Tamaulipas

Suitcases started piling up, unclaimed, at the depot where buses crossing northern Tamaulipas state ended their route. That should have been an early clue. Then the bodies started piling up, pulled by forensic workers from two dozen hidden graves in the scruffy brush-covered ravines around the town of San Fernando, 80 miles south of this city that borders Brownsville, Texas. At least 177 corpses have been recovered in the last few weeks, most of them, officials now say, passengers snatched from interstate buses, tortured and slaughtered.

Mexican authorities on Friday announced the arrest of the man they say directed the kidnappings of 72 Central and South American migrants found slain in northern Mexico last year. Federal police said Edgar Huerta Montiel, 22, told them he led the capture of two freight trucks packed with undocumented migrants in the state of Tamaulipas, then killed 10 of the victims. Huerta, described as an army deserter who works for the Zetas drug gang, allegedly told police he also ordered the kidnappings of six busloads of passengers in the rural town of San Fernando.

Gunmen on Monday killed a gubernatorial candidate in a highway ambush, just days before an election in violence-stained northern Mexico that he was expected to win. The killing of Rodolfo Torre, running in the state of Tamaulipas under the banner of the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, further shook Mexico amid wide concern that drug-trafficking groups are increasingly flexing their muscle in politics through money and intimidation....

Suitcases started piling up, unclaimed, at the depot where buses crossing northern Tamaulipas state ended their route. That should have been an early clue. Then the bodies started piling up, pulled by forensic workers from two dozen hidden graves in the scruffy brush-covered ravines around the town of San Fernando, 80 miles south of this city that borders Brownsville, Texas. At least 177 corpses have been recovered in the last few weeks, most of them, officials now say, passengers snatched from interstate buses, tortured and slaughtered.

At least 140 inmates escaped from a prison in the violence-plagued border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said Friday. The prison's director reportedly disappeared after the escape, which occurred Thursday night in Nuevo Laredo, the latest in a series of escapes across Mexico. Antonio Garza Garcia, public safety secretary in Tamaulipas, told a radio station that the escapees probably had help from prison personnel. He said most of the inmates were being held on state charges but that 58 had been charged with federal crimes, a category that includes drug trafficking and weapons offenses.

Five South Koreans were freed unharmed in Mexico more than a week after they were kidnapped for $30,000 ransom, officials said. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said the Koreans were in Mexican police custody and would be handed over to the South Korean Embassy. Tamaulipas state Atty. Gen. Jose Herrera told Radio Formula that the four men and one woman were looking to cross into the U.S. illegally.

For the second time in two weeks, the mayor of a Mexican city has been slain by purported drug traffickers, authorities say. Marco Antonio Leal Garcia, the mayor of Hidalgo in the violent border state of Tamaulipas, was shot to death Sunday. His young daughter was wounded in the attack. Tamaulipas, which borders Texas, is the same state where a drug gang is suspected in the massacre last week of 72 migrants and where the battle between rival cartels has left a bloody trail of death, cowed authorities and terrified citizens.

— Gunmen attacked two newspaper photographers Thursday in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing one and seriously wounding the other. Luis Carlos Santiago and Carlos Sanchez of the Diario de Juarez were driving to lunch when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. Santiago was killed and Sanchez was in serious condition. Santiago started working for the newspaper two weeks ago, and Sanchez is an intern. Mexican journalists are increasingly targeted by drug cartels seeking to control the flow of information.

At least 25 people were killed Thursday in a gun battle between army troops and purported drug traffickers in the violent border state of Tamaulipas, just south of Texas, Mexican authorities said. Troops pursued the gunmen near Ciudad Mier after they were detected by aerial patrols, the army said in a statement Thursday night. All of the dead were gunmen, the army said, and three kidnapping victims were rescued. The army also confiscated drugs and weapons, the statement said.

The bullet-riddled bodies of 72 Central and South Americans reportedly slain by drug traffickers in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas shine a light on the dark truth known to undocumented migrants: The illegal trek north through Mexico is treacherous, and those who undertake it put themselves at the mercy of vicious predators. Even before they reach the potentially fatal desert crossing into the United States, thousands of migrants each year face kidnapping, extortion, sexual assault and murder — crimes that often go unreported and unsolved.

