Leaders of 71 unions in 18 countries have called for Mexico’s federal government to take over the stalled investigation of a US union activist’s murder in 2007. Santiago Rafael Cruz was organizing migrant laborers in Monterrey when he was beaten to death.
Mexican marines shot and killed Gustavo Acosta Luján at his home in Apodaca, Nuevo León, in what appeared to be a botched raid targeting a suspected criminal in a different house in the neighborhood.
Two high-ranking US officials have been removed from their posts in fallout from Operation Fast and Furious, a bungled ATF program that allowed some 2,000 weapons to go from the US to Mexico.
Mexican President Felipe Calderón said “terrorists” carried out the arson attack on Monterrey’s Casino Royale, which left 52 dead. The number of illegal gambling houses has swelled in Mexico as the cartels turn to them for money laundering.
Mexican senators said they planned to question officials about President Calderón’s agreement with Barack Obama allowing US agents on a Mexican military base to carry out intelligence work related to the “War on Drugs.”
Sinaloa Cartel kingpin Jesus Vicente Zambada Niebla AKA “El Mayito” filed pleadings in US court accusing the DEA of giving the cartel “carte blanche to continue to smuggle tons of illicit drugs into Chicago and the rest of the United States.”
Óscar Osvaldo García Montoya, AKA “El Compayito,” a drug lord arrested by Mexican police in connection with 900 murders, is a deserted navy corporal who trained with Guatemala’s feared Kaibiles.
Moisés Montero Álvarez AKA “El Coreano,” alleged leader of the Independent Cartel of Acapulco (CIDA), was captured by Mexican federal police and charged in the massacre of 20 abducted vacationers from Michoacán who were mistaken for members of a rival cartel.
Mexican governance secretary Francisco Blake Mora met with more than 160 relatives of people who have been “disappeared”—kidnapped by criminals, by the police or by the military.
Mexican government and university researchers warn that some 200 species in the deserts and mountains of northern Chihuahua state are being pushed to extinction by droughts and other extreme weather events linked to climate change.
A memo leaked by the hacker group LulzSec from the Tucson police on a supposed emerging collaboration between Hezbollah and the Mexican drug cartels sparked hearings on Capitol Hill. But the memo itself was mostly empty speculation.
The Mexican attorney general’s office has charged 111 officials with corruption, fired 140 police officers, and revealed that 280 more are under investigation for ties to kidnapping, murder, extortion and organized crime.
