Crime kills 40, officials said kidnapped in Mexico

About 40 were killed or found dead through 15-18 February across Mexico in shootouts or suspected executions by gangsters; one shooting death occurred unusually at midday in a Mexico City district frequented by tourists. A man was shot in that incident on 15 February as he left a bookshop in the Zona Rosa, a district of bars, eateries and offices popular with youth and tourists, Proceso reported. He was one of at least 16 the review reported as killed or found dead around Mexico on 14-15 February. These also included two whose bones were unearthed outside Acapulco in the west-coast state of Guerrero and two decapitated corpses found late that day, hanging from a bridge in the north-western state of Sinaloa. Proceso counted seven suspected crime victims in the states of Jalisco and Estado de México on 16 February. On 17 February a student was found shot dead in the western district of Chilpancingo. Three students were reported injured in Cuernavaca on the night of 16-17 as a gang of 15 broke in a robbed a student house party. Proceso counted 15 or more suspected victims of crime found on 17-18 February. These included a federal prosecutor and a man identified as his brother, found shot dead at the back of a car in the district of Ciénaga de Flores north of Monterrey. Another brother - the police chief of the district of Nuevo Laredo - was apparently missing on 18 February, Proceso reported. On 19 February, a senior detective from the northern state of Nuevo León was shot dead in the district of Apodaca, Excelsior reported. Two municipal officials and a former state official were also suspected to have been kidnapped in western and central Mexico. The mayor of Huitzuco de los Figueroa in Guerrero, his municipal finance officer and their driver were missing as of late 17 February and may have been kidnapped while driving betweeen Huitzuco and nearby Iguala, Milenio reported on 19 February. The former finance chief of the state of Morelos, Alfredo Jaime de la Torre, was in turn thought kidnapped on 18 February at his office in the district of Temixco, Proceso reported.

Over 30 killed, found dead, in pieces around Mexico

Nineteen were reported killed or found dead in incidents around Mexico over 31 January-1 February, and more in following days in kidnappings, executions and shootouts between state forces and suspected criminals. Among the 19 were seven suspected gangsters shot dead by soldiers on 1 February in the north-eastern district of Ciudad Victoria in Tamaulipas, and five youngsters aged 18-22 years, shot dead then left outside the town hall of Tecpan de Galeana in the western state of Guerrero. Proceso reported separately on 2 February the deaths at an unspecified date of four car dealers from the western state of Michoacán, apparently after they were kidnapped in Tamaulipas and in spite of their families paying ransom for them twice. The four went to Ciudad Victoria on 10 January to buy cars; they were buried in the locality of Cuitzeo in Michoacán on 1 February, Proceso reported. The review also reported two murders, of a woman and a man on 3 February in the north-central and central districts of Zacatecas and Ecatepec respectively; a message was found by her body, presumably left by her assassins. Two municipal policemen were reported shot dead in the north of the east-coast state of Veracruz early on 3 February, while the dismembered body of a transport official was left on 2 February at a petrol station in Gómez Palacio in the state of Durango. In Nuevo Laredo in Tamaulipas, seven suspected criminals were killed in two gun battles in the city on 2 February, La Crónica de Hoy reported. Authorities made a public presentation on 3 February of 18 detainees thought involved in the killings of six or more people in Toluca in the central Estado de México in late January, Milenio reported. These were thought to have formed three criminal cells involved in activities including theft and drug dealing, and caught through collaboration between marines, federal police and state security authorities. The review Proceso stated they were presumed members of the cartel La Familia Michoacana.

Over 20 reported killed, found dead in Mexico

The review Proceso put the death toll from presumed criminal incidents in Mexico from late 28 January through 29 January at 16; the dead included suspected criminals, policemen, unidentified civilians and an 11-year-old girl, earlier reported as kidnapped and found dead in the district of Tecomán in the western state of Colima. Five others were found in ditches or makeshift graves that day in the north-central state of Zacatecas, in the districts of Noria de Ángeles and Sombrerete, Proceso reported on 29 January. The number excluded the group of musicians kidnapped early on 25 January in the northern state of Nuevo León and whose bodies were found days later on an estate. Seventeen members of Kombo Kolombia were now believed to have been massacred, while police were interrogating one survivor to find out about the conditions and motives of the killings, Proceso reported. Separately authorities arrested on 29 January 24 people including 14 foreign nationals, described as forming an extortion and kidnapping gang that operated in northern Mexico; the gang called itself Defenders of Christ, Proceso reported. The group, headed by a Venezuelan who arrived in Mexico as a tourist in 2006, reportedly operated in the northern district of Torreón and the north-eastern district of Nuevo Laredo near the US frontier. The suspects were detained on a road between Nuevo Laredo and Monterrey, after relatives of their victims gave information to police.

