The Nuevo Leon Attorney General's Office announced Saturday that 44 municipal and transit police officers from the municipality of Santa Catarina were charged and jailed for engaging in organized crime. Specifically, the charges were for acting as "halcones" and providing protection for Los Zetas cells in Santa Catarina.
Santa Catarina is located within the western borders of the Monterrey metropolitan area on the highway corridor to Saltillo, and is well known to North America's technical rock climbing community for the sheer rock walls of the La Huasteca canyon complex.
Halcones, or lookouts, are the eyes and ears that provide intelligence on the movement of military and police forces and rival criminal groups or potential extortion and kidnap targets in their "plazas" thru radio and mobile phone networks. They are the early warning system that every insurgent and criminal organization worldwide employs.
Co-opted municipal police officers are the most dangerous halcones for the damaging intelligence they provide to organized crime on imminent and ongoing military and police operations. "Transitos"(transit, or traffic, police) are especially useful.
These men and women also damage the society at large due to their extreme corruption.
Police halcones also function as abduction teams, arresting and delivering persons of interest to criminal groups. These victims rarely survive their ordeal. They may act as killers but these are usually actual sicaros working under police cover.
These corrupt police often enter the ranks of criminal groups and drug cartels after leaving or being terminated from their departments.
At the State and Federal police levels these officers are often highly trained and specialized and bring invaluable skills with them. State and Federal police operate at a higher level than municipal police and provide more important functions than mere halcones.
Anyone familiar with the drug war in Mexico is aware that cell leaders, mid-level cartel comandantes and plaza chiefs usually have a police background.
Most municipal police officers usually don't begin as corrupt officials but the low pay, poor training and inferior equipment usually attract many poorly educated and vulnerable individuals. This is especially true in rural and poor urban municipalities.
The 44 officers charged with being halcones were part of a group of 52 officers that were detained last Wednesday by state investigative police backed by Army troops and federal police. A total of 113 officers out of the municipal force of 250 are under investigation for links to organized crime.
The investigation of the Santa Catarina police force was the result of recent arrests of Zetas who confessed that they operated under the protection of certain officers.
The vetting of police departments via background checks, polygraph and drug testing of it officers is now mandatory nationally. The Nuevo Leon state government is currently purging state and municipal police forces of corrupt and low quality officers and will integrate remaining members with new recruits to form a single accredited force named "Fuerza Civil".
http://www.nl.gob.mx/?P=reclutamiento_fuerza_civil_2011
Fuerza Civil units, recruited and accredited by the National Defense Ministry (Sedena), will gradually replace all current state and municipal forces.
Although the state government will offer better pay and training with life insurance, housing and retirement benefits, it is inevitable the power and wealth of the drug cartels will insure that members of this force will also be co-opted.
The best case scenario is that the infiltration of the Fuerza Civil will be minimal.
3 Transit police murdered in Apodaca
Three transit police officers were killed and one seriously wounded in an attack by unknown gunmen last Thursday in the municipality of Apodaca, also within the
Monterrey metropolitan area.
Apodaca is another Zeta stronghold whose police force has been heavily infiltrated.
These types of executions are usually the work of rival groups, in this case the Gulf cartel, eliminating halcones.
Earlier last week, on Tuesday and Wednesday, 13 Apodaca municipal police officers were arrested by the Army after several of the officers were witnessed "halconeando", communicating with handheld radios, probably Nextels.
Nine of the officers were jailed and charged with engaging in organized crime.
Video of police commander in Veracruz recruiting his men as halcones
This past July the transit police force in Jalapa, the capitol of the state of Veracruz, was disbanded and all 270 members of the force were terminated.
Shortly thereafter this video was released showing a Jalapa police comandante threatening a group of transit officers with consequences if they fail to comply with his order to act as halcones.
Although no criminal organization is mentioned it can be assumed that the men are being forced to work for Los Zetas, who have being entrenched in Veracruz for several years.
Below is the video and a rough translation of the comandante's words to the men.
"Whoever doesn't want to work will be shot in the ass."
"Who's not going to work? Whoever doesn't work well that's his problem but there's going to be people with the list (of officers) and they'll know who's working and whoever doesn't will be punished."
"And I don't think he's (points to man with clipboard) going to cover to save your asses. All the same report in."
"It's the same thing we talked about this morning, I already know......they want a presence and they want you to get to work."
"They're going to give a Nextel radio to each unit and that fucking radio better be there every morning afternoon and night sending though the 7's and 4's (channels?) where there's.....if you see a Marine....whoever's working, whatever's moving."
"Then, we're only waiting for the word, but this shit is now and whoever doesn't want to we're going to fuck their ass up."
"That's the order bro's, this isn't our shit. It's not a matter of coming here to shock you or brainwash you to get you to work. This shit's getting heavy."
"In fact, the chief said through the 7 4: I'm coming down myself for any motherfucker who refuses to work, so you all will understand."
"I heard that at first they're going to tie you up and beat you and the next time.....so you know that's how they do it, its psychology. That shit messes you up."
"Right now straight up I'll tell you if that happened to me that's it."
"I don't want any problems but that's the way it is with all this shit."
"And whoever thinks he's tough, well that's your problem."
sources:
http://www.info7.com.mx/a/noticia/293200
http://mexico.cnn.com/nacional/2011/09/17/la-procuraduria-de-nuevo-leon-arraiga-a-44-policias-de-santa-catarina
http://www.milenio.com/cdb/doc/noticias2011/9bcada800eed71b5326c5ca5ebcd0fc4
http://www.milenio.com/cdb/doc/noticias2011/58c0b884bd6410700b50e01411a51c21
Gerardo yesterday I come across a video about halcones on mundo narco it will be nice if you posted here. link
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mundonarco.com/2011/09/video-halcones-de-los-caballeros.html
Me caga la madre mirar estas pendejadas. I hate this fucking shit, this mother fuckers should be shot, they are selling their country to the criminals.
