Word: mexicans
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...wintered in El Paso and Juarez, border natives have often been a law unto themselves--a product of their historic, and justified, resentment of racist gringos to the north and haughty chilangos (Mexico City residents) to the south, who sneered at the border for being neither American nor Mexican enough. "That identity crisis and alienation grew into the violent face of the border," says sociologist Jose Manuel Valenzuela of Tijuana's Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Coupled with the region's poverty, it spawned a subculture of toughs, often called pachucos and cholos...
Though the Arellanos are the heirs to that world, they are also a ghastly mutation. Their uncle Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo, an ex-cop from the violent Pacific Coast state of Sinaloa, was the first Mexican drug capo to link up with Colombia's cocaine cartels in the 1980s. He and other druglords shared the Tijuana corridor, but after they savagely murdered DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985, in league with senior police and political figures, Mexican authorities put them in jail. Into Tijuana roared the seven Arellano brothers, including the handsome Benjamin, their CEO; chubby Ramon, the enforcer; finance...
...string of chilling murders--including that of a key rival's wife, whose head was reportedly severed and delivered in a box of dry ice--the Arellanos realized their audacious goal: to own the coveted stretch of desert from Tijuana to Mexicali. During a 1992 summit of Mexican druglords at a Sinaloa ranch, they raised the fees charged to others for using their turf. In response, rival druglord Joaquin (Chapo) Guzman sent gunmen to kill the Arellanos at a Puerto Vallarta disco. As bullets rained, the brothers escaped through a bathroom skylight (after struggling to shove Ramon through...
...line. But after offering confession and begging forgiveness in a secret meeting with the papal nuncio, they simply stepped up the violence. They recruited hardened gang members from San Diego, as well as the bored sons of affluent Tijuana families--a trigger-happy cadre known as "los narco-juniors." Mexican ex-military and police officers filled out their ranks of assassins and helped train new members. They imported not only guns but also heavy weapons from U.S. arms traffickers (they once threatened to fire rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. drug czar Barry McCaffrey during a border visit) and assembled enough...
...when a good Mexican cop is working with the DEA. A few years ago, Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo sent an earnest young police reformer, Jose (Pepe) Patino, to help clean up Tijuana's corrupt police force. "Of all the [Mexican police] I've ever worked with, he's the only one I ever felt was honest," says a DEA agent who has investigated the cartel for years. For his safety, Patino lived in San Diego. But in April 2000, two Mexican federal police comandantes--who had been polygraphed, vetted and trained by the U.S. to serve in a "clean...