Families of Missing Want 'Stew Maker' to Help

Five dead as violence spikes in western state after recent arrests

(NEWSER) - Gunmen attacked federal police bases in at least six Mexican cities, killing three police officers and two soldiers, the BBC reports. The burst of violence follows arrests and gun battles on Friday in Morelia, where 40 men armed with assault rifles and grenades carried out the raid on the police base. The attacks all took place in the western state of Michoacan. More»

(NEWSER) - Arizona’s three state universities are following the State Department and attempting to dissuade students from spending spring break in Mexican border towns, a traditional pastime, because of drug-associated violence there, the AP reports. One federal official called the warning “sage advice,” noting “documented violence, attacks, killings” and gunfire in public places. “Innocent people have been caught up in that collateral damage,” he said. More»

Cartel branch paid $600 a week for disposal

(NEWSER) - A Mexican man has confessed to chemically dissolving 300 bodies produced by Mexico’s drug war, Reuters reports. A breakaway cartel faction paid Santiago “the Stew Maker” Meza $600 a week to dispose of bodies they brought him, he said. He dumped the bodies in industrial drums filled with caustic soda near Tijuana. “May they forgive me,” he said. The drug war claimed 5,700 in Mexico last year, over twice the number in 2007. More»

Mexican officials fear even posting Garcia Simental's photo

(NEWSER) - Many of the charred and maimed victims of Tijuana’s recent drug violence bear one similarity: the three-letter marker of Teo Garcia Simental, a shadowy crime boss authorities fear too much to hunt, the Los Angeles Times reports. A kidnapper and extortionist, Garcia operates a network that keeps victims caged until he’s ready to fry them in vats of chemicals, his preferred method of murder. More»

Nearly 200 American cities affected by cartels

(NEWSER) - Mexico’s drug violence has been creeping northward into the US for the past several years, and officials now say that cartel-related crime has hit 195 American cities spanning every state except Vermont and West Virginia, the Los Angeles Times reports. Atlanta has emerged as a trafficking hub, but the kidnappings, deaths, and related violence have spread from Honolulu to Boston. More»