Friends of Ours

Teen Narco Gets Ten Years After Facebook Boasts

A 19-year-old who boasted of his narco life on Facebook has been sentenced in a Texas federal court to ten years in prison for his role with a Mexican cartel as reported by KGBT:  "Facebook posts by the teen show that he bragged about trafficking cocaine, selling firearms, recruiting drug dealers and kidnapping rival drug dealers before taking them to Mexico where they would be tortured and killed."

It's unclear at what age the teen narco first began working for the Mexican cartels but it's common for the crime groups to recruit U.S. kids as young as 13 to act not only as smuggling mules in bringing product over the border but as hired guns to carry out hits against rivals.

Meanwhile, the cartel lifestyle apparently will be glamorized in the new Telemundo telenovela "El Señor de los Cielos" as reported by Daniel Borunda for the El Paso Times:  "the Spanish-language soap opera was inspired by the story of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, who was the head of the Juárez drug cartel and was nicknamed the 'Lord of the Skies' for his use of airplanes to smuggle drugs."

Of course, kids won't be influenced by tv.

Further reading that may be of interest:

Drug Cartel Whacks Boy Hitman

Mexican Drug Cartel Kills U.S. Coast Guardsman In Boat Attack Off California Shoreline

The Mexican drug cartels once again have taken deadly aim against U.S. law enforcement.

This time the narco terrorists intentionally rammed their smuggling panga boat against an approaching Coast Guard inflatable which resulted in the death of Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III and the injury of another guardsman after they fell into the sea off the southern California coast as reported by the Los Angeles Times.  Two suspects have been detained.

The narco insurgents from Mexico increasingly are targeting U.S. officials on both sides of the border:  last August two CIA officials were injured in a shooting ambush against their U.S. diplomatic vehicle on a highway south of Mexico City; in Feburary 2011 Los Zetas killed ICE agent Jaime Zapata and wounded his partner who were driving along a highway in the state of San Luis Potosi in a vehicle with U.S. diplomatic tags; in December 2010 the Sinaloa cartel murdered U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry in southern Arizona; in March 2010 the Juarez cartel whacked U.S. consulate employee Lesley Ann Enriquez and her husband El Paso sheriff's deputy Arthur Redelfs as they were returning home from a child's birthday party in Ciudad Juarez.

Meanwhile, President Obama who is charged with securing the border, protecting the people and defending the nation cynically insists that there is no cartel-related spillover violence as he steps over the corpses of federal agents and officials on the blood-soaked ground.

Further reading that may be of interest:

President Obama Cedes Border To Drug Cartels

Mexican Federal Police Ambush U.S. Diplomatic Vehicle; Two American Embassy Employees Injured In Shooting

Last Friday Mexican federal police opened fire from their official vehicle on a U.S. diplomatic vehicle on a highway south of the country's capital of Mexico City, and injured two American embassy employees who were passengers and a Mexican naval captain who was their driver as reported by Tracy Wilkinson for the Los Angeles Times. 

Twelve cops are under investigation for their alleged roles "as suspicions mounted that an organized crime group may have been involved in the attack" as reported by Nicholas Casey and David Lihnow for The Wall Street Journal:  "Reforma, a leading Mexican newspaper, on Sunday quoted a lawyer for the federal policemen and their family members who said prosecutors were preparing charges against the officers including attempted murder, abuse of power and links to organized crime."

The narco insurgents in Mexico increasingly are targeting U.S. officials on both sides of the border:  in March 2010 the Juarez cartel whacked U.S. consulate employee Lesley Ann Enriquez and her husband El Paso sheriff's deputy Arthur Redelfs as they were returning home from a child's birthday party in Ciudad Juarez; in December 2010 the Sinaloa cartel murdered U.S. border patrol agent Brian Terry in southern Arizona; and in Feburary 2011 Los Zetas killed ICE agent Jaime Zapata and wounded his partner who were driving along a highway in the state of San Luis Potosi in a vehicle with U.S. diplomatic tags.

Narcos Understand For Whom The Bell Tolls

It's ironic.

The gruesome violence used by the Mexican drug cartels to enforce order had a counterproductive effect with one key player on the American side of the border who became a cooperating witness for the FBI as reported by Richard A. Serrano for the Los Angeles Times.

From his ranch outside Denver, CO the freelancing Jesus Audel Miramontes-Varela ran a drug and weapons smuggling ring tied to the Juarez, Sinaloa and Lose Zetas cartels, and when the G-men arrested him in August 2010 he flipped quicker than you could say witness protection program to become "one of the FBI's top informants on the Southwest border":

He described the shooting deaths of 30 people at a horse track in Mexico, and a hidden mass grave with 20 bodies, including two U.S. residents. He told them about his African lions, which he had acquired as circus cubs. The story about feeding one of his enemies to them was false, he claimed, but he said he had seen plenty of "violence and suffering." He told agents he was desperate to trade his knowledge for government protection. He wanted a new life for himself and his wife and three daughters.

Once more traffickers learn that the United States can protect them from the cartels' reach, watch for a mass exodus.  Even the narcos are tiring of the carnage, and understand that by staying in the game they won't live to enjoy their riches or raise their children.

A violent early death or a miserable prison stint is inevitable for everyone who chooses to deal with the devil.

Indeed, not even a powerful retired Mexican army general who once was accused as a tool of the Juarez cartel was exempt from the apparent consequences of a Faustian bargain.

Last Friday Gen. Mario Acosta Chaparro was whacked by a gunman on a motorcycle at a garage in Mexico City as reported by Daniel Hernandez for the Los Angeles Times:

Acosta Chaparro was sentenced by a military tribunal in 2002 to a minimum of 15 years in prison for ties to drug traffickers. The federal attorney general's office exonerated him in 2007, and the general retired in 2008.

Apparently the General had another employer unwilling to let him enjoy retirement.

Mexican Cartel Hitman Gets Life For Assassinating American Government Officials

Jose Antonio Acosta Hernandez, the head of the La Linea enforcement gang for the Juarez cartel, was sentenced yesterday to life in prison by a federal judge in El Paso, TX for masterminding the assassinations in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico of three individuals tied to the American government -- U.S. consulate employee Lesley Ann Enriquez and her husband El Paso sheriff's deputy Arthur Redelfs, and Jorge Alberto Salcido Ceniceros whose wife worked at the U.S. Consulate -- as reported by Daniel Borunda for the El Paso Times:  "the Redelfs and Salcido were slain in separate shootings after leaving a children's party within minutes of each other."  Mrs. Redelfs was pregnant at the time of her murder.

Acosta Hernandez a/k/a "El Diego" was a former cop before breaking bad who has admitted responsibility for 1,500 murders during the drug war with the rival Sinaloa cartel for control over local turf in Ciudad Juarez and smuggling routes into the United States.

Previous coverage: