Mexican soldiers arrested a suspected drug gang leader linked to a 2006 border incursion by armed traffickers into Texas and the killing of an anti-crime activist in July, the army said late on Saturday.
The army said in a statement that soldiers acting on a tip about armed men detained Jose Rodolfo Escajeda in Nuevo Casas Grandes, Chihuahua State.
Escajeda and three other suspects detained with him on Friday allegedly worked for the Juarez cartel, named after the border city of Ciudad Juarez, across from El Paso, Texas. The suspects were riding in bullet-resistant vehicles.
PHOTO: EPA
The army said Escajeda, who is wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and the other suspects were turned over to Mexican prosecutors. It did not say whether he would be extradited to face charges in the US.
A US federal grand jury indictment names Escajeda as “allegedly responsible for an incursion into the United States” as well as drug charges, the DEA said.
On Jan. 24, 2006, at least 10 men in Mexican military-style uniforms crossed the Rio Grande into the US on a marijuana-smuggling foray, leading to an armed confrontation with Texas law officers near Neely’s Crossing, Texas, about 80km east of El Paso.
State police tried to stop the three sport utility vehicles, which made a quick U-turn and headed south toward the border, a few kilometers away.
When the SUVs reached the Rio Grande, police saw the occupants of a green, Mexican army-style Humvee apparently waiting for the convoy.
Police stopped and watched as the vehicles began to cross the shallow river into Mexico. Both sides — the Americans and the smugglers — had their weapons drawn, though no shots were fired.
The Mexican army statement called Escajeda “a lieutenant and one of the main operators” of the Juarez cartel, and linked him to the border incursion.
It said Escajeda is also allegedly responsible for the killing of anti-crime activist Benjamin LeBaron and a neighbor near Nuevo Casas Grandes on July 7.
LeBaron — who held dual US and Mexican citizenship — had led protests in May demanding the release of his brother Eric, who was kidnapped and later released.
In related news, gunmen killed a state congressional candidate, his wife and their two sons at their home on Saturday in Tabasco State, southern Mexico.
Jose Francisco Fuentes Esperon, 43, was found dead along with his wife, 38, and two sons aged nine and 13, in Villahermosa, state Attorney General Rafael Gonzalez Lastra said.
Fuentes Esperon was a former university rector and was widely known in the state capital. The state government immediately offered to provide protection for any candidate who wanted it ahead of Oct. 18 elections.
Gonzalez Lastra said that Mexican President Felipe Calderon called Tabasco Governor Andres Granier “to express his support and stress his decision to help in investigating the case to the end.”
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
Indonesia was to sign an agreement to repatriate two British nationals, including a grandmother languishing on death row for drug-related crimes, an Indonesian government source said yesterday. “The practical arrangement will be signed today. The transfer will be done immediately after the technical side of the transfer is agreed,” the source said, identifying Lindsay Sandiford and 35-year-old Shahab Shahabadi as the people being transferred. Sandiford, a grandmother, was sentenced to death on the island of Bali in 2013 after she was convicted of trafficking drugs. Customs officers found cocaine worth an estimated US$2.14 million hidden in a false bottom in Sandiford’s suitcase when
RSS