Jaime Zapata, a U.S. agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, was assassinated and another wounded yesterday by suspected drug cartel hitmen in Mexico's San Luis Potosi state while driving in an armored vehicle with diplomatic tags from Mexico City to Monterrey "in an attack that signaled the escalating risk for American officials fighting Mexican crime gangs that move drugs and migrants into the United States" as reported by Damien Cave for The New York Times. Monterrey is the wealthy capital city of the northern state of Nuevo Leon, and it "has become an epicenter of drug gang battles over the past year as the Gulf Cartel and an offshoot, the Zetas, have fought for control of smuggling routes" into Texas to meet the insatiable demands of their drug-crazed American consumers.
Last Sunday night Mexican official Homero Salcido, the security and intelligence chief for Nuevo Leon state, was assassinated in Monterrey as reported by CNN: he "suffered five bullet wounds, and his body was set on fire inside his official truck."
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