Drug Cartel Infiltrated Mexican and U.S. Agencies, Officials Say

In Mexico's worst case of drug-related corruption in a decade, a drug cartel infiltrated the highest levels of Mexico's Attorney General's Office, paying as much as $450,000 a month to get sensitive information about anti-drug activities, Mexican officials said on Monday.

The cartel even seemingly placed a mole inside the U.S. Embassy that fed the drug lords information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to a copy of an arrest warrant seen by The Wall Street Journal and obtained by Mexican newspaper El Universal. A DEA spokesman said: "We are currently investigating this issue along with our Mexican counterparts."

Two high ranking anti-drug officials were arrested weeks ago in connection with the scandal, Deputy Attorney General Marisela Morales said in an early morning press conference. They are Fernando Rivera, the former deputy director general of intelligence at the Attorney General's organized crime unit, and Miguel Colorado, the technical coordinator of the anti-drug unit.

In total, 35 officials from the organized crime unit have been "removed" from the agency and are being investigated, officials said.

The scandal reflects the difficulty of President Felipe Calderon's efforts to crack down on Mexico's powerful drug cartels. Mexico is the main shipment point for cocaine entering the U.S., and is now widely seen as having overtaken Colombia's drug war in importance and ferocity. So far this year, an estimated 3,700 people have died in violence from the drug war, most of them involved in the drugs trade.

Since taking power in Nov, 2006, Mr. Calderon has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers to different parts of the country to wrest back control of areas under the cartels sway. So far the crackdown has only made the violence worse.

“Ms. Morales said that the officials “received payments from $150,000 to $450,000 a month” for information...”

How can there not be corruption when this much money is available just for information? We aren't going to stop this. Maybe we take out some of the violent guys causing some of the most visible problems, but there is way too much money to be made for this to end.

Mexican organized crime make most of their money from marijuana. Americans consume more of that than all other illegal drugs combined and Mexicans actually produce marijuana and aren't just middlemen like they are for the distant second most popular drug, cocaine. If we really want to hurt them, we'll legalize marijuana and let American farmers grow it and just regulate it similar to alcohol. That would take many billions of dollars a year from these Mexican drug trafficking organizations, money that law abiding tax paying American farmers and businessmen could be making. The U.S. already has about the highest per capita marijuana use rates in the world. There are precious few people left who really want to smoke marijuana but don't just because it is illegal. It's already cheap and easily available everywhere in this country. If people aren't doing it it's not because they can't get it or can't afford it. The laws aren't keeping many from doing it because it's so easy to get away with it without getting caught and in the unlikely even t someone does get caught the punishments aren't that severe. If people aren't doing it it's because of all the good reasons not to smoke it that have nothing to do with its legal status. Use would not go up much if we regulated it similar to alcohol. We'd save a fortune and rake in a fortune in taxes, devastate Mexican organized crime, stop all the pot growing in our national forests, etc. It's past time we did this.

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