Gang murdered drug dealer then blew up his house

 

Drugs gang executed one of their dealer's and then blew up his house to cover-up the murder, a court heard this afternoon. Colliston Edwards, 38, of no fixed address and Andre Johnson, 25, also of no fixed address are accused of shooting Leroy Burnett, 43, after he kept back some of their money from drugs deals. Max Walter, 21, of no fixed address was then recruited by the pair to blow-up his house in Crichton Road, Battersea the Old Bailey heard. Mr Burnett was allegedly a low level drug supplier, who dealt drugs in Wandsworth Road and the Nine Elms area on behalf of Edwards. Edwards, whose street name is Lousy, was allegedly a drug dealer who commuted between Doncaster and South London and worked in a team with Johnson, known as Tallman. The court heard that Lousy had two mobile phones and gave out the numbers to his customers, travelling to their homes to sell the drugs. He allegedly expected Mr Burnett to carry out sales and look after his phones whilst he was away in Doncaster, but problems arose when Mr Burnett started miscounting money owed to him. Prosecuting, Aftab Jaffbrjee said: "There was simply no reason other than this pernicious deed of drugs supply to cost Leroy his life. Ads by Google Build Eco Friendly Visit us Today for Carbon Reduction Eco Tips for Construction Industry! www.CutCarbon.info Election Boundary Changes Constituencies are changing. Have your say on our report, Autumn 2013 independent.gov.uk/boundarychanges "He was executed in his home having been shot in the head at point blank range. There was nothing else that accounted in his life for such a brutal attack. "Walter then blew up the entire house causing destruction to the building and the street." Edwards and Johnson are both on trial for joint enterprise of murder and intending to pervert the course of justice. They deny having anything to do with the murder or the cover-up. Walter has pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and arson, but denies being reckless as to whether life was endangered. The trial which opened this afternoon is expected to last six weeks.

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Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous

 

 Comment By Professor Alan Stevens Drug gangs report blasting UK cities as dangerous is too confusing The problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro – or even San Francisco A masked municipal policeman stands outside a shopping mall in MexicoAP On one hand it is right to state that there are communities in British cities suffering from social exclusion and marginalisation and that this contributes to their drug and crime problems. But on the other, these ­problems are nowhere near as deep in Manchester or Liverpool as they are in Rio de Janeiro or Ciudad Juarez – or even San Francisco or Los Angeles. The problem with the INCB report is that the wording is unclear. It gives the impression that its comments on no-go areas could apply equally to all of these cities. But it should have been more careful in specifying which ones it was referring to. The cities in Central and South America have more extreme ­problems which come from bigger social inequalities. They are dramatically more affected by crime and health problems. For example, in the past few years in Rio there have been repeated attempts to crack down on the areas controlled by violent drug markets. For a while these places were no-go zones. But authorities have acted in a militaristic fashion in the past year as they prepare for the World Cup.

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British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control

British cities are becoming no-go areas where drugs gangs are effectively in control, a United Nations drugs chief said yesterday. Professor Hamid Ghodse, president of the UN’s International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), said there was “a vicious cycle of social exclusion and drugs problems and fractured communities” in cities such as Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. The development of “no-go areas” was being fuelled by threats such as social inequality, migration and celebrities normalising drug abuse, he warned. Helping marginalised communities with drugs problems “must be a priority”, he said. “We are looking at social cohesion, the social disintegration and illegal drugs. “In many societies around the world, whether developed or developing, there are communities within the societies which develop which become no-go areas. “Drug traffickers, organised crime, drug users, they take over. They will get the sort of governance of those areas.” Prof Ghodse called for such communities to be offered drug abuse prevention programmes, treatment and rehabilitation services, and the same levels of educational, employment and recreational opportunities as in the wider society. The INCB’s annual report for 2011 found persistent social inequality, migration, emerging cultures of excess and a shift in traditional values were some of the key threats to social cohesion. As the gap between rich and poor widens, and “faced with a future with limited opportunities, individuals within these communities may increasingly become disengaged from the wider society and become involved in a range of personally and socially harmful behaviours, including drug abuse and drug dealing,” it said.

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Italian Wives ban their husbands from visiting Italian cafe where busty barmaid serves up drinks in skimpy outfits

After eight years running a bar, Laura Maggi suddenly found men beating a path to her door.

Not for the quality of her coffee  and aperitifs, but because she had started appearing for work in highly revealing outfits.

Hundreds of male customers flocked there day and night, leaving their cars double parked in the surrounding streets.

Congestion became such a problem that the lady mayor announced she was considering an emergency bylaw to limit traffic in the area.

Causing controversy: Laura Maggi, 34, who runs a bar called Le Cafe, has dominated newspapers and TV chat shows, after pictures of her dressed in barely anything appeared on the internet

 

Pulling more than a pint: The women folk of Bagnolo Mella, near Brescia, which is where Manchester City ace Mario Balotelli is from, are up in arms and said that they had banned their partners from going to Le Cafe

 

Main attraction: On the walls of Le Cafe there are pictures of Laura, dressed in a bikini on holiday - while in other snaps she is wrapped in an American Stars and Stripes flag. Yet more pictures of her, semi-naked, have been turned into a calendar

You're not going anywhere: Bagnolo's mayor Cristina Almici has also banned her husband from going to Laura's bar and said: 'We have received several complaints from women in the town about the bar'

Now women in the small northern Italian town of Bagnolo Mella have declared Le Cafe out of bounds to their menfolk – and 34-year-old Miss Maggi has become a national celebrity.

Yesterday she was a guest on the Italian equivalent of This Morning and said: ‘I don’t see what the problem is – it’s just a bit of harmless fun. 

‘If the guys come here what can I do?

'I know I have upset the women but that’s not my problem.

'It’s not my fault if guys want to come and have a drink in my bar.’

She added that some customers were travelling up to 70 miles just to have a coffee in her bar.

On the walls of Le Cafe are pictures of Miss Maggi in a bikini on holiday. 

She has 5,000 new friends on Facebook while a local poll found that 46 per cent of respondents said partners of her male customers should be ‘asking themselves why their partners prefer Laura to them’.

Several wives from the town have been on TV to complain. One said: ‘It is outrageous and should not be allowed.

 

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‘This town is quiet and respectable. Now we are known across the whole country because of the little amount of clothing this barmaid is wearing to serve drinks. 

‘The women in town are not very happy and we have complained to the council.’

Enjoyment: 'I don't see what the problem is - it's just a bit of harmless fun. I like to dress in an attractive way and I like to have fun,' Laura said on an Italian TV show

 

Selling point: 'If the guys come here, what can I do? I know I have upset the women but that's not my problem,' said the bar owner

Bagnolo’s mayor Cristina Almici said: ‘We have received several complaints from women about the bar and we are looking at what we can do with regard to public order.

‘There has been a huge influx of traffic into the town since the news of Laura started to spread and this has led to incidents of bad parking and some minor acts of vandalism.

‘We can’t stop people from going to her bar and I know it is very popular with men in the town – personally I don’t see any problem with how she looks or dresses. 

'If anything, it’s the men who go there who have a problem.’

She added, however: ‘My husband is certainly not allowed to go there.’

Crowd pleaser: 'People have been turning up from 70 miles away just to have a drink here,' says the proud bar lady

No blame: 'It's not my fault if guys want to come and have a drink in my bar,' says the owner 

Quiet town of Bagnolo Mella: An online poll in the local Brescia newspaper asked readers what their opinion was and the majority, 46%, said that women should be 'asking themselves why their partners prefer Laura to them'

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Estonian gangsters netted a quarter of a million pounds worth of designer watches from a jewellers in Newcastle city centre.

