the situation down there is so nuts . its just gonna get worse. i wonder what the tipping point is going to be? I can just see more and more smaller factions splintering off, fighting w other cartels AND their former cartels. i wonder how they even know whos who anymore

I live in Austin and have friends from border towns, on both sides. It is an absolute mess and will not stop anytime soon. The cartels are active in every large city in TX and we see trucks pulled over on the highways for random checks all the time. The flow of drugs north and $ / guns south is staggering.

It's truly amazing to see what's been going on in Mexico. I don't think any Cosa Nostra family comes close to the power of some of these cartels. Forbes magazine named Joaquin Guzman Loera, the 60th most powerful man in the world. I wonder where Barney Bellomo and Steven Crea are .

yeah it's insane. you gotta think that Joaquin Guzman is probably the most important/powerful man in Mexico right now by far. I remember rumors that the government there is just letting the Sinola's operate and going after everybody else to consolidate all the crazyness into one cartel. Just rumors and even if that was true the chances of that working are slim to none.

Vin, you got that right. What is happening in Mexico is beyond any scale LCN ever got to, French Connection and Pizza Connect included. In the last year, they entered a house in Mexico City and seized over $200M in US cash. Cash!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072400150.html

Like I always say when the inevitable comparisons come up, a better counterpart to the Mexican cartels would be the Italian syndicates that operate internationally, i.e. the 'Ndrangheta, Sicilian Mafia, Camorra, etc.

Totally, i mean look at this story...Look at how much they took from Lucca Sicula...

http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Aki/English/Security/Italy-Assets-worth-over-%E2%82%AC500mln-seized-from-jailed-mafia-boss_311685744552.html

This is just crazy shit. They could make a new war movie of this.

It's a hellish nighmare for these people. A good friend of mine lives in Chihuahua and he says, the people can't even buy nice cars down there. Him and his wife want to have a child, but they can't bring themselves to do it. I don't blame them. Who could bring a child into hell?

ICE/DEA Raids in Michigan

Oakland homes raided after federal agent's death in Mexico
Robert Snell and Santiago Esparza / The Detroit News

Detroit— Law enforcement agents are conducting raids against suspected drug gang members in Oakland County who might be connected to the death of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Mexico last week, The Detroit News has learned.

The raids have been carried out since Tuesday and involve executing search warrants at homes in Pontiac and other Oakland County communities, according to a source familiar with the operation.

The raids are being conducted by agents from ICE, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the Oakland County Sheriff's Office, and members of the Pontiac and West Bloomfield Township police departments, said Khaalid Walls, a spokesman for ICE in Detroit.

....

Sonny - you got that right - my wife is working on screen play about the Zeta - Gulf Cartel war based upon first hand knowledge from a close friend.

Those guys have redefined nasty.

Unlike the American mafia where they get rid of the body - the Mexicans seem to delight in hanging bodies up in public or leaving them on the roadside with their head cut off or pants pulled down.
They are nasty bastards arent they!

Gary, they have done both, it just depends. Many times they leave them for display, heads and other body parts. In some cases, there have been mass graves and burials.

The Zetas, Sinaloa and Felix-Arrellano cartels have also dissolved corpses in acid. The Zetas called it "gisu" or stew.

The carnage in Mexico exceeds anything any Organized Crime group have ever done, and compares more with a war.

They do get rid of the bodies unless they want to send a message,intimidate or bring heat towards rivals or the government. When they get rid of the bodies they either burn them, bury them or dissolve them in acid. The guys that do this work are usually called "carniceros", back in 2009 the Mexican military captured a guy working for Teo's cell(Sinaloa Cartel) that allegedly dissolved 300 bodies, they have found mass graves with dozens of bodies.

I recently read in an article that test were done and acid doesn't disolve bodies, it actually preserves it.

If we're talking about the same recent article, I think it said that the acid didn't eat away the body as fast as some had claimed. It eventually did but took more time.

From what I can tell, gangsters from Italy to Mexico have been using it to dispose of bodies so it must work enough.

Fucked up.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/2011/03/03/20110303beheading0303.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/03/03/national/main20038647.shtml

I refuse to let my partner work in the country (she's a bit of a bleading heart Bless'er; primary teacher & volounteer aid n stuff), sure they might need it, but until the State gets its shit together, how could you risk it? Not with all the murders that are taking place as we speak.

You know how hard it is to get Travel Insurance when they know you want to go to Mexico?

I was actually near pretty near this shootout lol I remember it.

I'm sorry but, if you're stupid enough to steal from one of the cartels, I don't know what to tell you...

Most of the splinter off factions are from the Beltran Leyva organization like CIDA, Mano con Hojos, Montermayor's faction etc. The Beltran Leyva organization is pretty much done now and it has pretty much integrated into the Zetas under the Z-40 faction. Though the Betran Leyva group used to be part of the Sinaloa Cartel. The major cartels are pretty much in tact and haven't had factions splintered off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5roUOwMn8a4



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC_nwSpHdGQ

These guys sure enjoy their work...

http://www.diariodelnarco.com/2011/04/narcoterror-localizan-dos-cadaveres.html

Another mass grave has been found,
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-bodies-20110407,0,1639658.story

People in 38 cities across Mexico took to the streets a few days ago in protest of the ultra-violence being perpetrated by the cartels.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/World-N...an_Drug_Cartels


A good sign i guess.

im kind of worried about the possibility of one of these groups getting 'nuclear capability'. not talking about them stockpiling hydrogen bombs but they definitely have the money and resources to get dirty bombs, small scale nuclear weapons, that type of thing...

US Rep. Michael McCaul has moved to introduce a bill identifying the 6 biggest cartels as terrorist organizations, which is fair enough considering their terrifying tactics.
This op.ed piece from the Dallas Mornig News agrees. http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/editor...-terrorists.ece

Beltranes/Zetas vs Sinaloa Cartel fighting in Nayarit.


2nd part:

Here's an article about the 177 people they've found so far in that pit, most apparently killed by bludgeoning. Many were just passengers dragged off buses at cartel checkpoints. For a lot of these guys now, it's about the pleasure of torturing and murdering people as much as anything.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mass...asbE_story.html


5 women (including a 14 year old girl) had their throats slit. One was dismembered.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/wor...o-1226044664496

Like I've said before, these cartels kill innocent people like woman and children which means they are in the same league as terrorist groups like Al Qaida.