Timeline Mexico 2003-2010
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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 mur-der 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 signifi-cant 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 low-ered 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 Mex-ico, 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 in-cluded 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 ex-pose 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 ar-rested
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 mi-grant
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 increas-ing 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 un-der 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 carry-ing 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 min-isters 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
compro-mises 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, shatter-ing
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 inter-fered 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 treat-ment 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 Muchar-rafille 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 pro-duce 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 vio-lent 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 re-cent
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 coun-try's economy
is not threatened by China's lower wages and cheaper goods, saying the
two na-tions 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 proce-dural
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 lan-guages 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 gov-ernment 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 cockfight-ing 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 gov-ernment
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
com-mandos 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 dam-aging them
but causing no injuries. A note near the bombing sites signed by a
group calling it-self 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 insti-tution.
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 Ti-juana.
(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 sena-tor, 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 fe-male
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 impover-ished 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 Mata-moros.
(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 Mex-ico, 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 Pi-zana, alias "El
Kelin," a top drug hit man during a fierce shootout in the border city
of Mata-moros. Scores of suspected assassins and drug smugglers used
hand grenades and assault ri-fles 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,
over-whelmingly 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 discov-ered 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 for-mer Pres.
Salinas’ brother, with a bag tied around his head. 2 federal police
officers were ar-rested 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 casi-nos 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, Mex-ico’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 mil-lion 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 re-ceive 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 kill-ings 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 sexu-ally
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 al-liance 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
dip-lomatic 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 Aca-pulco,
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. De-mocratic 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 sen-tenced 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 larg-est 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 pro-tecting 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, ab-domen,
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. Re-cipients
included Isidro Baldenegro (39) of Mexico for his efforts on land
rights and forest pro-tection 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 de-feat 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 Mexi-cans 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, say-ing 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 re-lease 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 po-lice
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 pro-testers.
(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, in-filtrating 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, Gua-temala, 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 Cata-lan, 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, af-ter Maria Isabel Miranda, the mother of Wallace, received
a tip and tracked her down. Frus-trated 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 Cate-gory 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 in-side 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 po-lice 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 Hur-ricane
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 an-other
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 de-structive, 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 Nicara-gua,
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
Nica-ragua.
(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 Yuca-tan 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 secre-tary, 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 in-flation 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 Ti-juana-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 Vene-zuela 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 protec-tion 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 exclu-sive realm of federal officers.
(AP, 11/28/05)
2005 Nov 29, Mexico's Supreme
Court ruled that suspects facing life in prison can be extra-dited,
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 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 evi-dence.
(AP, 12/03/05)
2005 Dec 10, Mexican police raided
a house outside Mexico City, capturing two alleged kid-nappers 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 Flor-ence, a Frenchwoman. The two belong to a
gang called "The Zodiac," tied to at least 10 kid-nappings and one
murder. Florence Cassez was later sentenced to 60 years in prison for 3
kid-nappings.
(AP, 12/10/05)(AP, 3/10/09)
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. Of-ficials 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 immigra-tion 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 cam-paign 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 Mex-ico opened an investigation into the killing saying
he was shot while sneaking into California, us-ing 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 ex-ecutives at
TV Azteca for allegedly failing to disclose their involvement in Unefon
under a provi-sion 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 gov-ernment 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
pro-posal 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 kill-ing 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 mur-ders, 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 Mexi-can-owned
hotel. It was the first private-sector oil summit between Cuba and the
US. The meet-ing 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 investi-gation into
whether the US government pressured the American-owned hotel into
expelling Cu-ban 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 Ma-yan 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
Shera-ton 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 dedi-cated 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 declin-ing 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 Preven-tative 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 undocu-mented
migrants and provide temporary work visas. Mexicans cheered the
approval and cred-ited 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 con-nections. 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 Presi-dent 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 se-cure
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 5 1/2 tons of cocaine worth more than $100 million from a
commercial plane arriving from Venezuela.
(AP, 4/12/06)
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 confi-dentiality
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 po-lice 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 en-richment through real estate deals.
