Borderland Beat

by Alex Marentes

  I always had some degree of respect for police in Mexico. I guess it was a common bond that police have, and sometimes it extends universally. Yes, I knew they took bribes, but I always thought that because of the low wages they made, it was a necessity for them to provide enough for the families.

  I had learned to accept this as a norm and accepted it. But what we had just seen and heard was totally different. I thought back to the sicarios we had met on the mountains, and I was starting to think that perhaps both, or at least one of them, might have been a police officer. Even maybe from Urique. From that point on, I saw them differently. Perhaps they could not be trusted, perhaps they were dangerous and a threat to anyone that happened to come across them in unfortunate times.

  In 2015, the village of Urique was left without any police protection after all 18 members of the police department resigned amidst threats from organized crime. The resignation was a response to the execution of three of their officers in the mountains surrounding Urique. Perhaps things got so bad in the mountains, that they could no longer be part of the corruption or risk be killed if they resisted. It was easier to just quit.

  As we rode out of the small town, we saw that we had descended a huge canyon with narrow switchbacks on narrow dirt roads. Just thinking we had ridden down this in pitch darkness made me feel very lucky that I had actually survived. Honestly, I was ready to get back home. As we rode our motorcycles forward toward our destination to Creel, we would see an occasional vehicle behind us, or one coming from in front, and this made us worried, and nervous, and bad feelings all together.

  We came to a little town called Bahuichivo and decided to stop to get something to drink at a little stand next to the small plaza. We both got a soda and sat at the plaza to rest for a little. There was an old man sitting on a bench next to us who looked sad and spent. I asked if he was okay and he responded that he wasn't. I noticed a large brown stain on the concrete with traces of dried matter.

  I asked what had happened there. He said their two local police officers had been executed and their bodies had laid there for almost two days before the federal police and military came in. He said that most of the people in town were very scared. We decided to get on our bikes and try to get out of that desolate country. It just did not seem safe anymore.

  We reached Creel at around 4 p.m. We were to pack up, load our bikes on the truck and head back home. We would drive straight north until we reach the border through the night.

  Many tourists were visiting the shops and walking around, laughing and enjoying a nice day in Mexico. But I knew something was very wrong. Underneath all the curious shops and restaurants catering to tourists, some underlying violent threat was brewing. I wondered if the American bicyclists made it out alive of the Sierra Madre Mountains, something that would haunt me for a long time.

  Every time I saw a state police officer walking around the crowded street of Creel and waving at us with a smile, I wondered if he held a dark secret. Was the friendly act a front to deceive us from thinking everything was okay in Mexico, or was there a more sinister motive behind the hidden narco life of organized crime? I was very suspicious and could no longer trust the very ones that had a duty to protect us.

  Creel in the Sierra Tarahumara Country

  We had been traveling to Creel, Chihuahua, for many years during the Christmas season and we always felt safe. We could ride in the beautiful countryside, mostly in the forested mountain region. Creel (Spanish pronunciation: [kril]) is a town in the Sierra Tarahumara (part of the Sierra Madre Occidental) of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. It is the second-largest town in the municipality of Bocoyna. It is located 109 miles to the southwest of the state capital, Chihuahua City. Tourism had become the primary job source over the last 20 years because it is close to the Copper Canyon as well as Basaseachic Falls, one of the highest waterfalls in Mexico. There are many hotels, restaurants and a number of tours down into the canyons and throughout the surrounding area.

  At the time, little did I know, that a narco war was escalating. The region was the backyard of the powerful Sinaloa cartel, where they hid form authorities, grew marijuana and poppies. It was also a main transport route of drugs to the U.S. I would eventually end up posting cartel events in Creel on the blog, Bordeland Beat.

  In the year of 2010 a large convoy of sicarios, mostly from the Sinaloa cartel, took over the town and massacred a family that was suspected to have ties to the Juarez cartel. I posted an article on Borderland Beat in April 11, 2010 titled "Video of Massacre in Creel."

  Here's the article:

  The suffering felt deep in the stomach is an epidemic in the Palace.

  The television news caster of the Mexican program "Punto de Partida" on Televisa, Denisse Merker, presented a chilling narcovideo that lasted seven minutes that has been seen around the world.

  In the video recorded by the Command Center of Cipol (Cuerpo de Inteligencia Policíal) in Creel, a dozen gunmen arrive at the village, and with total impunity, massacred nine members of the family of an employer, including a 14-year-old child.

  The incident was recorded in the early morning of March 15 in Creel, where there have been previous major killings.

  For over two hours heavily armed sicarios took over the town in a large convoy of trucks blocking streets and setting up roadblocks. The video clearly records the faces of the thugs, even when they are snorting cocaine, almost at handfuls, from a plastic bag. You can also see how they beat and terrorize passing drivers who happened to drive by the crime scene in their vehicles.

  Another portion of the video shows two gunmen intercepting a car and sequestering the driver. Later in the video, the men shoot two people in an SUV.

  In the video, gunmen are shown approaching the passenger side of a vehicle to receive what appears to be an order for the killings. A man holding a large gun in the passenger seat also is seen taking a pinch of a white substance and putting it in his nose several times.

