MEXICO NABS THREE ENSENADA DRUG MASSACRE SUSPECTS

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Three gang members linked to Mexico's bloodthirsty
Arellano Felix cocaine cartel have been arrested in connection with the
massacre of 19 members of two families in September, police said Tuesday.

Authorities said the victims, dragged from their beds at night and executed
near the northern port city of Ensenada, were probably killed because one
had tried to carve out a narcotics business in the Tijuana-based cartel's
turf, across the U.S.-Mexico border from San Diego.

The victims of one of the most gruesome examples of Mexico's growing
drug-related violence included a 1-year-old, four other children and an
eight-months-pregnant woman. Two family members who survived the attack,
including a girl who hid under a bed while the massacre took place, gave
police information that led to the arrests.

Mexico's Attorney General's Office identified the arrested men as Armando
Villegas Santacruz, Trinidad Medina Perez and Ismael Estrada Ramos. The
three were members of a gang that robbed or taxed smaller drug gangs, the
office said. It did not provide ages or additional information.

It said arrest orders had been issued for 10 other members of the gang,
including the two masterminds of the massacre, Arturo Martinez Gonzalez and
Lino Portillo Salazar, who were still at large.

The office said Martinez and Portillo led a gang that robbed shipments of
marijuana or levied taxes on smaller drug gangs that had formed in the
area, seeking to ensure that they did not grow too big and threaten the
Arellano Felix brothers, Mexico's most wanted criminals.

Police said that on the night of the massacre, some 10 gang members high on
cocaine and alcohol sneaked into the families' ranch complex to steal 1,800
pounds of marijuana and collect on a debt owed by family member Fermin
Castro Rodriguez.

"They went to get the 800 kilos. ... After a heated discussion, they
started to round up the family member from the ranch and line them up on
the ground face down. (Lino Portillo) gave the order to shoot," Jose Luis
Chavez Garcia, the attorney general's representative in Baja California
state, told a news conference in Mexico City.

Castro allegedly met small aircraft carrying drugs into the state of Baja
California and loaded them onto specially converted vehicles with false
bottoms for shipment across the U.S.-Mexico border.

One of his shipments had been stolen recently by Villegas, the authorities
explained. The survivors' descriptions allowed police to arrest him and
obtain information on the gang's hideaways, where police found guns they
said matched those used in the crime.

The gang used to wear military-style outfits or federal police uniforms and
carry high-powered weapons such as AK-47s and Uzi submachine guns, police
said. They said initial reports of links between the gang and the local
military had been investigated and had proved "totally false."

Witnesses said the gang worked for the Arellano Felix brothers, known as
Mexico's most brutal cocaine cartel. One of the brothers, Ramon, is on the
FBI's Ten Most Wanted list.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski