Suspected gang members rounded up in El Paso

The Associated Press
March 19, 2010

EL PASO – More than 200 federal, state and local law enforcement officers swept through El Paso on Thursday, picking up suspected members of the Barrio Azteca gang in an effort to find new leads into the killings of three people who had ties to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juárez last weekend.

Investigators also are seeking information that could help them find the leader of the gang’s Juárez operations, Eduardo “Tablas” Ravelo, who was named to the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last year.

Gang members with outstanding warrants were being arrested, but the goal of the all-day sweep dubbed “Operation Knock Down” is gathering intelligence, added FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons.

By late afternoon, officers had interviewed about 100 gang members, she said.

This week, Mexican authorities said U.S. intelligence pointed toward involvement in the slayings by the Aztecas, which operate on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and work for the Juárez drug cartel.

Consulate employee Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were killed Saturday in Juárez when gunmen opened fire on their sport utility vehicle after they left a birthday party.

Jorge Alberto Salcido, the husband of a Mexican employee of the consulate, also was killed by gunmen after leaving the same event in a separate vehicle.

Barrio Azteca started as a Texas prison gang.

It was not until the late 1990s that U.S. authorities realized it had a growing presence in Juarez, just across the Rio Grande from El Paso.

On the Mexican side, the gang is known simply as the Aztecas, but it is the same organization, according to the FBI.

The gang is distinguished by tattooed images of the Aztec calendar and other pre-Hispanic images on their chests and arms.

Police say the Aztecas work for or are allied with the La Linea enforcement gang, which in turn works for the Juárez drug cartel led by the Carrillo Fuentes clan.

FBI agent Samantha Mikeska said this month that four of the gang’s five capos are in prison.

The exception is Ravelo, who is suspected of running the Aztecas’ operations in Juárez and maintaining contact with top-level members of the Juárez cartel, Mikeska said.

The gang provided the Juárez cartel with street enforcers to carry out hits and kidnappings on both sides of the border.

In exchange, Barrio Azteca got drugs from the cartel at wholesale prices and handled street-level drug sales, Mikeska said.

The Associated Press