Mexico now doubts detaineees were members of elite force
Mexican officials are continuing to investigate seven Guatemalans detained while carrying prohibited firearms.
But Mexican authorities today said they now do -NOT- believe the men are former members of an elite Guatemalan counterinsurgency unit.The men, who face charges of weapons trafficking, were caught near the Guatemalan border on September tenth.Officials say the men had six large-caliber rifles and about 16-hundred rounds of ammunition.Authorities earlier said the men might be former “Kaibiles,” an elite Guatemalan paratrooper unit, and that they had arrived to work with Mexican drug traffickers. Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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Drug gangs corrupt Mexico's elite "FBI"
Despite a five-year battle that has put several top Mexican drug capos behind bars, the cartels' power and reach is so great that they can still corrupt elite police at will to stay ahead of the law.
Faced with rampant police graft when he took office in 2000, President Vicente Fox founded a crack unit modeled on the FBI to hunt down ruthless traffickers grown rich hauling cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines over the U.S. border.
This week the attorney general's office released a report showing that far from being incorruptible, 1,493 officers of the new Federal
Mexico seeks rearrest of agents freed in drug case
Mexico is seeking to get back into custody five Mexican federal agents who were charged in the kidnapping of suspected drug hit men but released by a judge in September, officials said on Saturday.
Mexico arrested eight federal agents on Aug. 31, but a few days later a judge released five of them for lack of evidence.
"We totally respect the decision of the judge but we have appealed because we do not agree (with it)," an official in Mexico's attorney general's office said on condition of anonymity.
The appeal was filed in September,
'Latinos and obesity' topic of U.S.-Mexico health task force
The Fresno County Binational Health Task Force and the Department of Health Science at Fresno State will join the commemoration of the 5th annual U.S.-Mexico Binational Health Week with a forum on Latinos and obesity Oct. 12 at Fresno State.
The program, “Obesity: The Silent Epidemic in Latino Communities,†will be from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. in University Center, Room 200. Parking restrictions will be relaxed in Lot D.
Speakers are Fresno State faculty members Dr. Helda Pinzon-Perez and Dr. Felicia Greer, plus Dr. Jose Gallegos Martinez, a staff physician at the Hospital
Small plane crash in Mexico kills pilot, air force co-pilot
A small plane crashed outside the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco, killing a civilian pilot and a Mexican Air Force pilot who went along for the ride, authorities and relatives confirmed.
The plane went down Sunday afternoon at El Migote beach near Pie de la Cuesta, just south of Acapulco, killing pilot Ruben Fajardo and Air Force pilot Victor Serrano, said Hector Lara, an agent of the district attorney's office for the nearby city of Coyuca de Benitez.
Fajardo had not wanted to fly on Sunday, but was persuaded by the
Club-carrying union members end newspaper standoff in Mexico
Union members wearing masks and carrying clubs Monday broke into the offices of a newspaper in Oaxaca where editors and reporters have been besieged for a month, putting the journalists to flight and attempting to shut down the publication.
About 31 newspaper employees had been holed up in the offices for four weeks while an umbrella union with close ties to the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which controls this state, staged a strike outside, demanding higher wages and more vacation.
Many newspaper employees have said the union does not represent their interests and have
Mexico police score rare win in soccer coach rescue
Berated for endemic corruption and their failure to defeat drug cartels, Mexico's police basked in a rare victory against organized crime on Thursday after the bloodless rescue of a kidnapped soccer coach.
Federal agents sprung Ruben Omar Romano, the Argentine coach of leading team Cruz Azul, from captivity in a house in the crime-ridden neighborhood of Iztapalapa on Wednesday night, without a shot being fired. Seven people were arrested.
Romano, who was being held for a $5 million ransom that was never paid, spent two months blindfolded in the house after being seized
Mexico City combats sidewalk pornography
Mexico City launched an uphill battle this week against street vendors who have turned many of the city's sidewalks and subway entrances into in-your-face displays of graphic, triple-X movies and magazines.
Some 600 city police confiscated thousands of pirated pornographic videos from a five-block stretch Tuesday in an effort to force some of the city's unlicensed street vendors to be more discreet with their X-rated wares in this socially conservative society.
The city government also signed an agreement with an association of newspaper vendors this week to keep hard-core pornography magazines off front shelves near schools and parks.
The
Purged Police Return to Mexico Streets
Police officers returned to the streets of this violent city on the U.S.-Mexico border, almost six weeks after the entire force was pulled off the beat for drug testing and background checks in an effort to weed out corruption.
About a third of Nuevo Laredo's 700 police officers were fired in the anti-corruption drive, most for failing to take drug tests, said Daniel Pena, the mayor of this city across the border from Laredo, Texas, that has become battleground for gangs vying to control cocaine and marijuana smuggling routes.
Pena gave a symbolic order for
Mexico wants U.S. probe in killing of man
Family members of a Mexican man killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent over the weekend gazed solemnly at the coffin of Guillermo MartÃnez RodrÃguez during a Mass yesterday.
MartÃnez, a father of two children, was shot near the San Ysidro Port of Entry on Friday after an encounter with a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Though the shooting occurred in the United States, MartÃnez crossed back into Tijuana and died there a day later. U.S. Border officials said the agent was attempting to protect himself when an assailant started throwing rocks at him.
Mexico's most wanted man may be in Guatemala-police
Mexico's most wanted man, drug lord Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, may have entered neighboring Guatemala where police are searching for him, authorities said on Friday.
"We have not yet determined if he is here, but we have evidence that leads us to believe he is inside our territory," Guatemala's anti-drug police chief Adan Castillo told a news conference.
Guzman has been sought in Mexico since he escaped from a high-security jail in 2001. He has engaged in a fierce war with rival drug barons that has killed more than 1,000 people this year.
The United States is
