Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

DPS & THP Daily Operations Summary With Border-Centric Open Source Reporting

Date of Report: December 08, 2011

Marijuana Seizures

Hydroponic Marijuana Seizures

Heroin Seizures

Methamphetamine Seizures

Currency Seizures

0 lbs 0 lbs 0 lbs 0 lbs $ 0

Cocaine Seizures

Hydrocodone Seizures

Weapon Seizures

Xanax Seizures

Criminal Arrests

0 lbs 0 0 0 0

No seizures reported today.

OPEN SOURCE INPUTS

McAllen Monitor, December 8, 2011 Mexico's President To Visit Cd. Mier Today Mexican President Felipe Calderon is expected to visit Ciudad Mier today to inaugurate a military base for troops recently deployed to the border town to help combat cartels operating in the country‘s northern border. Calderon, who launched the war against organized crime after taking office in 2006, deployed over 600 soldiers to Ciudad Mier in October after more than a year of suffering caused by two warring criminal organizations — the Zetas and the Gulf cartels. Last year, hundreds — and perhaps thousands — of residents fled the town on the same day the former head of the Gulf Cartel Antonio Ezequiel ―Tony Tormenta‖ Cárdenas Guillén was killed in Matamoros. Members of the Zetas reportedly stood in the middle of the streets in Mier and yelled at the top of their lungs that anyone who stayed behind would be killed. Residents flocked to neighboring Miguel Aleman in Mexico and across the border to Starr County, among other locations. Only a fraction of those who evacuated have returned home, the Associated Press reported. Calderon is expected to speak at 3 p.m. before the 105th Infantry Battalion, according to a news release from SEDENA, Mexico‘s ministry of defense. McAllen Monitor, December 8, 2011 Reynosa Man Charged After Chase Spurred School Lockdown PALMVIEW — A Reynosa man was charged with possession of marijuana and evading arrest a day after leading authorities in a chase that resulted in a school lockdown. On Wednesday morning, Jose Guadalupe Macias Ramirez, 23, was arraigned at Palmview Municipal Court and his bond was set at a total of $100,000. Macias was arrested after a chase in which authorities found 700 pounds of marijuana inside a maroon Ford pickup that had been stolen out of Pharr. The pickup had the letters ―CDG‖ — for ―Cartel Del Golfo‖ or ―Gulf Cartel‖ — spray-painted inside. The chase began Tuesday shortly after noon, when officers tried to pull the pickup truck over near Farm-to-Market Road 492 and Expressway 83. The driver took the truck near Gonzalez Elementary and even rammed a police car, authorities said. Police fired nine shots in

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

response. No injuries were reported. A second, unidentified man who was in the pickup remained at large at press time Wednesday. It remained unclear whether Macias was the driver or the passenger.

CDG" — the Spanish acronym for the Gulf Cartel — was tagged with spray paint on the inside of the pickup truck in the police chase that spurred the lockdown of an elementary school. Some 700 pounds of marijuana was seized from the pickup truck in the police chase that spurred the lockdown of an elementary school.

McAllen Monitor, December 8, 2011 Authorities Release Name Of Slain Mexican National Found In RGC Alley RIO GRANDE CITY — Authorities confirmed the name of a Mexican national whose body was found in an alley Tuesday morning with a gunshot wound to his chest. The body was identified as that of Jose Antonio Salinas Sanchez, 27, from the central Mexican state of Guanajuato. According to investigators, they still don‘t have a motive in the slaying of Salinas, who was found near Martinez and Mariposa streets. Justice of the Peace Imelda Cruz pronounced Salinas dead at the scene and ordered an autopsy. The slaying is the first homicide investigation of the year for Rio Grande City police. El Paso Times, December 8, 2011 Agents Seize AK-47s, Arrest 7 In Connection With El Paso Marijuana-Trafficking Group Federal agents seized 10 AK-47 rifles and pistols and arrested seven men as part of an investigation into an El Paso marijuana-trafficking group. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the arrests on Tuesday following an investigation by agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement-Homeland Security Investigations. Officials said agents seized seven GP/WASR rifles and three Draco model pistols, about 7,500 rounds of ammunition, and 150 pounds of marijuana. A DEA spokeswoman declined to disclose whether the seized firearms were headed to Mexico and whether the weapons were linked to any particular drug cartel, which have craved such weaponry. An indictment, unsealed Nov. 30, stated that one of the men arrested, Hector Arturo Salcido Elias, 41, allegedly managed or controlled a place used to store and distribute marijuana in the 100 block of North Cotton Street in Central El Paso. "HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) and DEA partnered to strike a hard blow to criminal network," said Dennis Ulrich, the acting agent in charge for ICE-HSI in El Paso, in a statement. "Our agencies' joint efforts combat all facets of transnational crimes, including the smuggling of weapons into Mexico that potentially could be used by drug cartels to support their ongoing criminal enterprises," Ulrich said. The men were indicted on drug conspiracy charges. Those arrested were Feliciano Oaxaca Alcala, 33; Ramon Roberto Flores, 30; Jose Manuel Campa, 19; Billy Omar Ruvalcaba Madrid, 21; Eddie Escarzaga, 33; Armando Cereceres, 28; and Salcido. All the men are from El Paso except for Salcido, who is from San Elizario. The indictment accuses Oaxaca, Cereceres and a man identified as Ernesto Lopez of weapon possession and obliterating serial numbers charges.

