Timeline Mexico 2003-2012
Return to home
2003
Jan 6, In Mexico a bus with failing brakes swerved
off a mountain highway and into a deep ravine in Zacatecas state,
killing 18 people and injuring 23.
(AP, 1/7/03)
2003 Jan 15, Former New York City
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ended a two-day visit to Mexico's capital,
declaring that fighting government corruption will be crucial in
lowering crime.
(AP, 1/15/03)
2003 Jan 19, Alfredo Zalce
(b.1908), Mexican revolutionary artist, died.
(www.zalce.com/)
2003 Jan 21, A 7.6-7.8 earthquake
ripped through western and central Mexico, killing at least 29 people
and leaving 10,000 homeless.
(SFC, 1/23/03, p.A1)(AP, 1/21/04)
2003 Jan 21, Mexico appealed to
the World Court to stop the execution of 51 of its citizens in the
United States.
(AP, 1/21/03)
2003 Jan 28, In Mexico, gunmen in
San Juan Chamula ambushed police trying to arrest murder suspects,
sparking a gunbattle that left 5 people dead.
(AP, 1/28/03)
2003 Jan 31, In Mexico City tens
of thousands of farmers clogged main streets, demanding greater
protection against U.S. imports and seeking more government aid.
(AP, 1/31/03)
2003 Feb 5, The World Court ruled
that the United States must temporarily stay the execution of three
Mexican citizens on U.S. death rows.
(AP, 2/5/03)
2003 Feb 10, Mexican army troops
seized 2.2 tons of cocaine from a plane that landed in northern Mexico
after it reported mechanical problems. The three men onboard were
arrested.
(AP, 2/11/03)
2003 Feb 13, Thailand officials
arrested SF financier Thomas Frank White at the request of the Mexican
government for the rape of a teenage boy. In 2004 White was indicted in
SF on 2 counts of sex tourism.
(SSFC, 9/11/05, p.A2)
2003 Feb 14, Popocatepetl volcano
southeast of Mexico City erupted but caused no significant damage.
(AP, 2/14/03)
2003 Feb 16, In Mexico’s
central Mexico state voters overwhelmingly approved a referendum in
support of executing kidnappers, armed robbers and murderers.
(AP, 2/17/03)
2003 Feb 17, In Mexico the
bodies of 3 women were found in the desert outside of Ciudad Juarez,
the latest victims in a string of killings in the border city.
(AP, 2/18/03)
2003 Feb 25, In Mexico a
court upheld the conviction of an Egyptian man, Abdel Latif
Sharif, for one of the first in a series of murders of women in the
border city of Ciudad Juarez, but lowered the man’s prison sentence to
20 years.
(AP, 2/26/03)
2003 Mar 10, Two
helicopters from Mexico’s Attorney General’s office were shot down near
Tlapa, Guerrero, in the nation’s western mountains during an
anti-narcotics operation, killing all 5 officials on board.
(AP, 3/11/03)
2003 Mar 14, In Matamoros, Mexico,
police arrested drug lord Osiel Cardenas Guillen (35), aka "El Loco."
(SFC, 3/15/03, p.A7)
2003 Mar 24, Mexico City police
chief Marcelo Ebrard said that Leoluca Orlando, former mayor of
Palermo, Italy, will be hired to combat crime. His work will complement
Rudolph Giuliani's who hired on for $4.3 million.
(AP, 3/25/03)
2003 Mar 24, In Texas a fire in a
sugar-cane field killed 5 illegal Mexican immigrants hiding there.
(WSJ, 3/25/03, p.A1)
2003 Mar 27, Mexican federal
agents killed 2 suspected drug runners in a shootout near the Texas
border.
(AP, 3/27/03)
2003 Mar 29, In Mexico a small
government plane crashed in the mountains of southern Mexico, killing
all five people aboard. Passengers included Porfirio Encino Hernandez,
state sec. for Indian affairs; his son and brother; Berenice Lopez, the
daughter of former Gov. Javier Lopez; and pilot Guadalupe Gil.
(AP, 4/1/03)
2003 Apr 2, In Mexico 9 people
were found tortured and killed near the border city of Nuevo Laredo in
apparent drug-related violence.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 4, Mexican police over
the last 2 days arrested 9 members of the powerful Juarez Cartel during
raids across the country.
(AP, 4/4/03)
2003 Apr 4, Adalberto Martinez
(87), song and dance actor, died. He appeared in over 100 Mexican films
and TV series from 1947-2000.
(SSFC, 4/6/03, p.A23)
2003 Apr 7, Mexico said it would
prepay $3.84 billion in the last outstanding Brady par bonds. They
originally totaled $34 billion.
(WSJ, 4/9/03, p.A10)
2003 Apr 9, Abraham Zabludovsky
(78), Polish-born Mexican architect, died. His projects included the
Rufino Tamayo Museum in Mexico City.
(SFC, 4/11/03, p.A28)
2003 Apr 12, Mexican army troops
manning a roadblock near the Arizona border seized a truck packed with
more than four tons of marijuana.
(AP, 4/13/03)
2003 Apr 21, In Uruapan, western
Mexico, gunmen disguised as police killed six members of a family in a
suspected drug gang dispute.
(AP, 4/21/03)
2003 May 21, The Mexican Justice
Department said that 258 women had been killed since 1993 in Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 5/22/03)
2003 Jun 6, In Balastrera, Mexico,
a landslide followed by the blast of a ruptured gas pipeline hit a
truck-stop town between Mexico City and Veracruz. 15 people were
missing from the area.
(AP, 6/6/03)
2003 Jun 12, The first-ever
Mexican freedom of information law took effect, designed to expose the
government and its once guarded records and secrets to greater public
scrutiny.
(AP, 6/12/03)
2003 Jun 18, Andrew Luster, a
convicted rapist who is heir to the Max Factor fortune, was arrested
after 5 months on the run. He was picked up by Mexican police in Puerto
Vallarta as he scuffled with bounty hunters who had trailed him from
California.
(AP, 6/18/03)
2003 Jul 4, In Mexico gunmen in
Las Choapas, Veracruz, killed a man believed to be a migrant trafficker
and then fatally shot four bystanders, including a 12-year-old boy,
apparently to avoid leaving witnesses.
(AP, 7/5/03)
2003 Jul 6, Mexican voters issued
a severe judgment on Pres. Vicente Fox's first three years in office,
electing another divided Congress in which his party will have fewer
seats and increasing the power of the former ruling party and the
leftist opposition.
(AP, 7/7/03)
2003 Jul 17, A US company launched
Mexican sales of microchips that can be implanted under a person's skin
and used to confirm health history and identity.
(AP, 7/17/03)
2003 Jul 17, In Mexico a landslide
triggered by heavy rains in the southern state of Oaxaca swept away two
houses and killed nine people, including five children.
(AP, 7/18/03)
2003 Jul 30, The last Volkswagen
Beetle was produced in Puebla, Mexico. The first Beetles had arrived in
1956. Mexico had begun producing its own version of the Beetle in 1964.
(WSJ, 7/31/03, p.A1)(SSFC, 9/14/08, p.A10)
2003 Aug 1, Mexican soldiers used
a bazooka to return fire against cars believed to be carrying drug
traffickers during a wild pre-dawn battle, killing three suspects.
(AP, 8/1/03)
2003 Aug 4, Mexico's federal
government dispatched some 650 federal agents to Tijuana in the latest
attempt to curb smuggling and corruption in the rough border city.
(AP, 8/4/03)
2003 Aug 15, Mexican troops
arrested one of the country's most-wanted drug-traffic suspects,
Armando Valencia, along with seven top figures in his ring in
Tlajomulco near Guadalajara.
(AP, 8/16/03)
2003 Aug 24, Hurricane
Ignacio sideswiped the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.
(AP, 8/24/08)
2003 Aug 29, In central Mexico a
truck carrying sulphuric acid collided head-on with a sport-utility
vehicle on a mountain road, killing five people and forcing dozens of
people to hospitals after they inhaled the fumes.
(AP, 8/30/03)
2003 Sep 3, It was reported that
Lake Chapala in Jalisco state had lost some 80% of its water over the
last 10 years due to heavy development in central Mexico and
agricultural diversion of water from the Rio Lerma.
(WSJ, 9/3/03, p.B1)
2003 Sep 10, In Cancun, Mexico,
the WTO began its fifth ministerial meeting, with trade ministers from
146 countries expected to attend a five-day gathering to thrash out
many problems surrounding the latest "round" of trade liberalization
talks.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 10, In Puebla, Mexico, a
clandestine fireworks factory exploded, killing at least six people and
injuring 12 others.
(AP, 9/10/03)
2003 Sep 14, In Cancun, Mexico,
the WTO talks collapsed when delegates from Africa, the Caribbean and
Asia walked out accusing wealthy nations of failing to offer sufficient
compromises on agriculture and other issues.
(SFC, 9/15/03, p.A3)(AP, 9/14/08)
2003 Sep, British scientists found
40,000-year-old human footprints in central Mexico, shattering theories
that mankind arrived in the Americas tens of thousands of years later
from Asia. The footprints were found in an abandoned quarry close to
the Cerro Toluquilla volcano and were subsequently studied and dated by
a multinational team of scientists.
(AFP, 7/5/05)
2003 Oct 10, It was reported that
members of an elite Mexican army unit have deserted and formed a drug
gang, using their military training to launch a violent battle for
control of Nuevo Laredo. An estimated 31 of 350 members of the Special
Air Mobile Force Group, posted to the border state of Tamaulipas in the
1990s, had deserted and joined the drug turf war.
(AP, 10/10/03)
2003 Oct 20, Pres. Bush met with
Mexico's Pres. Vicente Fox in Thailand and asked him to set aside
disputes over immigration and Iraq.
(AP, 10/20/03)
2003 Oct 24, In Mexico Mariano
Diaz Mendez, a Pentecostal pastor of Indian descent, was shot twice
inside the car in a roadside ditch in San Juan Chamula, a majority
Catholic township just outside San Cristobal.
(AP, 10/25/03)
2003 Oct 27, The southern
California fires crossed into Mexico. The death toll climbed to 15 and
damages were estimated to top $500 million.
(SFC, 10/28/03, p.A1)(WSJ, 10/28/03, p.A1)
2003 Oct 28, In Mexico City
high-level officials of the Organization of American States ended two
day of talks with a new security agenda.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2003 Oct 29, A Mexican electoral
court annulled the results of the July 6 elections for the governorship
of the southern state of Colima after concluding that the outgoing
governor interfered in the race.
(AP, 10/30/03)
2003 Nov 4, In Arizona Mexican
President Vicente Fox stressed the importance of continuing a dialogue
on immigration issues with the United States as he started a tour of 3
border states.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 5, Mexican President
Vicente Fox asked New Mexico state leaders for better treatment of
illegal immigrants from his country.
(AP, 11/5/03)
2003 Nov 7, The defending champion
US baseball team failed to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics, losing
to Mexico 2-1 in the quarterfinals of a qualifying tournament in Panama
City, Panama.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2003 Nov 11, Mexican diplomat
Adolfo Aguilar Zinser (1949-2005), gave a speech to students at Mexico
City's Ibero-American University, in which he claimed that the
political and intellectual class of the United States sees Mexico as "a
country whose position is that of a back yard" (patio trasero) and that
Washington was only interested in "a relationship of convenience and
subordination" and "a weekend fling" (un noviazgo de fin de semana).
President Fox requested his resignation on 18 November.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Aguilar_Z%C3%Adnser)
2003 Nov 12, Imelda Ortiz Abdala,
a former Mexican consul to Lebanon, was arrested on charges of helping
a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico.
Federal agents over the previous 2 days arrested alleged ring leader
Salim Boughader Mucharrafille along with alleged collaborators Melissa
Ataja Valdez and Orlando Alfaro, in Tijuana. Ortiz Abdala was released
in Feb 2005 after Foreign Relations Department officials testified that
she acted properly and was never in a position to authorize visas on
her own, according to Mexican court documents.
(AP, 11/13/03)(AP, 7/15/05)
2003 Nov 17, Mexico dismissed UN
Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar following his comments that the US regards
Mexico as a 2nd-class country.
(SFC, 11/19/03, p.A17)
2003 Nov 25, Sales of Mexican
green onions plunged after a hepatitis outbreak in the US was traced to
northwestern Mexico, forcing farmers in this valley to defend the
safety of their produce and find ways to stay afloat financially.
(AP, 11/25/03)
2003 Nov 27, Mexican government
prosecutors said that they've uncovered a document showing that
soldiers tortured suspected rebel prisoners during the 1970s, sometimes
forcing them to drink gasoline and then setting them afire.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov 27, In Mexico City union
members, left-wing activists and farmers by the thousand marched to the
central plaza in a major display of opposition to the president's plans
to raise taxes on food and medicine and sell state-owned assets.
(AP, 11/27/03)
2003 Nov, Mexico broke a
decades-old tradition of rejecting U.S. aid workers and decided to
grant permission for the first group of U.S. Peace Corps volunteers
ever to work there.
(AP, 1/26/04)
2003 Dec 1, In Mexico Isidro
Galeana (65), a former state judicials police commander, was declared a
fugitive after a judge ordered his arrest on suspicion of kidnapping
alleged leftists during the Mexican government's campaign against
radical activists in 1974.
(AP, 12/2/03)
2003 Dec 5, A bus plunged into a
valley in the northern Mexico state of Zacatecas, killing 15 people and
injuring 15 others.
(AP, 12/6/03)
2003 Dec 9, In southern Mexico
Salvatrucha gang members attacked illegal immigrants from Central
America on a train, killing three people and wounding four in the
latest in a series of violent incidents in the region. The Mara
Salvatrucha spanned Central America. It was named for its Salvadoran
founders, who claimed to be as wise as trout.
(AP, 12/10/03)(Econ, 5/22/04, p.31)
2003 Dec 12, Chinese Premier Wen
Jiabao arrived in Mexico in a bid to extend a string of recent
diplomatic and economic successes in North America. In 2002 China
shipped $6.3 billion in goods to Mexico, undercutting many local goods.
(SFC, 12/4/03, p.A22)(AP, 12/12/03)
2003 Dec 13, Chinese Premier Web
Jiabao sought to assure Mexican leaders that their country's economy is
not threatened by China's lower wages and cheaper goods, saying the two
nations are partners, not rivals.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2003 Dec 27, Juan Garcia Ponce
(71), a renowned Mexican art critic, translator and prize-winning
novelist, died. Ponce was born in Merida, the capital of Yucatan state,
on Sept. 22, 1932. The author of at least 50 books, Ponce wrote novels,
plays, screenplays and essays and was considered a master of erotic
literature.
(AP, 12/28/03)(SFC, 12/29/03, p.A12)
2003 The Mexican housing industry
built some 450,000 new homes, many of them near the town of Tecamac,
north-east of Mexico City.
(Econ, 8/28/04, p.33)
2003 Ricardo Salinas Pliego beat
administrative insider-trading charges in Mexico on procedural grounds.
Later he and a partner set up a shell company to buy Unefon debt for
pennies and then resold the debt to Unefon, which they controlled, for
the full price. The move netted them $109 million each at Unefon’s
expense.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
2003 Mexico passed legislation
calling for native languages to be recognized as official languages of
the state along with Spanish. Mexico also created a National Institute
of Indigenous Languages, which began mapping where different indigenous
languages were spoken.
(WSJ, 2/24/06, p.A8)
2004 Jan 3, Isidro Galeana (65), a
former state police commander and the first former government official
to face arrest for his role in Mexico's "dirty war" of the 1960s and
1970s, died of a heart attack.
(AP, 1/4/04)
2004 Jan 5, In Mexico heavily
armed men in military and police-style uniforms raided the western
prison at Apatzingan in Michoacan state and freed 25 inmates.
(AP, 1/6/04)
2004 Jan 12, A 2-day meeting began
for leaders of the 34 members of the Organization of American States
opened in Monterrey, Mexico.
(AP, 1/12/04)
2004 Jan 13, In Mexico the
34-nation Summit of the Americas ended. The United States reached out
to its neighbors on free trade and battling corruption, smoothing tense
relations with Latin American leaders.
(AP, 1/13/04)(SFC, 1/14/04, p.A1)
2004 Jan 20, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed and shot to death two federal agents and an army captain as
they drove along a Mexico City expressway.
(AP, 1/21/04)
2004 Jan 27, Mexican Army troops
arrested Javier Torres Felix, an alleged leader of one of the largest
drug trafficking organizations in western Mexico.
(AP, 1/28/04)
2004 Jan 27, Mexican authorities
in Ciudad Juarez said at least 11 bodies were found at a house that had
been occupied by alleged drug lord Humberto Santillan Tabares.
(ST, 1/28/04, p.A8)
2004 Jan, La Gloria English School
opened on Isla Mujeres, Mexico. Maggie and Tom Washa of Wisconsin
opened the school to help the local Mayan children.
(SSFC, 9/25/05, E5)
2004 Feb 1, In Tepeyac, Mexico, a
fight broke out between two families at an illegal cockfighting den,
and seven people were killed.
(AP, 2/3/04)
2004 Feb 6, In Mexico deputy
ministers from 34 nations in the Americas failed to reach agreement on
a framework for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, stymied by
differences on the contentious issue of U.S. farm subsidies.
(AP, 2/6/04)
2004 Feb 11, The bodies of 2
Americans, Francisco A. Antonielli (33) and James F. Bowtte (43), were
discovered in a parking garage at the airport in Tijuana, Mexico, the
apparent victims of a drug-related gunbattle.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 17, Jose Lopez Portillo
(83), former Mexican president (1976-1982) who governed through an
oil-driven boom to a debt-induced bust, died of complications from
pneumonia.
(AP, 2/18/04)
2004 Mar 5, Pres. Bush welcomed
Mexican Pres. Fox to his Texas ranch for a 2-day visit.
(SFC, 3/06/04, p.A3)
2004 Mar 5, Mexican Air Force
pilots filmed 11 unidentified flying objects in the skies over southern
Campeche state. The video was publicly aired May10.
(AP, 5/11/04)
2004 Mar 6, It was reported that 4
compromising videos have been released showing Mexican political party
leaders and public servants accepting briefcases full of cash, gambling
at the high rollers' table in Las Vegas and offering to procure
business contracts for millions of dollars.
(AP, 3/6/04)
2004 Mar 16, It was announced that
Carlos Slim, owner of Mexico’s Telmex, planned to buy a controlling
interest in Brazil’s biggest long distance operator, Embratel.
(Econ, 3/20/04, p.64)
2004 Mar 19, A Mexican police raid
led to the arrests of 42 immigration agents and other government
employees accused of running a network that smuggled migrants into the
US.
(AP, 3/23/04)(SFC, 3/24/04, p.A1)
2004 Mar 27, Adan Sanchez (19),
Mexican-American singer, died in a car crash in Sinaloa, Mexico. He was
the son of narco-ballad singer Chalino Sanchez, murdered in 1992.
(WSJ, 4/9/04, p.B1)
2004 Mar 29, In Mexico Pres. Fox
unveiled a sweeping revision of the legal system.
(WSJ, 3/30/04, p.A16)
2004 Mar 30, Cuba arrested Carlos
Ahumada, a Mexican businessman, wanted in Mexico for his role in a
graft scandal involving Mexico City Mayor Manuel Lopez Obrador. Ahumada
was soon deported to Mexico.
(WSJ, 4/29/04, p.A14)
2004 Mar 31, The International
Court of Justice ruled that the United States violated the rights of 51
Mexicans on death row and ordered their cases be reviewed.
(AP, 3/31/04)
2004 Mar, A biology professor said
the monarch butterfly population wintering in Morelia, Mexico, was down
75%. Logging had severely impacted the area.
(SFC, 2/24/05, p.A10)
2004 Apr 5, A flash flood swept
through two border communities in northern Mexico, flooding rivers,
washing away houses and killing 15 people. Dozens more were reported
missing.
(AP, 4/5/04)
2004 Apr 10, In Mexico a gas
explosion leveled two buildings, killed at least six people and injured
more than a dozen others in the border town of Nuevo Progreso.
(AP, 4/11/04)
2004 Apr 12, In Mexico Morelos
state Gov. Sergio Estrada ordered the firing of all 552 state police
officers following charges that commanders provided protection to drug
traffickers.
(SFC, 4/13/04, p.A2)
2004 Apr 15, In western Mexico, an
explosion tore through a small fireworks store in Tonala, killing seven
people including a small child.
(AP, 4/16/04)
2004 Apr 21, Otto Herrera (39), a
Guatemalan man described by U.S. authorities as Central America's
most-wanted drug smuggler, was captured by Mexican agents at Mexico
City's Juarez Int'l. Airport. Mexico made the arrest at the request of
U.S. authorities who had offered a $5 million reward for his capture.
(AP, 4/22/04)
2004 May 2, In Mexico a small
plane carrying federal anti-narcotics agents crashed, killing all seven
people on board.
(AP, 5/4/04)
2004 May 5, Mexico celebrated the
142nd anniversary of its victory over French forces.
(AP, 5/6/04)
2004 May 6, A Mexican court
sentenced eight drug-gang members to 40 years each in prison for their
roles in the 1993 shooting of Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas Ocampo and 6
others at a Guadalajara airport.
(AP, 5/7/04)
2004 May 10, In Matamoros, Mexico,
drug outlaw Alberto Guerrero, his bodyguard and 3 teenage girls were
killed by a spray of bullets outside the Wild West dance hall. Ex-army
commandos turned traffickers, known as Zetas, were responsible.
(SFC, 6/22/04, p.D3)
2004 May 22, Bombs exploded
outside three banks in Jiutepec, central Mexico, heavily damaging them
but causing no injuries. A note near the bombing sites signed by a
group calling itself the Comando Jaramillista Morelense 23 de Mayo — in
tribute to the peasant leader Ruben Jaramillo, who was murdered along
with his family by state forces on May 23, 1962.
(AP, 5/23/04)
2004 May 27, Cuba and Mexico
agreed to return their respective ambassadors following a dispute
earlier this month.
(WSJ, 5/28/04, p.A1)
2004 May 31, Felipe Calderon,
Mexico's energy secretary resigned, a day after President Vicente Fox
criticized him for an early jump into the 2006 presidential races.
(AP, 5/31/04)
2004 May, A small poll of Mexicans
ranked Mexico’s Congress as the worst government institution. Lawmakers
met for only 2 days a weeks and 21 weeks a year. The average deputy
earned $146,000 plus benefits. 200 of 500 lower house deputies were
picked by party leaders.
(WSJ, 7/8/04, p.A10)
2004 Jun 7, Russian President
Vladimir Putin flew to Mexico for talks with his Pres. Fox, who has
said he hoped to increase military cooperation with Moscow. Putin, the
1st Russian head-of-state to visit Mexico, said the two major oil
producing nations should share knowledge on oil exploration and the
energy sector.
(AP, 6/7/04)
2004 Jun 7, The US Supreme court
ordered US highways to be opened to long-haul Mexican trucks, rejecting
objections by labor and environmental groups.
(SFC, 6/8/04, A1)
2004 Jun 16, Jose Fernando Jimenez
Lecona, Mexico City police official, was shot to death outside his
home. Lecona, head of a high-risk crimes unit, was investigating a
string of brazen kidnappings.
(SFC, 6/18/04, p.A3)
2004 Jun 22, Francisco Ortiz
Franco, Mexican newspaper, editor was shot to death in Tijuana.
(AP, 6/22/05)
2004 Jun 27, Hundreds of thousands
of Mexicans wearing white staged a silent march through the heart of
their nation's capital to protest kidnappings, violent crimes and the
failures of law enforcement to curb them.
(AP, 6/27/04)
2004 Jul 5, Pres. Fox named Emilio
Goicoechea Luna, a business chamber leader and senator, as the new
chief of staff, and Ruben Aguilar Valenzuela, a presidential analyst,
as media relations chief. The 2 positions were held by Alfonso Durazo
who resigned saying that the first lady's political ambitions are out
of control and Fox is acting like the autocrats he replaced.
(AP, 7/6/04)
2004 Jul 5, Voters in Zacatecas,
Mexico, elected Amalia Garcia (PRD), the country's first female
governor since the end of one-party dominance. Pres. Fox's National
Action Party lost badly in Chihuahua and Durango. It finished a distant
third in Zacatecas,
(AP, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 18, Mexico and Cuba said
they will reinstate ambassadors in each other's countries at the end of
the month.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 25, Carmen Gutierrez, a
doctor who won Mexico's Woman of the Year award (1997), was found dead
in a canal on the outskirts of Mexico City. She was kidnapped Jul 22.
(AP, 7/29/04)
2004 Jul, The ship Mary Nour,
filled with Russian cement, was denied permission to unload its cargo
in Mexican ports under pressure from Cemex SA.
(WSJ, 12/14/04, p.A12)
2004 Aug 1, Ulises Ruiz Ortiz
(b.1958) was elected governor of Oaxaca, Mexico, by a narrow 2% margin.
Defeated candidate Gabino Cue, nominated by an alliance mainly of
Convergencia and the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD),
repeatedly alleged electoral fraud.
(http://tinyurl.com/jnpk8)(Econ, 9/30/06, p.48)
2004 Aug 8, In San Juan Chamula,
Mexico, hundreds of enraged residents of this impoverished Indian
community locked the mayor and three other municipal officials in jail,
claiming they embezzled funds from public works projects.
(AP, 8/8/04)
2004 Aug 22, Gilberto Higuera
Guerrero, alleged leader of the powerful Arellano Felix drug gang, was
arrested before dawn at a house in the border city of Mexicali.
(AP, 8/23/04)
2004 Aug 29, Mexico City's leftist
Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador led more than 150,000 demonstrators
in a march to protest efforts to impeach him.
(AP, 8/30/04)
2004 Aug 30, Mexico’s state oil
company said it believes that vast untapped oil reserves lie in the
deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
(WSJ, 8/31/04, p.A10)
2004 Aug 31, In Mexico suspects
beat to death Francisco Arratia Saldierna (55), a newspaper columnist
and dumped his body outside the offices of the Red Cross in the border
city of Matamoros.
(AP, 8/31/04)
2004 Sep 1, Capping a day of angry
street protests and a strike by some 200,000 health care workers,
President Vicente Fox spent much of his state-of-the-nation speech
urging Mexicans to not give up on democracy, saying its "inherent
problems are not cause for discouragement.
(AP, 9/1/04)
2004 Sep 17, Mexico and Japan
signed a free trade agreement that Mexicans hope will ease their
reliance on the United States while encouraging Japan to build more
factories there. PM Junichiro Koizumi wrapped up a four-day Latin
American trip then headed for New York to pitch for a permanent
Japanese seat on the UN Security Council.
(AP, 9/17/04)
2004 Oct 13, A Mexican judge found
bus driver Victor Garcia Uribe, guilty of eight slayings, giving
prosecutors their second conviction in the decade-long series of
murders of women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/13/04)
2004 Oct 21, Four gunmen abducted
three U.S. citizens on a rural highway in southern Mexico, shot and
killed two of them and left the third, a pregnant woman, bound and
gagged. Her testimony led to arrests the next day of Isidro Diaz
Pineda, Reynaldo Hernandez Ramirez, Francisco Velazquez Paredes and
David Gaona Mondragon, all of Tierra Caliente.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2004 Oct 29, Mexican police and
federal agents alleged Zetas leader Rogelio Gonzalez Pizana, alias "El
Kelin," a top drug hit man during a fierce shootout in the border city
of Matamoros. Scores of suspected assassins and drug smugglers used
hand grenades and assault rifles to fire back at authorities.
(AP, 10/30/04)
2004 Nov 7, In central Mexico
gunmen, identified as local police officers, opened fire on a group of
revelers returning from a weekend dance, killing 7 people, including 2
children.
(AP, 11/9/04)
2004 Nov 12, Mexico and a US
environmental group agreed on a plan to protect 370,000 acres of
tropical forest on the Yucatan Peninsula. Officials said it was the
largest conservation project in the country's history.
(AP, 11/12/04)
2004 Nov 15, Mexico's former
ruling party, trying to fight its way back to the presidency,
overwhelmingly won two gubernatorial elections and held razor-thin
leads in two other races.
(AP, 11/16/04)
2004 Nov 23, In Mexico City a mob
angry about recent child abductions cornered plainclothes federal
agents taking photos of students at a school and burned the officers
alive, mistaking the agents for kidnappers.
(AP, 11/24/04)
2004 Nov 25, In Mexico the bodies
of 9 people, including three federal agents, were discovered at two
sites outside Cancun, and police are blaming the killings on a drug
turf war.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2004 Nov 25, Mexican federal
investigators said that two Mexico City police and 27 other people face
homicide charges in the horrific vigilante killings of two federal
agents this week.
(AP, 11/26/04)
2004 Nov 28, In Mexico gunmen
killed Gregorio Rodriguez, a newspaper photographer, as he and his
family ate in a restaurant the state of Sinaloa, the home turf of
nearly all of Mexico's top drug bosses.
(AP, 11/29/04)
2004 Dec 2, Interior Secretary
Santiago Creel announced authorities had arrested 224 street gang
members during a weeklong sweep across Mexico.
(AP, 12/3/04)
2004 Dec 5, Authorities outside
Mexico City found the body of Enrique Salinas (51), the former Pres.
Salinas’ brother, with a bag tied around his head. 2 federal police
officers were arrested in 2005 for trying to extort money Salinas prior
to his murder.
(AP, 7/15/05)
2004 Dec 6, President Vicente Fox
fired Mexico City's police chief for allegedly bungling the response to
a mob attack that killed two federal police officers.
(AP, 12/6/04)(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)(SFC, 7/15/05, p.A3)
2004 Dec 19, It was reported that
Pres. Vicente Fox’s administration had failed thus far to dent
corruption inside Mexico’s 445 prisons and jails.
(SSFC, 12/19/04, p.A21)
2004 Dec 22, In Mexico an
explosion at a pumping station near Santiago Tuxtla caused a burst of
high pressure that ruptured the oil line 70 miles away in Nanchital.
210,000 gallons of oil flowed into the Coatzacoalcos River, creating a
10-mile-long slick extending into the gulf.
(AP, 12/24/04)
2004 Dec 23, Mexico's state-owned
oil monopoly will be fined as much as $200,000 and could face criminal
charges for spilling 5,000 barrels of crude into a river leading to the
Gulf of Mexico a day earlier.
(AP, 12/23/04)
2004 Dec, The Mexican government
began distributing a comic-book guide that warns would-be migrants
about the perils of crossing illegally into the US and offers tips to
stay safe.
(AP, 1/5/05)
2004 Jorge Hank (48) was elected
major of Tijuana. His father was a former mayor of Mexico City and
Jorge himself had amassed an estimated $1 billion fortune through
hundreds of casinos and betting parlors throughout Latin America.
(SSFC, 8/5/07, p.A15)
2004 Development began of the new
Film Colony on the edge of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico’s 1st
privately financed film studio complex.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.31)
2004 Mexico’s population grew
almost 1.1 million in 2004 to 105,909,000.
(SFC, 12/29/04, p.A3)
2004 Earl Shorris authored “The
Life and Times of Mexico,” a collective biography of the country’s
people.
(SSFC, 12/12/04, p.E6)
2005 Jan 1, Mexico was forecast
for 3.1% annual GDP growth with a population at 106.2 million and GDP
per head at $6,300.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.92)
2005 Jan 6, President Vicente Fox
announced that all Mexican children with cancer will receive free
treatment as long as they need it.
(AP, 1/6/05)
2005 Jan 6, In Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico, 10 alleged gang members were convicted in the killings of 12
women, some of the hundreds who have been found slain there in recent
years. The Los Toltecas members were arrested in 1999, after the
reputed leader of their group, Jesus Manuel Guardado, alias "El
Tolteca," was identified by a 14-year-old girl as the man who sexually
assaulted and tried to kill her.
(AP, 1/7/05)
2005 Jan 11, Mudslides in Tijuana,
Mexico, killed 3 children and damaged 140 homes.
(SFC, 1/13/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 14, Over 750 Mexican
federal police and soldiers seized control over the nation's
top-security prison amid reports of a planned escape, possible murder
plots and a jailhouse alliance between two reputed drug trafficking
kingpins.
(AP, 1/14/05)(SFC, 1/15/05, p.A3)
2005 Jan 20, In Mexico 6 prison
workers were shot to death and left outside their lockup in Matamoros,
following a federal crackdown against drug gangs at lockups across the
nation.
(AP, 1/20/05)
2005 Jan 22, Consuelo Velazquez
(84), whose song "Besame Mucho" became a standard in many languages and
styles of music, died in Mexico City.
(AP, 1/25/05)
2005 Jan 24, China's vice
president expressed a strong desire to increase economic and diplomatic
cooperation with Mexico while meeting with Mexican lawmakers.
(AP, 1/24/05)
2005 Feb 5, In Mexico assailants
staged 3 nearly simultaneous guerrilla-style attacks in Acapulco,
killing 3 police officers and a teenage boy a day before a tense
gubernatorial election.
(AP, 2/6/05)
2005 Feb 6, Mexico's main leftist
party, the Democratic Revolution Party, ended 76 years of rule by the
Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in the Pacific coast state
of Guerrero. Democratic Revolution held on to the governorship of Baja
California Sur, while the PRI held on to Quintana Roo, the site of
Cancun.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 15, In Mexico the bodies
of 12 men killed by hitmen believed linked to drug gangs were found in
the northern state of Sinaloa, in what appears to be one of the
deadliest one-day tolls in violent drug battles in recent years.
(AP, 2/15/05)
2005 Feb 17, Two US Border Patrol
agents in Texas stopped a van carrying 743 pounds of marijuana and shot
Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, an admitted Mexican drug smuggler, as he fled
back across the Rio Grande. In 2006 agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose
Compean were sentenced to 11 and 12 years in prison for offenses that
included violating the smuggler’s civil rights and failure to report
the shooting to superiors. In 2007 Latino gang members beat Ignacio
Ramos at the Yazoo City Federal Correctional Complex in Mississippi.
Both agents were freed in 2009 following a commute of their sentences
by outgoing Pres. George Bush.
(SFC, 10/20/06, p.A6)(SSFC, 2/18/07, p.A11)(SFC,
2/18/09, p.A6)
2005 Feb 23, Mexico’s high court
blocked prosecution of ex-President Echeverria for “dirty war” crimes
in the 1970s ruling that the statute of limitations has run out.
(WSJ, 2/24/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 24, In western Mexico an
executive jet crashed, killing the governor of Colima state and all
five other people aboard.
(AP, 2/24/05)
2005 Feb 28, Mexican prosecutors
charged 27 state, federal and local police in Cancun with running a
drug ring or aiding in the murder of their fellow officers, busting one
of Mexico's largest police-protection rackets and solving the mystery
behind the killing of three federal agents in November.
(AP, 3/1/05)
2005 Mar 9, In southern Mexico a
federal government helicopter searching for gunmen protecting drug
plantations crashed into a mountain, killing all nine soldiers and two
pilots onboard.
(AP, 3/10/05)
2005 Mar 13, Vigilantes in Oaxaca,
Mexico, killed a state police officer setting him on fire in revenge
for the shooting of a taxi driver in a barroom brawl.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Mar 23, Pres. Bush, Pres.
Fox, and PM Paul Martin at a one-day summit in Texas signed a deal that
provides for sweeping co-operation between Canada, Mexico and the US on
security, economic and health issues. There was no sign of progress on
touchy trade disputes. They agreed to boost border security and forge
common approaches on everything from cargo inspection to maritime and
aviation safety.
(AP, 3/24/05)
2005 Apr 5, Guadalupe Garcia
Escamilla (39), radio reporter, was wounded in the chest, abdomen, legs
and arms during an attack in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo,
across from Laredo, Texas. She died from her wounds April 16.
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 Apr 7, Mexico City's leftist
mayor formally declared his intention to run for president next year
even as Congress was to decide whether he should face criminal charges
for allegedly disobeying a court order in a land-use case.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Lawmakers stripped
Mexico City's mayor of immunity from prosecution, clearing the way for
criminal charges. The shaky legal case against Lopez Obrador alleges
that in 2001, the city government failed for 11 months to obey a court
order to vacate contested land that it had expropriated for the purpose
of building a road.
(AP, 4/8/05)
2005 Apr 8, Raul Gibb Guerrero,
director of La Opinion of Poza Rica newspaper, was shot to death in an
apparent ambush by drug hit men, the 2nd attack on Mexican journalists
in a week.
(AP, 4/9/05)
2005 Apr 14, In Mexico 3 would-be
casino developers were killed outside a popular Monterrey restaurant.
The murders delayed a congressional vote to amend a gambling ban and
sparked calls for stricter controls on the few places Mexicans are
allowed to place bets.
(AP, 5/1/05)
2005 Apr 18, The annual Goldman
Environmental Prizes were awarded in San Francisco. Recipients included
Isidro Baldenegro (39) of Mexico for his efforts on land rights and
forest protection for the Tarahumara Indians
(SFC, 4/18/05, p.B2)
2005 Apr 20, Mexican prosecutors
charged Mexico City's popular leftist mayor with abuse of authority in
a case that could knock him out of the 2006 presidential race.
(AP, 4/21/05)(WSJ, 4/21/05, p.A1)
2005 Apr 24, Hundreds of thousands
of demonstrators thronged Mexico City's central square and surrounding
streets to protest the federal prosecution of the capital city mayor, a
leading contender for president in 2006.
(AP, 4/25/05)
2005 May 4, Mexico's government
cleared the capital's mayor of wrongdoing, conceding defeat in a nasty
political fight that ousted an attorney general and raised criticisms
that President Vicente Fox was trying to block his top rival from
running for president.
(AP, 5/5/05)
2005 May 9, Leftist Mexico City
Mayor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced that he will resign on July
31 to run for president.
(AP, 5/9/05)
2005 May 13, Pres. Fox praised the
dedication of Mexicans working in the US, saying they're willing to
take jobs that "even blacks" won't do. Pres. Fox apologized for his
comments a few days later saying he regretted any hurt feelings his
statements may have caused.
(AP, 5/17/05)(SFC, 5/17/05, p.A3)
2005 May 16, Mexican President
Vicente Fox regretted any hurt feelings for saying that Mexicans in the
United States were doing the work that even blacks wouldn't.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2005 May 24, In Mexico Eduardo
Villalobos, the director of a state prison in the border city of
Mexicali, was shot to death in an ambush outside his home.
(AP, 5/24/05)
2005 Jun 3, Oscar Espinosa
Villarreal, former Mexico City mayor (1994-1998) and tourism secretary,
was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for embezzling
government funds and ordered to pay more than $26 million in
reparations.
(AP, 6/4/05)
2005 Jun 5, Adolfo Aguilar Zinser
(b.1949), Mexican scholar and diplomat, died.
(Econ, 6/18/05,
p.83)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfo_Aguilar_Z%C3%Adnser)
2005 Jun 8, In Mexico Alejandro
Dominguez took office as police chief of Nuevo Laredo, saying he wasn't
afraid of anything. Nine hours later, he was ambushed and killed by
gunmen who fired some three dozen times.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 10, In Mexico lawyers for
the brother of a former Mexican president sought his release on bail
after an appeals court threw out his 27-year murder sentence.
(AP, 6/10/05)
2005 Jun 11, In Mexico a plain
clothes federal officer, sent to investigate the killing of the police
chief of Nuevo Laredo, was shot and killed a local policeman. In
response the government announced new program dubbed “Safe Mexico” to
curb drug related violence and corruption.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.34)
2005 Jun 14, Raul Salinas, the
brother of former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, was
released on bail after 10 years in prison on charges he masterminded
the 1994 killing of a political rival.
(AP, 6/14/05)
2005 Jun 15, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that former Mexican President Luis Echeverria can be
charged with genocide for his alleged involvement in the 1971 massacre
of student protesters.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 19, Mexico City
introduced metrobus, a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system.
(SSFC, 8/7/05, p.A11)
2005 Jun 21, Nuevo Laredo Mayor
Daniel Pena said that 150 police officers will be fired after failing a
screening process that included background checks and drug testing.
Former Mexican soldiers, turned into drug hit men (Zetas), have taken
the border city to the brink of anarchy, infiltrating local police and
threatening anyone who gets in their way.
(AP, 6/21/05)
2005 Jun 22, Consuelo Velazquez
(b.1916), Mexican pianist and composer, died. Her music included Besame
Mucho, first recorded in 1941 by Emilio Tuero. It was the romantic
vision of a chaste, convent-educated teenager growing up in 1930s
Mexico, and was inspired by the sight of a smooching couple in the
street.
(www.guardian.co.uk/news/2005/jan/26/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries1)
2005 Jun 26, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, 44 kidnap victims were freed in a series of raids by soldiers
and federal agents. Deputy Attorney General Gilberto Higuera said those
rescued were apparently "involved in criminal activities and were not
victims of kidnappings" for ransom.
(AP, 6/27/05)
2005 Jun 28, Lawmakers
overwhelming approved a law allowing millions of Mexicans living abroad
to vote by mail in next year's presidential election.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 28, Mexico's Zapatista
rebels suggested they would seek to open a political front with
workers, farmers and students, a decision the government interpreted as
a move toward joining mainstream politics and away from armed struggle.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 29, Mexico released a
series of five stamps depicting a child character from a comic book
started in the 1940s that is still published in Mexico. The stamps
depicted an exaggerated black cartoon character known as Memin Pinguin.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jun 30, Pres. Fox
signed a bill allowing millions of Mexicans living abroad to vote by
mail in next year's presidential election.
(AP, 7/1/05)
2005 Jun 30, In Honduras Central
American leaders agreed to create a regional special forces unit to
fight drug trafficking, gang violence and terrorism within their
borders. The 2-day regional meeting included the presidents of Costa
Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua,
and Panama.
(AP, 6/30/05)
2005 Jul 3, In Mexico State the
former ruling party (PRI) added momentum for the upcoming presidential
race with a crushing victory.
(AP, 7/4/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Mexico Omar
Pimentel (37), Nuevo Laredo's new police chief, survived his 1st day on
the job with 3 bodyguards shadowing his every move, but one of his
police officers was killed and 2 other policemen badly wounded by shots
fired from a truck at their private car.
(AP, 7/7/05)
2005 Jul 6, In Acapulco, Mexico,
gunmen fired a spray of bullets at Jose Ruben Robles Catalan, a former
Guerrero state official as he entered a hotel lobby with his 6-year-old
grandson, killing him and his chauffeur.
(AP, 7/6/05)
2005 Jul 8, In rural southeastern
Mexico a series of explosions at a natural gas pipeline killed two
people and set fire to houses, cars and cattle near Cunduacan.
(AP, 7/10/05)
2005 Jul 11, Hugo Alberto Wallace
(36), a divorced entrepreneur, was kidnapped as he left a movie theater
in Mexico City. In 2007 Brenda Quevedo was arrested in Louisville,
Kentucky, after Maria Isabel Miranda, the mother of Wallace, received a
tip and tracked her down. Frustrated with investigators' lack of
progress in her son's 2005 kidnapping, Miranda launched her own
investigation, tracking down five suspects. In 2009 Quevedo was
extradited to Mexico.
(www.nytimes.com/2006/04/04/world/americas/04kidnapping.html)(AP,
9/26/09)
2005 Jul 18, Hurricane Emily
slammed into Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as a powerful Category 4 storm.
(AP, 7/18/05)
2005 Jul 20, In Mexico more than
1,000 people marched through the streets of the colonial capital of
southern Oaxaca state to demand that picketers disband a blockade that
has trapped journalists inside a newspaper building for about a month.
(AP, 7/21/05)
2005 Jul 20, Hurricane Emily
slammed into northeastern Mexico with 125 mph winds.
(AP, 7/20/05)
2005 Jul 22, Mexican authorities
raided a kidnapping ring that filmed its victims being held inside a
cage and beaten. An abducted businessman was freed and five people were
arrested. The gang operated in Mexico City and outlying areas in Puebla
and Mexico State.
(AP, 7/23/05)
2005 Jul 31, In southern Mexico
former soldier Oscar Flores (35) killed his wife, infant nephew and a
police officer in a vicious rampage that left 10 people dead before
being wounded by police and killed by an angry crowd.
(AP, 8/1/05)
2005 Aug 1, In Tonala, Mexico,
assailants threw grenades into a crowded cockfighting ring before dawn,
killing four people and wounding 25 others.
(AP, 8/2/05)
2005 Aug 6, Leonardo Rodriguez
Alcaine (b.1919), Mexican trade union leader and a long-serving
legislator of the Revolutionary Institutional Party, died. He presided
over the Workers' Confederation of Mexico (CTM) from July 21, 1997
until his death.
(Econ, 11/12/05,
p.39)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonardo_Rodr%C3%ADguez_Alcaine)
2005 Aug 12, A Mexican judge
issued an arrest warrant for Gen. Francisco Quiros, accused of ordering
the disappearance of leftist folk singer Rosendo Radilla on Aug 25,
1974. Quiros was already in prison serving a drug sentence.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 12, New regulations in
Tijuana, Mexico, called for the city to issue electronic cards to
replace pink, pocket-size health history books given to Tijuana's 4,700
registered prostitutes. The new standards were modeled after those in
the Mexican cities of Monterrey and Acapulco.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Aug 12, Peter Hommerson, a
fugitive charged with killing a wealthy Illinois couple on Jan 23,
1996, was captured at a Mexican resort after tourists recognized him
from a crime watch television program.
(AP, 8/12/05)
2005 Aug 25, In central Mexico a
rain-swollen river overflowed its banks and flooded the town of
Aguililla, leaving five people dead and five others missing.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Aug, Judi Werthein (38),
Argentine-born artist, introduced special shoes at Insite, an art
exhibition in San Diego and Tijuana, designed to help migrants cross
the US-Mexico border. The “Brinco” sneakers were equipped with a
compass, flashlight and other special features.
(SFC, 11/18/05, p.A2)
2005 Sep 1, President Vicente Fox,
in his last state-of-the-nation address, urged citizens to stay
committed to Mexico's newfound democracy and to remind them that they
are in charge of the nation's future.
(AP, 9/2/05)
2005 Sep 3, In Tlacotepec, Mexico,
75 miles north of Acapulco, fireworks stored at a building that also
illicitly sold gasoline exploded, killing seven people and injuring
four.
(AP, 9/3/05)
2005 Sep 8, A Mexican army convoy
began crossing into the US to bring aid to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
(AP, 9/8/05)
2005 Sep 8, El Salvador said that
“Operation International” simultaneous raids this week in El Salvador,
the US, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico netted 660 dangerous gang
members.
(AP, 9/9/05)
2005 Sep 10, In Mexico 7 Guatemala
men were caught near the Guatemalan border with six large-caliber
rifles and 1,600 rounds of ammunition. They faced charges of weapons
trafficking.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Sep 11, Mexico's ruling
National Action Party gave former Energy Secretary Felipe Calderon a
surprise victory in the first round of its three-part presidential
primary.
(AP, 9/11/05)
2005 Sep 12, In Mexico Chinese
President Hu Jintao promised Mexican leaders that he would crack down
on the millions of dollars worth of Chinese contraband entering their
nation, goods that undermine Mexican businesses ranging from sandal
makers to religious icon sellers.
(AP, 9/12/05)
2005 Sep 15, A fire engulfed
Mexico's most famous fireworks market, setting off a chain of
explosions in Tultepec, a town northeast of the nation's capital. The
fire destroyed hundreds of open-air stands just ahead of Independence
Day celebrations.
(AP, 9/15/05)
2005 Sep 16, The Volcano of Fire
in western Mexico blasted ash and gas three miles high, with an
explosion that was heard in villages 10 miles from the crater.
(AP, 9/16/05)
2005 Sep 19, In Mexico a special
federal prosecutor sought the arrest of ex-President Luis Echeverria
and other former officials for their alleged involvement in the
massacre of student protesters in 1968.
(AP, 9/19/05)
2005 Sep 21, A cabinet minister
who helped lead Mexico's anti-drug fight, his deputy and seven others
died in a helicopter crash in the mountains west of Mexico City. The
helicopter, carrying Public Safety Secretary Ramon Martin Huerta,
Federal Preventive Police Chief Tomas Valencia, five other passengers
and a crew of two, had taken off from a military parade ground in
Mexico City.
(AP, 9/22/05)
2005 Sep 26-2005 Sep 27, Intense
rains throughout southern Mexico and parts of Central America caused
rivers to overflow, killing at least 3 people and forcing thousands to
flee their homes.
(AP, 9/28/05)
2005 Sep, In Mexico Bishop Ramon
Godinez declared that drug traffickers often donate to the church. He
argued that the money is "purified" once it passes through parish doors.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 1, The outer bands of
Hurricane Otis lashed the coast of western Mexico as the storm crawled
toward the Baja California peninsula, forcing hundreds of families to
evacuate their homes and flooding roads in Cabo San Lucas.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 2, Felipe Calderon,
Mexico's former energy secretary, appeared headed toward another
victory in the 2nd round of the ruling National Action Party's 3-part
presidential primary.
(AP, 10/2/05)
2005 Oct 4, Hurricane Stan slammed
into Mexico’s Gulf coast.
(AP, 10/4/06)
2005 Oct 5, Hurricane Stan knocked
down trees, ripped roofs off homes and washed out bridges in
southeastern Mexico, but it was the storms it helped spawn that were
far more destructive, killing more than 65 people in Central America.
Officials in El Salvador said 49 people had been killed, mostly due to
two days of mudslides sparked by rains. 9 people died in Nicaragua,
including six migrants believed to be Ecuadorians killed in a boat
accident. Four deaths were reported in Honduras, three in Guatemala and
one in Costa Rica.
(AP, 10/5/05)
2005 Oct 6-2005 Oct 8, In
Guatemala rescue workers searched for victims of a mudslide near Lake
Atitlan, a volcano-ringed lake popular with tourists. Panabaj and
Tzanchaz were entombed by a mudflow half a mile wide. The death toll in
the region from flooding sparked by Hurricane Stan soon climbed to 617
with 42 dead in Mexico, 72 dead in El Salvador and 11 dead in Nicaragua.
(SFC, 10/7/05, p.A3)(AP, 10/9/05)(Econ, 10/15/05,
p.43)
2005 Oct 11, It was reported that
a serial killer, dubbed the "Mataviejitas," or "Little Old Lady
Killer," was stalking Mexico City. The killer was said to wear women's
clothes and strangled and battered old ladies in their homes.
(AP, 10/11/05)
2005 Oct 21, Hurricane Wilma
slammed into the island of Cozumel, starting a long, grinding march
across Mexico's resort-studded coastline. Wilma flooded streets,
knocked out power and stranded thousands of tourists in sweltering
shelters. Hurricane Wilma tore into Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, after
killing 13 people in Haiti and Jamaica.
(AP, 10/21/05)(AP, 10/22/06)
2005 Oct 22, Hurricane Wilma
crawled over Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, keeping some 30,000 tourists
huddled in hotels and shelters amid shrieking winds and shattering
glass.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 23, Mexico's ruling party
chose Felipe Calderon, the nation's former energy secretary, as its
candidate for presidential elections next July.
(AP, 10/23/05)
2005 Oct 23, Hurricane Wilma
drifted northward away from Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula where the storm
left 8 people dead. In 2006 insurers put the damage from Wilma at $3
billion, the largest insured losses in Mexican history.
(AP, 10/23/05)(Econ, 10/29/05, p.38)(AP, 10/19/06)
2005 Oct 24, Luis Velasquez (51),
A Roman Catholic parish priest was found shot to death in his car with
his hands cuffed in the rough border city of Tijuana, in what police
said appeared to be an organized-crime killing.
(AP, 10/24/05)
2005 Oct 27, The Mexican
government announced that former "bracero" guest workers, who labored
in the United States between the 1942 and 1964, will get a one-time
payment of about $3,500. The aging workers, who have protested for
years, described the payment as insulting and said it should be at
least $9,175.
(AP, 10/27/05)(SFC, 10/28/05, p.A22)
2005 Oct 28, Mexico became the
100th country to ratify the treaty founding the world's first permanent
war crimes tribunal, which the United States has opposed.
(AP, 10/28/05)
2005 Nov 4, In Argentina Mexico’s
Pres. Vicente Fox said that a majority of nations in the Western
Hemisphere will consider moving forward with negotiations to create a
huge new free trade zone without the participation of dissenting
countries like Venezuela.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 9, Mexico reported that
consumer prices fell to a record low in October and that inflation was
rapidly approaching the central bank’s target of 3%.
(WSJ, 11/10/05, p.A15)
2005 Nov 10, Mexican prosecutors
announced they have filed kidnapping and organize crime charges against
seven police officers accused of protecting hit men working for the
feared Tijuana-based Arellano Felix drug cartel.
(AP, 11/11/05)
2005 Nov 11, Mexican agents
arrested Ricardo Garcia Urquiza, a former medical student, who seized
control of the remnants of the Juarez cartel.
(AP, 11/21/05)
2005 Nov 14, Mexico said it will
sever diplomatic ties with Venezuela if Pres. Chavez doesn't apologize
for warning Mexican leader Vicente Fox: "Don't mess with me." Mexico
and Venezuela called their ambassadors home in a sharp dispute between
presidents Hugo Chavez and Vicente Fox over the latter's relations with
Washington.
(AP, 11/14/05)(AP, 11/15/05)
2005 Nov 15, In northwest Mexico a
tanker truck hauling toxic ammonium chloride slammed into a passenger
bus, killing 38 people as both vehicles plunged down an embankment.
(AP, 11/16/05)
2005 Nov 16, Mexico’s Supreme
Court ruled that rape within marriage is a crime.
(SFC, 11/17/05, p.A12)
2005 Nov 17, Mexico's Supreme
Court voted 11-1 that the Pascual Cooperative, a bottler specializing
in Mexico's traditional fruit-flavored and fruit-based soft drinks, did
not rate protection as a public interest.
(AP, 11/18/05)
2005 Nov 20, The Vatican beatified
13 Mexicans who died during a Roman Catholic uprising in the late 1920s
that was crushed by the Mexican government.
(AP, 11/20/05)
2005 Nov 28, Mexico changed its
constitution to allow state and local police to pursue drug
traffickers, removing a major stumbling block in anti-drug efforts that
had long been the exclusive realm of federal officers.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 29, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that suspects facing life in prison can be extradited,
overturning a 4-year-old ban that had prevented many of the country's
most notorious criminals from being sent to the United States.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, CINTRA sold Mexicana
airlines and its subsidiary, Click Mexicana, to the Mexican hotel chain
Grupo Posadas for USD$165.5 million.
(Econ, 8/14/10,
p.53)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexicana_de_Aviaci%C3%B3n)
2005 Nov 30, Mexican officials
said that they are investigating a homemade DVD purporting to show four
drug hitmen for the Gulf Cartel being beaten and interrogated, then one
of them being shot in the head.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 1, The Mexican Attorney
General's office said 11 federal agents were charged with kidnapping
for picking up four alleged drug hit men and possibly helping kill them.
(AP, 12/02/05)
2005 Dec 2, The Mexico City
government said 5 federal agents arrested in connection with the
videotaped torture and killing of drug hitmen have been released from
prison for lack of evidence.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 10, Mexican police raided
a house outside Mexico City, capturing two alleged kidnappers and
rescuing three people, including an 8-year-old girl, who had been held
for more than two months. Police detained Israel Vallarta, a Mexican,
and Marie Louise Cassez Florence, a Frenchwoman. The two allegedly
belonged to a gang called "The Zodiac," tied to at least 10 kidnappings
and one murder. Florence Cassez was later sentenced to 60 years in
prison for 3 kidnappings. In 2010 Florence Cassez released a book about
her case. It describes a series of inconsistencies in the case that she
says weren't taken into account.
(AP, 12/10/05)(AP, 3/10/09)(AP, 9/23/10)
2005 Dec 14, Officials said Mexico
and the US broke up a counterfeiting ring that printed an estimated $5
million in fake $100 bills in Mexico and sold them across the border.
(AP, 12/15/05)
2005 Dec 15, A Mexican judge
committed 8 relatives to the psychiatric ward of a prison for the
ritualistic slayings of two young family members that shocked Mexico
with their brutality. Officials said the parents, grandparents and
aunts of a 7-month-old and 13-year-old hacked a baby to death and
fatally stoned a teenager earlier this month after they became
convinced the girls were demons or possessed by the devil.
