Video of Sinaloa vs CAF shootout in Tijuana

Translated by Otis B Fly-Wheel for Borderland Beat from a Zetatijuana article.

Full article from Zetatijuana to follow shortly


Members of the old guard of the CAF identified by their capture and subsequent liberation, they are falling dead and injured, in the middle of a territorial struggle initiated by the new Arellanos and the Sinaloa Cartel headed by Alfonso Arzarte "El Aquilies", in the crosshairs, the members of the former black command. Authorities attribute the violence to the arrival of "El Piloto" son of Ramon Arellano Felix who has been identified in the Cartel.




With 16 assassinations and four armed attacks with wounded, the territorial fight between cartels and another between drug traffickers in the Colonias, they continue drenching the streets of Tijuana in blood.

The State Counsel for Security in Baja California intelligence unit say the attack on an ex ministerial policeman in "El Yonke Shaggy" in Tijuana this week, is another of the crimes attributable to Alfonso Arzate "El Aquiles", to empower themselves and prevent the rearrangement of the Cartel Arellano Felix.





They reiterated that the possibility exists that the CAF are leaving the " old guard " without protection: "They are alone in order that their enemies can dispose of them more easily, they can expose them, as part of the reorganisation and arrival of "El Piloto", nephew of the Arellano Felix brothers who is the pretender to the head of the cartel.

"This year, there have been more assassinations ordered and executed by the people of "El Karateca", chief of sicarios for "El Piloto", but he is not mentioned in investigations because he has people infiltrated into the Homicide department of the PGJE, in charge of diverting investigations; they try to focus investigations outside of the people of the CAF", explained a member of the Group for Coordination.

The same member of the Group for Coordination said that up until now there had been no executions of relevant elements of the group from the Sinaloa Cartel of "Los Aquiles".

However the Department of Ministerial Investigation have a different hypothesis:

That this group of ministerials that were attacked, were members of the Black Commando that operated in the service of the Arellanos and have been betrayed. "In the streets there are versions that between 2007 and 2010, these agents and ex agents carried out operations with Arzate in favour of the Arellanos against Garcia Simental, but when the family decreased in power they stayed with Los Arzate" and were operating directly for them, with major activity in the past year.

In this case, the attack on El Yonke it was a settling of accounts of the CAF to the Sinaloans for the assassination of Jose Lorenzo Hernanez Garcia alias  Garcia Hernandez "El Viejon" ( Otis: see link to article by BB reporter Tijuano on this incident), who body was found in public on 13th of November.

It would be the same group detained in Operation "Green Light" in the United States in 2010, where Jesus Q;uinonez, Jose Antonio Ortega, Alfredo Najero, the members of a group of kidnappers in 2006 that had as boss Nelso Rodriguez. They accused General Sergio Aponte Polito and his staff in April of 2008 like Lujan Rosales and Vargas Zermeno.

The Attack

A volley of gunfire was heard in the Santos Colonia in the zone located behind Costco in the La Mesa Delegation. Mircha Eduaro Vazquez Galvan was in the attention window of "El Yonke Shaggy", like a client that wanted to change a windscreen in a car or buy another. He was the first to fall shot by a pistol.

It was Tuesday the 24th of November around five in the afternoon, everything happened very quickly, when a man approximately 1.70 meters tall, thin with a dark and clear complexion with short hair, who was dressed in a hat and a dark jacket, came up to the attention window in front of the main establishment and opened fire.

According to what appears in the closed circuit tv cameras, the main priority of the attackers was the man in charge of the workshop, the ex ministerial agent Gilberto Mendez Moncada, that in this moment was attending personally to the customer at the window, he was showing him the windscreen when the killer pulled his weapon at a short distance from Mendez and opened fire.

"Mendez was the objective", said the investigators.

In the images, also appear the figures of another two men walking who saw the incident and started running.

When Mendez crouched down and ran to the bottom of "El Yonke", the female cashier Damaris Fermin Hernandez and Jesus Garcia Torres, mechanic, responsible for disassembling parts of the cars, ran and tried to protect themselves on the left side of the building, which is not very big, and the sicario was still discharging his weapon. Then he shot the customer.

Then there was a moment when the sicario thrust half his body through the customer window and started firing at the manager, then turned to the place where the other employees had run. Then he pulled his body back through and before leaving, shot the customer who appeared lifeless on the floor.

Eduardo Vazquez received shots in the left ear, in the left of the chest, also the right of his torso and in the head; he was declared dead at the scene. His mother identified his body as she had been close to "El Yonke" waiting for him in a car, as she had driven him there to make what purchases he needed.

The mechanic, Jesus Garcia received impacts in the chest, thorax and left leg, he was pronounced dead in hospital at 19:35 hours of the same Tuesday, in all the woman only received a ricochet, and the objective of the attack, Mendez Mocada, received only a superficial wound to his side.

In the primary reports they spoke of three armed attackers that arrived on foot, but the version changes after the CCTV has been reviewed and the victims had been interviewed.

The interviewees indicated that the criminal fled running and then they lost sight of him, no one could say if at this moment he boarded a vehicle. What the investigators could detect in the video was the presence of a white vehicle passing back and forwards past the shop immediately before the attack.