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

Houston Chronicle, December 8, 2011 Texas Has A Navy With New DPS Border Boat

Falcon Lake is among Texas' border bodies of water. (Eric Gay/AP)

AUSTIN - The Texas Department of Public Safety is taking to the waves. The DPS is scheduled to commission a new shallow-water interceptor vessel in Austin on Thursday for use in patrols of the Rio Grande and international lakes. The vessel will be named in honor of Trooper Jerry Don Davis, who was killed in October 1980 during a road stop on U.S. 84 just outside Slaton, about 15 miles southeast of Lubbock. The vessel starts its patrol operations early next year. Davis stopped Wayne Alexander Jr. for speeding and had the 21-year-old Lorenzo man in his patrol car when the 26-year-old trooper learned Alexander had stolen a car and was shot. Alexander is serving a life sentence for the slaying. Houston Chronicle, December 8, 2011 Mexico Seizes 226 Tons Of Chemical Used In Meth MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities say they have seized 226 tons (205 metric tons) of a chemical used in synthetic drugs in a Pacific coast port. Mexico's Navy says in a statement Thursday that the methylamine was found over several days this month in the port of Lazaro Cardenas. It says authorities found the chemical in 11 containers shipped from China. The final destinations was Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala but the ships stopped in Mexico to transfer the cargo. Mexico has banned imports of several chemicals to thwart methamphetamine production. The U.S. government says Mexican traffickers are the main suppliers of synthetic drugs to the U.S. Washington Times, December 7, 2011 Terrorists Said To Be Infiltrating Military: ‘Fort Hood Attack Was Not Anomaly,’ Lawmaker Contends At Hill Hearing Al Qaeda and other terrorists are trying to infiltrate the U.S. armed forces, which makes military facilities in the U.S. dangerous for American troops, lawmakers said Wednesday. ―The Department of Defense considers the U.S. homeland the most dangerous place for a G.I. outside of foreign war zones — and the top threat they face here is from violent Islamist extremists,‖ Rep. Peter T. King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said during a special joint House-Senate hearing. Military officials testified about the homegrown terrorist threat at U.S. military bases in the wake of several attacks, including the November 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 41, has been

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

charged in the killing of 13 people and wounding of 29 others in the worst shootings ever to take place on an American military base. ―The Fort Hood attack was not an anomaly,‖ said Mr. King, New York Republican. ―It was part of al Qaeda‘s two-decade success at infiltrating the U.S. military for terrorism — an effort that is increasing in scope and threat.‖ The Congressional Research Service has identified 54 homegrown terrorism plots and attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. Of those, 33 were directed against the U.S. military, said Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Governmental Affairs and Homeland Security Committee. ―The American service member is increasingly in the terrorists‘ scope and not just overseas in a traditional war setting,‖ said Mr. Lieberman, Connecticut independent. The publicly disclosed plots and attacks by military insiders ―represent the leading edge of al Qaeda‘s ongoing effort to infiltrate the U.S. military and to recruit or radicalize vulnerable servicemen to commit future acts of terror,‖ according to a report published Wednesday by Mr. King‘s staff. There is ―reason to believe that the actual number of radicalized troops is far more than publicly realized or acknowledged,‖ the report states. Officials and lawmakers went into a closed session to discuss radicalized troops and other matters at the conclusion of the hearing. After the Fort Hood shooting and a similar, attempted attack in 2010, the Pentagon has developed a series of ―behavorial indicators‖ for radical motivations that troops will be encouraged to report if they detect them in their comrades, Paul N. Stockton, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense, said at the joint hearing. ―Expressing sympathy or support for a violence-promoting organization, associating with terrorists, having a copy of [al Qaeda‗s] Inspire magazine on your desk — these are behavioral indicators that we apply to focus on the primary threat,‖ he said. Mr. Stockton denied charges from several Republican lawmakers that the military‘s approach is hamstrung by political correctness. ―We know who the adversary is. The primary threat is al Qaeda and its affiliates. And everything that we are doing in terms of primary focus of our efforts concentrates on that threat,‖ he said. Asked repeatedly by Rep. Daniel E. Lungren, California Republican, about his refusal to use the word ―Islamic‖ or ―Islamist‖ when describing al Qaeda, Mr. Stockton said branding terrorists as Muslims plays into their narrative that the United States is at war with Islam. ―Sir, with great respect, I don‘t believe it‘s helpful to frame our adversary as ‗Islamic‘ with any set of qualifiers that we might add, because we are not at war with Islam,‖ he said. San Antonio Express News, December 7, 2011 More Than A Ton Of Marijuana Found In Broccoli Shipment BROWNSVILLE — U.S. Customs officers in Pharr found more than a ton of marijuana hidden in a shipment of frozen broccoli, Customs and Border Protection said Wednesday. The seizure occurred Monday at the import lot of the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge. Officers inspecting a tractor trailer coming in from Mexico found 158 bundles of marijuana with a total weight of 2,482 pounds. The marijuana has an estimated street value of about $2.5 million. No arrests were reported.