Members of an Eastern European gang who flew around the continent for armed robbery day trips were today jailed for a £250,000 raid on a UK jewellers.

In a daring smash and grab attack lasting just 31 seconds, three Estonian gangsters netted a quarter of a million pounds worth of designer watches from a jewellers in Newcastle city centre.

Convicted murderer Marek Viidemann and his accomplice Sander Sarik smashed display cabinets with hammers, while Raido Ragga held staff at gunpoint to stop them raising the alarm.

Daring: The Estonian budget-airline bandits pictured on security camera during their raid on Berry's jewellers in Newcastle city centre

The trio were part of a wider gang targeting jewellers around Europe, whose members were bought flights by crime bosses in Estonia and ordered to carry out the robberies.

Gangsters who owed money to organised crime were recruited to carry out the robberies on day trips to their destinations around the UK and elsewhere.

They would fly back to eastern Europe the next day while the stolen goods would be shipped separately.

 

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Jailing Viidemann for 10 years, Judge Brian Forster, at Newcastle Crown Court, told him: 'You were part of an international crime gang.

'You were willing to cause terror and fear and your purpose was to get as much as you could as quickly as you could and then leave the country.

'This was a daring and terrifying robbery and was carried out without regard to those who work in the shop.

'The courts will protect the citizens of Newcastle from anyone who thinks they can come and prey upon them.'

Fast: In just over 30 seconds, the gang swiped a quarter of a million pound worth of watches from the jewellers, as terrified staff were held at gunpoint

Viidemann, Sarik and Ragga struck at Berry’s jewellers, on Grey Street, Newcastle, at around 10am on August 20, 2008.

Convicted killer: Marek Viidemann, 35, was jailed for 10 years at Newcastle Crown Court for his part in the raid

Ragga went in brandishing a handgun while Viidemann and Sarik used hammers to get to the valuables.

Mark Simpson, prosecuting, said: 'The gunman pointed the handgun at staff and told them to get down.

'The others smashed the display cabinets and took 31 watches and the best makes were targeted.'

After just 31 seconds in the store they were gone, removing clothing and gloves as they left the scene.

Police recovered the clothes that had been left behind and found Viidemann’s DNA on them. Some of the stolen watches were later found on a coach in Dover.

Viidemann, 35, fled the country and ended up back in Estonia. He was finally detained on a European arrest warrant in his home city of Tallinn, the Estonian capital, last October.

Ragga, 26, and Sarik, 22, went on to carry out robberies at other Berry’s stores in Chester and Windsor. They were both jailed for 11 years at earlier hearings elsewhere.

Too late: Police outside the high-class jewellers after the robbery

The court heard Viidemann had a conviction in his homeland for aggravated murder for gain and robbery, for which he was jailed for 10 years in 1998.

In that offence he and four others beat a man to death to steal from him.

Judge Forster asked how he had got into this country, but prosecutors did not know. The Border Agency will be informed of his latest conviction.

Andrew Rutter, defending Viidemann, said: 'His involvement in this robbery came about because he had fallen on hard times in Estonia.

'It was not his scheme but he accepts he lent himself to it.'

Members of the organised crime gang have struck across Europe and five other robbers have previously been jailed for a total of more than 55 years.

The ring was linked to at least 150 armed robberies across the UK and Europe.

Jewellers were targeted in places including Leeds, Manchester, the West Midlands, London, Cheshire and Newcastle, while they also carried out raids in Germany, Sweden, Italy and Finland.

Detectives from Monaco even flew to Britain to quiz a member of the gang over a $75,000 raid on a Monte Carlo jewellers.

Police believed the gang stole watches worth more than £1million in total, few of which were ever recovered.

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Gang Member Pleads Not Guilty In Stabbing Death

 

documented gang member accused of stabbing a transient 19 times after the defendant issued a gang challenge to the victim pleaded not guilty Thursday to a murder charge. Josue Hernandez Gutierrez, 20, was ordered held in lieu of $1 million bail in connection with the slaying of 48-year-old Emiliano Cortez of San Diego. Gutierrez was arrested Monday outside a friend's College area home. Deputy District Attorney Kristian Trocha told Judge David Szumowski that Gutierrez and a 14-year-old boy attacked Cortez about 4:45 a.m. Saturday as he was walking in the 3700 block of T Street, about a half-mile from the home where the victim lived with relatives. Gutierrez issued a gang challenge, and for some reason, the victim responded that he was from a rival gang, the prosecutor said. The defendant then stabbed the victim 19 times, including 10 to the back, Trocha said. Cortez died Saturday night, according to the prosecutor. The 14-year-old was arrested Tuesday at a Chula Vista residence. His case is being handled in Juvenile Court. Police disclosed no suspected motive for the slaying, except that it was believed to be gang-related. There was no evidence that a robbery or other crime was involved, San Diego police Lt. Kevin Rooney said. Residents of the area where the killing happened told investigators a loud argument and a man's screams prompted them to look outside, at which point they saw someone lying on a sidewalk and two people running off to the east. It was unclear why Cortez was walking through the inner-city neighborhood just east of downtown San Diego, though he apparently was not on his way home. Gutierrez was charged with murder, a gang allegation and the use of a knife. He faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted. A status conference was set for March 1 and a preliminary hearing for March 7.

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Mongols Motorcycle Gang Member Convicted of Murdering President of San Francisco Hells Angels

 

federal jury found Christopher Bryan Ablett, a/k/a “Stoney,” a member of the Modesto Chapter of the Mongols outlaw motorcycle gang, guilty of all four felonies with which he was charged including murder in aid of racketeering, assault with a deadly weapon in aid of racketeering, using a firearm during a crime of violence, and using a firearm causing murder during a crime of violence, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced. The charges stemmed from the defendant’s gang-related murder of Mark “Papa” Guardado, the president of the San Francisco Chapter of the Hells Angels, on September 2, 2008, at 24th Street and Treat Avenue in the Mission District of San Francisco. Evidence at trial showed that Ablett traveled to San Francisco to visit a friend. He was armed with a foot-long military knife and a .357 magnum revolver. Ablett brought with him a Mongols full-patch vest and t-shirt that only a full member of the Mongols is allowed to wear. According to testimony from Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives (ATF) gang expert Special Agent John Ciccone, and former Mongols undercover ATF Special Agent Darrin Kozlowski who infiltrated the gang, the Mongols are an organized criminal motorcycle gang whose primary rival is the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. When word traveled to Guardado that the defendant was wearing a Mongols patch shirt in a bar in the Mission, Guardado went to the street outside the bar and approached Ablett. A fight broke out during which Ablett stabbed Guardado four times and shot him twice, killing him. According to the testimony of FBI Special Agent Jacob Millspaugh, the case agent, the defendant’s phone records showed that he spent the next several hours calling people who were identified as members of the Mongols—showing that he was reaching out as part of the Mongols communication network. The jury rejected the defendant’s defenses of self-defense, defense of his friends, and heat of passion after the defendant took the stand and testified. The jury also found that the defendant murdered Guardado to maintain or increase his position in the Mongols gang, and that the Mongols engaged in racketeering activity. Ablett is scheduled to be sentenced on May 15, 2012. He faces a possible sentence of three terms of life in prison plus 10 mandatory consecutive years, a $1 million fine, and five years of supervised release. Specifically, for the charge of murder in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 United StatesC. § 1959, Ablett faces a mandatory minimum sentence of life without parole. For the charge of assault with a deadly weapon in aid of racketeering, in violation of 18 United StatesC. § 1959, Ablett faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. For the charge of using a firearm during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 United StatesC. § 924(c), Ablett faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. And for the charge of using a firearm causing murder during a crime of violence, in violation of 18 United StatesC. § 924(j), Ablett faces a maximum sentence of life in prison. However, any sentence following conviction would be imposed by the court after consideration of the United States Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statute governing the imposition of a sentence, 18 United StatesC. § 3553. The case was prosecuted by former Assistant United States Attorney Christine Wong, Assistant United States Attorneys Kathryn Haun, Wilson Leung and William Frentzen, paralegal specialist Lili ArauzHaase, legal techs Marina Ponomarchuk, Daniel Charlier-Smith, and Ponly Tu, all of the Organized Crime Strike Force and Violent Crime Section of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, and the San Francisco Police Department.