The Black Command

The night of Thursday the 13th of October of 2005, when elements of the Group for Coordination detained, Gilberto Mendez Moncada, objective of the assassination attempt of this 24th of November of 2015, is 42 years old, was a part of a Ministerial Police Group that stole vehicles, he was on vacation at the time of the attack.

They captured him as part of a group of Policemen and ex Policemen designated as in the service of the Cartel Arellano Felix dedicated to kidnapping, extortion, and assassination of rival criminals. This team were named "The Black Command".

According to an information bulletin of that time, when Mendez was detained "Abraham Fransisco Salazar Arambula, 33 years old, assistant chief of the Municipal Police in the Sanchez Taboada, Luis Arturo Cosme Espinosa, 29 years of age, police assigned to the Immediate Reaction Group, Eduardo Chagoya Carrillo, 32 years old, Municipal Policeman deployed to the Sanchez Taboada Delegation and Carlos Cosme Espinosa, 29 years of age, Ministerial Policeman from the "La Mesa" Delegation.

With them were Francisco Noriega Alarcon "El Carpintero", 29 years of age, who was a Lieutenant of the CAF in the de Otay Delegation.

They confiscated a Colt AR-15 rifle, an H&K MP5K submachine gun, a colt .38 super pistol, another 9mm pistol, 268 rounds of .38 ammunition, 40 rounds of 10mm ammunition, 146 rounds of 9mm ammunition, 245 rounds of .223 winchester ammunition, 18 magazine for various calibers, nine radios, 8 radio batteries and 26 cell phones.

Two months after, the corporation of the Counsel for Security in Baja California had captured in Ensenada, another commando of corrupt police that they investigated in Tijuana. In October of 2005, the driver of a passenger bus had been assassinated after a group of men who had been passing by some agents of federal investigation, they took a truck that he was driving carrying shrimp and various packets of cocaine.

This truck was found in the possession of Mendez and his accomplices, that night they was detained, while drinking beer in the "Canon de la Pedrera", also the men were in possession of five identity cards of the AFI.

By the 15th of October, the then Secretary of the Government, Bernardo Martinez announced that the case had attracted SEIDO. After being held the detained were processed and sent to a Maximum Security Prison. Later they were freed, but the date they were set at liberty is not known.

At this time, Carlos Cosme was working as a protected informant for the United States authorities in Operation Green Light against Armando Villarreal and the CAF.

A Previous Battle

This is the second gun battle in the past year at "El Yonke", property of the detained then freed ex Municipal Policeman Luis Arturto Coseme Espinosa.

On the 1st of May of 2015, in another attack perpetrated with rifles, Itzel Miranda died, a member of the PGJE, who according to reports was at the establishment as a customer.

On that occasion the intended homicide victim was ex Ministerial Fausto Esteban Nides, who left the property with other men and a woman, later assassinated. Nides was targeted for his alleged link the CAF, and retired from the Municipal Police in 2003.

It has been twelve years since the Intelligence Unit of the State Counsel for Security, first designated this ex agent that serves the cartels. After this, in February of 2013, he presented himself to ZETA in order to proclaim his innocence and his annoyance at the allegations of the authorities, that in all this time have issued no warrant against him.

He said owning a company that gives maintenance to tele-communications masts, and gives courses at school on a basic level on human rights, and individual guarantees. He reiterated that they have nothing bad on him, and that he crosses into the United States without problems.

In this case, Mendoza Moncada testified as a witness to the facts. The weapons used in this shooting had also been used in the murder of musician Rogelio Brambila Lizarraga ( Los Plebes de Arranke) in March of 2015, and the murder of Javier Garcia Bojorquez on April 15th.

They kill police, 17 dead in one week

The death count in the third week of November 2015, included and armed attack against an officiall of the Secretary of Public Municipal Security in Tijuana on Thursday 26th of November a little before one in the morning.

The mobile agent Jose Ivan Hernandez Contreras, with fifteen years of service, was taken down in public view, in Calle Escultores, opposite number 25 del Reacomodo Sanchez Taboada.

The policeman wasn't wearing uniform and was with some members of his family, who saw four armed subjects arrive in a white car, some got out , they didn't say how many, and they opened fire , and after they fled.

The vehicle used by the killers was located in the parking lot of Callmax Sanchez Taboada and a man with the characteristics of one of the alleged attackers was detained by the Municipal Police, but after being presented before the witnesses, they couldn't 100% positively identify him.

As well as the three violent homicides mentioned before, in the week just ended, Abilene Trinidad Perez Martinez was killed, she was a masseuse at "Xolos". On the afternoon of Thursday the 19th of November, the 29 year old woman was giving a massage when a man came out of his door of his apartment in Calle Manuel Doblado in the Gabilondo Colonia.

She opened the door and the subject wearing a motorcycle helmet entered with a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates, he opened fire and after ran outside and jumped on a motorcycle that was parked in the Calle Olivio, almost on the corner of Bulevar Agua Caliente.

The victim was declared dead at five in the morning the following day, her body bearing six wounds from bullets in the thorax, collar bone and side.

Original article in Spanish at Zetatijuana