Blog del Narco: 8 Gunned Down on a Street in the Monterrey Suburb of Guadalupe

Eight drivers of gypsy cabs were killed Tuesday in two separate attacks outside this northern Mexican metropolis, sources with the Nuevo Leon state investigations agency told Efe.

Gunmen traveling in at least two vehicles fatally shot three drivers who were standing alongside their gypsy cabs - known here as “pirate taxis” - on a street in the Monterrey suburb of Guadalupe.

The assailants went on to kill five more drivers a few blocks away, the sources said.

Authorities say some “pirate cabbies” supplement their income by serving as lookouts for drug cartels, using cell phones and two-way radios to report on movements of police and military units.

The past 12 months have witnessed three prior attacks against cabbies in and around Monterrey, the state capital and Mexico’s third-largest city.

The most recent incident took place Feb. 21, when five taxi drivers were slain outside a busy shopping mall.

Hundreds have died in greater Monterrey since March 2010 amid a brutal turf battle between the Los Zetas and Gulf drug cartels.

The nationwide death toll from more than five years of conflict among rival cartels and between criminals and the security forces tops 50,000.

President Felipe Calderon declared all-out war on organized crime within days of his taking office in December 2006 and gave Mexico’s armed forces the leading role in the struggle against the cartels.

Read more in Spanish at Blog del Narco