Mexico closes hospitals tied to drug cartel

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) Federal authorities have shut down two
hospitals that had been linked to the Juarez drug cartel and had been the
workplaces of four doctors killed during an apparent drug turf war.

The Guernika and San Rafael hospitals were allegedly purchased with drug
money laundered through legitimate businesses owned by the cartel and its
recently deceased leader, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, officials have said.

Authorities are also seeking Manuel de Jesus Bitar Tafich, who was listed
in federal documents as the owner of COBIT S.A. de C.V., the company that
owned the hospitals. The federal attorney general's office has said Bitar
Tafich is suspected of being the accountant for the Juarez cartel.

The attorney general's office filed notice last month of its intent to
seize the hospitals and eight other tracts of prime commercial real estate
that officials said are owned by COBIT.

The hospitals first came to public attention after the Aug. 22 slaying of
the doctors, who had been either strangled or suffocated and then dumped
near a border park.

Police saying they may have been killed after treating a man involved in an
attack on a Juarez attorney, who shot back at his assailants.

The doctors' deaths came during the height of a killing spree that engulfed
the city following Carrillo's July 4 death in a Mexico City hospital after
several hours of plastic surgery.

At least 18 people were killed during August in what experts on the drug
trade said was likely a battle to control Carrillo's turf or to settle old
accounts.

The slayings included two mass killings at popular nightspots that shocked
and alarmed Juarez residents.

The bloodshed has tapered off since the last incident, the Aug. 31 shooting
deaths of three men outside Geronimo's Bar & Grill, across from the Juarez
bullring.