U.S. Agents Round Up Texas Gang Members

(AP)  Updated at 2:27 p.m. ET

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.

More on the Juarez Killings

FBI: No Proof Hit Men Targeted Americans
Are Cartels Now Targeting U.S. Officials?
Mexico Gang Blamed for U.S. Couple's Death
Two Americans Dead in Mexico Drug Shooting

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 Juarez drug cartel led by the Carrillo Fuentes clan.

FBI agent Samantha Mikeska, who has been investigating the Barrio Azteca for more than eight years from the bureau's El Paso office, said earlier this month that four of the gang's five capos are in prison. The exception is Ravelo.

Ravelo is suspected of running the Aztecas operations in Juarez and maintaining contact with top-level members of the Juarez cartel, Mikeska said.

The gang was widely believed to be in disarray in El Paso following an extensive racketeering case in which a federal jury convicted six of its leaders and associates in December 2008.

"The RICO (Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act) really slammed them," Mikeska said. "They don't trust each other."

The gang provided the Juarez 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.

[wildbillo69]

Azteca is not to be fooled with they are bad and ruthless this is their livlihood going to prison, killing, raping, kidnapping, is all in a days work for these guys. Things that make us stop and think don't phase them. What if the people who were assasinated were working with them and double crossed them sounds like these people would have had free pass from and to mexico most politians and consulate people do if this were the case then you live by the sword you die by the sword. There is no stopping Azteca and other gangs like them they are an employment agency of their own putting people to work. This is life on the mexican border welcome to Amexica!

[barbaram99]

Gangs have been apart of this Nation we cal America from the beginning.. Gangs are easy for the sighted to spot..The gang clothing and their colours.etc. They can roung them up..I have seen them hassle old ladies and me..they know I am legally blind. I am tired of the gangs and the tagging they do..They have to do something with this issue..

[ladyang]

This gang was portraid on the History Channel's Gangland. Excellent show.

[hateisafourletterword]

Can we bring back to old west style of justice?

Better yet send them to Iraq and tell the Iraqi's that these people enabled Saddam to do his evil work. Seeing them hang would be mighty fine TV.

[stinger1z]

Charge them with conspiracy and terrorism!

[edgy44]

Declare martial law and kill them all. There may be a few innocents and wanna-be's, but no one lives forever.

[dronemonk]

That's not how we do things here in the land of the free/home of the brave. You oughta be ashamed of yourself. I'd take up a collection for you to take your scummy murderous notions and leave my country. That would be a classic case of "addition by subtraction".

[tsigili]

Just another example of how law enforcement does nothing to prevent gangs from killing, even though they know the gang members, they know where they are, and they know they are doing the killing.

The vermin need to be exterminated, so decent people can live in peace.

[jnostromo]

law enforcement is handcuffed..these are not criminals , they are terrorists and need to have the full brunt of the military brought against them and anyone who harbors or helps them...There is no difference between a suicide bomber and a car load of thugs chasing and shooting people in drive bys...trails are not the answer nor is prison time...eradication is the answer..they have decalred war on this country thru their activities, then by god let's give them war on a scale they never imagined... we know who they are , we know their locations let's wipe them out

[BeachBuzz]

For those of us that live here and for many that visit with any frequency, the first thing you understand is...No borders truly exist between Texas and Mexico....just like the rest of the entire length of Mexico and the U.S.....You can go to any border town in Mexico on the Texas/ Mexico border and you will find as many Texas license plates as Mexico license plates and vice versa....People are related by blood, by family and by business.....This includes people on both sides of the law. It's been this way from the very beginning and very few from either side want to see it change.

[jnostromo]

That may be , but this is more than a one state issue...these gangs represent a form of terrorism in this country and need to be eradicated..blood relations doesn't matter if the security of the entire country is at stake...the borders could be closed and these examples of human refuse dealt with, all it takes is some good old fashioned american guts. Too hell with pc

[jnostromo]

Here is a novel idea..treat these gangs as terrorists and use the us military to hunt them down and kill them...those who are in prison lock them away in solitary with no human contact allowed or better yet execute them. Being a member in a gang or engaged in ruthless criminal activity should result in their loss of all legal rights. the laws in this country must change. The criminals have too much leeway.

[pws54]

jnostromo, great point. I've said this all along. Seems the Patriot Acts aren't being used to the fullest extent. Identifying them as terrorists would lighten the paperwork normally required for arrest and conviction.

[electronicname]

There is absolutely no way a local drug gang would take responsibility for a hit in their own territory. This was an orchestrated hit by an outside cartel group. They were targeted precisely because they were Americans and it would bring heat on the local operatives. Since your roundig them up, interrogate them concerning the femicide that has occurred in Ciudad Juarez for two decades. Get 'em. Get 'em all make them pay.