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Home , 2009 in Mexico, Guadalajara Cartel, Mexican Army, Mexican Navy

Tomas Kellner and Francesco Pipitone are senior directors of Kroll Associates.

Inside ’s Drug War Tomas Kellner and Francesco Pipitone

AGUASCALIENTES, Mexico—Just before state’s rocky plateaus, involving some five noon on February 15, 2007, four municipal dozen federal police patrol cars and a mili - police officers in , the pictur - tary helicopter. Later that day, with the esque capital of the central Mexican state gunmen and the drivers of the escape vehi - bearing the same name, were called to a cles captured and in police custody, Aguas - mundane road accident. An overturned, calientes State Attorney Xavier González black Chevy Suburban with out-of-state Fisher tried to reassure the rattled public. license plates was blocking traffic on the He told the media that the burst of violence quiet Boulevard John Paul II that runs was an isolated incident. “Aguascalientes is through the city’s sleepy western suburbs. quiet, is at peace...this does not happen When local police commander Juan José every day.” For a long time, his words Navarro Rincón and his three colleagues ar - might have served as an accurate description rived, they saw two men who did not appear of the state of affairs in Aguascalientes. But to be hurt, removing AK-47 assault rifles the incident was a telltale mark that the and police uniforms from the crashed vehi - bloody, corrosive nexus of drugs, crime, and cle to a white Nissan sport utility vehicle corruption growing malignantly along the (SUV ) parked nearby. Navarro Rincón called Mexico-U.S. border has metastasized to re - for reinforcements. He was about to arrest gions previously immune to this cancer . the pair when two other cars came to an abrupt stop just up the road. Three gunmen Moving Northward climbed out and opened fire with automatic In some respects, the Mexican problem is weapons. Navarro Rincón was killed in - the result of ’s successful war on stantly. Three other officers also died. the Cali and Medellín drug cartels in the The killings, dubbed “Black Thursday” . Pablo Escobar Gaviria, the notorious by the local press, were the first shootings of leader of the Medellín Cartel, was gunned police officers in Aguascalientes by drug down by police commandos in 1993. Broth - gangs. Until then, Aguascalientes had been ers Gilberto and Miguel Rodriguez Ore - a quiet place, immune to the violence that juela, who formed and ran the , was raging in cities along the U.S.-Mexico were captured in 1995, and later extradited border and elsewhere in the country. The to the to serve 30-year prison firefight sparked a manhunt throughout the sentences. Although the Cali and Medellín

© 2010 World Policy Institute 29 cartels continued to operate, the removal of United States,” McCaffrey observed. This their leaders weakened them and created an also ended the Colombians’ monopoly and opening for Mexican set the stage for the war that followed. groups, such as the Cartel led As the Mexican cartels expanded their by Miguel “El Pardino” (“the Godfather”) control over the drug supply chain, revenues Ángel Félix Gallardo and his successors , to exploded. There are no precise historical seize control of the lucrative North Ameri - figures describing the size of the business. can drug trade. But, by any account, there was an enormous The and similar amount of money to be made. In 2002, for - groups had traditionally moved the Colom - mer U.S. Attorney John Ashcroft bian drugs north. Félix Gallardo cultivated described the size of the U.S. drug market, friendships with politicians, businessmen , reporting that Americans spent $62.9 and journalists, as well as with other drug billion on drugs in 2000. More than half lords. Distributing power and spoils, he ($36.1 billion ), was spent on — built a nationwide trafficking network of which an estimated 90 percent transits whose members rarely resorted to violence. through Mexico. In 2009, the U.S. National Under Félix Gallardo’s system, territories Drug Intelligence Center estimated that were carved out for local chieftains, and Mexican and Colombian drug trafficking whenever another group needed access to organizations generated somewhere in the his region, a tribute was paid. Though he range of $17 billion to $38 billion annually was captured by the Mexican government in in gross wholesale proceeds from drug sales 1989, Félix Gallardo remained in charge, in the United States. By comparison, orchestrating meetings and dividing territo - Google’s worldwide revenue in 2009 was ry from prison. It was ultimately a failing $23.6 billion. effort. With the Guadalajara Cartel’s ring - As earnings shot up, so did violence. leader locked up and the Colombians under Starting in the mid-1990s, drug gangs in attack, others started developing their own Mexico grew more independent and began drug operations from scratch—covering fighting for more control and larger territo - transportation, warehousing, and, eventual - ries. A decades-long war, which has claimed ly, the sale of the product itself . some 20,000 lives so far, broke out between Barry R. McCaffrey, former director of Félix Gallardo’s , Joaquín “El the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Chapo” (“Shorty”) Guzmán, currently Mexi - Policy, testified before the Senate that the co’s most wanted person, and rival drug “Colombians paid the Mexican trafficking lords. Gone was Félix Gallardo’s divide-and- organizations $1,500 to $2,000 for each conquer approach, replaced by intimidation, kilogram of cocaine smuggled to the United brazen violence, and the executions of offi - States.” But during the 1990s, as a more cials and anyone else who dared stand in the chaotic arrangement began to take shape, way . By 200 4, the war had reached a sim - the Colombian and Mexican trafficking mer: the first mass graves started to appear groups established a new deal allowing in Mexico, and newspapers carried accounts the to receive a percentage of the of gruesome killings involving beheadings cocaine in each shipment as payment for and acid. In the border town of Nuevo Lare - their transportation services. “This ‘pay - do, more than 100 people were murdered ment-in-product’ agreement enabled Mexi - from January to August, 2005. can organizations to become involved in President had taken a rela - the wholesale distribution of cocaine in the tively soft approach to combating the vio -

30 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 ©Associated Press

Another one bites the dust. lence, but all that changed when President of the players today. The Mexican Felipe Calderón took office on December 1, drug wars have seen the rise of two domi - 2006 . Within weeks, some 6,500 troops nant cartels, which have elevated indiscrimi - were dispatched to the state of Michoacán nate violence and coercion to levels previ - (along the country’s mid-Pacific coast) to ously unimaginable. The gang is the curtail drug violence. It was of little avail. country’s largest cartel, based on the volume McCaffrey testified in 2009 that “squad- of drugs it moves. It grew out of the coastal sized units of the police and [Mexican] state of Sinaloa, once known for its poppy have been tortured, murdered, and their de - fields and opium gum produced by Chinese capitated bodies publicly left on display.” immigrants. Now it is produced by hun - Media accounts appeared describing in - dreds of thousands of Mexican campesinos . stances where the police auctioned their The operates up Mexico’s loyalty to the highest bidder. Today, some Pacific coast and along the U.S. border— 45,000 Mexican troops—about a quarter of from in the west, to Ciudad Juárez the standing army—are engaged in a do - and Nuevo Laredo in the east. Since a differ - mestic war with drug cartels, which shows ent chief, or capo (the Mexican cartels have no signs of abating anytime soon . adopted the same terminology as their mafia counterparts ), controls each territory, Rise of the New Cartels the Sinaloa Cartel has also become known Amid such seemingly indiscriminate as “The Federation.” But at the top of the violence, it’s critical to understand who is chain sits Félix Gallardo’s former lieutenant, fighting whom, and to have a little history “El Chapo” Guzmán ; Forbes magazine esti -

Inside Mexico’s Drug War 31 mates his wealth at $1 billion. The U.S. Today, it is not clear who runs the Gulf government is offering a $5 million reward Cartel; but appears to play an im - for his capture. portant role. Though most experts seem to The second group is the , ascribe a unique decentralized structure to founded in the in the northeastern the cartel, in 2009, the U.S. Department of border state of , along the Gulf the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Con - of Mexico. The Gulf Cartel grew dramati - trol named Cárdenas Guillén’s brother, Eze - cally during the chaos of the early 1990s, quiel “Tony Tormenta” Cárdenas Guillén, expanding its territory and moving from and Jorge Eduardo “El Coss” Costilla drug trafficking into direct sales, while en - Sánchez as the nominal leaders. gaging in a host of other nefarious rackets. Much of the current violence in Mexico The growth inevitably brought them into can be attributed to a war raging between conflict with “El Chapo” Guzmán and the the Sinaloa Cartel and Los Zetas , among oth - Sinaloa Cartel. But while the Sinaloa Cartel er smaller participants. The war erupted in tried to maintain the veneer of a legitimate 2003 over control of the city of Nuevo Lare - business enterprise, the Gulf Cartel bur - do, the home of Los Zetas and the country’s nished a bloody, violent image. largest inland port, just across the Rio At its core was Los Zetas , originally a Grande from . It provoked a wave of small group of deserters from the Mexican violence that is still cresting today. As the Special Forces , hired in 2000 by the Gulf war ticked up in intensity, powerful groups Cartel’s former leader, Osiel Cárdenas Guil - pacified by “El Chapo” Guzmán, such as the lén, to serve as his bodyguards. But Los Tijuana and Juárez Cartels, re-emerged Zetas was not content to run merely security . along the U.S.-Mexican border. The truce Following the capture of Cárdenas Guillén between the Sinaloa and Juárez was shat - in 2003 by Mexican authorities (sentenced tered when Rodolfo Carrillo Fuentés , a to 25 years in prison by a U.S. federal court Juárez leader, was gunned down in the city in Feburary 2010), Los Zetas started to of Culiacán, in Guzmán’s home state of branch off from the cartel and began inde - Sinaloa in 2004. pendently building capacity in the drug Perhaps the most ominous rift was the trade and violent crime in general, engaging departure of Arturo “El Barbas” Beltrán in kidnapping, extortion, and killings. Leyva and his brothers, former allies of In a short time, it had evolved into an Guzmán, from under the Sinaloa umbrella. armed group with some 1,200 members, They allied themselves with Los Zetas with both men and women, capable of deploying the idea of forming a new cartel. Matters es - significant fighting forces across Mexico. A calated when Alfredo “El Mochomo” (“Red 2008 government raid on the Gulf Cartel Ant”) Beltrán Leyva was arrested in 2008. seized a cache of anti-armor weapons, cluster The Beltrán Leyva family blamed the grenades, anti-aircraft missiles, armored Sinaloa Cartel and reportedly ordered the , and even chemical protective killing of Guzmán’s 22-year old son , Édgar suits. Los Zeta s has also developed ties with Guzmán López , in a Culiacán shopping American and other foreign criminal and mall. And the seemingly endless cycle of vi - paramilitary groups. According to the U.S. olence continues unabated. No one is keep - Federal Bureau of Investigation , Los Zetas ing an official score, but according to the is now connected to U.S. gangs and has a prominent Mexican newspaper Reforma , presence in Dallas, Houston, and other there were 6,587 drug-related murders in American cities. , up from 5,207 in 2008 and

32 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 2,275 in 2007. During January and Febru - Texas Instruments. Its colonial heritage, ary 2010, there were more than 1,500 exe - baroque-inspired architecture, and prodi - cutions according to Reforma . At this pace, gious hot springs made it a tourist magnet. Mexico may end this year with 9,000 drug- It did not last. Eventually, the drug related murders. gangs arrived in Aguascalientes, attracted Indeed, the question lingers: just who is by its tranquility and promise of a good in charge across broad stretches of Mexico ? place to hide. While most of the rest of the On December 16, 2009, spe - country was already staked out by warring cial forces killed “El Barbas” Beltrán Leyva drug gangs, Aguascalientes was still up for in a raid. Though apparently a big law grabs. The local police were ill -prepared for enforcement success, the aftermath high - what came next. lighted Los Zetas’ loyalty, brazenness, and Los Zetas arrived in Aguascalientes and brutality—and the difficulty of curtailing plunged the city into violence with alarm - the ability of drug gangs to wage this war. The Navy lost one man , Ensign Gunmen wen ttoth e hom eofthe Melquisedet Ángulo grieving family , killing th e hero’s Córdova, in the raid on “ Beltrán Leyva. President mother, two sisters, brother , and Calderón hailed Ángulo Córdova as a hero and gave aunt as they slept. him a state funeral. But hours after he was laid to rest, gunmen went ing speed. By Aug”ust 2007, six months af - to his grieving family’s home , killing his ter “Black Thursday,” 11 Aguascalientes po - mother, two sisters, brother , and aunt as lice officers had been murdered. One of the they slept. Only one sister survived the victims was a deputy police chief who was attack. shot, execution style, in the nearby town of Pabellón de Arteaga while he was eating in Takeover of a Town a restaurant. After the attack, Mexican me - Until Black Thursday, Aguascalientes was dia speculated that he was killed in reprisal immune to such violence. Nestled high on for the drug-related arrests of seven suspect - Mexico’s central rocky plateau some 300 ed gunmen several weeks earlier. miles north of , the city and the In early 2008, a wave of kidnappings state had remained a haven of relative stabil - spread across the state targeting the chil- ity and prosperity. As recently as 2004, the dren of prominent businessmen. By this University of London published a study that time, Los Zetas had perfected the art. ranked Aguascalientes “as one of the only Kidnapping, especially in wealthy and few [Mexican] states that has a well-func - relatively drug-free states, can be a more tioning judicial system.” An earlier survey immediate source of liquid funds than ranked Aguascalientes first in terms of con - trafficking in drugs. In May 2008, Nicolás fidence in the judicial system, and indicated Martínez Reyes, the son of a wine distribu - that it had the lowest levels of corruption in tor, was kidnapped from El Pescador del the country. Business flowed into the state. Pargo, a busy seafood restaurant in down - Aguascalientes’ skilled labor attracted some town Aguascalientes where he was dining $4.3 billion in foreign direct investment with a group of friends. Martínez Reyes from companies like Nissan, Bosch, and was held for 35 days. His kidnappers tor -

