THIRTEEN people, including two police, civilians and alleged drug gangsters, have been killed in the latest bloodshed in violence-plagued Mexico, authorities said.

THIRTEEN people, including two police, civilians and alleged drug gangsters, have been killed in the latest bloodshed in violence-plagued Mexico, authorities said.

The state security agency said on Thursday two traffic police were gunned down, along with the wife and child of one of the policemen, as they drove through the northeastern border state of Nuevo Leon on Wednesday.

Another three people, apparently minors, were killed in a shooting in the state capital Monterrey, and the remainder were shot dead in separate incidents elsewhere in the state.

Nearly 35,000 people have been killed in clashes between rival drug gangs and in security operations since President Felipe Calderon launched a major military offensive against powerful drug cartels in 2006.

Nuevo Leon, which lies along lucrative trade routes to the massive US drug market, has seen a surge in violence since 2009, when the formerly allied Zetas and Gulf cartels split.

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federal grand jury has indicted three North Texas men who officials say are connected to a gun linked to last month’s slaying of ICE Special Agent Jaime Jorge Zapata in Mexico.

Ranferi Osorio, his brother Otilio Osorio and Kelvin Leon Morrison are named in a six-count indictment handed down Wednesday, The Associated Press reported from Dallas.

Each is charged with a single count of conspiracy and four counts of using false statements to a dealer to acquire a firearm. The Osorio brothers are also charged with single counts of possessing a firearm with an obliterated serial number, according to the AP. They remain in federal custody.

Zapata, 32, a native of Brownsville, worked for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He was killed last month in Mexico in an attack purportedly by members of the Zetas drug cartel while traveling along Highway 57 in the state of San Luis Potosí. A fellow agent, Victor Avila, was wounded in the attack.

Officials have said at least 15 armed gunmen forced the vehicle Zapata was driving off the highway. Zapata was shot at least three times, officials have said.

The firearms charges aren’t directly related to Zapata’s death, according to the AP.

Mexican authorities have arrested at least two Zeta members in connection with the attack.

Zapata, who grew up in Brownsville and attended the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, joined ICE in 2006. Before that he worked for the U.S. Border Patrol and had been stationed in Yuma, Ariz. More recently he was stationed in Laredo and had been temporarily working in Mexico City.

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Shortly before he was gunned down, Cape Town gangland figure Cyril Beeka sipped coffee and chatted about bar stools.

Shortly before he was gunned down, Cape Town gangland figure Cyril Beeka sipped coffee and chatted about bar stools.

Beeka and Bosnian businessman Sasa Kovacevic visited the Bellville home of his friend of 12 years, Jerome Booysen.

"They came at around 4pm. He always came to visit when he was in the area. We chatted like we normally did. Both of us owned properties and would speak about that," said Booysen.

"We had coffee and I remember saying to him: 'If I don't use these [several bar stools], I'll give it to you.' . He was a good friend."

Booysen said Beeka didn't seem uneasy and the two left before 5pm. Kovacevic was driving the BMW X5 they were travelling in.

A short distance away, two men on a motorcycle pulled up next to the car and the passenger opened fire. Beeka died on the scene and Kovacevic was airlifted to hospital.

"No one deserves to die like this. He was a good businessman and he was good to others," said Booysen.

There was drama on Tuesday night at the home of Czech fugitive Radovan Krejcir, the man police suspect ordered the hit on Beeka.

Krejcir's lawyer, Ian Small-Smith, was refused entry to the house where police ordered Krejcir's teenage son and his wife's employee, Michalis Arsiotis, onto the floor.

The boy and Arsiotis gave conflicting accounts of Krejcir's whereabouts. The son told officers his father was "700km away in Durban" and that he had last seen him on Saturday. Arsiotis claimed to have seen Krejcir on Sunday. Both were taken away for questioning.

Residents of the suburb, who were watching the raid by the Hawks, said the street was "always busy", even after their former neighbour, strip boss Lolly Jackson, was murdered.

