Thread: Bad Guys of the Week: A South-of-the-Border Quartet

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/badgu ... outhof.htm

Bad Guys of the Week: A South-of-the-Border Quartet
Is Mexico getting serious about cracking down on its out-of-control drug trade? Its new president, Felipe Calderón, may be the right guy at the right time. Along with dispatching military and elite police units to battle the gangs, last weekend his government–in an unprecedented move–extradited 15 of "the world's most violent and ruthless criminals," as U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration chief Karen Tandy put it.

Tandy isn't exaggerating, investigators tell me. The Mexican group includes some of the most notorious crime figures in the Western Hemisphere, they say, such as reputed leaders from that country's top four drug syndicates: the Juarez cartel, the Gulf cartel, the Federation, and the Arellano-Felix organization. These groups rank among the world's most capable criminal organizations. Together, they move most of the dope pouring into the United States–the world's largest market for illicit drugs–and it has made them rich, hyperviolent, and powerful. Mexican drug cartels smuggle nearly 90 percent of America's cocaine, along with much of its heroin and methamphetamine.

Give Calderón some credit. The man is not simply doing Washington's bidding; he's trying to save his own country. The drug trade's cost to Mexico has been huge, with thousands of deaths, mob rule, and massive corruption. One sign of the times: Last year, Mexico passed Colombia as the second-deadliest country for journalists, behind only Iraq.

How bad is it?

"In Mexico, journalists who cover the drug wars–wars, literally, between the state and the cartels and between the cartels themselves–have become expendable," writes my colleague Pedro Armendares, director of Mexico's Centro de Periodistas de Investigación (Center for Investigative Journalism). "There is total impunity for the attacks. Too many regular folks have come to regard the death or disappearance of a reporter who covers drug trafficking almost as a normal event, just one more statistic along with the number of bad guys captured or kilos of cocaine seized."

Here, then, are the Bad Guys of the Week:


Osiel Cardenas Guillen - reputed kingpin of Mexico's notorious Gulf cartel, based in the border city of Matamoros. Cardenas allegedly controls one of the top smuggling corridors and is blamed for much of the drug violence along the Southwest border. A former Mexican cop with a trademark gold-plated .45, Cardenas has run the gang from his Mexican jail cell, officials say. He now faces a federal indictment in Texas for marijuana smuggling and threatening to murder U.S. narcotics agents.



Gilberto and Ismael Higuera-Guerrero - top lieutenants, say the feds, of the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix organization, which has dumped tons of cocaine and other drugs onto American streets. Ultraviolent, blamed for scores of murders, medieval-like torture, and widespread corruption, the AFO was branded by U.S. Attorney Carol Lam "one of the deadliest drug organizations in history." The two brothers now face federal charges in California for racketeering, drug trafficking, and money laundering.


Hector Palma Salazar - alleged former boss of the Sinaloa cartel, aka the Federation, based on Mexico's Pacific coast. Salazar gained a reputation as one of the country's most violent crime bosses. Feuding between his organization and its rivals led to the 1993 death of Catholic Cardinal Juan Jesus Posadas-Ocampo at the Guadalajara airport. Palma is now under federal indictment for allegedly distributing over 10 kilos of cocaine in California.

Hey GGGGGGREAT to see this kind of stuff !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Once again explain why the U.S. gets stuck with Mexicos' garbage and problems such as THEIR drug kingpins? Now we will pay for their lawyers, court time and prison?