This is a topic I've been following for a while due to the possibility gangs are/will be recruited in a martial law situation.

Mods - if you feel this should be moved to another section - feel free to do so.

Cartel slayings on the rise in Houston

It was not the first time a rival tried to kill Mexican drug cartel-connected gangster Santiago “Chago” Salinas, but it would be the last.

When 28-year-old Salinas was shot in the head at point-blank range three years ago at the Baymont Inn & Suites hotel on the Gulf Freeway, it was the latest round in a deadly feud that has played out here and in Mexico.

Just a few weeks before, Salinas' brother-in-law who also had lived in Houston, was found dead, charred in a barrel of diesel near the city of Monterrey.

Revenge and rivalry murders are part of everyday carnage south of the border, but court papers and interviews document a growing toll in Houston, where an untold number of killers have cartel connections painstakingly being uncovered by authorities.

Houston has long been regarded as a hub for cartel- related trafficking of weapons, but officials said it also is emerging as a magnet for killings and other crimes over cartel connections gone bad.

The back and forth in the killings is undeniable, said Violet Szeleczky, spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Houston Division. “They are just killing themselves,” she said. “Who lost a load within a cell? Who disrespected who by doing this?”

It can take years for authorities to collect the evidence that connects seemingly random murders or robberies to underworld turf wars.

Few killings weave through the hidden connections of criminals in Houston and Mexico like that of Salinas.

Three attempts
The shooting at the Baymont hotel marked the third attempt on his life in about a year.

The first came in early 2006. He was shot in the back of the head and left for dead in Mexico. The bullet went through his neck and jaw, but he somehow survived, according to the DEA.

The person believed responsible for that shooting was Daniel “Danny Boy” Zamora, who grew up in Houston but ran an enforcement crew for the Sinaloa drug trafficking cartel.

“Danny Boy” was later killed in a Mexican shootout.

The second attempt on Salinas' life came in May 2006 at Chilos, a Mexican seafood restaurant on the Gulf Freeway.

Spotters inside picked out the wrong guy, a Pasadena maintenance man, who was gunned down in the parking lot in front of his family.

Video shows Salinas inside the restaurant at another table and gawking at the aftermath of the shooting before slipping away.

Salinas' luck ran out six months later when he answered the door of room 142 at the Baymont hotel at about 3:45 a.m.

Authorities now point to Danny Boy's younger brother, Jaime Zamora, a former city parks employee and alleged trafficking rival now facing a capital murder charge for the botched restaurant killing, as a likely culprit in the Salinas killing as well, records show.

The killings are all part of a string of Houston area murders in the past few years.

Among others in which no one has been charged: a husband and wife who were tortured and killed in their home on Easingwold Drive, in northwest Houston. About 220 pounds of cocaine was found in the attic.

And then there is the nephew of Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the reputed former leader of the Gulf Cartel and the top rival of the Sinaloa Cartel. He was shot in the head and left in a ditch off Madden Road, near Fort Bend County.

Few murders and surrounding conspiracies that have been uncovered are as extensive as what authorities are claiming regarding the surviving Zamora brother, Jaime.

In state court, he faces trial for allegedly masterminding the mistaken hit that was meant for Salinas but ended up killing an innocent man. In federal court, he is charged with drug trafficking, but prosecutors also put him in the center of the Salinas murder.

Relatives want justice
“At this time, the United States gives notice that in relation to his drug trafficking activities, Jaime Zamora participated in the murder of a drug rival,” according to a document filed this month by a federal prosecutor, “and prior to this murder, Zamora and co-conspirators killed a man who was mistaken by conspirators as Zamora's drug rival.”

Zamora, through his attorney, has denied the charges. Salinas' relatives declined comment, but said they'd like to see justice in the case.

Lt. Dan Webb, of the Texas Department of Public Safety narcotics division, said the traffickers have shown that borders won't stop them from killing in Mexico or Texas.

