More deaths on Falcon Lake

Readers may remember the murder of David Hartley by Mexican drug smugglers on Falcon Lake, Texas, late last year. It seems the drug smugglers are still there - or were, until Mexican authorities decided to do something about them.

Twelve suspected members of the Zetas drug gang and a member of Mexico's Navy were killed in a shootout on an island in a lake that straddles the U.S.-Mexico border, authorities said Monday.

The Mexican Navy said the shootout occurred Sunday on Falcon Lake, located between Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, after troops patrolling the area spotted a camping area on an island.

The suspected drug traffickers used the island for storing marijuana to be transported by boat to the United States, the Navy said in a statement.

After the shootout, the Navy said it seized guns, ammunition and bullet-proof vests from the island.

Falcon Lake drew the attention of law enforcement authorities on both side of the border last September after an American man on a personal watercraft was reportedly ambushed by attackers and shot in the head.

There's more at the link.

A couple of things in this report make me wonder:

1. Once the Mexican authorities leave (as they inevitably will, and may already have done), what's to stop the Zetas (or some other drug cartel) simply reoccupying the island? Falcon Lake is too useful for smuggling for them to give it up that easily.
2. I note that no prisoners were taken. It's not unlikely that some of the Zetas on the island were among those who killed David Hartley last year . . . but now we'll never know. Might this incident have been a convenient way to silence any witnesses who might otherwise have testified about corruption among Mexican authorities, which might have led to the murder?

I suspect we haven't heard the last of Falcon Lake . . . or of killings there.

Peter