Anonymous - 4-28-2005 at 04:26 AM
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20050428-9...
By Sandra Dibble
April 28, 2005
TIJUANA ? A team of armed men clad in black burst into a restaurant in the city's upscale Rio Zone yesterday and drove away with the owner, police
said.
The assault on Carnitas Quiroga, next door to the federal courts and a block from the headquarters of the federal attorney general's office, occurred
about 3 p.m., according to the report by Tijuana Municipal Police.
In recent weeks, Tijuana business leaders have complained about a rise in kidnappings for ransom and called for a more vigorous response from city,
state and federal authorities.
The restaurant's owner, identified as Adolfo Fregoso Heibert, 48, was eating when about 10 gunmen stormed the restaurant, the report said.
Two U.S. citizens were at the restaurant, an 80-year-old woman and a 61-year-old man, according to the Tijuana newspaper Frontera. The woman told a
reporter that she was eating with the owner when she found herself surrounded by the assailants and ordered to the floor. When she got up, her purse
was gone, the article said.
The restaurant, on Paseo de los Heroes, specializes in carnitas, a marinated roast pork dish popular in the state of Michoacan.
This week, the U.S. State Department extended a travel advisory for northern Mexico, saying "violent criminal activity fueled by a war between
criminal organizations struggling for control of the lucrative narcotics trade continues along the U.S.-Mexico border."
The advisory singled out Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, as the site of the worst violence.
"The vast majority of the thousands of U.S. citizens who cross the border each day do so safely," the alert states, but it advises citizens to stay
out of red-light districts and stick to "legitimate business and tourist areas of border towns during daylight hours."
Anonymous - 4-29-2005 at 03:14 PM
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050429/news_1m29ab...
Tijuana abductee has long U.S. rap sheet
Mexican law official cites drug charges
By Sandra Dibble
STAFF WRITER
April 29, 2005
TIJUANA ? A man abducted Wednesday from a restaurant in Tijuana's Rio Zone has an extensive criminal record in the United States, Mexican law
enforcement authorities said yesterday.
Adolfo Fregoso Eibeck remained missing late yesterday, and the restaurant, Carnitas Quiroga, was closed. Baja California Attorney General Antonio
Mart?nez Luna said it is unclear whether the victim is an owner of the restaurant or a family member.
"We've got to determine whether he is a businessman, and if it was a kidnapping," Mart?nez said. Investigators know of no calls for ransom relating to
the abduction, he said.
The crime, which occurred in the well-to-do Rio Zone, was unusually brazen: The restaurant is next to the federal courthouse and a block from the
federal attorney general's office. About 10 assailants who stormed the restaurant were heavily armed and dressed in black, witnesses said.
The victim's background and the style of the assault "point to a connection with organized crime," Mart?nez said.
Fregoso, 48, has a lengthy criminal record on drug-related charges, Mart?nez said, and he has an outstanding warrant for his arrest on a
drug-trafficking charge.
The Baja California attorney general's office provided no details of Fregoso's criminal record. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration records show that
a man with the same name and age as Fregoso was arrested in Coronado in 1991 with about 13 pounds of cocaine and sentenced to 13 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego could not verify that it was the same person, but San Diego federal court records identify a man, Adolfo
Eibeck Fregoso, who was stopped Dec. 2 at the San Ysidro border crossing with 67 pounds of marijuana in his vehicle. Mexican last names are often
compound, with the second one being the mother's name, and it is sometimes mistakenly used as a middle name in U.S. documents.
Fregoso told an inspector that he lived in Eastlake and had gone to Tijuana early that morning to open his restaurant, according to the court
documents.
In January, he pleaded guilty to drug smuggling. Court records show that he failed two cocaine tests in February and did not show up for subsequent
drug tests, nor for his April 18 sentencing.