Borderland Beat Read online

  BORDERLAND BEAT

  BORDERLAND BEAT

  Reporting on The Mexican Drug War

  September 29, 2019

  Copyright: Alex Marentes

  (Standard Copyright License)

  Edition: 11th Edition

  Publisher: Lulu Publishing

  First Published: April 16, 2019

  Language: English

  Product: ID24067179

  Published by: Lulu Publishing

  505-672-8447

  [email protected]

  www.alexmarentes.com

  www.borderlandbeat.com

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------

  Book Title: Borderland Beat

  Author

  Alex Marentes (Buggs) resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was born in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico, and came to the U.S. at the young age of 10 years old. While living in Ciudad Juarez, his father commuted daily to El Paso while working for Tony Lama making cowboy boots. His father eventually moved to Albuquerque with his family after getting terminated for going on strike. Alex joined the United States Marines and was honorably discharged after eight years of active duty service. He also served three years in the United States Marine Corps Reserve after his active duty. Alex joined the Albuquerque Police Department in 1986 and retired after 30 years of service to his community. Alex spends his retirement as a professional photographer, one of his lifetime passions. He is also an avid adventurer and motorcycle rider. Alex has traveled extensively to Mexico, has family and friends there and has always had an interest in the political and social life of Old Mexico. Going under cover using the pseudonym name of “Buggs,” that was derived from his love of the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny cartoon, Alex is the founder and owner of the Borderland Beat Project that gathers information about the Mexican Drug Cartel War and shares the information in the popular, internationally renowned blog.

  From the Author

  I want to thank all the contributors from Borderland Beat Project and the loyal readers, who are among the most knowledgeable about the drug cartels in Mexico. I also want to thank all the people who at one point or another helped me along the way and guided me through the uncertainty. I want to thank all of the law enforcement officers on both sides of the border that have gone above and beyond their duty to make a positive impact on society and have kept us all safe. I want to give my appreciation to the officers of the Albuquerque Police Department, who provide service to my community and are like a family to me. I specifically want to thank the officers who have made the ultimate sacrifice fighting the narco war. I want to thank my family and friends who have supported me in this effort. I want to thank Susan Gomez for the art on the cover and Unek Francis for the banner. I plan on touring Mexico in the near future and visiting the hot zones covered in this book, and documenting the area and situation, mostly through photographs, and touching base with old contacts.

  Know that my only purpose in life is to “Live and Learn.”

  I dedicate this book to my mother,

  Bertha Saucedo Marentes

  Preamble

  Mexico’s drug war diary: borderlandbeat.com

  By Conor Fay

  "It is an arcane website, something reminiscent of about 2005. When I first checked out Borderland Beat I paused, sneering at the ugly beige tone of its homepage. No interactive menu obeys the whims of my hovering mouse.

  Then I read some of the posts. Borderland Beat is something of a pin board, or a newspaper scrapbook, where anonymous writers contribute the content, with stories about a drug war that rages on in Mexico.

  That anonymity is what makes Borderland Beat so arresting; its contributors are talking about the kingpins of Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar drug industry.

  These are men who don’t have limits, murder is not a consideration for them but a gut reaction. Exposing them online without the barrier of anonymity could mean death for the writers. Death has been doled out to thousands in the region for far less.

  The evidence is splattered all over the walls of the website. You could pick a page at random and you’ll see some post with a “WARNING EXTREME FOOTAGE”. That post could feature pictures of a gang member shot to bits, or a school teacher with her head cut off, or a whole excruciating video of a poor soul being beaten to death with baseball bats in a torture room.

  Like the crack cocaine pedaled by these gangs, the effect of Borderland Beat is scarily addictive. The blunt depiction of graphic violence draws you in, but you’re eventually hooked by the stories. They tell the tale of Mexico’s slow death. Border cities like Juarez were the first to go. Thousands die there now each year directly as a result of the gang violence. They tell the tale of the brave who try to sever the limbs of the gangs, that seems an impossibility though.

  The media have largely failed also, and those who have tried were swatted away. In 1996 Gary Webb published a series of articles, “Dark Alliance,” criticizing the CIA for their role in the drug crisis with Mexico. He was immediately labeled a fraud and was vilified by all mainstream American media outlets, culminating in Webb’s own suicide.

  Borderland Beat rises above this; it feels like something more than news, it is a diary. The contributors cannot be attacked because they are many and they are largely anonymous, and because they do not fear it.

  While the stories of mass grave discoveries and corrupt officials are endless, the fact that the locals continue to publish en masse documentation of their collapsed country and the bandits who rule it offers some respite. These people are defying the torturers; they just need an audience.

  The Borderland Beat is an English language blog that reports news about the Mexican Drug War. The blog was started in April 2009 by an anonymous individual using the pseudonym Buggs, who remains the sole owner. The blog has been referred to and quoted in the New York Times, Small Wars Journal and the Houston Chronicle.

