NARCO-TERRORISTS

NUEVO LAREDO - One of the most ruthless drug cartels in history owns
Nuevo Laredo, and its sights are set on controlling a highway that
leads straight to Victoria.

After years of fighting in the streets, just three hours southwest of
Victoria, the public violence is suddenly calm. At first glance, the
Laredo corridor appears peaceful again.

Hidden beneath this 18-month lull, however, a sinister story surfaces.
The brutal Gulf Cartel seized control of a border city, strangling
public confidence with murder, terror, extortion, corruption and kidnapping.

Nuevo Laredo newspaper reporters, threatened with murder, no longer
cover the streets, which are still rife with violence.

After winning a three-year war against a rival, the Gulf Cartel
operates unimpeded. With ownership of a lucrative entry port, the
cartel is focused on controlling U.S. Highway 59, which winds to your
back door.

Documentary filmmaker Rusty Fleming spent three years on the border
and in Mexico to chronicle the violence. For the first time, Fleming
agreed to revisit the Laredo corridor to show firsthand what's at work
in this lucrative entry port.

He agreed to again travel deep into Nuevo Laredo - to city corners
held by the Gulf Cartel. Three Advocate journalists visited eerie
cartel shrines, the locations of kidnappings and the home of an
assassinated police chief.

Signs of the cartel violence that some say is headed Victoria's way
linger everywhere in this once-peaceful Mexican city.