Federal seizures of synthetic drugs like meth and fentanyl are rising in Mexico, according to seizure figures published on Monday by the country’s Defense Department.
Fentanyl is a highly addictive and deadly drug of which just a 2-milligram dose can prove fatal. Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that affects the central nervous system. The majority of meth in the United States is currently produced by cartels in Mexico.
Tulum, jewel of the Mayan Riviera, risks emulating Acapulco, another once glamorous resort now overwhelmed by violence
Bright yellow police tape fluttered in the breeze outside a restaurant just off the main strip in the Mexican resort town of Tulum, as the lights of a nearby police truck flashed blue and red.
Troops in camouflage fatigues stood guard outside the deserted late-night eatery La Malquerida, “The Unloved” – the site of a gangland shooting that killed two female tourists and wounded another three holidaymakers.
Mexico is a Narco-State. They are a trading partner. What is to be done?
Narco gangs have upped the propaganda stakes
In nobler times, there wasn’t just honour among thieves; besuited gangsters, freedom-fighting terrorists and even invading fascist armies would give the citizens of a town or city fair warning before they started maiming, bombing and wiping out the local population. Old-school villains and ageing counter-terrorism experts I know often speak of “putting the frighteners” on extortion victims or receiving “coded” telephone calls from the IRA: failure to comply meant “we’d have to break something” or worse.
The directive for Drug Enforcement Administration officials to not use the term “Mexican cartel” came directly from the Biden administration to ease relations with the Mexican government, two recently retired DEA officials told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The DCNF exclusively obtained an email in August that instructed DEA officials to “now avoid saying ‘Mexican cartel’” when speaking with the media. The email was sent as drugs continued to surge across the U.S.-Mexico border.
A small squad of soldiers with about a half-dozen trucks and sandbag emplacements stands guard on a rural highway in western Mexico. In one direction, almost within earshot, one drug cartel operates a roadblock extorting farmers. In the other direction, a rival cartel carries out armed patrols in trucks bearing its initials.
The Mexican army has largely stopped fighting drug cartels here, instead soldiers guard the dividing lines between gang territories so they won’t invade each other’s turf – and turn a blind eye to the cartels’ illegal activities just a few hundred yards away.
At the first roadblock, set up by the Viagras gang that has long dominated the state of Michoacán, a truck stands parked across the highway and stacked sandbags protect cartel gunmen.
Fifty years ago, Cancún was little more than a hurricane-battered fishing outpost, but it mushroomed into a tourist mecca thanks to massive government investment – and by the 1980s it was firmly established as the crown jewel of Mexico’s tourist industry.
Millions of tourists from around the world descend annually on the destination and the Riviera Maya, which unfolds to the south.
But success has brought other, less welcome visitors, too. Criminal groups run extortion rackets and peddle drugs. And its location on the eastern side of the Yucatán peninsula makes an ideal way station for drug runners moving cocaine out of Central and South America.
I have never held a desire to visit the narco-state.
Smuggling migrants into the U.S. earns cartels and others involved in the practice as much as $6 billion a year, a senior Homeland Security official told Congress.
That staggering figure is much higher than other public estimates, though experts said they wouldn’t be surprised if the actual amount were higher still.
MEXICO CITY, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Mexico sued several gun makers in a U.S. federal court on Wednesday, accusing them of negligent business practices that generated illegal arms trafficking which led to deaths in Mexico.
The lawsuit alleges that units of Smith & Wesson(SWBI.O); Barrett Firearms; Colt’s Manufacturing Company; Glock Inc; Sturm, Ruger & Co Inc and others knew their business practices generated illegal arms trafficking in Mexico.
The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
MEXICO CITY—As many as 50 people are missing after setting out on three-hour car trips this year between Mexico’s industrial hub of Monterrey and the border city of Nuevo Laredo on a well-traveled stretch of road local media have dubbed “the highway of death.”
Relatives say family members simply vanished. The disappearances, and last week’s shooting of 15 apparently innocent bystanders in Reynosa, suggest Mexico is returning to the dark days of the 2006-2012 drug war when cartel gunmen often targeted the general public as well as one another.
Fear has invaded the Mexican border city of Reynosa after gunmen in vehicles killed 14 people, including taxis drivers, workers and a nursing student, and security forces responded with operations that left four suspects dead.
This city across the border from McAllen, Texas, is a key trafficking point, and has long been accustomed to cartel violence. But the 14 victims in Saturday’s attacks appeared to be what the Tamaulipas governor, Francisco García Cabeza de Vaca, called “innocent citizens”.
Over 85 political candidates have been murdered as Mexico gears up to one of its biggest elections ever. Conditions are particularly dangerous for those running for mayor.
“Today is a special day,” said Alma Barragan with excitement in a video she shared with her supporters. The video extended an invitation to a campaign event in the city of Moroleon in central Mexico on Tuesday. It was to be the 61-year-old mayoral candidate’s last video. She was shot dead the same day, in broad daylight.
Legislative, gubernatorial and local elections are all taking place on June 6 in one of the biggest elections Mexico has witnessed. According to the consulting firm Etellekt, Barragan was the 88th candidate to have been murdered this electoral season.
Mexican cartels are trafficking deadly narcotics into the United States with impunity, a top Drug Enforcement Administration official said on Monday.
Cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities to target cartels has deteriorated amid a surge of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Matthew Donahue, the DEA deputy chief of operations, told NPR. Donahue said Mexican law enforcement have cut off ties with the DEA, fearing punishment from the Mexican government if they cooperate with the U.S. agency—a breakdown that has helped cartels smuggle fentanyl and methamphetamines into the United States.
Christopher Landau, U.S. ambassador to Mexico during the Trump administration, said during a roundtable event with former diplomats last week that drug cartels control between 35 and 40 percent of Mexican territory.
“I think there is no doubt that they play a broad role in the governance of Mexico,” Landau said.
Thirteen Mexican police officers and investigators have been killed in an ambush as they travelled through a rural region – marking the latest attack on law enforcement by brazen criminal groups.
Eight state police officers and five members of the state’s investigative police force died in the ambush in the municipality of Coatepec Harinas, 125km (78 miles) south-west of Mexico City in Mexico state on Thursday afternoon, according to officials.
Here is the answer: Law enforcement corruption. The question? Why are we continuing to fight and lose the “War on Drugs,” proclaimed by President Nixon, almost fifty years ago, in June 1971?
Think about the U.S. forces arrayed against Mexican drug cartels: DEA, FBI, Homeland Security, state police forces, county sheriffs, municipal police forces, even the postal service. We have established High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area task forces with their own regional fusion centers.
The United States is incapable of defeating Mexican cartels? We can transport armored and special operations forces halfway around the world to the Middle East and Southwest Asia, and defeat both conventional and irregular military forces — but we cannot secure our southern border and stop the poisoning of our own population?