  In an article published in May 2012, the journalist, Gary Moore, described Borderland Beat as follows: "An English-language digest Web site called Borderland Beat forms a lonely watchtower on the Mexico battlements, manned by a small cadre of Mexican-Americans (my work has appeared there as well), who set themselves the vital mission of archiving any available news on Mexico's meltdown."

  From National Mexican Magazine

  "El Semanario"

  That dangerous information gap is being filled, for better or worse, by blogs. A former Texan policeman and former Marine, who conceals his true identity under the pseudonym "Buggs" (madman, in underworld jargon), is the founder of Borderland Beat (borderlandlandbeat.com), popular blog that almost censors nothing and that mixes videos and macabre photographs with hard information from recognized sources. On the weekend he uploaded the photos of the alleged assassins of San Fernando that the Mexican press did not risk spreading. For American cybernauts, it has the appeal of being written in English, unlike Blog del Narco. Borderlabd Beat become a mandatory source if information for police, justice enforcement officials, and the general public, particularly in the border states. In his presentation, Borderland Beat says that the blog seeks to "give perspective" to the issues that determine the complicated neighborhood with Mexico under the understanding "that the activities on one side affect the other." Blog reporters, identified as El Viento, Tianguera, Huero, RiseMakaveli, Ovemex, Pancho and La Adelita, operate in Texas, California, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas and even Colombia. Its sources include local authorities.

  How to Interpret this Book

  The Borderland Beat Project is collaboration from a group of people of different backgrounds located in the U.S. and Mexico that gather information related to the Mexican drug cartels and presents it in English through the internet, publications and presentations.

/>   Almost all content in this book comes from the result of reporting in the Borderland Beat blog and the personal experience and research of the author. It primarily covers a time frame when the author was an active contributor between the last part of 2008 and when he stopped getting directly involved around 2013. Information from this book is a reflection of the Borderland Beat blog that is derived from research, open media sources, informal official authorities and people on the ground, all of which has been gathered by collaborators from Borderland Beat Project. This represents the most extensive and comprehensive source of information between the years 2008 and 2013 covering a very wide range of topics related to the Mexican cartels and the Mexican drug war in Mexico and along the US/Mexican border.

  Almost all material covered can be found at www.borderlandbeat.com.

  The author has created a website that contains more information and media sources, to include some of the videos mention in the book. To seek further extended information beyond what is contained in this book visit

  www.alexmarentes.com.

  This book in essence gives a complicated perspective of issues related to both neighboring countries and how the activities from one side impact the other. It is important for both sides of the border to understand how mayhem and ruthless violence from organized crime touches the people on the borderland and the misery it brings to every day social conditions we sometimes call civilization.

  Consider this a huge source of information related to crime on the borderland.

  Knowledge is power.

  Most of the information and content is derived from open source media, unconfirmed individual sources and personal viewpoint of author. The content is for information purposes only, and in most cases is not derived from direct official sources. In fact, sometimes the information has not been formally confirmed. Most information coming out of Mexico is fluid and always changing on a daily basis. And frankly, no one really has the market on credible information to form a sense of clear-cut validity or formal confirmation, so thread lightly.

  Because crime in Mexico is extremely violent, this book depicts large amount of very graphic material. The need to present graphic source material is vital in showing a true representation of the extent of violence generated by the Mexican drug cartels upon the people of Mexico and the U.S.

  The Mexican Drug War is an ongoing armed conflict taking place among rival drug cartels that fight each other for regional control (plazas), and Mexican government forces, which seek to combat drug trafficking. Although Mexican drug cartels, or Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO’s), have existed for a few decades, they have become more powerful since the demise of Colombia's Cali and Medellín cartels in the 1990s.

  Again, while reading the content, keep in mind that this book covers the DTO’s that were active during that periods of 2008 and 2013. The main cartels included are:

  The powerful Sinaloa Cartel or Cartel de Sinaloa (CDS) that dominated the Golden Triangle in the states of Chihuahua, Sinaloa and Durango; the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) made up of the Beltran brothers mainly concentrating in Guerrero; the Juarez Cartel fighting to protect its turf in one of the deadliest border cities in Mexico from the Sinaloa Cartel; the Gulf Cartel fighting its own break-away armed wing known as Los Zetas on the gulf coast that turned towns in the state of Tamaulipas into ghost towns; La Familia Michoacana (LFM), which is trying to make a presence in the lands of Tierra Caliente of Michoacan, and which has morphed into the Caballeros Templarios, or The Knights Templar.

  Toward the end of this book you can find more detail references to these individual Mexican Cartels for reference.

  The general definition for the term “plaza” is mostly a downtown public square, but in narco terminology a plaza is a village, town or city controlled by a cartel boss. They control everything related to drug trafficking and cartel activities in their turf. The cartel leader in a plaza is known as a “plaza boss,” and runs all business in the plaza for the cartel. When you hear this term throughout the book it refers to the narco meaning.

  A “sicario” in the Mexican cartel sense is a cartel member that is paid to enforce the will of the organization and to battle other rival cartels. A sicario is usually a paid professional who has some training with weapons or tactics. In most cases, they are people who have deserted from the military or are active or former police officers. Although, in most cases, most cartels will often employ anyone as a sicario that can pull a trigger. You will find other reference information at the end of the book that can be helpful with putting the pieces together as we maneuver through the rocky road of the cartel world.

  Some of the content in this book is directly quoted from Borderland Beat. These entries are usually followed with a date and the name of the collaborator who posted the content, which is also shown in parentheses and in italic. I understand that this can be confusing, especially since the material that is covered is from 2008 through 2013, and because a lot has changed since then. Keep this in mind as you read through the passages.

  The information in this book is fast-paced, with a lot of DTO information thrown at you at once. It's filled with sicario activity and the Mexican government's attempt to intervene, but it also contains a lot of direct, behind-the-scenes information from the author. This particular information is the involvement of the author from his early stages when he started to formalize his plan to bring to life the Borderland Beat Project.

  Follow Buggs as he sets the stage and takes you on a wild ride into the dark shadows of the violence and chaos of the Mexican drug cartels. A narrative, as told in the deep dark pages of the Borderland Beat blog.

  Glimpse of Hope

  I can't really recall exact dates and times, but it must have been sometime around 2008. I was working as a School Resource Officer for the city of Albuquerque at Jefferson Middle School. That is where I met an 11-year girl named Alicia. She was a pretty little girl who was always dressed in real nice new clothes. Although she appeared to come from an affluent background, she was very humble in nature. She was born in the U.S. but had a distinctive Spanish accent. She touched my heart one hot day when I had been playing basketball with some of the boys on the school's basketball court.

  I was exhausted and overheating with sweat. She came over to talk to me and I asked her if the snack bar sold water. She said yes and I told her I needed to go to the office to get money to buy myself some water. But as things happen from time to time, I got distracted for a few minutes. I saw Alicia return after a while and she handed me a cold bottle of water. I asked her how much I owed her for the water and she said, "nothing." I was not necessarily touched by the fact she bought it for me (as money was not an issue with her), but that she thought of me when I needed water.

  So, I got to know Alicia a little better while at school. I met her mother one day during a school visit and noticed her mother dressed in real nice clothes too. She was a Mexican national who spoke very little English. She also appeared to wear a lot of expensive jewelry and drove a luxurious brand-new white Escalade. They also lived in a brand-new two-story house in an upscale neighborhood known as Ridgecrest. The thought of how they got so much money did cross my mind a few times.

  Little Alicia had mentioned that her mother did not work, and that they got their money from her father. I asked Alicia where her father worked, and she replied that she did not know because he lived in Ciudad Juarez. She said they visited him in the summers during school breaks.

  Summer came and went, and school started again, but Alicia did not return. I became concerned and went to do a home visit but did not find anyone at home. So, I asked her cousin at school about Alicia and I was not prepared for what I heard. I was told that her mother, father and her 3-year-old little brother were killed in Ciudad Juarez during the summer. The cousin told me that Alicia had moved to San Antonio, Texas, with her aunt from her mother’s side. I was able to get a phone number for Alicia’s aunt in San Antonio and I was able to verify the story I was t
old.

  I never heard from Alicia again, although I always wondered how she was doing. The times I had contact with her while at the school were very pleasant and I always knew her to be very polite and willing to be helpful. She was always smiling. That made a good impression on me and planted a promise of hope with our youth no matter where they came from.

  So, I started to do research about the incident on the internet and for the first time ever I started to learn what was happening in Mexico. There was a real wave of violence engulfing Mexico, and Ciudad Juarez was the main battle ground for feuding drug cartels. While researching, I started to dive deep into the dark side of Mexico’s drug war.

  In 2008 the Sinaloa cartel was attempting to take the plaza from the Juarez cartel and both cartels were in a fierce battle in the city of Juarez. Juarez is a popular hub for drug trafficking into the U.S. In 2008 Juarez, which is on the border with El Paso, Texas, was considered to be the most dangerous city in the world.

  I did find the brief article about Alicia's parents on the internet in the Juarez newspaper.

  On the date in question, Alicia's father was driving a golden sedan, and her mom was in the front passenger seat. Her little brother was on the right rear seat behind his mother and Alicia was on the left rear seat behind her father. While the car was stopped for a traffic light, two vehicles blocked their path from the front and rear. Two men armed with assault rifles came up to the car from both sides and opened fire on the dad, mother and little boy. They were killed instantly. The man on the driver’s side that had just shot and killed the father was supposed to shoot Alicia, but he didn't. He pointed his gun at her and at the last moment did not shoot. Perhaps he had a little girl himself and felt compassion, who knows. The killings took place at mid-day on a crowded street, and many people witnessed the executions. No one was ever brought to justice for the murders.