Mexico Disbands Anti-Drugs Force In Drive Against Corruption

Independent (UK) ^ | 1-18-2003 | Kieran Murray

[blam]

Mexico disbands anti-drugs force in drive against corruption

By Kieran Murray in Mexico City
18 January 2003

Mexican soldiers have raided and closed the offices of a federal anti-drugs force in a crackdown on agents who work for or protect drug traffickers.

Rafael Macedo, the Attorney General, who ordered the raids, said the 200-strong narcotics unit, Feads, will be shut down and its agents investigated.

He said the government of President Vicente Fox had launched an all-out war on police corruption and scored some major successes but more work was needed.

"We have to admit there are people who have not understood that this [tolerance of corruption] is over, and we are going to finish with them," he said yesterday. "We have to clean up our house. We will not rest until we have totally cleaned up these federal police forces, and we will insist that every police force at the state and local level is also in the same shape."

The government has been praised by senior US officials for unprecedented co-operation in the war against Mexico's cocaine cartels. So the new evidence of serious problems inside Feads is an embarrassing reminder of how deep corruption runs inside Mexico's police forces. The raids on Feads offices in 11 states came less than a week after seven agents were arrested in the northern border city of Tijuana for allegedly offering to free two captured drug smugglers and give them back their drugs in return for a massive bribe.

The soldiers allegedly discovered almost five tons of seized marijuana that the agents had failed to declare.

The Feads force was set up in 1997 under former president Ernesto Zedillo to focus exclusively on the drug war. Since President Fox took office in December 2000, his government has captured or killed several leading traffickers, including Benjamin and Ramon Arellano Felix, two brothers who led the country's most ruthless drug gang.

Several senior officials – including a former governor of the Caribbean coastal state of Quintana Roo – have also been arrested and US officials say the level of co-operation with Mexican drug units has never been better.

But there have also been some setbacks, including the escape from prison in early 2001 of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman and a series of scandals showing that the cocaine cartels routinely bribe army officers, police and judicial authorities to stay one step ahead of the law. (Reuters)

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[alpowolf]

a series of scandals showing that the cocaine cartels routinely bribe army officers, police and judicial authorities to stay one step ahead of the law

Should anyone be surprised? The WoD breeds corruption in this country too.

[Tacis]

Those damn PRIista drug police have refused to share their profits with Fox's drug lord friends and employers and had to be removed from the market. Early drug lord cooperation/tranistion didn't work out. There is still 200 toms coming north along with 800,000 illegals, some of whom are Arab terrorists. When is our government going to recognize this major threat to national security and seal the friggin border?