Mexican governor candidate killed, cartels blamed

Caption: Army soldiers stand next to a campaign vehicle of the candidate for governor of the state of Tamaulipas, Rodolfo Torre, after he was ambushed by unidentified gunmen near the city of Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, Monday June 28, 2010. Gunmen assassinated the front-running candidate and several of his aides in what Mexico's President Felipe Calderon called an attempt by drug gangs to sway local and state elections this weekend.

MEXICO CITY - Gunmen assassinated the front-running candidate for governor of a Mexican border state Monday in what President Felipe Calderon called an attempt by drug gangs to sway local and state elections this weekend.

The assailants ambushed Rodolfo Torre's vehicle as he headed to the airport in Ciudad Victoria, capital of Tamaulipas, a state torn by a turf battle between two rival drug cartels. At least four other people traveling with him were killed.

"Today has proven that organized crime is a permanent threat and that we should close ranks to confront it and avoid more actions like the cowardly assassination that today has shaken the country," Calderon said in a televised speech. "We cannot and should not permit crime to impose its will or its perverse rules."

He warned that organized crime "wants to interfere in the decisions of citizens and in electoral processes."

Torre, of Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, is the first gubernatorial candidate assassinated in Mexico in recent memory. He is the highest-ranking candidate killed since Luis Donaldo Colosio, also for the PRI, was gunned down while running for president in 1994.

The attack was the biggest setback yet for Sunday's elections in 12 states. Corruption scandals, threats and attacks on politicians have raised fears for months that Mexico's powerful drug cartels are buying off candidates they support and intimidating those they oppose.

Last month, gunmen killed Jose Guajardo Varela, a candidate for mayor of the Tamaulipas town of Valle Hermoso. Guajardo, of Calderon's National Action Party, or PAN, had received warnings to drop his campaign.

Several parties, including the PAN, had said they could not find anyone to run for mayor in some towns in Tamaulipas and other border states because of drug gang intimidation.

In the worst corruption scandal of the election, Cancun mayor Gregorio Sanchez was arrested last month for alleged drug trafficking ties, forcing him to drop his campaign for governor of Quintana Roo state. Sanchez was charged with protecting two of Mexico's most brutal drug gangs, allegations he has dismissed as politically motivated.

Calderon's government did not say which gang was suspected in Torre's assassination or why he would be targeted.

Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, has become a battleground between the Gulf cartel and its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men. Gangs have staged bold attacks on security forces, ambushing army patrols and setting up blockades near army garrisons.

Tamaulipas state election authorities met to decide whether to suspend the vote.

The PAN and the leftist Democratic Revolution Part, or PRD, said they would suspend campaigning by their own gubernatorial candidates in Tamaulipas, but PAN party leader Cesar Nava said he hoped the vote would go forward.

PRI national leader Beatriz Paredes also indicated she wanted the elections to take place, urging supporters to go the polls. "Nothing is going to intimidate us," she said in a statement.

Torre, 46, was heading to the airport to fly to the border city of Matamoros, where he planned to attend the closing campaign events of the PRI's mayoral candidate, said Tamaulipas state Gov. Eugenio Hernandez. Four people were wounded in the attack, including Torres's personal secretary, Hernandez told Radio Formula.

Television footage from the scene showed several vehicles and sheet-covered bodies along the side of the highway.

Torre, 46, held a significant lead in polls as candidate for a coalition comprising two small parties and the PRI, which has long governed Tamaulipas.

George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, said the assassination would almost certainly keep many voters home, but he expected the situation would only benefit the PRI.

"The execution and the ... climate of fear will dampen voter turnout on Sunday, which will help the PRI because they have the best political machine," he said.

The PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before losing the presidency in 2000, is hoping that a strong showing in Sunday's elections will put it on the path to regain the presidency in 2012.

The conservative PAN has formed uncomfortable alliances with the PRD to oust the PRI from several states, though not in Tamaulipas. PAN and PRD politicians have insinuated that PRI politicians in Tamaulipas and other states have ties to drug gangs, allegations the PRI dismisses as tired campaign tactics.

Drug gang violence has rocketed since Calderon deployed thousands of troops and federal police across the country in 2006 to wage an all-out battle against cartels. Some 23,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence.

Torre, a physician, had served as the state's health secretary from 2005 to 2009. He was married and had three teenage children.

-Associated Press

Mexico nabs alleged Sinaloa cartel leader

TIJUANA, Mexico - Police in the border city of Mexicali have arrested a purported top figure in Mexico's powerful Sinaloa drug cartel, authorities said Friday.

Baja California state police arrested Manuel Garibay on Thursday while he was driving in Mexicali, across from Calexico, Calif., the state public security department said in a statement.

Garibay, 52, was the Sinaloa cartel's link to Colombian cocaine suppliers since last year's arrest of Vicente "El Vicentillo" Zambada, the department said.

Zambada's father, Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada, is one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel together with Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, according to authorities.

Garibay was being sought by authorities for trafficking cocaine from Colombia to Mexico, and for being involved in several kidnappings and killings, it said.

Garibay allegedly led a cell of at least 28 cartel members including his brother, Jose Luis Garibay, who was arrested in Mexicali in 2005.

Meanwhile, in the border state of Tamaulipas, at least 11 gunmen died in three separate clashes with Mexican navy and army troops.

The navy said in a statement that six gunmen died Thursday in two shootouts in Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas.

Another five gunmen died after clashing with soldiers late Thursday in Ciudad Mier, which is also in Tamaulipas, the Mexican army said in a separate statement.

Also Friday, the government rejected conclusions of the National Human Rights Commission that soldiers altered the crime scene after an April 3 shootout in Tamaulipas that killed two young children.

In a statement, Interior Secretary Fernando Gomez Mont denied that the scene was altered.

The government says the children, 5 and 9 years old, were caught with their family in the crossfire between soldiers and drug traffickers while driving on a highway. The commission investigation said soldiers fired directly into the car, then changed the configuration of the scene to make it appear the vehicle was hit by crossfire. The commission also said Mexico's defense department should compensate the family of the children.

In the northern state of Coahuila, meanwhile, gunmen shot at a television state Friday but nobody was hurt.

Local Televisa network news director Felipe Perez confirmed the attack in a phone interview with The Associated Press. There were no arrests.

It was the second attack on the news media this week in the city of Torreon. On Tuesday, a pregnant woman was wounded when armed men shot at the offices of Noticias de El Sol de la Laguna newspaper.

More than 23,000 people have been killed by drug violence since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon began deploying thousands of troops and federal police to drug hot spots.

Mexican officials attribute much of the bloodshed to turf battles between drug cartels, but the gangs are increasingly turning to attacks on police and prosecutors.

-Associated Press

Gunmen fire on Mexican town hall; kill 3 police

MEXICO CITY - Authorities in northern Mexico say assailants sprayed a town hall with gunfire, killing at least three police officers.

The Nuevo Leon state attorney general's office says police found 200 shell casings from assault and semiautomatic rifles outside the Los Herreras municipal office, which also houses the town's police force.

Such weapons are often used by drug cartel hitmen. Prosecutors said Tuesday a vehicle found at the scene had "Z-40" and "Z'' painted on its windows — apparent references to the Zetas drug gang.

Authorities blame fighting between the Gulf cartel and the Zetas for a recent surge in violence in Nuevo Leon, which is close to Mexico's border with Texas.

The attack happened around midnight Monday.

-Associated Press

Catholic Church warns of cartel control in Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's Roman Catholic Church says drug cartels now control parts of some cities and warns that the gangs may be trying to influence this year's state elections.

The Archdiocese of Mexico says in an editorial that organized crime groups may try "to impose candidates" in the July 4 elections that will decide 12 of Mexico's 31 governorships.

It says cartels may also try to impede voters from going to the polls.

The editorial posted Sunday on the archdiocese's website says drug gangs are intimidating governments in some states and "control entire neighborhoods in some cities."

More than 22,700 people have died in drug-related violence since Mexico launched an anti-drug offensive in late 2006.

Cancun police find 12 decomposing inside caverns

Caption: Mexican Army soldiers secure a dirt road after bodies were found nearby in several sinkholes in the resort city of Cancun, Mexico Friday June 18. Police in Cancun have found 12 decomposing bodies in four sinkholes and were searching for more, authorities said, adding that they were led to the clandestine graves by nine alleged hit men detained last Tuesday.

CANCUN, Mexico - Police in Cancun found 12 decomposing bodies in four caverns and were searching for more cadavers in violence blamed on drug gangs in the popular resort city, officials said Friday.

Earlier this month, police discovered six other bodies, three of them cut open and their hearts removed, in a similar cavern near the Mexican resort. Three of the bodies had the letter "Z'' carved on their abdomens - a possible reference to the Zeta drug gang.

Police say detained gunmen have led them to all the clandestine graves — dried up sinkhole caves, known as cenotes.

Quintana Roo state Attorney General Francisco Alor said Friday that nine alleged hit men detained three days earlier led police to the 12 bodies.

Alor said three of the sinkholes are in an area covered with scrub vegetation near a residential area and the fourth on the outskirts of Cancun along a highway leading to Merida. None of the bodies have been identified.

Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, is a transshipment point for cocaine being smuggled from Colombia to the United States.

In 2009, prosecutors arrested Cancun's police chief, Francisco Velasco, to investigate whether he protected the Zetas drug gang. A former governor of the state was sentenced to 36 years for money laundering and helping a cartel smuggle narcotics.

More than 22,700 people have died nationwide in drug violence since late 2006, when President Felipe Calderon sent soldiers and federal police to battle the cartels.

Cartel hit men have been know to use mass dumping sites to dispose of their victims. In late May, police in the colonial tourist town of Taxco discovered 55 bodies in an abandoned silver mine.

Meanwhile, Mexican soldiers seized more than $1 million in cash from a house in a northern state that is the home base of the country's most powerful cartel, authorities said Friday.

Soldiers acting on an anonymous tip raided three houses Thursday in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, the Defense Department said in a statement.

They found $1 million in cash, four guns and $80 in fake cash in the first house, the department said. In a second, they discovered $28,400, cocaine, a gun, expensive watches and other jewelry. Drugs were found in the third house.

The department did not say what cartel might have owned the money. There were no arrests.

Sinaloa state is a stronghold of the cartel with the same name, led by kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

In the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, two 15-year-old girls were among 15 people killed in a 24-hour period, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office.

The girls were riding in a car with three men Thursday night when assailants opened fire. The girls were killed inside the car, while the men tried to flee and were shot dead on the street, Sandoval said.

Police had no immediate suspects.

Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is one of the deadliest cities in the world because of a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.

-Associated Press

Mexican army seizes $1 million in cash from house

MEXICO CITY - Mexican soldiers seized more than $1 million in cash from a house in a northern state that is the home base of the country's most powerful cartel, authorities said Friday.

Soldiers acting on an anonymous tip raided three houses Thursday in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, the Defense Department said in a statement.

They found $1 million in cash, four guns and $80 in fake cash in the first house, the department said. In a second, they discovered $28,400, cocaine, a gun, expensive watches and other jewelry. Drugs were found in the third house.

The department did not say what cartel might have owned the money. There were no arrests.

Sinaloa state is a stronghold of the cartel with the same name, led by kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

In the northern border city of Ciudad Juarez, meanwhile, two 15-year-old girls were among 15 people killed in a 24-hour period, said Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state Attorney General's Office.

The girls were riding in a car with three men Thursday night when assailants opened fire. The girls were killed inside the car, while the men tried to flee and were shot dead on the street, Sandoval said.

More than 20 bullet casings were found at the scene, some belonging to Kalashnikovs and AR-15 assault rifles.

Police had no immediate suspects.

Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas, is one of the deadliest cities in the world. Daily homicide tolls in the double digits are common.

The city has been besieged by a turf war between the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels.

-Associated Press

Mexico arrests 2 in ambush that killed 12 police

Caption: Federal police guard suspects Alain Escutia Ramos, known as "El Leon," left, and Emilio Ovet Palacios, know as "El Mostro," alleged members of the Mexican drug cartel "La Familia Michoacana," during a presentation to the press in Mexico City, Thursday, June 17. According to federal police, both men were arrested in Michoacan, and are accused of participating in an ambush which killed 12 Mexican federal policemen earlier in the week.

MEXICO CITY - Two men were arrested for allegedly participating in an ambush that killed 12 federal police officers in one of the worst drug-cartel attacks on Mexican government security forces, authorities said Thursday.

The suspects, Alain Escutia, 20, and Emilio Palacios, 22, belong to La Familia, one of Mexico's newest and most brutal cartels, said Ramon Pequeno, chief of the Federal Police's anti-narcotics division.

He said the two confessed to participating in the ambush Monday in Zitacuaro, a town in the Pacific coast state of Michoacan, La Familia's home base.

Investigators believe reputed kingpin Nazario Moreno ordered the ambush in retaliation for recent arrests of La Familia members, Pequeno said.

He said a cartel lieutenant met Monday with 35 gunmen at a gas station. The gunmen divided into two groups and headed for two bridges where they waited for the federal police patrol to pass. Pequeno said the two suspects were among a group of 26 who took position on one of the bridges, armed with high-caliber assault rifles and grenades.

They fired at the police patrol for nearly 30 minutes, he said. The police fired back, killing one of the gunmen and wounding several others. The gang members fled before police reinforcements arrived.

Pequeno said police learned the details from several days of intelligence work, although he did not elaborate.

Escutia and Palacios were arrested Wednesday in the Michoacan state capital of Morelia. Pequeno said police arrested the pair because they had "a suspicious demeanor" and their clothes were dirty. He said they were carrying large backpacks in which police later found two assault rifles, a handgun and ammunition.

The suspects were paraded before the news media Thursday, a common practice of Mexican security forces that has been criticized by human rights groups.

-Associated Press

Calderon defends drug war, many Mexicans skeptical

MEXICO CITY - Gunmen slaughter 19 men at a rehab clinic. Sixteen bodies are dumped in a northern city. Twelve police officers die in an ambush. Soldiers kill 15 gunmen outside a tourist town.

All this in less than a week, yet President Felipe Calderon believes Mexico is getting a bad rap and wants to hire a public relations firm to improve its image. He might want to start with convincing his own countrymen, who are frustrated by assurances that the drug war is going well.

"No matter how much the authorities want us to believe that they are winning this fight, the reality and the perception is that, on the contrary, it's a lost battle," said Miguel Jimenez, 21, a student in Morelia, the capital of Calderon's drug-plagued home state of Michoacan. "Day after day, it's demonstrated with the increasing violence."

Calderon passionately defended his military-led offensive against cartels this week, pledging not to withdraw the thousands of soldiers and federal police battling gangs across the country.

He acknowledged violence has surged — often claiming innocent lives — but insisted it was a war worth fighting and that things are going as planned.

"The strategy is advancing in the necessary direction that was established from the start," Calderon wrote in a long essay posted on his office's website this week. "Some analysts say that it was a mistake to fight crime, that we should not have 'provoked' them. I think this perspective is mistaken."

Calderon said cartels are infiltrating every walk of Mexican life, from police and politics to businesses cowered by extortion demands. He insisted there is no choice but to fight them. If there is more violence, he said, it is because drug cartels are reeling and splintered. And his government is embarking on long-term solutions, including U.S.-backed training of thousands of police and prosecutors in modern investigative techniques.

Some Mexicans agree.

The essay "was received with skepticism among commentators in the press and radio, where it has been commonly accepted that the strategy has failed," wrote columnist Hector Aguilar in the Milenio newspaper Wednesday. But "among the critics, there is nobody proposing an alternative to Calderon's strategy."

But others are tired of hearing the same arguments from the president and seeing little difference on the ground.

"How long is Calderon going to believe that this war will be won or lost by sacrificing lives?" wrote Milenio columnist Ciro Gomez. "Or, as he said last night, that things will change in the medium term?"

The problem is the sacrifice is proving too much for many Mexicans who get caught in the crossfire.

In the northern border city of Nuevo Laredo on Tuesday, soldiers chased down a group of gunmen who opened fire on their patrol. The gunmen crashed their car into a house where a woman was looking after her three grandchildren. A battle erupted, leaving one soldier and four of the gunmen dead. The grandmother and the children escaped unharmed.

Bernardo Carrizales, the youngsters' father, watched in horror from his house across the street.

"When I saw the crash, I ran to get my children but the soldiers wouldn't let me through and I was screaming because they were shooting at the house," Carrizales said. "Later, they let me through and I saw my mother splattered with (someone else's) blood and my three children behind her."

That wasn't the worst shootout Tuesday. In the picturesque tourist town of Taxco, south of Mexico City, soldiers battled suspected cartel members holed up in a house, leaving 15 of the gunmen dead and forcing residents to cower in their homes.

Farther west in Nayarit state, Gov. Ney Gonzalez ordered schools to close early this year because of rising violence, including shootings that killed 30 people in the Pacific coast state over the weekend. He said children should be home so parents "won't fret and worry about what is happening on the streets while the governor imposes order."

The bloodshed continued Wednesday: In the border city of Ciudad Juarez, four men and two women were shot to death as they left a drug rehab center. In another northern town, Apodaca, the tortured bodies of four police officers and one ex-cop were dumped in public. Threatening messaged had been impaled on their bodies with knives.

Critics see a disconnect between what's happening on the streets and Calderon's rhetoric.

While soldiers fought in Taxco, Calderon was in Southern Baja California to inaugurate a hotel. He announced a plan to hire a public relations firm "to demonstrate what our country has to offer, which is a lot, to any visitor of the world."

"His political nose has been compromised," said George Grayson, a Mexico expert at the College of William & Mary in Virginia. "They would like to improve their image but it's not within their control."

Part of the problem is that it's hard to keep up with each horrific tragedy.

Last week, Calderon met with the family of two young children killed two months ago in the northern border state of Tamaulipas. The military said they were caught in the crossfire between soldiers and gunmen, a claim disputed by the family and the National Human Rights Commission.

Calderon's office issued a short statement on the meeting with the family, but it was largely ignored.

By that time, Calderon was being criticized for going to South Africa for the World Cup in the midst of a crisis over the shooting death of a 15-year-old Mexican boy by a U.S. Border Patrol agent. Reforma newspaper published a political cartoon of Calderon running up the stairs of a South Africa-bound plane wearing a sombrero and shouting, "There are priorities!"

By the time Calderon arrived in South Africa, Mexico was reeling from two new horrors: a raid on a drug rehab clinic that left 19 people dead in northern Chihuahua City, and the bodies of 16 people found dumped in northeastearn Ciudad Madero. Calderon issued a statement condemning the rehab shooting.

Critics were not impressed.

"Calderon lives 'off side,'" wrote Arnoldo Kraus, using a football reference in a Jornada newspaper editorial Wednesday that criticized the trip.

"The problem is he doesn't know it."

-Associated Press

Mexico rights agency: Army covered up kids' deaths

MEXICO CITY - Mexican soldiers shot two children in April in their family's vehicle, and apparently altered the crime scene to try to blame the deaths on drug cartel gunmen, Mexico's National Human Rights Commission said Wednesday.

The conclusions of the governmental commission represent one of the strongest condemnations to date of the Mexican army.

While soldiers have frequently been accused of human rights abuses since the army took on a leading role in fighting drug cartels in late 2006, the report suggests the military also engaged in an elaborate cover-up in the deaths of the boys, aged 5 and 9.

The Defense Department press office said it had no immediate comment.

After the boys' mother said soldiers shot her sons with rifles, the army said in late April that its own study concluded the boys were killed by fragments from a self-propelled grenade of a type it doesn't use.

The rights commission's president, Raul Plascencia, said the Defense Department's study "is unfounded and does not agree with the evidence."

Thirteen members of the family were traveling in the vehicle April 3 in an area where the Defense Department said soldiers were pursing a convoy of gunmen in the northern state of Tamaulipas. It said the family got caught in crossfire during the confrontation, in which five other members of the family were wounded.

Plascencia said the evidence suggests additional rounds were later fired into the family's vehicle to make it look more like a crossfire incident. The army — which immediately took charge of the scene of the shooting — also apparently planted two vehicles at the scene that witness said had not been there at the time of the shooting, he said.

The evidence suggests "an arbitrary use of public force," Plascencia said.

The commission formally recommended that authorities reinvestigate the case, punish those responsible and submit soldiers to periodic psychological tests. The recommendations are not binding.

Tamaulipas has been the scene of bloody battles between drug cartels and security forces. Such violence has cost more than 23,000 lives nationwide since President Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and launched an offensive against the cartels.

Calderon has said the army is putting greater attention on ensuring troops respect human rights. But critics say the army should not be involved in law enforcement tasks and complain the current system allows soldiers to be investigated and tried in military courts, rather than civilian ones.

Plascencia said the commission has received 34 complaints of military abuses of civilians so far in 2010.

-Associated Press

US seeks to extend anti-drug aid plan for Mexico

WASHINGTON - The State Department has requested extension of a plan that promised $1.1 billion to help fight drug cartel violence in Mexico, which is undergoing one of the bloodiest months in recent history.

In a report submitted to Congress this week, department officials ask that the Merida Initiative be extended past 2012. The report calls for the strengthening of public institutions, support for local and state governments and a renewed effort to fight drug, weapon and money trafficking in the U.S., according to a copy of the document obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton already has requested $292 million in anti-drug aid for Mexico for 2011.

Anthony Placido, the Drug Enforcement Administration intelligence chief, said last month that he worries Mexico's next president will not continue the unrelenting war on drugs that President Felipe Calderon launched when he took office in late 2006. That war has claimed nearly 23,000 lives.

Presidential elections are scheduled for 2012.

The Merida Initiative was created by former President George W. Bush in 2007. While the U.S. pledged $1.1 billion in aid, an AP investigation showed only $161 million of that money has been spent so far.

-Associated Press

Texas police chief granted bond on drug charges

McALLEN - A federal court granted bond to a south Texas police chief arrested last week on drug trafficking charges, but prohibited him from law enforcement activities, confined him to his home and shared few details of his alleged role in the scheme Tuesday.

Sullivan City Police Chief Hernan Guerra Jr. was arrested as part of a nationwide sweep dubbed Project Deliverance targeting the transportation and distribution arms of Mexican drug-trafficking gangs. The 22-month investigation, announced last week, involved the arrest of more than 2,200 individuals.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Ormsby set Guerra's bond at $100,000 Tuesday and said he would be eligible for release Wednesday after federal pre-trial services officers visit his home.

"The alleged role of Mr. Guerra is very troubling," Ormsby said, without revealing details. Ormsby noted that as a police chief, Guerra was in a position of trust and "allegedly was using that position in furtherance of this activity."

Guerra faces charges of conspiracy to distribute marijuana and possession of marijuana. He has been police chief in the small community west of McAllen since 2004.

Guerra was one of 28 co-defendants in an indictment alleging that, beginning in June 2009, they conspired to possess with intent to distribute more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana. The specific possession counts cited in the indictment total 1,199 kilograms, or more than 2,600 pounds of marijuana.

