Tuesday 14 May 2013

Thirteen shot around Mexico, passenger bus robbed

Thirteen at least were reported killed or found dead in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 11-13 May. Seven were shot dead on 12-13 May in the states of Guerrero, Sinaloa and Nuevo León in western, north-western and northern Mexico, including a municipal police official shot at home late on 12 May, Proceso reported. Assassins shot dead Raúl Valladares Díaz the deputy-police chief of San Miguel Totolapan in Guerrero, while he was having dinner with his family. The other victims were "four young men" shot early on 13 May by a dam outside the city of Culiacán in Sinaloa, and two men found dead in a car some 40 kilometres east of the city of Monterrey, with hands and feet tied, Proceso reported. The review separately reported six killings on 12 May in the northern state of Coahuila, in incidents in the districts of Saltillo and San Pedro de las Colonias outside Torreón. Three of the victims were aged between 15 and 17 years. In Chihuahua, masked bandits robbed a passenger coach travelling to the northern city of Juárez early on 13 May, stopping the bus near the district of Villa Ahumada. Passengers were relieved of all valuable belongings but nobody was hurt, Proceso reported. On 14 May the firm Marsh Brockman touted a "unique and innovative" insurance product designed to cover losses derived from the actions of organized crime, Mexican media reported. The product - launched in January 2013 and aimed at domestic and foreign firms working in Mexico - compensates policy-holders up to 25 million USD for damages caused by the acts of organized crime or terrorism and sabotage, Milenio reported. The daily cited firm spokesman Julián Abraham González as saying that this was better than similar products in certain other states, which only covered losses from terrorism.

Colombia catches gang suspects, Police count fewer Bogotá murders

The army caught nine suspected members of criminal gangs in operations in northern Colombia, including six suspected members of one of the main trafficking and killing outfits, the UrabeñosCaracol radio and the EFE agency reported on 13 May. The six suspected Urabeños were caught with firearms and hand grenades in a rural part of the district of Caucasia in the Antioquia department and were to be charged with illegal arms possession and trafficking. Two were identified by their pseudonyms El Fiscal and Finura and described as former paramilitaries. Troops separately caught in the district of Zaragoza three suspected members of another gang Héroes del Nordeste (North-east Heroes), including their purported chief in that district, EFE reported. In the capital Bogotá, police launched an operation on 8 May against mobile phone theft and street crime in which they detained six suspects including a purported head of a thieving gang active in one of the city's main avenues, the website of the Bogotá Government Secretary reported on 10 May. The detainee, a man dubbed Caricortado (Scarface), was described as a veteran thief of mobile phones and previously detained four times but later released for being underage. The city's Government Secretary who coordinates security policies, Guillermo Alfonso Jaramillo Martínez, said police were focusing on mobile thefts as killings had declined in Bogotá but persistent mobile thefts "generate a sense of insecurity among people." Police also confiscated 1,000 knives or sharp instruments and detained five suspected street dealers, the Government Secretary reported. The Bogotá police chief said police counted 380 homicides "so far this year," 76 cases less than the 456 homicides counted for the same period in 2012, Caracol radio reported on 13 May. General Luis Martínez Guzmán cited the neighbourhoods with most killings as Ciudad Bolívar and Usme in southern Bogotá and Bosa in the west.