“There are so many different reasons why they kill each other,” he said, “a rivalry between two groups; or some boss says ‘kill this guy, he pissed me off' or boyfriend-girlfriend stuff gets involved

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/6671840.html

Twelve dead and helicopter downed as Rio de Janeiro drug gangs go to war
Host city of the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics shaken by violence as warlords battle for control of the cocaine trade

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro guardian.co.uk, Saturday 17 October 2009 21.48 BST larger | smaller Article history

Two weeks after Rio de Janeiro celebrated winning the 2016 Olympic Games, the Brazilian city was tonight bracing itself for a further night of violence after an intense gun battle erupted in one of the city's favelas and a police helicopter was shot down, killing two officers.

The violence, intense even by Rio's standards, began in the Morro dos Macacos, a hillside area in northern Rio. The shanty town, controlled by the Amigos dos Amigos (Friends of Friends) drug faction, one of three heavily-armed cocaine gangs that control many of Rio's 1,000-odd slums, was reportedly invaded in the early hours of Saturday morning by members of a rival gang, the Red Command. Police say traffickers from the Red Command were attempting to seize control of the local cocaine trade.

Deafening volleys of automatic gunfire were captured on amateur video, filmed from apartment blocks surrounding the slum. One local newspaper declared it a "War in Rio" on its website.

"We were terrified," Cristina Soares, a 17-year-old resident, told the Rio tabloid newspaper Extra as she fled the area yesterday. "The children were so scared they wanted to leave the house in the middle of all the shooting. Later on things are going to get even worse."

Mario Vilson, another resident of the Morro dos Macacos, told the news website Terra that he had been woken up by the sound of shooting. "This war has been going on for 20 years and will never end," he said. "It's very sad. I just don't know when we will have peace."

Hundreds of police officers descended on the area following the invasion. By Saturday night the death toll, including the two dead police officers, stood at 12 according to Rio's security secretary José Mariano Beltrame. Five other officers had been shot and two slum residents injured, police said.

Favela residents were gathering their belongings and fleeing their homes while at least 10 buses were set on fire across town, causing close to £1m in damage according to one company.

"I saw two bodies lying in the street, surrounded by people," said Douglas Engle, a photographer who was at the Morro dos Macacos. "Then a third body was brought down from the slum by police, wrapped in a hammock. People were standing around crying."

In the most high-profile incident, the pilot of a military police helicopter was shot in the leg as he flew over the favela and the helicopter exploded in flames as it crash-landed on a nearby football pitch. Two of those on board were killed. It was the first time a police helicopter had been shot down in Rio.

Rio's mayor, Eduardo Paes, said it was "inadmissible that Rio be confronted by delinquents in this way" and threw his weight behind police attempts to control the violence.

The head of the military police, Mario Sérgio Duarte, said the drug traffickers would "be the victims of their own choices". "We have lost two professionals who dedicated themselves to the defence of the population. But we will not be motivated by revenge," he added.

Oderlei Santos, spokesman for Rio's military police, said: "Our operations will only cease when these criminals are captured, arrested or are killed in combat."

Authorities cancelled all police leave and members of Rio's civil police gathered at the police HQ in central Rio this afternoon. They were expected to occupy a number of favelas around the city. Tonight, military police were seen entering at least one slum controlled by the Red Command in Rio's southern beach district.

The latest round of violence underlines the challenges local authorities face as they attempt to improve security before the city hosts the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics. Rio's government has spent the past year expelling drug gangs and vigilantes from four slums and setting up "pacification" projects by which the slums are permanently occupied by police.

But the majority of the city's favelas are still controlled by members of three drug factions, which possess an increasingly sophisticated arsenal, including anti-aircraft guns and automatic rifles, often sourced from inventory intended for the Bolivian and Argentinian armies and smuggled into Rio.

Faced with an increasingly well-armed enemy, Rio's police are also investing heavily in military equipment. They now have a bulletproof helicopter, while local journalists wear bulletproof vests when working in the slums. Each year, Rio's police kill around 1,000 people "resisting arrest". Nearly 90 officers have been killed this year.

Santos promised that things would improve before the Olympics. "We have a lot of time before the World Cup and the Olympics, and before then we will certainly arrest a lot of criminals," he said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/oct/17/rio-favela-violence-helicopter