(AP, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 17, The Mexican
government slammed the US Congress for approving an immigration bill
that would tighten border controls and make it harder for undocumented
immigrants to get jobs.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 17, In Mexico 6 people
were stabbed or battered to death during a prison gang fight in Ciudad
Juarez, across the US border from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 12/17/05)
2005 Dec 20, The Mexican
government, angered by a U.S. proposal to extend a wall along the
border to keep out migrants, pledged to block the plan and organize an
international campaign against it.
(AP, 12/21/05)
2005 Dec 29, Seven policemen in
the southern Mexican state of Chiapas were detained on suspicion of
stealing relief packages intended for hurricane victims.
(AP, 12/29/05)
2005 Dec 31, Guillermo Martinez
(18) died in a Tijuana hospital one day after he was shot by a US
Border Patrol agent near a metal wall separating that city from San
Diego. On Jan 2 Mexico opened an investigation into the killing saying
he was shot while sneaking into California, using the death to draw
attention to a contentious US anti-immigration measure. In 2008 the US
Dept. of Justice cleared the Border Patrol agent of any wrongdoing.
(AP, 1/3/06)(SFC, 2/16/08, p.A4)
2005 Dec, Mexico’s attorney
general’s office released a report that said 1,493 of 7,000 federal
agents had been investigated for possible wrongdoing and that 457 had
been indicted.
(SFC, 12/28/05, p.A9)
2005 Dec, In Mexico Lydia Cacho, a
journalist who wrote a book about pedophilia in Cancun, was arrested
and charged with libel. Titled "The Demons of Eden," the book linked
Jean Succar Kuri to a prominent businessman in the central state of
Puebla. Cacho was freed on bail and Kuri was extradited from the US in
2006 to face charges in Mexico.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2005 The US SEC filed civil fraud
charges against Ricardo Salinas Pliego and 2 other top executives at TV
Azteca for allegedly failing to disclose their involvement in Unefon
under a provision of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley law. Salinas pulled his
companies from the NYSE.
(WSJ, 12/8/05, p.A11)
2005 Mexico counted 1,600 murders
this year linked to organized crime.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.45)
2006 Jan 1, Subcomandante Marcos
(b.1957), identified by the Mexican government as Rafael Guillen, began
a tour of 31 Mexican states under the name “Delegate Zero.” The leader
of Mexico's Zapatista rebels, wearing a ski mask to protect his
identity, railed against the government and free trade to kick off a
six-month tour of Mexico aimed at reshaping the nation's politics.
(WSJ, 1/5/06, p.A12)(AP, 1/2/06)
2006 Jan 6, Comandante Ramona
(47), a leader of Mexico's Zapatista rebel movement and an advocate for
women's rights, died after a decade-long struggle with a kidney disease.
(AP, 1/6/06)
2006 Jan 9, Diplomats from Mexico
and Central America demanded guest worker programs and the legalization
of undocumented migrants in the United States, while criticizing a US
proposal for tougher border enforcement.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 11, Felipe Calderon,
ruling-party presidential hopeful, registered his campaign with
election officials, saying he understands the problems facing common
Mexicans and will stem the flow of migrants who head north in search of
higher-paying jobs.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Jan 13, Raul Anguiano
(b.1915), Mexican painter, sculptor and muralist, died in Mexico City.
(SFC, 1/17/06, p.B5)
2006 Jan 23, Raul Osiel Marroquin
was arrested in Mexico City. On Jan 26 he described killing four gay
men. His arrest was the 1st confirmation of a serial killer targeting
homosexuals.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 24, A Mexican government
commission said it will distribute at least 70,000 maps showing
highways, rescue beacons and water tanks in the Arizona desert to curb
the death toll among illegal border crossers.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Jan 24, At least 10 men in
Mexican military-style uniforms crossed the Rio Grande into the United
States on a marijuana-smuggling foray, leading to an armed
confrontation with Texas law officers near Neely's Crossing, Texas. The
three sport utility vehicles made a quick U-turn and headed south
toward the border, a few miles away.
(AP, 9/6/09)
2006 Jan 25, Juana Barraza (48)
was arrested while fleeing from a home where an elderly woman was
slain. She was suspected to be the serial murderer known as the
"Mataviejitas," or "Little Old Lady Killer." Barraza's fingerprints
matched those left at the scene of 10 other murders, plus at the scene
of an attempted murder.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 25, US authorities
discovered what they say is the largest and most sophisticated tunnel
under their border with Mexico, one that was used by drug trafficking
gangs. The tunnel began near Tijuana’s airport and ended 2,400 feet
away in a warehouse on the US side of the border. The find included 2
tons of marijuana.
(AFP, 1/27/06)(SFC, 1/27/06, p.B14)
2006 Jan 26, Mexico said it will
suspend its plan to distribute maps to migrants wanting to cross the US
border illegally. An official said the decision was made because the
maps would show anti-immigrant groups where migrants likely would
gather.
(AP, 1/26/06)
2006 Jan 27, Angel Hidalgo
Espinosa, the leader of a farmers' group in Mexico's southern Chiapas
state, was convicted in the 2001 slayings of 8 peasants and sentenced
to 37 years in prison.
(AP, 1/27/06)
2006 Jan 27, In Mexico authorities
got into a shootout with drug traffickers in Acapulco and at least 4
people were killed.
(SFC, 1/28/06, p.A6)
2006 Jan 29, The Mexican
government said the US Border Patrol in New Mexico arrested Francisco
Javier Gutierrez, a Mexican immigration official, who was allegedly
trying to help a group of undocumented migrants sneak into the US.
(AP, 1/30/06)
2006 Feb 2, Mexican authorities
captured Oscar Arriola Marquez, leader of the Arriola Marquez cartel,
wanted in the US on cocaine trafficking and money laundering charges,
and ranked among the world's most-wanted fugitives.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 4, A three-day energy
meeting in Mexico City wrapped up after moving to a Mexican-owned
hotel. It was the first private-sector oil summit between Cuba and the
US. The meeting between Cuban officials and US energy executives was
moved to another hotel after the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton asked the
Cubans to leave. On Feb 6 Mexico launched an investigation into whether
the US government pressured the American-owned hotel into expelling
Cuban guests.
(AP, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 7, The owner of a Mexican
newspaper in Nuevo Laredo said there will be no more investigative
coverage of drug gangs, a day after the paper's offices were sprayed
with bullets and a reporter hospitalized with five gunshots.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 13, In Monterrey, Mexico,
2 police chiefs, Hector Ayala and Javier Garcia, were shot and killed
within hours of each other in a violence-plagued region near the US
where drug smugglers have been battling for control of key routes
across the border.
(AP, 2/14/06)
2006 Feb 14, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, armed men forced their way into a hospital and killed a
teenager under treatment for an earlier attempt on his life.
(SFC, 2/18/06, p.A10)
2006 Feb 15, In central Mexico a
bus careened off a windy highway and into a ravine in the Sierra Gorda
mountains, killing 23 people and injuring 14.
(AP, 2/16/06)
2006 Feb 19, A gas explosion in a
northern Mexico coal mine trapped 65 miners some 600 feet below ground
with a limited supply of oxygen. In 2007 a judge ordered the arrest of
5 mine managers and inspectors on charges of negligent homicide in the
deaths of the miners.
(AP, 2/19/06)(WSJ, 2/21/06, p.A1)(AP, 3/20/07)
2006 Feb 21, In Cancun, Mexico,
Domenico Ianiero, 59, and his wife, Annunziata, 55, of Woodbridge,
Ont., were found in their hotel rooms at the all-inclusive five-star
resort on the Mayan Riviera in the early morning. Their throats had
been slashed. The crime apparently took place after a rehearsal dinner
ahead of a wedding in which the Lily, one of the Ianieros' twin girls,
was to be married at the resort. Prosecutors in Cancun said two
Canadian women were suspected in the killing and had fled to Canada.
(CP, 2/22/06)
2006 Feb 25, In Mexico mining
officials said there was little hope of finding any of miners alive
from the Feb 19 gas explosion at the Industrial Minera Mexico mine near
San Juan Sabinas.
(SSFC, 2/26/06, p.A3)
2006 Feb 28, Mexico City officials
moved to shut down a US-owned hotel that angered many Mexicans when it
kicked out a Cuban delegation under pressure from Washington. The
Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel would be closed because it was in violation
of building codes. The hotel could reopen when it had corrected the
violations and paid a $15,000 fine. The threat of closure was dropped
the next day.
(AP, 3/1/06)(AP, 3/2/06)
2006 Feb 28, Some 4,000 Mexican
miners struck copper mines owned by the operator of the coal mine where
65 men died in an explosion last week.
(AP, 2/28/06)
2006 Mar 6, In Mexico Diego Santoy
(21) was captured at a police roadblock in the southern state of
Oaxaca, four days after he allegedly stabbed his ex-girlfriend, Erika
Pena, 18, strangled her 3-year-old sister and stabbed to death her
7-year-old brother.
(AP, 3/8/06)
2006 Mar 7, More than 20,000 union
workers marched in downtown Mexico City, accusing the government of
meddling in the affairs of the national miners union by seeking to oust
its leader.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 7, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, heavily armed assailants killed a state police chief and an
officer and wounded two more officers in a brazen midmorning ambush.
(AP, 3/7/06)
2006 Mar 10, An anchorman for a
Mexican radio station was shot to death by gunmen waiting for him in
the bushes in front of his house in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 13, Mexico’s attorney
general said he will close a special prosecutor's office dedicated to
investigating atrocities committed by the government during its
two-decade campaign to weed out suspected guerrillas and leftists.
(AP, 3/13/06)
2006 Mar 14, Mexico announced a
new deepwater oil discovery that could exceed the declining reserves at
the giant offshore Cantarell field.
(WSJ, 3/14/06, p.A11)
2006 Mar 16, The 4th World Water
Forum opened in Mexico City.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 16, In Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico, 4 plainclothes federal police agents were killed after an
unknown number of gunmen sprayed the unmarked pickup truck they were
riding in with more than 30 bullets. The slayings came a day after 600
new members of the Federal Preventative Police arrived in Nuevo Laredo
as part of extra-security efforts.
(AP, 3/16/06)
2006 Mar 17, A bus carrying dozens
of teenagers on a school field trip toppled off a bridge on the
outskirts of Mexico's capital, killing 7 people and injuring at least
28.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 22, In Mexico Omar
Pimentel (38), the police chief of the border city of Nuevo Laredo,
resigned. He said he was tired from the stress of working in a city
dominated by drug cartels fighting a bloody turf war.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Mar 24, The Mexican
government said a US-owned hotel that expelled Cuban guests under
pressure from the Treasury Department must pay $112,000 in fines for
violating Mexican commerce law.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Mar 26, In Mexico the bodies
of six men, blindfolded, handcuffed and shot to death, were found
packed inside a pickup truck on the side of a highway leading to the
Texas border.
(AP, 3/26/06)
2006 Mar 27, The US Senate
Judiciary Committee approved a proposal to legalize undocumented
migrants and provide temporary work visas. Mexicans cheered the
approval and credited huge marches of migrants across the US as the
decisive factor behind the vote.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Mar 28, A Mexican judge
ordered an Argentine journalist to remove references to one of the
first lady's sons in a book that claims he benefited financially from
his family's political connections. The book "Cronicas Malditas," or
roughly "Accursed Chronicles" (2005), alleged that two of Sahagun's
three sons, principally Manuel Bribiesca, had used their connections to
get preferential treatment on federal government work contracts during
the administration of President Vicente Fox, which began in December
2000.
(AP, 3/28/06)
2006 Mar 30, Pres. Bush arrived in
Cancun, Mexico, for 2 days of North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) talks with Canadian PM Stephen Harper and Mexico’s Pres. Fox.
(Reuters, 3/30/06)(WSJ, 3/30/06, p.A1)
2006 Mar 30, Mexico’s Congress
passed legislation dubbed the Televisa Law” confirming the country’s
longstanding TV duopoly. President Vicente Fox officially signed off on
controversial reforms to the country’s Federal Radio and Television law
on April 11. In 2007 the legislation faced court actions.
(http://cbrayton.wordpress.com/2007/05/11/mexico-the-birth-of-the-televisa-law/)
2006 Mar 31, President Bush,
closing a three-nation NAFTA summit, defended requiring secure
documents from border-crossing Canadians and pushed Mexico to prevent
more of its people from illegally entering America.
(AP, 3/31/06)
2006 Apr 3, Dozens of Mexican
newspapers, frustrated by fruitless police probes of slain and missing
journalists, simultaneously published the first in a series of reports
on the cases.
(AP, 4/3/06)
2006 Apr 6, In Mexico hundreds of
machete-wielding farmers opposed to a hydroelectric dam project briefly
seized a pumping plant, cutting off much of the water supply to
Acapulco just days before tourists flock to the Pacific resort for
their Easter vacations.
(AP, 4/6/06)
2006 Apr 7, The US Court of
International Law ruled that US Customs violated a provision of the
North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in applying a law known as
the Byrd amendment to antidumping and countervailing duties on goods
from Canada and Mexico.
(Reuters, 4/7/06)
2006 Apr 10, Mexican soldiers
seized 128 suitcases packed with 5.6 metric tons of cocaine worth more
than $100 million from a commercial plane arriving from Venezuela.
Smugglers had purchased the DC-9 plane with laundered funds transferred
through US banks Wachovia Corp. and Bank of America. In 2010 court
papers said a gang under Walid Makled operated the DC-9 and flew the
cocaine from Simon Bolivar International to Campeche, Mexico. Makled
was arrested Aug 19, 2010 in Colombia in the border city of Cucuta. In
Nov 2010 Colombia denied an extradition request for Makled by the US,
saying that the suspect will be sent back to face charges in his home
country.
(AP, 4/12/06)(SFC, 6/30/10, p.D1)(AP, 11/17/10)
2006 Apr 12, Two people were
killed in a grenade attack on a restaurant and a shop owner was gunned
down as violence shook towns on Mexico's resort-studded Pacific coast.
(AP, 4/13/06)
2006 Apr 16, The Rev. Cesar Torres
(42) killed Veronica Andrade Salinas (22), who was pregnant, at his
parish on Mexico City's eastern outskirts. He used a kitchen knife to
cut off her head and hack her body to pieces, which he packed the
pieces into plastic bags and dumped near a cemetery in Chimalhuacan.
The couple had an 18-month-old daughter. Torres admitted to the murder
on April 19.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 17, In Mexico an
overcrowded bus speeding home from a religious festival veered off a
highway emergency ramp and crashed through a metal barrier, plunging
more than 650 feet into a ravine near Maltrata, a town about 125 miles
east of the capital. 58 people were killed. There were 2 survivors.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 19, The Mexican Congress
enacted a law that allows journalists to protect the confidentiality of
their sources.
(SFC, 4/20/06, p.A3)
2006 Apr 20, In Mexico a violent
confrontation between 800 federal and state police agents and more than
500 striking steelworkers left two workers dead and dozens of workers
and police agents injured at the Siderurgica Lazaro Cardenas-Las
Truchas, SA (Sicartsa) steel plant in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas
in the state of Michoacan. The decapitated heads of two police
officials were found dumped in front of a government building in
Acapulco.
(http://ww4report.com/node/1879)(AP, 4/20/06)
2006 Apr 26, A Mexican boycott
urged people to shun all products from U.S. businesses on May 1, a sort
of "Day Without Americans," timed to coincide with the "Day Without
Immigrants" boycott planned by activists north of the border.
(AP, 4/26/06)
2006 Apr 26, In southern Mexico a
speeding truck loaded with Guatemalan migrants en route to the United
States collided head-on with another truck, killing 10 migrants and
injuring 16.
(AP, 4/27/06)
2006 Apr 28, Mexican lawmakers
approved a bill that would allow people to possess small amounts of
cocaine, heroin, even ecstasy for their personal use.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 Apr 28, Mexican police in
Tijuana found the body of a US citizen kidnapped nearly 3 weeks
earlier. They said he had been beaten, strangled, stripped naked and
stashed in the trunk of a car. George Kwok Choi Chu, a seafood
wholesaler, worked in Tijuana but lived across the border in San Diego.
(AP, 4/29/06)
2006 May 1, A day-long protest
dubbed "A Day Without Gringos" drew thousands of Mexicans into the
streets and kept many away from US-owned supermarkets and fast-food
restaurants to support rallies in the United States demanding
immigration reform.
(AP, 5/1/06)
2006 May 3, Mexican President
Vicente Fox refused to sign a drug decriminalization bill, hours after
US officials warned the plan could encourage "drug tourism."
(AP, 5/3/06)
2006 May 3, In Mexico one person
was killed as machete-wielding protesters near Mexico City clashed with
police, blocking highways, throwing molotov cocktails and briefly
seizing six officers. The residents attacked police after several of
their companions were arrested in the nearby town of Texcoco.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 4, Just before dawn
hundreds of law enforcement officials fired tear gas and crashed
through human barricades to take control of San Salvador Atenco, a
rebellious town outside Mexico City, hours after protesters released
six badly beaten police hostages.
(AP, 5/4/06)
2006 May 9, Mexican lawmakers
handed federal investigators a box of evidence that they claim shows
that two of President Vicente Fox's stepsons were involved in fraud and
illicit enrichment through real estate deals.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 14, Mexican President
Vicente Fox telephoned President Bush to express his concern about the
border between the two nations, a day before Bush's planned Oval Office
speech on immigration.
(AP, 5/14/07)
2006 May 15, Pres. Bush endorsed a
guest worker program and a program for citizenship for many of the
estimated 12 million illegal immigrants. He also called for the
development of a tamper-proof ID card for workers and pledged to send
the National Guard to tighten security along the US border with Mexico.
(SFC, 5/16/06, p.A1)
2006 May 19, The Vatican said it
had asked Rev. Marcial Maciel, the Mexican founder of the conservative
order Legionaries of Christ (1941), to renounce celebrating public
Masses and live a life of "prayer and repentance" following its
investigation into allegations he sexually abused seminarians.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 May 23, Mexico’s Pres. Fox
began a five-day trip to the US in Utah before moving on to Washington
state and California. Immigration was the major focus of Fox's trip as
the US Senate considered legislation to strengthen border security
(AP, 5/23/06)
2006 May 23, In Mexico 3 men were
shot to death in two different attacks in the border city of Nuevo
Laredo, bringing to at least 115 the number of people slain by violence
this year.
(AP, 5/24/06)
2006 May 25, Mexican President
Vicente Fox addressed the California legislature. He praised a US
Senate which had just approved sweeping immigration reforms as a
"monumental step forward" in the relationship between his country and
the United States.
(AP, 5/26/06)
2006 Jun 1, California Gov.
Schwarzenegger reluctantly reached an agreement with the federal
government to deploy 1,000 members of the California National Guard
along the US-Mexico border.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.B1)
2006 Jun 5, Mexico proposed
creating an environmental reserve (the Rio Bravo del Norte proposal)
about 30 feet wide and 600 miles long on the Texas border, a "green
wall" to protect the Rio Grande from the roads and staging areas that
smugglers use to ferry drugs and migrants across the frontier.
(AP, 6/5/06)
2006 Jun 8, The US offered a
reward of up to $5 million for information leading to the capture of
Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez, a reputed Mexican drug cartel
chieftain, whose group allegedly smuggles tons of cocaine and marijuana
north each year.
(AP, 6/9/06)
2006 Jun 14, In Mexico some 3000
elements of the state ministerial police, preventive police and Oaxaca
state firemen began to violently remove a sit-in of 70,000 workers from
Section 22 of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) with tear
gas, smoke grenades, stun grenades and firearms. Thus far there have
been 13 reported arrests, 4 injuries, 5 bullet wounds, and between 6
and 9 deaths, as well as a break-in to the Teachers' Union building and
the destruction of the installations of Radio Plantón (a
free/non-licensed community radio station that has been a point of
reference for social movements in Oaxaca).
(www.indymedia.org/en/2006/06/840911.shtml)
2006 Jun 17, Mexican authorities
in Guadalajara arrested Pedro Castorena, the leader of a far-flung ring
that allegedly made and distributed forged immigration and
identification documents in the US. Castorena was indicted in Denver
last July on charges of conspiracy, fraud, misuse of visas and money
laundering.
(AP, 6/19/06)
2006 Jun 23, In Mexico Enrique
Rueda Pacheco, the leader of about 70,000 striking teachers in southern
Oaxaca state, said they won't interfere with the July 2 presidential
election, and promised to meet with a civic commission to try to
resolve their pay demands. The monthlong strike has left 1.3 million
children in grade and high schools in Oaxaca without classes.
(AP, 6/23/06)
2006 Jun 26, In Mexico assailants
armed with automatic rifles shot and killed a top policeman and his
bodyguard as they drove home in the resort city of Cancun.
(AP, 6/27/06)
2006 Jul 2, Mexico held
presidential elections. Felipe Calderon calling himself “the candidate
of jobs,” faced Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: “For everyone’s good, the
poor first.” Lopez Villanueva, head of the Francisco Villa Popular
Front, arranged to have 10,000 members as poll watchers for Lopez
Obrador.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.36)(WSJ, 6/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 28, Gunmen shot and
killed Ignacio Perales Gomez, a prominent Mexico City police
investigator, outside his home. Perales was a lead investigator in
several of the city's notable cases including that of jailed
businessman Carlos Ahumada, a Mexico City construction mogul linked to
a bribery scandal that rocked the country in 2004.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jun 29, Mexican police found
a human head by the main entrance to Acapulco’s City Hall, the fourth
such grisly discovery this year.
(AP, 6/30/06)
2006 Jun 30, Former Mexican
President Luis Echeverria was placed under house arrest on genocide
charges stemming from a 1968 student massacre, an unprecedented move
coming just two days before the country elects a new president.
Authorities found two more human heads in front of a government office
in Acapulco, accompanied with threatening messages linked to the drug
trade.
(AP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jul 2, Mexico held
presidential elections. Felipe Calderon (43) calling himself “the
candidate of jobs,” faced Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: “For everyone’s
good, the poor first.” Lopez Villanueva, head of the Francisco Villa
Popular Front, arranged to have 10,000 members as poll watchers for
Lopez Obrador. A tight race delayed the results to July 5. The per
capita GDP was $10,000. Oil production was 3.35 million barrels per
day. On July 6 Calderon was named the winner by 234,000 votes. The
final outcome rested with the electoral court, Trife, and its decision
was due by September 6.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.36)(WSJ, 6/28/06, p.A1)(Econ,
7/15/06, p.35)(AP, 7/7/07)
2006 Jul 3, Two bitter rivals
declared themselves Mexico's next president, sparking fears of
violence. Electoral officials said they wouldn't name a winner until a
vote-by-vote hand count.
(AP, 7/3/06)
2006 Jul 4, Lopez Obrador,
Mexico’s leftist presidential candidate, called for a recount of
election results that showed him trailing his conservative rival by 1
percentage point.
(AP, 7/4/06)
2006 Jul 5, Mexico’s recount of
election results put Lopez Obrador ahead of Louis Calderon with 83% of
the votes tallied.
(WSJ, 7/6/06, p.A1)
2006 Jul 6, Felipe Calderon won
the official count in Mexico's disputed presidential race, a
come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist
rival refused to concede and said he'd fight the results in court.
Calderon won 35.9% of the vote against Obrador’s 35.3%.
(AP, 7/7/06)(Econ, 11/18/06, Survey p.4)
2006 Jul 8, Leftist presidential
candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador urged his supporters to take to
the streets, claiming the governing party stole his victory in Mexico's
extremely narrow elections. Obrador called on a huge crowd of
supporters to keep peacefully protesting as he goes to court to
challenge what he called his fraudulent electoral defeat.
(AP, 7/8/06)(AP, 7/9/06)
2006 Jul 8, A Mexican federal
judge threw out genocide charges against former President Luis
Echeverria, ruling that a 30-year statute of limitations had run out.
(AP, 7/9/06)
2006 Jul 8, In western Mexico 4
children, who won an airplane ride for good grades at school, were
killed along with the pilot when the small aircraft crashed near Tepic.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 11, In Mexico a man was
shot to death in front of Acapulco's City Hall and a naval officer was
abducted, the latest violence in this resort city hit by a wave of
drug-related crime. The 2 men slain were later identified as military
officers responsible for the mayor's security.
(AP, 7/11/06)(AP, 7/13/06)
2006 Jul 12, Tens of thousands of
supporters of leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador headed to Mexico City, leaving mountain towns and sprawling
industrial cities to demand a ballot-by-ballot recount.
(AP, 7/12/06)
2006 Jul 15, US authorities
extradited Jean Succar Kuri, a Mexican businessman with alleged ties to
associates of a powerful state governor, to face charges in Mexico of
child pornography, statutory rape and corruption of minors.
(AP, 7/16/06)
2006 Jul 16, In Mexico City Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador led hundreds of thousands of marchers demanding a
full recount of in the disputed election.
(SFC, 7/17/06, p.A3)
2006 Jul 21, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
protests initiated by striking teachers continued. Protest leaders said
their fight is not with the tourists but with Gov. Ulises Ruiz, whom
they accuse of rigging the state election in 2004 and using force to
repress dissent.
(AP, 7/21/06)
2006 Jul 24, Gunmen raided a
pharmaceutical laboratory in Mexico City, killing four guards and
stealing about a ton of ephedrine, a key ingredient in making
methamphetamine.
(AP, 7/24/06)
2006 Jul 31, In Mexico supporters
of the country’s leftist presidential candidate paralyzed the Mexico
City’s financial district and said they won’t leave until the top
electoral court rules on their demands for a recount in the disputed
race.
(AP, 7/31/06)
2006 Jul 31, Mexican police found
the body of a woman on a dirt road in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
Abigail Rodriguez (29), who apparently had been killed by a blow to the
head and thrown out of a moving car, was the 14th woman found dead in
Juarez so far this year.
(AP, 8/1/06)
2006 Aug 2, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
about 500 women banging spoons against pots and pans seized a state-run
television station and broadcast a homemade video that showed police
kicking protesters out of Oaxaca's main square last month. In southern
Monte Orden village heavy rains caused a mountainside to give way,
burying 2 homes and killing 11 people, 4 of them children.
(AP, 8/2/06)
2006 Aug 2, Production at
Cantarell, Mexico’s biggest oil field, was reported to be declining.
The site accounted for about 60% of Mexico’s oil. A third of Mexico’s
federal budget depended on oil sales.
(WSJ, 8/2/06, p.A4)
2006 Aug 3, In Mexico Mrs. Alberta
Alcantara Juan and Mrs. Teresa Gonzalez Cornelio were arrested (along
with Jacinta Francisco Marcial) for events that supposedly occurred on
March 26, 2006 when Federal Investigation Agents attempted to
confiscate local merchants’ goods and damaged some of them. In 2010
Mexico's Supreme Court overturned kidnapping convictions and ordered
the release of the two Otomi Indian market vendors whose case received
international attention. Marcial was freed last year.
(http://tinyurl.com/373f25t)(AP, 4/28/10)
2006 Aug 4, In Mexico's
southernmost Chiapas state a 7-year-old boy and his father died,
bringing to 10 the number of people killed after eating poisonous
mushrooms. Officials said recent genetic mutations have made some
mushrooms, consumed for years in Indian communities, newly poisonous.
(AP, 8/4/06)
2006 Aug 5, Mexico's top electoral
court rejected a full recount in the disputed presidential election,
ordering a 9% partial count instead, angering leftist protesters camped
in the capital demanding a new vote-by-vote tally over their fraud
allegations.
(AP, 8/5/06)(WSJ, 8/7/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 9, In Mexico the body of
Enrique Perea Quintanilla (50), publisher of the magazine Dos Caras,
Una Verdad (Two Faces, One Truth) was found on a dirt road about 10
miles from Chihuahua City. Authorities said that organized crime was
likely behind the killing.
(AP, 8/11/06)
2006 Aug 10, In Mexico leftist
activists blockaded bank headquarters and called for a march on the
offices of federal prosecutors, as officials recounted some of the
ballots from the disputed presidential election.
(AP, 8/10/06)
2006 Aug 12, A passenger bus
skidded off a highway in central Mexico and rolled down a 320-foot
slope, killing 13 people and injuring a dozen others.
(AP, 8/12/06)
2006 Aug 13, In Mexico a recount
confirmed Calderon as the next president. Lopez Obrador vowed to mount
new legal challenges.
(WSJ, 8/14/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 14, US authorities
arrested Tijuana drug lord Francisco Javier Arellano Felix (38) aboard
a boat off Mexico's Pacific coast. Mexican analysts doubted the
significance of Arellano Felix's arrest as the gang has effectively
lost much of its influence over the years. In 2007 Felix pleaded guilty
to federal crimes that carried a mandatory life sentence. He agreed to
forfeit $50 million and the yacht on which he was captured.
(AP, 8/17/06)(SFC, 9/18/07, p.A3)
2006 Aug 15, US officials arrested
Edgar Alvarez Cruz on immigration violations in Denver. He was
suspected of participating in the rapes and killings of at least 10
women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, where more than 100 young
women have been killed since 1993.
(AP, 8/17/06)
2006 Aug 19, Mexican prosecutors
announced that they have charged two policemen with protecting the
Arellano Felix drug trafficking gang. Mexican police said they had
broken up a vote-buying scheme in Chiapas on the eve of state elections.
(AP, 8/20/06)
2006 Aug 21, In Mexico’s Chiapas
state Juan Sabines, of Lopez Obrador's Democratic Revolution Party
(PRD), held a razor-thin lead over Jose Antonio Aguilar Bodegas, of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), who also is backed by
President Vicente Fox's National Action Party. Oaxaca sank further into
chaos as protesters armed with machetes, pipes and clubs seized 12
private radio stations, cut off highways, and blockaded bus terminals
and newspaper offices.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 23, Assailants threw
grenades at the offices of a newspaper in the resort city of Cancun in
the latest in a series of attacks on news outlets across Mexico.
(AP, 8/24/06)
2006 Aug 27, Mexican electoral
officials said Juan Sabines, a leftist candidate, won the governor's
race in Mexico's volatile southernmost state of Chiapas, edging out
Jose Antonio Aguilar, backed by President Vicente Fox's party by about
6,300 votes.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Aug 28, Mexico’s top
electoral court announced that a partial recount found no widespread
evidence of fraud.
(SFC, 8/29/06, p.A1)
2006 Aug 29, Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador, Mexico's leftist presidential candidate, rejected a court
decision upholding his rival's slim lead in the disputed July 2 race
and called on his supporters not to recognize a government led by
Felipe Calderon.
(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Aug 30, Hurricane John lashed
tourist resorts with heavy winds and rain as the dangerous Category 4
storm marched up Mexico's Pacific coast.
(AP, 8/30/07)
2006 Aug 31, Hurricane John
pummeled Mexico's resort-studded Pacific Coast with wind and rain.
(AP, 8/31/06)
2006 Sep 1, In Mexico City riot
police, steel barriers, and water cannons surrounded Mexico's Congress
as protesters vowed to stop President Vicente Fox from delivering his
final state-of-the-nation address. Mexican lawmakers, protesting
conservative Felipe Calderon's victory in the July 2 presidential
election, stormed the congressional stage and refused to yield, making
Fox the first president in modern Mexican history not to deliver his
annual address to Congress. Fox handed in a written copy of his report
and delivered it over television.
(AP, 9/1/06)(AP, 9/2/06)
2006 Sep 5, The president of
Mexico's top electoral court recommended that the full tribunal uphold
the slim lead of ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon. Marcelo Garza,
the top police investigator for Nuevo Leon, a northern Mexican state
that borders Texas, was shot to death by a lone gunman outside an art
gallery.
(AP, 9/5/06)(AP, 9/6/06)
2006 Sep 6, Mexico’s newly
declared President-elect Felipe Calderon began building his government
and his supporters called on backers of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador to end weeks of national protests over the disputed July 2
election. Gunmen barged into a bar in central Mexico and tossed five
human heads on the dance floor. An avalanche left 10 villagers dead in
northern Mexico.
(AP, 9/6/06)(AP, 9/7/06)
2006 Sep 7, In Mexico a landslide
buried buses and cars on a highway in the central state of Puebla and
killed at least four travelers.
(AP, 9/7/06)
2006 Sep 8, In Mexico a small
plane crash near Ensenada on the US-Mexico border killed three American
medical volunteers.
(AP, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 12, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed and killed Enrique Barrera, police chief of the town of
Linares in the border state of Nuevo Leon, in the latest slaying of a
law officer in a region ravaged by a war between drug gangs.
(AP, 9/13/06)
2006 Sep 15, Mexico’s President
Vicente Fox backed down from a confrontation with thousands of leftist
sympathizers of Manuel Lopez Obrador, moving the annual Independence
Day celebration away from Mexico City's main square to avoid
protesters. Fox decided to move the ceremony to the central town of
Dolores Hidalgo, where Miguel Hidalgo made the first call for
independence from Spain in 1810. Supporters of leftist Andres Manuel
Lopez Obrador ended the street protest that clogged the heart of the
capital for nearly seven weeks, but they vowed to find other ways to
resist the incoming conservative president.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 16, In Mexico hundreds of
thousands of supporters of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador elected
him the leader of a "parallel government" opposed to President-elect
Felipe Calderon's administration. Mexico extradited accused drug
kingpin Francisco Rafael Arellano Felix to the US, making him the first
major Mexican drug lord to be sent north to face trial on drug charges.
He later pleaded guilty to federal charges of selling cocaine in a San
Diego motel. Hurricane Lane, a Category 3 storm, battered Mazatlan.
(SFC, 9/18/06, p.A7)(AP, 9/17/07)
2006 Sep 18, The 184-nation IMF
approved reforms to increase the voice of China, South Korea, Turkey,
and Mexico to reflect their growing economic sway.
(SFC, 9/19/06, p.D2)
2006 Sep 19, A group of sexual
abuse survivors filed a lawsuit against Mexican Cardinal Norberto
Rivera, claiming he hid evidence to protect a priest accused of
molesting boys. A lawyer for the Chicago-based Survivors Network of
Those Abused by Priests filed the lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior
Court. Rivera, now Mexico's top-ranking cardinal, helped cover up abuse
by the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar involving 50 boys when Aguilar served as a
parish priest in central Puebla state in 1987. Rivera was bishop of
Tehuacan in Puebla state at the time.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 23, In Mexico the
governor of Oaxaca state warned 70,000 striking teachers that they
would be replaced and lose their pay unless they immediately returned
to work.
(AP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep 28, Mexico’s
President-elect Felipe Calderon asked Congress to get tougher on
criminals, create a universal health care system and generate jobs so
millions of Mexicans do not have to migrate to the US to find work.
Calderon also called for reducing the gap between rich and poor and
called for a return to life sentences for hardened criminals, including
violent kidnappers.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Sep 29, In Mexico a judge and
four jail guards were killed in separate attacks in the Pacific resort
city of Acapulco.
(AP, 9/29/06)
2006 Oct 5, In Oaxaca, Mexico, a
teacher was hacked to death. A colleague claimed the man was killed for
opposing a teachers' strike. Jaime Rene Calva Aragon was on his way to
a meeting when he was killed by two assailants wielding hefty ice picks.
(AP, 10/6/06)
2006 Oct 14, In Mexico at least
one man opened fire on protesters manning a roadblock in Oaxaca
paralyzed by months of conflict, killing one demonstrator and wounding
another.
(AP, 10/15/06)
2006 Oct 15, Mexican authorities
arrested a soldier accused of opening fire on a street barricade in
Oaxaca, killing one demonstrator and wounding another. Elections in
Mexico’s Tabasco state showed Andres Rafael Granier of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) defeating Democratic Revolution
candidate Cesar Raul Ojeda by 10 points. The next day the PRD accused
its rivals of fraud.
(AP, 10/15/06)(AP, 10/16/06)
2006 Oct 17, In central Mexico an
explosion in an area packed with small fireworks factories Capulhuac,
20 miles west of Mexico City, left four people dead and a man with
severe burns. In western Mexico 14 people were killed when a passenger
bus crashed into the back of a tractor trailer. A spark touched off an
explosion aboard a gasoline tanker ship at Pemex's Pajarito marine
terminal in the city of Coatzacoalcos, killing eight people and
injuring nine others.
(AP, 10/17/06)
2006 Oct 18, Mexican police
discovered two human heads in a backpack in the Pacific state of
Guerrero, the latest decapitation victims in a continuing wave of
violence.
(AP, 10/19/06)
2006 Oct 19, Mexico's Senate ruled
there was no reason to oust Oaxaca's embattled state governor,
eliminating the last formal legal recourse for thousands of protesters
who for months have demanded the resignation of Gov. Ulises Ruiz. Jorge
Bustos, a commander with the defunct Federal Security Directorate, was
arrested in Mexico City in connection with the 1974 disappearance of
six alleged guerrilla members. Bustos had arrested six members of the
Brigada Lacandona, a 1970s guerrilla faction, who disappeared after
Hidalgo state authorities turned them over to the federal intelligence
agency.
(AP, 10/19/06)(AP, 10/20/06)
2006 Oct 20, In Mexico radical
protesters and teachers, who have taken over the city of Oaxaca,
appeared to be parting ways after the teachers' leaders agreed to end a
strike and return to work.
(AP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 21, In Mexico’s Michoacan
state, the home state of President-elect Felipe Calderon, 420 homicides
were reported for this year, including 19 police chiefs and commanders.
Juan Antonio Magana, the state's attorney general, said well over half
the killings were drug-related.
(AP, 10/21/06)
2006 Oct 26, Teachers in the
southern Mexican state of Oaxaca voted to end a five-month-old strike,
allowing 1.3 million children to return to classes and potentially
taking the sting out of anti-government protests besieging this
historic city.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 26, President Bush signed
a bill authorizing 700 miles of new fencing along the U.S.-Mexico
border, hoping to give Republican candidates a pre-election platform
for asserting they're tough on illegal immigration.
(AP, 10/26/06)
2006 Oct 27, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
Bradley Roland Will (36), a US journalist and two Mexican men were shot
to death. The clashes occurred as leftist protesters barricaded streets
as part of a five-month-old campaign to oust the governor. In 2008 two
supporters of a protest movement in southern Mexico were arrested for
the fatal shooting of the US journalist. Officials said Juan Manuel
Martinez, was the gunman, and Octavio Perez was an accomplice who
helped cover up the crime. Eight other alleged accomplices were still
sought. In 2010 Juan Martinez Moreno was cleared by a federal court.
(AP, 10/28/06)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.48)(AP,
10/18/08)(AP, 2/17/10)
2006 Oct 28, Mexico’s President
Vicente Fox announced he was sending federal police into the
violence-wracked southern state capital of Oaxaca after a US journalist
and two Mexican men were shot to death. The bodies of 3 state police
officers, one of whom had been decapitated, were found in a sport
utility vehicle abandoned outside the resort city of Acapulco.
(AP, 10/28/06)(AP, 10/28/06)
2006 Oct 29, In Mexico federal
forces stormed Oaxaca and pushed protesters and striking teachers out
of the city center they had occupied for five months, leaving the
colonial city resembling a battleground, with riot police and burned
vehicles lining the streets. At least one demonstrator was killed.
(AP, 10/30/06)
2006 Oct 30, The Mexican
government authorized the extradition of ex-Guatemalan President
Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) to face embezzlement charges in his
country.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Oct 31, In Mexico youths
roamed the streets of Oaxaca tossing gasoline bombs, hijacking vehicles
and vowing to keep fighting for the state governor's ouster. Congress
urged the governor to resign and leftist leaders urged national support
for the movement.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Nov 2, In Mexico, protesters
besieging Oaxaca City forced federal police to retreat from the gates
of the state university after six hours of pitched fighting and the
rector's call for an end to the government "attack."
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 3, In Mexico Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, who refused to accept an election tribunal's
decision that his opponent narrowly won the presidential election,
named his "resistance" government Cabinet.
(AP, 11/3/06)
2006 Nov 6, In Mexico City
simultaneous explosions hit the Federal Electoral Tribunal, a bank
branch and the headquarters of the former ruling party early in the
day. Authorities deactivated a homemade explosive device at a second
bank branch.
(AP, 11/6/06)
2006 Nov 7, More than 15,000
white-clad supporters of Oaxaca's embattled governor marched through
Oaxaca in their biggest show of strength in a six-month conflict that
has left at least nine people dead.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 9, Mexico City's assembly
passed legislation to legally recognize gay civil unions in the
capital, the first such vote by a legislative body in the history of
the conservative country.
(AP, 11/9/06)
2006 Nov 10, In Mexico Misael
Tamayo Hernandez, editor of El Despertar de la Costa, was found dead in
a hotel room in Zihuatanejo, a day after running stories about
organized crime and corruption in the city government. Hector Gaxiola,
a district police chief in the border city of Tijuana, was shot and
killed a day after surviving another attempt on his life. His brother
was found next to him. Both had been shot dozens of times.
(AP, 11/11/06)
2006 Nov 14, Second-grader Saul
Arellano, a US citizen, appeared in Mexico's 500-member Chamber of
Deputies to plead for help in lobbying Washington to stop the
deportation of his mother, an illegal immigrant who has taken refuge in
a Chicago church. His efforts paid off with a resolution calling on the
US Congress to suspend the deportation of Elvira Arellano (31) and any
other illegal immigrant parents of US citizens. US officials said there
is no right to sanctuary in a church under US law, and nothing to
prevent them from arresting Elvira Arellano, who has lived at the
church since Aug. 15, the day she was supposed to surrender for
deportation.
(AP, 11/14/06)
2006 Nov 15, Aides to former
leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said he will
seek contributions from ordinary Mexicans to support a parallel,
"legitimate" administration he declared after losing the July 2
elections to President-elect Felipe Calderon by a razor-thin margin.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 16, Jose Manuel Nava
(53), a former general manager of one of Mexico's oldest newspapers,
was found slain in his apartment in the capital, officials said, a week
after he went public with his book criticizing the federal government,
the business community and newspaper employees.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 18, The Mexican
government released a long-awaited report that for the first time
officially blamed "the highest command levels" of three former
presidencies for the massacres, tortures and slayings of hundreds of
leftists from the 1960s to the 1980s. In Michoacan state at least three
of 10 lawyers being held hostage by inmates were killed after police
raided the Mil Cumbres prison in Morelia to try to rescue them.
(AP, 11/18/06)
2006 Nov 19, In Mexico a public
defender died of his injuries after being shot by inmates who took a
group of lawyers hostage near the central Mexican city of Morelia,
bringing the death toll in the incident to five.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 19, Mexican Gen.
Francisco Quiros, imprisoned for drug trafficking and implicated in the
disappearance of leftists during Mexico's "dirty war," died from
cancer. In 2005 a judge ordered Quiros arrested for the 1974 kidnapping
of singer Rosendo Radilla, who disappeared after being seized by
soldiers at a roadblock.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 20, Mexico’s defeated
presidential candidate Lopez Obrador planned to be sworn in as the
country's "legitimate president" as Mexico celebrated its 1910
revolution.
(AP, 11/20/06)
2006 Nov 21, Roberto Marcos Garcia
(50), chief reporter for the weekly Testimonio crime magazine in
Mexico’s port city of Veracruz, was toppled from his motorcycle and run
over by unidentified assailants who then shot him at close range.
(AP, 11/21/06)(SSFC, 12/10/06, p.A21)
2006 Nov 22, In Mexico a violent
Mexican drug gang took out a rare, half-page ad in newspapers in which
they claimed to be anti-crime vigilantes who wanted to stop kidnapping,
robbery and the sale of methamphetamine in the western state of
Michoacan.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 23, In Mexico Police
chief Baltazar Gomez and Osvaldo Rodriguez, both of the Monterrey
suburb of Santa Catarina, were killed just after midnight by a gunman
who followed them inside a convenience store where they had gone after
attending a funeral. Crusading journalist Jesus Blancornelas, who
relentlessly investigated drug cartels and government corruption
despite an attempt on his life and the killing of colleagues, died of a
chronic illness in Tijuana.
(AP, 11/23/06)
2006 Nov 25, In Mexico singer
Valentin Elizalde (27) was ambushed and gunned down along with his
manager and driver following a performance in Reynosa. His ballads
included narco-corridos, which honored the exploits of drug dealers.
(SSFC, 11/26/06, p.A19)
2006 Nov 26, In Mexico bands of
youths rampaged through downtown Oaxaca, torching buildings and cars
hours after federal police used tear gas to drive off a violent mob of
leftists in the latest spasm of protests against the state governor. 30
to 40 armed men entered the La Barranca hunting ranch near the US
border and kidnapped five men including 3 Texans. Librado Pina Jr.
(49), owns the popular deer-hunting ranch near Hidalgo, was released on
Dec 18. His son and 2 others had been released earlier. There was no
word on the ranch's Mexican cook, Marco Ortiz.
(AP, 11/26/06)(AP, 11/29/06)(AP, 12/18/06)
2006 Nov 26, Raul Velasco (73),
who hosted one of Mexico's most popular and enduring television
programs, "Siempre en Domingo," died at his home in Acapulco.
(AP, 11/26/06)
2006 Nov 28, In Mexico gunmen
attacked a police car in the border city of Tijuana, killing Gerardo
Santiago Prado, the police chief of Mesa de Otay, his bodyguard and a
secretary.
(AP, 11/30/06)
2006 Nov 29, A Mexican court
reinstated an arrest warrant for former President Luis Echeverria, just
four months after a federal judge had dismissed the same charges of
genocide in connection with a 1968 student massacre.
(AP, 11/29/06)
2006 Nov 30, Mexican police found
the bullet-ridden bodies of two men, including a missing journalist,
just days after the body of another slain reporter was found in the
area. Police discovered the body of reporter Adolfo Sanchez Guzman (32)
near Ciudad Mendoza, 75 miles west of Veracruz, not far from where his
car was found abandoned on Nov 28. Police on Dec 1 arrested Juan Carlos
Palestino (30) and Julian Rosas Palestino (34) after witnesses said the
two brothers had been looking for Martinez. The brothers had accused
Martinez of stealing their truck.
(AP, 12/1/06)(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Nov, In Mexico credit card
interest rates averaged over 30% despite efforts by Guillermo Ortiz,
head of the Central Bank, to get banks to lower their costs. 80% of the
country’s banking assets were foreign owned.
(Econ, 11/25/06, p.76)
2006 Dec 1, Felipe Calderon took
the oath of office as Mexico's president amid jeers and whistles, in a
chaotic ceremony before congress preceded by a brawl between lawmakers
still divided over the nation's tight presidential election.
(AP, 12/1/06)
2006 Dec 2, Mexico's new president
pledged to substantially raise the wages of the armed forces, calling
them a crucial weapon against heavily armed drug gangs terrorizing the
nation.
(AP, 12/2/06)
2006 Dec 3, Mexico’s newly
sworn-in president Felipe Calderon decreed a 10% pay cut for himself
and his cabinet members, echoing a central campaign promise of the
leftist rival he beat by a razor-thin margin.
(AP, 12/3/06)
2006 Dec 5, Mexico’s Pres.
Calderon, under pressure to promote the social programs his leftist
rival championed, presented an austere budget that increases spending
for social programs to help the country's poorest. Mexican police
arrested Flavio Sosa, the symbolic leader of a six-month-long protest
movement that took over southern Oaxaca city, hours after he gave a
news conference saying he had come to the capital to start talks with
the government.
(AP, 12/5/06)
2006 Dec 6, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon announced a program to help Mexico's 100 poorest
communities, responding to leftist critics who accuse the conservative
leader of wanting to help only the rich.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 6, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon announced a program to help Mexico's 100 poorest
communities, responding to leftist critics who accuse the conservative
leader of wanting to help only the rich.
(AP, 12/7/06)
2006 Dec 8, In Mexico more than
100 prisoners escaped from a state penitentiary a few miles from
Cancun's resort zone after hundreds of inmates overpowered guards with
knives and bats. Police quickly recaptured most of the men, but there
were still 17 at large. More than 250 federal police agents surrounded
the offices of the Oaxaca state police force and seized its weapons to
determine whether any were used in shootings during six months of
demonstrations in Oaxaca City. Assailants shot dead an Indian activist
in Mexico's conflict-ridden state of Oaxaca. The bullet-ridden corpse
of Raul Marcial Perez was found on a road near the Mixtec Indian
community of Agua Fria about 120 miles north of Oaxaca City.
(AP, 12/9/06)(AP, 12/10/06)
2006 Dec 10, Leonel Cota,
president of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD), Mexico's largest
leftist party, led thousands of protesters in a march to the center
Oaxaca, demanding the resignation of the state governor and the
withdrawal of thousands of federal police.
(AP, 12/11/06)
2006 Dec 12, Mexico's new
president launched his first major offensive against drug gangs,
sending more than 6,500 federal forces to Michoacan, his
violence-plagued home state, to crack down on turf wars that have left
hundreds dead in a wave of execution-style killings and beheadings. The
body of Luis Felipe Zavala, cousin of Mexico's first lady Margarita
Zavala, was found in his minivan in the city of Naucalpan in Mexico
State.
(AP, 12/12/06)(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 13, A group of about 300
Mazahua Indians briefly seized a water treatment plant on Mexico City's
western outskirts and temporarily cut off one of the main sources of
water for the metropolis of 18 million people. The protest was
motivated by demands for more government development aid. The
government teamed up with doctors, academics and a US-based drug
company to announce a campaign to reduce the number of smokers in
Mexico by more than 10 percent in three years.
(AP, 12/14/06)
2006 Dec 15, In Mexico Elias
Valencia, a suspected head of the Valencia cartel, was arrested along
with four other people at a mountain ranch near the town of Aguililla
in Michoacan state.
(AP, 12/17/06)
2006 Dec 16, In Mexico hundreds of
federal police officers packed up their tents and marched out of
Oaxaca’s central square, ending their seven-week occupation to put down
a lengthy protest by leftists that had left nine people dead. A Mexican
air force plane crashed into the sea near the resort city of Acapulco
and rescue teams were searching for its four crew members.
(AP, 12/16/06)
2006 Dec 19, Officials said
thousands of soldiers sent to seize control of one of Mexico's top
drug-producing regions have discovered widespread cultivation of a
hybrid marijuana plant that is easy to grow and difficult to kill.
(AP, 12/19/06)
2006 Dec 28, In central Mexico a
passenger bus collided with a freight train, killing 22 people.
(AP, 12/28/06)
2006 Mexico’s Transportation and
Communications Secretary Luis Tellez alleged in a recorded conversation
that former President Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) stole from a secret
government fund. The contents of the conversation were made public in
February, 2009. Tellez resigned 2 weeks later following threats that
other recordings would be revealed.
(SFC, 3/4/09, p.A2)
2006 In Mexico some Zetas, former
military special-forces members, broke away from their Gulf cartel
associations to form the La Familia organized crime group. La Familia
was formed when the gang, then known as "The Business," broke off from
the Gulf cartel and declared its independence by rolling the severed
heads into a disco in the mountain city of Uruapan.
(Econ, 7/25/09, p.34)(AP, 12/11/10)
2006 Mexico, the world’s largest
Spanish-speaking country, counted a population of some 106 million
people. An estimated 500,000 Mexicans left the country each year in
search of better opportunities.
(Econ, 11/18/06, Survey p.3,16)
2006 Mexico counted 2,200 murders
this year linked to organized crime. Reporters Without Borders later
counted 9 journalists killed this year in Mexico along with 3 missing.
(Econ, 6/16/07, p.45)(Econ, 10/27/07, p.47)
2006-2010 Mexico seized some 55,000 assault weapons,
most of which were bought legally in the United States.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.16)
2007 Jan 2, Mexico said it is
sending some 3,300 soldiers and federal police officers to fight drug
gangs in the crime-plagued border city of Tijuana, which has become a
major smuggling route for cocaine and methamphetamine entering the
United States.
(AP, 1/3/07)
2007 Jan 4, Jorge Bajos Valverde,
a Mexican state legislator, was gunned down in the center of Acapulco
on his way to an interview at a radio and TV station.
(AP, 1/5/07)
2007 Jan 5, Mexican officials in
Michoacan state said they had found nine bodies in a shallow grave in
the city of Uruapan.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 6, Mexican federal and
state police manned checkpoints within Tijuana’s city limits as local
police suspended their patrols because soldiers sent to crack down on
drug gangs and corruption seized most of their guns on suspicion they
aided traffickers.
(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 9, In Mexico Andres
Manuel Lopez Obrador, who has refused to accept his slim loss to
President Felipe Calderon in July's election, launched a weekly TV show
mocking the government's battle against crime and unemployment and
promising to promote a law targeting Mexico's monopolies.
(AP, 1/10/07)
2007 Jan 12, Francisco Javier
Dominguez-Rivera (22) of Puebla, Mexico, was killed in a confrontation
with the unidentified agent north of the US-Mexico border in Arizona
between Bisbee and Douglas. On Jan 16 the Mexican government sent a
diplomatic note to the United States protesting the fatal shooting.
(AP, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 13, It was reported that
swarms of locusts had descended on the Mexican state of Yucatan and
threatened over 12,000 acres of vegetation.
(SFC, 1/13/07, p.B8)
2007 Jan 14, Gunmen burst into the
home of Jaime Meraz Martinez, a political leader in the northern
Mexican state of Durango, and fatally shot him, two family members and
an employee.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 15, President Felipe
Calderon launched a program to create jobs for young Mexicans and curb
the flow of millions of migrants to the United States.
(AP, 1/15/07)
2007 Jan 16, Pedro Diaz Parada, a
drug cartel leader, was arrested in the southern state of Oaxaca and
taken to Mexico City. This was the first major drug arrest under the
administration of President Felipe Calderon.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, President Felipe
Calderon signed an accord with businesses to curb soaring tortilla
prices and protect Mexico's poor from speculative sellers and a surge
in the cost of corn driven by the US ethanol industry.
(AP, 1/18/07)
2007 Jan 18, Truck driver Albano
Ramirez Santos tried to commit suicide by throwing himself onto the
tracks of the Mexico City subway and was later beaten to death by
police. Santos was reportedly despondent over the theft of his truck.
(AP, 1/21/07)
2007 Jan 19, Mexico extradited
four major drug traffickers to the US, including Osiel Cardenas, head
of the so-called Gulf Cartel. President Felipe Calderon announced that
7,600 soldiers have massed in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero to go
after drug gangs that have committed beheadings and other violence in
the resort city of Acapulco in recent months.
(AP, 1/19/07)(AP, 1/20/07)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.p33)
2007 Jan 20, In Mexico Rodolfo
Rincon (54), who worked for the newspaper Tabasco Hoy, was last seen
after he reported on local drug dealers. In 2010 Mexican authorities
said he was killed by a drug cartel's hit men who dissolved his body in
acid.
(AP, 3/1/10)
2007 Jan 24, In southern Mexico a
bus plunged into a ravine in remote mountains, killing at least 29
people.
(AP, 1/25/07)
2007 Jan 26, Six federal police
officers involved in President Felipe Calderon's anti-drug operation
were being investigated for extortion after they were videotaped taking
money from a driver in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 27, Police in Tijuana,
Mexico, got their guns back three weeks after they were forced to turn
over weapons to federal authorities because of allegations they were
colluding with drug traffickers.
(AP, 1/27/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico City some
75,000 unionists, farmers and leftists marched to protest price
increases in basic foodstuffs like tortillas, a direct challenge to the
new president's market-oriented economic policies blamed by some for
widening the gulf between rich and poor.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Jan 31, In Mexico a lesbian
couple registered what officials called Mexico's first gay civil union
in the northern city of Saltillo.
(AP, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 1, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon praised a new law that obligates federal and local
authorities to prevent, punish and eradicate violence against women,
and he promised a "relentless" fight against gender-related
abuse.
(AP, 2/1/07)
2007 Feb 3, In Mexico thousands of
protesters marched in Oaxaca to demand the resignation of the state
governor. A man's chopped up body was discovered in Acapulco dumped in
plastic garbage bags.
(AP, 2/3/07)(Reuters, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 6, In Mexico more than a
dozen armed assailants staged and videotaped simultaneous attacks
against two offices of the state attorney general in Acapulco, killing
five agents and two secretaries.
(AP, 2/6/07)
2007 Feb 14, Mexican immigration
agents allegedly locked 10 Guatemalan and two Salvadoran migrants in a
trailer after they refused to pay a bribe against of $110 each. In late
2008 the country's National Human Rights Commission called for a
government investigation.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2007 Feb 15, Assailants shot dead
four police officers in the western Mexican city of Aguascalientes, the
latest in a wave of slayings of law enforcement officers across Mexico.