Ormsby said Guerra was alleged to have played a "significant role" in a large-scale and sophisticated drug trafficking organization.

Oscar Alvarez, Guerra's attorney, said after Tuesday's detention hearing that the charges were serious, but he had not yet seen evidence to support to support them. Guerra pleaded not guilty Tuesday.

Guerra was suspended by the city, Alvarez said.

"He certainly doesn't want a cloud over the police department while this matter is being litigated," Alvarez said. Even if Guerra is cleared, the stigma of the charge will persist. "I think my client is pretty much resigned to the fact that it will be very difficult for him to go back into law enforcement in the future."

On Monday, Ormsby denied bond for Javier Francisco Pena Jr., one of Guerra' co-defendants. Pena allegedly acted as a scout for the drug trafficking ring and was found with night-vision goggles, two-way radios and multiple cell phones.

The organization moved significant quantities of marijuana across the Rio Grande in the Sullivan City area with a high-degree of accuracy, said federal prosecutor Patricia Profit, giving a hint of how Guerra ties into the case.

Pena apparently was already on bond from a state drug charge when picked up for the federal case, Profit said. Investigators also have evidence Pena was connected to the use of road spikes to stop pursuing authorities. The spikes, which are usually multi-pointed clusters of nails welded together, have been a growing problem for Border Patrol.

-Associated Press

29 inmates killed in Mexico prison clashes

MEXICO CITY - At least 29 inmates were killed Monday as rival gangs clashed inside a prison in a cartel-plagued Mexican state, authorities said. Three policemen guarding the prison were wounded.

In one attack, 20 inmates were shot to death when a group of prisoners opened fire on members of a rival gang inside the prison in Mazatlan, Sinaloa, state Public Safety Secretary Josefina Garcia told Radio Formula. One of the three wounded police was in serious condition, Garcia said.

The gang that initiated the attack killed 17 rivals and lost three of its own members.

An inmate who was wounded died later Monday at a hospital, said Martin Gastelum, a spokesman for the Sinaloa state prosecutors' office. He didn't say which gang the prisoner belong to.

The lockup in the Pacific coast city of Mazatlan was quickly brought under control and investigators found two pistols and an assault rifle inside, Gastelum said.

Gastelum said the killings were all at the hands of other prisoners.

Local media said those attacked were apparently members of the Zetas drug gang, which is battling the powerful Sinaloa cartel, but officials were unable to confirm that.

Hours later, eight more prisoners were stabbed to death by other inmates, said state Public Safety Department spokeswoman Angeles Moreno. She said police are investigating what sparked the violence.

Many of Mexico's most powerful drug traffickers hail from Sinaloa, a key smuggling corridor and cultivation area for marijuana and opiates. The northwestern state, and Mazatlan in particular, are rife with turf battles among drug gangs.

Mexico's drug gangs frequently try to break their members out of prison, by staging attacks from the outside or buying off prison officials. But there was no immediate confirmation Monday's shootings involved a prison-break attempt.

-Associated Press

10 Mexican federal police killed in attack

MEXICO CITY - Ten federal police officers were killed Monday after being attacked by unidentified gunmen near a vocational high school in western Mexico.

The officers were returning from a patrol when they came under fire from the gang in the city of Zitacuaro in western Michoacan state, the federal Public Safety Department said in a statement.

An unspecified number of officers were wounded in the attack and were taken to hospitals in Mexico City and the Michoacan state capital, Morelia, for treatment, the statement said. Several assailants were also killed or wounded, but officials did not provide an exact number.

Brutal drug-gang violence has swept Michoacan, a state known for its picturesque colonial capital, beaches and Monarch butterfly sanctuary. The state is a stronghold of La Familia, a cartel known for beheading its rivals and staging bold attacks on government security forces.

Police did not immediately identify the attackers or indicate whether they are suspected of being gunmen for La Familia cartel. But the Public Safety Department did say the assailants picked up their wounded and dead and fled with them, a tactic often used by Mexico's drug cartels.

Michoacan cartel gunmen have been known for staging violent attacks on law enforcement personnel in the past: In 2009, the bloodied and tortured bodies of 12 federal agents were found dumped along a highway in Michoacan in one of the worst single attacks against government forces.

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning urging U.S. citizens "to exercise extreme caution when traveling in Michoacan."

Nationwide, more than 22,700 people have been killed in drug violence since the government began its offensive against cartels in late 2006.

-Associated Press

Mexican reporters on gov't tourism trip kidnapped

MORELIA, Mexico - A government media tour to promote tourism in southwestern Mexico went awry when machete-wielding Indians briefly kidnapped 13 reporters on the trip, officials said Sunday. Fifteen people trying to film a beer commercial were also abducted.

Nobody was harmed during the abductions Saturday, said a Michoacan state government official who spoke on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to speak to the media. Government officials were still negotiating Sunday to recover the cameras and other media equipment stolen by the Nahua Indians.

The indigenous communal landowners were upset that Grupo Modelo, the maker of Corona beer, had not asked their permission to film the commercial on their property, said the official.

They first kidnapped the Mexican reporters after mistaking them for the Grupo Modelo team, the official said. The Nahua Indians released the journalists after about three hours, then kidnapped the Grupo Modelo filmmakers who arrived in the area later. They too were released after several hours.

Passions run high over territorial issues in rural pockets of Mexico, particularly in indigenous communities. Last month, gunmen opened fire on a group of European and Mexican rights activists, journalists and teachers union representatives who were attempting to reach a Triqui Indian village in central Mexico besieged by rival political factions. Two activists from Finland and Mexico were killed.

The Nahua Indians, holding machetes, confronted the journalists Saturday afternoon on a coastal highway between the port city of Lazaro Cardenas and the town of Aquila, said Alejandro Saldana Ortiz, the deputy director of the local Quadratin newspaper, which had a reporter on the trip. Two government officials were also among the group.

The reporters, cameramen and photographers had just finished a boat trip, part of a tour meant to highlight the sparkling Michoacan coastline, Saldana said. The indigenous group questioned the journalists and two government officials for several hours about whether they belonged to the Grupo Modelo team, he said. They were all released unharmed but the Indians refused to return cameras and other equipment.

Phones rang unanswered Sunday at the offices of Grupo Modelo.

Brutal drug gang violence has hurt tourism in Michoacan, a state known for its picturesque colonial capital, beaches and Monarch butterfly sanctuary.

The state is a stronghold of La Familia, a cartel known for beheading its rivals and staging bold attacks government security forces.

The U.S. State Department has issued a travel warning urging U.S. citizens "to exercise extreme caution when traveling in Michoacan."

-Associated Press

19 slain at Mexico rehab clinic, 20 in second city

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico - At least 30 gunmen burst into a drug rehabilitation center in a Mexican border state capital and opened fire, killing 19 men and wounding four people, police said. Gunmen also killed 20 people in another drug-plagued northern city.

The killings marked one of the bloodiest weeks ever in Mexico and came just weeks after authorities discovered 55 bodies in an abandoned silver mine, presumably victims of the country's drug violence.

The bullet-riddled bodies of 18 men and two women were found Friday in five different parts of Ciudad Madero, a city in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, where violence has surged this year amid a turf battle between the Gulf cartel and its former ally, the Zetas gang of hit men.

Police had no information on suspects.

It was the deadliest day in Tamaulipas drug violence since 18 gunmen were killed during a series of coordinated attacks on soldiers in April.

Another round of killings occurred late Thursday at the Faith and Life center in Chihuahua city, about 210 miles south of Ciudad Juarez and the border with El Paso, Texas, state police spokesman Fidel Banuelos said.

A day earlier unidentified assailants killed one man and wounded another at a rehab center in Ciudad Juarez, which has become one of the world's most deadly cities because of drug violence.

