Weekly Report - 13 August 2009 (WR-09-32)

MEXICO | Assassination. On 10 August the authorities arrested a gangster who claimed to be planning to assassinate President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa. This appears to be the first major plot against Calderón since he became president on 1 December 2006 and launched a war against organised crime. There was, apparently, a plot to kill him during the election campaign in 2006, but this was hushed up because his aides were not sure how serious it was.
If Calderón were to be assassinated, congress would pick an interim president to serve for the rest of his term. The new congress, which convenes on 1 September, will be, effectively, controlled by the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI).
Dimas Dí­az Ramos, the leader of the five-person team of gangsters allegedly planning to kill Calderón belongs to the Sinaloa or Pací­fico gang. He was arrested in Culiacán, the capital of Sinaloa. The federal police say that the plot began after the federal police seized a drug shipment and a lot of dollars in Manzanillo in 2008.

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