agents on edge.

When authorities stopped a vehicle in Douglas, Ariz., several weeks ago, traffickers on the Mexican side of the border "laid down suppressive fire" to stop U.S. officials from advancing, enabling the vehicle to make it back across the border with a load of marijuana intact, one Immigration and Customs Enforcement official said in an interview.

Arizona Atty. Gen. Terry Goddard said there appeared to be a shift in the rules of engagement on the part of traffickers affiliated with Sinaloa and other cartels.

"They've got to get the dope through, or they won't get paid. . . . These guys are under orders. . . . They have rules of engagement and they follow this direction."

One member of the Shadow Wolves, American Indian trackers who patrol the Tohono O'odham reservation for the Department of Homeland Security on the Arizona border, said that in the past, weapons were largely used by traffickers to protect themselves from bandits.

"But lately, [the bulletins have warned] that they've been carrying them to engage law enforcement," the tracker said.

josh.meyer@latimes.com

Meyer was on assignment in Arizona.

Times staff writer Sam Quinones in El Paso and Los Angeles contributed to this report.

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