MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico’s Jose Cuervo, the world’s biggest tequila producer, has delayed its planned initial public offering and will wait until after the U.S. presidential election before going ahead, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

A bottle of Jose Cuervo Tequila rests on a shelf in Mexico City December 11, 2012. REUTERS/Edgard Garrido

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the three people said concern about market volatility around the Nov. 8 U.S. election meant that Cuervo had decided to postpone the listing, which they said had been scheduled for this month.

Representatives for Jose Cuervo did not respond to a request for comment on the delay, which appears to be the first instance of a major IPO being postponed because of concern about volatility surrounding the election, which has already roiled markets in Mexico.

The company, known officially as Becle, announced the IPO slated for the Mexican bourse in a filing last week, but without saying when it would take place. It also plans a private placement to investors in the United States, where the tequila market has increasingly been shifting toward high-end 100 percent agave brands.

A person familiar with the matter said last week the company could seek to raise between $500 million and $1 billion.

Some investors in Mexico’s currency and other instruments have grown apprehensive about the possibility of a win by Republican White House candidate Donald Trump, who has fired off a series of verbal broadsides against Mexico and its economy.

Trump has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico that he said he would make Mexico pay for and threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement if he wins. He has also berated U.S. firms that invest in Mexico.

Concern about the election has been more glancing on U.S. equity markets, where optimism had been growing about a rebound in IPOs after occasionally choppy markets had dampened enthusiasm for new issues for much of the year.

Jose Cuervo made reference to the U.S. election in its prospectus, noting that any renegotiation of trade deals after the vote could ultimately have a serious impact on business.

On Tuesday, Agustin Carstens, the head of Mexico’s central bank, said the bank may not follow any impending interest rate increase by the U.S. Federal Reserve if the outcome of the U.S. presidential election is favorable to Mexico.

Last week Carstens said a Trump victory would hit Mexico like a hurricane, and that a win by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would yield a better outcome for the Mexican economy.

The company has said proceeds from the IPO, due to be handled by Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Banco Santander and brokerage GBM Grupo Bursatil Mexicano, will be used to fund organic and external growth, as well as broaden its portfolio.

Started by Jose Antonio de Cuervo in the late 1700s before Mexican independence from Spain, Jose Cuervo says it is North America’s oldest continuous producer of spirits.

With origins in the picturesque town of Tequila in Jalisco state, the business is now controlled by the Beckmann family. They will remain the majority shareholder after the IPO. </s> MEXICO CITY, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Mexico's Jose Cuervo, the world's biggest tequila producer, has delayed its planned initial public offering and will wait until after the U.S. presidential election before going ahead, three people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.

The company, known officially as Becle, announced the IPO in a filing last week, but without saying when it would take place.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the three people said concern about market volatility meant that Cuervo had decided to postpone the listing, which they said was scheduled for this month.

Jose Cuervo was not immediately available for comment.

A person familiar with the matter suggested last week the company could seek to raise between $500 million and $1 billion. </s> The company, known officially as Becle, announced the IPO in a filing last week, but without saying when it would take place.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the three people said concern about market volatility around the Nov. 8 U.S. election meant that Cuervo had decided to postpone the listing, which they said had been scheduled for this month.

Jose Cuervo was not immediately available for comment.

A person familiar with the matter said last week the company could seek to raise between $500 million and $1 billion.

The U.S. election campaign has roiled markets in Mexico, with some investors apprehensive about the consequences in the event of a win by Republican White House candidate Donald Trump, who has fired off a series of verbal broadsides against Mexico and its economy.

Trump has vowed to build a wall on the border with Mexico that he says he would make Mexico pay for and threatened to scrap the North American Free Trade Agreement if he wins, as well as berating U.S. firms that invest in Mexico.

On Tuesday, Agustin Carstens, the head of Mexico's central bank, said the bank may not follow any impending interest rate increase by the U.S. Federal Reserve if the outcome of the U.S. presidential election is favorable to Mexico.

Last week Carstens said a Trump victory would hit Mexico like a hurricane, and that a win by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton would yield a better outcome for the Mexican economy.

Jose Cuervo made reference to the U.S. election in its prospectus, noting that any renegotiation of trade deals after the vote could ultimately have a serious impact on business.

The company said proceeds from the IPO, due to be handled by Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase & Co, Banco Santander and brokerage GBM Grupo Bursatil Mexicano, will be used to fund organic and external growth, as well as broaden its portfolio.

