Mexico - Who's in Control - Top Prosecutor Assassinated

Top prosecutor, state officials assassinated

in Mexican border town

By Stephen Feller UPI

A top Mexican prosecutor and two others officials were assassinated late Wednesday, and another government official was hospitalized with gunshot wounds, during a street ambush in the border town of Nuevo Laredo, authorities said Thursday. File Photo by Miki Sarabiez/Shutterstock

NUEVO LAREDO , Mexico, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- A top Mexican prosecutor and two state officials were assassinated Wednesday night, and another government official was wounded by gunfire, during what officials say was an ambush in the street.

Ricardo Martinez Chavez, regional coordinator for the attorney general's office, and the two others were shot and killed in the Mexican border town of Nuevo Laredo.

"I regret and condemn the cowardly murders in Nuevo Laredo of the elements of the PGJ," Francisco Garcia Cabeza de Vaca, governor of Tamaulipas state, tweeted after the killings. "I express my condolences to their families."

Chavez and the other two victims were leaving a meeting at a government office Wednesday night when they were attacked by gunmen in the intersection, police said. A third official was hospitalized with gunshot wounds.

Nuevo Laredo has a history of drug cartel-related violence, as several police chiefs have been targeted by criminals over the past decade. The fighting had cooled for a few years, but flared back up last year as shootouts occurred regularly between law enforcement and drug runners.

40% of all truck traffic flows from Mexico to the USA through Nuevo Laredo and Laredo, Texas. It has long been a target for various drug cartels and home to numerous murders and massacres in pursuit of control of the city. One thing is obvious; it isn't the government that is in control.

Nuevo Laredo, Mexico