Drug Cartel

MEXICO CITY — The Salvadoran single mother was hoping to support her children in the United States. Instead, gunmen from the Zeta drug cartel kidnapped her in Mexico and forced her to cook, clean and endure rapes by multiple men. Now the survivor of this terrifying three-month ordeal is a witness for a growing group of legislators, political leaders and advocates who are calling for action against the trafficking of women in Mexico for sexual exploitation....

WASHINGTON — A high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein sentenced Aurelio Cano Flores on Monday, following his conviction by a jury back in February. Cano Flores was also ordered to forfeit $15 billion in drug proceeds. He had been extradited to the U.S. from Mexico in 2011, following his indictment on drug trafficking offenses the...

WASHINGTON — A high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel has been sentenced to 35 years in prison for conspiring to import multi-ton quantities of cocaine and marijuana into the U.S. U.S. District Judge Barbara J. Rothstein sentenced Aurelio Cano Flores on Monday, following his conviction by a jury back in February. Cano Flores was also ordered to forfeit $15 billion in drug proceeds. He had been extradited to the U.S. from Mexico in 2011, following his indictment on drug trafficking offenses the...

AUSTIN, Texas — A brother of two top leaders for one of the most powerful drug cartels in Mexico was convicted Thursday of buying racehorses to hide illegal drug profits. A federal jury that deliberated for about nine hours over two days found Jose Trevino Morales, 46, guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering. Trevino faces up to 20 years in prison. Prosecutors say his older brothers, Miguel Angel and Oscar Omar Trevino Morales, are the leaders of the Zetas, a Nuevo...

A Mexican drug cartel leader who is tied to 1,500 murders in the United States and Mexico, including the execution of a U.S. consulate worker in Ciudad Juarez, was sentenced to life in prison Thursday in a federal court in El Paso. Jose Antonio Acosta-Hernandez, 34, identified as the enforcer in La Linea, a wing of the Juarez drug cartel, was extradited from Mexico last month and pleaded guilty Thursday to 11 counts of racketeering, money laundering, narcotics trafficking, weapons charges and murder.

Aided by technology and intelligence from the United States, including overflights by drone aircraft and sophisticated software to eavesdrop on cellphone calls, Mexican forces have hit the La Familia drug cartel harder than any other criminal organization in Mexico. Now, for the first time, Mexican officials are declaring that a major cartel is on the brink of collapse. But if the government sees victory at hand, the reality in the hot farmlands and mountain hamlets in the western state of Michoacan feels very...

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon, who sent battalions of poorly trained soldiers into the streets to fight powerful transnational crime organizations, leaves the battlefield this week after six years with at least 60,000 dead in drug violence and the war essentially a stalemate. Although Calderon's security forces have captured or killed more than two dozen of Mexico's most-wanted drug cartel leaders, many of those vacancies have been filled. And while some...

MORELIA, Mexico — The economic development secretary of the western Mexican state of Michoacan says two major firms have decided to relocate their distribution centers to escape violence. Ricardo Martinez says yogurt giant Dannon and pharmaceutical company Grupo Casa Saba have moved to Queretaro and Jalisco states respectively. Another company, the PepsiCo subsidiary Sabritas, was the target of fire bombings in Michoacan last year, apparently by a drug cartel....

MEXICO CITY — In a case that now appears more embarrassment than triumph for the Mexican government and its partners in U.S. law enforcement, the man whom Mexican marines captured and paraded before cameras Thursday and described as a smuggling kingpin and son of Sinaloa drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman may not be his son at all. The young man arrested in a dawn raid by Mexican marines is Felix Beltran and not Chapo's son, his attorney, Veronica...

A few years ago, Tijuana was at the front lines of Mexico's drug war. There were running gun battles through downtown streets, bodies hung from bridges and a cartel henchman known as "the Stewmaster," who dissolved hundreds of corpses in vats of lye. By 2009, Tijuana was a ghost town an hour after sunset. Tourists vanished. Residents stayed home. But in a turnaround that offers hope in Mexico, people are venturing out again, to the ballet and symphony. They're sampling seared tuna at hip new gourmet restaurants...

