Los Zetas branching out

waltky · Jan 4, 2013

Mexican drug gangs move into coal mining: More lucrative than drugs...

Mexican drug gangs dig into mining industry
4 Jan 2013 - The Zetas cartel, one of Mexico's most violent groups, has moved into coal mining as it's "more lucrative than drugs".

On October 7, Mexican marines swooped in on one of the most powerful men in organised crime. But as the navy triumphantly announced the death of Heriberto Lazcano, leader of the Zetas gang, there was puzzlement over where he had been found. Far from the Zeta's strongholds and practically unprotected, he had been watching a baseball game in the small mining village of Progreso. Theories abounded as to what exactly Lazcano had been doing in Progreso, a one horse town in the wide open spaces of the sorthern state of Coahuila. Humberto Moreira, ex-governor of Coahuila says that he has the answer: "Heriberto Lazcano changed from being a killer, kidnapper and drug dealer to something still more lucrative: mining coal. Thats why he lived in the coal region, in a little village called Progreso."

By paying low wages, gangsters are making large profits from unregulated mines in Coahuila state

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Moreira says that the Zetas gang is fast discovering that illegal mining is an even more lucrative venture than drug running. "They discover a mine, extract the coal, sell it at $30, pay the miners a miserable salary... It's more lucrative than selling drugs." Moreiras remarks have sparked a host of claims and counter claims. He is used to controversy. The ex-governor of Coahuila (his brother recently took on the post) was one of the most powerful figures in Mexican politics until allegations of huge financial irregularities during his government brought him down. After his son was killed by organised crime, he began speaking of government corruption and impunity in the state he had once governed.

'Narco coal'

His accusations have been borne out by the federal government, which also announced that it has found evidence of criminal infiltration in Coahuila's mines. Two hundred government inspectors are heading to the region to investigate mines it suspects are tied to organised crime. The state government has also been tarred by the accusations. A Coahuila government body (PRODEMI) buys coal from the companies and then sells it to the state electricity company. Now the country's attorney general is investigating its links with companies thought to have sold "Narco coal". The State of Coahuila presents a tempting target for any organised crime group looking to diversify from drug smuggling, kidnapping and extortion. It produces 95 percent of Mexico's coal, churning out 15 million tons a year. Unregulated "pozos", small roadside mines which are often little more than a hole in the road, abound; easy targets for those looking to make quick money.

An investigation by Mexican daily Reforma estimated that criminals were making half a million dollars a week off of these small unregulated mines, selling the coal on to legal businesses. The Zetas criminal group, dominant in Coahuila, is well structured to take advantage of the "Black Gold" rush. Mexico's other criminal powerhouse, the Sinaloa Cartel, deals almost exclusively with running drugs, Samuel Gonzalez, former Chief of Mexico's Anti-Organised Crime Unit, says that the Zetas are keen to sniff out new business opportunities wherever they lie.

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waltky · Feb 14, 2013

Obama Won't Let Agents Arrest Illegal Aliens...

ICE is Crumbling from Within Because Obama Won't Let Agents Arrest Illegal Aliens
February 13, 2013 The men and women charged with enforcing federal immigration law are being prohibited from doing so by the Obama administration, according to Chris Crane, president of the union that represents officers and agents employed by the Department of Homeland Securitys Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

I think most Americans assume that ICE agents and officers are empowered by the government to enforce the law, Crane said on Wednesday at Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on immigration reform. Nothing could be further from the truth. With 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., ICE agents are now prohibited from arresting illegal aliens solely on charges of illegal entry or VISA overstay the two most frequently violated sections of U.S. immigration law, said Crane, who heads the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118 of the American Federation of Government Employees.

Consequently, ICE is falling apart, he said. Agents report that if they encounter suspected illegal aliens in the public, they cannot arrest them, Crane said. Their instructions are that only if an alien is first arrested by local police on criminal charges may ICE agents and officers consider making an arrest. Crane testified at the hearing as Congress considers passing legislation that would offer an earned pathway to citizenship for the estimated 11 million illegal aliens living inside the United States. Cranes comments are, in part, based on the prosecutorial discretion memorandum issued by ICE Director John Morton in June 2011 that said the priority of the agency would be to identify and remove criminal illegal aliens.

Crane testified that DHS and the Obama administration will alow ICE agents to enforce federal immigration law only if aliens have committed major crimes. If an alien is arrested by local police and placed in jail, again, ICE agents may not arrest them for illegal entry or VISA overstay, Crane said. New policies require that illegal aliens have a felony arrest or conviction or be convicted of three or more misdemeanors. So, many illegal aliens with criminal convictions are also now untouchable. Crane said. ICE is crumbling from within, Crane said. Morale is at an all time low as criminal aliens are released to the streets and ICE instead takes disciplinary actions against its own officers for making lawful arrests. It appears clear that federal law enforcement officers are the enemy and not those who break our nations laws, Crane said. Whether it be our current immigration laws or future reforms all will fail as long as individuals can pick and choose which laws enacted by Congress will be enforced. Operationally, ICE is not prepared or able to properly perform its mission and the interior of the U.S. is not secure, said Crane, referring to ICEs role to enforce immigration law inside United States while Customs and Border Protection are tasked with arrests and apprehensions on the border.

Crane said his union has sent a letter to the president asking him to include ICE officers and agents in discussions at the White House on immigration policy an invitation he said has not yet been forthcoming. President Obama has excluded ICE officers and agents from all input on immigration reforms, as well as ICE and DHS arrest policies, Crane said. Crane also criticized DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, who testified ahead of Crane about the success of her agency in enforcing immigration laws, including what she called record numbers of illegal alien deportations. Secretary Napolitano describes these new policies as smart and effective, Crane said. I can assure you they are neither.

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Sessions Calls for ICE Director to Resign: Hes Failed His Fundamental Duty to Enforce the Law
February 13, 2013 The man tasked with enforcing the nations immigration laws should resign, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said at a Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday.

Sessions called for ICE Director John Mortons resignation following the testimony of Chris Crane, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officer who said the Obama administrations policies prohibit the arrest of aliens who are in the country illegally or who have overstayed their visa. I think weve got a problem here, Sessions said. We have, as Mr. Crane has dramatically indicated, a serious unwillingness to enforce even the most basic laws. I think most Americans assume that ICE agents and officers are empowered by the government to enforce the law, Crane testified. Nothing could be further from the truth. With 11 million illegal aliens in the U.S., ICE agents are now prohibited from arresting illegal aliens solely on charges of illegal entry or visa overstay the two most frequently violated sections of U.S. immigration law, Crane said.

Sessions asked Crane if anyone in the Obama administration, including President Barack Obama and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, had invited ICE officers and agents to discussions on immigration enforcement and policy. When Crane said his union members had been shut out of discussions, Sessions called for ICE Director John Mortons resignation.

I call for Mr. Morton to resign, Sessions said. I think hes failed his fundamental duty to enforce the law and maintain the morale of the people we pay to do that job every day. In June 2010, the National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, of which Crane is the president, and its affiliated council leaders across the country, cast a unanimous 259-0 vote of no confidence in Morton.

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waltky · Jul 16, 2013

Top Zetas leader nabbed...

U.S. federal official: Top leader of Mexico's brutal Zetas drug cartel captured
Monday, July 15, 2013 -- Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the notoriously brutal leader of the feared Zetas drug cartel, was captured before dawn Monday in the first major blow against an organized crime leader by a Mexican administration struggling to drive down persistently high levels of violence, officials announced.

Trevino Morales, 40, was captured by Mexican Marines who intercepted a pickup truck with $2 million in cash on a dirt road in the countryside outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo, which has long served as the Zetas' base of operations. The truck was halted by a Marine helicopter and Trevino Morales was taken into custody along with a bodyguard and an accountant and eight guns, government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told reporters. Sanchez said the Marines had been watching rural roads between the Texas border states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas for signs of Trevino Morales, who is charged with murder, torture, kidnapping and other crimes.

The Zetas leader and his alleged accomplices were flown to Mexico City, where they are expected to eventually be tried in a closed system that usually takes years to prosecute cases, particularly high-profile ones. Trevino Morales, known as "Z-40," is uniformly described as one of the two most powerful cartel heads in Mexico, the leader of a corps of special forces defectors who went to work for drug traffickers, splintered off into their own cartel in 2010 and metastasized across Mexico, expanding from drug dealing into extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking.

