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.

Musicians' bodies found in northern Mexico

Four or five of 12 bodies found "so far" in a ditch or well on an estate near Mina in the northern state of Nuevo León were reported on 28 January as belonging to the musical band Kombo Kolombia, whose 18 or 20 members were likely kidnapped by criminals early on 25 January, the state's security affairs spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano declared. One of the victims was Colombian. Police were investigating the motives for the killing, although media were already speculating this could have been a punishment meted out to the band by one gang or cartel for having performed for a rival gang, Milenio reported. The bodies indicated the victims had been stripped, tortured and shot. Separately, two unidentified "civilians" were killed on 28 January in a shootout between soldiers and gunmen in the district of Lagunillas in Michoacán, west of Mexico City; firing began when troops arrived at the locality of El Correo after residents had called authorities to report the presence of armed men, Milenio reported. Three suspected criminals were killed the same day in the north-central city of Zacatecas when presumed rivals stopped their car and shot them, Milenio reported.

Mexican troops gun down traffickers, bodies found

Mexican soldiers shot dead at an unspecified date five men identified as members of The Zetas drug cartel, in the district of Córdoba in the east-coast state of Veracruz, the daily Milenio reported on 27 December. Three cars, arms and a rocket launcher were confiscated after the shootout. State authorities identified one of the killed as the Zetas' chief in the Córdoba district, a man dubbed El Pokemón. Authorities in the northern state of Nuevo León presented five detainees on 27 December also identified as Zetas and suspected as involved in at least 22 killings as well as drug dealing in northern Nuevo León, El Universal reported. They were detained in the district of Anáhuac; the state security spokesman Jorge Domene Zambrano said the gang's victims were mostly thought to be members of the rival Gulf Cartel whose bodies were burned on local ranches forcibly taken over by the gang. Ten bodies were separately found in graves in the north-central state of Zacatecas on 26 December; three were found in a secret grave in the locality of Sauceda de la Borda north of the city of Zacatecas, after neighbours called the police for the putrid smell, Milenio reported, citing Notimex. Seven were found further north in the district of Miguel Auza, El Universal reported.

Some 30 reported killed around Mexico

At least 29 people were reported killed or found dead around Mexico on 14-16 December in presumed criminal executions or gun battles with state forces. Eight suspected gangsters were shot dead in a gun battle with police on 15 December in Genaro Codina in the north-central state of Zacatecas; police said shooting began when the suspects fired on a patrol. Five suspects were also arrested and arms and equipment confiscated, the dailies Proceso and Imagen reported. On 16 December, soldiers shot dead five suspected gangsters or cartel operatives in the north-eastern city of Tamaulipas, Proceso reported. Four women earlier reported as missing in the northern state of Chihuahua were found dead there in the district of Guachochi on 14 December, their bodies indicating they were "tortured" then shot dead, Proceso reported. The women were apparently last seen on 12 December when they drove out of Creel further to the north, and may have been murdered at a road block set up by criminals in the countryside area known as Sierra Tarahumara. Proceso observed that people had repeatedly reported the presence of road blocks in the Sierra to Guachochi's municipal police as well as the prosecutor's office for western Chihuahua, and no measures were taken. There were nine victims on 14 December alone in the north-western state of Sinaloa, six of these in the form of headless bodies found near the neighbouring state of Chihuahua, Proceso reported. Other victims were: a local politician and a female companion shot dead in the north-eastern city of Ciudad Valles late on 14 December, and a police detective shot dead by suspected car thieves, early on 16 December in the Nezahualcóyotl district of Estado de México. He was apparently stopped while driving and asked to get out of his BMW but refused, Proceso reported.

Fifty or so killed in crimes around Mexico

Some 50 people, or perhaps more, were reported shot or found dead in presumed criminal incidents around Mexico on 5-7 December, many in the form of bodies buried in clandestine graves. Among the victims: six men were shot dead on 5 December in the northern city of Gómez Palacio in the state of Durango, while police found a ditch in Jiutepec in the south-central state of Morelos, containing the remains of two adults, a child and a baby. The review Proceso numbered at 14 or more those killed or found dead on 5-6 December. It reported at least 35 victims on 6-7 December, including 13 bodies found in two lorries on 6 December in the districts of Soto la Marina and Ciudad Mante in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, and four bodies found hanging from a bridge in the northern city of Saltillo early on 7 December, Proceso reported. The lorries likely contained the bodies of members of The Zetas cartel, as messages were found addressed to the cartel signed by its rivals the Gulf Cartel. In the district of Calera in the north-central state of Zacatecas a ditch or grave was found on 6 December, revealing "at least" 11 bodies.