Started by Jose Antonio de Cuervo in the late 1700s before Mexican independence from Spain, Jose Cuervo says it is North America's oldest continuous producer of spirits.

With origins in the picturesque town of Tequila in Jalisco state, the business is now controlled by the Beckmann family. They will remain the majority shareholder after the IPO. </s> While Mexico began Día de Muertos celebrations, the country's Supreme Court offered a gift of epic proportions. The court ruled an absolute ban on the adult use of cannabis is unconstitutional.

This doesn’t mean cannabis users south of the border can start lighting up in the streets today. But it does mean lawmakers will now be charged with the responsibility of regulating the consumption of the plant. And make no mistake: it's a huge victory for legalization advocates and investors looking to get an early lead in the race to legalize cannabis in Mexico.

One company that’s been strategic about entering the Mexico market is Khiron Life Sciences (OTC: KHRNF).

The company recently started an education program by hosting and sponsoring the CannaMexico conference, which former Mexico president Vincente Fox has championed. Not coincidentally, Fox sits on the board of Khiron.

While Khiron is known for its core operations in Colombia, the company is actively seeking to expand throughout Latin America. With the former president of Mexico in its corner, Khiron has a distinct advantage. It also doesn’t hurt that Mexico's new president Andrés Manuel López Obrador is also in favor of legalization.

Last month, The Green Organic Dutchman (OTC: TGODF) announced its entry into a strategic joint venture with LLACA Grupo Empresarial to create a company to enter the medicinal cannabis market in Mexico.

LLACA is a distribution company with access to distributors with commercialized pharmaceutical and OTC products. Their reach includes 4,500 pharmacies and 3,100 supermarkets throughout Mexico.

The deal allows TGOD full access to LLACA’s services, which, in addition to distribution, include warehousing, product registrations, regulatory representation and authorized clinical trials.

In addition to Khiron and TGOD, other public cannabis companies with exposure to Mexico include ICC Labs (OTC: ICCLF) — which is soon to be acquired by Aurora Cannabis Inc (NYSE: ACB) — and Medical Marijuana, Inc. (OTC: MJNA).

The bottom line is that the Latin American cannabis industry is projected to be worth nearly $13 billion in less than 10 years, with Chile and Mexico expected to be the engines of growth in the medical cannabis sector, according to Prohibition Partners.

While cannabis investors have been focused on Canada, that focus is moving south to the U.S. and Mexico.

Make no mistake: a legal cannabis market in Mexico is going to occur, and it promises to be incredibly profitable for those who are positioned for the move.

3 Small Cannabis Companies To Keep An Eye On& </s> TOLUCA, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's ruling party fended off a leftist challenger in a major state election seen as a test run for a presidential vote next year, propelling the country's peso currency to its strongest level since U.S. President Donald Trump was elected.

But the Institutional Revolutionary Party's (PRI) 3 percentage-point margin of victory in the central State of Mexico, the country's most populous, was a close call for President Enrique Pena Nieto, whose party has ruled it for nearly nine decades.

A narrow defeat will not end, or even dampen, the aspirations of leftists led by veteran Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, an early favorite for next year's presidential race as the contender of the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA) party. His young party accused the PRI of vote buying and other dirty tricks, and may launch legal challenges in the weeks to come.

With nearly 98 percent of returns in from polling booths, PRI candidate Alfredo del Mazo had 34 percent of the vote compared with 31 percent for MORENA candidate Delfina Gomez.

"We are going to challenge (the results) at many booths where illegal returns were sent, and we believe that with this we could reverse the outcome," said MORENA secretary general Yeidckol Polevnsky.

In other statewide elections, also held on Sunday, the PRI lost in the western state of Nayarit and narrowly won in Coahuila, which borders the United States.

"The PRI struggled to hold on to the gubernatorial seat in both the State of Mexico and Coahuila, which have traditionally been very favorable electoral battlegrounds, and suffered significant losses in Nayarit and in the municipal election in Veracruz," said Goldman Sachs economist Alberto Ramos.

"This does not bode well for the PRI in the presidential election next year," Ramos added.

Still, markets reacted positively to the news that the PRI was bound to retain power in Mexico State.

The Mexican peso MXN=MXN=D2 gained nearly 2 percent in Monday morning trade, on the setback for Lopez Obrador, a sign of ongoing market distrust of the combative leader who has opposed economic liberalization in Mexico.

