Mexican federal police Nov. 1 announced the arrest of the leader of the Gulf Cartel for the border city of Reynosa, across from McAllen, TX. The police statement said Antonio Galarza AKA "El Amarillo" was apprehended in a car stop in the northern city of Monterrey, and charged with weapons violations and money laundering.
Also Nov. 1, unidentified persons strung a series of "narco-messages" on banners fashioned from sheets along roadsides in the Pacific coast resorts of Acapulco and Zihuatanejo in Guerrero [2] state. The messages were apparently written by the Zetas, paramilitary arm of the Gulf Cartel, and accused federal police of protecting rival cartels. They specifically named Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna [3] as collaborating with the Sinaloa Cartel. One banner was placed at La Garita crossroads, also known as the "Zero Zone," locally famous as the site of a bloody shoot-out three ago between Zetas and Sinaloa Cartel gunmen.
Alberto Bazbaz, prosecutor general of Mexico state, meanwhile announced that 11 state police officers had been killed in the past three days, executions he blamed on "The Family" crime machine of neighboring Michoacán [4] state. Bazbaz said ten had been arrested in connection with the killings. (Canada Press [5], Milenio [6], Diaro de Yucatán [7] from AP, Nov. 1)
The press as well as law enforcement are coming under increasing attack by the cartels. On the morning of Oct. 10, the body of Miguel Ángel Villagómez Valle, owner and director La Noticia de Michoacán newspaper, based in the city of Lázaro Cárdenas, who had been kidnapped the previous night, was found in La Unión, Guerrero. (Notimex [8], Oct. 10)
See our last posts on Mexico's narco war [9] and attacks on the press [10].
