Juarez in Early April

A man was executed last night in the Anahuac neighborhood. He was taken by two men from small vehicle, with his hands tied behind his back, and shot three times in the head. He was left in a pool of his own blood on the side of the street. According to authorities there were indications he had been tortured severely before being executed. This is the fourth homicide this week that bears the markings of narco-related crime. On Tuesday, March 31, two men were chased down and killed by a group of armed men on Noruega Street, in San Antonio, between Roma and Atenas, at approximately 4 p.m. Another man was murdered yesterday, but the details of his death were not revealed by authorities.

Authorities did reveal they were concerned that the arrest yesterday in Mexico City of Vicente Carrillo Leyva, a major operator in the Juarez cartel, might trigger more violence in Juarez. Carrillo is the son of the late drug lord Amado Carrillo Fuentes (El Senor de los Cielos), at one point during the mid-1990s the most powerful cartel leader in Mexico. He is said to work closely with his uncle, Vicente Carrillo Fuentes (nicknamed "El Viceroy"), the brother of Amado, suspected of leading the Juarez cartel. When Amado Carrillo Fuentes died in 1997, apparently from complications that developed during plastic surgery on his face to change his appearance, a lengthy period of violence ensued throughout Juarez and in other parts of the country, as various leaders in the cartel or in rival cartels tried to take over portions of his drug empire.

On other parts of Mexico drug-related violence continued. In Michoacan a dead body wrapped in a plastic bag, dangling on a rope from an overpass on the Morelia-Lazaro Cardenas freeway, fell when the rope gave way, and was dragged about a hundred meters by a passing automobile that ran over it. A second body remained hanging from the overpass before it was recovered by police. A "narco-message" was found on a notepad next to his body. In Navolato, Sinaloa (birthplace of Amado Carrillo Fuentes)Benito Juarez Lopez, 73, a former PRD candidate (in 1993) for mayor was executed next to his wife Rosario Arellanes Rodriguez, 70 by a group of armed men. When the men began firing at the car the two were in, the couple managed to get out of the car but were chased down and shot. Dozens of bullet holes had penetrated their vehicle. Two men were found dead in an automobile in the Anzures neighborhood in Mexico City, and two others were found dead on an ejido estate in the State of Mexico. In Yecora, Sonora, federal police arrested 16 men found with AK-47 assault weapons, a .45 caliber pistol, fourteen magazines for AK-47 ammunition, a bullet proof vest, six radio transmitters, and 11 cell phones.