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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | February 2007 
Nuevo Laredo Handcuffed by Drug Trade
 Alfredo Corchado - Dallas Morning News
| | Nuevo Laredo is a city under siege, with no police chief 11 months after the last one quit, citing stress. His predecessor had been gunned down within hours of taking the job. (Juan Manuel Villasenor/Associated Press) |
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico – The evening calm here is deceiving.
As dusk settles, folks gather and mill around the town square, as they do in town squares throughout Mexico. But soon the talk turns to the latest deadly incident, this week's ambush of a federal congressman, which left him seriously injured and his 31-year-old driver dead. And the inevitable question arises: Is it too late to save Nuevo Laredo?
"You look around here, and nothing seems real anymore," said Mari Moreno, whose sons live in Irving. "You do your best to get through the day, but you know this city will never be normal again."
More than three years after warring drug cartels launched a battle for Nuevo Laredo and its smuggling routes into Texas, senior U.S. law enforcement officials say the Gulf cartel and its enforcers, the Zetas, have established significant control over the beleaguered city.
In the past year, 700 small- and medium-sized businesses shut down in Nuevo Laredo, and about 40 of the city's top business leaders have set up shop across the border in Laredo, according to the Mexican city's Downtown Merchant and Business Association, headed by Jacobo Suneson, owner of Marti's, a legendary shopping place.
Nuevo Laredo is a city under siege, with no police chief 11 months after the last one quit, citing stress. His predecessor had been gunned down within hours of taking the job.
The drug traffickers have threatened local reporters, warning them away from coverage of their activities. They have broken cameras being used to shoot video at crime scenes.
Some residents have begun using walkie-talkies rather than cellphones in an attempt to avoid the heavy surveillance that law enforcement officials say the cartel places on routine movements and communication.
U.S. officials say there's evidence that the Zetas are steadily pushing their influence westward toward Monterrey, a center of Mexican industry, cementing their network of human intelligence in the border states of Nuevo León and Tamaulipas. These states are gateways for smuggling drugs into Texas and on to cities such as Chicago, New York City and Miami.
'They operate on fear'
To finance their criminal activities, the traffickers are kidnapping Mexicans and Americans in rising numbers, a U.S. official said, and have earned themselves a new nickname: narco secuestradores, or narco kidnappers.
"They operate on fear," said a U.S. law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, adding the Gulf cartel has gained the upper hand in the region over the competing Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán.
"They're simply more disciplined, have better intelligence, better training and proven to be far more effective at recruiting than Chapo's army," the official said.
A congressional report issued this year by the subcommittee on investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security said that "the Texas-Mexico border has been experiencing an alarming rise in the level of criminal cartel activity."
The report, "A Line In the Sand: Confronting the Threat at The Southwest Border" added that "these criminal organizations and networks are highly sophisticated and organized, operating with military style weapons and technology, utilizing counter surveillance techniques and acting aggressively against both law enforcement and competitors."
On Sunday, under the orders of President Felipe Calderón, an estimated 3,300 troops were deployed to the two states to restore order.
Mr. Calderón, who came into office Dec. 1, quickly sent a strong signal when he deployed troops to his home state of Michoacán and to Tijuana to fight drug traffickers. Federal troops and police have now been sent to eight of the country's 31 states.
The task remains daunting. This week, an assistant state prosecutor for the state of Durango, Hugo Reséndiz Martínez, was fired from his post for allegedly passing sensitive criminal information to the Sinaloa cartel. He has been detained and is also under investigation in connection with killings, the attorney general's office said.
Hours after the troops arrived in Nuevo Laredo, Horacio Garza, a federal congressman and two-time mayor of the city, was shot as he and his driver headed toward the airport Monday evening. The driver was killed. Mr. Garza received three bullet wounds, to the neck, shoulder and leg, and was transported to a Mexico City hospital for medical care and for his own safety. Hitmen in this city have been known to follow their target to hospitals to finish the job.
No clear motive for the attack has been established, but over the weekend Mr. Garza met with families whose relatives have disappeared in recent years from both sides of the border. Mr. Garza vowed to take the crime files of those who have disappeared and prepare a report for Mr. Calderón and press him for action on behalf of the victims' families.
"Garza was the first high-level Mexican official to make such a bold promise," said Priscilla Cisneros, whose daughter, Brenda, was a community college student in Laredo when she disappeared in September 2004. "I don't know if that was a coincidence, or the reason. We just don't know."
In 3 ½ years of intense cartel violence, more than 600 people reportedly have been killed in Nuevo Laredo.
Hundreds more Mexicans have been kidnapped or have disappeared from the area in recent years. At least 63 Americans have been kidnapped, according to Laredo's Missing, an organization set up by family members to pressure authorities on both sides of the border to find their loved ones. Many of the Americans were later released, but at least 20 remain missing.
Hardly feeling secure
The sight of the troops passing through Nuevo Laredo's main square generated both hope and skepticism among residents.
"Look at them," said Juan José García, 65, whose sons live in Dallas and San Antonio. "They look so pristine in their nice uniforms, like they're going to a parade. But they do want to give us a sense of security," he said, his voice heavy with sarcasm.
"A false sense of security," said Cecilia García Martínez, 26, who migrated from Veracruz two years ago and is eager to move to the United States.
A garlic farmer, José Torres Martínez, 60, screamed at American reporters, blaming them for "giving Nuevo Laredo a bad name and killing off our business."
Indeed, tourism is virtually gone from Nuevo Laredo, and the city is moribund. The exodus of the middle class has continued unabated. A headline in this week's El Mañana newspaper summed up the situation this way: "Nuevo Laredo dies; Laredo booms."
A year ago, El Mañana announced it would no longer cover drug-related crime to protect its employees. Its management now says it is considering opening a newspaper in Laredo. Mr. Suneson of Marti's said he is opening a business in San Antonio.
"We're facing some very tough times, and there's no end in sight," he said. "It's time to go to plan B."
Across the Rio Grande, meanwhile, Laredo is booming, with new schools, housing projects and shopping centers under construction. This May, taxpayers will vote on a $400 million bond issue for new schools, an effort aimed at keeping up with the population growth, some of it caused by Nuevo Laredo's exodus.
"Laredo is booming, booming, booming," Mayor Raul Salinas said Wednesday. He said Laredo's growth was second in the nation to Las Vegas last year. In Nuevo Laredo, as the sun set Tuesday residents headed for home. Rodolfo Martínez, his wife, Cynthia Jaime, and their 6-month-old, Rodolfo, had finished a day of shopping in Laredo and were returning home to Monterrey. As they strolled through the plaza, the couple noted presence of cartel "spotters."
"We used to shrug when we'd hear about the drug killings in Nuevo Laredo," Mr. Martínez said. "Now we're seeing it in all our own back yard in Monterrey, and in Acapulco, Morelia, Tijuana, Ciudad Juárez and on and on and on. The question really is, who can save Mexico?
acorchado@dallasnews.com |
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