makana.gabriel
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AP article on cartel favortism
This was in today's "The News" but maybe it had already been reported earlier and posted. If so, will delete.
Drug war complicated by high-level corruption
BY MARK STEVENSON
Associated Press
President Felipe Calderón's war on drug trafficking has led to his own doorstep, with the arrest of a dozen high-ranking officials with alleged ties
to Mexico's most powerful drug gang, the Sinaloa cartel.
The United States praises Calderón for rooting out corruption at the top. But critics say the arrests reveal nothing more than a timeworn government
tactic of protecting one cartel and cracking down on others.
Operation Cleanup comes just as the United States is giving Mexico its first installment of $400 million in equipment and technology to fight drugs.
Most will go to a beefed-up federal police agency run by the same people whose top aides have been arrested as alleged Sinaloa spies.
"If there is anything worse than a corrupt and ill-equipped cop, it is a corrupt and well-equipped cop," said criminal justice expert Jorge Chabat,
who studies the drug trade.
U.S. drug enforcement agents say they have no qualms about sending support to Mexico.
"We've been working with the Mexican government for decades at the DEA," said Garrison Courtney, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
"Obviously, we ensure that the individuals we work with are vetted."
Agents who conduct raids have long suspected Mexican government ties to Sinaloa, and rival drug gangs have advertised the alleged connection in
banners hung from freeways. While raids against the rival Gulf cartel have netted suspects, those against Sinaloa almost always came up empty - or
worse, said Agent Oscar Granados Salero of the Federal Investigative Agency.
"Whenever we were trying to serve arrest warrants, they were already waiting for us, and a lot of colleagues lost their lives that way," Salero said.
CARTEL FAVORITISM?
Over the last five months, officials from the federal Attorney General's Office, the federal police and even Mexico's representatives to Interpol have
been detained on suspicion of acting as spies for Sinaloa or its one-time ally, the Beltrán Leyva gang. An officer who served in Calderón's
presidential guard was detained in December on suspicion of spying for Beltrán Leyva.
Gerardo Garay, formerly the acting federal police chief, is accused of protecting the Beltrán Leyva brothers and stealing money from a mansion during
an October drug raid. Former drug czar Noé Ramírez, who was supposed to serve as point man in Calderón's anti-drug fight, is accused of taking
$450,000 from Sinaloa.
Most of such tips are coming from a Mexican federal agent who infiltrated the U.S. Embassy for the Beltrán Leyva drug cartel. No such infiltrators
have been found for the Gulf cartel.
The DEA's Courtney agrees that there has been a greater crackdown on the Gulf Cartel in both the United States and Mexico, with more than 600 members
of the gang arrested in September. But he declined to answer questions about Mexico favoring Sinaloa.
Calderón has long acknowledged corruption as an obstacle to his offensive, which involved sending more than 20,000 soldiers to battle drug trafficking
throughout the country. The U.S. aid plan includes technology aimed at improving the way Mexico vets and supervises police.
The president vows to create a "new generation of police," consolidating agencies under Public Safety Secretary Genaro García Luna, who heads all
federal law enforcement.
That's what worries Granados Salero and other agents. So many of García Luna's associates are under suspicion of Sinaloa ties that many wonder how he
could not have known.
Calderón has publicly backed García Luna, calling him "a man of great capacity."
But some see the alleged Sinaloa ties with García Luna's lieutenants as an old tactic used widely under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI,
which ruled Mexico for 71 years with a tight fist. Officials in the past preferred to deal with one strong cartel rather than many warring gangs -
what Calderón faces now. More than 5,300 people died in drug-related slayings in 2008.
"I fear that Secretary García Luna ... is working on the idea that once one cartel consolidates itself as the winner, that is, Sinaloa, the violence
is going to drop," said organized crime expert Edgardo Buscaglia, who tracks federal police arrests and has studied law enforcement agencies' written
reports.
`WHO CAN WE TURN TO?'
García Luna has denied being involved in corruption. He has acknowledged that authorities in the past chose the path of managing cartels. But in an
interview with the newspaper El Sol, he said that approach only strengthens the gangs in the long run.
