March 18, 2010 - McAllen, Texas - 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 with ties to the U.S. Consulate in Ciudad Juarez last weekend.
"The El Paso law enforcement community has come together today to locate Barrio Azteca members as part of a major intelligence collection effort in an attempt to generate leads into Saturday's Juarez murders," FBI Special Agent Andrea Simmons said.
Investigators also are seeking information that could help them find the leader of the gang's Juarez operations, Eduardo "Tablas" Ravelo, who was named to the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list last year.
Any gang members with outstanding warrants would be arrested, but the goal of the all-day sweep dubbed "Operation Knock Down" is intelligence-gathering, Simmons said.
Earlier this week, Mexican authorities said U.S. intelligence pointed toward involvement in the slayings by the Aztecas, which operates on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border and does work for the Juarez drug cartel.
Consulate employee Lesley A. Enriquez and her husband, Arthur H. Redelfs, were killed Saturday in Juarez 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.
Enrique Torres, a spokesman for Chihuahua state police, said Mexican authorities were making significant progress in the investigation. But Torres said investigators were not pursuing a theory reported by Mexican media, that Redelfs' work as a jail guard in El Paso could have brought him onto the Aztecas' radar.
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Added: 18th March 2010
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Category: News
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