Posted on 12/06/2005 1:55:53 PM PST by robowombat
Drug gangs corrupt Mexico's elite 'FBI' Tue Dec 6, 2005 01:25 PM ET
By Tim Gaynor and Monica Medel MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Despite a five-year battle that has put several top Mexican drug capos behind bars, the cartels' power and reach is so great that they can still corrupt elite police at will to stay ahead of the law.
Faced with rampant police graft when he took office in 2000, President Vicente Fox founded a crack unit modeled on the FBI to hunt down ruthless traffickers grown rich hauling cocaine, marijuana and amphetamines over the U.S. border.
This week the attorney general's office released a report showing that far from being incorruptible, 1,493 officers of the new Federal Investigation Agency -- or around one-in-five of the force -- are under investigation for committing crimes.
Eight agents were arrested on kidnapping charges in August after investigators found a copy of a homemade DVD showing four battered and bloody men confessing to being members of the Gulf cartel of drug traffickers. One of the traffickers was then executed with a bullet to the head.
Authorities say the federal agents charged in relation to the DVD recording were in the pay of a rival gang led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who is battling the Gulf cartel for control along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Five agents implicated in the case were released by a judge for lack of evidence.
Mexico is seeking their recapture and another three agents wanted for the crime are on the run, although Attorney General Daniel Cabeza de Vaca this week said there was still no proof federal agents were involved in the taped murder.
The revelations made headlines and dented Mexicans' hopes that the state had finally crafted an honest force to beat the traffickers, who are blamed for more than 1,000 murders this year in an all-out war for control of the drug trade.
In a country where the police are generally held in low regard, and where officers face the ever-present threat of a hitman's bullet for a job well done, the AFI's corruption should come as no surprise, analysts say.
"With all the money and power of the drug cartels, it was inevitable the AFI would become corrupted," political analyst Jorge Chabat told Reuters.
"The question now remains as to the extent of that corruption, and quite how far it has spread throughout the organization," he said.
TAINTED BY THE PAST
Formed in 2001, the AFI played an important role in putting top drug capos behind bars, including Benjamin Arellano Felix and Osiel Cardenas, of the Tijuana and Gulf cartels, and won praise from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
But despite Fox's best hopes, a top government minister said the 7,000-strong corps may have been compromised from the start by corrupt cops recruited from the former federal police force, who brought a culture of graft to the new institution.
"For legal reasons, the AFI retains around 780 agents from the old Federal Judicial Police," said Eduardo Medina, Mexico's public security minister and federal police chief.
"It strikes me that (the current problems) reflect just this legacy inherited from the old structure, which it has not been possible (to eradicate)" he said, although he insisted the AFI's structure and leadership was still strong.
Police chiefs have vowed to root out corruption in the force, and pledged that the AFI will continue to battle organized crime. But as fresh disclosures linking the agency to drug gangs continue to trickle out, analysts say the elite cadre's reputation has been badly damaged at home and abroad.
"The AFI's credibility is at rock bottom," drug trade analyst Jose Reveles told Reuters. "The public is losing confidence in them, and international cooperation is also in doubt."
What would be my answer to "take the money or your family dies"?
What? Corruption in Mexico? Vicente Fox would never stand for that! (I'm laying the sarcasm on a little strong, in case you couldn't tell)
*ping*
This is almost as bad as the traitorous leftist Democrats who infiltrated the American CIA.
ping
It's like Chicago in the '20s.
The problem isn't gangsters. The problem is that gun battles in the streets embarass the politicians.
Government policy isn't to destroy the drug traffickers. It is to end the drug wars so the Castellamarese War turns into the Five Families.
Or Phoenix today; substance bans can always be counted on to corrupt law enforcement.
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