Mexican Cartels Moving Drugs in Armored Vehicles

 

Mexican drug cartels are using improvised armored vehicles known as "monsters" to protect their narcotics shipments from rival gangs, a military officer who spoke on condition of anonymity told Efe. The officer is assigned to the 8th Military Zone based in the northeastern border state of Tamaulipas, where troops have seized around 110 armored cars, including more than 20 monsters that evoke scenes from the 1979 film "Mad Max." Most are heavy trucks that were equipped with armor at clandestine workshops, mostly located in Tamaulipas. Some of the vehicles can carry 12 gunmen, the officer said. Soldiers dismantled one workshop in the Tamaulipas town of Camargo in a June 2011 operation, seizing two armored vehicles and nearly three-dozen more - including 23 tractor-trailers and other heavy trucks - that had not yet been plated. One monster seized last year weighed more than 30 tons because it was covered in thick steel plates and further reinforced with railroad tracks. The officer said troops also confiscated a cargo van dubbed the "pope-mobile" that had an elevated cabin similar to the "room" in the Roman Catholic pontiff's vehicle, although the Mexican van was secured with metal plating instead of bullet-proof glass. "The vehicles are built with steel plates at least an inch thick. Small-caliber projectiles, such as bullets from assault rifles, have a hard time penetrating the armor. They can only be destroyed with heavy weapons or anti-tank shells," the officer added. "They don't circulate on roads or in the cities, but instead operate on byways, which are the routes used to take drugs to the border with the United States," the source said. The brutal turf war being waged in Tamaulipas between the Gulf and Los Zetas gangs - former allies turned arch-enemies - has forced both organizations to develop these armored vehicles to run their businesses. The officer noted that the state has vast semi-arid plains with hundreds of small side roads and byways where the traffickers transport their drugs in light vehicles escorted by the monsters. A ranch where suspected Zetas hit men killed 72 undocumented migrants in August 2010 - apparently after they had refused to work for the gang as enforcers or couriers - was located on one of these unpaved side roads in Tamaulipas. "The cartels are fighting to control and protect these routes both for drug- and people-trafficking and in the opposite direction for the smuggling of weapons to Mexico, as well as to bring in a large quantity of merchandise illegally," the source said.

Alleged cartel hit man goes on trial in Texas

 