Inside Mexico’s Drug War 33 tured him and cut off one of his fingers be - U-turn over the median of the busy Avenida fore his father agreed to pay the ransom. Miguel de la east of downtown The police and the public have tried to Aguascalientes, jumped out of his moving stand up to the gangs in Aguascalientes, car, and tried to flee on foot. Two gunmen but with little success . Take the example of opened fire . Medrano Ibarra was killed on Gerardo Medrano Ibarra, who ran a family- the spot, just ten feet from a police post. owned trucking business called Frio Ex - No one came to his aid ; the killers got away. press. Launched in 1980, the Medranos Federal forces arrived on the scene an hour built a two-truck delivery shop into a large later. In August 2008, state authorities ar - shipping business shuttling perishables like rested six suspects, including two women, meat, strawberries, and prepackaged gua - all members of Los Zetas , and charged them camole between Mexico City and Laredo, with the kidnapping of Martínez Reyes and Texas, with a fleet of several dozen Freight - the murder of Medrano Ibarra. liner and Volvo tractor trailers. Medrano’s By early 2009, Aguascalientes had be - business boomed after the North American come a terrifying place to live. Awash in un - Free Trade Agreement came into force in sold drug inventory due to stepped-up en - 1994. His trucks moved quickly in and out forcement along the U.S.-Mexican border, a of the United States because they were certi - local retail market has sprung up. Indeed, fied through the U.S. Customs and Trade the city now has one of the highest rates of Partnership Against Terrorism, a voluntary drug abuse among youth in all of Mexico. government-business program that pre- Home invasions and assaults by drug-ad - screens cargo for bombs and other contra - dicts have skyrocketed . band. In the spring of 2008, Medrano Ibarra Not surprisingly, the police find them - received a distress call from one of his driv - selves regularly overpowered by the crimi - ers traveling north. The driver said that he nals, who have become increasingly brazen was attacked in the city of Guadalajara by in bringing the fight to the state. In De - an unknown assailant who cracked open the cember 2009, some 40 gunmen opened fire doors of the trailer, inserted a load of drugs, with automatic weapons and threw grenades and instructed the driver to keep going to at a police station in San Francisco de los Laredo. Medrano Ibarra told the driver to Romo, a small town ten miles north of unhook the trailer and turn back. He did so, Aguascalientes. The mayor was inside at the abandoning the trailer and the drugs on the time, attending a security meeting. After a side of the road. Within days, Medrano ten minute firefight, the attackers climbed Ibarra was receiving threatening telephone into their SUV s and drove away, leaving two calls from a gang of drug traffickers thought officers dead and three wounded. to be Los Zetas . They made it clear that Medrano Ibarra would allow the future tran - Failing Fight, Fighting Failure sit of narcotics to the United States in his With the police strained and outgunned, trucks. He reported the calls to the police, the crisis created an opening for a motley but they were powerless to prevent what group of private security companies and came next. armed bands that offer services not only On July 2, 2008, as he was leaving his to wealthy individuals and companies, but suburban home in his gray Volvo, Medrano also to local governments and municipali - Ibarra noticed that he was being followed by ties. In 2008, the municipal president three SUV s. When he failed to lose his pur - of Aguascalientes hired the State Police In - suers in the maze of city streets, he made a telligence Corps ( CIPOL ) to help combat the

