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MEXICO CITY — As Mexico suffers from an onslaught of massacres, decapitations and execution-style hits, six major drug cartels have carved up the country into fiefdoms. Like the armies of authentic warlords, the cartels attempt to completely dominate their territories, controlling trafficking routes, local drug sales and other criminal enterprises. Clashing over disputed turf, the cartels all have carried out murders on an epic scale. Sinaloa Cartel City base: Culiacan (northwestern Mexico) Kingpins: Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, Juan Jose Esparragoza (El Azul) States in sphere of influence: Sinaloa, Sonora, Durango, Morelos, Chihuahua, Baja California, Mexico City,...

We have recently heard many shocking stories of brutal killings and ruthless violence related to drug cartels warring with Mexican and US officials. It is approaching the fever pitch of a full blown crisis. Unfortunately, the administration is not likely to waste this opportunity to further expand government. Hopefully, we can take a deep breath and look at history for the optimal way to deal with this dangerous situation, which is not unprecedented. Alcohol prohibition in the 1920’s brought similar violence, gangs, lawlessness, corruption and brutality. The reason for the violence was not that making and selling alcohol was inherently...

Homeland Security Secretary

WASHINGTON (AFP) — A senior US senator cautioned Monday against deployments of national guard troops to the US border with Mexico, saying such a move would be "premature and possibly counter-productive." In remarks prepared for a special hearing in the Texas border city of El Paso, Senator John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also warned against the alarmist tone of a US debate over drug violence in Mexico. "The idea of dispatching the national guard to the border is premature and possibly counterproductive," he said. His remarks echoed those of senior administration officials who in recent days...

Jose Reyes Ferriz, mayor of the Mexican border city of Juarez, presides over what may be the western hemisphere's most dangerous town, certainly the hardest hit by Mexico's drug-war terror. Since the start of last year, Juarez has seen almost 2,000 drug-related murders. Reyes this month requested thousands of federal army soldiers to rein in the violence, which has subsided for the moment — giving him a chance to rebuild Juarez's corrupt police force. He talked with TIME's Tim Padgett this week about his police reform, drug-cartel death threats against him and comparisons of Juarez to Baghdad. (See pictures of...

WASHINGTON – When it comes to shoring up the U.S.-Mexico border, the Obama administration won't take yes for an answer. Key members of Congress want to spend more. The president is saying no thanks. Last week, the administration unveiled a plan to redeploy as many as 500 customs, immigration, border and firearms agents to the Southwest border – not by hiring, but by shifting them from other, mostly unspecified, duties. They won't come from the northern border, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano assured Congress. Beyond that, she would say only that they'll come from "less urgent activities" – a red...

As part of STRATFOR’s coverage of the security situation in Mexico, we have observed some significant developments in the drug trade in the Western Hemisphere over the past year. While the United States remains the top destination for South American-produced cocaine, and Mexico continues to serve as the primary transshipment route, the path between Mexico and South America is clearly changing. These changes have been most pronounced in Central America, where Mexican drug-trafficking organizations have begun to rely increasingly on land-based smuggling routes as several countries .... According to a December 2008 report from the U.S. National Drug Intelligence Center,...

American officials say ties between Shiite organization, Mexican drug lords for trafficking of drugs, money, people into US strengthening over recent year. One official voice concern that al-Qaeda may use same routes. Ties between Lebanon's Shiite Hizbullah organization and Mexican drug cartels have been strengthening over the past few years, the Washington Times reported Friday. Hizbullah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun, former administrator and chief of operations at the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). "They work together," added Braun, "They rely on the same shadow facilitators....

A recent surge in arrests and cocaine seizures in Peru points to an increased presence of Mexican drug cartels, counter-narcotics officials say. The cartels have also contributed to more drug-related violence in Peruvian cities, ports and in remote valleys in this Andean country where coca, cocaine's base material, is grown, the officials say. Peruvian claims of Mexican cartels expanding echo those by officials in other Latin American countries, from Honduras to Argentina, where Mexican gangs have supplanted once-powerful Colombian cartels as kings of the illicit-drug underworld. .... That Mexican drug lords are sending emissaries here is no surprise to Hidalgo...