A man accused of being a hit man for a Mexican cartel went to trial Wednesday on federal racketeering, drug conspiracy and weapons charges, one of nearly three dozen defendants indicted in connection with an alleged drug-trafficking conspiracy on the Texas border. Prosecutors say that over several months, starting in 2005, teams of gunmen moved between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, with a list of targets. Top commanders for the Zetas, the muscle of the Gulf cartel, ordered hits that left at least seven people dead, according to testimony and documents filed as part of the trial that began Wednesday. Gerardo Castillo Chavez, also known as "Cachetes," or Cheeks, is the first of 34 defendants named in the 51-page indictment to go on trial. Prosecutors allege he was part of a larger drug-trafficking conspiracy run by the Gulf cartel and the Zetas. It is prosecutors' second try at Castillo: A judge declared a mistrial in 2010 after the jury deadlocked on several counts. A new witness, arrested since the first trial, opened a rare window Wednesday into a period of growth for the Zetas Wenceslao Tovar Jr. started as a low-level courier ferrying drug loads across the border, but in a matter of months he and a partner performed their first hit on a Zeta enemy, a man whose name he never learned. "They (the Zetas) needed for me and for other people to kill people in Laredo," Tovar testified through an interpreter. "We were going to get $10,000 for every person we killed." The Zetas' unrelenting violence against their employers' enemies foreshadowed the fear-inducing public violence that has helped the Zetas become one of Mexico's most powerful criminal organizations. Court records show that the conspiracy's primary objective was moving cocaine and marijuana from Mexico into Laredo and on to Dallas. Between 2001 and 2008, the organization, known collectively as "La Compania," or the company, moved hundreds of drug loads into the United States. Cash proceeds from drug sales and guns followed the route back to Mexico. The cartel employed a network of safe houses for its drug loads and gunmen on both sides of the border. To protect its lucrative territory from the Sinaloa cartel, the Zetas employed scores of gunmen, even juvenile assassins, to eliminate rivals. In addition to the seven identified victims, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Angel Moreno said there were several others who were targeted, but not killed. Tovar's Zeta bosses threw in 100 kilograms of marijuana and an ounce of cocaine to sweeten the deal on his first contract killing. After the hit, he and his partner fled to Nuevo Laredo and were taken to meet Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, also known as "40," a former Mexican special forces soldier and then the Zetas' boss in the key border city. Many of the Zetas's founding members were recruited from Mexican special forces. "(Trevino) was executing three people," when they arrived, he said. "He was cutting their heads off." Trevino gave Tovar and his partner the name of the next man they were to kill- a Nuevo Laredo police officer who had switched allegiances from Zetas to Sinaloa, he said. Tovar testified that Castillo was serving under another Zeta commander, but was staying six bunks away from him in a barn at the ranch the Zetas used for training. San Fernando is where Mexican authorities have found 193 bodies on a ranch in 26 mass graves. Officials say most of those were migrants heading to the United States who were kidnapped off buses and killed by the Zetas. Tovar testified that at that camp and another where he first trained outside the state capital Ciudad Victoria, new recruits were taught to kill Zeta prisoners with machetes and sledgehammers. "Forty (Miguel Angel Trevino) used to say so they would lose their fear," Tovar said. He said he trained with 100 Zeta recruits at the first camp and 300 in San Fernando. Tovar said he remembered Castillo because he was talkative and was the only one wearing gloves because of the cold. Castillo's attorney Roberto Balli has maintained that Castillo is not the "Cachetes" or Zetas member that prosecutors say he is. Castillo was arrested in 2009 in Houston. Balli argued in the first trial that the government lacked any physical evidence to tie Castillo to the crimes and instead relied on convicted assassins. On Wednesday, Balli said federal agents were looking for a man named Armando Garcia, the name in the original indictment, when they arrested Castillo in Houston. In April 2006, Tovar was in Nuevo Laredo on vacation when he flipped his truck and was left paralyzed from the waist down. The Zetas paid to fly Tovar to Cuba for surgery under a false identity and continued to pay him a salary even though he couldn't work until they split with the Gulf cartel in 2010. Mexican authorities arrested Tovar in Nuevo Laredo in July 2011. Two weeks ago Tovar pleaded guilty to a federal firearms charge in the killing of Juarez-Orozco. Other federal charges were dismissed in exchange for his cooperation. He also has pending state charges. Oscar Vela, another attorney for Castillo, challenged Tovar on not knowing Castillo's name and not admitting to knowing him when Laredo Police first interviewed him last year. Vela suggested Tovar would say anything to try to get his sentence lightened. Tovar did not disagree, but said "I'm cooperating because I did wrong." Testimony was scheduled to continue Thursday, and the trial is expected to last more than a week.

Movie fans must boycott Paul Ferris film..

 

SENIOR policeman has urged film fans to shun a new drama about Scottish gangster Paul Ferris. Detective Chief Superintendent John Carnochan spoke out after a promotional trailer for the film was leaked online. And he said he believed few people in Scotland would have any sympathy for the production, made by a London-based company and shot down south. The sympathetic trailer shows Ferris, known as “the enforcer”, as a victim who was bullied as a child and whose road into vicious career criminality came as a reaction against the “monsters” of his youth. It also contains scenes similar to the 1980s classic childhood friendship film Stand By Me. One shows Ferris as a young boy sitting around a fire with his childhood pals saying: “When we’re old, we’ll always be together. “We’ll live in huge castles and be kings. We’ll fight monsters and demons.” DCS Carnochan, head of Strathclyde Police’s Violence Reduction Unit, said last night it was wrong that people should seek to profit from Ferris’s criminal career. He added: “There comes a point in our understanding of the importance of the effect of early years has on later life when you’re beyond the point of saying, ‘You’re worthy of our empathy.’ “I’ve seen nothing of the film, so it’s hard to comment completely, but I understand why people will have a problem with this. “I don’t think that anyone should profit from criminality. Whoever they are and at whatever stage, I think it’s wholly inappropriate.” The film stars Greenock-born Sweet Sixteen actor Martin Compston in the lead role, with support from Hollywood Scots John Hannah and Denis Lawson. Hannah plays Ferris’s former enemy Tam “The Licensee” McGraw, while Lawson plays his father. Opening scenes see the young child Ferris climbing walls around his home in Blackhill in Glasgow’s east end, walking his dog and making “forever friends” pacts. Compston then emerges as the snarling adult Ferris, hell-bent on retribution against his childhood oppressors, growling: “Every single day of my life those b******s have bullied me. They sucked the life out of me. No f*****g more.” The scenes are played out against a sentimental score of plaintive folk guitar. No one from producers Carnaby Films was available last night.

