AGUA PRIETA POLICE CHIEF CUT DOWN IN DRUG WAR

MEXICO CITY - As drug wars raged along other parts of the U.S.-Mexico
border, things had remained mostly quiet in the Sonoran town of Agua
Prieta. Not anymore.

On Monday, assassins gunned down Police Chief Ramon Tacho Verdugo,
spraying more than 40 bullets in an ambush outside police
headquarters. The motive is murky, but it almost certainly involved
control of the lucrative smuggling routes into Arizona, Mexican and
U.S. officials said Tuesday. "Rival organizations are vying for
control of these lucrative corridors," said Ramona Sanchez, a
spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "(Tacho's
murder) is a reminder of how violent these criminal organizations
are, and they will continue to use whatever means they need."

Tacho's death followed a number of drug-related killings in Agua
Prieta and the Dec. 9 arrest of Carlos "Calichi" Molinares from
nearby Naco on drug-smuggling charges in Tucson.

State and city police were on high alert and patrolling Agua Prieta
for fear of further violence, said Jose Larrinaga, a spokesman for
the Sonora attorney general.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano was "very concerned" about the attack
and asked federal and state law enforcement officials to meet with
border sheriffs to exchange information about border violence, said
Dennis Burke, her chief of staff.

With Tacho's death, Agua Prieta joins a growing list of Mexican
cities where hit men have gunned down police chiefs. At least 12 have
died in the past year, including the top lawmen in the border cities
of Tijuana and Nuevo Laredo.

The killings have many police thinking twice about taking the top
post. The Sonoran border town of Naco, for example, has had 12 police
chiefs in the past three years. The last one to resign was Tacho's
brother, Roberto Tacho Verdugo.

With his cowboy hats and Western shirts, big belt buckles and wide
mustache, Ramon Tacho looked the part of the wild West sheriff. He
had a talent for music and had recorded an album of traditional
Mexican music and corridos, romantic cowboy-style ballads. That style
helped make him one of Agua Prieta's most high-profile officials,
said Ray Borane, the mayor of Douglas, which lies just across the
border. Tacho was head of Sonora's state detective force before
becoming police chief in Naco, then in Cananea. He took over Agua
Prieta's police force in September. Borane said Tacho was a good
lawman and had made important arrests. But his flamboyant manner also
fed rumors of ties to drug traffickers. "Because of things people
said about him - his way of dressing, acting and the way they
executed him - it was said he was compromised," said Luis Arvayo, a
reporter for El Imparcial newspaper who covers crime in Agua Prieta.

It was the most brazen assassination in Agua Prieta since gunmen
killed the regional commander of the Federal Preventive Police in
July 2003. The Arizona border had been mostly quiet since then, even
as pitched battles raged between drug lords in Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana
and other border points.

Police commanders are frequent targets in those places. In June,
gunmen killed Nuevo Laredo's police chief less than seven hours after
he took the job. In November, Tijuana's police chief was found shot
and dismembered on a street near police headquarters.

The Arizona border is controlled by the Sinaloa cartel of Joaquin "El
Chapo" Guzman. That cartel has struck an alliance with the
neighboring Juarez cartel, leading to relative peace along Arizona's
southeastern border. But on Jan. 19, Tacho's officers arrested a
Sinaloa man on charges of carrying out the execution-style slaying of
two men in an Agua Prieta backyard Jan. 3.

And on Thursday, two suspected drug smugglers were found dead in
their home, their faces slashed with a knife or razor.