Mexico catches reputed leader of La Familia cartel

Mexican federal police Tuesday captured the leader of La Familia, one of the country's most powerful criminal gangs, whose brutality against its rivals led President Felipe Calderon to launch his far-from-finished crackdown on organized crime nearly five years ago.
Agents arrested Jose de Jesus Mendez Vargas - widely known as El Chango, or "The Monkey" - without incident in a small town in central Aguascalientes state. The arrest comes after weeks of violence between La Familia and a breakaway gang that calls itself the Knights Templar that has killed dozens in recent days.
"With this capture, the remnants of the command structure of this organization is destroyed," said Alejandro Poire, the government's national security spokesman. Calderon, via his Twitter account, called the arrest a "big blow" against organized crime.
For all of that, Mendez's arrest hardly means immediate peace in the territories where La Familia holds sway. The killings or capture of other Mexican drug lords - such as Arturo Beltran Levya in December 2009 - unleashed gangland feuds that killed hundreds.
Rooted in - and closely identified with - the western state of Michoacan, La Familia burst into the public consciousness in 2006 when it went to war with the Zetas, the vicious band based along the South Texas border.
La Familia assassins in September of that year rolled the detached heads of five rivals onto the floor of a disco in the Michoacan city of Uruapan - the first time decapitations were used in Mexico's gang wars.
Had code of 'ethics'
Promoting themselves as protectors of the Michoacan people, La Familia leaders issued a code of ethics for its members, executing those who broke it, and professed a quasi-religious social philosophy.
"La Familia doesn't kill for money, doesn't kill women, doesn't kill innocents," declared a placard left with the disco heads. "Those who die deserve to die.
"Let everyone know," it warned. "This is divine justice."
Those early beheadings appalled Mexico, providing Calderon reason to send thousands of troops into Michoacan - the president's native state and a leading source of immigrants to the United States - in an effort to bring peace.
Calderon quickly deployed the military and federal police to gangster-infested areas across much of Mexico. Gangland violence exploded. Now, after some 40,000 dead, the bloodshed continues in Michoacan and most everywhere else.
Despite its supposed high-mindedness, La Familia grew into one of the most feared of Mexico's seven major gangs, with a firm grip on Michoacan, parts of neighboring states and the outskirts of Mexico City.
Originally specializing in manufacturing methamphetamine for export north, it later branched into extortion, kidnapping and street-level drug trafficking.
Mendez had assumed command of La Familia following the December killing by security forces of Nazario Moreno, known as "The Craziest One." But Moreno's death led to a split between Mendez and other La Familia bosses, who formed the Knights Templar. Those other leaders - Servando Gomez and Enrique Plancarte - remain at large.
Rivals killing members
More than three dozen men have been killed since late last week as the Knights Templar have executed alleged La Familia members, leaving notes promising to free Michoacan communities from crime.
Amid the new killing, the breakaway group announced last week that La Familia had become allies again with the Zetas. Mendez was captured Tuesday near the state line of Zacatecas, a Zetas stronghold.
"This is what happens to those who support Chango Mendez, the Zetas and all their allies," warned a note left with some recent victims. "Thieves, kidnappers, extortionists, rapists and all those who act against our state will follow."

 

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The RCMP have expelled a mother and her three children from the federal witness protection program about 11 years after her testimony helped secure four murder convictions in a Hells Angels contract killing.

Tina Potts and her children have been living under a new government-issued identity since 2000, after she gave evidence against a Hells Angel and three associates — including Ottawa’s Steve Gareau, who is now serving life in prison for his role in the killing.

The national police force has cut Potts adrift because she agreed to be interviewed in documentary on outlaw bikers that aired on The History Channel earlier this spring.

“As a result of the security breaches ... your safety and security has been significantly compromised and the RCMP can no longer be responsible for your and your dependent children’s safety and security as required pursuant to the Witness Protection Program Act,” states a May 4 termination notice signed by RCMP Assistant Commissioner Stephen White, head of federal and international operations.

Potts, who was paid $1,000 plus travel expenses to be interviewed, says she has lost all faith in the Mounties and that she had better protection when she ran with criminals.

