Mexico drug bosses may have set truce
According to news reports, trafficking chiefs in the state of Sinaloa agreed last month to curb their bloody rivalry. Killings there have declined sharply.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-narco-truce29-2009jan29,0,2106511.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico drug bosses may have set truce
According to news reports, trafficking chiefs in the state of Sinaloa agreed last month to curb their bloody rivalry. Killings there have declined sharply.
By Tracy Wilkinson

January 29, 2009

Reporting from Mexico City — Have some of Mexico's most notorious drug bosses declared a truce?

After a record year of bloodshed, killings have dropped by two-thirds from the December level in the state of Sinaloa, the historic center of Mexican drug trafficking, according to tallies kept by local and national news media.

Those reports have fueled speculation that leaders of the two biggest Sinaloan drug gangs, which have been locked in a fight for territorial control, reached an agreement in December to hold fire, after finding that the battle was sapping time, energy and money better spent on the drug business.

A truce would be welcome in Sinaloa, where ambushes, shootouts and kidnappings have occurred day and night. More than 120 people were killed in the state in December, according to Mexican news media; January looks set to end with about 40 deaths.

Riodoce, a respected weekly newspaper based in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa, first reported the potential truce earlier this month. Mexico's foremost investigative magazine, Proceso, published a similar account this week.

U.S. law enforcement officials said there was no evidence of a truce, though they acknowledged that it was a plausible tactic to free the drug-running business of disruptions. Mexican authorities said they were analyzing the reports, and that it was premature to judge their veracity.

Several officials and experts cautioned that any cease-fire could be fleeting. Killing continues in most of Mexico; even in Sinaloa last week, a top drug-gang lieutenant and alleged money launderer, Lamberto Verdugo Calderon, was killed in a gun battle.

"It's the kind of thing we will never really know if it was decreed or not," Sinaloa state legislator Yudit del Rincon said from Culiacan. "They heated up the ground to the point they couldn't work, and they ended up being the most affected."

The report in Riodoce, written by Javier Valdez, a veteran journalist who covers the drug war, said a truce was broached Dec. 11 in a secret meeting at a fancy seafood restaurant in Culiacan. A grenade attack on an army post the day before had brought thousands of troops into the streets of the nearby Sinaloan city of Navolato.

A few days later, a second meeting brought together top-level representatives of the so-called Sinaloa cartel, run by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, and the group commanded by the Beltran Leyva brothers, Riodoce reported. In this gathering, agreement was reached to halt gun battles and ambushes; contract killings already in the pipeline would be allowed to proceed; and the parties would review progress at the end of this week, according to Riodoce.

In addition to potential damage to their smuggling business, Guzman and other bosses were worried about lower-level henchmen branching out on their own, breaking the chain of command and making overtures to traffickers in Colombia and Argentina, Proceso reported.

Another motive behind any cessation of hostilities could be to ward off the army. President Felipe Calderon deployed 45,000 troops in several states, including Sinaloa, to fight traffickers and quell violence.

Riodoce reported that two of five army battalions stationed in Sinaloa were pulled out around the time of the alleged accord. A spokesman for the army in Mexico City declined to comment on the report.

This would not be the first time drug lords brokered an arrangement. In 2007, Guzman's Sinaloa organization agreed to split up territory with the rival Gulf cartel. The deal collapsed, and fighting between the two enemies was part of the driving force behind last year's bloody toll.

Luis Astorga, preeminent historian of narco-trafficking in Mexico and a native of Sinaloa, said that rather than a peace treaty, there might have been a business-motivated "reconciliation" between Guzman's forces and the followers of the Beltran Leyvas. The two factions were united as recently as last spring but divided bitterly and turned on each other. Given that history, any agreement now would be fragile. But Sinaloans are eager to believe in a real truce, Astorga said.

"Sinaloans are in love with the mythology of the narcos," he said.

"The weaknesses of the state are obvious to them, so rumors fly and they want to believe it.

"Logic, however, tells you: Wait and see."

wilkinson@latimes.com

Cecilia Sánchez of The Times' Mexico City Bureau contributed to this report.

LATIMES.COM /SIEGE


Previous coverage of Mexico's drug war is available online.