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

Borderland Beat, December 7, 2011 California Pot Growers Shifting Crop To Private Farmlands

AP Photo/Fresno County Sheriff's Office In this image provided by the Fresno County Sheriff's Office, an aerial view of a marijuana field is seen July 5, 2011 near Sanger, California. Fresno County Sheriff's deputies and federal agents found as many as 50,000 marijuana plants, worth an estimated $400 million, growing in a sophisticated operation protected by a six foot barbed wire fence. About 50 workers were taken into custody. The farm was located less than a mile from an elementary school.(The Sanger Herald)

California's commercial pot growers are moving plots from national forests to Central Valley farmland, Fresno County Sheriff Margaret Mims told senators Wednesday. Citing a "conspicuous shift" in drug cultivation tactics, Mims added that growers also are increasingly using the "guise" of medical marijuana in an effort to protect their work that, arrest records show, frequently relies on illegal immigrants. "Rather than growing marijuana in the relative secrecy and anonymity afforded by remote public lands, many moved illicit operations onto private agricultural lands," Mims advised the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, which held a hearing Wednesday on marijuana cultivation on public lands. Fresno County has seen a drop in marijuana plots on public lands. In 2009, for instance, law enforcement investigators identified 81 marijuana-growing sites on public lands in Fresno County. In 2010, the number fell to 19. This year, only eight have been found. While Mims called these reductions "appreciable measures of success," she warned of the flip side, which includes growing operations on Valley farmland. Last year, she told senators, 36 multi-acre cultivation sites were found on conventional farmland in Fresno County. This year, one Fresno County farmland site devoted to marijuana was said by officials to span 57 acres. "(The) Central Valley in particular has become a hot spot for marijuana cultivation because of the conditions there, including abundant sunlight, irrigation and fertilizer," declared Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the narcotics control caucus. More often than not, illegal immigrants supply the marijuana labor force, officials said. In July, for instance, the Forest Service and other agencies arrested 159 individuals as part of what officials called Operation Full Court Press. The operation included sweeps through Mendocino, Glenn, Colusa, Lake, Trinity and Tehama counties in Northern California. Roughly 95 percent of those arrested were illegal immigrants, the U.S. Forest Service's law enforcement director, David Ferrell, told senators. More broadly, Ferrell reported that illegal immigrants were caught tending 1,437 of the 2,334 marijuana sites seized on Forest Service land in California between 2005 and 2010. "These are Mexican nationals who are running these operations," Feinstein said. "They are armed and dangerous, and we ought to go after them." During the summer's Operation Full Court Press, in

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

addition to 632,058 marijuana plants, officers reported seizing 38 weapons, including some assault rifles. A similar multi-agency operation last year, called Trident, resulted in 33 weapons and 432,271 marijuana plants being seized in Fresno, Tulare and Madera counties. All told, Obama administration drug czar R. Gil Kerlikowske testified, 7.4 million marijuana plants were eradicated in California last year, primarily from outdoor growing sites. "Our public lands have been taken away from us, and that's wrong," said Rep. Mike Thompson, D-St. Helena, Calif. Feinstein joined Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, in pressing the case that California's allowance for medical marijuana has given Mexican-run drug trafficking gangs cover for their illegal operations. "The professed medical premise for cultivating this marijuana is predominantly a ruse," Mims agreed. "Marijuana grown in these quantities is largely intended for distribution and sales, often to out-of-state destinations." Washington Post, December 7, 2011 Gunmen Ram Ambulance In Mexico Border City, Then Open Fire, Killing Driver, 2 Patients, Woman

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

Forensic experts work on the scene after unknown gunmen opened fire on an ambulance, killing the driver, two patients and a relative of one of the patients in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico Wednesday Dec. 7, 2011. (AP Photo/Raymundo Ruiz)

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico — Gunmen attacked an ambulance in this border city Wednesday, killing the driver, two patients and a fourth person in the vehicle, officials said. The Chihuahua state Attorney General‘s Office said the ambulance driver was shot in the head and appeared to be the target of the attack. It did not provide theories about a motive. Two of the victims were patients being taken to a Ciudad Juarez facility for kidney treatment, officials said. Also killed was a woman accompanying the patients. Rosendo Gaytan, a spokesman for the Mexican Social Security Institute in Ciudad Juarez said a pickup truck carrying the gunmen intentionally crashed into the ambulance, forcing it to stop. The attackers then got out of the truck and opened fire on the ambulance, Gaytan said. Ciudad Juarez, which is across the border from El Paso, Texas, is the site of a war between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels and saw some 3,100 homicides last year. Killings have gradually decreased but violence remains high. Authorities reported six other slayings Wednesday in addition to the ambulance attack. Elsewhere, three members of a criminal gang allied with the Zetas drug cartel have been detained in connection with the slayings of 26 people last month in the western Mexican city of Guadalajara, prosecutors said Wednesday. Jalisco state Attorney General Tomas Coronado said the arrested men belonged to the Milenio gang and had told police that the slain men were members of a rival group that refused to join with Milenio. Analysts have described the Guadalajara slayings as the result of a growing rivalry between the Zetas and the powerful Sinaloa cartel. The Sinaloa cartel is based in Sinaloa state, to the north of Jalisco. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