The result also gave a boost to OHL Mexico (OHLMEX.MX), the Mexican unit of Spanish construction firm OHL, whose share price rose by as much as 9.5 percent.

Investors fear that Lopez Obrador and other opposition leaders, who have accused OHL Mexico of helping to finance the PRI in the State of Mexico, could go after the firm's lucrative contracts if they are elected to power. OHL Mexico has rejected the allegations.

The PRI is battling widespread anger at corruption and rising violent crime under Pena Nieto as the countdown starts for the July 2018 presidential election.

Lopez Obrador has alleged fraud in past elections, and he vowed to scrutinize the results from every voting booth.

"We will never resort to violence, but we are going to firmly defend this country's democracy," he said in a video message. Gomez, the candidate, said she would not protest the result on the streets.

Known as AMLO, the silver-haired politician earned the ire of many Mexico City residents after the 2006 presidential vote when he brought parts of the capital to a standstill with mass protests, saying he had been robbed of victory by center-right candidate Felipe Calderon.

"The lengths that Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador goes to challenge the result will have an important bearing on his presidential candidacy," said Nicholas Watson of Teneo Intelligence.

Prosecutors are probing the circumstances of piles of pig heads dumped on Saturday near MORENA offices and at polling stations in several municipalities.

Also under investigation were telephone threats and fake electoral literature warning of attacks - tactics used to dissuade people from voting.

Encompassing many populous neighborhoods on the edge of Mexico City, the State of Mexico is home to one in eight Mexican voters and it has long been a source of strength and financing for the PRI.

Del Mazo, however, had a poor showing compared to his predecessors despite his family's dominance in the state's politics. He secured barely half the share of vote and a fraction of the margin of victory that the current governor won six years ago with the backing of Pena Nieto, himself a former governor of the state whose own popularity has since plunged.

Failing to put a stop to corruption scandals and struggling to tame brutal gang violence has cost the party dearly.

Mexico's attorney general's office said on Sunday a former state governor for the PRI, Roberto Borge, had been arrested at Mexico's request in Panama on corruption charges. Borge, an ex-governor of Quintana Roo, encompassing the resort of Cancun, has previously denied wrongdoing.

Lopez Obrador's State of Mexico campaign was hurt by a failure to ally with others in the opposition and references by rivals to crisis-hit Venezuela, which the PRI argues mirrors his economic model. He denies the accusation.

The campaigner has opposed the opening of Mexico's energy sector to private capital, a key reform under Pena Nieto, but no longer vows to reverse it.

Linking Lopez Obrador to late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has helped rivals beat him to the top job in two previous bids at the presidency.

Victory for Lopez Obrador in 2018 could push Mexico in a more nationalist direction at a time of tension with the United States, with U.S. President Donald Trump riling Mexicans with threats to tear up the North American Free Trade Agreement and build a border wall. </s> Bargain Booze owner Conviviality plans to appoint administrators within the next 10 days “unless circumstances change”, putting 2,600 jobs at risk.

Bargain Booze owner Conviviality plans to appoint administrators within the next 10 days “unless circumstances change”, putting 2,600 jobs at risk.

The company said on Thursday that it will continue trading over that period in the hope of preserving “as much value as possible” for its stakeholders.

It will keep working alongside advisers and said it is exploring “a number of inbound inquiries regarding a potential sale of all or parts of the business”. The company is understood to be lining up PwC to lead the process.

The move puts thousands of jobs at risk, as Conviviality employs over 2,639 people and has more than 700 retail stores trading primarily as Bargain Booze, Select Convenience and Wine Rack. “Following discussions with its lending banks, the board has resolved to file notice of intention to appoint administrators to the company,” Conviviality said in a market announcement.

Toys R Us have filed for administration in a nightmare quarter for the retail sector (Yui Mok/PA) “Unless circumstances change, and in accordance with statutory requirements, the board intend to appoint administrators within 10 business days.” Shares have been suspended since Conviviality disclosed the discovery of its tax bill, which created what it called a “short-term funding requirement”.

It follows a torrid month for the firm, which saw its chief executive Dianna Hunter step down after issuing a string of profit warnings and revealing a £30 million tax bill. Conviviality was forced to go cap-in-hand to investors to raise £125 million as a result, but has been unable to convince them of its long-term future.