A dozen killed around Mexico

About a dozen people were killed or found dead in recent days in apparent criminal incidents around Mexico. Six of these were found dead in several districts of the central Estado de México on 30 December, Milenio reported. The daily reported a shooting death in Mexico City on 30 December and another late on 29 December in the northern city of Monterrey. That victim was shot dead after armed men burst into a house party; 11 were injured in that attack, Milenio reported. Three were found dead on 28 December in the Sierra Tarahumara, the somewhat lawless countryside of the northern state of Chihuahua, including a 16-year-old apparently shot in the neck. Four others were injured in gun attacks in two different parts of the state that day, Proceso reported. State police separately arrested eight men including a municipal policeman on 28 December in the north-western city of Ciudad Obregón; they were caught while driving with a private arsenal including AK-47 assault rifles, Proceso reported, citing Notimex. Five suspected kidnappers were arrested on 30 December in the north-eastern city of Nuevo Laredo, apparently while planning to kidnap a local businessman who called police to say he had been followed for days. Arms, ammunition and hand-grenades were confiscated from the gang that included a 15-year-old; police said the group confessed to having carried out several kidnappings in the area, Milenio reported.

Fifteen reported killed around Mexico

Some 15 people were reported shot or found dead in incidents around Mexico on 11-13 December, including a pregnant woman shot with four others in a restaurant in northern Mexico. Gunmen were said to have entered a restaurant in Nuevo Laredo on the US frontier, and shot dead five employees including the woman, Proceso reported on 13 December. Four gunmen were shot dead by the army in the western state of Guerrero, reportedly after they began shooting at troops who ordered them stop on a motorway early on 13 December, the commander of the Ninth Military Region Guillermo Moreno Serrano was reported as saying. Police separately shot dead a suspect and arrested two after a shootout on 13 December in the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas, Milenio reported. The suspects began shooting at one or more police cars driving toward Fresnillo, a city north of Calera, the Zacatecas Public Security chief declared. Soldiers freed a kidnapped woman in Fresnillo on 12 December and arrested four presumed kidnappers, after another woman they held held escaped and informed the police, Milenio reported on 14 December. On 13 December police freed a 20-year-old man held by a gang of three in the western district of Tequila, Milenio and Notimex reported. Also on 13 December, the governor of the state of Chihuahua César Duarte Jáquez ruled out that troops could help police patrol the streets of Ciudad Juárez in his state as announced earlier by a local army commander. Duarte said troops in the city "only provoke tensions in society" and the last time soldiers patrolled Juárez the city lived a "war siege," Proceso reported. It was up to state and municipal authorities to fight crime, he said, using intelligence work and the "clear" pursuit of crimes.

About 20 killed in crimes, shootouts in Mexico

Six were suspected victims of "executions" by organized crime around Mexico on 18 or 19 October, their bodies found in locations in the northern states of Baja California, Sinaloa and Coahuila, Proceso reported. The victims had variously been tied up and shot to death and in cases apparently tortured before. Early on 20 October, 10 were killed in shootouts between state forces and suspected members of The Zetas in the northern city of Nuevo Laredo, Proceso reported. Shooting began when patrols met with convoys of estate cars carrying armed men in different parts of the city; firing reportedly cleared parts of the city of car traffic. In Tlalpan south of Mexico City, police found over several days the bodies of four taxi drivers thought to have been killed by a gang of kidnappers, and were seeking a fifth victim, Proceso reported on 20 October. The bodies were found in one or several informal graves near the road between the capital and Cuernavaca; two suspected members of the gang were being questioned.

Troops shoot dead 16 gunmen around Mexico

Mexican soldiers shot dead six suspected criminals who reportedly fired on them in two incidents on 14 October, in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas. The attacks occurred in the districts of San Fernando and Nuevo Laredo, Proceso reported. In Pánuco in the east-coast state of Veracruz on 13 October, troops shot dead 10 suspected gangsters who also reportedly had fired on them; arms and ammunition were confiscated, Proceso reported on 14 October. It reported separately that a "young man" was shot dead in a "marginal" area of the port of Veracruz; the victim was described as having heavily tatooed legs. In northern Mexico, a man detained for kidnapping was "beaten and burned" to death in a prison in Ciudad Juárez, hours after being sent there from Veracruz where he had been arrested, Proceso reported on 14 October. The 40-year-old was detained on 9 October in the district of Emiliano Zapata in Veracruz, with five suspected members of a kidnapping gang.

Seven police officials killed around Mexico

Three security officials of the state of Tamaulipas were found dead in a car on 19 September in Nuevo Laredo by the US frontier, El Universal reported on 21 September. The three worked for the Tamaulipas Public Security Secretariat or police authority: they were its Police Strategy chief, the Armament officer and the head of Analysis, the state judiciary declared. On 20 September, three plainclothes policemen were shot dead outside a bank in Gómez Palacio, in the northern state of Durango, El Universal reported the next day. The policemen were gunned down from a convoy of three cars driving past; they were from the Estado de México, the state outside Mexico City. A municipal policeman was separately shot dead at an unspecified date in Atlahucan in the south-central sate of Morelos, the daily reported, citing declarations by the prosecutor-general's office. Also on 20 September three gunmen were killed in a shootout with police commandos in Piedras Negras by the US frontier, El Universal reported. Autorities were checking to ascertain if they were among 132 convicts who escaped from the Piedras Negras state prison on 17 September.