Two men riding in a black Porsche were killed in a hail of gunfire on a residential street in the Campestre, an upscale Juárez neighborhood.
The luxury sportscar’s windshield was peppered with two dozen gunshots and the driver’s side window was shattered as the car stood in the middle of a street, according to news photos from the scene.
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The double homicide was unusual because of its location in one of the border city’s most-exclusive neighborhoods, with streets lined with mansions behind walls and tall ornate fences in the northeastern part of Juárez.
State crime-scene investigators collected 34 bullet casings at the scene of the street shooting, which occurred about 3:30 a.m. Monday, Aug. 12, on Calzada de Senecu and Fresno streets, El Heraldo de Juárez reported.
The men killed were identified by El Heraldo de Juárez and other local news reports as Toribio Hernandez and Miguel Amador Zubia Martinez, who was a YouTube rapero known as Besio, his latest song posted two days before his death.
An investigation into the double homicide continued. No arrests had been announced.
Juárez homicides on downward trend
Homicides continue to be a concern in Juárez but have been on a recent downward trend despite Monday’s high-profile bloodshed in the Campestre, state law enforcement officials said.
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Homicides have decreased 33% in Juárez in the first 11 days of August, compared with the same period in July, Chihuahua State Public Safety Secretary Gilberto Loya said at a Monday news conference. Statewide, homicides are down 38% compared to last month.
There were about 85 homicides in July in Juárez, the lowest monthly total so far this year, according to news accounts. There have been about 700 killings this year.
Chihuahua Attorney General Cesar Gustavo Jauregui Moreno said that 90% of the homicides in the state are linked to organized crime, namely drug cartels and gangs trafficking drugs and migrants.
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Because of the Sinaloa cartel’s presence in Chihuahua, state police have been on alert since the arrests of reputed cartel leaders 76-year-old Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada and Joaquin Guzman Lopez, son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Jauregui said.
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Intelligence gathering operations are permanently monitoring the Sinaloa cartel in the state, Jauregui said, adding that the Sinaloa cartel has influence zones in:
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The Valley of Juárez, along the U.S. border east of Juárez.
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Parral, in the state’s southern part.
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Madera, western mountain region, where the Sinaloa cartel is in a longtime conflict with La Linea crime organization.
“We have not had a single homicide or violent event” in Chihuahua directly, or indirectly, linked to the arrests of Zambada and Guzman in the United States, Jauregui said at a news conference on Friday, Aug. 8.
“I believe those arrests won’t have a direct impact,” neither increasing nor lowering Chihuahua’s homicide rate, the attorney general said.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Sinaloa cartel arrests: police on alert. 2 dead in Porsche shooting
Source Agencies
