War Is Boring

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Two years ago, Antonio Pena Arguelles was handling millions in drug money and working as the intermediary between the violent Zetas cartel and senior Mexican politicians. On Tuesday, U.S. authorities seized him at his suburban San Antonio home, where Pena was allegedly hiding from his former employers. What brought him there, however, [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN For three consecutive years, since 2008, the city has recorded the highest murder rate in the world, rising to the level of 271.89 per 100,000 inhabitants during 2010. The decrease during 2011 has led to a “triumphalist” discourse on the part of the authorities and business leaders who are proclaiming a substantial reduction in violence [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN In a cartel known for its bloodlust, he might be the biggest killer of all. Enrique Aurelio Elizondo Flores, variously called “El Arabe” (“The Arab”) or “The Raven,” has confessed to heading a cell of assassins responsible for the deaths of at least 75 people, according to the state investigative agency of Nuevo Leon [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Days before Attorney General Eric Holder is once again hauled before Congress to testify for Operation Fast and Furious, a new report sheds light on whether high-ranking officials knew, or have been honest about, one of the biggest failures in Justice Department history: a disastrous plan by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Faced with the risk of losing half of Mexico to a network of marauding drug traffickers, the Mexican army is digging in for a major new offensive into the heart of Zetas country. According to Excelsior, the Mexican army is building a string of new bases across the Zetas cartel’s stomping grounds [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN This is the end for Jonathan Keith “Jack” Idema. The vigilante adventurer and terrorist hunter once jailed in Afghanistan for running a private prison and torture shop has reportedly died in Mexico. According to local press reports first spotted by Robert Young Pelton, an emergency call placed Saturday led to the discovery of Idema’s [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Bolivia Bolivia is officially no longer party to the United Nations Convention on Narcotic Drugs. The reason: the treaty’s prohibition of the coca leaf, used in traditional Bolivian medicine. The reason the coca leaf is banned by the U.N.? It’s the raw material for cocaine, one of the world’s most lucrative illegal [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Mexico The Gulf coast city of Veracruz fired more than 800 police officers and 300 staff — the city’s entire municipal police force — in response to infiltration by the Zetas drug cartel. And until the city’s police force can be rebuilt, marines first deployed to the city in September to fight [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Mexico Zetas commander Raul Lucio Hernandez Lechuga, alias “Lucky,” was captured by Mexican marines, reported the Associated Press yesterday.  ”A founder” of the cartel, Hernandez was detained in eastern coastal Veracruz state, which has seen increased violence in recent months between the Zetas and the Sinaloa Cartel. Further north, across the Texas [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Ten miles up the Bay of Flags from Puerto Vallarta along Mexico’s Pacific coast, along tourist traps and getaways for the wealthy and celebrity, is Punta Minta. Its developers boast of large gated villas, luxury hotels, fine beaches and a Jack Nicklaus Signature golf course. Following a tabloid-fodder August visit to the [...]

by ROBERT BECKHUSEN Mexico The Zetas cartel “dumped” the bodies of 26 people in the western metropolitan city of Guadalajara. The killings were the latest in a series of exchanges between Mexico’s criminal groups: high-profile, mass slayings of rivals, with bodies transported and abandoned in busy downtown areas. The killings follow the discovery of 16 [...]

The moderator of a popular Mexican social network has been murdered, allegedly for tipping off the authorities about the local drug cartel.