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Forces open fire on Kerobokan jail, which houses Schapelle Corby and the Bali Nine

 

INMATES at an Indonesian prison in Bali, which holds 12 Australians, have taken over the jail again after a second night of riots. Some 400 heavily armed police and military forces were gathered outside the overcrowded Kerobokan prison, which holds 1,000 inmates, including 12 Australians convicted of drug smuggling. "The prisoners took over the prison again, which forced security personnel to fire warning shots into the air," provincial military command spokesman Wing Handoko told AFP. "The rioters wanted their friends being treated in the hospital to be taken back because they were afraid they would be mistreated by security forces," he added. An AFP reporter heard three minutes of continuous gunfire, but it was not clear if there were any casualties. A flaming torch made of rags wrapped around a pole was flung from inside the prison and landed near a television vehicle, but was extinguished before the fire could spread.  Riots continue in Kerobokan prison The prison was without light because electricity, cut off during Tuesday's rioting, still had not been restored by authorities. "There are 51 foreign prisoners from 17 countries at the prison. We will give them special security if the situation warrants," Handoko said before the shooting. It was not clear whether the most recent riot was close to the wing where Australian or other foreign prisoners are housed. Shouting and the rattling of the prison's inner gates were heard before police opened fire, but after the shooting silence and darkness descended upon the jail with inmates and security forces in a tense stand-off. Heavily armed forces had stormed the prison early Wednesday to regain control after inmates took over the prison during a night of arson and stone-throwing. All 12 Australian prisoners at Kerobokan, including two on death row and six serving life sentences, were safe after that trouble, Australia's foreign ministry said after Indonesian police had regained control of the facility. Some 100 heavily armed police and military had stormed the jail on the holiday island at around dawn on Wednesday, firing volleys of rubber bullets. Officials said they intervened after attempts to negotiate with the rioting prisoners had failed, and after some inmates managed to get hold of firearms. Three inmates had been injured in the legs, and a police officer was lightly hurt, police said. Among the Australians at the jail are convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby and a group known as the "Bali Nine", who were caught attempting to smuggle drugs from Bali. Up to 1,000 armed security forces backed by armoured vehicles and water cannon were stationed Wednesday morning outside the jail, which is in a suburban area of Bali seven kilometres from the tourism hub of Kuta beach. But police said the situation had returned to normal by late afternoon, and that only about 30 armed personnel had remained outside. Police and local reports said Tuesday's trouble began when one inmate stabbed another prisoner on Sunday, touching off reprisals that erupted into a full-blown riot. Prisoners began trashing cells and throwing stones at the guards who were forced to abandon the jail - built for just 300 inmates but now housing more than three times that many prisoners, both male and female. Police said the inmates were in charge for more than seven hours - from around 11pm Tuesday until 6.45am the following morning. Prison staff said the jail's registration office, including the files of prisoners, was destroyed in a blaze. After the rioting Tuesday, Michael Chan whose brother Andrew Chan is one of the Bali Nine, said he was worried about his brother given that during a previous riot "things got pretty bad, and they were in lockdown for a couple of days". Corby's family said she was well, with the women's wing of the prison untouched by the violence. There have been a number of riots at the jail in recent years, including one triggered by a police drug raid in June. It is one of Indonesia's most notorious prisons, with a combustible mix of inmates including convicted murderers, sex offenders and others guilty of violent crimes.

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Sweden's Chicago grapples with deadly wave of shootings

A wave of execution-style shootings and a police station bombing in Sweden's third largest city have sparked fears that gangster violence is taking hold in a Nordic country widely seen as one of the world's safest places. Only minutes into the new year, a 15-year-old was found with gunshots to his chest and one to his head outside an apartment block in one of Malmo's poorest and most troubled districts, where firefighters have occasionally sought police protection. Eight killings have occurred across the city since a 36-year-old with links to organised crime was gunned down in a parking lot in May last year. The latest victim, a 48-year-old man, was found shot in a car at the end of January. None of the murders have been solved, and now some newspapers are calling Malmo "Sweden's Chicago". "Why don't police have better control?" national daily Svenska Dagbladet asked in an opinion piece, suggesting Malmo look to New York which slashed its crime rates in recent decades. For their part, police refuse to reach the conclusion that the bomb at the police station and the killings were definitely linked, which would gangland violence is out of control. "We believe it's linked to the prevalence of weapons. It is big. But I can't say why we have a larger share here than in Stockholm," Hans Nordin, Deputy Chief Commissioner of Police in the Skane region of southern Sweden, told Reuters. With a population of just 300,000, Malmo is one of Sweden's roughest cities, long a base for smugglers because of its proximity to Denmark, with which it has been connected by a bridge since July 2000. Roughly 40 percent of Malmo's population are first- or second-generation immigrants and one in three is unemployed, compared with a national rate under nine percent. Among young immigrants, the rate is nearly 40 percent. Formerly a prosperous industrial town, much of the old industry has declined and jobs have vanished. Gangs took root here decades ago, starting with motorcycle groups and increasingly dominated by immigrants, at first thanks to an influx in the 1990s of refugees of Balkan wars and then, over the past 20 years, immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and eastern Europe. SHAKING SWEDEN Along with the July 2011 killings of 77 people in Norway by right-wing fanatic Anders Breivik, the city's problems have helped to shatter the cherished image of Sweden as a refuge of safety and peace, sparking a national media debate, soul-searching throughout Sweden and street protests. Dozens of police reinforcements sent in this year are still in the city. "I'm thinking of leaving Malmo because it is getting more and more dangerous," said Henrik Hammar, 28, who stocks shelves at a grocery store and was awakened when a small bomb exploded at the police station in his neighbourhood at the end of January, close to where the latest victim was found. "When it comes to shooting, we are used to that in Malmo. But not bombs," Hammar said outside the police station with a shattered window and a hole torn in its brick wall. The bombing happened in Fosie district, a centre of the violence. The wave of killings since May is not the first to shake Malmo. Peter Mangs was arrested in 2010 on suspicion of three murders and 13 attempted murders over a seven-year period, a string of shootings on Malmo's streets targeting immigrants. Luciano Astudillo, a Chilean-born former MP who was moved by the New Year's Day shooting to launch a campaign to say "Enough is enough," compared the crime wave to the violence that plagues Mexican border towns. "We have the same problem here as in the north of Mexico though on a smaller scale," he said, pointing to the drug and weapons smuggling that pass through Malmo from Denmark on their way to the rest of Scandinavia. "So it is logical for the gangs to gather here and fight each other," he said. Astudillo said he hopes the protests he has helped lead, including a street demonstration by more than 6,000 people on January 6, will make politicians notice what is happening. "I don't think murders will become more and more frequent in the near future, but there is nothing that indicates things will improve a bit longer-term," said Tobias Barkman, a crime reporter at regional daily Sydsvenska Dagbladet. "Society has fallen behind - with regards to the police and to the social situation. It's hard to see any rays of hope."