The U.S. State Department last week reissued its travel warning on Mexico , just ahead of news on Monday that at least 177 bodies have been found over the last few weeks around San Fernando, about 80 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the state of Tamaulipas. The department’s warning, issued Friday, says, “Due to ongoing violence and persistent security concerns, you are urged to defer non-essential travel to the states of Tamaulipas and Michoacán, and to parts of the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Jalisco.” The action updated a warning last issued in September.

  Sixteen police officers have been arrested for allegedly providing cover to drug-cartel gangsters suspected in the grisly slaying of more than 120 people whose bodies are being pulled from mass graves in northeastern Mexico. The federal attorney general's office, in a statement, identified the 16 as members of the municipal police force in the town of San Fernando, near where the bodies were found. On Thursday, officials in the border state of Tamaulipas said the number of dead who have been extracted from several pits about 90 miles south of Brownsville, Texas, had risen to 126. Digging continued in search of additional victims, the officials said.

Mexican authorities Tuesday reported the discovery of 28 more bodies in a northeastern state, bringing to 116 the number of dead unearthed since officials began investigating mass kidnappings of bus passengers. As horror mounts over the savagery in Tamaulipas, federal officials said they had sent in more troops and would carry out "constant monitoring" of highways in the violence-ravaged border state. The government of President Felipe Calderon has poured troops into Tamaulipas after previous episodes of grisly violence.

Mexican authorities announced Friday the discovery of 13 more bodies in the violence-torn border state of Tamaulipas, where 59 bodies were unearthed in eight pits earlier this week. It was not immediately clear if the latest two graves, found Thursday, were related to the others. The 13 bodies, all men and thought to be Mexican, were discovered in a different spot than the other graves, a state official said. Authorities found the previous bodies while investigating mass kidnappings of passengers from buses passing through the area.

More than 50 bodies were found in mass graves Wednesday in the same area of northern Mexico where 72 migrants were massacred last year, authorities said. Officials in the state of Tamaulipas said they found 59 bodies in eight graves during an investigation of the March 25 abduction of a busload of passengers. One of the graves had 43 corpses. A statement from the Tamaulipas prosecutor's office said a joint state and federal investigation led to the arrests of 11 suspects and the rescue of five captives.

At least 140 inmates escaped from a prison in the violence-plagued border state of Tamaulipas, authorities said Friday. The prison's director reportedly disappeared after the escape, which occurred Thursday night in Nuevo Laredo, the latest in a series of escapes across Mexico. Antonio Garza Garcia, public safety secretary in Tamaulipas, told a radio station that the escapees probably had help from prison personnel. He said most of the inmates were being held on state charges but that 58 had been charged with federal crimes, a category that includes drug trafficking and weapons offenses.

The U.S. State Department last week reissued its travel warning on Mexico , just ahead of news on Monday that at least 177 bodies have been found over the last few weeks around San Fernando, about 80 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the state of Tamaulipas. The department’s warning, issued Friday, says, “Due to ongoing violence and persistent security concerns, you are urged to defer non-essential travel to the states of Tamaulipas and Michoacán, and to parts of the states of Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sinaloa, Durango, Zacatecas, San Luis Potosi and Jalisco.” The action updated a warning last issued in September.

Cayetano Flores wishes he had just said no. His granddaughter, Yedmi Victoria Castro, had just celebrated her 15th birthday in this mountain hamlet near El Salvador's border with Honduras. A suitor was becoming aggressive, and the idea arose that she join her mother in New York. Flores, a wizened corn farmer, said he opposed her making the risky journey without papers. But the girl's mother was decided: Yedmi would go north. The dark-haired and slender teenager read passages from the Bible to Flores for three days in a row. On Aug. 10, she set out for Guatemala and Mexico, a route traveled by thousands of Salvadorans before her. Two weeks later she was dead.

One minute you're shaking it on a dance floor throbbing with happy wedding guests. The next you're navigating darkened, forlorn streets, hoping the bad guys have the night off. Such is the fractured feel of life in the northern Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where the death of a drug lord has intensified months-long fighting between rival cartels and left residents in a dread-filled state of limbo. They know something awful is going on around them, but usually little more than that.

— Gunmen attacked two newspaper photographers Thursday in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, killing one and seriously wounding the other. Luis Carlos Santiago and Carlos Sanchez of the Diario de Juarez were driving to lunch when gunmen in two cars intercepted them and opened fire. Santiago was killed and Sanchez was in serious condition. Santiago started working for the newspaper two weeks ago, and Sanchez is an intern. Mexican journalists are increasingly targeted by drug cartels seeking to control the flow of information.