El Paso Times, December 07, 2011 Updated: Four People Killed, One Wounded In Juárez Ambulance Ambush

JUAREZ Four people, including the driver of an ambulance and his partner, were shot to death during an ambush in Juárez on Wednesday, officials said. Another person was seriously wounded during the shooting. The ambulance worker, his partner and three women were riding from Casas Grandes to a clinic in Juárez when several gunmen opened fire against them in front of Mexican Oil Company (Petróleos Mexicanos) facilities, a federal government agency, at Plazuela de Acuña street and Casas Grandes Highway around 1:30 p.m., a government spokesperson said. ³At least two shooters were involved in the attack, since police recovered. 69 bullet casings 7.62x39 and .223 mm from the scene,² said Alejandro Ruvalcaba, spokesman for the Chihuahua Attorney General's office here. The ambulance driver and his partner, both in their 30s, and two female patients, one of them in her 40s and another in her 60s, died inside the unit. A third patient, in her late 40s, was wounded, Ruvalcaba said. The three patients were being taken to a Social Security clinic in Juárez, known by its acronym IMSS, for dialysis treatments when the attack occurred, Ruvalcaba added. All four victims have yet to be identified and no arrests have been made. On Tuesday afternoon, a teenage boy and two men were shot to death. According to state police, all three victims were riddled with bullets in the middle of Ejido Parritas and Manuel Ávila Camacho streets in the Manuel Valdez neighborhood. Those victims were identified as José Alejandro Fierro Holguín, 14, Sergio Moreno Coronado, 34, and Oziel Enrique Rincón Llanas, 18. State police recovered 11 bullet casings. Also on Tuesday night, an unidentified woman was found shot to death at Camino Real Highway and Indio Jerónimo Street in the Campesina neighborhood northwest of Juárez, officials said. The victim, in her late 20s, was shot four times in the head at point-blank range. Guardian, December 7, 2011 Mexico's War On Drugs Blights Resort Of Acapulco Five years after its president declared a war on Mexico's drug traffickers, a two-day Guardian series of articles and interactives assesses the scale of carnage that on average kills someone every hour. In this first piece, we look at Acapulco, the tourist haunt now haunted by fear, death and countless acts of brutality.

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Marino Casiano, whose son Luis Mario was kidnapped by a suspected drug gang, in his house in Acapulco. Photograph: Pedro Pardo

Acapulco's bay sparkled and the big hotels that line the beach glinted in the sunlight in the view from Marino Casiano's tiny flat high in the hills above the resort. But the taxi driver's gaze was inward, clinging to the last shred of hope that his teenage son, abducted by gunmen in March, was still alive. "I want to believe that they took him to recruit him into organised crime and took him somewhere else in the country to fight," he said in a tone of controlled despair. "Either that or he is in a clandestine grave." Life for Casiano and the majority of the city's 780,000 permanent residents has always diverged from the image of unbridled fun the resort seeks to project. But life scraping by on the edge of the tourism economy is now also shrouded in the personal tragedies, pervasive fear, and additional financial woes associated with one of the major fronts in Mexico's drug wars. "I blame the president," Casiano said. "What is the use of attacking the drug traffickers and bringing down capos [drug lords] if there are always others to take their place? If things get worse for ordinary people?" Five years ago on Sunday, President Felipe Calderón kicked off his presidency by declaring an offensive against the drug cartels whose escalating turf wars along a major cocaine supply route north had started to become a real problem in a few areas of Mexico. But in the five intervening years, the military-led onslaught has served only to multiply the carnage. At least 46,000 people have been killed – one an hour – making some Mexican cities among the deadliest in the world. Calderón remains defiant in the face of growing criticism of his strategy. "We are going to continue defending the citizens until the last day of my term," he said at an event to mark the fifth anniversary of his government last week. "Those who say that it would have been better not to confront the criminals are completely mistaken. If we hadn't done this, they would have advanced in our communities and our institutions." Feeding corn on the cob to her three-year-old child outside their home in one of the poor barrios that line the road to the airport and the motorway to Mexico City, Marley is unconvinced. "The president says the good people outnumber the bad people but that isn't true," she said. She did not want her surname revealed for fear of being identified. "I see more bad people every day and I don't trust anybody anymore." On at least five occasions, the young woman said, she had had to bundle her children indoors when armed groups started shooting at each other or at the police. Two months ago she was caught in the middle of a gun battle while at the market, and had ran for cover in a shop. Then there are the bodies dumped on the ground and hung from bridges, the severed heads left in prominent places for all to see. "If we are ever able to save the money up for the journey we will leave," Marley said, nodding at the little stall of T-shirts she sells. "It's not good for the children when they can tell the difference between fire crackers and guns." Acapulco's turf wars are a particularly extreme version of the general trend of cartel fragmentation prompted by second-tier