(AP, 5/9/06)
2006 May 14, Mexican President
Vicente Fox telephoned President Bush to express his con-cern 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 Sen-ate 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 fed-eral
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 mi-grants 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 al-legedly 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 gre-nades 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 de-struction 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 docu-ments 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
candi-date 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 deci-sion
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
elec-tion 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
kick-ing 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 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 re-cent genetic mutations have made some
mushrooms, consumed for years in Indian communi-ties, 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 dis-puted 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 Revo-lution 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 gov-ernor's
race in Mexico's volatile southernmost state of Chiapas, edging out
Jose Antonio Agui-lar, 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 wide-spread
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 sup-porters 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 danger-ous 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 in-vestigator 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 gov-ernment
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 cen-tral 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 re-gion 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 thou-sands 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 mo-tel. 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 Ko-rea, 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 Nor-berto
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 Pa-cific 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 meet-ing 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 barri-cade 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 ac-cused
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 ma-rine
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 de-funct Federal Security Directorate, was
arrested in Mexico City in connection with the 1974 dis-appearance 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 Oax-aca,
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.
(AP, 10/28/06)(Econ, 11/4/06, p.48)(AP, 10/18/08)
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 decapi-tated, 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 re-sembling 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, hijack-ing
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 tri-bunal's
decision that his opponent narrowly won the presidential election,
named his "resis-tance" 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" admini-stration he declared after losing the July 2
elections to President-elect Felipe Calderon by a ra-zor-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 newspa-pers 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 cor-ruption
despite an attempt on his life and the killing of colleagues, died of a
chronic illness in Ti-juana.
(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 build-ings 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 Bar-ranca 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 tele-vision
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 Echever-ria,
just four months after a federal judge had dismissed the same charges
of genocide in con-nection 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 dis-covered 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 left-ist
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 fed-eral police agents surrounded
the offices of the Oaxaca state police force and seized its weap-ons 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 pro-test 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 re-corded
conversation that former President Carlos Salinas (1988-1994) stole
from a secret gov-ernment fund. The contents of the conversation were
made public in February, 2009. Tellez re-signed 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.
(Econ, 7/25/09, p.34)
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 bet-ter 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)
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 gov-ernment'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 con-frontation
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 Mexi-cans 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 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 op-eration
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 simulta-neous 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 Salva-doran 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 offen-sive 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 pen-sions 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 Mex-ico 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 ri-fles 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 sys-tem,
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. Hun-dreds 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
ex-ecutive, 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
plas-tic bags and sheets behind a television station in Mexico's port
city of Veracruz, apparent vic-tims 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, allow-ing
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 sol-diers 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 sol-diers 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 guer-rilla 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 fam-ily 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 some-day 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 look-ing 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 ille-gal
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 fin-gers 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 bur-ied 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 ad-jacent
highway, killing at least 9 people, including two soldiers assigned to
the Mexican presi-dent'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 Ma-hal, 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 re-sponsibility for the blasts.
(AP, 7/11/07)
2007 Jul 11, In western Mexico
Honda, Hershey's and other multinational companies tempo-rarily 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 rul-ing
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 inves-tigation in a
migrant smuggling case, was found riddled with bullets along a road
outside Can-cun, Mexico.
(AP, 7/31/07)
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 discov-ered $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 Ti-juana 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 His-paniola,
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 Hurri-cane 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 na-tion'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 al-legedly
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,
Alejan-dra 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 Mex-ico 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
carry-ing 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
in-telligence.
(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 tortur-ing 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 appar-ently 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 Mi-gration.”
(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 assis-tant Elbert
Escobedo Marquez were riddled with bullets as they traveled in a
private vehicle af-ter 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 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 au-thorities 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
were-n't made public until Oct 31.
(AP, 1/30/08)(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Jan 31, In Mexico tens of
thousands of demonstrators marched through downtown Mex-ico 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 al-low 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 Ri-cardo 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 in-sects' 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 chil-dren
but leaving their teacher unharmed.
(AP, 3/11/08)
2008 Mar 11, Mexico's federal
attorney general's office announced an investigation into alle-gations
of corruption against Interior Secretary Juan Camilo Mourino, a
confidant of the presi-dent 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 is-land.
(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 po-lice 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 com-partment
plunged into a reservoir, killing at least eight people. Most of the
migrants were be-lieved 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 com-pany 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, ar-rested 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
sanita-tion, sustainable development and reforestation; Marina
Rikhvanova (46), founder of Baikal En-vironmental Wave, which forced
the rerouting of an oil pipeline in the Baikal basin; Pablo Fa-jardo
(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 Boe-ing 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 willing-ness to solve crimes
allegedly committed by current and past administrations against its
mem-bers.
(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 na-tionwide 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 Culia-can, Sinaloa state.
Also killed in the attack was Arturo Meza Cazares, the son of Blanca
Marga-rita 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 car-tel.
(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 at-tacks blamed on gangs resisting a crackdown. Gunman
sprayed Garcia's car with bullets out-side 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 pis-tols 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 car-tel.
