Nuevo Laredo, Mexico – Four men were murdered on the weekend in this border city, raising to 70 the number of killings here so far this year, authorities said.
Norberto Diaz Nieto, 38, and Leandro Villarreal Rodriguez, 39, the latter of whom was a resident of Laredo, Texas, across the Rio Grande, were riddled with bullets at exactly midnight on Saturday outside Diaz Nieto’s house.
The Tamaulipas state attorney general’s office agent in Nuevo Laredo, Raul Galindo, said that bullet casings of various calibers – among them .40, .45 and 9 mm – were found at the scene, suggesting that more than one gunman took part in the slayings.
Early Saturday evening, a group of unknown gunmen fired from a car at a 33-year-old man, killing him, said state police in a communique.
In addition, a few hours later a man about 20 years old was shot and killed, and two other young men were wounded, at the door of the Kalimba discotheque. Police did not identify any of the victims.
The four murders follow a shooting on Friday night in which a 35-year-old nightspot manager died and the killing of another man on a public bus early that morning.
National, state and municipal authorities, along with the military, have been implementing Operation Safe Mexico here since June to try and quell the wave of violence, much of it stemming from turf wars among drug cartels.
More than 1,500 people were killed in the rampant violence during 2005, most of them in Nuevo Laredo, Tijuana and other cities where drug trafficking activities are prevalent.
