Barrio Azteca Gang Behind Juarez Drug Violence

Prison cells of Texas apparently do much more than rehabilitate criminals. According to a report in the Washington Post, it also provides a prime location to breed a sophisticated paramilitary killing gang that U.S. and Mexican officials suspect is behind thousands of assassinations, including the attacks on U.S. consulate employees.

Barrio Azteca gang members are heavily tattooed and have long operated across the border in El Paso. Much of their activity surrounds dealing drugs and stealing cars. Across the Rio Grande, however, the organization now specializes in contract killing for the Juarez drug cartel.

Law enforcement officers estimate members of Barrio Azteca may be involved in as many as half of the 2,660 killings in Juarez in the past year. In many cases, gang members locate targets, stalk them and finally strike in brazen ambushes that often involve multiple chase cars, coded radio communications, coordinated blocking maneuvers and disciplined firepower.

"Within their business of killing, they have surveillance people, intel people and shooters. They have a degree of specialization," said David Cuthbertson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s El Paso division, in the Washington Post. "They work day in and day out, with a list of people to kill, and they get proficient at it."

According to Juarez mayor, José Reyes Ferriz, the city is densely dotted with safe houses, armories and garages with stolen cars for the assassins’ use. Ferriz recently received a death threat in a note left beside a pig’s head in the city. Complicating the issue is that the gang works for the Juarez cartel, which includes an enforcement element composed of a number of former Juarez police officers.

"There has to be some form of training going on," said an anti-gang detective with the El Paso sheriff’s department, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the nature of his work. "I don’t know who, and I don’t know where. But how else would you explain how they operate?"