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options


Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Home Delivery | Advertise | Archives | Contact | Site Map | Help

partners:  

br />














:  

Mexico army nabs vats-of-lye suspect
The man arrested in Baja California is said to have dissolved hundreds of bodies as part of Tijuana's drug turf war.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-tijuana-drugs24-2009jan24,0,3280419.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE
Mexico army nabs vats-of-lye suspect
The man arrested in Baja California is said to have dissolved hundreds of bodies as part of Tijuana's drug turf war.
By Richard Marosi

January 24, 2009

Reporting from San Diego — A suspected hit man who allegedly dumped more than 300 bodies in vats of lye at the behest of a top Tijuana crime boss has been arrested near Ensenada, according to the Mexican military.

Alleged crime boss Teodoro Garcia Simental, nicknamed El Teo, narrowly escaped after soldiers on Thursday raided an upscale resort outside the Baja California port city 70 miles south of San Diego, according to one Mexican news report.

The military said Santiago Meza Lopez, a 45-year-old from the state of Sinaloa, was arrested after allegedly trying to flee from soldiers and federal agents on the Ensenada- Tijuana coastal highway. Soldiers also arrested Garcia's cook and seized four automatic weapons and two grenades.

Military authorities said Meza admitted being Garcia's body disposal expert, nicknamed "El Pozolero del Teo" -- roughly translated: Teo's soup maker.

Garcia, said to be in his mid-30s, is believed to be battling the Arellano Felix drug cartel for control of the Tijuana area in a turf war that has claimed more than 500 lives since late September. Many of the disintegrated remains left in barrels on busy streets have been attributed to El Teo, and have included messages addressed to reputed rivals threatening to make their henchmen into pozole, a Mexican soup.

In an interview last week, Tijuana's top military commander, Gen. Alfonso Duarte Mugica, said Garcia's capture was one of his top goals. The military's efforts have been stymied by Garcia's network of police informants, who keep track of the military's movements.

"It's been difficult," Duarte said. "But it's not impossible. It's just a matter of time and better intelligence."

richard.marosi@latimes.com

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Home Delivery | Advertise | Archives | Contact | Site Map | Help

partners:  

br />














:  

A long driveway leads to an expensive home in Covina where two Mexican federal agents were arrested in July, along with two others.

Covina arrests mystify a neighborhood
After two Mexican federal agents and two others were arrested in July on drug-related charges, little has emerged about the case and residents are puzzled.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography ..."


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-drugbust2-2009jan02,0,5056633.story
From the Los Angeles Times

MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Covina arrests mystify a neighborhood
After two Mexican federal agents and two others were arrested in July on drug-related charges, little has emerged about the case and residents are puzzled.

By Paul Pringle

January 2, 2009

The residents of North Monte Verde Drive, a stretch of oak-shaded suburban calm in the Covina area, normally would feel safe knowing that two off-duty police officers were visiting the neighborhood.

Not this time. These officers were far from home -- agents of the Mexican federal police -- and they ended up on the wrong side of a bust, with a fortune in cash that prosecutors say was tied to narcotics trafficking.

The raid in July raised the specter that the often-brutal workings of the Mexican drug trade have reached deep into Southern California. But five months later, the fuller background of the case remains a mystery.

"We all just sort of went, 'Yikes!' " Susan Wood, a longtime Monte Verde resident, said of the possible link between her neighborhood and the mayhem a country away. "This isn't a drug-trafficky area at all."

No connections to Mexican drug syndicates have been alleged in the Covina case, and defense attorneys say there are none. But speculation has been fueled by the fact that authorities have been unusually tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the arrests and the direction of their investigation.

One of the Mexican suspects, a federal police commander based in the border city of Mexicali, is believed to have been the target of an assassination attempt there last summer, when gunmen shot up his car and killed two of his aides.

The commander, Carlos Cedano Filippini, 35, was not in the vehicle at the time. Mexican media reported that Cedano abandoned his job after the shooting.

He was the second Mexican federal officer arrested in a Southern California drug probe in three weeks. Earlier in July, agents from the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement arrested Omar Lugo and another man in Riverside County on suspicion of transporting 154 pounds of cocaine in their car. A judge later ordered the two suspects released, ruling in favor of defense attorneys who said officers had lacked probable cause to search the car, said Orlando Lopez, a special agent in charge for the bureau. That ruling is under appeal and an investigation is continuing, Lopez said.

Narcotics-related violence in Mexico claimed more than 5,000 lives last year, as rival drug cartels battle over smuggling routes and beleaguered government forces press a crackdown. The spoils of the carnage are narcotics bound for the United States -- Southern California is a top trans-shipment point -- but there have been few outward signs here of cartel operations and attendant bloodshed.

