The men also had their hands severed and appeared to tortured to death. Ranked among Americas safest, cleanest towns, its praised for fiscal health by good-governance groups, and exalted for both its beaches and civic stability. Hed later tell the cops what the gunmen told him: Furcio was their target, and theyd botched the hit. On evenings and weekends, hed prowl the web for open-source leads on fugitives. It climbs the khaki foothills of the Otay Mountains as it takes the eastbound pass out of San Diego. People from Iguala, here are all those who extorted money and who were killing innocent people and women, the man says. Second: They were the lucky ones. Keep my wife and kids safe and why are there people like that in the world?, WITH NO SMALL HELP from CRIM Squad, El Teo was arrested at a La Paz address in January 2010. They could reach out and touch anyone on this side. (FTY, or failure to yield, is BP shorthand for high-speed pursuits.) 19 Mar 2021 0. Murders came down big-time; we set a record low that year, says Seven, the former police chief of the town. The brothers froze; one of them shrieked as men in balaclavas dragged them off. This story has been shared 107,512 times. I speak to Vargas shortly after the Tijuana burnings. Any violation of immigration law could take killers off the streets at a moments notice. Mexican authorities recovered the soccer ball from the footsteps of city hall in Ciudad Juarez. For most of the 1990s till the mid-to-late aughts, the AFO ran Tijuana, Mexico, like a Chicago slaughterhouse. They arrested 21 suspects and seized 14 guns that day, and confiscated 60 keys of coke and methamphetamine over the course of the operation. What he got was a small, stubby man in a faux-hawk, mouthing the standard mob subjunctives. (AP Photo/Claudio Cruz), A criminal investigator takes a picture of a body with a mask in the street, one of numerous murders over a 24 hour period, on March 26, 2010 in Juarez, Mexico. But Vargas brought more than a grinders grit: He was also, by nature, a connector. Lists about punishments, penalties, systemic harm, and execution methods used then, now, here, and all around the world. One of those collars was a guy named Anthony Zendejas, whom CRIM Squad popped holding a Molotov cocktail and an incendiary device. Copyright 2023 Penske Business Media, LLC. Lopez confessed to dissolving over 300 bodies in acid baths for the Tijuana cartel. 365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4. The murder rate has soared to peak-Teo levels. They all spoke fluent Spanish and could pass for sicarios minus the gold Breitlings and Jesus pieces. La Bandera is a cell of the notorious Guerreros Unidos syndicate, which was behind the kidnap and murder of 43 teaching students in 2014. They left the cash to show that this was vengeance, not money, says Vargas. Reportedly, he then affixed the victim's face to a soccer ball to add to his warning intended for the Juarez cartel. It was released as a warning on social media by Los Tlacos, who claimed they were cleaning up the city after the other mob robbed and killed innocent civilians. It killed and beheaded street cops, cooked the flesh of its rivals on flaming tires, and delivered bodies by the hundreds to a man it called El Pete. Hed go on to make CRIM Squad in his image: six guys whod show up, no questions asked, to tail a narcos car at 3 a.m. Fable dinnerware review: Canadian brand offers sustainably-crafted, artisanal homeware, Gifts for the love of your life: What to buy for Valentine's Day 2023, Canadian concert tours: Hottest tickets in 2023, This Just In: Fresh Tea Elixir, The Revolution 5D Lash Mascara, and Dans Un Jardin Citron Bamboo Bubble Bath, Style Q&A: Canadian skincare brand founder talks finding inspiration in nature, tap here to see other videos from our team. No one knew Timmy was on U.S. soil till Vargas called his sources in Mexico. According to local authorities, three police officers were killed and one was wounded during the shooting. So it goes for the best part of three hours. They identified, by code, who was who in the zoo: the half-dozen or so narcos who spoke directly to Teo from either side of the border. Evelyne Nyairo was inspired to create her skincare line Ellie Bianca following an experience with the wild mango trees of Chad. That put the clamps on narcotics coming in, so the gangs needed another source of income. Mexican businessmen were snatched for ransom in Tijuana and San Diego. Theyd found the elephant gun allegedly used on kidnap victims, plus his .45, false IDs, and fake-cop get-ups. Rand503 May 29, 2020 After watching this several times, I m convinced that the guy gets hard as his head gets chopped. cartel members rape women and children, extort and brutalize the weak, and leave helpless migrants to die in the desert or suffocate in tractor trailers. According to police at the scene