The body of a U.S. marshal has been discovered in Juarez, Mexico, according to the U.S. Marshals Service -- the latest discovery in a wave of violence that has gripped towns along the U.S.-Mexican border in recent months. The body of Deputy Marshal Vincent Bustamante -- who was the subject of an arrest warrant accusing him of criminal theft of government property -- was found in Juarez on Wednesday, said Marshals Service spokesman Jeff Carter. Chihuahua state police said the body had multiple wounds to the head -- apparently consistent with an execution-style shooting, according to Edgar Roman, a reporter...

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Republican Senator John McCain called Thursday for deploying more US National Guard troops to the southern US border to contain violence spilling over from Mexico's fight with drug cartels. "I support sending National Guard troops to assist with securing our southern border and stemming the flow of violence spilling over into the United States," the Arizona lawmaker said in a statement. McCain cited requests by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and Texas Governor Rick Perry for help from Washington amid a "continued escalation of violence" as a result of Mexico's drug war.

Pressure is mounting on President Barack Obama to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, with Sen. John McCain adding his support this afternoon. Gov. Rick Perry asked Washington last month for 1,000 National Guard troops, to free up local police and sheriffs, and federal border, immigration and customs personnel. In McCain's homestate of Arizona, Gov. Jan Brewer has also asked for troops. In light of those requests "and the continued escalation of violence, I support sending National Guard troops to assist with securing our southern border and stemming the flow of violence spilling over into the United States," McCain said.

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Drug War Doublespeak By Laura Carlsen | March 9, 2009 Through late February and early March, a blitzkrieg of declarations from U.S. government and military officials and pundits hit the media, claiming that Mexico was alternately at risk of being a failed state,1 on the verge of civil war, losing control of its territory, and posing a threat to U.S. national security.2

WASHINGTON, March 24, 2009 – The Department of Homeland Security is “still considering” the use of National Guard troops along the U.S.-Mexico border, along with several other initiatives, the DHS secretary said in a White House press briefing today. “This issue requires immediate action,” Janet Napolitano said. “We are guided by two very clear objectives. First, we are going to do everything we can to prevent the violence in Mexico from spilling over across the border. “And second, we will do all in our power to help President [Felipe] Calderón crack down on these drug cartels in Mexico.” Napolitano...

Mexican drug cartels are now as heavily armed as America’s enemies during the Iraq war and are extending their bloody conflict into the United States, say security experts. Law enforcement agencies in American cities close to the border with Mexico — including San Diego in California, and El Paso in Texas — are “gearing up” for street confrontations with the drug gangs, which are armed with rockets and grenades and have brought death and chaos south of the border. The confidence of the cartel chiefs has increased so much that they are moving to affluent neighbourhoods in America to kidnap...

Mexican drug cartels use a “blood wire” to send money to drug and human smugglers, according to Arizona’s attorney general, who testified earlier this week before the Senate Judiciary Committee. “Western Union is by far the largest provider of illicit money-movement services, so it is the source of valuable information about illicit money movements and has been the focus of interdiction efforts aimed at criminal proceeds in transit,” Terry Goddard, Arizona’s attorney general, told senators. Goddard was one of several witnesses who testified March 17 before the Judiciary Committee and the Senate International Narcotics Control Caucus on law enforcement responses...

In fiscal year 2008, authorities confiscated about $70 million in drug-related cash in Atlanta, more than anywhere else in the United States, the Drug Enforcement Administration says. This fiscal year, Atlanta continues to outpace all other U.S. regions in such seizures, with $30 million confiscated so far. Next are Los Angeles, California, with about $19 million, and Chicago, Illinois, with $18 million. "There is definitely a center of this type of drug activity here, and we are working to make sure the violence does not spill out to the general public," Atlanta U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said. Atlanta has become...

Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said Congress gets it when it comes to cross-border drug violence. Goddard just returned from Washington where he testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "They all had in their individual states evidence of drug cartel violence that they were aware of, so this is truly a national problem," he said. Goddard is glad Senator John McCain will hold hearings in Arizona next month to address the drug cartel violence.

As if he doesn't have enough domestic issues to deal with, Barack Obama is being forced to confront the escalating drugs war in Mexico that threatens to spill across the US border. In interviews with regional newspapers yesterday, the President revealed that he had contemplated the idea of sending an armed American force to patrol the border. "We're going to examine whether and if National Guard deployments would make sense and under what circumstances they would make sense," said Obama, who also praised Mexico's President Felipe Calderon for "taking some extraordinary risks under extraordinary pressure to deal with the drug...