More than 60 people have died in mass shootings at rehab clinics in a little less than two years. Police have said two of Mexico's six major drug cartels are exploiting the centers to recruit hit men and drug smugglers, often threatening to kill those who don't cooperate. Others are killed for failing to pay for drugs or betraying a dealer.

The men at the Faith and Life center were roused out of bed shortly before 11 p.m. and placed face-down along a hallway, the center's director, Cristian Rey Ramirez, told The Associated Press.

Ramirez was alerted to the attack by a telephone call from the center's pastor.

"He tells me, 'You know what, come here because they just killed everyone,'" Rey said. "There was no warning."

The attackers left messages accusing the victims of being criminals, Banuelos said.

Four other people were hospitalized, two in critical condition and two in serious condition, officials said.

Most of the victims ranged in age from 30 to 40, with some older, and included a blind man, said the Rev. Rene Castillo, a minister who gives weekly sermons at the center, which opened 11 years ago.

"Everyone is so scared now," he said. Violence is "all everyone talks about, especially with all the threats that have been made," he said.

It was the first such attack on the center, although two men and a woman were kidnapped there in April 2008 while attending a memorial service, Banuelos said.

The three-story, baby-blue concrete building houses addicts for 90 days, although some of those attacked had been there for up to two years, Castillo said.

Among the victims was Jose Luis Zamarron Barraza, a heroin addict who arrived home a year ago from the U.S., said a relative who declined to give her name out of fear. She did not know Zamarron's age.

He entered the center a year ago, she said.

"The only crime he committed was to use drugs and want to get clean," she said. "He was really happy because he was about to leave. ... He almost made it."

President Felipe Calderon, whose war with drug cartels has seen nearly 23,000 people killed since he took office in late 2006, issued a statement condemning the shootings.

"They are outrageous acts that reinforce the conviction of the need to fight criminal groups who carry out such barbaric acts with full legal force," he said.

The federal government promised in February to invest $7.7 million in rehab centers and related programs in Ciudad Juarez. But plans for Mexico's first government-run drug rehab center have stalled for unknown reasons.

The government did open two small offices in Ciudad Juarez two months ago that provide counseling and prevention services.

Chihuahua state Health Secretary Octavio Martinez Perez said the Faith and Life center had a license and regularly met all state requirements.

"It is regrettable and tragic," he said.

In other presumably drug-related violence, authorities discovered three bodies, one of which had been decapitated, in the Pacific Coast state of Guerrero on Thursday and Friday.

One of the bodies was found Friday in the town of Iguala accompanied by a note. Police did not reveal what it said.

A second body was found Thursday in the town of Tecoanapa leaning against a cement post, its head placed between its knees, police said. Attached to that body was a message written on cardboard whose contents authorities declined to release.

The third body was found Thursday with signs of torture in Taxco, a colonial-era tourist town known for its silver jewelry. In late May, authorities discovered a mass grave in an abandoned silver mine on the outskirts of Taxco that had become a dumping ground for apparent victims of Mexico's drug violence. Authorities found 55 bodies before ending their search last weekend.

Also in Guerrero, two gunmen died Thursday after attacking a military convoy while two brothers, including a 16-year-old boy, died Friday during an ambush. No further details were available.

-Associated Press

Suspected US-born drug smuggler charged in Atlanta

ATLANTA - A Texas-born man suspected of leading a Mexican drug cartel was charged Friday in federal court in Atlanta with distributing thousands of pounds of cocaine from Mexico to the eastern U.S. from 2004 to 2006.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, who is known as "La Barbie," and five others were charged with conspiring to import and distribute cocaine and plotting to launder money. Authorities are offering a reward of up to $2 million for information leading to Villarreal's capture.

Authorities say Villarreal has become one of Mexico's most elusive drug kingpins, and the 36-year-old's mystique has grown partly because he was born in Laredo, Texas. Rodney Benson, the special agent in charge of Atlanta's Drug Enforcement Administration office, said the case "strikes directly at the core of Mexican drug cartel leadership."

Villarreal belonged to the notorious Sinaloa drug cartel in Mexico before one of its leaders split and established his own cartel, according to the indictment. Authorities say he is now battling for control and Mexican authorities have found decapitated and mangled bodies they believe are victims of the ongoing fight.

Prosecutors say they used a federal wiretap of a related case in Atlanta in January 2008 to identify Villarreal as the source of thousands of kilograms of cocaine that were imported into the U.S. from 2004 to 2006.

Witnesses said that some truckloads traveling from Laredo to Atlanta carried more than 650 pounds of cocaine. The workers shipped truckloads of money, often containing several million dollars in cash, back to Mexico in the tractor-trailer trucks, according to the court records.

Also charged in the indictment are: Carlos Montemayor, 37; Juan Montemayor, 45; Ruben Hernandez, 38; and Roberto Lopez, 31. Those four, along with Villarreal, are believed to be in Mexico. A fifth defendant, Jesus Ramos, has been arrested and arraigned in federal court in Atlanta and his charges are pending.

Along with Villarreal, authorities say Hernandez and Lopez are also U.S. citizens.

U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said the indictment is proof that federal prosecutors "are not content simply to arrest and prosecute those in our district who work on behalf of the Mexican cartels to bring cocaine into the United States."

-Associated Press

US arrests 2,000 in Mexican drug trafficking probe

HOUSTON - More than 2,200 people have been arrested during a 22-month investigation aimed at thwarting Mexican drug cartel efforts to distribute narcotics across the U.S. and funnel guns and money back south of the border, federal authorities said Thursday.

The probe, called Project Deliverance, focused on shutting down many of the cartels' U.S.-based cells that smuggle drugs, including cocaine, heroin and marijuana, across the U.S.-Mexico border, collect them at major distribution points like Houston and then distribute them nationwide.

Many cells also were responsible for laundering drug profits through real estate purchases and smuggling the proceeds as well as guns back into Mexico to support cartel operations, officials said.

All of Mexico's major drug organizations, including the Beltran Leyva, Gulf and Sinaloa cartels, were targeted in the investigation.

"This operation has struck a significant blow against the cartels, but make no mistake: we know that as successful as this operation was, it was just one battle in what is an ongoing war," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a Washington, D.C. news conference.

More than 400 arrests were made Wednesday in 16 states, including Texas, California and Virginia.

The Justice Department says the probe has led to the seizure of $154 million in currency, more than 1,200 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.5 tons of cocaine, more than 1,400 pounds of heroin and 69 tons of marijuana.

Those arrested included Carlos Ramon Castro-Rocha, accused of running a major black tar heroin smuggling operation from Mexico. Castro-Rocha was a middle man for Mexican cartels who worked for both the Sinaloa and the Familia cartels, moving about 70 kilos of heroin per month to the United States and then bringing $2 million back to Mexico monthly, said a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the case.

Castro-Rocha, 36, from Sinaloa, was arrested in Mexico on May 30 and awaits extradition to the U.S. He faces heroin trafficking charges in Arizona and North Carolina.

In Mexico, Ramon Pequeno, head of the anti-narcotics division of Mexico's federal police, said U.S.-Mexico cooperation has been key in arresting traffickers.

People like Castro-Rocha "keep a low profile, manage significant amounts of drugs and money, are little known and don't belong to any traditional drug trafficking organization, which makes it difficult to identify and capture them," Pequeno said. "It is at this stage that the exchange of information and the collaboration with authorities from other countries is heightened."

The Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement worked on the effort with state and local law enforcement agencies.

Arrests in Texas exemplified how officials said the federal probe disrupted cartel operations in the U.S.

In Houston and south Texas, officials said they shut down cells from the Beltran Leyva, Gulf and Zeta cartels that smuggled drugs into the U.S. in fake hay bales, school buses and dump trucks and also laundered millions of dollars in drug proceeds through the purchase of more than 70 residential lots in Hidalgo County. Those indicted in south Texas included Hernan Guerra, the police chief of Sullivan City, a small town near the Mexican border. He is accused of helping smuggle marijuana into the U.S.