(AP, 2/15/07)
2007 Feb 18, Officials said the
Mexican government will expand its anti-drug raids to two states across
the border from Texas, deploying more than 3,000 soldiers, sailors and
federal police.
(AP, 2/19/07)
2007 Feb 19, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon announced that soldiers waging an offensive against
drug traffickers will get a pay hike of 45 percent this year in a bid
to insulate them from corruption. This coincided with a decision to
lower his own pay by 10% and abolish pensions for Mexican presidents.
(AP, 2/19/07)(SSFC, 7/8/07, p.A7)
2007 Feb 22, The Bush
administration announced its plan to have US inspectors oversee Mexican
trucking companies that carry cargo across the border. Mexico
responded to the US announcement by saying it will allow trucks from
100 US companies to travel across the border. The news that Mexican
trucks will be allowed to haul freight deeper into the US drew an angry
reaction the next day from labor leaders, safety advocates and members
of Congress.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 26, Four Mexican soldiers
were arrested and accused of raping and murdering a 73-year-old woman a
day earlier in a case that outraged Indian groups in Soledad Atzompa in
Veracruz state. In May a special prosecutor found no evidence that
soldiers beat and raped Ernestina Ascensio Rosario. An autopsy on
Ascensio's body showed that she died of acute anemia from internal
bleeding in her digestive tract.
(AP, 3/1/07)(AP, 5/1/07)
2007 Feb 27, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that the armed forces cannot kick out HIV-positive members
because doing so is discriminatory and unconstitutional. Mexico's head
of migration pledged to improve the agency's detention centers in
response to criticism that Mexico fails to give Central American
immigrants the same respect it demands for its own citizens in the
United States.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Feb 27, CompUSA said it will
close 126 retail stores by the end of May. The restructure would leave
103 stores and include a $440 million cash infusion from parent company
US Commercial Corp., a holding company in Mexico City controlled by
Carlos Slim.
(SFC, 2/28/07, p.C3)
2007 Feb, Marcelo Ebrard, Mexico
City’s newly elected mayor, sent 600 police on a raid to evict
residents from 73 apartments in a building in Tepito, said to be a
drug-dealing center. Raids there and nearby netted 2 kilos of cocaine,
30 tons of DVDs and 90 kilos of marijuana.
(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb, Mexican customs agent
Jorge Santillan seized a truck crossing from Brownsville, Texas, to
Matamoros, Mexico, carrying a grenade launcher and 17 grenades along
with 18 rifles and 17 pistols. Days later, the agent was shot to death
with a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
(AP, 8/15/07)
2007 Mar 3, In southern Mexico
gunmen killed two members of Mexico's former ruling party in the
mountain city of Tlapa in Guerrero state.
(AP, 3/3/07)
2007 Mar 6, In Mexico gunmen
wounded Gen. Francisco Fernandez, the top security official in the Gulf
coast state of Tabasco, and killed his driver.
(AP, 3/7/07)
2007 Mar 9, President Felipe
Calderon proposed sweeping reforms to Mexico's justice system,
including US-style trials and a unified criminal code. Mexican federal
police detained 81 Chinese immigrants and 22 immigration agents after
the Chinese were discovered hiding in the Cancun airport terminal,
possibly with the protection of Mexican immigration officers.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 10, In northern Mexico 8
people were killed and 11 were injured when a bus slammed into a
tractor trailer carrying aluminum beams.
(AP, 3/10/07)
2007 Mar 13, In Mexico Pres. Bush
met with Pres. Felipe Calderon in Merida. Bush sought to soothe
strained ties by promising to prod Congress to overhaul tough US
immigration policies, but Mexican President Felipe Calderon criticized
US plans for a 700-mile border fence. Hundreds of demonstrators marched
to the US Embassy in Mexico City, attacking riot police with concrete
blocks, metal bars and tearing down barricades to protest Bush's visit.
(AP, 3/14/07)(AP, 3/13/08)
2007 Mar 15, Mexican Federal
agents seized the cash, eight luxury vehicles, seven weapons and a
machine to make pills during a raid at a house in Lomas de Chapultepec.
The attorney general later said the $206 million in cash seized was
connected to one of the hemisphere's largest networks for trafficking
pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in methamphetamines. The ring had
been operating since 2004 and was run by a native of China who had
gained Mexican citizenship. A recount put the cashed seized to over
$207 million.
(AP, 3/17/07)(AP, 3/22/07)
2007 Mar 16, In Mexico an
economist and a journalist became the first couple united under Mexico
City's new gay civil union law.
(AP, 3/16/07)
2007 Mar 17, Hundreds of Mexican
federal police and soldiers surrounded the headquarters of Tabasco's
state police and arrested top current and former commanders in a raid
apparently linked to an assassination attempt against the state's
public safety secretary. Mireya Lopez Portillo, the daughter of a
retired Mexican general, and her husband, a television network
executive, were shot to death while traveling in a sport utility
vehicle in Mexico City. This raised fears the army is being targeted
for attacks because of its broadening role in law enforcement.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 17, The Arenitas waste
water treatment plant, that Mexican officials say will help prevent
pollution of US waterways, was inaugurated in the city of Mexicali,
across the border from Calexico, Calif.
(AP, 3/18/07)
2007 Mar 26, An American border
inspector was sentenced to nearly six years in prison for taking cash
and cars from smugglers, allowing them to shuttle illegal immigrants
from Mexico into the United States.
(AP, 3/26/07)
2007 Mar 27, Police in Mexico City
kicked off a campaign to exchange guns for computers and other gifts in
an attempt to reduce firearm deaths. Two bodies were found wrapped in
plastic bags and sheets behind a television station in Mexico's port
city of Veracruz, apparent victims of drug-related violence.
(AP, 3/27/07)(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Mar 29, In northern Mexico
gunmen killed two police officers and six other people in less than 48
hours, the latest victims in a wave of drug-related violence.
(AP, 3/30/07)
2007 Mar 30, A video purportedly
showing the beheading of a drug cartel hit man appeared on
video-sharing Web site YouTube, and its makers called on Mexicans to
kill more members of the gang.
(AP, 4/1/07)
2007 Apr 1, In Monterrey, Mexico,
a tractor-trailer lost its brakes and killed nine people as it plowed
through a residential area. The driver of a tractor-trailer was charged
with homicide after testing positive for drugs.
(AP, 4/2/07)(AP, 4/5/07)
2007 Apr 6, Amado Ramirez, the
Acapulco correspondent for Mexico's top television news network, was
shot to death.
(AP, 4/7/07)
2007 Apr 11, A Mexican court
ordered the reinstatement of ousted mineworkers union leader Napoleon
Gomez Urrutia, more than a year after the government turned him out of
office based on complaints of corruption.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 12, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon signed a law eliminating prison sentences for libel or
defamation, drawing praise from media watchdog groups.
(AP, 4/12/07)
2007 Apr 14, In Mexico a speeding
bus crashed into a tractor-trailer outside the border city of Ciudad
Juarez, killing 28 people and injuring 11 others.
(AP, 4/15/07)(AP, 4/15/07)
2007 Apr 15, A 14-year-old matador
who left Spain to escape his home country's ban on young bullfighters
was nearly gored to death in a Mexican City ring, his lung punctured by
a 900-pound bull.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 16, Police found 17
bodies stuffed in cars or dumped on streets in garbage bags across
Mexico in the latest wave of violence apparently triggered by warring
drug gangs.
(AP, 4/17/07)
2007 Apr 16, Nicaraguan police
announced the arrest of more than two dozen local members of Mexico's
powerful Sinaloa drug cartel but said they were still seeking the
group's leader.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 18, Mexican police and
soldiers battled gunmen at a hospital in Tijuana in violence that left
at least three people dead before the authorities subdued the
attackers. Authorities said next day that the gunmen were hit men for
the city's Arellano Felix drug cartel.
(AP, 4/18/07)(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 21, In Mexico a Durango
state police commander was kidnapped and killed and two other officers
were shot dead in a gun battle with his abductors.
(AP, 4/22/07)
2007 Apr 22, Marcos Leyes Perez,
the son of the US consul in southern Oaxaca state, was stabbed during
an apparent mugging.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 23, Eleazar Medina Rojas,
described as a key member of the powerful Gulf drug cartel, was
arrested in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, along with his father,
four other cartel members and four women. Authorities reported the
killing of Jorge Gonzalez, police chief of Cardenas, in the southern
Gulf coast state of Tabasco. Mexican police found the body of Saul Noe
Martinez Ortega (36), a newspaper editor abducted last week in the
border city of Agua Prieta. He had been dead at least six days and was
found in neighboring Chihuahua state.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 24, Mexico City lawmakers
voted to legalize abortion during the first three months of pregnancy,
a landmark decision likely to heighten church-state tensions in the
Roman Catholic nation and lead to a bitter court battle.
(AP, 4/25/07)
2007 Apr 26, A new measure
legalizing abortions in Mexico City was published into law, allowing
doctors to almost immediately begin terminating pregnancies in their
first trimester.
(AP, 4/26/07)
2007 Apr 30, US and Mexican law
enforcement officials said Mexican druglords are taking over the
business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as
human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine
shipments across the same border.
(AP, 4/30/07)
2007 Apr, Mexico’s
CompartamosBanco went public as a lender to the poor. It was created in
1990 as a non-Governmental Organization (NGO). ACCION Int’l., a charity
that has helped to spread microfinance since the 1970s, was an early
investor and banked $140 million in the IPO, while retaining a 9%
stake. ACCION had received funding from USAID.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.93)(http://tinyurl.com/46esnp)
2007 May 1, In Mexico 5 soldiers,
including a colonel, and a suspected drug cartel enforcer were killed
in a shootout in the western state of Michoacan, which has been plagued
by drug violence and is the target of a military-led anti-drug
offensive.
(AP, 5/2/07)
2007 May 6, More than 18,000
people stripped down and bared it all in Mexico City's vast main square
for US photographer Spencer Tunick's biggest nude shoot yet.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 7, In western Mexico 4
purported drug smugglers were killed in a shootout with soldiers in
Apatzingan, Michoacan state, the second deadly clash in a week between
traffickers and troops in the same remote, mountainous region.
(AP, 5/7/07)
2007 May 9, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire on a naval commander in the Pacific resort city of Ixtapa
and killed his bodyguard. Suspected drug traffickers attacked a
military checkpoint in the Pacific resort of Huatulco. One attacker was
killed.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 12, In Mexico a severed
head accompanied by a note of defiance from organized crime gangs and
two hand grenades was found outside a military barracks in Veracruz
state.
(AP, 5/12/07)
2007 May 14, In Mexico City gunmen
fatally shot Jose Nemesio Lugo, Mexico’s new federal narcotics
intelligence chief, as he was on his way to work at the Attorney
General's Office.
(AP, 5/14/07)(SFC, 5/25/07, p.A1)
2007 May 15, A top Mexican
anti-drug official said the US must do more to stop weapons from being
smuggled into the hands of drug traffickers who are using them to kill
Mexican soldiers and police.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 16, In Mexico over 40
armed men abducted and killed 4 police officers south of the Arizona
border.
(SFC, 5/17/07, p.A3)
2007 May 16, Thomas Frank White, a
US businessman, was convicted of raping a teenage boy and sentenced to
more than 7 years in jail in Mexico. White, who founded the brokerage
firm Thomas White & Co. in 1978, was arrested in Thailand in 2003
at the behest of Mexican officials and later extradited.
(AP, 5/16/07)
2007 May 17, Mexican police chased
the remnants of a criminal assault force through the mountains of
Sonora near the Arizona border after kidnappings and gunbattles that
left at least 22 people dead.
(AP, 5/17/07)(Econ, 6/16/07, p.45)
2007 May 19, Assailants shot dead
a police commander in a wealthy Monterrey suburb, the latest in a wave
of killings of law enforcement officials across Mexico.
(AP, 5/19/07)
2007 May 23, In western Mexico a
tractor-trailer loaded with sand smashed into a toll booth and
rebounded into other vehicles, setting off a blaze that killed 10
people.
(AP, 5/24/07)
2007 May 25, In Mexico 2 members
of the Popular Revolutionary Army (EPR), a Marxist guerrilla group,
disappeared. A week later the group blamed the government and called
for their safe return and warned of dire consequences. In July the
group began blowing up natural gas pipelines. Attacks took place on
July 6,10 and Sep 10.
(WSJ, 11/14/07, p.A1)
2007 May 27, In southern Mexico
assailants armed with Kalashnikov rifles shot dead six family members,
including three children, as they ambushed a minivan on a country road.
(AP, 5/27/07)
2007 May 28, In Mexico City Riyo
Mori, a 20-year-old dancer from Japan who hopes to someday open an
international dance school, was crowned Miss Universe 2007.
(AP, 5/28/07)
2007 May 31, Mexico's Televisa
network, known around the world for its soap operas, said it plans to
expand in China, following the lead of taco chains and other Mexican
businesses looking for a slice of the Asian nation's market.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 1, Mexican soldiers fired
on a family traveling to a funeral when they failed to stop after being
ordered to do so at the checkpoint near the village of La Joya. 19
Mexican soldiers were sent to a military prison June 4 for the shooting
that killed two women and three children.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 3, In southern Mexico
tons of bananas collapsed the false floor of a tractor-trailer
smuggling migrants, killing 6 people hidden inside a secret compartment
and wounding a dozen others.
(AP, 6/4/07)
2007 Jun 11, Mexican police and
soldiers arrested three men during an operation to fight illegal
logging in a mountain region south of Mexico City where
environmentalist Aldo Zamora (21) was killed on May 15.
(AP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 14, Abel Diaz Lucas, also
known as Jorge Guevara-Perez, was arrested in El Paso, Texas. The next
day he was handed to Mexican authorities, who had been trying to find
Diaz for five years. They accused him of running a central Mexico gang
notorious for cutting off the fingers and ears of their victims and
sending them to their families to demand ransom money.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 15, In Mexico the
government of Oaxaca apologized for the first time for a police raid on
protesters last year that led to the country's worst political unrest
in years.
(AP, 6/15/07)
2007 Jun 19, Antonio Aguilar (88),
Mexican mariachi singer and actor, died. He recorded more than 150
albums and began his acting career during Mexico's "Golden Era" of
cinema. He appeared in 167 films, including "The Undefeated" starring
John Wayne.
(AP, 6/20/07)
2007 Jun 21, Mario Villanueva, the
former Mexican governor of Quintana Roo, was freed after six years
behind bars and immediately re-arrested on a US extradition request in
which he is accused of helping smuggle 200 tons of cocaine into the
United States.
(AP, 6/21/07)
2007 Jun 25, Mexico temporarily
removed all 284 of its top federal police officers from their jobs and
is forcing them to undergo psychological reviews to prove they will not
be corrupted in the fight against drug trafficking.
(AP, 6/25/07)
2007 Jul 4, In Mexico heavy rains
triggered the landslide on a remote winding road near the town of
Eloxochitlan in the state of Puebla. As many as 60 passengers were
thought to be buried in a bus on the rural road. 32 bodies were
recovered.
(AP, 7/5/07)(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 4, Mexico’s financial
website Sentido Comun reported that telecom tycoon Carlos Slim Helu
(67) has overtaken Microsoft founder Bill Gates as the richest person
on the planet.
(AFP, 7/4/07)
2007 Jul 5, Mine workers across
Mexico waged a 24-hour strike, hoping to achieve better safety
standards and to improve collective labor's footing in the industry.
(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 5, In Mexico a small
cargo jet failed to take off in Culiacan and barreled onto an adjacent
highway, killing at least 9 people, including two soldiers assigned to
the Mexican president's security detail.
(AP, 7/6/07)
2007 Jul 7, A global poll picked
the Great Wall of China, Rome's Colosseum, India's Taj Mahal, Peru’s
Macchu Picchu, Jordan’s Petra, Brazil's Statue of Christ Redeemer and
Mexico's Chichen Itza pyramid as the new seven wonders of the world.
The campaign to name the new wonders was launched in 1999 by the Swiss
adventurer Bernard Weber.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 10, Mexico's government
called a series of gas pipeline explosions a threat to the nation's
democratic institutions and vowed to step up security after a guerrilla
group claimed responsibility for the blasts.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2007 Jul 11, In western Mexico
Honda, Hershey's and other multinational companies temporarily shut
down their factories after rebels attacked a key natural gas pipeline.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 12, News reports said
Mexico’s Pres. Felipe Calderon has dispatched a new 5,000- strong elite
military unit to guard strategic sites, including oil refineries and
dams in the wake of recent guerrilla attacks on pipelines operated by
Pemex.
(SFC, 7/13/07, p.A10)
2007 Jul 13, Roman Robles-Cota
(32), a police chief in the northern Mexican town of Sonoyta pleaded
guilty to charges that he bribed a US Border Patrol agent in 2005 in an
effort to help a smuggling operation.
(AP, 7/13/07)
2007 Jul 16, In Mexico police
fired tear gas to prevent hundreds of leftist protesters from reaching
the venue of an international folk festival in Oaxaca, in the worst
outbreak of violence in the troubled Mexican city since November.
(AP, 7/16/07)
2007 Jul 23, Zhenli Ye Gon was
arrested in a Maryland restaurant, four months after police discovered
$207 million at his Mexico City mansion in what US officials have
called the world's biggest seizure of drug cash. Mexican officials had
60 days to file their legal arguments for Ye Gon's extradition. Ye Gon
has claimed that $150 million of the money belonged to Mexico's ruling
party, and that he was forced to store it for party officials in his
mansion under threat of death during the 2006 presidential race. Ye Gon
later told US prosecutors he had sold tons of a chemical used to make
methamphetamine on the black market.
(AP, 7/24/07)(AP, 10/23/09)
2007 Jul 30, The body of Luis
Lazaro Lara Morejon, a Cuban-American who was under investigation in a
migrant smuggling case, was found riddled with bullets along a road
outside Cancun, Mexico.
(AP, 7/31/07)
2007 Jul 30, The Mexican Miners
and Metalworkers Union (SNTMMRM) struck Grupo Mexico to demand wage
increases and improved safety conditions. Striking workers occupied the
Cananea copper mine in the northern state of Sonora and continued into
2010.
(Econ, 4/24/10,
p.59)(www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1819816120100218)
2007 Jul 31, In Mexico the bodies
of Josue Hernandez (32) and Anibal Sanchez (30), both agents with
Mexico's Federal Agency of Investigation, were found in Guerrero state,
where they were gathering intelligence on drug traffickers. The agents
had taken part in a raid that discovered $205 million in cash in a
Mexico City mansion.
(AP, 8/2/07)
2007 Aug 5, Jose Guadalupe Osuna
(51) of Mexico’s National Action Party won the elections for governor
in Baha California. He defeated PRI candidate Jorge Hank, a former
mayor of Tijuana and self-proclaimed billionaire with links to
organized crime.
(SFC, 8/7/07, p.A9)
2007 Aug 18, Hurricane Dean
barreled across the eastern Caribbean and took aim at Hispaniola,
Jamaica and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, with forecasters saying it
could turn into a monster Category 5 storm within 72 hours. Dean
claimed at least six lives as it began sweeping past the Dominican
Republic and Haiti.
(AP, 8/18/07)
2007 Aug 19, Elvira Arellano (32),
an illegal immigrant who took refuge in a Chicago church for a year to
avoid being separated from her American-born son, was deported from the
US to Mexico, where she vowed to continue her campaign to change US
immigration laws.
(AP, 8/21/07)(AP, 8/19/08)
2007 Aug 20, Tens of thousands of
tourists fled the beaches of the Mayan Riviera as Hurricane Dean roared
toward Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
(AP, 8/20/08)
2007 Aug 21, Hurricane Dean
slammed into the Caribbean coast of Mexico as a roaring Category 5
hurricane, the most intense Atlantic storm to make landfall in two
decades. Dean made landfall after killing 13 people in the Caribbean.
(AP, 8/22/07)
2007 Aug 22, Hurricane Dean closed
in on the Mexican mainland, battering oil platforms on the Bay of
Campeche. Dean was downgraded to a tropical storm as it drenched
central Mexico.
(AP, 8/22/07)(WSJ, 8/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 23, The remnants of
Hurricane Dean dumped heavy rain across central Mexico, drenching
mudslide-prone mountains as it pushed its way inland after slamming
into the nation's Gulf Coast as a Category 2 storm. Thousands of Mayan
Indians lost homes as Hurricane Dean blew through the Yucatan
peninsula, but their real wealth was the trees, now scattered and
broken in the storm's wake. Village after village is carpeted with
fallen mangoes, oranges, guanabanas and mameys that will never be
harvested. Across Mexico at least 10 people died from the storm.
(AP, 8/23/07)(WSJ, 8/24/07, p.A1)
2007 Aug 31, The World Trade
Organization opened a formal investigation into allegations by the US
and Mexico that China is providing illegal subsidies for a range of
industries.
(AP, 8/31/07)
2007 Sep 1, In Mexico Tropical
Storm Henriette dumped heavy rains on Acapulco, flooding streets and
prompting officials to close more than 1,000 schools, while Tropical
Storm Felix formed in the Caribbean.
(AP, 9/1/07)
2007 Sep 5, Hurricane Henriette
threatened Mexico's mainland after punishing the Los Cabos resorts.
(AP, 9/5/07)
2007 Sep 6, Martin Villegas,
Mexican boot maker to world leaders, including President Bush and
Vicente Fox, was arrested in Colorado along with two other Mexican
nationals and two US residents following a three-year undercover
operation by US Fish and Wildlife Service agents. The five allegedly
made 25 illegal shipments of banned skins into the US since 2005.
(AP, 9/22/07)
2007 Sep 9, In northern Mexico a
truck carrying 25 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up after colliding with
another vehicle, killing at least 37 people, including three reporters
who came to the scene near Sacramento.
(AP, 9/10/07)(Econ, 9/15/07, p.40)
2007 Sep 10, Several explosions in
Veracruz state, believed to be the work of saboteurs, ripped apart
natural gas pipelines for Mexico's state oil monopoly. The explosions
forced the evacuation of some 12,000 people. The so-called People's
Revolutionary Army (EPR) claimed responsibility.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 10, In central Mexico a
bus carrying worshippers on a pilgrimage to a famous shrine plunged
into a valley, killing nine passengers and leaving 38 injured.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 11, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon visited India's technology hub of Bangalore to get a
feel for the success of its outsourcing companies, and to encourage
them to invest more in Mexico.
(AP, 9/11/07)
2007 Sep 15, In western Mexico a
bus carrying tourists including passengers of a flight from Phoenix
crashed, killing at least 17 people.
(AP, 9/16/07)
2007 Sep 28, In Mexico City more
than 30 federal agents arrested Avila Beltran (46), who allegedly spent
more than a decade working her way to the top echelons of Mexico's
male-dominated drug trade.
(AP, 10/4/07)
2007 Sep 28, Hurricane Lorenzo
crashed into Mexico's Gulf coast before dawn, ripping apart shacks,
uprooting trees and sending billboards flying through the air. At least
5 people died.
(AP, 9/28/07)(AP, 9/29/07)
2007 Oct 8, Police in Mexico City
arrested Jose Luis Calva, an aspiring horror novelist, after
discovering his girlfriend's torso in his closet, a leg in the
refrigerator and bones in a cereal box. Police had come to Calva's
apartment to investigate the disappearance of his girlfriend, Alejandra
Galeana, a 30-year-old pharmacy clerk and single mother.
(AP, 10/11/07)
2007 Oct 12, In Mexico more than
1,000 police officers in riot gear blocked street vendors from setting
up stands selling knockoff purses and pirated DVDs, clearing Mexico
City's clogged historic center for the first time in more than a decade.
(AP, 10/13/07)
2007 Oct 18, Teenage pop star
Belinda (18), who starred in the Disney Channel's "Cheetah Girls 2,"
won the video of the year award at the MTV Video Music Awards Latin
America in Mexico City. The native of Madrid, Spain, who grew up in
Mexico, also won best solo artist.
(AP, 10/19/07)
2007 Oct 16, A boat from Guatemala
with over 20 migrants capsized. Mexican authorities by the end of the
week recovered the bodies of 15 migrants. The vessel was believed to be
carrying more than 20 people. There were 2 survivors.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 22, The US announced the
Merida Initiative. It was signed into law on June 30, 2008. It is a
security cooperation between the United States and the government of
Mexico and the countries of Central America, with the aim of combating
the threats of drug trafficking, transnational crime and money
laundering. The assistance includes training, equipment and
intelligence.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9rida_Initiative)
2007 Oct 22,
Pres. Bush asked Congress for $196.4 billion for the Iraq war.
This included $500 million to help Mexico fight drug traffickers as
Mexico and the US announced plans for a $1.4 billion aid package to
fight drug trafficking and other organized crime south of the border.
(SFC, 10/23/07, p.A7)(WSJ, 10/23/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 23, At least 21 oil
workers were killed when a drilling rig hit an oil platform in stormy
weather, spilling gas and oil into the Gulf of Mexico. Pemex said the
workers who died included four Pemex employees, seven employees of the
subcontractor company that operated the rig, at least one rescue boat
crew member, and six others who worked for other companies. On Dec 16
Pemex announced that the well was finally capped. Roughly 420 barrels
of oil per day had spilled from the damaged platform since the accident.
(AP, 10/25/07)(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Oct, Mexican officials seized
23.5 tons of cocaine this month, the largest seizure ever reported in
Mexico. A US report, commissioned by Sen. Lugar, later estimated that
530-710 tons of cocaine crossed annually into the US.
(Econ, 2/2/08, p.45)
2007 Nov 2, Rescuers in boats and
helicopters worked to evacuate people stranded by a flood the president
called "one of the worst natural disasters" to hit Mexico. A week of
heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, leaving 70 percent of the Gulf
state of Tabasco underwater. Gov. Andres Granier estimated the damage
at $5 billion. The death toll reached to about 25.
(AP, 11/2/07)(Econ, 11/10/07, p.45)
2007 Nov 4, In Mexico a landslide
hit a rain-swollen river, triggering what officials called a
"mini-tsunami" that wiped San Juan Grijalva, in Chiapas near the
Tabasco border, off the map. 15 bodies were later recovered with 9 left
missing. The floods killed at least 8 others in Tabasco and elsewhere
in Chiapas.
(AP, 11/6/07)(AP, 11/13/07)(AP, 11/21/07)
2007 Nov 14, A broad electoral
reform that infuriated Mexico's broadcast industry by barring political
parties from buying radio and television advertisements took effect.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Dec 2, In Mexico Sergio
Gomez, lead performer for the top-selling group K-Paz de la Sierra, was
abducted, tortured and strangled to death. His body was found the next
day. A day earlier Zayda Pena of the group Zayda and the Guilty Ones
was killed execution-style at the hospital where she was recovering
from neck surgery for a shooting on Nov 30, in which 2 other people
were killed. Fears rose that singers, whether they have any links
to drug cartels or not, get routinely "adopted" by drug gangs, which
post Internet videos showing their members torturing and executing
rivals to soundtracks of popular tunes.
(AP, 12/5/07)(SFC, 12/5/07, p.E3)
2007 Dec 4, In Mexico gunmen shot
and killed a deputy police chief inside his house in the border city of
Tecate.
(AP, 12/4/07)
2007 Dec 5, Mexican police
conducted the biggest anti-logging raid in the nation's history at
clandestine sawmills that cut timber on a threatened nature reserve
where Monarch butterflies nest in the winter. Authorities in the
Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said that they plan to exhume the
remains of more than 4,000 unidentified people buried in common graves
and take DNA samples in an attempt to identify them.
(AP, 12/5/07)(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Dec 6, In southern Mexico
Jose Luis Aquino (33), a trumpet player, was found dead with his hands
and feet bound and a nylon bag over his head, in what authorities said
was apparently the country's third murder of a musician in less than a
week.
(AP, 12/7/07)
2007 Former Mexican Pres. Fox
authored his ghost-written memoir “Revolution of Hope.” It was
published in English prior to a Spanish version.
(Econ, 10/6/07, p.42)
2007 Sam Quinines authored
“Antonio’s Gun and Delfino’s Dream: True Tales of Mexican Migration.”
(SSFC, 4/22/07, p.M1)
2007 Gregory Rodriguez authored
“Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans, and Vagabonds: Mexican Immigration and
the Future of Race in America.”
(Econ, 11/10/07, p.102)
2008 Jan 1, In Mexico import
tariffs on maize, beans, sugar and milk were eliminated.
(Econ, 1/26/08, p.38)
2008 Jan 7, A shootout between
Mexican authorities and suspected criminals just across the border from
Texas left three people dead and eight injured.
(AP, 1/8/08)
2008 Jan 8, In Mexico 3 US
residents and seven others linked to the powerful Gulf drug cartel were
arrested following a deadly shootout in Rio Bravo just across the
border from Texas. In a second shootout, two federal agents were killed
and three more injured when they clashed with a group of suspects in
the nearby city of Reynosa.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 10, In Mexico gunmen shot
dead two federal agents and a civilian in the central state of
Michoacan.
(AP, 1/11/08)
2008 Jan 11, In central Mexico a
helicopter carrying volunteers on a mission to distribute toys to needy
children crashed, killing eight people, including a government official.
(AP, 1/12/08)
2008 Jan 14, In Mexico Tijuana
District Commander Jose de Jesus Arias Rico and his assistant Elbert
Escobedo Marquez were riddled with bullets as they traveled in a
private vehicle after finishing their shift. A car chase and shootout
between Tijuana municipal police and at least two people who allegedly
tried to rob an armored car after it made a cash pickup at a bank. One
suspect was killed and another was wounded.
(AP, 1/15/08)
2008 Jan 15, In Mexico before dawn
Margarito Saldana, Tijuana district commander, was shot dead while he
slept in his home.
(AP, 1/15/08)
2008 Jan 17, In Mexico officials
found six bodies inside a Tijuana house where gunmen took refuge during
a shootout with soldiers and police.
(AP, 1/17/08)
2008 Jan 19, In southern
California a Hummer, suspected of carrying drugs and heading to Mexico,
cut through a campground and hit and killed Luis Aguilar (32), a US
Border Patrol, as he threw a spike strip in front of the vehicle. On
Jan 23 Jesus Navarro Montes (22) was arrested in the northern state of
Sonora for hitting Aguilar. On April 12, 2011, Jesus Navarro Montes, a
Mexican drug trafficker, was found guilty of second degree murder for
killing Aguilar.
(SFC, 1/21/08, p.A3)(AP, 1/23/08)(Reuters, 4/13/11)
2008 Jan 21, Mexico's army
captured Alfredo Beltran Leyva, a top lieutenant of the Sinaloa cartel.
He allegedly commanded squads of hit men and organized drug shipments
north.
(AP, 1/21/08)
2008 Jan 22, In Mexico 11 alleged
hit men for a powerful drug cartel were captured at two Mexico City
mansions stocked with grenades and automatic weapons, a day after
Mexican authorities reported nabbing one of the cartel's reputed
leaders.
(AP, 1/22/08)
2008 Jan 29, In Mexico City Elvira
Arellano, a deported Mexican migrant who holed up in a Chicago church
to fight for immigrants' rights, rallied support for Flor Crisostomo
(28), another woman now seeking refuge in the same building. Four
Mexican military officers and one soldier, were turned over to
prosecutors for alleged links to Alfredo Beltran Leyva, but their cases
weren't made public until Oct 31.
(AP, 1/30/08)(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Jan 30, Fr. Marcial Maciel
Degollado (b.1920), Mexican Roman Catholic priest who founded the
Legion of Christ and the Regnum Christi movement (1941), died in Texas.
(www.nytimes.com/2008/02/01/world/americas/01maciel.html)
2008 Jan 31, In Mexico tens of
thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Mexico City to
protest recent trade openings that removed the last tariff protections
for ancestral Mexican crops like corn and beans.
(AP, 1/31/08)
2008 Feb 7, Mexican soldiers
seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana, a machine gun, scores of assault
rifles and three grenades in a raid just across the border from Texas.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 15, In Mexico City a bomb
exploded near the police headquarters killing one man. A singer and two
members of his staff were tortured and killed just south of the
California border, apparently the latest victims in a string of
slayings of Mexican musicians. The border killings were not reported
until Feb 20.
(WSJ, 2/16/08, p.A1)(AP, 2/20/08)
2008 Feb 26, Mexican lawmakers
approved judicial reform that would introduce public, oral trials and
guarantee the presumption of innocence, even as lawmakers deleted a
proposal to allow police to search homes without a warrant. Mexico's
Senate approved a law that would ban smoking in workplaces, public
buildings and public transportation across the country, allowing it in
private businesses only if special, ventilated smoking areas are set
up. Investigators found parts from at least 8 bodies in a series of
backyard pits at a house in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El
Paso, Texas. In March the body count increased to 36.
(AP, 2/27/08)(AP, 2/26/08)(AP, 3/3/08)(AP, 3/16/08)
2008 Mar 7, Mexican soldiers
seized assault rifles, grenades, marijuana and bulletproof vests
bearing police insignia after a brief shootout in the border city of
Tijuana. Police commander Ricardo Rodriguez was shot dead in a city
plaza by gunmen who opened fire with assault rifles from a moving car.
Six gunmen were also killed in the shootout.
(AP, 3/7/08)(SFC, 3/10/08, p.A3)
2008 Mar 10, In Mexico a
researcher said satellite photographs show illegal loggers have
clear-cut large swathes of trees in the heart of a monarch butterfly
reserve, threatening the insects' habitat. The images show illegal
loggers chopped 1,100 acres of trees since 2004 in the core of a wooded
park in Michoacan state.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 10, In central Mexico a
sports utility vehicle fell into a canal, killing nine small children
but leaving their teacher unharmed.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 11, Mexico's federal
attorney general's office announced an investigation into allegations
of corruption against Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, a
confidant of the president who holds the government's second highest
profile job.
(AP, 3/12/08)
2008 Mar 13, Cuba and Mexico
declared their once-chilly relations fully restored, and Cuba's foreign
minister said he will soon deliver a formal invitation for Mexico's
president to visit the island.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 13, In central Mexico 6
people were shot and killed inside a private law office in Guadalajara.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 25, In eastern Guatemala
at least nine people were killed and seven wounded in a shootout that
is likely tied to drug traffickers. Guatemalan drug boss Juan Jose
"Juancho" Leon was summoned by Mexican traffickers for what he was told
was business. Instead, dozens of attackers ambushed his entourage with
grenades and assault rifles, killing Leon and 10 others in a brazen
demonstration of power.
(AP, 3/25/08)(AP, 7/21/09)
2008 Mar 26, In Mexico a
confrontation in Sinaloa state left four civilians and two soldiers
dead. A military judge later issued an arrest warrant for 5 soldiers
considered as suspects.
(AP, 4/5/08)
2008 Mar 27, The Mexican
government said it has sent more than 2,500 soldiers and federal police
to curb soaring violence in a border state across from Texas and New
Mexico.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 Mar 31, In Mexico Juana
Barraza (50), a former female wrestler who terrorized Mexico City as
the "Little Old Lady Killer," was sentenced to 759 years in jail for
killing 16 elderly women.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 4, In Mexico two soldiers
deserted and were later killed during a gunbattle with police in the
state of Nuevo Leon. 3 state police officers and a civilian also died
in the violence. The Mexican army said soldiers looking for drug
traffickers found $6 million in cash inside a truck near the US border
and arrested five men at the scene. The daily El Universal reported
that five soldiers had been arrested for passing information to the
Sinaloa alliance of Pacific Coast smugglers.
(AP, 4/5/08)(Reuters, 4/4/08)
2008 Apr 6, In southern Mexico a
truck carrying Central American migrants in a hidden compartment
plunged into a reservoir, killing at least eight people. Most of the
migrants were believed to be from Guatemala.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 8, In Mexico Pres.
Calderon said he would ease some bureaucratic barriers, and allow Pemex
to pay outside contractors a "bonus," not a percentage cut, for oil
found in deep-water reserves.
(AP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 10, Leftist lawmakers
took over both chambers of Mexico's Congress to protest President
Felipe Calderon's energy reform bill, which would make it easier for
the state oil company to seek outside help to develop oil fields.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2008 Apr 10, In Mexico police,
working with FBI agents in the small town of Tacambaro, arrested Cpl.
Cesar Laurean (21). He is charged with first-degree murder in the
December, 2007, death at Camp Lejeune, NC, of Marine Lance Cpl. Maria
Lauterbach, who had accused him of rape.
(AP, 4/11/08)
2008 Apr 13, The winners of this
year’s Goldman Awards were reported to be: Feliciano dos Santos (43) of
Mozambique, the director of Estamos, an environmental group promoting
sanitation, sustainable development and reforestation; Marina
Rikhvanova (46), founder of Baikal Environmental Wave, which forced the
rerouting of an oil pipeline in the Baikal basin; Pablo Fajardo (35)
and Luis Yanza (48) of Ecuador, co-founders of the Amazon Defense
Front, which accused Texaco (now Chevron) of dumping oil and wastewater
into local streams; Rosa Hilda Ramos (63) of Puerto Rico, head of a
movement to protect the Las Cicharillas Marsh; Ignace Schops (43) of
Belgium, head of a movement to establish Belgium’s 1st and only
national park; Jesus Leon (42) of Mexico, co-founder of the Center for
Integral Small Farmer Development of the Mixtec (CEDICAM).
(SSFC, 4/13/08, p.A4)
2008 Apr 15, In Mexico gunmen held
up a family of US tourists in Baha and made off with their small plane
from a hotel airstrip in Mulege.
(AP, 4/15/08)
2008 Apr 17, Chief Juan Muniz, the
Mexican police chief of the border city of Reynosa, was arrested for
allegedly protecting members of the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 18, In western Mexico a
military helicopter crashed, killing 11 soldiers and seriously injuring
another.
(AP, 4/19/08)
2008 Apr 22, In New Orleans Pres.
Bush ended a 2-day meeting with PM Harper of Canada and Pres. Calderon
of Mexico as all three defended NAFTA. Bush denied the US is in
recession calling the current economic situation a slowdown.
(SFC, 4/23/08, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Apr 23, Officials said the US
is scrapping a $20 million virtual fence, developed by Boeing Corp., on
the Arizona-Mexico border because the system failed to adequately alert
border patrol agents to illegal crossings.
(SFC, 4/24/08, p.A7)
2008 Apr 26, In Mexico running
gunbattles between suspected drug traffickers broke out on the streets
of the border city of Tijuana, killing 13 people and wounding nine.
(AP, 4/26/08)
2008 Apr 29, Migrant rights
activists applauded a vote by Mexico's Congress to remove long-standing
criminal penalties for undocumented migrants found in the country.
President Felipe Calderon's office declined to say whether he would
sign the popular measure into law.
(AP, 4/29/08)
2008 May 1, Roberto Velasco, head
of Mexico’s federal police organized crime division, was murdered.
Police later said the murder was likely ordered by Arturo Beltran
Leyva, a capo in the Sinaloa drug cartel.
(Econ, 5/17/08, p.45)
2008 May 5, In southern Mexico a
prominent cattle rancher hid from gunmen who killed two of his sons and
kidnapped his daughter in weekend attacks that left 17 people dead.
(AP, 5/5/08)
2008 May 7, In Mexico a leftist
rebel group (EPR) linked to a series of oil pipeline blasts on rejected
an offer from Mexico's government to hold talks. The People's
Revolutionary Army dismissed a proposal by President Felipe Calderon
because it said the offer showed no willingness to solve crimes
allegedly committed by current and past administrations against its
members.
(AP, 5/7/08)
2008 May 8, Edgar Millan Gomez
(42), Mexico's acting federal police chief, was shot dead outside his
Mexico City apartment complex, as drug traffickers increasingly lashed
back at a nationwide crackdown on organized crime. Bodyguards at the
scene arrested Alejandro Ramirez (34). Edgar Guzman, the son of Sinaloa
cartel chief Joaquin Guzman, was shot dead in Culiacan, Sinaloa state.
Also killed in the attack was Arturo Meza Cazares, the son of Blanca
Margarita Cazares, whom the US has identified as a key money launderer
for the cartel. Police later said Millan’s murder was likely ordered by
Arturo Beltran Leyva, a capo in the Sinaloa drug cartel.
(AP, 5/9/08)(SFC, 5/9/08,
p.A16)(http://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/xarticle/ajc8708.htm)(Econ,
5/17/08, p.45)
2008 May 10, Juan Antonio Roman
Garcia, the No. 2 police officer in a Mexican border city across from
Texas, was shot dead, the latest high-ranking official killed in an
onslaught of attacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown. Gunman
sprayed Garcia's car with bullets outside his home in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 5/11/08)
2008 May 12, Mexican authorities
said a police officer and four other people, with suspected ties to a
powerful drug cartel, have been arrested in the May 8 assassination of
Edgar Millan Gomez, the acting federal police chief.
(AP, 5/13/08)
2008 May 13, In Mexico more than
2,700 soldiers and federal agents were sent to Sinaloa state as part of
a crackdown on drug-related violence.
(AP, 5/15/08)
2008 May 14, In Mexico 2 police
officers were shot and killed in Torreon, Coahuila state, when they
tried to stop gunmen from kidnapping a family. Assailants opened fire
and threw grenades at a police station in Guamuchil in the northern
state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 5/14/08)
2008 May 15, In Mexico Pres.
Calderon held a signing ceremony for an agreement with Elba Esther
Gordillo, head of the national teacher’s union, to promote the
“Alliance for Educational Quality, an effort to improve teacher quality.
(Econ, 5/24/08, p.55)
2008 May 18, An American woman
(28) was among four people found dead in the Mexican beach town of
Playas de Rosarito, near border with California.
(AP, 5/20/08)
2008 May 19, In Mexico the
military took over the town of Zirandaro near Texas after all 20 of its
police officers were either killed, run out of town or quit.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 20, In Mexico’s Durango
state two rival groups opened fire at each other with pistols and
assault rifles on a highway, killing eight people. Officials said the
Mexican military took over the police department of Villa Ahumada this
week because all 20 officers on the force have either been killed, run
out of town or quit. The body of Victor Enrique Payan, 2nd in command
of police in Morelos, was found with a second, unidentified Morelos
state police officer in the trunk of a car south of Mexico City.
(AP, 5/20/08)(AP, 5/22/08)
2008 May 23, Mexico's attorney
general said homicides related to organized crime jumped 47 percent in
2008, in a rare confirmation of how bad violence has become.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 23, Mexican federal
officials said they plan to clean up Acapulco's bay, where an estimated
400 gallons (1,700 liters) of sewage spews into the Pacific ocean every
second.
(AP, 5/23/08)
2008 May 27, In Mexico 7 federal
police and a suspected hit man were killed in a shootout as authorities
surrounded a suspected drug safe house in Culiacan, home to the Sinaloa
drug cartel.
(AP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 31, Tropical Storm Arthur
the first named storm of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Season, kicked up
surf when it made landfall at the Belize-Mexico border and headed west.
(AP, 6/1/08)
2008 Jun 1, In western Mexico
Marcelo Ibarra, the mayor of Villa Madero, was forced from his car and
shot dead. Officials believed the killing was an attempted robbery,
although they haven't ruled out other motives.
(AP, 6/3/08)
2008 Jun 3, In Mexico Claudio
Conti (53) was reportedly kidnapped along Zicatela beach in Puerto
Escondido, where he operated the Da Claudio restaurant and a hotel. On
Feb 28, 2009, Mexican police said they had captured four men suspected
of kidnapping the Italian businessman, and that one of the men told
police the victim had been ordered killed, though it was not clear if
the slaying was carried out.
(AP, 3/1/09)
2008 Jun 4, A Mexican court
sentenced Mario Villanueva, a former Quintana Roo state governor
(1993-1996), to 36 years in prison for fomenting drug trafficking,
overturning an earlier ruling that had imposed six years on lesser
charges. A husband and wife, both state police officers, were shot dead
while leaving their home in Ciudad Juarez, the border city where drug
gangs have stepped up attacks against security forces.
(AP, 6/5/08)(AP, 6/4/08)
2008 Jun 9, A note threatening a
Mexican journalist was found outside the office of a newspaper in
southern Mexico, two days after someone left a severed head there. The
letter was directed at Juan Padilla, editor of El Correo de Tabasco,
which recently carried reports about migrant smuggling and kidnapping
in the area.
(AP, 6/10/08)
2008 Jun 11, In southern Mexico
armed men hijacked a bus carrying 33 Cubans and four Central American
migrants detained after forcing immigration agents away at gunpoint.
The seized Cubans and Central Americans were being taken to an
immigration processing center in the nearby city of Tapachula when the
attack occurred. Mexican immigration agents are normally unarmed on
such assignments.
(AP, 6/13/08)
2008 Jun 15, In Sonora, Mexico,
one state police officer and two federal agents were killed in a
running battle with dozens of gunmen that lasted several hours. One of
the gunmen was wounded.
(AP, 6/17/08)
2008 Jun 17, Mexico’s Pres. Felipe
Calderon signed a constitutional amendment that threw open the doors to
its judicial system, allowing US-style public trials and creating a
presumption of innocence.
(AP, 6/18/08)(WSJ, 6/18/08, p.A8)
2008 Jun 18, Food manufacturers
promised Mexico's government that they would freeze prices on more than
150 food products to help families cope with rising costs.
(AP, 6/19/08)
2008 Jun 20, Panicked youths
rushed for the exits during a police raid on a Mexico City nightclub,
leaving 12 people dead in the crush of bodies. The dead included 3
underage teens and 3 police officers. Prosecutors later charged the
police commander who led a botched raid with 12 counts of homicide.
(AP, 6/21/08)(SSFC, 6/22/08, p.A11)(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 21, Mexican soldiers
captured at least 10 suspected members of a Tijuana-based drug cartel
in a raid on a child's baptism party in Tijuana. A total of 61 people
were arrested in the sweep, including the band hired to play the party
and three city police officers.
(AP, 6/23/08)
2008 Jun 25, In Mexico state
police spokesman Cesar Ramirez said 20 people have been killed in less
than three days in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Guerrero state
authorities agreed to pay 490,000 pesos (US$48,000) in compensation to
14 indigenous Mexican men coerced into having vasectomies. The men said
that state health workers showed up in the southern village of El
Camalote in 1998 and demanded that men with more than four children
must have vasectomies.
(AP, 6/25/08)(AP, 6/27/08)
2008 Jun 26, In Mexico gunmen
killed Igor Labastida, a top federal police official, and his bodyguard
as they ate lunch in Mexico City.
(AP, 6/27/08)
2008 Jun 27, In Piedras Negras,
Mexico, Chad Foster, the mayor of Eagle Pass, Texas, attended a tree
planting ceremony for the first of 400,000 trees which will form a
"green wall" in protest of the fence the US is building along the
border with Mexico.
(AP, 6/28/08)
2008 Jul 1, In Mexico videos
showing Leon police practicing torture techniques on a fellow officer
and dragging another through vomit at the instruction of a US adviser
created an uproar, which has struggled to eliminate torture in law
enforcement.
(AP, 7/2/08)
2008 Jul 2, In Mexico 4
decapitated bodies were found on a street in Culiacan, blocks away from
their severed heads. Four gunmen were killed hours later, after opening
fire on federal police patrolling Culiacan, a center for the powerful
Sinaloa drug cartel. Under attack, police shot back at the home where
the gunmen were holed up, killing the four assailants and capturing two
others.
(AP, 7/3/08)
2008 Jul 6, In northern Mexico a
plane carrying a load of auto parts crashed s it was trying to land,
killing the pilot and severely injuring the co-pilot.
(AP, 7/6/08)
2008 Jul 7, Mexican police found
six charred bodies on a Tijuana street following a bloody weekend that
left 14 people dead.
(AP, 7/7/08)
2008 Jul 8, The Mexican government
said UNESCO has added a Monarch butterfly reserve in southern Mexico to
its list of World Heritage sites.
(AP, 7/8/08)
2008 Jul 10, In northern Mexico, 6
bullet-ridden bodies were found inside the auto body shop in Culiacan,
the capital of Sinaloa state, and three more bodies were found on the
street just outside the business. A police investigator was found shot
to death in his truck near Culiacan's police headquarters.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 13, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire on four cars on a busy street in Guamuchil, killing eight
people. Among the victims were a girl (11), two 17-year-old boys and
two women aged 18 and 19. On July 16 Mexico's government offered a
reward of nearly US$100,000 for information leading to the capture of
the gunmen.
(AP, 7/14/08)(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 14, In Mexico commander
Gerardo Valdes, the head of kidnapping and organized crime
investigations in the border state of Coahuila, was seized by at least
six men when he was driving in Saltillo. An unidentified man called
police and said that Valdes had been grabbed by the Juarez Cartel.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 16, Mexico's navy seized
a homemade submarine carrying a drug shipment off the Pacific coast and
arrested its four-man crew.
(AP, 7/17/08)
2008 Jul 18, Mexico's president
replaced a 1791 time capsule discovered atop Mexico City's cathedral
with a new one containing messages from golf star Lorena Ochoa,
novelist Carlos Fuentes and a boy genius.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Jul 21, The US FDA issued an
advisory for consumers to avoid eating uncooked jalapeno peppers after
it found a jalapeno grown in Mexico in a Texas border town warehouse
that tested positive with the same strain of salmonella that was
earlier associated with tomatoes.
(SFC, 7/22/08, p.A10)
2008 Jul 22, In Mexico a measure
took effect eliminating jail times for illegal immigrants caught in
Mexico.
(AP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 22, Dolly was upgraded to
hurricane status as it headed toward the US-Mexican border.
(WSJ, 7/23/08, p.A1)
2008 Jul 23, Hurricane Dolly
toppled trees and sent billboards flying in the Mexican city of
Matamoros, and authorities south of the US border warned of possible
flooding. Dolly also hit south Texas, but by evening it had weakened to
a tropical storm.
(AP, 7/24/08)(SFC, 7/24/08, p.A3)
2008 Jul 24, In Mexico state
prison chief Salvador Barreno was shot and killed as he drove in Ciudad
Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. His bodyguard was also killed. 3
other men died in a separate shooting minutes later.
(AP, 7/25/08)
2008 Jul 27, Mexico City residents
voted against the president's proposal to give private companies a
bigger role in the country's state-run oil industry in a nonbinding
referendum.
(AP, 7/28/08)
2008 Jul 29, In Mexico a family of
six was found dead in their home in western Jalisco state, allegedly
targeted by kidnappers aided by corrupt cops. Four victims, including
two children, were shot in the head. A teenage boy's throat was
slashed. His mother was asphyxiated with a plastic bag.
(AP, 8/21/08)
2008 Jul 30, Mexican police
captured Ever Villafane Martinez, a Colombian cartel operative who
represented Colombia's Norte del Valle drug cartel in dealings with
Mexico's Beltran Leyva gang. He had escaped from a Colombian prison in
2001 and was wanted on drug charges in the US.
(AP, 8/1/08)
2008 Jul 30, US federal health
officials said the salmonella strain linked to a nationwide outbreak
has been found in irrigation water and in a sample from a batch of
serrano peppers at a Mexican farm in Nuevo Leon. Mexico's Agriculture
Department rejected the FDA's conclusion saying "The farm unit in
question ended its harvest more than a month ago, so the sample they
say they have lacks scientific validity" because the sample "was taken
recently from a tank holding rain water that was not used in
production."
(AP, 7/31/08)
2008 Aug 1, The body of Fernando
Marti, the 14-year-old son of a prominent businessman, was found in the
trunk of a car in Mexico City. He had been kidnapped in June. The
kidnap and murder prompted a wave of anti-crime protests across the
nation. In September police detained five suspects including Sergio
Ortiz, a former agent of a now-disbanded city detective force, who led
the "Flower Gang" responsible for kidnapping Marti in June. In July,
2009, Jose Montiel (34) and Noe Robles (31) were arrested for the
kidnapping. They were believed to be members of a Mexico City gang
responsible for at least 23 abductions.
(AP, 9/8/08)(AP, 7/18/09)
2008 Aug 4, A shootout between
Mexican police and smugglers driving a truck carrying illegal
immigrants left 2 people dead near Agua Dulce.
(AP, 8/4/08)
2008 Aug 5, Texas executed Jose
Medellin (33) for the 1993 rape and killing of two teenage girls in
Houston. Mexico protested the execution, which took place despite a
world court ruling for a new hearing, and expressed concern for the
rights of other Mexicans detained in the US. On Jan 19, 2009, the
International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that the US defied
its order when authorities in Texas last year executed a Mexican
convicted of rape and murder.
(AP, 8/6/08)(AP, 1/19/09)
2008 Aug 11, In Acapulco, Mexico,
gunmen traveling in a sport utility vehicle fired at a hardware store
killing a girl (14) and a man (35).
(AP,
8/12/08)(www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,402108,00.html)
2008 Aug 13, In Mexico a spokesman
for the Attorney General's Office said 6 federal agents have been
arrested on suspicion of passing information to a group of powerful
drug lords.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 16, In Mexico gunmen
killed 13 people at a family party in the border state of Chihuahua.
(AP, 8/17/08)
2008 Aug 18, Mexican soldiers
rescued 25 Central Americans kidnapped in the Gulf coast state of
Veracruz. One man was arrested in the raid in Tierra Blanca.
(AP, 8/19/08)
2008 Aug 18, Mexico’s Cemex SAB
rejected Venezuela’s $500 bid for the companies assets in Venezuela. At
midnight oil workers and Venezuelan soldiers occupied Cemex facilities
around the country.
(WSJ, 8/19/08, p.A10)
2008 Aug 21, In Mexico Pres.
Calderon, congressional leaders, all state governors and a bevy of
others signed a “National Agreement for Security.”
(Econ, 9/6/08, p.44)
2008 Aug 22, Mexican police
captured a man believed to be Ruben Rios Estrada, a key gunman for the
Arellano-Felix cocaine cartel, at the Caliente racetrack casino in
Tijuana after a chase through the city streets. Another suspected gang
member also was arrested. The bullet-riddled body of Jesus Blanco Cano
(40) was found at a ranch near Villa Ahumada in Chihuahua state. He had
just been on the job for one day as police chief of Villa Ahumada.
(AP, 8/23/08)(SFC, 8/23/08, p.A3)
2008 Aug 26, In Mexico 3
decapitated bodies were found in an empty lot on the eastern outskirts
of Tijuana. The bodies had messages written on their backs in permanent
marker saying they worked for "the weakened 'engineer,'" a nickname for
Francisco Sanchez Arellano, a top lieutenant in Tijuana's powerful
Arellano Felix drug cartel. A day earlier 2 bodies were found in
Tijuana, one with the head placed on the upper back.
(AP, 8/27/08)(SFC, 8/27/08, p.A11)
2008 Aug 27, In Mexico a
38-year-old man from Oregon was arrested in San Jose del Cabo following
a fight at an apartment complex. He died in jail hours later. On Aug 31
six Mexican officers placed under house arrest on suspicion of
homicide.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Aug 28, Mexico's Supreme
Court upheld the capital's abortion law, setting a precedent for the
rest of the country that could inspire other Latin American cities.
Twelve decapitated bodies bearing signs of torture were found in
eastern Mexico and authorities were still looking for the heads. 11 of
the bodies were found in a suburb of Merida, a 12th in Buctzotz, 70 km
to the northeast.
(AFP, 8/29/08)
2008 Aug 30, Hundreds of thousands
of frustrated Mexicans, many carrying pictures of kidnapped loved ones,
marched across the country to demand government action against a
relentless tide of killings, abductions and shootouts. Hours before the
protests, the severed heads of two women were found near the attorney
general's offices in the city of Durango.
(AP, 8/31/08)(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Aug 30, Gilberto Rincon
Gallardo (69), a former socialist presidential candidate who gained
respect in Mexico for defending the rights of the disabled, gays and
other marginalized groups, died in Mexico City.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Aug 31, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon promised to adopt several proposals from civic groups
who led more than 100,000 Mexicans in marches against daily kidnappings
and killings.
(AP, 9/1/08)
2008 Sep 5, In Mexico two 18th
century paintings, "The Adoration of the Three Kings" and "The Birth of
the Virgin," were stolen from the Santa Matilde church in Pachuca, the
capital of central Hidalgo state. In February, 2010, they were found in
an art gallery in Tlaquepaque, a town near the city of Guadalajara,
where they were on sale for $35,000.
(AP, 2/26/10)
2008 Sep 10, A regulatory filing
revealed that Carlos Slim, Mexican businessman, and his family had
purchased a 6.4% stake in the New York Times.