34 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 increasing violence. Founded in 2005 2009, an armed group kidnapped a 17-year- in the state of by one-time old Mormon youth, Erick Le Barón, in the local politician and public security chief town of Galeana in the state of Chihuahua, Raúl Grajeda Domínguez and Jesús and demanded a $1 million ransom. It was Manuel García Salcido, the former head of the eleventh kidnapping the Mormons had Chihuahua’s municipal police , CIPOL has a endured in just eight months. (The commu - murky, quasi-governmental status. Despite nity, which numbers some 1,000 members, its ties to the Chihuahua state government, was perceived as relatively well off, which CIPOL behaves like a private police force, made it a target. ) They decided to push even driving its own dis - tinctive red-and-white patrol cruisers. When Police are regularly overpowered CIPOL arrived in Aguas- by criminals, who have become calientes, García Salcido “ quickly was appointed by increasingly brazen in bringing the mayor as the municipal chief of police. His tenure the fight to the state . was short. In August 2009, he was arrested by agents from the federal back. Led by Erick’s outsp”oken older broth - attorney general’s Office for the Specialized er , Benjamin, they marched to Galeana’s Investigation of Organized Crime ( SIEDO ) for central square and demanded that the state supposed ties to drug cartels. Charges that authorities find and free Erick. The Mor - CIPOL overcharged Aguascalientes for equip - mons were joined in their public protest by ment, including the purchase of a helicop - local Mennonites, another religious group ter, were also raised . His trial is pending. that has suffered from extortion and vio - While CIPOL operates in the open, other lence. Together, several thousand people extra -judicial groups prefer to remain in the spent the night protesting on the square. shadows. In May 2009, Mexico’s Milenio They publicly declared that they would not Diario newspaper interviewed the leader pay the ransom. Erick was released several of a secretive outfit called El Grupo (“The days later , without any money being paid. Group”), whose existence until then had But such examples of public bravery are never been confirmed. El Grupo was set up rare and their outcome far from certain. to hunt down and punish kidnappers who Two months later, Benjamin was taken prey on the wealthy. In lieu of state protec - from the home he shared with his wife and tion, vigilante justice has an understandable five children, along with his brother-in-law. appeal, but the hefty fees make this little They were both shot and killed. more than a tool of the wealthy and power - ful. The Mexican government avows no Leading from the Top knowledge of the group, but the Milenio What is President Calderón to do? If Diario interview disclosed that the entity Mexico’s drug wars have their origins in was established 12 years ago and now has Colombia, perhaps part of the solution the ability to carry out investigations, cap - might come from there as well. Though the ture suspects, and conduct interrogations. Colombian government beheaded the Cali Outside of Aguascalientes, ordinary and Medellín cartels in the 1990s by arrest - Mexicans have tried peaceful tactics as a ing the Rodríguez Orejuela brothers and way of standing up to violence. In May assassinating Escobar, the hydra simply

Inside Mexico’s Drug War 35 grew, spawning hundreds of smaller organi - the wealthy to finance the fight against zations, penetrating deeper into and cor - armed groups. Though controversial, the rupting more profoundly the Colombian past two Colombian governments have sup - government and bureaucracy. ported this legislation. The results have The Cali cocaine cartel, for example, been encouraging. In 2000, Colombia re - penetrated deep into the country’s economy ported 3,000 kidnappings. By 2008, the —taking ownership stakes in legitimate number dropped to 600. Cases of extortion business, including the National Coffee shrunk from 2,000 in 2004 to 830 in 2007. Corporation and the professional soccer Indeed, some of Calderón’s recent initia - team, América de Cali. Troublesome legisla - tives are remarkably similar to Colombia’s tors, law enforcement, and judges were approach to stemming its rampant cartels. bought off, threatened, or killed. Mean - He has tasked Secretary of Public Security while, Colombia’s guerilla and paramilitary Genaro García Luna with implementing groups—such as the Revolutionary Armed plans for a sweeping police reform. Luna, a Forces of Colombia (FARC ), the National stocky 41-year old with short cropped hair, Liberation Army ( ELN ), and the United Self introduced rigorous new standards for test - Defense ( AUC )—became the main suppliers ing new police hires and screening officers of heroin and controlled the farming of coca, already on the force, and carried out arrests which provides the base material for cocaine of federal, state, and municipal officers. In production. June 2007, some 284 federal police officers The way out of that nation’s morass were purged, but this was just the tip of the appeared in 2000, when the Colombian iceberg. The following year saw more high- government implemented measures de - profile arrests: Fernando Rivera Hernández, signed to isolate and cripple the influence of deputy director of intelligence at the attor - the guerillas and the cartels. It passed a dra - ney general’s organized crime unit, SIEDO , conian “disengagement” decree, which gave and the acting federal police chief, Gerardo authorities the power to dismiss any police Garay Cadena. Both were accused of ties to officer or soldier for alleged corruption drug gangs. The attorney general’s office without the need of legal proceedings. Over charged that Rivera Hernández received the next seven years, hundreds of persons in large cash bribes from the Beltrán Leyva the police and the military were discharged cartel in exchange for tipping them off over suspected links to criminal groups. The about upcoming federal drug raids. decree was rolled back in 2008 by Colom - According to a November 2009 account bia’s Constitutional Court, which ruled that in the Los Angeles Times , Mexican cadets and all discretionary dismissals of military per - veteran cops are now “forced to bare their sonnel must be substantiated. But , by then , credit card and bank accounts, submit to the policy had already had its salutary effect , polygraph tests and even reveal their family purging the armed forces of corrupt officials members to screeners to prove they have no and implanting a culture of professionalism. shady connections.” A new piece of legisla - The government also centralized its po - tion, called the General Law of the National lice command, retrained the police and the System of Public Security, proposed by military in anti-narcotics tactics, and in - Calderón and passed in January 2009, im - creased their salaries—removing the temp - poses a prison sentence of up to eight years tation to take petty bribes. The extra funds for hiring police officers with dubious back - for these initiatives came from a “peace pre - grounds and has created a National Register mium ,” essentially a tax on businesses and of Public Security Personnel. All the while,