"Each dollar we take is one they can't use to support their operations in Mexico," said Jose Angel Moreno, the U.S. attorney based in Houston.

In West Texas, 13 indictments were returned against 130 people directly associated with the two dominant cartels in the Ciudad Juarez, Mexico area: the Jarez and Sinaloa cartels.

"These organizations will be forced to recruit and develop new alliances for the transportation and distribution of their illicit drugs," said Joseph Arabit, El Paso's DEA chief. "By relying on less experienced and less trusted individuals in support of their activities they'll be more vulnerable to infiltration, further disruption and exploitation by law enforcement authorities."

-Associated Press

Mexico embraces food tourism to bring visitors

Photo by Eduardo Verdugo | AP
Mexican chef Patricia Quintana, left, talks with an unidentified chef as suckling pigs are displayed at a butchers stall at the San Juan market in Mexico City, May 31. Quintana, Mexico's official culinary ambassador, lead a 10-day "Aromas and Flavors" gastronomical tour of Mexico.

MEXICO CITY - They sniffed the concha rolls, scrutinized the granola, photographed the salsa and nibbled the chilaquiles, Mexico's crunchy-warm breakfast of corn tortillas fried in eggs and tomatillo sauce.

Amidst the fresh squeezed orange juice and high altitude sunshine at the rooftop bistro there was a buzz of excitement — and whispers of "save room for later" — as 100 chefs, journalists, researchers and foodies took their first bites of a 10-day "Aromas and Flavors" gastronomical tour of Mexico, part of the government's latest effort to attract tourists interested in something other than beaches and pyramids.

"We're excited to help Mexico improve its image, sharing all the richness, variety, flavors and abundance of dishes that are Mexican cuisine," said Mexico City's tourism director Alejandro Rojas Díaz Durán.

A typical Mexican culinary tour day starts with fresh mango and papaya, hand beaten hot chocolate, sweet rolls in fresh double-clotted cream, eggs poached in a spicy turkey stew. As the hours pass, there are pork loin tacos, then small fried battered fish, fresh tortillas, toasted grasshoppers sprinkled with salt and lime, roasted corn on the cob dipped in chili powder, slow cooked cow head, chicken vegetable soup and the omnipresent rice, beans, avocado and salsa.

"We're going to eat and drink and eat and drink and eat and drink!" laughed food writer Betty Fussell, who flew in from New York, leafing through an itinerary that will take busloads of adventurous eaters through five states.

At the helm of this barely containable passel of wandering, sampling, questioning foodies is the ever-serene chef and restaurateur Patricia Quintana, Mexico's official Cuisine Ambassadress, who herds her minions from restaurant to market to museum without raising her voice or dropping her serene smile.

For Quintana, whose work is subsidized by the Mexican government, bringing gastronomical tourism to her country is a labor of love.

"Mexico offers innumerable riches for tourism, but beyond the beaches, the archeological sites and the ecotourism, there's the cuisine, which should be known throughout the world, providing magnificent opportunities for visitors," she said.

Quintana's tour is one of many now available to would-be tourists in Mexico. Dozens of culinary guides offer tours that can be as short as an afternoon to several weeks. Prices vary, but are typically around $350 per day including hotel rooms and lots of food. Many tours include cooking lessons, as well.

The burgeoning industry was launched last year when Mexico's government began investing in culinary tourism as swine flu and drug cartel violence put a dent in the country's second most lucrative industry.

In addition to subsidizing some culinary tour guides, the government has also launched a series of "culinary routes" in the country. The Thousand Flavors of the Mole route, for example, features Tlaxcala, Puebla and Oaxaca, all cities known for their history, culture and the cooking of the complex Mexican culinary specialty, mole. The routes are mapped out, with key stops identified on the way, along with hotel and restaurant recommendations.

"We know that today, more than ever, to attract tourists and enhance their stays and spending in our country, it is necessary to provide products and services with greater added value and that are differentiated according to the tastes, time and resources of each traveler," said Mexico's tourism director Gloria Guevara.

Promoters hope they get another boost this month when the United Nations is expected to decide on the country's petition to add Mexican's cuisine to UNESCO's list of protected cultural heritage.

And culinary tours incorporate the history, visiting Diego Rivera's murals depicting cocoa bean growers in the National Palace and dining in former home-turned museum of famed composer Jose Alfredo Jimenez, whose dishes were flavored from orange and lemons grown on trees in the garden.

But the focus is on eating. And eating.

Days begin as early as 6:30 a.m. (eggs with cactus, sweet rolls with locally grown cinnamon) and can end as late as 1 a.m. (tequila and salty nuts, fresh cheese platters, tropical fruit sorbets) with visits to chili roasters and tequila distilleries, along with convents, museums and castles.

They have private seatings in Mexico's finest restaurants and gather in homes of traditional Mexican women cooking the same dishes their Aztec ancestors prepared.

"To see the foods is wonderful, but to taste so much in just 10 days, it's stupendous," said Jose Luis Curiel, a chemical engineer who teaches cooking in Mexico City.

Food, in Mexico, takes a prominent place in society.

Restaurants are the second largest private employers in the country, with 4.8 million involved in the business.

And life revolves around food here. Mexicans typically eat four meals a day, coffee and a roll at sun up, eggs and meat a few hours later, a heavy afternoon meal that can take a few hours and several courses, and a warm drink with bread or tortillas before bed. And of course there are snacks.

"In Mexico, cooking is like alchemy, like magic, when you see how they combine ancient ingredients to make a mole or a salsa. The more I see, the more I realize I have to learn about our cuisine," said tour-goer Pedro Sanudo.

On day three of the tour, at an exotic food market in Mexico City, food writer Herdis Luke of Hamburg, Germany, snapped photos of rare fruits stacked neatly by the hundreds — spiky tropical rambutans with creamy, honey flesh; lumpy nonis coveted for their nutritious juice; tangy-sweet orange-pulped mameys; blood red pitayas grown on cactus.

"I don't know of any other country with so many tastes," Luke sighed.

-Associated Press

55 bodies recovered from old silver mine in Mexico

TAXCO, Mexico - At least 55 bodies have been recovered from an abandoned silver mine that became a dumping ground for apparent victims of Mexico's drug violence, authorities said Monday.

The search for more victims ended over the weekend at the mine on the outskirts of Taxco, a colonial-era tourist town famous for its silver jewelry, said Albertico Guinto, attorney general for the state of Guerrero.

Guinto said the overall toll could still rise, however, as forensic examiners try to determine whether other human remains, clothing and shoes found in the nearly 500-foot-deep (150-meter-deep) shaft correspond to victims already included in the tally.

Most of the bodies have not been identified, but prosecutors recently said one was a recently kidnapped prison director. At least 15 people have been detained in the case.

Police discovered the mass grave in late May based on a tip after the arrest of an organized crime suspect in the nearby city of Iguala.

Also Monday, authorities in the Caribbean resort of Cancun were working to identify six bodies found in a cave over the weekend.

Quintana Roo state attorney general Francisco Alor initially said after the bodies were found Sunday that three had been cut open and their hearts removed.

He retracted that statement Monday, saying autopsies showed the organs were stabbed multiple times and essentially destroyed, but were never removed. Toxicology results found drugs in all six victims.

In the northern state of Durango, police reported the discovery of six decapitated men along with two heads.

Three more victims with severed heads were found by police in the central state of Morelos. A note left at the scene threatened people with ties to alleged drug trafficker Edgar Valdez Villareal, who authorities say is fighting Hector Beltran Leyva for control of the Beltran Leyva cartel.

Drug gang violence has claimed more than 22,700 lives since President Felipe Calderon launched a crackdown on cartels shortly after office in late 2006.

