wow! this is.....just..wow
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) -- Mexican authorities have unearthed 11 bodies buried behind what appeared to be a drug trafficker's safe house near the U.S. border and were continuing the search Tuesday.

The bodies were discovered between Friday and Monday by federal agents searching a house in Ciudad Juarez, the federal attorney general's office said late Monday. Seven of those bodies were found Monday under the house's patio.

Agents also discovered three bags of clothing, some of which was identified by relatives of two people who disappeared January 14.

The property appeared to be a safe house for Humberto Santillan Tabares, who was arrested Jan. 15 across the border in El Paso, Texas, investigators said. He was identified as a chief lieutenant of Vicente Carrillo, allegedly one of Mexico's major drug traffickers.

"We believe that we have finished now, with these 11 bodies in this place," Deputy Attorney General Jose Luis Santiago Vasconcelos, who is in charge of fighting organized crime, told Monitor Radio in Mexico City on Tuesday.

"If we have to demolish the house, we're going to demolish it."

Neighbors say the house, which sits in a quiet, middle-class neighborhood in Ciudad Juarez, was the home of a couple with two children. The neighbors often saw people dressed as federal police officers coming and going, they said on condition of anonymity.

Drug groups often pose as police.

Santiago Vasconcelos said the victims likely were killed because of activities "related to drug trafficking." Some victims were strangled or suffocated.

In July, an FBI translator in El Paso, Texas, was arrested for allegedly selling sensitive information that was believed to have reached Carrillo.


Agents stand guard as a crime scene investigation unit arrives.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says Carrillo is one of those who took over a Ciudad Juarez-based drug organization once led by his brother, Amado, who died in 1997 after undergoing plastic surgery in Mexico City.

The bodies may be connected to a recent wave of drug-related violence caused by the arrests of several key traffickers. The power vacuum led to a turf battle that has killed dozens along the border.

Since last week, a series of shootings have left at least nine people dead, including two federal agents, two state police officers and a soldier.

Local newspapers reported Tuesday that 57 people have been killed since January 1 in Sinaloa state, a battleground for major traffickers.

"This makes all of us uneasy," Santiago Vasconcelos said, "but it is better to have these incidents, clashes over the application of the law, than to permit in silence" the gangs' operations.