Ms Hunter, a former Waitrose director who had been chief executive since 2013, led the group through its stock market flotation in the same year, and oversaw a number of acquisitions, including Wine Rack, Matthew Clark and Bibendum.

“As we found with Palmer & Harvey’s rapid demise in late 2017, a default of this nature can have considerable short-term implications for supply chains, both those set not to be paid or those that seek to fill the void by the disruption to supplies that the current kerfuffle causes,” Shore Capital analysts Phil Carroll and Clive Black said.

Private equity firms could be ready to snap up the entire business with an eye on a few “selective disposals,” although the big four supermarkets and companies like CostCutter and Spar may also emerge as suitors, Mr Caroll and Mr Black explained. Its Matthew Clarke and Bibendum assets are positioned to attract big brewers, they added. The company’s collapse would cap a nightmare quarter for the retail sector.

Since January, Toys R Us and Maplin have filed for administration, while fashion retailers such as New Look and Select have embarked on radical store closure programmes. Piling on the misery has been the under-pressure casual dining sector, with Prezzo, Byron and Jamie’s Italian all shutting restaurants and culling hundreds of jobs. </s> Vice President Mike Pence plans to call Monday on Venezuela to suspend its presidential election later this month because of corruption concerns, two people familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. joins the European Union in calling on Venezuela to postpone the May 20 election until there are better assurances that it will be a free and fair democratic contest. President Nicolas Maduro is seeking a second six-year term, and opposition lawmakers have said security forces have physically threatened them and their supporters.

Pence will make the statement when he addresses more than two dozen ambassadors in a speech at the Organization of American States, according to the people who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Elections in Venezuela are traditionally held in December, but the country’s National Electoral Council scheduled the contest for spring -- a move critics say aims to take advantage of divisions within the opposition. The U.S. State Department has said not all political parties have agreed to the elections, limiting the ability of individuals to run.

The U.S. continues to weigh whether to ban imports of Venezuelan oil, which accounts for 95 percent of the country’s foreign-currency earnings. Venezuela, a founding member of OPEC, has the world’s largest proven reserves and is South America’s largest oil exporter. It is the third-largest source of U.S. imported oil. </s> Mexico City — Andrés Manuel López Obrador takes the reins of governance on Saturday, becoming the most left-wing president Mexico has had in modern history. This comes at a time of growing frustration among Mexicans and high expectations for change.

Tired of the rampant corruption that plagues all levels of government as well as sky-high violence, Mexicans voted overwhelmingly for AMLO, as he is known, who won in a landslide.

During his campaign, López Obrador vowed to crack down on corruption. He called for austerity and pledged to slash his own salary and cap other public officials’ pay. Ditching the presidential jet is also in the plans of the 64-year-old former Mexico City mayor. He criticized his opponents, calling them “the mafia in power.”

Some have even compared López Obrador to Donald Trump for insisting to put national concerns first.

López Obrador will serve a six-year term, without possibility of reelection. Mexico is Latin America’s second largest economy and a major trading partner of the U.S.

Many Mexicans have high expectations for the new president. A recent poll by the newspaper El Financiero indicated López Obrador has a 66 percent approval rating, while outgoing President Enrique Peña Nieto has only 26 percent.

“His supporters are looking for him to be the president of a new era in Mexico. He will also face the challenge of having to deliver quick wind for supporters who are incredibly anxious and eager of what his presidency might be,” said Jason Marczak, director of the Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Many crimes committed go unpunished in this country with a record high murder rate. Corruption and crime are not new to Mexico, but AMLO capitalized on it as a left-leaning populist, campaigning on curbing violence by tackling poverty and inequality.

In Mexico, even those who did not vote for him are expressing hope he will bring positive change.

Graciela Romero, a business owner in a middle-class Mexico City neighborhood, is a supporter of the center-right PAN party. Her top issue is the economy. She's upset she's had to increase the price of the fruits and vegetables she sells to counter more expensive fuel prices.

“We are a rich country, yet we pay so much for gasoline,” she said.

López Obrador plans to revive Mexico’s oil industry by building a new oil refinery.

Nearly all of Mexico’s massive fuel imports come from the U.S. The refinery is also part of his agenda to focus on projects in the county’s more impoverished and underdeveloped region in the southeast, including his home state of Tabasco.

Jesús Hernández Tolentino, 48, a taxi driver from Mexico City, rents the car he uses for work at $15 a day. After paying for gas, his daily income is around $11. He said the price of gasoline was going up under the government of Peña Nieto.

