Villa Ahumada

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Villa Ahumada (officially Miguel Ahumada) is a town in northern Mexico with about 9,000 inhabitants (2008), located in the state of Chihuahua along Highway 45, about 130 km south of Ciudad Juárez and 247 km north of the city of Chihuahua.

The city has several roadside restaurants and burrito stands and is known for its good cheese.

Villa Ahumada entered the international news in 2008 when it was terrorized for several hours by an out of town gang. This was presumably part of the wave of drug-smuggling related violence in Mexico that resulted in about 4,000 deaths between early 2007 and mid 2008. At the night of May 19, 2008, dozens of men drove through town, firing assault rifles and killing the police chief, two police officers and three civilians, and abducting at least 10 people. The remaining policemen then left, and the state and federal governments sent troops to restore order. Officials did not offer a theory about the perpetrators. According to local rumors, the town's drug dealers had been aligned with police and were linked to the Juárez Cartel. After a local drug boss was killed and another arrested, a rival gang was possibly trying to take over the drug trade along the route from Ciudad Juárez to the state of Sinaloa.^[1]