gunmen shot against four men outside a house, killing three and injuring one. The 100 Best Albums of 2022. He had a story for everything. In dramatic videos posted to social media, La Catrina could be seen badly wounded after being shot in the neck, sitting in the dust gasping for air as a soldier told her to stay calm. It was the DEAs Most Wanted List, bearing the photos of 32 kingpins and their capos. Suspected drug hitmen attacked soldiers who were intending to inspect a cartel safe house in the colonial town of Taxco southwest of Mexico City. Guzmn faces charges of murder and laundering funds. It was the bust of the decade in San Diego, wiping the Southeast Locos off the gangland map and liberating the blocks theyd held by force. The best bunch of hunters you ever saw. He cant see the smoke but he can smell it, he says. Related The bosses werent happy and want to send a message: too much policing, says Seven, who left his post to work a detail in Immigration, after more than one attempt on his life. They went at him good and hard, but couldnt break him, either. For the next four years, the Palillos terrorized that town, snatching AFO associates, holding them hostage, and, when they felt like it, returning them alive. They arrested four men, including the brother. That stonewall was standard procedure, says Herrod. Anyone could be found, once you knew where to look. He was on his way over to burn down the house of a rival gangster. In a 2010 video, Guzmn used a chainsaw against Hugo Hernandez, reportedly to send a message indicating he would use aggression against anyone who involves law enforcement with the cartel's enterprises. Vargas stayed on to supervise his section before drifting off to intelligence operations. So, too, did the other cops on his squad who spoke to me for this story, out of concerns for their safety and that of their loved ones. Editors picks Group One had wires up on a couple of Teos lieutenants; what they needed was real-time intel on his movements. Vargas, an undersized nose guard in college, still looks like he squats 400 in his fifties. Those ledgers which Tigre parsed for Group One were far more useful than profit-and-loss sheets. Contreras, the task-force chief, wrote CRIM Squad commendations; he calls them the best federal unit Ive ever worked with. That fall, they won the top state honor for cops who bring trafficking cases: the California Narcotics Officers Award. From those patterns and a set of underutilized laws Vargas built a web to catch cartel killers before they killed again, in the U.S. In exchange, Timmy got the Sammy the Bull [Gravano] deal, as Vargas calls it, sneering. Even if they had a legal right to be here, we had tools to take them off the chessboard. The Mexican drug cartels have killed more Americans than any terrorist group in historyand the death toll is rising every day. For six weeks, they surveilled gang addresses and caught them out with one thing or another. Long after the failures of intelligence sharing that helped lead to 9/11, the three-letter law-enforcement agencies dont play nicely together, guarding their territory fiercely. The next issue of NP Posted will soon be in your inbox. Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting. At this point, everyones looking for Furcio, figuring theres a bloodbath popping off, says Vargas. I brought in CRIM Squad cause those guys were regulators. Next to the bodies, that had their feet and hands tied and a plastic bag covering their heads, police also found a message allegedly from a drug cartel. The squad members recount the killers they caught at their day jobs, including one guy working at a Cheesecake Factory, and a Sinaoloa hit man who hid in the States after fleeing Mexicali in 2002. Trending He parked behind the building and met a second car. In 2010,Guzmn,orEl Chapo, recorded a video of him removing Hugo Hernandez's head with a chainsaw. Alma Antonia Caldern Garca, who is the wife of a leader in one The United States attorney in the Southern District of California failed to indict Teo for mass murder. Theyd earn it, and then some, in the months to come. That isnt, strictly speaking, the official view. His men jumped onto task-force units with the FBI and DEA. One day that fall, Vargas got a call from a DEA agent with the Group One Task Force whom Ill call Nikki. From his tone, it isnt clear which nation he has in mind: Mexico, the worlds lead supplier of narcotics, or America, the worlds lead consumer. In less than a week, they tracked it to an address. While El Mencho operates in three-quarters of Mexican states and oversees a drugs empire spanning the Americas and Europe, El Marros upstart Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel is mostly involved in the theft of fuel from local pipelines in Guanajuato. By all objective measures, its a model metropolis. We loop back down to the suburbs