 |
|
|
 News Around the Republic of Mexico | April 2007 
Mexico Arrests Border City Chief of Drug Gang
 Reuters
| | In this photo released by Mexico's Attorney General's Office, allegedly member of the Gulf drug cartel Josue Garza, is escorted by police officers after being arrested in Mexico City, Tuesday, April 17, 2007. (AP/PGR) |
Mexican police have arrested the local head of the notorious Gulf Cartel drug gang in a city on the U.S. border as part of President Felipe Calderon's nationwide crackdown on organized crime.
Juan Oscar Garza was the cartel's leader in the city of Reynosa, just south of McAllen, Texas and was sought in Mexico for smuggling drugs, guns and people across the border, the attorney-general's office said on Tuesday.
He was arrested at a nightclub in Reynosa along with his brother, sister and girlfriend. Officials declined to say when the arrest took place.
The Gulf Cartel is one of the country's two most powerful trafficking gangs and is locked in a bitter fight with rival smugglers from the Pacific coast.
Its leader Osiel Cardenas was extradited to the United States in January.
Calderon has ordered thousands of soldiers into states throughout the country to try to end a war between the two drug gangs which killed around 2,000 people last year.
But narcotics-related murders have continued unabated. More than 20 bodies were found throughout Mexico on Monday alone, including five corpses with bound hands and feet discovered stuffed into a sports utility vehicle in the beach resort city of Cancun.
Mexican Police Capture Gulf Cartel Cell After Bloody Day
dpa German Press Agency
Mexico City - Five members of a Gulf Cartel cell which illegally sent drugs to the United States were arrested in northeastern Mexico, Mexican authorities said Tuesday. The arrests were known one day after the year's most violent day in Mexico so far, with over 20 murders attributed to organized crime. Since January, over 600 people have met violent deaths in the North American country.
Patricio Pati๑o, Undersecretary of Strategy and Police Intelligence in the Public Security Ministry, said that Juan Oscar Garza, also known as El Barbas, is one of the five people arrested in the city of Reynosa, in the state of Tamaulipas.
Garza is considered one of the main figures of the Gulf Cartel, and was arrested along with his partner, a brother, a sister and another man in the nightclub Club 57 in Reynosa, in an operation carried out by federal forces on an undisclosed date.
The authorities said El Barbas was in charge of the logistics for the transportation and distribution of drugs from Reynosa towards the United States, as well as of obtaining weapons and coordinating money-laundering activities.
On Monday, the Mexican Army arrested 100 police officers in the neighbouring state of Nuevo Leon on Monday to investigate their alleged ties with organized crime gangs. The authorities said other police agents might be investigated at a later date.
Since his inauguration in December 2006, Mexican President Felipe Calderon has made the fight against organized crime and the illegal drug trade in particular one of the pillars of his administration, with federal forces in place in various states.
Many local police forces and attorneys' offices are suspected of collaborating with the powerful drug cartels. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us