Border Security Operations Center 6100 Guadalupe St., Bldg E, Rm 108 Texas Ranger Division Austin, TX 78752 Texas Department of Public Safety Office (512) 424-7561 Fax (512) 424-7041

figures fighting over the spoils left by capos who have been arrested or killed. According to Eduardo Guerrero, a drug war expert, there were six cartels when the offensive began. Now there are 16. Of these, he believes, only the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas and the Gulf cartel have the capacity to traffic drugs internationally on any scale. The rest concentrate on kidnapping, extortion rackets and controlling local drug user markets. They tend to be particularly violent as they seek total control of the territories in which they operate. "The fragmentation of the cartels is the product of the initial strategy of going after the cartelsm without any prioritization," he said. "The government did not realize the problems this would bring with the dispersal of the violence." The three most visible groups in Acapulco are the Independent Cartel of Acapulco, the Barredora (which means mechanical street sweeper in Spanish) and the Devil's Commando. All stem from the Beltrán Leyva cartel, itself a split from Sinaloa in 2008 that went on to divide again after its top leader was killed in December 2009. The battle for control of Acapulco escalated after the arrest this August of the faction leader who held together the structure in the resort. The three groups fighting over it are believed to have loose links with other organizations, in particular Sinaloa, though others including the Juárez cartel, La Familia and even the Zetas are rumored to be fluttering on the fringes of the conflict. The bloodbath reached a peak in August when, local officials say, 148 people were killed during the month and the year's total was approaching 1,000. The door of the morgue was plastered with appeals to help find the missing, whom the authorities largely ignore. By that time the bloodbath had spread out of the poverty-stricken outskirts into the main tourist area along the beach – a disaster for the resort, which is still a mainstay for national tourism despite the lost glamour of the days when Elizabeth Taylor regularly brought her entourage to town. The local authorities say hotel occupancy rates remain healthy, but admit restaurants and bars have suffered acutely as holidaymakers rarely stray from their hotels into streets left empty by an informal sundown curfew. The federal and state governments launched a major operation in early October, filling the city with 2,500 members of the army, navy and federal police, as well as 600 state police and a battery of equipment to add to the 1,500 local police officers. The official daily death toll has fallen from 3.6 in the two months before the operation to 1.6 in the same period after it, and the operation is now touted as a great success. But will it last? In Ciudad Juárez, a surge in the military presence in the spring of 2009 saw a similar period of relative calm. Then the violence got worse than ever and established the border city as the most violent front of all. The Acapulco operation claims to have learned from the mistakes of the past. It boasts an unprecedented level of co-ordination between the different forces, and promises more sophisticated efforts to clean up local police riddled with corruption, as well as social programs aimed at stopping the young and poor getting pulled into organized crime. "Otherwise things become like Penelope waiting for Ulysses," said a spokesman, Arturo Martínez. "What you weave in the day, you unpick at night." But while there is cautious optimism in the city centre where the holiday atmosphere is beginning creep back, skepticism is rife in the barrios. "This whole thing is a pantomime to keep the tourists happy but for people like us it will get worse again soon," said Juana, 58, as she rocked her coughing grandchild in a hammock in the tiny shop where she sells homemade piñatas. "The kids going around with guns are getting younger every day." Juana, who did not want to give her full name, got caught in the middle of a shootout inside the jail in June when she was visiting her son, who is serving a sentence for robbery. "If they can't even control the prison, how do you think they can control what happens outside?" Fox News, December 7, 2011 Zetas Responsible For 52 Casino Deaths, Mexican Official Says Monterrey – The actions of the Los Zetas drug cartel at the Casino Royale in Monterrey, the capital of the northern Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, were the reason that 52 people died in a

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fire at the gaming establishment and not lack of safety systems at the business, Nuevo Leon Attorney General Adrian de la Garza said. "The determining cause (of the deaths) was the actions of 18 subjects. Their armed presence and intimidation contributed to the chaos," De la Garza said during the presentation Tuesday of the results of the investigation into the attack on the casino. A Zetas cartel crew sprayed 200 liters (nearly 53 gallons) of gasoline around the casino in broad daylight on Aug. 25, starting a fire that spread in 40 seconds and killed 52 people. A total of 36 people, including 18 who had a direct role, participated in the attack, which was staged because the casino's owners refused to pay up in an extortion racket, the AG's office determined. Authorities are still looking for 18 suspects, including the cartel's two top bosses in Monterrey and Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, known as "El Lazca" and considered the top Zetas leader. Lazcano, who deserted from the Mexican army in 1999 and formed Los Zetas with three other soldiers, is considered the intellectual author of the attacks and has a bounty of 30 million pesos (about $2.2 million) on his head. The casino's owners will not face criminal charges, but they could be charged with administrative, civil or labor law violations, the head of the Siedo organized crime unit of the federal Attorney General's Office, Cuitlahuac Salinas, said. The casino had eight exits - two underground, two on the roof and the rest leading into the streets - and had 40 fire extinguishers, fire retardant materials and marked escape routes, De la Garza said. Only one exit, which was used by employees, was locked, the AG said. "Although the casino had all the safety measures in place, they would not have been sufficient for an attack of this magnitude," De la Garza said. Monterrey, Mexico's most important industrial city, and its suburbs have been battered by a wave of drug-related violence since March 2010, when three rival cartels reportedly went to war with Los Zetas. Los Zetas has been battling an alliance of the Gulf, Sinaloa and La Familia drug cartels, known as the Nueva Federacion, for control of the Monterrey metropolitan area and smuggling routes into the United States. After several years on the payroll of the Gulf cartel, Los Zetas, considered M exico's most violent criminal organization, went into the drug business on their own account and now control several lucrative territories. A total of 267 murders were registered in the industrial city in 2009, with the figure rising to 828 in 2010 and nearly 2,000 so far this year, according to official figures