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Violent gangs are deeply entrenched in Spanish Town, just west of Kingston, and in some residential sections of the northwestern parish of St. James, which includes the resort city of Montego Bay.

 

 Fighting between the gangs for control of drug trafficking and extortion rackets has long been blamed for the majority of Jamaica’s homicides. Police Commissioner Owen Ellington said at a news conference with Bunting that much of the security forces’ resources are now focused on trying to contain 42 active gang conflicts. Ellington told reporters that the Shower Posse gang, which was controlled by convicted drug kingpin Christopher “Dudus” Coke from his slum stronghold of Tivoli Gardens, has been significantly hobbled since his capture in June 2010 but remains an active gang in West Kingston. Bunting said Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller’s nearly two-month-old government intends to fast-track anti-gang legislation and is crafting a new security policy meant to reduce crime to “First World levels” by 2017, when he hopes to have a maximum of just 321 killings. A U.N. study on the Caribbean released earlier this month said Jamaica has had the world’s third-highest murder rate over the past decade, with about 60 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. Jamaica loses some $529 million a year due to crime, according to the report. Last year, Jamaica had 1,125 slayings, a roughly 22 percent drop from the 1,442 killings in 2010. A record 1,683 people were killed in 2009. Bunting said a major goal is to target gang kingpins and facilitators for organized criminal networks, not the people lower down the chain. Many of those arrested in previous years have been underlings who had little connection to gang leadership. Such workers are easily replaced. “We don’t always want to be chasing out the symptoms, we want to get to the infection,” he told reporters at the prime minister’s offices. Bunting intends to create a task force to identify and arrest crime facilitators, such as accountants, real estate brokers, lawyers and corrupt public officials. He also hopes to give courts greater power to seize their assets. He also said Jamaican society must undergo “mental reconditioning” to encourage more people to report crimes. Those who live in Jamaica’s slums are deeply distrustful of the police and authorities, and an anti-informant culture is widespread.

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Bolivian minibus gang murdered up to 69 people on their way to work

 

Police in Bolivia are blaming a gang for a spate of early morning murders in Bolivia where people have been strangled on minibuses while heading into work. Up to 69 people have been killed and dozens more were left for dead in El Alto, a working class city of one million people on an arid plateau above Bolivia's capital, La Paz. "This kind of assault came about because people, by necessity, take whatever transport they can get," said Felix Rocha, chief of Bolivia's police. Gang members would ride the buses posing as passengers, police said. After their victims had boarded, they were strangled with a rope or scarf and stripped of valuables that often amounted to little more than a mobile phone and the clothes on their backs. A 64-year-old man who said he survived an attack by the gang, recounted leaving his house at 4am on 5 February on his way to the bank where he collects his monthly pension. He said he boarded what he thought was a public transit minibus and as usual, his 25-cent fare was collected by "a cholita," or indigenous woman. "They had me sit in the front and suddenly I felt a scarf tightening around my neck. I fought back but they hit me in the ribs and face and I fell unconscious," said the man, who asked to be identified only by first name, Macario, because he fears for his safety. "I woke up later in a dumpster," Macario added. Gone was his mobile phone and the equivalent of £35 in the local currency. Police last week announced the arrest of eight alleged members of the gang, ranging in age from 30 to 45 and including a woman, Yuli Gutierrez Jimenez. Rocha said police seized four 14-seat minibuses used by the gang. Most of the killings occurred between 4am and 6am, when public transport is relatively scarce and only 400 police are on duty in the entire city, which is mostly unpaved and where many neighbourhoods lack running water and electricity. The gang is believed to have killed 69 people whose bodies have been found over the past 13 months, said Rocha, though prosecutor Santos Valencia said investigators are still trying to determine if the group was responsible for all those deaths. More than 70 people told police they had survived attacks after recognising gang members in local media reports, Rocha said. Other such gangs are known to exist, but the minibus gang seems to have been the best organised and most methodical, he added. Its alleged leader, Julio Edwin Valdez, 33, was arrested last week. Also captured was Galo Mamani, the bus's driver. Prosecutors said the two face murder charges but offered few other details. Valencia told reporters that police found wallets and the clothes of victims in the homes of those detained. Authorities did not say how they tracked down the alleged criminals. Rocha said police were investigating whether the group was also involved in the recent murders of several taxi drivers whose vehicles were stolen after the drivers were strangled.

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Bloodstained Saturday in Mexico leaves 14 dead

 

Fourteen people were killed in gun violence in northern and central Mexico on Saturday, authorities said. In the metropolitan area of prosperous and industrial Monterrey, two police were among those slain in the early morning hours in a clash with unidentified assailants. “There was a chase situation. A car with four men in it went up alongside the police patrol car and opened fire,” a source with the state investigating unit told AFP. After a car chase the two police and another victim were slain in Apodaca, officials said. In troubled Ciudad Juarez, in the northern state of Chihuahua on the US border, prosecutors said two men were shot in the head and had signs of torture. In the south of the state, in the town of Parral, three bodies were found along a highway with a sign authorities said appeared to refer to ongoing clashes among rival drug gangs. In the state capital Chihuahua, two people were shot dead by gunmen in a vehicle as the victims stood watch near a hospital. And in the town of Ecapatec, in Mexico state, four men were gunned down in the early morning hours by a group of unidentified gunmen. Some 50,000 people have died in suspected drug violence since President Felipe Calderon began a military crackdown on organized crime in December 2006, according to media counts and official figures.

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Turf War in Central Mexico Leaves 8 Dead

Eight homicides earlier this week in the central Mexican state of Guanajuato stem from a turf battle between rival drug cartels, officials said, noting that one of the gangs claimed responsibility for the slayings by leaving threatening messages next to five of the bodies. All of the victims were killed with firearms under very similar circumstances, state Attorney General Carlos Zamarripa Aguirre said. The most recent slaying occurred Thursday in the city of Acambaro, where a message was discovered that is “practically identical to the others that were found,” Zamarripa said. According to the state Attorney General’s Office, three people were killed in the municipality of Apaseo el Alto and one each in the cities of Celaya, Cortazar, Villagran, Acambaro and Salvatierra. Investigators found signs apparently signed by the Los Caballeros Templarios drug cartel at the crime scenes in Apaseo el Alto, Celaya and Villagran, officials said. The murders come approximately a month before Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to visit Guanajuato and a week after the discovery of 18 “drug messages” signed by Los Caballeros Templarios that ordered a rival gang to leave the state and avoid “generating violence” during the pontiff’s stay. Los Caballeros Templarios warned the Nueva Generacion cartel that “confrontations will be inevitable” and told its rivals to leave Guanajuato in peace. Neither gang, however, is based in that state, which has largely been spared the drug-related violence that has ravaged other parts of Mexico. The pope is scheduled to stay at the Colegio Miraflores in the Guanajuato city of Leon during his visit to Mexico. Benedict XVI will celebrate an open-air Mass in the morning on March 25 at the city of Silao’s Guanajuato Bicentenario Park, an outdoor venue that it is expected will accommodate about 750,000 people, who will need a ticket to enter, officials said. The pontiff is scheduled to visit three cities in Guanajuato state during his time in Mexico and will continue on to Santiago, Cuba.