“López Obrador has mentioned he is going to build a refinery and that the price of gasoline is going to decrease and that is what we are hoping for,” Tolentino said. He has supported López Obrador’s political party since it was founded in 2014 and voted for him in all three elections he ran in.

Nervous investors have watched López Obrador’s transition period closely. Weeks before taking office, markets were rattled by announcements that the incoming administration would cancel a partially-built $13 billion airport and impose limits on bank commissions.

The rise of López Obrador comes at a time when Latin America has been moving towards right-wing leaders.

López Obrador campaigned for over 15 years as a leftist, defending the poor and was elected under his own political party. Traditionally Mexican politics were dominated by three parties: the centrist PRI, the conservative PAN, and the leftist PRD.

But it was the MORENA party that won Lopez Obrador a landslide victory. His MORENA party also won a majority in Congress, allowing him more freedom to change policy.

“He has enormous power,” said Eric Olson, a director at the Seattle International Foundation and advisor to the Woodrow Wilson Center. “Hopefully, he will use it for the good. But those are always risky situations as well.”

A key move to help combat corruption would be to have an independent attorney general, said Olson.

“That proposal has been on the table for a long time. But it’s not clear yet whether he will accept that the attorney general will be independent of the president,” he said.

A new NAFTA deal — called United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) — reached in October cleared a major obstacle for López Obrador, allowing him to focus on his domestic agenda. López Obrador had been a critic of the 1994 NAFTA, saying it had not done enough to improve the lives of Mexican workers.

But recognizing the importance of economic and financial-market stability, he praised the renegotiated USMCA deal.

How López Obrador handles relations with Trump, who has sparred with Mexico over calls for a border wall, will be closely watched.

The recent migrant caravan, that has resulted in over 5,000 Central Americans camped out in a sports complex in Tijuana, recently presented López Obrador with a difficult task — appease Trump while upholding his position of defending the poor.

AMLO signaled on Tuesday he would be willing to house the migrants on Mexican soil while they apply for asylum in the U.S. — something Trump has demanded.

He also called on Trump to contribute to development projects to help create jobs in Central America to help stem the flow of migrants.

If Central American migrants continue to make their way to Mexico in large numbers for years to come, it could erupt into a political crisis for López Obrador.

But for the majority of Mexicans, Central American migrants are not top of mind.

Vanessa Calderón, 22, a third-year medical school student, has already decided she does not want to have children as she weighs what she sees around her and what she thinks is coming.

“There is going to be more insecurity, more unemployment, and I think more violence and intolerance,” said Calderón.

She did not vote for López Obrador, though most of her family did. Yet, she is still hopeful.

“With him, we hope there is change," she said. "I, as a young person, do not expect anything from the Mexican government because each time, we go from bad to worse.”

Olson said López Obrador “has created enormous expectations by talking about his government as the ‘fourth great era in Mexican history.’ When you talk in that kind of grandiose way, you worry that expectations are too high.”

Christopher Alvarez reported from Mexico and Carmen Sesín reported from Miami. </s> Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has cancelled his planned visit to the U.S. where he was expected to meet with President Donald J. Trump. The cancellation comes after Mexico’s government denounced Trump’s new border security measures aimed at interfering with the cash flow of the very Mexican cartels believed to have financed the current Mexican president’s campaign.

On Thursday morning, Peña Nieto took to Twitter to announce that his staff had notified the White House that he would not be going to the scheduled meetings with Trump.

On Wednesday, Trump signed two executive orders dealing with enforcing current immigration laws and the construction of a border wall. Trump specifically called out Mexican cartels in the executive order. In response to the anti-cartel measures, Peña Nieto took to social media, as Breitbart Texas reported.

In addition to denouncing the measure, Peña Nieto announced that he would be ordering the 50 Mexican Consulates in the U.S. to step up their efforts to protect “migrants”. The Mexican president made no mention of the fact that the migrants are one of the largest funding mechanisms for the cartels who reportedly helped him gain his office.

In response to Peña Nieto’s announcement, Trump responded on Twitter that it would be better to cancel the meeting. According to Trump, the U.S.- Mexico relation has been one sided with the current $60 billion trade deficit with Mexico in connection with the current North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Mexican President Peña Nieto has been the subject of immaculate investigative reporting in his own country, though his reported ties to Mexican cartels received little attention from the U.S. during the presidency of Barack Obama.

