Jaime Jorge Zapata, a 32 years old US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) special agent, was killed on February 15th during a drug gang attack in Mexico.

He and his colleague, Victor Avila, were driving on a Mexican highway on the way between Monterrey and Mexico City, in the state of Saint Luis Potosì, when their vehicle was forced by the members of the Mexican drug cartel known as Los Zetas, which opened fire against the ICE agents in an ambush. Agent Avila was only injured at the leg while Jaime Zapata, shoot five times in the chest, died.

He joined ICE in 2006 and was temporary assigned to the ICE attaché office of the US Embassy in Mexico City, to the human smuggling and trafficking unit. About 30 are the ICE agents in Mexico, and they are not authorized by the Mexican Government to carry firearms.

The Los Zetas drug gang members have been identified as the liable of the ambush and have been arrested by the Mexican authorities right after the attack. They are .Julian Zapata Espinoza, the gang’s leader, Jesus Ivan Quesada Pena, Ruben Diario Venegas, both of Honduras; Armando Alvarez Saldana, Mario Dominguez Realeo and Martin Barcenas Tapia, all of Mexico.

Other two alleged leads Sergio “El Toto” Mora and Luis Miguel Rojo have been arrested one week later with the charge of been also connected with the killing. During the raid on four safe houses in the San Luis Potosì area were seized five rifles, a handgun, an indeterminate amount of cash, ammunition clips and five vehicles, including a bulletproof one. In addition were seized also payroll forms for the gunmen who belonged to the gang.

The leader of the gang, Julian Zapata Espinoza nicknamed the “Tweety bird”, declared that the attack was just a case of mistaken identity,they thought the two US Immigration agents belonged to a rival drug cartel gang of Mexico, he officially said. The incident remains under investigation, but officials have said that the team of gunmen opened fire after Zapata showed his US government identification.

Anyway the announcement of the arrests made by the Mexican authorities have been welcome by the US authorities as a sign of collaboration and development.

“We are encouraged by this action and appreciate the efforts by Mexico to bring Special Agent Zapata’s killers to justice” said the ICE Director John Morton .“ It is important to remember that this is an ongoing investigation, and we will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners in Mexico and in the United States as it unfolds. We continue to hold the Zapata family in our thoughts and prayers, and look forward to a swift resolution of this case,” he added.

Mexico and USA will keep working together to solve the case. President Obama thanked the Mexican President Felipe Calderon for the efforts that his country is doing to bring to justice the murders of the US agent Zapata.

The fact that the two countries can work so closely is a good demonstration of the collaboration of ICE and the Mexican authorities in the struggle to smuggling and drug traffic,which has meant the death of an agent who was there to do his hard work.

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In October last year, a 20-year-old student was sworn in as police chief of Praxedis Guadalupe Guerrero, a township of only 8.500 people but know as one of the most violent places in the country. The border town is victim of the intense drug war that plagues several areas of Mexico but which is especially present around the northern borders as well as some pacific states. Marisol Valles Garcia, who was studying for a criminology degree, was allegedly given the position because “she was the only person to accept,” according to an official.

Her task was difficult from the beginning. Alongside 12 police officers, Valles intended to confront narco-gangsters who had been battling for control over the town’s single highway. The violence had seen bodies piling up around the region and everything from police officers to a former mayer had been killed – one of Valles predecessors had even been decapitated.

The young woman attracted worldwide attention as the bravest woman in Mexico and claimed that she did not carry a gun or wear a uniform to avoid provoking the drug gangs that operated in the area. She also said she would leave major crimes to bigger authorities and when asked why she had taken the position, she told the BBC that she took the role despite the risks involved because she felt Mexican citizens had a responsibility to try to improve security.

The city of Praxedis is close to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico’s most violent city, where more than 3.000 people were killed in drug-related violence in 2010 alone, according to the BBC. The brutality of the region is due to the lucrative smuggling routes into the US, and the power of the cartels grew as the US stepped up anti-narcotics efforts. It is estimated that as much as 90% of the cocaine consumed in the US arrives through Mexico.

Marisol Valles Garcia went missing after having ask for a three-day leave to take care of her baby son – when she didn’t show up for work, the mayor of Praxedis, G. Guerrero, fired her, according to the New York Times.

After some initial speculation of her whereabouts, it turned out that Valles and her family had crossed the bridge into El Paso and was now seeking asylum in the US after apparently having received death threats. The US Customs and Immigration Enforcement agency (ICE) confirmed that Ms Valles was in the country; “She will have the opportunity to present the facts of her case before an impartial immigration judge,” and ICE official told Reuters. The town officials, however, had been curiously unalarmed by their police chief fleeing the country, a position which Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson, a state human rights ombudsman, has criticized as an “act of abandonment” to the New York Times.

Despite Ms Valles dismissal, it is hard to blame her for her actions. When the Mexican government unveiled a new database which catalogues murders presumed to be linked to organized crime, it listed a total of 34.612 people having been killed over the past four years in drug-related violence. 2010 was especially bloody with 15.273 murders alone.

Many Mexicans are starting to doubt President Felipe Calderon’s strategy towards the illegal drugs trade because violence have escalated ever since the crackdown on the cartels began in 2006.

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