highranking member of the United Nation gang who had direct contact with Mexican cartels,

 

British Columbia man executed in Mexico this week was a highranking member of the United Nation gang who had direct contact with Mexican cartels, the Vancouver Sun has learned. Salih Abdulaziz Sahbaz, 36, had spent much of the last three years in Mexico and was the key cartel contact for the notorious B.C. gang, police sources confirmed. But he also returned regularly to Surrey, B.C., where he had family ties. Sahbaz was shot nine times with a .45-calibre handgun early Monday and was found at an intersection in Culiacan, capital city of the Mexican state of Sinaloa. Sahbaz had taken over the Mexican end of business after two other UN gang members, Ahmet (Lou) Kaawach and Elliott (Taco) Castenada, were gunned down in Guadalajara in July 2008. He is believed to have owed money to at least one cartel after losing a shipment of cocaine and was working off his debt.

Whistle-blower links Serbian drug lords, SA gangs

 

The head of a Balkan cocaine and crime syndicate is hiding out in South Africa under the protection of local gang bosses, underworld sources reveal. Fugitive Darko Savic – one of the world’s most wanted drug smugglers – is living under a different alias here, right under the noses of the authorities. And local crime bosses are helping him avoid detection by using their network of corrupt cop contacts. The revelation comes after the Daily Voice last week revealed how Serbian hitman Dobrosav Gavric lived in the Mother City for three years under the protection of slain crime boss Cyril Beeka. Beeka’s murder lifted the lid on the shadowy links between international crime syndicates and local mobsters. Today in an exclusive interview with the Daily Voice, a veteran former gangster turned whistle-blower confirms long-suspected links between SA crime gangs and Serbian drug lords. And he provides a chilling insight into a series of high-profile murders – including Beeka’s killing in March last year. In an interview with the Daily Voice, the terrified ex-dik ding reveals how: n He is now on the run and fears for his life after his mob bosses turned against him; n Someone “very near” to Cyril Beeka would have murdered him if the other attempt on his life failed; n Hitmen use their cop contacts to confirm the identities of targets before having them whacked; n International fugitive Darko Savic is hiding out in Gauteng with the help of local crime bosses. Savic has been linked to Czech criminal Radovan Krejcir, 42, a convicted fraudster who is also being investigated for Beeka’s murder. Krejcir was friends with both Beeka and Gavric, but it is understood he fell out with Beeka over a business deal. When the Hawks raided Krejcir’s Gauteng home after Beeka’s assassination in March last year, they found a “hit list” with Beeka’s name on it. At one stage Gavric – who was seriously injured in the shooting – was rumoured to also be a suspect in the hit. But in a sworn affidavit obtained by the Daily Voice, Gavric insists he was close friends with Beeka and that he is prepared to act as a future witness for the State. The hitman is wanted in Serbia where he was convicted for the murders of notorious warlord Zeljko “Arkan” Raznatovic and two others. Gavric will on Monday find out if his bail application is successful when he appears before Cape Town Magistrates’ Court. In an interview with the Daily Voice from his hideaway in George, Eastern Cape, the whistle-blower who identifies himself only as “Uncle Sam”, says Gavric is not the only wanted Serbian using this country to escape justice. “Serbian drug lord Darko Savic is hiding in Gauteng and protected by [local] underworld bosses,” he says. Uncle Sam, 65, also gave a detailed insider’s account of Beeka’s execution: “If the assassination had failed to eliminate Beeka, then someone else very near to him would have carried out the murder on that very same day.” He was also able to provide exact details about the cold-blooded murder of Yuri “The Russian” Ulianitski who was gunned down outside a restaurant in May 2007. “A half-hour before Yuri left the restaurant, a prominent businessman linked to the mob called the hitmen and told them that Yuri will be approaching the intersection of Otto du Plessis Drive and Loxton Road just before 10.30pm,” Uncle Sam says. Ulianitski was indirectly linked with Jerome Booysen, the alleged leader of the Sexy Boys who was last week named in court as a suspect in Beeka’s murder. “The Russian” had dealings with Beeka, but they too later had a fall-out – both were killed in similar shootings. Uncle Sam is himself currently on the run after he fell foul of his mob bosses who were indirectly linked to the Beeka killing and the Serbian fugitives hiding out here. He also counts convicted drug trafficker Glenn Agliotti as a contact. During our interview, he gave our reporter a phone number which he said was that of Agliotti. When we rang the number, a male voice confirmed he was Agliotti before asking to be handed back to Uncle Sam. The whistle-blower admits he ran a car fraud scheme that turned sour when the syndicate chiefs failed to pay his R790 000 fee for buying 30 luxury cars in his name. But he has kept a detailed diary of his criminal activities and those of his former mob colleagues. And he has threatened to use the 116-page hand-written diary to put them behind bars if they come after him. “I’ve got nothing to lose,” he says. “I need to warn the public that the mafia is running the country with the help of cops and top politicians and that they have ruthless killers who will take out anyone who threatens them.”

