Feds Let Mexican Cartel Hit Men Kill in U.S., Senior Lawman Told Stratfor

The New American 

The U.S. government allowed Mexican drug cartel hit men working as “confidential informants” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to murder people inside the United States, an American federal law enforcement supervisor told the private intelligence firm Stratfor in e-mails released by WikiLeaks. ICE neither confirmed nor denied the allegations when contacted by The New American.

The explosive leaked documents containing the claims were part of a massive batch of e-mails stolen by hackers from the Texas-based intelligence-gathering firm. Among other startling allegations, official sources in the Mexican and U.S. governments told the company that American special-operations forces were in Mexico under the guise of fighting the drug war.

Additionally, a U.S.-based Mexican diplomat and other sources claimed that Washington, D.C., was working with certain favored drug cartels — especially Sinaloa — in an effort to put smaller criminal organizations out of business. The e-mails echoed allegations made in numerous reports and statements by officials, drug-cartel operatives, and other sources, indicating that the U.S. government was deeply involved in the narcotics trade.

Perhaps the most astounding information, however, had to do with the U.S. government allegedly allowing Mexican cartel hit men across the border into the United States to murder targets. A Stratfor source identified in the documents as “US714,” whom the firm described as a “US law enforcement officer with direct oversight of border investigations,” made that explosive accusation in an e-mail dated April of last year.  

“Regarding ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] screwing up informants: They [ICE] were handling big hit men from Juarez and letting them kill in the U.S.,” explained the federal law enforcement supervisor, who in a separate e-mail also said American troops were already in Mexico engaged in joint operations with Mexican forces. 

Instead of expressing shock about the major allegations against ICE, a Stratfor employee responded by mentioning that the intelligence-gathering outfit had already written about the issue, pointing to a 2009 piece published online entitled “Confidential Informants: A Double-Edged Sword.” In that article, Stratfor highlighted the story of a confidential ICE informant, Ruben Rodriguez Dorado, who was involved in the murder of yet another confidential ICE source in Texas-[Full Article]

Narco gangster reveals the underworld
Cartels have taken cruelty up a notch, says one drug trafficker: kidnapping bus passengers for gladiatorlike fights to the death

The elderly are killed. Young women are raped. And able-bodied men are given hammers, machetes and sticks and forced to fight to the death.

In one of the most chilling revelations yet about the violence in Mexico, a drug cartel-connected trafficker claims fellow gangsters have kidnapped highway bus passengers and forced them into gladiatorlike fights to groom fresh assassins.

In an in-person interview arranged by intermediaries on the condition that neither his name nor the location of his Texas visit be published, the trafficker also admitted to helping push cocaine worth $5 million to $10 million a month into the United States.

Law enforcement sources confirm he is a cartel operative but not a fugitive from pending charges.

His words are not those of a federal agent or drawn from a news conference or court papers.

Instead, he offers a voice from inside Mexico's mayhem — a mafioso who mingles among crime bosses and foot soldiers in a protracted war between drug cartels as well as against the government.

If what he says is true, gangsters who make commonplace beheadings, hangings and quartering bodies have managed an even crueler twist to their barbarity.

Members of the Zetas cartel, he says, have pushed passengers into an ancient Rome-like blood sport with a modern Mexico twist that they call, "Who is going to be the next hit man?"...[Full Article]

Mexican hit men stalk U.S.
Drug lords' gunmen target narcotics thieves, feds say

Drug-smuggling gangs in Mexico have sent well-armed assassins, or "sicarios," into Arizona to locate and kill bandits who are ambushing and stealing loads of cocaine, marijuana and heroin headed to buyers in the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security has warned Arizona law enforcement authorities.

In a memo first sent in May but widely circulated since, the department said a group of "15, very well-equipped and armed" assassins complete with body armor had been sent into the state to identify, locate and kill the drug thieves, who are thought to be independent operators...

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Mexico: Assassins on the 'Cheap'

Summary

Hired assassins in Mexico are willing to work for suppressed wages not so much out of economic desperation but because murder-for-hire has proven to be a gateway to more lucrative criminal activity. Factor in the uncontrollable flow of arms and the unlikelihood of criminal prosecution, and the assassination business is booming.

Analysis

How much does a hit man costs? “It depends on the type of hit man,” Alfredo Quijano, the editor of El Norte, a local newspaper from Juarez, México, said. “The good ones are expensive, but you can always find someone who would do the work for 75 or 150 euros.” For 150 euros, an inexpert gang member can get a low profile target killed; for 15,000, an expert can kill the chief of police in Mexico City, or at least that is what the hit man who killed Mr Robles Liceaga, the chief of police in Mexico City until 2002, said he was paid.

The cost of an assassination in Mexico is unusually low. Indeed, hired assassins in other regions of the world get much more. A study by the National Institute of Criminology in South Australia showed that the median salary of a hit man in Australia is 9,800 euros – although it can reach 60,000 per task. Hit men’s salaries in Spain are also high. According to government statistics, there are about 40 assassinations done by hit men a year, each one at a price of between 20 and 50,000 euros.

Indeed, developed countries tend to offer better salaries in all professions – not just to hit men. Yet, even when accounting for income differences, Mexican hit men are underpaid. In other Latin American countries such as Argentina, where the GDP per capita and income inequality levels are similar to those in Mexico, hit men are paid between 2,700 and 4,000 euros per event. Under any standard, assassination in Mexico is a bargain...

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