WASHINGTON – Tighter gun control and stronger law enforcement in Southwestern states were recommended Thursday by lawmakers concerned about drug violence in Mexico possibly spilling across the border. The escalating violence — which has killed thousands, mostly south of the border — has been blamed on Mexican drug cartels which one Homeland Security official described as the biggest organized crime threat facing the United States. Roger Rufe, Homeland Security's head of operations, outlined the agency's plans for protecting the border, a response that includes — as a last resort — deploying military personnel and equipment to the region if other...

Pajamas Media recently published an article by Todd Bensman (”Mexican Cartels Binge on American Bullets“) that bears discussing. While it makes an attempt to link high civilian ammunition demand here in the United States to violent crime performed south of the border by Mexican drug cartels, the article — and similar echoes adopted by the Obama administration and sympathetic journalists — is flawed. 5.7×28 ammunition is not “cop killer” ammunition, and its reputation as such among drug smugglers and gullible members of the media — the same media that dutifully reported Glock pistols were plastic “terrorist guns” that could evade...

The failure to secure the border to prevent illegal drugs from entering into the United States from Mexico in the first place is inexusable. The Mexican drug cartels have established distribution networks and supply lines in at least 230 American cities, and the enforcement violence among the rival cells has been brutally incessant in Phoenix, Atlanta and Houston. The governors of Arizona and Texas have requested national guard troops to secure their borders only to be rebuffed by resident Barack Obama who "said that now is not the time to send troops": "We've got a very big border with Mexico,"...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A top Republican lawmaker criticized the Defense Department on Tuesday for not making the drug violence in Mexico as big a priority as Afghanistan and for not coordinating U.S. resources to confront it. In an interview with The Associated Press, Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., said the Mexican turmoil is "a lot more important, in my own judgment, than Afghanistan at this moment." He added: "We need to raise this to a higher level." Lewis praised the Homeland Security Department for deploying unmanned aerial vehicles to track human activity along the U.S.-Mexico border, but he criticized the Pentagon...

AUSTIN — Mexican drug cartel violence is not spilling into Texas, several frustrated border mayors told a state legislative committee Monday in an effort to dispel public perceptions that their communities are under siege. “For me to believe that our cities are so endangered by all this violence that we need to send the military to the border is a knee-jerk reaction,” McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez told the House Border and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee. Cortez, mayor for 19 years, said his daughter in San Antonio recently called to express apprehension about his re-election because of fears he might become an...

WASHINGTON — Americans got a wakeup call last week about the threat posed by Mexican drug traffickers when the State Department issued a travel advisory warning vacationers heading for warmer climes of the danger they would face visiting our closest neighbor to the south. The violence has escalated to the point where in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, the police chief was forced to flee the city after drug traffickers demanded his resignation, systematically killing his deputy and three of his men until he capitulated. Mexican President Felipe Calderon has dispatched soldiers and more federal police to patrol the...

Recent arrests in a mistaken killing point to the perilous presence of gangs The order was clear: Kill the guy in the Astros jersey. But in a case of mistaken identity, Jose Perez ended up dead. The intended target — the Houston-based head of a Mexican drug cartel cell pumping millions of dollars of cocaine into the city — walked away. Perez, 27, was just a working guy, out getting dinner late on a Friday with his wife and young children at Chilos, a seafood restaurant on the Gulf Freeway. His murder and the assassination gone awry point to the...

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico -- Few Americans enter this border city anymore. Crossing south on the right side of the bridges is lonely, with only a smattering of people, mostly Mexicans living in El Paso. The army base has banned soldiers from crossing, and few if any kids come looking for a good time -- most of the bars have closed anyway. The reason: Juárez is at war. The city is fighting drug cartels, and the cartels are fighting each other. In 2008, more than 1,600 people were killed in Juárez in drug-related violence, often assassinations carried out in daylight. Some...

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2009 – The combined capabilities and military cooperation between Mexico and the United States can defeat the drug cartels that plague both countries, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said in Mexico City yesterday. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen held discussions with Mexican leaders and then spoke to students at the Mexican Naval War College during a visit that capped a five-day trip to Latin America. “We are capable countries,” Mullen said at the war college. “This is not a threat we can’t beat. We can, working together, defeat it.” The chairman praised Mexican leaders for...

Reporting from San Diego -- A U.S. citizen was one of the three men who were found decapitated this week in Tijuana, Mexican authorities said Friday. The body of George Harrison, a 38-year-old former Chula Vista resident, had been dismembered and mutilated and was dumped in a vacant lot near Tijuana's beachside bullring. Harrison had several drug-related convictions in the United States and was suspected of drug trafficking in Mexico, Baja California Assistant Atty. General Rafael Gonzalez said.

The Mexican president has blamed US "corruption" for hampering his nation's efforts to combat violent drug cartels. Felipe Calderon also told the AFP news agency that the main cause of Mexico's drug gang problems was "having the world's biggest consumer [of drugs] next to us". "Drug trafficking in the United States is fuelled by the phenomenon of corruption on the part of the American authorities," he said on Wednesday. The Mexican president launched a massive assault on drug cartels after entering office in late 2006 but the cartels have responded with campaigns of violence and intimidation that left 6,000 dead...

A long-time Soviet tactic for the destruction of the USA is perilously close to realization but few in the shopping mall regime are paying attention: Mexico is about to become a failed state, possessing no legitimacy, ripe for the plucking by the country’s pro-Moscow Left. The arrival in Mexico City this week of Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, is a major heads up that not only is Mexico’s government caving in to pressure from the country’s heavily armed, Soviet-backed drug cartels, but also Washington DC is finally taking stock of this very significant threat...

Heeding the advice of Gen. David Petraeus, Barack Obama has committed 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan and will keep 50,000 in Iraq after U.S. combat operations end in August 2010. But are U.S. vital interests more threatened by what happens in Anbar or Helmand than in the war raging along our southern border? Prediction: After all U.S. troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Korea have come home, there will be a U.S. army on the Mexican border. For this is where the fate of our republic will be decided, as the fate of Europe will be decided by the millions streaming...

HELPING OUT IS IN OUR INTEREST Today's terror in Mexico is tomorrow's terror on US soil; the violence has already started crossing the border. To protect ourselves, we must help our beleaguered neighbors decisively and effectively put an end to the rippling massacres. Violence isn't all that will cross the border - corruption will spread, too. In 2007, the DHS opened 79 investigations into border corruption in four US states along the Mexican border, more than twice the number four years earlier.

WEST PALM BEACH — A federal jury this afternoon convicted two men in the 2006 murders of a family of four along Florida's Turnpike. The verdicts mean either life in prison or death for Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya, both 25. The 12-member jury after four days of deliberations also convicted Danny Varela, 28, and Liana Lee Lopez, 20, on charges related to the drug ring the four ran from a luxury Briar Bay home in 2006. Jose Luis Escobedo worked as a drug connection for the group. He, his wife Yessica and their 3 and 4-year-old sons Luis Damian...

A prison riot Wednesday near the troubled Mexican border town of Juarez has left an unconfirmed number of fatalities, news reports said. El Diario de Juarez newspaper reported 17 people were killed, including two federal agents. Ten people were wounded, the newspaper said. The tallies could not be independently verified with state and federal officials. Police official Carlos Gonzalez said the uprising occurred among members of the Aztecas drug gang housed in Module 3, according to El Diario. Some inmates were armed, the newspaper said. The prison is located in a semi-desert area 17 miles (28 kilometers) south of Ciudad...

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53293 Gates: U.S. Military Could Help Mexico Fight Drug Cartels By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, March 2, 2009 – The United States could increase its military support to help Mexico fight drug cartels that pose an increasingly alarming security risk, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said yesterday. “I think we are beginning to be in a position to help the Mexicans more than we have in the past,” Gates said during an NBC “Meet the Press” interview. “Some of the old biases against cooperation between our militaries and so on,...

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said the US wants to increase the military assistance it provides Mexico for its fight against drugs trafficking. Mr Gates said Washington was more prepared now to help Mexico in its fight against the cartels which control the flow of illegal narcotics. Mr Gates said aid could come in the form of military hardware, training and intelligence support to help the Mexican authorities in their fight against the well-armed and organised drugs traffickers. "It clearly is a serious problem," Gates said. But he pointed to Mexican President Felipe Calderon as the main reason for this...

Anderson Cooper did a piece for 60 Minutes tonight on the Mexican drug cartels, and generally he did a good job in presenting a concise overview of the issues. However, the segment failed to address the horrific violence perpetrated by the drug cartels on the U.S. side of the border in cities such as Phoenix, AZ and Atlanta, GA, and failed to address the role by U.S. financial institutions and money managers in laundering some $38 billion in drug money for the cartels every year. Cooper interviewed Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano who recognized that the drug cartels pose an...

