Thursday 8 November 2012

Colombian gangsters murder 10 peasants

Suspected gangsters murdered 10 workers on a fruit farm in northern Colombia on 7 November, firing "indiscriminately" before throwing a grenade at them, The Associated Press reported, citing police statements. The police were reportedly told that three gunmen gathered a group of workers on an estate in the district of Santa Rosa de Osos in the Antióquia department, and asked if the business was paying protection money; the workers apparently did not know or would not say, whereupon the gunmen began shooting. The massacre was attributed to the Rastrojos gang, the broadcaster Caracol reported on 8 November. Colombia's Defence Minister Juan Carlos Pinzón said in Bogotá on 8 November that "such barbaric acts have no explanation," though police commanders would travel to the zone to investigate, El Espectador reported. Pinzón said in an interview with Blu Radio that the incident was of concern as authorities had recently detained the presumed local head of the Rastrojos, dubbed 18. The governor of Antióquia Sergio Fajardo Valderrama also spoke to Blu Radio, lamenting that "the criminal phenomenon" continued even as leading criminals were caught. Separately a Venezuelan beauty queen and two Colombians were among five arrested in Venezuela at an unspecified date and being questioned for suspected ties to the Colombian drug trafficker Daniel "Crazy" Barrera, arrested last September. The detained, including Gabriela Alexandra Fernández Ocando - beauty queen for the Venezuelan state of Zulia in 2008 - may be charged with money laundering and criminal conspiracy, Caracol reported on 8 November.

Eight killed around Mexico, drug cash found

"At least" eight people were reported to have been killed or found dead on 7 November in different parts of Mexico, including one in the form of a severed head found on a road outside Ríoverde in north-central Mexico. Others included suspected criminals killed in shootouts with the police, Proceso reported. Criminals were also reported that day to have kidnapped the mother of a regional legislator in western Mexico. Sandra Luz Ríos Ríos was abducted from her bakery in a village in the Benito Juárez district of the state of Guerrero, Proceso reported. Her son Ricardo Ángel Barrientos Ríos was elected last July to the state parliament of Guerrero for the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party; he was mayor of Benito Juárez in 2009-12. Guerrero has in past months witnessed regular violence as cartels fight to control its territory. In the northern state of Nuevo León, authorities presented to the press on 7 November four presumed members of the Gulf Cartel likely involved in murders and kidnappings, detained on a state highway on 22 October, Proceso reported. They were said to have confessed to their roles in 13 killings including of policemen, and 16 kidnappings in southern Nuevo León. Separately the explosion of a house for a gas leak in the north-western city of Tijuana led police to find there about 1.8 million USD thought to belong to the Sinaloa Cartel, Proceso reported on 7 November. Five children or teenagers were injured by the explosion as was a woman identified as niece of the trafficker and cartel member Raydel López Uriarte, jailed in 2010. In Coatzacoalcos in the eastern state of Veracruz the army arrested a "criminal cell," confiscating from them items including six cars, 500 doses of cocaine, cash worth about 20,000 USD and arms including a machine gun and a rocket launcher, Proceso reported.