Drugs (Illegal) « News Donkey

Mexican Capo Guzman Behind Drug War Deaths

By Robin Emmott | Reuters

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (Reuters) – One man looms behind the worst violence in a drugs war on Mexico’s U.S. border that is shaking President Felipe Calderon’s government and worrying Washington.

Joaquin Guzman, known as “Shorty” at just 5 feet tall, is Mexico’s most wanted man and set off a wave of killings in the border city of Ciudad Juarez early last year when he tried to muscle in on the territory of a local cartel.

A turf battle between Guzman’s enforcers from the Sinaloa cartel and local Ciudad Juarez drug runners has since killed more than 2,000 people here and forced the government to deploy 7,500 troops and federal police to take control of the city.

Guzman, 51, has avoided capture several times since he escaped from a high security jail in a laundry van in 2001.

Mexican anti-drug officials say he began waging war for Ciudad Juarez when the local cartel tried to charge him taxes for smuggling narcotics through the city into Texas …

March 8, 2009 Posted by newsdonkey | Drugs (Illegal), Felipe Calderon, Foreign Affairs, Homeland Security, Joaquin Guzman, Mexico, People, Security, States, Texas | Drug, Felipe Calderon, Joaquin Guzman, Mexico, Texas, War | Leave a Comment

U.S. Rattled as Mexico Drug War Bleeds over Border

By Tim Gaynor | Reuters

PHOENIX (Reuters) – Hit men dressed in fake police tactical gear burst into a home in Phoenix, rake it with gunfire and execute a man.

Armed kidnappers snatch victims from cars and even a local shopping mall across the Phoenix valley for ransom, turning the sun-baked city into the “kidnap capital” of the United States.

Violence of this kind is common in Mexico where drug cartel abductions and executions are a daily feature of a raging drug war that claimed 6,000 lives south of the border last year.

But U.S. authorities now fear that violent crime is beginning to bleed over the porous Mexico border and take hold here.

“The fight in Mexico is about domination of the smuggling corridors and those corridors don’t stop at the border,” Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said.

Execution style murders, violent home invasions, and a spiraling kidnap rate in Phoenix — where police reported an average of one abduction a day last year linked to Mexican crime — are not the only examples along the border …

March 1, 2009 Posted by newsdonkey | Drugs (Illegal), Foreign Affairs, Mexico | Drugs, Mexico | 3 Comments

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News Donkey provides an aggregation of news reports and media coverage about the Obama administration and related current events with emphasis on controversial topics of the day. From time to time, editorial opinion may also be provided but the goal here is just really to give a snapshot of current issues in an objective fashion. As we all know, the news media in general tends to be rather biased but there are “gold nuggets” of information to be found out there. If you have suggestions for other great news articles or videos about these issues, please feel free to make comments and provide links. Thanks for visiting.

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