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Detectives investigating McNally's cold-blooded shooting in the first gang murder of the year now believe the chief suspect also killed his brother in February, 2009

. And, that the gun-for-hire carried out the pub murder of Paul ‘Farmer' Martin over three years ago. Our CCTV footage shows him entering the Jolly Toper bar in Finglas to carry out the hit on 39-year-old Martin in August, 2008. Five months later, Graham McNally's body was found in a ditch on the former Dublin to Derry road -- he had been shot at least five times in the head. "There are links to suggest that all three murders were carried out by the same man," said a source. "Alan McNally's fatal mistake was when he swore to avenge his brother's death." SHOT He was shot six times in the Cappagh Nua pub in Finglas on February 2 in a killing that was dubbed the Love/Hate murder because of its similarly to a scene from the RTE drama. As the garda probe intensified they questioned a sister and niece of the chief suspect but they were later released without charge. Detectives made a major breakthrough in the case when they obtained CCTV linking relatives of the chief suspect to the crime scene. However, they have still not recovered the handgun used to shoot Alan McNally six times. The Herald previously revealed that McNally was murdered on the order of a violent thug who himself survived an assassination attempt in December 2010. McNally (36), from Cappagh Avenue, Finglas, had been warned by gardai that his life was under threat after rowing with criminal elements in Finglas and Coolock. He had been warned by gardai to be inconspicuous as they feared there was an imminent danger to his life. However, sources say that he ignored gardai and publicly boasted about getting revenge for his brother's death. This is thought to have led his killers to adopt a "let's get him first" approach. Graham was 34 when he was shot dead by slain crimelord Eamon 'The Don' Dunne's gang in January 2009. Alan was in jail at the time after he had a falling out with his former close associate Dunne who had suspected that he was trying to murder him. He was only released last October having served five and a half years for having €200,000 worth of heroin. Sources say that despite the warnings he made himself an easy target for a gunman by drinking in the same pub for 14 hours. Gardai are anxious to apprehend the hitman who could also be responsible for other gangland assaults in the city. 'Farmer' Martin was a known criminal believed to have been involved in over a dozen bank robberies in the late 1980s and 1990s. Speaking at his funeral, Paul Martin's local priest branded his killers as "sick people not fit to be called men".

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'IRA' drug-gang linked to double British murder

The "IRA" gang referred to in a British murder trial last week as running the drugs trade in Liverpool is almost certainly a mixture of local gangsters and their Dublin and Limerick-based associates, gardai believe. The mention of the gang came in the murder trial of Thomas Haigh, 26, who was convicted last week of the double murder of two men referred to as gangland "enforcers", David Griffiths, 35, and Brett Flournoy, 31. Both men were shot dead, their bodies burned in a car and then buried on a remote Cornwall farm in June of last year. The court heard that Haigh was a low-level member of a Liverpool drugs gang. He said he had been forced to carry out a drugs run to South America and to oversee the cultivation of cannabis plants at the farm in Cornwall to pay off a €40,000 debt to the gang which he insisted, in statements to police, was run by the IRA. When the two enforcers came to the farm there was a confrontation and Haigh shot the two dead and buried their bodies. He was convicted by a jury at Truro Crown Court last Tuesday and sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 35 years. In the UK a minimum term is the set time a prisoner must serve before he or she is eligible for parole. Garda sources last week said there has never been any evidence of an organisational link between the IRA and drugs criminals in the UK, but they are aware that former IRA members, including members of one well known family with both IRA and criminal links in south inner Dublin, has links to organised crime and drug dealers in Liverpool and the Midlands of Britain. These links, gardai say, go back for at least two decades and one of Liverpool's biggest drug dealers also was a close associate and bought drugs off John Gilligan and his gang. After Gilligan's gang was broken up during the investigation into the murder of Veronica Guerin in 1996 these links continued. Gardai know there were strong links developed by the major Dublin and Liverpool gangs as they rubbed shoulders in Costa del Sol holiday resorts where they owned villas. Liverpool, Dublin, Limerick and even Belfast-based ex-loyalists all became interlinked as they shared drug trafficking operations. Over the past two decades there have been persistent disputes and dozens of murders in the UK, Spain and Holland -- the centre of drug trafficking in Europe. Gardai said the most likely figures that Thomas Haigh was referring to as the "IRA" in Liverpool are members and associates of a south Dublin family-centred gang with close links to the criminal "Fat" Freddie Thompson. This family and their close associates are central to the drugs supply in Dublin and have well-established links with UK criminals. Ironically, gardai point out, the same IRA and Sinn Fein figures were closely involved in the anti-drugs movement known as "Concerned Parents Against Drugs" which was active in Dublin in the Eighties, picketing the homes of heroin dealers and carrying out vigilante attacks. During the Nineties this IRA group eventually became involved in extorting money from certain drug traffickers and then became centrally involved in drug trafficking. One of their associated former IRA families from Ballyfermot in Dublin became one of the biggest suppliers of heroin in the State, at one stage using private jets to import large quantities of pure heroin supplied by Dutch-based Eastern European traffickers. The major Irish drugs cartel in Spain, broken up by joint Spanish and European police action in the summer of 2010 also had strong links to Liverpool and London gangs. Gardai believe that the "IRA" associates of the Liverpool gang, referred to in the Haigh trial, are almost certainly the "ordinary" Dublin traffickers and their associates who were formerly in the IRA but who have continued "trading" on the IRA name in order to scare opponents. On Friday convicted drug dealer John Gilligan was given a further six-month sentence by the Special Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to possession of a mobile phone at Portlaoise District Court in 2010.

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Pair Of Late Night Shootings In Coachella Valley

 

Two shootings happened within minutes of each other in the Coachella Valley Saturday night. The first, a drive-by in a Cathedral City neighborhood, according to police. It happened around 8:30 P.M. near the intersection of Shifting Sands and Ortega. A vehicle pulled up along side a car and someone inside the first vehicle opened fire, hitting a man inside the car, said officers on scene. The suspect vehicle then took off before officers arrived on scene. Emergency crews took the victim to the hospital, but there is no word yet on his condition. Investigators have not provided a suspect description, nor have they provided any information on the suspect's vehicle. The second shooting also happened around 8:30 P.M., this one in Coachella. Two men shot at a home on the 1600 block of 6th Street, according to the Riverside County Sheriff's Department. Deputies arrested the suspects, but are not releasing their names. No one was hurt in this incident. If you know anything about either of these shootings, call Valley Crimestoppers at 760 341-STOP. You can remain anonymous and could receive up to a $1,000 reward. PrintEmail

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FOUR men have pleaded guilty in a New York federal court to charges linked to the Gambino crime family.

 

The charges result from a variety of activities including assault, loansharking, drug trafficking and trying to recruit illegal aliens to work in adult entertainment clubs. The US Justice Department described the four, Alphonse Trucchio, Michael Roccaforte, Anthony Moscatiello and Christopher Colon, as being "a captain, two soldiers and an associate of the Gambino organised crime family of La Cosa Nostra." Attorney Preet Bharara said, "For those who believe La Cosa Nostra's criminal activities and influence are on the decline, the sweeping charges in this case and today's guilty pleas should disabuse them of that notion". According to the Justice Department, Trucchio and Gambino family captain Louis Mastrangelo - who had previously pleaded guilty to criminal charges - supervised crews of street level criminals, known as soldiers and associates. From the late 1980s through 2010, Trucchio and his associates oversaw the Gambino family's narcotics distribution network, which was based in Queens, New York, the Justice Department reported. "Numerous drug suppliers, wholesalers and street dealers operated under the authority and protection of the Gambino family, in exchange for paying the family a portion of their profits," it said in a statement. Drugs they distributed included cocaine, marijuana, ecstasy and the narcotic pain killer, Vicodin. The accused men's other illegal activities included extorting payments from business owners and strip clubs, stabbing one person and hitting another with a car while trying to collect a debt and operating illegal gambling enterprises. Charges are pending against 11 more defendants.