Like Wood, other Monte Verde residents said they know nothing about the case beyond what they had learned in news reports, and very little about the occupants of the spacious home where the Mexicans were taken into custody. Some residents were fearful of being quoted by name.

"It's like a TV show," a neighbor said of the case.

Arrested along with the agents were two U.S. citizens, siblings Hector and Julissa Lopez. Their parents, who live in the 4,800-square-foot house at the end of a long driveway, have not been implicated, authorities say.

Julissa Lopez, 36, is the common-law wife of Cedano, the commander from Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency, that nation's equivalent of the FBI. Also charged is one of Cedano's officers, Victor M. Juarez, 36.

The four have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court on charges of possessing more than $630,000 as part of an alleged drug transaction. If convicted, they face a maximum of four years in prison.

A stakeout team of narcotics investigators stormed the house and spotted the defendants walking out of a bedroom, according to prosecutors. Seized along with the suitcase full of cash were a money-counting machine, other bundles of currency, heat-sealable packets for the bills, and lists of payments and debts for narcotics, authorities say. Defense attorneys have said the lists were innocent jottings of family activities.

No drugs were found, but a police dog trained to sniff out narcotics residue showed a positive response to the suitcase and to other items in the bedroom, investigators say.

A preliminary hearing provided scant insight into the probe, with testimony focusing mainly on details of the surveillance and search of the house.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Oscar Plascencia, who is prosecuting the case, declined to comment, as did officials of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the Los Angeles Police Department, which are conducting the investigation. Shortly after the arrests, a DEA spokeswoman said the stakeout team had not expected to encounter Mexican agents at the house, but she did not elaborate.

Mexican authorities did not return phone calls.

The court record already could fill a wheelbarrow. Defense attorneys have filed lengthy motions seeking to dismiss the charges on grounds that there was no probable cause to believe a crime had been committed. They also challenged the bail amounts -- originally $2 million -- and got them reduced.

In addition, the defense has filed a writ with the state appeals court asking that the case be thrown out because investigators have refused to answer questions about what led them to the house and why they had concluded that drug dealing was involved.

"Their case is based on guesswork, not evidence," said Mark Werksman, an attorney for Julissa Lopez. "All they've got is a bunch of money. They're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill."

Investigators say they saw Hector Lopez and Juarez arrive at the home with bags of what appeared to be bricks of drugs or cash.

Later, they say, they stopped a woman who drove away from the house with a suspicious parcel -- she has not been charged -- and they discovered that it contained only meat, which Werksman said was for a restaurant the Lopez family owns. The investigators say they then entered the house to make the arrests.

To date, Hector Lopez, 33, is the lone defendant to be released on bail. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful, and his attorney did not return calls.

A friend of Julissa Lopez, Heidy Gallegos, submitted a letter to the court as a character reference. In an interview, she said Lopez's arrest was "very shocking. . . . It's scary."

Gallegos, a nurse, said she did not believe Lopez could do anything illegal. She said Lopez helped out at her father's tire business but otherwise spent all of her time with the three children she has with Cedano.

"She's your typical soccer mom -- very loving. Her priority is her kids," said Gallegos, adding that she met Lopez when she was her patient more than a year ago.

Lopez would talk about the strain of having a husband who worked across the border, Gallegos recounted.

"All she would tell me is that she would miss him, because he had to travel back and forth with his job," Gallegos said. "I remember the kids saying how much they missed their dad, how much they loved their dad."

Gallegos also recalled the day that Lopez told her about the attempt on Cedano's life: "I thought, 'Wow!' I was amazed."

An attorney for Cedano has said his client had to flee to the United States to escape the would-be assassins. It is not clear what prompted the shooting in Mexicali.

Neighbors on Monte Verde, which runs along the Covina-West Covina line, told of having no inkling of trouble at the Lopez home, whose wrought-iron driveway gate has been adorned with Christmas decorations.

"Everybody was surprised," said one neighbor who resides on the same side of the street, where old horse corrals share sprawling lots with newer homes. "We have no problems here."

Virginia Yeager lives in a house that her husband's family built in 1932. She said the neighborhood had changed a lot over the decades, with newcomers from Latin America and Asia moving in. She said burglaries are a worry, but there has been nothing to suggest the faintest echo of a distant drug war.

"I haven't heard about that up here," Yeager said. "You just kind of keep in your own little enclave."

paul.pringle@latimes.com

LATIMES.COM /SIEGE
Previous coverage of Mexico's drug war is available online.

