Mexico's Sinaloa gang grows empire, defies crackdown

Joaquin "Shorty" Guzman, 53, is arguably the world's most infamous drug trafficker, and has extended his empire from Colombia to China since he broke out of prison in a laundry van on January 19, 2001.......

Amid the mayhem of severed heads and blood-stained streets, Guzman and his right-hand man Ismael Zambada have adeptly taken territory from gangs weakened by army operations while bringing in raw materials from China to make meth, using Africa as a route for cocaine into Europe, and growing their business in Colombia and across Central America.

"In the past five years, the Sinaloans have transformed themselves into a global criminal organization with operations in 52 countries," said Edgardo Buscaglia, a drug trade export at Mexico's private ITAM university, who compares the Sinaloa cartel's reach to the Russian mafia in the 1990s.

Guzman won a war with rivals that made Sinaloa the second most deadly drug war state between late 2006 and 2010, and he has expanded his power elsewhere.

After a long and brutal campaign against the Arellano Felix cartel, Guzman recently secured the prized border city of Tijuana, the gateway to California's hugely profitable drug market.

Guzman's jailbreak, his ability to avoid capture for so long and his expansion despite an army campaign have led to accusations that Mexico's government is favoring the Sinaloans as part of a strategy to reduce the death toll by allowing one all-powerful cartel to take control.

[snips] “That offensive and growing drug violence elsewhere in Mexico drew a tough response from Calderon, who sent the military to try to restore order shortly after he took power in late 2006. But since then, more than 34,000 people have died with the death toll rising sharply each year.

....Led by former elite soldiers who switched sides to join organized crime in the 1990s, the Zetas have grown quickly over the past few years after splitting from the Gulf Cartel. They are known to operate widely from Guatemala to Texas and often co-opt existing gangs to do their dirty work.”

if an illegal gets within 100 feet of the US border....lock and load. That will decrease the illegals and drug cartel activity immediately.

And then create a much worse scenario a week later.

You do realize it is a political impossibility. Even in your wildest dreams, you would have to register, get a special license, fire only approved ammo (something like 22LR), "hunt" only in designated times and places, have a special government guide, require a $10,000,000 bond, have to wear bright Day-Glo vest, etc.

If the only problem was cutting down on the number of immigrants, a war zone with a significantly higher chance of death will do the trick, then ALL of the "Human Rights" activists would rain down hell from every angle upon the New Minute Men. The Enemedia would have every program with the common theme that the New Minute Men are worse than the Klan and the poor immigrant is only trying to do the LORD's work and save his family. Mythbusters would do an episode on the Myth of shooting illegal aliens. TV show "House" would have a Christian New Minute Man come down sick from something the desert, but a they will discover a brain disease that causes you to want to kill, and they would let you die because "it is incurable and will save more lives". The Mentalist would make Red John your leader, the list goes on.

The activists would wreck your credit, vandalize your property, attack your family, follow you around on your "hunts" and make billboards of you dressed as a Nazi with a list of names of your "trophies". You would be dead the following week while the Enemedia Propaganda would justify it because you raped Mother Theresa and tortured Jesus Christ to death.

If the point was to reduce the drug trade, then your problems are even higher because all of the above would still be true, plus you are now interfering with a multi-billion dollar business where your opponent gets a hard-on with the mere prospect of torturing to death you, your family, your extended family, your neighbors, the guy who made your sandwich and all of your FaceBook friends. They are highly trained homicidal psychopaths who make our highly trained homicidal psychopaths in Law Enforcement look like two effiminate vegans fighting over a handbag.

They are playing for money. What is your motivation? They will risk their life just for the adrenaline flow, the big money and notoriety is merely a bonus. Do you really think they won't shoot back? That you won't get flanked outnumbered and outgunned? Do you really think that nice hunting rifle, or your most tricked-out M4gery compares to the automatic crew served weapons their money and contacts can buy? While someday you have to go back to your job, family and life - killing you would be their job, family and life.

It would literally be "you against the world". I don't like the odds.

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