  In some of the most shocking footage, armed men are seen running across a field before reaching the doors of a housing complex and opening fire into the doors and windows of the residence.

  All the details of the killing of tens of mercenaries on board a dozen trucks were recorded by the State Police, and for good reason Denisse Merker questions why the authorities did nothing to pursue the murderers. The state authorities are moving and zooming the video cameras for 90 minutes while the sicarios walked around with long rifles and proceeded to terrorize the public and target people for execution, in the meantime the authorities watching all this did nothing to stop them.

  “We don't know what group these hitmen are part of, but here in Chihuahua there are two warring groups: the Sinaloa Cartel and Juarez Cartel," said Carlos Gonzalez, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's office. "We're working on trying to figure out which group was responsible."

  Gonzalez said there is no evidence to suggest that the victims were involved in drug activity, adding that the motive for the shootings is unclear.

  He said the video—captured by a state public security camera—is "important" evidence in the investigation.

  "This is evidence to identify these people and it's part of the ongoing investigation to find them," said Gonzalez, who is the lead investigator in the case.

  "There are very few authorities in this area to police this kind of activity," Gonzalez said.

  The images of the gunmen operating freely in the mountainous northwest part of Chihuahua highlight just how lawless rural parts of Mexico have become as the country works to combat an increasingly violent drug war.

  Governor Reyes Baeza has remained silent on this case that illustrates the savage and brutal lawlessness of the state of Chihuahua.

  There were follows up on the events, primarily out fear and hopelessness. On April 17, 2010, I posted a follow up titled, “Questions of Impotence in Creel.”

  Creel Residents expressed their repudiation of the way a convoy of gunmen arrived to town in
plain daylight hours and also question how it's possible for the police authority station in the area not to be able to see the caravan of 16 trucks that arrived to execute seven people with no regards that some of victims were young girls or women. This was the exact same scenario that was played out in the massacre of 13 people in Creel in August 16, 2008.

  For his part, Father Javier Avila Aguirre lamented about the residents of the area saying they need to prepare and to get used to the violence. He was unwilling to elaborate further on the subject but said that he talked with some residents of Creel and that the incident happened so fast that it has yet to sink in.

  On that dreadful day that the sicarios planted fear among anyone they came in contact with in the usually busy main street in Creel, no one dared to venture out of their homes, not to mention the tourists; they were nowhere to be seen. With a tinge of sadness in his voice, "El Padre Pato" pointed out that everything is forgotten almost immediately as life has to go on.

  After the bloody events of that early morning, residents of San Juanito and Creel continue with their lives. "El Padre Pato" said that despite what happened, everyone has to continue with their normal lives, going to school, working, shopping, and perhaps the town will be again calm and feel just a bit safer.

  Why didn't any of the active checkpoints operating in the outskirts of the towns stop them? Where was the Cipol who are stationed in the area? These are the questions locals from San Juanito are asking, but they still declined to give their name for obvious reasons. The entire town could hear the burst of gunfire from the gunmen for at least 10 minutes while they were executing people. The 10 minutes of loud gunfire echoing in the walls of Creel seem to last an eternity, but no police authority came to the aid of the victims who were being mowed down. This is part of the suspicious reality that is prevalent in the community.

  Meanwhile, the injured survivors of the massacre remain fearful in a hospital in Cuauhtémoc because there was a rumor circulating in the city that a commando wanted to abduct or finish off the rest of the wounded, said the mayor of the city, Gerardo Hernández Arzaga.

  At times there was fear among the staff of the hospital where the survivors were receiving medical care and where there has already been one execution. At this point this is just a rumor, said the mayor, and fortunately we have not had any recent violent acts in the clinic.

  It was finally decided for security reasons that in such cases where patients of gunshot wounds were brought in, such as the ones from Creel, they would be transported to the hospital in the state capital where they have the adequate security in their hospital.

  On May 11, I posted the last follow up of the event in Creel in an article titled, “Failure to Act and Protect in Creel.”

  “They did not act against the sicarios in Creel because there were only seven officers,” said Saul Hernandez, director of CIPOL.

  Saul Hernandez, director of the Police Intelligence Centre (UNCLE), acknowledged that the day the sicarios took the town of Creel hostage and terrorized the residents while going on a killing spree were being monitored through video by authorities, but the police did not intervene because it was only seven of them, and the closest military installation was in Cuauhtémoc.

  "We did react but the problem is ... there were only 7 officers who immediately contacted the Mexican military, but the truth is they can't get from one point to another just like that. I mean they have to get their equipment, they must get organized and they have to leave from where they are, from Cuauhtémoc which is a good few kilometers way," said Saul Hernandez.

  He added that in this situation they (military) could not get to the town in three minutes, and he highlighted that he wishes they could do it in three minutes but logistically they can't.

  At the same time, he rejected any responsible to the monitors of the video for failure to take any action against the sicarios because they immediately alerted the state police but that logistics problem already mentioned prevented them from intervening.

