US Immigrations & Customs Enforcement Agents Ambushed by Mexican Drug Gangs

The Mexican Drug War continues and, increasingly, Americans are being targeted by the ruthless and highly-trained drug gangs.  Now two ICE (Immigrations & Customs Enforcement) agents are ambushed and shot in a drug gang roadblock between Monterrey and Mexico City

(Borderland Beat) The agents were driving a black SUV with diplomatic plates. After their vehicle was stopped, with the road in front of them and behind them blocked off (a tactic typically employed by professional assassins), several armed men dressed in black approached the agents’ SUV.

The men, according to the source, are presumed to be members of Los Zetas— a paramilitary narco-trafficking organization that counts among its leadership former elite members of the Mexican military.

As the armed men walked toward the ICE agents’ SUV, they motioned the agent in the driver seat to roll down his window, according to the source, recounting the initial reports from the scene.

“He did a little, and that’s when they opened fire,” the source reports. “The windows on the SUV are dark, so it is my opinion that they wanted make sure they had the right people.”

Why weren’t the agents traveling with military escort, as is customary for such a mission? New reports suggest that their stated mission was only a cover for “black ops” – an off-the-books secret intelligence mission.

Additional law enforcement sources have weighed in on the story and contend that the two ICE agents were on what one described as an under-the-radar mission that involved transporting a box containing an unknown payload, though it is suspected that the box contained weapons. The two agents were expecting to meet up with another group of agents to exchange the box, the law enforcers contend.

That same source described the box transfer operation as being very unusual and possibly part of some kind of “black op” — meaning it might have dovetailed with an intelligence operation.

For example, the information now coming in, which is from several law enforcement sources, indicates the agents were not involved in any type of training operations, but rather that was a cover for their trip. In addition, in the latest version of events, the agents who were shot were driving north from Mexico City heading toward Monterrey when they were ambushed by the Zetas. (A law enforcement source told Narco News originally that the two agents were heading south from Monterrey toward Mexico City.)

Also, both agents were, in fact, permanently assigned to the ICE attaché office in Mexico City and not on temporary assignment, as originally reported.