“(The RCMP) take you away from your family and friends and tell you everything’s going to be OK and you will be safe. Then after trial, you never hear from them again,” Potts said.

The documentary goes over old ground, but highlights embarrassing details about the RCMP that were reported in the Ottawa Citizen in 2002 — notably that the Mounties were told about the murder plot days before it happened but didn’t try to stop it.

An internal RCMP memo written by an assistant commissioner and obtained by The Ottawa Citizen says the force’s reputation could be “tarnished” if the public found out they were warned about the plot.

Potts’s husband, Paul Derry, alerted the Mounties about the Hells Angels’ murder plot days before it unfolded in the lobby of a Halifax apartment building.

Derry, a longtime RCMP informant, was the getaway driver and his wife, Potts, was in the back seat. Together, they buried the killer’s handgun and burned his clothes following the October 2000 contract killing.

They were both arrested in the plot, but signed a contract giving them money and immunity in exchange for their testimony.

They now live somewhere in Canada, and move frequently to avoid being detected by old enemies who would have little trouble recognizing them in the documentary.

It is against the law in Canada to reveal the new identity or location of someone in the witness protection program.

Derry, 45, and Potts told the Mounties in 2009 that they were going to participate in the documentary. The Mounties didn’t want them to co-operate, and while they said they couldn’t stop them, they made a point of telling them they must, at least, be disguised.

It is grounds for termination if a protected witness reveals their new identity or location, according to witness protection legislation.

To protect their identity, they had a contract with the documentary producers that stated their interviews would be done in “a safe and secure manner respecting the identity constraints in place by my involvement in the witness protection program.”

But in the documentary their voices were not altered and their faces, while blurred, are not shadowed out.

“Anyone who knows us under our new names can easily identify us,” Derry told The Ottawa Citizen.

In fact, an 8-year-old boy recognized them after seeing parts of the documentary.

The Toronto entertainment company based its documentary on Derry’s book Treacherous, and its in-house lawyer who drafted the contract no longer works for them.

 

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yesterday, an armed group went to a rehabilitation center located in the colony Campesina, Chihuahua, and executed three men who were in the place .

 yesterday, an armed group went to a rehabilitation center located in the colony Campesina, Chihuahua, and executed three men who were in the place .

Two of the bodies of the victims were at the gate of the place , while the other on the sidewalk. In addition, a fourth man was wounded, but the attackers managed to flee, ran for several blocks until he received help and was taken to a hospital in the town .

Elements of the Ministry of Security Service cordoned off the center Sirek, located between the street Pericos and Avenida Zarco, in order to begin the hearings for the crime.


Personal Service Coroner moved the bodies to their premises, but so far unknown identities of the executed.

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POLICE raid on a Hells Angels clubhouse yesterday proved to be only a skirmish in the war on bikies promised before last year's state election.

Heavily armed police went to the fortified clubhouse and three houses in Melbourne's suburbs but found only a shotgun and a stash of cannabis, which leads to concerns that outlaw motorcycle gangs are on the alert.

The Hells Angels will say, of course, that little was found because there is little to find.

Legislation to allow police to tear down fortifications at clubhouses is still to be finalised and gangs in the meantime are preparing a legal challenge.

If raids produce little more than was found, it is unlikely it would be enough to activate legislation similar to that thrown out by the South Australian Supreme Court in that state's fight against bikie gangs.

Laws to enable police to crack down on gangs in Victoria were to be passed by the Labor Government in the weeks before the election in November.




That did not happen and then opposition leader Ted Baillieu promised sterner action under a Coalition government.

That is still to happen and in the meantime gangs such as the Hells Angels, the Bandidos and the Commancheros, to name only a few, have had time to move guns and other weapons and drugs.

Members of Task Force Echo, which was formed in February to crack down on outlaw bikies, carried out yesterday's raids with Australian Federal Police from the serious and organised crime unit.

The raids follow serious assaults and firearms offences and allegations of drug trafficking by gangs, but police face resourceful adversaries and will need evidence to make use of the promised laws.

The Baillieu Government is under extreme pressure on its handling of law-and-order issues. The bikie war is one it must win after a lack of action led to outlaw gangs moving to Victoria.

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