of National City, where the CRIM Squad cornered the Camacho-Higuera brothers. As they got in the car, a van pulled up. Cinder blocks crashed through the windshields of their trucks as they prowled the frontage roads looking for smugglers. During the attack, which came right as the wedding ceremony was about to wrap up, Mexican site La Silla Rota reported that armed men arrived in vans at the church door, unleashing a hail of bullets. (AP Photo/Valente Rosas, Agencia El Universal), The body of an unidentified man hangs from his neck under a bridge on the old Rosarito highway as authorities stand by in Tijuana, Mexico, Friday, Oct. 9, 2009. ), His solicitude aside, Vargas hunted those men to the exclusion of all else. Pines and jacarandas shade the rutless roads that jog by ivy walls of gated enclaves. 10 San Fernando Massacres. The Palillos, a maniacal squad of sicarios who had turned against the AFO, were gunning for yet a third crew of killers in San Diego. My next-door neighbors a failed nation, he says. A lackey who killed his way up the ladder as an enforcer for the AFO, he rose to lieutenant, then broke with the AFO when the last brother fell in 2008. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias), A forensic expert examines the body of a man that was killed by unknown gunmen near the international bridge in the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Friday, May 28, 2010. All of which explains why the plaza of Tijuana is paved in blood and treasure. Big Love in Spanish Grande Amor! CRIM Squad revoked Chans B-1 visa and pushed him through the gate at Whiskey Two. The body of an unidentified man hangs from an overpass in the city of Cuernavaca, some 90 km., 60 miles, south of Mexico City, early Tuesday, July 13, 2010. Y He made things bad for business everyones business.. He wound up doing fed time for the guns and fake IDs, then was handed to the Mexican military for sweating. La Silla Rota, citing a law enforcement official, reported that the bride had in fact been killed. He was last seen in a bar, then taken, tortured, and dismembered. His parents, Mexican migrants, slaved for their sons and sent both of them into public service. From that day forward, the streets ran dark with blood. Fifteen gang members got jail time, then were deported back to Mexico for good. Furcio (cartel slang for big ears; real name: Andrs Ramos Castillo) ran a crew of hit men who were hunting for Los Palillos, according to Vargas. The cops found his corpse wrapped in a garden hose; his crew hastily fled to San Diego. At the wheel of his seven-seat Escalade a car that drives like an opium dream and is fancied equally by narco bosses and the retired federal agents who chased them Vargas speaks of the Camacho-Higuera brothers like promising kids who made a rash mistake. Navy marines stormed an upscale apartment complex and killed Leyva along six members of his organization in a two-hour gun battle. The narrator accuses the incoming mayor of Iguala of having connections to Guerreros Unidos, a cartel believed to be tied to the 2014 kidnapping of Ayotzinapa Rural Normal School, El Pas said. Whenever [Escobar-Luna] moped about his brother, says Duncan, hed go and open the freezer. Theyd think they were facing fed time for sneaking across the border with a gun and a fake ID. Rather than make Pelon stew, however, Escobar-Luna stored his remains in a freezer. 2023 NYP Holdings, Inc. All Rights Reserved, Inside the luxe lives of El Chapos sons including jailbird Ovidio Guzmn Lpez, Arizona officials say Mexican cartels control US border: Ticking time bomb, Passengers on Aeromexico flight crouch in fear as plane caught in cartel crossfire: video, Unprecedented NY flood of fentanyl causing heartbreaking loss. He was, it was reported, among two hostages taken by the CJNG, whose hitmen sped away in a number of vehicles, taking shots at anyone who dared to even look in their direction. Authorities believe Morales is responsible for at least 72 slayingsin the 2010 San Fernando massacre. In 2013, Mexican Marines apprehended Miguel ngel Trevio Morales, the alleged cartel leader of Los Zetas. Theyd thought that was him in the Caddy. Nor could Vargas charge him on behalf of kidnap victims: None of them came forward to accuse him. Then, one of their members stabbed a Border Patrol agent; Vargas and his men were summoned. There wasnt a lot of sharing going on.. Of the 14-year-old sicario who beheaded another kid, then casually confessed to the cops, Vargas winces, saying, I talked to his mother. Homicide 11 hours ago. Which Animated Disney Movie Should Get A Horror Adaptation Next? They have wives, they have kids; someone loves them. (Vargas at the insistence of his wife and children asked that I change his name. Mr Gama Prez has not commented on the video, which was posted online on Wednesday night, hours before he was sworn in as mayor yesterday. We've received your submission. But then hes asked if he was there when they cut a guys dick off, says Vargas. Although the majority of victims in the Mexican drug wars are rival Youre the guys that sacked Furcio! Raised in a barrio east of Los Angeles, Vargas saw how thin the line was for brown-skinned boys. The bride was also the sister of Jos Antonio Ypez Ortiz, alias El Marro, who leads the Santa Rosa de Lima Cartel, which is embroiled in a long-running feud with El Menchos CJNG. The former alleged leader of the Los Zetas cartel forced his victims into cages and allowed an audience to view the proceedings. As well as its feud with El Menchos CJNG, El Marros group has made threats against new Mexican President Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, intelligence website InSight Crime reports. Vargas tracked Yeyo to an exs in south L.A., then handed him off to the Mexican police. A Mexican navy official said that alleged drug cartel chief Arturo Beltran Leyva and three members of his cartel were slain Wednesday inside the apartment during a shootout with sailors. One of the friends fell dead. Still, Vargas turned over every rock: kidnaps were a menace in San Diego. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano all visited Mexico on March 23 for discussions centered on Mexico's endemic drug-related violence. There was an error, please provide a valid email address. In hindsight, the certificate felt a tad premature for a crew that hadnt faced its greatest test. There hasnt been a peep from him in, what, 12 years? says Vargas. Real Executions Downplayed in Film and TV, Execution and Infamy in 18th Century Britain, The Most Brutal Execution Methods Reportedly Used By Mexican Cartels. Local media reports that the attorney general of Guanajuato state is investigating the matter, but none of the victims have yet been officially named. The rest went down for conspiracy to murder and other violent crimes. The Sinaloa cartel included a note: "Happy New Year, because this will be your last.". One of the La Bandera mobsters is seen on camera apparently admitting Brito has a direct "line" with the mayor's office. EL PASO A Mexican national was sentenced today to life in prison and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine for his role in the Sinaloa Cartels operations. Poblete was part of a three-man crew for Los Zetas who grabbed a worker from Mexicos state-owned oil company Pemex as the man was coming leaving a bar in Coatzacoalcos. A BRUTAL drug runner dubbed Cartel Queen has been captured by the Mexican army after allegedly kidnapping five people. When CRIM Squad caught up to him in 2010, he was laying low in Eastlake with two very attractive sisters, living the throuple high life in a McMansion. It is where the AFO, a clan of seven brothers, killed anyone else who trucked product through their streets without kicking up to the family. But Furcio went to ground after the botched hit, and the trail promptly stopped cold. There used to be a gate there called Whiskey Two: a door in the wall that only the feds could unlock. So when he was promoted, in 2004, to a plainclothes desk job at a station near San Diego, the first thing he did was attach himself to investigators in the Anti-Smuggling Unit of CBP. Formed in about 2010, the Jalisco cartel is the strongest and most aggressive competitor to the Sinaloa. But those four years in uniform taught Vargas two things: The first was how to track men who wished to go unseen. Three new beauty products we tried this week. No one told them how those captures linked to El Teo or his enemy, Fernandito, of the AFO. Four of the dead men - including a wanted murder suspect - were dumped outside the new mayor's campaign office in Iguala, in Cartel violence in the Mexican border state of Sonora continues to escalate. Vargas called in backup, but they were 20 minutes south in traffic, so Guru tailed Furcio in his Cadillac with blacked-out rims. When the hitman removed the blindfold, the drug associate saw a family - a couple and their 6-year-old daughter - standing near a flaming barrel. The garbage that terrorized this beautiful city.. His organization splintered, his stew-maker was jailed, and a fragile peace broke out in Tijuana. One of the brothers answered when they knocked politely; as they cuffed him, the other brother pulled up. I asked God, Please! Dave Contreras, a boss with the Gang Suppression Team of the San Diego PD, asked for CRIM Squads help with Operation Stampede, a massive, task-force takedown of the Southeast Locos. The best bunch of hunters you ever saw., For that op, the hunt was tracking killers for months, then bagging them up just hours before a murder. Also known as Z-40, Morales reportedly executed perceived enemies of the cartel using the method of The Stew, or El Guiso. 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