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options

Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Home Delivery | Advertise | Archives | Contact | Site Map | Help

partners:  

br />














:  

Strategies for Mexico's drug war
Experts and public figures in the U.S. and Latin America offer a range of views, from stepped-up policing to legalization.

Competing Mexican drug cartels are destroying each other ... and that's where 'Warrior' begins ...."
http://www.warriorthemovie.com
http://www.warriorthemovie.blogspot.com
http://imdb.com/title/tt0320751

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-208917617001990565&q=warrior+mexican+OR+drug+OR+cartels+duration%3Ashort+genre%3AMOVIE_TRAILER

"the action adventure fantasy feature film "Warrior" ... about the son of a divine force ... is a story of a young man's quest to find his true identity set against the twin backdrops of Native American folklore and the treacherous Mexican drug trade and a portrayal of the classic confrontation between "good and evil" ... filmed in the exotic jungles of Costa Azul in the State of Nayarit and the urban grit of Puerto Vallarta in the State of Jalisco, Mexico .. with action, adventure, romance, comedy, a multi-ethnic cast, a major movie studio music score and spectacular cinematography ..."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-drugwarsolution30-2008dec30,0,5793756.story
From the Los Angeles Times
MEXICO UNDER SIEGE

Strategies for Mexico's drug war
Experts and public figures in the U.S. and Latin America offer a range of views, from stepped-up policing to legalization.

December 30, 2008

At times, the fight against drug trafficking in Mexico seems hopeless. The body count grows steadily, each massacre seemingly more gruesome than the one before. The flow of drugs to America and Europe continues virtually unabated. The Times asked experts and public figures in the U.S., Mexico and other parts of Latin America for their views on the problem and what should be done about it. The comments, compiled by Mexico City Bureau Chief Tracy Wilkinson, have been edited for space or clarity.

Fernando Rospigliosi

Former interior minister of Peru

The U.S. approach to fighting drugs is, I think, the only program that works. The problem, however, is that the United States is pulling back.

How can we have success in this fight? Within the National Police of Peru, I know there are specialized people. They could begin capturing entire bands of traffickers. You must attack on all fronts. It is police work, judicial work; you have to be well equipped and, unfortunately, we aren't.

The narco-trafficking problem in Peru has gotten worse in all aspects: the production of cocaine, violence and the corruption that comes from that. One of the aggravating factors was the launching of the [U.S.-financed] Plan Colombia, which started to work in the last decade and that has unleashed greater demand for Peruvian coca and cocaine. In addition, you have the increasingly strong entrance of Mexican cartels into Peru, and they have brought a kind of violence never before seen here.

The state attaches very little importance to this fight. There was no political will in the previous government nor in the current one, for various reasons, including fear and the scourge of corruption that reaches the highest levels. What does the state do? Small arrests, small seizures, but there is no defined, broad policy for confronting the problem.

-- From an interview with special correspondent Adriana Leon

***

Sergio Fajardo

Former mayor of Medellin, Colombia, a onetime drug- trafficking hub where violence has been reduced significantly

Colombia's experience is that you get rid of some narcos and others come in and take their place. Their weapons are destruction, death and the ability to corrupt many facets of the state. You can't leave the slightest space in our cities or legitimate society for them to occupy. That's very important.

The doors into the drug world are very wide for the unemployed and the youth living in the poor barrios. You have to close or reduce the size of that doorway. How do you do that? With opportunities, creating jobs in those barrios with education and by establishing the state's presence in each community. We learned that many who entered criminality because they had no opportunity will return to society if they can go to work.

From a distance, it seems to me that Mexico will pass through a painful stage. There is much ground left for them to cover. My advice is that the government should not wait until they win the war to look at what they can do in the communities that produce these people. They should be thinking about the poor boy standing on a street corner, looking at that narco doorway and thinking about entering.

-- From an interview with Times staff writer Chris Kraul

***

Maria Elena Morera

President of Mexico United Against Crime. Her husband survived a kidnapping, but his captors severed three of his fingers to pressure the family for ransom.

We have been stripped of our freedom to live without fear, stripped by the criminal action of lawbreakers and by the omissions of the authorities. The moment has arrived to cry out: Enough already! Our demands can be summed up in one phrase: to have good laws and make those laws obeyed by reconstructing our institutions:

1. A true national crime prevention policy that contains programs, city by city, that diagnose the problems and set forth remedies with time limits and budgets.