  The wide range of worldwide attention the broadcast the video of Creel made had all the levels of government in a defensive position trying to justify the lack of law enforcement intervention.

  I started to realize that Mexico was changing, and for the first time in a long time, I did not feel safe in Mexico. That 2008 trip would be the last time we traveled to Creel and Copper Canyon to ride our bikes like we had done for many years during the Christmas holidays.

  Sometime around 2008, while reading some of the news in Mexico, I learned that Mexico's top policeman, Edgar Millan, was executed outside his home in Mexico City. He was the highest-ranking policeman in the federal police and a friend of Mexican President Felipe Calderon.

  It was the equivalent of killing the head of the Metropolitan Police in London, or the director of the FBI in the U.S. If organized crime could assassinate him, a person that had one of the best security details protecting him, organized crime could kill anyone. It was established that the Beltran Leyva Organization (BLO) had ordered the hit on Millan, for payback for having been involved in the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Layva, El Mochomo. The incredible thing was that the assassination had not made the news in the US. People in the U.S. had no idea what was happening in Mexico. This started to bother me. I felt like I needed to do something.

  I needed to report on these events and let people know in the US what was happening in Mexico. It could have been an unfortunate family that day we met the drunk sicarios, I hate to think a possible tragic outcome.

  The Blog and the Contributors

  So, one day I started a blog called Borderland Beat (also known as BB), so I could shed some light on the dark side of Mexico to the people in the U.S. and all the English speakers. I knew that it would have to be real, a true manifestation of the reality of Mexico of the so-called drug war. I took the time to translate the stories and load up the pictures and videos.

  How did I come up with the name Borderland Beat? It was because the borderland is a place in the corridor of the international border between Mexico and the U.S. I wanted to create a place where anyone could find extensive information about the drug war on the borderland and the beat police walk every day. I wanted to show the chaos and mayhem of the Mexican drug cartels and the law enforcement authorities who seek to destroy them or chose to get on the cartel’s payroll. A beat is a specific place where law enforcement has maintained a common jurisdictional path of responsibility, and I wanted readers to join us as we followed the beat on the borderland.

  I had been posting some articles I had translated around mid-2008, but then I realized that I should not be posting these Mexican Drug Cartel stories on my personal blog. I had been mainly using my personal blog to post personal pictures as I was a serious amateur/professional photographer. I felt I needed to create a blog specifically for Mexican Drug Cartel material. I soon started a blog using the platform from Blogger that is owned by Google (Google owns everything). I paid for a private domain name and decided to use the name Borderland Beat.

  I kept all the information of the domain private.

  It was during this time I decided that I would use a nickname to protect my identity. Buggs was a nickname that I had used on occasions, but most people in the internet world had no clue who the true Buggs was. My only interest was to share information related to Mexican Drug Cartels.

  For five years I live in the pages of Borderland Beat (BB) only known as Buggs, no one knew my identity. The blog became really popular among law enforcement in the US and there were many times officers I met would recommend that I follow BB. Sometimes I would tell a fellow police officer friend that I was planning a trip somewhere in Mexico, and they would warn me. “Brother, it’s not safe to travel to Mexico, if you haven’t, you need to read Borderland Beat online,” they would tell me. Very few people in my circle knew I was the man behind the Borderland Beat Project.

  I started translating material from Spanish to English. There were many. Some were from Mexican news, or stori
es sent to me from people in Mexico and some material came from Spanish legal court documents I was able to get. It seemed like I spent a lot of my time just translating document after document. My first article on the new Borderland Beat blog was on January 17, 2009, that was titled “Los Capos.” It listed all the names of top cartel bosses from the cartels in Mexico that were wanted, and a bounty of up to 30 million pesos (about 2.4 million U.S. dollars) was offered for the capture of each. It listed all the top bosses for each of the cartels: Beltrán Leyva Cartel, La Familia Michoacana, Gulf Cartel, Los Zetas Cartel, Juárez Cartel, Pacific Cartel (a.k.a Sinaloa Cartel) and the Tijuana Cartel.

  I learned that crime had been on the rise in Mexico throughout the last decade as drug cartels battled each other for control of lucrative smuggling routes. It wasn't just the violence, but the extent of it. I saw that Mexico's violence was often spectacular and lurid, with tales of street shootouts, decapitations and bomb blasts filling Mexico's news pages and airwaves.

  There were times I would ask myself why am I doing this? I just focused on adding content, and soon others eventually joined me, like Illiana, Maka, Gerardo, El Viento, Ovemex, Smurf and Chivis (just to name a few). The readership grew, with many collaborating in the comment section. The comment section and the forum became real popular place for readers to comment, provide information, share their opinion or correct a fact they felt needed to be corrected. The Borderland Beat readers are some of the most knowledgeable sources of the Mexican Drug cartels. Soon we would be averaging 50,000 hits a day. It would bring out people from both sides of the border, both sides of the fence, both sides of the issues.

  With the help of other collaborators, we were very active posting articles on a daily basis. There were never times that we did not have something to report, something that was news breaking. Another capo had been captured or killed, groups of people had been found executed, corrupt police or politicians had been arrested.