THE BORDER REPORT

El Imparcial is reporting that the Mexican military has raided 25 homes in Caborca since 700 troops arrived Wednesday evening. They attribute all the properties to the Beltrán Leyva family, one of whose members, Alfredo Beltrán, was arrested in Culiacán, last Monday. So far, the most interesting item found was a 50-cal. machine gun. If you recall, last autumn, someone in the area shot down a Mexican military plane with a 50-cal. And Caborca is an old story when we talk about narco-trafficking. Recall that the Caro Quintero family, the Guadalajara Cartel that killed DEA agent Kiki Camarena, are all from Caborca. Check in a little later. If some people are correct, today should be an interesting day.

-- Michel Marizco

THE BORDER REPORT

Justice Department officials in Arizona are now saying the tally of the dead in northern Sonora is 21, and possibly included in those, Raúl "El Negro" Sabori Cisneros. Meanwhile, a source within CISEN, the Mexican intelligence agency, and a cartel familymember I talk to in Tucson are both reporting at least another ten dead in Altar, Sonora. The hospital in Caborca, the closest hospital to the area, is filled with wounded. My guy in Tucson says an additional 40 people were wounded, enough that the wounded in Altar are being taken to houses to recover, there's simply no room for them in Caborca. A clarification, and perhaps some of you can help the rest of us with this. My guy here says that the fight isn't with the Zetas, that El Gilo and Mr. Ice Cream Man, Felix Paleteros, are their own drug syndicate in Tubutama and the Altar/Sasabe/Caborca boys answer to the Sinaloa Federation. Is that the breakdown I need to be looking at? If the high number of dead is true, it's curious. Tubutama, Sonora, is a small town nestled in the hills between Nogales and Sasabe, just south of the U.S. Mexico border. If you were looking at a map of Arizona, it'd be south of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge. The Sinaloans and the Zetas have engaged in a battle in this area for some time, now. The Zetas are stranded in the hills; the Sinaloans are not allowing resources to enter the area. Last week, in fact, the public safety director, Gerardo González Méndez, and the town treasurer, Sergio Vázquez Díaz, were gunned down outside of Nogales. A law enforcement source in Nogales tells me the two were driving back toward Tubutama with a drum of gasoline (there is no gas station in those hills between Nogales and Sasabe). His belief was that the Sinaloans had killed the two men for helping the Zetas. I was in Altar and Caborca the past few days on assignment and saw convoys of Mexican Army deuce-and-a-halfs surrounding the highways in to Tubutama. An official at the local garrison in Sasabe recommended I not travel towards Tubutama because of the frenetic violence that has grasped the region. The Sinaloans have a three-truck checkpoint sitting at the Sasabe-Saríc highway crossing. While all this is going on, of course, there's the question of the weekend's Fourth of July festivities in Puerto Peñasco. Now, Peñasco sits a good two hours from Tubutama, and no, nobody's targeting Americans who don't deserve it, so there's no reason to make this about traveling Phoenicians. What I'm trying to ascertain is whether the twenty murders actually happened in Tubutama last night or whether it's merely a panicked chisme coming out of Hermosillo. On a side note, frankly, I find the situation a little pitiful. Cells from two "powerful" cartels are fighting over gasoline. If the most powerful cartel in the Western Hemisphere can't roust a group of thugs sitting in a mountain town, the question must be asked, is anyone wielding influence south of the line? It all falls in line with what some readers have noted: that last week's killing of the musico, Sergio Vega, was an accident because he was driving the same color Cadillac as El 18. Again, poor intel. The cartel wars are deteriorating to the level of stray dogs fighting over a chicken bone. **UPDATE – Guess it ain't no chisme anymore. Gracias, comadre, por el tip. Te la pago con un seis de Tecate bien heladas la proxima vez que nos veamos.

THE BORDER REPORT

Take a look at this video interview of José Vázquez  Villagrana, El Jabáli, for a moment.