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Bankrupt Irish tycoon Quinn could face jail

 

Ireland's onetime richest man could face jail after a state bank launched contempt proceedings against him on Friday, saying he was blocking it from seizing hundreds of millions of euros of properties in eastern Europe and Central America. The Irish Banking Resolution Corporation (IBRC) asked the High Court to declare former billionaire Sean Quinn in contempt for violating an order not to interfere with foreign property assets worth an estimated 500 million euros. Quinn, who has come to personify the rapid unravelling of Ireland's "Celtic Tiger" economy, could be jailed if he is found to have breached the July High Court order. Quinn, 65, turned a rural quarrying operation on his family farm into a 4 billion euro globe-spanning empire. But he lost over 1 billion euros in a disastrous investment in Anglo Irish Bank shortly before the bank collapsed under the weight of failed property loans and he was declared bankrupt in a Dublin court last month. IBRC, which was created from the remains of Anglo Irish Bank, accused Quinn of stripping assets from foreign-based companies to prevent it from securing money it is owed. IBRC faces "a very substantial loss" if it fails to secure assets in Russia, Ukraine and Belize, Paul Gallagher, senior counsel for IBRC said. "The effects of what we say is the contempt, is continuing to happen, happening very quickly and the damage which we are trying to stop will have happened in other jurisdictions," Gallagher said. The application for a contempt order also named Quinn's son Sean Jnr and his nephew Peter Quinn. A barrister representing the Quinn family said they denied breaching the injunction. The judge ordered a full hearing for March 21

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Record $6 Trillion of Fake U.S. Bonds Seized

 

Italian anti-mafia prosecutors said they seized a record $6 trillion of allegedly fake U.S. Treasury bonds, an amount that’s almost half of the U.S.’s public debt. The bonds were found hidden in makeshift compartments of three safety deposit boxes in Zurich, the prosecutors from the southern city of Potenza said in an e-mailed statement. The Italian authorities arrested eight people in connection with the probe, dubbed “Operation Vulcanica,” the prosecutors said. The U.S. embassy in Rome has examined the securities dated 1934, which had a nominal value of $1 billion apiece, they said in the statement. “Thanks to Italian authorities for the seizure of fictitious bonds for $6 trillion,” the embassy said in a message on Twitter. The financial fraud uncovered by the Italian prosecutors in Potenza includes two checks issued through HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) in London for 205,000 pounds ($325,000), checks that weren’t backed by available funds, the prosecutors said. As part of the probe, fake bonds for $2 billion were also seized in Rome. The individuals involved were planning to buy plutonium from Nigerian sources, according to phone conversations monitored by the police. The fraud posed “severe threats” to international financial stability, the prosecutors said in the statement. HSBC spokesman Patrick Humphris in London declined to comment when contacted by telephone. The U.S. Secret Service assisted the Italian authorities, spokesman Edwin Donovan said. Money Laundering Creating fake Treasuries is a “common scam, especially in Italy,” he said. The tipoff was the “astronomical” face value of each bond, he said. Fake bonds in high denominations are more common in Europe, where people are less familiar with the face value of U.S. Treasury bonds than in the U.S., he said. Zurich’s public prosecutor’s office provided material to their Italian counterparts in Potenza in 2011, according to Corinne Bouvard, a spokeswoman for the senior public prosecutor’s office of the canton of Zurich. The Swiss part of the investigation ended on July 22, she said. The Italian investigation initially focused on a Sicilian who was living in Potenza and was “already known for money laundering and exporting currency abroad,” according to the statement from the Potenza prosecutor’s office. Phony U.S. securities have been seized in Italy before and there were at least three cases in 2009. Italian police seized phony U.S. Treasury bonds with a face value of $116 billion in August of 2009 and $134 billion of similar securities in June of that year. The U.S. Secret Service averages about 100 cases a year related to bonds and other fictitious instruments.

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The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud”

 

The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud” — by far the province’s largest agricultural crop — is controlled largely by Asian and biker gangs.  Grow operations have led to gang warfare in what were once peaceful Fraser Valley farm towns. “The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight,” wrote the former B.C. AG’s,  “massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety and significant and escalating costs to taxpayers.” Four former Vancouver mayors signed a similar letter recently, which was endorsed by the city’s current Mayor Gregor Robertson. Prominent law enforcement figures, including Mandigo and ex-U.S. Attorney John McKay, are backing I-502 on this side of the border.

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The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud”

 

The lucrative illicit market in “B.C. Bud” — by far the province’s largest agricultural crop — is controlled largely by Asian and biker gangs.  Grow operations have led to gang warfare in what were once peaceful Fraser Valley farm towns. “The case demonstrating the failure and harms of marijuana prohibition is airtight,” wrote the former B.C. AG’s,  “massive profits for organized crime, widespread gang violence, easy access to illegal cannabis for our youth, reduced community safety and significant and escalating costs to taxpayers.” Four former Vancouver mayors signed a similar letter recently, which was endorsed by the city’s current Mayor Gregor Robertson. Prominent law enforcement figures, including Mandigo and ex-U.S. Attorney John McKay, are backing I-502 on this side of the border.

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Serbian fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, Russian Igor Russol and Moroccan Houssain Ait Taleb have made appearances in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.

 

 They have all been branded by police as underworld figures with links to organised crime. Yesterday, community safety MEC Dan Plato said he was concerned about these developments. "I am worried about the fact that so many high-profile underworld figures are involved in Cape Town. I am worried about the number of foreign nationals involved in organised crime in Cape Town. "My question is: why are all these foreign people heading for Cape Town, doing their business in Cape Town and finding Cape Town so cosy and appropriate?" Plato said new names of underworld figures were daily being added to the list "known to us". The latest high-profile case involves local businessmen Mark Lifman and André Naudé, who both allegedly ran Specialised Protection Services, providing security to Cape Town nightclubs, without the necessary permits. On Friday, Naudé, the company's CEO, was released on R1000 bail after handing himself over to police. A warrant of arrest has been issued against Lifman, who is in China on business. Charges against 13 of the company's bouncers, including Taleb, were dropped last week. Yesterday, Russol appeared in court accused of extorting R600000 and a Porsche Cayenne from businesses in and around Cape Town. His bail application was postponed to tomorrow. Next month, Gavric is set to appear in court on two cases. He is accused of fraudulently entering South Africa in 2007 and is also facing extradition to Serbia, where he has to serve a 35-year jail sentence for three murders. The Serb was driving Cyril Beeka when Beeka was killed in a drive-by shooting last year. Beeka, too, has been branded an underworld figure. He is also said to have had links to SA Secret Service boss Moe Shaik. Last week, Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer told parliament that drugs with a street value of R12-billion had been confiscated in the province since April , and that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Plato said that though police had managed to prevent drugs from finding their way into the provinces via the roads, the ports were "wide open". He said: "We heard through the grapevine that [some] underground figures are also responsible for drug trafficking. "We're dealing with high-profile, professional and sophisticated gang and drug bosses and we need people to outplay them. I do not believe the SAPS in its current format is in that position," he said. Plato said this was a clear indication that specialised police units should be reinstated. Plato said he had met Lifman and businessman Jerome Booysen, who have both been linked to the underworld. Booysen has been fingered in court as a possible suspect in the Beeka murder. He has also been linked to Specialised Protection Services and suspected of being a leader of the Sexy Boys gang. Both men, Plato said, wanted to clear their names and insisted they were not involved in crime. He admitted that he had been criticised for meeting the two, but said it was the right thing to do. "Many are saying: 'Don't speak to gangsters.' My take is, if we are not going to start speaking to these people, who is going to talk to them? Who is going to change their mindsets? "Booysen is the president of the Belhar Rugby Football Club. He deals with vulnerable youngsters. It was appropriate for me to face him and challenge him. But he said: 'I'm not giving them drugs'." Plato said Lifman had denied being linked to the murder of Yuri "the Russian" Ulianitski. Ulianitski was killed in a late-night ambush that also claimed the life of his four-year-old daughter, Yulia, in May 2007. After meeting Plato, Lifman left the country. Lawyer William Booth confirmed a warrant of arrest had been issued against him. Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said the elite unit had embarked on a "crackdown on the security industry in Cape Town".

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Serbian fugitive Dobrosav Gavric, Russian Igor Russol and Moroccan Houssain Ait Taleb have made appearances in the Cape Town Magistrate's Court.

 

 They have all been branded by police as underworld figures with links to organised crime. Yesterday, community safety MEC Dan Plato said he was concerned about these developments. "I am worried about the fact that so many high-profile underworld figures are involved in Cape Town. I am worried about the number of foreign nationals involved in organised crime in Cape Town. "My question is: why are all these foreign people heading for Cape Town, doing their business in Cape Town and finding Cape Town so cosy and appropriate?" Plato said new names of underworld figures were daily being added to the list "known to us". The latest high-profile case involves local businessmen Mark Lifman and André Naudé, who both allegedly ran Specialised Protection Services, providing security to Cape Town nightclubs, without the necessary permits. On Friday, Naudé, the company's CEO, was released on R1000 bail after handing himself over to police. A warrant of arrest has been issued against Lifman, who is in China on business. Charges against 13 of the company's bouncers, including Taleb, were dropped last week. Yesterday, Russol appeared in court accused of extorting R600000 and a Porsche Cayenne from businesses in and around Cape Town. His bail application was postponed to tomorrow. Next month, Gavric is set to appear in court on two cases. He is accused of fraudulently entering South Africa in 2007 and is also facing extradition to Serbia, where he has to serve a 35-year jail sentence for three murders. The Serb was driving Cyril Beeka when Beeka was killed in a drive-by shooting last year. Beeka, too, has been branded an underworld figure. He is also said to have had links to SA Secret Service boss Moe Shaik. Last week, Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Arno Lamoer told parliament that drugs with a street value of R12-billion had been confiscated in the province since April , and that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Plato said that though police had managed to prevent drugs from finding their way into the provinces via the roads, the ports were "wide open". He said: "We heard through the grapevine that [some] underground figures are also responsible for drug trafficking. "We're dealing with high-profile, professional and sophisticated gang and drug bosses and we need people to outplay them. I do not believe the SAPS in its current format is in that position," he said. Plato said this was a clear indication that specialised police units should be reinstated. Plato said he had met Lifman and businessman Jerome Booysen, who have both been linked to the underworld. Booysen has been fingered in court as a possible suspect in the Beeka murder. He has also been linked to Specialised Protection Services and suspected of being a leader of the Sexy Boys gang. Both men, Plato said, wanted to clear their names and insisted they were not involved in crime. He admitted that he had been criticised for meeting the two, but said it was the right thing to do. "Many are saying: 'Don't speak to gangsters.' My take is, if we are not going to start speaking to these people, who is going to talk to them? Who is going to change their mindsets? "Booysen is the president of the Belhar Rugby Football Club. He deals with vulnerable youngsters. It was appropriate for me to face him and challenge him. But he said: 'I'm not giving them drugs'." Plato said Lifman had denied being linked to the murder of Yuri "the Russian" Ulianitski. Ulianitski was killed in a late-night ambush that also claimed the life of his four-year-old daughter, Yulia, in May 2007. After meeting Plato, Lifman left the country. Lawyer William Booth confirmed a warrant of arrest had been issued against him. Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela said the elite unit had embarked on a "crackdown on the security industry in Cape Town".

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drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day

 

2,000 police are hunkering down in hotels in Mexico's most violent city of Ciudad Juarez after a drug gang threatened to kill an officer per day if their chief refused to resign. Eleven police officers, including four commanders, have already been killed in the city across from El Paso, Texas, since the start of the year. The city's mayor this week ordered police to use several local hotels as temporary barracks to protect themselves from attacks on the way home from work in the city at the heart of Mexican drug violence that has left 50,000 dead in five years. Mayor Hector Murguia said Tuesday that they would stay in hotels for at least three months, with 1.5 million dollars put aside to pay for it. Murguia stood by his police chief, Julian Leyzaola, a controversial former soldier who has also been asked to resign by human rights groups for his alleged heavy-handed policing. "The chances that he (Leyzaola) resigns or that they force him to resign are zero percent," the mayor told journalists. At the entrance to the Rio motel, on Las Torres avenue, several patrols stand guard to protect access to the improvised barracks, as others monitor vehicles passing by. Last week, several banners signed by the "New Cartel of Juarez" appeared around the city of 1.3 million, to announce the killing of a police officer each day as long as Leyzaola stayed in charge of the local police. Some of the messages also accused the police chief of protecting another group, "New Generation," allied to powerful Sinaloa drug cartel of fugitive billionaire Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. According to the mayor, the threats only showed how concerned the drug gangs were in the face of Leyzaola. Murders fell to less than 2,000 in the city in 2011 -- the year Leyzaola took control -- from 3,100 in 2010. Key leaders of city gangs like the "Aztecas" were also captured. Leyzaola already provoked controversy when he led police in another Mexican border city, Tijuana in northwest Mexico. Authorities lauded him for reducing crime there but organizations such as Amnesty International sought to put him on trial for the alleged torture of prisoners, backed by witness accounts from at least 25 police. Since Leyzaola took over the local police in Ciudad Juarez in March 2011, the Chihuahua state human rights commission has recorded 37 complaints against him, including for abuse of authority and arbitrary detentions. Gustavo de la Rosa, a commission member, told AFP that the police "were told to arrest anyone who looked like a criminal or became nervous on seeing someone in uniform." The business community of Ciudad Juarez -- the base of almost 20 percent of Mexico's manufacturing industry -- support the police chief, however. "It's clear that we have to stop the violence continuing, particularly murders of police. We have to look for means to reinforce the local police," said Alejandro Seade, director of the city's chamber of commerce.

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Twenty seconds of shooting, 432 bullets, five dead policemen.

 

