Piracy hits the Rio Grande

Published on Friday 8 October 2010 18:59

FOR decades, Falcon Lake was known primarily as an anglers' paradise, a tranquil reservoir straddling the border with Mexico where a clever fisherman could catch enormous largemouth bass.

These days, however, the lake is developing a reputation for something else: piracy.

As a prolonged conflict between drug dealers and the government has eroded civil order in Mexico, gangs of armed thugs in speedboats have begun robbing fishermen and tourists on the lake.

Last week gunmen reportedly shot and killed an American as he and his wife toured the lake on jet skis.

The shooting has strained tense relations between the Texas authorities and the Mexican government. A week after David Hartley, 30, was reportedly shot in the head, the Mexican authorities have yet to find a body or any trace of his watercraft.

Last week governor Rick Perry, a Republican running for re-election, criticised the Mexican government as being slow to investigate the episode. He also denounced President Barack Obama's administration as not having provided more National Guard troops to patrol the border.

Hartley's wife, Tiffany, has complained the Mexican police are not trying hard enough to find him, making tearful appeals on a national morning news show and on local television stations.

The Mexican foreign relations ministry, meanwhile, released a communiqu saying that the authorities in Tamaulipas state had "stepped up their actions with the support of specialised personnel, boats and helicopters".

The Texas Rangers have warned Americans to keep to the United States side of the 60-mile-long reservoir, which was formed in 1953 when the Rio Grande was dammed. The Border Patrol and the Coast Guard have increased their patrols on the lake in response to Hartley's disappearance, federal officials said.

The shooting was the latest in a string of attacks by pirates on the lake that began on 30 April. The gangs carry AK-47s and sometimes claim to be Mexican federal police or American game wardens. They have sometimes hijacked high-prowed boats favoured by Mexican fishermen and used them to chase down Americans in bass boats, stealing their money at gunpoint.

The state police say the robbers are believed to be members of a drug gang, though it is unclear if the attacks are the work of one group or several.

On 30 September, Hartley and his wife had travelled on their jet skis to the village of Guerrero on the Mexican side of the lake to take photographs there, according to her father, Bob Young. Hartley, a regional manager for Calfrac Well Services, was a history buff and wanted to see the landmark, which lies near a finger of water well inside Mexico.

As they started back from the church, Mrs Hartley said gunmen in three small boats raced toward them. The Hartleys tried to speed away, but the men opened fire and her husband was shot in the head.

She turned around and tried to haul her unconscious husband onto her watercraft but was not strong enough. "I tried pulling him up, and you cannot imagine how awful it was not being able to help him," she said.

Mrs Hartley was in the water with her husband when the gunmen pulled up in boats and pointed a gun at her. She begged them not to shoot and they retreated to shore. She fled to the US side of the lake and called the police.

Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez of Zapata County, on the Texas side of the lake, has said that Mrs Hartley's story is credible and that the assault is in keeping with other recent robberies, some of which happened in the same area.

On 30 April, two boats carrying five tourists who wanted photographs of the Guerrero church were robbed at gunpoint by four tattooed men in a fishing boat who identified themselves as "federales". They demanded cash and even asked, "Where are the drugs?"

A week later, on 6 May, three fishermen were robbed at gunpoint near Salado Island. On 16 May, another group of boaters was robbed, again by armed men in a fishing boat on the US side of the reservoir.

More recently, a gang of pirates in a small boat, with "Game Wardin" spelled out in duct tape, tried to stop a Texas fisherman. The Texan figured the misspelled word meant they were not really game wardens and outran them, police said.

The drama surrounding Hartley's disappearance and apparent death has rapidly become fodder for both sides in the governor's race. The Democratic challenger, Bill White, a former Houston mayor, said the shooting was a result of too little support from the state for sheriffs and police departments on the border.

Perry, meanwhile, reiterated his demand for more troops and federal agents on the border.