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'Underworld boss' killed

Lookalike gangland slayings
Underworld chiefs both gunned down on Cape roads

They were both allegedly strong personalities, ruling sections of the underworld and even working together at one stage.
Today they are both dead, murdered in an eerily similar fashion.

On Monday night, controversial businessman Cyril Beeka's BMW X5 was riddled with bullets on Modderdam Road, in Bellville, Cape Town.

In 2007, gunmen opened fire on Yuri Ulianitski, who was driving a luxury vehicle after celebrating his birthday at a restaurant in Milnerton, Cape Town.

Ulianitski's widow, Irina Ulianitskaya, said yesterday that she hoped Beeka's murderers would be brought to book.

"But unfortunately, no progress has been made on my husband's murder.

"It is very strange that there are no suspects, no arrests, no nothing," said Ulianitskaya.

She said she did not know Beeka but was shocked by his murder. "Their murders seem similar."

Police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said the Ulianitski murder investigation "continues" but no arrests have been made.

Ulianitski, known as "Yuri the Russian", was one of Cape Town's most feared underworld figures. He was linked to club protection rackets, rigging horse races, prostitution, debt collection and gambling.

Beeka, 49, was a courier company executive and was once linked to a nightclub protection racket.

On Monday night, Beeka's brother, Daniel, told The Times that he was at the V&A Waterfront when he heard the news.

"My brother was on his way to visit me in Glenhaven," said Daniel Beeka.

"I rushed here from the Waterfront. I thought by the time I got to the scene he would still be alive."

Beeka died on the scene. His driver was airlifted to the Vincent Pallotti Hospital.

One message of condolence came from Moe Shaik, head of the South African Secret Service and brother of convicted fraudster Schabir Shaik. News of Beeka's friendship with Moe Shaik made headlines in 2007 when Beeka accompanied Shaik to the ANC's national conference in Polokwane.

Shaik refused to speak of their friendship but read a prepared statement to The Times.

"I am deeply saddened by his death. My prayers and thoughts go out to his family, especially his wife and young children," he said.

Reports had linked Beeka to controversial businessman Mark Lifman, but Lifman denied this, saying: "I wasn't acquainted with him, I knew of him. I know nothing about his murder. I just arrived from Hong Kong and read about it."

Ulianitskaya said her husband and Lifman were business associates. She dragged Lifman to court to fight for her husband's share of the assets.

Lifman said yesterday the matter was nearing conclusion.

Police spokesman, Captain Joe Wilson said Beeka's driver was in a stable condition. He would not release the driver's name and said he was not under police protection.

"We usually place people under police guard in hospital only if they have committed a crime," he said.

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Australian underworld matriarch was found guilty of orchestrating the execution-style murder of her brother-in-law as he enjoyed his daily coffee at a busy suburban cafe in Melbourne.

An Australian underworld matriarch was found guilty of orchestrating the execution-style murder of her brother-in-law as he enjoyed his daily coffee at a busy suburban cafe in Melbourne.
Judy Moran, a 66-year-old grandmother, was convicted over the slaying of Des "Tuppence" Moran who died from multiple gunshot wounds to the head in Melbourne in June 2009, in a case police described as too far-fetched for television.

The former underworld enforcer, shot at noon at close range by two gunmen in balaclavas, was from a family that played a key role in a gang war for control of the city's drugs trade that claimed 30 lives between 1995 and 2006.

Judy Moran, who uses a motorized wheelchair, had already lost her husband Lewis and two sons Mark and Jason in the Melbourne gang war, which was dramatized in the hit Australian series Underbelly, likened to US show The Sopranos.

She subsequently traded on her notoriety as a gangland "black widow" with television appearances portraying her family as unwitting victims of underworld violence.

She has not yet been sentenced.

It was alleged during the trial that she plotted with a gunman to kill her 61-year-old brother-in-law over a financial dispute and that she drove the getaway car to and from the murder scene.

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Gangland: Asian Gangs East London

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