This undated file image downloaded from the Mexican Attorney General's Office rewards program website, shows the leader of Zetas drug cartel, Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias Z-40. Mexican media reports and a U.S. federal official confirmed that Trevino Morales has been captured.

Along the way, the Zetas authored some of the worst atrocities of Mexico's drug war, leaving hundreds of bodies beheaded on roadsides or hanging from bridges, earning a reputation as perhaps the most terrifying of the country's numerous ruthless cartels. On Trevino Morales' watch, 72 Central and South American migrants were slaughtered by the Zetas in the northern town of San Fernando in 2010, authorities said. By the following year, federal officials announced finding 193 bodies buried in San Fernando, most belonging to migrants kidnapped off buses and killed by the Zetas for various reasons, including their refusal to work as drug mules.

Trevino Morales is charged with ordering the kidnapping and killing of the 265 migrants, Sanchez said. President Enrique Pena Nieto came into office promising to drive down levels of homicide, extortion and kidnapping but has struggled to make a credible dent in crime figures. And his pledge to focus on citizen safety over other crimes has sparked worries among U.S. authorities that he would ease back on predecessor Felipe Calderon's U.S.-backed strategy aimed above all at decapitating drug cartels.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-fed...-drug-cartel-captured-1.1368642#ixzz2ZB9byDG6
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waltky · Jul 19, 2013

Ruthlessness runs in the family...

Zetas heir just as ruthless as brother: former officials
Fri, Jul 19, 2013 - FAMILY FUN: The violent and sadistic captured Zetas boss younger brother, who is his heir apparent, has boasted to informants of killing more than 1,000 people

The captured leader of Mexicos Zetas drug cartel is a tough act to follow, a man accused of having a penchant for beheading victims, boiling rivals and tormenting migrants. His arrest raised hopes that the cartels reign of terror had finally ended, but the man tipped to succeed Miguel Angel Trevino is his younger brother, who also boasts a blood-stained resume that includes claims of killing 1,000 people, according to US court documents. Former US law enforcement officials say Omar Trevino, alias Z-42, is the likely heir apparent to Z-40 after his brother was captured by Mexican marines on a dirt road near the northeastern city of Nuevo Laredo on Monday.

The 39-year-old sibling, who was Z-40s right-hand man, is expected to replicate his brothers violent ways to assert his authority over the cartel and fend off rivals, according to two former US officials who worked in Mexico. Omar is equally ruthless as his brother, though he doesnt have the organizational skills that his brother had, said Mike Vigil, a former chief of the US Drug Enforcement Administrations international operations. He was nurtured and tutored by Miguel Angel Trevino in terms of using wholesale violence to intimidate other criminal organizations and security forces, Vigil said. Hes an individual who will probably use the same tactics as his brother in terms of consolidating power. Omar Trevino would likely face challenges to his rule as the head of a cartel present in huge swaths of the northeast as well as Central America, experts say.

A photograph released on Tuesday by the Mexican Navy shows Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, alias Z-40, leader of the Zetas drug cartel, after his arrest in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

The Zetas have been warring with the powerful Sinaloa drug cartel of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman, who may see an opening to raid Nuevo Laredo, a city highly coveted by drug traffickers because it lies at a major Texas border crossing. Mexican security forces may also ride the wave of their successful capture of Miguel to relentlessly pursue his younger brother. On top of it, the toppling of a drug lord often leads to internal wars of succession. The Zetas, who were founded by former elite troops, may not appreciate a new civilian boss, although Miguel Trevino was never a soldier himself. Davy Aguilera, a former special agent for the US firearms and explosives agency ATF, said Omar Trevino is the logical successor because everybody was so afraid and intimidated by Miguel. There were indications that if something happened to him, Omar was his successor. Nobody wanted to betray Miguel, Aguilera said. Like Miguel, [Omar] will surround himself with the worst of the worst, the most violent criminals to tighten his grip, he added.

Little is known about Omar Trevino and Mexican Interior Ministry spokesman Eduardo Sanchez said he knew nothing about him. Former US officials say the younger Trevino, born in Nuevo Laredo, began his life in the criminal underworld as a small-time thug who committed petty crimes like robbery and extortion always by his brothers side. He rose through the ranks of the Zetas thanks to his older brother, who made him his top lieutenant when he took over the cartel last year after kingpin Heriberto Lazcano was killed in a gunfight with troops. While Miguel reportedly melted victims in a 208 liter stew and is accused of ordering the murder of 265 migrants, his sibling has his own checkered past. In 2010, Omar Trevino told an informant that he had killed more than 1,000 people while Miguel had killed 2,000, according to an affidavit filed in a US court for a search warrant on the property of another Trevino brother in Texas.

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waltky · Aug 2, 2013

Los Zetas hirin' ex-U.S. military as hit men...

Mexican Cartels Hiring US Soldiers As Hit Men
August 01, 2013 > Mexican cartels are recruiting hit men from the U.S. military, offering big money to highly-trained soldiers to carry out contract killings and potentially share their skills with gangsters south of the border, according to law enforcement experts.

The involvement of three American soldiers in separate incidents, including a 2009 murder that led to last week’s life sentence for a former Army private, underscore a problem the U.S. military has fought hard to address. "We have seen examples over the past few years where American servicemen are becoming involved in this type of activity," said Fred Burton, vice president for STRATFOR Global Intelligence. "It is quite worrisome to have individuals with specialized military training and combat experience being associated with the cartels." The life sentence handed down in El Paso District court July 25 to an Army private hired by the Juarez Cartel to be the triggerman in a 2009 hit in this border city is the most recent case.

Michael Apodaca, 22, was a private first-class stationed at nearby Fort Bliss Army Base and was attached to the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade when he was recruited and paid $5,000 by the Juarez Cartel to shoot and kill Jose Daniel Gonzalez-Galeana, a cartel member who had been outed as an informant for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Apodaca, who was the triggerman in the May 15, 2009, hit, was sentenced in El Paso District Court July 25. Last September, Kevin Corley, 29, a former active-duty Army first lieutenant from Fort Carson in Colorado, pleaded guilty in federal court in Laredo, Texas, to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire for the Los Zetas Cartel after being arrested in a sting operation. Ironically, that cartel was itself founded by Special Forces deserters from the Mexican Army.

Former Army Pfc. Michael Apodaca (l.) and ex-Lt. Kevin Corley both pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire charges, crimes committed while they were on active duty.

Arrested with Corley in connection with the case was former Army Sgt. Samuel Walker, 28. He was convicted of committing a murder-for-hire in November 2012 and sentenced to 15 years in prison June 21. Walker served in Afghanistan with Corley’s 4th Brigade Combat Team of the 4th Infantry Division platoon between 2010-2011. Shortly after their return, they made contact with the undercover DEA agent they thought was a member of Los Zetas. According to his plea agreement, Corley was introduced to undercover agents posing as members of Los Zetas cartel in September 2011; he admitted to being an active-duty officer in the U.S. Army responsible for training soldiers. He told his contact he could provide tactical training for members of the cartel and purchase weapons for them. In later meetings, Corley discussed stealing weapons from military posts and military tactics. On Dec. 23, 2011, he agreed to perform a contract killing for the cartel in exchange for $50,000 and cocaine.

Burton said some soldiers become corrupted by gangs after joining, while others are gang members who enlist specifically for the training they can get. “There has been a persistent gang problem in the military for the past six to eight years,” Burton said, adding that cartels greatly value trained soldiers from the U.S., Mexico and Guatemala as sicarios – hit men. More recently, the May 22 murder of Juan Guerrero-Chapa, 43, a former lawyer for the Gulf Cartel, in a mall parking lot in an affluent suburb of Fort Worth has raised concerns due to the military precision with which it was carried out. "Obviously, the nature of this homicide, the way it was carried out indicates –– and I said indicates –– an organization that is trained to do this type of activity," Southlake Police Chief Stephen Mylett said following the attack. "When you're dealing with individuals that operate on such a professional level, certainly caution forces me to have to lean toward that this is an organized criminal activity act.” While Mylett acknowledged the murder was a “targeted affair conducted by professional killers,” he would not confirm or deny suspicions that current or previous military was involved. “The case is still being investigated,” Mylett said.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/0...hit-men-from-ranks-us-military/#ixzz2arG1T6Ny
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Report: Inmates control all 24 prisons in Honduras
Aug 2,`13 -- Honduras' 24 prisons are controlled by inmates because the state has abandoned its role in rehabilitating people convicted of crimes, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights said in a report released Friday.