Others say the high number of Sinaloa infiltrators is a reflection of the two cartels' very different styles.
The Gulf cartel is led by military-trained hit men so violent that they reportedly planned to attack even U.S. law enforcement agencies.
"They don't necessarily try to build networks of corruption. They prefer networks of intimidation," said Monte Alejandro Rubido, who leads the
multi-agency National Security System.
Sinaloa, on the other hand, appears to use bribery and infiltration at least as much as its gunmen.
Cartel leader Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán bribed his way out of a Mexican prison in 2001, provoking suspicions the government was on his side.
Many Mexicans worry about giving so much money and power to a still corrupt force. Of more than 56,000 local and state police officers evaluated
between January and October last year, fewer than half met the recommended qualifications, Calderón reported to Congress in early December. No similar
numbers are available for federal police.
Agents like Granados Salero wonder who is in charge of police integrity.
"We agents find out about a lot of things," he said, "but who can we turn to?"
FAITH sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible!
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tjBill
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This is the first time I've seen this topic coming from a mainstream newsource. 
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Woooosh
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This version has the details that come out with time. We know the curruption and favoritism go all the way up to the Presidents Drug-Czar (who was
charged yesterday) and little by little more documentation like this comes out to support it.
It still doesn't provide a starting point for a solution though. We should accept that every level is corrupt and is getting paid a lot of money for
whatever info or help they provide whoever ispaying them. It won't change in our lifetimes. Mexico may be wiped out andthe peso may fail- but the
problem won't change.
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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flyfishinPam
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| Quote: | Originally posted by tjBill
This is the first time I've seen this topic coming from a mainstream newsource. |
this might be because any journalist who reports it also paints a target on themselves. 
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Woooosh
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The target is already on EVERY Mexican journalist. Mexico is the second most deadly country for them. They know he risks and the lack of detailed
and timely coverage of narco events just proves it.
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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CaboRon
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| Quote: | Originally posted by Woooosh
The target is already on EVERY Mexican journalist. Mexico is the second most deadly country for them. They know he risks and the lack of detailed
and timely coverage of narco events just proves it. |
You know, you have to pick your profession wisely 
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Pato
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Calderon's war leads 'to his own doorstep' ???
Wow, great article !
One might ask why such a newsworthy item should necessarily need to sit in a political forum. Facts are facts whether they favor or oppose one's
political leanings. People are often spooked and will steer clear of anything that smells of "political" yet will douse themselves with the daily news
without a second thought.
| Quote: | Originally posted by flyfishinPam
| Quote: | Originally posted by tjBill
This is the first time I've seen this topic coming from a mainstream newsource. |
this might be because any journalist who reports it also paints a target on themselves. |
Well flyfishinPam, that might explain this lack of coverage in the Mexican media, but I think tjBill is speaking of the mainstream outside of Mexico,
esp. those in the good 'ol USA (like CNN, FOX, AP, Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS, NPR, PBS, BBC, NYT, etc). Yoohoo, where are you guys ? 
Oh, and Presidente Hussein Obama,
are you going to show us what you're made of regarding this stuff.
Perhaps a little time will tell us if you're just like your good 'ol boy predecessors. 
[Edited on 1-29-2009 by Pato]
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Woooosh
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Many Nomds like me live in the battlezones and report what we see and hear in real time. It's just a blog. Someone gets arrested or we hear
soemthing baja-related and we post it. What we don't have when we post is the bigger picture and the whole story. We are just the wintnesses.
Many nomads are fortunate to live in areas of Baja where they fully enjoy and actively protect the warm clean waters, the fauna and all the sea has to
offer. I envy them.
By choice (and in part dictated by family) I choose to live in the virtual toilet that is the TJ/San Diego border beach zone. It doesn't mean I can't
make an effort to get someone to help hit the toilet handle to flush it once in a while. This is the area the Mexican gov't spends it's marketing
money on enticing US toursits to visit- but won't provide money for restrooms so the swimming water is clean.
[Edited on 1-28-2009 by Woooosh]
\"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing\"
1961- JFK to Canadian parliament (Edmund Burke)
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