-Associated Press

Mexican band builds; romanticizing drug violence

MEMPHIS, Tenn. - In November, the police chief in the Mexican border city of Tijuana canceled a concert by a famous group of musicians after they released a song that suggested they had real-life links to the drug traffickers they'd been singing about for years.

Since then, the band has gone elsewhere. On Friday night, a burst of prerecorded gunfire echoed through a Memphis nightclub as the red-suited members of Los Tucanes de Tijuana launched their signature song, "El Papa de los Pollitos."

The lyrics describe a mob boss who calls himself "The daddy of the little chickens" and threatens rivals with an AK-47. "He who gets involved will die, if he doesn't make arrangements with me."

Los Tucanes, or The Toucans, are among the best-known composers of narcocorridos, Mexican ballads with a polka beat that often celebrate real-life drug lords as outlaw heroes.

The accordion-heavy songs are controversial in Mexico, where an estimated 6,587 people died in drug violence last year.

"Society sees drug ballads as nice, pleasant, inconsequential and harmless, but they are the opposite," Mexican lawmaker Oscar Martin Arce told The Associated Press. He has proposed a law to restrict music and movies that celebrate crime.

Despite the criticism, the music remains popular in Mexico and among immigrants in the U.S. Los Tucanes have held several shows in Memphis in recent years.

Like many Mexican groups that visit Memphis, they perform at venues that cater to immigrants and their shows aren't advertised in English. Their tour also includes stops in Tulsa, Okla.; Nashville; and Louisville. Hundreds of people paid as much as $60 for tickets to a recent show at Eclipse Discoteque nightclub on Getwell Road in south Shelby County.

The popularity of the music is a reminder of local links to Mexico's drug war. Most of the illegal drugs consumed here are delivered through Mexico, law enforcement officials say, and the city has long been a distribution point for drugs.

Mario Quintero, the 39-year-old lead singer and composer for Los Tucanes, says the group plays drug ballads because the audience wants them.

"We only play what the people want to hear, and since we depend on them, we can't stop pleasing them," he said.

He says it's freedom of speech and that it's not a negative influence.

Quintero, a soft-spoken man with a big mustache and a black hat, flatly denied connections to real-life drug dealers. "We don't have anything to do with drug trafficking or the traffickers. We make music."

Others have doubts.

The song that got them in trouble was about a Tijuana gangster named Raydel Lopez Uriarte, or "El Muletas," who belonged to a cartel known for beheadings and dissolving rivals' bodies in caustic soda, the AP reported.

The song, which appeared on the Internet last year, praises the criminal: "Muletas, how you have grown. The laws do nothing to you."

The song also includes a shout-out from Muletas to his friends.

Asked to explain how the message from Muletas got in the song, Quintero says people constantly approach him with requests and that he doesn't investigate what they do for a living.

"If someone says 'Hey, send a shout-out to Fulano,' I send it, because I don't believe I'm committing any crime," he said.

When the song appeared, Tijuana Police Chief Julian Leyzaola canceled a concert at the last minute. About 11,000 tickets had been sold, Quintero said.

The number of tickets sold underscores the group's popularity. The six-man band that started in the 1980s in a Tijuana bar has sold 2.2 million recordings in the U.S. alone, plus millions in other countries. Some of the band's biggest hits are dance or love songs that have nothing to do with drugs.

Songs by Los Tucanes are a staple on the three-hour Friday night radio show called "Heavy and Banned Ballads" on Memphis Spanish-language radio station WGSF-1030 AM.

The show specializes in corridos, or story songs. Host Aroldo Velasquez is quick to point out that the songs are on topics ranging from cockfighting to tragic love, not just drugs.

But some songs make clear references to drugs and drug violence. One song called "500 Shots" describes a band of ex-soldiers who carry out an assassination mission for the Mafia.

"'500 Shots' speaks of the truth," Velasquez said. "The truth that's happening in the border between Mexico and the United States."

On each show, Velasquez reads letters from local prisoners greeting friends and family. Foreigners make up only 2 percent of inmates in the local jail, 201 Poplar.

But at FCI Memphis, a federal lockup, one in five prisoners is from Mexico. The inmates were arrested around the country and serve long sentences, often for drugs.

Velasquez says prisoners are human beings who can change and that in some cases they're innocent.

"That's why I pass along the letters, because I believe they're not all guilty."

The radio station carried ads for the concert by Los Tucanes, who didn't go onstage until just before 2 a.m. Saturday.

What followed was a performance in which the skill, cheerfulness and energy of the musicians often overshadowed the menace of the words. Couples danced and women climbed onstage to kiss Quintero on the cheek. One drunken man did it too.

Between songs, Quintero read requests and shout-outs from the audience. One was for La Familia Michoacana, a drug cartel.

Just before 4 a.m., there was a final request for a song called "La Pinata." The band obliged, singing about a party where people break open a pinata that's stuffed with drugs, not sweets.

"The cake wasn't made of bread, it was Colombian cake / Yes, they serve it on plates, but five or six grams at a time / If you want to make pinatas, I've got the bags right here."

-Associated Press

Drug-torn Mexico favors scrapping municipal police

MEXICO CITY - Mexico's president is urging approval of a plan to replace local police departments with state forces so the government can better fight unrelenting drug violence that has claimed nearly 23,000 lives.

Part of the goal is to root out corruption by replacing generally low-paid, poorly educated local police, who are seen as more susceptible to bribery and intimidation by the powerful cartels.

It also aims to streamline operations and improve communication between police, President Felipe Calderon told a public safety commission Thursday before it approved the plan at the end of a three-hour session.

"We want a safe Mexico in which there is no room for the fear, violence and impunity that we suffer today," Calderon said.

Pending a cost analysis, Calderon intends to present it to Congress when it resumes session in September.

Mexico's Public Safety secretary first floated the idea last year, but it received a lukewarm response because some officials worried that it would be hard to police many of Mexico's 2,439 municipalities if local departments were eliminated. Only 12 of Mexico's 31 states even have their own police forces.

Some of the officials who voiced those concerns have since stepped down or been voted out of office. It's still unclear how it will fare in Congress.

So far, the military and federal police have led the war against drug cartels launched shortly after Calderon took office in December 2006.

Yet some states have already moved to consolidate municipal forces into regional departments — such as Morelos, which has seen dozens of killings as gangs battle for control of a cartel once led by Arturo Beltran Leyva.

The government is also proposing to create a national crime database that would include information on kidnappings, stolen cars and prisoners. A separate database would contain photos of all police officers, their fingerprints and other identifying details.

A recent high-profile campaign to fight extortion and kidnapping by compiling a registry of cell phone users around the country ended up going awry, however, after the users' personal data turned up for sale on two websites.

Prosecutors are investigating, Interior Department spokesman Luis Estrada said Thursday.

The mayor of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's deadliest city with 2,601 drug-related killings reported last year, backed Calderon's proposal and said municipal police are often easy prey in small, close-knit towns.

"The more (a police officer) knows, the more he becomes known," Jose Reyes Ferriz said. "All this makes him more vulnerable to criminals."

Nuevo Leon Mayor Rodrigo Medina urged the government to create more jobs and education opportunities if it wants to see a drop in crime.

"There is no public safety model that will resolve the situation we face right now," he said, a day after two federal police officers were killed and one wounded in the nearby town of Garcia.

Three alleged members of the Zetas cartel have been charged in the attack, said Luis Cardenas Palomino, regional security chief of the federal police.

Nuevo Leon state prosecutors said the officers had stopped a car for a search when gunmen in several SUVs pulled up and opened fire.

Hours later, police found the bodies of a local traffic officer and a trainee inside a car in the nearby town of Santiago.

-Associated Press

US-Mexico border isn't so dangerous

MEXICO CITY - It's one of the safest parts of America, and it's getting safer.