(Econ, 9/20/08, p.78)
2008 Sep 12, Mexican police found
the bodies of 24 men with their hands bound and shot to death
execution-style outside the capital. On Nov 27 prosecutors charged a
municipal police commander and an alleged drug cartel member with
homicide in the September massacre.
(AP, 9/13/08)(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Sep 14, Mexico's military
seized US$26.2 million in cash believed to belong to members of the
Sinaloa drug cartel. This was the 2nd biggest seizure since March 2007,
when police seized US$207 million linked to a trafficking ring for
pseudoephedrine.
(AP, 9/18/08)
2008 Sep 15, Mexican police and
soldiers quelled a riot at a Tijuana prison that left 4 inmates dead
and at least 31 prisoners and officials injured.
(AP, 9/16/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 15, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
Omar Yoguez Singu (32) allegedly had consensual sex with Marcella Grace
Eiler (20) of Eugene, Oregon. He then killed her with a machete after
an argument. Her badly decomposed body was found Sep 24 in a shack 80
miles south of Oaxaca City. Friends of Singu beat him up after he
confessed to the crime and on Sep 24 turned him over to police.
(AP, 9/28/08)
2008 Sep 16, In Mexico explosions
at an Independence Day celebration killed 7 people and injured 101 in
the city of Morelia. Michoacan Gov. Leonel Godoy said organized crime
was responsible.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Sep 17, A second riot in
three days at an infamous Tijuana prison left close to 2 dozen people
dead and 12 injured. 2 American inmates were among the dead. Inmates at
La Mesa prison rioted again because they have not been given food or
water since Sep 14, when a separate riot led to the deaths of at least
three inmates.
(AP, 9/18/08)(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 20, It was reported that
Mexican officers and prison guards in Michoacan state can now get
special deals on houses and financing through a pilot program designed
to keep them out of the pockets of organized crime.
(AP, 9/20/08)
2008 Sep 23, Mexico said it plans
to search 10 percent of all vehicles entering the country from the
United States in an effort to curb arms smuggling.
(AP, 9/24/08)
2008 Sep 25, Mexican federal
prosecutors in Apatzingan, a drug stronghold in the western state of
Michoacan, arrested three drug gang members accused of throwing
grenades into crowds of Independence Day revelers. They belonged to a
group of infamous Gulf Cartel hit men known as the Zetas.
(AP, 9/27/08)
2008 Sep 25, In southeastern
Mexico storms flooded hundreds of people out of their homes and caused
the death of a woman and 4 children whose car plunged into a swollen
irrigation ditch in Nanchital, Veracruz state.
(AP, 9/26/08)
2008 Sep 29, In Mexico the bodies
of 11 men and one woman, some with their tongues cut out, were found
dumped in an empty lot next to a Tijuana elementary school, an hour
before children were scheduled to arrive. A message nearby, written on
a white piece of cardboard, read: "This is going to happen to all of
those who are with 'The Engineer' for being blabbermouths." Minutes
later four other bodies were found in another empty lot in Tijuana. Two
other bodies were discovered the day before in a lot next to a factory.
(AP, 9/30/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico 20 heavily
armed men in Sinaloa state stole five small planes that the army had
seized in anti-drug operations. Officials on Oct 3 said the planes were
found on a ranch in the Pacific coast state of Sinaloa, a hotbed of
drug trafficking.
(AP, 10/1/08)(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Sep 30, In Mexico Ramiro
Guillen Tapia (65), leader of a farmers' group seeking government
mediation in a dispute over 620 acres (250 hectares) of land in the
Gulf coast state of Veracruz, set himself on fire. Tapia died the next
day with third-degree burns over 70 percent of his body.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 3, Mexican police clashed
with hundreds of villagers who seized the entrance to a Mayan
archaeological site and six protesters were killed. Hundreds of
villagers had occupied the entrance to the Chinkultic ruins for nearly
a month, saying they were protesting excessive entrance fees and a lack
of investment in the area. 2 men were found shot to death in Tijuana in
the same empty lot near the elementary school where the 12 bodies were
found on sep 29.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Oct 4, In Mexico gunmen
killed Salvador Vegara, the mayor of Ixtapan de la Sal, a resort town
southwest of Mexico City. Vegara was in a car with two other people
when the gunmen opened fire from another vehicle. The bodies of 5 men
were found asphyxiated in a car in the eastern part of Tijuana. The men
were beaten and had their hands bound. The bodies of two beheaded men
were found wrapped in blankets on a road elsewhere in the city. The
heads were in black plastic bags nearby.
(AP, 10/4/08)
2008 Oct 5, In southern Mexico 5
state police officers were arrested in connection with a deadly raid to
dislodge protesters from a Mayan archaeological site. Mexican
authorities seized 7 million pills of pseudoephedrine, the main
ingredient used to make methamphetamine, at the Guadalajara airport.
More than 1,100 pounds (500 kilograms) of the pills were found packed
in 24 boxes on a shipment from Calcutta, India. Three separate
shipments of more than a ton each were confiscated last month at Mexico
City's airport. Those also originated in Calcutta.
(AP, 10/6/08)
2008 Oct 7, Mexico extradited
former Guatemalan President Alfonso Portillo (2000-2004) to face
corruption charges, and the ex-leader told a judge there is no evidence
to support the allegations against him.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 7, In Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico, across the border from El Paso, Texas, gunmen killed police
commander Rodolfo Barragan (38) in a hail of bullets at a hotel parking
lot.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 7, Tropical Storm Marco
roared ashore on Mexico's Gulf coast with near-hurricane force winds,
prompting a shutdown of some oil platforms and forcing the evacuation
of some 3,000 people.
(AP, 10/7/08)
2008 Oct 8, President Felipe
Calderon unveiled plans for 53 billion pesos ($4.4 billion) in
emergency spending on roads, schools, hospitals and an oil refinery
next year to help Mexico combat the world financial crisis. Mexican
authorities said that 16 people were killed over the last 24 hours in
Baha California across the US border from California. State officials
blamed warring cells of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel for the killings
and other homicides plaguing the area in recent weeks. 5 state police
officers were killed in the western state of Jalisco by grenade-lobbing
gunmen who fired more than 800 bullets in the attack.
(AP, 10/9/08)
2008 Oct 9, In northern Mexico
gunmen opened fire in a bar in Chihuahua, killing 11 people. The body
of Miguel Angel Villagomez, editor of La Noticia newspaper in the
western state of Michoacan, was found shot dead on the side of a
highway in neighboring Guerrero state.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 10, Mexico's central bank
auctioned foreign reserves in 3 auctions in an increasingly aggressive
bid to push the peso stronger. In all, the bank sold off $6.4 billion.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 10, In Mexico authorities
in Tijuana reported that a total of 91 people had been killed in a wave
of gangland homicides since Sept. 26.
(AP, 10/11/08)
2008 Oct 11, In Mexico gunmen
killed six young men at a family party in the gang-plagued border city
of Ciudad Juarez. In Tijuana federal police arrested seven reputed
members of a cell of the Arellano Felix drug cartel, including a city
police officer.
(AP, 10/12/08)
2008 Oct 11, Hurricane Norbert hit
Mexico as a Category 1 storm and left 4 people dead in the Baha
peninsula and Sonora state.
(SFC, 10/18/08, p.B6)
2008 Oct 12, An angry crowd in
central Mexico attacked police and helped nearly three dozen illegal
Central American immigrants escape from custody after hearing that
officers had allegedly sold the migrants to human smugglers in the
farming town of Rafael Lara Grajales, Puebla state. Federal police
managed to round up 21 migrants.
(AP, 10/14/08)(SSFC, 10/26/08, p.A23)
2008 Oct 16, In Mexico six people
were lined up and gunned down outside a business in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 17, In Mexico 334 police
officers were ousted in ciudad Juarez after they failed psychological,
background and other checks as part of a clean-up campaign meant to
root out officers who are corrupt or cooperating with drug traffickers.
The border city sent police recruiters across the country as it tries
to replace nearly half a police force gutted by firings and retirements.
(AP, 10/18/08)
2008 Oct 17, The UN added Japan,
Austria, Turkey, Mexico and Uganda as members to the 10 non-permanent
seats of the Security Council, replacing Belgium, Indonesia, Italy,
Panama and South Africa.
(AP, 10/17/08)
2008 Oct 18, Mexican federal
authorities raided a “narco-mansion” in Mexico City and arrested 15
alleged traffickers during the middle of a party. A mini menagerie was
also found at the site that included 2 African lions, 2 white tigers
and 2 black panthers.
(www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/oct/21/mexico-wildlife)
2008 Oct 20, Mexico agreed to
deport Cubans who sneak illegally through Mexican territory to reach
the US, a step toward cutting off an increasingly violent and heavily
used human trafficking route. 21 prisoners died in a fight between
inmates at a prison across the border from McAllen, Texas. Police said
two soldiers and a security guard were found stabbed to death at a
housing construction site in the village of Las Margaritas, northern
Mexico. The body of a federal policeman was found riddled with gunshot
wounds in Tijuana.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 21, Police in northern
Mexico reported receiving an ice chest packed with four human heads.
The chest arrived at the Ascencion police station in Chihuahua state
was marked "vaccines," but wasn't claimed for a week. Jesus Zambada was
among 16 members of the Sinaloa drug cartel arrested after a shootout
in Mexico City. Zambada is the brother of Ismael Zambada, who allegedly
heads the Sinaloa cartel along with one of Mexico's most wanted men,
Joaquin Guzman.
(AP, 10/22/08)
2008 Oct 22, In Ciudad Juarez,
across the border from El Paso, Texas, four men were shot inside a
go-cart rental at the Xtreme amusement park. Elsewhere in the city, a
used car salesman was shot to death while driving down a main boulevard
hours after leading hundreds of other business owners in a protest
against kidnappings and extortion. In Tijuana a 1-year-old boy was
killed when the car he was riding in crashed as the driver tried to
flee a gunbattle. In northern Mexico 10 gunmen were killed in running
battles with state police in the city of Nogales. Outside the
northeastern city of Monterrey, a soldier, the director of a security
firm and third man were found stabbed to death alongside a highway.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 23, In Mexico 2 people
were found dead in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego,
California, including a badly burned corpse left in a trash bin.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 24, In central Mexico 2
human heads were found with threatening messages. 2 adults were killed
when assailants riddled their pickup truck with bullets on a Tijuana
street. A 1-year-old girl riding with them was hit by multiple rounds
from an assault rifle and was hospitalized in critical condition.
Police also found nine people shot to death in Playas de Rosarito, just
south of Tijuana.
(AP, 10/24/08)
2008 Oct 25, In Mexico soldiers
and federal police arrested Eduardo Arellano Felix (52), a reputed
leader of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel, after a shootout in
the border city across from San Diego.
(AP, 10/26/08)
2008 Oct 26, In Mexico City
kidnappers grabbed Javier Morena (5), the son of poor fruit sellers,
with the intent to ask for a $23,000 ransom. The boy was killed with an
injection of acid and buried outside the city. 5 suspects in the
kidnapping were later arrested and confessed to the killing.
(SFC, 11/4/08, p.11)
2008 Oct 27, Mexican prosecutors
said a major drug cartel has infiltrated the Mexican attorney general's
office and may have paid a spy inside the US Embassy for details of DEA
operations. 5 officials of the attorney general’s organized crime unit
were arrested on allegations they served as informants for the
Beltran-Leyva Cartel.
(AP, 10/27/08)(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A11)
2008 Oct 27, A US officials
announced that Francisco Celaya Carrilo, a Mexican immigration officer,
had been caught in Arizona with 170 pounds of marijuana.
(SFC, 10/28/08, p.A11)
2008 Oct 28, Mexico's Congress
passed a watered-down energy industry reform that enables private
contractors to participate in the state-owned oil business but won't
likely draw enough investment to reverse declining production.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 31, In Mexico police
arrested Antonio Galarza, the reputed leader of the violent Gulf drug
cartel for the border city of Reynosa, in the northern city of
Monterrey on suspicion of weapons violations and organized crime.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Nov 1, The top officer of
Mexico's federal police force quit amid allegations that drug gangs
have infiltrated senior levels of crime-fighting agencies. Acting
federal police Commissioner Gerardo Garay said he was stepping aside
"to place myself at the orders of legal judicial authorities to clear
up any accusation against me."
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Nov 2, Mexican prosecutors
said 11 policemen have been shot to death near Mexico City in a
three-day string of drug-gang attacks. In Tijuana, across the border
from San Diego, California, police found two decapitated bodies wrapped
in blankets in a vacant lot.
(AP, 11/2/08)
2008 Nov 4, One of Mexico's top
pointmen in the war against drug trafficking died when a government jet
crashed into a Mexico City street, setting fire to dozens of vehicles.
The loss of Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, former anti-drug
prosecutor Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos and six others thinned the
ranks of Mexico's already embattled leadership. 9 people on the plane
were killed as well as 5 people on the ground. A 15th victim died 2
weeks later. A 16th victim died in On Dec 11. Three alleged hitmen
suspected in the killing of a top border-state police official died in
a gunbattle with police in Nogales. They were suspected of having
helped kill Sonora state police chief Juan Manuel Pavon on Nov 2. One
Sonora state police officer died in the shootout. A suspect in Pavon's
killing was taken into custody.
(AP, 11/5/08)(AP, 11/6/08)(AP, 11/18/08)(AP,
12/11/08)
2008 Nov 6, Mexican authorities
detained Rodolfo de la Guardia Garcia, the No. 2 official in the
Federal Agency of Investigation from 2003-2005, suspected of aiding
drug traffickers, and Jaime Gonzalez Duran, alleged founder of a
vicious gang of drug-cartel hit men. A cache of 540 rifles, 165
grenades, 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 14 sticks of TNT were seized
at a house in the city of Reynosa, across the border from McAllen,
Texas. This was the largest seizure of drug-cartel weapons in Mexico's
history. In the northeast, police mistakenly opened fire on a family of
six, seriously wounding a teenage girl. In the west, inmates rioted,
killing six. And police in Tijuana found three more bodies accompanied
by messages that appeared to be from drug traffickers.
(AP, 11/8/08)
2008 Nov 10, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon chose Fernando Gomez-Mont as the new Secretary of the
Interior. 7 people were found dead in a string of gruesome attacks in
the border city of Juarez. Police there chased a truck that opened fire
on a state vehicle, causing a car crash that killed a bystander and
injured four others. In northwestern Mexico 27 farmworkers who were
kidnapped by dozens of heavily armed men wearing military-style
uniforms. Local news media reported that a drug gang may have kidnapped
the men to make them work growing marijuana.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2008 Nov 11, In Mexico 21 police
were arrested in the northern border city of Tijuana on suspicion of
working with criminal gangs. The body of a 28-year-old man was dumped
in an empty lot in the beach resort of Rosarito, outside Tijuana.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2008 Nov 13, In Mexico Armando
Rodriguez, a crime reporter in the border city of Juarez, was killed,
adding to dozens of journalist deaths in a country where newspapers are
so fearful, many refuse to cover drug violence. With his death, 24
journalists have been killed in Mexico since 2000, at least seven of
them in direct reprisal for their reports on crime, and seven others
have disappeared since 2005.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Nov 13, Mexico City Health
Secretary Armando Ahued said that the government will start handing out
doses of one or two Viagra, Levitra or Cialis pills on Dec. 1.
(AP, 11/13/08)
2008 Nov 14, In Mexico 2
bullet-ridden bodies were found at the foot of a monument in Ciudad
Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, one of them partially stuffed into
a large pot. Four scuba divers died while performing maintenance in an
aqueduct that supplies Mexico City.
(AP, 11/14/08)(AP, 11/16/08)
2008 Nov 15, In Mexico more than
1,500 demonstrators marched through the violence-plagued border city of
Tijuana to protest the current of killings and kidnappings. Two people
were shot to death at a Tijuana taco restaurant. 4 men and a woman were
shot to death at a pool hall. A girl (14) and two men were shot down in
a Tijuana street just before midnight.
(AP, 11/15/08)(AP, 11/16/08)
2008 Nov 17, A Mexican newspaper's
offices were damaged by two grenades in the violence-plagued city of
Culiacan in northwestern Mexico.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 21, In Mexico Attorney
General Eduardo Medina Mora told reporters that Noe Ramirez, Mexico’s
former drug czar, accepted $450,000 from drug traffickers, and that
cartel leaders offered to pay him monthly for alerting them to planned
police operations. In Tijuana 3 gunmen burst into the Bar Utopia, a bar
popular with university students and opened fire. 2 men and a woman
died instantly and 3 others died the next day.
(AP, 11/21/08)(AP, 11/22/08)
2008 Nov 25, In Mexico 7 bodies
were dumped before dawn at a school soccer field in the border city of
Juarez.
(AP, 11/26/08)
2008 Nov 27, A sport utility
vehicle carrying 8 people from Texas plunged off an unfinished bridge
into a river in northern Mexico, causing the death of three adults and
four children.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Nov 28, In Mexico at least 12
masked gunmen opened fire inside a restaurant in the northern border
city of Ciudad Juarez, killing eight.
(AP, 11/29/08)
2008 Nov 30, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon pledged to clean up corruption within his
administration and vowed that his government would never negotiate with
drug lords. The bodies of 9 decapitated men were found in a vacant lot
in Tijuana, part of a wave of violence that claimed at least 23 lives
over the weekend in this border city plagued by warring traffickers.
(AP, 11/30/08)
2008 Nov 30, In Guatemala Mexican
and Guatemalan drug traffickers, arguing about a horse race in the
rural border town of Santa Ana Huista, began a series of gunbattles in
which 17 people died.
(AP, 12/1/08)
2008 Dec 1, In Mexico Tijuana's
anti-corruption police chief was fired and replaced with an army
officer, following three days of violence that left 37 people dead in
this border city plagued by warring drug gangs. In southern Mexico
Fabian Ramirez shot his 50-year-old mother in the back Monday, wounding
her. He then allegedly killed three police officers who arrived at the
scene, including Iguala's police chief. Police captured Ramirez, but
four armed men broke into the jail and took him away by force. The next
day Ramirez was found beheaded.
(AP, 12/1/08)(AP, 12/2/08)
2008 Dec 3, The US government
released the first part of a $400 million aid package to support
Mexico's police and soldiers in their fight against drug cartels. Jesus
Martin Huerta, the No. 2 federal prosecutor in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez, was shot dead.
(AP, 12/4/08)
2008 Dec 5, Gerardo Garay,
Mexico's former acting federal police chief, was accused of
collaborating with a notorious cartel and stealing money from a mansion
during a raid to bust a drug trafficking ring. Victor Serrano (24), a
hit team chief, was wounded and 3 alleged gang members died in a
shootout in Mexicali. 14 others were arrested.
(AP, 12/5/08)(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 6, Mexican soldiers found
at least eight bodies buried in a shallow grave in Michoacan state.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 7, In Mexico 10 suspected
drug traffickers and a soldier were killed in gunbattles in southern
Guerrero state. 6 people were killed when assailants opened fire inside
a pool hall in Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 7, A Mexican government
Learjet plunged into Atlangatepec lake in central Mexico, killing two
pilots in the second deadly crash in a month involving a federally
owned plane.
(AP, 12/8/08)
2008 Dec 8, Victor Hugo Moneda, a
senior Mexico City police commander, was slain in a drive-by shooting
outside his home. He had overseen raids in the capital's gang-filled
Tepito neighborhood.
(AP, 12/10/08)
2008 Dec 9, Mexico's Congress
voted to broaden police powers, allowing law enforcement agencies to
use undercover agents and taped conversations as evidence in a bid to
help them fight increasingly bloody drug cartels. In the Gulf coast
state of Tabasco, soldiers detained 11 police officers from four towns
for questioning on suspicion of aiding the Gulf drug cartel. In the
northern city of Tijuana four bodies were found.
(AP, 12/9/08)
2008 Dec 10, In Mexico a shootout
between rival gangs killed 10 people in Sinaloa state, home of the
powerful cartel of the same name. US security consultant Felix Batista
was kidnapped in Saltillo, Coahuila state, while there to offer advice
on how to confront abductions for ransom. He claimed to have helped
resolve nearly 100 kidnap and ransom cases.
(AP, 12/11/08)(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 11, Esther Chavez, a
women's rights activist, was named the winner of Mexico's National
Human Rights Award. She first drew attention to the slayings of young
women in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez in the early 1990s.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2008 Dec 11, Mexican soldiers shot
to death Silvia Arzate (35), a pregnant woman, after she reportedly
failed to stop at a highway checkpoint in the northern state of
Chihuahua.
(AP, 12/12/08)
2008 Dec 14, In Mexico gunmen
staged four attacks on police within a half-hour period, killing four
officers in Ciudad Juarez, the border city overrun by drug
violence.
(AP, 12/15/08)
2008 Dec 19, In Mexico 3 gunmen
were killed following a shootout with army troops in the southern state
of Guerrero.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 19, In northern Mexico a
small plane carrying government officials and television reporters
crashed in northern Mexico and all five people on board are in serious
condition. The plane was carrying state water commission chief Rafael
Reyes, his assistant and two TV Azteca reporters. They were
hospitalized along with the pilot.
(AP, 12/20/08)
2008 Dec 21, Mexican Authorities
found the decapitated bodies of 12 men in the southern state of
Guerrero, and some of the victims have been identified as soldiers.
(AP, 12/21/08)
2008 Dec 22, Laura Zuniga (23), a
reigning Mexican beauty queen from the drug-plagued state of Sinaloa,
was arrested with suspected gang members in a truck filled guns and
ammunition. Soldiers found a large stash of weapons, including two
AR-15 assault rifles, .38 specials, 9mm handguns, nine magazines, 633
cartridges and $53,300 in US currency.
(AP, 12/24/08)
2008 Dec 23, Mexican authorities
in southern Chiapas state said 8 bodies were found stuffed in plastic
garbage bags and dumped on a rural road near the Guatemalan border in
an area plagued by drug violence.
(AP, 12/24/08)
2008 Dec 24, Mexican soldiers
arrested the deputy police chief in the resort town of Zihuatanejo and
six other officers who were allegedly protecting drug cartel members at
a cock fight. Soldiers also seized 59 packets of cocaine, 40 bags of
marijuana and 20 assault rifles.
(AP, 12/25/08)
2008 Dec 24, Mexico began blocking
imports of meat from at least 30 US meat processing plants due to a new
US law that required food retailers to label or display the country of
origin for meat, produce and certain kinds of nuts. The law, effective
as of Sep 30, was part of the 2008 Farm Bill.
(WSJ, 12/27/08, p.A7)
2008 Dec 25, In Mexico, at least
four people were killed in a gun battle between suspected drug
traffickers in a remote mountain area of Sinaloa.
(AP, 12/27/08)
2008 Dec 26, In Mexico a gang of
about 20 men armed with assault rifles robbed a train in the western
state of Michoacan and carted off some of its freight. Dr. Laura Avila.
Avila was found dead in the rural health clinic she was staffing in
Jalisco state. Police soon arrested Ricardo Garcia Barajas (25), a farm
worker, who allegedly hacked the doctor to death with a machete for
refusing to treat his son.
(AP, 12/27/08)(AP, 1/2/09)
2008 Dec 28, In Mexico 7 people
were killed in a series of shootings in the border city of Tijuana over
the last 2 days.
(AP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 31, Mexico sent 10
alleged drug smugglers to the United States, capping an already record
year for extraditions between the two countries. 2 Canadian tourists
were hospitalized with gunshot wounds after assailants opened fire at a
nightclub in the resort town of Cabo San Lucas.
(AP, 1/1/09)
2008 Gabriel Zaid, Mexican writer,
authored “The Secret of Fame: The Literary Encounter in an Age of
Distraction.”
(SFC, 5/14/08, p.E5)
2008 In Mexico drug related
violence this year left 6,268 people dead. The killings were
concentrated in just 3 states, and most of those in 3 cities: Ciudad
Juarez in Chihuahua, Tijuana in Baja California, and Culiacan in
Sinaloa.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.30, 31)
2009 Jan 1, Mexico’s Pres.
Calderon signed a law that set up a new national public security
system. Federal police captured two alleged hit men after the suspects
threw a hand grenade at police and soldiers who cornered them at a
house. Eight officers were wounded in the confrontation. In the western
town of La Huerta, a shootout between rival families at a New Year's
party left four dead, and a clash between soldiers and alleged drug
traffickers in Chihuahua state reportedly killed three smugglers.
(Econ, 3/7/09, p.32)(AP, 1/2/09)
2009 Jan 1-2009 Jun 30, In Mexico
there were some 3,247 drug related killing over this period, compared
with 1,935 in the same period in 2008.
(Econ, 7/11/09, p.38)
2009 Jan 2, Mexican Federal
prosecutors said they placed three municipal policemen in the northern
border city of Ciudad Juarez under house arrest on suspicion of aiding
drug traffickers. In the northern city of Monterrey, prosecutors
accused former Nuevo Leon state policeman Aldo Perales (34) of leading
a gang of bank robbers and participating in more than 30 robberies.
(AP, 1/3/09)
2009 Jan 6, In Mexico masked
gunmen opened fire and tossed a grenade at a television station in
Monterrey as it aired its nightly newscast, leaving behind a message
warning the station about its coverage of drug gangs. Gunmen in Tijuana
opened fire from several cars, killing a 22-year-old standing with his
family outside his house. Two bodies were found wrapped in blankets and
dumped on the street near a cemetery.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 7, The United States said
it has released another $99 million as part of an aid package to
support Mexico's police and soldiers in their fight against drug
cartels. The US released $197 million in December as part of the $1.3
billion US anti-drug package, known as the Merida Initiative.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 7, In Mexico four
decapitated bodies were found in the Otay Mesa neighborhood of Tijuana.
The victims' heads were left inside a black bag at the scene.
(AP, 1/7/09)
2009 Jan 16, Mexico’s central
bank, the Bank of Mexico, cut its benchmark interest rate a half point
to 7.75%.
(Econ, 1/24/09, p.42)
2009 Jan 17, In Tijuana, Mexico, a
prostitute (19) was smothered to death. 2 US sailors, petty officers
Jarrett Monzingo and Joshua Dockery, were taken into custody and faced
murder and attempted-murder charges while being held at La Mesa Prison.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Jan 19, President George W.
Bush In his final acts of clemency granted early prison releases to
Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, two former Texas-based US Border
Patrol agents whose convictions for shooting a Mexican drug dealer in
2005 fueled the national debate over illegal immigration.
(AP, 1/20/09)(SFC, 1/20/09, p.A3)
2009 Jan 20, Mexican prosecutors
said three heads were found in an ice box south of Ciudad Juarez, which
lies across from El Paso, Texas. The heads belonged to three
unidentified men and were found in a rural town about 50 kilometers (30
miles) from Ciudad Juarez. A headless body was discovered in a canal a
few miles (kilometers) away. Mexican federal police said they have
found 3 suspected drug tunnels under construction in Nogales near the
Arizona border.
(AP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 22, Mexico inaugurated
one of the world’s largest wind farms, a $550 million project built by
Spain’s Acciona Energia.
(SFC, 1/23/09, p.A4)
2009 Jan 22, In Mexico a man
accused of helping a drug kingpin dispose of hundreds of victims by
dissolving their bodies in caustic soda was arrested in the border city
of Tijuana. Authorities said Santiago Meza Lopez confessed to disposing
of at least 300 bodies over a decade. Army troops acting on a tip
raided a chili-drying warehouse, belonging to the brother of Zacatecas
state Sen. Ricardo Monreal, and found people loading marijuana onto
trucks. More than 11.4 tons of the drug were seized at the plant, near
the city of Fresnillo.
(AP, 1/23/09)(AP, 1/29/09)
2009 Jan 25, In Mexico Chiapas
state Attorney General Raciel Lopez said Mariano Herran has been
charged with embezzling funds while working as Chiapas economy
secretary last year. Herran was Mexico's drug czar from 1997 to 2000,
replacing Gen. Jesus Gutierrez Rebollo, who was convicted of aiding a
top drug lord.
(AP, 1/26/09)
2009 Jan 27, In Mexico thieves,
apparently targeting people who exchange money at Mexico City's
international airport, shot a French citizen in the head. Authorities
warned that gangs have put lookouts at exchange windows in the
terminal. Mexico City prosecutors soon detained two suspects in the
shooting. French scientist Christopher Augur died at a Mexico City
hospital four days after his assault.
(AP, 1/27/09)(AP, 1/30/09)(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Jan 29, Mexican police
detained an Ecuadorean man for carrying about $2.5 million in cash in a
suitcase at Mexico City's international airport.
(AP, 1/31/09)
2009 Feb 1, Mexico City shut down
a main water pipeline under a new conservation program, cutting service
to more than 2 million residents after some reservoirs dropped to their
lowest levels in 16 years.
(AP, 2/1/09)
2009 Feb 3, In Mexico the bodies
of retired Mexican General Mauro Enrique Tello and two other men were
found in a sport utility vehicle abandoned on a highway outside of
Cancun. All had been shot many times. Octavio Almanza, the suspected
head of the Zetas in Cancun, was later arrested on suspicion of
masterminding Tello's killing.
(AP, 2/3/09)(SSFC, 2/8/09, p.A4)(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 10, In Mexico a drug gang
kidnapped and killed six people near a town in the US-Mexican border
region, prompting a series of gunbattles with soldiers that left 15
others dead. The violence started when gunmen kidnapped nine alleged
members of a rival drug gang in Villa Ahumada and executed six of them
along the PanAmerican Highway outside of the town.
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 12, Mexican federal
police arrested 10 alleged members of a hit squad working for the
Beltran Leyva drug cartel, who had come to Mexico City to start a turf
war with a rival cartel.
(WSJ, 2/13/09, p.A10)
2009 Feb 13, In Mexico
photographer Jean Paul Ibarra (33) and reporter Yenny Marchan were on
their way to the morgue in the southern city of Iguala when gunmen on
another motorcycle came alongside and opened fire. Marchan received two
bullet wounds but survived; Ibarra was killed.
(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 14, Mexico City set a new
record as nearly 40,000 people locked lips in the city center for the
world's largest group kiss. Gunmen killed a state police officer
Carlos Reyes and 10 members of his family, including five children in
the town of Monte Largo, Tabasco state. The shooting also killed a
street vendor in front of the house of the officer. In Jalisco state
gunmen burst into a restaurant, killing seven people and wounding five,
including 3 children.
(AP, 2/14/09)(AP, 2/15/09)(AP, 2/17/09)
2009 Feb 17, In Mexico hundreds of
people blocked bridges to the US in three border cities, demanding the
army leave in another challenge for the Mexican government as it
struggles to quell escalating drug violence. 3 police officers,
including the operations director of the Ciudad Juarez city police,
were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a street near the US
consulate. Federal police fighting gunmen in the northern border city
of Reynosa had to call the army for help. After the fighting, which
left five gunmen dead and seven police injured, authorities seized
several assault rifles and even a 60 mm mortar. Cardboard signs with
handwritten messages appeared taped to the doors and windows of
businesses in ciudad Juarez, warning that one officer would be killed
every two days police chief Roberto Orduna did not quit.
(AP, 2/18/09)(AP, 2/18/09)
2009 Feb 18, Fifty-one Democrats
and 2 Republicans, sent a letter to President Barack Obama urging him
to enforce a ban on importing assault weapons, saying many such guns
are later smuggled south to arm Mexico's ruthless drug cartels. The ban
was implemented under the administrations of Pres. George H.W. Bush and
Pres. Bill Clinton, and the US government can enforce it under
provisions of the 1968 Gun Control Act. But the US Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) has quietly abandoned the ban in
recent years.
(AP, 2/18/09)(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 20, In Mexico criminal
gangs in Ciudad Juarez followed up on threats and killed police officer
Cesar Ivan Portillo and city jail guard Juan Pablo Ruiz as they left
their homes before dawn to head to work. Public Safety Secretary
Roberto Orduna, the police chief of Ciudad Juarez, stepped down
hours later.
(AP, 2/20/09)
2009 Feb 21, In Mexico assailants
in an SUV hurled two grenades at a police station in the Pacific resort
town of Zihuatanejo, wounding one officer and four civilians. Teenagers
stoned a 22-year-old man to death in Tuxtla Gutierrez because they
believed he had stolen a cell phone and a bicycle from one of their
friends.
(AP, 2/21/09)
2009 Feb 22, In Mexico gunmen in
Chihuahua city shot at a convoy carrying the governor of Chihuahua, a
violence-wracked border state, killing one of his bodyguards and
wounding two other agents. Police arrested two suspects March 31 in the
northern city of Chihuahua, who then led them to 2 more suspects.
(AP, 2/24/09)(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Feb 24, In Michoacan state,
Mexico, Vista Hermosa Mayor Octavio Carrillo was arriving at his home
when four gunmen waiting for him opened fire. He became the 6th elected
local official killed in Michoacan since June.
(AP, 2/24/09)
2009 Feb 25, Mexico’s government
said it will deploy extra troops and federal police to Ciudad Juarez
across the border from Texas, where the police chief recently bowed to
crime gang demands that he resign.
(AP, 2/26/09)
2009 Feb 25, Attorney General Eric
Holder said US and Mexican authorities have arrested 750 people over 21
months in an anti-drug sweep that included 52 members of Mexico's
Sinaloa drug cartel. The crackdown culminated 50 overnight raids. It
investigated crimes in the United States, Mexico and Canada, netted
some 59 million dollars in cash, 12,000 kilos (12 tons) of cocaine, 544
kilos (1,200 pounds) of methamphetamine and 1.3 million Ecstasy pills.
(AFP, 2/25/09)(WSJ, 2/26/09, p.A6)
2009 Feb 28, Police in southern
Mexico found the body of Rolando Landa, head of security in the
township of La Union, near the Pacific beach town of Zihuatanejo. The
body was accompanied by threatening messages apparently left by members
of the Familia Michoacana drug gang. Two police officers in the town of
Praxedis Guerrero, just south of the border town of Ciudad Juarez, were
shot dead in their patrol vehicle.
(AP, 2/28/09)(AP, 3/1/09)
2009 Feb, Scientists published a
study showing that genetically modified material did contaminate native
corn in the crop's birthplace in southern Mexico. Elena Alvarez Buylla,
author of the article published in the February edition of Molecular
Ecology, said the difficult atmosphere surrounding the original debate
persists.
(AP, 3/5/09)
2009 Mar 1, Mexican federal police
made two arrests and confiscated weapons and marijuana in Tijuana,
across the US border from San Diego, after coming under attack by men
linked to a drug cartel.
(AP, 3/1/09)
2009 Mar 3, In Mexico hundreds of
heavily armed soldiers fanned out across Ciudad Juarez, trying to
prevent a collapse in law and order just south of the US border.
Joggers found the decapitated bodies of 3 men near a bullfighting ring
in the border city of Tijuana. The heads were found nearby with a
message calling the men "snitches." One of the dead included Jorge
Norman Harrison (38), an American who had been convicted for drug
trafficking in the US. A fourth body, whose head was wrapped in masking
tape, was found in a creek.
(Reuters, 3/3/09)(AP, 3/3/09)(AP, 3/7/09)
2009 Mar 4, In Mexico a fight
between gangs in a state prison in Ciudad Juarez left at least 20
prisoners dead.
(SFC, 3/5/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 6, Mexico published a new
law allowing the planting of genetically modified corn for experimental
reasons.
(SFC, 3/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 9, In Mexico gunmen
killed six people, including a local police chief, in a series of
attacks in mountain towns in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
Gunmen also shot and killed a Michoacan state police commander outside
police headquarters in the city of Zamora.
(AP, 3/9/09)
2009 Mar 10, In western Mexico 5
human heads were found inside coolers along a highway. Authorities were
still searching for the bodies.
(AP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 11, Forbes magazine
released its list of 793 of the world’s richest people. Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman, a suspected drug lord and Mexico's most-wanted fugitive,
made the list of billionaires with a fortune described as "self made."
He was No. 701 on the list. The list included 5 Indonesians.
(AP, 3/11/09)(SSFC, 3/15/09, p.A4)
2009 Mar 12, Mexico extradited two
former US Border Patrol agents accused of taking bribes from migrant
smugglers. The US Embassy said Raul Villarreal and Fidel Villarreal
allegedly fled to Mexico after they learned US authorities were
investigating them in 2006. Two suspected migrant smugglers were also
extradited.
(AP, 3/12/09)
2009 Mar 14, In Mexico police
acting on a tip found nine bodies partially buried in the desert on the
outskirts of the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez. 1,500 more
troops arrived, on top of 2,150 who arrived a day earlier. Authorities
announced the arrest of Sergio Pena Mendoza (39), a suspected leader of
the Zetas, a drug cartel hit squad. A male suspect threw a hand grenade
at police officers in the western city of Guadalajara. No injuries were
reported. Police detained the suspect and later found 14 more grenades
and 10 assault rifles in his home.
(AP, 3/15/09)
2009 Mar 16, Mexico said it will
increase tariffs on about 90 US products in retaliation for last week's
decision to end a pilot program that allowed some Mexican trucks to
transport goods in the United States.
(AP, 3/16/09)
2009 Mar 16, In northern Mexico a
tractor-trailer slammed into a bus carrying Canadian and US tourists,
killing 11. The bus was carrying a group of Texas retirees from
McAllen, Texas, to the northern Mexican state of Zacatecas when a
drunken driver lost control of his tractor-trailer outside the city of
Saltillo.
(AP, 3/17/09)(WSJ, 3/18/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 18, In Mexico Vicente "El
Vicentillo" Zambada, top figure in the Sinaloa drug cartel, was
arrested before dawn at a home in an elite Mexico City neighborhood.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 18, The US government
sued Union Pacific in San Diego and Houston saying the rail company had
failed to prevent smuggling of illegal drugs by rail into the US from
Mexico. The government cited at least 58 occasions of illegal drug
transport, mostly marijuana, since 2001. At least one case involved
cocaine.
(WSJ, 3/19/09, p.A7)
2009 Mar 19, In Mexico new tariffs
on 89 products took effect in retaliation for a US decision last week
to cancel a cross-border program that gave Mexican truckers access to
their northern neighbor's highways.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 20, Mexico’s central bank
lowered its overnight lending rate by .75 to 6.75%, in response to the
deepening recession.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A5)
2009 Mar 20, The Mexican army in
Saltillo, Coahuila, arrested Sigifrido Najera Talamantes, an alleged
drug trafficker. He was suspected of organizing an attack on a US
consulate as well as the killing of several soldiers in retaliation for
a government crackdown.
(AP, 3/20/09)
2009 Mar 21, In central Mexico
toxic fumes killed at least 10 people who were trying to clean a sewage
pump station in the town of Atotonilco de Tula.
(AP, 3/22/09)
2009 Mar 22, In Mexico gunmen
killed Edgar Garcia, a state police commander in charge of
investigating kidnappings and extortion in the western state of
Michoacan.
(AP, 3/23/09)
2009 Mar 24, Mexican soldiers in a
Monterrey suburb detained Hector Huerta Rios, one of the nation's 24
top drug traffickers included on a "most-wanted" list issued two days
ago. Officials in Nuevo Laredo began destroying more than 35 statues
dedicated to a "Death Saint" popular with drug traffickers.
(AP, 3/25/09)
2009 Mar 25, In Mexico US
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged to stand "shoulder to
shoulder" with Mexico in its violent struggle against drug cartels, and
acknowledged the US shares blame because of its demand for drugs and
supply of weapons.
(AP, 3/26/09)
2009 Mar 31, Mexico’s Pres.
Calderon revealed that his country had secured a $47 billion line of
credit from the IMF. It was the 1st country to be approved for the new
Flexible Credit Line, which does not require a country to make policy
changes.
(WSJ, 4/2/09, p.A6)(Econ, 4/4/09, p.76)
2009 Mar 31, Mexican authorities
said police in northern Mexico caught a gang that allegedly stole oil
from state-owned pipelines and smuggled it across the border to sell it
to US refineries.
(AP, 4/1/09)
2009 Mar, Mexico City passed
legislation to ban free non-biodegradable plastic bags. It was signed
in August gave retailers a year to comply.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Mar, Mexico’s Attorney
General's office first mentioned Servando Gomez as a leader of La
Familia, and offered $2.4 million for information leading to his
arrest. In 2010 it was reported that Gomez appeared on the government's
2010 teacher payroll as part of the staff of an elementary school in
rural Arteaga town in Michoacan state.
(AP, 12/9/10)
2009 Apr 1, Mexico detained
Vicente Carrillo Leyva (32), one of its most wanted drug suspects. He
allegedly was the second in command of the powerful Juarez cartel.
Leyva is the son of drug kingpin Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was one of
Mexico's most important drug traffickers before he died during plastic
surgery to change his appearance in 1997.
(AP, 4/2/09)
2009 Apr 2, Mexico's Senate
unanimously approved legislation that would allow the government to
seize property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals
before they are convicted.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 2, US and Mexico
officials said they are creating a cross-border group to develop
strategies for stopping the illegal flow of guns and drugs between the
two countries.
(AP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 3, In Mexico Alberto
Rayas Rodriguez (37), the chief homicide detective in western Jalisco
state, was killed while on his way to a government event when gunmen on
a motorcycle opened fire on his car.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Mexico 11 people
were found shot to death in 5 different places, some bearing signs of
torture and left with threatening messages emblematic of drug violence.
(AP, 4/5/09)
2009 Apr 4, In Texas Jorge Alberto
Mendez (42) was arrested while trying to cross into Mexico from El
Paso, where he lived. He was arrested for allegedly raping 19 women
across the border in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 4/7/09)
2009 Apr 9, Mexico City turned off
the tap to millions of residents because water reserves have reached
historic lows. The two-day shutdown of a main pipeline affected at
least 5 million of the 20 million people in the Mexico City valley.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 9, In Mexico a former
Guatemalan soldier, who allegedly procured weapons for a drug cartel,
was killed in a gunfight with federal police. Israel Nava and two other
gunmen were killed in northern Zacatecas state. Eight police were
wounded. Nava was a former member of the "kaibiles," Guatemalan
soldiers trained in counterinsurgency. Mexico first warned in 2005 that
the Zetas were recruiting kaibiles.
(AP, 4/9/09)
2009 Apr 13, Mexico's Congress
opened a three-day debate on the merits of legalizing marijuana for
personal use, a policy backed by three former Latin American presidents
who warned that a crackdown on drug cartels is not working. Mexican
authorities arrested a woman guarding an arsenal that included the
first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico. The army captured
Ruben Granados Vargas, an alleged lieutenant for the Beltran-Leyva drug
cartel in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero.
(AP, 4/13/09)(AP, 4/14/09)
2009 Apr 15, Mexico’s troubled
border city of Ciudad Juarez and the federal government signed an
agreement to train, recruit and equip enough city police officers to
take over from 5,000 army troops now performing security patrols there.
(AP, 4/16/09)
2009 Apr 15, Pres. Obama directed
the US Treasury Dept. to seize assets of 3 Mexican drug cartels
including the Sinaloa cartel, the Los Zetas cartel and the La Familia
Michoacan group.
(SFC, 4/16/09, p.A2)
2009 Apr 17, In Mexico gunmen over
the last 24 hours killed 12 people in different parts of Michoacan
state, including three men who were beheaded. Authorities in Piedras
Negras, in Coahuila state, bordering Texas, found the body of a man
whose fingers had been cut off. Assailants stuck one finger in the
man's mouth and cut out his tongue. Two buses collided head-on in the
southern state of Chiapas, killing at least 19 people.
(AP, 4/17/09)
2009 Apr 17, A US federal judge
sentenced John Philip Hernandez of Houston to 8 years in prison for
buying military-style firearms and that ended up in the hands of
Mexico’s drug cartels. Prosecutors said Hernandez led a group that
purchased 339 weapons over 15 months.
(SFC, 4/18/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 18, Eight Mexican law
enforcement officers were killed in an unsuccessful attack on a police
convoy attempting to prevent the transfer of an important drug suspect
to a prison in western Mexico. The attack appeared to have been an
attempt to free Jeronimo Gamez, a top lieutenant of the
Beltran-Leyva cartel, was arrested on the outskirts of Mexico City in
January. Officers managed to deliver Gamez and eight other detainees to
the prison despite the attacks.
(AP, 4/19/09)(AP, 4/20/09)
2009 Apr 18, In Mexico one train
apparently ran into another on the recently inaugurated Suburban
Railway bordering Mexico City. At least 70 people were injured.
(AP, 4/19/09)
2009 Apr 20, In Mexico police
found a body in flames dumped along a main thoroughfare on the
outskirts the northern border city of Tijuana. The victim was found
with his head wrapped in packing tape, a common practice used by drug
smugglers against rivals.
(AP, 4/22/09)
2009 Apr 21, In Mexico soldiers
captured Isaac Manuel Godoy Castro, an alleged top member of the
Arellano Felix cartel, along with six other alleged members of his cell.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 22, In Mexico the
bullet-riddled bodies of the two army officers were found in the
Durango township of Tepehuanes, about 30 miles (50 kms) south of
Guanacevi. The discovery happened days after Roman Catholic Archbishop
Hector Gonzalez Martinez created a stir by saying that Sinaloa cartel
leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman lives near the town of Guanacevi.
(AP, 4/23/09)
2009 Apr 24, Mexico’s Health
Secretary Jose Cordova said private and public schools in Mexico city
have been ordered to remain closed due to a flue epidemic. At least 20
people have died nationwide from the flu in the last three weeks.
(AP, 4/24/09)
2009 Apr 24, In Mexico the
bullet-riddled bodies of nine men were found in and around the resort
of Acapulco. 2 federal police agents were shot to death in Ciudad
Juarez, as they walked in the downtown area after leaving a bar.
Mexican authorities captured German Torres (29), an alleged cartel hit
man suspected in the abduction of American anti-kidnapping expert Felix
Batista. Batista was kidnapped in Coahuila state Dec. 10 and has not
been heard from since.
(AP, 4/24/09)(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, In Mexico gunmen
killed the police chief of Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle
Pass, Texas, less than three weeks after he took over the local force
with the aim of purging alleged corruption. Six police officers were
being questioned in the attack.
(AP, 4/26/09)
2009 Apr 25, Mexico City suspended
all public events for 10 days as officials tried to contain an outbreak
of a deadly new swine flu. Tests showed 20 people have died of the
swine flu, and 48 other deaths were probably due to the same strain.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 25, The World Health
Organization called an emergency meeting of experts to consider
declaring an international public health emergency over the swine flu
outbreak believed to have killed dozens of people in Mexico and
sickened at least seven in the US.
(AP, 4/25/09)
2009 Apr 27, US cases of the
deadly new flu strain rose to 40. Governments around the world acted to
stem a possible flu pandemic, as a virus that has killed 149 people in
Mexico and spread to North America was confirmed to have reached
Europe. Spain's Health Ministry confirmed the country's first case of
swine flu and said another 20 people are suspected of having the
disease.
(Reuters, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/27/09)(WSJ, 4/28/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 27, In Mexico an
earthquake of magnitude 5.6 was centered near Chilpancingo, about 130
miles (210 km) southwest of Mexico City. 2 women aged 67 and 75 died of
heart attacks during or shortly after the earthquake, and four homes
and a perimeter wall collapsed in and around the resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 27, In Tijuana, Mexico, 7
police officers were assassinated in about an hour's time in what
authorities said was a coordinated effort. 4 of the officers, three men
and a woman, were found amid more than 200 bullet shells.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 28, World health
officials raised a global alert to an unprecedented level as swine flu
was blamed for more deaths in Mexico and the epidemic crossed new
borders, with the first cases confirmed in the Middle East and the
Asia-Pacific regions.
(AP, 4/28/09)
2009 Apr 29, Mexican police
arrested suspected Zeta gang leader Gregorio Sauceda Gamboa, one of
Mexico's 24 most-wanted drug traffickers.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement
published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights
from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that,
airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup
Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between
Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican health
authorities said they confirmed 300 swine flu cases and 12 deaths due
to the virus among a total of 679 people tested so far.
(AP, 5/1/09)
2009 Apr 30, Mexican authorities
detained 12 federal police investigators accused of leaking information
to hit men who ambushed and killed 8 officers on April 18 in a failed
attempt to free a high level drug cartel member.
(SFC, 5/1/09, p.A2)
2009 May 1, US cases of the H1N1
flu rose to 155, based on federal and state tallies. State laboratory
operators believe the number is higher because they are not testing all
suspected cases. Mexico raised its confirmed swine flu death toll from
15 to 16, adding that the total number of confirmed cases of the virus
had risen to 397. Worldwide, the total confirmed cases were 653, with
the real number also believed to be much larger.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 2, Mexico said it had no
confirmed deaths from HINI swine flu overnight, even as its confirmed
caseload grew to 443.
(AP, 5/2/09)
2009 May 3, Mexican police found
11 bodies dumped around a southern Guerrero state, including seven
wrapped in plastic bags and thrown off a bridge. The bodies of five men
and two women were found in a river between the Pacific resort town of
Acapulco and the city of Cuernavaca. The other four bodies were found
in a 600-yard ravine in the town of Pilcaya.
(AP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 3, In Mexico at least
four gunmen confronted journalist Carlos Ortega (52) when he got out of
his car in front of his home in the small town of Santa Maria del Oro.
Ortega was shot in the head after struggling with the attackers. Ortega
recently argued with the town's mayor, Martin Silvestre Herrera, over
an article on sanitation at a local slaughterhouse, and then wrote a
column saying he would hold the mayor responsible if anything happened
to him.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 4, Mexico's health
secretary said most businesses will reopen May 6 nationwide, citing ebb
in the swine flu outbreak. The World Health Organization chief warned
that swine flu could return with a vengeance despite Pres. Felipe
Calderon insisting his country has contained the epidemic.
(AP, 5/4/09)(AFP, 5/4/09)
2009 May 6, New H1N1 flu cases
across Europe and a second US death kept health officials on alert
despite signs Mexico's epidemic had passed its peak. Mexican health
officials said that testing of backlogged cases has increased the
confirmed swine flu death toll from 31 to 42, including three new
deaths in the past two days.
(Reuters, 5/6/09)(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 7, In Mexico high schools
and universities closed by the swine flu epidemic reopened as teachers
and parents carefully checked returning students for flu symptoms. The
death toll due to the HINI flu was raised to 44. Mexico City says all
businesses can reopen including sports arenas, museums, bars.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 7, Mexican police said 3
women who disappeared in the border city of Tijuana were killed by drug
traffickers who dissolved their bodies in a caustic substance. 2 drug
traffickers were arrested this week and confessed to the killings. A
3rd suspect was being sought.
(AP, 5/7/09)
2009 May 8, Mexico’s federal
attorney general's office said authorities have arrested 25 Tijuana
police officers and two civilians on organized crime charges for
alleged drug gang ties. In the border state of Chihuahua, prosecutors
said police acting on an anonymous tip found two clandestine graves
with 7 bodies in the town of Palomas, across from Columbus, New Mexico.
(AP, 5/8/09)
2009 May 9, In Mexico gunmen
killed 9 people in three separate attacks in the western state of
Michoacan. 4 horses and a bull were also killed in one of the attacks.
The bodies of 4 US citizens (19-23) were found strangled, beaten and
stabbed in a van in Tijuana, two days after they reportedly left their
Southern California homes for a night at the Mexican clubs.
(AP, 5/11/09)(AP, 5/15/09)
2009 May 9, Costa Rica reported
the first swine flu death outside North America and the US announced
its third death from the virus, while Mexico delayed the reopening of
primary schools in some states.
(AP, 5/9/09)
2009 May 10, Mexican prosecutors
announced that police had arrested four alleged members of a drug
cartel in the border city of Tijuana after police found over $542,000
in their vehicles. Federal prosecutors in Cuernavaca detained 11 men
and 3 women on suspicion of smuggling weapons for the Beltran Leyva
drug cartel. The 14 caught in the raid on a house were ordered held
under house arrest for 40 days pending possible charges.
(AP, 5/10/09)
2009 May 11, Most of Mexico's
primary schools and kindergartens welcomed back millions of students
after a nationwide shutdown ordered to help put a brake on the spread
of swine flu.
(AP, 5/11/09)
2009 May 11, Confirmed cases of
H1N1 swine flu in the US climbed to more than 2,500, surpassing Mexico
as the country most affected by the outbreak.
(http://tinyurl.com/prszux)
2009 May 15, Mexico received eight
armored vehicles as part of a US aid package to help the government
with its nationwide fight against drug cartels. Mexican federal police
announced the capture of an alleged lieutenant of the Sinaloa drug
cartel. Mario Gonzalez Martinez was described as one of the most
trusted aides of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Martinez was captured along
with four alleged accomplices in the western state of Jalisco.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 16, In central Mexico an
armed gang freed 53 inmates from the Cieneguillas prison in Zacatecas
state, including two dozen with ties to a powerful drug cartel, in a
daring raid that took just five minutes. Gov. Amalia Garcia Medina said
footage from the security cameras inside and outside the prison
indicates that guards helped the armed gang. The bodies of two men were
found shot to death in central Michoacan state. Federal police came
under fire as they raided a Cuernavaca building where four of suspects
were arrested, including 3 police officers. A fifth suspect was also
arrested as an alleged hit man.
(AP, 5/16/09)(AP, 5/17/09)
2009 May 18, Mexican soldiers
arrested Rodolfo Lopez and several others after they landed at
Monterrey's international airport to take over trafficking operations
in Monterrey. Several armed men were arrested in the parking lot, where
they were waiting to pick Lopez up.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 18, Mexican soldiers
arrested Rodolfo Lopez and several others after they landed at
Monterrey's international airport to take over trafficking operations
in Monterrey. Several armed men were arrested in the parking lot, where
they were waiting to pick Lopez up. Police in the southern state of
Guerrero found the severed heads of three men in an ice chest left on
the side of a highway near the resort of Zihuatanejo.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, Inmates at a Mexico
City prison rioted over restrictions on visits due to swine flu, as the
country reported two more confirmed deaths, raising the toll to 74
nationwide.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 25, In Mexico Eliseo
Barron, a veteran crime reporter for the La Opinion Milenio newspaper,
was kidnapped from his home in Torreon. His body was found hours later
found in an irrigation ditch in the drug-plagued northern Mexican state
of Durango. Mexico's army arrested two US citizens for allegedly
kidnapping a hardware store clerk in the northern border city of
Tijuana. 20-year-old Teddy Toledo and his sister, both of California,
and two others were arrested for abducting the clerk a week ago. Five
suspects were arrested on June 11, including one man who told
authorities the journalist was slain as a warning against meddling with
a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 5/26/09)(AP, 5/27/09)(SSFC, 5/31/09, p.A4)(AP,
6/12/09)
2009 May 26, Mexican federal
forces detained 10 mayors and 18 other officials for allegedly
protecting one of Mexico's most violent drug cartels in an
unprecedented anti-corruption sweep in the Pacific coast state of
Michoacan. Three of the mayors were released soon after they were
arrested, 4 others were quietly let go Jan. 30.
(AP, 5/27/09)(AP, 3/4/10)
2009 May 30, In Mexico two gunmen
died in a clash with soldiers in Michaocan. The gunmen opened fire on
soldiers on patrol in the village of Moreno de Valencia. Soldiers found
a Kalashnikov rifle, a shotgun, a handgun and a grenade inside the
gunmen's sport utility vehicle.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 May 31, In Mexico gunmen in
Ciudad Juarez, opened fire in the lobby of a drug and alcohol
rehabilitation center, killing five people. Gunmen killed four men
sitting in a car in the border city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 1, Mexican soldiers and
federal agents detained 29 police officers in northern Nuevo Leon state
for alleged ties to drug traffickers. Retired Gen. Javier Aguayo took
over as police chief of Chihuahua, where drug-fueled violence has
claimed hundreds of lives. Mexican soldiers in Reynosa captured Sergio
Garcia Trevino, a drug cartel suspect accused of helping procure the
largest illegal weapons cache found in the country.
(AP, 6/1/09)(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexico moved forward
in its campaign to root out corruption, rounding up 21 more police
officers in several northern cities for questioning on suspicions they
had ties to drug trafficking. A total of 58 officers have been detained
since the operation began a day earlier.
(AP, 6/2/09)
2009 Jun 2, Mexican truckers filed
a lawsuit against the United States seeking $6 billion in compensation
for losses they claim to have suffered since Washington banned them
from crossing the border in violation of a trade pact. Mexico's
National Cargo Transportation Association, or Canacar, filed the
lawsuit representing 4,500 trucking companies. Canacar had filed an
arbitration notice with the US State Department under the NAFTA in
April.