The commission said the prisons are so poorly guarded that the inmates could escape if they wanted to, especially in the prison in the city of San Pedro Sula. "Prisoners do not escape because they prefer not to upset this balance," the former director of the San Pedro Sula prison told the commission. Another prison official told the commission that prison authorities there have no power to change the situation. One consequence of the state abandoning the prisons is the rise of so-called systems of "self-governance" that are headed by inmates known as "coordinators," the commission said.

The coordinators are picked by the inmates and set rules for the prison, including disciplinary measures, it said. Most of the complaints by inmates are against the coordinators for physically assaulting them, something that happens "in full view of prison guards," according to the commission. "The administration of the prisons in Honduras currently suffers from severe structural deficiencies which have led to its collapse," the commission said. "These deficiencies have been consistently pointed out by all the international human rights agencies having competence in the matter, but to date, no substantial changes have been made."

Official corruption and overcrowding have exacerbated the critical situation, prison officials have acknowledged. They say much of the overcrowding is due to failures in the judicial system to try prisoners. About half of all inmates are awaiting trial. The government says there are 12,263 people incarcerated in Honduras even though its prisons can only hold 8,120 inmates. In Honduras, there is a Lord-of-the-Flies system that is mimicked through the nation allowing inmates to run businesses behind bars, while officials turn a blind eye in exchange for a cut of the profits they say is spent on prison needs.

This culture virtually guarantees that even in the glare of international scrutiny over a fire that killed 361 prisoners at the Comayagua prison last year, little stands to change. The commission recommended in the report presented to President Porfirio Lobo in Tegucigalpa that the government focus not only on the construction of new jails and improving existing ones, but also on adopting "genuine public policies much broader in scope." "It is essential that States' criminal policies not be merely repressive, but should also be preventive in nature, with policies and programs for crime prevention," the commission said. Last year, the government allocates a budget of $19.3 million to the prison system, 83 percent of that money went to pay the salaries of prison staff.

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waltky · May 12, 2014

Zetas Cartel Founder Among 6 Gunned Down...

Mexico: A Zetas founder among 6 dead in shootout
May 11, 2014 One of the military deserters who helped found the gang that grew into the brutal Zetas cartel was among six people killed during a gunbattle in a border town, a Tamaulipas state security official said Sunday.

The official said authorities confirmed that Galindo Mellado Cruz was one of five gunmen who died Friday in a shootout that also killed a Mexican soldier in Reynosa, which is across from McAllen, Texas. The official was not permitted to be quoted by name for security reasons.

The official said that Mellado Cruz was one of the 30 ex-special forces soldiers who created the Zetas gang to serve as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel before splitting off in a bloody breakup with its former ally. The official said Mellado Cruz no longer held a Zetas command position.

Tamaulipas became one of the arenas for fighting between the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas and was one of Mexico's most violent states. But the state had calmed somewhat by 2012, before violence re-ignited in recent weeks.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/05/11/zetas-founder-killed/8984223/
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waltky · Oct 16, 2015

Good way to tip him off as to where they're lookin' for him...

The hunt for Chapo Guzmán focuses on home of his alleged girlfriend
Mexican Marines are nipping at the heels of Joaquín El Chapo Guzmáns or at least thats what the minister overseeing the Marines believes.

Since Oct. 6, thousands of soldiers have been sent to the area known as Mexicos Golden Triangle, the remote, mountainous region where the states of Chihuahua, Durango and Sinaloa converge. Most of them parachuted in. The operation was reportedly triggered by information provided to Mexican authorities by U.S. drug agents who were monitoring cell phone activity. Around 200 people from the region, presumably scared of getting caught in the crossfire between the Marines and the Sinaloa Cartels sicarios, have fled to the town of Cosalá. The Marines told us that they want to capture the Lord, they told reporters, and mentioned talking about soldiers attacking civilians. People are frightened, Cosalás representative in the state legislature, Lucero Sánchez López, told TV reporters, adding that at least eight people were missing.