National Post, December 7, 2011 Mexico Holds Alleged Canadian Mastermind Behind Plot To Smuggle Saadi Gaddafi To Punta Mita

REUTERS/IsmailZetouny/Files/Punta Mita

Punta Mita, Mexico is a vacationer’s paradise that was the intended destination of Saadi Gaddafi, left

Mexican authorities announced today they had thwarted a plan to smuggle Saadi Gaddafi, the son of the late Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, and his family into Mexico using false documents. Canadian Cynthia Vanier is the accused ringleader of a plot that included opening

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fake bank accounts and acquiring various properties in Mexico that would act as safe houses for the Gaddafi kin, Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire told reporters at a morning news conference. Two Mexicans and a Dane are also alleged to have taken part in the operation, which authorities first learned of in September. Suspecting the group of organized crime, falsification of documents and human trafficking, authorities detained Ms. Vanier in Mexico City, on November 10 and rounded up her alleged accomplices the following day, said Mr. Poire. Ms. Vanier, of Vanier Consulting in Mount Forest, is alleged to have been the direct point of contact with the Gaddafi family, and in charge of financing the operation. Washington Post, December 7, 2011 Military Restores Order, But Not Confidence, To Embattled Mexican Border Town CIUDAD MIER, Mexico — Schoolchildren once again chatter and scamper across the town plaza where drug gang gunmen last year torched the police station and left the remains of a dismembered man. By night, townsfolk play volleyball across the plaza from the station, whose charred stone facade has been repaired. The plants are trimmed and streets that once echoed with gunbattles are quiet and clean. Ciudad Mier again is starting to look like it deserves its tourism promotion as a ―magical town.‖ But most businesses are shuttered and there aren‘t many cars on the streets, which are often patrolled by Army trucks. The mayor estimates that about a third of Mier‘s 8,000 people have not returned. Most are still terrified by nine months of gang battles, killings and disappearances that caused them to flee a year ago. ―When we live through an experience in the flesh, people keep that image,‖ said Mayor Alberto Gonzalez Pena. ―And sometimes it‘s difficult to erase.‖ The confidence in Mier, or lack of it, has become a test of President Felipe Calderon‘s latest strategy in pacifying territory that had been overrun by drug gangs in a conflict that has killed roughly 40,000 people nationwide. A battalion of 653 soldiers arrived in October and paraded through the streets behind a military band when Mexico‘s army opened its first ―mobile barracks,‖ to safely house troops trying to re-establish control in violent areas. Many residents waved at the soldiers and held signs expressing thanks. The Mexican Defense Department said then the new troops would ―without doubt generate confidence and calm‖ and restore normalcy in the area. Calderon is expected to formally inaugurate the barracks on Thursday and similar posts are being planned elsewhere across the violent north. So far, though, the army has brought security, not confidence. Everybody knows the soldiers are not supposed to be there forever. Mier sits along a road linking territories controlled by feuding drug gangs, the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, and it has become an example of Calderon‘s ―clear and hold‖ strategy for using troops to suppress violence and restore calm, said Samuel Logan, managing director of the Southern Pulse risk-analysis firm specializing in Latin American organized crime. He says that approach is unsustainable because a temporary army presence cannot substitute for permanent civilian policing. Now entering his final year in office, ―Calderon has to do something,‖ Logan said. ―And he‘s going to find himself in a pinch between getting something done on one end, which would mean more of these mobile barracks and, on the other, proving that he is pushing for a more permanent solution vis-a-vis increased training for the police force.‖ Mexico has increasingly turned to troops to take on law enforcement because repeated cleanup crusades have failed to cure the corruption and lack of professionalism that plagues the country‘s police forces, which are often infiltrated by organized crime. When Gonzalez tries to coax his citizens back from Texas cities across the Rio Grande and other Mexican towns, he tells them Mier was an intensive-care patient when they left, but now is walking under its own power. Little by little, a phrase used by nearly everyone in Mier these days, the town is recovering, he said. Those still here now gather in the park or plaza in the evenings, feeling safety in numbers under the protective gaze of soldiers. But they don‘t stroll in the streets. And the edges of town remain

