BajaNomad

Baja California officials vow to combat a surge in violence

BajaNews - 4-29-2008 at 11:58 PM

By Sandra Dibble
April 29, 2008

...“We are going to win this battle, and purge our state of criminals,” said Baja California Gov. Jose Guadalupe Osuna Millan.

A top federal public security official... announced that federal police forces... are being increased to 650 officers, a rise of nearly 60 percent.

... officials have linked the violence to the weakening of once-powerful cartels. Law enforcement efforts have “hit the economic base of organized crime, and are leading to an imbalance,”... causing leaders of criminal groups “to carry out kidnapping and robberies of ATM machines, trying to obtain economic resources so they can pay the members of their criminal cells.”

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20080429-2...

surfer jim - 4-30-2008 at 08:04 AM

The recession has even hit the cartels and now they are having a hard time paying the bills....:lol:

..and now they're going after the tuna fishermen?

fulano - 4-30-2008 at 11:53 AM

Japanese Businessman Murdered in Ensenada

In Ensenada, Mexican police are searching for the gunman who shot a Japanese businessman to death.

The shooting occurred Tuesday in the parking lot outside Hiroshi Kato's office. Kato worked for a fishing company that exports tuna to Japan.

Police said Kato was getting out of his car when a gunman drove up and opened fire.

So far, it is unclear what may have led to the murder.

http://www.cbs8.com/stories/story.126471.html

Hook - 4-30-2008 at 12:04 PM

Gull outta be along any time now to indicate how this was all the gringo's fault.

Probably due to America's incessant appetite for canned tuna..................;D

Al G - 4-30-2008 at 12:43 PM

Part of full story...
Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:04 pm (PDT)

29 Apr 2008
Source: Reuters
TIJUANA, Mexico, April 29 (Reuters) - Mexico's government sent more than 3,000 soldiers
and federal police to Tijuana on Tuesday, stepping up a war against violent drug
smugglers after 17 gunmen were killed in a street battle between cartels.
The several thousand troops and federal police already deployed by President Felipe
Calderon to beef up security in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, have been
unable to stop feuding drug gangs.
In one of the deadliest episodes in Mexico's three-year drug war, a shootout between
gunmen from rival factions of the Arellano Felix cartel on Saturday left bodies and bullet
casings scattered along a road in the city.
Calderon has sent some 25,000 soldiers and federal police to fight drug cartels near the
U.S. border and in other hot spots across Mexico but violence has continued, increasing in
some regions.
Some 190 people have been killed in Tijuana so far this year. In 2007, there were more
than 2,500 drug killings across Mexico and there have been more than 900 this year.
The Arellano Felix gang was long the dominant trafficking organization in Tijuana,
smuggling drugs into California. Recently the group has been under attack from a rival
gang from the Pacific state of Sinaloa, led by Mexico's most wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty"
Guzman. (Reporting by Lizbeth Diaz; Editing by Eric Beech)

Hook - 4-30-2008 at 01:12 PM

Get Shorty !!!!!