Captured last month in Mexico City, Mexico’s Ministry of Public Safety presented the clean-cut 40-year-old Jábali, a drug lord from Santa Ana, Sonora, sporting a turtleneck sweater. The interview bothers me for many reasons, not the least of which are his wild admittances about what exactly he did for a living and for whom. Jábali claims to work for the Sinaloa Federation, but some people I had an opportunity to speak with over the past few days say he actually worked for the Juárez Cartel, not Sinaloa. Yet, in his interview, not only does Jábali portend to work for Sinaloa, he gives an astonishing amount of detail about what he did, how much he charged, and, most interestingly, that his bosses sought to protect northern Mexico. Looking down at the ground and rarely meeting the camera’s eye, Vázquez said he was the Sinaloa Cartel’s lead man in northern Sonora. Every month, he announced, two tons of cocaine came up from Central America and were delivered into the U.S. through his ranch, La Cebolla. The details he alleges about the cartel’s figurehead principle, Joaquín El Chapo Guzmán, are interesting. “Have you spoken with El Chapo?” an officer off camera asks. “Yes, I spoke to him by telephone one day.” “And what does he say?” Even the question is put to him oddly. "Que te dice?" as if Guzmán is some estranged and well-regarded uncle living far away whom nobody has heard from and everybody wants news of. “He says that everything is at peace, that everyone must behave, that in this area, nobody is permitted to rob or to kidnap or to assault others. That anyone who does these types of things needs to be removed.” Really? How ... ingenuous. Guzmán wants the area to remain tranquil and under control, Vázquez said. Last year, the Mexican government said Vázquez worked for Arturo Beltrán Leyva. Last spring, when Mexican federal police arrested Cynthia Anahí Beltrán Cabrera with a M2 Browning .50-cal machine gun mounted on the back of a Ford pickup truck, she was identified as being in the service of Vázquez, and he, in turn, of the Beltrán Leyva family. The Mexican Federal Attorney General’s Office claims that Vázquez worked for both, the Sinaloa Cartel and Beltrán Leyva’s organization until the Beltráns joined with the Zetas, at which point he broke away because they were too violent. Yet people invested in northern Sonora's drug trafficking families say Vázquez never worked for either the Beltráns or Sinaloa. He worked for Juárez, they say. A minor corroboration; Jábali had feuded with Los Numeros for a long time and Los Numeros were the Beltrán's brazo armado in Sonora. A minor refute: Jábali had associated himself with Geovanni Páez, the Caborca cowboy who worked for Sinaloa. Sort of a micro-merger between Juárez and Sinaloa that didn't seem affected by the rivalry in Cd. Juárez. This leads me to a few questions on this fine, cold Monday morning: 1. Who did Vázquez really work for? If, in fact, he worked for Juárez, why claim Sinaloa? 2. Why was he in Mexico City and only then arrested? Why  not take him in Santa Ana when they've known for at least a year that he lived and worked here? 3. From the questions posed to Jábali, I ascertain that the federal interviewers knew what answers he would give. Was he told what to say? 4. The interview sure makes Chapo look good. It paints a picture of a security benefactor who will protect the Mexican people from the deranged Zetas. I wonder a little if that wasn't the point of the video; a manufactured public relations image of Chapo. Anyway.

THE BORDER REPORT

The U.S. Border Patrol went to high alert last night after receiving undisclosed threats along the Arizona border during the Mexican Independence Day celebrations, sources say.

Myself, I can't fathom what they'd consider a "threat" given the context of the border these days. Last week, there was a rumor that someone had taken out a deuce and a half with an RPG round in Matamoros. I also don't know that the threat isn't merely a speculative threat after last year's grenade attacks in Morelia that murdered eight people.

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THE BORDER REPORT

Yeah, yeah, spare me, I know. Much on the plate right now, but the situation's under control. Familial obligations, deadlines and the general desmadre of life. That said, we're gonna be having a Come to Jesus conversation soon. Look for it on Friday or thereabouts.

But for now, there's some interesting developments throughout this place.

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