(AP, 5/27/08)
2008 May 31, Tropical Storm Arthur
the first named storm of the 2008 Atlantic Hurricane Sea-son, 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 have-n'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 business-man, 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 gov-ernor
(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 offi-cers, 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 news-paper in
southern Mexico, two days after someone left a severed head there. The
letter was di-rected at Juan Padilla, editor of El Correo de Tabasco,
which recently carried reports about mi-grant 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 nor-mally 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 night-club,
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 co-erced into having vasectomies. The men
said that state health workers showed up in the south-ern 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, at-tended 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 po-lice 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 jala-peno 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 com-panies 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 out-break
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 hard-ware 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 Chi-huahua.
(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 gun-man 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 out-skirts
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 of-ficers 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 kid-napped loved
ones, marched across the country to demand government action against a
relent-less 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 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 argu-ment. 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 re-sponsible.
(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 blabber-mouths." 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 gov-ernment
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 re-sort town
southwest of Mexico City. Vegara was in a car with two other people
when the gun-men 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 alle-gations 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
gre-nade-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 alleg-edly 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 psy-chological,
background and other checks as part of a clean-up campaign meant to
root out offi-cers 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
retire-ments.
(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 ar-rested 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 traffick-ing 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 fed-eral 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 hu-man 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 Si-naloa 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 sales-man 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 No-gales. 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 hospital-ized 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 re-puted
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 sell-ers,
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 attor-ney
general's office and may have paid a spy inside the US Embassy for
details of DEA opera-tions. 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 Commis-sioner 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 Vas-concelos 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 sei-zure 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 bor-der 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 grow-ing marijuana.
(AP, 11/11/08)
2008 Nov 11, In Mexico 21 police
were arrested in the northern border city of Tijuana on sus-picion 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 Ciu-dad
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 Rami-rez, 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 bod-ies 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 sup-port
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
col-laborating 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 Mi-choacan 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 kid-napped 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 Az-teca 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
ammuni-tion. 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 Zihuata-nejo 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 Ti-juana
over the last 2 days.
(AP, 12/28/08)
2008 Dec 31, Mexico sent 10
alleged drug smugglers to the United States, capping an al-ready record
year for extraditions between the two countries. 2 Canadian tourists
were hospital-ized 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
con-centrated 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 confron-tation. 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 re-portedly 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 pe-riod, 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 sta-tion 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 blan-kets
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 pack-age 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 re-leases to
Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, two former Texas-based US Border
Pa-trol 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 vic-tims by
dissolving their bodies in caustic soda was arrested in the border city
of Tijuana. Au-thorities said Santiago Meza Lopez confessed to
disposing of at least 300 bodies over a dec-ade. 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 Re-bollo, 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 motor-cycle 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 cen-ter 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
consu-late. 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 mes-sages 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,
To-bacco, 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 po-lice
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 of-ficial 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 de-mands 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
Si-naloa 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 accompa-nied 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 con-taminate
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 mari-juana 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 de-capitated 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
Nor-man 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
acknowl-edged 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 Apr 1, Mexico detained
Vicente Carrillo Leyva (32), one of its most wanted drug sus-pects. 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 traffick-ers 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 govern-ment to
seize property from suspected drug traffickers and other criminals
before they are con-victed.
(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 Mex-ico 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 mari-juana 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 guard-ing an arsenal that included the
first anti-aircraft machine gun seized in Mexico. The army cap-tured
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. As-sailants 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 Mex-ico 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
Ba-tista. 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 con-sider
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 con-firmed 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 at-tacks 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 Gam-boa, 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 pre-sumably 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 num-ber 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, in-cluding 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 Cuer-navaca. 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, in-cluding 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 re-opened 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 in-cluding 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 Ti-juana
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, sur-passing 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 de-scribed as one of the most
trusted aides of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Martinez was cap-tured
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 in-side 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 offi-cers. 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 ar-rested 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.
(AP, 5/27/09)
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 Kalash-nikov 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 al-cohol
rehabilitation center, killing five people. Gunmen killed four men
sitting in a car in the bor-der 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 Asso-ciation, 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. Cus-toms administrator Francisco Serrano has not been
seen since his smashed government vehi-cle 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 30 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. The final death toll reached 47.
(AP, 6/6/09)(AP, 6/7/09)(AP, 6/8/09)(AP, 6/23/09)
2009 Jun 6, In Mexico 13 gunmen, 2
soldiers and 2 bystanders were killed in a 4-hour shoot-out 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 pow-erful drug cartel.