(AP, 6/3/09)
2009 Jun 3, Mexican federal
investigators questioned 48 Veracruz city traffic officers about the
disappearance of the top customs official for one of Mexico's most
important ports. Customs administrator Francisco Serrano has not been
seen since his smashed government vehicle was found abandoned at an
accident scene three days ago. Serrano recently launched a new system
to check shipping containers at the Gulf coast port.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 4, Mexican police found
11 bodies, most with their hands and feet cut off, inside an abandoned
car in the border state of Sonora in violence attributed to drug
traffickers battling for control of the region.
(AP, 6/5/09)
2009 Jun 5, In Mexico a
fast-moving fire killed 49 babies and toddlers at the ABC day care in
the city of Hermosillo, Sonora state, despite desperate attempts of
firefighters, who punched through the walls and fought their way
through flames to rescue babies, toddlers and others trapped inside. No
fire alarm or sprinkler system had gone off, according to witnesses.
One mother said a second door to the day care was bolted shut and
nobody could find the key. In 2011 federal police arrested Arturo Leyva
Lizarraga, a former government official, on homicide and abuse of
authority charges tied to a day care center fire.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP,
6/23/09)(AP, 5/10/11)
2009 Jun 6, In Mexico 13 gunmen, 2
soldiers and 2 bystanders were killed in a 4-hour shootout in
Acapulco's hotel zone in a gunbattle that went passed midnight. The
soldiers found four Guerrero state police officers inside the house who
said they were being held captive.
(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 7, Mexican police
announced the arrest of Olga Lerma in western Jalisco state. She was
wanted in the US for allegedly smuggling $2 million in
cocaine-trafficking profits for a powerful drug cartel.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Mexico gunmen
launched grenades and opened fire in near simultaneous attacks on two
police stations in Acapulco, killing three officers in violence that
broke out less than 48 hours after a gunbattle in the resort left 17
dead.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jun 8, The US border patrol
said a Mexican truck driver was arrested over the weekend at a
checkpoint in San Diego County after 73 illegal Mexican immigrants were
found in the back of his rig.
(SFC, 6/9/09, p.A5)
2009 Jun 9, In Mexico 2 Sonora
state government officials, whose wives are owners of the ABC day care
center where 44 children died in a fire, resigned saying they wanted to
clear the way for an investigation into the June 5 blaze.
(AP, 6/10/09)
2009 Jun 10, Mexican soldiers
captured Jose Filiberto Parra Ramos, a suspected cartel member accused
of killing two federal agents and leading bloody battles for smuggling
routes in the northern city of Tijuana.
(AP, 6/12/09)
2009 Jun 11, The Mexican army
captured 25 gunmen in northern Nicolas Bravo, Chihuahua state, who
witnesses say disguised themselves as soldiers. Soldiers also seized 29
automatic rifles during the raid. Gunmen tossed grenades and fired on a
crowded taco stand in the city of Uruapan, Michoacan state, killing a
police officer and a 15-year-old boy. Armed men barged into a motel
room and killed five people in their beds in Ciudad Juarez. Two other
people were killed during a car chase and shootout between armed men in
downtown Juarez. The Mexican Navy in Sinaloa discovered one of the
largest methamphetamine labs ever found in the country, with enough
ephedrine to produce more than 40 tons of methamphetamine.
(AP, 6/11/09)(AP, 6/12/09)(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/16/09)
2009 Jun 11, Human Rights Watch in
a report to the UN said abuses by the Mexican military have surged
since the government deployed troops to fight drug cartels more than
two years ago, and too little is done to investigate allegations of
rapes, killing and torture. Mexico's government disputed the charges.
(AP, 6/11/09)
2009 Jun 12, In Mexico Mauricio
Fernandez, a ruling party mayoral candidate in Monterey suburb San
Pedro Garza, suggested that as mayor he would avoid confronting the
Beltran Levya cartel to maintain peace. Police found the bodies of five
men dumped beside on a highway in the northern state of Durango, all
with signs of torture. Four more bodies were found in different parts
of Ciudad Juarez, across the border from El Paso, Texas. Soldiers
arrested Juan Manuel Jurado Zarzoza, the local leader of the Gulf drug
cartel in Cancun in charge of drug sales, extortion and kidnappings.
(AP, 6/13/09)(AP, 6/14/09)
2009 Jun 13, In Mexico 3 federal
agents were killed in two separate attacks along a highway in the
western state of Michoacan. In western Guerrero state gunmen ordered a
priest and two seminarians out of their vehicle and shot them dead in
the town of Arcelia.
(AP, 6/14/09)(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 15, Mexico's attorney
general's office said it charged 51 guards and prison officials,
including the director, for their complicity in the escape of 53
inmates from a jail in Zacatecas state. A survey by Mexico's National
Human Rights Commission said an estimated 9,758 migrants were kidnapped
in Mexico between September and February, mainly by drug gangs but some
migrants reported that authorities were involved.
(AP, 6/15/09)
2009 Jun 16, In northern Mexico
police found the bodies of seven young men who were beaten or shot to
death in the state of Durango. In western Michoacan state, three
suspected kidnappers were killed in a shootout with local police in the
city of Uruapan. The Navy reported that it had detected a shipment of
cocaine hidden inside the carcasses of frozen sharks aboard a freight
ship at the Gulf coast port of Progreso.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 17, In Mexico four
teenagers were shot to death on a Ciudad Juarez street by gunmen
wielding assault rifles. The four were between the ages of 16 and 18.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 18, Mexico levied
organized crime and drug charges against seven mayors, the former state
attorney general and 19 other officials in the western state of
Michoacan for allegedly aiding a drug cartel.
(AP, 6/18/09)
2009 Jun 19, Mexico authorities in
the border city of Ciudad Juarez said they would step up patrols after
killings there rebounded to levels near those that led the government
to send in 5,000 army troops in March. In Michoacan state gunmen tossed
a grenade at an ambulance and then opened its doors to kill a patient
inside who had narrowly survived an earlier shooting in Uruapan.
Paramedics ran for their lives during the attack. The man (23) died and
his wife (20) was listed in serious condition.
(AP, 6/20/09)
2009 Jun 22, Mexican customs
officials made 3 major drug seizures. Nearly 1,000 pounds (450 kilos)
of cocaine was found hidden in a shipment of tires from Colombia, found
at the Pacific port of Manzan. More than 1,200 pounds (545 kilos) of
marijuana was discovered in the border city of Nuevo Laredo. 330 pounds
(150 kilos) of pseudophedrine pills, used to make methamphetamine, was
found in a shipment of medical supplies from Bangladesh, stopped at
Mexico City International Airport.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 25, In Mexico’s northern
state of Sonora, assailants opened fire on a car carrying a
congressional candidate for Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN,
killing two people who were with the candidate.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Mexico a shootout
between police and suspected cartel hit men left at least 12 people
dead and a police officer wounded in the town of Apaseo el Alto,
Guanajuato state.
(AP, 6/27/09)
2009 Jun 26, In Mexico a shootout
between police and suspected cartel hit men left at least 12 people
dead and a police officer wounded in the town of Apaseo el Alto,
Guanajuato state. Suspected cartel operator Omar Ibarra was caught on a
street in the northern city of Monterrey. He reportedly possessed the
names of 33 policemen in the wealthy suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia
who had presumably received money from Ibarra. Gunmen in the border
state of Sonora opened fire on a car carrying congressional hopeful
Ernesto Cornejo, killing two people who were riding with him.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jun 27, In Mexico’s western
state of Michoacan, gunmen opened fire on a car carrying two forensic
investigators in Zamora, killing a chemist and wounding a doctor.
In the Gulf coast state of Veracruz, a women and her 3-year-old son
were shot to death by unidentified assailants on a highway. Police
uncovered a mass grave in central Mexico with the remains of 14 or 15
people believed to have been executed by the Zetas drug gang.
(AP, 6/27/09)(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jun 28, Mexican prosecutors
announced they have put 93 police officers and investigators under
house arrest on suspicion of aiding the Zetas, a feared gang of hit men
tied to the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 6/28/09)
2009 Jun 29, In Mexico federal
prosecutors released three of the 10 Mexican mayors arrested last month
in an unprecedented sweep of elected officials accused of protecting a
drug cartel. Assailants set ablaze a pickup truck belonging to a
congressional candidate for PAN, and left two threatening notes
demanding he drop out of the race. At least five people died in several
drug-related slayings in the Gulf coast port of Veracruz.
(AP, 6/30/09)(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jun 30, Mexican police found
the remains of six people tortured and shot to death in western
Michoacan state, a focus of the government's war against drug cartels.
In the northern city of Ciudad Juarez, police found the body of a
19-year-old woman, an American citizen from across the border in El
Paso, dumped at an intersection with her throat slit.
(AP, 6/30/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Mexico City
kidnappers opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles during an attempted
rescue of the victim. The rescue failed with catastrophic errors. When
police fired back, two commanders, including the chief of the city's
elite rapid response force, were shot from behind by their own
officers. Meanwhile, one of the kidnappers inside the home fatally shot
Yolanda Ceballos (50) before killing himself. Seven other kidnappers
were captured. Anti-kidnapping chief Juan Maya Aviles was later
suspended.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Jul 3, In Washington state
federal agents said they have arrested 31 people and busted a drug
trafficking ring that was directed by a cartel in Jalisco, Mexico. The
2-week Operation Arctic Chill seized 23 guns including a .50 Desert
Eagle pistol and an AK-47-type assault rifle.
(SFC, 7/4/09, p.A5)
2009 Jul 5, Mexicans voted in
midterm congressional elections. The old Institutional Revolutionary
Party made a big comeback in defiance of those who had written off what
is still the country's biggest and most representative party. The PAN
will lose some of its 206 seats in the lower house, and the PRI stands
to more than double its 106 seats.
(AP, 7/5/09)(AP, 7/6/09)
2009 Jul 7, In northern Mexico an
anti-crime activist and a neighbor were killed by gunmen believed
linked to a drug cartel. Anti-crime activists said the slaying of
Benjamin LeBaron, a US citizen, in Chihuahua state was the first time
one of their own had been killed for denouncing crime and called it a
chilling warning. Jose Rodolfo Escajeda, a lieutenant and one of the
main operators of the Juarez cartel, was later presumed responsible for
the killing of LeBaron and a neighbor near Nuevo Casas Grandes.
(AP, 7/8/09)(AP, 9/6/09)
2009 Jul 8, In Mexico
investigators found a severed head and two arms inside a plastic bag in
the of Ario de Rosales, Michoacan state.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 9, Mexican police found
four mutilated bodies in plastic bags on the side of a highway in La
Huacana, Michoacan state.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 11, In Mexico gunmen
boldly attacked federal forces across the western state of Michoacan
following the capture of Arnoldo Rueda Medina, an alleged member of La
Familia drug cartel. In Zitacuaro, a mountain town famous for its
Monarch butterfly nesting grounds, 3 federal agents were killed, and
two soldiers were fatally shot in the town of Zamora. Two federal
agents were killed and three others were wounded along a highway
between Morelia and the port City of Lazaro Cardenas when dozens of
gunmen ambushed their patrol cars.
(AP, 7/12/09)
2009 Jul 12, Mexican federal
agents captured 2 suspects in connection with a series of attacks on
federal forces across Michoacan state that left 5 officers and 2
soldiers dead.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 13, Mexican prosecutors
said they found the bound, blindfolded and tortured bodies of a dozen
people on a roadside near La Huacana in the western state of Michoacan.
The 12 bodies were soon identified as federal agents investigating
organized crime.
(AP, 7/14/09)(AP, 7/15/09)(SFC, 7/15/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 13, Mexico and the US
announced that they were working on a protocol for sharing information
in arms trafficking cases.
(AP, 7/14/09)(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Jul 16, Mexico’s Interior
Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont said the government was pouring 1,500
federal police officers, 2,500 soldiers and 1,500 navy personnel into
Michoacan state, the home base for the violent La Familia cartel led by
Servando "La Tuta" Gomez.
(AP, 7/16/09)
2009 Jul 17, Mexico's central bank
cut its benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point, dropping
the interbank rate to 4.5% to stimulate a recession-dogged economy.
(AP, 7/18/09)
2009 Jul 18, Mexican soldiers
arrested Luis Ibarra, a suspected drug trafficker in the border city of
Tijuana. He was carrying jewelry, narcotics and $3.6 million in cash.
Ibarra belonged to a cell in charge of making and trafficking
methamphetamine for alleged drug kingpin Teodoro Garcia Simental.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 20, In Mexico 3 men were
killed outside a bar before dawn in Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso,
Texas.
(AP, 7/20/09)
2009 Jul 21, Mexican police
detained a woman (65) in the deaths of two professional wrestlers who
were found drugged in a low-rent hotel in Mexico City on June 29. One
of the diminutive wrestlers went by the name "La Parkita" (Little
Death") and wore a skeleton costume in the ring. The other was known as
"Espectrito Jr." An autopsy on the two wrestlers, who were brothers,
detected a substance found in eye drops that can damage the nervous
system when mixed with alcohol. Three bodies, one of them headless,
were found floating in an irrigation ditch in the northern border city
of Ciudad Juarez, where drug violence has spiked despite the presence
of thousands of soldiers. Police captured four men, members of the La
Familia drug cartel, accused of slaying 12 federal agents on the
weekend of July 12 and dumping their bloodied bodies along a highway in
President Felipe Calderon's home state of Michoacan.
(AP,
7/21/09)(http://alibi.com/index.php?story=28392&scn=news)(AP,
7/23/09)
2009 Jul 23, US Border Patrol
Agent Robert Rosas was killed near Campo, Ca. On July 25 Mexican
federal police detained four men suspected of involvement in the
killing of Rosas. Included was Ernesto Parra Valenzuela, identified as
the suspected killer of Rosas. In 2009 Christian Daniel Castro Alvarez
(17) pleaded guilty to murdering Rosas. On April 29, 2010, Alvarez was
sentenced to 40 years in prison. A 2nd suspect, Marcos Manuel Rodriguez
Perez, was arrested on April 11, 2011.
(AP,
7/26/09)(http://texasfred.net/archives/4628)(SFC, 7/27/09, p.A4)(SFC,
11/21/09, p.A4)(AP, 4/29/10)(AP, 4/11/11)
2009 Jul 24, It was reported that
federal and state agents have arrested 82 people for growing over $1.2
billion worth of marijuana in California’s Sierra Nevada. Over the last
10 days more than 314,000 plants at 70 different sites were destroyed.
Several Mexican drug cartels were said to involved and all but one of
those arrested were from Mexico.
(SFC, 7/24/09, p.D7)
2009 Jul 25, Mexican police
captured 11 suspected members of the La Familia cartel and seized a
methamphetamine lab in the western state of Michoacan.
(AP, 7/25/09)
2009 Jul 27, Mexico announced a
pilot program to have special courts handle cases involving addicted
offenders who commit crimes while under the influence of drugs.
(AP, 7/27/09)
2009 Jul 28, President Felipe
Calderon said Mexico will start issuing nationwide identity cards for
its citizens starting this year, and by 2012 everyone will have one.
The body of Juan Daniel Martinez (48), a Mexican radio journalist, was
found beaten, gagged and partially buried the resort city of Acapulco.
Jose Ibarra, a federal agent who had been investigating the Nov 13,
2008, killing of Mexican journalist Armando Rodriguez, was shot
dead at his home in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 7/28/09)(AP, 7/29/09)(AP, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 29, In Mexico gunmen shot
up and torched the home of Jesus Antonio Romero (39), a police
commander in Veracruz, killing the officer, his wife and his four
children, including a 6-year-old boy. He had been promoted a month ago
to deputy operations coordinator for the Veracruz-Boca del Rio area, a
hotbed of drug violence and a stronghold of the Zetas. In a remote
mountain town south of Ciudad Juarez, gunmen killed a government
welfare official and three police officers during a robbery. Police
announced the capture of six more suspected La Familia members,
including a man accused of being a chief financial operator.
(AP, 7/30/09)
2009 Jul 31, In Mexico assailants
gunned down five men and a woman in a pool hall in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 2, Mexican police raided
a church service in Apatzingan, Michoacan state, and arrested Miguel
Angel Beraza, a man known as "The Truck," and another suspect. Beraza
was suspected of moving a half ton of crystal methamphetamine into the
US each month and was said to be a high-ranking lieutenant in the drug
cartel known as La Familia.
(AP, 8/3/09)
2009 Aug 4, In Mexico 4 bodies
were found in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. In the nearby town of
Llano Blanco, police chief Gerardo Silva (40) was found dead in a
pickup truck, shot five times.
(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 5, In Mexico 5 bodies,
one of them headless, were found in a van in the border city of Ciudad
Juarez. US Sen. Patrick Leahy a Democrat from Vermont, delayed the
release of $100 million of a $1.4 billion, three-year package meant to
help Mexico combat drug traffickers. Leahy said Mexico needs effective
police forces and a justice system that works.
(AP, 8/5/09)
2009 Aug 6, In Mexico 11 people,
including two police officers and nine gunmen, died following a running
battle between police and gunmen in the central city of Pachuca.
(AP, 8/7/09)
2009 Aug 7, In Mexico Zambrano
Flores, a top lieutenant of the Tijuana-based Arellano Felix cartel,
was arrested in Tijuana. Police seized 10 rifles, 7 pistols, almost
4,000 rounds of ammunition during his arrest.
(AP, 8/8/09)
2009 Aug 8, In Mexico assailants
in the state of Guerrero opened fire on a car carrying a couple and
their 3-year-old son, killing all three. In Chihuahua gunmen killed
four people in an attack in a bar.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 9, In Mexico some 400
people marched in Guadalajara to protest the negative affects of free
trade and to demand benefits for retired Mexican laborers who worked in
the US as Pres. Barack Obama, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and
Canadian PM Stephen Harper arrived for a two-day summit.
(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 9, Mexican lawyer Silvia
Raquenel Villanueva, known for defending high-profile drug trafficking
suspects, was shot to death at a street market in the northern city of
Monterrey. Army soldiers killed two suspects in a shootout with gunmen
in the western state of Michoacan. federal police arrested Dimas Diaz,
a drug cartel suspect they believe was behind a plot to kill President
Felipe Calderon in retaliation for his crackdown on organized crime.
Dia was the alleged financial operator of the Pacific cartel.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 10, In Mexico Pres. Obama
huddled with the leaders of Mexico and Canada for a swift North
American summit, where the swine flu epidemic and knotty disputes over
cross-border trade dominated a lengthy agenda.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 10, Mexican soldiers
arrested Juan Daniel Carranco Salazar, the alleged leader of the Gulf
cartel's operations in the Caribbean resort of Cancun. State
prosecutors in Baja California announced their arrest of state
detective Sergio Alvarado Chong in the border city of Mexicali with 8
kilograms (17.64 pounds) of cocaine.
(AP, 8/11/09)
2009 Aug 11, The US Homeland
Security department was scheduled to return $2.4 million to Mexico's
tax administration, the first batch of money seized during a binational
investigation into smuggled oil that authorities expect to lead to more
arrests and seizures. So far this year, oil theft was up 10 percent,
and confirmed in 19 states, up from 13 in 2008.
(AP, 8/11/09)
2009 Aug 11, In northern Mexico
Monterrey city police were told not to sit in parked patrol cars
observing traffic, because officials suspect they could be spying for
criminal gangs or drug cartels. Gunmen attacked a vehicle carrying a
prison director in Chihuahua, killing three bodyguards and wounding two
more seriously.
(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 12, In Mexico’s border
city of Nuevo Laredo, city police found a bullet-ridden sport utility
vehicle belonging to the federal Communications and Transportation
Department crashed into a post on a street. There was blood on the
seats, and four department employees identified as cargo inspectors
were reported missing.
(AP, 8/12/09)
2009 Aug 13, In Mexico state
security officials banned police from setting up sobriety checkpoints
in the northern city of Monterrey because they say the officers
routinely use them to extort motorists. Bishop Eduardo Patino Leal was
detained in the town of Huatusco, Veracruz state, lost control of his
vehicle and ran over 6 Indian street vendors, killing one.
(AP, 8/14/09)
2009 Aug 14, In northern Mexico a
fight among prisoners killed 19 inmates and left more than 20 injured
at the prison in the city of Gomez Palacio, Durango state. The battle
apparently involved inmates jailed on drug or organized crime charges.
Assailants in pickup trucks opened fire on Monclova police chief Juan
Carlos Pacheco as he headed home. Pacheco was not hurt but three of the
police officers guarding him died. Federal police announced the capture
of Hector Oyarzabal, an alleged La Familia leader, who was described as
director of the gang's drug operations in several towns of the state of
Mexico, which surrounds most of Mexico City. In Ciudad Juarez two women
and a man were found shot to death in their car.
(AP, 8/15/09)
2009 Aug 15, In Mexico the
dismembered body of Jesus Arroyo, a legal adviser for the leftist
Democratic Revolution Party, was found in an ice box in Ciudad
Altamirano, in Guerrero state. In Guadalajara singer Carlos Vicente
Ocaranza, who specialized in drug ballads, was shot to death outside a
bar. His manager died of wounds 2 days later. Ocaranza was better known
as "El Loco Elizalde," or The Crazy Elizalde, a reference to his
distant relation by marriage to Valentin Elizalde, a much more famous
musician, also killed by gunshots in 2006.
(AP, 8/15/09)(www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1646540)
2009 Aug 17, In Mexico at least 8
people were killed early in the day when gunmen opened fire in a bar in
drug-plagued Ciudad Juarez on the Texas border. Gunmen killed a father
and his 4-year-old son and wounded the mother as the family drove on a
highway near Ciudad Juarez. 2 girls, ages 12 and 14, died after being
struck by lightning on a soccer field during a religious service in the
city of Tuxtla Gutierrez in Chiapas state. In Monterrey four gunmen
died in a shootout with soldiers and three other suspects were
detained. Three soldiers suffered light injuries in the clash.
(AP,
8/17/09)(www.wtop.com/?nid=105&sid=1646540)(AP, 8/18/09)
2009 Aug 18, In Mexico gunmen shot
up the offices of the Siglo de Torreon newspaper in Torreon, Coahuila
state.
(SFC, 8/19/09, p.A2)
2009 Aug 20, In Mexico the body of
leftist congressman Armando Chavarria was found in the passenger seat
of a vehicle in Guerrero’s state capital of Chilpancingo. State police
said three human heads were found in ice boxes in the municipality of
Coyuca de Catalan. The mutilated bodies were in bags nearby. A message
from alleged drug traffickers was also found.
(AP, 8/21/09)
2009 Aug 21, Mexico decriminalized
small amounts of marijuana, cocaine and heroin, a move that prosecutors
say makes sense even in the midst of the government's grueling battle
against drug traffickers. Gunmen killed an army officer Capt. Alejandro
Aranda and another man in a bowling alley in Ciudad Juarez, a border
city that has seen Mexico's highest levels of drug-related violence in
recent years.
(AP, 8/21/09)(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Aug 22, In Tijuana, Mexico,
at least three police officers were in critical condition after gunmen
opened fire on their patrol cars.
(AP, 8/22/09)
2009 Aug 23, Mexican army soldiers
captured Luis Ricardo Magana. Prosecutors described him as a leading
member of the violent La Familia drug cartel. A team of top US law
enforcement officials began a three-day visit to Mexico to explore ways
to improve efforts against arms smuggling into Mexico as part of joint
efforts to combat drug gangs.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Aug 24, Mexican police in the
northern state of Sinaloa found four severed human heads in a cooler by
the side of a rural roadway.
(AP, 8/24/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Mexico gunmen in
Ciudad Juarez killed Pablo Pasillas (33), the aide of a Mexican federal
agent investigating the death of a crime reporter, a month after the
first agent assigned to the case was shot dead.
(AP, 8/27/09)
2009 Aug 27, In Mexico the bodies
of four farm workers were found dumped in a stable for bulls in the
western state of Michoacan. The bodies bore signs of torture and had
the letter "Z" carved into their foreheads, a possible reference to the
Zetas, hit men tied to the Gulf cartel. In the northern state of Nuevo
Leon, state Public Safety Secretary Aldo Fasci said about 2,000 police
officers across the state had been fired over the last two years for
suspected links to organized crime and drug cartels. Speaking at a
meeting of private security firms, he said 500 others were dismissed
for other causes.
(AP, 8/28/09)
2009 Aug 27, In Oaxaca, Mexico,
supporters of a teacher’s union tried to retake a school controlled by
Section 59 when gunfire erupted and teacher Antonio Norberto Camacho
was shot to death. Section 59 was created in the midst of the protests
led by Section 22 and anti-government groups in 2006.
(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Aug 28, In Mexico a convoy of
gunmen engaged state police in a running shootout that killed five
officers and possibly one of the attackers in the western Mexico state
of Jalisco. Americo Delgado (80), a lawyer for convicted Mexican drug
kingpin Benjamin Arellano Felix, was found stabbed to death in his
home. Felix was in prison serving a 22-year-sentence on drug
trafficking and organized crime charges and was fighting extradition to
the United States.
(AP, 8/28/09)(AP, 8/29/09)
2009 Aug 29, In northwestern
Mexico a shooting killed eight people partying on a seaside boulevard
in Navolato, Sinaloa state. Among the dead were two brothers in their
30s who had a record of car theft, Investigators were considering the
possibility that the gunmen belonged to a criminal gang known as the
"Death Squad," which has been killing car thieves in the region.
(AP, 8/31/09)
2009 Aug 31, Mexican authorities
said they have arrested four men accused of killing at least 211 people
for the Juarez cartel. The men allegedly belong to La Linea, a gang of
hit men for the Juarez cartel. One of the men alone was accused of
killing 97 people and another 87.
(AP, 8/31/09)
2009 Aug, In Mexico the director
of immigrant affairs in the southern border city of Tapachula was found
in a tub of cement, months after he was kidnapped.
(Econ, 9/26/09, p.48)
2009 Sep 1, A top State Department
official said the US has released $214 million of an aid package to
help Mexico fight drug trafficking, including funds for five
helicopters for the military to be delivered by year's end.
(AP, 9/2/09)
2009 Sep 2, In Mexico gunmen broke
into a drug rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez, lined people
against a wall and shot 18 dead. The brazen attack followed the killing
of Jose Manuel Revuelta, the No. 2 security official in Michoacan,
President Felipe Calderon's home state. 2 bodyguards and a truck driver
were also killed in the crossfire. The federal Attorney General's
Office announced the arrest of its two top officials in Quintana Roo, a
state on the Yucatan Peninsula, for allegedly protecting the Gulf and
the Beltran Levya drug cartels. Chihuahua state authorities said they
were investigating reports that rehabilitation centers have turned into
hideouts for drug smugglers being sought by police and hit men from
rival gangs.
(AP, 9/3/09)(AP, 9/4/09)
2009 Sep 3, Sergio Saucedo (30), a
drug trafficker, was taken from his home in Horizon City, outside of El
Paso, Texas. He was murdered and mutilated in Ciudad Juarez in
retaliation for the loss of 700 pounds (315 kilos) of marijuana seized
by border patrol agents. His body was found on Sep 8. On April 1, 2011,
the West Texas Federal Court jury found Cesar Obregon-Reyes and Rafael
Vega guilty of abducting Sergio Saucedo from his home.
(AP, 3/20/10)(http://tinyurl.com/m7lpok)(AP, 4/2/11)
2009 Sep 4, Mexican federal police
detained Armando Medina (49), a small-town mayor of Mugica, Michoacan
state, on suspicion of aiding drug traffickers. This is the same state
where eight other city chiefs have been arrested since May on similar
charges. In the northern state of Durango, two gunmen were killed in a
shootout with federal police in the city of Gomez Palacio. The federal
government auctioned off property seized from drug traffickers,
smugglers, money launderers and tax evaders, including a DC-9 jet that
was used to transport 5.5 metric tons of cocaine in 2006. The agency
did not disclose the identity of winning bidders. Mexican soldiers,
acting on a tip about armed men, detained Jose Rodolfo Escajeda in
Nuevo Casas Grandes, in northern Chihuahua state. The suspected drug
gang leader was linked to a 2006 border incursion by armed traffickers
into Texas and the killing of an anti-crime activist in July. Five
gunmen and a bystander were killed in a shootout at a lake that began
when assailants opened fire on an army patrol on the outskirts of the
northern city of Monterrey. A Ciudad Juarez police officer was shot to
death outside his home..
(AP, 9/5/09)(AP, 9/6/09)
2009 Sep 5, In southern Mexico
gunmen killed Jose Francisco Fuentes Esperon (43), a state
congressional candidate, his wife (38) and two sons (9&13) in their
home in Villahermosa in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco. Police later
arrested a boy (16) and two young men for allegedly killing Fuentes and
his family. Chihuahua state prosecutors reported that a severed human
head was found placed on a car hood in the border city of Ciudad
Juarez, along with a message relating to drug cartels.
(AP, 9/5/09)(AP, 9/7/09)
2009 Sep 6, In Mexico attackers
shot four men to death in a motel parking lot in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 7, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon accepted the resignation of Attorney General Eduardo
Medina-Mora, who was leading the battle against drug cartels, making
the biggest shake-up yet in his offensive against organized crime.
Calderon said he will send the Senate the nomination of Arturo Chavez,
a little known lawyer who has worked as both a state and federal
prosecutor, to replace Medina-Mora. In the Pacific port of Lazaro
Cardenas, about 150 federal police officers assigned to fight cartels
went on strike, saying they have not been paid in two months or
received hazard bonuses.
(AP, 9/7/09)(AP, 9/8/09)
2009 Sep 8, In Mexico Police a
body with both arms cut off was found dumped on a street in the border
city of Ciudad Juarez. The court system in southern Tabasco state said
rural journalists Roberto Juarez and Lazaro Abreu Tejero Sanchez have
been arrested for allegedly working as informants for the Zetas, a gang
aligned with the Gulf drug cartel.
(AP, 9/9/09)
2009 Sep 9, In Mexico a
Bolivian-born man, clutching a Bible and claiming a divine mission,
hijacked a plane with more than 100 people aboard after takeoff from
Cancun. The incident ended quickly and without bloodshed when police
arrested Jose Flores (44) in Mexico City. Police in Morelia said that
they had seized eight counterfeit police and rescue vehicles including
an intensive care ambulance with official-looking logos and paint jobs.
The vehicles belonged to gang members who planned to use them to
conduct illegal activities.
(Reuters, 9/10/09)(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 10, Mexican defense dept.
said soldiers have arrested Michael Escalante (29) of El Paso,
suspected of killing 18 people in a series of attacks this year in
violence-plagued Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 11, Mexican authorities
found at least $5 million hidden in a shipment of ammonium sulfate at a
Pacific coast port.
(AP, 9/12/09)
2009 Sep 12, Mexican police said
they have found the bodies of five men dumped in a landfill near the
resort city of Acapulco. The men had been shot to death and officers
found a note with the bodies signed "The boss of bosses."
(AP, 9/12/09)
2009 Sep 14, In Mexico 31 police
officers were arrested in Hidalgo state on suspicion of collaborating
with the Zetas, a gang of drug cartel hit men. 92 police were arrested
there in June. Gunmen opened fire inside a Ciudad Juarez hardware
store, killing the woman who owned the store and four other people,
including a 19-year-old man. Minutes later an armed gang killed five
men riding in a pickup truck.
(AP, 9/14/09)(AP, 9/16/09)
2009 Sep 15, In Mexico
firefighters found six bodies inside a burning car in Tijuana. In
Ciudad Juarez gunmen killed five people at a car wash. Gunmen burst
into a drug treatment center in Ciudad Juarez and shot to death 10
people, the second such mass killing this month.
(AP, 9/16/09)(AP, 9/16/09)
2009 Sep 16, Mexican navy
personnel arrested of a suspect in the June 1 kidnapping of Francisco
Serrano, the customs administrator for the Gulf coast state of
Veracruz, who remains missing. Jose Osiris was captured in the port of
Veracruz along with 10 other people who may have been accomplices.
Guerrero state police reported they had found the decomposed bodies of
four men by the side of a highway. Because of their poor condition, the
cause of death and identity of the bodies has not yet been established.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 18, In Mexico City Luis
Felipe Hernandez Castillo (38), while scrawling graffiti inside the
downtown at the Balderas subway station, pulled out a gun and began
shooting when confronted by police, killing at least two people and
wounding five before being shot and subdued by officers.
(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 19, In southern Mexico
gunmen attacked a group of illegal immigrants, killing one and wounding
five as well as an alleged people smuggler in Chiapas state.
(AP, 9/19/09)
2009 Sep 21, Mexican soldiers
raiding a drug gang safehouse in Monterrey found money-stuffed
envelopes earmarked for various police forces and one marked for
"press." Four people were arrested and $5 million in US and Mexican
currency was seized during the raid.
(AP, 9/23/09)
2009 Sep 22, Mexican authorities
said there would be no compensation for Jacinta Francisco Marcial, an
Indian market vendor who was wrongfully convicted of kidnapping and
spent three years in prison, in a case that provoked an international
protest.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 24, In Mexico Chihuahua
state prosecutor Arturo Chavez, criticized for failing to solve dozens
of rapes and murders of women in his northern border state, was
confirmed as Mexico's attorney general and leader of the nation's war
on vicious drug cartels.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 Sep 25, Mexican police
arrested five men accused of dozens of murders, including two mass
killings at drug treatment centers in this northern Mexico border city.
(AP, 9/26/09)
2009 Sep 28, In Mexico 2 Canadian
men were shot to death in execution-style slayings outside an apartment
building in the Mexican resort of Puerto Vallarta. Gordon Douglas
Kendall and Jeffrey Ronald Ivans were believed to be involved in the
drug trade. In Michoacan state police arrested three federal agents for
allegedly passing information to organized crime.
(AP, 9/28/09)(SFC, 9/29/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 1, In Mexico gunmen in
Ciudad Juarez opened fire on a pickup truck, killing a 22-year-old
woman as well as a 10-year-old girl playing in a city park. Hours
earlier, a city police officer was killed as she rode on a bus.
(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 2, In Mexico gunmen
killed eight people in five separate attacks, including a state
policewoman who was shot in the head in broad daylight in a residential
area. In Ciudad Juarez at least 11 people, including two police
officers and a child, were killed over the last 24 hours. A Mexican Air
force plane crashed in President Felipe Calderon's home state of
Michoacan, killing three soldiers. Federal officials announced 2 raids
by security forces that netted the largest seizures of methamphetamine
precursor chemicals in the country's history. Agents seized 20 tons of
chemicals at Manzanillo port in the Pacific coast state of Colima and
17 tons in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas.
(AP, 10/2/09)
2009 Oct 5, In Mexico gunmen burst
into a bar in the northern border city Ciudad Juarez and shot 5 men to
death. Soldiers arrested Eduar Vera (30), a suspect linked to at least
27 killings. In the southern state of Guerrero, gunmen killed two state
police officers in the city of Iguala.
(AP, 10/6/09)
2009 Oct 5, In Mexico efforts to
film Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez's latest novel,
"Memories of My Melancholy Whores" (2004), met resistance as an
anti-prostitution group sought to block production, charging the movie
will promote child prostitution. The Regional Coalition Against
Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean filed
a criminal complaint with Mexico's Attorney General's Office.
(AP, 10/6/09)
2009 Oct 8, In Mexico unidentified
assailants kidnapped and killed the top official of the border town of
Palomas, across from New Mexico. Town Mayor Estanislao Garcia Santelis
had long complained about the drug traffickers and migrant smugglers
active around Palomas. Federal police detained Jorge Alberto Lopez
Orozco (33) on a highway in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. He was
transported to the neighboring state of Michoacan and held on a US
extradition request. Orozco was wanted for the 2002 killings of his
girlfriend and her two young sons in Idaho. Gunmen in northern
Chihuahua state killed a soldier in an attack on army vehicles near the
hamlet of Colonia LeBaron. Five men and seven women were detained.
(AP, 10/9/09)(AP, 10/10/09)
2009 Oct 9, In Mexico the
mutilated body of state official Rogelio Sanchez, who authorities said
was suspected of giving fake driver's licenses to drug gang members,
was found hanging from a bridge in the border city of Tijuana. Sanchez
was kidnapped Oct 7 as he left his home in Tijuana. Police in the
Pacific coast state of Guerrero found the bodies of 10 men, all
apparently shot to death. Signs left next to the bodies read: "This is
what is going to happen to all thieves and extortionists.” In rural
western Jalisco state four suspects were killed and 17 arrested in an
hours-long gun battle between members of a criminal gang and soldiers
and police.
(AP, 10/9/09)
2009 Oct 9, Stephen Pechenik (78),
the president of a San Antonio company, pleaded guilty to charges that
he conspired to receive and sell petroleum stolen from Mexico's oil
giant, Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex. He was the 4th Texas oil
executive to plead guilty to felony charges of conspiring to receive
and sell stolen petroleum condensate. Much of the Mexican oil rustling
was traced to the Zetas, a criminal group founded by former military
commandos.
(SFC, 12/15/09, p.A26)(http://tinyurl.com/yjs42ms)
2009 Oct 10, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon dispatched over 1,000 federal policemen to occupy the
offices of Luz y Fuerza del Centro, the state-owned electricity
distributor for Mexico City and its surroundings. The Federal
Electricity Commission, which provides service to the rest of the
country, took over for Luz y Fuerza, which had been established in 1994
by presidential decree. The company’s fat salaries and pensions cost
the government some $3 billion a year and lost 30% of its power thru
illicit connections and technical failures.
(Econ, 10/17/09, p.50)
2009 Oct 14, Mexico’s Supreme
Court ruled that the governor of southern Oaxaca state is responsible
for rights abuses during 2006 protests that paralyzed Oaxaca and left
least a dozen people dead.
(AP, 10/14/09)
2009 Oct 15, In Mexico some 33,000
people marched to protest President Felipe Calderon's weekend decision
to disband Luz y Fuerza, a public electricity company that provided
electricity to Mexico City and the surrounding area. Police officers
found the decapitated bodies of 9 men in an abandoned pickup truck on a
highway in the drug-plagued Mexican state of Guerrero.
(AP, 10/16/09)
2009 Oct 16, A Mexican government
report said the use of cocaine doubled in Mexico over the last six
years, partly because the drug became more available in the country.
The Mexican navy enacted new rules prohibiting sailors from shooting at
vehicles that try to evade land checkpoints unless they are fired on or
feel that their lives or others' are in danger.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 17, Mexican police in
Tijuana found a man's nude, mutilated body hung by the neck from an
expressway overpass, the 2nd such grisly discovery in 9 days. Police
reported finding the mutilated body of a woman in a reservoir in
another part of Tijuana. The woman's hands and head were missing. A
shootout between gunmen and police killed one officer and a gunman and
wounded two policemen. Tijuana investigators found five assault rifles
and vests with federal prosecutors' insignia in three vehicles thought
used by the attackers.
(AP, 10/17/09)
2009 Oct 19, It was reported that
Mexican biologists and park workers were racing to fell as many as
9,000 fir trees, infected with deadly bark beetles, and bury or extract
infested wood before the orange-and-black monarchs start arriving in
late October to spend the winter bunched together on branches,
carpeting the trees.
(AP, 10/19/09)
2009 Oct 20, In Hidalgo, Mexico,
police found the body of a young man, about 16 years old, who was found
dead with two bullets in his head, his genitals cut off and a warning
note stabbed into his chest.
(AP, 10/22/09)
2009 Oct 22, Mexican police
detained five suspected associates of the Gulf drug cartel for alleged
involvement in violent clashes that killed four people in the central
Mexican state of Hidalgo. The suspects were said to be affiliated with
the Zetas, the drug ring's hit men.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 22, US authorities
arrested over 300 people in 38 cities in a sting against Mexico’s La
Familia drug operations in the US. At least 84 were arrested in Dallas
as part of Operation Coronado.
(SFC, 10/23/09, p.A12)(SFC, 12/12/09, p.A4)
2009 Oct 23, In Colorado Miguel
Angel Caro Quintero (46), a Mexican drug kingpin, pleaded guilty in
Denver to federal drug and racketeering charges. He had led the Sonora
Cartel in the 1980s and faced up to 20 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/24/09, p.A5)
2009 Oct 26, In Mexico a band of
thieves swarmed into a railroad facility and held security guards at
gunpoint while making off with three dozen new automobiles and trucks
from a storage lot west of the capital.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 27, Mexican police
arrested Abel Valadez Oribe (32), who they say headed the operations of
the "La Familia" drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan. Police
found dismembered remains of a man in plastic bags by the side of a
road in Uruapan, another city in Michoacan. In Tijuana a teenage girl
(15) was killed by a stray bullet during a shootout between police and
gunmen. Reporters in Tijuana were invited by military officials to a
private, industrial property about 100 feet south of San Diego's Otay
Mesa border crossing where Mexican soldiers discovered a secret tunnel
complete with electricity and an air supply that may have been planned
for smuggling migrants or drugs under the US border into San Diego. 4
police officers were killed by assailants who opened fired on them
during a traffic stop in the central Mexico city of Puebla.
(AP, 10/27/09)(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 29, Mexican authorities
said a woman's body was found buried headfirst in a plastic container
of cement in drug-plagued Tijuana.
(AP, 10/29/09)
2009 Oct 30, Mexican authorities
said they have detained a large-scale drug trafficker and also broken
up a ring in Cuernavaca that allegedly laundered around $37 million for
a drug cartel. The army says it detained Oscar Orlando Nava Valencia,
the alleged leader of the "Valencia" drug gang, and nine alleged
associates in the western state of Jalisco. Rights activists in the
border city of Tijuana have hung 5,100 small white crosses on the fence
straddling the US frontier to commemorate migrants who have died trying
to cross. Margarito Montes Parra, the leader of a farmworkers'
organization, and 14 other people were killed in a mass shooting in the
northern state of Sonora. Local news media reported that Montes had led
peasant and squatters' movements involved in land seizures and that his
group has sometimes had violent clashes with rival claimants to land.
(AP, 10/31/09)(SSFC, 11/1/09, p.A6)
2009 Oct 31, In Mexico Mayor
Mauricio Fernandez told cheering supporters in San Pedro Garza Garcia,
near Monterrey, that "Black Saldana, who apparently is the one who was
asking for my head, was found dead today in Mexico City." Hours later
Mexican officials found four bound bodies in a sport utility vehicle
with hand-lettered messages identifying the dead men as kidnappers.
Hector “Black” Soldana was not identified for another 2 days. Fernandez
later said US authorities had tipped him off that somebody intercepted
cartel communications and learned Saldana was planning to kill him, and
he said unspecified intelligence sources told him Saldana was dead
hours before the bodies were found.
(AP, 11/2/09)(AP, 11/3/09)
2009 Nov 1, Mexican soldiers in
the border city of Tijuana detained a group of 13 suspects after a
shootout that wounded a soldier and a gunman. Soldiers raided and
destroyed three methamphetamine labs in the western state of Michoacan.
The raids netted five suspects and more than two metric tons of
apparent methamphetamine.
(AP, 11/2/09)
2009 Nov 2, In Mexico El Tiempo de
Durango journalist Jose Bladimir Antuna was kidnapped in the morning.
Authorities found his body the same night in a vacant lot in the
Durango state capital, about 400 miles southwest of Laredo, Texas. The
bodies of three men with bullet and knife wounds were found by
relatives in the southern state of Guerrero.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 3, Mexican police and
soldiers killed Miguel Angel Meneses, a federal agent driving one of
three cars that ignored orders to stop in Chihuahua, triggering a chase
and gunbattle. Federal police and navy personnel shot to death a top
Zetas cartel suspect in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. The navy said
suspect Braulio Arellano Dominguez was the reputed leader of the Zetas,
a gang of hit men tied to the Gulf Cartel.
(AP, 11/4/09)(AP, 11/7/09)
2009 Nov 4, Mexican authorities
said 3 doctors and a nurse have been arrested for allegedly selling
newborns after telling mothers their babies had died at a private
hospital in Mexico City.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 4, In Mexico floods
killed at least three people in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco where
authorities struggled to persuade thousands of people to leave their
inundated homes. Heavy rains have caused several rivers to overflow
their banks flooding the homes of more than 50,000 people.
(AP, 11/4/09)
2009 Nov 4, In Mexico a gang of
gunmen killed Sgt. David Booher, an off-duty US airman, and five other
people at a strip club in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. A group of
gunmen, believed to belong to the Gulf cartel, arrived at the home of
Garcia Mayor Jaime Rodriguez to give him a "scare." As the group was
leaving, they crossed paths with Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Ezparza, who
was driving to the mayor's home after hearing about the threat. The
gunmen sprayed Ezparza's car with bullets, killing him along two former
soldiers and two municipal police officers escorting the general.
Kidnappers snatched an American woman (21) from her car in Tijuana and
threatened to kill her unless they were paid $200,000. She was released
on Nov 7 and 3 kidnappers were arrested.
(Reuters, 11/5/09)(SFC, 11/5/09, p.A2)(AP,
11/6/09)(AP, 11/9/09)
2009 Nov 5, Five Mexican police
officers and five other suspects were arrested in the investigation
into the assassination of Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Ezparza, who had been
appointed police chief of the northern Mexican town of Garcia over the
weekend. 3 bullet-ridden bodies were found in different towns around
the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. The bodies all had their hands and
feet tied and were found next to threatening messages. One was found
along the highway connecting the resort towns of Acapulco and
Zihuatanejo. The Mexican army seized a shipment of almost a quarter-ton
of opium in the country's northern mountains, one of the largest such
seizures made in Mexico. A policeman was killed and four other were
wounded in an attack by gunmen in Guerrero state. Another body was
found in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz with its arms and legs
mutilated and its head hacked off.
(AP, 11/6/09)(AP, 11/7/09)
2009 Nov 6, Mexican police caught
Marco Antonio Ibarra in the northern city of Culiacan. The former
prison official had spent a year on the run from charges of killing a
19-year-old inmate, whose beating death in Sep, 2008, sparked riots
that left nearly two dozen dead, including two American prisoners. Noel
Martinez, a district supervisor for the police in Ciudad Juarez, was
shot and killed inside his car.
(AP, 11/7/09)(SFC, 11/7/09, p.A2)
2009 Nov 9, In Mexico gunmen burst
into an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and opened fire in a
violence-plagued Chihuahua City, killing one person and wounding four
others. In the Pacific coast state of Colima state police captured
Aaron Lopez Garcia (31), a violent gang member who was one of America's
15 most wanted fugitives by US Marshals.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 10, In Mexico Tabasco
authorities announced that police had detained 7 suspected members of
the Zetas drug gang, including two teenagers. In the northern city of
Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state, a man's tortured body was found
hanging from a highway overpass. The unidentified man had his hands
tied behind his back and was hung by the neck. Monterrey Mayor Fernando
Larrazabal said that 276 traffic police officers and administrative
officials were fired for failing tests designed to detect corruption
and ineptitude. 526 officers who performed poorly were ordered to
undergo more training, and 340 were determined fit for the job.
(AP, 11/11/09)
2009 Nov 11, In Mexico reporter
Maria Esther Aguilar, who wrote about organized crime, disappeared in
western Michoacan state.
(AP, 11/20/09)
2009 Nov 11, Forbes Magazine named
drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, a fugitive reputed to be hiding in
the mountains of northern Mexico, to its list of the 67 "World's Most
Powerful People." Business groups in the Mexican border city of Ciudad
Juarez said they are calling for UN peacekeepers to quell the
drug-related violence that has given their city one of the highest
homicide rates in the world.
(AP, 11/12/09)
2009 Nov 13, In Mexico a
7-year-old boy, three women and a university professor were among 15
people killed in 6 separate incidents in the border city of Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 11/14/09)
2009 Nov 20, In Mexico Jesus
Zambada Reyes, identified as the nephew of drug lord Ismael "El Mayo"
Zambada, was found dead in an apparent suicide in Guerrero state. A
body found in Guerrero state was identified as Omar Guerrero Solis, a
rebel leader who had accused the state governor of drug ties. Solis
told local media in May that he believed Gov. Zeferino Torreblanca had
ties to the Sinaloa cartel. He accused the army of not detaining
Sinaloa gunmen, while cracking down on members of the rival Beltran
Leyva cartel. US citizen Lizbeth Marin was shot in Matamoros and later
died of the wound. A Mexican army soldier was said to have accidentally
fired a round that hit Marin.
(AP, 11/21/09)(AP, 11/24/09)
2009 Nov 27, Bison returned to
Mexico for the first time since the 1800s, with Mexican authorities
releasing 23 donated US animals in northern Chihuahua state. The
donated bison came from the Wind Cave National Park in South Dakota.
(AP, 11/27/09)
2009 Nov 29, In Mexico weekend
violence left 17 people dead. 7 women were murdered, including one (19)
who was beheaded in the southern beach resort of Cancun. 4 of the women
were killed in Ciudad Juarez, where two were shot to death, another
beaten with a baseball bat and a fourth, a school teacher, also was
beaten to death. 2 women were found shot to death in Mexicali. Jesus
Alfredo Portillo (27), a university student and rights activist, was
killed in Ciudad Juarez. Her mother-in-law and women's group founder
Marisela Ortiz had recently complained of death threats against her.
Elsewhere, 8 men were found murdered in northern Chihuahua state, 5 of
them in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 11/29/09)(AFP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 1, In Mexico City gunmen
burst in to a Starbucks coffee shop and killed a former policeman who
was a protected witness in a drug corruption case, the second death of
a high-profile witness in Mexico in less than two weeks. Edgar Bayardo
was gunned down in the upper middle-class Del Valle neighborhood, and a
man with him was severely wounded.
(AP, 12/1/09)
2009 Dec 2, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon said that cartels are seeking to control territory by
sinking drug money into political campaigns and buying off officials
before they are even elected. Gunmen shot and killed Lawyer Eleuterio
Cachu Ortiz, a former police commander and opposition politician, in
his office in the Mexican border town of Tijuana.
(AP, 12/2/09)(AFP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 3, Mexico City police
freed 107 people who were forced to work under slave-like conditions in
a clandestine factory making shopping bags and clothing clasps.
(AP, 12/4/09)
2009 Dec 4, In northern Mexico a
pair of shootouts between troops and gunmen killed 13 people in a
suburb of Monterrey, including a bystander and a drug trafficker linked
to the killing of a retired army officer. Almanza Morales, killed in
the attack, was accused of working for the Zetas, drug traffickers who
also serve as enforcers for the Mexican Gulf cartel, and of killing
army Brig. Gen. Juan Arturo Esparza and his four bodyguards in a
November attack.
(AP, 12/5/09)
2009 Dec 6, In Mexico thousands of
people dressed in white demanded soldiers leave Ciudad Juarez, the
country's most violent city, accusing troops of provoking a surge in
drug-war killings and running protection rackets.
(Reuters, 12/6/09)
2009 Dec 8, Amnesty International
released a report that said Mexican soldiers have carried out torture
and forced disappearances while fighting drug cartels. A student's body
was found in a truck at an intersection in Ciudad Juarez. He was the
second student from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua to be killed
since Dec 5.
(AP, 12/9/09)(AP, 12/10/09)
2009 Dec 9, In Mexico the bound,
bullet-riddled bodies of seven men were found along a highway in
Chihuahua state. 2 federal agents were killed in separate attacks in
the cities of Uruapan and Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state. Police
found four mutilated bodies near a middle school in Chilpancingo, state
capital of drug-plagued Guerrero state.
(AP, 12/10/09)(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 10, In Mexico 2 federal
agents were killed in a shootout with gunmen in the port city of Lazaro
Cardenas. Earlier in the day, a passer-by was killed in the same city
when he drove into a shootout between agents and gunmen outside a hotel
where the federal police officers were staying. Three more officers who
had been wounded last evening in an attack in the town of Apatzingan
died at a hospital.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 11, Mexico's foreign
minister met with Cuban President Raul Castro for three hours, the
latest sign her country and the island have repaired recently chilly
relations.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 11, In Mexico police
found the bodies of three women and two men inside a home in the town
of Almoloya de Juarez. A third man died on the way to a hospital.
Soldiers raided a drug cartel's Christmas party south of Mexico City,
outside the mountain town of Tepoztlan. They found 16 automatic rifles,
$280,000 in cash, and Latin Grammy winner Ramon Ayala and his
norteno band, Los Bravos del Norte. 3 gunmen were killed and 11 others
suspected of working for the Beltran Leyva drug cartel were detained.
(AP, 12/11/09)(AP, 12/15/09)
2009 Dec 15, Mexican authorities
found the decapitated bodies of four men in the border city of Tijuana.
A grenade attack on a police station in western Mexico wounded a
pregnant woman and her 3-year-old daughter. US officials delivered five
helicopters to Mexico to help the country in its fight against drug
cartels. 7 vehicles were burned in Mexico City. Investigators found
evidence linking an animal rights group to homemade bombs that burned
the cars.
(AP, 12/15/09)(AP, 12/16/09)
2009 Dec 16, In Mexico 200 sailors
raided an upscale apartment complex and killed a reputed Mexican drug
cartel chief in a two-hour gunbattle. Arturo Beltran Leyva, the "boss
of bosses," and three members of his cartel were slain in the shootout
in Cuernavaca. Beltran Levya was one of five brothers who split from
the Sinaloa Cartel several years ago and aligned themselves with Los
Zetas, a group of former soldiers hired by the rival Gulf Cartel as hit
men. The severed heads of 6 state police investigators were found at a
public plaza in Cuencame, Durango state.
(AP, 12/17/09)(SFC, 12/17/09, p.A2)
2009 Dec 17, In Mexico four
suspected drug traffickers and two local policemen were killed in a
shootout with soldiers in General Zuazua. Soldiers found a list with
names of local policemen who may have been on the payroll of the drug
gang. They also found more than 1,320 pounds (600 kg) of marijuana and
several guns at the scene.
(AP, 12/18/09)
2009 Dec 18, Mexican police found
six bullet-ridden, decomposing bodies near a highway leading to a
Mexican resort on the Gulf of California. The six men were found
half-buried on a dirt road off the highway frequently used by tourists
from Arizona to reach the Puerto Penasco resort, widely known as Rocky
Point. Gunmen killed Pedro Picasso (34), assistant football coach of
Mexico first-division team Indios, in the border city Ciudad Juarez. A
2nd, unidentified person also died in the shooting at a cell phone
shop. The bound and burned bodies of 8 men were found in the central
Mexico state of Queretaro. Gunmen killed four police officers in a
series of attacks on patrol cars in the border city of Ciudad Juarez.
Police captured Jesus Basilio Araujo, also known by the nickname "The
Chicken," a suspected lieutenant of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel
linked to more than 109 execution-style killings.
(AP, 12/18/09)(AP, 12/19/09)
2009 Dec 19, Mexican authorities
announced that Salomon Tagle, a suspect in the high-profile 2005
kidnapping of businessman Hugo Alberto Wallace, has been taken into
custody in Mexico. Tagle was expelled from the Dominican Republic flown
to Mexico, where he was taken into custody on kidnapping charges.
Wallace’s mother, Maria Isabel Miranda, frustrated with investigators'
lack of progress in her son's case, had launched her own probe and a
public campaign to press for justice.
(AP, 12/20/09)
2009 Dec 21, Mexico City lawmakers
made the city the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage,
a change that will give homosexual couples more rights, including
allowing them to adopt children.
(AP, 12/21/09)
2009 Dec 21, In Mexico
construction began on the Palace of the Maya Civilization Museum in
Yucatan state.
(SSFC, 12/27/09, p.A22)
2009 Dec 22, In Mexico assailants
gunned down the mother, aunt and siblings of Melquisedet Angulo (30), a
marine killed in the Dec 16 raid that took out Arturo Beltran Leyva,
one of Mexico's most powerful cartel leaders. This sent a chilling
message to troops battling the drug war: You go after us, we wipe out
your families. Gunmen sprayed bullets at a restaurant in Piedras Negras
where the mayor of a Texas border town was eating with a Mexican state
attorney general and other officials. A woman leaving the building was
killed. Journalist Alberto Velazquez of the newspaper Expresiones de
Tulum was gunned down this week as he left a holiday party in the
Mexican Caribbean resort town of Tulum, bringing to 12 the number of
reporters killed this year in the country.