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eerily unpopulated. People there feel exposed. They‘re not comfortable identifying themselves to strangers and one quietly assured a reporter that the narcos are still watching. Founded as an agricultural settlement in 1753, Mier is known to historians as the site of an assault by more than 250 Texas militiamen in December 1842. The Mexican army took most prisoner and 17 were executed after drawing black beans from a pot in a lottery to determine who would die. Until recently, Mier was a picturesque town about halfway along the Texas border between Laredo and Brownsville with a few well-preserved colonial-era buildings. The town was surrounded by ranches famed for dove and deer that drew hunters from both sides of the river. Those ranches also lucrative drug-smuggling routes. In February 2010, gunmen attacked the police station and seized several officers. Violence peaked that November with days of near-constant fighting and hundreds of townsfolk fled to the country‘s first drug war refugee shelter in the nearby city of Miguel Aleman. Two weeks later, Calderon‘s administration announced it would send more troops to reassert government authority in the states of Tamaulipas, where Mier is located, and in neighboring Nuevo Leon. Some of those forces are now at the new mobile barracks. It sits in a clearing of scrub land near the cemetery south of town and is surrounded by a high fence and a wide, cleared perimeter. A few low-slung buildings surround a pole flying a large Mexican flag. The army says that the entire base can be picked up and reassembled quickly elsewhere, but the buildings‘ solid walls give an impression of permanence. A second mobile barracks is being built in the Tamaulipas city of San Fernando, where 193 bodies have been found on a ranch in 26 mass graves. Mexican authorities believe the dead were mostly migrants kidnapped from buses and killed by the Zetas. Less than a year before, 72 Central and South American migrants were killed there, also allegedly by the Zetas. On Mier‘s north side, the last neighborhood out of town is littered with broken windows and piles of brush. Some of the fiercest fighting went on here among the 65 small, squat homes at a low-cost housing complex. Cinderblocks stacked high behind front-room windows are reminders of some residents‘ futile efforts at self-defense. Though built in just 2003, not a single home is inhabited today. Some residents fled to relatives‘ homes or rentals in the city center, while others left Mier altogether. The homes have been so thoroughly looted and damaged, families would need a substantial amount to make them livable again. ―We need the people that have money, the people that in Mier build things, the people that generate jobs, to come again to our city‖ Mayor Gonzalez said. The talk of Mier recently was the imminent reopening of the restaurant at the Hotel Asya on the freshly paved Alvaro Obregon Avenue. Many hope it will bring back jobs and offer a much-needed dining option. Just a block up the street, business at a small company that supplies bottled water to homes and businesses is up 20 percent over last year, said owner Jesus Gomez. Still, that‘s only half what it was before violence struck and twisted the lives of the citizens. ―We didn‘t leave the house,‖ Gomez said. ―You wanted to drink, hang out, you had to do it at home. Now, he said, he can go out with friends until midnight without worrying. Past a state police bunker behind city hall, Alvaro Obregon Street meets the main plaza, where schoolchildren cluster around benches during lunch and a vendor sells tacos from a street-side stand. In the evenings, the town sets up volleyball nets in the plaza in front of city hall. On Thursday nights, it shows movies there. A splash of color comes from a newly reopened flower shop along the plaza, where bear-shaped flower arrangements of white chrysanthemums sit alongside yellow spider mums, sunflowers and small white daisies. Arturo Hernandez recently moved from another border city, Piedras Negras, to open the shop for his father-in-law. He wasn‘t around for last year‘s violence, but he feels it. As he scraped thorns from red roses, Hernandez said he quickly noticed that there were few stores of any kind open in Mier. ―Since I‘ve been here, yes, there have been sales, but when there‘s a funeral. ... For gifts, no.‖ Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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M&C News, December 7, 2011 Mexican City Emulates Colombia To Keep Kids From Cartels Monterrey, Mexico - With his dark skin and messy hair, sixteen-year-old Francisco Sandoval is in many ways a typical Mexican teenager. He plays football after school, and is learning to play Colombian Vallenato music on the accordion. He's 'excited' about finishing his studies. Until recently, his life might have gone a different way. Monterrey's Independencia neighborhood, where Francisco lives, is a sprawling, troubled barrio controlled for decades by criminal gangs so dangerous they scared away even the police. Since 2003, experts tell dpa, Mexico's feared Zetas drug cartel has been recruiting young people there. Some of Francisco's friends have already joined the gangs. When they tried to recruit him as a 'falcon,' or lookout, the teenager admits - he was tempted. But a state-run project inspired by one in the notorious cocaine capital Medellin, Colombia, has set him on a different path. In the 1980s and 1990s, drug gangs in the Colombian city also recruited many poor young people as assassins. But today, architectural projects and libraries have transformed some Medellin neighbourhoods where 20 years ago, outsiders could hardly venture. Since September, Monterrey has been working to transform Independencia in the same way. A university student project later adopted by the state's Social Development Ministry has reclaimed vacant lots in Independencia to build the Macro Community Centre: two 7,000-square-metre buildings with multi-purpose gyms, a cinema, classrooms and interactive facilities. 'A week after it opened in September, we had received more than 2,800 requests from people interested in the various cooking, music, beauty, sewing classes, in the study grants, in sports. It has been a very positive response,' says Nuevo Leon Social Development Minister Juana Aurora Cavazos. For Dona Leticia, 50, the best parts are night-time walks with her grandchildren on the Plaza Civica, as well as dance therapy classes that are fun, and good for her health. 'Who would have ever thought that we would have a gym with dance classes so close by, or that we would be able to go for a quiet walk, without being afraid of shooting?' she says. The project hopes to expand to improving streets, public services and the facades of 4,500 homes, creating permanent jobs for locals. Residents of Colonia Independencia have faith that the area they have reclaimed will not be taken back by the gangs. 'We intend to change lives through training. Now what follows is a cultural and mental change for people, so they see that we can reclaim our spaces for family life,' Cavazos says. Francisco Sandoval's life has already changed. His days now start at 7 am, when he gets up for Spanish lessons at the community centre. A full scholarship will pay for him to complete his secondary education. 'I am very excited because I'm going to finish my studies without spending money, which is what was stopping me. And now I can even take music lessons! I think everyone should come here and make the most of these opportunities, instead of being out there without anything to do,' he told dpa. More than 45,000 people have been killed in Mexico in five years in violence linked to organized crime, 1,500 this year in Nuevo Leon, Monterrey's state, alone. But while the cartels are still fighting and recruiting young people on Monterrey's streets, teenagers like Francisco Sandoval now have a choice, and a place to resist the violence. Latin American Herald Tribune, December 7, 2011 Guerrillas Use Dead Body in Attack in Colombia BOGOTA – Four police officers were slightly wounded on Wednesday when they approached a man‘s body that FARC rebels left surrounded with explosives on the outskirts of Florencia, a city in the southwestern Colombian province of Caqueta, officials said. The officers, all members of the criminal investigations division, went to the site where the body had been dumped after receiving a tip. The officers became suspicious when they spotted the body, which had gunshot wounds, and called for the bomb squad. Several explosive charges that the guerrillas had hidden around the body went off as the officers were pulling out. The explosives were