WASHINGTON - Federal agents have rounded up more than 750 suspects in a wide-ranging crackdown on Mexican drug cartels operating inside the United States.

Mexico has agreed to extradite to the United States a man arrested years ago in Mexico on charges that he trafficked cocaine and marijuana for over a decade, FOX News has learned. Miguel Caro-Quintero allegedly is the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, suspected of cultivating, producing and distributing marijuana. The cartel owns many ranches in Sonora, located close to the U.S. border. Drugs allegedly are stored at the ranches, and drug operations into the United States are staged. Methamphetamine, cocaine and a variety of other drugs and weapons are suspected to be part of their massive and powerful illegal trade....

The drug war is on. On the same day that the secretary of homeland security told Congress that drug-related violence along the Mexican border had grown beyond the ability of the department to handle, the DEA announced an operation against a major Mexican drug cartel that netted more than 750 suspects - almost all of them in the U.S. "I believe this is going to require more than the Department of Homeland Security," Janet Napolitano said Wednesday during her first Capitol Hill appearance since her confirmation last month as homeland security secretary. "So we are reaching out to the national...

Mexico’s attorney general said Tuesday he sees no need for U.S. troops to intervene in his country’s war on drug cartels, nor to gear up for a spillover of violence across the border. U.S. officials view the violence as a potential national security threat, and last month the Bush administration’s homeland security chief, Michael Chertoff, said Washington has drawn up contingency plans for a “surge” of both civilian law enforcement and military assets along the border. On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Perry demanded a tighter security net from Washington, saying he’s asked the Obama administration for more aircraft and “a thousand...

Federal authorities arrested more than 750 people across the country in what they describe as "the largest and hardest hitting" operation to ever target the "the very violent and dangerously powerful" drug cartel known as Sinaloa. "International drug-trafficking organizations pose a sustained, serious threat to the safety and security as of our communities," Attorney General Eric Holder said in prepared remarks at a Washington press conference Wednesday afternoon... "As the world grows smaller and international criminals step up their efforts to operate inside our borders, [we] will confront them head-on to keep our communities safe." Through "Operation Xcellerator," authorities say...

In Arizona's Pima and Cochise counties law enforcement officials "are seeing more and more 'rape trees,' places where Mexican drug cartel members rape female border crossers and hang their clothes."

Drug Crisis in Mexico by: Alanna Hultz, February 23, 2009 Recently there has been a surge in violence and brutal acts committed by drug cartels, causing a national emergency in Mexico. The power of the cartels has allowed them to corrupt governmental institutions and law enforcement agencies at the state and local levels. At a Heritage Foundation event, General Barry R. McCaffrey, former director, U.S. National Drug Policy during the Clinton Administration, discussed why it is important for the U.S. Administration of President Barack Obama to focus on the crisis confronting Mexico as a result of the flow of drugs,...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gno6p49P0Cw

The FBI is probing possible money laundering linked to Mexico's infamous narco-trafficking Gulf Cartel in its investigation of Texan billionaire Sir Allen Stanford.... An FBI source close to the investigation would not give exact details but confirmed the agency was looking at links to international drug gangs as part of the huge investigation into Stanford's banking activities. Reports in the US have said Mexican authorities have detained one of Stanford's private planes as part of an investigation into possible links to the Gulf Cartel. It has been alleged cheques found inside the plane were linked to the cartel, which is...

Portland Police Bureau investigators say they have disrupted a Mexican drug ring that was operating in Woodburn and sending members to Northwest Portland and Old Town to sell heroin and cocaine. On Wednesday, officers seized three pounds of heroin and two pounds of cocaine, and made eight arrests after raiding three homes and a storage facility in the Woodburn and Clackamas areas. Police arrested Jose Sandoval-Gonzalez, 32, in Woodburn on accusations of possession and distribution of controlled substances and identified him as the main supplier. The seven others who were arrested were described as his runners, who would carry drugs...

In the story of the emperor with no clothes, it took someone whose observations are rarely heeded -- a child -- to point out the obvious fact that no one else could acknowledge. In the case of drug policy, it takes people who are usually ignored by Washington policymakers -- Latin Americans -- to perform the same invaluable service. Last week, a commission made up of 17 members, from Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa to Sonia Picado, the Costa Rican who heads the Inter-American Institute on Human Rights, did nothing but admit the truth: The war on drugs is a...