(AP, 12/22/09)(AP, 12/25/09)
2009 Dec 23, A Mexican military
Bell 212 helicopter crashed in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero,
killing an air force sergeant and seriously injuring two soldiers. US
officials recently delivered five Bell helicopters of a different model
to Mexico as part of the "Merida Initiative" for aiding the Mexican
campaign to curb drug trafficking.
(AP, 12/23/09)
2009 Dec 25, Mexican authorities
in the state of Chihuahua found the bullet-riddled bodies of six
members of the same family in a mountainous area. Esther Chavez (73), a
women's rights activist who first drew attention to the brutal slayings
of women in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, died. She was the founder
of Casa Amiga, a shelter for female victims of violence in Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 12/26/09)(AP, 12/27/09)
2009 Dec 29, Mexico City enacted
Latin America's first law recognizing gay marriage and said it hopes to
attract same-sex couples from around the world to wed.
(AP, 12/29/09)
2009 Dec 29, In Mexico Luis "El
Gil" Sanchez (29) was arrested in Ensenada, about 50 miles (80km) south
of Tijuana. Sanchez was the alleged leader of at least 10 criminal
cells working for Teodoro Garcia Simental, a renegade lieutenant who
broke away from the Arellano Felix cartel. Gunmen attacked a car
dealership and an adjacent hospital in the border city of Tijuana,
forcing the evacuation of some patients. The attackers doused about 10
cars at the dealership with gasoline and set them alight. Cartels
commonly extort "protection" fees from businesses, which are sometimes
firebombed if their owners refuse to pay.
(AP, 12/30/09)
2009 Dec 30, Mexican police
captured alleged drug lord Carlos Beltran Leyva, just two weeks after
his even more powerful brother was killed in a shootout with troops.
The bound, beaten bodies of two men were found hanging by their necks
from a highway overpass in Los Mochis, northern Sinaloa state, along
with a handwritten message from a drug cartel. The message written on a
piece of cardboard said in part that "this territory already has an
owner." In Ciudad Juarez 12 people, including a 3-year-old child, were
slain in shootings. Linea Directa radio station reporter Jose Luis
Romero was forced at gunpoint out of a Los Mochis restaurant. Romero’s
body was found on Jan 16, 2010.
(AP, 12/30/09)(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/16/10)
2009 Dec 31, In Mexico Roberto
Salcedo (33), an assistant principal and Southern California school
board member, was killed while he and his wife were visiting relatives
in Gomez Palacio.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2009 In Mexico the number of drug
related killings this year rose to 6,600.
(Econ, 3/27/10, p.41)
2010 Jan 1, In Mexico gunmen
killed Jesus Escalante, the chief police investigator in the northern
state of Sinaloa, hours after he started investigating the kidnapping
of Jose Luis Romero (40), a local radio journalist. Mexico opened the
New Year with 69 murders in one day, including 26 in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez. Mexico’s drug related killings for 2009 totaled over
6,500.
(AP, 1/2/10)(SFC, 1/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Jan 2, In northern Mexico a
bus carrying farm workers and their families home plunged off a cliff,
killing 14 people and injuring 21. Hugo Hernandez (36) was kidnapped in
Sonora state and taken to neighboring Sinaloa state where assailants
skinned his face and stitched it onto a soccer ball. His body was later
left on the streets of Los Mochis in seven pieces.
(AP, 1/3/10)(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 3, In Mexico Josefina
Reyes, a human rights activist, was been killed in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 4, Solis Palma, a Mexican
migrant, was shot and killed after he reportedly attacked a US Border
Patrol agent in southern Arizona with rocks.
(AP, 1/6/10)
2010 Jan 6, In Tijuana, Mexico,
three 16-year-old students, two boys and a girl, were killed. At
least one of the victims was a known drug dealer who frequently missed
classes and sometimes peddled narcotics at or near the school.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 7, In Mexico gunmen
attacked an army patrol in the western state of Michoacan with assault
rifles and grenades, touching off a gunbattle that killed a soldier and
four suspects.
(AP, 1/8/10)
2010 Jan 8, In Mexico a major
regional newspaper in the northern city of Saltillo announced it
would stop covering drug violence altogether after the body of a
reporter was found outside a motel with a threatening message. Valentin
Valdes (28) had written about the Dec. 29 arrests at the Marbella Motel
of five alleged members of the Gulf drug cartel. He also covered the
arrests on Jan 6 of five others who barged into the same hotel and
stole the surveillance tapes. All 60 policemen in the embattled town of
Tancitaro were fired because they had failed to stop a series of
killings and other crimes. Michoacan state police and soldiers planned
to take over security duties in the town. In Ciudad Juarez a man's body
was found on a street with its hands and head cut off. Another man's
body, with its head cut off and eyes gouged out, was found elsewhere in
the city and two women's bodies were found in a vacant lot. The body of
a man whose legs had been surgically amputated some time ago was also
found on a dirt road on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. A man riding a
bicycle was shot to death in the city. 5 people were killed in drive-by
shootings and a group of 3 men were shot to death at a fast-food
restaurant near a school.
(AP, 1/8/10)(AP, 1/9/10)
2010 Jan 11, Dutch brewer Heineken
said it will buy the beer-making operations of Mexico’s Femsa, the
maker of Dos Equis and Sol beers, in an all-share deal valued at $5.5
billion, excluding debt.
(SFC, 1/12/10, p.D3)
2010 Jan 12, In Mexico druglord
Teodoro Garcia Simental, known as "El Teo," was seized by federal
troops when they stormed a seaside vacation home near the southern tip
of the Baja California peninsula. He was accused of ordering massacres,
beheadings and the dissolving of bodies in caustic soda.
(AP, 1/13/10)
2010 Jan 13, In Mexico hundreds of
troops in combat gear fanned out in Ciudad Juarez, where 2,650 people
died in narco violence last. Public Security Minister Genaro Garcia
Luna said 2,000 federal police reinforcements would arrive over the
next few days.
(Reuters, 1/14/10)
2010 Jan 15, Manuel Acosta (42),
the lead investigator in the Dec 31 slaying in Mexico of Roberto
Salcedo, a Southern California school board member, was shot several
times in the chest and torso, but survived in critical condition. He
succumbed to his wounds on Jan 26.
(AP, 1/31/10)
2010 Jan 16, Mexican authorities
seized over 3 1/2 tons of pseudoephedrine, a chemical used in the
illicit manufacture of methamphetamine, found hidden in a shipment of
fire extinguishers at the Pacific coast seaport of Manzanillo.
(AP, 1/18/10)
2010 Jan 17, In Mexico a severed
human head and a flower were found in front of the tomb of deceased
Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltran Leyva. Police found the bodies of five
men scattered around the Michoacan state capital of Morelia, each
bearing a handwritten note suggesting they were killed by vigilantes.
(AP, 1/18/10)(AP, 1/17/10)
2010 Jan 17, A small boat packed
with illegal immigrants overturned before dawn off the San Diego coast
at Torrey Pines State Park. One person died and 5 were injured. 16
people, all Mexican citizens, were accounted for.
(SSFC, 1/17/10, p.A14)(SFC, 1/18/10, p.A6)
2010 Jan 19, In Mexico "El Teo"
Teodoro Garcia Simental, an alleged drug kingpin blamed for much of
Tijuana's gang violence, was ordered to face trial. The military said
it caught three purported members of his gang about to dissolve a body
in chemicals. State police found the bodies of four young men in an
abandoned car near a hotel in Guerrero's capital, Chilpancingo. A
police report said the men appeared to have been asphyxiated by plastic
tape covering their faces.
(AP, 1/20/10)(AP, 1/20/10)
2010 Jan 19, Mexico’s
telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim pledged $65 million for genetic
research on cancer, type 2 diabetes and kidney disease.
(AP, 1/20/10)
2010 Jan 20, Mexican authorities
found seven corpses in two abandoned cars between the resort
communities of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo along with written messages
referring to drug cartels. 24 inmates were killed and several others
injured during a prison brawl at a penitentiary in northern Durango
city. 4 days of rain unleashed heavy flooding in parts of the border
city of Tijuana, killing a 5-year-old girl and leaving at least 10
other people missing.
(AP, 1/20/10)(AP, 1/20/10)(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 22, Police in Mexico City
rescued 150 ferrets from armed robbers after a high speed chase. 14
boxes of ferrets imported from the US were taken by force by 3 robbers
from a truck after it left the Mexico City airport. Two suspects were
under arrest and another escaped.
(AP, 1/22/10)
2010 Jan 23, In southern Mexico
about 150 migrants were pulled off a train by unidentified assailants
in the state of Oaxaca. On Jan 26 a Salvadoran official filed a
complaint with Mexican officials saying 3 men were slain and 4 women
were raped in the attack.
(AP, 1/26/10)
2010 Jan 27, Mexican authorities
found a man's head and a threatening message referring to the La
Familia drug cartel in the town square of Quiroga, Michoacan state. A
headless body was found 60 miles (100km) away.
(AP, 1/27/10)
2010 Jan 29, Mexican authorities
found the decapitated bodies of six men in Acahuato, Michoacan state. A
group of at least a dozen armed men attacked a federal police convoy,
opening fire on the vehicles from a highway overpass near the city of
Maravatio, also in Michoacan, killing 5 officers and wounding 7. Four
severely beaten men were seen walking along a busy street in the
Michoacan town of Zamora carrying messages signed by La Familia. In
Ciudad Juarez a group of rifle-bearing attackers opened fire on a
family in a truck, killing a man, a woman and injuring a 5-month-old
baby. A woman was later killed inside an ice cream parlor, a chase
through the Galeana neighborhood left two dead, and a man was killed
and a pregnant woman was injured in a spray of bullets in another part
of town. Six more people were killed later in the day in four different
locations, and when dawn broke the two decapitated bodies were found.
Journalist Ochoa Martinez, director of El Sol de la Costa, was shot in
the face as he left a food stand in the town of Ayutla. His small
newspaper covered mostly local politics and community issues southeast
of Acapulco.
(AP, 1/29/10)(AP, 1/31/10)(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Jan 29, In Mexico a Texas man
and his girlfriend were sentenced to nine years in prison for
recruiting Mexican women to give birth in the US and sell their babies
to couples there. Amado Torres, of Harlingen, Texas, and Maria Isabel
Hernandez, of Mexico, had allegedly paid women up to $3,000 for their
newborns.
(AP, 2/10/10)
2010 Jan 30, In Mexico armed men
stormed a party, killing 15 high school and college students in Ciudad
Juarez in what witnesses thought was an attack prompted by false
information. Ten people were found dead at the scene and six died at
hospitals. An official later said gunmen were directed to the
neighborhood by a resident who said members of a rival gang were
planning a party.
(AP, 2/2/10)(AP, 2/4/10)
2010 Jan 31, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon arrived in Japan for a three-day visit, as the
countries mark 400 years of official ties.
(AFP, 1/31/10)
2010 Feb 1, In Mexico armed men
burst into a bar Ciudad Juarez around dawn and killed four men and a
woman. Gunmen killed 10 people and wounded 15 in a bar in Torreon, a
city in the northern state of Coahuila. A shootout that began in a
shopping center and spilled onto a highway in Torreon caused the death
of 7 suspected Zetas gunmen and one federal police officer while
freeing two kidnap victims. The La Familia gang, strung up about a
dozen banners in the western state of Michoacan urging the public at
large and other gangs to form a common "resistance" front against the
Zetas.
(AP, 2/2/10)(AP, 2/3/10)
2010 Feb 1, US Customs and Border
Protection officers seized nearly a ton of marijuana hidden in a banana
shipment at a cargo facility near the US-Mexico border. Officers opened
boxes in a truck and found 235 packages of pot worth an estimated $1.1
million.
(AP, 2/2/10)
2010 Feb 4, In Denver Miguel Angel
Caro Quintero (46) was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for
racketeering in Colorado and conspiracy to distribute marijuana in
Arizona. His Sonora cartel was tied to the 1985 torture and killing of
an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent, Enrique "Kiki"
Camarena Salazar.
(AP, 2/5/10)
2010 Feb 5, Mexican authorities
said they have found the decapitated bodies of six men in the western
state of Michoacan. In central Mexico a landslide killed at least 11
people, adding to 18 deaths this week from severe and unseasonable
winter storms that closed schools and freeways and flooded thousands of
homes.
(AP, 2/5/10)(AP, 2/6/10)
2010 Feb 6, In Mexico gunmen
killed six people at a bar in Mazatlan, Sinaloa state. In Ciudad Juarez
authorities announced the arrest of In the border city of Ciudad
Juarez, authorities on Saturday announced the arrest of a second
suspect in last week's massacre of 15 people, many of them teenagers
with no known criminal ties, the second suspect in last week's massacre
of 15 people, many of them teenagers with no known criminal ties.
(AP, 2/6/10)
2010 Feb 8, Mexican federal police
arrested Raydel Lopez Uriarte and Manuel Garcia Simental, suspected
leaders of the cartel headed by Teodoro Garcia Simental, who was
captured in La Paz on Jan. 12. The drug cartel had terrorized Tijuana
for several years. The military announced that soldiers had seized more
than 12 tons of marijuana found beneath a false floor of a tractor
trailer. The drugs were found during a routine search at a checkpoint
near San Felipe, a town in the central part of the Baja California
peninsula. Federal police arrested five Tijuana police officers along
with six cartel members who were holding two rival gangsters captive.
The arrests were based on information obtained following the capture of
Uriarte and Manuel Garcia Simental. Two of the officers, Francisco
Ortega and Juan Carlos Espinoza, had been recently lauded as part of a
new breed of honest cop. 3 marines died in a shootout that also killed
three suspected gang members in the border town of Reynosa.
(AP, 2/8/10)(AP, 2/10/10)(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Feb 13, In Mexico hundreds of
people marched against the drug gang violence besieging the border city
of Ciudad Juarez, gathering at a bridge where they simulated the
massacre of a group of teenagers last month. Police, meanwhile, found
the bullet-ridden bodies of five men, missing since Feb 6., in a town
in the southwestern corner of Chihuahua state. A decapitated body was
found dumped beside the highway leading into Acapulco.
(AP, 2/13/10)
2010 Feb 16, Mexican authorities
found the decapitated bodies of five men in the town of Escuinapa,
Sinaloa state. 2 of the heads were missing their ears and two more had
a "Z" carved on their backs in an apparent reference to the Zetas drug
gang.
(AP, 2/17/10)
2010 Feb 18, Vicente Zambada
Niebla (34), a man accused of being an influential, second-generation
member of the Sinaloa drug cartel, was extradited from Mexico to the US
on charges he helped move tons of cocaine from Colombia to California,
New York and Chicago.
(AP, 2/18/10)
2010 Feb 18-2010 Mar 3, In the
northern Mexican border city of Reynosa 8 journalists were kidnapped
over a period of two weeks in a wave of abductions unprecedented in the
Western Hemisphere. Two were released alive and one was found dead with
signs of torture.
(AP, 3/11/10)
2010 Feb 19, In Mexico one officer
was killed and two others wounded when they were ambushed in Nogales,
across the border from the Arizona city of the same name. The officers
were responding to an apparently false report of a robbery at a beer
store when gunmen opened fire on.
(AP, 2/21/10)
2010 Feb 20, Mexican police found
the bound bodies of two men on a highway just outside the Pacific coast
resort of Acapulco. The body of a third man, missing its head and
limbs, was found in Ciudad Altamirano, an inland city in Guerrero.
(AP, 2/20/10)
2010 Feb 21, Mexico’s federal
police captured Jose Vasquez Villagrana (40), described as a key
operator of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, in his home town of Santa Ana.
He served briefly in the US army before taking on the trafficking of 2
tons of cocaine a month into the US. 14 deaths were reported in Sinaloa
state. In the worst incident, six people, including two women and a
minor, were found shot to death in a cemetery in Juan Jose Rios. In the
same town, two men were found strangled in a house, one with the cable
of an iron and another with a wire hanger.
(AP, 2/22/10)
2010 Feb 23, In Mexico Latin
America and Caribbean leaders, gathered at a summit in Playa de Carmen,
united to create a regional bloc excluding Canada and the United
States. The bloc's formation is expected to take years and faces many
challenges. The leaders agreed to meet again in Venezuela in 2011.
(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Feb 23, In Mexico gunmen
stormed the southern town of San Vicente Camalote and killed 13 people,
including a rancher and his 3 sons. Gunmen attacked the police
headquarters in the town of Miguel Aleman. 6 officers were missing and
presumed to have been kidnapped. A series of clashes along the northern
border killed 6 gunmen and one soldier. 10 soldiers and a police
officer were wounded. A small military anti-drug patrol plane was
reported missing in northern Mexico. Wreckage of the plane with 3 dead
occupants was reported found on Feb 26.
(AP, 2/24/10)(AP, 2/25/10)(AP, 2/26/10)(AP, 2/26/10)
2010 Feb 24, Mexican police found
two severed arms in an icebox, along with a threatening message.
Guerrero state police said an anonymous tip led them to the remains in
the town of Ciudad Altamirano.
(AP, 2/24/10)
2010 Feb 25, In Mexico 4 suspected
cartel gunmen were killed outside the city of Matamoros after they
attacked an army patrol on a highway.
(AP, 2/26/10)
2010 Feb 27, Mexican authorities
said they have arrested a third suspect in the Jan 30 massacre of 15
people in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Chihuahua state prosecutors
said he is a former police officer believed to have worked as a hit man
for the Juarez cartel.
(AP, 2/27/10)
2010 Feb 28, In Mexico Red Cross
volunteer Maria Rogers (20) was killed by a stray bullet when gunmen
went into a Red Cross hospital in Culiacan, Sinaloa state, trying to
finish off a man who had been shot minutes earlier. The man survived.
(AP, 3/1/10)
2010 Mar 2, Mexico's interior
department said prosecutors have detained 10 Mexican immigration agents
and three airline workers at Cancun's international airport on
suspicion of trafficking Chinese migrants. Oscar Arriola, reputed to
have led a cartel that smuggled two tons of cocaine a month into the US
before authorities dismantled the ring around 2004, was handed over to
US officials and extradited to Colorado.
(AP, 3/2/10)(Reuters, 3/3/10)
2010 Mar 3, A Mexican woman
charged that Rev. Marcial Maciel (1920-2008), the deceased,
scandal-tainted founder of the conservative order Legionaries of Christ
(1941), led a double life and fathered two children with her.
(AP, 3/4/10)
2010 Mar 4, Throngs of Mexico City
gay and lesbian couples registered for marriage licenses, the day Latin
America's first gay-marriage law took effect.
(AP, 3/4/10)
2010 Mar 5, In Mexico heavily
armed gunmen ambushed a convoy of federal police on a highway near the
port city of Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan state, killing two officers and
wounding three. Soldiers seized 28,000 pounds of marijuana, seven
vehicles and 18 high-powered weapons in Altar, Sonora, 35 miles south
of the Arizona border.
(AP, 3/6/10)
2010 Mar 6, In northern Mexico
police in the city of San Nicolas de los Garza, a suburb of the
industrial hub of Monterrey, protested hours after three of their
colleagues were shot to death in an ambush and a fourth was wounded.
Federal police announced the arrest of three men accused of running an
extortion ring that targeted Ciudad Juarez businesses. The army
announced it had seized 2.6 metric tons of marijuana and detained one
suspect in a mountainous area of Chihuahua.
(AP, 3/7/10)
2010 Mar 9, In Mexico Ramon
Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal
police, said that Texas-born Edgar Valdez Villarreal, nicknamed "La
Barbie," is battling Hector Beltran Leyva for control of the Beltran
Leyva cartel.
(AP, 3/9/10)
2010 Mar 10, Carlos Slim, Mexican
telecom tycoon, jumped past Microsoft founder Bill Gates and investor
Warren Buffett when Forbes magazine released its 2010 list of the
world's wealthiest.
(AP, 3/11/10)
2010 Mar 11, In Mexico 2 glowing
brides in matching white gowns and four other same-sex couples made
history in Mexico City as they wed under Latin America's first law that
explicitly approves gay marriage.
(AP, 3/11/10)
2010 Mar 11, In Mexico gunmen
burst into a home in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and opened fire,
killing 5 young men and wounding 5 others, including a 10-year-old
girl, during a wake being held for a young man shot to death in his car
earlier in the week. The death toll rose to 6 the next day after a
woman died of wounds suffered in the attack.
(AP, 3/12/10)(AP, 3/13/10)
2010 Mar 12, In Mexico gunmen
burst into a party and killed 8 youths and left another person wounded
in the Pacific coast township of Navolato, near the Sinaloa state
capital of Culiacan. Evaristo Pacheco, a journalist for the regional
weekly Vision Informativa, was shot to death after being snatched from
a nightclub in the Guerrero state capital, Chilpancingo.
(AP, 3/13/10)(AP, 3/15/10)
2010 Mar 13, In Mexico a series of
shootings killed 24 people in a Pacific coast state plagued by drug
gang violence. Nearly half died in one shootout between soldiers and
armed men. Suspected drug gang hit men separately ambushed two cars
carrying families with ties to the US consulate in Ciudad Juarez,
killing an American couple and a Mexican man. Three young children
survived, although two suffered wounds. On March 26 suspect Ricardo
Valles de la Rosa (45), a member of the Barrio Azteca gang, was
arrested for the US consulate linked killings. A confession by de la
Rosa suggested that El Paso jail officer Arthur H. Redelfs was targeted
in the Ciudad Juarez shootings that also killed his wife, Lesley A.
Enriquez, an employee of the US consulate. The husband of another
consulate worker was killed in the other vehicle attacked. In April
Mexico arrested a 2nd suspect, a member of the Los Aztecas gang, who
confessed to taking part in the killing of a US consulate official. In
September Jesus Ernesto Chavez, was extradited to the US, for ordering
the killing of Lesley A. Enriquez.
(AP, 3/14/10)(AP, 3/15/10)(AP, 3/29/10)(AP,
3/31/10)(AFP, 4/23/10)(SSFC, 9/5/10, p.A10)
2010 Mar 15, Mexican marines and
Navy personnel announced they had launched a raid against an operations
base run by the Zeta drug gang near Monterrey. A convoy of fleeing
vehicles opened fire on a Marine helicopter following them. The Marines
chased them down, some on foot, and killed eight suspects. Elsewhere in
Chihuahua state, running gun battles in the tourist town of Creel left
seven people dead and two seriously wounded. Farther south prosecutors
reported the bodies of five men were found on the side of a highway. In
the Gulf Coast town of Tierra Blanco some 90 city policemen were held
for questioning about the kidnapping of undocumented Central American
migrants.
(AP, 3/16/10)(SFC, 3/17/10, p.A2)
2010 Mar 16, Mexico's government
announced an austerity plan for trimming general spending $3.2 billion
(40.1 billion pesos) over the next three years so it can provide more
money for social and infrastructure programs. The military and some
security, educational and health services were exempt from the measures.
(AP, 3/17/10)
2010 Mar 18, In Mexico gunmen in a
convoy of six vehicles opened fire on a navy helicopter on a
reconnaissance patrol in Fresnillo, outside of Monterrey. Marines
aboard the chopper returned fire, killing one of the gunmen as
suspected gang members blocked roads in the city.
(AP, 3/20/10)
2010 Mar 19, In Mexico a shootout
between soldiers and gunmen in the northern city of Monterrey killed
two bystanders, graduate students studying engineering at Monterrey
Tech University. Suspected gang members also blocked roads in the city
for the second day, in a bold attempt to impede security patrols. The
navy announced the capture of Alberto "Bad Boy" Mendoza, suspected of
being a chief cartel operator linked to the Beltran Leyva gang and
others in Monterrey.
(AP, 3/20/10)(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 19, It was reported that
February storms in Michoacan, Mexico, killed some 50-60% of the
wintering monarch butterfly population.
(SFC, 3/19/10, p.A10)
2010 Mar 21, In Mexico gunmen
targeting the police chief of a town outside Monterrey killed his
bodyguard and wounded three other people. Marquez Compean, a drug
suspect, and two others were arrested by Santa Catarina police officers
who were part of a convoy carrying Castillo on official business. The
next day Compean’s beaten body was found wrapped in a blanket in the
nearby city of San Nicolas de los Garza. Rodrigo Medina, governor of
the northern state of Nuevo Leon, announced that he was firing 81 state
police officers suspected of corruption. 5 men died in Acapulco after
they pulled guns on each other during an early morning fight that began
as an argument at a wedding the previous night. One man was killed in a
following shootout between gunmen riding in separate
vehicles.
(AP, 3/22/10)(AP, 3/22/10)(AP, 3/24/10)
2010 Mar 22, In Mexico the
pre-dawn discovery of two bodies cut into pieces and shoved into two
black bags brought a tragic end to a search for two missing police
officers in southern Guerrero state. In the nearby resort of Acapulco,
police later found another two mutilated bodies and a threatening
message outside the house of the city's former deputy traffic police
chief.
(AP, 3/22/10)
2010 Mar 22, In Mexico Paulette
Gebara Farah (4), a disabled girl, was reported missing by her parents.
On March 30 Her body was found under the mattress of her bed at her
wealthy parents' apartment on the outskirts of Mexico City. On May 21
federal investigators she had smothered accidentally and was there the
whole time police and family were hunting for her.
(AP, 4/1/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 Mar 24, Mexican federal
police arrested Jose Antonio Medina (36), Mexico's "King of Heroin," a
powerful drug trafficker allegedly responsible for running thousands of
pounds of heroin into Southern California each year. Medina was accused
of moving 440 pounds of heroin into California each month.
(AP, 3/26/10)(SFC, 3/26/10, p.A4)
2010 Mar 24, President Barack
Obama's administration named 54 alleged Mexican drug cartel lieutenants
and enforcers as drug kingpins under a law that allows the US
government to freeze their bank accounts and penalize their business
associates.
(AP, 3/25/10)
2010 Mar 25, In Mexico police were
searching for two prison guards and 40 prisoners who disappeared after
a pre-dawn jailbreak in the Mexican city of Matamoros across the border
from Brownsville, Texas. Gunmen killed a deputy police chief and his
bodyguard in Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 3/25/10)(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 26, In northern Mexico
the decapitated body of Heriberto Cerda, the police chief in
Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon state, and the body of his brother were found
inside the chief's patrol truck. Late in the day gunmen opened fired on
a hotel in downtown Ciudad Juarez where federal agents stay, killing
one and wounding two.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 27, In western Mexico two
police officers and two other men have been found shot to death at a
gas station in Michoacan state. In Guerrero state a man was found tied
up and fatally shot in a car in the resort of Acapulco. The bodies of
four men and a woman were found on a rural road in a town not far from
the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez. More than 7,000 people
gathered in the northern city of Monterrey to protest a wave of
violence that has affected the country's third largest city in recent
weeks.
(AP, 3/27/10)
2010 Mar 28, In Mexico gunmen in
Durango state killed 10 young people riding in pickup truck when they
didn't stop at a gang's illegal roadblock. 3 gunmen died in a clash
with soldiers near a park crowded with families in the border city of
Nuevo Laredo. Tamaulipas state investigators said police found the
bodies of three men who had been shot to death in the town of Miguel
Aleman. In the Nuevo Leon city of Santa Catarina, three men and two
women were killed in a shootout with soldiers inside a motel.
(AP, 3/30/10)
2010 Mar 30, In northern Mexico
dozens of gunmen mounted rare and apparently coordinated attacks
targeting two army garrisons, touching off firefights that killed 18
attackers in the border states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Mar 31, In Mexico authorities
in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco announced that Roberto Rivero Arana,
the nephew of reputed Zetas gang leader Heriberto Lazcano, was captured
together with Daniel Perez, an acting police chief of Ciudad del
Carmen, accused of protecting the Zetas. 4 severed human heads were
found in Apatzingan, a town in the western state of Michoacan. In
Morelia, the Michoacan state capital, police reported finding the
bodies of 3 young men who had been shot to death. Police in the border
city of Nogales reported finding the bullet-ridden bodies of 3 men,
including a city transport official, on a rural road along with three
burned-out vehicles.
(AP, 4/1/10)
2010 Apr 2, In Mexico 5 gunmen
died in a shootout with soldiers in the northern border city of
Reynosa, Tamaulipas state. A shootout between rival gangs at a
nightclub in Tampico left seven people dead. At least 15 people were
killed throughout Tamaulipas. In the border city of Tijuana police
found the bodies of 3 men who had been shot to death in a residential
area. 13 inmates escaped when armed men stormed a prison in the
northern border city of Reynosa. A shootout in Nuevo Laredo between
soldiers and suspected drug cartel gunmen killed two children and
wounded five of their relatives who were caught in the crossfire. Two
suspected gunmen were also killed.
(AP, 4/2/10)(AP, 4/3/10)(AP, 4/4/10)(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 3, In Mexico 13 members
of a family were traveling in a vehicle in an area where the Defense
Department said soldiers were pursing a convoy of gunmen in the
northern state of Tamaulipas. 2 boys were killed by soldiers. The army
later said the family got caught in crossfire during the confrontation,
in which five other members of the family were wounded. In June
Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said soldiers apparently
altered the crime scene to try to blame the deaths on drug cartel
gunmen.
(AP, 6/16/10)
2010 Apr 4, A 7.3 magnitude
earthquake centered just south of the US border near Mexicali killed
two people in Mexico and injured at least 100.
(AP, 4/5/10)
2010 Apr 5, In Mexico five men
were killed when gunmen opened fire on their car outside a shopping
mall in Mazatlan, in the northeastern state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 4/6/10)
2010 Apr 6, In Mexico suspected
cartel gunmen wounded two soldiers in an unprecedented grenade attack
on army housing in the Gulf coast city of Tampico. 7 prison guards were
reported arrested for alleged complicity in the April 2 jailbreak in
Reynosa. In Guerrero state police found the bodies of two men who were
shot to death and had their hands and feet bound with tape. The bodies
of 12 murder victims, 8 of them partially burned, were found outside
the town of Xalisco, Nayarit state. In Nuevo Leon state gunmen
kidnapped Oliver Garcia, police chief of the town of Los Aldamas, from
his home and the two officers from police headquarters.
(AP, 4/6/10)(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 7, In Mexico police in
the border state of Nuevo Leon found the bodies of a police chief and
two police officers who had been kidnapped a day earlier. In the
central state of Morelos, gunmen attacked the offices of federal
prosecutors in the city of Cuernavaca, killing a guard. A bystander was
killed during a shootout between gunmen and federal police in the town
of Frontera Comalapa, Chiapas state, on the Guatemalan border.
(AP, 4/8/10)
2010 Apr 8, In Mexico police
detained Bruce Beresford-Redman (38), the producer of "Pimp My Ride"
and formerly of "Survivor," as a suspect after finding the body of
Monica Beresford-Redman in a sewer at Cancun's Moon Palace resort,
where the family was on vacation. Authorities determined she died the
night of April 5. At least 80 gunmen terrorized the town of Maycoba in
Sonora state for several hours and killed four people.
(AP, 4/9/10)
2010 Apr 9, In central Mexico
police found the bodies of two men hanging from a bridge in the city of
Cuernavaca, Morelos state, along with a message claiming that federal
authorities are protecting an alleged drug kingpin. A late night
attacker threw an explosive device over the wall around the US
consulate in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, breaking windows and
startling employees inside but causing no injuries.
(AP, 4/10/10)
2010 Apr 10, In Mexico the body of
Enrique Villicana Palomares, a columnist for the daily newspaper The
Voice of Michoacan, was found in Morelia with his throat slit. He had
been reported missing last week after he didn't make it to a university
where he taught writing.
(AP, 4/12/10)
2010 Apr 12, Mexican and US
officials said 3 Mexican cartels have joined forces to destroy the
Zetas gang of hit men that has grown into a feared drug trafficking
outfit with reach into Central America. Police found the body of a man
whose face had been skinned in Cuernavaca. In nearby Temixco, a man and
his pregnant wife were killed by gunmen who left a threatening message.
(AP, 4/13/10)
2010 Apr 13, In northern Mexico
two soldiers and two gunmen died in a shootout. Soldiers patrolling in
the border state of Nuevo Leon gave chase to six suspicious cars that
crossed into neighboring Tamaulipas state, where a gunbattle ensued in
the town of Comales.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Mexico a cargo
plane crashed while trying to land overnight in the northern city of
Monterrey, killing at least four crew members. A fifth crew member was
missing and presumed dead.
(AP, 4/14/10)
2010 Apr 14, In Mexico a mother
and her 8-year-old child, a taxi driver and a federal police officer
were among 6 dead in a raging attack on the main boulevard in
Acapulco's tourist zone. At least three bystanders also died on the
shootout. A federal police statement released the next day said Ernesto
Antonio Rocha Reyes (26) was carrying a high-powered assault rifle when
authorities, searching for suspects after the attacks, caught him.
(AP, 4/15/10)
2010 Apr 20, Mexican state police
reported that three men were found shot to death in a taxi in Acapulco.
(AP, 4/21/10)
2010 Apr 21, In Mexico police
found the bound bodies of two men in Cuernavaca, alongside a banner
that threatened to kill 25 more drug cartel members. The message said
25 of Beltran Leyva's henchmen are being held and interrogated in the
Pacific coast resort of Acapulco and would be executed soon. Dozens of
gunmen burst into a Holiday Inn and another hotel in the northern city
of Monterrey, searching from room-to-room and abducting at least six
people. Troops battled a suspected drug gang in a wealthy neighborhood
on the outskirts of Mexico City and captured Jose Gerardo Alvarez
Vazquez, an alleged major trafficker with a $2 million US bounty on his
head. 14 other suspected drug traffickers were arrested in the shootout
that left 3 people dead and two alleged traffickers wounded.
(AP, 4/21/10)(AP, 4/22/10)
2010 Apr 23, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed two police vehicles at a busy intersection in Ciudad Juarez,
killing 7 officers and a 17-year-old boy who was passing by. Police in
the Pacific coast state of Guerrero said they found the bodies of five
men who had been shot to death lying on a dirt road near the state
capital, Chilpancingo. Three of the men were brothers, all in their
20s. In central Morelos state, federal police and the Mexican army
raided two ranch homes and arrested 15 men near the town of Amacuzac.
The men were suspected of working for alleged drug trafficker Jose
Gerardo Alvarez Vazquez, who was arrested April 21 in Mexico City.
(AP, 4/24/10)
2010 Apr 23, Arizona’s Gov. Jan
Brewer signed into law SB1070, a bill that supporters said would take
handcuffs off police in dealing with illegal immigration. Arizona, with
an estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants, was the nation's busiest
gateway for human and drug smuggling from Mexico.
(AP, 4/24/10)(Econ, 7/31/10, p.25)
2010 Apr 23, In El Salvador gunmen
shot and seriously wounded First Secretary Guillermo Medina Alfaro, a
Mexican diplomat who worked with the international police agency
Interpol. Police said the diplomat's wife was killed.
(AP, 4/23/10)
2010 Apr 24, In Mexico gunmen
armed with assault rifles and grenades attacked a convoy carrying the
top security official of the western state of Michoacan, killing four
and wounding 10. In the Pacific coast state of Guerrero, the
dismembered bodies of three men were found in plastic bags inside a
home outside the resort of Acapulco. A hand-lettered sign blamed the
three dead men for the April 14 shooting that killed six people on
Acapulco's main boulevard. Prosecutors in Chihuahua state, where Ciudad
Juarez is located, announced the arrest of a man suspected of
participating in last year's killing of an anti-crime activist and a
neighbor, both of whom lived in rural Chihuahua but held dual US
citizenship. Ubaldo Rohan was charged with acting as a lookout in the
kidnapping of activist Benjamin LeBaron's brother, Eric. After LeBaron
protested the kidnapped, he and a neighbor were killed [see July 7,
2009].
(AP, 4/25/10)
2010 Apr 26, Mexico’s Interior
Secretary Fernandez Gomez-Mont said drug cartels have changed tactics
and are turning more attacks on authorities, rather than focusing their
fire on rivals gangs. Troops killed three suspected kidnappers and
freed seven of their captives during a raid on a ranch in the northern
state of Nuevo Leon. Two rotting bodies were found in a truck near the
ranch.
(AP, 4/26/10)(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 27, The Mexican Senate
passed a measure to make soldiers accountable to civilian courts for
abuses involving civilians, and ensure the use of troops in actions
like the offensive against drug cartels is temporary. Gunmen attacked a
caravan of rights observers and leftists near the restive town of San
Juan Copala in southern Oaxaca state, killing Finnish human rights
worker Jyri Jaakkola and Mexican political activist Beatriz Carino
Trujillo. An Italian man and a Belgian man were still unaccounted for
more than 24 hours after the ambush. The National Network of Human
Rights Civic Organizations said another Finn, three Mexicans and two
journalists from the Mexican magazine Contralinea were also missing.
The army reported that it freed 16 hostages at a house in Sabinas
Hidalgo, a town near the northern city of Monterrey. One of the
hostages was a 1-year-old child. 4 inmates were killed when an armed
gang stormed a prison in the northern town of Altamira. 29 officers in
four patrol vehicles were detained in the resort city of Acapulco after
being stopped and searched by navy personnel. Searchers found a
33-pound (15-kg) bag of marijuana in one of the vehicles and 36
non-regulation firearms overall, mostly machine pistols and assault
rifles.
(AP, 4/27/10)(AP, 4/29/10)(AP, 4/28/10)(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 28, In Mexico gunmen
stormed into a bar, dragged out eight people and killed them in the
parking lot, the first of several shootings in Ciudad Juarez that left
16 dead, including a man in a wheelchair. In the Pacific coast state of
Guerrero, gunmen killed, Jose Santiago Agustino, the mayor of the small
town of Zapotitlan Tablas, while he was in the state capital of
Chilpancingo. In 2009 he had complained that a government hospital
built in his region more than a decade earlier had never opened.
(AP, 4/28/10)
2010 Apr 29, Mexican police said
that a crowd of villagers in Guerrero state chased down a group of
alleged kidnappers, freed their victims and shot 3 men to death. The
men had apparently entered the hamlet of La Union, near the coastal
resort of Zihuatanejo, and abducted a man and two boys. They allegedly
also shot another man to death.
(AP, 4/29/10)
2010 Apr 30, Mexican authorities
rescued two journalists who had been stranded for nearly three days
among feuding militants after a caravan of rights activists was caught
in a deadly ambush in southern Oaxaca state.
(AP, 4/30/10)
2010 Apr - 2010 Sep, In Mexico at
least 11,333 migrants were kidnapped over this 6-month period.
(AP, 2/22/11)(http://tinyurl.com/6jkl5zb)
2010 May 1, In Mexico 5 people
were killed in a gunbattle between gang members and soldiers in
Camargo, a small town in Tamaulipas state, which borders Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 1, Elisabeth Mandala
(18), a Texas high school student, and two Mexican men were found dead
in a crashed pickup truck near Mina, in the northeastern state of Nuevo
Leon. Autopsies revealed that all three died from severe blows to the
head and body. Mandala, a senior at Kempner High School in Sugar Land,
Texas, was last seen April 27 leaving her mother's home. The two men
killed were taxi driver Luis Angel Estrella Mondragon (44) and merchant
Dante Ruiz Siller (38).
(AP, 5/6/10)
2010 May 2, In Mexico 5 people
were trampled to death when a gunshot fired at a cattle fair sent a
panic-stricken crowd rushing for the exits in Guadalupe, outside the
industrial city of Monterrey, already on edge from rampant drug
violence.
(AP, 5/2/10)
2010 May 3, In Mexico gunmen drove
up to a soccer field and shot five men to death as they played early
Monday near the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
(AP, 5/3/10)
2010 May 4, In Mexico two
Colombians were arrested at Mexico City's international airport as they
allegedly prepared to board a flight to Panama trying to smuggle out
more than $350,000 in cash in various currencies.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 7, In Mexico a groom and
two members of his wedding party snatched at gunpoint as they left the
church in Ciudad Juarez. Their bodies, along with a fourth body of
someone who had not been identified and might not have been at the
wedding, were found May 10.
(AP, 5/12/10)
2010 May 8, In Mexico Mario
Villanueva, former governor of the Caribbean state of Quintana Roo
(1993-1999), was turned over to US authorities at the international
airport in Toluca. He faced charges of helping a cartel smuggling
cocaine through the resort of Cancun en route to the US market.
Villanueva spent two years in hiding before he was arrested in Cancun
in 2001. 3 headless bodies were found just outside of Acapulco.
The bodies of 5 other men were found with multiple gunshot wounds in a
car north of Acapulco.
(AP, 5/9/10)(SSFC, 5/9/10, p.A5)
2010 May 8, In Mexico Joaquin
Capilla (b.1928), the country’s top Olympic-medal recipient, died.
Capilla brought home medals in 1948, 1952 and 1956.
(AP,
5/9/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Capilla)
2010 May 8, In northern Mexico the
body of Ronald C. Ryan (67), a US citizen from Phoenix, Az., was found
the partially buried near a creek on the outskirts of Santa Ana, Sonora
state. He had been reported missing May 3. State police had reported
detaining three men the following day who had left Ryan's pickup truck
at a carwash in Santa Ana.
(AP, 5/10/10)
2010 May 12, Mexico’s army overran
a Zeta camp in Nuevo Leone state seizing 55,000 rounds of ammunition,
109 grenades and 124 heavy weapons among other booty.
(Econ, 6/5/10, p.46)
2010 May 13, In Mexico gunmen
burst into the farm supplies business of Jose Guajardo Varela and
killed him and his son, after he ignored warnings to drop his bid for
mayor of Valle Hermosa, Tamaulipas state. The leader of the
conservative National Action Party said the victim and other candidates
had received threats. 4 policemen in Chiapas state were killed and two
others seriously wounded when gunmen attacked a convoy carrying
payments for a government anti-poverty program.
(AP, 5/14/10)(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 14, In Mexico gunmen
killed six men and wounded two more in a drive-by shooting near a
kindergarten in Loma Blanca, a small town outside the border city of
Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 5/15/10)
2010 May 15, Former Mexican
presidential candidate Diego Fernandez de Cevallos (69) disappeared.
His abandoned car was found near his ranch in the central state of
Queretaro. Four young men were found decapitated in northern Durango
state. A message on the windshield of a pickup, allegedly signed by the
Zetas gang, said the victims were involved in an attack at a bar in the
neighboring city of Torreon that killed eight people earlier in the
day. Cevallos was released on Nov 26 after the family paid a ransom of
around $20 million.
(AP, 5/15/10)(AP, 5/16/10)(Reuters, 11/27/10)
2010 May 17, The Mexican army said
it has detained Crispin Borunda, an alleged lieutenant of the Ciudad
Juarez-based Carrillo Fuentes cartel, who escaped from a US prison two
decades ago. A statement said Borunda tried to flee on foot and fired
at soldiers before being caught last week in the capital of the border
state of Chihuahua. Soldiers seized another suspect and five weapons. 6
of the 11 municipal officers in La Union, Guerrero state, resigned
after armed men ambushed and wounded two of their officers. Several
other Mexican towns have seen mass police resignations because of
cartel violence or threats. In Mexico State, on the outskirts of Mexico
City, residents of a town beat a man death on suspicion of robbing a
young couple of 200 pesos (about $16) and a cell phone. Juan Padilla
Juarez (28), an alleged member of the La Linea gang, was arrested in
the border city of Ciudad Juarez. He had allegedly participated in the
killing of 10 people. Police in northern Mexico arrested 8 men who
allegedly kidnapped migrants trying to reach the US. An investigation
led to the arrest of 3 more suspects a day later.
(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/18/10)(AP, 5/19/10)
2010 May 17, Nicaragua’s navy
chief, Capt. Roger Gonzalez Diaz, said Mexico's La Familia cartel is
moving heavily into Central America and dominates much of the drug
trade through the region. He said officials would take tough measures
to prevent the trade.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, Mexico’s Attorney
General's Office announced that a judge handed down a prison sentence
of almost 22 years against Jaime Gonzalez Duran, also known as "The
Hummer," for money laundering and weapons possession.
(AP, 5/18/10)
2010 May 18, In Mexico City Javier
Covarrubias (20) left his house and took his 2 children to a park.
There he allegedly asphyxiated 1 1/2-year-old Isis Liliana, and a half
hour later he asphyxiated 2 1/2-year-old Darien Isai. He soon reported
his two children kidnapped but then changed his story and said he
really gave them to a woman to settle a debt of 25,000 pesos, or about
$1,925. The bodies of the children were found on June 8.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 May 19, Mexican police found
the mummified bodies of two women and three men stuffed in plastic bags
in a pickup truck left near a highway in the northern Mexico state of
Chihuahua. University authorities in Ciudad Juarez also reported that a
freshman had been found dead, wrapped in a blanket at a local
fairground. Authorities said about 88 tons (80 metric tons) of a
precursor chemical used to make methamphetamines had been seized at the
Pacific Coast seaport of Manzanillo.
(AP, 5/20/10)
2010 May 20, Mexican President
Felipe Calderon also took his opposition to a new Arizona immigration
law to Congress, saying it "ignores a reality that cannot be erased by
decree." Calderon also urged the US Congress to reinstate a ban on
assault weapons to help cut cross-border gun smuggling and reduce drug
gang violence for its southern neighbor.
(AP, 5/20/10)(Reuters, 5/21/10)
2010 May 20, In Mexico gunbattles
between security forces and armed attackers killed nine people in two
states along the US border. Federal police announced the capture of
Jose Manuel Garcia, the Sinaloa cartel's alleged chief operator in
Mexico state. In the state of Coahuila, 2 police officers and 3 gunmen
died in a shootout in Torreon. In Ciudad Juarez federal police detained
Luis Humberto Hernandez, an alleged gang member accused of
participating in 11 killings. Timoteo Alejandro Ramirez and his wife
Cleriberta Castro were killed by gunmen from a rival faction of San
Juan Copala in southern Oaxaca state. Ramirez was the leader of the
town's autonomy movement.
(AP, 5/20/10)(AP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 21, Mexican officials
said Jose Manuel Garcia, a senior member of the Sinaloa cartel, one of
Mexico's largest criminal gangs, has been arrested along with a cache
of weapons, money and drugs.
(AFP, 5/21/10)
2010 May 25, Mexican federal
police arrested Gregorio Sanchez, the mayor of the resort city of
Cancun, on drug trafficking, money laundering and organized crime
charges, the latest blow to 2010 state and local elections already
marred by violence and allegations of drug cartel involvement. On June
1 Sanchez was charged with drug trafficking ties, forcing him to end
his campaign for governor in a scandal that has shaken Mexico's
upcoming state elections.
(AP, 5/26/10)(AP, 6/1/10)
2010 May 26, Mexican marines
arrested Manzanillo port Captain Jorge Arturo Castaneda, accusing him
of drug trafficking ties. The port had become a hot spot for the
smuggling of methamphetamine precursor chemicals. In the northern city
of Piedras Negras, a soldier was killed and another wounded when gunmen
ambushed army troops inspecting flood-risk zones. Sergio Adrian
Martinez, a former state police officer and member of the Arturo
Beltran Leyva carte, was killed in a gunbattle with soldiers in the
northern city of Monterrey.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 27, Mexico's Supreme
Court upheld a law requiring hospitals to offer rape victims a
morning-after birth control pill, rejecting an appeal that argued the
pill's effect constitutes the equivalent of an abortion.
(AP, 5/27/10)
2010 May 28, In southern Mexico
people in the Indian village of Zaragoza disarmed and seized about 20
police officers and demanded the cancellation of arrest warrants that
arose from a local land dispute in Guerrero state.
(AP, 5/29/10)
2010 May 29, In Mexico the body of
a prison warden kidnapped by gunmen earlier in the day was found
dismembered and scattered in several locations in a Morelos state
adjacent to the Mexican capital. Police found an abandoned silver mine
scattered with bodies outside Taxco, Guerrero state. At least 64 bodies
were eventually recovered in what appeared to be a dumping ground for
victims of organized crime.
(Reuters, 5/30/10)(AP, 5/30/10)(AP, 6/4/10)(AP,
6/7/10)(SFC, 6/25/10, p.A3)
2010 May 31, Mexican migrant
Anastasio Hernandez was shocked by a Customs and Border Protection
agent at the San Ysidro border crossing between Tijuana and San Diego.
A US coroner later ruled the death a homicide.
(AP, 6/4/10)(AP, 6/8/10)
2010 Jun 2, Two Mexican federal
police officers were killed in a clash with gunmen in northern Nuevo
Leon state.
(AP, 6/3/10)
2010 Jun 6, In Mexico police
discovered six dead bodies in a cavern near the tourist resort of
Cancun, three of them cut open and their hearts removed. Armed men in
two cars barged into a girl's coming-out party in the southwestern town
of Coyuca de Catalan, sparking a deadly gunbattle. Two partygoers and
one attacker were killed.
(AP, 6/6/10)
2010 Jun 7, In Mexico a prison
fight in the border city of Ciudad Juarez left three inmates dead. A
federal agent was also badly beaten during the fight.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 Jun 8, In Mexico six inmates
had their throats cut and died in a prison in Culiacan, Sinaloa state.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 Jun 9, Mexican officials said
its has navy found more than 44 pounds (20kg) of explosives in a trendy
residential neighborhood in the capital after exchanging information
with US authorities.
(AP, 6/9/10)
2010 Jun 10, In Mexico a gang of
gunmen in Chihuahua city raided a drug rehabilitation center late at
night in the border state capital and killed 19 people. In Madero a
gang of gunmen killed at least 20 people in a series of armed
confrontations and shootings in at least five different locations in
the city in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
(AP, 6/11/10)(AFP, 6/11/10)
2010 Jun 11, In Mexico former
state police detective Irvin Solano was arrested in central Morelos
state. He was accused of becoming a top enforcer for Edgar Valdez
Villareal, a US-born drug trafficker.
(AP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 12, In Mexico a
government media tour to promote tourism in the southwest went awry
when machete-wielding Indians briefly kidnapped 13 reporters on the
trip. 15 people trying to film a beer commercial were also abducted.
The indigenous communal landowners were upset that Grupo Modelo, the
maker of Corona beer, had not asked their permission to film the
commercial on their property. They were all released unharmed but the
Indians refused to return cameras and other equipment.
(AP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 13, In Mexico 9 people
were killed when a plane belonging to a politician running for governor
in Quintana Roo state crashed. Roberto Borge, the powerful
Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI)'s candidate for governor, was
not aboard at the time.
(AFP, 6/14/10)
2010 Jun 14, In Mexico Microsoft
co-founder Bill Gates, Mexican telecom magnate Carlos Slim and Mexican
President Felipe Calderon announced that foundations run by Gates and
Slim will each donate $50 million to the 150 million 2015 Meso-American
Health Initiative. The Spanish government will contribute the rest.
(AP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 14, In Mexico gunmen
killed 15 federal police officers in separate attacks. 12 officers died
in an ambush near a high school in the western state of Michoacan. 3
gunmen were also killed in a clash with soldiers in Michoacan.
Assailants killed 3 more officers in Chihuahua City. At least 29
inmates were killed as rival gangs clashed inside a prison in Mazatlan,
Sinaloa state.
(AP, 6/15/10)
2010 Jun 15, President Felipe
Calderon appealed to Mexicans to support the fight against organized
crime just hours after troops killed 15 suspected gang members, part of
a surge in violence that has June headed toward being the deadliest
month yet in his drug war. The government announced strict limits on
the deposit and exchange of dollars in banks, noting that the economy
was being flooded with illicit drug profits. A car bomb killed a
federal police officer and two civilians in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 6/16/10)(SFC, 6/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jun 16, In Mexico Alain
Escutia (20) and Emilio Palacios (22) were arrested in the Michoacan
state capital of Morelia for their role in the June 14 attack that left
12 police officers dead in Michoacan.
(AP, 6/17/10)
2010 Jun 17, In Mexico police in
southern Guerrero state found the bodies of two men who had been
tortured in the town of Tepecoacuilco. In the northern border city of
Ciudad Juarez, two 15-year-old girls were among 15 people killed in a
24-hour period. Soldiers acting on a tip raided 3 houses in Culiacan,
Sinaloa state, and found over $1 million in cash, guns, drugs and
expensive jewelry.
(AP, 6/17/10)(AP, 6/18/10)(SFC, 6/19/10, p.A2)
2010 Jun 18, In Mexico police in
Cancun found 12 decomposing bodies in four caverns and were searching
for more cadavers in violence blamed on drug gangs in the resort city.
11 Mexican soldiers died in the crash of a military helicopter carrying
troops for anti-drug missions.
(AP, 6/19/10)(AP, 6/19/10)
2010 Jun 19, Carlos Monsivais
(b.1938), renowned Mexican journalist, critic and political
activist died in Mexico City. His death was confirmed by the
Estanquillo Museum that Monsivais founded in 2006 with his extensive
collection of pop art pieces ranging from comic books to miniature
reproductions of household objects.
(AP, 6/20/10)
2010 Jun 20, In Mexico a mayor and
another man in the southern state of Oaxaca were killed by assailants
in a dispute apparently motivated by a disagreement over a mine. A man
and his 12-year-old daughter were detained in Guerrero state for
allegedly killing a neighboring land owner in a dispute over land.
(AP, 6/21/10)
2010 Jun 21, In Mexico assailants
sprayed a town hall with gunfire close to midnight, killing at least
three police officers in Nuevo Leon state.
(AP, 6/22/10)
2010 Jun 24, In Mexico police in
the border city of Mexicali arrested Manuel Garibay (52), a purported
top figure in Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. 6 gunmen died in
two shootouts in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas. Another
five gunmen died after clashing with soldiers in Ciudad Mier, which is
also in Tamaulipas.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 26, In southern Mexico a
mob armed with clubs, stones and guns attacked a political rally,
sparking hours of clashes that left three people dead and six more
wounded in the town of Nachig, Chiapas state. 9 people were killed when
gunmen opened fire in a drug rehabilitation center in Chihuahua city,
Durango state.
(AP, 6/26/10)
2010 Jun 26, In Mexico City
thousands of people took part in a gay pride parade, celebrating the
city's historic decision six months ago to become the first city in
Latin America to allow same-sex marriage.
(AFP, 6/27/10)
2010 Jun 28, In Mexico gunmen
ambushed campaign caravan of Rodolfo Torre (46) less than a week before
he was expected to win the governor's race in Tamaulipas, a state torn
by a turf battle between two rival drug cartels. Torre and 4 other
people were killed: three of the candidate's bodyguards and a state
lawmaker. In Guerrero state reported Juan Rodriguez Rios and his wife
were shot dead inside an Internet café they operated in Coyuca
de Benitez.
(AP, 6/29/10)(SFC, 6/30/10, p.A2)
2010 Jun 29, The government of
Mexico lifted the alert for swine flu, officially ending the health
emergency in the country where the illness first appeared 14 months ago.
(AP, 6/29/10)
2010 Jun 29, In Mexico Miguel
Ortiz Miranda, alias El Tyson, a key suspect in the April 24 ambush of
Michoacan’s state security chief, was arrested in Morelia.
(SFC, 7/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico a massive
gun battle between rival drug and migrant trafficking gangs near the US
border left 21 people dead near Nogales, Sonora state.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SFC, 7/2/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 1, In Mexico the
sprawling remains of Hurricane Alex drenched much of the north,
paralyzing the major city of Monterrey. 12 people were killed.
(AP, 7/1/10)(SSFC, 7/4/10, p.A4)(Econ, 7/10/10, p.30)
2010 Jul 2, Mexican authorities
said they have arrested Jesus Ernesto Chavez (41), a drug-cartel
enforcer. Chavez said Lesley Enriquez, a woman who worked in the
Mexican border's biggest US consulate, had helped a rival gang obtain
American visas, and for that he ordered her killed. Employee Lesley
Enriquez (35) and two other people connected to the US consulate in the
city of Ciudad Juarez were killed March 13 in attacks that raised
concerns that Americans were being caught up in drug-related border
violence.
(AP, 7/2/10)(SFC, 7/3/10, p.A3)
2010 Jul 5, Mexico’s Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI), which ruled for seven decades before voters
threw it out a decade ago, gained some momentum in state elections
where the dominant issue was the country's skyrocketing drug violence.
Police found the decapitated bodies of three men inside a burned-out
car in the drug gang-plagued Mexican state of Sinaloa. The heads had
been put on the vehicle's hood.
