Saturday, December 26, 2009

Drug war victories only last so long...

This just goes to show you how shallow drug war victories really are:

More than a dozen hit men carrying AK-47 and AR-15 assault rifles burst into a house in eastern Mexico around midnight Monday, gunning down several relatives of 3rd Petty Officer Melquisedet Angulo, the 30-year-old who was hailed as a national hero last week after being killed in a battle that left drug lord Arturo Beltrán Leyva dead.


The killing was likely ordered by the presumptive heir to the Beltrán-Leyva throne, Édgar Valdéz Villarreal. According to a NYT article from a few years ago, Valdéz Villarreal (nicknamed La Barbie due to his Anglo look) seems to have worked his way up from humble beginnings in the great state of Texas:

He did not have much of a criminal record before he left Texas, according to the Laredo police -- just a reputation as a small-time drug dealer and a drunken driving charge nine years ago. "As far as we're concerned," said Juan Rivera, a spokesman for the Laredo Police Department, "he's nobody here."

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