An in-depth investigation has revealed that through the use of shell companies, members of the Juarez Cartel financed the political campaign of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto. The cartel members appear to have also used government programs to launder money and profit form their networks of contacts.

The bombshell revelation was made this week by the independent news outlet Aristegui Noticias who claim that top officials of the Juarez Cartel financed thousands of cash cards that were handed out by Mexico’s Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI) during the 2012 political campaign that resulted in the victory of Enrique Pena Nieto. According to the Mexican journalists, the cash cards were provided by a company called Monex. They were reported to be financed through a series of shell corporations by key players with the Juarez Cartel.

Through a three part series, the Mexican news organization identified Rodolfo David “El Consul” Avila Cordero as a key figure in the financial scandal that implicates the leading figures in Mexico’s ruling party the Revolutionary Institutional Party (PRI).

Avila Cordero was arrested in 2005 in Mexico City in connection with the seizure of almost $750,000 in cash. At the time authorities had identified him as a top tier operative with the Juarez (Carrillo Fuente) Cartel who worked as their financial operator an a key figure in their connections with Colombian drug lords. Avila Cordero had earned the nickname “The Consul” because of his links to high ranking officials within the Mexican government and acted as an ambassador of sorts, Aristegui Noticias reported.

Eight years after his arrest, Avila Cordero became a contractor for a government funded program called Crusade Against Hunger. Using a company called Conclave SA de CV and Prodasa SA de CV, Cordero was able to secure more than $396 million pesos or $25 million in government contracts through rigged bidding processes by government officials.

The Crusade Against Hunger is a pet project of Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto who claimed that with that program he would improve the quality of life for his people.

According to the investigation by the Mexican journalists, Conclave and Prodasa are shell companies that do not have real offices or staff.

As previously reported by Breitbart Texas, Carmen Aristegui, the founder of Aristegui Noticias, was a top rated radio journalists in Mexico, however her investigation into properties given to Pena Nieto as bribes led to her news outlet firing her and her staff. Despite being off the air, Aristegui continues reporting through her website.

As part of the investigation Aristegui Noticias also confirmed that Conclave was involved in the trading of soccer players with European soccer clubs.

Breitbart Texas also illuminated the current realities in Pieña Nieto’s Mexico, especially along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexican president has allowed paramilitary narco-cartels to control entire Mexican states. We wrote:

Though many politicians, journalists, and pundits have criticized the concept of a physical border barrier while others claimed the border to be safe, the aforementioned groups and individuals are simply ignorant on the topic or engaging in intentional deception. Breitbart Texas and the Cartel Chronicles effort has reported ad nauseum on Mexican cartels that have operational control over entire Mexican border states — including the governors’ offices and newsrooms. Our reporting has shown that U.S. law enforcement encounters with known or suspected terrorists have occurred frequently in remote areas along the U.S.-Mexico border. We’ve shown that there are humanitarian consequences associated with an unsecured border — not just for U.S. citizens, but for foreigners as well.

Our reporting has shown that one of the Mexican cartels, Los Zetas, is currently stockpiling Russian rocket-propelled grenades and their launchers at the Texas border, that they recently forced down a U.S. helicopter by open firing on the aircraft and striking it. Los Zetas are headquartered in Nuevo Laredo, a city that sits immediately across the shallow and narrow Rio Grande from Laredo, Texas. There are no fences or walls in the region and the local police do not have a presence in many of the gang-infested narco-neighborhoods that sit in Texas along the open border.

Along with Los Zetas, the Gulf Cartel is also headquartered immediately south of the Texas border. The Mexican state of Tamaulipas is largely controlled by the two paramilitary groups. All of the news outlets in the region have a “link” who works for the cartel and tells journalists what they can and can’t write about. Journalists and editors who ignore the control of the local cartel faction are brutally murdered. Many concerned citizens in Mexico have taken to anonymous social media accounts to report on the cartels. When the now-citizen-journalists are discovered, they are brutally murdered.

The cartels in this region have also set up metropolitan camera and surveillance systems across the cities they control. Two of the past three governors for the state are currently fugitives from U.S. justice for their roles and relationships with the cartels. One of the former-governor fugitives was being protected by the state government as recently as a few months ago.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and Stephen K. Bannon. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook.

Brandon Darby is managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook.
Mexican tequila producer Jose Cuervo will delay its IPO until after the U.S. presidential election due to concern over potential market volatility.