ReplyDeleteJalapa is a beautiful place full of history. And it offers a colonial environment, its plaza square is full of wholesome activities, really nice restaurants, and I found the people there really nice. The presence of narcos was obvious in some villages but not in Jalapa. In some small towns vehicles like H2s and Ford Lobos just stick out.
ReplyDeleteThose narcos are great at ruining wonderful places. Two towns that I personally know of have a dead mayor and a dead police chief. Those places should be the haunt of honest hard working everyday folks but they are so full of narcos that its insidious. Folks hardly stay out at night oramid go for walks on the square anymore as a reprieve from their work-a-day lives thanks to Narco violence.
A couple of points: First, I find it deeply amusing that the Mexican authorities so rarely make splashy headlines about detaining x number of federal police or military personnel for involvement with the narcos, despite the fact that both agencies are also quite rife with corruption. I think this is not done partly to keep the federal government looking cleaner than it really is, and partly to justify further centralizing federal incursions into state level justice responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, a (not so) minor correction: This article mentions the transit police in Xalapa having been disbanded; this isn't true, it was actually the Intermunicipal police. The transit police here are widely recognized as being riddled with narco involvement, but they are still very much in existence.
It's crazy how casually that ex-Jalapa police comandante threatens his unit.
ReplyDeleteIt's like he's asking them to chip in for a retirement gift for someone instead of asking them to sell their souls to the ghoulish gangsters.
He needs to be marched through the streets so the public can show him how "heavy the sh!t is getting" on the innocent side of society. They'd rip him limb from limb.
In the real definition of a "war", corrupt officials & traitors are put in front of a wall and shot. Until the state starts putting some teeth into anti-corruption policy I'm afraid it'll be the slow trickle of weeding out crooked cops.
I don't get it? Are you guys saying that cops in Mexico are crooked? WTF? When did this start? I've never heard anything so outlandish as a crooked cop in Mexico! They are such pillars of honesty and have unbendable character! Amazing!
ReplyDeleteDo I dare say it?
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is time the UN came in and ran Mexico and offered security. It seems that there is no way to trust any internal force, so an external one may be necessary in the name of "peace keeping".
People of Mexico seriously considered it.
..@6;14 AM; the definition of war: corrupt officials and traitors shot on the spot...
ReplyDelete...YOUR WORDS RING TRUTH..
...mexico needs to have public executions of traitors and people who are destroying their country...
... ALL MURDERERS, RAPISTS, AND DRUG AFFLIATED PEOPLE SHOULD BE EXECUTED, FOR ALL TO SEE FOR A WITNESS AND A TESTAMENT, THEREFORE ANY OTHERS WHOSE (MIND AND HEART) HAD CONSIDERATION OF ANY OF THESE ACTS, WOULD RECONSIDER BECAUSE OF THE CONSEQUENCES THAT THEIR ACTIONS BROUGHT FORTH...
this is not news i'm sure the other cartels controls the entire police force in their territories
ReplyDelete@9:31 the UN couldn't run a fucking taco stand much less an out-of-control country. The US pays 80% of the UN bills anyway.
ReplyDeleteTake a look at how UN troops have been in Africa, Bosnia, etc. Useless. The UN is a complete waste of time except for the delegates and employees - they're on easy st. Don't do shit and get paid a ton of money.
This is nothing but Treason and should be met with the same punishment metted out for Treason.
ReplyDeleteYeah, i use to think that since many of the halcones were not necessarily murderers, that they were not as bad as the sicarios themselves But now i believe that they are just as bad because They are the eyes of the cartel. They guide the cartels into doing many of the violent crimes.
ReplyDeleteIf this were to have happened to the L.A.P.D. this would have caused an uproar. The media would have gone bananas over a story like this. This is corruption gone mad. But it's mexico, so it's considered normal.
Props to the mexican government for at least really trying to take on all of the cartels....except the CDS. But they are at least taking it to los zetas.
They need to just kill them...
ReplyDeleteCapital punishment for conspiracy with a criminal organisation and if the state cant protect you you should be allowed to arm yourself, its not as if mexicans abhor violence and are all pasafists, the ordinary mexican wants to wile away his life having barbques behind big walls letting on to himself that all is right with the world
ReplyDelete@11:40
ReplyDeleteThe UN isn't just a joke, its a bad joke on many levels. If anything, Calderon needs a surge to put down that incorrigible swarm of criminals. BTW, they wouldn't just mess up the taco stand, it would be a corrupt taco stand that couldn't serve anything because it would always be blocked by China and Russia. Thanks for the visual. Lol
Who shot the video? That took balls
ReplyDeleteI have never understood how Mexicans could be flag waving nationalist, and at the same time sit on their ass and let the country be a rotten mess. There must be some patriots somewhere, and bless the ones who have stood up, because they need help, but the majority is passive ???
ReplyDelete@649
ReplyDeleteA long history of corrupt institutions disheartened the Mexican people. Nonetheless, Mexicanos are in love with their culture and us Latinos are emotional types that tend to get homesick. And besides, what about the great food?
What can BB tell us about the massacre in Plasa America Veracruz more than 40 people killed here are some pictures.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mundonarco.com/2011/09/fotos-de-15-ejecutados-en-plaza.html
Juan Jose Esparragoza Moreno"El Azul",leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, is dead.
ReplyDeleteBecome a lookout or u get killed. Easy choice to me! Plus u get a free fone out of it :)
ReplyDeleteEl Debate just updated there story. The dead are Z's or Z supporters
ReplyDeletetake these bastards out back and hang them
ReplyDelete