Saturday 6 April 2013

Suspected gang chief caught in Guatemala

Guatemalan police and state prosecutors detained on 3 April a suspect identified as the chief in Guatemala of the Mara Salvatrucha - the local branch of one of Central America's main criminal gangs - following a joint operation in Iztapa on the Pacific Coast, Europa Press reported citing Guatemalan media. Marco Antonio Sian Chávez - el Bufón - was one of three suspected gang chiefs detained in 30 operations against gangs around the country that day. Police also caught a suspected gunman of the Maras with Sian Chávez - a 21-year-old dubbed el Enano. The gang leader was sought for his suspected role in at least four killings, of a rival and three alleged police informants, Prensa Libre reported on 4 April. The state attributes most extortions in the country to the two main gangs, M-18 and Mara Salvatrucha.

Twenty six killed in Mexico, rivals blame cartel in massacre

Thirteen were reported killed or found dead on 3 April, these including five bodies found in a burned car in the north-central state of Zacatecas, and two dismembered bodies found in the district of Fuerte in the north-western state of Sinaloa. The 13 also included two bodies with torture marks found in the northern city of Tijuana and, unusually, a driver shot to death from another car in the Colonia Roma, a middle-class neighbourhood of Mexico City, Proceso reported. The bodies of four youngsters including a 13-year-old were found on 4 April by a road in the northern state of Chihuahua, La Crónica de Hoy and other dailies reported. The victims, shot to death, were respectively aged 13,18, 22 and 29, Proceso reported. Three bodies were found on 5 April in a clandestine grave outside the Pacific resort of Acapulco following information given to police by a suspected kidnapper detained on 3 April, Milenio reported. The detainee reportedly confessed to police his involvement in the undated killing of a local schoolteacher and schoolgirl, and possibly other kidnappings and murders in Acapulco and the Guerrero state, which were being investigated. The daily also reported: a 16-year-old schoolgirl was found dead near Mitla in Oaxaca on 5 April, a week after she was reported disappeared and with signs she had likely been beaten, raped and stabbed, while a man was shot dead while driving in the town of Tonalá in Chiapas, southern Mexico. Four were also reported shot dead in incidents on 5 April in the western state of Jalisco, El Informador reported. A local politician may have been kidnapped in his house in the state of Zacatecas on 2 April, although the suspected crime was not reported for days. Jaime Rincón, a mayoral pre-candidate of the Green Party for the district of Cañitas de Felipe Pescador remained absent and police stated nobody had yet called to ask for a ransom, Proceso reported on 5 April. Authorities identified the nine dismembered bodies found on 31 March outside the north-eastern city of Victoria as belonging to migrants heading north to process permits to enter the United States, following information given by their relatives. Their discovery apparently prompted Mexico's Sinaloa cartel to accuse the rival Zetas cartel of having murdered the nine, the charge being written on sheets (narcomantas) briefly found hanging in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo before police took them down, Proceso reported on 4 April. The message attributed to the Sinaloa cartel chief Joaquín Guzmán Loera was addressed to the "sick" Zetas chief Z40 and "corrupt authorities" allegedly protecting him, and vowed to help the Gulf Cartel "cleanse" Nuevo Laredo of Zetas.