(McClatchy, 7/5/10)(AP, 7/5/10)
2010 Jul 6, The bodyguard of a
Mexican state governor was ordered jailed pending an investigation into
allegations that he belongs to a drug cartel, one of a string of
scandals that plagued weekend elections. Ismael Ortega Galicia, a
bodyguard for Tamaulipas Gov. Eugenio Hernandez, was detained for
questioning over the weekend after the newspaper Reforma reported he
was on a US Treasury Department list of key members of the Gulf or
Zetas gangs.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 6, In northern Mexico
about 18,000 people were evacuated from Ciudad Anahuac, where
authorities feared a dam would overflow from rains that accompanied
Hurricane Alex. The Venustiano Carranza dam, about 70 km (43 miles)
away, reached capacity after days of heavy rains, including remnants of
the hurricane, which slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast last
week.
(AP, 7/6/10)
2010 Jul 7, In Mexico a judge
acquitted Juan Llaca Diaz, a man charged with dealing in precursor drug
chemicals and allegedly linked to the bust of a Chinese-Mexican
businessman who hid $205 million at his Mexico City mansion.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 7, A Mexican air force
helicopter crashed in the western state of Jalisco, killing three
military personnel on board.
(AP, 7/10/10)
2010 Jul 8, In Mexico 4 suspects
were killed in a shootout with police in the border state of Coahuila.
5 civilian bystanders were wounded.
(AP, 7/9/10)
2010 Jul 10, Mexican marines
raided a house in the Pacific resort of Acapulco and captured Gamaliel
Aguirre Tavira (35), a suspected regional chief of a drug gang involved
in a bloody turf war in the center and south of Mexico. Authorities
said Tavira is a close ally of Edgar Valdez Villarreal, a Texas-born
gang boss known as "La Barbie" who leads one of the two factions
fighting over control of the Beltran Leyva drug cartel.
(AP, 7/11/10)
2010 Jul 12, In Mexico 3
assailants died in a shootout with soldiers in the border city of
Reynosa. The soldiers reportedly came under fire while on patrol,
returned fire and seized three rifles at the scene.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, In Mexico 3 dead
bodies were found hanging from pedestrian bridges in the central city
of Cuernavaca. The bodies were accompanied by threatening notes signed
by a drug gang. The three men escaped from a state prison last month.
Gunmen killed three state police officers in two ambush-style attacks
in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. Another officer was seriously
wounded.
(AP, 7/14/10)
2010 Jul 13, Australian police
said they have seized 240 kg (530 pounds) of cocaine worth 84 million
dollars ($73 million) which was stashed in paving stones. 4 men
including an American, a Mexican and two Australians were arrested over
the haul, Australia's fifth biggest cocaine seizure, which was
discovered in two shipping containers sent to Melbourne from Mexico.
(AFP, 7/13/10)
2010 Jul 14, In Mexico gunmen shot
and killed Mario Medina, the nephew of Chihuahua state governor-elect
Cesar Duarte, in a botched kidnapping attempt.
(SFC, 7/16/10, p.A2)
2010 Jul 15, In Mexico members of
a northern drug gang rammed a car that may have been packed with
explosives or inflammable material into two police patrol trucks in the
border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing two officers and a medical
technician, and wounding nine people. The attack was said to be in
retaliation for the arrest of a top leader of the La Linea drug gang,
Jesus Acosta Guerrero, earlier in the day. It was the first time a drug
cartel has used a car bomb to attack Mexican security forces. On Oct 20
Fernando Contreras was arrested in Chihuahua along with 14 others,
several weapons and drugs. Police said Contreras had detonated the car
bomb.
(AP, 7/16/10)(AP, 7/17/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico 5 factory
workers were gunned down when armed men burst into a party at a house
in Ciudad Juarez. In other municipalities of Chihuahua, which shares a
long border with Texas, there were four killings.
(AP, 7/17/10)
2010 Jul 16, In Mexico Roberto
Cabrera (38), with a mysterious bulge under his T-shirt, was stopped,
searched and detained at Mexico City's international airport after
arriving from Peru. Authorities found 18 tiny endangered monkeys in a
girdle he was wearing. Two of the monkeys were dead.
(AP, 7/19/10)
2010 Jul 17, In Mexico 4 policemen
were shot dead by unknown assailants on a rural road near the port of
Acapulco. Six other violent deaths were recorded in Ciudad Juarez
including a man and his daughter were shot by gunmen who entered his
home early in the day.
(AP, 7/18/10)
2010 Jul 18, In Mexico gunmen
jumped from their cars and stormed a private party in Torreon. They
simply opened fire killing 17 people with 18 wounded. On July 25
prosecutors said that guards and officials at a prison let inmates out,
lent them guns and sent them off in official vehicles to carry out
drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 in Torreon.
(AP, 7/19/10)(AP, 7/26/10)
2010 Jul 22, Mexican soldiers
fought gunbattles overnight with gangs who forced citizens from their
cars and used the vehicles to block streets in Nuevo Laredo across the
border from Texas. Witnesses reported that several gunmen were killed.
8 suspected drug gang gunmen died in a battle with Mexican soldiers in
the remote mountains of northern Chihuahua state. Authorities began
uncovering the remains of at least 51 people in a series of pits and
scattered on the ground at a suspected drug-gang dumping site near
Monterrey, Nuevo Leon state.
(AP, 7/22/10)(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 22, The US Treasury
Department added two companies owned by daughters of drug lord Ismael
"El Mayo" Zambada to the list of sanctioned companies under the
Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The US Embassy in Mexico City said
the two women, Maria Teresa Zambada Niebla and Midiam Patricia Zambada
Niebla, served as "front persons" for their father's illicit
transactions. The companies named to the list are Arte y Diseno de
Culiacan SA de CV and Autotransportes JYM SA de CV.
(AP, 7/22/10)
2010 Jul 23, Jesus Quinonez, the
international liaison for the Baja California state attorney general's
office, was among 43 defendants named in a US federal racketeering
complaint that alleges murder, kidnapping and other crimes. They were
accused of working for Fernando Sanchez Arellano, widely considered the
most-wanted drug kingpin in Tijuana. Quinonez (49) was arrested a day
earlier in San Diego during a traffic stop.
(AP, 7/24/10)
2010 Jul 26, In Mexico six men
were found inside a car in the southwestern city of Chilpancingo,
Guerrero state. Next to them lay a message reading: "This will happen
to all rapists, extortionists and kidnappers. Attentively, the New
Cartel of the Sierra." The bodies of four men were found dumped in a
plaza in Nuevo Laredo. In Cuernavaca state investigators found the
burned bodies of three men near a major highway. The victims had been
bound before being burned. Painted on a nearby wall were the letters
"CPS," an apparent reference to the Southern Pacific drug cartel. 4
journalists disappeared in the Laguna region, which includes Durango
and areas of the neighboring state of Coahuila. A Milenio newspaper and
TV network cameramen and three other journalists were abducted after
covering a prison scandal in the northern state of Durango in which
inmates are accused of being hired guns for a local cartel. The 4 were
soon freed and 3 men working for the Sinaloa drug cartel were detained
for participating in the kidnapping.
(AP, 7/26/10)(AP, 7/27/10)(Reuters, 7/29/10)(AP,
8/5/10)
2010 Jul 27, In Mexico 3 federal
police agents were shot to death on a highway in a confrontation with
gunmen. A second cousin of Gov.-elect Cesar Duarte was shot to death by
attackers in the city of Parral. The severed heads of eight men were
found left in pairs along highways in the northern Mexico state of
Durango. Rogelio Segovia Hernandez, a suspected drug cartel lieutenant
with a quarter-million-dollar reward on his head, was captured in the
border state of Chihuahua, where rival gangs are waging a bloody turf
war.
(AP, 7/27/10)(AP, 7/28/10)
2010 Jul 28, In Mexico 3 men and a
woman were gunned down at a pizzeria in Mexico City.
(AFP, 7/29/10)
2010 Jul 29, In Mexico soldiers
killed Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel (56), a top leader of the Sinaloa
cartel, in a raid on his posh hideout in the western city of
Guadalajara. One soldier was killed and Francisco Quinones, his
right-hand man, was arrested. Mexican federal troops found $7 million
in cash at the site as well as jewelry, luxury watches, guns, two hand
grenades and three expensive cars.
(AP, 7/30/10)(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 30, In Mexico Chinese
Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi signed a four-year cooperation accord with
Mexico aimed at boosting political and economic ties.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexican federal
police rescued two kidnapped news cameramen in the northern city of
Gomez Palacio, Coahuila state, five days after they were seized by drug
traffickers in a bid to get their employers to broadcast cartel
messages.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Jul 31, Mexico said it will
send its ambassador back to Honduras next week, recognizing the
government of Honduran President Porfirio Lobo a year after his
predecessor was ousted by a military-backed coup.
(AP, 7/31/10)
2010 Aug 2, Compania Mexicana de
Aviacion filed for bankruptcy.
(Econ, 8/14/10, p.53)
2010 Aug 2, UNESCO added 6 sites
located in Brazil, China, Mexico, France's Reunion Island and the South
Pacific nation of Kiribati to World Heritage status.
(AP, 8/2/10)
2010 Aug 3, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon said he would consider a debate on legalizing drugs as
his government announced that more than 28,000 people have been killed
in drug violence since he launched a crackdown against cartels in 2006.
(AP, 8/3/10)
2010 Aug 4, Mexican authorities
said 7 bodies were found in a clandestine grave in Mazatlan, Sinaloa
state. The bodies were found after an anonymous tip and showed signs of
having been tortured prior to their death.
(SFC, 8/5/10, p.A2)
2010 Aug 6, In Mexico rival gangs
clashed, killing 14 inmates at a prison in the border city of
Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.
(AP, 8/7/10)
2010 Aug 8, Former Mexican Pres.
Vincente Fox, who was a key US ally in the war on drugs, backed the
legalization of drugs, saying prohibition has failed to curb Mexico's
spiraling violence and corruption.
(Reuters 8/910)
2010 Aug 10, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that all 31 states must recognize same-sex marriages
performed in the capital, though its decision does not force those
states to begin marrying gay couples in their territory.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 11, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon questioned prosecutors and judges as to why so few
people are caught and punished for violent crimes.
(AP, 8/11/10)
2010 Aug 12, In Mexico police
found the bodies of six people in two locations. The bodies of four
males, including two teenagers, were found with their hands and feet
bound inside a car in the town of Tepalcatepec, Michoacan state.
Minutes earlier police in Tepalcatepec found the body of a man and a
woman alongside a road.
(AP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 13, President Barack
Obama signed a $600 million bill to put more agents and equipment along
the Mexican border. The new law nearly doubled fees on visas for
skilled workers brought in by companies whose employees are more than
50 percent foreign, a move that largely affects India's IT and
outsourcing industries.
(AP, 8/13/10)(AFP, 8/14/10)
2010 Aug 14, Mexican authorities
said that police in Ciudad Juarez have captured five alleged drug gang
members suspected in the killings of two federal officers, including
one whose body was hacked to pieces.
(AP, 8/14/10)(AFP, 8/15/10)
2010 Aug 15, In Mexico attackers
shot 8 men to death and piled their bodies in a pickup truck in the
southern state of Oaxaca. Gunmen kidnapped Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of
the town Santiago, a city on the outskirts of Monterrey. His body was
found on Aug 18. In Ciudad Juarez gunmen opened fire on the pool party
in central Ciudad Juarez, killing 3 women and a man and wounding 5
other women, all of whom were wearing swimsuits. In an attack at a
private house, gunmen riddled party-goers with bullets. 3 victims died
at the scene, and another 3 in hospital. The bodies of four other men,
"showing signs of torture with several shots through their heads," were
found in other parts of the city. The city had more than 2,660 murders
in 2009 and 1,850 so far this year. In Veracruz police found the bound,
burned remains of a body with a federal police badge.
(AFP, 8/15/10)(AP, 8/16/10)(Reuters, 8/18/10)
2010 Aug 16, Mexico's Supreme
Court voted to uphold a Mexico City law allowing adoptions by same-sex
couples, drawing jubilant cheers from gay advocacy groups and angry
protests from Roman Catholic Church representatives.
(AP, 8/16/10)
2010 Aug 16, In Mexico 4 inmates
were found dead with their throats slashed at a prison in the Pacific
coast state of Sinaloa.
(AP, 8/17/10)
2010 Aug 19, President Felipe
Calderon said Mexico should consider appointing anonymous judges for
drug trafficking trials, an unexpected proposal that he acknowledged
contradicts the country's efforts to build a more open judicial system.
(AP, 8/19/10)
2010 Aug 20, In Mexico 6 city
police officers were arrested in the killing of Santiago Mayor Edelmiro
Cavazos. The suspects included the officer who guarded the house where
Cavazos was kidnapped on Aug 15. A shootout in Santa Catalina, a suburb
of Monterrey, left 3 security guards wounded. 2 slain guards were found
the next day in the trunk of a car.
(AP, 8/20/10)(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican prosecutors
added tax evasion charges to drug counts pending against for Zhenli Ye
Gon, a Chinese-Mexican businessman who is fighting extradition from the
United States. Ye Gon was jailed in the US more than two years ago on
charges of smuggling methamphetamines from Mexico to the US.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 20, Mexican police
detained six suspects on the southern Pacific coast with 3,756
illegally harvested eggs from protected sea turtles.
(AP, 8/20/10)
2010 Aug 21, In Mexico a gunbattle
erupted between police and gunmen in Ciudad Juarez, killing one person
and prompting US authorities to close a highway that runs along the
border in El Paso, Texas. The bodies of two security guards for Mexican
bottling company FEMSA were found dead a day after a shootout in Santa
Catalina, a suburb of Monterrey.
(AP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 21, A consortium of
Mexican investors said they have acquired 95 percent of Mexicana de
Aviacion airline, which earlier this month filed for bankruptcy
protection. The Tenedora K group was formed "to capitalize" and "save"
Nuevo Grupo Aeronautico, the holding company that controls Mexicana de
Aviacion and two domestic airlines, Mexicana Click and Mexicana Link.
(AFP, 8/22/10)
2010 Aug 22, In Mexico the
decapitated bodies of four men were hung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a
city besieged by fighting between two drug lords. Police found the body
of a US citizen inside a car along the highway between the Pacific
resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo. A Mexican soldier said that Joseph
Proctor (32) attacked an army convoy with an AR-15 rifle and was killed
when troops shot him in self-defense. Proctor had told his girlfriend
he was popping out to a convenience store in Acapulco where the couple
had just moved. The next morning the New York native was dead inside
his crashed van on a road outside the town. Three soldiers were later
charged with his killing.
(AP, 8/22/10)(AP, 8/23/10)(AP, 12/25/10)
2010 Aug 23, Mexican police in the
border city of Tijuana found two bodies on the outskirts of town and
were searching for more. Baja California state prosecutors said
recently arrested suspects told authorities at least four more bodies
had been buried in the same area. A judge ordered the released of 13
Tijuana city police officers who were arrested by soldiers and sent to
prison more than a year ago on charges of protecting drug traffickers.
The judge ruled there wasn't enough evidence.
(AP, 8/23/10)
2010 Aug 23, In Las Vegas Mexico's
Jimena Navarrete (22) was crowned Miss Universe in an upset victory
that stunned a pageant world which had predicted a winner to emerge
from Ireland, Venezuela or the United States.
(AFP, 8/24/10)
2010 Aug 24, Mexican marines found
the dumped bodies of 72 people at a ranch in northern Mexico following
a shootout with suspected drug cartel gunmen that left one marine and
three suspects dead. Two migrants survived the massacre and provided
information in the investigation. 77 people were later said to be in
the group and that a 3rd migrant had survived with 2 still missing. The
dismembered bodies of 2 men were found hung from a bridge at the
entrance to Chilpancingo, near Acapulco.
(AP, 8/25/10)(SFC, 8/25/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/1/10)(AP,
9/5/10)
2010 Aug 25, A Mexican judge found
Mario Bautista, former Michoacan state police director, innocent of
charges he helped a drug gang. He was arrested by federal investigators
in May 2009 along with 34 other local and state officials in Michoacan.
26 of them have already been set free for lack of evidence or after a
judge found them innocent.
(AP, 8/26/10)(Reuters, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 26, In Mexico at least 16
people were injured, some seriously, after a grenade was thrown into a
crowded bar in the internationally-popular beach resort of Puerto
Vallarta. 5 of the injured were detained as part of an investigation.
Four of those detained each lost a leg in the explosion.
(Reuters, 8/26/10)(AP, 8/26/10)
2010 Aug 27, In northern Mexico a
car exploded in front of the offices of a major Mexican television
station in Ciudad Victoria, Tamaulipas state, where officials were
investigating the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants.
(AP, 8/27/10)
2010 Aug 28, Saul de la Rosa (27),
a US resident, was abducted along with two other people when he crossed
into Ciudad Juarez. All three bodies were found Sept. 2. Documents
found on De la Rosa indicated he was a US resident.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Aug 29, In Mexico gunmen
killed the mayor of a town in the border state of Tamaulipas. Hidalgo
Mayor Marco Antonio Leal Garcia was the second mayor to be assassinated
in the past two weeks in the area.
(AP, 8/30/10)
2010 Aug 30, Mexican police
captured a Texas-born fugitive known as "the Barbie." Edgar Valdez
Villarreal (37) allegedly led a violent smuggling network. He became
the third suspected drug lord to fall in Mexico in the past 10 months
in a coup for Pres. Calderon's war on cartels. An anonymous caller
tipped authorities off to the presence of 3 bodies in Tamaulipas state.
Marines found the 3 bodies as well as the bodies of 2 women, not
identified as culprits. A Honduran man who survived the Aug 24
slaughter identified the three men as having been among the killers of
72 migrants.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/6/10)
2010 Aug 31, In Mexico 6 women and
two men died in a fire at a bar frequented by locals in the resort of
Cancun. Bar employees told police that unidentified men tossed gasoline
bombs at the establishment. Police soon arrested six suspects, who said
a drug gang hired them to throw gasoline bombs at the bar, presumably
in an attempt at extortion.
(AP, 8/31/10)(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 2, In Mexico soldiers
killed at least 25 suspected cartel members in a raid and gunbattle in
Tamaulipas state near the US border, that has become one of the most
dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, In Mexico five
suspected cartel members were killed in Nuevo Leon state, during a
shootout on a highway leading to the border.
(AP, 9/3/10)
2010 Sep 3, Two members of
Mexico’s Congress were among six people killed on when their private
plane crashed near a popular Pacific beach resort. Guillermo Zavaleta
and Juan Huerta, members of President Felipe Calderon's National Action
Party, or PAN, died in the crash in Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca.
(Reuters, 9/4/10)
2010 Sep 5, In northern Mexico
soldiers opened fire on a family's car when it allegedly failed to stop
at a military checkpoint, killing a 15-year-old boy and his father.
Relatives who were also in the car said they were shot at after they
passed a military convoy. On Sep 12 the military announced that it
filed charges against four troops for the shooting.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 6, Mexico’s Navy
announced it had found a clandestine grave with two bodies in
Tamaulipas, not far from the Aug 24 massacre site. It was unclear if
the grave was related to the massacre of 72 migrants. Marines had
arrested four suspects at the scene on Sept. 3. The bodies appeared to
be those of a state detective and local police chief who disappeared
while investigating the massacre.
(AP, 9/6/10)(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico pieces of
the dismembered bodies of two men were found scattered around a
children's park in the Pacific coast state of Guerrero. Gunmen attacked
a vehicle in Ciudad Juarez carrying inmates from the city's
prison, killing 2 guards and wounding a prisoner.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 7, In Mexico 7 women
serving prison terms of up to 29 years for the death of their newborns
were freed after a legal reform enacted in the state of Guanajuato
lowered their sentences.
(AP, 9/7/10)
2010 Sep 8, In Mexico hooded
gunmen burst into Mayor Alexander Lopez Garcia's office in the northern
Mexico state of San Luis Potosi and shot him to death. He was the third
mayor slain in less than a month.
(AP, 9/9/10)
2010 Sep 8, In southern Mexico
tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes to escape
flooding from weeks of torrential rains, and forecasts are predicting
even more rainfall. The flooding has affected all four of Mexico's
southernmost states: Tabasco, Veracruz, Chiapas and Oaxaca.
(AP, 9/8/10)
2010 Sep 9, In Mexico gunmen
killed 25 people in a series of drug-gang attacks in Ciudad Juarez,
marking the deadliest day in more than two years for the Mexican border
city.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, In Mexico 85 inmates
scaled the walls of a prison in the border city of Reynosa and escaped
in the country’s biggest jail break in recent memory. At least five
people were killed in the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero,
where various cartels are also fighting for territory.
(AP, 9/11/10)
2010 Sep 10, A Guatemalan court
sentenced 6 Mexicans and 8 Guatemalans, all members of Mexico’s Zetas
drug gang, to lengthy prison terms for the killing of 11 people two
years ago.
(http://tinyurl.com/34zmpqn)(Econ, 10/16/10, p.31)
2010 Sep 11, In Mexico’s central
state of Morelos police discovered nine bodies in clandestine graves in
the same area where four more were recently found. A phone tip led
authorities to a dead body in a car in a shopping center parking lot in
Ciudad Juarez. Police found a bomb in a second car at the site and
carried out a controlled detonation. Federal authorities announced the
arrest of two Colombian brothers, Dario Emilio Valencia and Victor
Espinosa Valencia, alleged to have ties to Edgar "La Barbie"
Valdez Villarreal and belonging to a group responsible for buying
cocaine in Colombia and smuggling it to the United States.
(AP, 9/12/10)
2010 Sep 12, Mexican marines
captured Sergio Villarreal Barragan (“the Child-eater”), a presumed
leader of the embattled Beltran Leyva cartel, along with 2 accomplices
in a raid in the central state of Puebla.
(AP, 9/12/10)(Econ, 9/18/10, p.53)
2010 Sep 15, Mexico looked beyond
its drug war to throw a 200th birthday bash celebrating a proud
history, whimsical culture and resilience embodied in the traditional
independence cry: "Viva Mexico!" A gunbattle between Mexican soldiers
and suspected drug cartel members left 22 dead at ranch on the
outskirts of Ciudad Mier near the US border.
(AP, 9/16/10)(AP, 9/16/10)
2010 Sep 16, In Mexico gunmen
attacked two newspaper photographers in the drug war-torn border city
of Ciudad Juarez, killing Luis Carlos Santiago (21) and seriously
wounding Carlos Sanchez of the Diario de Juarez.
(AP, 9/17/10)
2010 Sep 17, In Mexico gunmen
burst into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and killed 6 men and a woman. Over
4,000 people have died in the city over the last 2 years as a turf war
continued between the Juarez and Sinaloa drug cartels. Gunmen kidnapped
9 police officers investigating a death in the southern state of
Guerrero. The headless bodies of two of the lawmen were found near El
Revelado, the community where the police group was kidnapped. 6 more
were found Sep 19 in a ravine. One survivor was located in Acapulco.
Troops killed three suspected drug cartel gunmen in a gunbattle and
also freed a kidnap victim near the industrial city of Monterrey.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A2)(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 17, Hurricane Karl hit
Mexico’s Gulf Coast. At least 16 people were killed after several days
of flooding and mudslides.
(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A3)(SFC, 9/18/10, p.A6)(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 18, In Mexico’s Guerrero
state unidentified men traveling in two vehicles threw two human heads
into a refreshment stand in Coyuca de Catalan. One of the heads was
blindfolded with duct tape. They were later associated to 2 of 9 police
officers abducted a day earlier. Authorities in Ciudad Juarez said
police arrested two alleged leaders of the Aztecs gang linked to at
least 10 murders, including the killing of a federal police officer
last month.
(AP, 9/18/10)(AP, 9/19/10)
2010 Sep 19, In Ciudad Juarez,
Mexico, a front-page editorial by El Diario de Juarez asked warring
drug cartels to say what they want from the newspaper, so it can
continue its work without further death, injury or intimidation of its
staff.
(AP, 9/20/10)
2010 Sep 20, In Mexico rocks and
mud tumbled down a hill onto a highway in Villa Guerrero, south of
Mexico City. Five bodies were pulled out, and an unknown number of
people were missing. More than 70 people have died during the rainy
season in Mexico, which has been one of the heaviest on record.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 21, In Mexico a mob beat
two alleged kidnappers to death in the northern border state of
Chihuahua. The two men and three others were suspected in the
kidnapping of a 17-year-old girl from Asencion.
(AP, 9/21/10)
2010 Sep 22, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon announced a plan to protect journalists, as violence
against reporters has surged since the government launched a crackdown
on drug traffickers nearly four years ago.
(AP, 9/23/10)
2010 Sep 23, In Mexico gunmen
killed Prisciliano Rodriguez Salinas, mayor of the town of Doctor
Gonzalez, near Monterrey, as well as his personal assistant. He became
the fourth mayor in northern Mexico to be murdered in little more than
a month. Two men were later arrested for the killing because of a land
dispute. They had been paid $6,000. An uncle of one of the two suspects
had hired them a week before the assassination.
(AP, 9/24/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 24, In Mexico Ricardo
Solis, the recently elected mayor of the small town of Gran Morelos' in
the northern state of Chihuahua, was shot in the head and chest by
gunmen who drove up in two SUVs. Soldiers near Monterrey came under
fire when they went to look into a tip that a local ranch had been
taken over by members of a drug gang. The soldiers fired back, killing
two alleged assailants, and then seized 12 rifles and over 2,000 rounds
of ammunition. Mexican soldiers detained Jose Angel Fernandez, the
Zetas drug cartel's alleged operations chief for the resort city of
Cancun, along with three alleged accomplices. Fernandez was suspected
in last month's fire-bombing of a bar that killed eight people.
(Reuters, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/25/10)(AP, 9/26/10)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities
said they have arrested Margarito Soto Reyes (44), an alleged
trafficker known as "The Tiger," who they say shipped a half-ton of
drugs to the US each month and may have been poised to take over for a
dead capo in the Sinaloa cartel. 8 alleged accomplices were also
arrested near Guadalajara. Police in the northern state of Chihuahua
announced they had found the bodies of six men piled in a sport utility
vehicle on a roadside in a remote, southern area of the state. The men
had all apparently been shot in the head. And in the border city of
Ciudad Juarez, unidentified assailants dumped the hacked-up body of a
man on a street.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 25, Mexican authorities
sighted the wreckage of a small plane in the mountains of Baja
California believed to have taken off from Los Angeles, Ca., with four
people on board.
(AP, 9/25/10)
2010 Sep 27, In Mexico the bodies
of Tancitaro Mayor Gustavo Sanchez and city adviser Rafael Equihua were
discovered in a pickup truck abandoned on a dirt road near the city of
Uruapan, the fifth city leader to be slain in Mexico since mid-August.
Also in Michoacan state, five gunmen and a marine were killed in a
shootout in Coahuayana on the Pacific coast. Another gunbattle in the
Gulf coast state of Tamaulipas left eight gunmen and one marine dead in
the border city of Reynosa. In the border state of Chihuahua, gunmen
broke into a police complex, subdued the guards and stole at least 40
automatic rifles and 23 handguns.
(AP, 9/27/10)
2010 Sep 28, In Mexico a hillside
collapsed on the rural community of Santa Maria de Tlahuitoltepec,
Oaxaca state. Although hundreds of people were initially feared dead
only 11 people were missing and likely dead.
(AP, 9/28/10)(AP, 9/29/10)(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, Mexican officials
announced that marines had captured 30 suspected Gulf cartel members
and seized an arsenal of weapons during two days of raids in the
northern border state of Tamaulipas. Two federal police officers were
slain at a downtown hotel in Ciudad Juarez. Attackers threw an
explosive at city hall in Matamoros, injuring three people.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 29, In Mexico a landslide
surged into a community in Chiapas state, killing 16 people and
injuring 13, while another avalanche left three people missing in a
nearby town.
(AP, 9/30/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico rescuers
found more bodies buried by earlier landslides, raising the death toll
from a series of slides in the south to at least 36. Another landslide
in the town of Villa Hidalgo Yalalag in Oaxaca state buried an
80-year-old man and his 68-year-old wife.
(AFP, 9/30/10)(AP, 10/1/10)
2010 Sep 30, In Mexico a group of
20 men in Acapulco, visiting from the western city of Morelia, were
abducted by an armed gang as they looked for a place to stay. 2 fellow
travelers had left the others to go a store and when they returned
their companions were gone. On Nov 3 the bodies of the 18 men were
found in a mass grave outside Acapulco.
(AP, 10/2/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Sep 30, Tiffany Hartley and
her husband, David, were on Jet Skis on Falcon Lake, Texas, when men on
three speedboats chased them, shooting her husband in the head.
Authorities have not recovered his body. The alleged attack happened
near the US-Mexican boundary of the lake, which is about 60 miles down
the border from Laredo.
(AP, 10/5/10)
2010 Oct 1, In Mexico a shootout
between rival drug-dealing gangs broke out in the town of San Jose de
la Cruz. 14 people were left dead.
(AP, 10/2/10)
2010 Oct 2, In Mexico 33 murders
took place in Chihuahua state over the last 2 days with 9 of the dead
in Ciudad Juarez. In the northeast an explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe
injured 15 people. Authorities blamed the attack on drug cartels
targeting the civilian population to cause chaos. In the northeast an
explosion at a plaza in Guadalupe injured 15 people. Authorities blamed
the attack on drug cartels targeting the civilian population to cause
chaos.
(AFP, 10/2/10)(AFP, 10/3/10)(AP, 10/4/10)
2010 Oct 5, US ATF deputy director
Kenneth Melson and Mexico Attorney General Arturo Chavez signed a
memorandum of understanding that will increase to 30 a month the number
of people trained to use the program, known as eTrace, an electronic
database that can trace the manufacture, import, sale and ownership of
guns.
(AP, 10/6/10)
2010 Oct 8, In Mexico Antonio
Jimenez Banos (47), who would have taken office in January in Martires
de Tacubaya, was killed by an assailant as he was returning to his
farm. Eleven sitting mayors have been killed so far this year in Mexico.
(AP, 10/9/10)
2010 Oct 10, In Chandler, Arizona,
Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy's body was found in a suburban Phoenix
apartment, his severed head a couple feet away. Detectives suspected
that Cota-Monroy's killing was punishment for stealing drugs. A police
report on Feb 2, 2011, said that Cota-Monroy stole 400 pounds of
marijuana and some meth from the PEI-Estatales/El Chapo drug
trafficking organization. Cota-Monroy told the cartel that the Border
Patrol had seized the drugs, but the cartel learned the truth and hired
men to kidnap and kill him in Nogales, Mexico. Cota-Monroy fled to the
Phoenix area, leading the cartel to hire assassins to go to Arizona,
befriend Cota-Monroy and kill him. One man, Crisantos Moroyoqui, was
later charged in the killing, and three others were believed to have
fled to Mexico.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 3/3/11)
2010 Oct 11, In Mexico 8 police
officers were killed in an ambush in Sinaloa state. In Tijuana police
found the decapitated bodies of two men hung by their feet off a
bridge. Their heads were found in a car abandoned on the bridge.
(AP, 10/11/10)
2010 Oct 12, Mexican soldiers
captured Seiki Ogata, an alleged Tabasco state Zetas gang leader, along
with 5 other gang members. Ogata was suspected of organizing the
massacre of a dead marine Melquisedet Angulo’s family last Dec., just
days after Angulo had been killed during a raid in Cuernavaca, that
left drug kingpin Arturo Beltran Leyva dead. Authorities in Sinaloa
state said they found 3 beheaded bodies along a highway that leads to
the town of Imala. The bodies were accompanied with a message that
accused them of being kidnappers. The decapitated head of police
commander Rolando Flores was found in a suitcase outside a Mexican Army
base. He had been investigating the reported shooting of an American
tourist on Falcon Lake. Pirates have robbed boaters and fisherman on
the Mexican side. Motorists found a decapitated body underneath a
bridge on a road leading to the beachside neighborhood of Playas de
Tijuana. Earlier in the day police found a human head inside a bag in
another Tijuana neighborhood, but it did not belong to the body found
underneath the bridge.
(AP, 10/13/10)(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 12, Hurricane Paula, the
ninth hurricane of the busy 2010 Atlantic season, churned toward the
east coast of Mexico's Yucatan peninsula.
(Reuters, 10/12/10)
2010 Oct 13, In Mexico six prison
guards were killed while driving to work in Chihuahua city, capital of
Chihuahua state. In the northern state of Sinaloa, two police officers
were killed when gunmen ambushed their patrol in Mazatlan.
(AP, 10/14/10)
2010 Oct 13, Mexican national Jose
Antonio Medina Arreguin (36) was booked into a Ventura, Ca., county
jail after being extradited from his home country. Court documents
later showed Medina, accused of being Mexico's "King of Heroin," caught
on wiretap conversations talking to coconspirators about drug
transactions involving hundreds of thousands of dollars. In March 2011
Arreguin pleaded guilty and faced up to 24 years in prison.
(AP, 11/13/10)(AP, 3/17/11)
2010 Oct 14, In Mexico the W Radio
station broadcast what it described as a telephone conversation between
federal lawmaker Cesar Godoy and one of Mexico's biggest drug lords. W
Radio said the alleged conversation took place last year between Godoy
and La Familia cartel leader Servando Gomez, known as "La Tuta." In it
Godoy and Gomez express support for each other and discuss bribing a
reporter. Mexican marines battled suspected drug cartel gunmen whose
allies erected at least a dozen roadblocks in the northeastern city of
Monterrey. One marine and three gunmen were killed.
(AP, 10/14/10)(AP, 10/15/10)
2010 Oct 15, In Mexico armed men
entered through the back of a house in a residential neighborhood near
the center of Ciudad Juarez, surprising the party-goers with an
assault-rifle attack that killed 6 people.
(Reuters, 10/16/10)
2010 Oct 15, A light plane
carrying four US citizens on a medical aid flight crashed in Baja
California, killing all four aboard. The plane that went down was one
of three on a mission from the San Luis Obispo, Ca., area.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico gunmen in
the border city of Ciudad Juarez killed a local official and his son.
Rito Grado Serrano was regional president of the community of El
Porvenir outside Ciudad Juarez but lived with his family in Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 10/17/10)
2010 Oct 16, In Mexico the body of
Lane Gilbert (46) of Marin County, Ca., was discovered in a lot behind
a police station in Santa Maria Coyotepec, a town southwest of Oaxaca
City. He had suffered multiple machete wounds. Gilbert was last seen
leaving his home in San Andres Huayapan on Aug 27.
(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 17, The Mexican Navy said
two men were killed in a confrontation with marines in Tamaulipas
state. A Sonora state police officer was found dead, apparently from a
blow to the head, alongside the road in Benito Juarez municipality.
Ciudad Juarez gunmen burst into a home where a family was having a
party. 3 women and 2 men died at the scene, and a man and a woman died
at the hospital. Assailants attacked a second home in the neighborhood
minutes later, killing 2 men.
(AP, 10/17/10)(AP, 10/19/10)
2010 Oct 18, In Mexico a bus has
crashed into the back of a trailer truck and caught fire, killing 19
people outside the city of Queretaro. Security forces seized at least
105 tons of US-bound marijuana in Tijuana, by far the biggest pot bust
in the country in recent years. The estimated weight was soon revised
to 134.2 tons and said to likely belong to the Sinaloa cartel, run by
Mexico's most wanted fugitive, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.
(AP, 10/18/10)(AP, 10/20/10)
2010 Oct 20, In northern Mexico
Marisol Valles Garcia (20) was sworn in as the police chief of the
township of Praxedis G. Guerrero, a township of 8,500 on a drug
trafficking route along the Texas border. Soldiers battled gunmen in
two cities across the border from Texas, prompting panicked parents to
pull children from school and factories to warn workers to stay
inside. In Nuevo Laredo 5 gunmen were killed and 3 soldiers were
wounded during shootouts. Assailants in a third city threw a grenade at
an army barracks. In Ciudad Juarez a Texas National Guard soldier (21)
was reportedly one of two men killed.
(SFC, 10/21/10, p.A4)(AP, 10/20/10)(AP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 21, Mexican police found
the bullet-ridden bodies of seven people in different parts of southern
Guerrero state. Among them was Antonio Valdez, leader of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party in the resort city of Acapulco.
Valdez and three other men were found dead on the outskirts of the city
with a message accusing them of being allied with Edgar Valdez
Villarreal, alias "The Barbie."
(AP, 10/22/10)
2010 Oct 21, In central Mexico
Canadian industrial giant Bombardier and Mexican President Felipe
Calderon opened a new 250-million-dollar plant where it will produce
components for the Learjet 85 business aircraft.
(AFP, 10/21/10)
2010 Oct 22, In Mexico at least 13
young people (aged 13 to 32), including 6 women and girls, were shot
dead and 20 wounded in an attack on a house party in Ciudad Juarez. A
14th person died soon after from wounds.
(AP, 10/23/10)(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 22, Mexican authorities
said federal police have captured Huang Chen Yaowei, the suspected
leader of a gang that trafficked Chinese migrants through Mexico to the
US.
(AP, 10/23/10)
2010 Oct 23, In the southern
Mexico state of Oaxaca Heriberto Pazos, the leader of a leftist Indian
group left disabled in 2001 by a previous assassination attempt, was
shot to death by gunmen riding on a motorcycle.
(AP, 10/24/10)
2010 Oct 24, In Tijuana, Mexico, a
gang of armed men burst into the building of a drug rehab center and
gunned down 13 recovering addicts there. Police said at least 10 were
killed. In the southern Pacific coast state of Guerrero, state police
found the bound, executed bodies of six men on a highway outside the
resort city of Acapulco. 3 people were killed in the crossfire of a
shootout between gunmen, police and soldiers in northern Coahuila state.
(AP, 10/25/10)
2010 Oct 26, In Mexico the bodies
of two men, one of them decapitated, were found inside an SUV in Ciudad
Juarez. Police suspected they may have been behind the massacre of 14
young people at a birthday party. The entire police force of the small
northeastern town of Los Ramones quit, Nuevo Leon state, a day after
gunmen attacked their headquarters. Oaxaca state police found the
bound, tortured bodies of four people in a clandestine grave in a
vacant lot near the state capital. In Morelos state the bodies of four
men were found near a roadside with about 30 shell casings. A
25-year-old American was shot to death outside a restaurant in Ciudad
Juarez. Gunmen killed three undercover Mexican federal police officers
as they waited for a person to cross a bridge from El Paso, Texas.
(AP, 10/27/10)(AFP, 10/27/10)(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 27, In Mexico gunmen
killed 15 people at a car wash in Tepic, Nayarit state, where drug-gang
violence has risen this year. It was the third massacre in Mexico in
less than a week. A Chihuahua state police officer was killed in his
Ciudad Juarez home.
(AP, 10/27/10)
2010 Oct 28, In Mexico gunmen
killed 6 young men in a gritty neighborhood of Mexico City. Gunmen
ambushed a convoy of 5 police vehicles in Jalisco state, killing 9
officers and leaving one missing. In Zapopan, a suburb of the Jalisco
state capital of Guadalajara, two boys (2) and 3 other people were
wounded by grenade fragments during an attack on a private home. The
United States delivered three mobile X-ray inspection vehicles to
Mexico as part of the Merida Initiative anti-drug aid plan. Francisco
Javier Gomez Meza, the director of the Puente Grande prison, was
arrested for alleged ties to drug gangs.
(AP, 10/28/10)(AP, 10/29/10)
2010 Oct 29, In Mexico a man was
found shot to death and left in the Pacific resort city of Acapulco.
Lorena Izaguirre (24), a US citizen and El Paso resident, was killed
inside a tortilla shop in Ciudad Juarez. A Mexican man was also found
dead in the store.
(AP, 10/30/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 30, In Mexico City an
explosion inside a home where illegal fireworks were stored wrecked two
houses, killing at least three adults and two children. A US woman and
an American boy were slain shortly after crossing an international
bridge from El Paso to Ciudad Juarez. Giovanna Herrera (26) and Luis
Araiza (15) were shot to death along with a Mexican man traveling with
them.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Oct 31, Mexican police found
the missing rental car of Canadian businessman Daniel Dion just north
of the state capital of Chilpancingo. It was found completely burned
with a corpse in the trunk. Dion was last seen about a week ago in
Acapulco. Edgar Lopez (35) of El Paso, Texas, was killed along with two
Mexican men when gunmen opened fire on a group standing outside a house
in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 10/31/10)(AP, 11/2/10)
2010 Nov 2, In Mexico 4 men were
shot dead in the Pacific port city of Acapulco and at least 18 others
were killed elsewhere in the latest gang-style violence. Eder Diaz (23)
a student across the border at the Univ. of Texas at El Paso, was
attacked along with classmate Manuel Acosta (25). Acosta was killed at
the scene, while Diaz died the next day at a Juarez hospital.
(AFP, 11/3/10)(AP, 11/3/10)
2010 Nov 3, In Mexico police
recovered 18 bodies from a mass grave announced in a YouTube posting, a
video saying the victims were from a tourist group kidnapped in
Acapulco a month ago. In the video two men say they killed the
"Michoacanos" in an act of revenge against La Familia, a powerful drug
cartel based in Michoacan state. Two bodies reported in the tip were
found wearing the same clothes as the pair seen in the video and were
lying on top of the mass the grave.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 3, Federal authorities in
San Diego said they have made one of the largest marijuana seizures in
the United States, confiscating more than 20 tons of pot that was
smuggled into the country through an underground tunnel connecting
warehouses on either side of California's border with Mexico.
(AP, 11/4/10)
2010 Nov 5, Mexico's federal
police said they have found the tortured body of Mario Gonzalez, the
brother of Patricia Gonzalez, the former Chihuahua state attorney
general. He was kidnapped on Oct 21 and eight people have been arrested
in the slaying. A video had surfaced online showing the kidnapped man
saying at gunpoint that he and his sister protected a street gang tied
to the Juarez cartel and was behind several murders. Reputed Gulf
cartel leader Antonio Ezequiel Cardenas Guillen (48), also known as
"Tony Tormenta" or "Tony the Storm," was killed along with four of his
gunmen and three marines in the city of Matamoros. A soldier and local
reporter Carlos Guajardo were also killed in related mayhem that began
in the morning and lasted into the evening. The arrest of two alleged
drug traffickers in the historic city of Patzcuaro outside of Morelia
sparked roadblocks and car fires on the road between the two cities in
the western state of Michoacan, which is controlled by La Familia
cartel.
(AP, 11/5/10)(AP, 11/6/10)
2010 Nov 6, In Mexico the
decapitated body of a 30-year-old man was found in an Acapulco
neighborhood. Another man was found shot to death and a 27-year-old
woman who had been kidnapped last month was found strangled and dumped
in a trash bin, a black hood covering her face. Seven men at a family
party in ciudad Juarez were gunned down. 11 other people were killed in
the city, including two whose bodies were found dismembered. Police in
Oaxaca city found a human head in a gift-wrapped box left on the side
of a cliff popular for its view of the picturesque colonial center.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 7, In Mexico two Ciudad
Juarez police officers, a man and a woman, were shot to death inside
their patrol car.
(AP, 11/7/10)
2010 Nov 8, Mexican police
arrested Manuel "The Sow" Fernandez Valencia, a reputed Sinaloa cartel
associate. He was suspected of plotting with cartel capo Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman, one of Mexico's most wanted drug lords, to smuggle eight
tons of marijuana into the US by the end of this year. Gregorio
Barradas Mirabete, the mayor of Juan Rodriguez Clara, a small town in
southern Veracruz state, was kidnapped and killed, along with two
others.
(AP, 11/9/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico members of
the Inter American Press Association concluded a four-day assembly in
Merida and issued a report citing concerns that both government
censorship and organized crime pose threats to journalists in the
region.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, In Mexico a one-page
letter allegedly signed by "La Familia Michoacana" drug cartel was
dropped in the streets of some mountain towns in the western state of
Michoacan. It also showed up as a banner above an overpass and was sent
as an e-mail to reporters. The letter offered to dissolve the gang if
the government promises to protect citizens in Michoacan.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 9, Mexican bread maker
Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest bread maker, said it has agreed to buy
Sara Lee Corp.’s North American bakery business for $959 million to
boost sales outside Mexico.
(SFC, 11/10/10, p.D4)
2010 Nov 10, In Mexico gunmen
attacked the office of El Sur newspaper in the resort city of Acapulco,
spraying the building with bullets but causing no injuries.
(AP, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 10, US investigators said
authorities have dismantled a major cell of a human smuggling ring that
may be responsible for the transportation of thousands of illegal
immigrants from the US-Mexico border to Phoenix and other parts of the
country. 9 people were arrested after a yearlong investigation and 62
vans were seized from the group. The group was led by a Mexican man
named as Mark Rodriguez-Banks (29), aka Ricardo Morales-Mejia.
(AP, 11/10/10)
2010 Nov 11, Petroleos Mexicanos
(Pemex) said it is losing about $350,000 every day in lost production
due to threats and violence by drug gangs.
(SFC, 11/12/10, p.A2)
2010 Nov 12, Morelos state
prosecutor said soldiers are hunting a 12-year-old suspected drug gang
hitman accused of helping wage a gruesome turf war in central Mexico. 2
housewives this week took over the running of the police near Ciudad
Juarez in Chihuahua state, after no one else applied for the dangerous
job. Olga Herrera (43), a mother of five, was appointed police chief in
the town of Villa Luz, while Veronica Rios will be in charge of the
police department in the town of El Vergel, both just south of Ciudad
Juarez.
(Reuters, 11/12/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico a powerful
explosion killed five Canadian tourists and two Mexican workers at the
4-year-old Grand Riviera Princess hotel on the posh Riviera Maya. A
build up of swamp gas under the foundation was first suspected.
Evidence later pointed to a gas line leak.
(AP, 11/15/10)(SFC, 11/17/10, p.A2)(AP, 12/15/10)
2010 Nov 14, In Mexico gunmen
burst into a bar called "Desesperados" in the Mexican border city of
Ciudad Juarez and opened fire, killing five people and wounding nine
others. Assailants also killed the Gerardo Ortiz, the Chihuahua state's
prisons director, and his son in a second attack in the area. Police in
Acapulco found the bound, bullet-ridden bodies of five men on the
outskirts of the city. In Guerrero state detectives reported they had
found the bodies of two more men buried in a clandestine gave in a
coconut grove where 18 bodies had been unearthed last week.
(AP, 11/15/10)
2010 Nov 16, US officials arrested
Bruce Beresford-Redman, a former producer of hit TV show "Survivor," at
his home in Los Angeles and held him for extradition to Mexico where he
has been accused of murdering his wife in April.
(Reuters, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 16, The UN Education,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recognized everything
from the growing of corn, beans and chilies to Mexican dishes prepared
with grinding stones and mortars as an ancient process worth
safeguarding in the face of encroaching global influences. France's
multi-course gastronomic meal, Flamenco in Spain and carpet-weaving in
Azerbaijan also made the list.
(AP, 11/17/10)
2010 Nov 16, In Mexico Francisco
Alberto Ruiz (35), a Colombian billing manager for Swiss-based oil
services company Weatherford International, was found shot dead at the
company's property in Tihuatlan, Veracruz state.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 17, A gunbattle between
Mexican soldiers and drug cartel gunmen near the border with Texas
killed 11 alleged gang members and prompted the US to reinforce
security at international crossings. In Cancun the owner of a company
that distributes plastic bags was shot to death in a parking lot near
the hotel zone. A mother, father and their adult son were found dead
from gunshot wounds in Majahual, a fishing village near the border with
Belize. A man was shot to death while leaving his house in the
exclusive Tijuana neighborhood of Chapultepec. 2 other people were
wounded in a shootout on one of the city's main avenues.
(AP, 11/18/10)(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 19, In Mexico the bodies
of two men were found hanging from the Los Alamos bridge in Tijuana.
(AP, 11/19/10)
2010 Nov 20, In Mexico a gang of
suspected kidnappers were arrested by marines. They had detailed plans
of security arrangements for next week's UN climate change talks in
Cancun.
(Reuters, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 21, In Mexico Silverio
Cavazos Ceballos (41), the former governor of the Pacific state of
Colima (2005-2009), was shot dead by a group of armed men. Police
mounting an operation to find the killers came across a doctor in an
area near the crime. He was startled by officers and began to run away.
They shot him dead when he ignored orders to stop.
(AP, 11/21/10)(AP, 11/22/10)
2010 Nov 23, Mexican police
arrested Carlos Montemayor Gonzalez, nicknamed "El Charro," or "The
Cowboy," with help from the US Drug Enforcement Administration." He was
linked to the recently arrested US-born kingpin known as "La Barbie,"
and to the killing of 20 Mexican tourists in September.
(AFP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 23, In Atlanta, Georgia,
Amador Cortes-Meza (36) of Mexico was convicted on federal charges of
orchestrating a sex trafficking scheme in which prosecutors say he
lured impoverished young Mexican women to the Atlanta area with false
promises of better lives, high-paying jobs and even hints of romance.
He was accused of bringing at least 10 women to the area between spring
2006 and June 2008.
(AP, 11/24/10)
2010 Nov 24, In southern Mexico
Ciro Diaz Sanchez, the mayor of Pueblo Nuevo Solistahuacan, and
mayor-elect Pedro Bautista, disappeared after Mexico's army detained
members of the municipal police force and other local officials on
suspicion they were working for a drug cartel. The two, both members of
the leftist Democratic Revolution Party, went missing ahead of searches
of their houses, which turned up high-caliber weapons and two stolen
cars at Bautista's.
(AP, 11/26/10)
2010 Nov 24, A Mexican air force
cargo plane crashed at Monterrey International Airport killing five
military personnel.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 25, US authorities found
a sophisticated tunnel used to smuggle drugs between Mexico and San
Diego, the second such discovery in the region in less than a month.
Investigators seized some 20 tons of marijuana. The 2,200-foot passage
ran from a residence in Tijuana to a warehouse in San Diego's Otay Mesa
area.
(AP, 11/25/10)(SFC, 11/27/10, p.A5)
2010 Nov 25, In Mexico preliminary
data was released by the National Institute for Statistics and
Geography. It said Mexico had 112.3 million inhabitants as of July, 3.6
million more than experts had projected.
(AP, 11/25/10)
2010 Nov 27, Mexico's federal
police in Ciudad Juarez captured Arturo Gallegos Castrellon (32), a
presumed leader of the Aztecas cross-border drug gang. He was suspected
in dozens of killings, including the slaying of a US consulate worker.
Two other members of the gang were arrested with Gallegos on charges of
transporting drugs and weapons.
(AP, 11/28/10)
2010 Nov 29, Mexican federal
police arrested Jose Alfredo Landa Torres (37), a leader of the La
Familia operations in Morelia, Michoacan state. La Familia recently
made an unusual offer to disband if the government proves it can
protect citizens from other criminals in Michoacan. Mexican soldiers
found 18 bodies buried on a ranch near the Texas border. Gunmen killed
Hermila Garcia (36), a female police chief of the town of Meoqui in
Chihuahua state.
(AP, 11/30/10)(Reuters, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 29, In Mexico a 2-week UN
conference opened on global warming. Some 15,000 negotiators,
environmental activists, businessmen and journalists convened at Cancun
to overcome the disconnect between rich and poor nations on fighting
global warming.
(AP, 11/29/10)
2010 Nov 30, Mexico City lawmakers
approved legislation to allow women in the capital district to be
surrogate mothers.
(AP, 11/30/10)
2010 Nov 30, A Mexican human
rights group and Disability Rights Int’l. released a report on
atrocious and abusive conditions in Mexican institutions for the
mentally and physically disabled.
(SFC, 12/1/10, p.A3)
2010 Dec 2, Mexico’s army detained
a 14-year-old suspected of working as a killer for a drug cartel. The
alleged young assassin, nicknamed "El Ponchis," was captured at the
airport in Cuernavaca with his 19-year-old sister as they were trying
to catch a flight to Tijuana. The siblings' mother was arrested in her
San Diego apartment on Dec 6 and charged on Dec 8 with entering the US
illegally. On Dec 9 US officials said the boy, Edgar Jimenez Lugo, was
born in San Diego. On Feb 9, 2011, Jimenez was charged with the
homicides and other crimes, including arms possession and transporting
cocaine.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/9/10)(AP, 2/10/11)
2010 Dec 3, Mexican Judge Fernando
Cordova del Valle ruled that prosecutors failed to bring enough
evidence against Sandra Avila Beltran, described by US and Mexican
officials as a major decision-maker for the Sinaloa gang, Mexico's most
powerful cartel. The "Queen of the Pacific" had been charged with
organized crime, conspiracy to traffic drugs and money laundering.
Mexican police arrested Jacobo Tagle Dobin (31), a suspect in the 2005
kidnapping and presumed killing of Hugo Alberto Wallace (36), a Mexican
businessman, whose crusading mother led a high-profile campaign that
helped crack open the case. In January, 2011, Beltran was
sentenced to time already served on a weapons charge.
(AP, 12/3/10)(AP, 12/5/10)(AP, 2/6/11)
2010 Dec 5, In Mexico armed
commandos attacked two drug rehabilitation centers in Ciudad Juarez,
killing four people and wounding five.
(AP, 12/6/10)
2010 Dec 7, Mexico's Defense
Department said soldiers killed six assailants in a clash in the
northern state of Tamaulipas, across the border from Texas. In Cancun
police said they found the bodies of three men who had been shot to
death in neighborhoods far from where UN Climate Change conference was
taking place. The body of a fourth man was found in another Cancun
neighborhood.
(AP, 12/7/10)
2010 Dec 8, Mexican federal police
investigating a tip about the presence of armed men in Apatzingan in
Michoacan state came under fire from La Familia gunmen. Gunmen fired on
civilian cars and used the sometimes-burning vehicles as barricades in
Apatzingan. An 8-month-old baby, riding in a taxi with his mother, was
killed as was the teenage daughter of a former city mayor, and a local
police officer.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)
2010 Dec 8, In Mexico a federal
police helicopter that had transported two inmates to a Mexican prison
crashed in Veracruz state, killing four people and injuring two others.
(AP, 12/8/10)
2010 Dec 9, In Mexico federal
police hunted for top leaders of the La Familia drug cartel in
Michoacan state, unleashing narco-blockades and shootouts that left 2
more people dead. La Familia cartel leader Nazario Moreno Gonzalez
(40), known as "The Craziest One," was killed in a clash between police
and cartel gunmen. Police recovered the bodies of three other suspected
La Familia members and detained three others. In northern Chihuahua
state six people were gunned down by the side of a highway leading
south of the capital. In the resort city of Acapulco, a traffic cop was
found shot to death on a road, his hands bound.
(AP, 12/10/10)(SFC, 12/10/10, p.A12)(AP, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 10, In Mexico a gunbattle
between rival gangs left 11 people dead during a Virgin of Guadalupe
celebration in the western town of Tecalitlan.
(AP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 10, Mexico scrambled to
break an impasse between rich and poor nations over future cuts in
greenhouse gas emissions as 190-nation climate talks went down to the
wire.
(Reuters, 12/10/10)
2010 Dec 11, In Cancun, Mexico,
almost 200 countries agreed to modest steps to combat climate change,
including a Green Climate Fund to help poor nations, but they put off
tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gas emissions until next year.
(Reuters, 12/11/10)
2010 Dec 12, Mexican police
arrested Enrique Lopez of the notorious Sinaloa drug trafficking
operation based in the northern Mexico town of Chihuahua. His brother,
Ever Horacio Lopez, was shot and killed in the standoff with police.
The men were lieutenants of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, said to be
Mexico's most wanted man, who is believed to have escaped.
(AFP, 12/13/10)
2010 Dec 12, The Washington Post
reported that 8 out of the 12 top US gun dealers whose products fuel
Mexico's drug violence are located in the state of Texas. 3 others were
in Arizona, and one was in California. There are 3,800 gun retailers in
Texas, 300 in Houston alone.
(AFP, 12/12/10)
2010 Dec 13, US immigration agents
discovered a 13-foot drug tunnel stretching from the Mexican border to
a metered parking space in Arizona, where vehicles with holes cut in
the bottom would park and take marijuana from people inside the
underground space.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 14, Mexico’s death toll
in drug-related violence in the border city of Ciudad Juarez rose to
3,000 this year after 2 men were shot dead on a street.
(AP, 12/14/10)
2010 Dec 16, Mexico said that more
than 30,000 people have been killed in drug violence since President
Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown against cartels in late 2006.
