Untold Tales of the Mexican Border

                 The Roughest Bar on the Rio Grande


The Piedras Negras Bar, Calle Cinco, Matamoros, Mexico with about fifty years to its dubious
credit can well lay claim to be the longest running den of iniquity on the border.

Its non descript exterior bottom floor location blends in with the other two and three story mud
colored or faded pastel hued stucco buildings in the neighborhood. Its dimly lit interior has
booths down one side and a long bar on the other. Locals on both sides say the menu has two
distinguishing features:
                            (1) The shrimp are good, but slightly expensive,

                            (2)  The bullets are free with the shrimp.

In the real estate world they always talk about location, location. The Piedras Negras has it all.
It's within two blocks of the Mexican Army's Matamoros Zone Headquarters. The same
distance to the Matamoros City Hall. And, not too far to the headquarters of the Mexican
Federal Judicial Police aka Los Federales. This made it easy for its owner, Juan N. Guerra to
receive his official visitors and allow them to depart with his heartfelt thanks delivered in well
stuffed briefcases (white envelopes being passe and too small for his largesse). A biography
of Sr.Guerra is appropriate at this time. He passed on a year or so ago, but his well deserved
reputation for violence lives on.

This tough old fashioned pirate had a long distinguished smuggling career that began during
our Prohibition era when he made his mark running booze into Texas. During World War Two
he branched out into running all types of war time scarce commodities over the Rio Grande.
After the war he began smuggling small quantities of marijuana. He also bribed the Mexican
customs to bring in large quantities of manufactured goods without paying the required high
tariffs.

Guerra had two reputations, one as a shrewd politically adept gang leader. The second was as
a man very quick to anger and take direct action against anyone who crossed him. His first
wife, Gloria had, in her younger days, been well known as an actress and singer. She also had
several children with him. Apparently a male friend from her career days visited her without
Guerra's presence. He flew into a rage and promptly shot her to death. Nothing happened to
him. After all this is Mexico, a bastion of machisimo.

In the summer of 1960, when this writer was a Border Patrolman stationed in the area, a new
Director was appointed to the local Mexican Customs office. Colonel Villa-Coss of the Mexican
Army had been appointed by the President of Mexico to the Matamoros post to clean up
corruption. Somebody must have pointed him in the direction of the Piedras Negras and Juan
N. Guerra. He went there one night by himself. Some think he might have been offered the
traditional greeting given to all newly appointed custom and police officers at a border
location---palombo o plata lead or silver. Take our money or a bullet. It is undisputed that he
was shot dead in the bar. It is also undisputed by any one on either side of the river that Guerra
killed him. However, this being Mexico, in the hue and cry that followed Guerra's bodyguard
was offered up as a sacrifical lamb. You see Colonel Villa-Coss was a son of Mexico's
legendary hero, Pancho Villa. The only comparison one could make is, if, a son of an American
President was shot in the Ravenite Social Club in Brooklyn by John Gotti. Somebody had to
fall on his sword and it wouldn't be Guerra hence the bodyguard.

During the next twenty years drugs became the number one border smuggling business. It
was here in the Piedra Negras Bar that Juan N. Guerra became the father of the legendary Gulf
Drug Cartel and the prime distributor for the Colombian Cali Cartel. His alleged "hook" into
that business was Raul Salinas the one time local Customs Director and the father of the
eventual President of Mexico, and Harvard College graduate, Carlos Salinas de Gortaari.
Guerra was also well insulated in local politics by his brother Roberto who was a one time
Mayor of Matamoros. Guerra's PRI, Mexico's ruling political party, connections were
impeccable. In time he realized that he needed a top assistant and heir, but who?

The choice was simple. His nephew Juan Garcia Abrego. A man whom he had trained over the
years beginning with car thefts in Texas for re-sale in Mexico.

The Matamoros area also had a few contenders in the marijuana smuggling business. Among
them were Saul Hernandez and Casimiro Espinosa Campo better known as 'El Cacho." Their
success apparently annoyed Guerra and Garcia Abrego because one or both decided that
Saul and El Cacho had to go.  In 1984 in a celebrated local shooting El Chaco was badly
wounded and taken to a nearby clinic to be hospitalized.

A few days after his arrival there a group of Garcia Abrego's gang burst into the hospital and in
the shooting spree that followed six innocent people were killed. El Cacho, however, rolled
under his bed and survived the assault. Unfortunately for him he died a few days later of his
original wounds.

Saul's luck ran out three years later.

Saul threw in his lot with a real bad hombre named Tomas Morlet, a former Mexican
federale,who, in 1985, was briefly accused of being the murderer of DEA Agent Kiki Camarene.
By 1987 Morlet was reportedly allied with the Juarez cartel and was sent to Matamoros to cut
into the local drug trade with Saul as an ally. It is undisputed that they were in the Piedras
Negras. It is widely believed that they had a business dispute with another bar patron, Juan
Garcia-Abrego. As the duo went out the front door they were shot to death. Surprisingly
enough it is rumored that Garcia-Abrego was the killer.

An uninspiring homicide investigation that followed has not yet uncovered the killer. No hue
and cry has been raised by any outraged citizens. You might say the matter is a "cold case."

Saul Hernandez's family were devout believers in the santeria religion. And, were involved in
one of the most hideous crimes ever to occur in the Matamoros area. A high threshold indeed
to climb. It will be discussed in a later newsletter. Juan Garcia-Abrego's stewardship of the Gulf
Cartel and his relationship with the Salinas de Gortaari family will also be the subject of a
future newsletter.

Stay tuned for more tales of border thugs and drugs.

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