(AP, 6/7/09)
2009 Jun 8, In Mexico gunmen
launched grenades and opened fire in near simultaneous at-tacks 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 gov-ernment 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 high-way 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 mi-grants 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 gun-men
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 alleg-edly 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 Pa-cific 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 assail-ants 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 investiga-tors 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 at-tempted
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 Revolu-tionary
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 high-way in La
Huacana, Michoacan state.
(AP, 7/9/09)
2009 Jul 11, In Mexico gunmen
boldly attacked federal forces across the western state of Mi-choacan
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 at-tacks 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 wres-tlers who
were found drugged in a low-rent hotel in Mexico City on June 29. One
of the diminu-tive 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 broth-ers,
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, ac-cused of slaying 12 federal agents on the
weekend of July 12 and dumping their bloodied bod-ies 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. In-cluded was Ernesto Parra Valenzuela, identified as
the suspected killer of Rosas.
(AP,
7/26/09)(http://texasfred.net/archives/4628)(SFC, 7/27/09, p.A4)
2009 Jul 24, It was reported that
federal and state agents have arrested 82 people for grow-ing 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 re-sort 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 Ve-racruz-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 ar-rested 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 follow-ing 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 ammu-nition 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 cou-ple and
their 3-year-old son, killing all three. In Chihuahua gunmen killed
four people in an at-tack in a bar.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 9, In Mexico some 400
people marched in Guadalajara to protest the negative af-fects 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 al-leged 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 Cali-fornia 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 body-guards 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 check-points
in the northern city of Monterrey because they say the officers
routinely use them to ex-tort 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 in-volved 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 Hec-tor 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 in-juries 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
enforce-ment 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 po-lice
officers across the state had been fired over the last two years for
suspected links to organ-ized 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 con-trolled 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
hide-outs for drug smugglers being sought by police and hit men from
rival gangs.
(AP, 9/3/09)(AP, 9/4/09)
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 incur-sion 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 mes-sage 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 fed-eral
prosecutor, to replace Medina-Mora. In the Pacific port of Lazaro
Cardenas, about 150 fed-eral 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 journal-ists Roberto Juarez and Lazaro Abreu Tejero Sanchez have
been arrested for allegedly work-ing 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. Po-lice 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 col-laborating
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 con-fronted 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 out-side 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 po-lice 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 of-ficer 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 sei-zures 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 lat-est 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 Re-gional 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 bor-der 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 vehi-cles 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 presi-dential 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 gun-man 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 be-fore 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 Hi-dalgo. 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 stor-age lot west of the capital.
(AP, 10/28/09)
2009 Oct 27, Mexican police
arrested Abel Valadez Oribe (32), who they say headed the op-erations
of the "La Familia" drug cartel in the western state of Michoacan.
Police found dis-membered 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 sol-diers 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 car-tel. The army says it detained Oscar Orlando Nava Valencia,
the alleged leader of the "Valen-cia" 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 squat-ters' 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, be-lieved 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 Ez-parza, 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 po-lice 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 investi-gation
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 larg-est 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 Ve-racruz 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 Pa-cific coast state of Colima state police captured
Aaron Lopez Garcia (31), a violent gang mem-ber 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, dis-appeared 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 Torre-blanca 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
acci-dentally 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 au-thorities
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, in-cluding 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 terri-tory 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
evi-dence 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
se-ries 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 in-vestigators'
lack of progress in her son's case, had launched her own probe and a
public cam-paign 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 Mex-ico'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 gen-eral 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 sta-tion reporter Jose Luis
Romero was forced at gunpoint out of a Los Mochis restaurant. Ro-mero’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)
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 Ro-mero (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 some-times 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 se-ries of
killings and other crimes. Michoacan state police and soldiers planned
to take over secu-rity 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
else-where 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 out-skirts 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, ex-cluding 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 scat-tered around the Michoacan state capital of Morelia, each
bearing a handwritten note suggest-ing 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 pur-ported members of his gang about to dissolve a body
in chemicals. State police found the bod-ies 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 Mexi-can 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, Mi-choacan state.
A group of at least a dozen armed men attacked a federal police convoy,
open-ing 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 30, In Mexico armed men
stormed a party, killing 15 high school and college stu-dents 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 gun-men 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 high-way 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 "re-sistance" 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 hid-den 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 Ad-ministration 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 free-ways 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
massa-cre 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 Simen-tal, 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 an-nounced 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.
(AP, 2/8/10)(AP, 2/10/10)
Go to http://www.timelinesdb.com
Subject = Mexico
Baja California Language College
Avenida Riveroll 1287
Ensenada, Baja California
www.bajacal.com
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