Drugs & US Law Enforcement (2006-2017)

[Jedburgh]

NYT, 22 Jan 08: Mexico Hits Drug Gangs With Full Fury of War

These days, it is easy to form the impression that a war is going on in Mexico. Thousands of elite troops in battle gear stream toward border towns and snake through the streets in jeeps with .50-caliber machine guns mounted on top while fighter jets from the Mexican Navy fly reconnaissance missions overhead.

Gun battles between federal forces and drug-cartel members carrying rocket-propelled-grenade launchers have taken place over the past two weeks in border towns like Río Bravo and Tijuana, with deadly results.

Yet what is happening is less a war than a sustained federal intervention in states where for decades corrupt municipal police officers and drug gangs have worked together in relative peace, officials say. The federal forces are not only hunting cartel leaders, but also going after their crews of gunslingers, like Gulf Cartel guards known as the Zetas, who terrorize the towns they control.....

[Jedburgh]

ISN Security Watch, 29 Jan 08: Violence on the US-Mexico Border

Dozens of murders have resulted from battles between the Mexican security forces and armed criminals along the US-Mexico border since the beginning of this year. It is a spike in violence that has many in the US worried that gun fights may spill across the border, carrying all the reprisals that left a string of Mexican border towns without journalists, mayors, police chiefs and musicians in 2007.

In another bloody encounter for what has already been a violent year, on 7 January, a van full of gunmen ran a roadblock outside the border town of Reynosa, Mexico. Mexican soldiers and federal police chased the van to a small house across the street from the Reynosa police station. The gun battle began soon after. In the aftermath, 10 suspects were arrested and five policemen were dead. Along with the suspects, Mexican police seized three automatic rifles, an Uzi submachine gun, grenades and hundreds of rounds of ammunition.

The US Border Patrol has not taken any extra precautions, but is keeping its agents in the field "abreast of the situation," according to Border Patrol spokesman Oscar Saldana.....

[bourbon]

Drug cartels operate training camps near Texas border just inside Mexico, By ALFREDO CORCHADO. The Dallas Morning News, March 30, 2008.

Mexican drug cartels have conducted military-style training camps in at least six such locations in northern Tamaulipas and Nuevo León states, some within a few miles of the Texas border, according to U.S. and Mexican authorities and the printed testimony of five protected witnesses who were trained in the camps.

The camps near the Texas border and at other locations in Mexico are used to train cartel recruits – ranging from Mexican army deserters to American teenagers – who then carry out killings and other cartel assignments on both sides of the border, authorities say.

[Surferbeetle]

From the April 19, 2008 edition of the LA Times

MEXICO CITY -- Mexicans are spending more on bribes than they were just a few years ago.

They paid the equivalent of about $2.6 billion in bribes last year, according to the nonprofit group Transparency Mexico. That's 42% more than two years earlier and an average of more than $24 for each of the country's 105 million people. Much of the money went to have garbage collected, parking tickets fixed or to get parking spots from the legions of informal attendants who block spaces, then charge for them.

[bourbon]

Cost of Graft in Mexico

Hmm...The peso has strengthened against the dollar in the past 2 years. What effect would that have on the cost of graft? The Freakonomics guys should look into it.

Meanwhile the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas appear to be on a membership drive:
Official says cartel hit men posted 'help wanted' sign on border, Associated Press - April 14, 2008.

A giant banner hung across a thoroughfare appeared over the weekend in Nuevo Laredo and read: "Operative group 'The Zetas' wants you, soldier or ex-soldier. We offer a good salary, food and benefits for your family. Don't suffer anymore mistreatment and don't go hungry."

I imagine they will be posting in Craigslist's Help Wanted section next.