36 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • SPRING 2010 the federal forces have grown, swelling by have refused to disclose how they are being 30 percent, from 25,000 to 32,000 person - used in the drug interdiction program. nel, in one year. Luna is now reportedly In the end, as in most democracies, it pushing for the elimination of the country’s falls to the public to call for change. And 2,022 municipal police agencies, with the the Mexican electorate, caught in the cross - intention of folding them into the state fire and terrorized by the rising tide of vio - police forces, which would (in theory) have lence, is now openly challenging Calderón greater oversight of training and tactics. to fix the problem. In one week this Febru - The fact that this step is highly controver - ary, the president twice traveled to Ciudad sial and would likely require an amendment Juárez, after gunmen sealed off a street in to the Mexican constitution shows how this city on the U.S.-Mexico border and high the stakes are. opened fire on a house where high school students were having a party. Fifteen people Help from Washington? were killed, and at least a dozen wounded. Despite the proximity to the United States, Ciudad Juárez’s mayor , José Reyes Ferris , the Obama administration has been provid - told the press that police officers could as - ing only modest support to its southern certain no motive for the crime ; that the neighbor. Mexico will largely have to make do with $1.4 billion in funds Calderón’s recent initiatives take over three years appropri - a lot from Colombia’s approach to ated under the so-called “ Merida Initiative, a pro - stemming its rampant cartels . gram launched by Presi - dent George W. Bush aimed at buttressing border, maritime, and victims were innocent civilians, and the” air control from the U.S. southern border to gunmen may have been acting on mistaken Panama. But some officials are concerned information. that this will not be nearly enough. This was too much even for Ciudad In October 2009, former drug czar Juarez, where the murder rate has been McCaffrey told Congress that Merida, was reported at 165 deaths per 100,000 “a drop in the bucket.” “The stakes in residents—nearly four times higher than Mexico are enormous,” McCaffrey said. in Baghdad. Angry crowds spilled out onto “We cannot afford to have a narco-state as the streets and lashed out at the president. our neighbor.... It is not inconceivable that “I told them that I understood perfectly the the violent, warring collection of criminal discomfort, irritation, and incomprehen - drug cartels could overwhelm the institu - sion,” Calderón said later. “I promised the tions of the state and establish de facto parents...to give a new meaning to this control over broad regions of Mexico.... fight, to join together the different levels of [The Mexican government] is not con - government, law enforcement, civil society fronting dangerous criminality—it is fight - ...to face this challenge we have yet to ing for survival against narco-terrorism.” overcome.” Just what the nature of this Indeed, most of the Merida funds earmarked action—or indeed how effective it will be— for Mexico have yet to find their way there. remains to be seen. But the Mexican people Instead , they have ended up funding Ameri - are losing their patience. • can defense and security contractors —who

Inside Mexico’s Drug War 37