Masked men pulled up in a car in front of the governor's office in
Chihuahua. One appeared to exchange words with anti-crime crusader
Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, who was holding a vigil outside. She tried to
flee by running across the street, but the gunman chased her down and
shot her in the head. The burned and dismembered remains of Escobedo's
17-year-old daughter were found in a Ciudad Juarez trash bin in June,
2009. Three judges ordered the release of the main suspect in the
daughter's killing after he was absolved by a court in April for lack
of evidence. The scandal resulted in the suspension of the judges. The
judges resigned on March 11, 2011.
(AP, 12/16/10)(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 3/15/11)
2010 Dec 16, In Mexico some 50-100
migrants were reportedly abducted by an armed group that stopped a
freight train they were traveling on as it entered Oaxaca state from
the border state of Chiapas.
(AFP, 12/21/10)
2010 Dec 17, In Mexico 141
inmates, a number later raised to 153, escaped from a state prison in
the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo. Authorities said the breakout
was probably helped by prison employees. More than 40 prison guards
were later charged with helping 153 inmates escape from the prison. 11
men were reported abducted from a bar in Acapulco. Two of the abducted
men were later found dead. Their hands and feet had been cut off. On
Dec 27 police in Acapulco found the decapitated bodies of two
more men in front of the same bar.
(AP, 12/17/10)(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 18, In Mexico a lumber
operation, associated with the family of anti-crime crusader Marisela
Escobedo Ortiz, killed on Dec 16, was burned down in Ciudad Juarez by
unknown arsonists. The body of Manuel Monge Amparan, a relative of
Marisela Escobedo Ortiz, was dumped on a street in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 12/18/10)(AP, 12/20/10)
2010 Dec 19, In Mexico a massive
oil pipeline explosion lay waste to parts of in San Martin Texmelucan,
incinerating people, cars, houses and trees as gushing crude turned
streets into flaming rivers. At least 29 people were killed, 14 of them
children. Authorities blamed oil thieves after investigators found a
hole in the pipeline and equipment for extracting crude. On Jan 10 a
police officer died of his injuries bringing the death toll to 30.
(AP, 12/19/10)(AP, 12/22/10)(AP, 1/10/11)
2010 Dec 21, In Mexico seven
gunmen kidnapped 9 Central American migrants from a train near the
Ixtepec, a town in Oaxaca state. Five of the migrants escaped and
reported the kidnapping. Another was killed as he tried to flee. 3
remained missing.
(AP, 12/27/10)
2010 Dec 24, In Mexico 11 of the
murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 25, In Mexico 2 more
murder victims were shot in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 12/25/10)
2010 Dec 27, In Mexico police in
Guerrero state found the remains of three people in a clandestine grave
in the town Teloloapan. A police report said the three unknown people
were believed to have been killed about four months ago. In the Gulf
coast state of Veracruz one policeman was killed, and a local police
commander was wounded when a man opened fire on municipal offices in
the town of Otatitlan. The Defense Department said troops patrolling
the mountainous area of Tamazula, Durango, discovered a cache of
weapons and 770 kg (1,697 pounds) of marijuana in 191 bales.
(AP, 12/28/10)
2010 Dec 28, In Mexico gunmen
battled police in the northern state of Durango, leaving two
bystanders, a federal agent and two drug cartel suspects dead. 13
suspects were detained, including several former state policemen who
allegedly worked for the Sinaloa cartel headed by fugitive drug lord
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman," which is fighting the Zetas gang for
control of the region. The navy captured four suspects linked to
drug-cartel activities, including two females under the age of 18. A
raid by a feared drug gang burned down half of the isolated village of
Tierras Coloradas, Durango state, leaving more than 150 people, mostly
children, homeless in the raw mountain winter.
(AP, 12/29/10)(AP, 12/30/10)(Reuters, 2/17/11)
2010 Dec 29, In Mexico gunmen
believed to be linked to drug cartels killed 4 police officers and a
doctor in apparently coordinated attacks in and around the northern
city of Monterrey. Six people were found dead in the southern state of
Guerrero.
(AP, 12/30/10)
2010 Dec 29, Honduras and Mexico
announced they have agreed to create a high-level group to combat
attacks on undocumented Honduran migrants who are passing through the
country en route to the United States.
(AP, 12/29/10)
2010 Dec 31, Mexico's federal
police said that the once-fearsome La Familia drug cartel has been
"completely dismembered" and has broken down into small groups that
commit robberies to pay their members. The half-naked body of a woman
who had escaped from prison officials while facing kidnapping charges
was found hanging by the neck from an overpass in Monterey. 5 inmates,
including a Colombian man sentenced to more than 20 years for smuggling
a ton of cocaine into Mexico aboard a boat, escaped a prison in Cancun.
(AP, 12/31/10)(AP, 1/5/11)
2010 Malcolm Beith authored “The
Last Narco: Hunting El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord.”
(Econ, 9/18/10, p.105)
2010 Charles Bowden authored
“Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing
Fields.”
(SSFC, 4/25/10, p.F3)
2010 Mexico's drug violence left
15,273 dead in 2010, making it the deadliest year yet since President
Felipe Calderon launched a military crackdown on organized crime.
(AFP, 1/12/11)
2010 Mexico this year was the
world’s 11th largest by population and the 14th largest in economic
size.
(Econ, 10/16/10, p.29)
2011 Jan 2, Mexican officials
announced plans to shake-up of the corruption-ridden immigration
institute, after a year that saw some of the worst atrocities against
illegal migrants trekking through the country. Two boys ages 14 and 17
were shot to death in the remote mountain town of Alcozahuca, near the
Oaxaca state line. 2 men dressed up in clown costumes were found
executed in the city of Cardenas, Tabasco.
(AP, 1/2/11)(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 3, In Mexico the severed
head of Ramses Mendoza (30) was found hanging from a bridge in the
Mexican border city of Tijuana. Hours earlier, a woman between 30 and
35 years old was found shot to death in another Tijuana neighborhood,
also with a threatening message left nearby. Unidentified gunmen shot
to death Sonora state's interim prison director, Erasto Ortiz Valencia,
outside his home. The assistant police chief of the city of Empalme,
near the coastal city of Guaymas, was also shot to death by a gunmen
who fired an assault rifle from an SUV. Police in Acapulco reported
they had found the bound bodies of four young men dumped on a main
boulevard. Gunmen opened fire on people gathered at a street corner in
the northern city of Monterrey, killing two adults and a 13-year-old
boy.
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 4, Mexican federal police
announced they had arrested three US citizens in a sport utility
vehicle loaded with 159 packages of marijuana hidden in the bodywork
and gas tank. , Prosecutors said the David Romo, the leader of Mexico's
Death Saint cult, has been detained on suspicion of participating in a
kidnapping ring. Romo was one of nine suspects placed under a form of
house arrest for 30 days pending investigation. The Mexican army
detained the local operations leader for the Sinaloa cartel, Jesus de
la Cruz Lopez, alias "The Tomato."
(AP, 1/4/11)(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, In Mexico a gang of
teenagers, most 15-years-old, were detained after a running shootout
with officers in Ciudad Juarez. Acapulco police said they found the
bodies of three men tossed into a sewer. The victims had been shot in
the head and in the chest.
(AP, 1/5/11)
2011 Jan 5, A US Border Patrol
agent was involved in a shooting on the Arizona border with Mexico that
resulted in the death of Ramses Barron Torres (17), who was trying to
illegally scale the border fence.
(Reuters, 1/5/11)(SFC, 1/8/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 6, In Mexico 2 purported
drug dealers were arrested on suspicion of decapitating a man who owed
them money and hanging his severed head from a bridge in the border
city of Tijuana. 2 men were found shot to death in the trunk of a car
parked outside the General Hospital in Tijuana. Their hands and feet
were bound and their bodies bore signs of torture. Gunmen later
attacked three men driving past a Tijuana shopping mall, killing one
and wounding the other two. Gunmen shot to death Francisco Aparicio
Mendez, the police chief of the town of Taretan, in western Michoacan
state. In Ciudad Juarez the body of Susana Chavez was found strangled
and mutilated after a night of partying with three teenagers, who were
drunk and on drugs. She had led protests against the unsolved killings
of women, but authorities said her killing had nothing to do with her
activism. Her left arm chopped off. She was not identified until Jan 11.
(AP, 1/6/11)(AP, 1/12/11)
2011 Jan 7, In northern Mexico
authorities found a bullet-ridden body that matches the description of
Saul Vara Rivera (48), the mayor Zaragoza, a town near the Texas
border, who disappeared two days earlier. The body was found in the
neighboring state of Nuevo Leon.
(AP, 1/7/11)
2011 Jan 8, Mexican police found
the headless bodies of 14 men and a 15th intact corpse outside a
shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco. Narco-messages
indicated the Sinaloa cartel killed the 15 men for trying to intrude on
the gang's turf and extort residents. Also killed in Acapulco were two
police officers; six people shot dead and stuffed in a taxi, their
hands and feet bound; and four others elsewhere in the city. 10 people
were kidnapped from a local discotheque. 3 of their bodies were found
the next day. In Mexico City four young men were killed in a drive by
shooting outside a grocery store.
(AP, 1/8/11)(AP, 1/9/11)(AFP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 9, Mexican authorities in
Chihuahua state reported 17 people murdered over the weekend, 14 of
them in Ciudad Juarez.
(AFP, 1/9/11)
2011 Jan 10, Mexico said it will
stop subjecting a rotating list of US products to tariffs after the
United States offered to reach a deal to allow Mexican trucks on US
roads and end a long-running trade dispute. Mexico will maintain
punitive tariffs on 99 US products but will not add any more pending
negotiations.
(Reuters, 1/10/11)(SFC, 1/11/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 10, In Mexico the body of
a murdered man was found on the main highway to Acapulco, bringing to
31 the number of people killed in the Pacific resort city over four
days. Abraham Ortiz Rosales, the mayor of Temoac in Morelos state, was
shot to death as he drove with his wife and son near the town of
Jantetelco. Federal prosecutors said 5 people have been arrested in the
kidnappings of Central American migrants in southern Mexico.
(AP, 1/11/11)
2011 Jan 13, In Mexico 12
suspected drug cartel gunmen and two Mexican soldiers were killed in a
shootout that lasted almost six hours in the Veracruz state capital of
Xalapa.
(AP, 1/14/11)
2011 Jan 15, In Mexico Cmdr. Raul
Espinoza and a guard were kidnapped about 5 a.m. in Boca del Rio, just
south of the port city of Veracruz.
(AP, 1/15/11)
2011 Jan 16, In Mexico City Juan
Vasconcelos, a reputed local gang assassin, killed 8 people. He had
allegedly gone on a cocaine- and alcohol-fueled killing spree that
ended with his arrest in February. His first attack left five people
dead on Jan. 8. Another killed eight people Jan. 16 and the third left
seven dead Feb. 13.
(AP, 4/3/11)
2011 Jan 17, In Mexico 14 inmates
broke out from a jail after escaping through a hole in a wall in the
northern border state of Chihuahua. A vehicle charged the metal gate of
the Aquiles Serdan Social Rehabilitation Center to pick up the
prisoners. 5 were caught, along with three suspected accomplices,
following air and ground searches by police. Police said 8 people have
died in a shootout among drug dealers in a poor suburb of Mexico City.
(AFP, 1/17/11)(SFC, 1/18/11, p.A2)
2011 Jan 17, John Ross (72), US
poet, author, journalist and political activist who lived in Mexico and
wrote extensively on its leftist political movements, died of liver
cancer. His books included "Rebellion from the Roots: Zapatista
Uprising in Chiapas."
(AP, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 18, Mexico's federal
police said they have arrested Flavio Mendez Santiago (35), a founding
member of the brutal Zetas drug cartel. He controlled drug smuggling
routes and the kidnapping of Central American migrants in southern
Mexico. Police found five mutilated bodies outside the wealthy city of
Monterrey, part of a series of attacks that killed 23 people and
dragged the region deeper into Mexico's drug war.
(AP, 1/18/11)(Reuters, 1/18/11)
2011 Jan 19, In Mexico Leonardo
Vazquez, alias "El Pachis," a suspected top operative of the brutal
Zetas drug cartel, died during a confrontation with security forces in
Poza Rica city, Veracruz state. Two other suspected members of the drug
cartel were taken into custody. Gunmen toting high-powered weapons shot
dead two police officers, a man and a woman, in Guadalupe, a suburb of
the industrial city of Monterrey. Juan Miguel "El Boxer" Valle Beltran
was arrested after the shootout in the seaside city of Playas de
Rosarito. He was arrested with 13 suspected underlings.
(AP, 1/20/11)
2011 Jan 20, Mexican police
battled armed suspects at a popular mall in Ciudad Juarez, sending
terrified shoppers scrambling and leaving one officer dead. Officials
nabbed Jose Lozano (21), the alleged top hit man for an Acapulco drug
gang, suspected in the slayings of 22 people earlier this month. Six
other suspected members of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco were also
arrested.
(AP, 1/20/11)(AP, 1/23/11)
2011 Jan 21, Mexican soldiers
patrolling a rural area on the border with Texas killed 10 suspected
drug gang gunmen at a training camp in Valle Hermoso, Tamaulipas state.
In Chihuahua state a commander who worked in internal affairs for the
local Attorney General's Office was killed along with another agent. In
Ciudad Juarez three men died when a gasoline bomb was thrown into their
store. Elsewhere in Ciudad Juarez, authorities found the dead bodies of
three other victims of apparent gangland murders. The Mexican military
seized 45 pounds of marijuana, a sports utility vehicle and a
metal-framed catapult just south of the Arizona border near the small
town of Naco, following a tip-off from the US Border Patrol.
(AP, 1/22/11)(Reuters, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 22, In Mexico a police
commander died and three officers were wounded when a car bomb exploded
in the central state of Hidalgo.
(AP, 1/22/11)
2011 Jan 23, In Mexico gunmen
spraying automatic weapons fire killed 7 people at a park that had been
built as an anti-violence measure in Ciudad Juarez. 7 other drug gang
suspects were killed in a series of gunbattles outside the northern
city of Monterrey. They included a top operator of the Zetas drug gang
known as "Comandante Lino." Another seven-hour shootout between
soldiers and gunmen broke out in Los Mochis, Sinaloa state. One gunman
was killed and two soldiers were wounded.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 24, In Mexico 3 people,
two men and a 15-year-old boy were killed on a street in neighborhood
of Ciudad Juarez where 7 people were killed a day earlier. A series of
banners appeared in the western states of Michoacan and Guerrero
claiming La Familia drug cartel has decided to disband.
(AP, 1/24/11)
2011 Jan 25, Mexican federal
police shot and killed Jose Humberto Perez (29), a municipal policeman
guarding Ciudad Juarez Mayor Hector Murguia, raising tensions between
security forces amid a fierce drug war. On Jan 28 federal prosecutors
charged two federal police officers with killing the bodyguard.
(AP, 1/26/11)(AP, 1/29/11)
2011 Jan 25, Mexican authorities
said they have seized more than 23 tons of a chemical used in the
manufacture of synthetic drugs, during an inspection of a shipment from
China. The ethyl phenylacetate was declared as a different product on
arrival at the Pacific port of Manzanillo.
(AFP, 1/26/11)
2011 Jan 26, Mexican authorities
discovered 219 migrants squeezed into a trailer truck in the southern
state of Chiapas. Most of the migrants were from Central America but
six were from Sri Lanka and four were Nepalese. 33 were women and 9
were minors. They were deported the next day.
(AP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 26, Nancy Davis (59) died
in a South Texas hospital about 90 minutes after her husband drove the
couple's truck against traffic across the Pharr International Bridge.
US missionary Sam Davis said gunmen in a pickup truck had shot her in
the head about 70 miles south of the Mexican border city of Reynosa.
(AP, 1/27/11)
2011 Jan 28, In Mexico Mayor Ramon
Villagomez said soldiers, state and federal police had been deployed to
patrol General Teran, a town along a drug-smuggling route to the US
border. The local police chief and 38 officers quit after the discovery
on Jan 26 of the mutilated bodies of two officers who had been
kidnapped by gunmen two days earlier. Authorities began arresting over
30 former mayors in the Mexican Gulf coast state of Veracruz on
suspicion of corruption. They were among 115 ex-municipal employees in
the state charged with corruption between 2004 and 2008. The first to
be arrested was Leonardo Mendoza, former mayor of the town of Benito
Juarez.
(AP, 1/28/11)
2011 Jan 28, Mexican soldiers
seized nearly 200 pounds (90 kg) of drugs from the cargo area of an
Aeromexico commercial plane scheduled to fly to the northern border
city of Tijuana.
(AP, 1/29/11)
2011 Jan 30, In Mexico the state
of Guerrero, populated by 3.3 million people, held elections. Voters
gave the leftist Party of Democratic Revolution, or PRD, victory over
the powerful Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, in one of six
state elections ahead of next year's presidential race.
(AP, 1/30/11)(Reuters, 1/30/11)
2011 Jan 30, In Mexico six bodies
were found outside the city of Monterrey. They were burned so badly
that investigators couldn't determine the cause of death or the
victims' gender.
(AP, 1/30/11)
2011 Jan 31, In Mexico a girl (16)
died after being shot by federal police in the same Ciudad Juarez
neighborhood where gunmen massacred 15 youths at a party a year ago.
She was shot two days earlier while riding in a car. Police said
someone in the vehicle had opened fire at officers shortly beforehand.
A drug gunman shot to death Maribel Hernandez, a woman who distributed
newspapers in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, because his gang
thought she threatened their control over street vendors.
(AP, 2/1/11)(AP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 1, Mexican federal police
reported they had captured a leading enforcer for the Independent
Cartel of Acapulco. The enforcer allegedly took part in last year's
kidnap-killing of 20 vacationers from the western state of Michoacan
and in the killing and beheading of 14 men in Acapulco in early
January. Police identified the suspect as Miguel Gomez Vazquez, alias
"The Cat," and said he was caught with an assault rifle and drugs. The
navy said that it had detained six suspected drug cartel gunmen on four
separate occasions Jan 30-31 in the northern states of Tamaulipas and
Nuevo Leon. One suspect was killed and two marines were wounded in one
of the confrontations.
(AP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 1, In Mexico a series of
attacks in Monterrey left a federal police officer and three suspected
cartel gunmen dead and three police officers injured. In Zacatecas
gunmen opened fire on state police officers who had arrived after
receiving a tip that armed men were parked outside an office-supply
store. Two bystanders, a man and a boy, suffered non-life-threatening
wounds in the gunbattle. In Guadalajara 7 attacks within two hours late
in the day appeared to have been coordinated, and were staged by drug
gangs, possibly in retaliation for the arrests of their members.
(AP, 2/2/11)
2011 Feb 1, In Mexico Adam Mark
Zachs (47), a fugitive from Connecticut, was arrested in the small town
of Leon Guanajuato where he apparently had been running a computer
repair business. Zachs was convicted of the 1987 murder of Peter Carone
(29) outside a West Hartford bar and sentenced to 60 years in prison.
However he fled while free on appeal.
(Reuters, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 2, In Mexico gunmen fired
upon a group of Mexican marines who were responding to reports of
illicit activity at an apartment complex In the wealthy Monterrey
suburb of San Pedro Garza Garcia. The marines returned fire, killing
four suspected gunmen. Gunmen killed Manuel Farfan, a retired army
general who took over a month ago as police chief of Nuevo Laredo. Two
of his bodyguards also were slain and two suffered wounds.
(AP, 2/2/11)(AP, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 3, In Mexico Morelos
Canseco, interior secretary of Tamaulipas state, said the parents of 25
children, found abandoned in Nuevo Laredo, were kidnapped.
(AP, 2/3/11)
2011 Feb 5, In northern Mexico
Serengeti Zoo owner Alberto Hernandez said 14 parrots, 13 serpents,
five iguanas, two crocodiles and a capuchin monkey died after power
failures cut off electrical heating at the zoo in the town of Aldama,
Chihuahua state.
(AP, 2/6/11)
2011 Feb 5, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire and killed 3 teenage boys at a used car dealership in
Ciudad Juarez. Two of the boys were US citizens. A teenager, a woman
and a 40-year-old man died in a second attack by unidentified gunmen
elsewhere in Juarez. Another three people were killed in separate
shooting incidents. Authorities recovered the dismembered body of
Francisco Martinez Ramirez, the chief of guards at a Monterrey prison,
who was dragged out of his house by armed men a day earlier. Federal
agents arrested Adan Salazar Zamorano, an alleged lieutenant of the
powerful Sinaloa drug cartel. He was also wanted in Texas on charges of
conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 5, The body of Monika
Markiewicz (32), a Polish national and musician on the cruise ship
Allure of the Sea, was recovered from the sea off Cozumel, Mexico. An
autopsy determined she drowned but also had suffered a blow to the
head. Nelson Perez Torres (24) later confessed to hitting Markiewicz in
the head with a rock and then throwing her into the ocean in Quintana
Roo state, where Cozumel is located.
(AP, 2/9/11)(AP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 6, In Mexico 5 men were
killed overnight in parts of Chihuahua state. The mutilated bodies of 5
men were found dumped on the side of a road in the town of Los Ramones,
Nuevo Leon state. Military officials said soldiers have shot dead 13
suspected gang members in the state of Tamaulipas, including six gunmen
who were killed in a town near the US border.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Mexico 3 people
related to Josefina Reyes, a human-rights activist who was assassinated
last year in the Juarez valley, were forced from their car southeast of
Ciudad Juarez. Josefina had led protests against alleged abuses by
Mexican soldiers in the valley.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 8, Mexican authorities
recovered the bodies of five men who were dumped on the side of road in
Zacatecas state after their execution-style slaying. The deaths raised
to 41 the number of people killed over the weekend in drug-related
violence. In Baja California, 10 soldiers were detained for alleged
ties to drug traffickers and turned over to federal prosecutors. Alvaro
Sandoval Diaz (50) and his wife, Griselda Pedroza Rocha (35), were
killed in Puerto Palomas. The couple's 6-year-old daughter witnessed
her parents' killings. Last month Sandoval Diaz opened fire on four
armed men who arrived to extort money from him, killing three.
(AFP, 2/8/11)(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 8, Mexican soldiers
rescued 44 Guatemalan migrants who had been locked up by kidnappers in
a house in the northern city of Reynosa. 3 Mexican migrants were also
rescued.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 9, Mexican journalist
Carmen Aristegui said that she was let go by MVS radio for refusing to
apologize for her Feb 4 comments regarding a congressman's allegation
that President Felipe Calderon is an alcoholic. The firing stirred a
debate over freedom of expression in Mexico and allegations that the
government still holds sway over the media. Aristegui was reinstated on
Feb 14.
(AP, 2/9/11)(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 9, In Mexico a shootout
between troops and armed men killed one soldier and 8 gunmen in
Zacatecas state.
(AP, 2/11/11)
2011 Feb 9, A US judge approved
the extradition to Mexico of Chinese-Mexican businessman, Zhenli Ye
Gon, on drug trafficking and money laundering charges.
(AFP, 2/10/11)
2011 Feb 10, In Mexico gunmen
barged into a bar in Ciudad Juarez and opened fire late at night,
killing seven women and one man. By the next morning 10 more people
were killed in other shootings in the city.
(AP, 2/11/11)(SFC, 2/12/11, p.A2)
2011 Feb 11, Diplomatic relations
between France and Mexico deteriorated into a crisis, after a Mexican
court upheld a 60-year prison term for Florence Cassez (36), a French
woman convicted of kidnapping.
(AFP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 12, In Mexico 11 people
were slain in several separate murders overnight in Ciudad Juarez.
Gunmen shot dead five men together in an additional group killing on a
highway between Chihuahua city and Ciudad Juarez. 7 presumed cartel
gunmen were shot dead by soldiers near Monterrey during a midnight
chase and shootout. A civilian was also killed when the gunmen crashed
into his car as they tried to flee soldiers. Hours later armed men
opened fire and hurled a grenade into a crowded nightclub early in the
day, killing six people and wounding at least 37 in Guadalajara, a city
whose former tranquility has been shattered by escalating battles among
drug cartels.
(AFP, 2/13/11)(AP, 2/13/11)
2011 Feb 13, Mexicans took to the
streets in their hundreds to protest a staggering surge in drug-related
violent crime nationwide that claimed at least 45 lives in one weekend.
A dozen people were killed in Acapulco this weekend, including a prison
guard. A street shootout killed seven people and injured one in
suburban Mexico City. It resulted from an internal dispute between
gangs tied to La Familia. Acapulco police discovered three dead men
from a car left in the parking lot of a state prison.
(AFP, 2/14/11)(AP, 2/14/11)(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 14, In Mexico a series of
shootings left 18 people dead in Padilla, Tamaulipas state, where a
turf war has raged between two brutal drug cartels. In neighboring
Nuevo Leon state gunmen killed Homero Salcido Trevino, a top
intelligence officer, then torched his car. The Defense Department said
Juan Carlos Olivera, allegedly the top Zetas operator in five towns
around Monterrey, was arrested with two accomplices and four guns.
(AP, 2/15/11)
2011 Feb 15, Mexican police fired
tear gas and clashed for several hours with teachers protesting a visit
by President Felipe Calderon to the colonial city of Oaxaca. The
Section 22 teachers union said 20 protesters were injured during the
running clashes.
(AP, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 15, US Special Agent
Jaime Zapata, on assignment to the ICE Attache in Mexico City from his
post in Laredo, Texas, died when gunmen attacked the agents' blue
Suburban vehicle as they drove through the northern state of San Luis
Potosi. A second agent, later identified as Victor Avila, was shot in
the arm and leg and was in stable condition.
(AP, 2/16/11)(AP, 2/24/11)
2011 Feb 15, A former U.S. Customs
inspector (58) dressed in a postman's uniform was nabbed as he
allegedly tried to smuggle a Mexican woman (38) into Texas on false
papers.
(Reuters, 2/16/11)
2011 Feb 16, Mexican police
arrested 2 police officers related to the Feb 14 killing of top
intelligence officer Homero Salcido Trevino. A battle between gang
members and soldiers left two gunmen dead and paralyzed the western
town Zitacuaro.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 17, In Mexico cartel
member Juan Carlos Vasconcelos (24) was arrested for three shootings
that killed 20 people on the outskirts of Mexico City. The 1st shooting
left 5 people dead on Jan 8. Another killed 8 people on Jan 16 and the
third left 7 dead Feb 13. Six human heads were dumped outside a police
station in Veracruz state. An 11-year-old boy and his father were
killed in an ambush on their car in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 17, Federal prosecutors
in Arizona said two illegal immigrants from Mexico, Jose
Beltran-Bermudez and Yazmin Arvayo-Palafox, have been indicted after
they were found to possess a combined 222 assault rifles and 5 pistols
that authorities say were headed to Mexico.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 17, US Federal
authorities said police have arrested nine people and seized 300
firearms, including assault rifles, in a raid targeting an arms ring
that allegedly sold weapons to Mexican drug traffickers. Operation Too
Hot to Handle netted a haul of around 300 guns, mostly Kalashnikov-type
rifles and semi-automatic pistols, seized in Arizona, Texas and Mexico.
(Reuters, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 18, In southern Mexico 4
men with their hands and feet tied and heads covered in duct tape were
thrown 600 feet to their deaths from a bridge. They were among 13
people slain in Guerrero state. The other nine were killed in the
resort city of Acapulco and included a severed head that had been
scalped and whose face had been skinned. They included five taxi
drivers found dead in or near their vehicles. Soldiers killed eight
suspected drug cartel members in two clashes near the industrial city
of Monterrey. Another group of gunmen fired on soldiers in Juarez,
another Monterrey suburb, sparking a firefight that killed three
attackers. There were 20 murders in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 2/18/11)(AP, 2/20/11)(AFP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 18, A documentary film
“Presumed Guilty” (2008) was released in Mexico. It told the story of
Antonio Zuniga, a computer repairman, who was convicted of a 2005
murder that took place near his Mexico city market stall, despite
evidence of his innocence. The film was banned 2 weeks later.
(Econ, 4/2/11, p.82)(www.imdb.com/title/tt1320254/)
2011 Feb 19, In Mexico an Acapulco
taxi driver was found bound and shot to death near his taxi, and two
others were found dead of bullet wounds inside their vehicles. One of
the drivers had been beheaded. Gunmen opened fire on yet another taxi,
killing the driver and three passengers. There were 19 more
murders in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 2/20/11)(AFP, 2/21/11)
2011 Feb 19, In Nevada Filipino
fighter Nonito Donaire stopped Mexico's Fernando Montiel in the second
round to take the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Organization
bantamweight titles.
(AFP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 20, In Mexico 5 cars were
set afire in Acapulco and a man's body was found hacked to pieces
outside an apartment building, one day before the start in the city of
the Mexican Open tennis tournament.
(AP, 2/20/11)
2011 Feb 21, Mexican marines found
72 sticks of commercial synthetic explosives at a heavily armed camp in
the southern state of Guerrero.
(AP, 2/22/11)
2011 Feb 22, Mexico’s government
announced that it plans to include voice and DNA samples in a database
of the nation's 620,000 police and public safety employees as a control
measure. Police in Acapulco, where the Mexican Open tennis tournament
is being held, found the bodies of seven men, some mutilated. In
Mazatlan two men were shot to death in the parking lot of a hotel
frequented by foreign tourists. Neither of the victims were tourists.
Authorities in Acapulco found the bodies of two men and a woman in a
stolen taxi.
(AP, 2/22/11)(AP, 2/23/11)
2011 Feb 23, In Mexico Zapata
Espinoza and the five others, including a Honduran citizen, were
arrested. The army quoted Espinoza as saying two of the five had
participated in the Feb 15 attack on American ICE agents. Those
arrested included suspect Sergio Antonio Mora, who oversaw the man
suspected of carrying out the Feb 15 attack. Gunmen opened fire on six
children playing in the yard of a home in the border city of Ciudad
Juarez, killing three girls aged 12, 14 and 15.
(AP, 2/24/11)(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Feb 24, In Mexico gunmen
killed Jesus Quirarte Ruvalcaba (51), the head of a state police agency
that prosecutes car thieves, as well as his wife, Maria Guadalupe
Aldrete (49), in Zapopan, Jalisco state. Acapulco police reported
finding a man's hacked-up body in five plastic bags, in a low-income
neighborhood far from where the Mexican Open tennis tournament is being
held.
(AP, 2/25/11)
2011 Feb 24, US authorities
launched Operation Fallen Hero-Bombardier, a crackdown on Mexican drug
cartels, just over a week after the shooting death of a US immigration
officer in Mexico. Raids quickly followed in the United States,
Colombia, Brazil and Central America.
(AFP, 2/25/11)
2011 Feb 25, Mexican police
discovered the bodies of 3 people, missing since Feb 7, related human
rights activist Josefina Reyes, who was killed last year in Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 2/25/11)
2011 Feb 26, In Mexico’s Coahuila
state, across the US border from Texas, nine men died when gunmen
opened fire inside two bars in separate attacks. Assailants killed
another five men in a bar in the cartel-plagued border city of Ciudad
Juarez.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Feb 27, In Mexico police in
the resort city of Acapulco found the bodies of four men inside a trash
container, all had been shot and three of them had their throats slit.
The body of a fifth man was found alongside a highway. Soldiers killed
four alleged drug traffickers in a clash in the Pacific coast state of
Nayarit. In the Pacific coast state of Michoacan, police found the
bodies of five men in different areas of the capital of Morelia.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Feb 28, Mexican officials
said police have captured Victor Torres Garcia, the alleged leader of a
drug gang that calls itself "The Resistance," a group that operates in
western Mexico. The army reported it had detained a female Michoacan
state police officer who was traveling in a convoy of vehicles with
eight assault rifles, ammunition and a bag of marijuana seeds. The
bodies of five men were reported found dangling from bridges over a
highway in the coastal city of Mazatlan. Gunmen killed four Guerrero
state police officers as they drove near the state capital of
Chilpancingo. In Ciudad Juarez assailants opened fire on a car, killing
two men, a woman and a 10-year-old boy.
(AP, 2/28/11)
2011 Mar 1, Mexican soldiers and
police rescued former Tierra Blanca mayor Alfredo Osorio from
kidnappers in eastern Mexico. He had been kidnapped a day earlier. A
search continued for Tampico Alto Mayor Saturnino Valdes, kidnapped on
Feb 23. Soldiers unearthed 17 bodies buried in two clandestine graves
in the southern state of Guerrero and authorities said they were
searching for more. Police found four bodies dumped along a highway
connecting Acapulco to Mexico City. Another four people, including a
couple shot to death inside the hotel they managed in the coastal town
of Atoyac de Alvarez, were killed in three separate attacks in
Guerrero. In Tamaulipas state Mexican marines killed eight gunmen.
Gunmen in Michoacan state killed Tanhuato police chief Jose Gomez.
(AP, 3/2/11)
2011 Mar 3, President Barack Obama
met with Mexican President Felipe Calderon to smooth over
troubles in their drugs war alliance. Calderon pressed Obama to crack
down on US drug consumption and illegal arms sales. After the meeting
it was announced that Mexico and the US agreed to end a ban on Mexican
trucks crossing into the US. The agreement would lead to Mexico
dropping tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of US pork, cheese, corn and
fruits.
(Reuters, 3/3/11)(SFC, 3/4/11, p.D5)
2011 Mar 3, The Mexican army
ordered three junior officers and 10 soldiers to stand trial on drug
trafficking and organized crime charges. Officials said they were
caught with more than a ton of methamphetamines and 66 pounds (30 kg)
of cocaine last week at a military checkpoint south of Tijuana.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 3, Mexican agricultural
officials say they have euthanized 114 peacocks, ostriches and other
birds at a zoo due to an avian virus.
(AP, 3/4/11)
2011 Mar 5, Mexican federal police
captured Mario Jimenez Perez, drug cartel suspect allegedly linked to
the Feb 15 killing of US agent Jaime Zapata, along with 16 other
suspects.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 6, Mexican police found 3
severed heads in plastic bags in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
Armed men attacked a police station in Acapulco, wounding an officer.
The same suspects later shot at a house, wounding two people at the
residence. Authorities said Julio Cesar Aguilar Garcia, a suspected
high-ranking figure in the Sinaloa drug cartel, was arrested in Sonora
state. Alleged Zetas leader, Marcos Carmona Hernandez, was arrested in
Oaxaca state. In northwestern Sinaloa state gunmen swarmed a convoy
transporting 2 prisoners, shredding 3 police vehicles with bullets and
killing 7 officers and one inmate.
(AP, 3/7/11)(SFC, 3/7/11, p.A2)(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 7, In Mexico
Marisol Valles Garcia (20), recently named police chief of Praxedis G.
Guerrero, was fired for apparently abandoning her post after receiving
death threats. Gunbattles between rival gangs killed 18 people in the
northeastern town of Abasolo, Tamaulipas state.
(AP, 3/7/11)(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 7, In Mexico assailants
in Chilpancingo, capital of Guerrero state, doused three government
offices with gasoline and set them ablaze. The fire destroyed documents
and computer equipment at offices of the health department, the
interior department and a federal government health insurance program.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 8, Legislators from all
of Mexico's three major parties in congress called for a joint
US-Mexico working group to examine accusations that US federal agents
allowed hundreds of guns to flow into Mexico. Lawmakers were up in arms
over the recent revelation that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
Firearms and Explosives (ATF) purposefully allowed some weapons to be
smuggled south of the border so it could track them as part of
"Operation Fast and Furious."
(AP, 3/8/11)(SFC, 3/11/11, p.A2)
2011 Mar 8, In Mexico’s resort
city of Mazatlan gunmen sprayed the crowded parking lot of a bar with
bullets, killing at least six people. In Guerrero state soldiers killed
six suspected drug gang members in a shootout at their cave hide-out.
(AP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 8, Mexico's navy said a
sardine fishing boat is feared sunk in the Pacific after searchers
found the bodies of four crewmen. Five others remained missing. It last
made contact the night of March 5 and failed to arrive in port the next
morning.
(AP, 3/8/11)
2011 Mar 9, Forbes magazine said
Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim (71), with assets of $74 billion, is the
richest person in the world for the second year in a row.
(Reuters, 3/10/11)
2011 Mar 9, US auto giant Ford
said it will start exporting its top-selling Figo compact car from
India to Mexico and over 50 other countries as it strives to make the
South Asian nation an export hub.
(AFP, 3/9/11)
2011 Mar 10, In Mexico banners
were hung in Michoacan state announcing a previously unknown gang
calling itself the "Knights Templar," less than a month after the local
La Familia drug cartel said it intended to disband. Julian Leyzaola
(50), a retired army lieutenant colonel, took over the top police job
in Ciudad Juarez.
(AP, 3/10/11)(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 10, The US Attorney's
office in New Mexico said the mayor of Columbus, Eddie Espinoza, the
town's police chief Angelo Vega, and village trustee Blas Gutierrez
were among those arrested on an 84-count indictment for allegedly
trafficking around 200 guns to Mexico.
(Reuters, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 11, Mexico's attorney
general's office said it has extradited Esteban Rodriguez Olivera to
the United States, where he will face charges in New York and
Washington, D.C. federal courts for trafficking cocaine and
money-laundering.
(AP, 3/12/11)
2011 Mar 11, A sign threatening
Ciudad Juarez Public Security Director Julian Leyzaola Perez was left
beside a man who was found tortured but alive and wrapped in a blanket.
Leyzaola had assumed the post a day earlier. Soldiers raided a drug
gang's camp in the northeast and killed eight gunmen in a shootout. 9
other people were detained in the raid, including a woman, who claimed
she had been kidnapped.
(AP, 3/12/11)
2011 Mar 11, In Mexico masses of
sardines, anchovies, stripped bass and mackerel surged close to shore
on one beach in the resort city of Acapulco, packed so tightly near the
surface they looked like an oil slick from above. Fishermen attributed
the phenomenon to the unusual currents unleashed by tsunami that
followed the earthquake in Japan. Experts couldn't be sure.
(AP, 3/11/11)
2011 Mar 12, Mexican soldiers
killed four presumed kidnappers during a gunfight at a ranch in
northeast Mexico.
(AP, 3/14/11)
2011 Mar 13, In Mexico nine people
were shot dead in the resort city of Acapulco.
(AP, 3/14/11)
2011 Mar 14, In Mexico an inmate
stabbed to death Warden Rebeca Nicasio Vazquez, the acting warden of a
prison in the city of Nuevo Laredo.
(AP, 3/15/11)
2011 Mar 14, US Border Patrol
agents arrested two US citizens along with 13 illegal immigrants from
Mexico dressed in fake US Marine Corps uniforms.
(AP, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 15, In Mexico a convoy of
gunmen chased their target into a home in the resort city of Acapulco
and sprayed the residence with bullets, killing two small children and
an elderly woman inside. Other attacks in Acapulco killed a total of
eight people. Police in the resort city of Cancun found four bodies
that had been set on fire. The Mexican army announced that soldiers had
seized five metric tons of marijuana in the northern border city of
Miguel Aleman.
(AP, 3/16/11)
2011 Mar 16, A US official said
the Obama administration is flying drones over Mexico to help gather
intelligence for the southern neighbor's battle against drug
traffickers.
(AP, 3/16/11)
2011 Mar 17, In Mexico police
found the body of a 4-year-old girl who had been shot in the chest, the
fifth child killed in drug-related violence in Acapulco in less than a
week. Police also found the bullet-ridden body of a man outside a state
prison in Acapulco. Police in Michoacan state found two bodies hanging
from the neck in two different towns. In Jalisco state marines found
the bodies of two men and two women buried in two clandestine graves.
US citizen, Josue Reyes Castro (26), was killed by gunmen while
visiting relatives in Ciudad Juarez. A neighbor also was killed, and
two of Reyes Castro's relatives were wounded including a girl (4).
(AP, 3/18/11)
2011 Mar 18, Mexican Senators
voted with 69 in favor and one abstention to get rid of a law that made
cheating on a spouse an offense punishable by two years in prison. They
said it was never enforced but remained on the books. The change
already passed the lower House of Deputies and now went to President
Felipe Calderon for his signature. 6 gunmen were shot dead during a
gunfight with security forces in the Monterrey while eight alleged
kidnappers were killed in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.
(AP, 3/24/11)(AP, 3/19/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire in a bar in Acapulco killing 10 people.
(SSFC, 3/20/11, p.A4)
2011 Mar 19, The US ambassador to
Mexico, Carlos Pascual, resigned amid furor over a leaked diplomatic
cable in which he complained about inefficiency and infighting among
Mexican security forces in the campaign against drug cartels.
(AP, 3/20/11)
2011 Mar 19, In Mexico Arturo Jose
Iniguez (26), a Texas Cameron County Assistant District Attorney, was
found dead in Matamoros. Autopsy results later showed he had killed
himself by ingesting poison.
(Reuters, 3/23/11)
2011 Mar 20, In Mexico armed men
stole some 157 million pesos, about $13 million, from a cash
transporting company in Oaxaca state.
(AP, 3/21/11)
2011 Mar 21, In Arizona Carlos La
Madrid (19) was shot climbing a ladder while trying to cross the border
back to Mexico. He was shot three times in the back by a Border Patrol
agent and died later the same day at a local hospital.
Investigators found 48 pounds of marijuana in the back of the truck La
Madrid was driving. A 17-year-old illegal immigrant identified as Jesus
Manuel Chino Lino ran from the truck was arrested on charges of drug
possession and transportation charges.
(AP, 3/28/11)
2011 Mar 22, In Mexico’s western
state of Michoacan unidentified gunmen killed Jose Luis Guerrero, the
police chief of the town of La Piedad as he headed home. He was the
third police chief killed so far this year in Michoacan.
(AP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 23, Mexican authorities
said they have detained Victor Manuel Felix, an in-law of top drug lord
Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who allegedly ran a transnational drug
operation that reached as far as Ecuador. 8 other people were detained
along with Felix in raids in three Mexican states that began last week.
Raids in Ecuador resulted in the detention of 9 suspects. The navy
announced it had detained 7 local police officers, most from the
Monterrey suburb of San Nicolas de los Garza, on suspicion of working
for drug cartels. A daylight shooting in Monterey, thought to involve
rival drug gangs, killed a teenage boy and 2 adult males.
(AP, 3/24/11)
2011 Mar 24, Mexico’s largest new
media outlets agreed to a set of self-policed, drug war reporting
guidelines. A clash between soldiers and armed men left 13 dead in the
town of Rio Bravo, on Mexico's northeastern border with the United
States.
(SFC, 3/25/11, p.A4)(AFP, 3/25/11)
2011 Mar 26, In Mexico 4 Ciudad
Juarez men were last seen, when they were picked up by patrol vehicles
with decals matching those used by the security detail of new police
chief, Julian Leyzaola.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Mar 28, Mexican police found
the bodies of six men and one woman inside a car abandoned in an
exclusive gated community near Cuernavaca, Morelos state. The dead
included Juan Francisco Sicilia, son of poet Javier Sicilia. Army
soldiers killed four alleged gunmen in the border city of Nuevo Laredo.
A shootout between rival gangs in Monterrey killed two men, including a
hot dog vendor caught in the cross fire. In western Michoacan state,
the bodies of two men were found in Apatzingan with messages from a new
drug gang: "The Knights Templar will not permit assassins to kill
innocent people."
(AP, 3/29/11)(AP, 4/15/11)
2011 Mar 29, In northern Mexico
Gunmen killed the wife and 5-year-old daughter of a state governor's
bodyguard in Chihuahua city. In Nuevo Leon state Garica Mayor Jaime
Rodriguez said he survived an assassination attempt. Four men were
gunned own inside a home in San Marcos, a town in southwestern Guerrero
state.
(AP, 3/30/11)
2011 Mar 30, A prominent Mexican
businessman accused of luring poor girls to his home was sentenced to
13 years on child pornography charges in a case that tarnished the
reputations of a state governor and another businessman. Jean Succar
Kuri, a legal US resident, was extradited to Mexico in 2006. Targeted
by an investigation in Mexico in 2003, Succar fled to the United States
but was arrested during a traffic stop in Arizona in February 2004 and
extradited two years later.
(AP, 3/31/11)
2011 Mar 31, Mexico’s President
Felipe Calderon accepted the resignation of Arturo Chavez Chavez, an
attorney general known mainly for his weak image in a country fighting
a drug war, and nominated Marisela Morales, his top organized crime
prosecutor as a successor, the first woman to hold the post if she is
approved. In Ciudad Juarez 5 people were killed at a bar called La
Barritas. Gunmen assaulted another bar called El Castillo. The death
toll from the attack rose to 10 after two more people died the next day
from their wounds.
(AP, 4/1/11)(AP, 4/2/11)(AFP, 4/3/11)
2011 Apr 1, In Mexico gunmen
opened fire on a burrito truck in the border city of Ciudad Juarez,
killing the vendor, his 10-year-old son and 3 other people. A
17-year-old boy was among seven people killed in three shootings around
Monterrey. In the western state of Michoacan, four bullet-ridden bodies
were found in different towns.
(AP, 4/1/11)(AFP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Mexico Jose Manuel
Garcia Soto, alias "El Safado," or "The Crazy One," was arrested in the
northern state of San Luis Potosi for participating in the Feb. 15
killing of Jaime Zapata and wounding of Victor Avila. Both men were
agents with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
(AP, 4/5/11)
2011 Apr 2, In Mexico an explosion
and fire hit a factory that distills raw alcohol, killing three people
and injuring three others near Orizaba, Veracruz state.
(AP, 4/2/11)
2011 Apr 3, In Mexico municipal
police officers on a routine patrol in El Higo, Veracruz state ran into
at least 20 gunmen on a dirt road and a firefight erupted. 6 officers,
including one woman, died of gunshot wounds in the battle.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, Mexico announced a
plan to reward people who report suspected money laundering, under a
program that will allow them to get up to one-quarter of any illicit
funds or property seized. In Acapulco a fierce gunbattle left a soldier
and two gunmen killed and six people were wounded. Shortly later the
severed heads of two men were found on Acapulco's main boulevard, near
the beach resort area of Las Brisas.
(AP, 4/5/11)(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 4, Two men who
prosecutors tentatively identified as US citizens were shot to death in
their vehicle as they waited at a Tijuana-area border crossing to enter
the United States.
(AP, 4/4/11)
2011 Apr 6, Mexico’s Public Safety
Secretary Genaro Garcia Luna said drug cartels are increasingly
recruiting common criminals and quickly converting them into killers.
(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Apr 7, Mexican security
forces reported that a series of eight burial pits have been found in
Tamaulipas state, one of which contained 43 bodies and the others 16
corpses. The find was made near the ranch where drug cartel gunmen less
than a year ago massacred 72 migrants who were trying to reach the
United States. 14 suspects linked to the killing were under arrest.
(AP, 4/7/11)(SFC, 4/8/11, p.A6)
2011 Apr 11, Mexico’s defense
ministry announced that at least 16 more dead bodies have been found
over the past two days in various parts of Tamaulipas state. The number
of bodies found in the country over the past week soon grew to 127. 4
armed men rushed into a newsroom in Villahermosa, then gagged and beat
up reporters and photographers and stole computers, cameras and money.
(AFP, 4/11/11)(AP, 4/11/11)(AP, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 11, Mexican police in
Tijuana arrested a man suspected of killing a US Border Patrol agent
Robert Rosas near San Diego on July 23, 2009, nearly one year after
another person was sentenced to prison for his role in the ambush.
Marcos Manuel Rodriguez Perez (26) was taken into custody as he was
driving through Tijuana.
(AP, 4/12/11)
2011 Apr 13, Mexico’s Attorney
General said security forces arrested 16 municipal police officers
accused of protecting drug gang hitmen who massacred dozens of people
near the US border.
(Reuters, 4/13/11)
2011 Apr 14, Mexican police
arrested suspect Rodrigo Elizalde Mora in the central city of
Cuernavaca. He allegedly confessed to participating in the March 28
killing of Juan Francisco Sicilia, a well-known poet's son and six
other people. Mora appeared the next day before reporters badly beaten,
and said he had been kidnapped by four unidentified men in a sport
utility vehicle, who then apparently turned him over to authorities.
(AP, 4/15/11)
2011 Apr 15, Mexican authorities
said 10 complete bodies, 3 headless bodies and 4 severed heads were
found when authorities dug up a pit in a house in Durango state.
Marines detained 22 more suspects, including five women, in an
operation over the killings of 145 people found in mass graves this
month in Tamaulipas state.
(AP, 4/15/11)(AFP, 4/19/11)
2011 Apr 17, In Mexico the
Tamaulipas state governor replaced his public security chief after 145
bodies showed up in mass graves in the violent border state in the last
two weeks.
(AP, 4/17/11)
2011 Apr 18, Mexico’s military
captured nine suspects in connection with the killings of at least 145
people whose bodies were found starting early this month in pits in the
township of San Fernando, in the border state of Tamaulipas.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 19, Mexican troops
clashed with gunmen trying to establish a base in Veracruz, killing 10
alleged assailants.
(AP, 4/20/11)
2011 Apr 20, In northern Mexico
investigators found 26 badly decomposed bodies at a vacant lot in the
state of Durango and said they were looking for more. In Tamaulipas
authorities reported they had rescued 68 people, including 12 Central
American migrants, allegedly kidnapped by a drug cartel. Federal police
in Cancun arrested Marco Antonio Gomez, a lawyer who allegedly helped
the Zetas drug cartel manage ransom and extortion payments, which were
sometimes handed over in the form of property deeds. Nine more
suspected Zetas members were arrested in the border state of Tamaulipas.
(AP, 4/20/11)(AP, 4/21/11)
2011 Apr 21, In Mexico prosecutors
reported that further excavations at a vacant lot in the state capital
of Durango yielded 11 more bodies, 10 men and one woman, in addition to
26 badly decomposed bodies found a day earlier.
(AP, 4/21/11)
2011 Apr 22, Mexican authorities
released another tally of corpses unearthed from pits in the
northeastern state of Tamaulipas: 32 bodies discovered in the past
week, bringing the monthly total to 177. A farmer opened fire on a
crowd as they were leaving a church in the town of Los Pozos, Veracruz
state, killing a woman and two children and wounding another minor.
Farmer Leonardo Bautista Rivera later the same day in his home.
(AP, 4/22/11)(AP, 4/23/11)
2011 Apr 23, In Mexico police in
Acapulco said 4 women and a teenage girl have been found with their
throats cut in the resort city. All appeared to have been connected to
the same beauty parlor. A young man was shot to death in the lobby of a
luxury hotel in Cabo San Lucas. Mexico City prosecutors said residents
of the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood discovered a woman's upper
body on one block and her left leg and right leg on two other blocks.
(AP, 4/23/11)(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 24, Mexico’s Federal
Competition Commission confirmed that it hit Telcel with a fine of
11.99 billion pesos ($1 billion) for charging competing networks
sky-high connection fees.
(Econ, 5/7/11, p.41)(http://tinyurl.com/6dft5fj)
2011 Apr 24, In Mexico a severed
head was found on a street outside the central bus terminal in
Zihuatanejo, Guerrero state.
(AP, 4/24/11)
2011 Apr 25, Mexican authorities
said federal police rescued 51 people, including six Chinese and 18
Central American migrants, who were captive in Reynosa, the same border
city where more than five dozen people were freed last week.
(AP, 4/26/11)
2011 Apr 26, Mexican authorities
said security forces have unearthed six more bodies in Tamaulipas state
where a drug gang is believed to be kidnapping passengers from buses
and hiding their victims in secret graves. A total of 183 bodies have
been discovered in a month in 40 graves. A different search over the
last month in the capital of northwestern Durango state has yielded 96
bodies in two mass graves as of today.
(AP, 4/26/11)
2011 Apr 27, Mexico's Senate
approved constitutional changes that would let lawmakers run for
re-election and permit independents to seek office. Security forces
exhumed eight more bodies from mass graves in Durango where drug gangs
are believed to have buried their victims, bringing the total from a
monthlong search to 104.
(AP, 4/28/11)
2011 Apr 29, Mexican federal
police discovered a basement arsenal hidden behind the mirrors of a
home gym in Ciudad Juarez that included three anti-aircraft guns,
dozens of grenades, a grenade launcher, AK-47s and other high-powered
weapons.
(AP, 4/30/11)
2011 May 3, Mexican police found a
total of five decapitated bodies in the suburbs of Mexico City
accompanied by written messages of the kind frequently left by drug
gangs. Unidentified attackers shot Joel St. Tierre, a Canadian citizen,
in the head on a street in the Benito Juarez district of Mexico City.
Prosecutors in the northern state of Durango announced that six more
sets of skeletal remains had been found in continuing excavations at
mass graves, bringing the total number of bodies found in a month-long
search of the sites to about 110.
(AP, 5/4/11)(AFP, 5/11/11)
2011 May 3, In Mexico a gas
explosion that ripped through a primitive, vertical-shaft coal mine
trapping 14 miners in San Juan de Sabinas, Coahuila state. All 14 were
killed. The last body was recovered on May 8.
(AP, 5/4/11)(AP, 5/6/11)
2011 May 5, Mexican soldiers
searching mass graves in the state capital of the northern state of
Durango recovered 25 more bodies, bringing the total recovered there to
at least 146.
(AP, 5/5/11)
2011 May 5, In Mexico more than
600 people led by a Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, whose son was killed
by suspected drug traffickers, set off on a march from the resort city
of Cuernavaca to Mexico City to protest the country's unrelenting gang
violence.
(AP, 5/5/11)
2011 May 6, Mexico authorities
said they recovered 11 more bodies at a series of mass grave pits in
Durango, bringing the total number of bodies found in a monthlong
search of the pits to at least 157. Cartel gunmen fired on a military
convoy in Monterrey with a grenade launcher and hit a bus carrying
employees of a US-owned assembly plant. One attacker was killed.
Prosecutors said they have detained four local policemen, five
Guatemalans and one Honduran in connection with mass kidnappings of
migrants in the border city of Reynosa. Police captured Jose Zarco
Cardenas (22) and an accomplice in Mexico City. He had recently begun
heading drug operations in Morelos state for a gang that broke off from
the Beltran Leyva cartel.
(AP, 5/6/11)(SFC, 5/9/11, p.A2)
2011 May 8, In Mexico an
anti-violence march that began in a central state with a few hundred
people and gathered thousands over a four-day trek reached Mexico City,
led by a poet whose son was killed by suspected drug traffickers. One
marine and 12 suspected gunmen of the Zetas drug cartel were killed in
a gun battle on Falcon Lake in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas.
The decapitated bodies of 11 men were found in two places in Durango,
bringing the rapidly mounting toll to 179.
(AP, 5/8/11)(AP, 5/10/11)
2011 May 9, Mexican public
defenders said a group of Central American migrants recently rescued
from kidnappers in northern Mexico has accused immigration agents of
pulling them from a bus and handing them over to criminal gangs. In
April the federal government had announced the arrest of six
immigration agents in Tamaulipas for "federal crimes."
(AP, 5/10/11)
2011 May 10, Mexican police found
two male heads on top of a cement wall in the plaza of Guadalupe
Distrito Bravos, a town on the outskirts of Ciudad Juarez. Two headless
bodies, one of them stabbed in the back, were later found in two
separate homes. Another man and a woman were then discovered in a
nearby house with their throats slashed. Mexican security forces
searching mass graves in the northern Mexican state of Durango
unearthed eight more bodies, bringing the total to 188 and making it
the largest discovery yet of corpses secretly buried in regions plagued
by drug-gang fighting.
(AP, 5/11/11)(AFP, 5/11/11)
2011 May 11, In Mexico 15 people
were shot dead in separate incidents in a single day in the northern
Mexican border state of Nuevo Leon. The Defense Ministry meanwhile
announced that troops had seized a record shipment of 194 kilos of
heroine in the southeast Pacific coast state of Guerrero as well as 127
kilos of opium poppy seeds and 57 grams of cocaine.
(AFP, 5/12/11)
2011 May 12, Mexican authorities
fired 7 regional directors of the immigration agency following
allegations that officers in the north had delivered migrants to
kidnapping gangs. The Mexican army said that they had detained one of
the main leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, led by Joaquin "El Chapo"
Guzman. Martin Beltran Coronel, alias "The Eagle," was arrested along
with four other people in an exclusive neighborhood of Zapopan, a
suburb of Guadalajara. He had replaced Ignacio "Nacho" Coronel, the
cartel's reputed No. 3 capo gunned down in Guadalajara in July 2010.
The bodies of 8 decapitated men were dumped along roads in Durango
state, where the 196 bodies have been unearthed in mass graves.
(SFC, 5/13/11, p.A2)(AP, 5/13/11)(SFC, 5/13/11, p.A2)
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Subject = Mexico
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