Eighteen or more killed in Mexico in three days

At least 18 people including teenagers were reported killed or found dead in suspected criminal incidents around Mexico on 4-6 December. Victims included three youngsters aged 15, 17 and 22, "executed" in the northern district of Lerdo in the state of Durango, and four women found dead in the district of El Durazno in the north-central state of Zacatecas with "torture" marks on their bodies, Proceso reported on 5 December. A woman and her 14-year-old son were gunned down at home on 4 December in the district of Bocoyna in the northern state of Chihuahua; the mother, Edna Delfina Rodríguez González, was an assistant to the senator of the conservative National Action Party Javier Corral Jurado. Another politician Miguel Ángel Torres, head of the PANAL (Nueva Alianza) party in west-coast Acapulco was gunned down early on 5 December on Acapulco's main coastal boulevard, the Avenida Miguel Alemán. An 18 year-old was shot dead early on 6 December in the district of Naucalpán outside the capital, Milenio and Notimex reported. a 15-year-old friend or relative of the victim was wounded in this attack. The daily also reported the arrests of two suspected kidnappers in the western district of Ometepec on 4 December, in an operation in which police freed a presumed hostage, and of three men found with an arsenal in Víctor Rosales in the state of Zacatecas. Items confiscated from them included assault rifles, ammunition, a machine gun, three cars and communication equipment, Milenio reported on 6 December.

Crime violence continues as Mexico changes leaders

Mexico's presidential transition was no excuse for organized crime to interrupt its activities, and about 20 were reported shot dead or found dead between 28 November and 1 December. Ten "at least" were reported killed on 28-29 November, apparently in addition to those reported earlier as killed on 28 November; victims included the police chief of the locality of Cocula in the western state of Guerrero and a colleague, "executed by gunmen" late on 28 November, Proceso reported on 30 November. Two policemen were gunned down on 30 November in Tlajomulco de Zúñiga, south of the western city of Guadalajara. On 1 December, five bodies were reported found around the north-central city of Zacatecas with messages from the Gulf Cartel to their rivals The Zetas. These stated that the executions were because The Zetas had not taken up "the opportunity" their rivals had given them to abandon the area, Proceso reported on 1 December. Four policemen were also killed or found dead in and around the northern city of Torreón on 30 November or early on 1 December, the state government of Coahuila announced. Another recently reported crime was the killing of a 14-year-old "bike-taxi" driver in the state of Morelos south of the capital, for unexplained motives. The teenager, named Miguel Ángel, drove passengers on a vehicle consisting of a passenger seat pulled by a motorbike; apparently stoned to death, he was found on 27 November in the locality of Xoxocotla where he lived, near his burned vehicle, Milenio reported on 28 November.

About 30 killed, found dead in Mexico over three days

More than 30 people were reported killed or found dead from apparent criminal incidents around Mexico on 14-16 November, including gangsters, civil servants and policemen and children, Proceso reported on 15 and on 16 November. The victims included: an official of the state prosecutor's office gunned down while driving in the north-central district of Guanajuato, seven shot dead in the western resort of Acapulco, and two policemen shot dead, in the south-central state of Morelos and in Piedras Negras near the US frontier. The decomposing body of a 12-year-old boy was found on 15 November in Madera in the north-western state of Chihuahua; police believed he was strangled or suffocated to death 30 days earlier. Eleven or 12 of the dead were suspected gangsters shot dead in gun battles with troops in different parts of the country. In one incident gunmen in a convoy of 10 cars began firing on a military patrol in the north-eastern district of Tamaulipas; in another late on 16 November troops shot dead four suspected gangsters on a road in the northern state of Zacatecas, El Universal reported on 17 November. The troops were said to have fired after coming under attack. The former mayoress of Tiquicheo in the western state of Michoacán was found dead on 15 November, in Cuitzeo in the same state, El Universal reported on 17 November. María Santos Gorrestieta Salazar was twice the target of attempted assassinations when she was mayoress in 2008-11, in 2009 when a gun attack killed her husband and in 2010.