Drug-related violence rises sharply in Tijuana
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/mexico/tijuana/20041003-9...
By Anna Cearley
October 3, 2004
TIJUANA ? A sharp increase in shootings, abductions and corpses scattered through the city is because of power struggles over a drug-trafficking
corridor historically controlled by the Arellano F?lix cartel, according to Mexican authorities.
The spike, which started last month, is being watched carefully because the Arellanos are believed to be losing some of their control along the Baja
California border as a result of ongoing arrests. Tijuana represents their last stronghold.
Drug-related violence is nothing new in Tijuana, where authorities say organized crime is behind 25 percent to 35 percent of all homicide cases. But
the number of murders in the city rose dramatically in September.
Last month, 40 people were killed in the Tijuana area, which includes Tecate and Rosarito. That was almost twice the number killed in August. In
September 2003, 31 people were killed. Not all the cases are drug-related, and some are believed to be a result of feuds between small-time drug
traffickers.
"What we see is that there certainly is a dispute over power in the region," said Baja California Governor Eugenio Elorduy Walther, speaking to
reporters early last month.
"The information that we have is that it is a result of rivalries for the control of the area ... of what is Tijuana and the passage to the United
States from Mexico."
A similar rise in killings took place last year in the border city of Mexicali as the Arellanos battled invading groups. Some U.S. and Mexican
authorities now believe the Arellanos have lost their control in the eastern portion of the state, including Mexicali, to suspected trafficker Ismael
Zambada Garc?a.
The increase of killings in Tijuana may mean that Zambada and other rivals are trying muscle their way into the city.
However, several people who have ties to drug traffickers and spoke confidentially out of concern for their safety, believe that some of the violence
comes from the Arellanos cleaning up their own house, collecting dues and lashing out against rivals.
The Arellanos remain the dominant players in the city, they say. But according to Mexican authorities, recent arrests have made the cartel more
vulnerable to internal divisions as well as to incursions from rivals.
Most recently, suspected Arellano lieutenants Efra?n Perez and Jorge Aureliano F?lix were arrested in Tijuana in June. Another suspected leader,
Gilberto Higuera Guerrero was captured in Mexicali in August, though Mexican authorities have said he had recently switched loyalties to Zambada.
"The leaders fall and start to be replaced, and some work together and others end up fighting, and that is what is happening," said Antonio Mart?nez
Luna, Baja California's state attorney general.
Some of the victims in recent weeks are said to be from out of state, or recent arrivals to Baja California.
On Sept. 24, a group of armed men tried to abduct two men, including one who had recently moved to Tijuana from the interior of Mexico, as they were
driving through the city's posh business district. When the men managed to escape, their abductors opened fire, killing Oscar Campos Rodriguez, 55,
and wounding Gumaro Ibarra Beltran, 35.
Mart?nez Luna said investigators have determined "very clearly" that the crime was drug-related, but couldn't say what, if any connection, the case
had to the Arellanos.
The Arellanos are suspected to have orchestrated a number of high-profile killings in the city since the start of the year, including the murder of
Rogelio Delgado Neri, who once headed the state attorney general's Tijuana office, and Zeta newspaper editor Francisco Ort?z Franco.
Federal authorities said last month that on March 10, Arellano gunmen had tried to abduct suspected Zambada gunman Alfredo Quiroz Partida. Instead,
the Arellano gunmen ended up in a shootout through Tijuana streets with Mexican police, who arrested them.
Federal authorities also recently arrested four suspected Arellano members ? all former city police officers ? who they say had a role in the July 4
killing of Tijuana city police officer Luis Armando Dorantes Gonzales. Dorantes was apparently targeted because he helped federal authorities capture
other Arellano members several weeks prior to his death.
Baja California Governor Elorduy said the demand for drugs north of the border is part of what fuels the competition between Mexican drug-trafficking
groups for the profitable business.
"We obviously have a product that is in demand by the consumers in the U.S. in particular," he said. "This notable demand causes public insecurity."
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