It's the U.S.-Mexico border, and even as politicians say more federal troops are needed to fight rising violence, government data obtained by The Associated Press show it actually isn't so dangerous after all.

The top four big cities in America with the lowest rates of violent crime are all in border states: San Diego, Phoenix, El Paso and Austin, according to a new FBI report. And an in-house Customs and Border Protection report shows that Border Patrol agents face far less danger than street cops in most U.S. cities.

The Customs and Border Protection study, obtained with a Freedom of Information Act request, shows 3 percent of Border Patrol agents and officers were assaulted last year, mostly when assailants threw rocks at them. That compares with 11 percent of police officers and sheriff's deputies assaulted during the same period, usually with guns or knives.

In addition, violent attacks against agents declined in 2009 along most of the border for the first time in seven years. So far this year assaults are slightly up, but data is incomplete.

"The border is safer now than it's ever been," said U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesman Lloyd Easterling.

He said one factor is that with fewer jobs available amid the U.S. recession, illegal immigration has dropped. And responding to security concerns after 9-11, the Border Patrol has doubled the number of agents in the region since 2004.

Nonetheless, border lawmakers and governors say their region is under siege and needs more troops.

"Violence in the vicinity of the U.S.-Mexico border continues to increase at an alarming rate. We believe that this violence represents a serious threat to the national security of the United States as well as a serious threat to U.S. citizens that live along the 1,969-mile long border," a dozen bipartisan members of Congress from border states wrote President Obama.

In Arizona, a stringent new immigration law takes effect next month, requiring police to question suspects' immigration status if officers believe they're in the country illegally. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said in a televised interview last weekend: "We are out here on the battlefield getting the impact of all this illegal immigration, and all the crime that comes with it."

In response to the concerns from the border states, Obama pledged to send 1,200 National Guard troops to help and spend an extra $500 million on border security.

His one-time rival for the presidency, Arizona Sen. John McCain, said he should send at least 6,000 troops, which are needed because he said Arizona leads the nation in marijuana seizures, suffered 368 kidnappings in 2008 and has the highest property crime rates in the U.S.

But FBI crime reports for 2009 says violent crime in Arizona declined. And violent crimes in southwest border counties are among the lowest in the nation per capita — they've dropped by more than 30 percent in the last two decades. Of America's 25 largest cities, San Diego — with one out of four residents an immigrant — has the lowest number of violent crimes per capita.

Opponents of increased border security are frustrated by descriptions of a wave of violence when the statistics show the region to be relatively safe.

"Politicians are hyping up this incredible fear across the country about the border, but these numbers show these are lies being perpetrated on the American public," said immigrant advocate Isabel Garcia at Tucson-based Derechos Humanos. "The warnings about violence are just an excuse to crack down on migrants who want to work and be with their families."

Even residents of the border region who want more security are surprised by the talk of violence.

"I have to say, a lot of this is way overblown," said Gary Brasher of Tuboc, Arizona, who is president of the Coalition for a Safe and Secure Border.

So why send troops to the region?

"That's really something to ask the White House," Easterling said.

White House spokesman Mike Hammer said "there are other rationales for why those border deployments are occurring" but declined to name any of them. "I would really put this to the Department of Homeland Security," he said.

Homeland Security spokesman Matthew Chandler provided a written statement that said more help is needed to build upon "the unprecedented resources the Administration has dedicated over the past 16 months and will serve to expand long-term the successes that have been realized to date."

Governors along the border say improved crime rates don't counter their concerns about risk.

"The federal government currently does not know who is entering our country and when, which obviously creates tremendous security concerns," said Brewer's spokesman Paul Senseman.

And in Texas, "we respond to threats based on risk, not occurrence," said Gov. Rick Perry's spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger. Thus Perry has activated a secret state border protection emergency plan.

"With the safety of Texans on the line, we can't afford to wait," he said.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who ordered the National Guard to patrol the border in his state six weeks ago, is concerned about "the potential for drug cartel violence spilling over the border," spokesman Gilbert Gallegos said.

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger spokesman Francisco Castillo said that while "we've seen some success," troops are needed "to provide more security along our borders."

Concerns about danger come, in part, from Mexico, where raging cartel violence has taken 23,000 lives in three years, often within view of the U.S. border. There's frequent talk of the potential for that violence to spread across the border, although so far it hasn't happened to any significant degree.

Several high-profile and frightening incidents have added to the fears: Authorities suspect an illegal immigrant working for drug smugglers killed Arizona rancher Robert Krentz in March, and last year Border Patrol agent Robert Rosas, 30, was murdered while on patrol near San Diego.

"Agents now have to question if they will be ambushed," U.S. District Judge M. James Lorenz said as he sentenced a 17-year-old Mexican to 40 years for killing Rosas.

In fact, agents in the San Diego region are less likely to be attacked these days.

"Agent Rosas' death changed the way we do business. Agents are on high alert, we have to be ready. But if you just look at the numbers, assaults here are down 27 percent," said Border Patrol spokesman Jerry Conley, who worked with Rosas. He said that since Rosas' death, officers don't venture into potentially dangerous situations without backup. Solo patrols are rare, and they emphasize safety precautions.

There are exceptions to the trend: Assaults on agents in the Laredo, Texas, region increased from 44 in 2008 to 118 in 2009, and they increased in the neighboring Rio Grande Valley as well. Agents also fired their guns on 49 separate occasions in 2009, a 50 percent increase from 2008.

Customs spokesman Easterling said that while fewer people are trying to sneak across the border, those who do are more likely "engaged in activity other than illegal entry, such as drug smuggling, and are more likely to use violence as a means to help them escape apprehension."

But the bigger picture is one of increased safety. In fiscal year 2009, there were 1,073 violent attacks — mostly thrown rocks, bottles and sticks but also 48 incidents in which a gun was fired — against the 20,119 Border Patrol agents, down from 1,097 violent incidents against 17,819 agents in 2008.

In addition to those agents, another 22,000 officers work at the nation's border crossings and airports, checking people as they enter and exit the country.

It's one of the safest jobs in law enforcement: Last year 17 of them were assaulted, a 74 percent decrease from 2008.

Edward Alden, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said it's time for lawmakers to reconsider what they'd like to see happening in the region.

"Border security has become the most overused, and least understood, concept in the struggle over what to do about our broken immigration system," he said. "While an election year may not be the best time, the United States finally needs an honest debate over what it means to secure the country's borders."

-Associated Press

Study: Mexico drug cartels avoid bank deposits

MEXICO CITY - Financial experts studying Mexico's drug cartel proceeds say less than half the money smuggled out of the U.S. each year ends up in a bank.

They say the rest is either stashed or directly spent in Mexico.

Estimates say between $19 billion and $29 billion are smuggled out of the U.S. each year.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Assistant Administrator John Morton unveiled the findings from a binational criminal proceeds study on Wednesday in Mexico City.

Drug gang violence has soared since President Felipe Calderon launched crackdown on traffickers in late 2006. More than 22,700 people have been killed.

-Associated Press

Cancun mayor charged with ties to drug cartels

MEXICO CITY - The mayor of Cancun has been charged with having drug trafficking ties, forcing him to end his campaign for governor in a scandal that has shaken Mexico's upcoming state elections.

A federal judge indicted Gregorio Sanchez Tuesday on charges of organized crime and money laundering a week after he was arrested in Mexico's most important tourist resort. Prosecutors say he protected two of Mexico's most brutal drug gangs and lived beyond his means.

The formal charges bar Sanchez from participating in politics, ending his run for governor of the Caribbean coast state of Quintana Roo.

Also Tuesday, authorities say a 3-year-old girl was killed together with her father by gunmen who opened fire on their car in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas.

Arturo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Chihuahua state prosecutors' office, said the girl was shot once in the neck.

-Associated Press