MEXICO: Mexican traffickers tighten grip on drugs trade across continent

Ruthless Mexican gangs are grabbing control of the world's multi-billion dollar cocaine and crystal meth smuggling trade, sparking a vicious drug war across Mexico. Police helicopters buzz the marijuana plantations of Michoacan - part of the government's war on drugs. While Colombian cartels once were the undisputed kings of cocaine in the 1990s, Mexican gangs are now grabbing control of the multi-billion dollar cocaine and crystal meth smuggling trade. About 1,400 people have been murdered this year in Mexico in drug-related violence, but none of it has slowed the flow of drugs. U.S. agents say Mexico's cartels are the main traffickers in almost all regions of the United States and increasingly active at every stage of the international business. Several top Mexican traffickers have been arrested and extradited or killed in recent years and the government has deployed more than 20,000 troops this year to fight them. Violence increased with the extradition to the United States in January of Osiel Cardenas, head of the Gulf cartel which controls east coast smuggling routes. Human rights, politics and drugs expert, Jaime Olaiz, says the government needs to unify to beat the growing power of the drug cartels. "We are facing an effort by the government that is trying to confront organised crime and its relation with the market of narcotics in the country and abroad and this effort will not be sufficient or will not be properly achieved if it is not complemented by cooperation between various government entities," said Olaiz. The violence has even spread to affluent business areas and the beach resort of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero and beyond. General Jose Francisco Gallardo, who is a retired military expert in human rights against the intervention of the army in drug trafficking operatives, said that these actions could come at a high price for Mexican President Felipe Calderon. "These unilateral decisions that Presidents have taken, specifically President Felipe Calderon, will bring a lot of problems, prejudices and a high political cost for the president," said Gallardo. Recently, more than 200 million dollars were found in a Mansion in Mexico City, belonging to fugitive Chinese businessman, Ye Gon, who has been accused of money laundering, weapons possession and importing 19 tonnes of pseudoephedrine compound used to make methamphetamine. Mexicans have replaced outlawed motorcycle gangs as the main dealers in methamphetamine, or crystal meth, the drug of choice in many rural areas and small towns across America. Mexicans are also the main players in trafficking routes through Central America, flying planes up the Caribbean and Pacific coasts.

ITN Source | July 18, 2007

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