Mexico's Drug War: A Rigged Fight?

When President Felipe Calderon visits Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, Mexico's brutal drug war will be high on the agenda. Fighting among the cartels — and between government forces and the cartels — has cost nearly 24,000 Mexican lives since Calderon took office in late 2006.

The U.S. is giving $1.3 billion in military and judicial aid to Mexico to help Calderon's battle against the drug mafias. Mexico's drug cartels are the major foreign supplier of marijuana and methamphetamines to the United States, and Mexico is a main conduit for cocaine coming mainly from Colombia.

An NPR News investigation in Ciudad Juarez — ground zero of Calderon's cartel war — finds strong evidence that Mexico's drug fight is rigged, according to court testimony, current and former law enforcement officials, and an NPR analysis of cartel arrests.

In that border city, federal forces appear to be favoring one cartel, the Sinaloa (named after the coastal state in northwestern Mexico), which the U.S. Justice Department calls one of the largest organized crime syndicates in the world.


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