The most interesting fact about Sánchez is that she has been identified by the Mexican press and the Attorney Generals office, as Chapos newest lover and the mother of his youngest child, an allegation she has consistently denied. For its part, SEMAR says there haven't been any civilian attacks, but it doesn't deny that the Marines are carrying out an operation in that sector of Sinaloa and across the state line in Durango a state thats governed by Ricardo Ochoa, whose sister, Emma Coronel, happens to be Chapos current wife. The presumed romantic relationship between the 57-year-old Guzmán the worlds most wanted drug kingpin and a 26-year-old, thick-lipped and light-haired member of the National Action Party (PAN) has spread ever since June, when it was first reported that she visited Chapo in Altiplano prison, some 55 miles from Mexico City, in May when she was pregnant.

At the time, authorities at the prison lodged a complaint with PGR saying that Chapo received a visit from a woman who used a fake ID who was not his wife. For her part, Sánchez says that the woman photographed with the drug lord isn't her. The newspaper Excélsior, suggested that Sánchez first met Chapo in 2013, at a party in the Golden Triangle that both attended. A few months later, her former husband and the father of her two sons, Rubén Chavez, 27, was shot to death. A few days after Chapos second escape from a Mexican high-security prison in July, the Attorney Generals office (PGR in its Spanish acronym) leaked to the media a statement by one of Guzmán Loeras attorneys confirming that Sánchez visited his client to discuss details of where and how their child would be raised.

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waltky · Jul 12, 2016

Zetas drug gang suspected of Mexican massacre...

Drug cartel rivalry linked to killing of 14 in Mexico's Ciudad Victoria
July 11, 2016 -- At least 14 people, including children, were killed in Ciudad Victoria in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas over the weekend amid an apparent drug war.

Tamaulipas State Government Secretary Herminio Garza Palacios said at least 11 family members were killed while they were sleeping at about 7 a.m. local time Saturday. "Deprived of life were 11 members of a family by armed people who came to that address" in the Adolfo López Mateos neighborhood, Garza Palacios said. Two men, two women and seven girls were killed.

The Tamaulipas State Government said the killing of at least 14 people in Ciudad Victoria over the weekend is likely linked to a drug cartel rivalry. Eleven family members were killed while still in bed Saturday morning.

Less than an hour after that attack, armed gunmen killed one man and two women in the nearby Revolución Verde neighborhood. Garza Palacios said preliminary investigations indicate the killings are part of a rivalry dispute -- perhaps by factions of the splintered Zetas Cartel. "Federal and state forces that make up the Tamaulipas Coordination Group are jointly participating in investigations to find those responsible for these acts," the Tamaulipas State Government said in a statement.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-N...-Ciudad-Victoria/3821468255705/?spt=sec&or=tn
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waltky · Sep 4, 2016

Zetas shootout closes major highway, kills bystander...

Shootouts in Mexico border city kill 11, including bystander
Sep 3,`16 -- Two highway shootouts between soldiers and suspected drug gang members in a northern border city resulted in 11 dead Saturday, including a bystander caught in the crossfire, Mexican authorities reported.

The violence in Nuevo Laredo, across from Laredo, Texas, prompted the temporary closure of the highway, which is a major artery for travel and commerce between the United States and Mexico.

The Tamaulipas state government said in a statement that the armed confrontations began early Saturday when troops killed eight suspected criminals on the highway. Soldiers seized a truck and high-caliber weapons, it said. An hour later another shootout broke out nearby in which two suspects were killed, along with a woman who was traveling in her car, authorities said.

Nuevo Laredo Mayor Carlos Canturosas said Saturday night via Facebook that the highway, which handles nearly half of the export-import cargo between Mexico and the United States, had reopened. Nuevo Laredo has experienced high violence rates as rival factions of the Zetas drug cartel fight for control of the area.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...ME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-09-03-22-20-07
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