AUSTIN, Texas — Prosecutors told a federal jury on Wednesday that a man they say is the brother of leaders of Mexico's most blood-soaked criminal organization used the proceeds from their brothers' ill-gotten gains to bankroll his horse-racing stable. Defense attorneys, however, say the federal government is trying to squeeze Jose Trevino Morales to get to two brothers reputed to be leaders of Los Zetas in Mexico. The jury deliberated for about two hours Wednesday afternoon before...

PHOENIX — A man was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday for his murder conviction in the beheading of a man in Arizona who police say had stolen drugs from a Mexican drug cartel. Crisantos Moroyoqui-Yocupicio, 39, had pleaded no contest to second-degree murder in the death of 38-year-old Martin Alejandro Cota-Monroy at an apartment in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler on Oct. 10, 2010. Moroyoqui-Yocupicio faced a punishment ranging from 10 to 16 years in prison when he was...

MORELIA, Mexico — The economic development secretary of the western Mexican state of Michoacan says two major firms have decided to relocate their distribution centers to escape violence. Ricardo Martinez says yogurt giant Dannon and pharmaceutical company Grupo Casa Saba have moved to Queretaro and Jalisco states respectively. Another company, the PepsiCo subsidiary Sabritas, was the target of fire bombings in Michoacan last year, apparently by a drug cartel. Martinez...

MEXICO CITY — President Felipe Calderon, who sent battalions of poorly trained soldiers into the streets to fight powerful transnational crime organizations, leaves the battlefield this week after six years with at least 60,000 dead in drug violence and the war essentially a stalemate. Although Calderon's security forces have captured or killed more than two dozen of Mexico's most-wanted drug cartel leaders, many of those vacancies have been filled. And while some cartels have been...

A few miles west of downtown, past a terra-cotta-tiled gateway emblazoned with "Bienvenidos," the smells and sights of Mexico spill onto 26th Street. The Mexican tricolor waves from brick storefronts. Vendors offer authentic churros, chorizo and tamales. Chicago's Little Village neighborhood is home to more than 500,000 residents of Mexican descent and is known for its Cinco de Mayo festival and bustling Mexican Independence Day parade. But federal authorities say that...

A couple of months ago we visited Juarez, Mexico, a city right across our border — yet so far away. The scene was almost surreal: We got off the plane and were met on the tarmac by a convoy of armored cars and open-back trucks swarming with police. The officers were "policía federal. " Like the ones you hear about, they carried machine guns and wore masks to hide their identities. They hung off the backs of their trucks, alert, constantly swiveling as they surveyed the landscape.

MEXICO CITY — With help from U.S. intelligence, Mexican marines captured a son of the Sinaloa drug cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman early Thursday as the top logistics coordinator for the smuggling organization was rolling out of bed, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials. The arrest of Jesus Alfredo Guzman comes just weeks after the U.S. Treasury Department designated him a drug trafficking kingpin and a key operative in the Sinaloa cartel, one of Mexico's largest and most lucrative...

D.C. Police Sgt. Dale Sutherland's high-tech headquarters in a stylish Northeast rowhouse welcomed some of the city's most notorious gun-runners and drug dealers. Sutherland made deals for revolvers, shotguns, ammunition, crack cocaine and heroin from black leather couches. His suppliers kept coming back, authorities say. Then, in June, one offered Sutherland hand grenades and a rocket launcher, and he had to act quickly. What the dealers didn't know at the time: The house, dressed up as a...

MEXICO CITY — In a case that now appears more embarrassment than triumph for the Mexican government and its partners in U.S. law enforcement, the man whom Mexican marines captured and paraded before cameras Thursday and described as a smuggling kingpin and son of Sinaloa drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman may not be his son at all. The young man arrested in a dawn raid by Mexican marines is Felix Beltran and not Chapo's son, his attorney, Veronica...