2. A unified national criminal database that uses top technology to collect, analyze and exploit information on crimes and criminals throughout the country.

3. Reconstruct federal, municipal and state police forces.

4. Reform the penal justice system. We want to unify the penal code so that all crimes are punished and pursued in the same way in all the country.

5. We want a national strategy against kidnapping, which should include the following points: fortifying kidnap investigation units at the federal level, and the state prosecutors at all levels; swifter prosecution, because slow justice is no justice; monitoring of convicted or accused kidnappers in prison; better tracking of cellphone use to pinpoint locations of users and their identities; empower authorities to confiscate assets of alleged criminals and break their financial structures; establish a national registry based on fingerprints of all people residing in Mexico; creation of a citizen watchdog, who has authority to denounce corrupt and inefficient officials.

-- From a speech this year

***

Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera

Roman Catholic archbishop of Mexico

To be a witness, like John the Baptist, is not easy. It can cost you your life, as it did him. "But we must obey God before obeying men." With this freedom, the first Christians spoke to their society and to the judges who imposed silence on them. In our circumstances today, the difficulties are truly enormous in attempting to fight narcotics trafficking, violence, injustice, the attacks on human life, and then to build peace.

The powers that have been implicated in these grave problems, as well as the feelings of rancor, confrontation and vengeance that the problems provoke, make finding a solution an arduous, urgent task. To remove people and human groups from confrontation and from violence requires dialogue that is respectful, loyal and free. It is the most dignified and recommendable form to overcome these difficulties of human coexistence. Those who are taking other paths are headed down the wrong road, and are mortgaging the future of our nation.

There are other routes to take to diminish violence in our country. It precisely does not involve making deals with criminals so that they can continue with their criminal conduct. For not one second would I allow that pacts be made with organized crime. You cannot make deals with evil. You cannot make deals with those who will use violence. Mexico will get out of this reality, but at the present moment we only see criminality growing. These moneys [from traffickers and other illicit sources] must not be allowed to enter the dynamic of power, because then we would have a state within a state.

-- Homily and Christmas message

***

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu

Mexican film director ("Babel," "21 Grams" and "Amores Perros")

I have always thought that the only possible way to eradicate this plague is to legalize drugs. While the United States keeps consuming these amounts of drugs and selling guns the way it does, there's no way our country will win this war.

Once the tons of drugs cross the border into the U.S., there has to be a huge web of people involved in distributing and selling all these drugs. Where are these people? Who are they? Where are these "American cartels" and their leaders?

The economic and gun power of the cartels has corrupted the entire Mexican country. Like humidity, it has permeated every level, and the economic benefits of it are so strong that it has become a national income. The war is lost. To legalize drugs would bring another set of problems, but at least those will be more transparent.

-- From an interview with Times staff writer Reed Johnson

***

Terry Nelson

Federal agent for 30 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, the Customs Service and the Department of Homeland Security

Busting top traffickers doesn't work, since others just do battle to replace them. Despite the obvious failure of our drug control strategy, the public discourse surrounding this issue has focused primarily on continuing to wage the "drug war."

Mandatory prison sentences and interdiction efforts have very little effect on drug use. This year the World Health Organization found that the U.S. has the highest marijuana and cocaine use rates on the planet, despite having some of the harshest sentences.

We won't be able to expand treatment and prevention efforts until we stop spending so much money enforcing ineffective penalties, building new prisons and buying fancy cars and helicopters for law enforcement agencies. As we begin to treat problematic drug use as a public health issue, it will become much easier to prevent the death, disease and addiction that have expanded under the criminal justice mentality of prohibition.

But even with the best public health efforts, there will always be some who want to use drugs, and, as long as drugs are illegal, many willing to risk imprisonment or death to make huge profits supplying them. My years of experience as a federal agent tell me that legalizing and effectively regulating drugs will stop drug market crime and violence by putting major cartels and gangs out of business.

The Department of Justice reported [this month] that Mexican cartels are America's "greatest organized crime threat" because they "control drug distribution in most U.S. cities." If what we've been doing worked at all, we wouldn't be battling Mexican drug dealers in our own cities or anywhere else. There's one surefire way to bankrupt them, but when will our leaders talk about it?

-- Written comments submitted to The Times

If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.

Article licensing and reprint options


Copyright 2008 Los Angeles Times | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service
Home Delivery | Advertise | Archives | Contact | Site Map | Help

partners:

br />