 Four of the corpses are sprawled over a shiny new Dodge Ram pickup truck that has been pierced so many times it resembles a cheese grater. The bodies are contorted in the unnatural poses of the dead - arms arched over spines, legs spread out sideways. The bloodied fifth man is lying three metres from the pickup. His eyes are wide open, his right hand stretched upward clasping a 9mm pistol - a death pose that could have been set up for a Hollywood film. It is a balmy evening in Culiacan, Sinaloa, near Mexico's Pacific Coast. The policemen had stopped at a red light when the gunmen attacked, shooting from the side and back, unleashing bullets in split seconds. A customized Kalashnikov can fire 100 rounds in 10 seconds. This is a lightning war. I arrive 10 minutes after the shooting and a crowd of onlookers is already thickening. "That one is a Kalashnikov bullet. That one is from an AR15," says a skinny boy in a baseball cap, pointing at a long silvery shell next to a shorter gold one. Besides them, middle-aged couples, old men and mothers with small children gawk at the morbid display. The local press corps huddles together, checking photos on their viewfinders. They are relaxed, cheery; this is their daily bread. A battered Ford Focus speeds through the crowd. The wife of one of the victims jumps out and starts screaming hysterically. Her swinging arms are held back by her brother, his eyes red with tears. It is only when I see the pained look on their faces that the loss of human life really sinks in. Anyone with half an eye on the news knows that Mexico is in the midst of a drug war, with rival cartels battling for control of a multibillion-dollar trade in the United States. The country is so deep in blood it is getting harder to shock the locals. Even the kidnapping and killing of nine policemen, or a pile of craniums in a town plaza, isn't big news. Only the most sensational atrocities now grab media attention: a grenade attack on revellers celebrating Independence Day; an old silver mine filled with 56 decaying corpses, some of the victims thrown in alive; the kidnapping and shooting of 72 migrants, including a pregnant woman. In the five years of President Felipe Calderon's administration, the government admitted earlier this month, the drug war has claimed 47,500 lives, including 3,000 public servants - policemen, soldiers, judges, mayors and dozens of federal officials. Such a murder rate compares to the most lethal insurgent forces in the world - and is certainly more deadly than Hamas, Eta, or the IRA in its entire three decades of armed struggle. The nature of the attacks is even more intimidating. Mexican gangsters regularly shower police stations with bullets and rocket-propelled grenades; they carry out mass kidnappings of officers and leave their mutilated bodies on public display; they even kidnapped one mayor, tied him up and stoned him to death on a main street. I originally travelled to Latin America with the goal of being a foreign correspondent in exotic climes. The Oliver Stone film Salvador inspired me with its story of reporters dodging bullets in the Central American civil wars. But by the turn of the millennium, the days of military dictators and communist insurgents were no more. We were now, apparently, in a golden age of democracy and free trade. I arrived in Mexico in 2000 the day before Vicente Fox, the former Coca-Cola executive president, was sworn into office, ending 71 years of rule by the Institutional Revolutionary Party. This was a titanic moment in Mexican history, a seismic shift in its political plates, a time of optimism and celebration. The clique who ravaged the country and lined their pockets for most of the 20th century had fallen from power. Ordinary Mexicans looked forward to enjoying the fruit of their hard work along with freedom and human rights. In the first years of the decade, no one saw the crisis ahead. The American media heaped high expectations on the cowboy-boot-wearing Fox as he entertained Kofi Annan and became the first Mexican to address a joint U.S. session of Congress. The first wave of serious cartel warfare began in the autumn of 2004 on the border with Texas and spread across the country. When Calderon took power in 2006 and declared war on these gangs, the violence multiplied overnight. The same system that promised Mexico hope was weak in controlling the most powerful mafias on the continent. The old regime may have been corrupt and authoritarian, but it could manage organized crime by taking down a token few gangsters and taxing the rest. Mexico's drug war is inextricably linked to the democratic transition. Its special-force soldiers became mercenaries for gangsters. Businessmen who used to pay off corrupt officials had to pay off mobsters. Police forces turned on one another - sometimes breaking into shootouts. Following the rise of the Mexican drug cartels has been a surreal - and tragic - journey. I have stumbled up mountains where drugs are born as pretty flowers; dined with lawyers who represent the biggest capos on the planet; and I got drunk with American undercover agents who infiltrate the cartels. I also sped through city streets to see too many bleeding corpses - and heard the words of too many mothers who had lost their sons, and with them their hearts. I have met the assassins, too; men like Jose Antonio from Ciudad Juarez, probably the most murderous city on the planet - just 11 kilometres from the border with the U.S. Jose stands just five foot six and has chocolate coloured skin, earning the nickname "frijol" or bean. He has a mop of black curly hair and bad acne, like many 17-year-olds. But despite his harmless demeanour, he has seen more killings than many soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Frijol came of age in a war zone. When Mexico's two most powerful gangs, the Zetas and Sinaloa cartels, began fighting in 2004, he was just 12 and joined a street gang in his slum. At 14, he was already involved in armed robberies, drug dealing and regular gun battles with rival gangs. At 16, police nabbed him for possession of a small arsenal of weapons and being an accessory to a drug-related murder. Frijol is typical of thousands of teenagers and young men. His parents hail from a country village, but joined the wave of immigrants that flocked to work in Juarez. They sweated on production lines making Japanese TV sets, American cosmetics and mannequins, for an average of $6 a day. It was a step up from growing corn in their village. But it was also a radical change in their lives. Frijol's parents still celebrated peasant folk days and macho country values. But he grew up in a sprawling city of 1.3 million where he could tune into American TV and see the skyscrapers of El Paso over the river. Contraband goods and guns flooded south and drugs went north. He was in between markets and in between worlds. While Frijol's parents slaved for long days in the factories, he was left for hours at home alone. He soon found company as part of a Juarez street gang or "barrio," the Calaberas, or skulls. "The gang becomes like your home, your family. It is where you find friendship and people to talk to. It is where you feel part of something. And you know the gang will back you up if you are in trouble." These barrios had been in Juarez for decades. New generations filled the ranks while veterans grew out of them. They had always fought rival gangs with sticks, stones, knives and guns. But a radical change occurred when the barrios were swept up into the wider drug cartel war. Frijol learned to use guns in the Calaberas. Arms moved around Juarez streets freely and every barrio had its arsenal. "There was a guy who had been in the barrio a few years before and was now working with the big people," explains Frijol. "He started offering jobs to the youngsters. The first jobs were just as lookouts or guarding tienditas (little drug shops). Then they started paying people to do the big jobs ... to kill." I ask how much the mafia pays to carry out murders. Frijol says one thousand pesos - about $77. The figure seems so ludicrous that I ask other active and former gang members. The price of a human life in Juarez is just $77. To traffic drugs is no huge step to the dark side. All kinds of people move narcotics and don't feel they crossed a red line. But to take a life for what amounts to enough to buy some tacos and a few beers over the week shows a terrifying degradation in society. I ask Frijol what it is like to be in fire fights, to see your friends die and to be an accessory to a murder. He answers unblinking. "Being in shootouts is pure adrenalin. But you see dead bodies and you feel nothing. There is killing every day. Some days, there are 10 executions; other days, there are 30. It is just normal now." I speak to Elizabeth Villegas, a psychologist. The teenagers with whom she works have murdered and raped. I ask, how does this hurt them psychologically? She stares at me as if she has not thought about it before. "They don't feel anything," she replies. "They just don't understand the pain that they have caused others. Most come from broken families. They don't recognize rules or limits." The teenagers know that, under Mexican law, minors can be sentenced to a maximum of only five years in prison no matter how many murders, kidnappings or rapes they have committed. Many convicted killers will be back on the streets before they turn 20. Frijol himself will be out when he is 19. But the law is the least of their worries; the mafias administer their own justice. Juarez cartel gunmen went to neighbourhoods where gang members had been recruited for the Sinaloans. It didn't matter that only two or three kids from the barrio had joined the mob; a death sentence was passed on the whole barrio. The Sinaloan mafia returned the favour on barrios that had joined the Juarez Cartel. Frijol recognizes that youth prison may be hard. But it is a lot safer there than on the streets now. "I keep hearing about friends who have been killed out there. Maybe I would be dead too. Prison could have saved my life." On the streets of Mexico, death was never far away. Five sources whose interviews helped to shape my book were later murdered or disappeared. One of them, the Honduran anti-drug chief Julian Aristides Gonzalez, gave me an interview in his office in the capital Tegucigalpa. The officer chatted for hours about the growth of Mexican drug gangs in Central America and the Colombians who provide them with narcotics. In his office were 140 kilos of seized cocaine and piles of maps and photographs showing clandestine landing strips and narco mansions. I was impressed by how open and frank Gonzalez was about his investigations and the political corruption they showed. Four days later, he gave a news conference showing his latest discoveries. Next day, he dropped his sevenyear-old daughter off at school. Assassins drove past on a motorcycle and fired 11 bullets into him. It turned out he had planned to retire in two months and move his family to Canada.

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