Pasquale Mazzarella and Clemente Amodio arrested in Marbella

 

TWO Italians belonging to the Mazzarella mafia family were arrested in Malaga for their alleged involvement in drug trafficking activities, according to Press reports. Pasquale Mazzarella, who had been on the run from the authorities for the past three years, and Clemente Amodio, wanted since last Spring, had European arrest warrants against them and were handed over to the National Court to be extradited to Italy. They were living in a villa in Marbella, and had moved their headquarters to Spain, allegedly bringing drugs from Morocco to sell in Europe.

2nd Try to Extradite Mexican Accused Narco Denied

 

A Mexican federal judge on Thursday rejected a second attempt to extradite an alleged drug trafficker to the U.S., nearly exhausting yearslong efforts by both nations to convict a woman known as the "Queen of the Pacific." Judge Jesus Chavez ruled that Sandra Avila Beltran would face the same charges in Florida on which she was acquitted in Mexico. Chavez said the core of a 2004 indictment against Avila in the Southern District of Florida is the seizure of more than nine tons of U.S.-bound cocaine on Mexico's west coast. A Mexican judge acquitted Avila in December 2010 of charges stemming from the same confiscation of drugs off a vessel nine years earlier in the port of Manzanillo. An appeals court upheld that verdict last August. "It is impossible to say the actions related to the more than nine tons of cocaine discovered in the vessel would not be subject of the foreign trial for which U.S. officials seek the defendant," Chavez said, according to a news statement. In the U.S., Avila was indicted on two conspiracy charges to import and distribute cocaine and has been wanted since November 2007, two months after her arrest in Mexico. The judge said Mexico's constitution prohibits double jeopardy and thus prevents extraditing a citizen for trial in another country on charges they already faced at home. Officials from the Foreign Relations Department and Mexican Attorney General's office declined to comment, saying they were studying the decision. Both can contest it, but the next outcome by an appeals court would be final. A Mexican appeals panel rejected a first U.S. extradition request on the same grounds. Avila remains in a western Mexico prison in the state of Nayarit, pending trial for a separate money-laundering charge. Mexican officials did not reveal her lawyer's identity. Avila has claimed she is innocent and says she made her money selling clothes and renting houses. When she was arrested in 2007 sipping coffee in a Mexico City diner, prosecutors alleged that Avila spent more than a decade working her way to the top of Mexico's drug trade, seducing several notorious kingpins and uniting Colombian and Mexican gangs. Avila's romance with Colombian Juan Diego Espinoza Ramirez brought together Mexico's powerful Sinaloa cartel with Colombia's Norte del Valle, prosecutors said. Espinoza was extradited to Florida in December 2008, two years before he was found not guilty on charges in Mexico related to the cocaine shipment. Avila is the niece of Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, "the godfather" of Mexican drug smuggling who is serving a 40-year sentence in Mexico for trafficking and the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena in Mexico's western Jalisco state.

Thornton Heath man in South American jail after being caught with £20k of coke

 

A young man has been jailed in South America for attempting to traffic drugs just three weeks after sneaking out of his Thornton Heath home without telling his mother. Former Stanley Technical School pupil, Nishit Patel, 21, left his home in Attlee Close, in secret on Christmas Day before flying 4,500 miles to Guyana. The next time his mum, part-time Tesco worker Amita, heard from him was on January 3 phoning from a Guyanese jail after being caught boarding a plane with 29 pellets of cocaine worth more than £20,000 inside him. On Monday, January 9, he was sentenced to four years in jail after he admitted drug trafficking. He was also fined $30,000 Guyanese dollars, about £95. Mrs Patel, 46, said she last saw her son, who changed his name to Nikesh after being teased at school, after lunch on Christmas Day. She said: “I came home and he had bags packed. I asked if he was leaving and he said no. I never know where he is going, he tells me nothing. “I didn’t even know where Guyana was. I asked why did you do it, and he said for the money.” On December 31 Guyana’s Customs Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU) at Cheddi Jagan International Airport saw Patel acting suspiciously and arrested him. Dennis Mahase a senior supervisor with CANU said Patel, who has spent his whole life in Croydon, missed his earlier flight home and was picked up by officials while he waited. He said: “When the officials began questioning him he complained about feeling unwell. After further question he admitted swallowing the pellets.” Taken to Woodlands Hospital in Georgetown, the country’s capital, Patel, was x-rayed and the pellets, containing 352 grams of the drug with a street value of around £20,000, were found. Mr Mahase added: “He admitted to us he had done this before in November and got away with it.” Mrs Patel said Nishit went off the rails after his grandparents and father died in quick succession four years ago. She said: “He was such a good boy. Very caring. It changed him. A son listens to his father but to his mother, not so much. It was very hard.” The family will now fight to have him extradited to the UK. She said: “I want to be able to see him. I know he has done wrong but he is my son. I have no idea what a jail out there is like.” A foreign office spokesman said: “We can confirm the arrest of a British national on December 31 in Guyana. “We are providing consular assistance.”

Once powerful Mexican drug lord Benjamin Arellano Felix pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court on Wednesday to drug trafficking, racketeering and money laundering charges

 

. Arellano Felix, 58, was the head of the feared Tijuana cartel run by his brothers and operated on the Mexico-U.S. border near San Diego until his capture in Mexico in early 2002. He was extradited to the United States last April, and prosecutors said his guilty plea marked the demise of the violent cartel that dominated smuggling on the California-Mexico border in the 1980s and 1990s. "Arellano Felix led the most violent criminal organization in this part of the world for two decades. Today's guilty plea marks the end of his reign of murder, mayhem and corruption," U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy said. "His historic admission of guilt sends a clear message to the Mexican cartel leaders operating today: The United States will spare no effort to investigate, extradite and prosecute you for your criminal activities," she added. As part of a 17-page plea agreement, Arellano Felix admitted smuggling tons of cocaine and marijuana into California and conspiring to launder hundreds of millions of dollars. He also agreed to forfeit $100 million in profits under the plea deal, which is expected to land him 25 years in federal prison when he is sentenced on April 2. "It was a favorable deal to my client who faced a minimum of 40 years and a maximum of 140 years under the extradition agreement," defense attorney Anthony Colombo Jr. said. CARTEL A SHADOW OF FORMER SELF President Barack Obama's administration has worked closely with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in his army-led battle to crush warring drug gangs in a conflict that has claimed more than 46,000 lives since late 2006. At the height of his power in the 1990s, Arellano Felix smuggled hundreds of millions of dollars in narcotics through a 100-mile wide corridor stretching from Tijuana, south of San Diego, to Mexicali, south of Calexico. But after the death and capture of many of its leaders over the past decade, including three of Benjamin Arellano Felix's brothers, the Tijuana cartel, also known as the Arellano Felix Organization, is a shadow of its former self. Arellano Felix's brother Ramon, the cartel's flamboyant enforcer, died in a shoot-out in 2002. Francisco Javier is serving a life sentence in U.S. federal prison after being captured on a fishing boat in 2006, and Eduardo is in jail in Mexico awaiting extradition. With the downfall of the Arellano Felix brothers, the rival Sinaloa cartel run by Mexico's most-wanted man, Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, has largely taken over the cartel's valuable turf in Tijuana. Appearing before U.S. District Judge Larry Burns at the hearing, Arellano Felix was neatly groomed and dressed in an orange jumpsuit. He said he took medication for migraine headaches, but when asked by the judge if it affected his decision to plead, he replied, "no." Among the former kingpins serving time in U.S. jails is former Gulf cartel leader Osiel Cardenas, who was extradited to the United States by Mexico in 2007 and is serving a 25-year sentence in Texas without chance of parole.

Drug smuggling bid foiled

 

Customs at the airport foiled an attempt by one Egyptian expatriate arriving from Cairo to smuggle 1,000 narcotic pills into the country. The concerned officers said the suspect had kept the contraband hidden in his shoes when they discovered it. He has since been handed over to Drug Prosecution. In a statement following discovery of the illicit drug, the Director General of Customs Ibrahim Al-Ghanim commended efforts exerted by customs men to uncover complicated smuggling cases.

Drug smuggling compartment specialist sentenced to 24 years

A California man who specialized in building secret compartments in vehicles used to smuggle drugs received a 24-year sentence in what prosecutors said was one of the first cases against a specialist who worked for drug dealers but didn’t directly handle the drugs. Alfred Anaya, 40, a native of San Fernando, CA, was sentenced to 292 months in federal prison and forfeiture of $3.2 million. Anaya, said a Jan. 6 statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Kansas, operated in the state. “Evidence showed the defendant installed sophisticated hidden compartments in dozens of vehicles,” said U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom. “He knew he was working for drug traffickers.” Anaya was convicted on one count of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute more than five kilograms of cocaine, as well as methamphetamine and marijuana, and two counts of attempting to intimidate a witness, said the statement. Convicted in the case along with Anaya were James Clark, 29, of Overland Park, KS, who was given a sentence identical to Anaya’s on the same charges. Curtis Crow, 30, of Leawood, KS, was sentenced to 147 months on conspiracy and drug distribution charges. Anaya and Clark were convicted in Feb. 2011 and Crow pleaded guilty, said the statement. Prosecutors showed the men were members of a California-based drug trafficking organization that operated a drug distribution center in Kansas between 2008 and 2009 that distributed cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in Kansas and Missouri. Prosecutors also presented evidence that Anaya installed secret compartments including a 20-kilogram compartment in a Ford F-150, a 10-kilogram compartment in a Honda Ridgeline, a 3-kilogram compartment in a Toyota Camry and a 10-kilogram compartment in a Toyota Sequoia.

Goon squad gang tied to several shootings in past four years

 

The Goon Squad — a gang that Waterford Township police say is connected with the Dec. 23 Rolladium shootings — has been associated with shootings around the Pontiac area in recent years. The Rolladium roller rink situation involves three armed men spraying gunfire inside the rink, striking five patrons at 1:44 a.m. Waterford police found that the shooting stemmed from issues involving rivalry between two Pontiac gangs, the “Goon Squad” and “1st Enfantry.” On Saturday, police released the name of a second suspect, Pontiac resident Cheyenne Benjamin Ingram, 17. The first suspect is Robert Lee German, 18, from Pontiac. A third man, whose name has not been released, has been shown only in a surveillance photo. The three suspects, all in their late teens to early 20s, are considered armed and dangerous. According to police, one of the five victims shot was an intended target and considered a rival. The victim was previously shot by members of the gang in a similar incident at a Pontiac night club in December 2010. Willis and Roberson James Cecil Willis III, 18 — accused of being among members of the Goon Squad — was charged in 2008 with shooting 14-year-old Alabama resident Dawan Allan France Roberson in the face after a June 14, 2008, party at the Life Worship and Training Center on Auburn Avenue in Pontiac. The Goon Squad gang, police said, crashed a party at the center and were involved in physical altercations with party attendees. People were thrown out of the party but came back in, and the party was eventually shut down. Roberson was believed to be a bystander and not involved in the fight. The teen was in Pontiac visiting family, police said

Apache Junction man arrested in I-10 road rage incident

 

Tempe police have arrested a man involved in Saturday's road rage incident in which a driver was shot, but they are still investigating who is responsible for shooting the victim. The investigation revealed that a group of motorcycles and a champagne/tan-colored SUV were traveling westbound on Interstate 10 from Wild Horse Pass Boulevard. Witnesses reported that a gray Jeep was attempting to collide with the motorcycles. The motorcycles began to chase the Jeep. As they reached the area of I-10 and Elliot Road, the SUV rammed the Jeep, causing the driver to lose control and crash. One of the motorcycle riders, Andre Jordan, 35, of Apache Junction, was seen pointing a handgun at the victim according to Sgt. Steve Carbajal. Witnesses reported that several of the individuals involved had guns. After a physical altercation, shots were fired and the driver of the Jeep received a gunshot wound to the cheek.  Investigation into the person responsible for shooting the victim is ongoing. Tempe police detectives have identified two of the individuals involved as members of two separate criminal street gangs. Jordan was booked into Tempe City Jail on one count of aggravated assault, threat by gang member assisting a criminal street gang and endangerment.