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apparently detonated by an electronic apparatus, Caqueta police commander Col. Carlos Alberto Vargas said from Florencia, the provincial capital. The blast left the officers ―dazed,‖ the colonel said. The body, which has not been identified, was used by the rebels as a decoy, Vargas said. Florencia is at the center of a region that has a strong presence of Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas. Latin American Herald Tribune, December 7, 2011 Mexico Lawmakers Battle Justice System’s Presumption of Guilt MEXICO CITY – The lower house of Mexico‘s Congress approved a bill that would impose jail time on cops, judges and prosecutors found guilty of misconduct leading to the incarceration of innocent people. The measure, which now passes to the Senate for consideration, mandates prison terms of between two and four years as well as fines of up to $17,700. In the case of negligence or misconduct arising from willful dishonesty, the offender could spend 10 years behind bars. The bill‘s sponsor, Eduardo Yañez, said the changes to the penal code are necessary to bring Mexico‘s justice system into line with international standards based on the presumption that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. He cited a series of well-publicized injustices, including the story of Antonio Zuñiga, protagonist of the documentary ―Presunto Culpable‖ (Presumed Guilty), who was jailed for two years for a crime he didn‘t commit. ―Many innocent people can spend years in prison without its being shown that they really did commit a crime,‖ lawmaker Leonardo Guillen said, noting the slow pace of Mexico‘s courts and the absence of due-process protections. Another legislator, Juanita Cruz, said authorities facing pressure from the public and the media to make an arrest in high-profile cases sometimes ―fraudulently point to somebody, fabricating crimes or deeds‖ to drag that person into court. KPHO.com, December 6, 2011 CBP Officers Turn Heat Up On Young Drug Smugglers EL PASO, TX (KPHO) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working at the El Paso port of entry seized 188 pounds of marijuana in three drug seizures Monday. All three seizures were made at the downtown Paso Del Norte international crossing and involved suspects age 20 or younger, officers said. The first seizure occurred just before 8 a.m. when a Volkswagen arrived at the port of entry from Mexico. CBP officers were performing an enforcement operation in the queue of traffic just south of the primary inspection booths when CBP drug-sniffing dog "Shake" alerted to the vehicle. CBP officers secured the vehicle and located 42 marijuana-filled bundles in the spare tire. The seized contraband weighed 44 pounds. CBP officers took custody of the driver, Jovan Daniel Salazar, 19, of El Paso. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail on charges of drug smuggling. The largest seizure of the day occurred shortly before 9 a.m. Officers found 104 marijuana-filled bundles in the dashboard, rear bumper, and a custom-built trunk compartment after a CBP K-9 alerted to the vehicle. The seized contraband weighed 93 pounds. CBP officers took custody of the driver, Francia Griselda Pedroza-Malo, 20, of Chihuahua City, Chihuahua, Mexico. She was booked into the El Paso County Jail on a drug smuggling charge. The final seizure of the day occurred shortly before 4 p.m. A CBP officer at the primary inspection booth detected an anomaly in the vehicle. Drug-sniffing dog "Gator" alerted to the fuel tank. CBP officers said they removed 30 marijuana-filled bundles from the gas tank. The seized contraband weighed 51.2 pounds. CBP officers took custody of the driver, Ramon Alejandro Pena Soto, 20, of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. He was booked into the El Paso County Jail on a drug smuggling charge.