Prison workers leaving facility by U.S. border stopped, killed

MEXICO CITY – Gunmen set up a roadblock just outside a Matamoros penitentiary to abduct and kill six prison employees, a crime that has intensified the government’s fight against drug traffickers, officials said Friday.

Dressed all in black and heavily armed, the assailants were able to intercept the victims’ cars as they left work early Thursday without any prison officials becoming suspicious, said Marco Antonio Ramirez, the Tamaulipas state delegate for the federal attorney general’s office.

Matamoros is just across the border from Brownsville, Texas.

Two dozen prison guards are being investigated for failing to detect, or failing to report, the fake roadside checkpoint, he told reporters.

The government has said the killings were likely ordered by drug lords being held in a federal prison near Mexico City after federal police raided it. Authorities said the traffickers had corrupted officials at the La Palma prison and ordered killings inside and outside the facility.

President Vicente Fox has called for “the mother of all battles” to regain control of federal prisons.

Mexican officials have also said they will intensify a four-year fight that has put nearly all the top cartel figures behind bars and are prepared for a violent and bloody backlash.

“We are moving forward, and we are not going to stop, and we are prepared to pay the cost,” said a Mexican official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

While the drug barons are capable of killing prison employees, threatening their families and other acts of violence against law enforcement officials, the official said the Mexican government does not fear political killings.

“We are not considering the possibility that even with the drug traffickers’ strength that they could put into play the stability of the Mexican state in any way,” the official said.