Members of the Mad Cowz and Manitoba Warriors have been at odds for several weeks as they battle for turf and the lucrative profits

 

Members of the Mad Cowz and Manitoba Warriors have been at odds for several weeks as they battle for turf and the lucrative profits that come from selling drugs, sources told the Free Press. Enlarge Image Police investigate after a Victor Street house was shot up and set afire Wednesday.  Mohamed Ali Omar The two groups are believed responsible for several shootings this week that have residents of the West End and North End on edge. Police have beefed up their resources in the neighbourhoods as they struggle to predict and prevent the next attack. Between Sunday morning and Thursday morning, there were five reported shootings and/or firebombings of homes on Aberdeen Avenue, Victor Street and Simcoe Street. Sources say the residences all have ties to gang activity and were deliberately targeted. There have been no reported injuries and no arrests. "This is strictly to do with impeding each other's crack sales," a justice source said Friday. Police are still probing whether there is a connection between those incidents and a New Year's Eve shooting on Selkirk Avenue that left a 46-year-old man dead. A 30-year-old woman also suffered serious injuries after being shot in the eye inside the home, which sources say was a known drug house with connections to gang activity. No arrests have been made. "As of late, we've had several violent instances where firearms have been involved. Any time we have these types of incidents occurring -- whether it's days apart, weeks apart or months apart -- of course we're concerned," Winnipeg Police Service spokesman Const. Jason Michalyshen said this week. "There's a concern for public safety and there's a concern that these incidents may repeat themselves, but we're making every effort to investigate these matters thoroughly." Sources told the Free Press tensions between the Mad Cowz -- a predominantly African gang -- and the Manitoba Warriors -- a predominantly native gang -- began to rise following an unsolved shooting death late last October in the parking lot of a McPhillips Street hotel. Mohamed Ali Omar, 28, was gunned down as he stood outside the Lincoln Motor Inn. Police say a man in an SUV pulled up and opened fire on a group of people, killing Omar and injuring a 17-year-old. Omar's family have described him as a loving father of four who worked as a hospital cleaner. But police have confirmed he had ties to gang activities, and sources say that gang was the Mad Cowz. No arrests have been made, but there is speculation on the streets that the Manitoba Warriors may have been involved. "That's always a tricky area for police when we're describing gang associations. I don't think we're prepared to go any further than stating that they do have associations to a local street gang," police Const. Natalie Aitken said at the time. Winnipeg has seen its share of gang battles play out in public, most recently with associates of the Hells Angels and Rock Machine trading bullets and firebombs. There were more than a dozen incidents last summer and fall, including several where people narrowly avoided serious injury or death. Police and justice officials publicly declared a biker war was brewing and warned citizens to be vigilant. Officers took the unusual step of going door to door in some neighbourhoods, warning people of the potential for violence. Relations between the two gangs have calmed in recent months, but a source warned there might be more violence to come. "There are a lot of scores to be settled," the source told the Free Press last month. Now, it appears, the Manitoba Warriors and Mad Cowz have decided to stir things up.

Among the funeral attendees were members of several Northwest Washington gangs

 

Marcellus E. Jackson, 23, and Kier M. Johnson, 21, were arrested Monday in connection with the 2010 slaying of Jamal Coates, D.C. police announced. Investigators count Coates’s killing as among crimes by rival gang members in the U Street NW neighborhood. Coates was shot to death on Sept. 28, 2010, after he attended a funeral for a young woman who was killed earlier that month and whose boyfriend was charged in her death, police said. Among the funeral attendees were members of several Northwest Washington gangs, authorities said.

Man sentenced to 12 years for gang-related shootings

 

21-year-old Winnipeg man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison for two gang-related shootings in the city's West End, including one that unintentionally injured a 10-year-old girl. Paramedics take the girl, who was 10 years old at the time, to hospital following the May 26, 2010, shooting on Victor Street. (CBC) The man pleaded guilty on Monday to two counts of discharging a firearm in connection with the May 2010 incidents, including the May 26 shooting of a house on Victor Street. Court heard that the man, who was then a 19-year-old member of the Indian Posse street gang, fired three shots at the home as an act of retaliation for a drive-by shooting that killed a fellow gang member the day before. Inside the house was the girl, who was hit in the knee by a bullet that went through the front window. Her sister, who was eight at the time, was superficially injured by flying glass and debris. Neighbours and the man's own younger brother told police they saw him with a rifle at the time of the incident. The man was arrested two days later at The Forks, with a machete hidden in his pants. A teenage co-accused pleaded guilty in September 2010 to aggravated assault and assault with a weapon in connection to the attack.